Linda Fairstein - Cold Hit

Mike tried to direct the conversation back to the areas that interested him.

“Did you have any kind of relationship with Lowell Caxton?”

“A casual one. I’d known him for years-never did any work for him, but we traveled in the same social circles here in town. Always been a perfect gentleman to me.”

“How about to Deni?”

“I think I understood him a lot better than she did, to tell you the truth. I don’t think she had any business trying to make him let go of some of the artwork that had been in his family for decades. It wasn’t the prettiest side of Deni, as you probably know by now.”

“What about her concerns that he was trying to have her killed?”

Mattox frowned at that suggestion. “I ridiculed the idea at the time. Sort of makes me crazy to think about that now. It could just as easily be Lowell behind all this as it could be anyone, I guess.” He looked up at Mike. “I don’t envy your job, Detective. Saw an article in the paper not long ago. Said there are more murderers in the United States than there are medical doctors. More murderers than college professors. It’s mindboggling, really.” He talked on about the Caxtons’ marriage for more than fifteen minutes, until Mike changed the questions to ask about Bryan Daughtry.

“Never had any use for him, Mr. Chapman. It was a major point of contention between Deni and me. Whenever we talked seriously about the future, I made it clear that there was no room in it for Daughtry. He’s a despicable piece of-well, human garbage.” Mattox walked along the window on the far side of the room, dragging his finger along the sill. “Why you people never nailed him for the murder of that Scandinavian girl upstate escapes me completely. Whatever he does, he somehow lands on his feet each time. Makes me sick just to think about it.”

“Did you spend any time at Caxton Due, their new gallery?” I asked.

“Not when Bryan was around. I’d gone there on several occasions with Deni, when she went to check on shipments that were being unloaded. She found all that very exciting- loved to watch the men break down the packing boxes and lift some painting or sculpture out of them. She was like a little kid on Christmas morning, poring over every inch of the canvas, examining the artist’s signature, checking out the condition of the frame.

“I’d go just to see her reaction. Frankly, the art she and Daughtry were interested in did nothing for me. I’m rather a classicist, as you can see from my work.” He pointed at the office walls, which displayed the plans and finished results of some of his buildings. There was an elegance of line and style that didn’t mesh with the contemporary works we had seen in Chelsea.

“Do you know Varelli? Marco Varelli?”

“Certainly. I’d actually met Marco many times.”

“With Deni?”

“I’d met him through clients long before I started to date Deni. But I’d never been to his atelier until she took me there. He was a genius-a lovely man.”

“When were you there-at his studio, I mean?”

“A couple of times this spring. I don’t remember exactly, but once or twice, probably in June or July.”

“Why did Deni take you there?”

“She usually went when she had a painting that she wanted Varelli to look at.”

“Like a Vermeer?” Mike asked.

I wanted to slow him down. I could see Preston Mattox stiffen when Mike mentioned the artist’s name. If he jumped into the territory of stolen artworks too quickly, I was afraid he’d lose his cooperative subject.

“So, you two have bought into all the gossip on the circuit. Denise Caxton and the masterpieces from the Gardner heist. When you find the goods, be sure and let me know,” he said, scowling at Chapman as though he had made a terrible mistake.

“Deni ever talk to you about the Vermeer? Or the Rembrandt?”

Mattox was angry now. “She wasn’t a thief, Detective. Deni made more than her share of enemies, but she was an awfully decent woman when you gave her a chance to be. There was no way she was involved with the scum who’ve been peddling stolen property. She didn’t need that kind of trouble. Between the life that Lowell had built for her and what I was willing to provide when she married me, there wasn’t any reason to debase herself with something that would land her in jail.”

While Mattox was hot, Mike decided it was a good moment to offer him up the name of his rival. “And Frank Wrenley? Where did he fit in Deni’s life?”

“As far out of the picture as I could move him, Detective.”

“Why? What did you know about him?”

“Not enough, clearly. But that’s because whatever I saw I didn’t like.”

“More than just jealousy?”

“Yes, Mr. Chapman. Far more than that. Frank moved in on Deni like a vulture right after she and Lowell split. I mean, they had known each other before around the auction houses, but he pounced on her like a panther when her wounds were still quite raw.”

“But she loved him, too, didn’t she?”

“She certainly liked what he offered her as an immediate alternative when Lowell Caxton brought their marriage to a crashing halt. Wrenley was a vehicle to get back at her husband. First of all, he was young, and youth was something Lowell couldn’t buy for himself with all his millions. Wrenley was slick-too slick for my taste.”

“Was he a real player in the antiques business?”

Mattox was slow to answer. “He’s been making quite a name for himself. Not necessarily someone I’d bring in on a project, but he seems to know what he’s doing.”

“Would you say that you were closer to Deni in recent months than Wrenley was?” I asked.

Preston Mattox crossed his arms and leaned against the sill. Something he thought of brought a smile to his face. “I almost gave up on Deni before I got started. For a while it wasn’t Lowell’s shadow that got in the way, it was Wrenley’s. Everywhere we went, he’d been there with Deni first. Just your mention of Marco Varelli reminded me how unreasonable I’d been about it. I’d been introduced to the man any number of times, but that last afternoon we were up in his studio, Deni and I walked in with a bottle of wine and some biscotti and he embraced me in a bear hug, calling me ‘Franco.’ Instead of correcting him, I took it out on Deni as soon as we left, asking her what the hell she’d been doing there with Frank.”

“What’d she tell you?”

“I’m not sure she ever gave me an answer, Mr. Chapman. As with most of our arguments, she got me over them by taking me home to make love. I knew she and Wrenley had been doing the auction scene together, so it made sense that they had taken some work to Varelli to be cleaned up or restored. I just didn’t like following in his footsteps wherever we went. But I didn’t answer the question you asked, did I, Miss Cooper?

“Yes,” he went on, “I was confident that I’d be spending the rest of my life with Deni. I can’t tell you how extraordinarily happy that made me.”

“Why had you gone to see Varelli that day?”

“Because Deni asked me to. Simple as that. He’d been mad at her about something, she wouldn’t tell me what. So she wanted to take him a gift for his wife, smoke the peace pipe together-that sort of thing. I suppose I was an intermediary. She knew he liked to talk to me about my work-and that I could hold my own, whether it was about the architectural principles of Leonardo da Vinci and Thomas Jefferson or about drawings and art.”

Chapman didn’t care about the dome on the Rotunda. “What was the gift that Deni took for Mrs. Varelli?”

Again Mattox hesitated before lifting his head to meet Chapman’s stare. “It was a necklace, Detective. An amber necklace. But I suppose you knew that already. I imagine you found the small figurine that Deni left behind, and that Mrs. Varelli told you the story.”