“You look like you just won the lottery,” I said, grinning.
“I think I’ve exceeded your expectations.” She spun the monitor 180 degrees so I could see it. “This is a vanda orchid. Can you believe that color?”
The blossom was dazzling, a rich blue, closer to purple than turquoise, specked with white. The blossoms were large, four inches or more.
“It’s gorgeous!”
“Do you think Gertie Joan will like it?”
“How could she not? Where would you buy it?”
“There’s a place in Jackson. They’ve agreed to give Gertie Joan lessons.”
“Perfect!”
* * *
Matt Janson, the owner of Janson’s Antiques Mall who’d asked me to lunch to discuss his plans to expand his business, was waiting by the Blue Dolphin’s hostess stand when I arrived for our twelve thirty date. He greeted me warmly, taking my right hand in both of his and giving it a gentle squeeze.
After we ordered and our drinks had arrived, iced tea for him, hot tea for me, Matt said, “I’ve been impatient waiting for this lunch.”
“Tell me what’s going on.”
“I want us to be partners.”
“You do?”
“You said it yourself—I should open a second location. I want us to do it together.”
“You need the money?”
“No. I need you.”
I leaned back and smiled. “I’m intrigued. Where are you thinking?”
“Where do tourists go?”
“Rocky Point Beach.”
“Too close to my current location.”
“You’re going to Maine.”
“Why not Vermont?”
“Too saturated. York Beach?”
“Too close.”
“Wow. Portland. A more populated location lends itself to a year-round business.”
“Want to go in with me? Now that you have a TV show, you’re a big draw. I’ve had this idea for a while. I’ve been working up the courage to approach you.”
“Ha, ha.”
“I’m serious. I didn’t want to come to you with a half-baked proposal. At this point, I’m closer to three-quarters baked, so I feel comfortable pitching it.”
“How would it work?”
“We’d call it Prescott’s Antiques Mall. It would look like my barn. We share start-up costs. I’ll be the COO, chief operating officer. You’ll be the CEO, chief executive officer. We split the profits. What do you say?”
“I say maybe. I’m interested. I need to think about it.”
“Sure. Take as long as you need. But know this, Josie … it would be an honor being your partner.”
“Thank you, Matt. I feel the same. All I have to do is look at your place to see what you’re capable of. You’ve made a wonderful business there.”
“Out of nothing.”
“Don’t exaggerate. There was a barn.”
“And a field. What do you think—should I add a petting zoo?”
“To bring in families? Don’t they already shop there?”
“Yeah. But I’ve got the land.”
“I wouldn’t do it. Too labor intensive.”
“A tea shop?”
“To bring in more women? Aren’t they already your primary demographic?”
“They’ll stay longer. Make a day of it. Bring their girlfriends.”
“Maybe. But only as a concession.”
Matt patted my shoulder. “See. I knew we’d be a great team.”
I smiled and raised my tea cup for a toast. “To us.”
* * *
Marianne Sanford called back at four Monday afternoon.
“I can’t remember ever being as astonished as I was listening to your message,” she said. “I haven’t thought of that guitar in a thousand years. Maybe two thousand.”
I could hear a hint of Mississippi in her voice.
“I can only imagine. I think the guitar I’m appraising is the one you sold back in 1971. I’m hoping you can tell me its history.”
“Why? What possible reason could there be for you asking that question?”
“Provenance. I need to show an unbroken chain of ownership from the time of manufacture to now. Martin sold fourteen of this model guitar that year, but all the stores Martin sold them to are out of business, and their records are long gone. I can’t go forward, so I need to go backward. So far I have traced the guitar to Abbot’s Musical Instruments, where their records show you as the seller. To continue the chain, I need to know how you acquired the guitar. What can you tell me about it?”
Seconds ticked by. If Dr. Sanford shut me down, our hunt was probably over.
“I’m sorry.”
“I understand this may be asking you to think about something you don’t want to think about. If it wasn’t crucial, I wouldn’t ask.”
More time passed, a minute or longer.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I’m not comfortable discussing it. I’d better go.”
She hung up.
I slapped the desk, frustrated with myself. I knew better. You could have all the antiques knowledge in the world, but if you couldn’t read people, you were certain to fail, and I’d just messed up. There was some kind of secret associated with Frank’s guitar, and I might have squandered my only opportunity to learn it. I should have read her mood better. I should have been more sensitive. I should have eased into my questions. Shoulda. Woulda. Coulda.
* * *
Pat Durand emailed a photo of Flower Pavilion, Dango Slope, Sendagi, number 16, a stock shot, probably an image she—or he—found on the Internet. I realized that since the voice on the message had been female, I was now thinking of Pat as a woman.
I called Max but got his voice mail. In case you were in the throes of a legal emergency, he invited you to call his cell phone. I didn’t want to bother him, and I could easily wait until morning. It was probably a good thing to keep Pat Durand on pins and needles.
I stared at the image. Cherry blossom season in Japan is a time of celebration and joy, and it showed in this print. The trees were lush, the blossoms white, tinged with pink. Unlike the loneliness and isolation shown in most of the prints in the series, several people, though their faces were generically drawn, interacted with one another. Others reclined on benches under the trees, their eyes on the blossoms. The print exuded a soothing and reflective mood, evocative of innocence and a more peaceful time.
I confirmed that Pat only sent the one photo. She hadn’t included a shot of the print’s back, which any reputable dealer would have done. Not only can potential buyers discover flaws such as foxing or water stains, which might be hard to spot in a busy design, but marks indicating authenticity, such as labels, gallery notations, or signatures, can be examined, and if expected marks are missing, that needs to be noted, too.
Cal was not Pat Durand. Cal would know better. Pat Durand—presumably Cal’s partner—was an amateur.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Tuesday morning, I woke up just before the alarm went off at seven. Ty was organizing a training session at the Portland, Maine, office, and he liked to be at his desk before everyone else, so he left home around six thirty. I stumbled downstairs, poured myself a cup of coffee from the pot he’d left on the burner, and found an I-love-you note on the counter. I pressed it to my chest, to my heart.
At eight, I called Max and got him.
“Your timing is good. I’m just sitting down at my desk with a coffee. How can I help?”
“Two things. I want to run a business expansion opportunity by you and get your read on it, and I got an email from that Pat Durand person. I’d like to arrange a phone call with her—I’m calling Pat ‘her’ since the voice on the phone is female—anytime tomorrow morning.”
“How about you come in at nine and schedule your call to Pat Durand at ten thirty? We can talk about the business thing first. I’ll have the police come at ten to get everything set up. Does that work?”
I said I�
��d bring some of Noeleen’s muffins, and I could hear him smack his lips.
* * *
At ten, I was in my office. I emailed Pat Durand a thank-you, and asked if she could call me at 10:30 tomorrow morning. Two minutes later, she replied saying 10:30 was perfect.
I’d caught up on emails, and I was deep into reviewing my accountant’s latest good-news report when Sasha called to update me on Mo’s print. While she hadn’t yet located any verified originals we could use to validate the woodgrain pattern she’d spotted in the print, Richardson Antiques in England had been helpful. They’d given her the name of the portfolio’s former owner, a widow. It seemed that the widow had found the portfolio in a trunk after her husband’s death, that she hadn’t seen it or heard about it in twenty-two years of marriage, and that she had no documentation, so Sasha wasn’t hopeful she’d get any useful information, but she planned to talk to her anyway.
“As you suspected from the start, we’ll need to send it out for a materials analysis,” I said. “I want every i dotted and every t crossed.”
Sasha said she’d get quotes, and I thanked her. The fact that the portfolio had been found in a trunk was encouraging. If the prints hadn’t been exposed to light, that might explain why the colors were so vivid.
* * *
Dr. Marianne Sanford’s class schedule was posted on the Rockport University’s website. She was teaching Principles of Social Psychology today from 10:00 to 11:15 A.M. The classroom wasn’t listed, but her office was, W-396 in Westover Hall. I checked the campus map and saw that Westover Hall was one of four buildings surrounding a spacious stone courtyard. Parking lot 4 was closest. I glanced at the clock on my monitor. It read 10:20. Rockport was only about a twenty-five-minute drive. Call it a half hour each way and a half hour to talk, I should be back by noon or twelve thirty at the latest. Mo’s funeral was scheduled for two. I had plenty of time.
* * *
Rockport University was located on a thirty-five-acre campus. The entire place, from the ivy-covered fieldstone buildings and meticulously groomed grounds to the fresh-faced students and courteous staff, seemed unreal, as if it had been staged for a movie.
The parking security guard cheerfully directed me to a visitor’s spot. A gilt-edged sign pointed me toward Westover Hall. A wide marble staircase took me to the second floor. A glass-fronted cabinet listed all this semester’s psychology courses. At thirteen minutes after eleven, I stood just outside room W-208, an auditorium-style classroom, where Dr. Sanford was finishing up her lecture.
At eleven fifteen exactly, the double doors burst open and scores of students rushed out. I pressed myself against the wall, avoiding the deluge. The river quieted to a stream, then a trickle, then stopped. Dr. Sanford stepped out. She looked just like the photo posted on Rockport University’s website. Her chin-length black hair was curly. Her skin was cocoa brown. She had a model’s face: prominent cheekbones, a high forehead, a long, slender nose, and a determined chin. She wore a bone-colored cable-knit turtleneck sweater, black slacks, and black leather ankle boots. She carried a red leather briefcase.
I peeled myself off the wall. “Dr. Sanford?”
“Yes?”
“I’m Josie Prescott. I was hoping you had a moment to talk.”
“The antiques appraiser.”
“Yes. I’m sorry to barge in on you like this, but it’s important.”
She leveled assessing eyes at me. I didn’t waver.
“Follow me.”
I walked alongside her down the wide corridor and around a corner to a door with her name on it. She used a key she took from an outside pocket of her briefcase to unlock it.
Books jammed the shelving that lined both side walls. White sheer curtains allowed the light in, and the office was bright. Her desk was messy. Stacks of folders were squeezed between piles of books and an all-in-one computer. Three framed vintage travel posters were mounted on the back wall. One advertised an Eastern Airlines flight to sunny Florida, bragging that it was only a ten-hour flight from New York to Miami. The second one recommended traveling across Australia on the Trans-Australia Railway. The illustration showed a man wearing a duster and a wide-brimmed hat riding a camel. The third featured a cheetah tracking the viewer, its eyes black and piercing. The copy advertised an African safari organized by Imperial Airways.
Dr. Sanford placed her briefcase on the floor and sat behind her desk. “Have a seat.”
“You like to travel.”
She smiled, and her face was transformed from severe to playful. “More than anything. If I could, I’d never stop.”
“What’s your favorite place?”
“Jordan for exotic—leaving the airport, I felt like I was walking into the Bible. Bonaire for diving. Paris for romance.” She flipped a hand. “It depends. What’s yours?”
“I don’t have as much experience. I’m on the hunt, though, for the perfect honeymoon location.”
“Congratulations. When are you tying the knot?”
“June.”
“Beautiful. What do you like to do?”
“Everything. Nothing. I want to gel and swim and snorkel and hike and have nice dinners.”
“Go to Maui.”
“Maybe. Hawaii’s pretty far, though. I hope you don’t mind … I’m here to ask for information about the guitar.”
“Will it be published?”
“If it’s ever sold, information about it will appear in a catalogue. But right now the owner simply wants to know how much it’s worth—estate planning.”
“You’re putting me in a difficult position.”
“Why is that?”
“I got the guitar from my mother, who got it from her mother. My grandmother went to a lot of trouble to keep the story of how she came to own it private.”
“Is she alive?”
“No.”
“If the truth became known, who would it hurt?”
“That’s a good question.” She thought about it for a moment, her eyes on the travel posters. “No one.” She refocused on me. “What do you need to know?”
I found my little notebook at the bottom of my tote bag and flipped it open to a blank page. “What is your mom’s name?”
“My mom was Lucille Mae Dowler. My grandmother was Estelle Mae Bridges. Want to guess what my middle name is?”
I laughed as I scribbled their names. “Mae.”
“How’d you guess?”
“I’m known for my deductive reasoning skills. Plus a man named Jay Malc Curtis called you Mari Mae. That’s how I found you.”
“Jay Malc! We went to school together. What a great guy he was! Good through and through.”
“He said the same about you.” This was the moment of truth. “How did your grandmother come to own it?”
“She got it from a boyfriend, Robert Johnson.”
“The blues guitarist?”
“Yes. He and my grandmother were … well … friends.”
“When did he give it to her?”
“My grandmother was a proud woman. She never admitted she had an affair with Robert Johnson, though certainly I assumed she had. My brother and I romanticized their relationship.”
“She married your grandfather after Johnson’s death.”
“That’s right. He never knew about their involvement. My grandfather was a hard man.”
“Hard in what way?”
“He was sarcastic, sniping, but words weren’t his only weapon. He was the kind of man who sees you have a sore spot on your foot and accidentally-on-purpose treads on it. I could tell that my mother despised him, that she could barely stand to be in the same room with him, but she never spoke a bad word about him. My family wasn’t known for its openness or its communications skills. I knew there was bad blood, but I honored her reticence by not asking any questions about it.” She swiveled to face the windows. “Or maybe I just didn’t want to know.” She spun back and raised her chin, keeping her eyes on my face. “My father died in 1962. My brother
died in 1963. My mother died in 1968. I moved in with my grandmother for my last two years of high school. She died in 1970, a month before my graduation. I went through everything my family owned and sold everything I could, including the guitar, to get money to move to Philadelphia. I won a good scholarship to Temple University, but the stipend only covered about half my expenses, to say nothing of transportation.”
“That’s a lot of loss in a short amount of time.”
“Yes.”
“What happened to things like photos and papers, you know, birth certificates and so on?”
“I packed them in boxes and left them in a storage unit back in Clarksdale. For decades, I went home every few years, to visit my family’s graves, to attend a high school reunion, that sort of thing. The last time, I went for an old high school friend’s fiftieth birthday party. After that, I realized I’d changed. Clarksdale no longer felt like home, so I transferred everything into plastic tubs and shipped them to my house.”
“May I go through the contents? I assure you I won’t damage anything or take anything without your permission. I’ll only be seeking evidence related to the guitar’s ownership.”
“No one but me has ever looked through them.”
I met her resolute stare. “Please.”
“It’s a privacy thing. I don’t like the thought of anyone pawing through my possessions.”
“I understand. How about if you do the pawing? I’ll be a witness.”
She paused again, her eyes once again on the back wall. After a minute, she came back to me. “I don’t know. I want to talk it over with my husband. Ray sees the world unvarnished.”
“Of course.”
She stood up. “You probably think I’m being silly. Sentimental.”
“I respect your instinct for privacy. I believe that finding the truth is always worth the effort, though, and that hiding the truth is always a mistake. But that’s me.”
“If you asked me about a theoretical situation, I’d say the same thing.”
“I understand. Life isn’t a theory—it’s your life.”
She took a step, then stopped. “I believe in living my values. You can come and help me go through things.”
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