A Fatal Appraisal

by J. B. Stanley

  "You don't say ... ?" Garrett couldn't prevent the curiosity from stealing into his placating tone. "So you've actually seen two dead bodies?"

  "I'd rather not go into details if you don't mind. In fact, I'm feeling much better now." She smiled weakly and stood up slowly, dusting off her pants, which were now both dirty and wrinkled. "I don’t know what happened. I think I just forgot to breathe. Trust me, I am not the swooning type."

  "No," Garrett agreed as he sprang lightly to his feet, "I don't imagine many of you American girls are."

  Molly realized they were suddenly acting rather callous considering the body of a celebrity appraiser was baking away in a nearby car. She reasoned that shock had allowed them to momentarily neglect the dead man. But the image of Frank's bloated hands was firmly imprinted in Molly's psyche. That unnatural shade of white belonged to a lump of unbaked bread dough, not to a human.

  "Poor Frank!" she exclaimed as the wail of approaching sirens burst through the thick and stagnant air of the parking garage. "I wonder what happened to him?"

  A mournful look appeared in Garrett's eyes. "He wasn't feeling well yesterday, remember? He may have had some kind of heat stroke."

  "He could have been in that car all night. What a pathetic place to pass away," Molly whispered, her eyes glued to the back of Frank's sedan. Her voice sounded much calmer than she felt. "He didn't come with us to dinner and he never made it back to his hotel. Poor man. To die alone like that! How awful!" Unexpectedly, tears sprung into her eyes.

  Suddenly Garrett's arms were around her. "It'll be all right," he soothed.

  Molly felt safe and comforted in his arms, breathing in his woody, masculine scent. Just then, the sirens grew piercingly loud as two police cars and an ambulance drove up the curve of the parking deck and came to a stop in front of them. Their embrace ended abruptly.

  Garrett immediately took charge. He introduced himself and Molly then led the officers over to Frank’s car. Molly followed the group of men, watching in fascination as one of the policemen easily forced a long metal bar inside Frank's window and unlocked the driver's side door.

  A putrid smell like rotten cheese mixed with sunbaked garbage immediately burst from within the car, and Molly quickly covered her nose with the sleeve of her blouse. Garrett pulled a handkerchief from his pants, clapped it over his mouth and nose and backed away. Curiosity quickly overcame repulsion, however, and Molly found herself moving closer to the car in order to watch the police at work.

  A tall man wearing a navy T-shirt with the word CORONER printed on the back bent over Frank's body. He tried to carefully ease Frank's head off the steering wheel, but rigor mortis was making the task difficult.

  Finally, with the help of a burly-looking policeman with a shock of red hair, the two men managed to extract Frank's hunched body out of the car and onto a gurney. Molly was thankful Frank's eyes were shut. It was bad enough to look upon his impossibly white and waxen face without having his sightless eyes staring back at her.

  "Was it heat stroke?" she asked the man wearing the coroner T-shirt.

  He eyed her cautiously before answering. "Are you his wife?"

  "No ... um, I was working with him," Molly stammered, suddenly thinking that Victoria was inside greeting the public and had no idea that her husband's corpse had just been loaded into an ambulance.

  "Well, we'll need to do a complete examination before we can state the cause of death. You’ll have to talk to the officer there if you have any other questions," the man explained hastily as he shut the rear doors to the ambulance. Matters were clearly in the hands of the police from here on out.

  The robust redhead took a second peek inside Frank's car and then approached Molly and Garrett. He introduced himself as Officer Combs and led them away from the car back into the shade. After shaking both their hands with a crushing grip, he politely thanked Garrett for reporting the incident and then flipped opened a small black notebook and began scribbling in what looked to be indecipherable shorthand. Finally, he looked up and asked them to explain how they’d come to discover the body.

  Molly gave her statement first, describing how Victoria had asked them to search for her husband, as he’d never returned to the hotel the night before. She also gave Officer Combs the details of Frank's illness and explained how he was constantly plagued by allergy attacks. Blushing with embarrassment, she mumbled her way through the part of her account in which she’d spied Frank's bloated hands, felt the oppressive heat of the sun robbing her lungs of oxygen, and, to her utter mortification, fainted.

  Grabbing Molly's hand, Garrett quickly took over the narrative. He relayed that he saw Molly crumple to the ground so he carried her into the shade and used his cell phone to call 911.

  "I tried the door on Frank's car before I called," Garrett added. "I didn't think he was alive, but I gave it a go anyway."

  "So his wife, Victoria Sterling, is inside the science museum right now?" Officer Combs asked. "Will you take me to her?"

  "Certainly." Garrett nodded. "However, I think it would be prudent if I fetched her and brought her into one of the staff offices so she can hear the news in private."

  "Of course," Combs agreed pleasantly, and then turned to his men. "Finish going over the car and I'll be right back."

  Molly watched the other officers as they began to examine the interior of the car.

  "You do think it was an accident, right?" she asked Officer Combs.

  He glanced at her briefly, his hazel eyes intelligent and calculating. "I’m sure there’s a reasonable medical explanation, but we're just covering the bases. We always examine the scene around every suspicious death. And I only use that term because we don’t know the cause yet."

  "Do you think whatever killed him happened swiftly?" Molly asked as they headed for the museum.

  "What makes you ask that?" Combs asked as one eyebrow rose in a tawny arc.

  Molly glanced at him in surprise. "Because he didn't even have the energy to take his hands off the steering wheel!"

  ~~~~~

  Thc noise inside the museum was deafening. Hundreds of excited collectors talked to their neighbors in line as they clutched plastic bags or carefully balanced treasure-laden cardboard boxes in their arms. Walking past groups of impatient people, Molly's eye spotted bright flashes of hooked rugs, brass lamps, shimmering crystal, and the warm glow of pottery as she and Garrett led Officer Combs deeper into the museum where the head appraiser's niches were located.

  "I'm going to need names and permanent addresses for the whole crew," Officer Combs said to Garrett as they arrived at one of the museum's staff offices which had been emptied for the use of Hidden Treasures.

  "I'd better fetch Guy. He's the producer." Garrett tinned to Molly. "You'll have to bring Victoria here. She'll be filming now, so think of something to get her away without alarming her in front of the others."

  "What should I say?" Molly asked, panicking. How could she be expected to make up some silly excuse to pull Victoria away from filming when the woman's husband was dead?

  "You'll think of something," Garrett said kindly and rushed off. Combs was no help either. He simply shrugged and disappeared into the office to wait.

  "Lord help me," Molly mumbled as she headed down the lane of screened booths. She found Victoria in the midst of filming an introduction for Patrice. A round woman in her fifties whose proud face beamed into the camera sat next to Patrice behind a small, velvet-covered card table. Their attention was fixed upon a jade green Lalique vase with two macaw heads jutting out of each side.

  Victoria introduced the owner as Mrs. Claudia Zimmerman and then gestured gracefully toward the iridescent object on the table. The camera moved away from her face and zoomed in on the vase.

  "Zis is a rare vase," Patrice intoned nasally in his fake but convincing French accent. "See zee beautiful plumage, non? Only ninety-nine pieces were made in each color. Zis vase is a limited edition and is in absolutely perfect condition." He turned to th
e beaming owner. "What do you sink zis is worth?"

  "Oh." The woman's eyelashes fluttered theatrically for the camera. "I have no earthly idea."

  "Zee current market is verry, verry good for zis piece right now. And I see you have zee original box. Bien. What do you think of this vase being worth, oh ... say ... how about a leettle guess?"

  'Two thousand dollars?" The woman flushed.

  Patrice puffed out his bony chest and stroked his elfin chin thoughtfully. "No!" he shouted dramatically as the woman jumped in her seat. "How about eleven thousand dollars?"

  "Oh, my stars!" the woman cooed, hugging Patrice as if he had just saved her life. The camera turned its eye back to Victoria who promised another fabulous find awaiting the viewers after the following commercial messages.

  Molly touched Victoria on the sleeve as the cameramen headed farther up the aisle. "Excuse me, Victoria. Can I speak to you for a moment?"

  "Did you find Frank?" Her face showed genuine concern.

  Molly began to walk up the aisle away from Patrice's booth. "Um ... can you come with me to the staff office for a second? Garrett needs to see you."

  Victoria followed her into the next booth and then stopped. She stared intently at Molly and refused to budge. "You did find him. What's wrong? Tell me!"

  "He's ..." Molly quickly looked away, her cheeks growing warm with discomfort. What could she say? "Please, just come with me and you'll hear everything. This isn’t a good place for…"

  Victoria grabbed Molly’s arm. "He's dead, isn't he?" she asked in a whisper. "I can see it in your face."

  To her frustration, Molly's eyes grew watery with tears. She covered Victoria’s hand with her own. “I’m so sorry.”

  Outwardly, Victoria remained composed. Only her eyes betrayed that she was trying to digest the news that her husband was dead. "How?" she finally asked in a very soft voice.

  Molly took her by the arm and began to steer her toward the office. "I honestly don't know. There's a policeman waiting who will explain everything to you." Molly opened the office door and Combs jumped to his feet.

  Molly turned to Victoria. "Can I get you anything?"

  Victoria shook her head and Molly closed the door quietly.

  Wandering toward the cafeteria, Molly decided she would have a long coffee break and collect herself before interviewing members of the public. She was too shaken to talk about family heirlooms or any other antique in the face of Frank’s demise.

  The cafeteria was crowded and noisy. The multitude of loud voices combined with the clattering of flatware was too much and Molly realized she was desperately in need of some quiet. After paying for her selections, she made her way to a bench outside the museum entrance where she watched the line of anxious collectors shuffle forward in agonizing slowness. After taking a few sips of creamy coffee and a healthy bite of a chocolate almond bear claw, Molly felt herself beginning to relax.

  Just as she was brushing crumbs from her lap, Garrett walked out of the front door and joined her on the bench.

  "How are you feeling?" he asked, looking at her in a way that made her feel like she was the only person around.

  "Better, thanks. How’s Victoria?"

  "Not so great. She feels guilty about not phoning the police last night, but she didn't suspect anything was that wrong." Garrett's eyes rested on the throng of people baking beneath the late morning sun. "It's no secret that theirs was not a love match, but they had a comfortable if somewhat unconventional partnership. I think she's a bit overwhelmed over facing the future without him."

  Molly stood, dropped her coffee cup in the trash bin, and callously thought that Victoria would probably marry again as soon as possible. Women like her needed a man in order to define themselves. "What will happen with the show?"

  "Oh, the show will go on. Guy and Victoria decided not to inform the crew until today’s segment has been wrapped. Victoria's gone with Officer Combs to give the police a formal statement, but she says she'll be fine to carry on as host for the rest of the show. Bet she can do it, too; the old girl's tough," Garrett said with sudden admiration. "What will you do with the rest of your day?"

  "Interview some of these dedicated collectors," Molly replied. "Then I meet my friend Lex, the auctioneer, and my mother over at the townhouse—" Molly abruptly stopped. "Do you think I should still go ahead with the auction arrangements?"

  "Absolutely." Garrett nodded. "Victoria won't care for any of that stuff. She'd rather have the cash, I'm sure. And it’s what Frank wanted."

  Molly couldn't help prying further. "Did Officer Combs say when the authorities would know the cause of death?"

  Garrett looked at her closely. "By tonight or tomorrow morning. Why?'

  "Just wondering," Molly said as a memory flooded her mind. She excused herself and quickly made her way over to Frank's booth. Frank had been healthy until he’d examined that desk. Not long after that he had become congested, weak, and pale. What if that material they had found on the desk was to blame? It wouldn't affect her because Molly had no allergies. She could roll in a field of ragweed, cat dander, and dust and remain impervious to all of the above, but Frank was ultra-sensitive to allergens.

  Pulling aside one of the white screens, Molly gazed at the slant-front desk as it sat in the dark, its warm colors dulled by shadow and its pigeonholes gaping like black teeth from inside its empty room. She pulled a small flashlight from her bag and aimed the beam into the pigeonholes. There were no traces of the black powdery material both she and Frank had touched the day before. Even the piece of false drawer front had been completely cleaned. The desk smelled strongly of fresh furniture wax.

  Molly switched off her flashlight and backed nervously out of the booth, making sure that no one was watching her leave. She proceeded with her interviews with only a portion of her consciousness. Normally, her full attention would have been devoted to a pencil drawing signed by Picasso or a walking stick carved with skulls that held a hidden, but fully functional, miniature pistol within its wooden handle.

  Jotting down names and captions for her photographs, Molly kept seeing an image of the black powder smeared on Frank's face.

  Later, as she walked over to Strawberry Street to meet Lex and Clara at the townhouse, her mind focused on one thought that buzzed inside her head like a fly caught between the window screen and the glass.

  The black powder was purposely put there, and then just as intentionally removed, she mused. That newly polished desk exhibited all the signs of destroyed evidence. It had been polished before Frank and Molly examined it, so why polish it again? There was only one explanation. The person who cleaned it needed to make certain that not a trace of black powder was left behind.

  And that person was a murderer.

  ~~~~~~~~~~

  Fredericksburg, Virginia 1778

  "We've got the French! We've got the French!" Thomas's young apprentice, William screamed. "It's all over town. They 're our allies now!"

  "That is fortunate indeed," answered a mellifluous voice from Thomas's doorway.

  A tall young woman with blond hair and intelligent blue eyes stepped into the shop. A maid trailed behind her, giggling nervously.

  Thomas recognized the pretty young woman immediately. "Miss Tarling." Thomas bowed low and hid his stained hands behind his back. "I remember you. I saw you in your father's carriage outside Samuel Chauncey's shop in Williamsburg."

  "I remember that well." The blue eyes flashed coquettishly and Thomas felt his neck grow warm. "I am here on an errand from my father. He wishes to commission a new dining table and chairs. He does a great deal of entertaining and our current table has proved insufficient in size as our house in Williamsburg was much smaller. Will you come out and measure the room?"

  "Certainly. Right now if you should desire it, miss."

  Miss Tarling issued a grateful curtsy and waited for Thomas outside. They walked several blocks in comfortable silence before the young lady glanced sideways at Thomas and began
to speak. "My name is Elizabeth, but most people call me Elspeth. I don't know anyone here. We only just arrived last week. My father says that the Rappahannock River will make trading easier and allow him to get"—she lowered her voice to a conspiring whisper—"essential messages to our commanders in the north."

  Thomas almost tripped in surprise. Perhaps old Samuel Chauncey had been right. Men could fight the war for freedom in different ways. Luckily, his lack of grace went unnoticed by Elspeth. She paused before the wrought iron gate surrounding a large brick house and waited while Thomas swung it open for her.

  Inside the front hallway Thomas admired the scrolled carving on the stairway banisters and marveled at the size of the dining room. It would take a large table indeed to fill such an impressive space.

  Thomas caught Elspeth watching him in one of the room's enormous gilt mirrors and quickly looked away.

  "I made your father's desk," he murmured, uncomfortable beneath her frank gaze. "I hope he has found it satisfactory."

  "Truly? You are the maker?" Her face lit up with interest and a trace of mischief. "Well then, let me show you how it has fared."

  Elspeth led Thomas to a masculine room filled with books and maps. His eyes fell on the slant-front desk and he longed to open the lid and see how Captain Tarling had utilized the drawers and pigeonholes Thomas had so meticulously crafted.

  The dark walnut glowed warmly in the afternoon sun and Thomas was pleased to see how dignified his piece looked among the fine objects the captain had collected by means of his wealth and trade connections.