The Glow of Death Read online

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  This is for Joe.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. While there is a Seacoast Region in New Hampshire, there is no town called Rocky Point, and many other geographic liberties have been taken.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Hank, my Maine coon cat, pranced over to say hello. I wedged the phone receiver between my ear and shoulder so I could pat my lap. He jumped up.

  “It’s a mystery,” Edwin Towson said on the other end of the line, his voice confident and urbane. “Grandma Ruby swore her mother never mentioned owning a Tiffany lamp.”

  “I don’t know whether we’ll be able to figure out how it ended up in your great-grandmother’s attic, but for sure we can determine if it’s genuine.”

  “That’s all I’m asking. I’m leaving for Europe in the morning, but Ava will be around. She’s home today if you have time to get started right away.”

  “Perfect. Are you interested in selling the lamp?”

  “I haven’t thought about it. The urgency has to do with insurance. If it’s an actual Tiffany, I need to get it covered.”

  I thanked him for the opportunity, grabbed my tote bag, and rushed downstairs. A Tiffany lamp!

  Hank trotted beside me as I jogged across the warehouse toward the front office. I pushed open the heavy door. Hank came along.

  Fred, one of Prescott’s antiques appraisers, was on the phone, discussing Chippendale-style furniture with a curator in Virginia. Sasha, our chief appraiser, was out on a call—Victor and Sue O’Hara were downsizing, and I’d just signed off on her recommended bid for the lot. The O’Haras planned on making a decision within a week or two, probably in early July.

  I sat at our guest table and invited Hank onto my lap for a pet-pet. While I waited for Fred to finish his call, I gave Hank a cheek rub. Jowlies, I called it.

  Fred replaced the receiver in its cradle, pushed up his super-cool, black square-framed glasses, and said, “You win some. You lose some. Looks like all we have is a good repro of a Chippendale chair.”

  “Emphasis on the repro,” I said.

  “Exactly.”

  All in a day’s work, I thought. “I bet I can cheer you up. I just got off the phone with a man named Edwin Towson,” I said, glancing at Cara, our grandmotherly receptionist. “Husband of Ava, who is a friend of Cara’s.”

  “Ava and I are in the same book club,” Cara said. “She’s a lovely woman.”

  “What does Edwin do?” I asked her.

  “He runs an investment company. I don’t know much about it.”

  “Towson?” Fred said. “They’re big in renewable energy.”

  “He wants us to appraise his Tiffany lamp.”

  Fred’s eyes communicated his skepticism. “Everyone thinks their pretty stained glass lamp is a Tiffany.”

  “True.” I smiled, my sassy one. “Still … you’ve got to admit that it’s a nice way to start a Monday.”

  “One of the best.” He leaned back, lacing his hands behind his head, and grinned. “In fact, you ought to let me take charge of the appraisal. I know how busy you are.”

  I chuckled. Fred was an antiques snob, disdainful of mere collectibles. A Tiffany lamp was right up his alley. I wasn’t going to turn over the job, though. As part of Prescott’s Antiques & Auctions protocol, we video-record all objects before we begin the authentication process. I like to do as many of the recordings myself as I can. It’s a good way for me to stay on top of the business.

  “That’s awfully thoughtful of you, Fred,” I said, ever the diplomat. “I’ll get us started, and we’ll see after that.”

  Gretchen, Prescott’s office manager, sat at her desk, smoothing out the red, white, and blue star-decked bunting we hung every year on every window a week before July Fourth. I asked her to fax over our standard contract and rattled off the number Edwin had given me.

  While we waited for him to sign and return the contract, Fred asked, “What’s known about the lamp?”

  “Nothing before it was found wrapped in an old army blanket, packed in a trunk in Edwin’s great-grandparents’ attic. That was in 1983 when his folks cleaned out the family house after his great-grandmother died. No one had ever heard of it or seen it before, and everyone who might know about it was dead. When they found it they assumed it was a knock-off. Everyone did, including Edwin and Ava.”

  “What happened to change their minds?” Fred asked.

  “My TV show. They watched the episode of Josie’s Antiques where I talk about how the colors in a Tiffany lampshade change when the light is on, how it glows. Their lamp does that, so they figured it was worth the appraisal fee to find out what they have.”

  “Completely credible,” Fred said, intrigued. “How about receipts or letters or insurance policies from before they found the lamp. Do they still exist?”

  “No. Edwin went through everything himself after his dad died—boxes of papers from his grandparents and great-grandparents. There was nothing that referred to the lamp.”

  “No surprise,” Fred said.

  “Is that a problem?” Gretchen asked, listening in, her emerald eyes focused on Fred’s face.

  “It’s helpful to have proof of provenance,” Fred explained, “which as you know is a documentary record of ownership, from manufacture or creation to today—but we rarely do.”

  “How come? If I bought a Tiffany lamp, I’d sure as shooting keep the receipt.”

  “Maybe it was a wedding gift,” I suggested.

  Gretchen laughed. “And they didn’t like it, so they stashed it in the attic.”

  The fax machine whirred to life.

  “That was fast,” Gretchen said, taking the sheets from the paper tray. She checked that Edwin had signed and dated the agreement, smiled, and said, “You’re good to go.”

  I gave a small air pump. “Excellent!”

  I had Eric, Prescott’s operations manager and jack-of-all-trades, load my trunk with packing material. Tiffany lamps were fragile, so delicate, in fact, that only a small percentage had survived the hundred-plus years since their creation. Those that did were culturally and artistically significant, scarce, and popular, a hat trick of value.

  Fred was correct—people always thought their pretty stained glass lamps were the real deal, but usually the lamps were among the legions of excellent reproductions on the market. As I walked to my car, warmed by the strong June sun, a trill of excitement sped my pace. What Fred neglected to mention was that sometimes they were right.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Towsons’ waterfront mansion sat at the ocean end of a cul-de-sac in the ritzy Garnet Cove section of Rocky Point, a private community surrounded by a two-hundred-year-old fieldstone wall and an ancient forest. I drove down empty streets, past deserted manicured lawns. Mingled with the roar of thundering surf were sounds of distant fun—laughter, splashing, and music, some too-loud hip-hop from near the end of the block, and a dissonant
jazz tune I didn’t recognize from across the street.

  The only person I saw was a woman kneeling in the garden of the house to the left of the Towsons’. She waggled her hand, and I raised a palm acknowledging her hello. She looked to be about seventy-five. From the small wrinkle lines on either side of her mouth, I suspected she’d spent a lot of her life laughing. She wore a raspberry pink visor, a seashell pink T-shirt, and bright turquoise capri pants. Very snazzy.

  To the right of the house, a knot of bushes and ferns melded into a dense thatch of woods. The fieldstone wall that separated Garnet Cove from the rest of Rocky Point was barely visible through the lush summer growth. I parked in the driveway behind a red Mercedes sedan. The vanity plate read MYLV. Sweet, I thought: My Love. As I made my way to the stoop, I counted three chimneys. The shutters and front door were painted a rich colonial blue that went well with the mellowed red brick. Beds of yellow and white flowers, thimbleweed, St. John’s wort, and petunias lined the walkway. A red maple stood in the middle of the lawn, its crimson leaves luminous in the early summer sun. Neatly organized patches of white and lavender phlox carpeted the ground. Stands of lilac and forsythia, their blossoms long gone, their leaves verdant and full, separated the Towson property from the one next door.

  The door opened before I reached it. An elegantly dressed and coiffed woman greeted me with a cool hello.

  “I’m Ava Towson,” she said. “Thanks for coming so quickly.”

  “You’re more than welcome. I’m eager to get started.”

  She led the way across the expansive entryway, a soaring space almost as big as my first New York City apartment. Ava exuded wealth and assurance from the tips of her Gucci horsebit loafers to the top of her expertly cut blond-highlighted hair. Her sterling silver cuff featuring an olive leaf cutout pattern was, I was certain, a Paloma Picasso original. Her tortoiseshell eyeglasses had Chanel’s interlocking C’s logo near the hinge, a perfect frame for her cornflower blue eyes. I saw a flash of diamonds when she moved, teardrop earrings mostly hidden by her hair.

  “How are you holding up in the heat wave?” she asked.

  Three days in a row over ninety degrees, an anomaly for New Hampshire.

  “It makes me wish I was at the beach.”

  She smiled politely. “Me, too.”

  I followed her into the living room, decorated with an appealing mix of modern furniture and antiques. My eye was drawn to a still life framed in gilt, a pair of ornate silver candlesticks on the mantel, and a magnificent Victorian walnut and rosewood hinged chess table in the corner.

  The painting showed a red table against a gold stucco wall. A stack of unremarkable books sat on the table, and a tarnished silver goblet filled with half a dozen paintbrushes of various sizes was perched on top of the books.

  “That’s striking,” I said, pointing at it. “Is it a William Nicholson?”

  “You obviously know your art. Is that a specialization?”

  “My taste—and so our business—is diverse. I value beauty and craftsmanship in all their forms.” I turned toward the chess table. “Like this table … it’s fabulous.” The top was narrow, only about a foot wide, and flanked by two side pieces. “Are there drawers?”

  “Yes, one on either side, for the chess pieces. The flaps lift and swivel. When the top is in place, it’s an oval.”

  “It’s spectacular,” I said.

  “Thank you.”

  I paused, transfixed by the view. An undulating expanse of hundred-year-old lawn led to an appealing welter of lady ferns, purple Canterbury bellflowers, and lavender mistflower, their leaves and blossoms glimmering in the sun. Frills of whitecaps and opalescent sequins dotted the midnight blue ocean.

  “Wow,” I said.

  “Some people take views like this for granted. I never do.”

  “I could stand here all day.”

  “Me, too.” She laughed, a pleasant, high-bred tinkling. “But duty calls. Please have a seat.”

  I sat on the ivory twill sofa; she chose a pale blue and grass green club chair angled to one side.

  A professionally groomed apricot toy poodle lay curled like a comma in a basket by Ava’s chair.

  “This sweet thing is Eleanor,” Ava said, bending over to pat the dog’s head. Eleanor sat up, her tail wagging furiously. “Eleanor, this is Josie.”

  “Hello, Eleanor,” I said.

  Eleanor gave a chirpy yelp, then settled down and curled up again.

  Ava stroked her back. “She’s old.”

  “You wouldn’t know.”

  “She’s a good girl, aren’t you, Eleanor?” She sat back in her chair. “Edwin and I enjoy your TV show.”

  I flushed, disconcerted, as always, at acclaim. “Thank you … so … as far as you know, no one has ever had the lamp appraised. Is that right?”

  “That’s correct. I’m not even sure what’s involved in an appraisal.”

  “It’s a two-step process. First we authenticate the object. Then we assess its value.”

  “And you can do that even though we don’t know how the lamp ended up in the attic?”

  “Many antiques lack provenance. People don’t expect an object to gain value, so they don’t keep records. Things get lost. Life isn’t a business, after all.”

  She smiled, pleased. “Would you like to see it?”

  “I’d love it.”

  “It’s in the study.” She stood. “This way.”

  The study was attached to the far side of the living room, accessed through French doors.

  The walls were painted celery green. The carpet was gray. The curtains featured green ferns against a lavender background. Bookshelves lined the inside walls, with the books, mostly modern firsts, artfully arranged for show. And there, next to a dark green leather club chair, perched on a mahogany end table, was a Tiffany-style wisteria-patterned lamp.

  “Yowzi,” I said.

  “I’ll take a ‘yowzi’ at first glance as a good omen.”

  I extracted my iPad from my tote bag. “There’s no way to tell if it’s a replica until we examine it. Some astonishingly good fakes have been on the market for nearly fifty years. That’s why appraising a purported Tiffany lamp is one of the most complex challenges we face.”

  “But you will be able to tell, right?”

  I grinned, my feisty one. “Oh, yeah.” I walked to the back of the table, assessing the object from the rear. “You don’t see many of them out in the open.”

  “We like to use it, and the housekeeper knows not to touch it.” She fixed her eyes on the lamp. “I heard some Tiffany lamps have sold for more than a million dollars.”

  “That’s true. A wisteria lamp similar to yours sold for one and a half million not long ago. Others have sold for even more, but that’s probably a fluke—a specific buyer with unlimited resources determined to acquire a specific lamp.”

  “Like a drug kingpin.”

  “Or an oil mogul.”

  “A million dollars,” she said, her eyes on the lamp. “It’s hard to believe.”

  “Keep your fingers crossed!”

  She held up crossed fingers. “What happens now?”

  “The first step is creating an annotated video recording of what I see.”

  “Will I be in the way if I listen in?”

  “Not a bit.”

  I measured the lamp’s height and the top and bottom diameters of the lampshade. I asked Ava to pick up the lamp, squatting so I could measure the base’s diameter. I tapped through my apps and brought up the video recorder we’d had configured for our specific needs.

  “We video-record all objects before we remove them for appraisal,” I explained. “It’s all part of documenting provenance. Here we go.” I tapped the START button and held the device steady. “I’m in the Towsons’ study. This is a Tiffany-style table lamp, twenty-six and three-quarters inches high. The bottom diameter of the shade is eighteen inches.” I stated the other measurements. “It has irregular upper and lower borders. The u
pper aperture is the typical openwork crown designed to showcase tree branches. The branches on the shade are dark.” I leaned in for a closer view. “Dark brown. The wisteria blossoms are formed of intricately cut pieces of variously shaded purple glass connected by what appears to be solder. The coloration shifts from pale lavender to deep purple, through the use of what appears to be confetti glass. Specks of various hues are visible to the naked eye.” I paused the video and lifted the lamp. Genuine Tiffany lamps were made of hollow bronze tubes, filled with lead. It was appropriately heavy. I turned to Ava. “Would you hold it for me sideways? I want to record the base bottom.”

  “Sure,” she said.

  I inspected the bottom carefully, using the miniflashlight I kept attached to my belt, then had her readjust her grip so her hands wouldn’t show in the video and reactivated the recorder.

  “On the base bottom is a stamp reading ‘Tiffany Studios New York,’ followed by the numerals one-eight-one.” I paused recording again and smiled at her. “Thank you. You can put it back on the table.” I waited until she got it situated and backed away before continuing. “The base is designed to look like a tree trunk, with irregular patterns of grooves and nubs resembling bark.” I gazed at the lamp, wondering if I’d missed anything, then nodded, satisfied that I hadn’t, and saved the video. “I think that’s it. We’ll let you know as soon as we have news.”

  “You said earlier that you thought you could complete the appraisal in a few days, right?”

  “God willing and the creek don’t rise, as the saying goes.”

  I uploaded the recording to Dropbox, then IM’d Gretchen to prepare a receipt and attach the form authorizing me to use the lamp on my TV show.

  I brought my tote bag out to my car and returned with a lamp box, padded blankets, and bubble wrap. Ten minutes later, Gretchen e-mailed the documents.

  Ava read through the two pages. “I’m not comfortable allowing you to film the lamp or appear on camera with it.”

  “That’s fine. We often film an antique at our location, but of course, if you’d prefer that I don’t use the lamp at all, that’s okay, too. Your husband said you hadn’t discussed whether you want to sell it, but if you ever do, the fact that it was featured on my show should boost its sales price.”