A Fatal Appraisal (10 page)

Once the show wrapped, it would take the road crew another
two days to dissemble the show and pack the hundreds of tables and chairs,
lighting fixtures, booth structures, and the show's signage into an
eighteen-wheeler before heading to the next city. Jessica had previously
mentioned to Molly that the appraisers were looking forward to a week off
before opening the next show in D.C.

After working in Tampa, Charlotte, and Atlanta with no
break, everyone was ready to go home, however briefly. For Jessica, home was
Charlotte, North

Carolina. Borris lived in Wrightsville Beach and Tony was
from Baltimore.
Hidden Treasures
made its headquarters in Washington
D.C. and most of the appraisers lived south of the Mason-Dixon line. Victoria
and Frank were closest to D.C.. They lived in an historic home in Alexandria,
where Frank's successful antique store thrived on tourists visiting the
charming waterfront.

"I could have worked for Southeby's, but there's no
good sweet tea in New York," he had stated the other night at Casa 'Rita.
Most southerners would agree with Frank that strong sweet tea was an important
part of any southerner's diet.

Molly longed to see what items the public had chosen to
bring for appraisal and wanted to slowly walk along the line of ticket-holders,
but Garrett husded her forward. Once inside, they flashed their ID badges to
the security guards and, after being eyed curiously by those waiting in the
front of the line to be called by an appraiser, headed for the Great Hall.
Before they could reach the Civil War exhibit, Victoria intercepted them with a
frantic wave. She quickly spoke to a group of cameramen and then approached
Molly and Garrett in long, rapid strides. Victoria's face looked drawn and
haggard. Even a careful application of makeup didn't disguise the bluish,
swollen bags beneath her eyes.

"Frank never came back last night!" she exclaimed
with an uncharacteristic display of emotion. "We can't spare any of the
other appraisers looking for him." She tapped her watch face. "The
show starts in five minutes! Can you two help?"

"Of course," Garrett assured her in soothing
tones. "But where do we start?" He lowered his voice discreetly.
"Did he ever return to the hotel last night?"

"No." Victoria eyed the front door nervously.
Hidden
Treasures
crew members wearing black T-shirts were lining up in order to
show the public which queue to go into upon entering the museum. "I even
checked with the front desk. No one saw him. And you know Frank, with all his
sniffing and coughing, he's ... well, hard to ignore."

"Where's his car?" Molly asked. "We dropped
you off last night, so he had the car, right? Was it in the hotel parking
lot?"

A spark ignited in Victoria's eyes. "No! At least I
didn't see it. I last saw him when all of you did. He could be anywhere!"

"When we all last saw Frank he was heading for the
car," Molly said calmly, though inside she was growing excited about the
possibility of finding the missing appraiser and winning the undying admiration
of all the other appraisers. She conjured up a rosy fantasy of them toasting
her around a dinner table while Garrett beamed at her adoringly. Taking a firm
hold of Garrett's arm, she announced, "We'll check the parking garage
first and go from there. Don’t worry, Victoria. We’re going to find him."

At that moment, the front doors were unlocked and people
carrying a myriad of different objects began flooding into the entrance hall.
"I've got to get going." Victoria turned away. "Thank you,"
she shouted over her shoulder as she hustled off.

Garrett turned to Molly. "Sherlock? Shall we?"

"Carry on, Watson," Molly replied, then flushed
guiltily for she remembered having called Matt "her Watson" just a
few months ago when she had tried to unravel the mysterious death of a pottery
collector. Following Garrett out of the entrance past a middle-aged woman
holding a large Delft platter, a young man carrying a tiny Tunbridge box, and a
pair of white-bearded twins each bearing a lamp with Tiffany poinsettia shades,
Molly's heart began to race at the sight of hundreds of intriguing objects
flowing into one building.

Itching to take photographs and meander among the mass of
collectors, Molly was torn between looking for treasure and searching for
Frank. After a moment's hesitation, in which the pull of the objects almost
turned her from her task, Molly squared her shoulders resolutely and quickened
her pace toward the garage. She tried to remember if the boat like sedan she
had seen Frank drive was dark blue or black. Unfortunately, the garage was
packed with cars.

 Not a single spot was empty. Even the handicapped spaces
were all taken.

"Why don't you take the top floor and I'll start on the
bottom," Molly suggested. "We can meet somewhere in the middle."

"A woman who takes charge. Very sexy." Garrett
smiled roguishly and headed for the elevator.

Molly walked slowly up the first row of cars, marveling at
the number of minivans and SUVs squashed in the narrow parking spaces like bloated
cows stuffed into corrals meant for sheep. Of course, it was impossible to be a
collector without owning some kind of vehicle with what Molly's mother called
"schlepping ability." Because these types of cars were elevated far
off the ground, Molly couldn't see over to the next row, so she had to walk up
and down every aisle.

Finally, having investigated the entire area, she headed for
the next floor. On this deck, half of the cars were under cover and half were
exposed to the elements. She decided to begin with the row of cars baking
beneath the powerful September sun and get it over with. Frank's dark blue
sedan occupied the last spot of the long row. Molly hastened over to the
driver's side and stopped dead in her tracks.

Frank was inside. Hunched over the steering wheel, his face
was completely hidden. Molly rapped timidly on the window, afraid of startling
Frank awake. She was close enough to see the dandruff flakes clinging to the
few thin strands spread over his pasty scalp. Molly began to sweat. Why didn't
Frank move? Was he drunk? Had he passed out from the heat? She knocked again,
harder this time.

"Frank!" she called, wiping sweat off her brow.

Then, she noticed his hands.

Clutching the bottom half of the steering wheel, Frank's two
hands were bloated to twice the normal size and their color was completely
alien in appearance. No traces of pink skin or thin rivers of blue veins
created contrast on those colorless canvases. They were stark, pale white, like
two large hunks of Havarti cheese.

 "Did you find him?" Garrett yelled from three
rows away, startling Molly.

Molly turned and stared at Garrett blankly, her mind not
registering that someone was calling to her. She turned back to Frank's hands,
unable to take her eyes away from them, unable to take in their grotesque shape
and color.

"Molly!" Garrett began sprinting towards her.

The heat surged through Molly's clothes and robbed her lungs
of air. She sagged against the side of Frank's car and stared up into the
cloudless sky.

Garrett gave her a little shake and she could hear him
speaking as if from far away, but none of the words made any sense. Darkness
began creeping in at the edges of her vision.

"He's dead," Molly muttered to the heavy air, and
then she fainted.

~~~~~~~~~~

All day long the machine waits: rooms,

stain, carpets, furniture, people

those people who stand at the open windows like objects

waiting to topple.

—Anne Sexton, "The House"

When Molly came to, she heard the sound of Garrett's
voice from a great distance, as if she had sunk underwater in her hotel room's
deep claw foot bathtub.

She slowly became aware that her head was nestled in
Garrett's lap and that she had been moved into the shade. As her senses
returned, she could smell the earthy scent of his cologne and feel the rise and
fall of his chest as he spoke. Pebbles from the concrete lot dug into her
thighs and her first thoughts were irrational, focusing on the wrinkles that
must be forming on her linen pants and whether or not her mouth had been
hanging open during her faint as it so often did during sleep.

"Hang on a tick, she's coming 'round," Garrett
said softly into his cell phone and looked down at her with a concerned smile.
"Feeling better?"

Molly tried to sit up, but felt immediately dizzy so she sank
gratefully back into Garrett's lap.

"Don't get up just yet," Garrett cautioned.
"I'm on hold with the police. You just stay where you are for the moment.
I’ve got you."

He placed a cool hand on her forehead and gently stroked her
damp hair until her entire body relaxed under his touch. For a few heavenly
seconds, she could pretend that the combination of heat and an incredible shock
hadn’t caused her to make a fool of herself.

"Right, we'll be waiting in the car park," Garrett
said confidently into the phone and then stuffed it into his shirt pocket.
"Awful fright." He spoke to Molly tenderly. "That the first
corpse you've seen?"

Molly eased herself into a sitting position. Suddenly
feeling awkward and shy, she looked around, taking in the fact that they were
both seated in an empty parking space just under the cover of the deck.
"No, it's actually not the first time I've seen a dead man," she
answered, staring fixedly at a chipped toenail on her left foot. "In the
beginning of the summer I saw a well-known pottery collector collapse at a kiln
opening. Turns out he had died on the spot. Later, I discovered his wife's body
in their mansion. She’d been shot in the chest. Sometimes I see that awful
image in my mind before I go to sleep." Molly shivered, despite the
intense humidity. She wanted to change the subject, having no desire to rehash
those dramatic events with a relative stranger.

"You don't say ... ?" Garrett couldn't prevent the
curiosity from stealing into his placating tone. "So you've actually seen
two
dead bodies?"

"I'd rather not go into details if you don't mind. In
fact, I'm feeling much better now." She smiled weakly and stood up slowly,
dusting off her pants, which were now both dirty and wrinkled. "I don’t
know what happened. I think I just forgot to breathe. Trust me, I am not the
swooning type."

"No," Garrett agreed as he sprang lightly to his
feet, "I don't imagine many of you American girls are."

Molly realized they were suddenly acting rather callous
considering the body of a celebrity appraiser was baking away in a nearby car.
She reasoned that shock had allowed them to momentarily neglect the dead man.
But the image of Frank's bloated hands was firmly imprinted in Molly's psyche.
That unnatural shade of white belonged to a lump of unbaked bread dough, not to
a human.

"Poor Frank!" she exclaimed as the wail of
approaching sirens burst through the thick and stagnant air of the parking
garage. "I wonder what happened to him?"

A mournful look appeared in Garrett's eyes. "He wasn't
feeling well yesterday, remember? He may have had some kind of heat
stroke."

"He could have been in that car all night. What a
pathetic place to pass away," Molly whispered, her eyes glued to the back
of Frank's sedan. Her voice sounded much calmer than she felt. "He didn't
come with us to dinner and he never made it back to his hotel. Poor man. To die
alone like that! How awful!" Unexpectedly, tears sprung into her eyes.

Suddenly Garrett's arms were around her. "It'll be all
right," he soothed.

Molly felt safe and comforted in his arms, breathing in his
woody, masculine scent. Just then, the sirens grew piercingly loud as two
police cars and an ambulance drove up the curve of the parking deck and came to
a stop in front of them. Their embrace ended abruptly.

Garrett immediately took charge. He introduced himself and
Molly then led the officers over to Frank’s car. Molly followed the group of
men, watching in fascination as one of the policemen easily forced a long metal
bar inside Frank's window and unlocked the driver's side door.

A putrid smell like rotten cheese mixed with sunbaked
garbage immediately burst from within the car, and Molly quickly covered her
nose with the sleeve of her blouse. Garrett pulled a handkerchief from his
pants, clapped it over his mouth and nose and backed away. Curiosity quickly
overcame repulsion, however, and Molly found herself moving closer to the car
in order to watch the police at work.

A tall man wearing a navy T-shirt with the word CORONER
printed on the back bent over Frank's body. He tried to carefully ease Frank's
head off the steering wheel, but rigor mortis was making the task difficult.

Finally, with the help of a burly-looking policeman with a
shock of red hair, the two men managed to extract Frank's hunched body out of
the car and onto a gurney. Molly was thankful Frank's eyes were shut. It was
bad enough to look upon his impossibly white and waxen face without having his
sightless eyes staring back at her.

"Was it heat stroke?" she asked the man wearing
the coroner T-shirt.

He eyed her cautiously before answering. "Are you his
wife?"

"No ... um, I was working with him," Molly
stammered, suddenly thinking that Victoria was inside greeting the public and
had no idea that her husband's corpse had just been loaded into an ambulance.

"Well, we'll need to do a complete examination before
we can state the cause of death. You’ll have to talk to the officer there if
you have any other questions," the man explained hastily as he shut the
rear doors to the ambulance. Matters were clearly in the hands of the police
from here on out.

The robust redhead took a second peek inside Frank's car and
then approached Molly and Garrett. He introduced himself as Officer Combs and
led them away from the car back into the shade. After shaking both their hands
with a crushing grip, he politely thanked Garrett for reporting the incident
and then flipped opened a small black notebook and began scribbling in what
looked to be indecipherable shorthand. Finally, he looked up and asked them to
explain how they’d come to discover the body.