The Wrong Stuff (7 page)

“What about you? What's your field?” asked Jane, not sure if that was the kind of thing one was supposed to ask at Campbell and LaSalle.

“I'm a secretary,” Roxanne said with a smile.

Jane tried not to look surprised or skeptical.

“Really, I am. I also paint a little, and I'm trying to write short stories. My degree is in art history. But I keep the books, do the mail, assign the cabins, hand out the keys, answer correspondence. That sort of thing. Actually, I guess I'm more like a cross between a concierge and a head counselor.

“And every couple of years, I get engaged to Blake,” Roxanne said, smiling, “whether I need to or not.”

“Are you now?” asked Jane, trying to imitate Roxanne's teasing tone.

“I don't think so,” said Roxanne. She looked down at her left hand. There was a pale circle around the left finger of her otherwise tanned hand. “I think I took the ring off a few weeks ago. I can't remember if it was because of a project I was doing or if it was because Blake disappeared into himself.” She shook her head. “When he becomes immersed, he doesn't even remember his own name, let alone mine. Makes me feel foolish to be wearing an engagement ring.”

“Sounds like a difficult relationship for you,” said Jane.

“Sometimes, but as long as there is Campbell and LaSalle, the entity, to attend to, I keep busy. As long as I can immerse myself, I can spare the genius every now and then,” said Roxanne. She smiled and patted Tim's arm, who was back with his treats. “Anyway, I'm glad you're here, just sorry about the business with Rick.”

Roxanne helped herself to a truffle and quickly named the people in the room for Jane. She had just finished when a commanding, husky voice boomed out.

“We'll gather at eight then?”

Jane turned to see the long-haired woman, whom Roxanne had referred to as Martine when she'd given Jane the rundown, addressing the group at large. Martine turned and walked out, her hair hanging down like a cape across her shoulders.

“Martine's a poet. She's also studying to be…” Roxanne broke off and looked over toward Blake and Glen, who were deep in discussion. “I'm sorry. I should find out about calls I'll have to make. I'm not sure I ever heard Rick talk about any family, but there must be someone I'll have to talk to.” Roxanne squared her shoulders. “Martine is going to lead a life celebration for Rick at eight here in the great room. Dinner will be at nine-thirty. Hope it's not too late. We always keep a more European clock,” Roxanne said, smiled, and glided over to Blake and Glen, pulling a small tablet and pen from her pocket.

Jane thought she looked like one of the elegant house servants on
Masterpiece Theater. She should be wearing a big ring with keys and tools for keeping the castle running,
Jane thought,
like a head housekeeper or headmistress or…

“Your lips were moving,” Tim said. “Put this in your mouth so you don't give yourself away.”

“As what?” Jane asked, taking the éclair and doing what she was told.

“Junk picker in hog heaven. When your lips move, you want something. It's your tell. I've told you a million times you give yourself away.”

“What do I want here?” Jane asked.
Besides Roxanne's hair,
she thought, but didn't say. She looked around. The furniture was vintage Arts and Crafts, the paintings, the candlesticks, the pottery, everything everywhere you looked was stunning. But it was also perfectly placed. Nothing could leave. It was impossible to want to take anything away from this setting.

“Nothing,” she answered herself. “Reading Belinda is working.”

“Liar, liar,” said Tim. “You want plenty. You want the biggest thing of all.”

“Yeah?” said Jane, wiping her mouth with one of Campbell and LaSalle's fine monogrammed napkins. “And what might that one thing be, smarty pants?”

“Answers.”

Yes, Jane supposed she did want answers. Was the chest Claire Oh had shown her the same one she had brought to Campbell and LaSalle? Was it, or one of them—if there were two—or some part of it, authentic Westman? And how many questions was that anyway?

But something else nagged at her. As a picker, as a detective, as a wife, as a mother, as a friend, as a woman, she had to face a fairly huge question. Had she become cold-blooded, coldhearted? What was it about Campbell and LaSalle that had allowed her, encouraged her, to consume and enjoy an elegant high tea one hour after finding the body of a dead man?

No, Jane wasn't sure she wanted answers. Well, yes, eventually she did. But as she had told Tim, the most important thing was to figure out the right questions.

“Trying to sound like Guru Belinda or Yoda?” Tim had asked.

Now, settling into her simple, yet elegant quarters in one of the small visitor's cabins, she tried to sort out her current calendar of events. Claire Oh had been so certain of the chest's authenticity when she'd first found it, when she'd brought it to Campbell and LaSalle. Why, then, was she so quick to believe it was a fake when she saw it again? Despite the drawers and dowels and patination and all the false things she had pointed out about it, she still stared at it, stroked its carvings…she still believed in it somehow. That's what was so puzzling. And if all those signs of forgery were so obvious…?

Of course, it was so obvious. Jane jumped up out of the mission rocker provided as her casual chair and dug through her bag to find her cell phone. The first time she dialed Oh's number, the phone went into “roaming” and clicked off. She walked to another corner of the room, turned her head, spun around, and dialed again. This time it went through. She smiled to herself. Tim made fun of her movements with her phone, called it “the cellular ballet,” but it worked, her voodoo with electronics. It was her only weapon against the avalanche of new products and wireless wonders that flooded the market monthly. She might not understand them, but she could woo them.

“Oh,” Oh answered.

How could Jane break him of that disconcerting habit?

“It's Jane Wheel, Detective Oh. Is Claire around? I have a question,” Jane said.

“Resting, but I'll…”

“No,” said Jane. She paused. If she was going to be any kind of detective, she would have to get over this self-effacing, shy, don't-want-to-bother-anybody attitude.

“Actually, it is important and I'm not sure I'll be able to get through later. There's a memorial service and a late dinner and I…” Jane stopped when she thought she heard a click on the phone. “Hello?”

“Who died?” asked Claire.

“I thought you were sleeping, Claire,” said Oh.

“I heard the phone. Who died?”

“Rick Moore, a woodworker, painter, everything guy who was here as a guest artist, and I found him…”

“Mrs. Wheel, you didn't find another body?” asked Oh. Jane thought she heard a small sigh.

“Rick?” said Claire.

“You knew him?” Jane asked.

“He was a regular up there. I knew them all,” Claire said.

There was a click, and Jane wasn't sure who had hung up.

“Hello?”

“I'm here,” said Oh. “Claire hung up.”

“Here's what I want to know. Claire showed me all the evidence that the chest was phony: those drawers fitting too well, the machine cuts. They were so obvious, why didn't Claire notice them right away? Before delivering the chest to Horace Cutler's gallery?”

“Good question,” said Oh.

“I'll give you one answer I came up with: because she didn't want to see them. When you spot something that you think might be the real thing, the genuine article, sometimes you stop yourself from seeing everything…”

“Yeah,” said Tim, who had walked through the screen door from his adjoining cabin, “historical blindness.”

“Yes,” said Jane.

“What?” asked Oh.

“Sorry, Tim just walked in. It is a kind of blindness. You want so much to be the one who found the Revere candlestick or the Meissen teapot or the Faberge egg…”

“Or Tiffany lamp or authentic Galle,” added Tim.

“Right,” Jane said.

“What?” asked Oh.

“Stop talking, Tim, it's confusing,” Jane said. “Detective Oh, if Claire fell deeply enough in love with the chest, believed it to be a Westman chest, it's possible she could have missed something; but now that I'm at Campbell and LaSalle…”

“Right,” said Tim. “You're absolutely right.”

“Yes,” said Jane, beaming.

“I'm sorry, Mrs. Wheel, but I'm missing something,” said Oh.

“Campbell and LaSalle would not have missed anything on this chest. They would have authenticated it or exposed it or whatever it is they do when they consult or evaluate. No one here would have missed the kind of things Claire pointed out to me,” said Jane. “Someone would have told Claire that it was a nice, old, well-carved piece, with some new parts added or whatever, and they would have asked her how much she wanted done on it, as a piece of furniture. They wouldn't have authenticated it as a Westman chest unless they believed it was one.”

“Did they?” asked Tim.

Jane looked at him blankly.

“Was it delivered to Horace Cutler?” asked Tim.

“No, Claire said she drove up here and picked the chest up herself and brought it to Cutler. His assistant signed for it, and she didn't see him again until that night at the charity show.”

“When Claire picked it up, they must have gone over the work with her, showed her what they did. No one here would have missed anything like the joins in the drawers,” said Tim.

“She was in a hurry to get back for the show that night. She had been on the road since before dawn. Maybe, in her hurry, she just had them load it…”

“Janie, would you not want to see it? Your baby? All put together, all dressed up?” asked Tim.

“Mrs. Wheel,” said Oh. It was the loudest Jane had ever heard him speak.

“I'm so sorry,” Jane said into the phone, “I got lost talking to Tim.”

“I am still missing something,” said Oh.

Of course he's missing something—everything. His wife either really missed the boat, or she deliberately tried to pass off a fake to Horace Cutler. Jane was trying to figure out how to present this to Oh as a kind of nonjudgmental, hypothetical question or comment.

“We need to look at the papers, the research, or recap of the work done at Campbell and LaSalle,” said Jane.

“Damn. Keys,” Oh said, not exactly directly into the phone.

“What?” Jane asked, thinking that it was the first time she had ever heard him use a four-letter word. Damn counted as a four-letter word, didn't it?

“…what I'm missing,” said Oh.

“I'm sorry, I'll fill you in on what Tim and I were talking about,” said Jane.

“Not now, Mrs. Wheel. What I'm missing at the moment is my wife,” said Oh, “and quite possibly, yes, damn it.”

“Detective Oh?”

“My wife and her car are gone, Mrs. Wheel,” said Oh. Then, remembering his impeccable manners, “May I call you back later, please?”

“I didn't even get to the other possibility,” said Jane, holding the now silent cell phone. Claire might have been blinded to the problems of the piece, but what if she wasn't. What if she had just decided to fake it?

“Tim, maybe Claire knew the chest was good and old and almost good enough and got somebody to patch it up…”

“‘We at Campbell and LaSalle' do not patch…”

“Wasn't Rick a carver? Didn't Roxanne or Mickey say he was a carver? Maybe he was in on some…”

“Didn't you hear Oh? Case closed,” said Tim.

Jane looked around the small cabin. Gorgeous wood floors with a small, hand-hooked rug on the side of the iron bed. There was a featherbed and a down comforter and several plump pillows. The bathroom was small but perfectly equipped. A row of pegs on the wall held large white towels, and a hunk of handmade soap was threaded through a piece of braided twine. There was even a petite fireplace, kindling and wood in a brass bucket on the terra-cotta apron; and in case more mood lighting was required, there was a row of fat beeswax candles along the oak mantel.

“It's like a honeymoon spot,” Jane said, shaking her head.

“The proximity to the neighbors might cramp some people's style,” said Tim.

Jane looked out the wooden screen door. A small porch held three rockers and a wooden lounge chair. Directly across the porch was an identical screen door leading to a twin of Jane's cabin. Tim assured her that his was equally charming.

“The details are their trademark,” said Tim. “I'll bet that soap-on-a-rope thing was some craft project at their school, and they even grew the frigging hemp.”

“When did you start saying ‘frigging'?” asked Jane.

“About the time you did, when you pointed out the lyrics to some of the rap Nick was singing along to. Is that it? Singing along with rap? Or do you rap along with rap?” Tim asked.

“What did you say?” Jane asked.

“My name is Timmy L., and I'm here to say,” Tim began in his best gangster voice.

“Before. Why did you say the case was closed?” Jane asked.

“We got the ex-cop's wife / going on the run / she knew the chest was fake / and she got herself a gun.” Tim seemed to be trying to dance, but he looked more like he had been bitten by a poisonous insect.

“Shut up, Tim,” said Jane. “It's not that simple.”

“Let's hear it,” said Tim. “Let's hear you complicate it, babe.”

“We're talking about Claire Oh, who herself is a respected dealer. If she knew she had a fake, even a good fake, why would she try to pass it off on Horace Cutler? That's the hitch there. If she was going to be crooked, why not go to a customer who trusted her and would pay her the money and never question the authenticity? And more important, why go to all the trouble and expense of bringing it through the university of fine wood here at Campbell and LaSalle just to substitute another chest? Why not just have some guy in Chicago do it, who would just fix it up and follow her orders?

“And the time frame is another thing,” Jane said, sitting down on the bed. She had packed only six items in her suitcase, having accepted the “essential packing challenge” in chapter 3 of Belinda's book, so was already settled in her little cabin.

“Claire picked up the chest here and dropped it at Horace's place, then went home, showered, changed, and made it to the antiques show on time. There was no time to stop anywhere else, to make a switch, to stash a big piece of furniture. And that's another thing,” Jane said, bouncing on the bed. “She drove up alone. She couldn't have done anything with that piece alone. It's way too heavy for one person to move.”

“How much was the appraisal? How much did she sell it to Horace for? What was he charging?” Tim asked.

Jane shook her head.

“It's not an exact science or anything, especially since there hasn't been one on the market. There are only two and one is in a museum, so”—Tim said, looking as if he were running a calculator behind his eyes—“I'm guessing a big American piece like that could go as high as two hundred thousand dollars if there was enough buzz generated in advance.”

“You know what's bothering me more than anything?” asked Jane.

“That you didn't bring pajamas?” Tim asked.

“Couldn't work them into my six. I really wanted to bring this sweater. I've got a silk undershirt on I can sleep in. In fact, I layered a lot since she didn't say…”

“Spare me those details and tell me what's bothering you more than anything.”

“Right. It's the ties,” said Jane.

“How will I know when you get Alzheimer's? Will you tell me how I'm supposed to know when you actually stop connecting the dots?” Tim asked, throwing up his hands.

“Even though I had never met Claire Oh before, I liked her because of those ties she buys for Detective Oh. You know the ones, the bowling pins, the Dr Pepper bottles, those great old novelty ties she finds at sales.”

Tim nodded.

“That said something to me about who she was, what kind of person she was. I mean, she found great ties and she got him to wear them,” Jane said.

“I expected to really like her, maybe be a little jealous because she obviously is so much higher on the picker food chain than I am; but still, I expected her to have a sense of humor, a sense of, I don't know…whimsy or something.”

“And she was flat,” said Tim.

“As a pancake,” said Jane. “She was as snobby and ordinary as any dealer, as…”

“As Horace Cutler, probably,” said Tim. “He was a piece of work. All fake-almost-Oxford sounding, even though he came from Iowa or someplace.

“I don't think I've met the real Claire yet. Something's going on with her that's got Oh puzzled, too. I would bet…,” said Jane, stopping when she heard a gentle knock on the cabin door.

The rumpled policeman who had introduced himself at the “gathering” before teatime poked his head in. “Hey, you're both here; that's great,” said Sergeant Murkel. “Sorry it's taken me so long to get over to talk to you.”

“I did give a statement to someone before tea,” said Jane.

“Yes, yes, I saw that, but I just had a few more questions, a few loose ends to tie up,” said Murkel.

Jane nodded. She didn't know everything about police investigations, but she certainly knew about loose ends. They were practically her specialty.

“Mrs. Wheel, why did you say you were up here at Campbell and LaSalle?”

“I didn't,” said Jane. “I wasn't asked. But I'm happy to tell you. Tim has several pieces up here, and he's training me in the antique-dealing business, so he thought it was time I saw where good furniture goes to be reborn.”

“Unfortunate you had to be the one to find Mr. Moore.”

Jane looked at Tim. She knew it was only a matter of time. She was about to be punished for relishing that tea. She was going to have to admit that she had a knack for finding dead bodies: Bakelite, McCoy, bodies—practically her specialty, too.

“Yes,” said Jane, “I wanted to ask you about that. Do you know exactly how he drowned?”

“Drowned? Who said that?”

“You did. At the lodge. And he was facedown in the water when I found him,” Jane said.