Dee Henderson - The Witness

“This is general storage and where we pack paintings to ship.” She pointed to the back wall. “The longer narrow storage room is climate controlled for the paintings and built to not let you get inside easily.”

“I can see that; it’s the first lock I’ve respected on sight so far.”

She laughed and led the way into the gallery. “The gallery has four areas, loosely divided into themes, with two main brick walls forming the interior and the main support column for upstairs. I’ve also got my office down here and a more elegant seating area for when I’m talking with buyers over coffee and cake.”

“I can see I should have been into art a long time ago; car shops might have the coffee but rarely the chance to sit in elegance to drink it.” He walked around, studying the large windows that looked out onto the street, the pedestrians passing by. “You’ve already got a security system down here.”

“Yes. Once the place is locked up it’s pretty secure-break triggers on the doors, the plate-glass windows, enough for the insurance bill to come down some. The silent alarm contacts the police.”

“You open and close the gallery most days? Or do you have staff that handles it?”

“I’m the one most often handling opening and closings. The posted hours are ten to six, and we’re open on Saturdays but not Sundays; it’s also pretty common to have private showings or special evenings with invited guests. I have one assistant who has been with me since I opened the gallery who works about thirty hours a week. She typically works the lunch hours for me and helps when there is a showing to put together or a shipment coming in. When she needs to be out of town, as she is today and I’ve got a meeting, I simply close the gallery for a few hours. It’s not a good solution, but the business doesn’t do enough volume to support more than the two of us.”

“How do you handle the cash?”

“There’s a safe on the premises in the office, and I bank at the branch across the street. It’s not been a problem. Most of the sales are by check.”

He walked through the gallery rooms, and while she wasn’t disappointed exactly that he didn’t comment on the artwork displayed, she was surprised he didn’t seem to even linger to take a second glance at some of the works. The artwork available this month was some of the finest she’d ever been able to afford.

“Daniel will be after that Denart in the front window and that Gibson on the east wall,” he predicted.

The fact he’d put the artists’ names to their art without looking at the signature cards startled her. “He already asked about the Denart. You know his tastes?”

“Someone once swiped four paintings out of his office. This was before he worked at the Benton Group; it’s how I first met him.”

“I wondered.”

“I learned enough about art working that case to at least know why he bought the paintings he did. Daniel and I play softball together in a league, and he’s a pretty regular racquetball partner. Your cousin is the kind of friend you don’t think twice about picking up the phone and calling to ask for a favor. Just so you know.”

“Yeah, that helps. Not too full of himself.”

“A pretty average guy for all the media attention. Where’s your office?”

“Back here.” She turned on lights.

He paused in the doorway. “Comfortable.”

“I spend a lot of time here.”

“I’m going to suggest another couple phone lines with at least one of them a very private number you give only to friends. And if you’ve got the power outlets to handle it, we’ll bring one of the security monitors in here and probably another one tucked away near that front reception desk. Cameras on the streets, covering the rooms here, another two for the stairway and hall-they don’t have to be intrusive to give you a lot more information about what is around you than you have now.”

“I’ll get used to them.”

He nodded. “In a few weeks, you’ll wonder how you functioned without them. No more deliverymen you don’t recognize before you open the door.”

He finished his notes and slid his notebook back into his pocket. He leaned back against the front of the desk. “Nothing on the list is going to be particularly hard to get installed. The window locks and frames are probably the toughest job-there are simply so many of them. And at least it’s projected to be good weather tomorrow. Once it’s all in, I’ll walk you around and show you how to take maximum advantage of it all.”

“I appreciate all this, Connor, even if I am a bit befuddled by it.”

He laughed. “I haven’t heard that word since about seventh grade. You’ll get used to it, Marie. The changes are going to come in a bunch, but they’ll level off after a while.”

“How would you handle it, being wealthy?”

He thought about it. “I’d probably take better vacations.” He shook his head. “I don’t know. What I need, I have, and what I want, I enjoy dreaming about. I like my job.”

“I wonder if I’m still going to like having this gallery after all the curiosity seekers come by.”

“You’ve built this as a place you love, and you’ll still love it a year from now.” He paused. “May I?” He reached for a photo on her desk. “Your family?”

“My aunt and the three of us girls: Mandy, Tracey, and me. My aunt passed away in ’95, and Mandy was killed in ’98. That’s one of the last pictures I have of us together.”

“Mandy was your older sister?”

“Four years older. She was murdered in New York.”

His gaze shot up to hers. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to open old wounds.”

“It’s okay.” She leaned back against the credenza. “We’ve never been able to give her a funeral; they never found her body.”

He stilled and looked back at the photo again. “I really don’t mean to pry, but what happened?” When he looked back up at her she didn’t understand the quietness in him, but she did understand the sympathy and appreciated it.

“She’d had dinner out with her boyfriend; they were on the way back to her place. The car stopped at a stoplight, and someone walked up and shot her boyfriend three times in the chest. They found Mandy’s blood on the passenger seat, and a witness saw a woman being chased from the scene. They never found her body, but the police finally concluded she had been killed that night too. Her apartment was never returned to-pets abandoned, her credit cards never used, her bank accounts never touched, her car where she had left it parked. No one ever heard from her again. She would have called had she been alive. That convinced me more than anything that she was gone. We had a private investigator work with the cops, but what he found just confirmed what we knew-a pendant she never took off showed up at a pawnshop, that kind of thing. I wish her body had been found so we could have had a funeral. It’s like an open sore without the closure. And I’m sure it will get dragged up again now that we are in the news.”

“It’s the kind of case a homicide cop dreads, the one that you can’t fully wrap up. Did they identify the shooter?”

“They had some solid suspicions, but nothing they could prove. I doubt Mandy ever suspected her accountant boyfriend had some less-than-reputable clients. She was trusting that way, always assuming the best. She ended up at the wrong place at the wrong time. The guy they think probably hired the hit went to jail two years ago on an unrelated murder charge. I’d like more justice for Mandy, but it’s not going to bring her back. And that’s the hardest part to live with.”

He carefully set the photo down. “I really am sorry for your loss.”

“I’d have hated to tell Mandy she’s just my half sister. We’ve been sisters all our life. Today would have been incredibly rough on her.”