Free Murder at the Falls by Stefanie Matteson Page A

with historic district status. See those windows?” She turned around to nod at the huge windows on the first floor of the gallery. “Each one is a slightly different size, which means a custom replacement, or close to it, for every single one.”
    “Sounds like the voice of experience speaking,” said Charlotte.
    “You bet,” she said. “Costly experience.” She sipped her drink thoughtfully. “Our last ray of hope was Don Spiegel. He was a Paterson native who had come home to roost. When he renovated the Gryphon Mill we all thought he would pull us back from the edge, and he nearly did. Our white knight; the big-name artist. But then he had the audacity to jump off the bridge and ruin it for us all.”
    “The observation bridge over the chasm?” asked Tom.
    Diana nodded. “It’s a popular jumping spot; very picturesque. New Jersey’s answer to the Golden Gate.” She looked up toward the bridge as if she were considering jumping herself. “His body didn’t come up for four months. That often happens. The bodies get tangled up in the old construction debris from the hydrolectric plant at the bottom. Being where I am, I have front row seats for the retrieval of corpses. The rescue squad lowers the boat into the river right up there.” She gestured toward the head of the street. “Though I didn’t have the pleasure of being a witness to that one, thank God.”
    Charlotte thought of the amount of decomposition that had taken place in Randy’s corpse after just three days, and shuddered at the thought of what Spiegel’s body must have looked like after four months.
    “But you wanted to know about Randy. Speaking of drowning victims,” she added with an ironic little laugh. “I used to represent him. When he was starting out. After he became successful, he abandoned me. Moved to the Koreman Gallery, on West Broadway in Soho.”
    “That’s where I originally saw his work,” said Tom.
    “Tell me, when you were talking with him about buying a painting, did he ever mention giving a commission to the gallery?”
    Tom shook his head.
    “I didn’t think so. If you keep quiet, he’ll charge you a reduced price, and you’ll both make out, right? Wrong. He would have charged you full freight anyway. He pulled the same stunt with my customers. Cheated me, and cheated them. After all I had done to promote his work. It takes a lot of energy to shape the reputation of a young artist, and he was an unknown when he came to me. Then he decided he didn’t want to be represented by a small-time gallery anymore. Actually, I shouldn’t complain. What he did to me is nothing compared to what he was doing to Mary Catherine Koreman.”
    “You mean by cheating her out of her commission?” asked Charlotte.
    “No. I mean by shaking her down. Extortion is the word, I believe.”
    “Extortion?”
    “Randy got a kickback for every painting the Lumkins bought from Koreman. The deal was this: if Mary Catherine didn’t fork over, he would use his influence with Xantha”—she contorted her face in an expression of repugnance—“to get the Lumkins to take their business elsewhere.”
    “Where they were willing to pay.”
    “You’ve got it. If you wanted to sell a painting to the Lumkins, you had to go through Randy. Mary Catherine has probably paid him tens of thousands of dollars over the past few years. I’ll tell you—the only person who ever made out in a deal with Randy Goslau was Randy Goslau.” She shrugged her lovely shoulders, which were set off by a gauzy sleeveless dress. “As you can tell, I’m not exactly brokenhearted that the conniving little creep is dead.”
    Recognizing his cue, Tom stepped in: “Who else do you think might have wanted to kill him?” he asked with a charming grin.
    Diana smiled. “Besides me, you mean? Believe me, if it had been me who killed him, I wouldn’t have just thrown him in the river. I’d have thought of a much more painful way to do him in. Having him keelhauled