“Your father’s painting might help us figure out exactly what was and wasn’t destroyed in the fire,” Emma said.
Ainsley gasped. “We could be talking about a forty-year-old murder or fraud case—or both—couldn’t we?”
Lucas walked over to the garden and stood next to Emma. “We’re pulling out all the stops to find out everything we can about Claire’s family art collection and what happened to it.”
Emma noticed her brother’s tight, controlled response—traits when he was holding back.
He squatted down and plucked a few oversize hunks of crabgrass. “I was up late last night and early this morning working.”
“And?” Ainsley asked. “You obviously know something, Lucas.”
“Claire’s grandfather was in the Netherlands in the chaos after World War II.” Lucas’s voice was steady, professional, as he flung the crabgrass into the tall brush on the other side of the driveway. “He bought a painting and had it shipped back to the States. He and the seller assumed it was a fake Rembrandt.”
“It was never appraised?” Emma asked.
“There’s no record that it was, or of what happened to it. If it was good enough for him to go to the trouble of buying and shipping home, it’s doubtful he’d have just trashed it.”
Ainsley clung to her fiancé. “Do you think it was here?”
“She could have brought it with her from Chicago,” Lucas said, “or her grandfather could have had it here, since she inherited the house from him.”
“Then it burned in the fire,” Gabe said.
“Maybe.” Lucas reached for more crabgrass, as if he had nothing more important on his mind than weeding. “Ainsley, you got a look at your father’s painting. Could the art in this garden gallery include a possible Rembrandt?”
“I wouldn’t know.” She was shaking visibly, her knuckles white as she tightened her grip on Gabe’s arm. “The painting was yellowed and dirty, and I wouldn’t be able to distinguish a Rembrandt from a who-knows-who.”
Colin looked over at Lucas. “How’d you find out all this?”
“We’re art crime investigators,” he said stiffly. “It’s what we Sharpes do.”
“Okay,” Colin said, not pushing for more information.
Lucas sighed, his tension easing. “I spoke to a colleague in Chicago. Emma worked with him on a case when she was in Dublin, before she joined the FBI. More people have questions about a possible Rembrandt in their collection than any other artist’s work.”
“He had a lot of students who painted in his style,” Emma said. “That’s added to the confusion over the years. His students’ paintings are in high demand and can sell for a good deal, although nowhere near what an original Rembrandt would. His work is also frequently copied. Even a good copy can bring a decent price.”
Ainsley, more under control, released her grip on Gabe. “An undiscovered, authenticated Rembrandt painting would sell for substantially more than a painting by Claire Grayson—or my father.”
“How much more?” Colin asked.
Emma answered him. “Rembrandts sell at auction for tens of millions of dollars.”
Gabe’s eyebrows went up. “A lot more.”
Lucas nodded grimly. “That kind of money could motivate someone to go to great lengths to find out if a Rembrandt escaped the fire that killed Claire Grayson.”
Ainsley was fascinated but pale. “Do the police know?”
Lucas dusted loose dirt off his hands. “I’m on my way to talk to CID now,” he said, then glanced at Colin and Emma, “and I just told the FBI.”
CHAPTER 32
COLIN FOUND A KEY TO THE RUN-DOWN RECTORY in Rock Point where Finian Bracken lived and let himself in through the back door. He’d left Emma in Heron’s Cove to talk Rembrandts with her brother. She and Lucas both knew that troubled Claire Grayson had asked their grandfather how to authenticate a work of art. Had Claire guessed, or even just hoped, she might have a genuine Rembrandt in her possession? What about Wendell Sharpe?
Putting aside his questions, Colin entered the rectory kitchen. Bracken had pulled the plug on his electric kettle, and he either hadn’t turned on the rectory’s heat yet this fall or he’d turned it off while he was out of town. Colin opened the refrigerator. He didn’t know what he expected to find there, but it was better stocked than either his or Emma’s. Plain yogurt, plums, imported Irish butter, eggs, slab bacon, parsnips and celery. There were onions and an enormous rutabaga on the counter.
He didn’t find any whiskey in the cupboards.
He continued through the prosaic dining room, living room and library, then mounted the stairs to the three small bedrooms and bathroom.
Finian Bracken might be rich, but he lived a simple life as a priest.
On a scratched nightstand, Colin noticed a key to Bracken’s office next door at the church, but he didn’t want to run into any of the church ladies while he was searching their priest’s office.
He didn’t know what he was looking for, anyway, or even why he was here.
He headed back down the carpeted stairs. It’d been a hell of a night on the sofa bed in his study, with the thin mattress, metal bars and no Emma. He’d been restless after the long flights to and from Ireland, but he wasn’t about to go upstairs and make love to Emma just because he wanted to burn off a little excess energy.
He heard a sound down the hall and found Bracken in the musty dining room. He wasn’t wearing a collar, just a sweater and khakis. “I didn’t pick out the furniture,” he said with an enigmatic smile.
“I hope not.”
He patted the lace-covered oval table. “The tablecloth is Irish. I think Jimmy Callaghan ordered it when he was getting nostalgic about the homeland.”
“Waste of time searching the damn place if nothing in here is yours.”
“This is mine.” Bracken walked over to the sideboard and picked up a small dark wood case. “It’s an antique Sikes hydrometer. I bought it during my distillery days. It’s one of the few things I’ve
