Antiques to Die For (10 page)

Ty soft-beeped his horn and waved as I turned off the interstate and he continued on toward Rocky Point. I waved back.

I parked near Prescott’s front door and hurried into the tag-sale venue. Standing by the door, I scanned the displays to gauge Eric’s setup progress. The glassware display was charming. Eric had draped white tablecloths over cardboard boxes to create a multilevel merchandising field. Spotlights that ran along ceiling tracks showed off the sharp edges of etched crystal, the rich whiteness of milk glass, and the translucent luster of blue lace Depression glass. With retail prices ranging from $5 to $35, no item was especially valuable, but all were in excellent condition—we never offered broken or chipped objects for sale—and most would find homes quickly.

I noticed that Eric had moved a fake fireplace that we used as decoration throughout the winter to the wall farthest from the outside door and surrounded it with fireplace accessories—andirons, pokers, and the like. It was an effective display, and I made a mental note to acknowledge his efforts.

Plastic tubs full of art prints stood ready for customers to flip through; black velvet-lined cases held miscellaneous pieces of gleaming sterling silver flatware; and a collection of old tourist postcards from the 1940s, encased in plastic sleeves, littered a long table, scattered for easy viewing. Boxes were stacked on empty tables and the floor. Eric and his team had made progress, but they still had a lot to do.

Satisfied, I left the tag sale for the main warehouse area. I packed up one of our video cameras along with its related gear, filled in the checkout log my insurance required, and wrote Gretchen a note, letting her know that I was riding with Officer Brownley and would be in touch.

CHAPTER TWELVE

T

he house Rosalie had rented was a two-story square quasi-Colonial on Hanover Street not far from a mini strip mall. There was room for one car to park in a narrow driveway, and based on the snow-covered shape, a car, presumably Rosalie’s, was in the space. Officer Brownley wedged the patrol car up against the snow-packed curb. A small patch of lawn at the front of the property was blanketed in two feet of snow. No one had shoveled the path, so, with Officer Brownley following close behind me, I struggled to the front door. By the time I got there, my jeans were wet from above my knee-high boots to midthigh. I shivered.

It was an ordinary house in a middle-class neighborhood with no indication of affluence inside or out. Outside, I noticed that the shingles needed repainting. Inside, I saw that the furniture was well-used, mismatched hand-me-downs.

Standing just inside the front door, I recalled the time I’d asked Rosalie where she lived. It was last winter, the first time we’d gone out for lunch.

She’d laughed. “A low-end rental fit for a poor grad student. Consider yourself lucky—I’ll never invite you over, so you’ll never have to see it.”

I shook off the memory as I removed the lens cap from the video recorder. “Have the police taken anything?” I asked Officer Brownley.

She pulled out a pocket-sized spiral-bound notebook and found the page she wanted. “Some photos and her computer. It was a laptop, a Toshiba,” she said.

“Can I find out if there’s a file on the laptop that might mention her possessions? Lots of people keep an inventory.”

“I can ask,” she said, and made a note.

“Thanks. What kind of photos?”

“Why are you asking?”

“If they were art shots—professional photographs—they may have value and I need to include them in the appraisal.”

“Nothing like that. We only took some snapshots.”

Following the protocol I’d established for all Prescott’s appraisals, I recorded everything as I walked slowly through the house, room by room, creating a permanent video record annotated with my spoken observations. Officer Brownley trailed along.

The living room was decorated in early Americana with hooked rugs and Colonial-print fabrics. A quick once-over revealed nothing special except what appeared to be a machine-sewn nineteenth-century American flag framed in brick-colored wood. I counted twenty-three stars, configured in irregular straight rows on what seemed to be dark blue wool. There were thirteen stripes. From what I could tell, both the stars and stripes appeared to be made of either muslin or cotton.

There was an artichoke-shaped toss pillow on the sofa, artichoke-shaped finials on the lamps, and four reproduction artichoke botanical prints lined up on the back wall.

“I see what you mean about artichokes,” Officer Brownley remarked.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

In a small office off to the side, a scarred wooden desk was covered with papers. An unlocked two-drawer file cabinet was packed with neatly labeled Pendaflex folders and manila files. I flipped through—there were paid bills, school records, and old tax forms. We’d need to review everything to see if some letter or document of value was mixed in with the rest. For the recording, I listed what was visible and called out the names of the labeled files.

On a corner of the desk was a tall, skinny red leather album. Pasted into the first page was a 1940s-style Valentine’s Day card. Using a fingernail, I gentled it open. “To my darling,” someone had scrawled above the printed verse that promised everlasting fidelity, then below it, “With all my love, Chief.”

Chief!
I thought, recalling the diary entry.
Who is Chief?

On the next page snapshots of a country cottage were pasted at a jaunty angle next to a heart-shaped gift card reading, “Here’s my heart, don’t break it.” There were restaurant receipts; several cards, also signed by “Chief”; bits of ribbon and gift wrap; a neon-bright pink dried maple leaf; and the remnants of several colorful balloons. Someone, presumably Rosalie, had tracked several weeks’ or months’ worth of fun and romantic activities with the person called Chief. There was no indicator of whether the scrapbook was current or not.

“I’m taking the album in for examination,” Officer Brownley said in a tone that brooked no argument.

Fingerprints
, I thought.
Maybe DNA evidence as well
. “I’ll need a receipt and I want to record all the pages first.”

“I’ll write you out a receipt, no problem. Why do you want to record the pages?”

I shrugged. “Ephemera. Some of it might be valuable.”

“What’s ‘ephemera’?”

“Printed material. Usually it refers to everyday items made of paper—things like newspapers, flyers, post cards, theater programs, and,” I said, gesturing toward the scrapbook, “greeting cards.”

Officer Brownley nodded and held the pages open with the tips of her fingernails as I recorded each two-page spread, detailing what I saw for the audio recording.

I watched as she slipped the album into the same kind of plastic evidence bag Ty had used to protect the greeting card I’d found on my porch, and sealed it up. Seeing the bag brought back the shuddering fear I’d felt when I’d first discovered it. I focused on my breathing as Officer Brownley wrote out a receipt.

“Who do you think ‘Chief’ refers to?” she asked.

“No idea.”

I continued my work. Three wooden chairs circled the desk, a small television sat on an ancient stand, and a floor-to-ceiling bookcase was packed with books. I recorded everything, spotting nothing of interest. The books were mostly scholarly texts mixed with some novels and slim volumes of poetry. In the business we refer to them as reading copies, jargon for books that, no matter how well loved they may be, have little or no resale value.

With a final look around to confirm that I’d recorded everything, I walked into the kitchen. High up near the ceiling, someone, presumably Rosalie, had painted a playful border of angled artichokes intermingled with letters. I walked to the middle of the room and tried to make sense of it. Nothing. I slowly turned full around, recording it, seeking a logical explanation.
W
was the first letter on the front wall, followed by
GTSERH&
.

The letters
XCYXSJUW
appeared on the wall that abutted the dining room, then
GNFTJFEJ
. . . then
QSBPHIBO
, and then I circled back to
WGTSERH&
.

Could the letters be a kind of shorthand?
I wondered.
W.G. could be the initials of a friend, someone Rosalie was fond of from California, perhaps
. I shook my head.
I can make anything up. Did it mean anything that two of the series ended with an ampersand? Nah. Maybe she picked stencils at random
. I shrugged and took it in again, slowly this time, focusing on what it could mean.
It’s a code
, I realized in a flash.

“What do you make of it?” Officer Brownley asked, surprising me. She’d been so quiet, I’d forgotten she was there.

“I don’t know. A code maybe.”

She stared in puzzlement at the jumbled letters. “What kind of code?”

I twisted my head as I scanned the letters and considered her question. “I need to think about it.”

Continuing my survey, I recorded the artichoke-topped canister set to the left of the sink on the old red Formica counter. There was a decent etched glass vase and a book called
Making Cheese at Home
displayed on a small easel near the stove. Three pink Post-it Notes sticking out from the tops of pages caught my eye and I opened the book to the places they marked—the title page, a recipe for a hard Italian cheese, and instructions on whitewashing the walls of a cheese cellar.

The book had been autographed by the author. The inscription read,
For my friend and fellow cheese lover, Rosalie, with fond regards, M
., followed by the author’s full name,
Michelle Grover
. I replaced the book and continued my recording. The only other items on the counter were a toaster oven and an old-fashioned, much-used mixer. The dishes and glassware were chipped and mismatched. The flatware was stainless and cheap to begin with. The bowls, pots, and pans were old and of no value.

“Basement next,” I told Officer Brownley.

“Okay.”

The steps creaked. At the bottom of the stairs, I paused to look around. In the dim light cast by a low-wattage, dangling lightbulb, I could see enough to know that the stone-walled cellar was empty except for asbestos-covered pipes, an ancient boiler, and a small water heater. It smelled musty. I moved quickly, recording the near-barren space as I checked for doors that might lead to inner rooms. I found none and left, relieved to be aboveground.

“Nothing down there,” I remarked.

“Where next?” Officer Brownley asked.

Using my thumb, I gestured toward the second floor. Upstairs, I opened drawers and cabinets, examined closets, and looked under beds. I climbed the narrow staircase that led to the attic, recording everything, everywhere. There was nothing remarkable except that in one of the bedrooms, probably Rosalie’s, the bedspread featured a pattern of artichokes in baskets, a fabric no doubt intended for kitchen use.
She sure was hipped on artichokes
, I thought.

I took one last spin through the house to be certain that I hadn’t missed anything, packed up the files and papers in boxes I’d brought along, then led the way outside. The rush of cold air was a relief. I was glad to be out of there.

After stowing the boxes in the patrol car, Officer Brownley and I used our arms to brush the snow from Rosalie’s car trunk. I located the proper key and opened it.

Inside was standard winter gear—a shovel, a roll of paper towels, and a bag of kitty litter for traction in snow. The glove box drew a blank, too. I pulled out the car’s operating manual, a small ice scraper, a bottle of hand sanitizer, loose napkins, and a map of New England.

As I closed the car door and locked it, I began to feel dispirited. I’d invaded Rosalie’s privacy, and I’d found nothing of significant value. The best object was the flag, and I doubted it was worth more than a few thousand dollars. Yet I didn’t believe that nothing of value existed. I’d known Rosalie long enough to believe that she just wouldn’t have lied to her sister. Either the object was in another location or I’d missed something.

I wished I had the scrapbook in my possession, but comforted myself that I’d carefully recorded every element, and had confirmed that the inscriptions and verses were readable.
Who
, I wondered again,
is Rosalie’s Chief?

“Gretchen!” I said, when she answered with her cheery greeting. “It’s me.”

“Oh, hi! Are you done already?”

I glanced at the clock on the car dashboard—I rarely wear a watch since it always seems to get in the way when I work—and saw that it was only ten-thirty. “Yeah, that wasn’t too bad, was it? Less than two hours.”

“Well, we’ve been busy!”

“Oh, yeah? How so?”

“That girl, Lesha? She stopped by with a letter giving someone Whistler’s palette as a gift.”

“Interesting. What else?”

“Someone came by with a truckload of furniture to sell.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“I don’t know. Fred bought the lot of it. He’s right here. Do you want to talk to him?”

“No, just ask him if there’s anything special. I’ll hold on.”

“Fred—Josie wants to know if any of the pieces you bought today were special.” Her voice was muffled, but I could still make out the words. I couldn’t hear Fred’s reply, but in a few seconds, Gretchen came back on the line.

“He doesn’t think so,” she said. “A davenport of unknown origin.”

“Sofa or desk?”

“Desk.”

I wondered what shape it was in. Even davenport repros could have significant value if they were well made and in good condition. The desk style is delightful—first designed, it was thought, by Captain Josiah Davenport in 1790 for his use on a trans-Atlantic journey, the original had been produced by a maker named Gillows. Over the centuries the term
davenport
has evolved to refer to any small desk with multiple storage compartments. I wondered what the one Fred had purchased looked like and fought an inclination to get him on the phone and ask. “Tell him I’ll catch up with him later.”

“Will do!”

“Rosalie had an office at Hitchens, so I’m going to check it out.”

“You know where
I’ll
be!” she said, a tinkle of laughter in her voice.

I slipped my phone into my bag, shut my eyes, and leaned back, trying to relax. I could feel the tension in my neck and shoulders, as if strips of steel had replaced muscle. My thoughts flitted from wondering what Wes, the
Seacoast Star
reporter, was learning from his sources to hoping that Paige was staying strong, and from trying to figure out my secret admirer’s identity to worrying about the unwanted attention I was receiving from Paul. I lifted my shoulders and lowered them several times, but the stone-hard tension remained.

Whistler’s palette came into my mind. I could picture the artist painting, daubing his long brush.
Sasha should learn about Whistler
, I thought,
before she focuses on the wood. We don’t even know if he
used
a palette! Or if he had some work habits that, if discovered, would shed light on the palette’s authenticity
.

I opened my eyes and watched as we passed thick stands of conifers dotted with snow.

My thoughts strayed to Edie Fine. Was it possible that this wasn’t the first time Gerry had strayed? Perhaps it wasn’t the sexual aspect of their affair that enraged her, but the emotional intimacy they evidently shared. From what I read in Rosalie’s diary, Rosalie was over the moon about him. Edie might be inured to her husband’s philandering, but the thought of his actually loving a stunning young woman like Rosalie was a whole different kettle of fish. Suddenly I realized that it didn’t matter whether Rosalie and Gerry had
actually
been involved or not—the relevant fact was whether Edie
thought
they had. And
when
she first reached that conclusion. Perception, I knew, trumped reality.