Consigned to Death

by Jane K. Cleland

  “Anything else?”

  “Not now. Thanks.”

  Upstairs, I dialed the combination of my floor safe and saw that everything was intact. I sat at my desk for a moment to call in to Chief Alverez, as promised. I got Cathy, the big blonde, who noted my message without apparent interest. I could picture her writing on a pink While You Were Out pad.

  I opened a bottle of water from the case I kept in my office and leaned back with my eyes closed, my determination to take charge allowing me to relax in spite of the ever-present fear.

  “Oh, jeez,” I said, sitting up with a start, realizing that I could begin my independent research right away, “I never checked.”

  As I turned toward my computer, Gretchen called to tell me that the pizza had arrived. Hunger overpowered curiosity, and I headed downstairs to eat.

  Entering the front office, I was so intent on my own thoughts, I was only vaguely aware of Gretchen. It had just occurred to me that previously I’d searched an Interpol site to see if the Renoir had been listed on the official law enforcement site as stolen. But I’d never searched for information about the painting itself. I brought up a browser and entered the painting’s title and the artist’s name.

  “Can I help you with anything?” Gretchen asked.

  I considered telling her. Gretchen was plenty loyal, but she was young and social. She told me once, just after she started working for me, that she loved gossip. She laughed when she said it, as if it was a rather charming quality, girlie and cute.

  She didn’t exaggerate. Gossip was more than a hobby. It was almost an obsession. She spent every lunch hour at her desk, nibbling on a salad, surfing celebrity gossip Web sites, except once a week, when the trashy tabloid newspapers hit the stores. On that day, she’d dash out to pick up copies and read them, too.

  About a year after she started, she pointed to a photograph on the front page of one of the tabloids. A baby, apparently a movie star’s newborn, appeared to weigh almost twenty pounds.

  “Isn’t that awful?” she asked.

  I looked at the trick photo. It was awful.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “How do you think they did it?”

  “Oh, you mean the photo? No, no. It’s real. The baby’s size is a deformity, a rare side effect of a medication his wife took while she was pregnant. Isn’t it horrible?”

  I looked at her, gauging her level of credulity, and concluded that it was high. She thought the oversized baby was real. If I asked her why no other media mentioned the abnormality, probably she’d whisper that it was a conspiracy funded by the pharmaceutical industry.

  I didn’t want to get roped in, so I smiled vaguely, and said, “You never know, do you? I’m off to the Finklesteins’. I should be back by two.” And I left before she could tell me anything else she’d discovered in the gossip columns.

  I didn’t understand her enthusiasm at all, but knew enough not to judge. My mother had been a closet tabloid reader, lingering at grocery store checkout racks to sneak quick reads. It wasn’t something we discussed openly, but my father and I would often exchange knowing looks as we pretended to be occupied in another part of the store to give my mother time to finish a story.

  Toward the end, when my mother became bedridden, my father bought a copy of every gossip newspaper, true-confession magazine, and scandal sheet he could get his hands on, and their pictures and stories helped ease my mother’s pain.

  Still, Gretchen’s love of gossip didn’t inspire confidence that she knew the value of discretion, so I decided to keep my own counsel. If nothing else, she was young, and discretion generally wasn’t a virtue of youth.

  “No, I’m fine,” I answered.

  “Sure?”

  “Thanks. I’m okay.”

  “Then I’m going to go see if I can do anything for Eric, all right?”

  “Good,” I answered absent-mindedly.

  I clicked the Search Now button, and in seconds got eighty-nine hits, mostly art museums, poster shops, and reference sites, like encyclopedias and university art history departments. But one site was unique. Hardly able to believe my eyes, I clicked on a link to a site claiming to track art stolen by the Nazis before and during World War II.

  While I read, I ate two pieces of pizza without tasting either one. According to the Switzerland-based organization whose Web site I was on, Three Girls and a Cat was one of seven paintings that had been stripped from the walls of the Brander family home in Salzburg in 1939 in return for a promise of exit visas for the family. According to the meticulously kept Nazi records recovered after the war, the paintings had been stored in a barn pending determination of their final destination. But mysteriously, only one daughter, Helga, then twenty-one, had been granted an exit visa. Apparently, neither the rest of her family, nor the seven paintings, had ever been seen again. Until now.

  The phone rang, and I was so intent on what I was reading, I nearly missed the call. “Prescott’s,” I said, “May I help you?”

  “You run tag sales, right?” a stranger asked, wanting driving directions.

  Hanging up the phone, I read on. After the war, in 1957, Helga Brander Mason, married and living in London, had petitioned the Austrian government to locate and return the pillaged works. They’d promised to try, but whether they’d done anything more than register her request was anybody’s guess. Almost fifty years later, her son, Mortimer Mason, had picked up the search. He was listed as the contact for information regarding the seven missing paintings.

  Reeling from my discovery, I stared into space, stunned and disbelieving.

  “Things are looking great out there!” Gretchen said as she walked into the office. She looked at me and stopped, tilting her head. “Are you all right?”

  “What?” I asked, distracted, having trouble switching my attention to her.

  “Are you okay? You look, I don’t know, funny.”

  “Yeah. I’m okay,” I answered. I bookmarked the URL and closed the browser. “How’s Eric doing?”

  “Fine. He says he doesn’t need help.”

  I nodded. “Good.”

  “Any calls?” Gretchen asked.

  “Just one. A woman wanting directions.”

  Gretchen sat at her desk, and soon I heard tapping as she typed something. The phone rang and I heard her answer it.

  It was inconceivable to me that Mr. Grant had owned a Renoir that had been stolen by the Nazis. Maybe, I thought, the purchase was innocent. Perhaps he hadn’t known the painting’s sordid history. I shook my head in disbelief. Mr. Grant was a sharp businessman, way too savvy to buy a multimillion-dollar painting without first verifying its authenticity. Since he hadn’t mentioned the painting when we’d talked about the sale, it was more likely, I thought, that he’d purchased it knowing full well that it was stolen. Or that he’d stolen it himself during or after the war.

  I was beyond speechless. I was in shock.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Wiping my hands on one of the small napkins the pizza parlor had included, I thanked Gretchen for ordering the food, and added, “Hand out the rest to anyone who wants it, okay?”

  I knew that I needed to pull myself out of what, increasingly, felt like a quagmire, but I was uncertain how to proceed. I considered calling Mortimer Mason, the alleged lawful owner of the Renoir, but I thought better of that idea almost immediately. Since his painting was safe, and I didn’t know what to say to him, or even what questions I should ask, and since I had no clue what I should say in response to whatever he might ask me, I decided to delay making the call. Maybe, instead of calling, I thought with an unexpected thrill of excitement, I’d go to London and knock on his door.

  I started toward the tag sale grounds, but stopped as I approached the stacks of crates that were still segregated from the main area of the warehouse by waist-high, crisscrossed lines of yellow police tape. Seeing the tape reminded me that prudence is an important aspect of bravery. Since I didn’t know what was going on, it occurred to me that I ought to ke
ep my research private.

  I reentered the office, and blocking the monitor from Gretchen’s watchful eyes, I deleted the Web site URL I’d just added to my “favorite” listing. I also deleted all temporary Internet files for good measure. I hoped that the police wouldn’t impound the computer, since I suspected that an expert could easily track my Internet movements despite my attempts at subterfuge, but it was the best I could do, and I hoped that it would outwit a less experienced spy.

  At the tag sale venue, I surveyed the rows of six-foot tables that stretched for just shy of a hundred and fifty feet. Every ten feet, a shorter table jutted out, forming a sea of U-shaped booths.

  The weekly tag sales were my bread and butter, and it pleased me to see that the booths were well stocked. Since most items were relatively inexpensive, profitability depended on volume. I’d modified my father’s often-repeated admonition to buy cheap and sell high-I bought cheap and sold just a little higher. Tag sales were close to the bottom of the antiques-business food chain, and it was important to remember that fact when setting prices. About a month ago, I’d witnessed a middle-aged woman showing off a Sandwich glass salt cellar she’d just purchased for $21. She’d whispered to her friend, “I can’t believe the deal I just got! There must have been a mistake in the pricing.” With that one sale, a loyal customer was born.

  About halfway down the back row I saw Paula Turner, a regular part-timer, carefully sorting boxes of art prints. Paula, a sophomore at the University of New Hampshire, had worked for me for two years on the tag sales. She was wearing low-cut jeans and a cropped white T-shirt that read There Are No Devils Left in Hell… They’re All in Rwanda. She was a serious young woman, earnest and hardworking. She wore no makeup; her ash blond hair hung straight to her shoulders; and she had surprisingly small feet. No way they were size nine narrow.

  “Hey, Paula,” I said as I approached the table where she was working.

  “Hey, Josie,” she said.

  “How’s it going?”

  “Pretty well.”

  “Have you seen Eric around?”

  “Yeah,” Paula said. She turned toward the parking lot. “There he is,” she said, pointing.

  Spotting him standing just outside the wire mesh gate, smoking a cigarette, chatting to Wes Smith, I felt a flutter of anxiety. I was beginning to feel stalked.

  “See you, Paula,” I said. I turned and walked at what I hoped appeared to be a casual pace.

  “Hey, Eric,” I said as I approached. “Hey, Wes,” I added with a fake smile, “long time no see. Whatcha doing?”

  “Eric and I were just getting acquainted,” he said.

  “You got a sec, Eric?” I asked.

  “Sure.” He stamped out his cigarette and picked up the extinguished butt, as promised. He could smoke on my property, I’d agreed, but only outside, and only if no trace remained.

  We walked by two young women I didn’t recognize who were discussing how to position Chinese vases on a table. New temp workers.

  “What did Wes want?” I asked without preamble.

  He tossed his extinguished butt into a box half filled with trash. “I don’t know. He’d just introduced himself when you got there.”

  I nodded. “I can’t tell you not to talk to him, or any reporter, for that matter. Do what you want. But I would ask that if you do talk to them, tell them the truth and tell me what you told them. Okay?”

  “Sure. But I don’t want to talk to that guy-or any reporter.”

  “Well, don’t, then.”

  “It’s hard,” he said, seeming embarrassed. “I’ve seen them work. They keep asking things.”

  His question made me realize how young he was, and how inexperienced. I nodded, and said, “Yeah. Persistence is part of a reporter’s job description. Say ‘No comment.’ Just repeat it over and over. Eventually they’ll go away. You don’t owe them cooperation.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I guess I can do that.”

  “And if you want, you can always tell them they need to talk to me.”

  “Yeah, that’s good.”

  “So how’s it going?” I asked, gesturing widely toward the entire area.

  “Good. We still have a lot to do.”

  “Okay. I’ll let you get back to it. If you want a break, there’s some pizza in Gretchen’s office.”

  “In a little while, I might just.” I watched him head toward Paula.

  Wes was still standing by the gate talking on his cell phone. There was a chance he could help, if he would, and if I could trust him. I stood and thought for a moment, looking for flaws in my thinking. Hell, I concluded, why not? I walked back and joined him at the fence.

  He looked up as I approached, and smiled, pocketing his phone.

  “I knew you’d see the light. Are you ready to talk?” he asked.

  “May I ask you something?” I responded, all business.

  “Sure. Shoot.”

  “What does ‘off the record’ mean?”

  “Why?”

  I grinned. “Answering a question with a question, huh?”

  He laughed, and said, “Mea culpa. ‘Off the record’ means I don’t quote you and don’t act on what you tell me until you tell me-if you ever do-that something is on the record. Why do you ask?”

  “Are we off the record?”

  He tilted his head to look into my eyes, squinting a little in the sun. It felt good to stand in the bright light. It was too early in the season for the sun to produce actual heat, but it created the illusion of warmth.

  “Okay. I’ll bite,” he said. “Off the record.”

  “I don’t know how to investigate something and I’m betting that you do. If you agree to help me-off the record-I’ll promise you an exclusive interview about the entire Grant situation after it’s all cleared up.”

  “From what I hear, it’ll be cleared up with your arrest.”

  I shook my head and paused, trying to judge if he was baiting me. I couldn’t tell, so I decided to play it straight. “No. I didn’t do it. But regardless, I’ll keep my word. An exclusive.”

  “Who decides when it’s all cleared up?”

  “We do. I’m not trying to split hairs. We’ll know when it’s cleared up.”

  He thought about it for a long minute, his eyes fixed on mine. “What do you want to research?”

  “Off the record?”

  “You don’t have to keep asking. Everything we’re discussing is off the record until and unless you tell me otherwise, or unless I ask if something can be back on the record and you agree. Okay?”

  “Promise?”

  He look up, casting his eyes heavenward. “Yes. Jeez. What are you onto? Did Grant steal the Hope diamond?”

  “Okay, then,” I said, ignoring his question, which, if he only knew, might be a whole lot closer to the truth than he’d believe possible. “Mr. and Mrs. Grant. I need to know everything about them. Where they were born. How they met. Schooling. Friends. Children. Everything. Starting way back when and continuing to now.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t have time to explain now. I will later. There’s more.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Can you access phone records?”

  “Whose?”

  “Mr. Grant’s.”

  He made a whistlelike noise. “Maybe you’d better fill me in now after all.”

  “Later. Can you? Do you have a contact who can get us the records?”

  “Local or long distance?”

  “Both.”

  He didn’t answer but stayed still, looking at me, gauging I don’t know what.

  “Can you do it?” I prodded.

  “Maybe. I’ll try.”

  I smiled, relieved. “That’s great. When will you have the information?”

  “Hell, I don’t even know that I can get it at all, let alone when.”

  “Let me know as soon as you have a sense of when you’ll get it,” I told him, ignoring the “if in his sentence.

 
“Josie,” Eric called from the far doorway.

  I turned and shielded my eyes from the sun. “Yeah?” I shouted.

  “Gretchen needs you in the office.”

  “Tell her I’m coming,” I answered. I pointed to Wes, and repeated, “Call me.”

  Gretchen stood with her arms crossed and her lips tightly sealed, a picture of righteous outrage. “Look at this,” she said, handing me a blue-covered folder. I nodded a greeting to Alverez, leaning against the front door, unsmiling.

  I opened the papers, and started to read. The documents used legalese to tell me that a judge had authorized a search for stolen goods.

  “Call Max for me, will you?” I asked her.

  She marched to her desk to make the call, and I turned to Alverez, and asked, “How would you like to proceed?”

  “Do you have an inventory listing?”

  “Yes,” I answered, “mostly. It’s not a hundred percent accurate.” I shrugged. “We do our best.” I turned to Gretchen, and added, “When you’re done calling Max, please print out all of the inventory listings for Chief Alverez.”

  “We’ll need to look throughout the facility as well,” he said.

  “Help yourself,” I responded, hating everything about the situation. “We have an auction preview going on, so if you can try to stay out of the way of our doing business, I’d appreciate it.”

  “We’ll try,” he answered, and turned to confer with the three police officers who stood nearby.

  Gretchen handed me the phone and began punching keys at her computer.

  Max said, “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does the warrant read home and business?”

  I opened the folded document and reread the neatly typed words. “Yes. And vehicle.”

  “I’ll talk to Alverez in a minute and remind him to make certain they leave everything as they found it. And I’ll ask him if he wants you to accompany them to your house. Okay?”

  I swallowed “Okay.”

  In addition to Alverez and the three police officers in the warehouse, two more were standing by my car and two were seated in a marked cruiser nearby. Alverez and his team were working inside under Gretchen’s disapproving eyes as I left to join the two officers in the patrol car. I sat in the back, and as we pulled out of the parking lot, I looked over my shoulder and saw that one of the two standing near my car had already popped the trunk.