“Do you have a rebellious streak?”
I couldn’t help laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Gavin asked, his eyes gleaming with curiosity.
I put one hand flat on my chest and took a moment to get my breath. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just that ‘rebellious’ is pretty much the last word anyone would ever use to describe me, either.” I cocked an eyebrow at him. “What about you?”
“Rebellious is my middle name,” he teased.
“So, what or who were you rebelling against?” I asked, shifting sideways a little under my seat belt so I could watch his face.
“Three generations of Solomon men who always worked in the paper mill, married girls from the neighborhood and turned out a yard full of babies, and a high school that said people from my side of the river didn’t go to college.” He shrugged, and the bad-boy smile seemed a little forced. “You might say that bringing you along to meet Big Jule was an act of rebellion.” He shot me a quick glance. “I saw Lita yesterday and I told her what we were doing today.” The smile got wider and more genuine, it seemed to me. “She said I was poking the bear with a stick.”
Clearly Marcus was the bear.
Lita wasn’t the kind of person to judge other people’s choices; she was involved with Burtis Chapman after all, and he had a reputation. But when she did share her opinion, she wasn’t shy about it. I was guessing she’d done more than just compare Marcus to an angry bear. Whatever she’d said, it was none of my business.
“That’s because Lita is immune to your charm,” I said lightly.
“I’m like a bottle of fine wine,” Gavin said, moving the car into the right lane so we could take the exit that would take us downtown. “You may not be captivated at the first taste, but after a little time the nuances will win you over.”
I waited for a moment and then looked pointedly at my feet. “Good thing I wore boots,” I said.
Gavin frowned. “Why?” he asked.
“Because my shoes would have been ruined by that load of fertilizer you’re spreading around.”
He gave a snort of laughter. “Busted,” he said with a grin. “And I worked hard on that line.”
Gavin had a brief meeting scheduled at the Walker Art Center, so I looked around the pop-art exhibition while I waited for him, thinking Ruby’s portraits of Owen and Hercules would have fit right in with the artwork. My thoughts kept wandering to our lunch with Julian McCrea.
I hadn’t been able to find anything more than what Gavin had told me about the man through my usual online sources, so I’d ended up calling Lise, in Boston. Her expertise was music, but I knew she had contacts in the art world. Unfortunately, she didn’t know anything about McCrea.
“Do I want to know why you’re asking about this Julian McCrea person?” she’d asked.
I’d stretched my feet out on the footstool, and Hercules, who was sprawled on my lap, had moved his head so it was resting against my arm and closed his green eyes. “Remember that exhibit I told you was coming to the library?” I’d said.
“The centerpiece was an early Sam Weston drawing,” she immediately said.
I’d exhaled softly. “It was stolen.”
“What?”
“It looks as though the thief came in through a skylight in the roof I didn’t even know would open.”
“You’re not serious.”
I pictured her, elbows propped on her kitchen table, making a face at my words. “I wish I wasn’t.”
“I’m beginning to think that Mayville Heights is the crime capital of the Midwest,” she’d said. “You’re okay, right?”
“I’m fine,” I had said, shifting my arm a little, which got me a one-eyed glare from Hercules. It evaporated once I began to stroke his ebony fur. I’d decided not to tell Lise about Margo or how the brass statue she’d sent me had been used to kill her.
“That Weston drawing could be worth quite a lot of money,” Lise had said. “Though actually, some experts believe it’s not Weston’s work.”
Hercules had been purring, a low rumble coming from his chest. “If it’s not Weston’s work, then how can it be worth a lot of money?” I asked.
“Because some experts think the drawing was done by Weston’s first wife. She was Native American.”
“Do you know anyone I could talk to who could tell me more?”
“I can tell you more.”
“I didn’t know you were interested in nineteenth-century American art.”
“I’m interested in lots of things,” she’d said, and I had felt her smile through the phone. “Did I ever introduce you to Edward Mato?”
Hercules had lifted his head and looked at me. My hand had stopped moving. “I don’t think so.”
“Back about 1990 the federal government passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act—as a way of hopefully returning remains and artifacts buried with them to the Native American tribes they belonged to. Ed’s ancestry is Sioux and he’s an expert on native burial rituals.”
“What does that have to do with the Weston drawing?” I’d asked.
“He’s also interested in native art,” Lise had said. “He’s very knowledgeable. About a month ago we bumped into each other at a cocktail party and I was telling him about the exhibit coming to your library. He’s the one who told me there’s some controversy about who the real creator of that drawing is. I think he actually might have appraised it at some point.”
After I’d talked to Lise I’d pulled out my computer to see what I could find out about Sam Weston and his art. It was a fascinating story.
Sam Weston had been a graduate of West Point and a mapmaker and artist for the United States Army. He’d spent three years at Fort Snelling, which was located near where Minneapolis is today. Weston had learned the language of the Sioux people and created detailed sketches and paintings of their lives. And he had married fifteen-year-old Wakaninajiinwin, or Stands Sacred, leaving her and their daughter behind when he was reassigned two years later.
Weston kept very detailed sketchbooks during his time at Fort Snelling, I learned, but there was also a portfolio of individual sketches and watercolors from that time. That’s where the controversy began. There was a school of thought that believed some of the drawings in that portfolio, including the village scene missing from the exhibit, weren’t done by Weston, but by Stands Sacred, his teenage first wife.
“If there was any kind of proof that those disputed drawings weren’t done by Sam Weston, they could be worth a fortune to collectors of Native American art, not to mention the historical value to the Dakota Sioux people,” I’d said to Hercules, who’d been “helping” me with my research. “Which could explain why someone wanted to steal the drawing.”
The cat had murped his agreement.
If Stands Sacred was the real artist, the drawing would be one of the few intact pieces of native art from that period. And it could call into question the provenance of every other Weston drawing from that time.
I’d told Marcus what I’d learned about the drawing. Now I wondered if Margo had known how potentially valuable the drawing was. Was that why she had had reservations about the exhibit?
Gavin touched my shoulder and I jumped. “Sorry,” he said. “I called your name but you didn’t hear me. Where were you?”
“I got a little distracted,” I said. “Are you ready to leave?”
He nodded. “Big Jule is meeting us at the restaurant.” He glanced at his watch. “And we should get going.”
The Rose and Gray restaurant was on the bottom floor of a restored brick building close to the river in downtown Minneapolis. Inside there was wide plank flooring and high windows overlooking the waterfront. We were shown to a round table in the middle of the room. The ponytailed waiter dressed all in black held out my chair for me. “Would you like coffee?” he asked.
“Please,” I said.
Gavin nodded his agreement and sat down as the waiter headed to the far side of the room. “Big Jule should be here in a couple of minutes,” he said. “He likes to make an entrance.”