Nick stifled a yawn. He and Francine spent the past two hours in relative quiet, filing paperwork and occasionally engaging in strictly business-related small talk. His attempts to engage in more small talk had been vain, as Francine seemed to have a one-track mind when it came to working. Her focus was unmatched when something caught her attention, he'd discovered, and he briefly wondered if it was true for other areas of her life as well. He could only hope to find out soon enough.
"Knock, knock." Linda sing-songed, opening the office door and rapped on the frame.
"Yes?" Francine asked.
"May I come in?" Linda asked in turn.
"Yes, you're here, just, come in." Francine replied in an exasperated tone. "What's up?"
"You have your first case!" she wiggled a stack of papers in her hands. Nick moved over and seized it eagerly, far too happy to finally experience some on-the-field action.
"Douglas Newlyn." he read aloud.
"The Douglas Newlyn?" Francine perked up.
Nick looked at her over his shoulder, clearly puzzled.
"Recently divorced tycoon? number thirty-six in the 1977 forty under forty bachelors in DC list?" Francine explained as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Well, now he's number one on the 'most wanted by art thieves under fifty' list. His gallery got robbed."
"So, was Newlyn ever one of your, ahem, male companions?" Nick asked, examining the fine carvings on Newlyn's office desk.
"I never had the pleasure." Francine replied absentmindedly, pacing the floor and flipping though a booklet.
"His loss, surely."
"What's it to you, anyways?"
"I was just wondering, in the interest of the case. Conflict of interest and all that."
"No conflict." She lifted her head and smiled.
"Great." he smiled back awkwardly.
Francine returned her attention to her booklet before speaking again.
"I don't get it." she rotated the item in her hands, as if the gesture could enlighten her regarding the meaning of the painting in front of her. "That's worth half a million dollars?"
The art piece in question depicted a blue stylized human figure on a white canvas. Around the genderless blob, red and yellow swirls formed a tangled web, where it almost appeared as though tiny eyes were staring at the viewer, rather than the other way around. Francine couldn't put her finger on it but she found it vaguely unsettling.
"I gather you're not fond of modern art." Nick said.
"It's so obscene ... so - primitive."
"A painting that doesn't shock isn't worth painting." Nick recited, almost theatrically. "Marcel Duchamp."
"Isn't he the one that made that dreadful urinal sculpture?"
"Yes."
"I rest my case." Francine stated matter-of-factly.
"As I do mine." Nick replied, sure to have won this set of verbal ping-pong.
The office door craked open, capturing Nick and Francine's attention. When they turned around, a lanky man with a thick gray mustache and a matching head of hair stood in front of them.
Francine couldn't believe her eyes. Gone was the youthful and dapper bachelor she lusted over in her twenties. What stood in front of her was a shell of his former self. Not only his hair had grayed considerably, but he lost a good thirty pounds. His green eyes were still as gorgeous as ever, she noted, but now dark circles surrounded them, making them look paler. Could the divorce have brought such a drastic change in such short time?
"Mr. Newlyn, I assume?" Nick extended his hand to the man, who squeezed it back.
"You must be Grant and Desmond from the agency. Please take a seat." he urged the duo, as he plopped down behind his desk. "I can't say i'm not surprised. When they said they were bringing their best guys, i was expecting, well ..."
"Guys?" Francine replied dryly.
The man smiled sligthly. "You gotta admit, a female fed, you don't see that everyday. My, times are changing!" he addressed Nick with a cheeky conspiratorial look, " If i knew gals like her worked for the men in black, i wouldn't have let myself get kicked out of the navy so fast!"
Nick, who in all honestly had no reply to the man's male bravado humor, looked at the ground, cringing inwardly. He then pulled the chair for Francine, before sitting himself. She gripped the armrest on both sides as she sat, and took a deep calming breath before speaking up. "Mr. Newlyn, if you don't mind, let's get to the point. We understand you had a theft."
"Yes, last night around two am. They ransacked our collection. Over seven million dollars, gone," the man snapped his fingers "just like that."
"How did they bypass security?" Francine questioned.
"George - the guard, he let them in. They were dressed as policemen, you see."
"So, he saw their faces." Francine said.
"All I know is that there were two of them."
"I think we 'll need to have a private chat with this George, if you don't mind."
"Of course. He's a little shaken right now, so go easy on him. He's a nice young man, just a little simple, if you catch my drift."
A few short minutes later, they joined George in the control panel room. True to his boss's word, he didn't look like your typical security guard. He was relatively stocky, but his shoulder length ratty hair and puka-shell necklace clashed with his crisp uniform.
"Run us through what happened, if you don't mind." Nick asked him.
"It was just a normal night," he began, taking a seat in between Nick and Francine in front of the control panel. "Then, around two a.m., two policemen buzzed in. They said the neighbors called them because they saw some suspicious activity around the building. They showed me their ID's through the monitor and I let them in." He looked sheepishly down to his feet. "You must think i'm an airhead."
"No." Francine tried to reassure him, even though that was exactly what she was thinking.
"I thought Mr. Newlyn here was gonna fire me, but he didn't. He's the coolest. Like, a bit old school, but fair, you know?"
"Is that what we're calling it now?" Francine muttered, remembering his comments from a few minutes before.
Nick shot her a sideway glance and changed the subject. "Back to that night. What happened when they came in?"
"I asked them to see their ID's again up close and they didn't seem to mind. They looked legit. I took them to a tour of the gallery, and that's when I felt the gun on my back. We went in the art deposit and they handcuffed me to a pillar and gagged me with a chloroformed rag. When I woke up, they were gone, i think, because i didn't hear a peep until the real cops showed up later."
"Do you remember what they looked like?"
"White … mid-forties, tops. Average height and weight. I don't know, man. I saw them only for a couple of minutes before I was out, it all happened really fast."
"What about the security footage?"
"They destroyed it before leaving."
"Great." Francine replied sarcastically, rubbing her temple. "Listen, George, anything you may remember about that night, don't hesitate to call us right away. Your boss has our number. Anything could be helpful. Ok?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"You seem upset." Nick noted as he drove them back to the office.
"I'm just thinking. This doesn't make any sense ... something's off. It's too neat, too perfect."
"You think it might be an inside job?"
"It's a possibility. Why would you say that?"
"Newlyn's office seemed awfully bare for an art collector."
"Maybe he likes the minimalist look."
"Check page 20." Nick said, tossing her the booklet she'd been reading before.
Francine opened it, and found a picture of Newlyn sitting at his desk occupying the top half of the page. Behind him stood two paintings, while artifacts belonging to different tribal cultures sat on an antique cabinet.
"I don't remember seeing any of those today, or the cabinet, do you?" he asked her.
"No." Francine replied, turning the booklet around. "This was published three months ago. What happened to all that stuff?"
"I think we should look into it. If he's having financial trouble and selling his belongings, that might give him quite a motive. I'm sure the insurance premium for the stolen paintings is considerable."
"It would be a great way to have his cake an eat it too. I'll have Linda run a background check. What about George?"
"Being grossly Incompetent wasn't a crime, last time i checked, unless you're referring to his strong smell of grass."
"You noticed that too, uh?"
"Hard not to. I don't understand why Newlyn hasn't fired him."
"That's what I was getting at. Maybe they were in it together."
"Nah ... he's not clever enough to do blackmail, and i highly doubt Newlyn would have willingly offered him a piece of the reward."
"So, what do we do now?" Francine asked, clearly dejected, before her stomach contracted, growling in an unmistakable manner.
"Lunch?" Nick replied, pointing a diner down the road.
Francine was only too happy to agree.