The Wrong Stuff (12 page)

Mathew Westman, according to the book titled,
The People's Craftsman,
was not only famous for his solid, well-made chests and cupboards but also for making decorative items like frames for mirrors and document boxes. He liked to try his hand at inlay as well as carving and was considered a dilettante by other furniture makers of his day. It seemed to Jane that he was a bit too curious and facile with his carving tools to be taken seriously.
Even back then, people seemed to insist on specialization,
Jane thought. It didn't seem fair to her. She still recalled the joy and stimulation that working on two vastly different accounts had brought her when she was at the ad agency.

The large beer company for whom she had produced two highly successful campaigns had insisted that she work for them exclusively and drop a smaller mom-and-pop account she had nursed along for years. When she had tried to explain to both the client and her boss that it kept her fresh to go back and forth, to take two paths, to reach into two different parts of her brain, they had laughed and told her she was being sentimental. The smaller account went to a creative director and account executive with much less experience. When her firm lost the account, no one seemed to miss The Carpet Pros. Jane took it as a personal blow. She could work
big
better when she worked
small
at the same time. And she had learned how to do what she did by working on The Carpet Pros's account. They had watched her grow from the new kid into a professional, and they had each respected their history together.

Of course Mathew Westman loved to carve frames and smaller objects. It allowed him to continue to learn. It honed his skills, kept him fresh, and allowed him to experiment. The book didn't exactly say that, but Jane figured it out.

The book did state that Westman's masterpiece, a set of heavily carved drawers with a kind of shelved cupboard on top, now known as the Westman Sunflower Chest, had been made for a wealthy family in Massachusetts and had been handed down through that family until it was donated to a museum in 1987. One other chest had been authenticated as a Westman and was believed to be an earlier version and was privately owned. There was wide speculation that a few other Westman chests survived; however, none had surfaced. The rumors seemed to be based on the belief that a prolific carver such as Mathew Westman would not content himself with only a few models. His early mirrors and other decorative pieces, including a group of ornate shadow boxes, followed in an extensive series, which showed a playful experimentation with design and balance.

The frustrating piece of information about Westman was that he'd kept no catalogue of his work—at least, none had been found. Only a few flyers with sketches from his workshop remained, so there was no way to actually pinpoint numbers of pieces and styles. The author did say that Westman was often quoted about building “good pieces for the people, not just the wealthy,” hence, the smaller items, the mirrors and whatnot shelves that were affordable to many.
Interesting distinction,
Jane thought,
that even then the wealthy couldn't possibly be “the people,” too.

Westman's son, James, showed promise as a carver and builder and was part of Mathew Westman's shop for at least six years. He grew ill and died while still a young man; and, according to this biographer, Westman, the father, never got over the loss of his son. Some of the pieces he built after that were apparently rejected because his carvings, which had always been incredibly realistic, became more strangely personal.

One family for whom he had carved a bed refused to keep it because of the faces carved into the bedposts. They described it as a scary sight, the eyes that peered at them in the night, and insisted that it be taken back. The rumor was that Westman had gone to their home and chopped the bed frame into pieces right in front of the whole family, hauled out the wood, and burned it all behind his own house.

The madness that seemed to overtake him in his grief might not have been good for business in his own day, but currently, any mirror or piece of furniture that had the feverish face of Mathew Westman's son carved on it was quite desirable. It would not fetch as high a price as a Westman Sunflower Chest, but any picker would be wise to study the carvings of son James's face and learn to recognize the Westman hand.

Jane, curled up in one of the leather chairs, felt the warmth of the sun from one of the high windows that surrounded the gallery loft but still shuddered. She had always believed, insisted to others, that every object told a story. Every crocheted pot holder, every tattered first edition, every Bakelite dress clip held a secret. Somehow, actually knowing the secrets of the Westman carvings did not satisfy her the way her own made-up stories did. There was a safety and an anonymous thrill in speculating on the life of an artist, a maker, a former owner of a now collectible piece. There was nothing safe about knowing the truth.

A piece of paper fluttered out of the pages of the book and sailed first up, then down and under Jane's chair. She closed the book and set it on the library table and got down on her knees to pick up the paper. Reaching under the chair, she felt the paper on top of something else parked there. Resting her head all the way down on the floor, she peered underneath the chair.

“Ear to the ground, nose to the grindstone, that's what I like about you, Nancy Drew,” said Tim, setting a mug of coffee down on the library table after locating a vintage-looking tile that was clearly marked
REPRO/SAMPLE
to use as a coaster. He had come in quietly, not to surprise Jane, but because the sound of his own footsteps might aggravate the pounding in his head.

“What size feet do you have, Tim?”

“Honey, I'm mighty hung over, so if you're playing some kind of mind game, I don't…”

“What size?”

“Eleven and a half,” Tim said, and flopped into the chair opposite Jane's.

She stood, pulling out a pair of well-worn Birkenstock sandals.

“It was a quick look and all, but I'd say Rick Moore was about your size. I looked at his feet because he had no shoes on and because, when everyone gathered around, it was all I could see.” Jane held up a sandal, then put it next to Tim's foot. “Pretty close,” she said.

Tim massaged his temples. “Common shoe size, and who cares anyway? What's it prove?”

“They're Rick's, all right. These are the Arizona sandals. I have them and so does Charley. The tan lines I saw on Rick's bare foot match up with the straps on these,” said Jane.

“Impressive, but I repeat, what's it prove?”

“That Rick Moore wasn't experimenting with solvents or standing too long in the ammonia tent. All those little hand-lettered signs around here? There are at least five downstairs that list the rules, which include number one, leave the windows open at all times and number two, heavy work shoes and socks must be worn in the work areas.

“Rick Moore was wearing Birkenstock sandals because he wasn't in the workshop; he was up here reading in the library,” said Jane. “And he got comfy in this chair by taking off his sandals and scooting them underneath.”

Tim sighed the sigh of a man too long at the Grey Goose and too soon out of bed. “I suppose you know what book he was reading, too,” he said, stretching.

“As a matter of fact, he was reading this biography of Mathew Westman,” Jane said, handing Tim the paper that had fallen out of the book.

If it was a real note, it was long on salutation and close and extremely short on content. It seemed like more of a doodle, a handwriting practice sheet.

It had been crumpled, then smoothed out. The note, or whatever it was, was unsigned.

Jane's everyday bag was an oversized leather tote that could hold a normal-sized purse plus a change of clothes—and maybe a lunch. On more than one occasion, it had also held Nick's soccer cleats and a warm-up jacket and a water bottle. Jane had no trouble slipping the book on Mathew Westman and what she believed were Rick Moore's Birkenstock sandals, Arizona model, deep into her bag. And in the small, zippered pocket, she placed the note she had found.

“Take care of it”? What was
it?
The fake Westman chest swapped with the real Westman? Was
it
the worry about Horace Cutler screaming his head off at the antiques show? Was Horace Cutler going to be taken care of? Permanently?

Jane looked at Tim shielding his eyes from the morning light streaming in through the high row of windows that surrounded the gallery loft. She would give him two minutes to recover, then she would need his help. Jane dialed Bruce Oh's number. No answer. She left a quick please-call-me-immediately message, feeling a little smug that she had actually said what she had meant to say and gotten it in before the beep. Only a beat later she realized she hadn't left her name, but she was pretty sure Oh would recognize her voice or be able to check caller ID or some new people-finding phone feature that she hadn't yet heard of. For god's sake, there was no anonymity left in the world at all; surely Oh could figure out who had called him and from where. Unless Oh didn't check messages at all because he was out looking for his wife, who might not have returned home last night.

“She's here,” said Jane. “I have got to talk to her.”

Tim groaned. Hangover or no hangover, she needed him to search Campbell and LaSalle. Dragging her heavy bag and Tim by the hand, she hurried him over to the lodge. No one was at the breakfast table, so she parked Tim in an armchair and rushed into the kitchen.

Cheryl looked up from a notebook where she was listing ingredients from a large cookbook propped up on the cooking island.

“Sorry to bother you, but my friend, Tim, needs a remedy quickly. Could I mix something in the blender?”

Cheryl shrugged and nodded, eyes back on her book. Jane helped herself to tomato juice, Tabasco, and an egg. Nellie's secret hangover ingredient—for Don and others since she never indulged—was usually unavailable, but this was a gourmet kitchen, stocked and loaded, so Jane took a shot.

“Any anchovies?” she asked.

Cheryl was now interested. She opened the cupboard and handed Jane a tin, which Jane quickly opened. She threw one of the salty strips into the blender with the rest of the ingredients and pulsed. She tossed in a few ice cubes and pulsed again. Sniffing the drink, she added a few more shakes of hot sauce, then poured it into a glass.

“Thanks so much,” Jane said, running water into the blender and replacing the pitcher of tomato juice in the refrigerator.

“What is that a remedy for?” Cheryl asked.

“Vodka,” said Jane. “My mom's recipe. She hates drinkers, but she owns a bar and plays nurse to a lot of customers the morning after. Says it'll kill or cure. I've never tried it myself.”

Jane smiled, thinking that the kill or cure part was probably what Nellie prized in this recipe. Knowing her mother, she was sure that Nellie would be just as happy to see it kill…well, just happy to see it kill.

Tim was desperate enough to drink it down with two aspirin and a B-complex vitamin that Jane fished out of her bag.

“What's in it?” Tim asked, wiping his mouth.

“Last night I saw Claire Oh's face in the window right out there,” Jane said, ignoring his question and pointing to the small windows flanking the front door of the lodge. “I think she's still here on the grounds somewhere. You have to find her.”

“What…?” Tim began again.

“I have to get into Rick Moore's cabin now. Murkel was talking to Roxanne, and something's simmering about him. Before it gets closed off to me, I have to get in there and see if I can find out what he was working on.”

Tim was still trying to figure out what Jane had made him drink, but somehow he felt a little better and decided maybe it was better not to know. In fact, she had told him it was Nellie's recipe and perhaps that was all anyone was supposed to know. He saluted her and headed out to cover the grounds.

Jane went directly to Rick's cabin.

Jane prided herself on being able to figure people out by their possessions. She wandered into estate sales, fingered the old clothes in the backs of closets, counted up sets of towels and sheets, peered into the back reaches of kitchen cupboards to find the mismatched glasses, the hidden talismans of everyday lives. Jane Wheel, completely at sixes and sevens in the housewares section of a department store, unable to make a single decision about a new purchase, could look around someone else's kitchen and tell you every item that was either well-used, well-loved, or merely kept out of duty and obligation. She often felt, standing in the middle of someone else's house, that she could step into their lives, inhabit their world, and pass for that person by simply slipping in among the objects. So why, in her own house, in her own life, did she so often feel like a stranger, an imposter?

When Nick was an infant and she took him shopping or for a walk in the park, she would often look over her shoulder, thinking someone would surely spot her and report her as someone posing as an adult, as a mother. She and Charley joked about it. They'd named it—this nagging fear and self-doubt—the baby inspector. “Watch out,” they would say, when one of them had forgotten to bring Nick's hat and a breeze blew up, “the baby inspector will see.”

She had outgrown this lack of confidence though; she was sure of it. Except for this recent little glitch of losing the field trip permission slip, she had done nothing in the past few years to warrant a visit from the baby inspector.

So why did she feel the hair on the back of her neck stand up when she slipped into Rick Moore's cabin? She was comfortable among the possessions of others, yes? She could assess his personality, his strengths and weaknesses, by what he'd kept, what he'd saved. And it was important to find out who he had been and what he had known. It might explain why he was dead.

There was a small worktable opposite the bed. Jane went over and sat in the chair that was pulled up to it. A leather portfolio, scuffed and worn, lay on the table. Slowly and carefully, Jane opened it. She actually laughed softly when she saw the first page. A list of paint colors, drawings of finishing brushes. What had she expected? Bats to fly out and announce who'd murdered Horace Cutler.

There was a small appointment calendar, a giveaway from a hardware store. Jane looked through it quickly. Dates of antique shows and flea markets were noted. The Chicago show where Horace had made a scene at Claire's booth was noted with the others. There was also a phone list in the back. At least forty dealers in the Chicago area alone—Horace and Claire among them—but nothing starred or underlined. What was Jane hoping for? A yellow highlighter marking victims? Victims of whom? What? Jane saw Tim Lowry's name listed and smiled. He'd be pleased that even though his business was officially in Kankakee, he had made it into the ranks of the Chicago dealers.

Jane noted that Rick's wardrobe was a definite Belinda St. Germain “Do” rather than “Don't.” In his closet he had two pairs of identical blue jeans, three plaid work shirts, a navy hooded sweatshirt, and on the floor, heavy work boots and a pair of beat-up, cheap running shoes—efficient and economical.

Something was missing here though. Jane had to sit again in his chair and try to feel what had made this man tick. No reading material on his bedside table; no photographs or knickknacks, even though he had occupied this cabin for a month or two at a time. He had lived on the very surface of this place, had barely made a ripple in the air in this cabin.

What had everyone said about him? A consumate craftsman and student of Blake's. He loved Campbell and LaSalle and yet, it appeared to Jane, he had hardly put any roots down in this spot. When Jane had walked into her guest cabin, she had felt it as so homey, so welcoming. One had to make an effort to make one of these guest rooms feel cold and sterile. Rick Moore had succeeded. This cabin had no personality. Where was he? Jane couldn't accept the fact that, even though he was dead, he didn't exist. She had known far too many people who went on long after they were gone, making themselves known by the pot holders they had crocheted or the photo albums they had tended.

Jane looked out the back window of the cabin. Unlike hers, this one had a back door. She stepped out and was struck by the fairy tale view. This was the Woods with a capital W. Hansel and Gretel could surely get lost there and emerge, tired and hungry, at Rick Moore's doorstep.
They wouldn't find much to nibble on here,
Jane thought, then somehow nibbling reminded her of breakfast and breakfast took her to Murkel's talk with Roxanne, and Roxanne's words sent her out the door and down the path that must lead to the access road.

There it was: Rick Moore's
real
home, a blue pickup truck with a camper top over the rear bed. Jane knew right away that this was where Rick lived. She opened the driver's side and felt the warmth of habitation. Piles of papers, books, a stack of restorers' catalogues, one devoted solely to hinges. On the passenger seat, a handmade, well-worn wooden box. Rick Moore's tools. Jane opened it as carefully as she would a jewelry box containing precious gems. At least a dozen brushes, some with only two or three hairs in them, it seemed. Carving blades, antique nails, crude, wooden-handled objects that Jane thought beautiful but utterly confounding. These must be the allowed tools, the ones that Blake and the others permitted their craftsmen to use when doing restoration work. A piece of paper was folded up in the bottom of the box, and Jane smoothed it out, half expecting to see old spidery penmanship and have the paper crumble into dust, but it was a contemporary page ripped out of a college-ruled notebook. On it was a hurried sketch of a young man's face—scary, creepy, a sad and haunted face. When Jane looked closer, she realized it looked frightening because it wasn't the sketch of a real person but a sketch of a carved face. Someone had drawn a detailed picture of a Mathew Westman carving, a carving of his dead son. The sketch was annotated with numbers and blade descriptions. It reminded Jane of a paint-by-numbers drawing. Someone had written meticulous instructions on how to carve a disturbed Mathew Westman face. Were they Rick's own notes on the carving? Or were they Rick's instructions from someone else?

Jane shoved the paper into her pocket. She would sort out who had instructed whom to do what later. She crawled into the back of the truck and flashed her narrow beam of light into the corners. She opened a small metal box and found some hinges, a few brass drawer pulls, and a few pieces of carved wood. Jane held them up close and smiled in spite of what they told her. It felt so good to see them again, to run her fingers over the wood, these beautifully carved petals…flowers identical to the ones that bloomed on Claire Oh's Westman Sunflower Chest.

Jane saw a large manila envelope marked
IMPORTANT
and grabbed it, crawling backward out of the truck. Flashing her light around one last time, she saw some clothes rolled up into a ball in the corner. They looked filthy, covered with paint or stain, and she noticed a drop cloth and rags on the same side of the truck. She didn't need to go through Rick's laundry just yet. It would be just as interesting and much less messy to read the contents of the envelope that he had marked important.

Jane brushed herself off and pulled out a sheaf of papers printed out from a Web site. The first page had a picture of a chair and a bold headline, but Jane didn't have time to read it. She heard voices and footsteps that were far too heavy to belong to Hansel and Gretel. Stepping in among the trees, she hoped she was as invisible as she felt.

Glen LaSalle and Scott Tailor stood in front of the truck, peering into the windows. Although they talked quietly, Jane could make out most of what they said.

“I don't like robbing the dead,” Scott said, “but Rick wouldn't want his tools out here, rusting or getting ripped off by teenagers coming out here to get high.”

“If that makes you feel better about what we're doing, by all means cling to it,” said Glen, sounding amused, “but no teenagers come out to Campbell and LaSalle to drink six-packs. It's two miles to the blacktop from here and only a few people even recognize this as a limited access road.”

Jane couldn't see their faces, but she tried to imagine Scott's expression. She didn't think he looked pleased. “Rick didn't have anything in his life but his work and those tools. They belong in the barn, not in some police evidence room or wherever those idiots would toss them.”

“Yes,” Glen said, “you're right about that.”

Jane heard them open and close the truck door, then heard their footsteps fade away in the direction they had come.

Two miles to the blacktop was too far for Jane to walk now. It would take too long and put her out on the highway too far from Campbell and LaSalle's main entrance. She would just have to wait a few minutes and take a chance walking back the way she had come. She needed to get back to see if Tim had found any trace of Claire. Perhaps she had lipsticked another note for them to find. Jane wanted more than a scrawled word or two now. If Rick Moore had been murdered, she needed to find out why—or how. She would settle for how since any of the big questions often led to the biggest answer of all—who.

Oh. The cell phone began its “Jingle Bells,” and Jane realized how lucky she was that it hadn't rung while Scott and Glen were standing five feet away from her at the truck. Nick would have to show her how to set the phone to vibrate and not ring. She thought she had done that, but now it vibrated
and
rang. She was afraid that if she tried to do anything else to it, it would light up and whine like a siren. She answered, sure that Bruce Oh had gotten her message and would be able to help her answer some pressing Claire questions.