Nightsong by Karen Toller Whittenburg Read Free Book Online Page B

it,” he admitted before he thought.
    Sylvie was on that like a shot.  “Hmm,” she said.  “How old is this widow?”
     “Age?”
    “Twenty-six next month. Height, five foot three. Weight, a hundred and five. Hair, brown. Eyes, brown.Avery nice brown. It’s all in the file, Sylvie. I did my homework.”
    “And apparently some independent study as well.” Sylvie’s voice turned silky, and Phillip knew that somehow he’d revealed more about his personal involvement in this case than he’d intended.
    Personal involvement?
    That was overstating things a tad? He wasn’t involved with Elleny.
    Merely ... interested.
    “Come clean, Kessler,” Sylvie teased. “You’re not working, you’re down there playing house with the Merry Widow and writing off this year’s profits on your expense sheet.”
    Phillip didn’t know if it was the reference to Elleny that grated on his nerves or his partner’s gleeful tones. But whatever it was, there was only one way to handle it. “ Sylvia. Listen.”
    “Yes, Master.”
    She sounded subdued, but Phillip knew it wouldn’t last, and he took advantage. “When you arrive at the office in the morning, get the van Warner file from my desk, find the two newspaper clippings inside, and—”
    “I have them.”
    “What?”
    “I have the clippings here at my apartment. In fact, I have the whole file.”
    Phillip raked his fingers through his hair and propped his feet on the bed, waiting for the explanation he knew he was about to hear. Most of the time he and Sylvie maintained a strict hands-off policy on each other’s cases, but he was very glad that she hadn’t done that this time ... whatever her reasons.
    “When I didn’t hear from you all week…,” Sylvie began. “I thought I should at least check the file and find out exactly where you went. Really, Phillip, you did tear out of here with no better explanation than that you were following a hunch to Missouri.” She paused and then sighed in noisy self-defense. “Frankly, I don’t know how you added those newspaper articles together in the first place and came up with any lead worth following.”
    “I’ve been telling you for years. I’m good at this business.” Phillip rubbed a thumb along the angle of his jaw. “Look, I may be all wrong, but I think it’s possible that Mark Damon stole the van Warner painting and substituted the forgery. We know that Bernerd Thayer is a respected art collector and critic, and we know that he’s inordinately proud of himself for discovering that particular van Warner. Now, one of the clippings is a critical review written by Thayer.”
    “On Mark Damon’s first exhibit,” Sylvie interrupted in a rush of understanding. “The article was brutal.”
    “Yes, and Thayer went further to state that Mark couldn’t hope to achieve the artistry of his father, Jesse. Keeping that in mind, move on to the second clipping.  It’s a fairly recent feature article about the high incidence of forged art works over the past decade. There’s a quote by a gallery owner in Missouri who said that he knew of a son who’d forged the work of his own father, even down to the signature. The article went on to state that subsequent works by both father and son had since been taken off the market.”
    Phillip flexed his grip on the telephone receiver and reached to untie his shoes. “I guess it was the mention of father and son in both articles that made me start thinking. But it occurred to me that if Mark Damon had forged his father’s paintings, it was entirely possible that he could have forged the van Warner. The styles are quite similar, and after that critical review Mark undoubtedly hated Thayer enough to steal his prized watercolor.”
    “Not only steal it, but substitute a copy that went undetected for over a year.” Sylvie paused. “I don’t know, though, Phillip. You’ve made several assumptions that may or may not be true.”
    It was a valid point and one that had been