Jane Cleland - Consigned to Death

“It depends on how easy it is for me to access relevant data. Anywhere from a couple of hours to a couple of days.”

He nodded and tapped his pen on the edge of the table. “Obviously, sooner would be better than later.”

I nodded. “I’ll get started as soon as we’re done. Do you have a preference-the Cezanne or the Matisse?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head.

“Then what?” Max asked.

“Then we’ll make an offer that I hope won’t be refused.”

“To whom?” I asked.

Alverez shook his head. “One step at a time.” He stood up. “Let’s get the paintings back here.” He reached over and punched the Off button on the recorder and pulled out the tape. “I’ll get Cathy to make a copy of this while we’re gone.”

Max and I waited outside under thickening clouds while Alverez spoke to Cathy. When he was ready, we drove in his SUV to the Grant house, greeted Griff, standing guard on the porch, and made our way down the basement steps. Walking through the shadowy light of the solitary hanging lightbulbs, we entered the small room that housed the leather trunk. Retrieving the two paintings was anticlimactic.

They lay untouched, as I’d positioned them. The three of us stood silently for several moments looking at the Cezanne, which rested on top. Alverez rolled them up, one at a time and placed them in a military-style duffle bag he’d brought with him.

I watched as Alverez extracted the receipt Cathy had prepared and Max had approved from an inside pocket. We watched as he signed it and handed it over.

“Fax me a copy,” Max said as I accepted it. “Okay?”

“Sure.”

With no further conversation, we left. We said good-bye to Griff and walked around the house to the side alley. As Alverez drove along the ocean to the Rocky Point police station, I looked up at the sky. The clouds were leaden, and the air smelled like rain.

After depositing the paintings in the police station safe, Alverez followed us to the parking lot. Max patted my shoulder, shook Alverez’s hand, and walked to his car. Alverez and I watched without speaking as he pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward Portsmouth.

“You okay?” Alverez asked.

I nodded. I thought I felt a drop of rain, but it was hard to tell. The air was thick with moisture. “Yeah. Things just feel kind of strange, you know?”

“In what way?”

“Giving you the paintings. Not understanding what’s going on.” I shrugged. “I don’t know. The entire situation.”

“Things will straighten out pretty soon.”

“You think?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I do.”

I wondered whether he was offering standard-issue polite reassurance or if he meant it. I didn’t know him well enough to gauge his attitude toward providing skittish women support. Maybe he mouthed words of comfort with the same insouciance that I answered “Fine” when a stranger asked “How are you?”

Glancing at him, I found his eyes on me, watching me intently. No, I thought, whatever else might be going on, I had to believe that his comments were personal to me, and that he intended me to feel safe and cared for.

I smiled. He smiled back, and we stood like that, leaning against my car, looking at one another, smiling, until the rain began in earnest.

“It’s raining,” I said, realizing that I’d left my umbrella upstairs in my office. “I’d better go.”

He held my car door until I was inside, then closed it. I lowered the window. “You’re getting wet,” I said. “You should go inside.”

“I will. Call and let me know how the research is going. Okay?”

I told him that I would, and backed out of the space. As I turned north, I glanced back over my shoulder and spotted him still standing in the middle of the parking lot. I waved good-bye and turned my attention to the road. The rain was coming steadily now and streams of water threatened to block my view.

When I got back to the warehouse about 4:30, it was as dark as night, and the rain showed no signs of letting up.

Gretchen was showing a young man, Fred, I supposed, the corner where we kept the coffee machine, a microwave, and a small refrigerator. Sasha tapped the keys on the computer at the spare desk.

“Did you forget your umbrella again?” Gretchen asked as I ran inside.

“Yeah,” I said. “And it’s raining like the dickens.”

“It’s gotten so dark, hasn’t it?” Gretchen agreed, looking out of the window. “Are you okay?”

“Yup. Just damp.” I turned to the man standing next to her. He was short and narrow chested, in his mid-twenties maybe, and he wore glasses in black squared-off frames. He looked like a nerd.

“You must be Fred,” I said, smiling and offering a hand. “I’m Josie.”

“Hello,” he said vaguely, as if he wasn’t quite sure who I was.

“Do you have everything you need so far?”

“Yes, everything’s very clear.”

“Good. Hey, Sasha. Are you doing all right?”

Always shy and self-effacing, Sasha gave a quick grin, as if she didn’t want to show pleasure, but couldn’t help herself. “Yeah. Great.” She turned back to the computer.

“I’ll let you guys get back to it,” I said. “I have some work to do upstairs. Fred, you and I will go over the research protocol in the morning, okay?”

“Sure.”

I climbed to my office and got settled at my desk, ready to research the paintings’ value. Since Alverez had said that it didn’t matter which painting I selected, I decided that I’d go with whichever one seemed to be the easiest to research.

A quick survey of our subscription sites suggested that there was a fair amount of activity surrounding Matisse’s paintings and sculptures, so I decided to proceed with Notre-Dame in the Morning.

The data was confusing. Recent auction prices for Matisse paintings ranged from a low of just over $1 million to a high of $12 million, with no obvious reason for the disparity. After an hour of gathering more and more information, but not perceiving a pattern, I stretched, and decided I needed outside help.

I called a former colleague from Frisco’s in New York, one of the few people who’d been decent to me during my last months in New York. She’d even called me once in New Hampshire, just to say hello.

“Shelly,” I said, when I had her, “it’s Josie.”

“Oh, my God. Josie! How are you? I can’t believe it. Is everything fine? You’re coming back, right? We miss you!”

I laughed, and said, “You’re so sweet, Shelly. Thank you. But, no, I’m staying put up here in New Hampshire. You have to come up and see my operation sometime.”

“Yeah, right. When the cows come home.”

“Don’t be such a snob. New Hampshire’s beautiful.”

“Next time you’re in town, bring pictures.”

We chatted about personnel changes at Frisco’s and Shelly’s new apartment, my company and her boyfriend, vacation plans, and old friends’ whereabouts. Finally, I explained why I was calling, and asked her how she would interpret the data.

All business, she asked prodding questions about which painting I was pricing, which I deflected, and finally, gave me the name of a London dealer, Ian Cummings, who was, she said, the leading expert in the field.

Hanging up, I was surprised to feel stabbing homesickness. I lowered my head and waited for the wave of isolation and loss to pass. Get over it , I told myself, move on. stop thinking . After a moment, I sat up and shook off the despondency that threatened to pull me down. I was rebuilding my life, I reminded myself, and doing so rather nicely. I looked at the clock. It was too late to call London, so I made a note for first thing in the morning.

Instead of calling the dealer, I called Mrs. Cabot at the Sheraton, and got her. She sounded tired. “We’re making good progress with the appraisal,” I told her.