Fatal Impressions Read online

  “It’s against policy to keep your door closed,” she announced.

  “Thanks. I’ll see you Wednesday,” Dinah said, and hung up. She’d never heard of a closed-door policy. Could it be possible? This place was a zoo. So far she’d been reminded of parrots, cats, a rabbit, and a pony in her short time at DDD&W. Their standards were so bizarre, perhaps they did forbid closed doors and give locks only to top management. “Nonsense. I’ll be discussing money and prices. I need privacy, and a quiet place to make my calls,” she said.

  Patti Sue, ignoring her, rattled on. “And I gotta have a key to your office, and one to the storeroom. Frannie Johnson, head of human resources, says so.” She spoke as if that settled the matter.

  Dinah took a deep breath. “Human resources didn’t hire me, and I am not a DDD&W employee. I’m an independent consultant, and according to the terms of my agreement with the company, if I’m not available, if anyone needs access to my office or the storeroom, one of my employees will take care of it.” She stood up and stared at Patti Sue. Maybe she would go away.

  The woman’s face was scarlet. “I am well and truly sorry you got the job here, Miss Stuck-Up! I saw your picture in the paper showin’ off and actin’ like a big deal. You make me sick. Everybody wanted Great Art Management to come back. When they helped me with the collection, they didn’t put on airs, or have locks, and secrets. I’m gonna get you thrown outta here, see if I don’t!” She stormed out.

  Dinah wrinkled her nose. Jungle Gardenia had replaced eau de refrigerator. She wasn’t worried about Patti Sue’s threat—Jonathan’s lawyer had drawn up her airtight contract—but she wished the ugly scene hadn’t occurred. What was “the collection” and what happened to it? Marks on the walls in the corridors, the reception room, and the managing director’s office, where pictures had once hung, revealed a ghostly presence no one mentioned. And who was Great Art Management? She looked at her watch. Noon: time for a break. While she nibbled the chicken salad sandwich she’d brought for lunch, she looked them up on her laptop. Headquarters in Miami; branch offices in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles. Big. But not in New York, and not well known, or she’d have recognized the name. How had they “helped” Patti Sue? Never mind. Whatever they did, that was then; this was now, and the Greene Gallery had the contract.

  When the Rice prints and her tools arrived, Dinah hung the exquisite aquatints of magnolias, roses, camellias, and lilies in simple black frames. She backed away to admire them and stepped on a large brown envelope. Someone must have slipped it under the door while she hammered. Inside were colored photocopies of two paintings she recognized as the work of George Stubbs, an eighteenth-century English artist famous for his images of horses. The paintings were portraits of a woman in elegant riding clothes on a beautiful bay, and a similarly attired man on a larger black horse.

  Why would anyone give her these pictures? Everyone knew her gallery dealt exclusively in American prints. Could they have been sent to her by mistake? No, the envelope had her name on it, hand printed in tiny letters. The note inside, in the same writing, was also addressed to her: Dinah Greene: you should know about these. She tossed the envelope and its contents in the wastebasket and stowed her tool box in a drawer in the file cabinet. A few minutes later, she had second thoughts and retrieved the Stubbs photocopies. Maybe they were important, although she couldn’t imagine why. She stuffed the envelope in her pouch with her laptop and her other papers. There was nothing else she could do at DDD&W today. She might as well go home. On her way out, she’d stroll through thirty-one and thirty and take the elevator to the lobby from there. She wanted to see those floors. It seemed odd that she’d been asked to install art on thirty-two and thirty-three but ignore the lower floors.

  Whoever decorated the thirty-first floor must have been color-blind. The walls were painted mustard and the carpet was cow pie brown, which still couldn’t disguise coffee and other stains. Dusty fake plants in filthy plastic pots were scattered around the corridors. Wads of crumpled paper lay on the floor near wastebaskets and fax machines; empty cardboard coffee cups and soft drink cans cluttered desks. A big table draped with a stained paper tablecloth stood in an open area. It was littered with crumbs, dirty paper plates, and plastic spoons and forks. A mouse scurried across the table and, twitching its whiskers, paused to nibble crumbs. Ugh. She smelled pineapple and brown sugar. Pineapple upside-down cake, maybe? Yep, someone had ground a maraschino cherry into the carpet.

  A throng of people was moving down the corridor, talking and laughing, headed toward the sound of shouting. Dinah followed the crowd, expecting any minute that someone would ask who she was and why she was there. But no one even glanced at her.

  All eyes were on a man jumping up and down on a table surrounded by bystanders. The table, like the one where she’d seen the mouse, stood in an open area, but it was covered with piles of paperwork instead of a tablecloth. The tall Ichabod Crane–type on the table gibbered and shuffled the papers with his oxford-clad feet. His audience cheered, and Dinah stared in disbelief while the man unzipped his fly and peed a great flood all over the papers and the table. His audience clapped and yelled encouragement. She nearly gagged. The stench of urine mixed with pineapple upside-down cake and the odor of the sweaty crowd was nauseating. Who could the lunatic be? And why did people act as if he were a rock star? She turned to a nerdy young man standing near her. “Uh—who is the man on the table?”

  He stared at her. “You must be new. That’s Oscar Danbury. You know, as in Davidson, Douglas, Danbury & Weeks. That’s how he lets people know he doesn’t like their work.” He snickered, as if this sort of thing happened often. Maybe it did.

  “Oh, yes, of course,” she said, and ran for the elevator.

  Four

  In the subway car on her way downtown, Dinah was unable to concentrate on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. She couldn’t erase the revolting image of Danbury from her mind. How could that man have done what he did? And the crowd cheered him on. She’d looked forward to telling Jonathan about her contract, and how weird DDD&W was. She’d thought he might be able to explain the emptiness of the office and why the people were such an odd assortment. It was hard to imagine how the likes of C. Theodore Douglas IV and Patti Sue Victor ended up in the same company, let alone working together.

  But Oscar Danbury was in a class by himself. His behavior was beyond strange. The word madness came to mind. If Jonathan heard about his exposing himself, and his public urination, not to mention the degradation of the wretched employee he was “punishing,” he’d never let her go near DDD&W again. Well, she wouldn’t tell him. She was determined to complete the job and get the gallery on firm ground.

  She had changed out of her cranberry wool suit into jeans and a sweater and checked the pot roast she’d left in the slow cooker all day, but she was still thinking about Oscar Danbury when she heard Jonathan at the door.

  He was bursting with news. He had to be in Los Angeles on Friday, and he’d reserved a suite at the Hotel Bel-Air. He and Dinah would fly to California tomorrow night and return to New York Monday. They’d have a long romantic weekend in one of their favorite places. He beamed, certain she’d be as pleased as he was.

  When Dinah explained she couldn’t go to Los Angeles because she had to hang prints Wednesday and Thursday, Jonathan blew up: “Why must you work at night? When we agreed you’d expand the gallery and move uptown, night work wasn’t part of the deal.”

  She told him she’d already hired people to hang the prints Wednesday night. That they’d have lots of opportunities to go to California, but she must complete the DDD&W project right away. He knew how much the contract meant to her business. They’d discussed it often enough.

  His anger tonight was part of a familiar theme: Jonathan wanted all of her time and attention. Until their marriage ten months earlier, she’d been the curator in a Connecticut museum. He’d expected her to retire as soon as they were married, but she wanted to work a few more years, and afte
r a lot of arguing, they’d compromised. They’d bought the house in the West Village, where they lived in the apartment upstairs, and she ran the gallery in the street-level space, almost like working out of her home. A cottage industry, and about as profitable.

  Coleman had warned her that an art gallery in the West Village wouldn’t succeed; she’d said a gallery needed to be near other galleries to get drop-in business. Jonathan had disagreed. The Village was convenient for his commute to Wall Street, and he insisted the gallery would be fine. Anyway, she didn’t need to earn money; the gallery was just something to pass the time until she had children. The location would be ideal when she had a baby. She’d be able to take the baby with her to work.

  She’d gritted her teeth and once again explained that she wanted to run a real gallery and make it succeed—that she was years away from having a child. He’d sulked, and when it became obvious the gallery would fail unless it was relocated, he’d balked at her request to move. Chelsea was her first choice, but Jonathan didn’t want any part of that area—too bohemian, he said. After weeks of arguments he’d finally agreed to her renting Midtown space for a two-year trial period. If the gallery failed, she’d retire. If it succeeded, they’d renegotiate.

  But now the battle had resumed about her plan to move ahead with fulfilling her contract with DDD&W. He was cold and distant during dinner, and afterward, instead of helping her clear the table and load the dishwasher as he usually did, he disappeared to pack for his trip to LA. While she tidied the kitchen, she forced herself to close cupboard doors gently instead of slamming them shut, and to avoid clashing pots and pans. Technically Jonathan was right: they hadn’t discussed her working at night, but he worked nights, and weekends, too. Investment banking was not a nine-to-five job. But neither was an art gallery, and for the next two days, DDD&W had priority.

  When she went into the bedroom, she met Jonathan coming out.

  “I’m taking Baker for a walk,” Jonathan said.

  Dinah nodded. “I’m exhausted; I need an early night.” When he returned fifteen minutes later, she pretended to be asleep.

  Ted Douglas and Hunt Frederick had finished their steaks and had covered a series of client-related issues. They were at the coffee stage, and Hunt was looking at his watch, ready to head for home, when Douglas asked, “What did you think of Dinah Greene?”

  “She’s a beautiful young woman,” Hunt Frederick said. “Those blue eyes with that dark hair are extraordinary.”

  Douglas shook his finger. “Now, now, naughty, naughty. None of that.”

  Hunt frowned. “Don’t be ridiculous. There’s no law against admiration. Now, one more time: are you positive she’s right for the job?”

  “Absolutely. She’s excellent at what she does. Her gallery has a good reputation, and she should make real money with the move to Midtown, but she has temporary financial problems. She needs this job. She’ll complete our project on schedule, she’ll do as she’s told, she won’t ruffle feathers, and she won’t poke her nose in where she shouldn’t. Jonathan Hathaway is a successful investment banker from a prominent family, and one of the biggest stuffed shirts that ever came out of Boston. Trust me, he wouldn’t tolerate anything but a docile yes-girl as a wife. She’s thirtyish, but she comes across as naïve, almost childlike, except about her business. You heard her—she’s a Southern belle, born and bred in North Carolina. Nothin’ could be finah than our gal Dinah. Sweet as pecan pie,” Douglas drawled, in a misguided attempt to mimic Dinah’s accent.

  “Okay. But if you’re wrong, we’re all in trouble. And I don’t like it that her cousin is a journalist. Make sure Dinah doesn’t learn anything her cousin can use,” Hunt said.

  “I’ll vouch for Coleman,” Douglas said. “I’ve known her a long time. She won’t cause any trouble—she’ll want Dinah to succeed.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Hunt said. “She could kill us with a negative article about us.”

  Five

  Dinah woke up Wednesday morning still worrying about her failure to tell Jonathan what she’d seen on the thirty-first floor. She didn’t believe in keeping secrets from him—she intended to tell him everything—but not until she’d finished hanging the prints. Meanwhile, she’d never set foot below the thirty-second floor again.

  When Jonathan left without breakfast or a goodbye kiss, she was annoyed, but she mentally shelved their quarrel and thoughts of Oscar Danbury. She had work to do. She rushed through her morning chores and was in the gallery by eight o’clock, working through her checklist to make sure everything was on track for the print installation that night. Gambling that she’d win the job, she’d bought hundreds of prints she hoped to hang at DDD&W. She’d acquired all the works she needed to complete the decoration of the reception areas and the dining room. If DDD&W hadn’t hired her, she could have sold the prints elsewhere, but it would have taken time she didn’t have, given the gallery’s financial situation. Thank goodness her bet had paid off.

  At eight thirty, she packed her bag with the papers she needed and had started out the gallery door, when she remembered the Stubbs photocopies. She turned back to give them to the senior graduate student and asked her to find out everything she could about their ownership, location, and history. Then she hurried down to the street to grab a cab to DDD&W to meet the movers.

  But when she reached the freight elevators near the storage room on thirty-two, Patti Sue awaited her, clipboard in hand. Dinah raised her eyebrows. “Good morning. How may I help you?”

  “I’m here to check on the art when it’s delivered,” Patti Sue said, her voice and manner declaring that she was in charge and intended to stay that way.

  “That’s kind of you, but I already have an assistant—she’s videotaping the unpacking. It’s standard procedure—my insurance requires it,” Dinah explained.

  As if on cue, Bethany, carrying a video camera, appeared. “Good mornin’,” she said.

  “Why? I never heard of such a thing,” Patti Sue said, ignoring Bethany.

  “Let me introduce you to Bethany Byrd, who works at the gallery with me,” Dinah said. “Bethany, this is Patti Sue Victor.”

  Bethany smiled. “How do you do? I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  Patti Sue continued to ignore Bethany and glared at Dinah. “Why are you filming the prints?”

  “As I said, it’s standard procedure. We check to see that everything we stored arrived, that nothing went missing in the warehouse or in transit. We’ll photograph the installations, too.”

  Patti Sue shook her head. “We don’t do that here,” she said. “Gimme the list of prints you’re gonna hang. I’ll check ‘em off.”

  “Sorry—no checking by anyone except my staff,” Dinah said. “It’s in my contract.”

  “I’m sick and damn tired of hearin’ about your contract!” Patti Sue shouted. “I don’t believe a word of what you say about it, or about your insurance. I got a right to do this: I’m art curator—this is DDD&W’s art!”

  Dinah put her hands over her ears. “Keep your voice down,” she said. “People are coming out of their offices to see why you’re yelling.”

  “I don’t give a damn who hears me! This is my job!”

  “Patti Sue, this nonsense must stop. I can’t get my work done with you having tantrums all the time. Why don’t you ask Mr. Douglas for a copy of my contract? If you read it, you’ll understand and stop arguing with me.”

  Without warning, Patti Sue threw the clipboard at Dinah. Bethany reached out and caught it on the fly. She got a baleful look from Patti Sue, who trotted down the corridor at a fast clip. Before she disappeared around the corner, she looked back and shouted, “I’ll have both of you outta here before the end of the week!”

  Dinah and Bethany exchanged exasperated glances. The arrival of the elevator with a load of prints gave them a chance to turn their backs on the spectators who’d come out of their offices to enjoy the action. Bethany began filming, while Dinah checked off the prints on he
r lists. The curious returned to their offices.

  Soon after seven Wednesday evening, Dinah and her three helpers arrived on DDD&W’s thirty-third floor. They hung the architectural prints—bridges, skyscrapers, Manhattan-skyline views—in the reception area first: a great improvement. The river and harbor scenes, ferries, tugs, and ships transformed the nearby dining room, softening its starkness and complementing the magnificent water view. After the last print went up on thirty-three, they took the elevator to the thirty-second floor reception area. When the nineteenth-century landscapes and seascapes were on the walls, Dinah could scarcely recognize the depressing room where she’d waited so long. The area was welcoming and gracious, despite the uncomfortable chairs and the unpleasant odor of scorched coffee.

  When everything was completed, Dinah photographed the three rooms. Tonight they’d hung nearly one hundred and fifty prints, about fifty in each room. They were off to a great start. If Jonathan hadn’t gone to California, she couldn’t have remained at DDD&W so late—he wouldn’t have allowed it—and she would have had to devote two nights to what they’d accomplished in one. As it had worked out, she would be able to join him in Los Angeles on Thursday. She’d bought her plane ticket as soon as she realized they’d be able to finish tonight. Jonathan would be pleased, and she’d enjoy the weekend with a clear conscience.

  They’d begin hanging the next six hundred prints in the corridors next week. Arranging them would be challenging, because the prints would vary in theme, image, and size. Still, she had plenty of time, and she’d already acquired about half the needed works. To avoid Patti Sue and other bystanders, she’d decided to continue hanging at night, although the silent office was eerie. She heard a faraway clock strike midnight. She shivered, glad for the company of the hangers, gladder still to leave the place. Its emptiness and all the dark offices were intimidating.