Silent Auction

by Jane K. Cleland

  “Can you come any closer to an exact time?” he asked.

  She looked down, thinking. “Last Thursday, the day before the Whitestones arrived for the weekend. I did a thorough cleaning that day.” She looked from Chief Hunter to me, then back. “Which tooth is missing?”

  “Josie, would you tell her? You can describe it more succinctly than I can,” Chief Hunter said.

  “The Myrick the Whitestones bought from Sea View Gallery.”

  “Oh, no!” she exclaimed. “Are you serious?”

  “You have no information about its whereabouts?” he asked.

  “No … of course not. Why would you ask me that?”

  “You work here,” he said, shrugging.

  “No,” she repeated. Her eyes never left his face.

  “When you were down at the station, you mentioned seeing Mr. Winterelli the morning of his death. You said he was with Curt Grimes. Where were you when you saw him?”

  “Here,” she said, gesturing toward her worktable. “I was here working, and I happened to look up and notice the foliage.”

  She looked out the window, and I followed her gaze. Part of Frankie’s cottage roof and chimney were visible over the treetops. Boston ferns grew amid a tangle of bushes close in. A stand of tulip poplars, their leaves a soft gold, gave way to maples, elms, and oaks. By looking hard I could see bits of Frankie’s lawn chairs, the ones I’d noticed yesterday.

  “The colors are extraordinary this year, and the change has come early,” she continued, “so my attention got caught. Then something moved. It was Frankie and Curt arriving. They got out of their cars and walked into the house.” She shrugged. “I only saw them for a second or two through the trees.”

  “Did you notice whether either man was carrying anything?” Chief Hunter asked.

  “No,” she said, “but I don’t know that I would have from so far away.”

  “Let’s look at it from the other side. Can you think of any reason why Mr. Winterelli might have removed the tooth?”

  “No, absolutely not. Frankie knew he wasn’t supposed to go anywhere near the display cases.”

  “Maybe he picked it up to admire it while he and Mr. Grimes were inside hanging the door. Do you know if he was into scrimshaw? For example, did you ever talk to him about your work?”

  Her nose wrinkled as if she’d sniffed a rotten egg. “No,” she said, her voice frosty.

  I gathered that the thought that an artist like her would discuss art with a caretaker like him was beyond distasteful—it was insulting.

  Chief Hunter cocked his head. “What did you think of him?”

  “Frankie?” she asked, turning to face the chief straight on. She shrugged. “He seemed competent enough.”

  Chief Hunter nodded. “Thanks for your time.”

  “Can I ask you a question having nothing to do with anything?” I asked her, smiling. “I’m curious about something.”

  “Sure.” Her blond hair appeared nearly white under the harsh glare of the grow lights. Her eyes met mine, her expression guarded.

  “How come it’s so bright in here? I thought most artists preferred northern light.”

  She relaxed. “In order to achieve authenticity, I try to replicate the entire scrimming experience. I only use period-appropriate materials and techniques—like sail needles or bone shards. I work with the motion of the sea,” she said, pointing to the rocking platform, “and under varying lighting conditions depending on the weather.” She opened her arms wide and looked all around. “This approximates a bright sunny day on the open ocean.”

  “Wow,” I said. “I’m impressed.”

  “Thanks. I take it all very seriously. I found a whaling ship’s log that tracked the weather day by day in the 1820s. I follow it meticulously, adjusting the lighting as needed, so some days I work under clouds, some under partial sun, and so on. The objects look much richer when scrimmed under realistic conditions.”

  “How do you adjust for rough seas or rain?” I asked.

  She smiled. “I don’t! If it was bad weather, I might scrim for a few minutes with the platform really rocking, but since scrimming was a hobby for sailors, I assume that the masters didn’t work in adverse conditions. They’d be busy keeping the ship afloat!”

  I extended a hand. “Thank you, Ashley. As I said—I’m impressed.”

  “Is that true?” Chief Hunter asked as we headed out. “Are you impressed?”

  “Absolutely. Her dedication to her art is inspiring.”

  He glanced at me, and from his expression, I got the impression he was trying to gauge whether I was sincere, but before he could say anything, we reached the end of the drive. Officer Meade’s car was still in place, preventing vehicles from turning onto the lighthouse property and blocking our access to Light house Lane, but she wasn’t in sight. I lowered my window and heard a muddle of voices. Chief Hunter tapped his horn, and she stepped into view, registered who was beeping, and hustled toward us. Chief Hunter lowered his window.

  “Sorry,” Officer Meade said. “I’ll move the vehicle right away.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Media,” she said, dismissing them with a wave. “The onslaught is growing.”

  “How many?”

  “Eight right now. They come and go.”

  He nodded. “Don’t forget to call if you need help.”

  She said she would. Once she was at her car, she said something I couldn’t hear to people I couldn’t see, then got in and drove forward, allowing us to exit. Cameras were raised and photographs of us were taken as we passed the clutch of journalists. Two men ran after us shouting questions as we drove past. Through my side mirror, I watched a stocky man in his fifties jot down the SUV’s license plate number.

  “Did you bring the receipt for the missing tooth?” Chief Hunter asked.

  “Yes.” I patted the accordion folder. “One thing … its description is a little sketchy.”

  “In what way?”

  “Apparently the tooth was sold without provenance. I’m curious why Greg didn’t get the tooth appraised.”

  Chief Hunter glanced at his watch, then confirmed the time with the dash clock. It was almost three.

  “Do you have time to stop at Sea View Gallery?” he asked. “I’m thinking that maybe Mr. Donovan knows something that didn’t get written on the receipt, and if so, you can help me get the info ’cause you know the questions to ask.”

  “I have the time, but you should go in alone.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m competition. If I’m there, he’ll tell you as little as possible.”

  “Good point. You can wait in the car. If I need you, you’re there. If I need the receipt, I can get it.” He glanced at me. “Why would Mr. Donovan have skipped getting an appraisal?”

  “Maybe he was in a hurry and he figured that what the collectors didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.” I shrugged. “Or that they might not care.”

  “That doesn’t seem to apply in this case. From what you’ve told me, the Whitestones know—and care,” Chief Hunter said. “Yes, but they’re new to the game. They might not recognize that the work was sloppy.”

  As we drove into Rocky Point, I was wishing that I could be a fly on the wall of what would probably be a discomforting conversation. Greg didn’t know it yet, but he was about to be embarrassed.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Chief Hunter parallel-parked at a two-hour spot across the street and five doors down from Sea View Gallery. I had a clear view of the front door, but people inside looking out couldn’t see me. No one but Chief Hunter entered or exited.

  Ten minutes passed. A marked patrol car drove up and double-parked, boxing us in. A uniformed police officer, the same young patrolman who’d driven Officer Brownley yesterday, stepped out. He circled the car to approach me curbside.

  “Ms. Prescott?” he asked. “Chief Hunter is going to be tied up for longer than he thought, and he asked me to run you back to your office.”
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  “Sure,” I said, astounded, moving into the patrol car’s backseat.

  A thick wire mesh grate topped the front seat, imprisoning me. The window and door controls had been disabled. Sitting alone in the rear with no way out, I felt the sides closing in on me.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked.

  “Yes, absolutely,” he said, giving me no information.

  I looked into the gallery as we passed. Chief Hunter stood in the center talking to Greg, Lenny Wilton, and Curt Grimes. I wondered what they were discussing.

  Curt, about six feet tall and lean, was sinewy, with iron claws for hands. He was rocking back and forth as if the floor were covered with smoldering rocks. He was squeezing something in his right hand, an exercise ball, probably.

  The officer didn’t ask any questions, and I didn’t volunteer anything. As we approached my parking lot, I saw a knot of reporters turn as if they shared one eye. Bertie wasn’t there. I looked down, pretending the journalists didn’t exist. The policeman pulled to a stop at the front door.

  “Thanks for the ride,” I said.

  He got out and opened my door. I was glad to be back. The first thing I’ll do, I thought, is scan the documentation and upload the video. When in doubt, create a backup. Then I’ll call Wes. I had questions.

  Sasha was holding a gleaming silver sugar bowl. She looked worried. “I don’t know what to tell her,” she said to Fred.

  “Tell her the truth,” Fred said. “You have no choice.”

  “Maybe I should limit my comments to value alone and skip discussing its history.”

  “She’s a grown-up—tell her the truth. It’s an obligation of an appraiser.”

  “No, it’s not! We only tell things we can prove, and we can’t prove this.”

  To the uninitiated, Fred and Sasha’s bickering might smack of disrespect, but I knew better. Their communication style suited them, and their disagreements were always professional, never personal.

  “It’s an appraisal, Sasha,” he insisted, “not a love fest.”

  “A love fest?” I repeated, laughing. “Do we run them often?”

  Fred gave a cocky grin, one corner of his mouth higher than the other. “Not often enough,” he said.

  Gretchen, who’d been listening in, giggled, her green eyes twinkling with appreciation.

  “The sugar bowl was made for a Sheraton hotel around 1950,” Fred said, “and Sasha’s afraid to tell the owner that it was probably stolen.”

  “I’m not afraid exactly,” Sasha protested. “I’m just concerned that she’ll be disappointed.” She turned to me. “Mo Heedles is a lovely woman, and this sugar bowl is a cherished heirloom. She got it from her mother.” She sighed and glanced at her watch. “I told her to come back at four thirty.”

  I leaned over so I could see the Mickey Mouse clock on Gretchen’s desk. “So you have about a minute and a half to decide how to handle it,” I said.

  “How can I tell that nice lady that her mother was a thief?”

  “You don’t know how she got the bowl,” Fred said. “Maybe her mother got it as a present from a friend for Christmas one year, so the unknown friend’s the thief, not Ms. Heedles’s mother.”

  “That’s true,” Sasha said, perking up.

  “She won’t be the first person to hear that her object has a less than righ teous history,” Fred added.

  I lowered the timbre of my voice, mimicking a male TV host concluding a story about a dastardly event. “And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the underbelly of the antiques appraisal business.”

  Sasha sighed again.

  The phone rang, and Cara answered with her pleasant stock greeting. “Prescott’s. This is Cara. May I help you?”

  Her eyes met mine, and she nodded. “Hold a moment, please.” Then to me, “It’s that reporter, Wes Smith. You said you didn’t want to talk to any journalists, but I know you’ve spoken to him in the past.”

  “Good thinking, Cara,” I said. “I’ll take it in the ware house.” I pushed open the heavy door and grabbed the phone mounted on the wall by the worktable. “Hi, Wes,” I said. “I was just about to call you.”

  “I have info. We need to meet.”

  “I can’t leave now. I just got back. Tell me on the phone.”

  “I can’t.” He lowered his voice, adding drama. “It’s about Frankie and a girl.”

  “What girl?”

  “Not on the phone.”

  I considered whether I could leave. I had to talk to my staff, but that would only take a few minutes. “Five o’clock,” I said. “I can meet you at five.”

  “Done. Our dune at five. See ya,” he said and hung up.

  Frankie and a girl? I repeated to myself. What girl? Eric said that Frankie hadn’t had any luck meeting a girl, and then I recalled that Eric had seemed frightened.

  Back in the front office, I was greeted with laughter. A pleasant-looking middle-aged woman had tears running down her cheeks, she was laughing so hard. Sasha looked bemused.

  “This is Mo Heedles,” Sasha said.

  Ms. Heedles nodded in my direction, gasping, trying to still her laughter.

  “You told her about the Sheraton connection, I see,” I said, and Ms. Heedles began laughing hard again.

  “I asked if she knew of anyone who might have a link to a Sheraton Hotel. It seems that her mother was married at the Sheraton in Boston.”

  “She must have swiped it herself!” Ms. Heedles managed between gales of laughter. “No wonder she loved it so much!” She swept her tears away and smiled. Little crinkly lines gathered at the corners of her eyes. “I wish she was still alive to share the joke.” She thanked us, picked up her mother’s illicit souvenir, and departed, her musical chuckles mingling with the tinkles from the wind chimes.

  Seated at the guest table near the front window, I described the scope of the Whitestone appraisal to my staff.

  “The first thing we need to do is create a written inventory. Since we’re helping the police on this one, we have no time to waste. Fred, can you take it on?”

  “Absolutely,” he said.

  “E-mail it to me as soon as it’s done.”

  “Will do.”

  “Meanwhile, Sasha, you’ll need to review the recording, too, and look through the documentation to establish the protocols. Put together a list of which experts we’ll need to consult, which tests we can do in-house, and which we’ll need to outsource by noon tomorrow. That’s when I’m hoping we can pack up everything and get started. What do you think? Is that a realistic timeline?”

  “I think so,” she said. “All of our scrimshaw contacts are current, and we have our standard oil painting and maritime artifact protocols in place, so it should be a pretty straight-ahead pro cess.”

  I wish, I thought as I climbed the stairs to my office. I had a nagging sense that nothing about this appraisal would be straight-ahead.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Wes was standing at the top of the dune staring out over the ocean when I drove up. He wore jeans that sagged at the rear and a blue button-down shirt with the cuffs rolled up. He turned to watch as I walked up the shifting sand. Wes was about twenty-five but looked younger. He was plump but not fat, more soft than chunky. His skin was pasty white, as if he hadn’t been outside in the fresh air for months.

  The clouds were thicker at the shore than they’d been inland. At the water’s edge, two girls, maybe thirteen or fourteen, ambled along, engrossed in conversation. They were barefoot, their sandals dangling from their fingers. To the north, a man in shorts was tossing a Frisbee for his dog, a golden retriever.

  “Did you e-mail me some photos?” he asked as I reached the summit.

  “Hi, Wes,” I said. “I will.”

  “I need them now, Josie! I’m on deadline.”

  “You said you had news about Frankie and a girl,” I said, ignoring his demand.

  Wes sighed, tacitly agreeing to put his request on the back burner. “Her name is Lu-Ann. Lu-Ann Fol
and. She and Frankie went out once, and her ex-husband, his name is Timmy Foland, he found out about it and went nuts. This was last March. He hunted Frankie down, finally finding him at a bowling alley in Durham. He taunted him some, and they ended up taking it outside. Punches were thrown, but neither guy was much good at fighting, and everything would have blown over except the owner of the bowling alley called the cops. At the sound of the siren, Frankie ran off and left Foland to take the heat—which he did. He refused to give them Frankie’s name since it would have implicated his ex—he actually told the cops that he wouldn’t sully a woman’s good name.” Wes grinned. “He said ‘sully.’ Foland got off with a warning. Lu-Ann, always glad for an opportunity to screw with her ex, passed Frankie’s name to the cops as a tip.”

  I wondered why Eric hadn’t mentioned it when we were talking about Frankie and dating.

  “From last March?” I asked. “Doesn’t it seem a little far-fetched that Timmy Foland could be a suspect? From a fight six months ago during which no one got hurt or arrested?”

  “Yeah, the cops think so, too. Plus, Foland has an alibi. He’s a welder, and he was on the shop floor when Frankie was killed.” Wes lowered his voice. “The truth is that I mentioned it as a decoy. What I wanted to ask you about is so confidential, I didn’t want to risk saying anything about it on the phone.” His eyes were big with news. “Greg Donovan is at the police station.”

  “You’re kidding! How come?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “No. I have no idea.”

  “Weren’t you there when Chief Hunter began his interview with him?” he asked.

  “How can you possibly know that?”

  “A call went out over the radio for a cop to come get you.”

  Check, I thought, astounded for the thousandth time at how plugged-in Wes was.

  “So?” he prompted, waggling his fingers. “What do you know?”

  “Nothing.” I shrugged. “They often videotape people’s statements. Probably that’s why they asked him to come in.”