Consigned to Death (19 page)

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Barney stood not far away, his back to us, near the boxes of art prints. He seemed absorbed in a conversation with Paula, the blond part-timer who preferred T-shirts with messages to the Prescott one, but wore it as instructed. Barney was probably trying to weasel the name of my art source out of her, but she couldn’t tell what she didn’t know, so that was no worry.

Turning back to Martha, I spotted Alverez half-hidden by a post near the mechanical toys section. I bristled. Alverez’s presence was more troubling than Barney’s. I glanced around, considering whether customers knew who he was and thought less of me because of his presence. I also wondered whether I should call Max and report his unexpected arrival.

Focusing instead on Martha’s nasty aspersions, I forced myself to smile. “Perhaps you didn’t see the word reproduction,’ ” I said politely.

“The price is too high!” she complained.

I tilted my head to really look at her. She was a pretty woman, tall and thin. Her very short, almost black hair was layered and suited her. It was unfortunate that her eyes were calculating, with no hint of warmth, and that her tone was always strident, never pleasant. She was eminently unlikable.

“Then don’t buy it,” I said, smiling a little, trying to convert her attack into a semipleasant interaction.

She was having none of it. “It’s not worth more than five dollars, and I wouldn’t buy it even at that price because it’s in terrible condition. And one more thing ...”

I listened to her for a moment longer, my attention drifting to Alverez who seemed to be watching me while pretending not to, and to Barney, still talking with Paula. I scanned the venue. There were about fifty customers, par for a nonholiday weekend at this time of day. I noted that Alverez had moved on to housewares and appeared to be interested in a stainless-steel bar set from the ’50s.

“Excuse me, Martha. Someone’s calling me,” I fibbed. I headed straight to Alverez.

“Hey,” I said, approaching him.

“Josie,” he answered. “Things look great.”

I felt the familiar tug of connection, the inexplicable chemistry we shared, but ignored it. “Interested in barware?”

“Not really,” he answered, grinning.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, not smiling.

“Isn’t this open to the public?” he asked, gesturing broadly.

“Yes, but that doesn’t answer my question.”

He paused. “That’s the only answer I have to give you right now.”

“Should I call Max?” I asked.

“Why? Because I came to a tag sale?”

“Don’t play with me. I’m upset.”

“I can tell you are, but I’m not sure why.”

“Oh, never mind. I have work to do.”

I glanced back over my shoulder as I walked away. He stood watching me.

“Hey, Eric,” I said, joining him at the cash register. Only Eric and Gretchen were authorized to haggle or accept money. And me, of course. Our standing policy was that dealers who were known to us or who had proper bonafides got a 10 percent professional courtesy discount, but that we didn’t offer discounts to consumers. As closing time approached, however, we’d been known to bend that rule, especially if we had the opportunity to move hard-to-sell inventory, like mismatched china or undistinguished volumes of old books.

A part-timer was wrapping each piece of a six-part set of Sandwich glass in old newspaper and I noted with mingled pleasure and pride that there was a line waiting to pay.

“I can help you here,” I called to the next person in line. As I wrote up the sale and scanned the bar code on the 1970s silver-plated tray, a real bargain at four dollars, I looked back toward the furnishings area, and was pleased to see that Martha was gone. Paula was helping a customer, so I guessed that Barney had left with Martha. I noted that Alverez was nowhere to be seen either. Confirming that all three were gone made me feel good, empowered somehow, as if I’d succeeded in chasing them away.

 

 

With both the tag sale and auction preview under control, I went back to the office to talk to Gretchen. She was on the phone when I arrived, and eavesdropping, I was pleased to hear her tell Roy, one of our best pickers, that he should come on by now.

“Roy?” I asked, when she was off the phone.

“Yeah. He says he has some interesting books.”

“Good,” I said. “Have you made a copy of the Grant tape yet?” I asked. As policy, all tapes are to be copied immediately—just in case.

“Yeah. All done.”

“Make a copy for Sasha, okay?”

“You got it.”

“And these,” I said, pointing to the ledger-page copies that Mrs. Cabot had left with me. “Make a copy for each of us, and keep this with the file.”

“Okay.”

“Also, keep an eye on Eric,” I said. “He had a little queue a minute ago at the checkout line. If it gets busy, you may need to help him.”

“Sure thing.”

“I’m going up to my office,” I told her. “Buzz me at one if I’m not down by then, okay?”

“Should I bring you a sandwich?”

Since we provided food for the staff during public events, and Gretchen would be coordinating distribution, bringing me a sandwich would serve two purposes—her delivery would alert me to the time, and I’d be certain to get something to eat. Gretchen, my caretaker, at work.

“Good idea,” I said.

 

 

As soon as I got upstairs I called Max and got him on his cell phone. I could hear street noises in the background, a horn blaring, and, in the distance, a siren. I wondered if he was out and about running errands with his children.

“Max,” I said, “a couple of things.”

“Okay. I’m ready.”

“Mrs. Cabot has hired me to appraise Mr. Grant’s estate before sending the goods to auction in New York.”

“What do you think of that?”

“I think it’s a great opportunity.”

“Good, then.”

“She thinks I can get into the house tomorrow. Can you check for me? Or should I call?”

After a pause, Max said. “I’ll do it. I’ll call Alverez.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. What else?”

“Could you ask him if they inventoried Mr. Grant’s possessions, and if so, how it compared to Mrs. Grant’s ledger? In other words, is anything missing?”

“I’m making a note. Okay. Anything else?”

“Well, it was kind of funny, but ... Chief Alverez was here just now.”

“Where?”

“Here. At the tag sale. Looking at stuff.”

“Did he say anything?”

“He acted like he just was at the tag sale for the tag sale. But I didn’t believe him.”

“I’ll ask him about it when I call him.”

“Thank you, Max. One more thing. Did you ever ask Epps about who inherited from Mr. Grant?”

“Yes, the daughter and granddaughter—a fifty-fifty split. Didn’t I tell you?”

“I don’t think so. It doesn’t matter. I was just curious.”

“Well, anyway. Yes, I asked him, and yes, they split it all.” Confirmation. I allowed myself to relax a notch, relieved to learn that Wes had told me the truth. And it occurred to me that maybe, if one thing he reported was true, so too was everything else.

 

 

I turned on my computer, and when it had booted up, I went directly to the Web site where I’d learned that Mr. Grant’s Renoir was stolen. My heart pounding with anticipation, I entered “
Apples in a Blue Bowl with Grapes
” and “Cezanne” in the Web site’s search engine, and felt no surprise when, within seconds, the listing appeared.

I leaned back in the chair and read the brief description. According to the site, the painting had been the property of the Viennese collector and businessman Klaus Weiner and his wife, Eva, who were forced to sell it in 1939 to pay the “Jew tax” imposed by the Nazis after the Anschluss of 1938. The site asked that anyone with knowledge contact a man named Jonathan Matthews, a trust officer with the Imperial Bankers Trust, a private bank in Dallas, and promised a no-questions-asked $1 million reward for the painting’s safe return.

I opened a bottle of water, thinking about the ethics of offering a reward for the return of stolen goods. Wouldn’t that simply encourage more theft? I shrugged and dismissed the thought as irrelevant. Rewards had been offered and accepted for the return of lost or missing items forever. “I’ll cross that bridge if and when,” I said aloud, then added, “Not my issue. At least, not right now.”

I turned back to the computer and typed in “Matisse” and “
Notre-Dazzze in the Morning
.” Another hit. According to the site, it had been owned by the Rosen family, who had lent it to a small museum in Collioure, a French village on the Mediterranean, in 1937. In February of 1941, the curator reported it stolen along with seventeen other works. No explanation of the museum theft was given. The contact was listed as Michelle Rosen. The address was in the sixth arrondissement in Paris.

Three paintings, three stories of loss. And starting tomorrow, I’d have free rein to search for the two that were still missing. I couldn’t wait. I felt an exhilarating excitement and wished I could head over to the Grant place now. But I couldn’t. I took a deep breath and forced myself to think instead of act.

One decision I had to make was what to tell Sasha—and when. Another decision was to create a protocol for our work. Just as cleaning a house required an answer to the question
When is it clean enough
? so too did research demand an answer to the question
When do you know enozcgh
? Sometimes I consulted a specific number of sources. Sometimes I aimed to achieve a certain depth of information. Other times I insisted on answering particular questions. No one approach was best for all circumstances. I needed to determine what was best in this situation. And I needed to figure it out before we began or we’d waste time and energy.

I was eager to get under way, yet I felt anxious, too, fearful of what I might learn as I examined the Grant antiques for clues about the missing paintings, convinced that if I found the art, I might also discover a secret that had led to Mr. Grant’s murder.

T
he day was a success. At the auction, everything sold, and we beat our estimates; several people told me they were impressed, including a woman who made an appointment for an appraisal; and Bertie, from the New York Monthly, looking for fodder for her article on scandals in the antique business, learned nothing.

The tag sale went well, too. Revenue from sales was flat, but three people invited us to make offers on selling miscellaneous household goods to spare them the hassle of running yard sales. Anyone in the antique business will tell you that buying is tougher than selling, and the search for quality goods is constant. So to have opportunities to acquire inventory was all that was needed to transform a good day into a megawinner.

Max called around seven that evening, just as we were getting ready to close up.

“I finally reached Alverez,” he said.

“And?”

“And it’s okay for you to go to the Grant place anytime.”

“That’s great.”

“He mentioned that they’re maintaining a loose patrol, so if you’re questioned, it would make your life easier if you had some kind of written permission on hand.”

“I have a letter from Mrs. Cabot.”

“Good. Go ahead and fax it to me, and carry it with you. Moving on ... I asked him about the inventory.”

“And?”

“And everything is accounted for except two things. You’ve seen Mrs. Grant’s ledger, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then you know about the Cezanne and the Matisse?”

“Yeah, I saw.”

“Well, those are the only two items missing.”

I was prepared for the news. So far, Wes’s source, whoever it was, was batting a thousand. “Pretty amazing, huh?” I said.

“Just a little,” he said dryly.

“Yeah.”

“Also, I asked him about being at your place today.”

“And?”

“And he said he went to your tag sale because he likes tag sales.”

I paused. “Did you believe him?”

“Sure, why not? I like tag sales, too. And you should see my wife.”

“I don’t know ... he just doesn’t strike me as a tag-sale sort of guy.”

“Well, whatever his reason was, I wouldn’t let it worry you.”

“Okay,” I said, willing to stop discussing it, but unconvinced. “Any other news? Did he indicate they’re making progress on the investigation?”

“No news. He said they’re still following up on several promising leads, whatever that means.”

“What do you think it means?” I asked, not liking the sound of it.

I could imagine Max’s shrug. “Probably just what it says. That he’s following up on several promising leads.”

The phrase “following up on promising leads” chilled me. Somehow, the wording sounded ominous.

We agreed to talk on Monday after I’d been through the Grant house, or sooner if I needed him. His rock-solid support was an enormous comfort to me. I pictured him sitting in his suit and bow tie, his brow furrowed as he listened, and I wished I was nearby to touch his elbow, to thank him for helping me navigate this unchartered sea.

As I hung up, Sasha came into the office.

“We’re all set,” she said, looking exhausted.

“You did a great job, Sasha,” I told her.

“Thanks,” she answered, blushing, her awkwardness at being complimented manifesting itself in a quick hair twirl.

“New project,” I said, changing the subject.

“Oh, yeah? What?”

“The Grant goods. We’ve been hired by Mrs. Cabot, Mr. Grant’s daughter, to verify, authenticate, and value the contents of the house. You and I will work together, but you’ll be doing most of the research.”

“That’s great!” she exclaimed, her eyes blazing at the prospect, exhaustion a thing of the past.