CHAPTER ELEVEN — THE APPRAISER’S CHOICE
Arthur Fenwick arrived at the interview carrying a leather briefcase and an expression of professional irritation.
He had spent thirty years authenticating instruments for collectors, museums, and insurance companies.
He recognized several instruments from the warehouse photographs.
“Those were offered to me for examination,” he said.
“Did you know where they came from?” Ortiz asked.
“A broker claimed they were being liquidated after the closure of a private music academy.”
“Which academy?”
Fenwick opened his briefcase and produced a brochure.
The academy’s name appeared beneath a photograph of a concert hall that had actually been demolished eight years earlier.
Fenwick stopped speaking when Ortiz pointed out the discrepancy.
“I should have checked,” he admitted.
“Yes,” Ortiz said.
“You should have.”
She asked whether he had paid for any instruments.
He acknowledged purchasing two violins, then produced bank records and correspondence with the supposed broker.
The investigators could determine what those records proved later.
For now, Fenwick agreed to contact the collectors to whom he had offered the instruments.
He also identified the man who delivered them.
The man used the name Vincent Marsh, but a photograph revealed Gideon Price.
“He wore a beard then,” Fenwick said.
“He also told me he was an estate administrator.”
At the same time, Price appeared unexpectedly at the East Vale warehouse.
He had apparently learned that the leased unit was being searched, although investigators had not publicized the location.
A uniformed officer spotted him at the far end of the loading area, watching evidence trucks through a wire fence.
Price backed toward his vehicle when he realized he had been recognized.
Officers approached and directed him to stop.
He turned and ran across the adjoining gravel lot.
The pursuit lasted less than a minute.
A locked maintenance gate blocked his path, and he surrendered when officers reached him.
There was no dramatic collision or violent struggle.
Price’s decision to return to the warehouse, however, demonstrated how desperately he wanted control over the recovered property.
Ortiz interviewed Price after his arrest and after he had been informed of his rights.
He denied building a trap in Daniel’s backyard.
Ortiz showed him photographs of the boards, cable, and hook as they had been found.
He claimed he had installed a temporary barrier to keep an animal out of the pool.
“What animal?” Ortiz asked.
“A stray dog.”
“Why install it underneath the water?”
Price did not answer.
“Why send Raymond to approach Isabel at a bus stop?”
“He went there on his own.”
“Why tell Carol to arrange the boards before noon?”
“You should ask her.”
Ortiz closed her notebook.
“We have asked her.”
She told Price that Andrew had described their argument, that technicians had identified missing instruments in his cargo, and that the East Vale lease records connected his business to the storage unit.
Price requested an attorney, and the questioning stopped.
The case would proceed through evidence, witnesses, and court rather than a confession that conveniently explained everything.
