‘That, too,’ I said. ‘He’s Jewish. Lost his father and two sisters at Bergen-Belsen, so it’s not surprising he wants to revisit the arrangement he made with the Bucchos.
‘Hutch tells me that the project is pretty far along. The Bucchos bought an old warehouse on the waterfront in Canton near the Boston Street Pier. The architectural plans had made it through the Land Use and Urban Design division of the Baltimore Planning Commission, no mean feat that, so they were good to go. Filomena knew that if Levin found out about the investigation into the provenence of the art stolen from Izzy’s father the deal might unravel. And once the press got ahold of the story …’ I paused. ‘She had to do something to shut Masud Abaza up. He knew about the paintings, of course, because of Safa. And she actually saw one of them in Izzy’s scrapbook when Izzy foolishly brought it into the dining room. But Masud had something else on Filomena, apparently.’
‘The whole thing with the meat inspections?’
‘Yes. It was simple, really. He wanted to have sex with Filomena. She wasn’t going to have it with him indefinitely.’
‘There’s one thing Raniero’s gonna have to do for sure,’ Angie said.
‘What’s that?’
‘Change the name of the restaurant.’
‘Why? What was he going to call it?’
‘Filomena’s.’
TWENTY-SIX
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he long’d to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
‘Requiem,’ Robert Louis Stevenson, 1850–1894
Izzy and I were enjoying our ice-cream cones in our favorite spot on the front porch of Blackwalnut Hall when a Crown Vic pulled up along the drive. I thought we’d seen the last of Detective Powers, but to my surprise, an officer I didn’t recognize climbed out of the driver’s seat.
And he was not alone.
When I saw who he had with him I handed my cone to a startled Izzy, skipped down the steps and raced along the drive to meet them.
‘Jerry!’ I said, laughing. ‘Where the hell have you been?’
Dressed in a blue-and-gold navy tracksuit, Jerry was grinning like he’d just won the lottery. ‘Out and about, out and about.’
‘So, he does belong here,’ the officer added, chuckling.
‘Oh, yes,’ I fibbed. ‘There are people here who’ve really been missing this guy.’ I took Jerry by the hand and tucked it into the crook of my elbow. ‘How …?
‘Somebody spotted him wandering through Quiet Waters Park, looking confused. So they called us. He couldn’t tell us his name or address, and he had no wallet or anything on him, but … you know those little laundry labels?’
I nodded. Oh, yes. Mother had sewed the embarrassing tapes that practically screamed ‘Hannah Alexander is a bay-bee’ into my camping clothes every summer.
‘Well, we ran the name through DMV, checked him against the picture on the driver’s license we found, got the address and brought him back here.’
‘Thank you. Everyone will be so relieved.’
‘He’s not still driving, is he?’ the officer asked, his face a mask of concern.
‘Oh, no. He hasn’t driven for ages, not since …’ I tapped my temple. ‘You know.’
‘I heard the security around here was pretty tight,’ the officer said as he accompanied Jerry and me up the sidewalk. ‘I’m kinda surprised the old guy got away, you know?’
‘I have a Hyundai,’ Jerry said. ‘Don’t know where I parked it.’ He patted his pajama pockets. ‘Key’s here somewhere.’
‘He must have slipped out of his tracking device,’ I said, tap dancing as fast as I could. When we reached the steps, I turned. ‘Is there anything we need to do?’
‘No, no. Just glad we have a happy ending here.’ He gave me a two-finger salute, climbed back into his squad car and drove away.
I walked Jerry inside, heading straight for the memory unit where I knew Heather would be on duty. Holding firmly to Jerry’s arm, I stuck my head around the corner of her door. ‘Look who I have here!’
Heather shot out of her chair as if she’d been spring loaded. ‘Oh my God! Jerry!’ Even as she was hugging the prodigal son, she shot me a conspiratorial glance over his shoulder.
I nodded. We were in this thing together.
Heather held Jerry at arm’s length, grinning. ‘You are a sight for sore eyes. And I know someone who is dying to see you.’
Dying. I felt a pang. That was quite literally what Nancy Harper was doing. Dying. Wasting away of a broken heart.
‘Where is she?’ I whispered.
‘Watching TV.’ Heather bobbed her head in the direction of the unit’s lounge.
As we walked Jerry into the lounge, I held my breath. What if he didn’t recognize her? Or she him?
I needn’t have worried.
‘Frank!’ Nancy shouted when her boyfriend’s solid shape loomed between her and the image of Jack Lord on the oversized television screen. She rose from her chair, clapping her hands. ‘Frank, Frank, bo brank, banana fanna ro rank, fee fie mo mrank, Frank!’ she sing-songed, seamlessly regressing to a schoolyard chant.
‘Hey, Toots,’ he said. ‘What’s cooking?’ He folded her into his arms, rested his chin on the top of her head and patted her playfully on the bottom.
When Jerry finally released her she looked into his eyes and touched his face gingerly with her fingertips again and again as if to convince herself that he was real.
‘Is his room still available?’ I asked Heather.
‘As far as I know.’ She winked. ‘I’ll get someone to make up the bed. And in the meantime …’ She paused, letting me fill in the blank.
My stomach knotted. ‘I’ll need to tell Tyson.’
‘Right. Let him work something out. That’s why they pay him the big bucks.’
‘Frank,’ Nancy was saying as I turned to go. ‘That show you like is on.’
When I left, Nancy and Jerry were cuddling on the sofa and watching Hawaii 5-O, as if he had never left.
‘If the United States ever needs someone to negotiate with the North Koreans or solve a debt ceiling impasse with Congress, I’ve got the man for the job,’ I was saying to Paul several days later. He’d returned from the sea and was dumping the contents of his laundry bag into the dirty clothes basket when I cornered him.
‘Who?’
‘Tyson Bennett, that’s who.’
‘Have I met him?’ Paul wanted to know, holding up a pair of socks and studying them critically. ‘Dirty or clean?’
I snatched the socks out of his hands and tossed them in with the rest of his stinky laundry. ‘You sold beer at the Rotary crab feast together. There’s a Labor Day party at Calvert Colony and we’re invited, so you’ll see him there.’
‘OK, got that. So, why are we awarding this dude the Nobel Peace Prize?’
‘He got them to settle the whole mess with Nancy and Jerry out of court, but most importantly, Jerry can stay with Nancy at Calvert Colony.’ I brought Paul up to date on all that had happened since last we talked. ‘After the police brought Jerry back to the colony, Tyson called in both families and held a meeting with Nancy and Jerry actually in the room. I have no idea exactly what transpired – Heather wasn’t able to say because of patient confidentiality concerns and all that – but when they came out of the meeting the rape charges had been dropped.’
‘What turned the tide?’
I shrugged. ‘Maybe making the families and those bureaucrats at the Maryland Department of Heath all sit down together so they could see how sweet Nancy and Jerry are together, how good they are for each other. Or maybe everyone simply put on their big boy pants and worked out a deal.’
Paul lugged the laundry basket down to the basement with me following behind carrying a load of sheets. ‘How about the nurse friend you were so concerned about. What was her name? Elaine? The one on administrative leave?’
‘That has a happy ending, too,’ I explained while stuffing the laundry into the washer. ‘The Department of Health gave her a formal reprimand, but didn’t yank her license, thank goodness. It might be an issue if she ever decided to look for another job, but as long as she stays at Calvert Colony where everyone worships the ground she walks on, it shouldn’t be a problem.’
I poured liquid detergent into the dispenser and set the dial for a heavy duty load. We left the washer chugging away and adjourned upstairs to the kitchen where I poured us each a cup of coffee.
‘You said Jerry was found wandering around Quiet Waters Park. Isn’t that a long way from Ginger Cove?’
‘Jerry’s son didn’t think that one through very well. He snatched his dad out of Calvert Colony in a fit of pique, really, but Ginger Cove had no vacancies, so he was keeping the old guy at home temporarily. One of the round-the-clock caregivers he hired fell asleep in the Lay-Z-Boy. Zing! Jerry opened the sliding glass door and got out of there. She didn’t call the cops until nearly six hours later. She’d been driving around all that time looking for him.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
‘Art is about family, it is about memory, and it is about history. It is about the history of paintings and drawings and sculptures, but more importantly, it is about the history of people. For many, it is the last tangible connection with a past that was destroyed and with a family that was lost.’
Gideon Taylor, 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.
It was supposed to be a picnic, but by noon the thermometer had climbed into the mid-nineties and barely a breath of air stirred the leaves. Seniors began to flag in the blistering heat, so when the skies darkened with the promise of rain the Labor Day festivities at Calvert Colony were moved inside.
I’d spent twenty minutes at home searching for the sandals that matched the sundress I’d bought in the Bahamas, so by the time Paul and I got to Blackwalnut Hall the party was in full swing. Uniformed servers carrying trays of wine and platters of canapés roamed the lobby, while classical jazz wafted out of the overhead speakers.
Paul snagged two glasses of Chablis from a passing server and handed one of them to me. ‘Looks like they finally installed a grill on top of the fish tank,’ he observed.
‘Looks nice,’ I said, sipping my wine and watching the kelp undulate. ‘Not that having it in place would have changed the outcome. Richard Kent would be just as dead.’
‘But less wet.’
I scowled at my husband. ‘Behave or I’ll have to take you home.’
We wandered into the dining room, looking for my friends. ‘If this is a preview of the restaurant Raniero plans to open,’ Paul said as he took in the tables, groaning with food, ‘I predict a long and successful career.’
Gourmet salads had been laid out on long, cloth-covered tables, but the platters were still covered with plastic wrap. I browsed along them anyway, rehearsing my plan of attack. Fresh-cut veggies, mushrooms vinaigrette, grilled asparagus, hearts of palm, tabbouleh – twenty hors d’oeuvres in all. ‘This is going to be good,’ I said as I checked out the figs stuffed with pistacios and ricotta.
The French doors stood open. ‘Come on,’ my husband said, and led me out into a carnivore’s paradise. Three barbeque chefs bustled about the outdoor grills tending rumps of beef, legs of lamb, loins of pork and racks of ribs as well as sausages and chicken – burgers and hot dogs, too, if you must. The aromas were intoxicating. It was all I could do to get him back inside when Izzy you-hooed at us from the open door.
‘Your brother-in-law is amazing,’ she cooed. ‘Hutch entered all my father’s paintings into the lost art registry and, voila!’ She waved a hand. ‘One of them has already turned up. A Carlo Mattioli.’
I folded Izzy into my arms and gave her a crushing hug. ‘That’s wonderful! Where?’
When I released her she took a deep breath. ‘Interpol located it at a gallery in Florida. It was part of a traveling exhibit from the Pinacoteca di Parini in Milan. The U.S. Attorneys have seized it, Hannah. It may take a while, but …’
‘But what, Izzy?’ Paul prodded.
‘The Mattioli painting is a tree of some kind, dark and boring. So, I’m thinking that my children will be able to build that swimming pool in their backyard after all.’
While Paul chatted with Izzy about her grands, I escaped to get some more wine. On my return, Raniero breezed up and seized my hand, nearly causing me to dump the wine all over my dress. He pressed my hand to his lips, thanking me profusely in a charming mixture of English and Spanish for saving his career.
I had to laugh, the boy was so earnest. ‘No, you did that all on your own, Raniero.’
A comma of blond hair had escaped from his toque and trembled charmingly over his left eyebrow. He was going to argue with me, I could tell. ‘No, it was you who saw my sister for who she really was. I could forgive her many things, but how could she tell such lies about me? Filomena was taking the kickbacks from the meat man, not me. If I had known …’ He moved so close to me that our foreheads nearly touched. ‘But there was no way I could know. The meat man was using counterfeit stamps. He told the police it was my sister’s idea.’
‘That must have been hard, Raniero. I’m so sorry. How is she doing, do you know?’
‘She has a lawyer.’
‘And?’
‘I do not talk to her, Mrs Ives.’ I could see the sadness behind his eyes. ‘Perhaps one day.’ His eyes glistened with unshed tears. ‘I must get back to work, or I will not have a job,’ he said, releasing my hand at last. I flexed it behind my back, trying to restore the circulation.
‘Tell me about the restaurant, Raniero.’
Surprisingly, his face brightened. ‘It will take longer, but it will come. Our investors are solid.’ He drove a fist into his palm to emphasize the point. ‘Now, I must go check on the asado.’
After another twenty-five minutes of schmoozing, Tyson Bennett made the rounds, inviting his special guests to fix their plates and join him in the private dining room. Once we were all assembled, he stood at the head of the table and banged on the side of his water glass with his spoon to get our attention. ‘Calvert Colony has had a rocky start,’ he said when we’d settled down, ‘but thanks to all your efforts, I believe we are over the hump. ‘I’d like especially to thank Hannah Ives, who I’m hereby nominating for the volunteer of the year award.’ He raised his glass and said, ‘Here, here!’
‘Here, here,’ everyone echoed, and I felt my face flush.
‘What nonsense! You haven’t even been open for a year yet, Tyson.’ I raised my glass. ‘But I thank you, anyway.’
Tyson grinned. ‘At Calvert Colony we plan ahead.’
After all the speeches we settled down to enjoy our dinners. As I sliced my grilled sausage into coins, I asked Tyson, ‘Is Safa Abaza coming back?’
He stabbed a bit of sirloin and looked up. ‘Probably not. Their place is on the market. Are you interested?’
‘Not yet,’ I laughed.
I was chasing the last of the tabbouleh around my plate with a roll and actively resisting the urge not to pick up my plate and lick it clean when Raniero came into the dining room carrying a package about the size of a laptop computer wrapped up in brown paper. He stood politely by the door, waiting to be recognized.
I waggled my fingers at Tyson and, when I’d got his attention, I bobbed my head in Raniero’s direction.
‘Raniero?’ Tyson said.
‘I have something for Mrs Milanesi.’ He crossed the room to where Izzy was sitting and thrust the package into her hands, shifting nervously from foot to foot like a schoolboy, waiting for her to open it.
Izzy’s puzzled face turned to delight as she s
tripped off the wrapping. ‘Oh, Dio mio!’
‘What?’ I asked from across the table.
She aimed it my direction. It was an exquisite painting of a Madonna and child. I recognized it as one of the paintings in the scrapbook Izzy’s mother had put together.
A single tear rolled down Izzy’s cheek and splashed onto her pink blouse. ‘I cannot believe this. Raniero. Where did this come from? Your sister told me that your grandfather bought only three of my father’s paintings at that sale.’
Raniero considered her sideways through pale eyelashes. ‘She was not telling you the truth.’ He touched her shoulder. ‘But this one, it is the last, I am sure of that. Filomena had a safety deposit box. I found the key. When I opened the box, there it was.’
Izzy covered his hand where it rested. ‘How can I ever thank you for this?’
Raniero stood tall, straightened his jacket and said, ‘Come eat at my restaurant, of course. Free. On the house.’
‘What are you going to name your restaurant, Raniero?’ Naddie wanted to know.
‘I think I will name it after my mother: Graziella. It sounds good, no?’
Naddie favored her favorite chef with a grin. ‘It sounds good, yes.’
‘Why did Filomena steal Izzy’s scrapbook?’ Paul asked after Raniero had excused himself and returned to the chaos in the kitchen.
I shrugged. ‘Filomena didn’t know about Piccio’s inventory, did she? Perhaps she thought that without the scrapbook Izzy’s claim to the paintings could not be proven. Without photographic evidence the gallery might have dismissed her claims as simply the figment of an old woman’s imagination and rejected them out of hand.’ I took a sip of wine, trying to work it out. ‘If the gallery didn’t dig deeper into the provenance then the Buccho family’s connection to the stolen paintings might never have been uncovered. Especially since we now know that she was holding back at least one painting.’
‘How do we know there aren’t any more?’ Paul wondered.
‘We don’t.’
Paul polished off his chicken kabob. ‘And I can think of another reason she wanted the scrapbook.’
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