I stared at Wes. Was it possible that a forty-year-old argument had anything to do with Mr. Grant’s death? It was hard to believe that a long-ago altercation could be relevant today. Turning my attention to the sea, I looked at the whitecaps shimmering in the now-bright sun. I remembered Max asking Alverez why he was interrogating me about the jewelry in my safe. Alverez had said that until he knew what was going on, it was impossible to know what was a tangent and what was a clue. Dana’s departure had been so remarkable, it was etched in the community’s memory even after forty years. An event that memorable might, in fact, have repercussions that rippled through the generations.
“That kind of breach between parents and a child, it’s sad, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Wes answered with a shrug, seeming not to care much one way or the other. “I guess. But I bet that her half of thirty million dollars will help heal a lot of wounds.”
“Don’t be cynical,” I said. “It’s sad, and that’s that.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I gotta tell you, Wes, that my head is spinning a little from all this information. But I’m not sure whether any of it is relevant.”
“Me either. I just provide the facts, ma’am. Just the facts.”
“Good point.”
“Plus which, there’s more.”
“What?”
The sun was warming the air, and Wes paused to unbutton his jacket. I followed suit. He offered me some more coffee, and I accepted a little. He poured himself a full mug. “Stardust” resonated through the speakers.
“Want another doughnut?” he asked.
“No, thanks.” Three-quarters of my first one rested on a nearby napkin. “So, what else?”
“Seems Mrs. Grant ran a tight ship. One of the things she did was keep a detailed record of purchases.”
“What kind of purchases?”
“Everything. Appliances, antiques, dry cleaning. Even milk, bread, and gasoline. Everything.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, a little anal, wouldn’t you say?”
“She probably grew up poor. You know what I mean… like how for some people who survived the Depression, watching pennies was a way of life.”
“Yeah, whatever. The point is, she listed everything in big ledgers. By category, in chronological order by date of acquisition.”
“So?”
“So the police experts have accounted for everything on the ledger except two things.”
“What?”
“Two paintings-one by Cezanne and one by Matisse.”
“You’re kidding!” I exclaimed.
“Nope.”
“What paintings?”
Consulting his notes, he said, “Apples in a Blue Bowl with Grapes. That’s the Cezanne. The Matisse is called
I shook my head. “Think about it… a Renoir, a Cezanne, and a Matisse.”
“Good taste, huh?”
“When were they purchased?”
“September of 1945.”
“Where?”
Wes shook his head. “Only initials. Apparently Mrs. Grant used a kind of shorthand. I guess since she knew where they bought things, she didn’t bother spelling everything out.” He shrugged. “According to my source, the paintings were purchased from an ‘A.Z.’ ”
I nodded. “Sounds like a private party. You know, some person’s initials. Were all three paintings bought at the same time?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s hard to picture, isn’t it? At the end of the war, with everything going on, can you imagine buying art?”
“Who knows the circumstances? Things were completely chaotic over there. Maybe the Grants were helping a friend by taking the paintings off his hands when he needed hard cash, not art.”
I nodded, letting Wes think he was making a valid point. I was willing to bet that the Cezanne and the Matisse would be on the Swiss Web site’s listing of pillaged art, alongside the Renoir, and flirted with the idea of telling him about it. I decided to stay quiet. My knowledge of the Renoir’s provenance was the only leverage I retained. Once revealed, its usefulness was gone. At some point, I might need to parlay what I knew for something, so it made no sense to offer it for free. Right now I had nothing to gain and, potentially, everything to lose.
“Maybe,” I answered finally. “How much did they pay?”
“Ten thousand each. In U.S. dollars. Cash.”
“Wow. They paid in cash?”
“Right. I bet most transactions in Europe at the end of the war were in cash.”
“That makes sense. But would they be in U.S. dollars?”
“I guess the U.S. dollar was primo even back then.”
“Interesting,” I mused. “But only ten thousand dollars? Even for sixty years ago that sounds like a bargain. I wonder how much that would be in today’s dollars?”
“I looked it up,” Wes said, unfolding his paper to check the figure. “Close to a hundred grand. Each.”
“That’s unbelievable.”
“Cheap, huh?”
“Just a little,” I responded, opening my eyes wide and shaking my head, astonished.
“How much are they worth today?”
I shrugged. “I’d need to do research to be sure. There are lots of variables. But in 1999, a Cezanne sold at auction for more than sixty million.”
Wes stared, disbelieving. “You’re kidding.”
“No. So if you bought a Cezanne for a hundred thousand dollars today, it would be fair to say that you got, ahem, a good buy.”
“But we don’t know the going price for a Cezanne back then.”
“No,” I acknowledged. “If I remember right, though, in the mid-1940s, a master would have sold for something like a few hundred thousand dollars.”
“In other words, it’s safe to assume that ten thousand dollars was low.”
“Probably, but not necessarily. Sometimes art appreciates exponentially, sometimes prices stay flat, and sometimes, prices even decline. It’s pure capitalism. Art sells for what a buyer will pay, and no more.” I shrugged. “The bottom line is that there’s no way to tell without extensive research what Cezannes sold for back then.”
“If it’s that complicated, how do you set prices?”
“Recency is a big factor. I can do a good job of accurately predicting today’s values by looking at sales of similar items over the recent past-unless something has occurred to impact value-up or down. For instance, if a great artist’s studio burns to the ground along with half of his works, whatever still exists is likely to shoot up in value. On the other hand, if an artist painted in a certain genre or style that falls out of favor, who knows why, the marketability of the paintings might plummet. That said, if all things are equal, the fact that a Cezanne sold for sixty million dollars in the last few years tells me that a similar piece is likely to go for many millions now-even if sixty million dollars is an aberration. But there are so many other factors to consider-provenance, historical value, condition, and so on.” I flipped a hand. “The point is that not knowing what Cezannes typically sold for during the war, I have no way of knowing whether the Grants got a bargain or not.”
He nodded. “And the Matisse? How much would it have sold for?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. A lot.”
Wes leaned back and soft-whistled. “The things we don’t know about our neighbors.”
