Antiques to Die For

by Jane K. Cleland

  Whoever answered the phone called her name and in a minute I heard a sad “Hello?”

  “It’s Josie.”

  “Hi, Josie.”

  “I’m so, so sorry, Paige.”

  “Thank you.”

  I’d been polite like that when my father died. I recognized the cadence—she was in shock, coping, but not assimilating much. “I wanted you to know that if I can do anything to help, you let me know. You can stay with me. Or I can drive you places. Or cook you dinner. Whatever you need, I can do.”

  She sniffed. “Thank you,” she repeated, her voice wavering.

  “Write down my phone numbers, okay?”

  “Okay. I’ve got a pen.”

  I had her read back both my work and cell phone numbers, and after we were done, I sat, staring into space. Don’t think of the police. Or Ty. Or Rosalie. Focus on work, I chided myself.

  I scanned the piles of papers and files on my desk awaiting my attention. Nothing appealed to me. I didn’t feel like looking at my accountant’s latest report, reviewing Sasha’s draft of catalogue copy for an upcoming auction of perfume bottles, or reading a salesperson’s proposal to upgrade our inventory control system. I sighed and walked to the window.

  Branches on my old maple shimmied in the strengthening breeze. The sky was thick with steel gray clouds. Instead of dealing with paperwork, I considered going home and cooking. When feeling blue or anxious, I turn to the cookbook my mother created for me when I was thirteen, just before she died, finding motherly comfort in its handwritten pages.

  I returned to my desk, and I was halfway through my accountant’s good news report—it was official, December’s tag sale’s bottom line was up a healthy 11 percent from a year ago—when Gretchen called to tell me, “Officer Brownley on line two.”

  “Hi, Josie,” she said, sounding not the least bit irritated. “I understand Chief Alverez told you that I need to talk to you some more.”

  “I’m glad to help if I can.”

  “Thanks. I’m going to be in your neighborhood in an hour. Will you be there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. See you then.”

  As I sat staring at my maple tree, I thought about Rosalie, and only then did panic start to rise. What could Ty and Officer Brownley possibly think I knew that I hadn’t already told them?

  CHAPTER SIX

  T

  he tag-sale room was a shacklike structure attached to the right side of the warehouse. When I’d first bought the old factory, the room had been rickety and unused. I brought it up to code but left it plain. I figured customers would be more likely to expect bargains in an underdesigned venue than one that was stylishly decorated.

  I spotted Eric as soon as I stepped into the room. It was Thursday, so he was overseeing the setup for Saturday’s sale. I wished I could think of a less labor-intensive approach to merchandising than taking all of the unsold inventory down after each week’s sale and restocking the tables as the weekend approached, but it was the only way I’d ever found to keep the displays looking fresh. And as the sales figures proved, my strategy was working.

  Barely out of his teens, twig thin, and earnest, Eric was my warehouse guy, overseeing everything from facility management to inventory. I’d recently promoted him to supervisor, and he was doing fine, but he was a reluctant leader, filled with self-doubt and continually expecting failure.

  “Stagger the glasses,” Eric instructed a temp, a white-haired woman who was new to us, moving pieces of Depression glassware into position as he spoke. “Put one over here and another over there. Don’t just line them up.”

  “Oh, I see,” the woman replied, sounding excited to receive direction. “Shall I do it that way with all of the sets of glasses?”

  “Yeah,” Eric told her. “And let me know if you have any questions, okay?”

  I glanced at her name tag as I approached and said hello to them both. Her name was Cara. I wondered if she wanted a permanent job. I liked her attitude and we could always use part-timers interested in working the tag sale regularly.

  “Hey, Eric,” I said. “How’s it going?”

  “Slowly,” he half whispered as we walked toward the far door. His face was lined with worry. “We have two new temps. They don’t know how we do things.”

  I nodded. “Maybe we ought to think of hiring another part-timer, someone who can work every week. Cara looks good,” I said, nodding in her direction.

  “She seems okay,” Eric agreed.

  “Let’s see how she does on Saturday.”

  With a final glance around the sparsely filled tables, I left him to the task and made my way to the main office. Fred, wearing his signature rat-pack cool suit and tie, was hanging up his topcoat.

  “Any luck?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Twentieth-century repro of an eighteenth-century print,” he said matter-of-factly, delivering the news that not only was the art print not incunabulum as I’d hoped, it wasn’t even an original.

  “Well,” I said philosophically, “I guess the tag-sale inventory just got a boost.”

  “Yeah. It’s a beauty, though. We shouldn’t price it too low.”

  “No, go ahead and price it the same as the others. For some lucky buyer it’ll be a real find,” I said.

  The tag-sale pricing policy I’d set when I first opened Prescott’s was simple: Everything was to be priced fairly, even on the low side, and occasionally we slip in a significant bargain to reward good shoppers, create buzz, and encourage customers to continue their hunt the next time they come through.

  Last Saturday, I’d walked by a middle-aged woman holding a pink fluted Victorian bride’s basket just in time to hear her whisper to a younger woman, maybe her daughter, “Lillian, look at this—it’s only fifty dollars!”

  “Wow!” the young woman exclaimed. “It’s beautiful!”

  They were right, it was a bargain. At auction I’d expect the nineteenth-century object to fetch more than a hundred dollars. But we weren’t currently building collections of glassware, except cobalt pieces, so I decided to let it go for a song. With any luck, they’d tell everyone they knew about their stellar find.

  Fred nodded, opened his portfolio case, and extracted the art print.

  Sasha, watching him, twirled a strand of her lank brown hair. “Look at this, Fred.”

  “What is it?” he asked, squinting through his square-shaped black-framed glasses.

  “The client said it’s Whistler’s palette.”

  Fred stopped cold and stared at the bag with laserlike intensity. “Really?”

  “That’s what she said. Josie and I think the wood looks right, but who knows?”

  “What’s the history?” he asked.

  “She got it from her boyfriend who died a few weeks ago. The boyfriend got it from his mother.”

  “How do you plan on authenticating it?” he asked.

  Confirming an antique’s pedigree, an important part of the appraisal process, was often tough and sometimes impossible. Without letters of agreement, receipts, or bills of sale, how do you know that an object wasn’t stolen or that its history wasn’t misrepresented? We use diaries, business records, oral histories, and official records to document ownership and association, and we double-and triple-check everything. A good appraiser needs to be part hound and part detective, smelling out clues that can be followed up methodically.

  “Lesha’s looking for the paperwork that she thinks will provide some history. I’m going to wait until I hear from her,” Sasha said.

  “You ought to start analyzing the palette itself,” Fred argued. “Don’t just wait for her.”

  “I will, but not a lot. We might learn things from her that would make our work more efficient,” she responded.

  Fred and Sasha were an anomalous pair. Fred was New York City street smart. Sasha was 100 percent small-town trusting. He had a solid education but relied more on his years of experience and razor-sharp instincts. She had a Ph.D. in art hi
story but no common sense. He was self-assured; she was timid. He was acerbic; she was refined. But they shared key qualities: They were both curious, knowledgeable, systematic, precise, and honest. Their conflicts were intellectual, never personal, and together they found creative ways to solve stubborn problems. They were a great team. Lucky me, I thought.

  “I seem to recall that Whistler had some unusual work habits,” I remarked. “If I remember right, he used extra-long brushes so he could stand far away from the canvas. Maybe you could see if he did anything funky with his palettes.”

  “I’ll get started on it right away,” Sasha said.

  “What’s up next for you, Fred, now that the print is done?” I asked.

  “I’m pecking away at the Samuels estate.”

  I nodded again, and allowed myself a private Atta girl. More-head Samuels, a well-known collector from Toledo, had accumulated four M. W. Hopkins paintings, eight pieces of Hungarian pottery, and more than two dozen artifacts from the whaling industry, an eclectic mix of valuable objects. When he died, his executor, a lawyer in Ohio, having read a profile of Prescott’s in Antiques Insights, a trade journal that had written us up a few months ago, contacted me to handle the appraisal of the entire estate. His decision to choose us, a relatively new appraisal firm—and further, one that was neither local nor New York City–based—caused quite a stir in the antiques world, and I was proud as all get-out. It was an exciting project and, potentially, a reputation-building one.

  Paul Greeley pushed open the front door, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gretchen sit up straighter and smile. He sure was good-looking, but it was more than that. He had intelligent eyes and lots of laugh lines and he carried himself with unconscious sangfroid.

  “Well, hello,” Gretchen said. “Can I help you?”

  He spotted me. “Josie,” he said, fake-shooting me with his index finger. He favored Gretchen with a smile, then turned to me. “Got a sec to talk business?”

  “Sure. Come on in. We can go to my office.”

  I led the way through the warehouse to the spiral staircase that gave access to my private office.

  “I hope we can grab a cup of coffee sometime, and tell uplifting Rosalie stories,” he said.

  “Sounds good. There are lots of them.” I gestured that Paul should sit in one of the two yellow Queen Anne wing chairs, and I took the other. “You mentioned business?”

  “I need your help in finding a perfect birthday gift for my mother.”

  I smiled. “Sure. What does she like?”

  He smiled back and I felt my heart skip a beat. He had a certain something that made it easy to relax in his presence. Yet I felt wary as well, sensing that he wanted more than I had to give, and that he wanted it too quickly. It was as if I were in danger of being drawn into a sticky web of his making.

  “Nothing,” he said. “That’s what makes it tough.”

  I laughed. “Well, I’ve always liked a challenge. Tell me more.”

  He made a face. “There are two problems. One, she has everything she needs or wants. Two, she has unpredictable taste.”

  “Jeez. Okay. Does she collect anything?”

  “Nope.”

  “What’s her house look like? I mean how is it decorated?”

  He gazed around. “Like this. Beautiful and substantive.” He looked at me. “Just like the room’s owner.”

  I felt myself blush and wondered if he was flirting with me or negotiating, figuring that if he buttered me up, I’d lower the price.

  “Thank you,” I said, my tone neutral. “She likes eighteenth-century decorations, then?”

  “Is that what this is?” he asked, looking around again.

  “Mostly.”

  “I guess. I’m no expert.”

  “Did you have anything in mind?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, smiling again. “I’m content to leave the decision in your capable hands.”

  I continued to ask questions and get unhelpful answers, then I asked him for his budget. After a little more conversation, I mentioned a spectacular Louis XVI mustard pot, a cobalt glass jar enclosed in a covered silver stand. I’d been planning on including it in an auction of cobalt glassware later in the year, and felt a momentary pang at suggesting it to Paul. Any antiques dealer will tell you that it’s harder to buy than sell, so it’s always a temptation to keep back the best stuff.

  “It sounds exactly right,” he said.

  “Come on, then. Let’s take a look at it.”

  I led him to the back of the warehouse where the cobalt objects were stored. Walking through the dimly lit warehouse, I was keenly aware of his masculine presence. He smelled of some aftershave or cologne, fresh and clean, like a mountain meadow on a warm spring day. When I glanced over at him, he was smiling down at me, and I found myself responding, and looked away. I reached for the mustard pot.

  I showed him the three hallmarks on the base, plus another near the top rim. I rubbed the silver lovingly—I could almost feel the richness of the metal. It was a terrific piece in astoundingly good condition. The glass bowl was original, and even the hinge worked smoothly.

  “Sold,” he said, looking at me, not the mustard pot.

  “Okay, then,” I said, and headed for the front office, glad to be back among other people.

  I had Gretchen write up the sale. Paul thanked me for the help and told me that he was going to follow up on that cup of coffee.

  I watched as he got situated in his old BMW. If I, in our casual encounters, found him shiveringly attractive and hard to resist, I couldn’t even imagine what Rosalie’s experience had been like. Is he genuine? I wondered. Or does he use his good looks as a coin of the realm, counting on women’s panting enthusiasm to get what he wants?

  As I turned away from the window, Gretchen said, “So . . . is he single?”

  “Yes,” I replied, smiling. “He is.”

  She tilted her head and smiled, a flush of pleasure brightening her ivory complexion and adding extra sparkle to her eyes. “You don’t say.”

  “You want his number?” I asked.

  She tapped the bill of sale and grinned broadly. “I’ve already got it.”

  Gretchen and Paul, I mused. They sure would make a dazzling-looking couple, but I didn’t want to encourage Gretchen too much. For all I knew, Paul was a suspect in Rosalie’s murder.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  O

  fficer Brownley pushed open the front door and the four of us—Sasha, Fred, Gretchen, and I—froze, creating a small tableau. The only sound was the jangling chimes. As they began to quiet, I stepped forward, and my movement seemed to release us all from our momentary immobilization.

  “Officer,” I said, smiling, “come on in.”

  I introduced her around.

  “Is there somewhere we can talk?” she asked.

  My heart began to thud at her question, memories of past encounters with the police quickening my pulse. I had nothing to hide, but I’d learned the hard way that innocence wasn’t always a sufficient shield.

  “Sure,” I answered. “My office.”

  As I headed toward the stairs, I fought a rush of despair. I’d spent countless hours last year in a kind of limbo, a place where the police acted as if I were guilty, where they’d almost accused me of things openly, and where I’d felt diminished and defenseless and weak. Today, even though Officer Brownley was polite and pleasant, it felt as if I were being led back into hell. As I stepped into my office, Dante’s words came back to me: Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.

  “Chief Alverez filled me in,” she said. “So I know that you think Rosalie was having an affair with Mr. Fine.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” I said, embarrassed.

  “Perfectly understandable,” she replied, waving it away. “But it is important to our investigation that you tell us everything, whether you want to or not.”

  “Okay.”

  “And now, with her diary and tote bag surfacing at H
eyer’s, well, I’m really trying to nail down Ms. Chaffee’s movements yesterday, and I’m hoping you can help. You said you saw her for lunch.”

  “Right,” I acknowledged.

  “When she left the restaurant, where was she heading?”

  “To pick up Paige at ballet. I don’t know what she did after that.”

  “Did you walk out of the restaurant together?”

  “No. Rosalie went to the ladies’ room.”

  “Are you certain that you don’t remember anything that could give us a clue as to what she did next? Like ‘I’ve got to make a phone call,’ or ‘I need to check something with Mr. Fine,’ or ‘I have to stop at the grocery store on my way home’? Nothing like that?”

  I thought back to our conversation, then shook my head. “Sorry, but no. Can I ask you something? From your questions I gather Rosalie didn’t go to Heyer’s?”

  She paused, then said, “That’s right. According to Heyer’s security, her key card wasn’t used yesterday.” She paused again. “If you had to guess, where do you think she went after she picked up Paige at ballet?”

  “Maybe she decided to hang out with Paige. Or to work from home so Paige wouldn’t be alone.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “It’s all speculation—but it’s still school break, and I’m guessing that Rosalie might have wanted to spend as much time with her as she could. One thing that Rosalie really liked about her situation was that she had a lot of flexibility. If she wasn’t actually teaching a class at Hitchens or interviewing Gerry Fine at Heyer’s for the book she was writing, she could work from anywhere.”

  She nodded. “Where else? Where else might she have gone?”

  She wants me to guess that she and Gerry met for a tryst. I had a startling thought—maybe they had.

  “I don’t know,” I repeated. “After lunch, I came back here, to my company. I didn’t see or speak to Rosalie again.”

  Officer Brownley observed me for several seconds. It was disconcerting. Finally, she said, “Thank you. I appreciate it. Did she say anything about her experiences at Hitchens College?”