by Molly Greene
“Oh, you wanted a truthful answer. Okay, what you said.”
Gen held out her glass and Oliver tapped it with his. She marveled about him often, that someone half a dozen years younger than she was could be twice as many years advanced in wisdom. She chalked it up to life experience: Oliver had grown up in the closet. The suicide rate for young men in that position was astronomical. Only a sage could come out the other side unscathed.
“Seriously, Liv. Am I taking you away from your own business too much?”
“Hardly. I don’t really need to work, didn’t you know? I figured Bree would have told you. My granny left me a trust fund when she died a year ago. My sister and I are both pretty set. I take on decorating jobs now because I love putting things together. It’s like being who I am, I can’t not do it. And I like hanging around with you. We have a no-pressure relationship. Food and shopping and general gaiety.”
Oliver’s mention of his bestie, Bree, spun Gen’s thoughts to their mutual friend. Cambria Butler and Gen had gone to Berkeley together, then lost touch until they’d bumped into one another in the elevator of this very building early in the year. It was February, and they’d been living in the same place for months and hadn’t known it.
Then Bree found a dead man, and they worked together to discover why he’d died. Things escalated from there. When she was kidnapped and tossed in the bay, her brush with death had shaken them all. After that their lives had all done a three-sixty, but in different ways.
The experience lit a fire under Bree. She re-fashioned herself into the person she aspired to be, immersed in a writing career dedicated to people who needed help. She was now a journalist who traveled on assignment.
Gen was the only one who’d gone backwards. Ryan had moved out while they were working on Bree’s case, and now Gen was single again. Her friend’s night in the water had certainly affected her, but on the surface it hadn’t manifested as a positive.
Bree and Oliver had opened up, and she had closed down.
“Nice,” Gen replied. “Can I borrow a few thou?”
“If you need it, of course.”
Silence.
“Genny?”
“You are a good man, Oliver Weston.” She sat up and faced him. “I was teasing, I’m doing fine. But I will continue to exploit your time and enjoy your company, and let you tell me what I should wear. Sometimes. And find things at the flea market that look splendid in my house.”
“What are friends for?” Livvie raised his glass again, then leaned his head against the chair and closed his eyes.
As Gen watched him, her thoughts cycled back to Bree and wouldn’t be budged. “Do you miss her now that she’s gone so much?”
“And the rest of the time,” Oliver added, “when she is at home, she’s with Eric Garcia? Yes, I do. A lot. But I’m happy for her so I wouldn’t change a thing. It’s left a hole, though, which is why I’ve been glued to your side.”
He opened his eyes. “That sounded awkward. I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings.”
“Not a bit.”
“Do you still miss Ryan?”
“Sometimes. I think about him a lot. When I do, I wish him well, wherever he is and whatever he’s up to. Everything changed when he left.”
“Yes, it did.” Oliver pointed at her. “Ryan took funny Genevieve with him when he packed his bags.”
Gen flinched. “I know.”
“She’ll come back when you’re ready.” He perked up his grave expression and gave her something else to think about. “So what do we do next? For Sophie Keene, I mean. Where do we start?”
“We track the painting. The odds are crazy bad, but we’ll try to figure out who the artist is. If we can find the person who created the work, chances are they can tell us about the girl.”
“Why did you agree to get involved?”
“Lots of reasons. It’s what I do for a living, first of all. Secondly, strange as the whole situation is, I know how I’d feel if it was my sister. And I’m always up for a challenge, you know that.”
“Sounds rational enough. Please tell me we’re going to the thrift shop first.”
“But of course.”
“A regular dose of resale keeps the therapist away.”
Gen snickered. “My mother tried that, but she rang up a hundred thousand dollar Visa tab and my father made her go to a shrink anyway.”
Chapter Four
A bell on the thrift shop doorknob jingled merrily when they entered. The sound always reminded Gen of Christmas, regardless of the season. She walked in far enough for Oliver to follow and shut the door behind them, then stopped and scanned the room.
In a way, the place was a bit like the holidays only the presents weren’t wrapped. Resale stores were often dim, cluttered hovels, but this one was spacious. Neat racks of clothing marched in straight lines front to back. The contents were well-organized and clearly priced. Gen spied a sign in the rear that read furniture and headed that way.
Oliver trailed her halfway down the aisle, then swung left. “I’ll be pawing through the purses if you need me.”
“Have fun,” Gen replied, then called out louder, “Anybody here?”
A girl poked her head through a curtained-off section on one side of the room. “Be right with you.” She disappeared, then re-emerged a minute later and came over.
Gen was flipping through a pile of framed pictures neatly stacked in a shallow bin beside a row of desks. Every thrift shop she’d ever been in always had a lot of desks. People must decide to get rid of them because they didn’t want to work anymore.
“What can I do for you?”
The clerk was in her mid-twenties. One arm was tatted up. She had a piercing in her lip, and she sported elbow-length dreads and heavy eye make-up and a long, winged lace dress that made her look like an avenging angel.
Probably not employable in a corporate setting.
Gen gave her the comrade-in-arms smile. “A friend bought a great oil painting in your shop a few days ago. We want to locate the artist to see more of his work, but it’s not signed. So we thought maybe, if you could help us find whoever donated it, we could ask the former owner for information.”
The girl angled her head and smirked at Gen just a smidge. “What, have you been watching Antiques Roadshow or something? I bet you think you discovered a long-lost van Gogh.”
“Something like that.”
The girl did a three-sixty and walked away. “It’ll be hard to track,” she said over her shoulder. “Kind of like finding a needle in a haystack. I’ll go get Rennie, but she’ll say the same thing.”
She needed to perfect her tactics. The girl had almost thumbed her nose at Gen’s chummy advances. Or maybe her eyes had bugged out too much while she was checking out the chick’s tattoos.
Before long, a nun came through the curtain alone. Gen’s eyes widened again and she was vexed over the obvious surprise on her face. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but this definitely wasn’t it.
The woman wore 1950’s eyeglasses and a contemporary sister’s habit, the kind with a short veil and knee-length skirt. Her sensible shoes squeaked across the linoleum as she approached.
“Rennie Conrad.” Her expression was blissful as she extended her right hand. “I understand you want to track down a donor?”
“Gen Delacourt.” Gen clasped the nun’s palm. “That’s our hope, but your salesgirl said the possibility was remote.”
“There’s a chance. I keep a record of how and when things are donated, because once every so often someone comes in desperate to find an item they’ve given away by accident. Heirlooms. Sentimental things. I always feel so badly for them.”
Gen perked up. “This was an oil painting.”
“We get a lot of framed pictures. Uncle Phil gets a paint-by-the-numbers set for Christmas and starts pumping out the next big thing. Everybody hangs his masterpieces and suffers in silence.”
Gen laughed. “And then they sneak them here
in the middle of the night.”
“That’s right,” Rennie said. “We’re a neighborhood business, but we do sometimes buy estates. We pick up locally, and we have a drive-through drop off in the alley and an overnight bin. If it was placed in the bin, you’ll be out of luck.”
“The picture’s in the car. Will that help?”
“Oh, no. I probably never saw it. I need the ticket that was taped to the back to determine how it came in.”
Gen rummaged in her bag and found her wallet. She removed a red stub and handed it over. “Is this what you mean?”
Rennie looked pleased. “Yes. Come with me.”
“Livvie, I’ll be right back,” Gen called.
Across the room, he grinned and waved a handbag in the air. “It’s a Coach.”
Gen rolled her eyes and followed the nun through the curtain. The tatted-up salesgirl was standing at a huge table, sifting through a mound of clothing. One side of the room was neatly stacked with bags. Brown paper sacks, black garbage bags, plastic grocery bags. Gen had never seen so many bags in one place.
She felt overwhelmed just looking at it, much less having to manage the stuff. “How do you keep track of all this?” she asked.
“We have a system,” Rennie replied. “It works, but keeping it organized depends on our ability to sort through a lot of donations every day.”
“I’d be afraid it would overpower me. I’d have dreams about getting buried under a ton of t-shirts.”
Rennie Conrad laughed as she skirted the milieu. “For me it’s mattresses. I dream I trip and they all fall on top of me, and I’m never found again. This way.”
Gen tagged along as Rennie made her way down another hall, this one lined on both sides with sturdy metal shelving. Every shelf was packed with items, ranging from toys to tools.
The nun made a right into an office. “Please, have a seat.” She glanced at the ticket in her hand and opened the top drawer of a metal file cabinet, then finger-walked past the first three inches of manila folders. Her hand stopped. She pulled a file out.
“Here we go.” She sat in the wheeled desk chair and opened the top leaf, then looked at Gen and smiled her serene smile. “You’re in luck. As I said, if it had been a bin drop-off, we wouldn’t be able to help you. But one of our trucks picked up a load last week at a stop in Noe Valley. According to the ticket, your painting was part of that donation.”
“Can you give me the address?”
Rennie frowned for a minute, thinking. “I suppose there’s no harm in it.”
“Would you feel more comfortable if I gave you my contact information?”
The smile again. “That will work.”
Gen retrieved a business card from her bag and slid it across the desk.
Rennie picked it up. “A private investigator.” Her eyes swung to Gen. “Whatever you’re after, I hope you’re doing God’s work and not the other guy’s.”
“I’m hoping to help a client find her lost sister.”
Rennie nodded and wrote an address in neat script on a yellow sticky note, then held out the paper. Gen took it.
“I wish you the best of luck,” Rennie said, then quoted from scripture. “‘My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains: they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their resting place.’ Jeremiah 50:6. I hope you find your resting place, Genevieve.”
“Why, thank you. I hope so, too.”
Chapter Five
The city of San Francisco is composed of a warren of neighborhoods. Many are famous. And despite the city’s history of fire and earthquakes, most are populated by old buildings with unique architecture. All have distinct features; North Beach is home to a thriving coterie of Italians, and Nob Hill houses the uber wealthy.
Noe Valley was an upscale residential community south of Castro and west of the Mission District. That’s where Gen was headed now. The painting had been loaded up from a residence on Delores Street. When she arrived, she climbed the stairs of the two-story row house and knocked.
An elderly man answered the door. He was thin, stooped, and nearly hairless. He sported baggy lime green polyester pants, the kind with no belt loops that probably belonged to a leisure suit from his younger and more robust days. The brown leather slippers on his feet were worn. He looked tired, but Gen couldn’t tell if he was exhausted from lack of sleep or just plain world-weary.
He looked interested in spite of it. “Yes?”
“I’m sorry to disturb you, sir. My name is Genevieve Delacourt. I know this is peculiar, but a client of mine bought a painting you donated to a thrift shop called Out Of The Closet, and she’s anxious to track down the artist. We hoped you could tell us who he is or where you bought it.”
His eyes crinkled at the corners. “That is odd, Miss Delacourt. My daughters would warn me to be extremely cautious of a stranger knocking on my door with a crazy story like that. But how would you know I gave away paintings if some part of it weren’t true? I trust you have the piece with you.”
“I do.” Gen hooked a thumb toward her BMW at the curb. “It’s in the trunk of my car.”
The man opened the front door wider. “Why don’t you go get it and come inside, and we’ll have a look.”
She did as requested. When she was back on the porch, he pushed the screen door toward her and she stepped into his living room.
“I’m Nathan Formby. Genevieve, you said?”
“That’s right. Please call me Gen. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Formby. I appreciate your taking the time to talk.”
The room was dusted and orderly. The furniture was late mid-century, but Gen figured they were original pieces and not reproductions. From the looks of it, the place hadn’t been redecorated since the 1960’s.
A piano was pushed against one wall, the flat-backed kind that was a staple in every bar and honkytonk once upon a time. The top of it was covered with photographs. In fact, every available surface in the room was filled with them.
Gen pulled the painting from the paper. Mr. Formby began to shake his head the minute the scene was revealed.
“I was afraid of that,” he said. “Ruby bought this on one of the last trips she took with our daughters. We used to travel a lot, you see, both of us. We loved to visit new places. Separately and together, although we hated to be apart and wouldn’t allow it to happen too often. Only on special occasions. She picked up that oil on her own. I don’t know much about it.”
“Where did they go on that trip?”
“To Pacific Grove and thereabouts, if I remember correctly. She wanted to see the butterflies gather while she could still appreciate it. The Monarchs swarm there, you know, every October. It’s quite a sight.”
“Could we ask Ruby?”
Nathan hesitated, and the alert look in his eyes morphed to a deep, abiding sorrow. “Unfortunately, that’s not possible.” He pointed to the couch, then shuffled over and took a seat at one end. Gen sat across from him.
“My wife has Alzheimer’s. She rarely remembers me now, much less the artwork we collected.”
“What a shame,” Gen replied. That would be the source of his exhaustion. She felt a wave of compassion at his obvious misery. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. We’ve been married for sixty-five magnificent years.” Nathan reached across and patted her hand, then sat back with effort. “We had a very good life. But Ruby wasn’t able to enjoy the collection anymore. So I disposed of much of it to save the family from dealing with the issue after I’m gone. Our children chose what they wanted. The leftovers were sold if they were good, and donated if not. We had no provenance for this one, you see, so it went to the thrift shop. It’s an unsigned piece. Not much value in that.”
Gen’s hope ratcheted down about a hundred degrees. Disappointment must have registered on her face, because Mr. Formby tried to console her. If anyone understood setbacks, it was him.
“Perhaps we coul
d try,” he said. “Who knows, she might rally. It’s happened.”
Gen brightened as Nathan struggled up from the couch, then felt another stab of pity and moved to help. Too late; he was already on his feet.
“This way.”
He led her down a passage, and their footsteps were muffled by a worn Oriental runner. He stopped before a room at the end of the hall and held up a palm. She waited as he eased the door open and looked inside.
“She’s awake,” he whispered.
The room was dim. Mr. Formby moved to his wife’s side and switched on a lamp, then jerked the curtains open. Light flooded in. A little old lady in a pink cotton sweat suit sat up in bed and blinked. Her eyes were vacant, flicking across Nathan’s face without apparent recognition.
“Hello, Ruby.” His tone was soothing. “You remember me, don’t you? I’m your friend, Nathan Formby.”
“Friend?” Ruby’s voice echoed with concern. She picked at the ribbed cuff of her sweatshirt and frowned.
“That’s right, your friend. And you have a visitor today. This is Gen Delacourt. She’s come to chat and have some tea. And she’s brought a pretty picture to show you.”
He indicated a chair close to the bed. There was a floor lamp beside it, along with a small table that held a closed paperback with a bookmark sticking out about halfway through.
Nathan read to his wife.
“I’ll leave you ladies alone for a minute. Ruby, is that all right? Shall I go and make some Earl Grey, and bring in a plate of those oatmeal raisin cookies your daughter Tina brought yesterday?”
Ruby nodded, although it was difficult to tell if she processed what he’d said. Gen took a seat and wondered what part of it she understood.
Tea? Cookies? Tina?
Nathan shuffled down the hallway, and two beats later the sound of running water wafted back.
She and Ruby had been staring at one another since she’d entered the room. Gen imagined that the fear she’d first seen in Ruby’s eyes was lessening.
