Antiques to Die For Page 5

  Time passed, seconds probably, but it felt like minutes. I heard nothing. Soon Tricia would return and find me huddled in a corner like a wounded animal. I began to feel foolish. I edged my eye around the corner of Tricia’s desk and peeked. From my kneeling position, I had a clear view of Rosalie’s cubbyhole.

  The door was open and the lights were on. Gerry was standing motionless staring at her desk. I followed his gaze and gaped. Rosalie’s old brown leather tote bag, the one she always carried, sat on top of her desk. I fell back on my heels, my brain reeling.

  That explained how her diary ended up in Gerry’s office. Rosalie must have returned to Heyer’s at some point after our lunch and after she took Paige back home—and somehow left her tote bag behind.

  This morning, Edie must have breezed into the office and spied it. When Tricia stepped out for a cup of coffee or to use the rest room, I thought, she took the opportunity to sneak a peek. Finding the diary would have only taken moments.

  I felt suddenly breathless, desperate to get away. I stood up and took several calming breaths. “Hi, Gerry,” I said.

  “Jesus, Josie!” he exclaimed, swinging around to face me. “You scared the shit out of me.”

  “Sorry. I’m heading over to Ned’s office to hang the Sharp,” I said, referring to the desert scene that Gerry had just bestowed on him last week.

  “It’s okay, doll,” he replied, grinning. “Good. Go make Ned’s day.”

  His stint at the police station didn’t seem to have hurt him any—he didn’t merely look none the worse for wear; he looked cocky.

  I didn’t hesitate—I wanted to be out of there before Gerry spotted the full extent of Edie’s destruction. I selected a screwdriver, mounting filament, and level from my toolbox, and eased the painting out from behind the credenza.

  The Joseph Henry Sharp oil was exceptional, and a perfect choice for Ned. Last week Gerry had told me to get Ned something special. “Like what?” I’d asked.

  “Buy him a beauty,” Gerry told me with a wink. “He likes Western art. Ned’s got no self-esteem ’cause no one takes him seriously, no matter how much aristocracy he has in the family, but he’s a helluva CFO, so this’ll give him a boost. Spend fifty, sixty thousand. You know, not too much, not more than you spent on things in my office, but enough so he feels the love. You got what I’m saying, doll?”

  Quite a boost, I’d thought at the time. The painting was rare. At auction it would have fetched something over $60,000, so Gerry got a bargain when I sold it to him for $55,000.

  Ned’s office was on the far side of the building, diagonally opposite Gerry’s, and almost as large. I nodded to his secretary, a middle-aged woman I knew hardly at all, and stepped into his room.

  Ned’s desk was positioned kitty-corner to the entranceway, facing both the door and the windows. Two credenzas provided nearly eight feet of flat surface, all of it covered, mostly with stacks of files. At one end was a nice repro of a Remington cowboy.

  I scanned the walls, considering where it would be best to hang the painting. In addition to a few simple desert scenes, Ned had an interesting collection of arrowheads mounted on linen and framed in rustic pine; a cuckoo clock in the form of a log cabin, with a grizzly bear that popped out to strike a triangle with a metal rod to mark the time; and a necklace of bear teeth strung on a frayed leather thong, which was probably worth a small fortune if it was real. I approached the necklace for a closer look. While I was admiring the artifact, the bear sounded the quarter hour. I smiled. His clapper struck hard and the brass reverberated.

  “Where are you thinking of hanging it?” Ned asked, nodding toward the small oil painting.

  My heart skipped a beat—I hadn’t heard him come into the room. “It might look good there,” I said, pointing at a space on the wall across from the arrowheads, above the cowboy.

  He shrugged and I couldn’t tell if that meant he didn’t like my choice or didn’t care. I didn’t know him well enough to read his signals. Mostly what I’d observed was that he always had something quick-witted and mean to say.

  “Was there someplace else you’d like?” I asked.

  “Can’t make up your mind, huh? Just like a woman.”

  “What?” I asked, ready to protest the absurd comment.

  “Just joking,” he said with a grin that never reached his eyes.

  I turned away, irritated. I hated it when people said that. “So?” I asked. “Is that a yes?”

  “You’re the expert,” he said, shrugging and sitting behind his desk. “You tell me.”

  “Okay, then,” I said. “Over the cowboy it is.” I wiggled a freestanding coatrack aside. “Nice coatrack,” I said. “Ponderosa pine, right?”

  “How’d you know?”

  I smiled saucily. “After years of experience appraising hundreds of objects, you too will be able to identify wood at a glance!”

  “Everyone’s got to be good at something,” he said dismissively.

  I didn’t respond to his cutting comment. Instead, I moved his knob-handled walking stick to the far side of the room and began the careful process of measuring.

  Ten minutes later, I asked him, “What do you think?”

  He looked up and smiled, sincerely this time. “It’s a beauty, isn’t it?”

  I followed his gaze. Big sky country, I thought. The artist used a complex layering process to evoke the rough beauty of a land that never seemed to reach the horizon.

  “It sure is,” I agreed. I looked at the Remington repro depicting a weary cowboy. “You’re a fan of Western art, I see.”

  “Thanks,” he said as if I’d complimented him.

  “How did you get into it?” I asked, packing up my tools.

  He shrugged and smirked. “From when I was a little tyke. I collected those myself,” he said, pointing to the arrowheads.

  “They’re nicely mounted.”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed, but he didn’t speak.

  “See you later,” I said.

  As I walked to my car, I called Tricia. “Tricia, it’s Josie. A quick question—was Rosalie in the office yesterday afternoon?”

  “No, why?”

  “Her tote bag is there. On her desk.”

  “So it is,” she said after a short pause. “That’s odd, isn’t it?”

  “Could she have popped in while you were on break?”

  “I wasn’t gone from my desk for more than a minute or two all afternoon. I was working on Gerry’s board report.”

  “I’ll tell the police,” I said, thinking that since Rosalie would have had to use her key card to gain entry, the police would be able to tell if she’d stopped by.

  “Okay,” she agreed. “I’ll make sure no one disturbs it.”

  I told her I’d be in touch, then stared into space for a long time, mystified.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I

  called Ty as soon as I was in my car and got his voice mail. “Ty,” I said, choosing my words carefully, “I’m just leaving Heyer’s and I wanted to let you know that I saw Rosalie’s diary in Gerry’s office. Mrs. Fine, Edie, had been there. Anyway, when I left it was on the floor. Also, Rosalie’s tote bag is on her desk and according to Mr. Fine’s assistant, Tricia, Rosalie wasn’t in all day yesterday, but I guess the key cards will tell you for sure. Talk to you later.”

  I couldn’t not tell the police what I’d seen, but I figured I didn’t have to reveal that I’d read the diary. I felt ashamed, though, as I recalled words my father had spoken years earlier. Situational ethics, he’d warned me, is bull. A lot in life isn’t black or white. But for those things that are, don’t fall into the trap of rationalization. I shrugged. I shouldn’t have read it, I chastised myself, then wondered again how the tote bag had got onto her desk.

  Ten minutes later, I pulled into my building’s parking lot, looking first at the big burgundy PRESCOTT’S ANTIQUES, AUCTIONS, AND APPRAISALS sign mounted on the roof, then at an old brown van idling near the front door.

&n
bsp; As I walked by, I smiled at the driver, a grim-looking young man with long brown hair. He didn’t respond, and I couldn’t tell whether it was because he didn’t notice my greeting or didn’t care.

  I pushed open the front door, setting Gretchen’s wind chimes jingling, the cheery noise mingling with the rhythmic patter of her typing.

  A stranger, an unkempt young woman in her midtwenties, stood facing my chief appraiser, Sasha. Sasha was holding a jumbo-sized plastic bag containing something flat and wooden.

  “His mother,” the woman said, answering a question I hadn’t heard.

  “Did he tell you where his mother got it?” Sasha asked.

  “No. But I think he made some notes. I can look when I get home.”

  “That would be useful. Thank you.”

  “Hey,” I said to Gretchen.

  “Josie,” Sasha said, noticing me, sounding relieved, “this is Lesha Moore. Ms. Moore, Josie Prescott, the owner.”

  “Nice to meet you. What do you have there?” I asked as I walked toward them.

  “Whistler’s palette,” the woman named Lesha answered, sounding irritated, maybe at having to repeat her story. She shrugged with an attitude that matched her appearance. “At least, that’s what Evan, my boyfriend, told me.”

  I nodded and took the plastic bag from Sasha’s extended hand. At first glance, the wood looked right. It was probably maple, maybe poplar. It had a rich patina, a golden sheen that comes from generations of use. There were dabs of dried paint along the outer edge, the hues ranging from thunderstorm gray on one end to snow white on the other.

  Behind me, Gretchen had succumbed to the lure of gossip and stopped typing. Here, right in our office, stood someone who said she possessed a palette that had been used by one of America’s greatest artists, James McNeill Whistler.

  I looked at Lesha. Her dirt-brown hair was stringy, and she had the sunken-cheeked, desperate look of a drug addict or an anorexic. I handed the bag back to Sasha, and smiled again. “You’re in good hands,” I told Lesha. “Sasha’s the best!”

  “How long is this going to take?” Lesha grumbled, unimpressed.

  “Sasha?” I prompted, resisting the temptation to answer for her.

  Sasha lacked confidence about everything except art and antiques, and since she was far more interested in things than people, she lacked social and communication skills as well. But since responding to client questions and concerns was part of her job, she had to find a way to handle the responsibility. She had to be able to give information, explain procedures, and soothe ruffled feathers whether I was available or not.

  “It depends,” she told Lesha. “We need to run some tests.”

  “What kind of tests?” Lesha demanded.

  “On the wood, for instance. And we need to trace the provenance, the record of ownership.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s all part of the appraisal pro-process,” she stammered. “First we have to authenticate the palette, then we have to assess its value. It’s a process, and it takes time.”

  Lesha sighed clear to her belly. “So . . . how long?”

  “A few days to a few weeks,” Sasha said, visibly hating that she had to deliver news that Lesha would probably perceive as bad.

  “No way a few weeks,” she announced, almost stomping her foot. “Forget about it!”

  “I understand,” Sasha said calmly, doing a good job, I thought, of conveying empathy without backing away from her reasoned estimate. She handed Lesha the plastic bag.

  Lesha stood with her hands on her hips, pouting as she weighed her options. “Okay, okay,” she said, accepting our terms without enthusiasm, “but hurry.”

  “We’ll do our best.” Sasha turned to Gretchen, and said, “Would you please give Ms. Moore a receipt for the contents of this bag?”

  Gretchen prepared the paperwork, including taking and printing some digital photos that she had Lesha sign, all while Lesha paced impatiently. Gretchen’s striking emerald eyes opened wide, appreciating the drama. As Lesha angrily pushed open the front door to leave, Sasha reminded her to look for the notes about the palette’s history.

  Lesha brushed Sasha off with a quick “Yeah, yeah,” and half ran to the waiting brown van. I watched through the window as the driver, the man with long hair, said something to her and she answered by shaking her head. He left rubber as he peeled out of my parking lot.

  “Whew. What’s her problem?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. She seemed angry,” Sasha answered.

  I shook my head and raised my eyebrows to convey mystification. “Who’s Evan?”

  “Evan Woodricky. Her boyfriend. She said he died of some blood disease and left the palette to her in his will.”

  “That sounds fishy.”

  “Really?” Sasha asked, surprised.

  Sasha had many gifts, but judging people’s sincerity wasn’t among them. She was literal and trusting, but at least she knew her limits. Thankfully, she was never defensive. Unlike most people, who, in my experience, either never thought about their abilities to read people at all, or had a wildly inflated notion of their capabilities, Sasha knew herself well. She also knew that while she would never excel at managing client expectations or picking up on exaggerations or misstatements, she could improve.

  “Check the provenance—and the authenticity—carefully,” I warned.

  “I will.” Picking up the plastic bag, tilting it to catch the dim natural light, she asked, “Do you think it’s maple?”

  “Probably.”

  Sasha placed the bag containing the palette gently on her desk and began to jot notes on a pad of lined paper. No doubt she was listing avenues of research and questions that needed answering.

  “So, what else is going on?” I asked Gretchen.

  “Everything’s under control,” she answered. “Eric’s preparing for Saturday’s tag sale.”

  “Good. I’ll be in my office,” I said, and pushed through the inside door that opened into the warehouse.

  As soon as I started up the spiral stairs that led to my private office, Gretchen’s voice crackled over the PA system. “Josie,” she announced, “Ty’s on line one.”

  Upstairs, I sank into my desk chair, swiveled to face the window, and punched the button labeled 1.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hi, there. So . . . tell me about the diary and the tote bag. Start with the diary. Did you see it in Edie’s hands?”

  “No.”

  “What did you observe?”

  Anguish, I thought. “I saw her in Gerry’s office.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She asked if Gerry and Rosalie were having an affair. I told her I didn’t know.”

  “Then what?”

  There was no point in keeping quiet. “Ty, she went crazy,” I said softly. “She picked up a photo from his desk and hurled it against the wall.”

  “And?”

  “And then she talked on the phone for a minute and left.”

  “Where was the diary?”

  “I saw it later. After she was gone. I think she threw it. At least, it was against the wall as if it had been thrown.”

  “Did you read it?” he asked.

  I shut my eyes. “I glanced at it,” I confessed.

  There was a pause. “What did you do with it after you read it?”

  “I put it back where I found it.”

  “Well, let’s hope it’s still there,” he said coldly. “Hold on, okay?”

  I opened my eyes and shook my head. He was right. I should have called the police right away, as soon as I realized what the book was. If Rosalie’s diary was missing, it was my fault.

  Ty came back on the line. “What about the tote bag?”

  “She always carried it, Ty. She called it her mobile office.”

  “Did she keep the diary in it?”

  “Yes. She carried it with her all the time.”

  “Did she have the bag at lunch?”

 
; “Yes. Absolutely.”

  “Okay, thanks for telling me.” He paused, then cleared his throat. “There’s one more thing. A business issue.”

  “Okay,” I said, tensing immediately. No matter what our relationship, if a police chief said he wanted to talk about business, probably the news wasn’t good.

  “I wanted to let you know that I’ve asked Officer Brownley to follow up with you.”

  My heart sank as memories of last year’s horrible gala flooded my mind. A woman had died in my auction venue during a charity event my firm was sponsoring, and the police had been inexorably suspicious, sarcastic, and uncaring. No doubt Ty has told Officer Brownley about our conversation on the beach, I thought, so now she thinks I’m a liar. “Oh, God,” I objected. “I don’t want to talk to her again. What does she want?”

  “Just what you think she wants.”

  To hear more about Rosalie’s affair with Gerry, I thought, flashing on Edie’s unbridled explosion. “Why can’t you be the one to question me?”

  He paused for several seconds, too long, and I wondered if I’d irritated or offended him.

  “Will you be cooking tonight?” he asked, completely ignoring my question, “or would you like to go out for dinner?”

  “Ty!” I protested.

  “Come on, Josie, give me a break. Sorry the arrangement doesn’t suit your personal preference.”

  “Thanks for being so sensitive.”

  “I wanted to give you a heads-up. I’ve done that. Give me a call later, okay?”

  He hung up with a sharp crack, and holding the receiver, staring at the phone, it felt as if I’d been slapped.

  When you’re at work, no matter how upset you are, put a smile on your face, and get down to business, my father told me years ago. Don’t wear your heart on your sleeve. Yet how could I not be emotional? I was upset about Rosalie’s death, I shrank from the thought of having to talk to Officer Brownley again, and I was hurt and confused by Ty’s tone. I forced myself to put my distress aside and called Paige again.