A Fatal Appraisal (4 page)

Workmen wearing black
Hidden Treasures
T-shirts were
busy placing signposts, which would soon be used to direct the large crowds.
Doors wouldn't open to the public until Wednesday, but Molly was told by one of
the producers that the crew would use Monday for setup and Tuesday to film some
high-quality pieces from local antique dealers or established collectors as a
security measure.

"We can't have an hour-long show filled with
junk," the producer had scoffed over the phone a few weeks ago. "And
believe me, you'll see plenty of
that
. We have to make arrangements to
film a few
real
antiques ahead of time, just in case Local Joe doesn't
bring any."

Molly took out the
Hidden Treasures
ID badge that had
been mailed to her and showed it to a man creating a queue using brass
stanchions and velvet rope. When she asked for Victoria, he pointed down a long
hall leading off to the right. Passing by bright cloth banners depicting Civil
War medical instruments and a variety of weapons, Molly entered a large space
sectioned off into a collection of screened areas. It looked like a massive
beehive. In one of the white-screened areas, a group of cameramen was testing
the lighting. They studiously focused on the object before them—a woman in an
office chair. As the woman gracefully swiveled the chair around to face the
cameras, Molly recognized Victoria Sterling.

On television, Victoria always looked immaculately groomed.
Her ash blond hair was pulled back into a controlled French twist and her
subtle makeup drew attention to her catlike green eyes. Her thin frame was
always dressed in what Molly and her mother decided were the worst couture
suits available but at prices which undoubtedly left great dents in Victoria's
bank account. Molly could never tell if Victoria was tall or short as most of
her television shots were close-ups.

After getting the thumbs-up from the cameramen, Victoria
began recording a sound byte for the opening scene welcoming the viewers to
Richmond. Her rose-colored suit featured a white vintage blouse whose sleeves
poked out several inches beyond the suit jacket. The high neck rose in a series
of pearl buttons, opened to reveal an attractive cameo brooch made into a
necklace. A black and white striped scarf dangled from the suit pocket and gold
filigree drop earrings finished off the ensemble.

Molly sat down off to the side and waited while Victoria
repeated her lines a dozen times. Each repetition sounded exactly the same. The
famous television host looked utterly bored.

"That's a wrap, Ms. Sterling," one of the men said
and moved his camera off to a different location.

Victoria barely issued him a nod before turning to Molly.

"And you are?" she asked coolly, her green eyes
stagnant as an algae-covered pond.

"Molly Appleby, with
Collector's Weekly
."
Molly extended her hand.

Victoria slipped a limp, cold hand into Molly's and then let
it flop back down against her body like a dead fish. "Well, I guess I’ll
start by introducing you to the rest of our head appraisers."

Molly hustled alongside Victoria. She noticed that her host
was quite tall, almost six feet in fact, and strode forward with a quick,
decisive walk toward the middle of the massive room. With her toneless voice
and limp hands, she explained the layout to Molly. "This is where the
filming will take place. We'll select pieces from the Great Hall—that huge room
you first walk in after entering the building—and bring the pieces, along with
their owners, in here. The Great Hall is where the public will line up to meet
with the regular appraisers. Only head appraisers and their crews will be back
here."

As they approached another curtained section, Molly saw a
short, balding man with thin strips of greasy black hair combed over to form
the pattern of a garden rake, snap a latex glove onto his right hand. Frowning,
he pulled a respirator mask over his mouth and nose and bent over to examine
the back of a southern blanket chest.

"This is Frank." Victoria gestured languidly, as
if the effort of raising her arm was too much trouble. Everything about her
spoke of boredom and lethargy. "He's head appraiser for furniture."

"Hello." Molly offered a quick greeting, her eyes
glued to the lovely, dark brown patina of the blanket chest.
"Walnut?" she asked the masked man.

"Yes." Frank drew down his mask, a pleased look
appearing on his pallid face. He raised the lid of the chest and pointed to the
unfinished interior wood. "With southern yellow pine secondary."

"Of course." Molly smiled. "Is it
Virginia-made?"

Frank looked at the piece thoughtfully. "This is an
unusually deep blanket chest with an interior compartment for storage," he
began in a nasal voice, sounding exactly as he did on television. "The
compartment has a hinged lid with the original hardware. The blanket chest
rests on the original bracket feet. It is generally hard to find original feet
in good condition and without restoration." He paused. "I'd date this
piece circa 1830 and give it a provenance of western North Carolina."
Frank turned to Molly as if waiting for applause.

"Why the mask?" she asked instead of gushing her
approval.

"Oh! I have terrible, terrible allergies. I'm allergic
to so many things ... dust pet hair, pollen, peanut butter, milk—"

"Please, Frank. You are
not
allergic to
milk," Victoria interrupted crossly, finally demonstrating that she was
capable of human emotion. "You just
want
to be allergic to
everything and you aren't happy without some new
drama
, so now it's
milk."

Frank stood over the blanket chest and put his hands on his
hips defensively. "I am simply a sensitive person, unlike
some
people who could turn hot springs into ice."

 Molly quickly interrupted the pair before their argument
could escalate. She introduced herself properly to Frank and asked him to
remove the mask so she could photograph him with the lovely chest. Victoria
made a snort of disgust and walked away towards the cafeteria. Her purposeful
walk was incongruous with the rest of her mannerisms and she couldn’t seem to
get away from Frank fast enough.

So much for my guide, Molly thought.

"This is certainly a prime piece to photograph."
Frank gestured at the blanket chest, unfazed by Victoria’s swift departure.
"But I am going to start off my segment with a fabulous slant-front
pigeonhole desk. Would you like to see it?" he asked.

Molly nodded enthusiastically and Frank peeled off his latex
gloves and dropped them on the ground in repulsion. Kicking them repeatedly
with his feet as if they weren't dust-covered gloves but a pair of scorpions,
he managed to maneuver them away from the chest. He stuck his mask in the front
pocket of his brown pants.

'There are far too many English reproductions here in
Richmond," he said dismissively, leading Molly out of his cubbyhole.
"I hope the local viewers learn something from this show."

Frank led Molly behind another curtained partition to an
area cluttered with stands, bucket benches, cleaning materials, and unused
spotlights. Here, a slant- front desk was positioned on a raised platform
covered in gray carpet. Two men were rubbing the desk with soft cloths, pausing
every now and then to reapply dabs of wax to their cloths. Molly immediately
noticed how hot it was beneath the row of floodlights that the men had erected
in order to perform their tasks.

"Randy and Chris." Frank introduced Molly to the
men. "They're my cleanup crew. I simply can't get near a piece until
they've cleared off the dust and waxed it up. I can't tell you how many brands
of wax we went through until we found one I wouldn't have a reaction to."

As Frank droned on about his allergies, Randy, a short, wiry
man wearing a Nascar T-shirt with cutoff sleeves and black tattered jeans
rolled his eyes at his partner.

 Chris, a smooth-faced man in his mid-twenties with a
sculpted body and powerful-looking hands, returned Randy's judgmental look with
a shrug. Chris had shiny blond hair and aquamarine eyes that seemed so
unnaturally bright that Molly wondered if he wore colored contacts. She was
having a difficult time tearing her gaze away from the rippling muscles on
Chris's forearms as they carefully stroked the surface of the desk.

"Gorgeous, isn't it?" Frank asked expectantly,
watching the men work. Molly thought he was talking about Chris and she was
about to agree when she realized he was talking about the desk. Before she
could answer, Frank suddenly threw his hands in the air and snapped, "Rub
that evenly, Randy! It will look like garbage on camera if you don't rub along
the grain! How many times do I have to tell you that?"

Randy shot Frank a menacing look. "Oh, just quit for
now," Frank said disgustedly and shooed the two workers away. "Go
chew some tobacco or whatever it is you do when you're not waxing furniture so
ineptly."

A flush crept up Chris's neck as he dropped his cloth and
grabbed Randy's skinny arm, leading him away from Frank. Randy shot Frank a
look of pure venom before Chris was able to successfully maneuver his angry
coworker out of the exhibit area. Molly stared after their sweat-stained backs
in sympathy. There were some real divas in the antique world and it looked as
though
Hidden Treasures
had its fair share.

Relieved to have a distraction, Molly took a good look at
the desk. The base was comprised of four graduated drawers with brass pulls.
The center of each drawer had inlaid escutcheons made of delicate bone or
ivory. Molly pulled down the "slant front," which created an instant writing
surface when resting on the two slide supports, and drew in a breath. Opening
the desk had revealed a dozen shaped pigeonholes—the small caches carpenters
created in order for their patrons to store letters, ledgers, quills, or other
correspondence-related items. Some of these pigeonholes were simply empty
spaces meant for stacking documents and some were filled with small drawers
given the same inlaid escutcheons as the outer drawers.

"And can you believe it? I have the original set of
keys for the four drawers,” Frank whispered reverently. “Now, shall we talk
about this unbelievable wood?"

"It really glows." Molly was impressed. "Is
it cherry?"

"No. Black walnut with yellow pine secondary. See? If
we pull out a drawer you can see to the back." Frank removed two of the
top drawers. "The whole case is actually made of pine. Most southern
slant-front desks were made of walnut or mahogany, but this piece has the most
gorgeous lines. All original hardware, original escutcheons, and nary a major
repair in sight It's a killer piece. Probably Williamsburg made, circa
1780."

"No major repairs?" She arched her brows at Frank.
"I don't even see any minor ones. Can you show me?"

"Certainly." Frank preened. "There's nothing
noticeable, fortunately. Here's the first one." He pointed at die back leg
of the case. "Looks like someone broke off the bottom and replaced it with
a newer piece of wood. It's a good repair, though, and at least one hundred
years old, so it won't affect the value of this piece, which is
significant
."

Molly nodded, having no idea what Frank meant by significant
"And the second repair?"

"That's even older, I'd say," Frank answered,
sliding out one of the supports that held up the writing surface when the desk
was opened. "There's a square patch here, too. Not very big and it's got
almost the same patina as the desk. I can't imagine what happened to damage a
piece of wood that sits
inside
the body of the desk, but I guess we'll
never know."

"Any secret compartments?" Molly asked, intrigued.
Her experience at auctions had taught her that desks with pigeonholes often had
drawers with removable backs or sliding walls that revealed secret hiding
places.

A few years ago, Molly's mother, Clara, was examining the
lower drawer on a secretary desk she had purchased at auction to sell in her
antique shop. Clara's elbow had accidentally jarred into a rectangular strip of
wood set above a pigeonhole. The thin piece of veneer broke loose and fell to
the ground. Clara reached into the empty cavity to gleefully discover a signed
note by the maker of the desk, a well-documented carpenter from Georgia. In
that second, the piece of furniture she had just paid $2,500 for rose in value
to over $15,000.

"I haven't gone over it completely yet," Frank
said. "It was just delivered here this morning and now I'll have to wait
until those two clowns are finished prepping it. I simply can't take the dust.
However, I have a feeling that this piece is going to be the star of the show.
Shall we take some photographs of the blanket chest in the meanwhile?"

Molly followed Frank back to the niche where they had first
been introduced. She took out her digital camera and snapped a few pictures.
Although the blanket chest photographed beautifully, its warm, molasses-brown
patina glowing beneath the multitude of overhead lights, Molly had a difficult
time finding a "good side" to Frank. She could see that he had earned
his spot as a
Hidden Treasures
appraiser through his expertise, not his
looks.

The opposite might have been said for the next appraiser
Frank introduced her to. Tony the Toy Man was an adorable, energetic man in his
late twenties with a mop of brown hair, freckled cheeks, and wide, hopeful
eyes. He was just shy of six feet tall and was wound like a spring. He
practically leapt around the table to shake Molly's hand and as he did, a
cluster of dimples sprang into his rosy cheeks. He looked like a grown-up
Gerber Baby.

Molly spoke to Tony briefly before he excused himself to
unpack the box of toys he planned to open his spot on the show with. Suddenly,
she remembered that she had Officer Johnston's card in her pocket.