Pieces and Players

by Blue Balliett

  Just like this mystery, Early thought. Treacherous. We five should watch out. That butler today had an awfully big knife and it caught the light just like the Bean.

  “What’s the story on the big fountain? Any details on where to hide loot in there?” Zoomy asked.

  “Hold on.” Ms. Hussey tapped and scrolled. “Hmm, open to the public in 2004, the two towers are fifty feet high and made from glass brick. They bracket a black granite reflecting pool … light-emitting diodes — LEDs — show digital videos of 960 faces … each appears for the same number of minutes …” She closed her phone. “What a place to hide art that everyone is searching for, inside art that is looked at by hundreds, sometimes thousands, every day!”

  “Yeah, art under art,” Petra mused. “Like it’s invisible —”

  “— but almost in plain sight!” Early finished, and the girls high-fived.

  Calder and Tommy looked at each other and shrugged.

  “You’d have to be a super-sneaky type to make friends with the maintenance crew and get them to store a humongous box for you,” Tommy added. “Why would they ever agree to do that?” Sometimes girls get so carried away with word jabber that they say impossible stuff, he thought to himself.

  “But it’s true that people sometimes don’t notice what they’re looking at,” Zoomy said. “Like my gam says: Their eyes are always in a hurry and about to move on to something else.”

  Petra turned back to look at the Bean before they left. In the upper curve, far above her head, she thought she saw two black jackets. By the time she’d pointed them out, they were gone in the crowd.

  “I think you guys have Eagle and his clothing on the brain,” Ms. Hussey joked. “Kind of like the Where’s Waldo? pictures — if you spend too much time looking at them, you start imagining things everywhere.”

  “Shouldn’t we be?” Tommy asked.

  Zoomy nodded.

  “Don’t be rats, you guys,” Ms. Hussey said, her voice cool and crisp. “Or cats,” she muttered. A moment later, they were all walking toward the train, Ms. Hussey in the lead, and she seemed normal again.

  Grown-ups sure can say weird things sometimes, Tommy thought. Even the best. What did I do? Just being a detective.

  As if reading his mind, Early said softly, “Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over the candlestick.” She glanced at Tommy, who was now staring at her. “If Eagle is Jack, he’s nimble. Oops, here we go with Mother Goose again.”

  “Guess Jack is trying not to get a burned behind,” Tommy said.

  “Why would Eagle be following us today?” Early was frowning.

  Zoomy faced the group. “Come closer, you guys,” he said softly.

  “Ms. Hussey was talking to a man on the phone earlier today,” Zoomy whispered. “I could hear.”

  “Really?” Petra squeaked. “But she’s always so honest with us!”

  “She didn’t exactly lie,” Early said quietly.

  Half a block behind the group, a man in a black leather jacket wove in and out of the crowd.

  Once off the train in Hyde Park, the five kids stopped with Ms. Hussey at Powell’s Books. Petra wanted to point out where Mrs. Farmer’s book had been on the shelf, and where Eagle had been sitting with Jubie while four of the five talked. She wanted to show Ms. Hussey that they weren’t suspicious without reason.

  “Perfect timing!” Mr. Watch called out. “Mrs. Sharpe’s son just dropped off an envelope of copies of the text in Sarah Chase Farmer’s book, one for each of you kids. Said he ran across a copy. He explained that you’re doing research on the theft and might each need to have your own.”

  Five mouths made a row of Os, and Ms. Hussey grinned. “You were saying?” she asked the kids.

  “Did that copy I was looking at ever end up back on the right shelf?” Petra asked Mr. Watch.

  “Oh, hmm.” He snapped his suspenders. “I think it did. Sometimes people reshelve books improperly, return for another look, and then assume the worst.” He gave Petra an unfriendly wink.

  “Huh,” Petra said. Was he implying she had lost the book? Insulted, she hesitated for a moment, glanced at Ms. Hussey, then decided she’d said enough.

  If Eagle had “borrowed” the book in order to help the kids, was that okay? And why hadn’t he just bought it from Mr. Watch? A grown-up with a business could certainly afford to pay for a book like that.

  On the way out, Petra glanced back at Mr. Watch, who turned away and picked up the phone.

  * * *

  After their stop at Powell’s, Zoomy made the group step into his guesthouse, where each ate a dilly bean.

  Ms. Hussey, hugging the packet of copies of The Truth About My Art, was suddenly in a great mood. “Mmm, they’re crispy, sweet, and salty all together,” she said. “What a productive couple of days we’ve had,” she purred.

  “That’s good,” Gam said.

  More filled with confusing deeps than anything else, Tommy thought.

  Before Ms. Hussey went her own way, she distributed the copies of Sarah Farmer’s book. Minutes later, before the five separated that afternoon, they agreed to try an experiment. Mostly, it was Petra and Early’s idea. The girls, talking intently together, had dropped behind the group after they’d all left Powell’s.

  The plan was this: Each of them would read through The Truth that evening and the next. Then, before going to sleep on Tuesday, they’d each look through the pictures of the stolen art. Each would pick one item, the one they’d most like to keep forever, and ask it to communicate. Or, as Early put it, “to talk and tell us what’s up,” perhaps in their dreams.

  “And it’s a full moon,” Petra finished.

  “What if the art starts howling?” Tommy asked. Calder jabbed him, and Zoomy laughed.

  “Maybe the Rembrandt boat will sink and the wine goblet will say gobble gobble,” Calder said.

  The other two boys snickered. The five, divided at that moment into a three and a two, didn’t see a black limousine sliding along the block behind them, a familiar face in the front seat.

  * * *

  While the five kids looked forward to their experiment, an elderly man, alone in his hospital room, drifted in and out of consciousness.

  Unable to apologize or communicate during the past couple of days, he found himself imprisoned in silence. Faces cycled through his mind, the living mixed with the dead. He remembered holding Sarah Chase Farmer’s hand as a boy, as she walked him through her museum and home. She had asked him which piece of art he loved the most; which painting made him believe the people or places inside it were alive, a world with moving air, rustlings, whispers, and secrets?

  He had picked The Concert that day. It felt cozy to him, as though a small boy could crouch by the table in the foreground and hide forever, watching the woman who played the harpsichord. His mother had died the year before, swept away by a frightening illness. She had played the piano every morning of his life, or so it seemed, in the sitting room of their giant house. He’d always been allowed to bring books or a toy and stay nearby as long as he was quiet. Sometimes he simply lay on the floor, watching the sunshine catch on a curl of his mother’s hair or her earring, the music pouring and puddling around him. These sunshine concerts had the comfort of a warm bath, a time when no one expected him to be anything but himself. When he looked at that Vermeer painting, the woman at the harpsichord always seemed to know he was there. The boy shared that with his great-aunt.

  Mrs. Farmer had hugged him and said, “And one day, you’ll never have to be apart.”

  He had said, “When I die?” and she had shaken her head and laughed, a jingly sound. “No, no! When this museum is yours to treasure and share, and all of these people will welcome you to the world each morning.”

  He never forgot her words, although they had dulled with time. She had willed the museum to him, in a trust, overstepping many others in the Chase family — and yet he had never moved to her cozy apartment on the fourth floor, even though he hadn’
t married. He had lived a lonely, penny-pinching life in a big house with not enough sunshine in it and no children. He hadn’t treasured and shared, not enough. By waiting too long to pour his money and his heart into that magical place, he’d let down his great-aunt, art lovers everywhere, and the woman playing the harpsichord. Plus, he’d done something unforgivable that would have made his family hate him. Regrets swarmed and hovered, flapped their wings and meowed, and he felt heavy — oh, so heavy! — with long-held hopes, sadness, and broken dreams.

  He was aware now of a hugely round and bright moon. What? Across this moon flew an old woman on the back of a goose — perhaps his great-aunt Sarah. She held a baby in her arms. For some reason, the sight filled the old man with peace.

  It was then that he suffered another sharp sting, one that mercifully carried him off.

  * * *

  The news of William Swift Chase’s death traveled fast the next day. On the phone with Tommy, Calder pointed out that with William Chase gone, the number of pieces and number of players were the same: thirteen to thirteen.

  After she heard the news, Petra pictured the majestic hulk of the Farmer Museum and wondered if the soul of Sarah Chase Farmer was especially sad. Were the rooms of treasures — the carved chairs and danger boxes, the paintings, the many dancing people and stone lions, the tapestries and old china — mourning Mr. Chase? Was Medusa still looking cheerful in the middle of the courtyard?

  It was a dark thought, not in the least bit comforting.

  Early shivered, glad the five of them weren’t in the museum when the news broke. She could still picture what might have been a sleeve, and then a skirt whisking around the corner of the Dutch Room as they’d walked away. Would Mrs. Farmer be feeling frustrated? Grief stricken? Or both? Sometimes upset adults lashed out at kids, and upset spirits might do the same.

  Gam read lots of The Truth aloud to Zoomy that night while he scanned page after page of the art, deciding which piece he’d want to keep. Early, Calder, Tommy, and Petra each read their copies of the book, then soaked up the thirteen images, turning them around and around in their minds before going to sleep.

  * * *

  It’s said that a full moon coaxes the human heart and brain closer together, just as it pulls the tides in the ocean. Some stumble and some catch their balance; some are pulled toward death and some toward life. That night, the moon traveled in and out of bedroom after bedroom in Hyde Park, as if hunting. When a certain five kids were touched by that cold, bright light, each startled awake — awake and feeling as though they’d never sleep again, not until they’d taken what was offered.

  * * *

  Zoomy was the first to sit upright in bed. He looked into the face of a man with a dark top hat and coat. His eyes were bright and steady, his mouth absorbed beneath a small, cheerful mustache. His surroundings were blurry — perhaps his world also held deeps. The man gripped a pencil in his right hand and covered what he was writing with his left, as if surprised that Zoomy had found him. As if he didn’t want him to read what he was writing, not yet. You’ll understand this message, he seemed to say. You will! Just keep watching. And when the moment comes …

  Zoomy dropped off to sleep, muttering, “I will, I will,” somehow filled with the certainty that he, although legally blind and sometimes jittery-splat, wouldn’t disappoint.

  * * *

  Early, lying on her sleeping mat in the Pearl apartment, listened to her parents snore and Jubie stir restlessly nearby. The moon was the roundest moon she thought she’d ever seen, as round as a marble or a coin or a golf ball. As Early stared up at it, the moon flattened into a collar, a disc-shaped collar around the neck of a woman with pearls in her hair and lace at her wrists. A ring gleamed on one finger. The woman waited, a smile playing around her mouth, not in the least bit impatient. A man stood nearby and looked directly at Early with a quizzical, pleased expression. Well, come in, he seemed to say. Have a seat here, on this chair with the red cushion. They will arrive soon and will be so happy to see you.

  Early stepped in, feeling oddly calm. Somehow she knew she would shine. She’d fill this room with her own truth, whatever it might be, and everyone in it would thank her for it.

  * * *

  Calder startled awake and grabbed for the wooden bedpost. He was blinded by light, by a feeling of not being able to catch his breath. He knelt by a mast, holding on for dear life as the boat beneath him shuddered and pitched and rolled, the cold slap of salt spray mixed with the screams of men. The waters around him were dark and furious, and suddenly he knew how little anything mattered — even his pentominoes — in the face of such power. As he lost his grip, rolling along the bottom of the boat, he shouted, “But I want to live! I do! I wasn’t meant to be here!”

  His father opened his door. “Everything okay in here? Bad dream?”

  Untangling himself from a snarl of covers, Calder nodded. Then he said something his father repeated to him the next morning:

  “They need help! All thirteen of them!”

  * * *

  Having read and reread Mrs. Farmer’s thoughts about the Flinck painting, Tommy felt thrilled that Chicago starred in that landscape. She’d said it reminded her “of the treasures this city offers. We have the river, the grand lake, and much parkland for all to experience. We have paths and bridges to lead us forward. We have captured the essentials for human joy. In this painting I also see both our history and hopes for the future, as the obelisk resembles the one from the great 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.” It was a cool idea, the thought that a painting from well over three hundred and fifty years ago could also be about Tommy’s world, as if the painter knew how much glory was still to come.

  He didn’t remember falling asleep, but woke suddenly to see the road in the painting stretching ahead. The dirt was cool and smooth under his bare feet, the people under a giant tree — the woman on a donkey and the man standing next to her — were enjoying the day. And was that a door in the tree, an open door? The air was warm, the river nearby was burbling, there were flowers and birds, and he felt as though a million treasures were waiting to be found.

  But the Farmer thirteen! They were waiting, too … and now he was inside one of the stolen paintings. Were there fresh clues to be found? And if so, where should he look? Perhaps the door in the tree, a door opening into darkness.

  * * *

  Petra gazed so long and hard at her copy of The Concert that the singing woman moved her raised hand. She did! It opened farther, the fingers uncurling as if to release a flood of notes. Suddenly Petra was standing by the X shape on the tiled floor, invisible in a swirl of classical melody and creamy light. She felt herself being pulled forward by the path of three Xs that ended beneath the man’s chair. She wanted to reach out a hand to brace herself on the table to her left, but couldn’t.

  And the woman playing the harpsichord — there she was! It was the Lady from A Lady Writing, Vermeer’s great 1665 painting. Petra studied the lemony ribbon in her hair, the pearl dangling from her ear, her sleeve bright with light, and the heavy folds of satin in her skirt — and the rectangle of red on the back of the man’s chair, which seemed to say, Stop! Turn back!

  Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, the woman at the harpsichord turned her head and nodded to Petra. She was a young Mrs. Sharpe, and she whispered, For art, this building — this comfort, as if Petra would understand.

  * * *

  Perhaps because William Swift Chase’s death was followed by that night of full-moon dreams, the rhythm of the investigation changed. The five kids awoke Wednesday linked by a feeling of urgency. The art was out there that very morning, perhaps in danger, waiting for the right thing to happen. Each piece had seemed to reach out to the kid who chose it, pulling them closer to the crime. Their responsibilities, even as thirteen-year-old dreamers, had been clear.

  The six remaining trustees were dizzy with publicity and worry, worry and guilt, guilt and anger — anger that they vented at
reporters and newspeople. One mean question nipped at another, circling round and round. How could their old friend have died like this, leaving them to cope with such a mess? And to add insult to injury, he’d left a trust, to be activated “immediately, at the event of my passing, and at the discretion of the trustees” that allowed for the near-complete restoration of the museum building, although it wouldn’t cover many other issues, such as staffing, programs for all ages, and transportation needs.

  Why hadn’t he shared that money as the building ran slowly downhill, year after year? Why had the seven of them fought so bitterly about what should happen to this exquisite collection of art when, all along, he’d known he could intervene? Had he been hoping to use the threat of a move to jolt Chicago donors awake and raise the remaining millions that would allow for art restoration, plenty of parking, increased numbers of guards and curators, education outreach, and international connections? Or had he been genuinely unsure of what was right for the art?

  He’d always insisted that he wanted the art to stay in Chicago, where it belonged, but explained that the trust didn’t have the means to carry out even a fraction of what was needed, not unless they hired a professional fund-raising team. No one had felt that using dwindling funds in that way would be either responsible or effective.

  Mrs. Sharpe had known she would be his executor — the person in charge of making sure that what he ordered in his will was carried out. She hadn’t, however, guessed what she’d have to do. After opening the trust envelope and reading the document aloud in the presence of the other trustees on Tuesday, she had found another, smaller envelope with her name on it. Private was printed in the upper left hand corner. She’d opened the letter quietly, as the others talked. Her mouth had opened in a slow O, a highly uncharacteristic gesture.