Mariah Stewart - Last Breath

“Easy enough to check.” She opened her folder. “Here’s the list of items we’re missing. Let’s see what matches up.”

Daria took the chair next to Connor and handed back his papers. “What’s first on your list?”

Connor picked up the top sheet of paper and read, “Bronze and gold figure of woman believed to be high priestess of Ereshkigal. Circa 1000 B.C. Shandihar. Gift of Celina Shaw, 1965.”

Daria scanned the list she’d made of the missing objects.

“Bronze and gold priestess. Check.” She glanced up from the list. “Where is it?”

“In the Raines Gallery in Boston.”

“Great. What else?”

“Large silver jug. Circa 900 B.C. Shandihar. On loan from a private collector, 1998. The William Joseph Peaks Gallery, St. Louis.”

“Silver jug…large. Yes, got it.” She tapped her pen on her bottom lip. “I wonder if we can get the gallery to tell us who the owner is.”

“If you can’t, we can.” He leaned against the back of the chair. “I’m still not sure we shouldn’t turn this over to the art-theft people. I understand all your reasons, and I respect the fact that you want to protect the owners. But the more I think about it, the less I think anyone is going to simply hand something over to you. I mean, why would they?”

The pen continued to tap away on her lip.

“Because somewhere along the line, these artifacts came into the mainstream through the back door. At some point, there was an illegal sale, and no respectable collector or gallery wants their name sullied. No one wants to be suspected of having bought from the black market, or from a shady dealer.”

“These people, who probably paid large sums of money for the pieces they bought, are going to believe you…why?”

“Because I’ll have the journals with me, I can show them-”

“Yeah, yeah, the journals. The inventories. Daria, that sort of thing can be faked.”

“Well, then, I’ll have you with me.”

“You are very naïve if you think that you’re going to walk out of anyone’s house with any of these artifacts in your hands.”

“I never expected that to happen. What I expect is that people will call their lawyers, who will then call the university, their lawyers will talk to Howe’s lawyers, and things will go from there. There will be meetings, negotiations, that sort of thing. In the end, I suspect that some of the pieces will be ‘donated’ to the university by the present owners. Besides giving them the cachet of being donors, it gives them a healthy tax write-off and the opportunity to get some very positive press when the museum is ready to open. Howe is more likely to see the return of at least some of the items that way.”

“That makes sense. I think.”

“Look, you have to understand the people who collect these things. They invest a lot of money to have something that no one else has.”

“All the more reason not to hand it over because some very pretty woman rings the doorbell and asks for it.”

“They’ll respond better to me-someone who understands the piece, who understands the way the market works-than they will to having a couple of badges waved in their face. One badge makes it official business. More than one badge makes people think they’re about to be arrested. Plus, when given the choice between having your reputation damaged and the chance to come out looking like a philanthropist, most people are going to choose door number two.”

“All right. We’ll try it your way and see what happens.” His eyes dropped to the report. “A pair of bronze griffins…are these the ones you mentioned earlier?”

“No, those were gold. Where are the bronzes?”

“The Hollenbach Gallery in Chicago. Purchased through the gift of Emory and Doris Wilcox, 1951.”

“They’re not going to want to give those back if they purchased them. That one might have to go to your team of experts,” Daria told him. “If the piece is on loan, the gallery or museum doesn’t have to make a decision; they can just refer back to the owner. But if funds were spent to purchase the item, you have a board of directors to be dealt with, and you might have corporate issues. Those pieces could end up in litigation.”

“So let’s put together a list of the items we’re going to go after, and I’ll turn the others over to the Bureau.”

“All right,” she said with some reluctance. “It’s probably for the best. Let’s see what else you have.”

They worked through the rest of the list and by two-thirty, Connor had called John Mancini, explained the situation, and promised to e-mail a list of the items and their present locations when he got back to his motel room.

When he got off the phone, he told Daria, “I know you hated having to do that, but look at it this way, once the Bureau gets involved, you can use that to reason with the private collectors.”

“You can deal with me quietly now and we can resolve this, or I’m going to have to turn it over to the FBI. They’re already on the case, but I thought it better for you personally if we handled this matter between you and the university…” She talked it out. “Makes them feel as if they’re being given special treatment.”

“Exactly.”

“All right. We’ll try that.” She slid the folder into her shoulder bag and said, “So we’re headed to Centerville first, right? Damian Cross and his statue of the goddess?”

“That’s a good place to start. You know how to get there?”

“Roughly.”

“Roughly, eh?” He stood and gathered the papers from the table. “I don’t suppose that rental car of yours has GPS?”

She frowned. “What does GPS mean?”

“It means we’re taking my car.”

The main road leading to Centerville, Delaware, was tree-lined and cool, even under the August sun. Many of the houses Connor drove past were set on wide lawns, the air of wealth and privilege more pervasive than the humidity. Here and there, private lanes led over gently rolling hills that hid handsome homes from curious eyes. Large estates, their boundaries marked by the ubiquitous split-rail fences, sat quietly in the distance.

“I’ve been through this area before,” Daria noted, “when I was younger. One of my aunts took Iona and me.”

She pointed to a sign on the left side of the road.

“That’s Winterthur, down that lane. It’s a museum. It was the home of one of the DuPonts, but I don’t know which one,” she told him. “It houses a world-famous collection of American art and furniture. The grounds are magnificent.”

“Open to the public?”

“Yes.” She turned in her seat as they passed what seemed to be endless fields surrounding the old estate, which wasn’t visible from the road. “I’d like to go back while I’m in the area. I’d like to see it through adult eyes. I imagine I’ll have a different sort of appreciation for their displays. I remember being so impressed with the house, the one time I was there. I must have been nine or so, and we’d just come back from a summer trekking around some ruins somewhere in the Mediterranean, I can’t even remember which ones. So when our aunt told us she was taking us to see a famous old American house, well, of course, we were expecting something completely different.”

“You expected to find ruins.” Connor’s mouth tilted in a smile.

“Exactly.” Daria grinned. “Imagine our surprise when we arrived at this very elegant, gracious manor house, surrounded by beautiful gardens and woods. And inside, the loveliest furniture, paintings, china. My sister and I felt like total bumpkins.”

“Maybe we’ll get to go sometime soon. You can take me on a tour.” Connor glanced at the GPS monitor. “We take the next left.”