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.
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.
“Thank you, Josie.” After a short pause, she added, “Has Andi spoken to you again?”
“Well, in a manner of speaking,” I said, hating that I needed to tell her of her daughter’s perfidy. “Apparently Andi has hired Mr. Troudeaux to help her.”
“Help her do what?”
I cleared my throat and, with my elbow on the desk, rested my forehead on my hand. “From what he said, I gathered that Andi intends to challenge your father’s will.”
The silence that greeted my revelation lasted so long that I began to wonder if she’d ended the call, quietly cradling the receiver, and if she had, what I should do in response.
“Thank you for informing me,” she said, finally.
“I’m sorry,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
“I’ll be leaving in the morning, as scheduled. Will you call me in a day or two and give me a progress report?”
“Certainly.”
“And my instructions stand. I’ll call Chief Alverez in the morning before I leave. Andi may not enter my father’s house or interfere with your work in any way.”
We ended by thanking each other, and when the call was over, all I wanted was a martini. I turned off my computer and went downstairs.
Roy, the picker with the great books who had been MIA on Saturday, was standing by Gretchen’s desk while Sasha sorted through the boxes. Fred sat at the computer, absorbed by whatever he was reading on the monitor.
Roy was an old man, grizzled and uncouth. His clothes were streaked with grime, and he was agitated, bouncing from one foot to another as he spoke. “He tol’ me he’s paying top dollar. I’m old, I tol’ him, but I ain’t no fool. You can’t bullshit a bullshitter, I tol’ him. I tol’ him twice. No cash, no books. I ain’t no fool.”
“Hi, Roy,” I said. “What’s going on?”
“You want the books, you pay me cash.”
“Sure. Just like always.”
“Yeah, that’s what Barney tol’ me, but he don’t have the cash. I ain’t no fool.”
Sasha was stacking the volumes on the desk. They were all leather bound, and I spotted a gold-tooled set of Shakespeare; a two-volume folio-sized Johnson’s dictionary, certainly not a first edition, but an early copy, lovingly maintained; and what looked like a collection of a dozen or so medical reference books from the early nineteenth century. I met Sasha’s eyes and they conveyed fiery excitement.
Leather-bound books sell to two separate markets: decorators who seek “bindings,” as they’re known in the industry, and collectors who care about the book itself as much as its cover, or who buy certain categories of books as investments. Bindings often sell by the yard, and the market is strong, but distinguished volumes fetch more when sold to a book lover or investor.
“How much?” Roy asked, turning from me to Sasha, then looking back again. “How much you give me? How much?”
“I need to look a little more,” Sasha said.
“I gotta go. I gotta go. You want ’em?”
“Absolutely,” Sasha said.
We had a standing policy of offering any picker a minimum of five dollars a volume for decent leather-bound books, more when we knew the particular item was special. These all looked good. Sasha seemed hesitant so I approached her and whispered, “Offer him eight dollars a volume, and go up to ten.”
