Silent Auction

by Jane K. Cleland

  On the guest level, one up, I memorialized a navigational map dated 1634 featuring hand-colored images of sea serpents, giant squid, whales, and other fearsome creatures of the sea.

  In the small sitting room at the top, I opened the accordion file Guy had told me contained the collection’s documentation. I sat cross-legged on a toile-covered window seat and flipped through the papers. I was impressed—he was thorough and or ganized. Each receipt, certificate of authentication, or written appraisal had a photograph of the object it related to attached. I went through the papers one by one, confirming I’d recorded the object each referred to. Everything correlated beautifully, and then it didn’t.

  A receipt from Sea View Gallery indicated that Guy had purchased a second Myrick tooth featuring the Susan—a tooth I hadn’t seen, or until this moment heard of. He paid $25,350 on August thirtieth. There was, it seemed, no record of its provenance.

  I stared out over the glass-smooth, cerulean ocean for a moment, then reread the meager description:

  FREDERICK MYRICK SCRIMMED TOOTH OF WHALING SCENE

  FROM THE SUSAN, CIRCA 1826.

  They bought a second Myrick? I asked myself. Myricks were the gold standard of nineteenth-century sailor-scrimmed objects. Frederick Myrick was one of history’s most prolific and respected scrimshanders. He created an unknown number of scrimmed objects—perhaps as many as thirty-five or forty teeth, an astonishing output—in the three years he spent at sea aboard the Susan, from 1826 to 1829. Oddly, once he left whaling and took up farming, he never scrimmed again. Some experts wondered whether he was that productive for real or whether he had help, or even if—perish the thought—he’d traced his designs.

  From the photograph of the missing tooth, I could see that the design illustrated a typical theme, sailors at work on the Susan. I tipped the photograph to better catch the light. A couplet attributed to Myrick and found on several of his scrimmed objects ran along the long curve. “Death to the living, long life to the killers, Success to sailors wives and greasy luck to whalers,” it read. A compass etched on the reverse side was meticulously rendered. A dark-colored material, tobacco juice, maybe, or soot, saturated the etched areas, and decorative accents had been scrimmed along the outer edge. Additional highlight lines ran along the ship, mast, and sails. The layout, style, and coloration looked similar to other Myrick teeth I’d seen. I was setting the receipt aside when from somewhere inside the lighthouse I heard a soft patter and froze.

  A door clicked closed. I heard shuffling sounds, then a pitterpat of soft tapping, maybe someone walking across the hardwood flooring, then, as if I’d fallen into a vacuum-sealed capsule, utter silence.

  Who was here? It couldn’t be the police. They didn’t have a key. It couldn’t be Ashley. She was at the police station. It has to be Maddie, I thought. Maddie had quickly approved the Golden Lights ball invitation, and now she was back to pack up.

  I tiptoed across the room to the front window. Her limo wasn’t there, but an old blue Chevy was. Rust had corroded parts of the door panels, a inevitable consequence of driving on the salt that keeps our roads passable through the long New Hampshire winters. I didn’t recognize the car.

  My hands grew moist, and spiky shivers raced up my spine. My tote bag was downstairs in the entryway, and my cell phone was in it. I looked around for a phone. There was none in sight. I made a mental note to carry my phone on my belt from now on. Steps sounded again, and my heart stopped, then began thudding. I caught my bottom lip in my teeth and edged closer to the staircase. Except for an emergency rope ladder, it was the only way out. Soundlessly, I started down the steps. Halfway down, the step groaned under my weight. I froze again and stood holding my breath, listening for signs that whoever was inside had heard me moving.

  Papers rustled.

  I wiped my hands against my jean-clad thighs to dry them off, then, leaning heavily on the railing so it, not the step, would bear most of my weight, I lowered myself to the next step. At the landing, I paused to listen.

  I heard a subdued whirr, a machine sound, maybe the refrigerator cycling on. I pressed an ear against each of the two guest room doors. Silence.

  Taking a deep breath and holding it, I looked over the railing into the open living area. Ashley stood by Guy’s desk, a stack of papers in her hands, a bottle of furniture polish and a chamois nearby.

  “Ashley!” I called.

  She didn’t respond, and I called again. I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t reacting—then I saw that she was wearing earphones. A thin white wire led to an iPod clipped to her belt. I ran down the remaining stairs and caught her eye.

  She gasped and dropped the papers. “Oh, my God, Josie!” she said, pulling the earphones from her ears. “You scared me to death!”

  “You and me both. Sorry to startle you. I didn’t hear you drive up, but then I heard noises inside.”

  “I didn’t see your car. I thought the light house was empty.”

  “Chief Hunter drove me. He’ll be back soon.”

  “Wow.” She pressed her hand against her chest. “My heart is still pounding.”

  “Yeah, mine, too.”

  “Have you already started the appraisal?” she asked.

  I nodded and bent to pick up several sheets of paper that had fluttered near my feet. She scooped up the rest and placed them on Guy’s desk under the ship’s bell paperweight.

  “Yes, the police asked me not to delay. I’m almost done, so I’ll be out of your hair in a few minutes,” I said.

  “No problem. I can come back anytime. It’s easier for me to work if the place is empty.”

  “Makes sense. Do you want me to call when I’m done?”

  “To tell you the truth, I’d just as soon come in tomorrow. I came straight here from the police station, and I’m beat.”

  “Was it bad?”

  “Yeah.”

  I sighed and nodded. “My staff and I are going to be in and out over the next few days. I don’t know my exact schedule yet. Why don’t I call you when I’m en route so you won’t be surprised?”

  “That’s fine. Or not … really, it’s no big deal.” She waved goodbye as she left.

  I sat on a step to allow my still-racing pulse to quiet. I heard Ashley drive away. After a while, I went to one of the study windows and stood with my forehead pressed against the glass, watching the ocean twinkle with diamond-studded glints.

  “Back to work,” I said aloud.

  As I walked past the desk, my eyes came to Ashley’s chamois. I touched the soft fabric. My mother had kept her cherished Baccarat crystal rolled in chamois. Every holiday she and I unrolled the glasses, oohing and ahhing as if we were seeing them for the first time. When I was twelve, we’d spent so long aiming the crystal under the chandelier light to make prisms on the walls, my dad came in to see what we were up to. Eleven months later, on a raw November afternoon, my mother died of a grisly cancer, leaving me and my father alone. The next week, he’d asked me to set the table the way she always had, using the Minton china, the Lunt silver, and the Baccarat crystal they’d received as wedding gifts.

  “You aced your biology test, and I don’t want celebrating your accomplishment to get lost in our grief,” he’d said.

  I’d shaken my head, stunned that he could even think of such a thing at such a time. How can he imagine I care about biology or tests when I feel like my heart’s been ripped out of my chest? I’d wondered that day. I’d turned away, unable to stop weeping. “She’d be beside herself, Josie,” he’d said, “to think that we didn’t continue our family traditions. And one of our most important traditions is celebrating everything we can.”

  We used those Baccarat glasses nearly every week. When I got a part in the school play, out they came. When my dad closed a deal with a new client, the table was set to the max. Chamois was, to me, an enduring symbol of love and celebration and my parents.

  My cell phone rang, chasing away the memory, and I raced to reach my bag. It was Chief Hunt
er, and he said he was about two minutes away and asked how was I doing timewise. I told him I was done. I tore back upstairs, scooped up the file I’d left on the window seat, and was at the door before his SUV came into view.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  A scrimmed tooth is missing,” I said.

  Chief Hunter stood with his arms folded as I explained.

  “What would you do if this was a regular appraisal?” he asked. “Search to be sure it wasn’t simply overlooked. For example, maybe the Whitestones moved it to a bureau drawer. If I didn’t find it, I’d call the owner.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  We started at the top and worked our way down. We looked on every shelf, in every drawer and closet, and under every piece of furniture. The tooth wasn’t there. “Where do you think it is?” he asked.

  I made a “beats me” face. “Maybe they took it to New York.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “To get it appraised. They bought it without provenance.”

  “Wouldn’t they hire you to appraise it?”

  “Yes.”

  “So where is it?” he asked.

  “Maybe they took it to New York to show someone.”

  “Who?”

  “A friend.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged and looked out the window. A squirrel was on its hind legs, listening to something I couldn’t hear. I glanced back at Chief Hunter. He was waiting for me to say something, to explain. I didn’t want to express my fear; to speak the words aloud would make it real. “Maybe someone stole it,” I said.

  He nodded. “I’ll call Mrs. Whitestone.”

  I stood nearby and listened in as he received the expected news—Maddie had no idea where the missing tooth was. The last time she recalled seeing it was Saturday night when Guy had brought all four scrimshaw teeth out of the display cabinet to show some friends who’d come by for drinks. She saw Guy put them back.

  I waved my hand to get his attention.

  “Hold on,” he said, looking at me.

  “Ask her which display cabinet and which shelf.” I pointed to the case in Guy’s study. “Do you see? All the shelves are full. There’s no spot for it.”

  He stared at the glass-fronted display case for a moment, then spoke into the phone.

  “Mrs. Whitestone … thanks for holding.” He repeated my question, then listened to her reply. He thanked her again and ended the call with a promise to keep her posted. “That case, third shelf,” he told me, pointing. “In between the two clocks.”

  “Someone adjusted the position of everything else so there wouldn’t be a gap,” I said, looking at the shelf.

  He leaned back on his heels, assessing the situation. “If you were going to remove a scrimmed tooth from the case, what would you do? Exactly. Would you squat? Sit on the floor? Describe it to me.”

  I followed his gaze. “I’d kneel on the floor, put on plastic gloves, and position bubble wrap next to me so I could move each tooth directly from the case onto the bubble wrap. My goal would be to touch it as little as possible.”

  “Why plastic gloves?”

  “Oil from skin discolors ivory.”

  “So your fingerprints, if you weren’t wearing gloves, would be on the knob to open the door and maybe the shelf.”

  “Possibly on the door molding, as well, if I pushed it shut without using the knob.”

  He nodded. “I’ll call in the tech team to check. We did handles, but not door molding or the insides of the cases.”

  “Can I pack up everything else?”

  “Better not. I want them to check the objects themselves, too.”

  I nodded. “Okay. They know to use archival processes, right?”

  “Yes. They’ve done similar projects before, so they tell me. I’ll have them call you if they have any questions.”

  I consulted the alarm instructions Maddie had given me, then set it and locked the door as we left.

  “Probably Frankie got caught up in the middle of a robbery, just like we thought. But why would the thief steal that one tooth? There are more valuable objects in plain sight,” I said, thinking aloud.

  “Can you think of a reason why?”

  I considered his question. “Maybe the thief was interrupted.”

  He glanced at me. “I’d like to stop by Ms. Morse’s cottage on our way out to see if she knows anything about it. It won’t take long. I’m thinking I’d like you to come in with me. Having a civilian in the room might make my questions seem more like conversation than interrogation. You okay with that?”

  “Sure,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

  The more I learned about Chief Hunter’s style and abilities, the more impressed I became. He was forthcoming without being indiscreet, trusting while always validating, protective without being patronizing, and simultaneously intuitive and respectful of science. He was a foe to be reckoned with and an ally to be valued.

  Ashley opened the door wearing her working smock. The living room cum studio was unnaturally bright. It took several seconds for my eyes to adjust, and when they did, I discovered the explanation: Grow lamps hung from sliding tracks, and they were all on. It was dazzling.

  “Sorry to interrupt you,” Chief Hunter said. “We’ll only be a minute.”

  She nodded, looking wary. I didn’t blame her. I’d feel on edge, too, if a police chief showed up at my door—especially since she’d just returned from a stint at the station.

  She stepped away from her worktable into a small area that had been set up as a sitting room. A hunter green love seat sat on hard-wood flooring, facing a TV mounted on the far wall. Two ladder-back chairs were nearby. A square glass-topped coffee table was in front of the love seat. Nothing was on it. There were no books or magazines in sight. There were no plants. There was no art on the walls. There were no rugs. A fieldstone fireplace matched the outside of the house. The hearth was ash free. A built-in storage cubby was filled with logs and kindling.

  On the side of the room near her worktable, every inch of wall space was covered with thumbtacked photographs, museum catalogue pages, and computer printouts of famous scrimmed scenes. The table sat flush against the outside wall. On the floor in front of it, a teak platform was perched on a fixed roller. Four work lights were clamped along the sides, two per end, their lamps aimed up. Small ceramic pots rested in a trench on one side. Calligraphy labels read CANDLE BLACK, TOBACCO JUICE, and INK. Brushes, an antique knife with an elaborately carved ivory handle, sail needles, an échoppe—an etching tool used to create swelling lines—and sharpened shards of bone sat nearby. A stack of hair-thin onionskin paper was in a tray alongside a stack of neatly folded chamois. Three oval-shaped pieces of bone, about two inches by one, lay in the center of the work area, all partially scrimmed. The design on all three was identical. At the top and bottom, ornate borders, suggestive of pointy waves and rope, had been etched. A waving banner just below the top border read, USS CONSTITUTION, and below it, a ship sailed toward the viewer, sails aflutter in the wind. Toward the bottom, just above the lower border, another banner fluttered. The elements that were completed were minutely detailed. I wondered if Ashley would add her signature extra lines.

  “Are they pendants?” I asked, nodding toward the objects.

  “Yes. I’ll drill holes after the scrimming is done. Greg thought that less expensive items might sell well, so we’re going to test it.”

  “That’s a great idea.”

  “Thanks,” she said. She tucked her ashen hair behind her ear. “I’ve never mass-produced anything before. I’ve only done about a dozen so far. Greg says it’s too early to tell how well they’ll sell, but I’ve got my fingers crossed.”

  I looked at the pendants again. I wanted to offer another compliment, a specific one, and I wanted it to be sincere. “The ship’s amazing,” I said, pointing toward it. “It’s not easy to convey that sense of power in such a small format.”

  “Thanks,”
she repeated, blushing and smiling. “Would Prescott’s be interested in trying some out? I know you carry Lenny’s Leon barrettes.”

  “What’s the price point?”

  “Ten dollars.”

  “Wholesale?” I asked, shocked. We’d need to charge thirty dollars retail for the deal to make financial sense. I’d expected her to match Lenny’s Leon brand strategy and market them as three-or five-dollar impulse buys.

  Her smile faded to nothing. “Yes. Scrimming them is very time-consuming.”

  “I understand. I’m sorry, but that won’t work for the tag sale.” I pointed toward one, wanting to change the subject, afraid that I might have angered her. “Do you use resin or contemporary materials?”

  She shook her head. “Oh, no, I only use fossil bone and baleen. Well, sometimes I use ivory, but never elephant ivory. I’m very careful with what I buy.”

  I nodded. “Poaching is horrendous.”

  “And unnecessary,” she added earnestly. “There’s no need to kill animals when so much fossil material exists.”

  “Baleen was used in corset stays, right?”

  “Right, and umbrellas and buggy whips. It’s supple in a way that—” She seemed to recall why I was there and turned worried eyes toward Chief Hunter. “Sorry … I’m easy to distract if you get me talking about scrimshaw.”

  “It’s interesting,” Chief Hunter said, smiling. “As you know, Ms. Prescott is appraising the Whitestones’ maritime collection. It seems that one of their scrimmed teeth has gone missing.”

  He spoke easily, sounding as unconcerned as if he were talking about a sock that mysteriously vanished between the washer and the dryer, not an antique worth tens of thousands of dollars that had disappeared during a murder investigation.

  “Do you know where it is?” Chief Hunter asked.

  “Me? No! My God, no!”

  “When did you see it last?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, I cleaned up each day of the weekend—but I just was in for a quick tidying up, you know? I haven’t dusted anything in any of the display cases for days.”