Brush With Death

by Lind, Hailey

  On the other hand, if the preposterous story about La Fornarina was true, and I could help to return the masterpiece to the Barberini Palace, I might be able to redeem myself. It was a long shot, but what would it hurt to nose around a little? As my friends liked to remind me, I was the queen of long shots. Invigorated, I pulled on my overalls and a long-sleeved black T-shirt, made a thermos of Peet’s coffee, and packed a lunch of Sukhi’s samosas from the local farmers’ market. First stop: Roy Cogswell’s office. At the very least, he might be able to enlighten me as to why the Chapel of the Chimes displayed a computerized reproduction of La Fornarina labeled a nineteenth-century copy by Crispin Engels. Genuine Raphael or no, that was strange.

  One thought occurred to me: if the original had been hanging in the columbarium all these years, its very anonymity had been its safekeeping. Just in case the staff had unknowingly replaced the real La Fornarina with a digital copy while they sent the precious masterpiece out to be cleaned, for example, it was best to be circumspect when asking around. The last thing I wanted to do was give someone the idea of selling the painting to the highest bidder on the black market.

  I entered the columbarium through the front door, but halted in my tracks when I spied Cogswell near the conference room chatting with Billy Mudd, a contractor I knew only too well. In this land of crunchy granola environmentalists, Mudd’s business cards introduced him as BILLY THE EVIL DEVELOPER. I had to give the man points for honesty.

  Last year Mudd and I had squared off at a town meeting over his plans to replace the Fox Theater, an aging art deco palace, with a concrete parking garage. The forces of historical preservation and all-around righteousness—bolstered by Aaron Garner’s deep pockets—had prevailed, and Mudd had held it against me ever since. A few months ago he had driven me off a posh Alamo job site by hinting to the owner that I’d had a few run-ins with the law.

  If only he knew.

  Hoping the men were too engrossed in conversation to notice me, I backed into a narrow apse and glanced out a leaded window overlooking the vast graveyard. Frederick Law Olmsted, the famous landscape architect who created New York City’s Central Park, had also designed the beautiful Bayview Cemetery, its rolling hills offering a serene venue with breathtaking views of downtown Oakland, the bay, San Francisco, and the Golden Gate Bridge. A handful of dog walkers, several joggers, and a gaggle of young moms pushing strollers took advantage of the cemetery’s willingness to act as a de facto park.

  The view reminded me of a new friend who ate lunch in the cemetery most days, and who might be a source of information about the goings-on at the columbarium. Breezing past the reception counter, I nodded at Miss Ivy, ignored her glower, and poked my head into Manny Ramirez’s office.

  “Hey, Manny. How’s tricks?”

  “Annie! The murals are looking great!” he said with a big smile. Manny’s ergonomic desk chair protested as he leaned back, one outsized hand fiddling with a marble pen set he’d received for being chosen Alameda County’s Accountant of the Year two years running. In his early thirties, Manny wore his shock of shiny black hair combed forward across his broad forehead in a style originated by Julius Caesar and revived by George Clooney. Thick-rimmed, retro-style glasses perched on a large nose that presided over a wide mouth. Manny wasn’t fat, just extralarge, as if his parents had ordered him from the Super-Sized Infants menu. “Looks like you’re making excellent progress.”

  “We are. We reattached the canvases to the walls last week,” I said. “Now it’s time for the fun part—painting and gilding.”

  “That’s super. I can’t wait to see how everything turns out.”

  “You and me both. Listen, I wanted to pick your brain about something. Join me for lunch on the hill?”

  He glanced at a grease-stained brown paper bag sitting atop a utilitarian metal bookshelf. “Let me see . . . lunch alfresco with a lovely, talented artist? Does this mean I have to split the bologna-on-rye that I fixed this morning with my own two hands?”

  “I’ll trade you half a bologna-on-rye for some samosas from the farmers’ market,” I offered. “I’ll even spring for a soda to wash ’em down.”

  “Best offer I’ve had all week,” Manny said as he pulled on a light blue windbreaker.

  I retrieved my shoulder bag from my truck, bought Manny a can of orange soda from the vending machine in the employee lunch room, and found him waiting for me at the cemetery gates. Making up for yesterday’s rain, today was sunny and mild, the sky a brilliant, cloudless blue. We chatted about the plans for Manny’s upcoming wedding as we climbed the winding road, passing the memorial to Civil War veterans, with its stack of real cannonballs that the National Park Service replenished whenever vandals made off with a few. A large tan Buick crept past us, the faces of its elderly occupants marked by age and loss. Two men in dark blue jumpsuits operated a machine that dug a grave for an interment. The muted roar of lawn mowers and whine of weed whackers revealed the presence of the fleet of gardeners at work in the distance.

  At last we arrived, slightly winded, at the Locklear Family Memorial, which had been built on a scale commonly reserved for public monuments. In addition to the twenty-foot-tall central cylinder bearing the bas-relief likenesses of assorted Locklear kin—a homely bunch, judging by their squinty eyes and drooping jowls—the memorial boasted a circular stone bench that was a favorite graveyard haunt for locals in the know. It was Manny’s favorite lunch spot.

  From our hillside perch we enjoyed a crystal clear view of downtown Oakland and, across the bay, San Francisco’s distinctive skyline marked by the pyramidal Transamerica Building. My gaze drifted down the hill to the bobbing helium balloons that indicated Louis Spencer’s crypt below us. I still hadn’t heard from Cindy Tanaka. Probably just busy at school, I told myself. I wondered what the police had learned about the grave robbery, and decided to inquire at the cemetery office after lunch.

  I handed Manny his soda, poured myself a cup of Peet’s coffee from the thermos, and set out the samosas, peach chutney, and hot lime pickle. One of the best things about working nights and sleeping late was having lunch for breakfast. I wasn’t a scrambled-eggs-and-pancakes kind of gal.

  “I wanted to ask you about some of the art at the columbarium,” I began, breaking open a crusty samosa, a savory Indian pastry stuffed with potatoes, vegetables, and spices.

  “Miss Ivy said you were asking around,” Manny mumbled through a mouthful of bologna sandwich, which he had insisted on finishing before partaking of the samosas. “I’m a numbers cruncher, remember? I’m not so good with history. You know who you should talk to? Old Mrs. Henderson. She was secretary to the director for fifty-one years, been here longer than Cogswell.”

  “No kidding?”

  “Can you imagine working here for that long? That’s dedication.”

  “Or lack of options.”

  “You’re too young to be so cynical,” Manny laughed. “By all reports, Mrs. Henderson loved this place.”

  “Maybe she has family buried here,” I suggested, struggling with the concept of doing anything for fifty-one years. I had a wee problem with commitment. “Do you know where I can find her?”

  “She’s at a retirement home off Piedmont Avenue. Evergreen Something-or-other. You should look her up.”

  “Maybe I will. Tell me, Manny. What do you know about the painting in the Chapel of the Allegories, La Fornarina?”

  “I know that she’s sexy as hell,” he said with a wolfish grin. “What about it? It’s a copy from the 1800s. Henderson loved it, had it hanging in her office for years. When she left she made a big deal about getting the Alcove of the Allegories ready for it. Even finagled a grant to renovate it.”

  That cheap digital reproduction hadn’t been hanging anywhere until recently, I thought.

  “What kind of grant?”

  “The columbarium enjoys the support of a handful of benefactors who provide targeted grants for special projects. Henderson was a real whiz at grant writing, a
s is Miss Ivy, believe it or not. Aaron Garner—the rich guy with the weird hair?— paid for the restoration of the Fornarina alcove. As a matter of fact, he’s funding the alcove you’re working on, too.”

  “Really? I’m working for Garner in the City. I didn’t realize he was funding the mural restoration as well.”

  “I don’t know what we would do without him. He’s devoted to the place.”

  My cell phone shrilled out the Mistah F.A.B. hip-hop tune Mary had downloaded when I wasn’t looking. That was two weeks ago, and I still hadn’t figured out how to change it back.

  Amused, Manny watched me root around in my bag for the phone. “You’re a rap music fan, are ya?”

  “Not so’s you’d notice,” I muttered, flipping the phone open just as Verizon bounced the call to voice mail. I recognized the number: Mary. I’d call her back later. “My assistant did it.”

  “Mary?”

  “Mary.”

  “Ah.”

  “Sorry about that. How did the columbarium come to own a copy of La Fornarina?”

  He shrugged. “It’s been here forever. The architect, Julia Morgan, may have purchased it in Europe when she bought a lot of other things.”

  “Tell me about that.”

  “When Chapel of the Chimes was nearing completion in the twenties, Lawrence Moore, the director of the columbariumand crematorium, sent Morgan and her artist friend— Doris Something-or-other—on a buying trip to select art and artifacts. Morgan picked up the Roman fountain in the Gregorian Garden on that trip, as well as the Medici lapis-and-malachite table in the Main Cloister.”

  “Those are amazing pieces,” I said, recalling the ancient fountain’s gorgeous mosaic and the shimmering stones of the Medici table. “Manny, is the columbarium in financial trouble?”

  “I can’t discuss privileged information with you, Annie, you know that,” Manny said as he doused a samosa with chutney and lime pickle. “These are yummy, by the way.”

  “Have another.”

  He nodded. “I can tell you this, though. There’s been talk that the columbarium may need to sell off some of the more valuable artwork to pay for the earthquake retrofit.”

  “Which pieces are they thinking of selling?”

  He shrugged. “Well, there’s the miniatures collection. But I think Roy’s already spoken with you about that. I wouldn’t worry about La Fornarina, though. It was assessed a few years ago and isn’t worth much.”

  “Who did the assessment?”

  “I don’t recall offhand. I could look it up if you’d like.”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  “Sure. Any special reason?”

  “I know a few people in the field, that’s all.” My non-answer seemed to satisfy the accountant, who started munching another samosa. “I saw Roy Cogswell talking with Billy Mudd earlier. The management isn’t thinking of selling some of its land to Mudd, is it?”

  “They couldn’t, even if they wanted to.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the cemetery doesn’t own the land, the residents do. ”

  “What residents?”

  With a sweep of his arm Manny gestured to the hills below us.

  “You mean the dead people?”

  He nodded. “We call them the residents.”

  “That’s . . . different.”

  “Can you think of a better alternative?”

  I thought of several. None was better.

  “How can dead people own real estate?”

  Manny laughed. “It’s not as creepy as it sounds. It works like this—living people purchase the plots of land in the cemetery, or the boxes or niches in the columbarium. It’s a real estate transaction, same as buying a house or a condo. Legal deeds, the whole shebang. Upon the owner’s death, the title to the land reverts to a trust in perpetuity. The trust is structured so that the land can’t be sold without a vote of the board and the residents.”

  “The dead people.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So that would make a vote unlikely.”

  “Yep,” Manny said with finality. He checked his watch and began stuffing the remnants of his meal into a crumpled brown bag. “All this talk of death has put me off my lunch, Annie. Remind me of that the next time you ask me out.”

  “A columbarium accountant who eats in a cemetery every day should have a stronger stomach,” I said, noting that in addition to his sandwich, Manny had managed to choke down three samosas and taken a huge bite out of a fourth.

  “I’m a deeply sensitive soul,” he said with a wink. “Back to the salt mines. Coming with me, or are you going to stay awhile?”

  “I think I’ll soak up a few rays, while they last. Hey— good luck deciding on your reception hall.”

  “Thanks, but it’s not up to me. Never underestimate the power of a future mother-in-law. Soda’s my treat next time,” Manny said and started to amble down the road.

  I watched as he stopped to chat with one of the gardeners; then I shoved the thermos and sack of leftover samosas into my shoulder bag and picked my way down the hill and around the tombstones to Louis Spencer’s crypt. I was several yards away when I spotted a hunched old man wearing a mangy overcoat and a black beret placing a nosegay of violets on the pyramid’s steps. The man scuttled away as I approached.

  Except for the violets everything was as it had been the other night. The iron gate was still ajar, the balloons and toys and flowers remained, the sad-looking Raggedy Ann stared at me unblinkingly. No yellow police tape warned intruders away, no black fingerprint dust marred the surface of the white marble statues. Then again, it had been a simple grave robbery. It seemed doubtful the busy Oakland Police Department would be pulling out all the stops to find ghoulish fingerprints.

  I glanced around to make sure no one was watching, pulled the gate open, and slipped inside. In the light of day the crypt felt more poignant than sinister, and the splashes of light filtering through the cross-and-rose stained glass window highlighted the evidence of decay and neglect.

  I peeked behind the sepulcher. The ghoul’s tools were still there.

  Shutting the gate behind me, I proceeded down the hill to the cemetery offices that were housed in the old caretaker’s cottage. Inside, an elderly couple sat at a desk conferring with a pale, curly-haired young man in an ill-fitting blue blazer. Three women in colorful, embroidered saris perched on a brown Naugahyde sofa and paged through a catalogue of caskets. A young couple murmured in German as they perused a map of the graves.

  Death and mourning I could deal with. What appalled me was the Tim O’Neill painting hanging over the large stone fireplace. I assumed it was genuine, though I couldn’t be sure. My talent for aesthetic profiling was most accurate when I felt an affinity for an artist, and O’Neill’s work left me not just cold, but frozen. A self-proclaimed “painter of radiance,” O’Neill mass-marketed digital reproductions of his soft-focus paintings of flower-filled villages and romantic ocean views. At a thousand dollars a pop, he was making a fortune. It wasn’t bad enough that cemetery visitors were coping with the loss of a loved one; they also had to deal with O’Neill’s cheesiness?

  Get a grip, Annie, I thought. Everyone has a right to an opinion—and O’Neill’s more popular than you’ll ever be. Plus, unlike you, he hasn’t broken any actual laws.

  Other than the law of good taste.

  I approached the long reception counter and nodded at the plump, fiftyish woman whose name tag indicated she was HELENA—HEAD DOCENT.

  “Good afternoon and welcome,” she said with a subdued smile. Helena’s straight blond hair was cut in a pageboy. A single strand of pearls encircled her neck and a coral sweater-set complemented her salmon-toned lipstick. I tried to calculate the odds that there would be a time in my life when my lipstick matched my clothes. The smart money was on “fat chance.”

  “This may sound odd,” I began, “but did anyone report a grave robbery the night before last?”

  Helena’s s
mile congealed like day-old egg yolk. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the curly-haired man glance at us, but everyone else seemed preoccupied with thoughts of death.

  “Come with me, please,” Helena said frostily, and I followed her down a narrow hall to a small conference room.

  She slammed the door. “Who are you?” she demanded as she took a seat at the head of an oval table of dark polished cherry. “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “I’m Annie Kincaid. I’m restoring some murals in the columbarium.” I sank into an upholstered chair. “The other night I met Cindy Tanaka, and—”

  “Who?”

  “Cindy Tanaka. She’s a graduate student doing a research project involving Louis Spencer’s crypt?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “She’s researching public manifestations of death, or something like that, and—”

  “Never heard of her.”

  “Perhaps someone else might know more about—”

  “I assure you, Ms. Kincaid, nothing happens in this cemetery that I don’t know about. I’ll grant you that, from time to time, teenagers vandalize the unendowed section, or meet in groups to howl at the moon, or whatever it is they do when they should be at home in bed, but there have been no incidents of grave robbing. Why, the very idea . . .” She pursed her orangey lips and glared.

  I became aware of the aroma of samosas and coffee emanating from my shoulder bag and filling the small, stuffy room. What with the smell, my ratty overalls, and my paint-stained T-shirt, I feared I wasn’t putting my best foot forward. I tried again.