Art and Arsenic (Veronica Margreve Mysteries Book 2) Read online

  Fred knocked and looked into the office a short while later, asking:

  “How is it going?”

  “Great! Your site is back up, I put a defense in place.”

  “Oh, that’s excellent!”

  “The attacker might shift the traffic pattern, though. I need to do a couple more things to protect against similar attacks.”

  This was true – when the original malicious traffic stopped working, the attackers would often switch attack patterns. I did not think Linda Raven would do it – the software she (or someone working for her) was using so far was freely available and simple; and I guessed she wasn’t aware of many other cyber-attack tools. However, I decided to put the blocks in place for several of the more common attack patterns, just in case. And my engagement with Nordqvist Fine Art was for a week – our standard minimum consulting terms – and I was done with the basics in only about an hour; so I thought I could help make things more secure for them, even if they had only a small website most hackers won’t be interested in.

  As I was doing that, my brain was running through the conversation I just heard. It seemed that my firm’s client was engaged in some unsavory dealings. I had heard him threaten an associate with exposure and ruin. That made me instinctively dislike him – since the conversation smacked of coercion and blackmail, and left a bad taste in my mouth. I thought that anyone drawing Fred Nordqvist's personal ire might be in trouble – and I could understand why someone might decide to DoS his website, an act on some level similar to throwing rocks, over and over and over again, at the person your dislike.

  I was done shortly before 3 pm. All in all, the job only took a couple of hours. The consulting report still remained, but I decided I had enough of the gallery for the day and that I’d do the paperwork Friday. For the time being, I could move on to more-interesting and pleasant matters.

  As I was packing up my laptop, Fred knocked on the door again.

  “Hi there!”

  “Hi.”

  “All done for the day?”

  “Yes, pretty much. Your site is up, and there are defenses in place against the common attack patterns and the publicly-available DoS tools. I will put together the report and send it to you tomorrow.”

  “Great, thank you so much! This upcoming opening is very important to us, and we want people to be able to find our website. You’ve practically saved my business!” He spread his hands to indicate the gallery around us and smiled an oily smile. “I want to show you my gratitude. How about grabbing some drinks? Or an early dinner?” He winked at me.

  The conversation that I overhead still on my mind, I was not comfortable with being in close proximity to him and his nefarious transactions.

  “No, thank you. I already have plans”.

  “Oh, that’s a pity. Please allow me to at least walk you to your car.”

  I mumbled something about it being several blocks away and up the hill, but he waved away my excuse and said he’d enjoy the walk.

  In the main gallery space, a couple of paintings were already on the wall, and I glanced at them on the way out. They were landscapes, very pleasant, depicting woody or maritime, with sailboats and cliffs, scenes. There was no sign of Alex, or the woman I heard laughing, or anyone else. Fred locked the gallery door and followed me down the street.

  As we walked, he asked:

  “Are you interested in art?”

  “Yes, but I don’t know much. I really like the paintings you have.” I said honestly. “They seem so full of light inside somehow.”

  “Yes, well, I especially like finding stuff that no-one had really seen before, and giving people a good value – an investment for their money that will appreciate, and meanwhile something very pleasant to look at.” I could see his sizable chest puff up with pride as we walked. “I did a lot of research on art and art history. I put so much effort into establishing the gallery four years ago. It’s very successful now, it’s really found its niche in the Seattle art market, I'm happy to say. And my daughter, Pauline, works here too. She’s from my first marriage. She lived with her mother in Missouri and moved here after high school.”

  I decided it must have been her voice that I heard in the main gallery space this afternoon.

  “That's nice. Does she do anything else art-related?”

  “Oh yes, she’s also in college part-time, studying art and art history.”

  “So your gallery is a real family business then.”

  “Yes, my current wife – she’s still my wife, although we are separated – works here too. We are starting the divorce – my third.” He nodded to himself in a self-satisfied manner, as if that were some sort of an accomplishment. I didn’t know what to say to that – replying “I’m sorry” seemed out of place with his self-important demeanor. So I kept quiet.

  “I must say, it is an honor and such a pleasant surprise to meet a beautiful and intelligent woman! When you came in today to fix my website, I just knew that all of my problems would be solved!” He winked again. He was hitting on me, in spite of my gray hairs! I mumbled something incoherent again, and was thankful when we’ve arrived at my red car.

  “Thank you for your help, again.” Fred extended his hand to me. “You will come to the exhibit opening tomorrow, won’t you? The event starts at 4:30. The owner of the collection will be there, and lots of my clients. There will be plenty of art talk, if you’d like to learn more about 19th-century British landscape painters, and food, and champagne!” His blue eyes looked intently at me.

  I felt ambivalent. I disliked what I inferred from overhearing the conversation with Alex earlier, and being hit on by a much-older still married man had little to recommend it, in my opinion. On the other hand, technically, I would still be on his payroll tomorrow. And from what I’ve seen of the gallery, I liked the stuff on the walls. And I had been trying to go out and do stuff more often, not keep to myself so much. Also, I was still curious about what provoked a rival art gallery to attack the Nordqvist Fine Art website. Maybe I could find out more about that tomorrow.

  All together, that spoke in favor of going. I decided to do the polite thing:

  “I’ll try to make it. I’m sure it’s going to be fun.”

  I opened the car door to get in. Fred took my left hand, bowed and kissed it. That almost made me change my mind about coming to the party the following night. I frowned at him as I drove off.

  I got home to what seemed like cascading echoes of loud meows bouncing off the walls. My little black panther was hungry, and she wasn’t shy about letting me know it. I put some turkey giblets into her dish and watched as she inhaled them.

  Being done with my obligations for the day so early, I decided to actually generate some plans for my evening, so that my statement to Fred wasn’t a lie. I got out my personal phone and dialed a number.

  3

  I got into my car and headed towards downtown Seattle. I now had a ticket to the Sounders FC game that night, to watch the local soccer club with a loyal fan base. My ticket was courtesy of Vinay, an entrepreneur friend I met about six months ago at a housewarming party (where the host happened to get himself murdered during the evening, and I played a role in finding the killer). Vinay’s start-up, like many companies in the Seattle area, had season tickets to the Sounders home games. We had originally planned to go to the game with several of his employees. But on Thursday, he got stuck at work at the last minute, together with pretty much everyone at his tech company, dealing with a problematic production release – so the ticket waiting at the stadium was just for me.

  I enjoyed soccer ever since I was a kid. I had fond memories of attending some Champions League matches with my dad in Europe, and over the years I had watched teams like Barcelona, Chelsea and Manchester United play live. I fancied myself a bit of a connoisseur of the game, and liked dissecting the technique and strategy of matches with like-minded friends.

  Columns of fans were streaming into the stadium through each gate – Seattle regularly
has the highest-attended soccer games in the US league, with crowds frequently topping 30 000. A lot of people were wearing green and blue – the team’s colors, – or had team scarves with “Sounders” on them in big letters. Many had brought their kids. I basked in the pre-game atmosphere of noise and anticipation.

  My seat was in the lower levels, and I could see the entire field very well. I noticed a group of hard-core supporters of the Sounders, already in their usual place behind one of the goals, their faces painted green and blue, waving a team flag, beating a drum and chanting a rousing Sounders chant. A couple of seats on each side of me were empty – these were the seats that Vinay and his colleagues would be occupying if they could get away from work. I texted Vinay to thank him again for the ticket, and settled in to watch the game.

  At 7:30, the dusk was gathering, but the bright lights above the stadium made the surroundings look dark. The anthem played, confetti shot out of a cannon and the game started.

  Tonight’s game was a friendly against an LA team. For the next forty-five minutes, my attention was on the pitch. I was jumping up in anticipation when Sounders were close to scoring a goal, yelling in disappointment when they lost possession of the ball or their pass went wide, was on the edge of my seat when the other side had control of the ball and went on attack.

  By the end of the first period, the score was 1-1, and I had thoroughly enjoyed myself. Now I noticed that the spring air had gotten chillier. I drew my coat around my shoulders and got up to stretch and walk around. I bought a bottle of water and was coming back to my seat when, standing at the top of the stairs, I saw a familiar-seeming figure a couple of rows down and to my left.

  The man looked around, and I saw his face in profile. It was Alex. I recognized him from earlier in the day, since his conversation with Fred Nordqvist stuck in my mind. With him was a blond woman of about 50, wrapped up in a green waterproof hiking jacket, and they seemed to be involved in intense conversation, their heads close together. They didn’t notice me, and I didn’t think Alex would recognize me in any case, since he barely saw me that afternoon, and never spoke to me specifically. I headed down and stairs and back to my seat.

  The next 45 minutes flew by with more jumping up, chanting by the fans when the audience interest seemed to wane, two more goals (one a beauty from a corner kick), and the final score a draw, 2-2. On the way out, in the noisy crowd discussing each of the goals while making our way slowly out of the stadium, I didn’t see either Alex or the woman with him.

  Walking out into the chilly night air, I got to my car, fought the traffic all the way across the bridge, and finally arrived home.

  Bitty demanded another dinner as soon as I got back. According to her, every time I walked through the front door was an occasion that called for a celebratory meal. I gave her a small treat, of the type that was supposed to be good for her teeth. She inhaled it even before I could get the bag zipped closed, and looked at me with a question: “Urr?”, meaning “Is that it?” I reminded her that, according to the vet, she was supposed to be on a diet to get to her ideal weight of 7 lbs. She yawned in my face, showing large (for such a small cat) fangs, and curled up to sleep on a blanket draped across one of the kitchen chairs especially for her.

  4

  On Friday morning, I looked closely at my hair in the mirror, as if examining forensic evidence. I didn’t seem to sprout a full bouquet of gray overnight, so I took that as a small victory. I checked the Nordqvist Fine Art website – still up, no problems. Then I sat down to write my report for the work I did the day before. I specified the attack tool, the IP the traffic was coming from, and gave the ‘whois’ data for it; and pronounced myself done with the entire thing. Then I checked with my boss about what the office was working on, and told him that I’d back on the Bitcoin thing by Monday.

  I was done with all of that by mid-morning. The day was sunny, spring was most definitely in the air, and I thought that an outing would do me good. So before I mailed my report to Fred Nordqvist, I decided to check that everything was OK on location as well. And, to be honest, to spend the day at the Kirkland waterfront. I normally like to finish everything on my plate, work-wise, before going home for the weekend, no matter how late I have to stay at work to do it – because things can move very fast in our field, not keeping up with work can leave you buried and make it hard to catch up; and because I don’t like having all these “leftover” to-do items staring at me first thing Monday morning. But the blue skies and rays of sunshine made it all too tempting to spend the day relaxing instead. I decided I’d make up the work over the weekend, which was forecasted to be cold and gray. So I grabbed my clothing and shoes for the evening’s party, not planning to come back home in the afternoon. I drove to Kirkland in the sunshine with a window down, and left my car on top of the hill, next to a grassy park with tall pine trees framing the Seattle skyline and the deep-blue of Lake Washington, and then walked to the gallery in a breeze smelling of fruit trees in bloom.

  Through the big windows, I could see that all the paintings were already on the walls. Whatever yesterday’s argument between Alex and Fred was about, the entire show had been installed. Fred was in the middle, dressed in a blue shirt and well-ironed khakis, appraising the room with a critical eye. Two guys in overalls stood next to Fred, listening. A thin brunette, in an asymmetrical one-shouldered black top, black skinny jeans and black flats, was kneeling by a crate near the back wall and digging through its contents.

  I knocked. Fred saw me through the glass door and motioned for one of the workers to open it – not Alex, but the other guy I had seen the day before. I thanked him and came in.

  “Hi, I came by to check the server logs and take sure everything is still good with the site. I’ll be done in about fifteen minutes, if that’s OK?”

  “Yeah, sure. Nice of you to stop by”. Fred winked at me, and then went back to giving directions about the preparations for the evening’s opening party.

  I headed towards the office in the back. The brunette looked up at me as I came closer and said:

  “I’m Pauline. I’m the gallery assistant.”

  And Fred’s daughter, I thought to myself. Up close, she looked around twenty. Her eyes were black, with black liquid eyeliner and mascara on her long lashes, and slightly puffy – the crate in front of her looked dusty, probably containing packing materials, and I felt some dust tickle my nose. I could see a resemblance between her and Fred, several decades and about seventy pounds ago in his case.

  “I’m Veronica, I’m dealing with your website issue.” I shook her hand.

  “Yes, I heard. Great to meet you. He was going crazy about it yesterday, before you arrived.” She rolled her eyes towards Fred and smiled.

  “Nice to meet you. I’ll go finish up my stuff and send Fred my report.” I indicated the back of the gallery. “Can I go into the office?”

  “Oh, by all means.”

  “And can I ask you for a small favor?” I leaned towards her. “Can I come back before the party tonight and change my clothes in the back, do you mind?”

  “Not a problem.”

  In the office, I sat down in the enormous chair. On the corner of the large desk sat what I assumed to be Fred’s lunch, as it was around 11:30 – a grocery-store ham sandwich, wrapped in plastic.

  I logged in and checked the traffic on the server logs – everything was OK. The malicious traffic from Linda Raven’s IP was still coming in, and was still being dropped without doing any damage. Having verified all that, I clicked “Send” on the e-mail containing my report – to Fred, cc’d to my boss.

  Done with my paperwork, I gathered up my bag on my way out the door. It was time for me to get a bite to eat as well.

  “I’m all done, I’ve sent you the report. I’ll see you at the party.” I said to Fred. He was kneeling next to Pauline and looking into the crate, his fingers drumming on the edge of it.

  “OK, thanks,” he said, without lifting his eyes to me, absorbed in thin
king about the contents of the crate.

  I walked along the street, looking in the windows of shops and galleries, breathing in the fresh air and enjoying the sunshine. I made a detour to the lake front and stood there for a little bit, looking at the buildings of Seattle in the distance. The sky was bright blue with only a few clouds, and I saw the tops of the Olympic mountains further on, still snow-covered. I thought again that it would be a shame to spend such a beautiful day working, especially since I was done with what was supposed to be my primary task for the next three business days, and vowed to myself to catch up on the office work over the weekend, when the weather was expected to be rainy and miserable again. So, with that decision, and basking in the satisfaction of a job well done, the rest of Friday work-day was now mine to spend how I pleased.

  The breeze at the waterfront finally chilled me, and I headed for my favorite tea shop in downtown Kirkland – Savrika Tea. They had a great selection of teas, and I enjoyed sitting there by the window with a pot of tea, a pastry and a book on my Kindle.

  Having finished my pot of tea and read three chapters of my mystery book, I got up and prepared to leave. I considered heading to the nearest hair salon, but then decided that the day was too nice, and I was in too good a mood, to spend time on hair-related matters just at the moment.

  A small electric car was driving by as I exited the tea shop, and I inhaled the smell of blossoms in the air and looked around while I waited for it to pass before crossing the street. I noticed the distinctive red-white-and-black logo of the Ravenswood gallery at the end of the block and made a spur-of-the-moment decision to drop in for a visit.