Stealing With Style

by Emyl Jenkins

  "I doubt that," I said, forcing myself to take my eyes off his melancholy brown eyes and sandy blond hair thinking how many a woman would've jumped at the chance to support him.

  "No," he said. "I was pretty dark back then."

  "But why move here?" I asked.

  At the mention of Leemont, Peter brightened. "I've always loved Virginia, but I didn't want to go back to Lexington. This is a beautiful area, and without any family or close friends here I figured if things didn't work out I could leave. Anyway, Leemont's large enough to get lost in-but it isn't Atlanta or Houston."

  Leaning across the table and flashing a wry smile, Peter said, "Bet you don't know what my day job is." He dropped his voice. "I don't tell many people."

  I thought for a minute. "Haven't a clue," I said.

  "Come on. Guess. You're an appraiser." He waved his forefinger to make his point. "Sometimes antiques need rescuing the same way people do."

  Peter settled back in his chair and waited patiently while I tried to imagine what he might do.

  I tried to think of a witty answer, but still nothing came.

  "Okay. I give up."

  "Not even a try?"

  I shook my head no.

  "Then come over to the Salvation Army shop. You'll find me in the back room sorting through things."

  "You're kidding." I was too surprised to make a more intelligent comment. "Ye Olde Thrifte Shoppe? Why? I mean, why there?" No sooner were the words out of my mouth, though, than I could have crawled under the table.

  Peter chuckled, obviously amused at my reaction.

  "Let's get something straight first. The name, or actually, the pretentious way it's spelled," he said. "I didn't add those unnecessary es and that extra p. Somebody else did that long before I arrived." He stopped and smiled. "But you know what? That silly spelling draws folks in. I've gotten so I kind of like it. Now back to your question of why there. Not too long after Emily died, I was on my way to my office at church as usual, but I was so distracted." Peter paused. "More than distracted. Consumed, really. Consumed by my own thoughts. Anyway, I stumbled, actually, fell is closer to the truth. I fell over an old black gentleman huddled in the doorway of the Sunday school building. I don't know which one of us was more startled. We must have made quite a sight as we struggled to our feet. That's when I realized the poor fellow was wrapped up in an antique quilt. At first I thought it was just a typical Victorian crazy quilt, though even that would have been quite a surprise. But on second glance I realized that I was staring at the most beautiful album quilt I'd ever seen."

  Peter put down the piece of bread he had begun buttering while talking. His hands freed up, he drew the quilt in the air.

  "In one square was a tobacco leaf outlined in gold thread. In another was a log cabin that was so carefully stitched that the strips of brown cloth looked more like half-timbered wood than scraps of homespun cotton. I was speechless."

  "What did you do?" I asked, secretly impressed by his knowledge of quilts.

  "First I did the Christian thing," he said straightforwardly. "I found Miss Fanny, the church's housekeeper, and we fixed Charlie, Charles Dunlap was his name, some coffee and toast and eggs. Then I asked him about the quilt. `That old thing?' Charlie said. `Got it over the river at the army building. Didn't half keep the wind off."'

  Peter smiled. "Seems a worker at the Salvation Army had told Charlie to pick out a blanket from a pile and he'd chosen that one because it was pretty. The whole time we talked, Charlie kept complaining that it hadn't kept him warm. Needless to say, we arranged a better place for him to sleep that night at Safe Shelter and found him a warmer blanket."

  "And the quilt?"

  "Aha." He nodded. "There was one more design. A horseshoe with yellow daisies embroidered all around it. I figured that was a talisman, a good-luck sign. I took the quilt straight back to the Salvation Army, hoping to track down where it might have come from so it could be returned," Peter said. "Unfortunately, though, it had been in a bundle of stuff dumped into one of the collection boxes located around town. There was no way to know when it had been dropped off, or by whom."

  "Oh dear," I said. "So many treasures have been lost through such carelessness."

  "That's when the army captain told me that since I had found the quilt, and because I'd looked after Uncle Charlie, I should keep it. I took the quilt to a reputable antiques dealer who instantly sold it for something close to twenty thousand dollars. After his expenses and commission, we presented a check for almost sixteen thousand dollars to the army's afterschool program." Peter was beaming like a kid. "Can't say that I ever touched that many people from the pulpit.

  "The very next week I started scouting around house sales. In a month's time I had sold enough goods that I'd bought at those sales-at a profit, mind you-to some of the fancy shops along King Street that I added another three thousand dollars to the program. Some people serve God's flock better outside the pulpit than they do inside. I'm one of those," he said. "Of course, others didn't see it that way," he added.

  "I'll bet they didn't," I said, stifling a smile. "I can hear them now, bemoaning how you were wasting your life and throwing your education away. What are those Wordsworth lines my mother used to quote? `Late ... and ..: Ah! `Late and soon / Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.' Bet your parishioners thought you were next best thing to a bum-out hunting for antiques rather than working on Sunday's sermon. Wasting your powers."

  "Yep. That's the way they figured it." Peter said. "I figured that like lost souls, lost things need looking after, too. And if the lost things can help some of the lost souls, all the better. But that was too worldly a view-even for some Episcopalians."

  From that day on, Peter and I became dear friends. Over time we'd grown to become soul mates-in the platonic sense of the word. Sometimes I've thought our relationship might've amounted to more, if Peter hadn't still been in mourning for Emily and if I hadn't been so newly divorced that I couldn't distinguish between desperation and affection. But time wasn't on our side. Anyway, we were perfectly content with things the way they were.

  Well, I wasn't ... exactly.

  Especially when I looked at Peter's broad shoulders and that shock of hair that fell in his face when he laughed, or those moments when I caught him while he was busy moving furniture and books around and he was as sexy as hell. But what could I do? Peter Donaldson was my twenty-first-century Ashley Wilkes. Problem was, I didn't know if I was his Melanie or Scarlett.

  It was like Mother once said: That's the thing about the South, Sterling. It's all so damn tragic.

  Anyway, Peter and I enjoyed talking about antiques, and he was happy to have me as a faithful customer. He knew the value of antiques and he marked things fairly, and he always gave me first refusal on the good stuff.

  But the real fun came when Peter and I decided the best way to get the most money for some newly uncovered treasure. I didn't go to church very often, and when I was able to help I felt like I was making a contribution to Peter's good cause. There but for the grace of God go you, Mother had told me whenever we'd see a needy family or someone down on his luck.

  Mother was full of quotations. Memorization had been part of her schooling and I don't think she ever forgot a single verse or line. When I was a child, I hated the way she always had some profound quote. But since her death, and my divorce, I'd had only myself to talk to. I guess that was why I no longer minded it when her sayings popped into my head.

  On that particular Friday, I found Peter, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his face smudged with newspaper print, behind a stack of books precariously balanced on somebody's twenty-five-year-old Maytag dryer. He looked as happy as a kid rooting around a comic-book stand. Peter was pulling a cardboard box from beneath his desk, which was nothing more than a wooden door propped up on cinder blocks on one side and supported by a rusting filing cabinet on the other. He pawed through the box, flinging layers of old newspaper about like a backyard
dog digging for a bone.

  "Look at this," he said, holding up a china box no bigger than a stack of three-by-five-inch index cards, a crudely painted spray of orange and yellow flowers its only decoration. I didn't have to turn the box over to know that it would be marked MADE IN OCCUPIED JAPAN. I'd seen hundreds of similar boxes in flea markets and malls and my clients' homes. My frown said it all.

  Catching my look, Peter shook the box once, smiled at me, then shook it twice, then twice again. The dull sound of metal against china was unmistakable.

  "Gold? Diamonds? No? Okay, priceless Burmese rubies set in platinum," I said flippantly.

  Peter rolled his eyes.

  "Have to admit, the chances you'd guess this one are pretty slim. Nothing to do with you," he added quickly, "it's just unlikely that these little goodies would show up in Leemont. But you'll know what they are once you see them." He handed the box to me. "I can't get more than fifteen or twenty dollars for the box here, and it's not going to bring much more than that in an antiques mall-"

  "Obviously," I butted in, opening the box.

  "But I do think you'll like what's inside," he said, ignoring my interruption.

  "You're right, I do like them. But where'd they come from? Wonder who..."

  My thoughts and words tripped over one another as I sprinkled the array of small pins, charms, and badges-some gold, some bronze, some silver-stored away in the simple box for so long, onto Peter's make-do desk. I picked out some of the better nineteenth-century Mardi Gras favors-a silver bow and quiver, a gold lyre outlined in tiny garnets, an enameled yellow pansy set with one center cabochon amethyst.

  "At first I thought this would be another unsolved mystery," Peter said while I sifted through his find. "But I knew exactly where the box came from. Ibby Wilson's estate. Her grandson brought it in with a half truckload of furniture, clothes, kitchen stuff. You name it. Those books were hers," he said, gesturing in the direction of the Maytag. "When I found these in with the costume jewelry, I called the boy and told him what they were."

  I stopped sorting and listened.

  "I might as well have told him that I'd found a bunch of dirty socks or, better yet, a barrel of empty whiskey bottles. The kid said that these had been his great-grandmother's from Louisiana. He made it clear that the family didn't want them. Something about his mother being born again and Mardi Gras being the work of the devil. You know, sometimes I think those born-again types get head-to-toe blood transfusions that drain every drop of life out of their very souls." Peter raised his hands in exasperation. "I told him his items were worth a thousand dollars, maybe more. But he said they had enough to see about and didn't want any tainted money."

  "Well, look at it this way," I said. "The family voluntarily gave these things up. Did you happen to see in this morning's paper about the rash of robberies down in North Carolina? The real tragedy would he if your family's things were stolen from you."

  I looked carefully at the tiny treasures spread out on the table. "But tell me, Peter, how did you know that these were Mardi Gras mementos?" I asked. "Most people would have thought they were just little charms and trinkets without any historical association."

  "Emily and I had friends in New Orleans who'd invite us down for Mardi Gras parties," Peter said. "We always had a great time, but we'd have to leave before the glorious Fat Tuesday celebration so we'd get back to Charleston for Ash Wednesday services."

  I thought back to how I had first learned about Mardi Gras memorabilia. I'd had a couple of clients with New Orleans ties who had some beautiful, and valuable, Mardi Gras items. I had to learn about them. I never knew when some little tidbit I'd picked up in one house would come in handy later on. "Remember back last April when I went down to New Orleans to appraise a family estate for some clients in Norfolk?" I said. "Guess what they had. Drawers full of Mardi Gras memorabilia."

  "Most Virginians find Mardi Gras too raucous and rambunctious for their blood," Peter said. "A little too French for their reserved English tastes. Like the Wilsons. No room for any bon temps in that household. So what would you recommend we do with these precious gems, Madam Appraiser?"

  "Send them back home to New Orleans. That's where they belong."

  "You're right. Any of the French Quarter dealers would be delighted to have them."

  "At a pittance of their worth, of course. That's why it's probably wisest to send them to auction. Neal Auction Company would be my choice."

  I picked up a gold and white enameled pin in the form of a Persian saber with a single freshwater pearl dangling from the handle, turned it over, and pointed to the engraved inscription.

  "Look, Peter, 1902. And-" I turned the pin first this way, then that, to get a better look at the faint script. "Aha. Rex. Knowing this was a favor for the 1902 Rex Ball, somebody will bid, oh, two, three hundred for it. That's just one piece. Get some competition going and all together these are going to be worth much more than a thousand dollars."

  "Which is why I waited for you to see them before making any decisions. I was even going to bring them to the museum tonight to show to you. Wanted to catch you before you leave for New York."

  "Oh, I don't leave until Thursday," I said. "Look, there's no rush on getting rid of these." I placed them back carefully in the china box. "It's too late to get them into the February sale. Put them away for now and when I get back I'll make a list of them and send it off to Neal's. You know, now I think about it, Neal's recently sold a sterling and enamel pin with a colorful parrot and a monkey from 1914 or 1915 for about $375, if I remember correctly. Even favors as recent as from the 1950s can sell in the $200-250 range. Yes," I said, feeling more certain, "when we add them all up, these will be worth closer to $2,000, maybe even $3,000."

  I LEFT THE SALVATION ARMY, happy to have been with Peter, and that I'd been of some help. And I hadn't spent a penny on something that I didn't need for my already cluttered house.

  I felt so good about everything, in fact, that I turned off Leemont's tree-lined boulevard that ran along the river onto the cloverleaf leading to the business section where all the fastfood joints were clustered. I headed straight into the drivethrough lane at Taco Bell and ordered a Mexican Pizza and a large Diet Pepsi. Pizza in one hand and steering the car with the other, I planned the rest of the day.

  I vowed not to work right up to the last minute but to leave plenty of time to get dressed for the museum party that night. After all, most of Leemont's elite ladies had begun preparing for it as soon as their husbands had left for work that morning.

  Chapter 3

  Dear Antiques Expert: I recently read an article about the English silversmith Paul Storr in an antiques publication. The pieces they illustrated were absolutely magnificent. I'd love to own one. Is it possible to find silver pieces made by him in antiques shops today-and are they affordable, or would I have to mortgage the house?

  Paul Storr is known for his extravagant and magnificent pieces commissioned by his royal and noble patrons in the early 19th century. Those pieces are now mostly in museums or belong to wealthy collectors. Even though Storr made smaller pieces-teapots, wine labels, even flatware-his reputation and fine craftsmanship have pushed all his prices steadily up. Pricewise, a pair of Storr's sauce ladles or serving spoons can still be purchased for under $2,500, and a cream jug or sugar bowl will probably cost around $5,000, but his monumental pieces easily run $50,000-100,000 and higher.

  I GLANCED AT MY WATCH. Just in time. Sometime between four and four fifteen, Roy Madison would call from Leemont Savings and Loan to check on the appraisal I owed him. I didn't blame Roy for wanting the appraisal, especially since it was Friday afternoon, that traditional "clear the desk" time. Well, he was about to get the answer he was calling for. And I knew he was going to he thrilled with the results. I'd found a similar urn in an auction catalog.

  Lot 338. Important silver tea urn, circa 1807, made by Paul Storr. Raised on ball feet, the pear-shaped body beautifully gadrooned and engraved with a p
eriod armorial. The hot box still intact. Fully hallmarked. From the estate of John and Mary deCamp. Estimate $35,000-50,000.

  I hadn't figured out how Sarah Rose Wilkins had come to own such a valuable piece of silver. No one had known that she owned the urn. True, she was not the sort of person who would have shown it off or bragged about it, unlike most folks. Still, there should have been some knowledge or record of the piece. The only reason the tea urn had surfaced at all was because Roy, the overconscientious junior S&L trust officer in charge of Mrs. Wilkins's modest estate, had called me the afternoon of her death.

  "It's something of an emergency," he said. I heard the urgency in his voice. "The police are there and we need you to go over the apartment contents ASAP."

  "Tomorrow morning?"

  "More like today. Say, in thirty minutes," he said. "See, there are some unusual circumstances, which means the locks are going to he changed, and honestly, Sterling, we'd really appreciate it."

  He'd caught me at home that day, and I couldn't come up with an excuse for why I couldn't. After all, the bank had been a major client some twelve years now. Hank's granddad had been on the bank's board, but even after the divorce they had continued to use my services on a regular basis. What could I do?

  Looking back, I should have said I had a bad cold. Said the dishwasher just overflowed. Said my car battery was dead. Any excuse, as long as I could have stayed put at home.

  It was closer to an hour than thirty minutes before I arrived at the apartment. Roy met me downstairs in the building and filled me in: Sarah Rose Wilkins, that crusty old gal, had gone to the doctor early Monday morning with a long list of complaints. After a couple of days in the hospital, when nothing major showed up, she demanded that she be allowed to return home. She was driving everyone in the hospital crazy, and no one objected. Within a few hours of arriving home, though, she called 911. Her message became garbled. She began gasping for breath, like she was having a heart attack. But not before she was heard demanding that somebody get out.