Perfect Sax (23 page)

“These forms the owner fills out, do they get signed by an official here at the museum?”

“Of course. Several of our people, from the show’s curator to the director of the exhibition, in fact. We must be very careful with the artwork that is lent to us.”

“And then the forms are used as riders to the museum’s own insurance policy?”

“Exactly. But no claim was ever made to our insurer, so what can this mean?”

“I think that Bill Knight had a much cleverer scheme. He used those official documents, the riders from LACMA’s insurance carrier with their insanely inflated valuations, to scam his own insurance company. Your paperwork established the worth of his collection, complete with a prestigious museum’s curator’s signature on the bottom. Knight must have gone out and increased his own art-insurance coverage with his private insurance company to these massively inflated prices after the LACMA show.”

“I suppose that’s possible. Although I would think any insurance underwriter would look a little closer at something like that.”

“I’m not sure about that,” I said. “They aren’t art experts themselves. They rely on documentation. And the L.A. County Museum of Art documents clearly substantiate these numbers.”

She nodded. “And as long as the customer is willing to pay the high premiums, I can see why an insurance salesman would be happy for the business.”

I nodded.

“Incredible,” Megan said.

“This is fascinating speculation, ladies,” Divinia said. “And if it were actually true, it’s insurance fraud.”

“With the museum as an unwitting collaborator,” I pointed out.

“So what do you know?” she asked me, looking worried.

“Three of those art etchings were stolen from the house in Beverly Hills about three years ago, the Dürer and two others. Mr. Knight collected twenty million dollars from his own insurance carriers for their loss. If the Dürer was really worth three million and the other two were only worth a few
thousand, I’m beginning to believe he scammed his insurance company out of nearly seventeen million, thanks to some clever paperwork.”

And that’s why Bill Knight couldn’t just sell the etchings to get all the money, as Zenya had suggested. Those pieces were worth seven times more to him vanished than they’d ever be on some gallery wall for sale.

S
unday morning. Wesley went out to hang with an old college buddy who was down from Palo Alto for the weekend, but not before fretting for an hour over leaving me alone. He urged me to join them, but all I wanted was a little private time, and I was grateful, finally, that he understood and didn’t cancel his plans because of me.

I did all the normal things I had been meaning to get to. I went back to bed and grabbed a few more hours of missed sleep. I did laundry. I had fun in the kitchen. From Wesley’s well-stocked pantry, I mixed together rolled oats, peanuts, and sunflower seeds, sweetened the mix with plenty of brown sugar, and then enriched the flavor with natural vanilla, tasting and adjusting until I got the blend just right. My eyes roved Wesley’s counters and cabinets until I had that “aha!” moment, and chuckled. A few seconds of grinding and soon chopped espresso beans joined the party. Voilà! I’m calling it cappuccino granola. A batch of this private blend was now displayed in a pretty stoppered jar, waiting as a treat for Wes.

I poured milk over a small bowl of cappuccino granola, and stood at the counter reading the Target ads in the Sunday
Los Angeles Times.
It was criminal to have back-to-school sales in July. I checked the book-review section, hoping to
find a review written by Dick Lochte. I flipped through the car ads. Would I look good in a Porsche Boxter? I read the real estate listings, wondering if I was in the market for a new house or if I would be able to salvage my wonderful Mediterranean on Whitley. As a potential seller, it rocked to see the real estate market was way up. As a potential buyer, it sucked.

I thought about visiting a few open houses. Wes would love to go with me, but I expected his day with the Stanford buddy would stretch out. I reviewed the hundreds of listings, spanning so many neighborhoods. The euphemisms used to describe any house I might barely be able to afford were heavy with double meanings.
Loads of potential
(tear down).
Maintenance-free backyard
(there was none). I sighed over descriptions of wondrous homes that were way beyond my reach. And then a house listed for almost five million dollars caught my eye. Not simply because the house was located just blocks away from Dexter’s, although the proximity did cross my mind.

I reread the no-euphemism-necessary description.
Magnificent Italian-style villa by Bob Ray Offenhauser on a prestigious cul-de-sac in Bel Air. Gated motor courtyard. 2-story entry, large open rooms with high ceilings. Screening room and gym. Magical gardens, sun-drenched pool with indoor/outdoor flow. Ideal for lavish or intimate entertaining. Very private.
Well, that privacy angle certainly had a new appeal.

This was so out of my league, it wasn’t even funny, and certainly not the sort of property I was looking for, but I was extremely interested in talking with the broker. The house was a Caroline Rochette listing. Albert Grasso’s ladyfriend. She would be sitting in the house all afternoon waiting for potential buyers, like a spider ready to spring on some tasty flies. However, she was now also a ridiculously easy target
for me to trap. I wondered how a natural predator such as Caroline would react to finding the tables turned. I showered, daydreaming about past episodes of
Wild Kingdom,
and then dressed, deciding to wear boots in case any metaphorical bug stomping might become necessary.

Outside, I looked at the clear, cloudless sky. It was another hot and sunny day, which does a lot to perk many of us locals up. In case you are wondering why anyone is crazy enough to live in Southern California: the weather. Obvious as this is, it cannot be repeated too many times. It’s addictive. And with a little extra rest and some time puttering in the kitchen, I was feeling pretty good again.

I jumped in the SUV and made use of one of the Trailblazer’s zillion cup holders. Ah, the simple pleasures. Like the giddy freedom of driving a honking-big Chevy while swigging from a can of Diet Coke, combined with the virtuous certainty one is minimizing the chance of spillage. This was the life, I thought as I drove past the UCLA campus in Westwood and turned north into the Bel Air gates, eyeing real estate that is considered as good as it gets in Southern California.

The Trailblazer easily took me up Bel Air’s winding, hilly streets. It was rare to find one of these high-end properties held open at all. It spoke of either desperate sellers or a broker who used every house on her list as bait to catch newbie buyers, most often to sell them some other property. As the road wound upward into the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains, there were occasional roadside signs bearing balloons, markers that pointed the way to the open house ahead. I steered up to the 10500 block of Mocca Road and pulled into the cul-de-sac, admiring what five million bucks can buy you.

The doorbell played a classical melody. Charming. While
waiting, I tried the elaborate brass handles on the double front doors. They were, of course, locked. In a few minutes, one of the heavy doors swung open and Caroline Rochette, appearing much drier than the last time I’d seen her, greeted me, her blond bob sprayed stiff, her pointy chin well powdered, her welcoming expression instantly falling.

“You!”

“Nice ‘gated motor courtyard,’ ” I said, quoting from her house ad as I walked past her into the “2-story formal entry.”

“Are you looking for a house?” Caroline was thrown. Should she have on the
salesman
face? Or the
bitch.

I smiled. “I might be. But I’m actually here to talk to you.”

She looked unhappy. “Well, sign in.”

I realized she meant for me to sign the guest register displayed on the large entry table in the center of the rounded foyer. No matter that I was bringing all sorts of unpleasant memories to Caroline Rochette’s doorstep, she would make sure to show her homeowner clients that she had at least one interested buyer come through the house today. My name was the only one on the register.

“What do you want?” she asked, uncertain.

“Would you show me around the property?” I smiled at her again.

“Oh, all right. Come this way. We’ll start with the kitchen. It’s in the east wing.”

Caroline’s sling-back high heels clicked on the limestone floor as she led the way.

She went into her spiel, but didn’t give it any oomph. “Wolf restaurant range, Sub-Zero refrigerators, Miele dishwashers, Grohe…faucets, custom-built cabinets in maple, granite countertops.” Caroline stopped when she reached the far end of the enormous gourmet kitchen.

“Navaho white,” I added.

“What’s that?”

“This is the lightest-color granite commercially available.” The stone used for the counters was a pointillist mix of small white, gray, and black flecks.

“Really?”

“Sure, the white mineral grains are feldspar. It’s the most abundant mineral found in granite. The light gray, glasslike grains are quartz, and the black, flakelike grains are biotite or black mica.”

Caroline stared at me, trying to figure me out. I silently wished her luck.

“I know about kitchens,” I explained. She was definitely not sure what to make of me.

“Did you come here to upset me about Albert?” she asked, point-blank. I had weirded her into submission. I have that talent.

“Upset? That’s not the word I would have chosen, no.”

“Look, dear, you and I have had our problems. But I want to clear the air, here. You found Albert’s…body,” she said, “and for that I must be grateful to you. Oh, dear Jesus in heaven! What if it had been me? I was coming over to Albert’s house that very afternoon. What if I had let myself in with my key…and gone back to his studio…” She didn’t finish that thought, but moved on. “So you saved me from that, anyway, Madeline. I could never have stood seeing that. I am so utterly and completely devastated by Albert’s death, I cannot begin to describe it.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said quietly. “But then I’m glad to see it hasn’t interfered with your work.”

She gave me an evil look.

“So,” I continued, “you’re carrying on.” I noticed Caroline had the Capresso coffeemaker brewing and a plate of bakery cookies set out on a silver tray. She did not offer me any refreshments.

“Why are you really here?” she asked, vexed.

“You told me there was a problem with Mr. Grasso’s insurance papers. How much did you know about it?”

She gasped.

I waited.

“I didn’t tell you a thing!”

“Yes, you did. That afternoon when I helped scoop you out of the pool. Look, Caroline, Albert is gone now. Tell me what he was up to.”

“I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

“But it was the insurance papers he was frantic about. Wasn’t it?”

“I think so. I mean, he was livid about having mislaid them. I told him not to worry. I would get them back. But, of course, I didn’t. You prevented that. But then I told him you had no idea there was any reason to look closely at those documents. And even if you did, they wouldn’t tell you much.”

“There was a rider to his regular policy to cover his coin collection,” I said, recalling what I could about the pages I’d skimmed through last week. I mean, who even reads their
own
insurance policy—let alone someone else’s boring paperwork?

“He had overvalued the collection,” she said. “That was all. I couldn’t imagine that it was really the end of the world. He stated a far greater appraised value, and the insurer accepted some receipts as the true value.”

“What kind of receipts?”

“Albert bought a little extra insurance for his coins when he traveled to London for a big coin show. For travel insurance, you just mark in the values and pay the premium. Because it’s only in case his luggage was lost or stolen, the insurer doesn’t care much about the actual value. Whatever you pay to cover is covered. Anyway, it turns out Al used that
temporary insurance policy as documentation of value for his collection. Then he bought a new rider to his homeowner’s policy for his coins using this inflated amount.”

This scam was becoming familiar. “How do you know about it?”

“Al told me. He was screaming at me. He couldn’t believe I had been so stupid as to take his private papers out of his house and, on top of that, to lose them.”

“So what happened? Were his collectible coins stolen? Did he get paid off by the insurance company?”

“Oh my, no! He wasn’t trying to do anything funny. He was just a proud old man. He liked to show people the ‘value’ of his coin collection. He liked people believing he was worth serious money. What’s wrong with that? It was a quirk.”

I could imagine Albert Grasso, living in that outdated house, needing to boost his ego by showing off his “worth” to his multimillionaire buddies. He could have told fellow Woodburn board member Bill Knight about his priceless coins. After all, Knight was a collector of precious objects, too. And perhaps they shared insurance concerns. Perhaps Albert even let Bill in on a few little secrets.

“Do you know who sold him the insurance?”

“Oh, of course. It was Al’s half brother.”

“It was?”

“Yes. He’s some wealthy Oklahoma businessman who never understood what Al was doing out here in Hollywood, coaching singers. That was the reason Al embellished the coin collection’s value in the first place. To show off to his brother, to impress him. Aren’t men so predictable?”

My mind raced with this new knowledge.

“And Mr. Grasso’s brother worked for Mid-Pacific Insurance? Or for North American?”

“He was a broker for both those companies, I believe. They both specialize in covering fine art and other treasures.”

“I’ve got to go,” I said, thinking a mile a minute. I turned abruptly and headed for the front door.

“Wait!” Caroline followed me through the large house, straining to catch up. “What is going on?”

I got to the door and turned on her. “Tell me the truth, Caroline. It could help both of us. Who was the man who suggested you buy Albert Grasso a new briefcase?”

“What?”

“There is no way to keep this a secret anymore. You’ve got someone on the side. He’d probably seen Albert pull those insurance papers out of his old briefcase—you said Grasso liked to show them off. This friend of yours said he’d help you shop for the new briefcase; just bring Albert’s old one to the luggage store. A handy time for him to grab the documents he was after.”

“But I was going to be there, too!”

“Your friend was counting on you to keep your mouth shut. Of course, what he hadn’t counted on was your ability to drop the case and lose all the files before you made it across town.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“I think what’s really ridiculous is why any woman would get herself mixed up with Bill Knight.” I supposed when a financially needy woman’s sole criterion for landing a fellow was that he have multiple millions, she pretty much had to accept whatever damaged goods presented himself.

Her blue eyes were glassy. Her voice was desperately low. “How do you know about Bill?”