with the man, a dangerous sign. Complacence could get her in serious trouble. But his smile was friendly, his face affable, and she’d spent her whole life reading people. Nothing set off her alarm bells, so she returned the handshake cordially and gestured to the chair for him to sit.
She rattled off the date and time, stated that she and Detective Renn McKenzie were in the room, and what they were there for so the session would be duly documented. She felt a bit like Sam at one of her autopsies.
“Mr. Bangor, I’m Detective Taylor Jackson,” she started.
Bangor interrupted. “I know. I’ve lived in Nashville all my life. We’ve never met, but I’ve always been a fan.”
She bristled, went on the defensive, looked for the hidden innuendo behind his words. Was he joking with her? Had he seen the tapes? Seen her in flagrante delicto all over the evening news?
Bangor sat a little straighter in his chair. “This is being taped, correct? Let me just say, for the record, that I think your treatment has been deplorable, and the chief of police should be indicted for his incredible mismanagement of our police force. You don’t deserve to be back at detective. I thought your demotion was petty and ridiculous.”
Oh, she liked this guy. Immensely.
But she restrained her smile. “Thank you. That’s very kind.”
Bangor settled back in his chair with a satisfied nod. “Just so you know where I stand, ma’am.”
“Can you tell me a bit about yourself, Mr. Bangor?”
“I’m a screenwriter. Actually, I’ve become more of a script doctor these days.”
“What’s a script doctor?” McKenzie asked.
“Just what it sounds like, Detective. I take scripts that have potential but aren’t ready to shoot and make them sing. Not to brag on myself, but there it is.”
“What took you to California? A script?”
“Yes. I’ve been working on a piece for a friend, needed to give it a walk-through with the writers. I left last Monday, wasn’t planning to return until this Friday. What exactly happened at my house, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“What have you heard?” Taylor asked.
He raised an eyebrow. “Miss Carol, my neighbor, told me that a young girl was murdered in my home. I’m just sick about it. I don’t know who did it, and I assure you, I can’t imagine why someone would break into my house and leave a dead girl behind.”
“Where were you last night? I don’t mean to be rude, Mr. Bangor, but can people corroborate your whereabouts?”
He gestured to a black leather briefcase that sat at his feet. “May I?”
“By all means.”
Bangor rooted in the briefcase for a moment, then brought out a green folder. “This is my travel folder, where I keep all of my receipts. I’ve been on my friend’s dime, and I get a nice per diem, which means I need to keep track of the records for my income tax. I keep everything.”
He handed the folder to Taylor. She opened it and flipped through, speaking aloud to catalog the contents for the record. Bangor wasn’t kidding; he was perfectly covered.
“Restaurant receipts, coded by date, people attending the meal, valet stubs, car-service receipts, all dated for the period in which Mr. Bangor states he was away from home. Wish I could be this organized.” She set the folder on the table. “I’m sure you understand that we’ll still have to check these items out.”
“Of course. I’ve alerted my business manager, and my lawyer, that you’ll be contacting them. I’ve included their phone numbers in that folder. You can keep it, I’ve got copies. Anal-retentive, that’s me.” He laughed, and she fought the urge to laugh with him. Disarming, and charming as Mr. Bangor was, he was still a suspect.
“Thank you for making it easy for us, Mr. Bangor. Tell me, how does a Hollywood screen doctor find himself living in Nashville instead of Hollywood?”
“Who could leave? I’m a native. Born and bred. I’ve been in and out of the house on Love Hill since I was a baby. It was my grandparents’, they built it when they moved to Nashville. My parents moved in after my grandparents passed, and they left it to me when they retired ten years ago to Florida. I renovated and made it my own.”
“And the Picasso reproduction? Did you inherit that too?”
Bangor’s eyebrows went higher, and Taylor noticed the fine shape of them, arching above his brown eyes. His nails were cleaned and buffed, his skin firm and tanned. The haircut was expensive, the clothes very fine. He was a well-kept man. Either the parents had been well-off, or he was good at his doctoring.
“ Desmoiselles D’Avignon? Did the…person who invaded my home take it?”
“Not exactly,” Taylor said. “It is a beautifully done piece.”
“It is at that. You have a good eye. There’s a great story behind it. The painting was done by a starving art student who made a great deal of money copying the works of the masters for a very well-heeled New York clientele. People who want the world to think they hold the original. This particular painting was part of a collection owned by the late George Wilson.”
“The philanthropist? I thought he left everything to his dogs.”
Bangor smiled. “Everything but the art collection. He had some beautiful genuine pieces, a Chagall I coveted but couldn’t afford, and some wonderful copies, including the Picasso. They auctioned off the collection, and I bought the Picasso. That was fifteen years ago. I adore art, as I’m sure you noticed. I started collecting when I was in my twenties, bought a small line drawing with my very first screenplay paycheck. Granted, it wasn’t much, but my interests grew from there. I have some originals of my own now. But the Picasso is my finest reproduction piece.”
“How much would you pay for an imitation?” Taylor asked.
“I paid $10,000 for my Desmoiselles.”
“Ten grand for a fake? Wow.”
“It’s a lot of money, I know, but considering the quality and the backstory, I felt it was worth more. This is more common than you know. It’s not black market, but it comes close. There are a number of pieces that make it all the way to auction, provenance intact, that are fakes. It takes a true master to know the difference. That’s why Sotheby’s and Christie’s are who they are.”
McKenzie was scratching notes in his reporter’s notebook. “So where’s the original?”
Bangor smiled at him. “The Museum of Modern Art in New York. It toured through here in an exhibit a while back, but it’s a part of their permanent collection.”
“Who would know about the Picasso, Mr. Bangor?” Taylor asked.
“That it’s a reproduction? Anyone with any knowledge of art would know that, it’s a terribly famous painting.”
“I meant that you have it in the first place.”
“Oh, I see. Well, any guest in my home for the past fifteen years, I suppose. It’s not exactly a secret. Detective, why the interest in the Picasso, may I ask? I heard that there was some damage done to the house, but I haven’t gotten the details. Was the painting desecrated?”
“In a way,” Taylor said, and Bangor sucked in his breath.
McKenzie jumped into the fray. “The painting is fine. The victim was posed like the women in the painting.” McKenzie started to speak again, but Taylor glared at him and he stopped. Jeez, give it all away, why don’t you?
“Posed?” Bangor asked.
Taylor waved his question away. “Right now, Mr. Bangor, we’d like to take you back to the house so you can show us if anything is missing or otherwise disturbed. We can go into the details there.”
Bangor sat forward in his chair and stroked his chin. “You know, about a year ago, I was broken into. The thieves were after cash, they trashed the house but didn’t give the art a second glance. Pity, really. Our criminals are so uneducated these days.”
“You reported it?”
“I surely did. There’s a report on file. I wonder if this might be the same people? Though a year later? Probably not. That was a silly thought.”
“No thoughts are silly, Mr. Bangor. Detective McKenzie will check that out. You never know. If you’d be so
