“The identification of items is easy. The verification is tough. Assessing value is time-consuming and detail oriented, and requires a lot of judgment. Finding missing items, if there are any, might be impossible.”
She nodded, and paused. “How’s twenty-five thousand dollars as a retainer?”
I swallowed. That was more than my company grossed in a month during most of the year. “That will get us started,” I said. “And the final fee? How should we set it?”
“You’ll know how hard you worked, and what was involved. At the end, you’ll bill me, and I’ll pay it.”
“I’ll be fair,” I assured her.
“I know you will. Remember,” she said, smiling again, “I checked you out.”
While she wrote a check, I printed out my standard letter of agreement. She read it carefully and signed it without comment. She also gave me a key to the Grant house and a note authorizing me and my staff to enter at will.
We stood just outside the front door in the parking lot. The sun was steady now, and bright. I noticed two dozen or so cars, a good omen since it was barely ten and both the preview and the tag sale had just opened.
“I’ll call you Monday evening. Is that all right?” I asked.
“Yes, thank you. I won’t be leaving until Tuesday.”
“And then you’ll be back in Boston?”
“Chestnut Hill, yes,” she answered, naming an affluent suburb just west of the city.
A black Lincoln pulled up, and a small Asian man got out, leaving the engine running. He nodded at me and opened the back door for her.
“Does your daughter live in Boston, too?”
“No,” she said. “New York. Why?”
“Just curious. One more thing,” I said, changing the subject. “I was just thinking that I might stop by the house tomorrow, if it’s all right.”
“I don’t know. You’ll need to check with the police.”
“May I call them directly?”
“Yes, certainly. In this endeavor, you’re my representative.”
I smiled. “Thank you, Mrs. Cabot. I won’t let you down.”
“I know you won’t.”
“What’s your room number at the Sheraton?”
“Room three-nineteen.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
She turned to step into the car, then paused. As she swung her feet inside, I noticed that they were average sized, and at a guess, her shoes were about a seven.
“How long do you think it will take you?” she asked.
I wondered which task she was referring to-generating an independent inventory, verifying authenticity, assessing value, or finding the missing paintings.
“If I can find everything, and if it’s all as described, no more than a couple of days for the inventory itself. For the verification, a week to ten days. For the appraisal, another two to three weeks.” I shrugged and made a Murphy’s Law joking grimace. “If this, if that. If it rained in the Sahara, it wouldn’t be a desert. You know how that goes.”
“Of course. I understand. Obviously time is of the essence. I know you’ll work as quickly as you can.”
I nodded. “Realistically, I expect it will take a month to six weeks, soup to nuts. I’ll do my best to speed the process along.” Wes had told me that the police had made an inventory. I wondered if she was aware of it. “One thing that might save time,” I added, pleased at my boldness, “is if we can work off an existing list. For instance, do you know if the police made an inventory?”
“Ask Chief Alverez. As I said, in this matter, you’re my representative.”
She reached out her hand and we shook. Her entire attitude conveyed something more than the confirmation of a business deal with a new partner. There was that, but there was also a melancholy resignation, as if she was proceeding along the best path she’d found, but that while it might be the best, it was none too good. I had the sudden realization that, to her, anything I discovered was likely to be bad news. If I found the paintings, Andi would be furious. If I didn’t, Andi would go crazy, perhaps accusing me or others of stealing them. An ugly scene was almost guaranteed, regardless of the outcome.
I stood for a moment and watched as the car drove away. Walking inside, I wondered if Mrs. Cabot had already planned how she’d handle Andi’s explosion when it came.
“Good news?” Gretchen asked when I stepped inside.
I grinned. “Well, we didn’t get the estate sale, but we get to appraise everything.”
“Yowzi! That’s great!”
“And it’s interesting work, too. Sasha’s going to love it.”
“Congratulations.”
“It’s a tribute to us all.” I waved it away. “Tell me both the preview and tag sale are open.”
“Yup. On time, and looking good.”
“Great. I’m going to the tag sale. Would you go ask Tom if he’d like a cup of coffee?”
“Okay,” she said, whining, stretching out the last syllable for effect. “Only for you.”
“He’s not that bad,” I argued.
“Yes, he is,” she responded, laughing. “He’s a jerk! But he’s our jerk, right?”
“He’s talented,” I said, wanting to quash her open expression of dislike and remind her of his value. I shrugged. “I don’t care about his personality. He does a great job for us.”
“I know, I know. I wouldn’t say anything to anyone else, even joking. For your ears only.”
Not for the first time, I was struck by her loyalty. “Okay, then,” I said with a smile, and added in a whisper, “Just between us, he’s a huge jerk.”
She laughed again, and I smiled back, grateful that her breezy, sunny spirit lightened my load.
I headed to the tag sale to make sure Eric was okay. He served as on-site manager, and that was a lot of responsibility for a relatively young man. I trusted him, but thought it made sense to keep in fairly constant touch.
My father always encouraged giving responsibility to young people. When I’d got the job at Frisco’s and expressed wonder that they’d entrust both valuable antiques and clients to me, an untested and unknown twenty-one-year-old, he’d remarked that we, as a nation, entrusted our security to eighteen-year-olds with guns, and that that strategy had worked out pretty well for us so far.
As I pushed open the door from the warehouse into the tag-sale section, the first thing I saw and heard was Martha Troudeaux making herself obnoxious.
“But it’s mislabeled,” she said, her voice shrill.
“Hi Martha,” I said calmly, approaching with a smile.
“Ah, Josie. I’m glad you’re here. There’s a major problem with your pricing.”
“Really? I’m surprised. We try so hard to get it right. What’s the problem?”
“This stool. It’s not from the Empire! Why is it priced as if it were?” She sneered, her self-righteous tone of outrage making me long to slap her face.
I looked at the small bamboo stool. The tag, tied onto a leg, stated that it was a reproduction. The price was twelve dollars. If it were genuine, dating from around 1890, a stool of this size and quality would fetch more than ten times twelve dollars. Rude and ignorant. What Barney saw in her mystified me. It occurred to me that maybe she was neither rude nor ignorant; maybe she was trying to create a scene, to make me look bad.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Barney stood not far away, his back to us, near the boxes of art prints. He seemed absorbed in a conversation with Paula, the blond part-timer who preferred T-shirts with messages to the Prescott one, but wore it as instructed. Barney was probably trying to weasel the name of my art source out of her, but she couldn’t tell what she didn’t know, so that was no worry.
Turning back to Martha, I spotted Alverez half-hidden by a post near the mechanical toys section. I bristled. Alverez’s presence was more troubling than Barney’s. I glanced around, considering whether customers knew who he was and thought less of me because of his presence. I also wondered whether I should call Max and report his unexpected arrival.