by Sonya Cobb
But where was the Little Ship? She suddenly longed for its close, humble warmth. In her memory it had become impossibly dark, as if lit only by one or two candles, the furniture melting into deep pools of shadow, the red curtain on the bed alcove almost imperceptible against the carved folds of the dark wood paneling. Surely it wasn’t so dark in real life? She turned right, then right again. Where was it? Maybe she would find it intact, the tazza still standing proudly on the cabinet. Maybe she had imagined the whole thing.
Finally, passing through a small room of Dutch paintings, she spotted the entrance to the alcove. She walked quickly toward it, then slowed. Someone was standing inside the doorway, leaning his elbows on the Plexiglas barrier. At the sound of her footsteps, he turned.
“Come to visit the scene of the crime?” Michael said.
Sophie moved her clutch in front of her belly.
“The stolen tazza used to sit right there,” Michael said, pointing toward the sideboard. “You probably don’t even remember it, such a small detail.”
“No,” Sophie murmured. She joined Michael at the barrier, looking into the little room, which was dimly lit but not as shadow-drenched as she remembered it. Fresh details jumped out at her: a pair of gleaming brass wall sconces; a trio of ceramic canisters. Inside the birdcage hung a colorfully painted earthenware parrot perched on a ring.
“I’m mulling over our new arrangement,” Michael said. “We moved a vase onto the sideboard, to fill the space, but I wonder. It’s out of whack with the rest of the ceramics.” He pointed toward a high shelf lined with plates, which was at the same height as the fireplace mantel, also topped with plates and vases. Together, they created a pleasing stripe of blue across the top third of the room.
“Why not one of the other metal objects?” asked Sophie, indicating the bowls and cups sitting on the table.
“Those are for everyday use. The display area on the sideboard would have been for family treasures—like the tazza.”
“Oh.” Sophie looked down at the room label. “So why do they call this the Little Ship, anyway?”
“The room comes from a house in the Netherlands that was built by a sea captain. He became a brewer after he retired.” He sighed, taking off his flimsy glasses and polishing them on his shirt. “I had a theory about that tazza, you know.”
“What’s that?”
“It wasn’t signed, but I was pretty sure it was by Jansz van Vianen.”
Sophie frowned. It sounded like she was supposed to recognize the name.
“He was the cousin of two famous goldsmiths. He never made it big, but he was just as good. I mean, you should have seen that tazza. It was embossed with a scene of Venus and Mars hanging out with Cupid. Venus is holding a cup with the same scene on it. It was clever.”
Sophie felt a warm flood of shame; she hadn’t paid much attention to the decoration of the bowl, much less to the one in Venus’s hand.
“I was going to publish it, but I never found the time. Nobody realized what we had. I wanted to put it in a case where you could see the metalwork up close.” He exhaled sharply through his nose. “And where some asshole couldn’t grab it.”
“I’m sorry,” said Sophie, watching the color rise in Michael’s pallid cheeks.
“You know, his career was cut short.”
“Who?”
“Jansz van Vianen. He inherited his father’s brewery, and I guess he was expected to take it over. So he dropped silversmithing.”
“To make beer? Like the sea captain?”
“Yeah!” Michael laughed bitterly. “Poor guy. He was a real artist. And only four of his pieces survive. Well—” He coughed out another laugh. “Three.”
“So it’s—it was—really valuable?”
“You mean, as something to be bought and sold? It would be worth more if I had published it, drawn a clear line to van Vianen. But I don’t care about that.” He looked around the room as if searching for something. “Every time I came here, I would look at that tazza and think about this artist, a man with an eye for beauty, with talent. No one else was doing what the van Vianens were just starting to do with gold and silver. And I imagined him fighting with his father, wanting to be as good as his cousins, and his father saying, ‘My father is a brewer. Your father is a brewer. You’re a brewer too, so you can just forget about making these crazy bowls of yours.’”
Sophie absorbed this quietly. Just like the last time she’d stood staring into the little Dutch room, she became aware of something loose flapping in a far corner of her mind. Something like a corner of canvas lashing the sea air, urging her to turn and look. But it was too frightening, too erratic; she knew it had the power to knock her into the surging depths below.
Michael continued. “He would have lived in a house just like this. He lived in Haarlem at exactly the same time.”
“I’d better get back,” Sophie said, pushing herself away from the barrier. “I’m sorry about the tazza. It’s…a shame.”
Michael didn’t turn, didn’t answer.
***
That night, Sophie lay in bed with a busy mind. The house was hushed; Lucy and Elliot were finally sleeping through the night. Rather than greedily lapping up every minute of sleep she could get, however, Sophie could only fluff and refluff her pillow, growing more and more angry at herself, angry at Harry, angry at Brian sleeping tidily next to her, his breathing deep but quiet, hands resting on his chest.
Quiet, she urged her mind. Be quiet. Think about your database design. She tried to lose herself in the twists and turns of the code, breathing deeply in synch with Brian, urging her mind to let go. But there was a pounding in her ears—was it her heart? Why was it beating so loudly?
She turned onto her stomach and put her pillow over her head, but the heartbeat only resonated more loudly. She started thinking about Michael, his shiny head, his flushing cheeks, his sorrowful tale about the would-be silversmith. At least van Vianen knew what he wanted to do with his life, thought Sophie bitterly. For this, of course, he deserved his small memorial in the loving care of a museum, where his artistic ambition would be admired and studied by at least one curator—and perhaps, in time, appreciated by two or three members of the public.
And what did Sophie deserve?
Pound. Pound. Pound. For the first time, she began to feel the tazza’s presence in her house. Maybe it was here, after all. It seemed to be vibrating somewhere—under the floorboards? In the chimney? Behind a stair riser? Perhaps all she needed to do was listen more carefully. Maybe, if she were quiet enough, the house would tell her its secret.
At some point, well into the morning hours, Sophie skated over a thin spot in the crust of her consciousness and, with a muffled crack, plunged into oblivion.
Sixteen
The next day Brian went back to France, to pick up his Saint-Porchaire. Sophie was aware that recently, her most tender thoughts toward her husband had only bubbled up when he was away. When he was home, her feelings resembled something more like agitated resentment. She recognized how unfair this was. Obviously it wasn’t his fault that the sight of him inspired spasms of guilt. Obviously, he deserved better.
It didn’t help that money was tighter than ever. She still hadn’t received her final payment for one of the websites, because the client was dithering about last-minute changes. The muffin deliveries had yielded a few inquiries about her availability, but no green lights as of yet. Unopened mail had started piling up in the tray on her desk, including envelopes from MortgageOne. She had their attention now, but she felt perfectly justified in treating their correspondence with the same level of urgency they had granted hers.
With Brian gone, she was able to launch phase two of her hunt for the Dutch bowl. This was the real search, under the surface of things, inside the cavities of the house. She started with the fireplaces, three in all, which were actually just vents for the o
riginal coal heating system. The marble mantels were inset with iron grates, cast with a design of curling vines and flowers, which led to closed-up chimneys. Sophie heaved the grates out of the marble surrounds, lay on her back, and scooted her head into the openings, shining her flashlight upward into the crumbling brick tunnel, then, turning onto her belly, peering downward into the basement.
She had her head in the third fireplace when the doorbell rang. Startled, she knocked the back of her head on the chimney, causing brick dust to rain into her hair. She shoved the grate back into the opening and looked out the front window. The two FBI agents were standing on the sidewalk. The man, Agent Chandler, saw her before she had a chance to duck behind a curtain. He waved.
Sophie jumped back from the window. Had Harry called them already? Did she have to answer the door? Would they break it down? Could she get out through the back alley?
“Have a minute?” asked Agent Chandler when she peeked her head out the front door.
“I’m just, okay, a minute, sure.” Sophie’s tongue struggled to navigate the sandy desert of her mouth.
Inside, the agents sat down in the same spots as before, and Agent Richardson took out the same stenography notebook. She was wearing another acrylic pantsuit, but this time it was a sort of sea-foam green that accentuated the yellowish cast of her skin. Sophie noticed Agent Richardson looking at her hair; she ran a shaking hand across it, and brick dust sprinkled onto her lap. She wiped it away, but some of the grit stuck to her sweaty palm.
“We just wanted to follow up on a few of the things we talked about during our last interview,” said Agent Chandler.
No search warrant? “All right.”
“Agent Richardson was just going through some of her notes, and a few things weren’t adding up, so we thought we’d run them by you.” He smiled in a reasonable, friendly way, then nodded to Agent Richardson, who was paging through her notebook.
“During our last interview,” said Agent Richardson in her low, manly voice, “you said that on the day you brought Brian lunch, you ran into Tammy Brewer on your way out of the museum.”
Usually it was Agent Chandler asking the questions. Was this Bad Cop? “Yes.”
“We spoke with Tammy Brewer, and she said she went straight up to Brian’s office after speaking with you.”
“Okay.”
“But Brian said…let’s see.” Richardson flipped a few more pages. “He said that he came looking for you shortly after you left his office. Right?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see him.” Sophie became very still.
“It seems that while you and Tammy were chatting on the stairs, you should have seen Brian. But in fact, Brian told us that Tammy came to his office about twenty to thirty minutes after he had gone looking for you.”
“Hmmm.”
“So what we’re wondering is, where were you between the time that Brian last saw you, and the time that you spoke with Tammy Brewer—a period of twenty to thirty minutes?”
“Look,” Sophie said, holding out her gritty hands. “I don’t know anything about what Tammy did, and I don’t know anything about what Brian did. All I know is that I left Brian’s office, chatted with Tammy on the stairs, and went on my way.” She stabbed a finger in the direction of Richardson’s notebook. “Like I said before, Brian has no concept of time. He never looks at his watch, he usually forgets to eat lunch, he is chronically late. And as for Tammy, well, maybe she ducked outside for a cigarette before going upstairs. I doubt she would mention that. She thinks nobody knows about it.” She sat back in her chair and crossed her arms.
Agent Richardson flipped to another page. “You told us you brought Brian’s lunch in a cooler.”
“Yeah.”
“May we see it?”
“The cooler?” Sophie’s mouth went dry again. Fibers. Molecules. DNA. But wait—hadn’t Harry taken the cooler along with the tazza? “I don’t have it anymore!”
“Where is it?”
“I…we left it somewhere. After a picnic. At the Horticulture Center. I called and they said nobody turned it in. I guess someone stole it.” She shrugged and pressed out a smile.
“Mrs. Porter,” said Agent Chandler, moving to the edge of the sofa. “Do you mind if we take a look around your house?”
“For the cooler?”
Chandler lifted one shoulder.
“Isn’t that the kind of thing you need a warrant for?”
“Are you saying no?”
She looked into his droopy eyes. They had a look of chronic disappointment that almost made her feel sorry for him. “I’ve already looked everywhere, but if you want to take a crack at it, hey.” She felt a bubble of inappropriate laughter pressing against the back of her throat. It burst out before she could swallow it.
“What’s so funny?” Chandler asked.
“Nothing,” Sophie said. “I just…hope you find it.”
***
When Agents Richardson and Chandler had left, Sophie turned her attention toward the stairs. They hadn’t thought to look there; in fact, they hadn’t looked any place she hadn’t already inspected quite thoroughly. They’d spent a good deal of their time with their heads inside the fireplaces. She explained that she’d been looking for a mouse, and that was why there was brick dust everywhere, but they were not dissuaded.
The stairs had never been painted; when they bought the house, they had simply pulled off the shag carpet runner, then sanded and stained the wood. At the top of each riser, a strip of molding was nailed under the lip of the tread above. Some of these had worked themselves loose over the years; she easily popped the first one off with a screwdriver. A small gap at the top of the riser allowed her to slide the screwdriver into the space under the tread and gently work the plank loose from the next tread down, where it was nailed from behind. She could see it would have been easy for Harry to pry out a riser, stash the bowl inside the stair, then nail the riser back in place through the molding. Since the stairs were unpainted, there were no telltale cracks or chips.
She shone the flashlight into the hole, looking under the neighboring steps, feeling a rush of anticipation. This felt promising. The house was finally whispering to her, telling her where to look. Two steps up she repeated the process; this time, she had to tap the riser with a hammer before she was able to pry it away from the tread below. Then she worked it out of the small space and peered inside.
By the time she had finished removing every third riser from the first set of stairs, it was time to go get the kids from day care. When they returned, Lucy and Elliot walked into the living room ahead of Sophie, stopped short in front of the staircase and stared, their eyes wide.
“Holes!” said Elliot.
“Mommy, the stairs lost some teeth!” said Lucy.
“Don’t touch anything,” Sophie warned them, gathering up tools, stair risers, and molding strips, trying to keep them in order. “Mommy’s fixing the stairs. Come sit down and have a snack.” She installed the kids at the table with some orange slices, then hurried to nail the risers back in place before the kids decided to start dropping their toys into the holes. She took the first plank (or was it the last one? She’d lost track) and maneuvered it into the space below the first tread. Once it was under the tread, though, she realized she had no way to hold it in place because there was no way to nail it from behind. She couldn’t access the back of the riser without removing the tread above, which was impaled by the balusters, which were embedded in the underside of the banister. It would be impossible to replace the risers without dismantling the entire system.
“Shit,” Sophie muttered, sitting back on her heels. The house had played a hell of a trick on her.
She went to the basement stairs to look at the underside of the first-floor staircase, but it was entirely plastered over. She could rip out the plaster, but she had no money to pay someone to fix the
mess, and besides, Brian was coming back in three days. No carpenter had ever accomplished anything in three days.
She gave the kids bowls of crackers (they’d never eat dinner now), then took a strip of molding and a riser to the basement and located an old bottle of wood glue. After gouging dried glue from the tip, she ran a bead along the top of the riser, pressed the strip of molding onto it, and set it down with a few Styrofoam peanuts arranged under the molding to hold it at the proper angle while it dried.
That night, after the kids fell asleep, she brought the riser up from the basement and, using the molding as a sort of handle, tucked it into the space behind the tread below, holding it tight against the underside of the tread above, where she tried to attach the molding with finish nails. The problem, of course, was that it was nearly impossible to hold the riser with the fingertips of one hand while holding a tiny nail in place and hammering, upside down, with the other hand. She kept dropping the nail, then the riser, cursing more and more loudly, until she finally had to put everything down and walk away for a bit. After pacing the dining room several times, stretching her arms, cracking her neck, and taking some deep breaths, she came back and tried again. This time, she managed to get the nail tapped far enough into the molding that she could let it go and focus her left hand on the job of holding the riser in place. A few more taps and the nail was finally in. The second and third nails were easier.
She sat back and admired her work. As long as she didn’t touch the riser, it looked normal. The slightest nudge, however, sent it creaking inward; she knew a good kick would dislodge it completely. But that, she decided, would be easier to explain than an entire staircase full of holes.