Ornaments of Death

by Jane K. Cleland

  “He’s dead. He was murdered. His wife’s apartment in Boston was ransacked. Both the Rocky Point and Boston police think the crimes are connected and that the miniatures are involved somehow. Fill me in and I promise I’ll never reveal my source. If you don’t, I’ll have to tell the local police and they’ll have to tell the Boston police and court orders will be issued and the next thing you know—”

  “—the next thing you know, Frisco’s name will be splashed all over the media as a company that rigorously protects its clients’ privacy,” Shelley said, interrupting. “If any of those police officers are cute, remember I’m single.”

  “I can get you publicity. The good kind, how you’re helping the police. I’ll ensure your name is spelled right.”

  “What kind of press?”

  “Local. The minor mention that gets retweeted and goes viral.”

  “Here’s what I know from Jeremy: Thomas Lewis walked into the Boston office saying he wanted the paintings appraised for insurance purposes. The pair of miniatures was valued at $1.29 million. If sold separately, Arabella would go for less than the king. Once the appraisal was complete, Mr. Lewis indicated he was interested in selling them. Jeremy e-mailed him the contract, and about a minute and a half later, Jeremy got an angry e-mail from a woman identifying herself as Thomas Lewis’s wife, Rebecca Bennington. The paintings, she stated, were her property, not Thomas’s, and she had no intention of selling them. She said she’d be there in an hour to pick them up. You can imagine the sticky wicket this put us in.”

  “I can indeed. What did you do? Besides call your lawyer.”

  “You better believe that was Jeremy’s first call. The lawyer and Jeremy then double-teamed Mr. Lewis. He insisted the paintings were his, but when Ms. Bennington showed up to retrieve them, she had the documentation to prove her claim. Jeremy had confirmed provenance as part of the appraisal, of course, so he had already spoken to Ian Bennington, Rebecca’s father. His notes read that Ian said he’d given the paintings to his daughter and that he was glad they were being appraised. Jeremy and the lawyer called him back, in England. His story changed, or maybe Jeremy misunderstood the nuances the first time around. Regardless, there was no misunderstanding this time. The lawyer taped the call. I’ve heard it with mine own ears. Ian said the paintings were his property, that he’d loaned them to his daughter, that he had no intention of selling them, and that Thomas Lewis had no right to do anything to or with them. Mr. Bennington instructed us to return them to Rebecca. We did so about twenty minutes before Thomas Lewis showed up, fit to kill.”

  “Will you e-mail me a copy of the appraisal?”

  “Come on, Josie. That’s over the top.”

  “The logo will really stand out in the news report.”

  “I’ll send the cover letter, all right? Not the full report.”

  “Can the reporter reproduce it?”

  “Sure. It’s a form letter—thanks for letting us appraise your beautiful objects … the appraisal is attached … if you ever want to discuss selling your antiques, please contact us … blah, blah, blah.”

  “Perfect. Thanks, Shelley. The reporter’s name is Wes Smith. He’ll want to talk to you.”

  “Glad to. We don’t like being taken advantage of.”

  “And you were.”

  “Water under the bridge. So, how much snow do you have up there?”

  Fluffy snowflakes were floating upward, then spiraling down. “Not that much, but it’s snowing now. It’s beautiful.”

  She laughed as if she thought I was a hoot and a holler. “Merry Christmas, Josie.”

  “Merry Christmas, Shelley.”

  * * *

  I read the cover letter Shelley e-mailed, and it was exactly as described. I called Wes and filled him in. He was willing to acknowledge that we were now even up, and maybe I had nudged into the credit side of the balance sheet.

  I texted Ellis to ask if he was at his office, and when he said he was, and that he was available if I needed him, I wrote that I’d be there in fifteen minutes.

  By the time I arrived, the first of Wes’s teaser headlines had been tweeted. Read how Thomas Lewis’s criminal impersonation at Frisco’s might have led to murder. Frisco’s turns over docs to cops. #ThomasLewismurder. His second tweet came in as I was walking to the front door. He promised a comprehensive front-page exposé for the evening edition of the paper.

  “There are two things I need to tell you about,” I explained to Ellis once we were settled in his office.

  I repeated what I’d learned from Shelley.

  “Good deal, Josie. I’ll contact Shelley directly. What’s number two?”

  I didn’t answer right away. Instead, I looked across the parking lot, past Ocean Avenue to the dunes, now coated in white.

  “Lia’s my friend,” I said, my eyes on the bucolic scene.

  “She’s troubled.”

  “Yes.”

  “What is it, Josie?”

  I met his eyes. “I think she might be involved in my attack.”

  He nodded and stayed still, letting me find my own path.

  “If I’d been hit by a man, I’d be dead.”

  “Why Lia?”

  “Who else?”

  “Becca.”

  “Becca wouldn’t have to steal her own paintings.”

  “True.” He raised an index finger to his nose and rubbed.

  “Lia’s car is in the shop,” I said. “When did she bring it in?”

  “The day after the attack. It was pretty banged up.”

  “How come?” I asked.

  “She declines to say.”

  “Really? Is she allowed to do that?”

  He smiled, a sour one. “We discourage it, but we’re not really in a position to insist.” His shoulders lifted a half inch, then sank the same amount. “It could be an innocent coincidence.”

  I lowered my gaze to my knees. “I hate this, Ellis. I feel awful.”

  “You’re not responsible for my suspicions, Josie.”

  “I am if I put them in your head.”

  “Lia was already on my radar.”

  I raised my eyes. “She was?”

  “Sure.”

  “Then I didn’t need to say anything. Forget I did.”

  He tapped his temple. “Consider it forgotten.”

  “Thank you. I feel like such a rat. I hate tattletales.”

  He walked me to the front. “This isn’t junior high. Reporting suspicions to the police chief isn’t the same as snitching on a pal.”

  “Scruples. I’ve got a case of enlarged scruples.”

  He opened the heavy front door for me. A gust of snow blew at us, and I shivered.

  “Your scruples are one of your many superlative qualities. Don’t change.”

  I patted his shoulder, thanked him again, and ran for my car.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  As soon as I stepped into the front office, Sasha asked me to come take a look at something. Her monitor showed a full-screen view of our African American folk pottery vessel.

  “Look familiar?” she asked.

  “You take a mean photo.”

  “It’s not ours.”

  I looked at her, anticipation tingling my spine.

  Her eyes on the computer, she said, “This photo is from a 1999 Christie’s catalogue, The John Gordon Collection of Folk Americana.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. I’m convinced this vessel is a twin to ours, or at least, one of only a handful. I’ve found two additional references to others that seem similar, but without examining those objects, I can’t confirm the authenticity. Based on the appearance of the hat, the slip glaze, and the red highlights, which you’ll note are on the lips, hat, and eyebrows, and which were almost certainly applied after firing, I’m as certain as I can be, without doing a direct object-to-object comparison, that our vessel was crafted by the same artisan as this one. He worked in what is known as the Alabama School. The vessels were prod
uced between 1880 and 1890.”

  “What are the other two mentions?”

  “Specific references in American Folk Sculpture by Robert Charles Bishop and The African-American Tradition in Decorative Arts by John Michael Vleck stating that very few preacher’s-head vessels were made.”

  “And those that were are in important private collections like John Gordon’s.”

  “Exactly. And museums.” Sasha smiled, a big one. “It’s rare, scarce, artistically and culturally important, and it’s in perfect condition. And it’s Southern.”

  “Give me a number.”

  “If we can find out what it was doing in that garage, fifty thousand plus.”

  I held up crossed fingers. “I’ll call and ask.”

  I hurried upstairs and dialed Sarah Arkin’s number. If we were as successful at confirming the vessel’s provenance as Sasha had been in authenticating it, it was by far the rarest object we’d yet discovered for our Southern Living auction.

  I greeted Ms. Arkin and said, “I have a question about an object we found in the garage.”

  “I won’t take it back, no matter what,” she said.

  I laughed. “I don’t want to give anything back. I want more. Actually, I’m calling for information. Did your aunt have any connection with the South?”

  “My uncle Doug, her husband, did. Uncle Doug was from Birmingham. How come?”

  “One of the decorative objects we bought might have a folk art history. I’m trying to validate it. How did your uncle end up here?”

  “He went to Dartmouth. That’s where he and Aunt Gail met. When he graduated, he got a job as an engineer at a company in Portsmouth. They got married and moved to Rocky Point. End of story. After his folks died, his sister cleaned out the house and sent up a couple of boxes of things. I remember hearing how Uncle Doug didn’t want anything, but his sister insisted. He put the boxes in the garage, and there they’ve been ever since.”

  “Could I call his sister, the one who cleaned out the house?”

  “Marti? I’m afraid she’s passed on.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Is there anyone who might be able to confirm that she selected a particular object and shipped it to him?”

  “Marti’s daughter, Amy, might know,” she said. “She got married not long ago. She’s Amy Greene now. I know she helped Marti clean out the house. This object you’re talking about must be plenty valuable for you to be going to all this trouble. Should I have gotten an appraisal before I sold everything?”

  A common question, with no clear answer. “I don’t know. Sometimes folks pay the thousands of dollars that a proper appraisal costs, and never recoup the money. Other times, they do. You decided you didn’t want the delay or the bother, that you just wanted to sell. If this particular object ends up having any value, I want you to know it will only be purchased by someone who will love it.”

  “It’s like cocktails and coffee in a restaurant,” she said. “That’s where a restaurant makes its profit. You buy boxes of anything and hope to find a gem. Good for you!”

  I thanked her again, wishing all clients were as wise and clear-headed as she was, got Amy Greene’s contact information, and ended the call.

  Amy Greene lived in Madison, Wisconsin, and our phone call lasted less than five minutes.

  “Sure, I remember,” Amy said. “My mother thought it was probably an important piece because her grandfather, Morris Patcher, had an eye for folk art. Mom remembered him saying he bought it at an antiques store back in the 1940s. He bought a Grandma Moses painting, too, from the same place, and since my mom decided to keep that for herself, she thought she ought to send the preacher head to her brother even though he said he didn’t want it, just to be fair.”

  “You don’t happen to recall the name of the store where he bought it, do you?”

  “There’s nothing to recall because I never knew it, and I doubt that Mom did, either. Her granddad never stepped foot outside Alabama, though, so it’s a sure bet that it’s from somewhere in the state. Probably Birmingham, which is where he lived all his life.”

  “A Grandma Moses,” I said. “That’s pretty special. Do you still own it?”

  “You better believe it. It hangs in my living room. I love it.”

  I thanked her for her help and went downstairs to report.

  “I suppose it’s worth checking whether any antiques stores in Birmingham were in business in 1940,” Sasha said, her skeptical tone making it clear she thought it was a long shot.

  “I agree,” I said. “It’s probably a dead end, but we need to take the road to find out.”

  As I walked through the warehouse I wondered if Amy Greene knew she had a multimillion-dollar painting hanging on her living room wall.

  Hank joined me as I started up the staircase. He dropped a purple felt mouse at my feet. It had a lime green feathery tail.

  “Hi, baby,” I said. “Do you want me to throw this for you?”

  He mewed.

  “Okay.” I lobbed it toward the back, and he took off after it like a jaguar on the hunt.

  * * *

  Back upstairs in my office, I became aware that I was tired, the kind of fatigue that comes from fighting a losing emotional battle. I was struggling to keep an amorphous depression at bay, and losing. The trifecta of despair—what my mom used to call the “dreaded triple ad,” mad, sad, and bad—had me in its grip. Entrenched feelings of futility outweighed any glimmers of hope that occasionally made their way through the miasma. Don’t think, my dad had told me. Do.

  I didn’t want to be alone tonight. Ty was on one of his regular trips to check in with each of his region’s state training directors. This time, he was meeting up with Maine’s top trainers in Bangor. He’d be back tomorrow. I called Zoë.

  “What are you doing for dinner?” I asked her.

  “I’m coming to your house,” she said. “What are we having?”

  I smiled. “Yay! Spaghetti and meatballs with my mom’s famous pomodoro sauce.”

  “Her meatballs are pretty famous, too.”

  “And the kids love them,” I said.

  “I made a Boston cream pie. I’ll bring it for dessert.”

  “I’ve got a nice Chianti. And plenty of makings for Prescott’s Punch. I can’t wait!”

  “See ya!”

  And just like that, my depression lifted.

  * * *

  Zoë’s son, Jake, was watching something on TV. Emma was asleep in her sleeping bag. Zoë and I were hanging out at the kitchen table talking about her online course. She’d decided to go back and finish her degree so when the kids were old enough, she could hit the employment ground running.

  “Chemistry One is killing me,” she said.

  “Just wait for Chemistry Two,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “You’re going to look back on your accomplishments and feel enormous pride, Zoë.”

  “If I pass.”

  “You’ll pass. Are you kidding me? And nurse practitioner is a perfect choice. You’ll be able to get a job anywhere.”

  “From your mouth to God’s ears,” she said, smiling, imagining the future.

  The doorbell rang. Ellis stood under the porch light. His eyes were half closed, and his chin was almost on his chest, the stance of the weary.

  “Come on in,” I said. “We saved you some pasta.”

  “Thanks. I ate already, if you can call it that.”

  Ellis followed me into the kitchen. Zoë was on her feet and stepped into his embrace. He rested his chin on the top of her head for a moment, his eyes closed.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” he said. “It smells too good to resist. I’ll have some.”

  “Good,” I said as I turned the sauce up from warm to medium-low. I turned on the toaster oven to preheat. “What do you want to drink? Chianti? Prescott’s Punch? Beer?”

  “Yes,” he deadpanned.

  I laughed and handed him a martini glass. “Start with a Prescott’s Punc
h, the drink of choice for the downtrodden.”

  “I sure qualify.”

  “Hard day?” Zoë asked.

  He sank onto one of the ladder-back chairs across from her. “They’re all hard days. Today was just longer than usual.”

  I took a bowl of salad from the fridge, added the red wine vinaigrette I’d made earlier, and tossed.

  “Bad news about the garlic bread,” I told him. “We finished everything I baked.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “Good news about the garlic bread is that I set aside some for you! It’ll take about fifteen minutes to heat up.”

  “You are a cruel and wicked woman to tease me in my weakened condition.”

  “Have some salad, oh weak one. Soon strength will flood your veins.”

  He began pecking at the salad, mostly moving it around the bowl.

  I sat down and forked the last of my Boston cream pie.

  Zoë was watching him with questioning eyes, worried. I didn’t blame her.

  “You’re not acting like yourself,” she said. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  He didn’t answer right away. He ate some salad and drank some punch. “The truth?” he asked.

  A panicky look flashed across her face. She raised her chin, braced for bad news. “Of course.”

  Ellis reached out a hand toward hers, and she took it and kissed his palm. “Talk to me,” she whispered.

  He looked at me, then at her hand, rubbing his.

  “I’m out of leads. I’m out of ideas. From where I sit, it looks like someone is going to get away with murder.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  I took one last look around the kitchen to be certain I hadn’t missed a dirty glass or forgotten to wipe down a section of counter, then turned out the light, satisfied. The doorbell rang. I glanced at the digital time display on the range—10:20. I smiled, wondering what Zoë and team forgot. When I reached the door and looked through the small window, my smile disappeared. Instead, I gawked. I staggered back, righted myself, and stepped forward for a closer look.

  It was Becca.

  She was wearing a brown knee-length puffy coat similar to mine, brown jeans, and scuffed hiking boots. Her boots had bits of snow stuck in the cleats. Her coat’s hood was up and snapped snugly under her chin. Faux-fur trim encircled her pale face.