Dave chuckled and reached for the pearl. “Most people devour oysters for their alleged libido-enhancing properties. However, Nick finds a lucky charm, a perfectly round pearl, in the belly of the bivalve.”
Nick shook his head, eyes animated. “It’s not an alleged libido pick-me-up. For centuries, the Greeks used this as their Viagra. Eating oysters with a beautiful woman was part of the mating ritual. The Greek way is no forks. Lips to shells, look the woman in the eye, together they suck in the oyster and instantly inspire the mouth on its way past the heart to stomach…to central station. That’s the libido, gents.”
Dave set the pearl in the center of a rubber coaster that read: Bottoms down here. He picked up a half shell, letting the oyster slide into his mouth. He closed his eyes, savoring the tastes. “Ah, Nicky…these are delicious. Come to think about it, goddess Aphrodite rose from the sea in the half shell of a mollusk. At this moment, let’s assume it was that of an oyster. Sean, you were about to update us on the painting. Was it in the antique shop?”
“It was there, at least at one time, but not now.”
Dave downed another oyster. “So you didn’t find it.”
“That’s correct. But I did find a trail, a rather cold one.” O’Brien told them what happened and then added, “The house and all its belongings was inherited by a granddaughter and her husband who began selling off what they considered to be leftover clutter, the painting being a good example. They sold it and a stack of old Saturday Evening Post magazines to the guy that owns the antique store in DeLand. He sold those months ago to a couple — man and a woman — who paid cash. No name. No address.”
Nick untied the apron and hung it on a hook in the galley. He said, “Cash is king at swap-shops and antique stores. It’s like bidding in an auction. The price for something old, and often not working, is what the collector is willing to pay for it. That stuff’s hard to track.”
Dave pushed his bifocals up and on his head. “Well, Sean, if you’ve reached a dead-end, maybe the option now is that your client can advertise in art or Civil War memorabilia magazines and blogs to see if someone has seen it. If he can find the buyers, in this case the unknown couple, maybe they’d be willing to sell. Excuse the pun, but perhaps the old painting is simply gone with the wind.”
O’Brien smiled. He slid the copy of the photograph from the folder and studied the picture. “The granddaughter, Ellen Heartwell, mentioned that her grandmother, a woman who was a long-time member of the Daughters of the Confederacy, used to stand in front of the painting, especially after a couple of glasses of wine, and speak to it.”
Nick’s thick eyebrows arched. “Whoa…so grandma’s having a conversation with the dead lady in the painting. I told you that thing might be cursed.” He ladled the hot crabs into two plastic bowls, popped on the tops, and set them on the bar. “Take out’s ready.”
Dave said, “Did the granddaughter indicate what the lady of the house said to the painting?”
“She overheard her say the secret of the river will always be their family secret.”
“What secret of the river?” Nick asked.
O’Brien looked down at the copy of the photo, the unidentified woman standing in the long white dress, a live oak near her, Spanish moss draping from its limbs, the expanse of a wide river in the backdrop, the woman beautiful — full smile, her eyes connecting beyond the lens of the camera — connecting with the photographer. “Whoever took this photo managed to bring out the spontaneity and inner beauty of this woman. Maybe whoever it was, he could have shared the secret of the river with her.”
Dave nodded. “But how would, decades later, the old woman who used to live in the house you visited today, know about that secret…whatever it was?”
O’Brien looked up from the photo to Dave and said, “Because something other than the painting must have been left behind.”
ELEVEN
He waited for her. Waiting patiently. Sat in his truck parked on the side of the road in the dark and watched her house. The floodlights came on one corner of Kim Davis’ small home, illuminating her driveway. The man squinted in the night. Watching. And there she was.
Dressed in a bathrobe, rolling a garbage can to the end of her driveway. She did it every Thursday night. Like clockwork. Usually around 9:00. Same blue bathrobe. He watched her closely, his face hidden in the dark. The robe was loosely tied. It opened slightly as she rolled the can not far from her mailbox.
From the floodlights, he could see her body in silhouette under the robe.
She had a fine body. Sculpted from good genes. Good stock.
He felt and erection growing as she turned and walked back to her home.
And then the lights went out.
He waited a few minutes, shut off the dome light in the truck, got out and walked toward Kim Davis’ home. There was no moon. Clouds covered light from stars. Crickets chirped and a mosquito whined in his ear as he opened her garbage can. He liked that she had a large rubber can. It made no noise when he removed the top. This was the third Thursday he’d done so.
He pulled a small pin light from his jeans pocket. Only turning it on when he reached inside the trashcan. She always used black garbage bags. Neatly tied. He removed a serrated knife from the sheath on his belt, slashing the two bags, his hands clawing through the trash like a scavenger. Coffee grounds. Paper towels. Cardboard packages that had held frozen dinners. The woman needs to learn to cook. He grinned. That would be one of the things he’d teach her. She’d learn to cook better than ma…a harsh woman, but one of the best cooks the South had ever known.
There it was. Wrapped in toilet paper. He unwrapped the toilet paper and stared at a blood-soaked tampon. The man smiled.
Sean O’Brien and Dave Collins sat in deck chairs on the cockpit of Gibraltar, Max between them, Dave pouring Jameson over ice. O’Brien sipped a cabernet and removed the photo again, placing it on a small white table in front of him. Dave lit a cigar, blew smoke out of the side of his mouth and said, “Are you going to call your client and hang it up, or try to find that ever so elusive and now secretive painting?”
“One part of me is saying let it be. The trail is cold. But the former detective part of me says there’s somebody out there who knows where to find this painting…have to admit, I’m intrigued. To locate that person is often a long process of elimination, knocking on doors, following leads. I’d feel bad, though, cashing the old gent’s check if I can’t produce a result.”
Dave sipped his drink, the stern line moaning against the pull of a retreating tide. “You want to produce a positive result, but not finding the painting is still a result. Not the one he wants, but a result because it will prove the painting is probably lost in the corner of somebody’s garage, or hanging in some Civil War re-enactor’s man-cave, where it’ll never be found because the painting to a guy like that is his Mona Lisa. After knocking back three-finger’s worth of straight bourbon, the guy will look at the woman’s haunting face and make a promise he’ll never forget the legacy of the South, its traditions, and all the reasons his ancestor wore a gray uniform. It’s all part of the fantasy, the double life. It’s the chivalrous dichotomy of working weekdays as an accountant from a cubical, and then changing into a uniform and spanning 160 years over the weekend — sleeping in tents, brewing coffee from creek water, leading a platoon of like-minded men, and placing ladies like that woman in the picture on pedestals of divine femininity.”
O’Brien smiled and swirled his wine. “There’s something to be said for that last part, you know.”