As I hung up the phone, Eric came into the office, grime streaked on his face and T-shirt, looking tired clear through.
Forcing a smile, I said in as light a tone as I could muster, “Man, if I didn’t know better, I’d guess you’ve been working.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, grinning, “just a little. Anything else right now?”
“Are all of the lots in place and approved by Sasha?”
“Yup. I let the temp guys go.”
I nodded. “Good job.” Turning to my assistant, I asked, “Gretchen? Anything for Eric?”
She shook her head. “No. We’re set, I think.”
“You heard the woman. You’re free to go.”
Eric left with a wave, saying he’d be in by eight the next morning. I watched from the window as he made his way across the parking lot to his old truck and signaled his turn from the lot even though there was no one behind him or on the road in either direction. I smiled. A man who follows rules, even in private. I bet he was heading home to Dover, a small town about twelve miles northwest of the warehouse. I’d driven past his house once, an old Victorian in depressing disrepair. He lived there with his widowed mother and two much-loved dogs, a black Lab named Jet and a German shorthaired pointer named Ruby. I spoke to his mom once when she’d called to remind him to pick up some potatoes on his way home. She’d sounded uninterested in speaking to her son’s boss, irritable, and tired.
I picked up the catalogue pages Gretchen had set aside for me. “You should leave soon, too,” I told her. “Tomorrow’s going to be a killer day.”
“In a little while,” she said. “I want to finish updating the roster for the Wilson preview and I have some calls to return about tag-sale stuff.”
“Okay. I’ll be in my office,” I said, and left her transferring names from her handwritten notes onto a spreadsheet.
Before going to my office, I crossed the span to the auction-site corner, shivering a bit as I made my way across the cold concrete floor. It was always dim inside the huge space, even with fluorescent overhead lighting, and somehow the darkness made it seem colder than it really was. Eerie shadows shifted as I walked. I was glad to reach the smaller, more homey-looking zone, and I flipped the light switches illuminating hanging chandeliers and wall sconces. Between the soft, incandescent lighting and the thick burgundy carpet, the smaller space was a world apart from the warehouse proper, more welcoming than utilitarian. Plus, it felt warmer.
I walked the aisles looking carefully at each roped area. The lot numbers were in place. All items were positioned well, dust free, and labeled with small typed cards. Scanning the center area, I noted that Eric had added rows of chairs and lined them up properly. A sign reading Prescott’s hung from the podium. Skirted registration tables stood near the side door through which the registered bidders would pass tomorrow. I felt pride and accomplishment as I stood alone near the stage. We were ready. I turned off the lights as I left and headed for the spiral stairs that led to my office.
I had a television/VCR combo set up in a bamboo armoire in a corner, and looking at it made me want to skip proofing Sasha’s typed catalogue pages. I was eager to get to the Grant tape, but duty called. With a sigh, I forced myself to read carefully and stay alert for typos, inconsistent formatting, and information gaps.
Just before six, as I finished proofing the catalogue, Sasha poked her head into my office, and said, “Gretchen asked me to tell you that she left for the day.”
“Okay.”
“How are you doing?” she asked.
I felt an unaccountable urge to confide in her. I had no one to talk to and it would be a relief to bounce ideas off someone. With my dad gone, and my friends in New York a world away, I felt alone. Since arriving in New Hampshire, I’d focused on building my business. Fleetingly, I wondered what it would be like to be married, to have an ally waiting at home, eager to share confidences.
Sasha was brilliant, with the instincts of a collector. Confiding in her might be foolhardy, though. Without doubt, she was smart and educated, but she was also a scared mouse of a woman, eager for approval, yet continually braced for censure. Only when discussing art or related subjects was she confident and well-spoken. Otherwise, her anxiety was apparent in everything she did, from the way she twirled her limp brown shoulder-length hair to her inability to meet people’s eyes. I couldn’t risk trusting her. Challenged by a stronger being, she’d probably fold, trading my confidences for goodwill.
Pushing aside my lonely need, I answered, “Thanks for asking. Everything’s fine.”
Better to lie than reveal a vulnerability. I wondered what my father would think about that decision.
She gestured toward the catalogue pages. “How does it look?” she asked.
“It looks great,” I said.
“Th-th-thanks,” she whispered, embarrassed. She blushed and looked down, her standard response to praise.
I pointed out the few typos I’d found, and Sasha said, “I’ll make the corrections and go to the quick-copy place.”
“Sounds good,” I told her.
I heard the click-clack of her shoes as she descended the stairs, then nothing. I was alone.
Watching the tape was upsetting. Seeing certain items, like the inlaid chess table that had belonged to Mr. Grant’s wife, triggered memories of the pleasant conversation we’d shared about its origin. I now perceived his jolly Santa Claus demeanor as a veneer disguising a big bad wolf licking his chops.
Well, I chided myself, maybe that was unfair. Just because his behavior felt like a betrayal didn’t make it so. I sighed. Mr. Grant had owed me nothing, and I had no complaint. If, as it now seemed, he was just using my appraisal to benchmark value so he could negotiate wisely with Barney, well, that was his prerogative, and in fact, was probably a savvy business move.
I couldn’t pretend that I wasn’t disappointed, but I could learn from the experience. My naivete and gullibility had facilitated his research. I still believed he’d liked me. But now I understood that liking me hadn’t mattered a whit. Don’t be stupid, Josie, my father had told me once. In business, it’s all about the business. If someone won’t make money doing business with you, they won’t do business with you no matter how much they like you.
It felt good to remind myself of my father’s words. Doing so allowed me to view the tape with more objectivity than I otherwise might have been able to bring to the task.
As expected, there was no Renoir in sight, nor was there an empty space on a wall where it might have hung. Either Barney had already purchased it, as Max thought, or someone else had done so. Either Barney or Epps was lying and there was no Renoir at all, which wouldn’t surprise me a bit now that I was less naïve and gullible, or the painting was secreted somewhere.
I paused the tape to consider why Mr. Grant might have wanted the painting hidden. He had three sterling-silver tea sets dating from the eighteenth century and two mint-condition seventeenth-century Chinese square porcelain bottles on display, a Regency period dining-room set constructed of perfectly matched rosewood that he used daily, and scores of other priceless and near-priceless items all in plain sight. Why would he hide one painting? Obviously, he didn’t keep it hidden just because it was valuable. There had to be another reason.
It was hard to imagine, but maybe the painting had been stolen. Impulsively I turned to my computer and brought up an Internet browser, and then clicked on an Interpol site I’d bookmarked that was devoted to tracking stolen art. I typed in the painting’s title and “Renoir.” Nothing.
I shook my head in frustration. I had no way of knowing if it was true that Mr. Grant had ever possessed the painting, nor did I have a clue whether, if he had, discovering his reason for hiding it mattered. I warned myself not to lose sight of my goal. Whether I was being framed for murder or was an accidental victim, I needed to arm myself with knowledge.
I went through the tape again and counted twenty-three paintings. Not one was even close to a Renoir in reputation, importance, or value. None was remarkable even when compared to the other treasures in the house. The only artist whom I recognized was the nineteenth-century illustrator Jules Tavernier. Mr. Grant had three of his pastoral scenes oddly framed in contemporary-looking black boxes.
I did a quick Internet search for Tavernier prices. The paintings were lovely, but would be unlikely to fetch more than $7,000 to $8,000 each. A lot of money for a painting by some standards, but nothing compared to the millions a Renoir would bring.
The other twenty paintings were even less special than the Taverniers. Value aside, any of the paintings could hide a wall safe. The Renoir could have been taken out of its frame and rolled, fitting easily in a specially designed hole in the wall.
An hour into the tape, I was listening to my discourse on two Windsor chairs, a seventeenth-century hanging tapestry showcasing birds in a jungle, and an eighteenth-century English partners desk. I wondered if the painting could be attached to the underside of a chair via a fake cushion or tucked into a safe located behind the tapestry. And while I’d examined the desk at length and had spotted long, thin dovetail joints that had confirmed its pedigree, I realized I hadn’t discovered the hinged cabinet door frequently found at the back of the desks’ kneehole openings.
I paused the tape, and stared at the screen, my mouth opening, my mind racing. A thorough search would easily discover if there was a wall safe or if the painting was hidden in a closet or under a false bottom attached to a chair or table, but I bet I’d found the stash-a hidden cabinet in the partners desk. We needed to look. And we needed to look now.
“Max!” I exclaimed when I had him on the phone. “I think I’m on to something.”
“Tell me,” he said. I heard children’s laughter in the background.
“I’ve watched the tape. Old partners desks had kneeholes. You know, an opening where your knees go. Many of them had cabinets built in at the bottom. Not exactly secret, since the hinges and lock unit were in plain sight, but semisecret, since someone would have to be on his hands and knees to spot it.”
“And Mr. Grant’s has one of these hidden cabinets?” he asked, excited.
“No. It doesn’t seem to. But in reviewing the tape, I noticed that there’s space for one. Some of the partners desks had the cabinet secreted behind a wood panel. It’s rare, and I’m betting that Mr. Grant’s desk is one of those. Max, it would be a perfect place to stash art.”
“Let me understand,” Max said. “You’re saying that even though no cabinet hardware, like hinges, is visible, you still think there’s a cabinet there. Is that right?”
“Exactly. I’m saying it might be there. It’s worth a look. I have some other ideas of where to look, too.”
“Like where?”
“Like behind the paintings for a wall safe, and under chair cushions-it would be fairly easy to create a false bottom.”
“It sounds possible, Josie. Well done.”
“Thank you. Now what?”
I took a breath, waiting for Max’s assessment, eager, yet fearful. My thoughts were inchoate; understanding why Mr. Grant had hidden the painting, if he had done so, and what it might mean to me one way or the other, was unclear to me. I waited for Max to speak, certain another shoe would drop.
“Now we consider how knowing about the Renoir would affect your situation.”
“And your conclusion?”
He paused. “I think we should alert Alverez and see about a search.”
“Are you sure? Should we reveal what we know?”
“Alverez knows about the Renoir and Epps’s relationship with Barney Troudeaux already. It seems to me that we have nothing to lose and a lot of goodwill to gain.”
“I understand,” I said, and I did. Like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle latching into place, I saw how our volunteering our idea positioned us as an ally. People with nothing to hide volunteer to help. And since we were revealing nothing new about Barney or Mr. Grant’s murder, there was no downside.
“I’ll call you back,” Max said, and hung up.
Max called me back ten minutes later, the sounds of laughter louder than before.
“Good news,” he said. “Alverez is intrigued. He agreed to meet us at the back door of the Grant house in half an hour.”
“I’m thrilled!” I exclaimed. “Finally, we’re doing something! Max, this is great.”
“I’ll pick you up in fifteen minutes. All right?”
“Are you sure? I hear laughter in the background.”
“Yeah, I’m sure. No problem, Josie. Remember, the same rules apply to our meeting with Alverez as before. Don’t volunteer information. Answer questions as simply as you can. Remember that Alverez isn’t your lawyer.”
My momentary euphoria faded with his words. “Got it,” I responded.
I shut down the computer, rewound the videotape, and turned off the lights in my office. As I started down the spiral stairs, my thoughts whirring, filled with anticipation, I heard rustling from somewhere downstairs and realized that Sasha must be back with the finished catalogues.
I was about to call out to her when I spotted a shadow behind the crates, the stack of empty wooden boxes where Alverez had stood when we’d first spoken, and felt my heart skip a beat. Sasha wouldn’t be behind the crates. In fact, thinking about it, I realized that she wouldn’t be anywhere around at all. At just after eight, it was too soon for her to be back from the quick-copy place.
I tiptoed back up the steps and slid into a corner of the landing, shielded from direct light, but with a clear view of the entire warehouse below. I listened hard but heard nothing. I saw nothing else of note. I stayed still.
Eric, maybe. Eric often shifted crates, organizing things, rearranging packing materials. Not at this hour, though. Not on this day. He’d left hours ago, tired and dirty.
I shook my head, confused. Everyone was gone. I scolded myself that I was making much ado about nothing, that I was tired and stressed, and that actually there was nothing there.
As I was girding myself to step out from behind my hiding place, I heard another rustling sound and stopped cold, allowing myself to trust my instincts. I wasn’t imagining things. I’d heard something, a movement, a kind of rubbing, fabric maybe, brushing against wood.
In the high-ceilinged, open warehouse, sound reverberated. I thought the soft noise, a hiss or a scrape, had come from near the crates, but I might have been wrong. I pressed my back into the wall and scanned the room, seeking out something that would account for the noise, that would explain an odd shadow behind the tall stack of crates, but I saw nothing out of the way.
I swallowed. My heart was pounding so hard I was having trouble breathing. To hell with it, I told myself angrily. Probably the noise was the building settling, and I’d imagined the shadow. Silently cursing the anxiety that clung to me like barnacles to a rock, I stepped out from the corner. I was tired of jumping at shadows and fretting about small noises. No one could make me fearful but myself. Straightening my shoulders and lifting my head, I began the descent, circling down the staircase.
I heard a click and froze. The door. Someone had quietly latched the door. Were they going out? Or coming in? I stood and listened. Nothing.
Slowly, my heart racing, I moved forward toward Gretchen’s office and the outside world accessible through the front door. I paused at the threshold and peered in every corner. Nothing looked out of order. Making my way to the front, I peeked out the window. There was no moonlight visible through the cloud cover. The perimeter lights that illuminated the parking lot for auction or preview nights weren’t on. The rural blackness was complete.
I reached for the doorknob, ready to leave, when all at once, I stopped. Another noise, this one a kind of low rumble, broke the stillness, startling me. I glanced over my shoulder. It’s outside, I told myself. You’re safe.
I peeked out again, and suddenly headlights scissored through the dark. A car was heading toward me. I tensed and pulled back from the window, terrified that my gut had been right after all, that there had been an intruder who, for whatever reason, had returned.