Antique Blues

by Jane K. Cleland

  “Thank you.” She closed her eyes, just for a second. “May I ask one more thing? As Mo’s friend, you might know more than me … Did she ever mention Steve? Her ex? I mean lately. Did she?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Lydia told me that Mo was thinking of getting back together with him. I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t. But Lydia would know more about that than I would. Daughters don’t always confide in their mothers, not when they think their mothers would disapprove. Lydia says Mo wouldn’t have told me her plans because she was ashamed of her weakness. Loving a man who treated her so poorly.”

  “That seems a bit strong. I don’t know any specifics, but it seems to me that loving someone, flaws and all, doesn’t make Mo weak. It makes her loving.”

  “I agree, theoretically, at least.” Trish smoothed her skirt and drank some coffee. “My only concern for my children has always been their ultimate happiness. I know that’s trite, to say, ‘I only want you to be happy,’ but it’s true. That’s all I’ve ever wanted for my girls.”

  “You’ve had your doubts about Steve.”

  “Of course. If a man cheats once, he’s likely to do so again.”

  “I hear that Steve denied he cheated.”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “I don’t know. Regardless, people change.”

  Trish placed her cup on the tray and stood. “Do you believe that?”

  I stood, too, and led the way to the door. “Yes. We get better. Stronger. More capable. At least, we do if we want to. Wisdom, you know? Think about yourself. Aren’t you different now than you were when you were twenty?”

  “Dramatically, but I’ve never thought of myself as wise. Just road weary.”

  “Mo did. Besides loving you, she admired you.” That was true, and I would repeat it in my eulogy.

  “Thank you, Josie. That’s nice of you to say.”

  She paused halfway across the warehouse and touched my elbow. “Your speaking on Tuesday means a great deal to me. And to Frank.”

  “Thank you for asking me.”

  I walked her out and watched her drive away.

  * * *

  I took Mo’s print from our mammoth walk-in safe and brought it up to my office, hoping it would inspire me to write the perfect eulogy. I set it on a burled walnut easel next to the display case that housed my rooster collection.

  The colors in the print, while vibrant in tone, were muted in hue, like my mood. The people on the bridge were anonymous, interchangeable. It depicted existential isolation. Or, I supposed, if I wanted to put a positive spin on it, it portrayed self-sufficiency. Mo was self-sufficient, but she didn’t see herself that way. I was aware that there is often a gap between how people view us and how we view ourselves. Hiroshige portrayed Edo as cold and lonely. Mo was warm and personable. Perception. What we see. What we believe. It didn’t matter to Mo whether people saw themselves as weak or bad; she saw their strength and goodness, no matter how deeply those qualities were hidden. She truly believed that people were essentially decent, and she had a knack for getting people to believe in their own capabilities. That’s what I would talk about in Mo’s eulogy. I sat at my desk jotting notes about Mo, recalling examples of her generosity and grace, picturing her gentling the horses and laughing with the children.

  I turned toward the window beside my desk. My old maple was in full autumn regalia. Even the steady rain couldn’t diminish the brightness of the burnished-gold and dusty-pink leaves. I thought again about Steve. If they’d really been close to reuniting, he might have insights he could share, anecdotes that would bring my eulogy to life. If nothing else, the eulogy provided a good excuse for asking how he was doing.

  * * *

  There was no phone listing for Ricky, Rick, Rich, Dick, Richard, or R. J. McElroy in Boise, Idaho, which meant nothing. He could be one of the nearly 50 percent of the population who no longer used a landline. He might have moved. The phone could be listed in his girlfriend’s or wife’s name. I Googled additional variations of Ricky Joe’s name and came up dry.

  I bit the corner of my lip as I ran through the options. It only took a minute to settle on a plan. I decided to call all the McElroys in Boise whose phone numbers were listed in the white pages, then, if that didn’t pan out, call the McElroy Rubber Company, which was still in business, and try to sweet-talk Ricky Joe’s contact information out of someone.

  The first two calls were duds. The third number was listed to an S. McElroy. My call went to voice mail.

  “This is Sandy! Ricky Joe and I aren’t home, but we’d love to call you back. Leave us a message!”

  “My name is Josie Prescott, calling for Ricky Joe.” I gave my phone number. “It’s important that we talk. This relates to something that happened in Mississippi in the early seventies. There’s no problem. I’m not selling anything. I’m an antiques appraiser, and I simply need to verify a date.” I repeated my phone number and hung up.

  I toyed with calling C. K. Flint, the man who’d sat in a corner shaking while Frank won himself a guitar, but I didn’t. It would be better to talk to Ricky Joe first. But there was no harm in seeing if C. K. had a listed phone. He did. He still lived in Jackson, and the phone was listed under his name.

  * * *

  I swung back to my computer and brought up a browser. Rice Dixon Elementary School, where Mo had taught and Steve still did, started its day at 7:50. Classes ended at 3:00. I glanced at the clock on the monitor. It read 9:27.

  I had plenty of time to think how to phrase my question to Steve.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Janson’s Antiques Mall was an antiques lover’s dream. Two dozen independent antiques and collectibles dealers rented space in a big old red barn set in a five-acre field on the far western edge of Rocky Point. Matt Janson, the owner, was an entrepreneur, not an antiques dealer, and I admired the heck out of his business acumen. Matt told me that the barn was about a hundred years old and had been a bear to renovate. While he was bringing the building up to code, he’d expanded its footprint, nearly tripling the usable space. He’d laid blacktop over a chunk of land for a parking lot and started advertising in local papers and offering discounts to tourists if tour operators made his mall an official stop on their bus tours.

  I made a point of stopping by every few weeks. Because we carry some of this and some of that, I know a little bit about a lot of things and am eager to buy anything I can resell at a profit, including things we need to clean, repair, or otherwise refurbish. I often found bargains at Janson’s because dealers who specialize usually don’t bother to research objects outside their sphere of interest, and I have a nose for value.

  I parked near one of three chartered buses. This time of year, we call the tourists who travel through our neck of the woods leaf peepers. Whenever I overhear their oohs and ahs as they realize the colors really are as spectacular as they look in the movies, I always feel a little jolt of pride, as if I had done something to earn their delight.

  I pushed open one of a pair of heavy plank doors and entered another world. Matt used reclaimed wood, recessed lighting, and cinnamon-scented incense to create the aura of an idealized country home. Each of the twenty-four vendors had his or her own separate shop, closed in on three sides and open to the central corridors, except at night, of course, when individual pocket doors provided security. The dividing walls were eight feet high, tall enough to create a real feeling of separation, but with the ceiling soaring to thirty feet at the apex, nothing felt closed in. Six units ran along the two long outside walls. Eight more units filled the center, back-to-back, four facing east and four facing west. Two more units ran along the back wall, sharing the space with a corridor that led to public restrooms and a private dealers’ room, outfitted with a kitchen and individual lockers. The final two spots took up the space on either side of the entry doors.

  I checked my coat and dripping umbrella in the coat room, then faced the information booth, deciding where to start. The place was ja
m-packed, typical for a rainy Thursday in September.

  Matt spotted me and came out from behind the information desk. He was a big man, about six-three, and fit. He was around fifty. His hair was dirty blond, showing a little gray around his temples. He wore it long, gathered at the back of his neck in a ponytail. He moved to New Hampshire because he fell in love with a woman from Rocky Point named Fay. That was twenty-five years ago. He and Fay just had their first grandchild, a girl named Joy.

  “Good to see you, Josie. Weren’t you here last week?”

  “You have a good memory.”

  “And a knack for deductive reasoning. When something breaks a pattern, it catches my attention.”

  “I didn’t know I was so predictable.”

  “Sure you did. You cruise through hoping for bargains every few weeks, not every week. So what’s up?”

  I handed him a copy of the flyer asking for information about Mo’s print. “I need to know who sold this Japanese woodblock print.”

  He stared at the image, taking in the tranquility, the snow, the colors. “It’s beautiful. Quiet.” He raised his eyes. “It was owned by that girl who was killed. What makes you think the print was sold here?”

  “Nothing. I’m checking everywhere. You have a couple of folks who specialize in art prints, and others who sell whatever comes their way, so I thought it couldn’t do any harm to ask.”

  “And you get antsy sitting behind a desk.”

  “Don’t you know it. How’s Joy?”

  “Perfect. Gorgeous. She just turned three months old.”

  “Do you have a picture?”

  “Is snow white?” Matt slid his phone from a case attached to his belt, tapped, swiped, and handed it over.

  The photo showed Joy cooing in Matt’s arms. In the photo, Matt was looking at Joy with awe, as if he were holding a twinkling star in his hands.

  “Oh, Matt! What a wonderful photo.” I handed back the phone. “Congratulations.”

  “Thanks. I’ve got a bad case of PGS—Proud Grandfather Syndrome.” He grinned. “Luckily, there’s no cure.”

  “You’re completely adorable, you know that, don’t you?”

  “In an embarrassing sort of way.”

  I scanned the room. “I’m glad to see you’re so busy, Matt. You’re going to have to build an annex.”

  “Nope. A second location.”

  “Where?”

  “That depends on you.”

  “Me?”

  “Any chance you’re free for lunch on Monday?”

  I met his eyes and felt a trill of excitement rush through my veins. “Sure.” I dug my phone out of my bag and brought up my calendar. “Where and when?”

  “What’s your favorite restaurant?”

  “The Blue Dolphin.”

  “Sold. When do you like to eat lunch?”

  “Twelve thirty.”

  “Sold again.”

  Matt extended a hand, his expression hard to read, somewhere between solemn and exhilarated. We shook.

  A middle-aged clerk behind the information booth spoke the words “Christmas ornaments” as she typed them into a computer while a young woman wearing a red beret looked on.

  “Do you really have all the dealers’ inventories?”

  Matt grinned. “Yup.”

  To get twenty-four independent dealers to trust him with their inventory records was akin to completing a jigsaw puzzle in the dark—until you’d tried it, you couldn’t fully appreciate the patience and imagination required.

  “How on God’s earth did you get them to agree?”

  He laughed. “It’s in the contract. I won’t lease to anyone who doesn’t want to participate. It’s all upside from their perspective. They enter a one-sentence description of an object, the date it’s offered for sale, and its asking price, and we send them customers.”

  “What happens when the piece is sold?”

  “The listing automatically transfers to the archives at the moment of sale.”

  “So you know how long it took for an object to sell.”

  “Right.”

  “Can the archive be searched?”

  “Sure. Dealers do it all the time. We also maintain a second archive comprised of all that information, plus the actual sales price. As you know, most dealers offer discounts, but they don’t want their competition to know about it. By creating a second archive, we were able to build a Chinese wall separating the information we collect and make available to all leaseholders from the information most of them want to keep confidential. The dealers can search their own records, but no one else’s.”

  “Except you.”

  He grinned again. “I’m a big believer in squirreling away data. Just because I don’t know the information’s value today doesn’t mean I won’t figure it out tomorrow.”

  “You’re a smart man.”

  “The harder I work, the smarter I get.”

  “Amen to that.” I pointed to the flyer. “Could you search for sales of this print in the archives?”

  “Sure. Follow me.” He leaned over the information booth counter and pulled an iPad from a lower shelf. He entered the query. Seconds later he had the answer. “A Hiroshige woodblock print was sold on September second at ten after one. No others this year. The name of the print isn’t listed. The asking price was fifty dollars.” Matt looked up. “Do you need me to go back further than a year?”

  “No. Not at this point anyway.” I did a quick calculation. “September second … that was the Sunday of Labor Day weekend. Who sold it?”

  “Rose’s Treasures. Number seventeen.” He slid his iPad back onto the shelf. “So what do you think? Do you like my software?”

  “I love it. Is it proprietary, or did you tweak an off-the-shelf package?”

  “A hundred percent proprietary.”

  My dad always said that contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t the devil who lurked in details—it was God. In other words, he explained, talk is cheap. I’d just learned that Matt was more than a dreamer; he was a doer, a rare breed.

  “I’m seriously impressed, Matt.”

  He smiled like he meant it and presented his knuckles for a fist bump.

  * * *

  I’d known Rose Mayhew, the owner of Rose’s Treasures, for years, having chatted with her frequently during my periodic buying trips. She was tall and thin, with shoulder-length wavy gray hair and gray-blue eyes. She dealt exclusively in sterling silver, from refined Edwardian coffeepots and hanging decanter labels to utilitarian sets of flatware and miscellaneous objects like antique candle snuffers and vintage key rings. The only items I’d bought from her were outside her area of specialization, including a hand-colored nineteenth-century map of Florida she’d priced at twenty dollars and a pair of brass hurricane lamps I’d found for ten dollars.

  Rose was ringing up sales. Three people waited in line. I stepped to the side. When she was done, she glanced around, deciding where to go next. She spotted me and came over to where I was standing just outside her booth.

  “Can I help you with something, Josie?”

  “Sorry to bother you while you’re so busy.” I held up the flyer. “I’m trying to find out where this print came from. According to the inventory database, you sold a Hiroshige on September second.”

  “I did?” she asked, her eyes on the flyer. “Let me think … I remember finding a few prints in a box of silver pieces last summer, but I don’t recall selling any of them.” She raised her eyes to my face. “You know me. If it’s not made of silver, I don’t pay attention.”

  “I’m trying to confirm its provenance. Can you tell me where you bought that box?”

  Her lips compressed into one thin line.

  It’s much harder to buy good quality items than it is to sell them, so if you have a reliable source, you never reveal it. If your purchase came from a one-off situation, a garage or moving sale, for example, you might be willing to share that information to someone you trust, like me.

  �
�Sorry.”

  If it turned out that her Hiroshige print was actually the one Mo purchased, I could revisit my request for information, couching it in terms of ethics and promising to mention her shop by name in any articles we wrote on the subject, a rare promotional opportunity for a small business. Now, though, since I had no reason to think Mo’s print came from her shop, I could let it slide.

  “I understand. September second was the Sunday of Labor Day. Did you have help that day? Someone who might have made the sale?”

  “Yes, Artie helps out every Sunday. He’s here today, too—leaf peepers.” A customer standing by a locked display case was glancing around, looking for help. “I need to get back to work. I’ll ask Artie to step out to talk to you.”

  I thanked her. I was tempted to ask her to check whether the sale was made with a credit card, but if I could avoid bothering her again, I would. While I waited for Artie, I examined the ceiling. Matt had installed security cameras at strategic points around the perimeter. If Artie couldn’t help, maybe the cameras could.

  Artie couldn’t. Artie was long retired, with a soldier’s stance, straight and proud. His hair was white and cut short. He studied the flyer for a moment, then shook his head.

  “I used to be a whiz at connecting the objects I sold with their buyers. Not anymore. I don’t even remember selling it. Sorry.”

  I thanked him and returned to the information booth. I explained what I needed to Matt. A few taps later, he swung his iPad around so I could see it.

  “This is the camera closest to booth seventeen. The camera takes photos every three seconds. Here’s the record starting at eight minutes after one.”

  I clicked through the photos. At ten past one, I saw Rose hand a plastic-sheathed art print to a dealer I recognized, Jonathan Newson. Jonathan was the owner of Newson’s Rare and Vintage Art, booth two. I thanked Matt and darted through the crowd to Jonathan’s booth.

  Jonathan was about forty. He was short and stout, with a few strands of brown hair artfully arranged over his bald pate.

  I eased into his booth and sidestepped to the bin of prints labeled BY ARTIST, G–K. I flipped through and found a faded copy of Hiroshige’s Meguro Drum Bridge and Sunset Hill. The print was encased in a clear plastic envelope. A diamond-shaped white sticker near the top read $130/918.