by Lind, Hailey
“What’s missing?”
“A few paintings by minor artists, as well as several of the less important Pre-Columbian artifacts. Nothing especially important or valuable.”
“Was a police report filed?” No museum liked to admit when its security had been breached, but a police report would be necessary if the Brock intended to submit an insurance claim.
“The Brock family does not wish to pursue it. The Chagall is a separate matter entirely.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Because . . .” she blustered. “Because . . .”
“You’re just repeating what you’ve been told, aren’t you?”
“I am not!” Naomi said, snatching up the gauntlet I’d tossed at her feet. She glanced at the open office door and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Just between you, me, and the walls, I don’t understand why Mrs. Brock’s making such a big deal about the stolen Chagall. It’s insured, and the rumor is that she was planning to sell it anyway.”
“Sell it? Why?”
“Haven’t you heard?” Naomi’s voice became more animated. “Agnes Brock and her sister, Ida Cuthbert, had a falling out last year, and Ida’s been threatening to sue for a share of the museum. Most of the collections belonged to Agnes’ late husband, Herbert Brock, but a few pieces, like the Chagall, came from the Cuthbert family. The workroom scuttlebutt is that Agnes decided to dump the Chagall, which she never really liked anyway, just to spite her sister. The thief took care of it for her.”
“That’s so petty.”
“You mean that’s so Brock.”
Naomi and I shared a rare grin. “Anyway, I really should be getting back to work. If you have any information on the stolen Chagall I suggest you contact the police.” She turned towards the computer, and logged back onto the Web site, a chat room for fans of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.
“I see you’re really burning the midnight oil there,” I teased.
“It’s research for an upcoming exhibit,” she sniffed. “I’ll send you a ticket.”
“Thanks,” I said, though I wouldn’t be holding my breath.
I plodded back to my truck, headed west on Geary, turned right onto Hyde, passed the gleaming dome of City Hall, crossed Market to Eighth, and took the Bryant Street on-ramp towards Oakland. Traffic congealed to a stop at the mouth of the Bay Bridge and, after flirting with indulging in a temper tantrum, I took a few deep yoga-inspired breaths and reflected upon what I had just learned: The Brock Museum was missing some artwork, and Carlos Jimenez was up to his keister in art theft.
Most puzzling was his reaction when I asked if he’d sold the purloined art. I would have understood had he flat-out lied about his role in the theft—given my upbringing that would have been the normal response—but to admit the crime yet deny the profits? That was just nuts.
Traffic inched forward and screeched to a halt again. I flipped through the radio stations but nothing appealed to me, so I switched it off. Okay, let’s say Carlos had been pilfering from the Brock Museum’s storage rooms for years. Why would he risk taking a painting from one of the public galleries, where the odds of getting caught skyrocketed? Had it not been for the coincidence of the Stendhal faintings, Carlos would have been arrested and jailed. He had been lucky.
Unbelievably lucky.
Nobody was that lucky.
A long time ago my grandfather told me there were three kinds of luck in this world: bad luck, worse luck, and the luck that you made yourself. I was willing to bet Carlos’ luck fell into the last category. What were the odds that Carlos just happened to change his modus operandi and steal a Chagall at the very moment Bryan and his friends just happened to faint in the Modern Masters gallery?
I rested my forehead against the steering wheel and groaned. Michael. Michael was behind this; he had to be. Why else would a world-class art thief be leading a museum tour?
A horn blared and I lifted my head to find that traffic was moving again, threw the truck in gear, popped the clutch, and peeled out. This was the advantage to driving a real working woman’s vehicle, I thought as I nosed in front of a shiny red BMW convertible, whose outraged owner gave way as soon as he saw the truck’s extensive collection of dings and dents.
The sunlight dimmed when I entered the tunnel at Yerba Buena Island, and it occurred to me that one thing Michael’s involvement did not explain was why Carlos had targeted the Chagall. Did it, as Frank had suggested, have personal significance for him? Possibly. But what about the other missing items Naomi had told me about? Why would Carlos take them if he did not intend to sell them?
Of course, Carlos could be lying. Everybody else in my life had been lying to me lately.
Even my mother.
And speaking of whom, where the hell was that woman? It was a little after five now, and she had promised to call me after Seamus McGraw’s funeral, which should have concluded hours ago. Maybe Mom ran into some old friends and spent the afternoon reminiscing in a Berkeley coffeehouse. I pulled off the freeway at Grand Avenue and tried her cell phone, but her voice mail picked up. We’d agreed to meet at Le Cheval in downtown Oakland at six o’clock, which gave me just enough time to get home, shower, and change.
Unless, of course, my mother needed to be rescued. But how would I know if she did?
I sped home and had just reached the second-floor landing when I heard the phone ringing in my apartment. I bounded up the remaining stairs two at a time, unlocked the door, and flung myself at the phone.
“Annie! Baby doll!”
“Bryan, is everything all right?” I imagined Bryan calling from the bowels of the city jail, clad in an ugly orange jumpsuit, a stern-faced Irish cop twirling a baton as he held the receiver of an old-fashioned, heavy black phone to Bryan’s ear. What I lacked in actual knowledge of San Francisco’s penal system I made up for with a fevered imagination.
“I’m just fine, honey. But you sound all out of breath. I didn’t interrupt anything, um, enjoyable, did I?”
“Very funny,” I said, collapsing onto the futon couch that my mother had expertly refolded. “I told you, I’ve embraced celibacy as a form of ritual purification.”
“If you’ve embraced celibacy, honey, it’s because you’re still not gettin’ any.” He sighed. “What am I gonna do with you?”
“Throw me to the lions?”
“Lions like juicy meat, baby doll. Not vinegary old maids.”
“Bryan! I am not a—” I heard him laughing. “Smart aleck.”
“Anyway, the reason I’m calling, sweet cheeks, is because I have some primo info about that Pascal fellow.” Bryan was plugged into San Francisco’s gossip network in a way I could never hope to be. “That assistant he told you about? The one who supposedly killed himself? He wasn’t gay at all. He had a girlfriend.”
“Just because he had a girlfriend doesn’t mean he wasn’t gay. It was a long time ago, after all. Maybe he was afraid to come out of the closet.”
“I don’t think so, honey. There were a lot of rumors at the time that the ‘suicide’ had been helped along, if you know what I mean. What better way to throw the police off the scent than by playing the gay card? Make it seem more likely that he would kill himself?”
“I don’t know . . .”
“Look, baby doll, all I’m saying is, ask around. I had a very informative talk with the girlfriend. She’s a doll. Her married name’s Francine Maggio and she lives out in the Avenues. She said to tell you to call and set up a date for tea.”
I jotted down Francine’s number and stuck it in my wallet, though I doubted I would call. I’d already decided not to bother Pascal anymore, and so far as I could tell, his former assistant had nothing to do with me or my mother.
Stepping out of my grungy overalls, I played my phone messages. My grandfather had called to assure me there was no need to worry, everything was “just superb!” and to express his best wishes for a lovely, interesting evening at the Hillsborough cocktail party with “ze d
ashing Monsieur Bruuuks.” He said nothing about Mom and did not leave a call-back number. Thanks for nothing, Gramps.
There was a call from Evangeline, who said she needed to talk to me about something important, apologized for setting off my alarm, and asked me to call back as soon as possible. She did not leave a number, either. Did no one go to secretarial school anymore?
Next was a call from Frank, asking in clipped tones if there was a problem with my studio’s burglar alarm. Apparently the gratitude felt this morning had dissipated like a San Francisco fog. Relieved that the Picasso was off my hands and out of my studio, I erased that message, too.
There was nothing from my mother. I dialed her cell phone again. Voice mail. I tried Pascal’s studio on the off chance Evangeline would answer. Nothing.
I glanced at my watch and hurried down the hall to the bathroom. After a quick shower I dressed in a long purple velvet skirt, a stretchy celery-colored tank top, and a chartreuse jacket that fell in soft folds to my hips. I topped off the ensemble with a feathery, multicolored scarf that my sister, Bonnie, had knitted for me for my birthday, a pair of long beaded earrings, and a touch of mascara and lipstick. I pulled on a pair of black stockings and slipped into ankle-high boots. My mother would raise a delicate eyebrow when she caught sight of me, but if I had to confront mysterious men in black SUVs again I wanted to be comfortable. I snatched up my black leather shoulder bag and thundered down the stairs.
Le Cheval was on Clay between Tenth and Eleventh, a brisk fifteen-minute walk from my apartment. During the weekdays the streets and sidewalks of downtown Oakland were clogged with hordes of government employees and businesspeople, who crowded into the coffeehouses, sandwich shops, and supply stores. After five o’clock these folks disappeared into the suburbs and Oakland’s formerly grand downtown felt more like a ghost town. The Merchants Association had been working hard to change that, so as I crossed Broadway’s faded glory and hurried past Old Oakland’s renovated Victorian town houses, I was not surprised to hear the strains of a rock band at the Washington Arms pub competing with a jazz trio at Jesso’s Seafood Café. San Francisco was chic and Berkeley was funky, but Oakland was down-to-earth and friendly, and its fierce partisans, like me, were sure it was on the cusp of a rebirth.
Le Cheval was mobbed, the cavernous space sufficient to accommodate only a fraction of those in search of good Vietnamese food served in a lively ambience, and as a regular I had known to reserve a table as soon as the restaurant opened this morning. A tiny woman in black jeans and a sparkly red top led me to a table in the center of the room where my mother waited, dressed in a navy blue linen suit and matching Hermès scarf. Beverly LeFleur Kincaid was, as always, cool and elegant as she sipped a cup of steaming green tea and smiled graciously at all and sundry.
All, that is, except her youngest daughter.
“Anna Jane Kincaid,” she scolded as I sat down. “I believe I told you to leave Robert Pascal alone.”
“Hi, Mom. Good to see you, too,” I said, relieved to find her unscathed, even if she was annoyed. “Something to drink?”
We placed our drink orders, decided to start with an appetizer, and settled in for what promised to be a very trying conversation.
“You don’t understand, Annie,” my mother said, her slim hand grasping mine. “This is very important.”
“Then help me to understand. What is going on? Who were those men in the SUV last night? By the way, why haven’t you been answering your cell phone, like you promised? I’ve been worried sick.”
“Oh, you know how it is,” she said, chagrined. “The battery went dead. These cell phones aren’t as convenient as they’re cracked up to be.”
I laughed, and she joined in. It was a relief to be reminded that we had something in common. Lately I had begun to wonder if daughters were from Venus and mothers were from Alpha Centauri.
A waiter brought my ca phé sua da, an espressolike coffee that was mixed with sweetened condensed milk and poured over crushed ice. It tasted like a high-test milk-shake, and I took a moment to revel in the sweet caffeine bliss.
“So. Mom. What are you doing here? And don’t give me that ‘Gee, I just needed to get away from Asco for a few days’ baloney. It’s almost Thanksgiving. Why aren’t you busy decorating?”
“Oh, my. That reminds me. I haven’t started marinating the rum cake yet. . . .”
“Okay, my fault. Let’s stay on subject, shall we?” I said, interrupting her. “What the hell was going on between you and Seamus McGraw?”
“Language, young lady, language,” she scolded, and I wondered, for the thousandth time, how it was that my mother had been raised by my rogue of a grandfather and yet seemed untouched by the coarser aspects of life. Then again, she had raised me and look how I’d turned out.
Mom took a deep breath. “If you must know, Seamus and I, were, you see . . . we . . .”
“You what?” I said, almost afraid to ask. I did not want to learn that my mother had not been the loyal wife I had always believed her to be, not because I would love her any less for being human, but for entirely selfish reasons: I needed to believe that love could last because I hoped to find it for myself one day. I was equally afraid that she was in over her head but would not tell me about it out of a misguided desire to protect me. I’d kept her in the dark about my wilder exploits, partly because I didn’t think she would understand but mostly because there were some things a red-blooded young woman did not want to share with her mother. I mean, geez.
She took a shaky breath. “It was a different time, Annie. It was Berkeley in the sixties.”
“Uh-huh,” I responded, dreading where this was going.
“Don’t uh-huh me, young lady. You asked.” She gazed across the room at the huge mural of horses, the restaurant’s namesake. “I put an end to it long ago.”
A waiter brought a plate of cha gio, deep-fried rolls served with lettuce, mint leaves, and nuóc mam, a salty fish sauce. They went untouched.
“Put an end to what?”
“Seamus and I . . . well, all of us, your father and Seamus and Pascal and I . . . we were all friends back in the day.” She busied herself arranging lettuce leaves but did not eat anything.
“Friends?”
“Good friends.”
“What kind of good friends? The kind who posed nude for one another in the heyday of bohemian Berkeley?” Tears glinted in her eyes and I regretted my snide remark. “Mom, I’m sorry, I . . .”
“I miss him,” she murmured, dropping the lettuce and dabbing at the tears that coursed down her smooth, powdered cheeks. “We haven’t spoken in years, but I miss him. I know his work had become violent lately, but he was such a gentle man, deep down.” Her cornflower blue eyes held mine. “What happened, Annie? How could Seamus have died like that? Why?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered, surprised that she was asking me, the daughter who never had the answers to anything. “Mom, I—”
“Good evening, Annie,” a deep voice interrupted.
“Why, Frank,” I said, surprised. “What are you . . . ?”
“Ingrid and I were having dinner with some friends,” he said, looking relaxed in a charcoal-gray wool Italian suit.
I whipped my head around and scanned the room, hoping for a bona-fide Ingrid sighting.
“She just left.”
“Of course she did. Oh, um, Mom, this is Frank DeBenton, my landlord. Frank, this is my mother, Beverly Kincaid.”
“How do you do, Mrs. Kincaid?” Frank asked, as my mother shot questioning glances at me. I ignored them.
“Quite well, thank you, Mr. DeBenton,” she replied. “Won’t you join us?”
“Please, call me Frank,” he said, taking a seat despite my glare.
I enjoyed serendipitous social encounters, but I was dying to learn what my mother was up to and she would say nothing in front of Frank. For the second night in a row our heart-to-heart chat had been preempted by a handsome but unsuitable man.
“Sorry about the burglar alarm, Frank,” I said. “I think a friend may have set it off accidentally. I’ll talk to her about it.”
“I’d appreciate that,” Frank said. “But enough shop talk. What are you lovely ladies drinking? May I propose some champagne?”
“No, you may not,” I said.
“We’d love some!” my mother said.
Frank ordered a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, winked at me, and turned to my mother. “It seems I’ve been a little bit slow to put two and two together. Do you mean to tell me that you are related to the Asco Kincaids?”
“We aren’t exactly royalty, Frank,” I grumbled.
“I never doubted that, Annie,” he replied, his cool brown eyes sweeping over me. I was pretty sure I’d just been insulted, but since my mother was at the table I held my tongue.
“Indeed we are,” my mother interjected, breaking the tension. “From Asco, I mean.”
“What a wonderful coincidence,” Frank said, watching as the waiter poured champagne into three crystal flutes. “A votre santé!”
“Cheers!” my mother said gaily, clinking her glass against Frank’s.
“Here’s mud in your eye,” I mocked, channeling Evangeline.
“As I was saying,” Frank continued, “I’ve been negotiating with a Dr. Harold Kincaid to transport art to a conference to be hosted by the college in Asco next summer. I didn’t realize you were related to the professor, Annie.”
“He’s my father,” I acknowledged and, in view of the beautiful smile my mother kept flashing Frank, added, “And her husband.”
“Isn’t that something, your knowing my Harold,” Mom said. “What a small world.”
“We’ve only spoken on the phone,” Frank replied, “but I hope to meet him soon.”
Although my mother had at least fifteen years on Frank, I had to admit they looked good together. Both were elegant, graceful, and unfailingly refined. My father, in contrast, was more like me: clothes rumpled, hair askew, and mind usually somewhere else. I felt a sudden and unprecedented surge of empathy for good ol’ Dad.
