A Killer Collection (9 page)

"I read that they call that
fur 'Cole slaw' in the pottery world. All those little pieces of clay."

"Are you saying that my hair
looks like slaw?" Kitty asked, pretending to be insulted.

Molly smiled, and then pointed to
the figure of a poodle with tons of curled clay fired in a white glaze. Kitty
showed her a shelf of silly, smiling face jugs, and the women touched the chips
of broken dishes that formed the rows of teeth.

"Shall we proceed?" she
asked Kitty.

Except for the bathroom, the final
room in George- Bradley's wing was a large sunroom with windows overlooking three
different views. Walking over to the sparkling glass,  Molly was granted a view
of an immaculately landscaped pool complete with outdoor bar and tables with
umbrellas. Beyond the pool she could make out a tennis court nestled in a grove
of mature oaks.

"Bunny must've come with a
lot
of money," Kitty observed, in a loud, singsong voice.

"Kitty!" Molly scolded.
"Hush!"

The windows directly in front of
them overlooked the slope of green lawn leading down to the drive. A gardener
was busy weeding one of the beds. His broad back faced the windows, and though
Molly couldn't see his face, his muscular arms and baseball cap gave the
impression of both strength and youth.

The furniture in this room was
simple. There was a long, pine church pew running beneath the windows along the
longest wall, an antique music stand, and some kind of wooden box on a side
table. Molly moved toward the box and gingerly lifted the lid.

"Kitty, look."

The women stared down at an old
windup music box. Beneath a glass window, five brass bells waited to be rung
out by five silver birds whose beaks would delicately peck at them, creating an
accompaniment to the song played by the rolling cylinder dotted with raised
notes.

"Do we dare?" Molly
asked, gazing in wonder at the tiny birds.

"We do," Kitty answered
and carefully pulled up the crank that would wind the box.

"Just crank it one or two
times, so we can hear a few notes. We don't know how loud it's going to
be."

As they watched the cylinder begin
to move, the women held their breath. The music began. It was like nothing
Molly had ever heard. Sweet notes like trickling water tripped along with the
resonating chimes of the birds striking the bells. The sound was light and
high, yet reverberated within the depths of the wooden box, creating an echo.
It was the music of fantasy, of rain falling on the pond's skin, of a butterfly
bursting from its chrysalis in silence of the night. It was the hypnotizing
language of fairies, of dragonflies.

Lex and Clara couldn't deny the
pull of the music, and the four stood like statues as it moved through them.
Molly looked above the box and saw that several old instruments hung from the
walls. There was a trumpet, a clarinet, and a flute. On the opposite wall hung
a banjo, a tambourine, and a violin.

When the music stopped Kitty
whispered in awe, "For such an unpleasant person, he sure had some
wonderful things."

"Professor Plum, with the
wrench, in the Music Room," Lex joked to lift the serious mood, his gaze
falling upon the old instruments. No one got his joke. "Clue?" he
said. "Remember the board game? Oh, forget it."

Undeterred, Clara explained that
the shelves covering the back wall were divided into two sections. One half
contained the pottery of Jack Graham and face jugs and churns by C. C. Burle. The
second set contained fragile roosters by a Georgia family of potters called the
Meaders and ovoid jugs from Edgefield, South Carolina.

Encased in glass, one large jug
stood aside from the others.

"What's this?" Molly
asked her mother.

"That, my dear, is a piece of
pottery created by a black man known as Dave the Slave. It's only worth about
twenty thousand dollars!”

"Wow," she said picking
up an Edgefield crock. "What are these orange stickers on the bottom of
each one?"

"Looks like inventory
stickers. He must have a master list stored somewhere around here," Clara
said.

Molly moved over to the shelves
containing Jack Graham's pottery. She immediately loved his work. His vases
were small and elegant, fired in crimson reds and deep blues. There were also large
vases with wider mouths and fluted rims. Some were swirled in browns and
coppery yellows, but others were glazed a cobalt blue and covered with white or
yellow drippings. He made large bowls with glazed snakes inside, spiraled and
dotted with red curly tongues. Molly reached up and drew down a blue vase with
wide shoulders that rose up to a thin, graceful neck.

"Mom," she breathed,
"his work is amazing."

Clara watched her daughter's eyes
glow in wonder, turning over the vase she held.

"There's nothing like it—to
fall in love with something another person loved to create."

"I can sense it," Molly
said softly, feeling a little embarrassed. "I can tell what he put into
this piece. It’s like his hands are still moving over it."

"I told you," Clara said
triumphantly. "Once you've got the bug, you can't go back. Kiss all of
your money and your sanity goodbye! Lex, I think you'll have a new bidder at
your next sale."

Molly turned the vase upside down
and a small piece of paper fluttered to the ground.

"Looks like a portion of a
newspaper article." Molly stooped to retrieve the scrap. "It's been
highlighted."

"What does it say?"
Clara craned her neck over her daughter's shoulder as Molly proffered the
article. It read:

E.M.—Now, I know
you don't make human figurals, but how about animals?

J.G.—No. I stick to
pieces I can make by turning.

E.M.—Do you ever
think you'll make a figural in the future? How about an experimental cat or a
horse?

J.G.—No, I'll leave
those for the more talented potters out there. I just never had the notion to
make anything off the wheel.

E.M.—Well, if you
ever made one I'm sure it would be exceptionally valuable.

"E. M. must be the
interviewer and J. G. must be Jack Graham," Molly said. "I wonder why
George-Bradley kept this." She then began to examine the bottom of the
vase she held. Jack Graham had signed his initials instead of using a metal
stamp like most of the other potters. He had also scraped a number into the
unglazed clay.

"What's this number?"
she asked her mother.

Clara took the vase from her
hands. "That's the kiln number. There are fifty to seventy-five pieces of
pottery that survive each kiln load. This is an early one. He made this piece,
put the number in the clay, and fired the kiln for the fifth time."

"Fifth time ever?" Molly
wondered how long ago that was.

Clara nodded. "Yes, from the
time he began numbering pieces. I think he made a few kiln loads without
numbers first, before he really began selling as a full-time potter. He started
off as a welder."

"And he quit his job to make
pottery? Did he have any experience?"

"No, he just loved it. It
didn't run in his family like it did for most of the other potters. He just
tried using the wheel one day and knew he had to learn. Remember what C. C.
said, that he had to make pots whether people bought them or not."

Kitty stood over the music stand
and thumbed through the large black book that had been resting on its polished
surface.

"Hey guys, I think this is
the inventory book." She offered it to Lex.

Lex looked over the book's
contents. "OK," he said holding it out to them decisively,
"first thing we do is make sure all these pieces match with the
descriptions recorded in this book. George-Bradley has added details about
every piece down to what riverbed

the clay came from, so we already
have a great start for the catalogue descriptions."

"When will we pack this
up?" Kitty asked.

"We only have a couple boxes
in the van. I wasn't prepared to pack today. I'll come back on Monday with the
big truck and some guys to get it all at once."

"Let's start in the office
and work our way back," Clara suggested.

As Lex read from the inventory
list, the three women located the pottery and he checked each one off with a
pencil.

"Number 3124. A Ben Owen
ovoid vase in red glaze."

It should have been easy to find
the pottery. The ware was grouped together by maker, the shelves were labeled,
and each bore an orange inventory sticker.

"Not here," Clara said,
reexamining the shelves. "Maybe he has some upstairs."

"Maybe it's mixed in with
some of the other pieces in the other rooms," Kitty offered doubtfully,
checking again on the bottom shelves.

After looking through two rooms,
including closets, the group discovered that three pieces were missing from
George-Bradley's collection.

"Onto the music room,"
Lex directed.

Checking off from the list, Lex
announced that a small Meaders rooster, a Jugtown teapot, and a Northstate vase
were missing. That made six pieces in total from the mixed collection.

"Didn't Bunny say all of
George-Bradley's saleable items were in this wing?" Clara asked.

"That's what I
understood," said Lex.

Molly reviewed the descriptions of
the pottery from the inventory book. "They're all smaller pieces,"
she noticed.

"Maybe they're getting
repaired," Kitty suggested.

"George-Bradley was very
particular about his pottery," Clara dismissed the notion. "He'd
never need to have a piece repaired. He only bought pieces in mint
condition."

"Unless the cleaning lady
chipped them," Kitty persisted.

"I think George-Bradley took
care of cleaning the shelves himself." Lex pointed to a feather duster
hanging from a hook on the side of one of the shelves. "Those six pieces
have to be somewhere else in the house. When we're done with the Jack Grahams,
I'll ask Bunny."

The Jack Graham collection was as
orderly as the rest. George-Bradley had one or two pieces from every firing
from number 1 to number 42. That piece was a long- necked pitcher called a
Rebecca pitcher. The next piece, number 44, was a simple, brown shoulder vase,
probably the only piece in the collection that seemed to lack personality.
Piece number 45 was identical.

"Where's number 43?"
Kitty asked.

Lex frowned over the book.
"He doesn't have it written down."

"He has every kiln number but
that one?" Clara was surprised.

"Must have missed that
sale." Lex shrugged. "Let's write a quick list of the furniture and
then head out."

"Good, I'm starving,"
Kitty whined. Lex put his arm around her waist and gave it a squeeze. As he
began whispering endearments in his wife's ear, Clara cleared her throat
loudly.

Unabashed, Lex gave Kitty a kiss
on the check and declared, "Lunch is on me, ladies. We'll have one of our
IHOP specials."

Dreaming of crepes and bacon,
cheeseburgers and fries dipped in ranch dressing, and huge glasses of sweet
tea, the foursome got back to work.

They finished taking inventory
quickly, driven by hunger and Lex's anxiety to return to the auction gallery to
pick a date for what would likely be one of his finest sales.

"Let me find Bunny to tell
her we're done for today."

"Don't forget to ask about
the six pieces of missing pottery, sweetie," Kitty reminded her husband,
blowing kisses at him.

"Oh, I won't, sugar
pie," he said sweetly.

Clara rolled her eyes in disgust.

Back in the main hall, the group
listened for any stirrings in the rest of the house. The door to Bunny's wing
was slightly ajar, so Lex pushed on it while giving a cautionary tap.

"Mrs. Staunton? Ma’am?"

He knocked a little louder. The
sounds of a woman's voice floated out to them. Bunny spoke, and then there was
a pause, then she spoke again.

"She must be on the
phone," Molly deduced. "I'll just poke my head in and give her the
hand sign that we're leaving."

No one else wanted to go, so her
offer was readily accepted. Truth be told, Molly just wanted a peek of the other
half of the house, knowing she wouldn't be back for Lex's subsequent visits.

She entered the spacious living
room, wincing at the bright yellow wallpaper and heavy flowered curtains,
getting a glimpse of two plush green chairs facing a yellow- striped sofa
strewn with embroidered pillows in yellows, pinks, and greens.

The overdose of color propelled
her forward into the hall, but not before she noticed the wedding portrait over
the mantel. It was Bunny and George-Bradley, radiant with happiness and expectation.
Bunny was gazing at her new husband with a look of pure adoration, a look that
Molly had trouble imagining on the present Bunny's face. There were also a
dozen photographs lining the mantel. They were all of a happy Staunton couple,
taken over a space of twenty years.

Bunny's voice was coming from the
furthest room, the one mirroring George-Bradley's music room. Before Molly
could announce her presence, Bunny's angry words cut through the air.

"But that is
simply
ridiculous!" she yelled in frustration, emphasizing every word. "I
told you, he took his insulin
every morning before breakfast
. He took it
that morning and I would know because I gave it to him!" There was a pause
as the caller spoke. "He would fill the syringe and hand it to me. No, I
don't know how much was in it. I never looked."

This was followed by another pause
as Bunny listened to the reply. Molly didn't know where to turn. Her feet were
rooted to the ground, curiosity overcoming good manners.

"Look, my husband was very
predictable. First the shot, then some coffee, a glass of freshly squeezed
orange juice, three eggs over easy, and four pieces of bacon. Every morning for
ten years. He hated giving himself the shot and I certainly didn't mind giving
it to him. After all, I am his wife," Bunny added in a defensive tone.