Chapter 6 - The Brother in Toronto
Sebastian Mercer had rebuilt the family business under three different names.
Northline Fine Art Logistics moved the work.
Kensington Advisory placed the work.
Mercer Provenance Services existed on paper in Ontario as a records consultant.
Different names.
Same pipeline.
Canadian authorities located Sebastian before he could move the shipment again.
The painting in the crate was not ours.
It belonged to a private collector in Detroit who had reported it stolen six months earlier.
That meant the scheme was not simply taking stolen work and selling it once.
They were rotating objects.
A stolen painting could enter one legitimate collection under false papers.
Another painting could leave that collection inside a crate carrying the first painting's paperwork.
Ownership histories became mixed until nobody could tell which institution had possessed what.
Confusion was the product.
My company had supplied reputation.
Vance Heritage appeared in provenance chains as a respected corporate collector.
Once an object passed through us, later buyers asked fewer questions.
I sat in Priya's office and felt physically ill.
"How many?"
"We don't know."
"How far back?"
"Potentially two years. Maybe more."
"How did accounting not catch it?"
"Accounting paid invoices for art you approved."
There it was.
I had approved purchases based on Evelyn's recommendations.
I had not forged anything.
I had not known the works were stolen.
I had also stopped asking enough questions because I trusted the woman in my bed.
That was my part.
Genevieve came to the office despite doctor's orders to rest.
She wore sunglasses because the lights hurt her head.
"You're supposed to be home," I said.
"You're supposed to have better taste in women."
I almost laughed.
Then she handed Priya another document.
"I found this before Evelyn came to my apartment."
A catalog page from fifteen years earlier.
A young Elise Mercer stood beside her father and brother at an estate auction.
Behind them was a painting I knew.
A red abstract by Leland Ross.
It hung in my Chicago penthouse.
I had purchased it from Evelyn during the first month of our affair.
The catalog said the work belonged to the Mendel Estate.
The estate later sued Mercer Provenance claiming several works disappeared before final accounting.
The lawsuit settled confidentially.
I stared at the image.
Genevieve said, "Your first purchase from Evelyn may have been part of the old Mercer inventory."
"Then why wait twelve years to sell it?"
"Maybe they didn't. Maybe it moved several times."
Priya looked at me.
"The penthouse is a separate property. We need to secure it."
We did.
The Leland Ross painting came down from my wall that afternoon.
Behind the frame, investigators found three different inventory labels layered over one another.
The oldest carried a handwritten number.
M-441.
Genevieve recognized it.
"Mercer catalog numbering."
I sat down.
The painting I had looked at every morning for two years may have been evidence hanging above my breakfast table.
Then my assistant called.
"Mr. Vance, a woman is downstairs asking for you."
"Who?"
"She says her name is Helen Mercer."
Genevieve went still.
Evelyn had told me her mother died twenty-five years ago.
The woman downstairs said she was Evelyn's mother.
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