Tomorrow's Vengeance

by Marcia Talley

  Thinking this was hardly the time to discuss the colonel’s love life, I ignored him.

  The divers got to work. They set up a portable air compressor and donned their masks while the colonel observed, offering a running commentary worthy of an announcer on the Discovery Channel. I tuned him out.

  One diver slipped into the tank, sleek as a shark. He eased Richard’s body into a sling that fit under his arms and guided the operation by holding on to Richard’s legs while his partner hauled on the rope attached to the sling.

  ‘Not from around here, then?’ said the colonel when the body was laid out on the marble floor. He stood on tiptoes in his black leather boots, craning his neck for a closer look.

  ‘No, he’s not. He came to visit Christie McSpadden. Sort of a pen pal,’ I added, not wanting to embarrass Christie any further. ‘He was in the army serving in Afghanistan.’

  ‘A jumper?’

  I knew he didn’t mean parachuter. ‘Apparently.’

  ‘She-it.’

  ‘PTSD would be my guess,’ I said.

  The colonel’s back stiffened. ‘Bullshit. Bunch of slackers. In my day …’

  I thought I would have to wait to find out how it was back in his day, but after a brief pause, presumably to collect his thoughts, the colonel launched into a rant. ‘I know people who can get you one hundred percent disability benefits, easy as that.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Tell ’em where to go and what to say when they get there. It’s a scam. You got a half million vets out there right now claiming PTSD. Makes me sick. There are vets with real issues, you know. Paraplegics, amputees, traumatic brain injury. Jeesh. And here you go,’ he indicated the body bag that contained what was left of Richard, now lying on a gurney. ‘This guy never looked like boots on the ground to me. Probably one of those sissies stationed at a home base somewhere, shot themselves in the foot at the motor pool. Or they’re all hands over their heads in the mess hall shouting, ‘Incoming, incoming!’ Bullshit! I held my best buddy in my arms, saw his eyes roll back, the life leak out of him.’ He paused to take a deep breath, then shook himself almost like a dog and said, ‘Sorry, I don’t usually go on like that. Must be off my meds.’

  I turned, reached out and hugged the man. I couldn’t help it. My father had served with distinction in Vietnam and he knew, first hand, what real war was all about. Maybe if I hugged this guy it would help him stow his demons back in the box. Beneath my arms, I felt him tremble.

  ‘Colonel,’ I said after a bit.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘You can let go of me now.’

  He sprang away like a teenager who’d been caught in a clinch. ‘Sorry.’

  I managed a smile. ‘No need. It’s quite all right. I’m a military brat, so I know where you’re coming from.’

  He poked my shoulder with his index finger and channeled his best John Wayne. ‘I knew there was something about you that I liked, Little Lady.’

  The Easy Rider had returned.

  ‘But you’re wrong about Richard Kent,’ I told him gently. ‘He was a medic in Afghanistan. Watched his friend die.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, his face clouding over as his head bent low. ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘Not many people did,’ I said.

  I caught up with Angie in her mother-in-law’s apartment, where Christie was sleeping soundly. Angie closed the door between the living room and the bedroom and invited me to sit down.

  ‘So, what happened to the lovebirds?’ I asked. ‘Did she tell you?’

  ‘By the third ATM, she figured it out. The money was supposedly so they could elope to Las Vegas.’

  ‘At the Graceland Wedding Chapel, I presume, married by an Elvis impersonator to her hunka-hunka burning love.’

  Angie laughed. ‘Something like that.’

  I melted back into the upholstery, suddenly exhausted. ‘That’s certainly what I’ll want for my second wedding.’

  ‘When she turned him down, Richard explained that he was the beneficiary of a trust fund from his grandfather but the money only came to him when he married.’

  ‘So he picked your mother-in-law.’ I sat up straight in the chair. ‘Not to cast aspersions on Christie, my dear, but he had flowers, candy and charm going for him. And I’ll give him at least a seven in the looks department. Couldn’t he find somebody a teeny bit younger?’

  Angie’s look said get real. ‘I think the younger girls were smart enough to figure out that Richard didn’t exactly play for their team, if you know what I mean. He probably flunked the tryouts.’

  ‘Ah, I missed that, Angie. My gay-dar must be on the fritz.’

  ‘I missed it, too, but Christie didn’t. Richard must have figured he wouldn’t have to sleep with someone as old as my mother-in-law, so when she came on to him he turned her down.’ Even in the dim light, I could see her roll her eyes. ‘Poor Christie. She wanted a real relationship, with sex in it and everything. Go figure.’

  ‘Don’t we all?’

  ‘And I don’t think she believed him about the trust fund, although I certainly do. Why else would he want to marry my mother-in-law?’

  ‘Do you think he was really a medic, fighting with the army in Afghanistan, Angie?’

  ‘That part, at least, is true. Christie said it screwed him up, big time.’

  I thought about the ball cap. ‘How long had Richard been hanging around, before he showed up here, I mean?’

  Angie shut her eyes, considering my question. ‘He arrived about two weeks ago, I think. Christie said she met him for the first time at Grump’s for a hamburger.’ She grunted. ‘At least she was smart enough to pick a public place.’

  ‘So, that was before Masud was killed.’

  Angie’s face paled. ‘Ohmygawd! Richard just hates, uh, hated Muslims. He called Mohammad a seventh-century Charlie Manson.’

  ‘What a smooth talker,’ I said.

  A guy with PTSD and a hatred of Muslims. A guy who had almost certainly spray painted anti-Muslim slogans on the wall of the musalla, if the balaclava in the trunk of his car was anything to go by. A guy who had tussled with Masud. I asked the obvious question: ‘Do you think Richard might have murdered Masud Abaza, Angie?’

  Her gaze didn’t waver. ‘Words of wisdom from Richard Kent: “Give a Muslim a rock and they’ll throw it at an embassy.”’

  TWENTY-THREE

  ‘Research … is expensive. For objects with no prior indication of Nazi looting, the costs range anywhere from $40 to $60 per hour, and the time needed to document just one object can vary enormously, from a week to a year, and if initial research suggests an object has a history that may include unlawful appropriation by the Nazis, time and expense can double or triple. One museum spent $20,000 plus travel and expenses over the course of 2 years to have a researcher resolve the history of just three paintings.’

  Edward H. Able, Jr, Review of the Repatriation of Holocaust

  Art Assets in the United States, Hearing Before the

  Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary

  Policy, Trade, and Technology of the Committee on Financial

  Services, U.S. House of Representatives, July 27, 2006.

  ‘I’ve thought of something, Hannah.’

  I shifted the cell phone to my left ear and stared at the numerals on the bedside clock: 23:45. I’d been asleep for only an hour.

  ‘What is it, Izzy?’ Little men with hammers were pounding nails into my head.

  ‘I was going over the packet of materials your brother-in-law prepared for me, and I saw something that I hadn’t noticed before.’

  ‘Ummm.’ I staggered out of bed, flipped on the bathroom light and rummaged through the medicine cabinet, looking for aspirin.

  ‘It’s the original bill of sale, the one the Nazis made my father sign.’

  ‘Uh huh,’ I mumbled, attempting to twist the cap off the aspirin jar without dropping the phone in the toilet.

  ‘It’s a forgery.’

  I dropped the bottle,
spilling the aspirin into the sink. Damn. I was wide awake now.

  I sat down on the toilet seat, cradling my aching head in my hands. ‘A forgery? Are you sure? At the meeting with Hutch you said it looked like your father’s signature.’

  ‘That’s not important. What’s important is that my father didn’t sign it, he couldn’t have signed it. The bill of sale is dated September 18, 1943. I don’t know what made me do it, but I checked the universal calendar, Hannah. September 18 is a Saturday. Shabbat. Not even for the Nazis would my father work on Shabbat.’

  ‘That’s great, Izzy,’ I said, trying to infuse my voice with an enthusiasm that was being sapped by the little men in my head, who were now hurling miniature thunderbolts at one another. I scooped two aspirin out of the sink and chewed them up whole. ‘It’s really great. I’ll let Hutch know. It might make a difference.’

  ‘You’ll call him? You’ll call him now?’

  ‘Just as soon as I hang up the phone.’

  After Izzy thanked me profusely and wished me a goodnight I staggered down to the kitchen, filled the teakettle with water and switched it on. While I waited for the water to boil, I texted my brother-in-law.

  9/18/43 = Sabbath. BS forged?

  By morning my headache had thankfully vanished. When I checked my phone there was an I heart U text from Paul and Hutch had texted me back – K. Thx – but I didn’t hear another peep from my brother-in-law for three more days.

  When the call finally came, it was early morning and I was in the shower. I put the phone on speaker. ‘Hutch, glad you called. Do you have any news?’

  ‘I do,’ he said, sounding as pleased as if he’d just been invited to the White House for dinner. ‘Can you find Izzy and bring her to my office at, say, ten this morning?’

  I grabbed a towel and started rubbing briskly at my hair. ‘I don’t see why not. Can you give me a head’s up?’

  ‘It’s very good news, Hannah. The Baltimore Art Gallery might well have come to this decision on their own, but the information you gave me about the date on the bill of sale was probably the clincher. Izzy is getting her paintings back.’

  I leaned against the cool tile wall, slid down it until I was sitting on the bathmat. ‘All three?’

  ‘All three.’

  ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Believe it. The fax came through this morning. I’m holding the letter right here in my hot little hand.’

  ‘Izzy and her family are going to be over the moon.’

  ‘It won’t be immediate, you understand. There’ll be papers to sign, and …’ He paused. ‘Look, you’d better prepare Izzy for a press conference. This is big news and there’s going to be a lot of hoopla. The gallery’s publicity machine is going to swing into action. Izzy’s face is going to be all over the media.’

  ‘Shall I tell her to buy a new dress then?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘How about the other paintings? There were thirteen in the Piccio sale, as I recall.’

  ‘They could be anywhere by now, Hannah, and tough to track down. The best thing to do is register them as stolen. There’s the Art Loss Register in London, plus databases at Interpol, Scotland Yard and the FBI. The next time someone tries to sell one it should crop up in the database. But don’t worry, I’m going to take care of that for her.’ He paused, and I could almost hear him smile. ‘No charge.’

  ‘How about the paintings pictured in her mother’s scrapbook, Hutch, the one hundred and ten paintings that weren’t part of the Piccio sale?’

  ‘Let’s hope the scrapbook turns up. Right now, the only evidence we have of the Rossi family’s ownership of all hundred and twenty-three works is on that inventory Piccio made back in 1943, and some of it’s rather vague. “Still Life with Oranges” or “Study #3” doesn’t tell us very much, even if we know who the artist was. And another thing,’ he said. ‘A few of the works in the Rossi collection had never been cataloged. They were painted when the artist was a relative unknown, so nobody knew the works even existed, let alone what they looked like.’

  ‘Hutch, do Raniero and Filomena Buccho know about this?’

  ‘Unavoidable. The researchers contacted them both, first individually and then together. Just so you know, there’s going to be no blame attached to the Buccho family. It’s impossible to say what Adriano Buccho knew when he bought those paintings back in fifty-eight, of course, but we’re convinced that Raniero and his sister had no idea that the paintings were stolen. It’s just their rotten luck that both Ysabelle and the paintings ended up in the same museum at the same time.’

  ‘I’m relieved to hear it. The last thing Raniero needs right now is another charge hanging over his head.’

  ‘Has he been arrested for Masud Abaza’s murder, then?’

  ‘Not yet. He’s back at work, but his sister expects him to be carted away in handcuffs at any minute.’

  ‘Too bad.’ After a beat, my brother-in-law added more jauntily than the turn in our conversation warranted, ‘And if he needs an attorney, you have my number. I’ll have a referral for him.’

  Because we were celebrating Izzy and I ordered wine with our crab cakes in the dining room that day. Filomena hadn’t been on duty when we came in, but she showed up at our table, chilled Sauvignon blanc and corkscrew in hand. ‘Susanna said you asked for wine. How nice! It is a special occasion?’

  Uh oh, I thought, this might be awkward, but Izzy dove right in.

  ‘It is,’ Izzy said. ‘As you may have heard from the Baltimore Art Gallery, I’m getting my paintings back.’

  ‘Oh! I am so very glad.’ Filomena set the wine bottle down on the table and started to remove the seal. ‘You must believe me when I tell you, my brother and I, we had no idea. No idea at all.’

  ‘Did your grandfather buy any of my father’s other paintings, Filomena, maybe at another sale?’ Izzy’s voice cracked. ‘Abba had so many.’

  Filomena jammed the point of the corkscrew into the cork and began twisting. ‘I know what the lawyer said, Mrs Milanesi. But when my father died there were only those three. The boy with the dog, the still life with the water jug and lemons, and that nice one of the girl holding a bowl of cherries.’ She extracted the cork. ‘That was my favorite.’

  ‘Only three?’ Izzy asked.

  Filomena scowled. ‘You don’t believe me?’

  Izzy cheeks flushed and she apologized. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean for it to come out that way.’

  ‘There were only the three. I swear to you that. If my father had owned more than three, I would have sold them all, and Raniero and I would have no trouble paying for the restaurant. You see?’

  I did see. Hutch had told us there had been a lot of interest in the Piccio sale. Clearly, another buyer or buyers had purchased the rest of Giacomo Rossi’s paintings from Vittorio Piccio. If Izzy had the scrapbook, Hutch could supplement the data he was entering about the paintings in the international databases by including indentifying photographs. But even with the inventory, the scrapbook and the databases she’d have to wait for the paintings to surface again, which might be years, or even never.

  Filomena screwed the bottle into a pewter bucket filled with ice. ‘You call me if you need anything else, OK?’ She turned to leave, thought better of it, and turned back. ‘I am so happy for you, Mrs Milanesi. It is not right what the Nazis did to your father.’

  Izzy went home to take a nap while I trotted over to Spa Paradiso for a good long soak before it was time for me to show up in the memory unit. I’d promised Nancy I’d look at her drawings, not that she’d remember, but a promise was a promise. I eased into the hot tub until the water was up to my chin; the bubbles danced, exploding all around me, tickling my nose.

  Now that the question of Izzy’s paintings had been settled, my mind wandered back to whoever had murdered Masud Abaza. Had the murderer died in the Blackwalnut Hall fish tank? Or was his killer still at large? What was Safa’s role in all this? Did she say something to Masud that inad
vertently set into motion a chain of events leading to his murder?

  Nor was Masud’s slate squeaky clean. Why hadn’t he reported Raniero’s jiggery-pokery with the meat supplier?

  I closed my eyes, relaxed my limbs and focused on my mantra – kerim, kerim, kerim.

  The jets had shut off automatically and the water had grown as tepid as my brain so I climbed out of the hot tub, dried off and headed to the locker room to get dressed.

  When I arrived at the memory unit Nancy was busy, sitting happily with Eric in the lounge watching television. On the screen Richie Cunningham was making out with Fonzie’s girlfriend. This wasn’t going to end well, I thought with a grin. I hadn’t seen Happy Days since I was in college, so I sat down for a minute to reminisce and – guilty – liberate some Hershey’s Kisses from the candy bowl.

  At the break, WBAL reported about the lack of progress in the Abaza murder. While I watched, sucking on a chocolate, a picture of Masud filled the screen.

  ‘Look, at that,’ Nancy said, waving a finger badly in need of a manicure. ‘That’s the man from the garden.’ She smiled and patted Eric’s knee. ‘He looks like Frank.’

  Except for their abundant salt-and-pepper hair, I didn’t think Masud looked the least bit like Jerry. But … hadn’t Nancy mentioned seeing a man in the garden before? And Lillian had heard noises over by the trees … What if it wasn’t her ‘babies’ she heard ‘squabbling?’ I had to draw Nancy away from the television while she appeared to be alert and relatively lucid.

  I would tell Paul later that the Devil made me do it.

  The television, I knew, was controlled by a remote kept out of residents’ reach in the nurse’s office. With Nurse Heather as a willing co-conspirator we switched off the TV.

  ‘Oh, no!’ Heather cried. ‘The cable seems to have gone out.’

  Eric rose stiffly to his feet. ‘Fuck that,’ he said.

  ‘Nancy,’ I said, materializing at her elbow. ‘Weren’t you going to show me your drawings?’

  Back in Nancy’s room I easily found the portfolio Mindy had mentioned resting on the bookshelf next to a basket of postcards that Nancy – or one of her family members – had been saving.