Silent Auction

by Jane K. Cleland

  “That’s a completely different situation. The Darling Gallery lacks expertise as well as cash. We’re not buying something for or from them. We’re assisting them in an appraisal they can’t do on their own. In this case, if Rose asks me to front the cash, she ends up screwed. She’d lose the commission I’d pay her for the referral, and she’d lose her own markup. I mean, think about it … if she asked me to buy something, say a Chippendale desk for three thousand dollars, how could she turn around and sell it to me for thirty-five hundred?”

  “So she’d turn the picker over to you? What would she get out of it for losing her source?”

  “A commission on the sale, and she’d keep her best customer—me—happy.”

  “There you go,” Chief Hunter said. “Tell Sam that without naming any names.”

  I nodded as I thought it through. “I can do that.”

  “As you know,” Chief Hunter said, turning from me to Max to Detective Brownley, then back to Max again, “we’re making the call from this location so Prescott’s phone number will show on Sam’s caller ID display. We all need to be aware that the call will be on the speakerphone, so there needs to be no rustling of papers, tapping of feet, or jingling of coins. And for God’s sake, if you need to sneeze, get out of the room first.” He looked at me. “Ready?”

  I wished the three of them weren’t there. I hate feeling conspicuous, and this was about as bad as I could imagine. It felt as if I were standing on a big, empty stage in a packed theater. “As ready as I’m going to get, I guess,” I said.

  Chief Hunter handed me a slip of paper with Sam’s phone number written on it. I took a deep breath, then another, then punched the button on the unit activating the speakerphone function. The tinny sound of the dial tone startled me, and I realized that muscles in my neck and shoulders were knotted tight. I arched my back for a moment, trying and failing to relax a little, then dialed.

  “A-yup,” a crotchety voice said.

  “Is this Sam?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “Josie Prescott from Prescott’s Antiques and Auctions in Rocky Point. Do you have a sec to talk?” I asked, thinking I knew that voice. Who is he? I asked myself.

  “What do you want?”

  Sam sounded pugnacious, more suspicious than curious. I found myself fighting an inclination to apologize for some unknown offense. Absurd! I told myself. I kept my eyes on my desk blotter.

  “I hear you often have good-quality objects,” I replied. “I’m a buyer. Cash.”

  “Who says so?”

  “A dealer.”

  “Which dealer?” he demanded.

  My impulse was to back off in the face of his belligerence, but I resisted. My dad once told me that on the street, you should do whatever it takes to get away from aggression, including turning tail and running if necessary, but in business, you need to meet aggression with aggression. Anything else only feeds the other guy’s sense of entitlement, empowering him while weakening your own position.

  “A good friend in the business who can’t afford your stuff and is doing me a favor,” I said impatiently. “Don’t you want a new customer who pays cash money? I need inventory—and I need it all the time.”

  “What kind of inventory?”

  I smiled. Bingo, I thought. Gotcha. Now that he’d asked for specifics, the deal was mine. “Anything good.”

  “You said your company is in antiques? I don’t deal in antiques much. Only sometimes.”

  It’s the man with the Winslow Homer, I realized. The man in the brown van. Confusion and shock ricocheted through my brain. Does this change anything? I asked myself, forcing myself to focus on the most pressing question.

  “I said I don’t deal in antiques much,” he repeated.

  No, I thought, it doesn’t change a thing. He doesn’t know I’ve recognized his voice. “Come and show me what you’ve got. I have a couple of good customers—really good customers—eager to buy.”

  “What do you buy?”

  “A little of everything. Right now, I’d love to get my hands on some pewter serving pieces, wooden tools, and maritime-themed objects. But I’m open to anything.”

  “When you want me to come?”

  “Now is good. Can you come now?” I asked.

  After a pause that seemed endless, he said, “Tomorrow afternoon. I can meet you around four tomorrow.”

  “Not today?”

  “No. I’m too far away.”

  “Tomorrow will work. Let me give you the address,” I said, still pretending I hadn’t recognized his voice.

  “I know where you are. I’ll call around three thirty,” he said and hung up.

  Chief Hunter reached over and tapped the button to end the call. He smiled. “And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you do that.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  I know him,” I explained, describing how Sam had come to stop by Prescott’s. “I just didn’t know his name.”

  “Do you think it’s just random happenstance that you connected with him today for the first time?” Chief Hunter asked.

  “Probably. I’m always amazed when a new picker shows up and tells me he’s been selling in the area for ten or twenty years. I mean, how can he have just discovered me? I’ve been in business for five years already! Why didn’t he stop by years ago?” I shrugged. “People are creatures of habit, pickers included.”

  “I guess,” he said. He offered a hand, and we shook. “Thanks, Josie.”

  After they left, I flipped through the small stack of WHILE YOU WERE OUT messages that had accumulated over the last two days.

  Someone I didn’t know named Hideo Yamamoto, curator at the Shipping Heritage Museum in Honolulu, had called late afternoon yesterday about a Myrick-scrimmed tooth the museum was considering acquiring.

  It was just after three here, 9:00 A.M. in Hawaii. I brought up the document Sasha had prepared last spring tracing extant Myrick teeth, then called the museum.

  Hideo Yamamoto answered with a heavily accented “Yamamoto here.”

  “Mr. Yamamoto, this is Josie Prescott returning your call.”

  “Ah, thank you so much for calling. You are very kind.”

  “It’s a plea sure. Am I calling at a convenient time?” I asked, familiar with the Japanese tradition of engaging in a brief exchange of polite small talk before broaching business.

  “Yes. And for you?”

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  “Thank you. Please excuse my English. I am, as you can hear from my accent, Japanese. I am a consultant helping the museum expand their collection. You are near New York City?”

  “Not so very far from New York. I’m in New Hampshire.”

  “Ah, I do not know New Hampshire, but I liked New York City very much.”

  We chatted for several minutes about his one and only visit to New York and my several trips to Japan; then he said, “Thank you again for calling me back so promptly. I am trying to ascertain provenance of a scrimmed tooth. May I speak to you in confidence?”

  “Yes, of course,” I said. Discussing potential purchases in confidence was common in the industry. If news got out about an object as rare as a newly discovered Myrick tooth, a bidding frenzy might drive the price up before the museum had time to close the deal. “I am glad to do so. You said in your message that it was a Myrick? A Frederick Myrick tooth?”

  “That is what the seller says. We are very interested in it. I think … that is, I hope … what I should say is that it appears the tooth is new to the market.”

  Coincidences happen, but this would be a whopper. Sure, another unknown Myrick tooth could have surfaced, but in this age of instant communication and frequent flights between the East Coast and the Hawaiian Islands, there was a better than even chance that the tooth stolen from the Whitestones had found its way to Honolulu.

  “When did you receive the tooth?” I asked.

  “Yesterday.”

  My heart began to thump. “May I ask how you acqu
ired it?”

  “We have reached a tentative arrangement with a reputable dealer who knows of our longtime interest in maritime art and artifacts.”

  “A local dealer?”

  “No, from your part of the country, in Boston.”

  Boston was close enough to New Hampshire for a thief to drive there, sell the tooth, and get back in three or four hours if the traffic wasn’t too bad and he hurried.

  “Have you seen the Interpol listing on a stolen Myrick tooth?” I asked.

  “No!” he exclaimed. “I know nothing of a stolen tooth. Please tell me.”

  I gave him the Interpol URL so he could find the listing online. “I posted it on behalf of a client this morning. A collector bought a purported Myrick tooth from a local art gallery not long ago. It is missing, and presumed stolen.”

  “I must check.”

  “Do you have photographs of your tooth that you can send me? I have one photo of the stolen tooth from the initial sale, which is also online.”

  “Yes. I will e-mail them to you now. One moment, please … thank you for your patience,” Mr. Yamamoto said. “The photographs have been sent.”

  I opened up the first image, zoomed in, and exhaled, only then realizing that I’d been holding my breath. Mr. Yamamoto’s tooth was not the Whitestones’. His tooth’s design showed the Ann, not the Susan. “It’s not the stolen Myrick,” I said.

  “It’s a different design.”

  “Yes, I see your announcement. Ah, that is good news indeed.”

  Sort of, I thought. I was glad for him that his tooth wasn’t the Whitestones’, but it would have been a huge relief to me to know that Guy’s stolen tooth had been located and was in safe hands.

  “There is only one extant Myrick showing the Ann, is that correct?” I asked.

  “Yes. This, if it is genuine, would be the second. Do you agree that it looks like a typical Myrick?”

  I clicked through the photos. Yellow age spots darkened the ivory, as if someone had spilled buttermilk on it and the stains hadn’t washed away. A near-black chevron border circled the narrow end of the tooth. Under it, text read, “This was done by Fred Myrick on board the ship Susan of Nantucket for Mr. John Joseph Lewis on board the Ann of London” followed by “January the 31st, 1829.” The word “London” and the date were markedly lighter in hue than the rest of the text. A fishtail border wended its way around the larger end. Etched over the three-sailed ship were the words “The Ann of London on the Coast of Japan.” The sea was calm, depicted by six stacked, evenly spaced, wavy lines. Darker lines edged the ballooning sails. The deck of the boat was pale and hard to see. The ropes stretching from the sails to the deck showed astonishing detail—I could even see frayed spots. On the reverse side, a compass indicated that the ship was heading south.

  “I agree—the design looks right,” I told him. I clicked back to the first photo. “It’s hard to tell from the photograph, of course, but it appears that some parts of the ivory have yellowed more than other parts, the coloration is uneven, some lines are darker than others, and some of the text has faded. Is that correct?”

  “Yes. Did you observe that in the Myrick tooth that is missing?”

  “I didn’t appraise that tooth, so I can’t say.”

  “But wait, perhaps I am mistaken, but I thought … I have my notes here … I called you because I read you sold one this year. Is that not correct?”

  “Yes, that’s right, but the stolen tooth is not one I appraised. In the Myrick tooth I sold, the yellowing is very similar and, according to the curator at the whaling museum I consulted, very typical. This drawing is both a bit paler and a bit darker in places than that one, however.”

  “Would you agree that the discoloration and light-dark variation in coloration appear consistent with the natural aging pro cess?” he asked.

  “Yes, I think so.” I paused, staring at the photograph. It looked right, but it didn’t feel right, and over the years, I’d learned to trust my hunches. My eye gravitated to the date. “Let me ask you something … about the date … hold on for a sec.” I searched for “January,” and then “February,” in Sasha’s document and found what I was looking for—other teeth Myrick scrimmed during that season. “The other Ann tooth, the one known to be genuine, is dated January seventh of the same year as yours. Do you think it’s possible that Myrick could have scrimmed a second tooth in only three and a half weeks? I know he was prolific—but that seems astonishingly quick. I’ve never had to validate a previously unknown Myrick tooth, so I never had cause to look into the timing.”

  “You make a very interesting observation. I will need to look at the dates of each extant Myrick tooth.”

  “I know a couple of scrimshanders,” I said. “If you think the information would be useful, I could ask them how long it takes to produce a fully scrimmed tooth.”

  “I would be most appreciative. Can you do so without discussing this object? As I said before, confidentiality is most critical.”

  “Yes, of course. I’ll check with them right away, and I’ll keep my questions theoretical.”

  “Thank you. May I tell you what I have done in testing? If you have the time. I do not want to impose.”

  “I’d love to hear.”

  “Thank you so much. I will appreciate your guidance. The tooth passed the hot pin test, of course. I have examined it under good magnification. There are no signs of marrow. The air bubbles are perfectly shaped—they are very round. Also, they are easy to see. There are two small cracks that appear near the narrow end.”

  “I don’t see them in the photo,” I said.

  “No, they are minute.”

  “Interesting. Is the etching over or under the cracks?” I asked.

  Hairline cracks commonly appear as ivory ages. A nineteenth-century scrimshander wouldn’t work on a damaged tooth—there was no need to do so since plenty of undamaged ones were available. An age crack that runs deeper than the engraved lines crossing it can only mean that the scrimshaw was created after the crack appeared, suggesting that the object is a modern forgery.

  “They are not related to the illustration.”

  “Is their placement awkward to the design?” I asked, thinking that a knowledgeable forger might be prescient enough to avoid etching a spot that could later be used to demonstrate the object was a phony.

  “No. I have seen Myrick teeth where the design reaches the tip, but I have also seen his work where it does not.”

  I nodded. He was right. “So that’s no help. What will you do next?”

  “Spectroscopic analysis.”

  “I’ll hope the test confirms the age.”

  “Yes, thank you. Is there anything else you would do now? Besides verify and compare the dates of all extant Myrick teeth?”

  “I might ask experts if anyone has ever heard a rumor that a second Ann tooth exists.”

  “That is a sensible idea. Have you?”

  “No … but I don’t know that I would. We deal in maritime artifacts a lot because of our coastal location, but I wouldn’t qualify as a scrimshaw expert. Do you know Lester Morley?” I asked, naming the curator of the whaling museum we consulted to help us appraise scrimshaw.

  “By reputation, of course, but I have never spoken to him.”

  “I have his phone number if you’d like.”

  “Thank you. I would be most appreciative.”

  “Please say hello for me,” I requested.

  “I will, certainly. Thank you.”

  “You’re more than welcome. This is quite a coup if it is real—a second Ann. That’s a prospect we don’t run into every day of the week.”

  “Yes—thank you so much.”

  I told him I would e-mail him what the scrimshanders said about how long scrimming a tooth takes, and I asked if he would let me know the outcome of his research. He assured me that he would. “You have been most helpful,” he said.

  I called Lenny and Ashley right away and got their voice mails. I left
brief messages, just asking that they call me back, then hung up and glanced around my office.

  I was eager to be up and doing, not sitting and waiting, and I tried to think of something productive to do but couldn’t.

  I kept coming back to Curt Grimes. He was in the light house the morning Frankie was killed, and he winked at shady dealings. If Curt had stolen the tooth, I’d bet he’d want to get it out of his hands immediately.

  Chief Hunter had told me he’d sent flyers alerting dealers about the missing Myrick tooth and there’d been no response. From personal experience, I knew that there was a world of difference between getting a routine police flyer in the mail and having someone call in person asking questions. A flyer was easy to ignore; a person standing in front of you was not.

  I looked up Curt’s home address from our personnel spreadsheet. He lived on Jasper Road, about ten minutes west of Rocky Point Beach.

  I unfolded a map of the area and used highlighters to mark the locations: orange for the three companies he’d visited trying to find work the day Frankie was killed, pink for antiques shops he’d be likely to pass, yellow for Rocky Point Light, and blue for his probable routing.

  Driving from the light house, he’d pass a mom-and-pop antiques shop near Heyer’s, a large antiques shop near Jumbo Container, and two small shops and a high-end interior design cum antiques shop not far from Mandy’s Candies.

  I sat back and counted pink dots. Five possibilities, shops that would have been easy for Curt to get to, if he was the thief, and if he’d tried to sell the Myrick tooth right away. I reached for the phone to call Chief Hunter and pass on my idea, then paused with the receiver midway to my ear. Instead of accusing Curt Grimes based on nothing except a tenuous theory of the crime and my visceral dislike of the man, I could go to the stores myself.

  The shops’ owners all knew me and would answer my questions. It couldn’t do any harm to ask, and it might do good. I’d only report my findings if I learned anything relevant. I nodded. I found Curt’s high school yearbook photo online and printed it out. I wouldn’t show it unless someone described him first. I printed out five copies of the Interpol posting, complete with the photo of the stolen tooth, and folded up my highlighted map. Good, I thought. I had a plan to prove or disprove my theory, and by showing the photo of the missing tooth, not Curt, I could do it without implicating him until and unless I had cause.