Books of a Feather (23 page)

It was surprising how many sociopaths we'd come into contact with recently and I wondered if we were tossing that word around too freely. All I really knew about Bai was that he seemed extremely insecure and narcissistic at the same time. He was manipulative and his sense of entitlement was off the charts. I thought again about my conversation at lunch the day before. “I worry about Crane.”

“I do, too,” he said, still brooding. “Did he tell you about the nickname Bai came up with in school?”

“No. What's that all about?”

He shook his head at the recollection. “When Bai found out that Crane had a rather cool nickname, he began telling everyone that he had a nickname, too.”

“Just like Crane. Hmm. So what was Bai's nickname?”

“It's
Què
.” Derek pronounced it “Cheh.” “Crane told me his mother really did give Bai that nickname. The problem was, Bai told everyone at school that the word meant ‘eagle' in Chinese, and he wanted them all to call him Eagle from that moment on.”

“I'm almost afraid to ask what happened.”

“First of all, nobody would call him Eagle. It just doesn't suit him.”

“No, it really doesn't.”

“And when Crane got wind of it, he nearly laughed his head off.”

“Why?”

“Because
Què
in Chinese actually means ‘magpie.'”

“Magpie. The bird?” I tried not to snicker, but it was hard. “Magpie is kind of a silly nickname.”

“Only in our culture,” he said. “In Chinese culture, the magpie is honored for all the joy it brings. It symbolizes happiness and luck. When a magpie nests on your property, it's supposed to attract marriage and children. It can also attract money. It has other meanings as well, and they're all quite joyful.”

“So his mother's nickname for him was a wonderful bird, too,” I said. “It just doesn't translate quite as well in English as Crane does.”

“No, not at all.” Derek smiled. “I remember Crane tormented him by calling him Magpie in public. Bai honestly looked as though he wanted to kill him.”

I gazed at Derek and repeated myself. “I worry about Crane.”

“I do, too, but I know he'll be fine.” After a few seconds, he tried for a lighter tone. “You had a good time at lunch?”

“A wonderful time,” I said. “But I'm really concerned about his brother's obsession with the Audubon exhibit at the Covington.”

“Yes. Crane said that Bai calls it the Audubon shame.”

“That's ridiculous.”

Derek gave a brusque wave of his hand. “Yes. But this is what I'm talking about. Bai's always been this way, stirring up trouble where he thinks he can get something out of it.”

I rubbed my stomach. “That's how I felt when he told me about their mother being afraid of Crane.”

“I hate hearing that,” Derek said, clenching his teeth. “That's exactly what I'm talking about. That's why I still don't trust him. I have great affection for Crane, but he has a blind spot toward his brother. I wish I could convince him that Bai has not changed for the better.”

“If nothing else,” I said, “Bai is hurting his family, especially Crane.”

“Hurting Crane was always Bai's greatest joy,” Derek said.

“But why?”

He shrugged. “For being born first.”

I couldn't understand it and wondered if it had to do with cultural differences again. “It's such a waste of emotion. Crane can hardly help being born first.”

“No, of course not, but there you go. He was also jealous that Crane was born in Hong Kong and has dual citizenship.”

“How did he get dual citizenship?”

“It's because his mother is half English and has dual citizenship herself. So since Crane was born in Hong Kong, she was able to obtain the same for him. But Bai was born in China, so he received no special treatment.”

“What does it matter, though?” I wondered. “He has money. He can still travel all he wants.”

“He wants whatever Crane has.”

I had to pause and let that sink in. “That's just sad. So Crane has prestige and friends and respect at all levels of society and—”

“And Bai doesn't want to work for it or earn it, as Crane has done. He wants the shortcut. He's constantly trying to get it by causing trouble. That way he gets attention, which in his mind translates to a twisted sort of prestige.”

Derek poured a touch more wine in each of our glasses, and I took a small sip. “I'm surprised to hear how you feel about him because you've never said a word to Crane about anything you just told me.”

Derek shook his head. “It would hurt him too much.”

I reached out and squeezed his hand. “You're a good friend.”

He sighed. “I just think the sooner Crane can get his brother back to China, the better off things will be for him.”

I wasn't so sure Crane would be able to convince Bai to go, especially after our conversation at lunch yesterday. “I'm a little worried about Ian, too. What will he do if Bai stirs up controversy over this imagined insult to his ancestor's honor?”

“Ian can handle it, don't you think?”

I smiled. “Ian does love publicity, even if it's scandalous. But I just can't see Bai's endgame.” I fiddled with the stem of my glass, working out the theory. “To be fair, the story could be true. James Audubon could've used Sheng's talent to his own benefit. I imagine it used to happen all the time.”

“Of course it did.”

“And I wouldn't blame the family for wanting Sheng to get his due credit. But then, why not write an article for a journal or something? Why is Bai interested in attacking the Covington?”

“Because by hurling ugly accusations at a revered institution, he'll get more attention.”

I exhaled in frustration. “But it all happened such a long time ago. I mean, it was two hundred years ago, and it was in England. How can Bai truly prove anything? What does he hope to accomplish?”

“We've been over this before,” he said. “He wants to create havoc. It's what he's good at. It's what he did at Eton and he's never stopped.”

“So a leopard doesn't change his spots?”

He smiled. “I know it's a cliché, but in this case, the old saying still applies.”

Which only made me worry more for Crane.

•   •   •

Derek and I spent a domestic weekend together, just the two of us, cleaning and doing other chores around the house. There were errands to run and Derek insisted that he do them himself rather than have me expose myself to some homicidal maniac bent on running me over.

Happily, I was able to convince him that I would be safe inside a huge furniture warehouse store as long as he was there to protect me. The place was miles outside the city, so we took a nice drive and then shopped for furniture for our new rooms.

Since we'd already furnished the bedroom my parents had stayed in, we decided to set up the second new bedroom as a sitting room with bookshelves and a comfortable couch and chairs. The couch would pull out to a bed in case we needed the extra sleeping space.

Derek and I chatted and laughed all the way home over our new domestic-bliss lifestyle. Somewhere near Walnut Creek, Derek noticed a black BMW following us. When he sped up, the other car did the same. This continued for several long miles until the BMW took the Berkeley off-ramp and disappeared.

“False alarm,” he muttered, but the incident reminded us that we needed to be vigilant at all times.

Despite that momentary dark cloud, we both admitted we were having fun and we vowed to spend at least one day a week doing all those little things that made life worth living.

And I further vowed to hire a cleaning service, because as far as I was concerned,
that
was a major key to making life worth living.

•   •   •

Monday, Derek went back to work and so did I. I had plenty of books to work on, but I wanted to make one more pass over
Songbirds in Trees
. Something had been niggling at my brain over the weekend. Something I'd barely noticed at the Covington on Friday. Now I needed to double-check my facts.

I wasn't happy that it was Bai who had caused me to reexamine something I normally would have taken into consideration from the very first time I looked at the book. But these weren't normal circumstances.

I paged through the beginning of the book and found the copyright page. There was no author attribution, which was unusual. There was a publisher, of course, although I'd never heard of it. Under the publisher's name was the city of publication, Edinburgh, Scotland. And there was a copyright date of 1857. I wondered how many copies had been published at that time.

Ordinarily, one of the first things I would do was check the copyright page of any book I was working on. But with
Songbirds in Trees
, I had just assumed it was an Audubon book because Jared Mulrooney had said so. Also, the damage to the interior of the book had been so extensive that I'd been hesitant to open it until I actually started working on it. Even then, I hadn't glanced to see when the book was published. I accepted full blame for the oversight, although I did concede that I'd had way too many distractions lately.

But staring at the date made me wonder if the book might be much more valuable than I'd originally thought. Yes, supposedly it had been illustrated by Audubon—according to Jared—but I still
hadn't considered it to be particularly rare because Jared had also mentioned that it only had sentimental value to the National Bird-watchers Society members.

With no author credit listed, why had Jared Mulrooney attributed this book to Audubon? Had the bookseller told him so? Or had Jared researched the book's provenance?

I did a quick search on the computer and found out that Audubon died six years before the publication date. That didn't mean anything in particular, of course. His sons or his publisher might have been responsible for having the book assembled and published. But I could find no record of this particular book being a part of the Audubon bibliography. In fact, I could find no record of this book anywhere. None of my rare-book sites had it listed in their inventory. That fact made me wonder again how many copies had been published.

The fact that it was published in Scotland was notable because several of Audubon's paintings were first engraved in Scotland. He then went to London to work with Robert Havell, a well-known engraver who had helped produce Audubon's first publication.

I was beginning to see that Bai's theory might have some credence. Besides all the contradictory information surrounding the publication and authorship of the book, I had personally found a number of distinct differences in the painting styles of the larger Audubon book versus the smaller one in my possession.

And according to Crane, his ancestor Sheng had spent some time working in Scotland. Had he illustrated some of the birds in this smaller book? And despite his contributions, had the work still been attributed to Audubon? The problem was that I had no way of determining, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that these paintings had been done by Sheng—or anyone else, for that matter.

I needed to do more research. Were there other books or paintings that had been attributed to the Chinese artist? Would I be able to tell the difference between Sheng's work and that of James Audubon?

And if Sheng's work had been co-opted by the great Audubon, were there other painters who had suffered the same fate? And why did it matter? Hadn't they all been hired specifically to help Audubon complete his masterwork? There was no subterfuge. Was there?

And if there was, how would we find out? And what did it matter? I asked myself for the hundredth time.

Staring at the bluebird on the cover, I suddenly remembered Socrates McCall railing against Audubon in favor of his hero Alexander Wilson. I'd forgotten all about him. What if this book had been illustrated by Wilson? And again I asked myself, what did it matter?

It mattered to me because I loved solving these kinds of wonderful bookish mysteries. There was always a chance that these vague threads of stories and details might lead to a bigger story with a grand solution.

Or maybe not. But I was having fun.

I chuckled as I packed up my satchel, locked up the house, and drove off to the Covington.

•   •   •

I went straight to Ian's office, and his charming and efficient assistant, Wylie, told me to go right in.

“I need your help,” I said, as I crossed his large, luxurious, art-filled office.

Ian stood and bowed. “I'm here to serve.”

I chuckled at his sarcasm. “I'd like to study the Audubon book
up close. It won't take long. Can you close down the exhibit for a little while?”

He snorted. “You're such a diva. What's this all about?”

I recognized the irony of my request, given that I'd criticized Bai for thinking he could pull off the same thing. I reached into my satchel for
Songbirds in Trees
and showed it to him. “This is supposedly attributed to Audubon, but his name doesn't appear anywhere in the book. I have no idea if he painted these birds or not.”

He studied the book cover from all angles. “This is sweet.”

“This is the one Jared Mulrooney gave me the night he died.”

“Oh, yeah.” He opened up the book and stared at the first few drawings. “I never took a good look at it beyond seeing the damage he'd done. You did an amazing job. It looks pristine.”

“Thanks. I live for your praise. But look at the paintings themselves.”

He took a good look at several of them. “They do look different than Audubon's.”

“I think so, too. It might just be the smaller canvas. Or a different type of paper that holds the color better.”

He held the book up to the light. “It's not a different paper,” he murmured.