Sight Shot (Imogene Museum Mystery #3)

by Jones, Jerusha

  “Yep. Now that I have his name.” I rubbed my hands together.

  “Carry on.” Rupert ambled back to the elevator.

  I waited until Rupert was out of earshot then turned to Frankie. “How are you? Do you have a medical condition I should to know about?”

  “Oh, no.” Frankie waved off my concern. “Nothing serious. It’s just that time, you know—”

  “Yeah, well, not yet. But I appreciate any pointers you might have.”

  Frankie giggled. “I wish I had someone to give me pointers. It’s the unexpectedness that sets me back.” She stood. “I’ll get a handle on it. So, now what?” She gestured toward the transit carts.

  “When Greg gets here, we’ll take pictures of each item and assign ID numbers, enter them in our database. Then I’ll start digging into their history, writing descriptions and figuring out how best to display them — and where. I try to stay on top of all the new acquisitions, and if I have spare time, I work on the backlog. It’s like climbing an ever-growing Everest.”

  CHAPTER 13

  I got Frankie settled in the gift shop then climbed the stairs to my office. The room had a chilly, neglected feel. I shivered and fired up my laptop.

  Where to start? I was almost finished with the marionettes, but I wanted to save them to show Edna if she decided to take me up on my offer. I moved them to an empty shelf and cleared a space on my desk. I pulled over a legal notepad and decided to find out what the Internet had to say about Baruch Astruc.

  From the brief information Rupert had shared, I was expecting tragedy. I found Astruc’s name — as Benoit — on a list of inmates at the Drancy internment/transit camp in August 1942. The population of the camp, located in a northeastern suburb of Paris, swelled after the mass arrest spree that July. He would have been packed into the high-rise apartment buildings with thousands of other Jews in unspeakably inhumane conditions.

  Much of Paris’s cultural life continued as normal during occupation. The Germans encouraged artistic expression, as long as it was not subversive, to keep up the residents’ morale and goodwill toward their occupiers. But if an artist was Jewish? That was a different story.

  I found Astruc’s name — this time as Baruch — on a list of Auschwitz arrivals in November 1942. He was not on the list of Auschwitz survivors under either first name. Astruc had been eliminated with assembly-line efficiency, leaving behind the proof of his short life in paintings. I wondered if there were any more paintings and if their current owners knew their history.

  Rupert’s office is on the second floor, directly below mine. It had been a guest suite at one time, with a bedroom, sitting room and small bathroom. The water to the bathroom has been shut off to prevent leaks since all the fixtures are in their ancient original condition. Rupert’s towering stacks of papers, books and his private collections stuff all three rooms. I don’t know how he breathes in there.

  I knocked on the open door and nudged a box of brass candlesticks out of the way with my toe. “Rupert?”

  “Back here.”

  I tiptoed along the cluttered path toward the smaller rear chamber that had been the bedroom. Rupert was sitting on a stack of small wood crates sorting through a pile of manila folders on his lap.

  Rupert shook his head. “My filing system is out of date.” He pulled a half-gnawed cigar out of his shirt pocket and plugged the gummy end into his mouth. “Yes?”

  I scooted a stack of papers over and sat cross-legged on the floor. I told him about Astruc’s demise. “Nineteen’s not really very many. What are the odds there are more paintings out there? And are you going to go after them? How important is he to you?”

  Rupert thumped the manila folders on the floor and crossed his legs, settling more comfortably on the crates. He was wearing navy and orange striped socks. I scrunched my eyes closed.

  “I was originally struck by his odd sense of color. You noticed?”

  I bit back a smile and nodded.

  “The first booth where I saw his work had five or six paintings, some early and some later, with the two different first names. That got me wondering, so I started looking for him in all the booths. Seventeen of the paintings came from three different Les Puces dealers. I was surprised at his prevalence, but even more so by the competition.”

  “Competition?” I pulled my knees up under my chin and wrapped my arms around my legs. “What do you mean?”

  “The dealers knew I was interested, so they set the paintings aside. I took a short trip to Provence and unexpectedly found two more paintings in a shop in Lourmarin. I snapped those up. In the meantime, someone else had asked to see the Astruc paintings at all three Les Puces booths and put in bids for them. I was shocked when booth after booth, the dealers told me. Very unusual, and I must say the dealers were kind in holding the paintings for my return.”

  “They like you.”

  Rupert tipped his head. “They like the trust fund. They knew I could outbid. The dealers wouldn’t say who the other collector is — they keep their cards close to their vests.”

  “Any chance the other collector is bogus, a ploy to get you to pay more?”

  “If one dealer claimed another collector, maybe. But all three? Unlikely.”

  “You always say the value of art is not necessarily correlated with its price.”

  “Which is true. I agree with myself.” Rupert worked the cigar to the other corner of his mouth. “But I’m not above a little friendly competition. It didn’t take much. My opponent folded immediately.”

  “No counterbid?”

  Rupert shook his head. “Which indicates inexperience. I suppose it’s possible the other collector owns some of Astruc’s works, but they wouldn’t have been purchased at auction or from a reputable dealer because his bid price was too low. If the other collector has any paintings, they were obtained at estate sales or inherited.”

  “Families were separated in the Drancy camp. I didn’t notice any other Astrucs on the lists Baruch was on. It could also be that members of his family were arrested at different times or maybe they escaped detection, hid by neighbors or something.”

  Rupert sucked hard on the cigar. “If we find a living relative, let’s make arrangements to transfer the paintings to them — if they want the responsibility, that is. I can’t help feeling that Astruc would have painted portraits of those he loved. I hope those paintings are being treasured by their rightful owners.”

  oOo

  I meandered downstairs to check on Frankie. She was stacking coffee mugs into attractive pyramids on glass display shelves, high enough to be out of reach of smaller kids. She glanced up and smiled at me, then stood back with her hands on her hips and studied her handiwork.

  “Looks good,” I said. “Been busy?”

  “A few retired couples and one family with three boys. Is it always this slow?”

  I nodded. “Any questions?”

  “No. Everyone’s been very nice and patient. The credit card machine worked fine.” She smoothed her hair. “And — I’m sorry about earlier. I promise my personal issues won’t affect my performance.”

  “I’m glad you’re here. Are you familiar with Provence? You mentioned — was it Luberon? Where is that?”

  “Oh my.” Frankie sighed and adjusted her jewelry. “Luberon is a region of Provence, considered the heart of Provence, really. I’ve been a few times. My ex-husband had distant relatives there.”

  “Is there a town named Lour—. I’m terrible at French pronunciation. Lour—”

  “Lourmarin,” Frankie finished for me. “Yes, it’s one of the villages in the Luberon.”

  “Is it known for antiques, art dealers?”

  Frankie tugged her jacket hem lower on her hips and glanced out the window. “There are a few antiques shops, if I remember correctly. We weren’t—” She pressed her lips together. “We weren’t buying, you know. Just tourists.”

  I finally realized what bothered me about her — the fidgeting. She’d fiddled with her ha
ir, clothing and accessories from the very beginning, even during her interview. Her nerves should have settled by now, since I’d hired her. Maybe she was just high-strung. She was clearly organized and keen on merchandising. Maybe I should give her time.

  “I’d love to visit France someday. Not for business, but just to live for a month or two,” I said.

  “Oh, yes.” Frankie clasped her hands together. “It’s marvelous. So beautiful. Both Paris and the countryside.”

  I wrinkled my nose. Her responses to the Astruc paintings indicated more than just tourist interest. She knew the name of the street in one of the paintings. Something else was going on here. What did Frankie want?

  I was about to ask if she was familiar with the Les Puces flea market when my phone chimed. I waved a quick goodbye and hurried out of the gift shop.

  CHAPTER 14

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Meredith. I have some info about the fake eye,” Dale said.

  “Hang on a second,” I huffed. “I’m running upstairs to my office.”

  Breathing hard, I slid into my chair and grabbed a pencil. “Okay.”

  “It’s not glass. Probably acrylic and in pretty good shape considering it was in a marsh for who knows how long. I scrubbed off the dried algae and found some numbers toward one edge. Ready?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Seven. Nineteen. Two thousand and one. It looks like a date.”

  I scratched out what I’d written and rewrote the numbers in date format. “July 19, 2001?”

  “Yeah. Nothing easy like a serial number.”

  “Well, you can’t get prosthetic eyes made just anywhere. I’ll start hunting.”

  “Appreciate it.” Dale hung up.

  It took several minutes of different Internet searches to find out that the people who make artificial eyes are called ocularists. They practice an amazing combination of art and science. I became distracted by a few videos showing ocularists hand painting irises and laying frayed red thread to replicate veins in the sclera.

  There are also very few ocularists — about 125 in the whole country. I whistled silently — 125 potential phone calls. Spence Snead would have had to visit an ocularist’s lab for a custom fitting. There were a few in the Seattle area and a couple more in Portland.

  I held my breath and dialed the first office on the list, hoping they weren’t taking an extended holiday weekend. I exhaled when a receptionist answered.

  “Hi. I found an artificial eye, and I’m trying to figure out who it might belong to,” I started.

  “Sure,” the receptionist said. “If you look closely, there will be a small mark at the top of the eye — we call it a tattoo. It could be a picture of just about anything — a sports team logo, a flower, the patient’s cat. Do you see it?”

  “Um, this one has a number, a date maybe? Seven, nineteen, two thousand and one.”

  “It’s not from our lab, then. Other labs use different ways of identifying their eyes. They might use dates or patient ID numbers.”

  “So there’s not a national registry?”

  She laughed. “Afraid not.”

  “Do you know of any labs in Washington or Oregon that use dates to identify their eyes?”

  “Let me check.” She set the phone down with a thud, and I heard voices murmuring in the background. Then she returned. “You could try Kennewick Eye Labs.”

  “Thanks.” I had the website open by the time she hung up.

  Kennewick — two and a half to three hours east, upriver on the Columbia. If Spence wanted to avoid traffic and big cities, that was the way to go. I dialed.

  “Kennewick Eye Labs. Jenny McRaven-Martin speaking.”

  I reexplained and Jenny instructed me to look for a tattoo on the eye.

  “No, it has numbers — looks like a date.”

  “What date?” Jenny asked.

  “July 19, 2001.”

  “That’s old. Doubtless whoever lost it has had a new eye made in the meantime, or a couple, actually. Artificial eyes have a life of about three to five years — the eye socket changes over time, and they need to be refitted. If it came from our lab, you’d have to talk to my dad. When I took over, I switched to tattoos for identification, but he used dates. He also used a file card system for patient records.” Jenny let out a ladylike snort. “So I can’t look up anything over six years old for you. Dad took all his records with him when he retired because it wasn’t worth manually entering them into our database.”

  I heard what sounded like a door thudding closed and Jenny sighed. “Frankly, he isn’t handling retirement too well,” she said in a low voice. “He comes in once a week, like clockwork, and drives my staff crazy. He’d absolutely love to talk shop with you and dig into his files. Would you mind calling him? He’d be thrilled.”

  I chuckled. “Of course.”

  Jenny gave me Harlan McRaven’s home phone number. Maybe the third time would be the charm.

  The phone rang fifteen — eighteen — twenty-two times, and I gave up hope of reaching an answering machine. My thumb was resting on the stop button when a man’s rushed voice answered. “’Lo? You there?”

  “Yes, I am. Mr. McRaven?”

  “I’m not interested,” he said gruffly.

  “In what?” I asked.

  “Whatever you’re selling, or polling or collecting for.”

  “How about a missing artificial eye?”

  “Who’re you?”

  “Meredith Morehouse, curator of the Imogene Museum.”

  Mr. McRaven chortled. “Don’t tell me you’re thinking of exhibiting fake eyes.”

  “While that would be fascinating, no. I found an eye, and I’m trying to connect it with its owner.”

  “Ahhh. Did Jenny set you up to this?”

  My eyebrows shot up — touchy subject. “No. I spoke with her — that’s how I got your phone number. But she couldn’t help me because the identification mark on the eye appears to be a date.”

  “Huh.” Bumping and shuffling followed, and Mr. McRaven grunted. “You gonna give me the date or what?”

  My mouth dropped open, then I snapped it shut, realizing I needed to jump at the chance if he was offering information. “July 19, 2001.”

  “Humpf. Top shelf. Hang on.”

  Horrible metal-on-metal screeching echoed through my phone, then a clang and thud, as though Mr. McRaven was prying open an ancient vault door hung on rusty hinges.

  He was breathing hard when he returned to the phone. “Got the right box. Be patient with an old man while I haul it into the kitchen. Dang cold in this garage.”

  “Thank you, Mr. McRaven.”

  “Harlan. I’m not that old.”

  “Are you good-looking too?” I clapped a hand over my mouth and held my breath, hoping he’d take my cheekiness the right way.

  “Huh?” There was a pause, then he roared with laughter. “Well, Miss Smarty Pants, darn right I am. And I shoot my age on the golf course. Wanna date?”

  “I don’t know. Depends on what you tell me about a fake eye.”

  “Playing hard to get — hmmm.” Paper shuffled. “July 19? Two with that date. Spencer Snead and Jorge Oliver. What color’s the iris?”

  “Blue-gray.”

  “That’d be Spence Snead. Far as I know, he’s not been in to see my daughter for a new eye, and it’s past time. Wonder if he found an ocularist closer to home.”

  I bit my lip, debating if I should tell him.

  “Um, Harlan? Spence died about ten years ago.”

  Harlan expelled a breath. “That’s why I retired. Too many of my patients started dying. But Spence — he was young — younger than me. Too soon — too soon.” I heard him pull out a chair and drop into it with a sigh.

  “Did you know Spence well?”

  “You could say that. I knew all my patients to some degree because fitting a new eye takes a few days. They’d come and stay at a hotel if they were from out of town and spend time in the lab each day while I made
the mold, then fine-tuned the fit and did a comfort and use check. But Spence—” Harlan sighed again. “We golfed together. I consider anyone who golfs with me a friend.”

  “Spence golfed with only one eye?”

  Harlan chuckled. “I didn’t say he played well. But in spite of his impaired depth perception, he had great directional accuracy. He’d been a sniper in the Marines. Those skills don’t go away just because you lose an eye.”

  I pondered this new information — Spence had been a sniper in Vietnam, a hunter at home, and had killed himself with a shotgun. Apparently his experience in the war hadn’t inhibited his use of firearms. Was that consistent with PTSD?

  “How did he die?” Harlan asked.

  “Oh, Harlan,” I murmured and dropped my head into my hand, “I don’t want to tell you.”

  “I’m an old man, remember? Nothing can surprise me now.”

  “He committed suicide.”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “Harlan—”

  “Spence Snead was too tough for that. All his life, he’d been a fighter, not a quitter. Even when his brother didn’t come home—”

  “Harlan?”

  “I know, I know — guys aren’t supposed to share that touchy-feely stuff. But you can learn a lot on a golf course. Besides, he was my patient for almost thirty years. He didn’t kill himself, Meredith. I know it.”

  I sighed. “All the evidence—”

  “Wait. You said you found his eye. Why wasn’t he wearing it when he shot himself?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question. I found it in a marsh about half a mile from his cabin, and I found it a couple months ago — ten years after his death.”

  “Spence didn’t go anywhere without his eye. He was very particular about that — didn’t want to scare anyone with the sight of his empty socket. He worried about what affect his appearance would have on others.”

  “How easy is it for an artificial eye to fall out? A blow to the head, a sneeze? What would it take?”

  “Not much. The eye stays in place primarily based on the quality of the fit, which is why eyes need to be replaced as soon as they no longer fit perfectly. Over a lifetime, with age and wear-and-tear, an eye socket — when the eye is missing — will change somewhat in shape. New eyes are always custom-made. The lower lid also helps hold the eye in place, but it doesn’t have much muscle strength and can be stretched out of the way for inserting and removing the eye.” Harlan cleared his throat. “So, that’s my long-winded way of saying rather easily. Not when you sneeze, because you automatically close your eyes then, but otherwise — easily.”