And it was.
“It’s... nothing, Dylan, really,” she said, glancing away. And that “nothing” was definitely a lie, because something was obviously wrong. Then she hastily changed the subject, which cranked my angst up another notch.
“When you were a boy, and I dragged you from estate sales to flea markets every weekend, do you remember the game we used to play?”
“You didn’t drag me, Ma, you schooled me on the difference between trash and treasure. I got pretty good at it, I think.”
“Let’s see how good you are,” she said, sliding a framed photograph across the table. “Look at this picture, Mr. Policeman. What do you see?”
I picked up the photo, looking it over very carefully. Something had to be up with it, if she was ready to lie about it.
I checked the frame first. Sterling silver with a copper Art Deco swoosh across the base, left to right. That made it Prohibition era, nineteen twenties, early thirties, a genuine collectible in its own right. It wasn’t original to the photograph, though. The picture was much older, printed on ivory pasteboard, roughly four inches by five, a stiffly posed family portrait. A mom, pop, and five kids, ranging in age from three to thirteen, give or take, plus an older woman, standing behind them. Nana? Or maybe an aunt?
The group was definitely a family; they shared a strong resemblance — long jaws, flat features. Probably Scandinavian — Swedes, Norwegians, maybe Finns. They were well dressed for the time, Mom and the girls in spotless frilly smocks, Dad and the boys in new suits. From their clothing and the quality of the print, I made it mid-Victorian era. After the American Civil War but not by much. Eighteen seventy to seventy-five, somewhere in there.
“Well?” my mother prompted.
“The frame is sterling silver, quite valuable by itself,” I said, buying time.
“Mmm,” she said, unimpressed. She’s an impressive woman, my mother. Claudette LaCrosse is in her fifties now, her raven hair showing a few streaks of silver. Our family is Metis, blended-blood descendants of French voyageurs and their First Nation wives, common as pine cones in northern Michigan. Ma’s features are too strong to be Hollywood pretty, but she’s still a strikingly handsome woman, and beyond beautiful to me.
She was dressed for work in north-country casual, an ecru skirt suit and matching embroidered blouse. Her skirt was mid calf, to show off her titanium limb.
My senior year in high school, a drunk driver veered over the center line, hit my folks head-on. My dad was killed instantly. Ma lost her left leg at the knee.
The drunk was a city councilman from Lansing, with money and political juice. He gamed the system, won a change of venue, got his record suppressed. The judge gave him a stern lecture... then gave him a walk. The miserable sonofabitch never served a day for the crash. That councilman is the reason I became a cop.
My mother owns a lifelike prosthesis that can easily pass for the real thing. She prefers the metal one.
“Men check out your face, your boobs, then your legs,” she says. “I hate to see the poor dears wondering where the real me starts.”
She often tells me more than I want to know.
Not this time, though. She was watching me like an owl on a bunny hutch, waiting for me to spot something important...
“The girl’s collar—” I began, then broke off, peering more closely at the picture. Realizing what was wrong with it.
“The little girl in the middle, with the big eyes? In the light blue dress?”
“Blue?” Ma frowned. “The photo’s black and white.”
“Her collar has a cornflower pattern,” I said, showing off now. “Cornflowers are blue, so I’m guessing her dress matches.”
“Oh... kay, you’re probably right,” she conceded. “Anything else?”
“She’s dead, isn’t she?” I added. “The little girl.”
Ma arched an eyebrow. “Why do you say that?”
“The group is posed in sunlight. The others are squinting against the glare, but the girl’s eyes are wide open, and her pupils are dilated. So...?”
“You’re right, she is dead.” My mother nodded. “The photo is a memento mori, a keepsake of death. Memento photos were common practice in the nineteenth century. In medieval times, funeral art often depicted loved ones as rotting corpses, or even skeletons. ‘As we are now, so ye shall be.’ ”
“A laugh a minute, those old-timers.” I reached for a bite of General Tso’s chicken, caught a flash of a rotting corpse, opted for a rice ball instead.
“Later, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, wealthy families had likenesses of dead children done in oils, or engraved in silver or on a cameo. Then came the camera.”
“But posing with a corpse? A tad macabre, no?”
“No social media back then,” Ma said, with a Gallic shrug. “No Twitter, no tweets. The photo would be their only remembrance, so they made them as lifelike as possible. Photographers even provided stands to prop up the bodies more naturally. I sold an elaborate brass death stand to a collector a few years ago. Four-fifty. It would be more now.”
“But the girl’s eyes are staring, wide open. How did they manage—?”
“Pine resin, dabbed on her eyelids,” Ma said briskly, picking up the picture, frowning at it. “We live so much longer nowadays, death seems almost unnatural to us. It was normal to them. Half their children died before age twelve.”
“Life was brutish and short,” I conceded. “Still, pine pitch?”
“Every culture has rituals to keep death at bay,” she said. “First Nation Cree placed their dead on platforms in the forest, offering their bodies to the sky and the ravens. Dead presidents get hauled around on a gun carriage, like artillery. At police funerals, bagpipers play, like you’re all Scots. To me, that qualifies as weird.”
“So does playing a game we haven’t played in years. What’s the problem with this picture, Ma? What’s really wrong with it?”
“Not one damned thing,” she said bitterly. “It’s perfect. That’s what’s wrong with it.”
“Sorry, I’m not following.”
“Memento photographs were cheaper than rings or cameos, but they were still quite expensive. They were usually buried with the mother, as a treasured possession. To find a photo in pristine condition is... well. It’s very unusual, Dylan.”
“Got it,” I nodded, “the picture’s rare. Is it valuable?”
“There is an active collector’s market,” she admitted, still avoiding my eyes. “A photo of this quality could easily bring two thousand, perhaps twenty-five, to a motivated buyer. Five K and up for rings or medallions—”
“Rings?”
“Photos only date to the Victorians. Memento mori jewelry can be Georgian, or even older.” Opening the top drawer of her desk, she took out a small, blue, leather-bound box, flipped it open, and slid it to me.
It was a ring, gold, twenty-four carat, with an artfully carved skull. The engraving was so fine I had to squint to read it.
“Mathew Benoit, OB: 12 May 1721, AE: 1724. Plus a line of... Latin, right? What does it say?”
“OB means born,” she explained, “AE is anno expired. ‘Life is a vale of tears, death is a ransom.’ This ring’s worth seven-five.”
“And you’re damn well dodging my question, lady. Ma, what’s up? What’s the problem with the picture?”
“Occasionally, a death photo like this one will turn up in an attic, Dylan, usually faded, water-stained, chewed by mice. This one is as clear as the day it was taken, untouched by sun. I think it’s been sleeping in total darkness, for a very long time.”