Page 6 of Wrong Door

“Yes, it is.”

"Stolen it how?"

"He said she had studied his work closely enough to reverse-engineer how he mixed his colors, and that her series was essentially a copy of his approach. He made a pretty big deal out of it. He posted a lot about it on social media and talked about it at openings." Stasi looked at the back wall for a moment, a brief look of anger coming to her face. "Nadia told me it was completely baseless, and I believed her. If you put the two bodies of work next to each other, they're not that similar at all. And anyone who really has an eye for art and details could see that. But Garrett would not let it go."

"Did it go anywhere formally?" Vic asked. "Was there any legal action?"

"No. He threatened it but nothing came of it. I think his actual claim was too thin to support a lawsuit. But I think the thing that made it more unpleasant than it might have been otherwise is that Garrett has this thing about chemistry. I think it’s the only reason anyone took the allegations seriously. He studied chemistry at some point before he became a painter full-time, and he would talk about it constantly. His whole argument was that he could prove she had copied him because he understood pigment chemistry at a technical level and could analyze both palettes. He made it sound very scientific."

Miles glanced at Vic without turning his head fully toward her. She had caught it, too. The chemistry background was very interesting indeed.

"How much contact did he have with this studio?" Miles asked.

"He had been here a few times, back before the plagiarism thing,” Stasi said. “They used to be friendly, believe it or not. He hasn't been here since all of that blew up, as far as I know." She pulled at the strap of her messenger bag, as if needing something to do to keep her hands busy. "But he knows this place. He knows how she worked."

"You said there were a few things on the professional side," Vic said. "What was the other one?"

"Sylvia Drummond. She owns the Drummond Gallery over on Bull Street, and she’s a pretty big deal. Nadia had been showing there for about three years, and she was supposed to be in a major group show this fall—a show that had already attracted international interest from galleries in Barcelona and Paris. But there was a contract dispute a few months back. Nadia felt Sylvia had changed the commission terms after they'd already agreed on them verbally, and she wasn't willing to accept the new terms. Sylvia pulled her from the show."

"How did Nadia take that?" Miles asked.

"She was angry about it, but she was also matter of fact. She said Sylvia had done something dishonest and she wasn't going to reward it." Stasi looked down at the floor, at the space where Nadia had died, and then looked away from it. "Sylvia, on the other hand, was furious. She'd already announced the show with Nadia's name attached and removing her was embarrassing. She said some things publicly that were not kind."

"What kind of things?" Vic said.

"That Nadia had become difficult to work with. That she was overvaluing her own reputation and had become a drama queen. It was the kind of character attack you do when you can't make a legitimate argument." Stasi said it flatly. "Most people in the local art community sided with Nadia, which probably made it worse for Sylvia."

"Did Drummond have access to the studio?" Miles asked.

"She had a key, for logistics purposes. Shows, pickups, that kind of thing. I don't know if Nadia ever got it back from her after the dispute."

Miles made a mental note of that and moved on. They spent another ten minutes with Stasi, covering ground that Pruitt had already mapped in her initial interview, and nothing new surfaced. When they had what they needed, Vic thanked her and walked her to the door. Stasi paused at the threshold, looked back at the studio for a moment, and then went out into the afternoon.

Pruitt came back inside and the three of them sat around the same worktable where they’d spoken to Stasi.

"Finch is the more interesting name, if you want my opinion," Pruitt said. "I spoke with him briefly during the initial investigation, before we had the ME's confirmation. He was cooperative but said he barely knew Nadia anymore. Not once did he mention the plagiarism dispute."

"What did you make of him?" Miles asked.

"Smart. Controlled. He chose his words carefully, which is not unusual when someone knows they're talking to a detective. But there was a quality to it that registered. I also found it a little odd that he didn't ask how she died."

Miles looked at her. "He asked nothing at all about it?"

"Not once. He expressed condolences in a general way and answered my questions directly. But he never asked what happened to her."

"And Drummond?" Vic said.

"I haven't spoken with her yet. She wasn't on my initial list because the dispute was flagged as a professional matter and I was still working an accidental death angle at that point." Pruitt folded her arms across her chest. "Now that it's homicide, she moves up."

"The key situation is worth following up on," Miles said. "If Drummond still has a key to this studio and access to Nadia's professional schedule, that's not nothing."

"Agreed," Pruitt said. "I can run down both of them tomorrow. Or today, if you want to move on it."

Miles looked at the shelves, at the bagged solvent container that Pruitt had logged into evidence. He thought about the chemistry involved, the specificity of it, the knowledge required to identify the right compound and the right concentration and the right delivery mechanism. You could have a grievance against a painter. You could have access to her studio. But to do what had been done to Nadia Ostroff, you needed to know what hexavalent chromium did to the body and how to introduce it into an environment without being obvious about it.

"Finch first," he said. "The chemistry background puts him ahead of Drummond."

"I'll set it up," Pruitt said.