Consigned to Death

by Jane K. Cleland

  Without a watch, which I never wore since it always seemed to get in the way when I was working, I had no way of knowing how long Max and I sat. It seemed a very long time, but I felt a sense of unreality, so maybe it wasn’t long at all.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” Alverez said when he came back, businesslike, carrying a collection of papers. “I have the medical examiner’s preliminary report. Before I tell you about it, though, let me get the recorder set up.”

  “Recorder?” I asked.

  “Tape recorder. So I don’t have to take notes.”

  I looked at Max and he nodded.

  “That’s fine. I’m assuming we can have a copy of the tape?” Max asked.

  “Sure,” Alverez said.

  I watched as Alverez positioned the small unit on the table and pushed a button. A red light appeared and I heard a whirring sound. Alverez gave our names, the date, and time.

  “I appreciate your coming in to help,” Alverez said. “Just a formality, but I’m going to ask you to sign a form indicating that you’ve been advised of your rights.” Alverez slid a piece of paper across the table to Max and read me my Miranda rights. It felt hard to breathe. I forced myself to listen, and when he asked me if I understood, I answered that I did. Max nodded that it was okay for me to sign the paper. Never sign something you haven’t read, my dad had taught me. I read it and signed my name.

  “Okay,” Alverez said. “So. The medical examiner. The preliminary report is in.”

  “What did he say?” Max asked.

  “She. Dr. Young said death occurred this morning.”

  “When?”

  “Between nine and noon, as best she can figure it.”

  “Oh, my God!” I exclaimed. “I had a horrible thought before that it was while I was on the porch that he was dying, and now you’re saying it’s true!” Tears came again, but this time I let them fall.

  Max patted my arm gently, and whispered, “Don’t speak.”

  “I had an officer check things out,” Alverez said, looking at me, changing the subject. “We found your appointment in Mr. Grant’s diary. It lay open to today’s date on the kitchen table. Apparently, he hadn’t forgotten that you were to meet him.”

  I shook my head. “Poor Mr. Grant.”

  “And your message was still on the machine-apparently un-played.”

  “How did death occur?” Max asked.

  “What about it, Josie? Do you know?”

  “What?” I asked, horrified as the implications of his question sunk in. He thought I knew something about Mr. Grant’s murder.

  “Do you know how Mr. Grant died?” he asked again.

  “No. Of course not.”

  “Well?” Max prompted, tapping his pen on the table. “Fill us in.”

  “Mr. Grant was stabbed.”

  “Oh, God,” I exclaimed, and began to cry again. “How awful.” I used the sides of my hands and pushed gently under my eyes. The tears gradually stopped.

  Struck by a sudden thought, I turned to Max and in a soft voice asked, “I just thought of something. How did they know he’d been killed?”

  Max nodded and repeated the question.

  Alverez leaned back in his chair, balancing for a moment on the back two legs, keeping his eyes on mine. “His daughter called from Massachusetts and asked us to check on him.”

  “She did?” I asked, looking from Alverez to Max and back again. “I don’t understand. Why?”

  “She got a call from his lawyer, Epps his name is. Mr. Epps was concerned that someone was trying to strong-arm Mr. Grant into selling his treasures for a song. The daughter, hearing this, was, of course, concerned, and immediately started calling him, but she couldn’t rouse him. Her messages were on the answering machine, too. She called a neighbor, but the neighbor wasn’t home. She called both her dad and the neighbor a few more times with no luck. So finally she called us.”

  “Someone trying to strong-arm Mr. Grant! That’s terrible! Who would do such a thing? Did the lawyer give a name?”

  “Yeah, he did. He told Grant’s daughter that it was a shark named Josie Prescott.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  I started, speechless. What Alverez said simply didn’t register. I watched as he waited for me to react. But I couldn’t. I felt frozen. I couldn’t think.

  A shark. Epps had called me a shark. I shook my head, my confidence shattered. So much for my hopeful future, I thought, and fought back tears. I should have known not to trust in hope.

  In the dark days after the price-fixing scandal hit the news, after I wore the wire that recorded my boss conspiring with his chief competitor to hold commissions steady, I’d learned that hope could be a mirage. Day after day, I’d maintained optimism as I joined thousands of other New Yorkers in expressing shock that such a well-respected executive as the CEO of Frisco’s would participate in such a dastardly crime. I cringed as I remembered going to work the day after the news broke, expecting to be treated as a hero for blowing the lid off the conspiracy. I’d been naive enough to expect my peers to admire me, and even after it became clear that they did not, I persevered in trying to win their acclaim. I’d developed a keen ability to deny facts that, to others who were less emotionally involved, were patently obvious. I’d learned the bitter lesson that, no matter what winning football coaches and inspirational motivational speakers claim, desire isn’t enough. My former colleagues turned their backs on me then, and here, today, I was being called a shark. A shark!

  I took a breath, reminding myself of the promise I’d made as I drove my loaded rental van past Frisco’s en route to my new home in New Hampshire-never again would I allow despair to lead to wishful thinking. Paralysis lifted, replaced by righteous rage.

  “A shark?” I snapped, outraged.

  Max told me to be quiet.

  “That’s what Epps said.”

  “Britt Epps?” I asked, ignoring Max’s admonition.

  “Yes.”

  “The son of a bitch.”

  “Josie,” Max repeated. “Be quiet.”

  “You know him?” Alverez asked me.

  “Josie,” Max said quietly, “Don’t speak.”

  “I want to answer, Max. Yes, I know him. I thought we were friends. Well, sort of friends. Business friends. I like Britt Epps! Or I thought I did.” I couldn’t believe it. “I can’t believe it!” I said aloud. “A shark? He called me a shark?”

  “Yeah,” Alverez said.

  I heard compassion in his voice as he spoke that one word, and it made me uncomfortable. I hated the thought that my situation led him to feel sorry for me.

  “How well do you know him?” Alverez asked.

  I flipped a hand up. “I don’t know. I’ve met him here and there at fund-raisers and Chamber of Commerce breakfasts, things like that. I’ve been trying to get in to see him to pitch my company. I’m new in town, well, a couple of years, now, but that’s still considered new around here. So I’m trying to meet people. Anyway, most of my business comes from referrals from lawyers and he’s one of the most respected in town. So naturally I’ve been trying to get an appointment. He’s always been polite and friendly. I thought we’d never connected because of scheduling snafus. I can’t believe he called me a shark. I just can’t believe it.”

  “Why not? With a house full of valuable items up for sale, wouldn’t you expect sleazeball dealers to come out from under rocks? Wouldn’t it make sense for relatives of older people who decide to sell off their possessions to worry on their behalf?”

  “Yes, everything you say is true-but I’m not one of those sleazeball dealers and Epps knows it! I have a stellar reputation-one I’ve worked hard to develop-and anyone who knows me knows I’m not a shark!”

  “I’ll be asking him more about it,” Alverez said. “Did a lawyer introduce you to Grant?”

  “No.” I shifted in the chair, the horizontal slats hurting my back.

  “How did you hook up with him?”

  Max touched my arm, and w
hispered, “Is there anything I should know about this? Any personal relationships involved? Anything unusual?”

  “No. Utterly aboveboard,” I answered in an undertone.

  He nodded, indicating that I could answer.

  “Mr. Grant called me.”

  “How did he get your name?” he asked.

  “How do you think he got your name?” Max interjected, stressing the word “think.”

  “Fair enough,” Alverez said, sounding relaxed, as if he had all the time in the world.

  “He got my name from the NHAAS brochure,” I answered.

  “What’s that?”

  “The New Hampshire Antiquarian Appraisal Society. It’s an industry association. I’m a member. I’m local. As far as I know I was the only person Mr. Grant called.”

  “Luck?” he asked. “Was it random?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “It’s not unusual for someone to select the appraiser based only on proximity.”

  He nodded. “So he called and you made an appointment?”

  “You bet I did.”

  “And what happened next?”

  “And as soon as I got there, I recognized that I’d walked into a great opportunity. Did you see his stuff?”

  “Yeah, but not to notice. Why, was it special?”

  “Extraordinary. I wouldn’t even know how to start to describe it. He had an eighteenth-century American oak game table with a chessboard built in-it’s magnificent-inlaid in mahogany and rosewood. He had three Jules Tavernier paintings, all garden scenes. He had a Paul Revere silver tea service. Hell, he had a set of Louis XV chairs in perfect condition-including the original fabric. No joke.”

  “How much are we talking here?”

  “Unclear. Some of the items, nothing like them has been to auction in a generation. Some items are probably unique and priceless.”

  Alverez whistled. “And he had locks you could pick with a credit card.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “Amazing.”

  “What was his reaction to your appraisal?”

  “I didn’t do a formal appraisal. Nothing in writing, and I didn’t go piece by piece or anything. I just saw enough to know I wanted the lot.”

  “And his reaction to your reaction?”

  “Believe it or not, he didn’t seem much interested in the things themselves. I got excited by the chess table, for example. He said his wife had bought it in Boston more than fifty years ago. But he didn’t want to talk about the table. He wanted to talk about his wife. How he’d met her during the war. World War Two. It was a real love story.” I shook my head. “He refused to go to auction. He said that it would just drag the process out.”

  “That doesn’t sound smart.”

  “No, but it’s not unusual. Some people, after a spouse dies…” I paused. “I just can’t believe this. Mr. Grant was a nice old man. Epps knows I’m not a shark. None of this makes sense.” I felt shell-shocked, somewhere between incredulous and hurt. I teared up again.

  “So if he didn’t want to go to auction, what did he want?”

  “He wanted me to buy everything outright.”

  “How much?”

  “I don’t know. I couldn’t afford to just give him cash. He was okay with consigning the goods to me. I promised everything would be sold within a month.”

  “A month. Isn’t that pretty quick?”

  “Unbelievable,” I agreed. “I would have had to bring in outside experts and begin advertising right away.”

  “What was his hurry?”

  “I don’t know. He mentioned that his family was coming for a visit. Maybe he wanted it over and done with before they arrived.”

  “Because they’d be upset?”

  I shrugged. “He didn’t say.”

  “But you thought his selling out was unusual?”

  “I wouldn’t say it was unusual, exactly. It wasn’t ordinary, that’s for sure. But on some level, every sale is unique. I mean, there is no such thing as a ‘normal’ sale.”

  “What might have motivated him to sell out?”

  “I have no way of knowing.”

  “Fair enough. Speculate for me.”

  I glanced at Max. “Just so long as you acknowledge that Josie is talking theoretically,” he said. “She’s made it clear that she has no specific knowledge of Mr. Grant’s motivation. Agreed?”

  “Understood,” Alverez acknowledged.

  Max nodded at me, indicating that I could answer. I paused for a moment to gather my thoughts. “There are lots of reasons why people sell their possessions, and I’m sure there are more that I’m not thinking of.”

  “Like?” Alverez prodded.

  “Like routine estate planning. Or they want or need cash for some particular purpose, like college tuition or an around-the-world trip. Maybe they’re hoping to avoid a family feud somewhere down the line. Or they’ve tired of the items and want new or different things. Or they want a fresh start, like maybe after a divorce. Or, and this might apply to Mr. Grant, there’s some kind of grief reaction-you know, they want to get rid of objects that remind them of someone who’s died, in Mr. Grant’s case, his wife.” I shrugged. “Whatever was motivating him, he didn’t act troubled in any way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He didn’t seem desperate for cash or anything, or like he was regretting having to sell out. He was chatty and pleasant every time I saw him.”

  Alverez nodded. “Did you ask any questions to try and figure it out?”

  “No. I never do. I mean, I need to know enough about what’s going on to gauge whether I should act happy or more serious, you know? But I never pry.”

  “Can you guess? I know you don’t know,” he added, glancing at Max. “But I’m wondering if you took away a general impression. What do you think? Which of those reasons applied to Mr. Grant?”

  “I wish I could help you, but I can’t. I just don’t know. I never know. That’s not my job. I took him at his word, just like I do everyone. He wanted to sell out. I wanted to put together the deal. That’s it.”

  Alverez tapped his pencil on the edge of the table and leaned back in his chair, thinking it through. “Okay, then. So, all told, how often were you there?”

  “Three times. Once to meet him and discuss what he wanted, once to catalogue and videotape the contents, and once to make the offer. Today’s meeting was to finalize the deal. On the phone, he said he was ready to go.”

  We heard the recorder click off, and Alverez turned the tape over and pushed the Record button.

  “What did you two talk about while you were there?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you said he was chatty, did he show you pictures of his grandchildren, talk about what he planned to do with the money, what?”

  “Nothing like that. He always asked me how I was feeling, and usually he asked about my business. We chatted about the weather and inflation and nothing in particular.” I paused to think for another moment. “Once I got started, he left me alone to do my cataloguing.”

  “How come you went there alone? Wouldn’t it have been quicker to bring in help for the cataloguing?”

  “Would it ever! Jeez. But I’m a businesswoman. And I didn’t have a signed deal yet. It can be anxiety-producing to have strangers going through your possessions. So I went alone.”

  “In the times you talked with Mr. Grant, did he mention anyone else? You know, that he’d be having dinner with a friend, that he’d stopped by a coffee shop, or maybe bought a newspaper at the corner store, anything like that?”

  I thought for a minute. “No. No one in particular. But we talked some about how capable he was. I mean, he brought it up. The first time I was there, he made a point of telling me that I shouldn’t think he was decrepit-that’s the word he used, decrepit-just because he was old. That he could still drive and he still balanced his checkbook to the penny. We laughed about that because I told him I couldn’t.” I smiled a little. “He offered to w
ork for me and be my bookkeeper. He winked and said he had a good head for numbers. Talking to him, I believed it. The questions he asked about my business showed without a doubt that all of his marbles were intact.”

  Alverez nodded and paused. He looked at me and I looked back. He looked liked an outdoors man, rugged and fit. He also looked reliable and honest, but I reminded myself that looks can be deceiving, and that sometimes people use their good looks, youthful appearance, or innocent demeanor for devious ends.

  “How you doing?” he asked.

  “I’m okay.”

  “Ready for that coffee?”

  I asked him the time and was surprised that it wasn’t yet three. I’d thought it was later. “How about a martini?” I countered.

  “No can do, ma’am.”

  “Figures,” I said. “Still, it’s been a martini kind of day.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “So, change of subject. Have you ever been fingerprinted?”

  I reacted as if Alverez had ripped a Band-aid off without warning, and I closed my eyes to shield my dismay.

  Yes, I answered him silently, I’ve been fingerprinted. It had happened on a Tuesday and I was thrilled. Frisco’s policy held that all new hires had to go through a comprehensive security check, and I’d passed. But I didn’t want to tell him that. I didn’t want to talk about my past at all. I didn’t want to reveal how much I’d loved my job, nor explain how hurt I’d been when I’d been forced to leave. I considered lying, rationalizing that a lie isn’t a lie if the information solicited is irrelevant. Yet I knew that in all probability, Alverez would expect that an art and antique auction house as prestigious as Frisco’s would fingerprint new staff. Plus, nothing said I had to talk about any other aspect of my years at Frisco’s except the fingerprinting. Certainly there was no need to reveal my involvement in the price-fixing thing. What was it Max had said? Not to volunteer information. Got it.

  Suddenly, words my father spoke echoed in my head: Stop, breathe, think. Stop, breathe, think. It was a refrain he used to chastise me when I heedlessly rushed to action. Those words calmed me now and allowed me to regrasp control.