The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian - By Lawrence Block Page 0,83

was the point?”

“Uh-huh. Alison was Haig Petrosian’s other granddaughter, wasn’t she? The other one at the dining room table on Riverside Drive. She’s Elspeth’s cousin, and her father was Elspeth’s Uncle Billy.”

“Well, the resemblance was striking. Remember how you stared at Elspeth in my shop? The funny thing is at first I thought Andrea was the missing cousin, because she and Elspeth both have this habit of cocking their heads to the side, but that was just coincidence. The minute I saw Alison I knew she was the cousin and not Andrea.”

“Andrea Barlow.”

“Right.”

“You left her out, too, didn’t you? You didn’t mention running into her in Onderdonk’s apartment, let alone rolling around on the rug with her.”

“Well, certain things ought to stay private,” I said. “One thing she told me was true enough. She had been having an affair with Onderdonk, and as it happens her husband knew about it, which probably added to the zest with which he killed the man. Then he must have gloated over the man’s death, and Andrea had visions of a police search of the premises uncovering some pictures Onderdonk had taken of the two of them with a time-release Polaroid. She went back for them, found them or didn’t find them, who the hell knows, and then I walked in on her. No wonder she was terrified. She must have already found Onderdonk’s body in the closet, so she knew it wasn’t him, but who could it be? Either the police, in which case she had some fancy explaining to do, or her murderous husband coming to kill her and leave her there with her dead lover. Either way she was in deep trouble.”

“And she was so relieved it was you that she was overcome with passion.”

“Either that or she figured it made sense to screw her way to safety,” I said, “but I’m inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt. But why mention all of that to the police?”

“Especially since you’d like to verb her again.”

“Well—”

“And why not? She’s got a nifty pair of nouns. I think I need another one of these, and don’t you just love the little getups the waitresses wear? Let’s order another round, and then you can tell me what really happened with the paintings.”

“Oh, the paintings.”

“Yeah, the paintings. This one’s from here and that one’s from there and this one’s cut out of the frame and that one isn’t and who can keep it all straight? I know some of what you said was true and I know some of it wasn’t, and I want the whole story. But first I want another of these.”

Who could deny her anything? She got what she wanted, first the drink and then the explanation.

“The painting Ray gave back to Orville Widener, the insurance guy, was one that Denise and I painted,” I said. “Naturally Barlow destroyed the canvas he took from the Onderdonk apartment. All he had to do was slash it to ribbons and put it down the incinerator, and I’m sure he did just that. The canvas I gave to Ray, which he in turn gave to Widener, was the portion I cut out of the frame that I left at the Hewlett. And it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t match the piece of frame that was left in the closet with Onderdonk’s corpse, because that frame will get conveniently lost. Ray’ll see to that.”

“What about the painting Reeves took back with him? Was that the one you took from the Hewlett? Did they have an acrylic fake on display all along?”

“Of course not. Turnquist was an artist and he wasn’t in a hurry. He didn’t use acrylics. He used oil paints, same as Mondrian, and the painting in the Hewlett was one of his.”

“But what Reeves took back with him—”

“Was a second fake that Denise and I did, tacked to the stretcher from the Hewlett. Remember, it was the incused mark on the stretcher that convinced him. I’d already unstapled the canvas and taken the frame apart to get the painting out of the museum. When I put it back together, I just tacked the acrylic fake to the Hewlett frame.”

“And Reeves thinks that’s what he had all along.”

“So it would appear, and what’s the difference? A fake is a fake is a fake is a fake.”

“I didn’t know Denise painted more than one fake.”

“Actually she painted three of them. One got cut up, with the frame and some fragments left at the Hewlett