That probably explained it. Maybe the plant was something Cantone used to mix his paints. Or maybe it was edible and they cooked with it. She found an old sack on the back seat of the truck and carefully wrapped a few stems of the plant in it. She would ask Zoe, her friendly plant expert.
At the Y intersection at the north end of town she happened to glance down at her cell phone on the seat beside her. She’d missed a call, probably while she was behind the hills all afternoon. She recognized Rupert’s number and dialed him.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“Interesting news flash in the art world.” He paused, obviously waiting for her to beg to hear it. She obliged. “Two Cantone paintings have just showed up at an auction house in New York. I inquired, through Esteban, and word is that they came through an artist rep in Santa Fe.”
“What, like an agent?”
“No, I think this is more like a broker, someone who finds art from various sources—sometimes artists or their estates, sometimes owners who want to sell a piece. The rep contacts the big auction houses if the piece might bring a higher price at a national or international sale. The two Cantone paintings are some of his earlier work and are considered very rare. They haven’t been seen publicly in years.”
“Rare, meaning how much in dollars?”
“Well over a million.”
Sam’s breath caught. How could a man who’d created such valuable art live and die in near poverty? When the sale of one painting would have set him up for life, why hadn’t he been able to pay a mortgage on a tiny scrap of property?
“I wonder how and where this art rep got hold of the paintings,” she mused.
“No idea. But we can check her out. It’s Carolyn Hildebrandt and she’s got an office in Santa Fe. I’ll call, see what I can learn.”
“Give it a try,” Sam said. “I’m on my way home. Let me know what you find out.”
She stopped at the market for a roasted chicken and a couple of deli salads for dinner, then headed home. She found Kelly stretched out on the couch in sweats, with the TV blaring some kind of reality-show contest between teams of twenty-somethings who couldn’t stop jumping up and down and screaming “ohmygod!!!”.
“Hey,” Sam called out. “I brought dinner.”
Kelly shuffled into the kitchen, not bothering to lower the television volume.
“Yumm . . . you remembered my favorite chicken. Thanks, Mom.” She helped herself to a heaping plate and started back to the living room.
“Let’s eat in here,” Sam said. “Get the chance to catch up on things.”
She complied but didn’t look thrilled about it.
First things first, Sam reminded Kelly that she needed her debit card back and expected her to repay the money she’d taken from the account.
“That wasn’t meant to be an open-ended cash supply, you know. I gave you the card to help with Christmas expenses only, you know.”
Kelly had the good grace to hang her head, just a little. Then came the charm. “I know, Mom, and I’m really so grateful for that. I didn’t mean to get so far behind on my credit cards. It won’t happen again.”
“Get the card for me now,” Sam said with the biggest smile she could muster. Two could play at this charm game.
Kelly left her dinner plate long enough to retrieve her purse from the bedroom and hand her mother the card. Sam slipped it into her jeans pocket.
“So, what’s going to happen now?” Sam asked. “Job, house in L.A., all that?”
Kelly took a deep breath and pushed her plate away. “Well, it’s like this. I have no reason to go back to California.”
Sam pushed her own plate aside now and gave her daughter a hard stare.
“Real estate has tanked. My house is under water.”
Sam envisioned some kind of flood, but she went on.
“It’s worth less than I owe on it. I can’t refinance because the lenders would never take the loss. I can’t sell it because I’d have to come up with two hundred grand to make up the difference. I know I bought too much house at too high a price. Don’t even remind me of that.” She wouldn’t look straight at Sam. “Even if I’d kept my job I was sinking farther behind every month. It was just a matter of time. So I walked away. Everybody’s doing it.”
Sam wanted to launch into the whole motherly lecture about what if everybody were jumping off the cliff, but that sounded way too much like what her own mother would have said.
“Everybody? Kell, really?”
“Okay, not everybody.” She carried the dishes to the sink and dumped the remains of the uneaten food. “Mom, I tried. I really did. I’ve been looking for a new job for months. There’s nothing.” Unshed tears made her voice go ragged.
Sam could have gone into the whole ‘then why did you leave the job you had’ speech but that, too, was what her mother would have said. She let the silence fill the room.
“I’ll find something. I know I will. But I need to stay here awhile. It won’t be long.”
What choice did she have? Give up her privacy and put her hot new boyfriend on hold. Okay, so that versus a homeless daughter—Sam knew she’d let her stay.
“One month. I want you online every day, looking and putting in applications.” What was she saying? That she’d kick her out in thirty days if she hadn’t moved on? Yes.
Easy to say, but what would she really do?
She walked into the living room and switched off the TV and pointed Kelly to her computer on the desk in the corner. Job applications were no longer a nine-to-five proposition.
While Kelly pecked away at the keys Sam showered and changed into soft flannel pj’s. She got out her calendar and marked check-back dates for each of her properties. She would need to keep the yards maintained until winter set in, plus go back to each and make sure they were tidy and mouse-free until they sold. The cabin she’d visited today would require snow removal by December, and she would have to contract that out to someone else. Most places sold within a month or two, but even their small rural counties weren’t immune to the real estate problems that were hitting other parts of the country. Sam might have more long-term jobs than she’d reckoned on.
Kelly was still happily tapping away at the computer keys so Sam took a moment to call Beau and fill him in on the situation, given that she’d left him pretty bewildered last night. Once she’d covered her daughter’s circumstances, she remembered the earlier call.
“Rupert told me today that two Cantone paintings came up for auction in New York,” she told him. “Remember those blank spots and the nails on the walls in his house? I have the strangest feeling that millions of dollars in art might have been hanging in that little place at one time.”
His question was the same as hers—why hadn’t Cantone sold something and afforded himself a better lifestyle.
“Maybe he just wanted a simple life,” she said. “Nothing wrong with that. But I still get a weird feeling about that situation, the guy who was living with him. It would have been so easy for some unscrupulous bum to take advantage of the artist, maybe even kill him.”
“Murder by pneumonia?” he said. “It wouldn’t be the most efficient way to off someone.”
“Still—I wonder where the other guy went. You know, it’s entirely possible that someone else came along—someone who knew the value of the art—and maybe the roommate was also a victim of foul play.” She remembered Betty McDonald’s gossip about neighbors who didn’t like Cantone. When she mentioned it to Beau he said there hadn’t been time for him to get out there and question anyone else. Other cases were beginning to take precedence.