Logan lazily swirled the glass of scotch in his hand, while he assessed the eclectic art collection before him. Fantastical portraits of exotic animals, bright with cyan and magenta, demanded his gaze, while disturbing but brightly-coloured surrealist paintings left him pondering the depths of the Fischoeder psyche. A glance into someone's art collection revealed more about them than decades of friendship. Fischoeder enjoyed a touch of macabre in his whimsy.
Logan took a burning sip of the amber liquid. The smoky taste of malt eased his nerves as he turned to speak with Fisch – no, Calvin.
Calvin Fischoeder, Logan's childhood villain, turned business associate, leaned heavily on his ivory-handled cane. He still sported his signature all-white suit and matching eye-patch, which made it even more difficult for Logan to separate his childhood characterisation from the client before him. However, Logan was no longer a directionless teenage rebel. If Calvin could forgive Logan for the dishonourable, attention-seeking habits of his youth, then Logan could certainly be professional in return.
"Well, you evidently have the most intriguing collection this side of Ocean Avenue," Logan said to break the enduring silence. Where most clients wished to discuss every piece in their collection, Calvin silently supervised Logan's observations of his home gallery. "I have a few artists that I will put you in touch with, their work with be the..."
"Oh, no, no, no," Calvin interrupted, "I expect you to acquire new works as you see fit. I cannot be bothered to interact with people at my age. No, you will buy works for me. If I don't like them, you will know."
"Uh, typically..." Logan began.
"I am not sure what you see that is typical, here. Mr, uh, Bush – is it?" Calvin paused for confirmation. Logan nodded, aware that Calvin knew exactly what his last name was, and Calvin continued, "but you will do this for me. Felix will not be able to spend my money if it is hanging in my gallery."
Logan nodded, speechlessly. What did he expect? Nothing about Calvin was conventional, why was expecting this to be a simple, new client?
"Of course," he managed, after a quick swig of the whiskey.
"Great!" Calvin said shortly as if the conversation were over.
"How many new pieces are you thinking?" Logan asked, typically he would inquire more about the wants of his client. What are they trying to say with their artwork? What message would they like to see when they walked into their dining room or where ever the piece would live? These purchases were meant to sneak into an existing collection without the expectation of the consumer enjoying them.
"Oh, I don't know. Here," Calvin shoved stacks of bills into his hands, "Spend all this, and if I want more, I will give you more." With that, Calvin turned to walk away.
Logan looked up from the several stacks of hundred-dollar bills cradled in his hands to watch Calvin's exit. A dark, steampunk painting of a faceless humanoid figure in a tall top hat hung to the right of the door by which Calvin left. Something bugged him about it now, and he recalled a nagging feeling when he first saw it but had blamed it on his nerves. This time, he walked closer to it, awkwardly as he tried to position the bill stacks without dropping them.
This time he saw it. In place of the signature, an elaborate and curly question mark was painted in a rustic red, barely noticeable on the rusty, metal pallet of the painting.
"Erm, Calvin!?" Logan called. There was no response, so he called again.
Calvin stormed in, cane forgotten. "What is it? I thought you left?"
"Where did you get this? When?" Logan demanded, nodding his head toward the painting.
"Oh, I don't know. Decades ago? The artist was a tenant of mine on Ocean Avenue. He skipped rent for several months in a row. When I threatened to evict him, he gave me that...that oddity. Naturally, he was given a week to find a new location."
"And, did he sign it this way?" Logan said, excited. He may have caught the thief! His collection would be safe, Bosco would owe him a favour, and he, most importantly, Logan Berry Bush would have discovered an art thief. Everyone would want him to curate their collections after this news got out.
"Now that I am looking at it, no. I remember the signature being white. There was a date, too. I used that date to enforce my week deadline." Calvin leaned back from the painting and shouted, "FELIX! FELIX! COME IN HERE; I KNOW YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO DO WITH THIS!"
"Calvin, I don't think Felix has anything to do with this. I think it is the art thief." Logan stated calmly, hoping to diffuse the conversation before it spiralled out of control. He dropped the cash and pulled out his cell phone to call Bosco, while Calvin muttered about the likelihood that Felix still had something to do with this silliness.
Louise walked into Fischoeder's mansion with a smile on her face. The more paintings uncovered, the more likely a pattern would surface (or even a mistake that would unravel the case). After painstakingly studying every detail of the previous forgery, she was ready for something fresh to talk to about the case. Maybe this one would speak back more than the copy of Edith's art. Certainly, it would not say less. A high-quality reproduction of low-quality artwork was still low quality. The artist captured the hidden rage which accompanied each stroke of Edith's brush flawlessly. However, that did not distract from the fact the painting was a still life of a fruit bowl with little depth or texture or complexity of any sort. The painting was uninspiring, and it began haunting her dreams with its mundanity. How did the thief perfectly create such dull work? It was not even Edith's best work, in Louise's very educated opinion. Yes, a new painting would do wonders.
From the entry, Louise could see that Bosco's boys had taped off the room and trampled over the scene with their usual attention to detail before she arrived at the scene. She scowled in annoyance, as she walked into the room. The clash of bright colours and disturbing scenes caught her attention as she scanned for entry and exit points, a few uniformed officers stood around doing...something, she was sure, Fischoeder stood answering questions with Bosco and, Louise frowned deeper, Logan Berry Bush. This guy. This fucking guy, again?
She turned abruptly away from the group with a huff of annoyance and turned toward the painting in question. Or, she intended to, but the wall, denoted by the overuse of obnoxious yellow crime scene tape, was quite blank. Annoyance turned to anger as she grabbed an officer by the collar of his shirt and started yelling at him.
"WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU? DON'T MOVE ANYTHING, AT ALL, NOTHING, NOT ONE LITTLE TINY SCRAP OF TRASH FROM ANY CRIME SCENE BEFORE I ARRIVE! I HAVE BEEN VERY, VERY CLEAR ABOUT THIS. YOU ARE TO CALL ME BEFORE YOU EVEN ENTRE THE SCENE, BUT IF YOU MUST CALL ME AFTER, IT SHOULD NOT BE DISTURBED IN ANY WAY. GOT IT?!"
Bosco ran over and pulled her off before she could relay the consequences of disobeying her to the officer. She turned her anger to him, "What happened here, Bosco? You and I agreed that I would be on scenes before forensics. I don't contaminate crime scenes, so you let me see them fresh. What the Hell?"
"I don't have to explain anything to a civilian. But, the painting was removed from the scene before anyone arrived. Mr Bush felt that would protect the 'integrity of the painting' - whatever that means. It was too late for us to stop him, but we've explained to him the idiocy of his dumb decision."
Anger does not always dissipate easily; sometimes it builds up quickly with so much heat that it cannot simply be absorbed. Rather, it demands to be released typically loudly and, in a way, that Louise tended to regret afterwards. Right now, the anger was winning as she realised she was right to be angry. The scene was a mess, and there was no reason for this lack of professionalism. As she gazed over the room, her eyes settled on Logan. Suddenly, her rage had a single, definitive victim on whom to focus. She stomped toward him, dictating a spectacular dressing down in her mind.
"How dare you interfere…" she began, clearly and carefully, as if lecturing a particularly stubborn child.
"I am sorry," Logan said defeated. "I wanted to look at it under better lighting to see if anything stuck out to me. I know a lot of local artists and hoped, well, I don't know what I hoped, but I thought I'd be able to help."
Louise was shocked into a moment of quiet. She was ready for a fight; she had her canons in place and ready to fire. But the look of genuine sadness in his eyes caught deflated her anger instantly. She had the smallest urge to reassure him; it wasn't so bad. The scene was already ruined by the high number of officers that answer a Fischoeder police call. The artwork would not have been ruined, even if any fingerprints had been rubbed off. He hadn't done much of anything to hinder her process. She sighed, loudly.
"Alright, Logan. Don't do this dumb shit again?" she admonished. After a sullen nod from Logan, she felt she'd reached a compromise with her annoyance. "Show me where this damn canvas is."