The Big Steal (15 page)

She got up and walked over to the fireplace and looked into the fire. “Oh, I don't even know why I took this job.” Her voice was close to breaking. “I only did it to be helpful. And, well, I guess I thought it was what my grandmother would have wanted me to do.” Michelle brightened at the mention of her grandmother. “Babette. She was my grandmother. Doesn't the name almost dance when you say it? I wish they'd named me that.”

I couched my words carefully. “Was she from here?”

“Yes and no. Her parents came from Louisiana to work for Mazie. Jacques and Daphne Fortier. Some of the old people around here still remember them, but I never knew them. They were my great-grandparents and my mother was in her late thirties before I was born. But my grandmother, Babette … She's why I love this place so much. She's how I got to know Mazie.” Michelle smiled, showing a sweet side of her I'd not seen before. “You see, my whole family worked for the Wyndfields. When I was a little girl I heard Mazie calling her Babette. When I tried to say it, Babby came out.” Her smile broadened. “It just stuck. Anyway, when I came back here and was asked to oversee Wynderly—why, it was like I had
arrived
. I thought I was bettering myself and honoring my family.” She gave a little laugh, but quickly the corners of her mouth turned down.

“Looks like the joke's on me. All I end up doing is ruining my name and bringing disgrace on my family's memory. How's that for irony?”

I forgot my resolve to hang tough. My heart went out to her. “Michelle, what's behind all this? What do
you
think happened? Who did it?”

I thought I detected a ray of hope in her eyes before she looked away and said dishearteningly, “I don't know. I've been gone from here for a long time. It's not like I went down the road to UVA to college and kept up with things at home. I knew I wouldn't fit in over there in Charlottesville. The kids who go to Virginia from around here live in the big houses. I had some friends from around town who went there, but they'd gone to Woodberry Forest or St. Margaret's for prep
school. I wasn't one of them. The way they acted. The way they dressed —

“Anyway, I wanted a new start, something different. So, I did the next best thing. I went to the University of Maryland. Nobody knew me, and I was just another face in the crowd. No big deal. I hardly bothered to come home for vacations, and I got a job waitressing up on the Cape in the summers. I pretty much lost contact with this whole area. I mean, I was young.”

“But you must have had good grades. And the out-of-state tuition at Maryland couldn't have been cheap.”

“Oh, I did well in high school. Really well. I knew I didn't want to live my whole life here. The bank gave a scholarship that year and I won it. I pretty much had a free ride through school.”

Ah … I remembered what Mary Sophie had said about the Wyndfields setting up a trust for the Fortiers. Miss Mary Sophie had been right. Michelle hadn't any idea the scholarship had come from the Wyndfields' trust. It was the sort of deal a small town bank could work, especially if they had other uses for the Wyndfields' money. They didn't want inquires into how they were managing the trust's funds.

“And after college?” I asked.

“Well, that's another story.” Michelle pressed her lips together and took a long breath before speaking again. “I'd always been sort of a loner, and then I met this guy in college who swept me off my feet. To make a long story short, I married him and went home with him … to Saudi Arabia.”

I must have shown my surprise.

“Yep. That's what I did. Well, it didn't take me long to realize
that had been a
big
mistake. Then again,” she said, shrugging nonchalantly, “maybe somebody was looking after me. Turned out I was barren.” She looked at me to see my reaction.

I was surprised, not at what she had said, but at her choice of the word
barren
. It must have been the word her husband and his family had used.

“How did your family feel about your marriage?” I asked, going back a step.

“What would it have mattered at the time? My husband was handsome, and the thought of marrying him was like something out of the
Arabian Nights
. And his manners. Compared to the guys I'd known in high school, even the ones I met in college—”

Again Michelle spread her hands for lack of words. “A lot of the girls were jealous, and they let me know it. See, the American guys all wanted to go on Dutch dates. Haadhir paid for everything. Babby didn't object at all. She said that people would understand … that no one had objected when an American girl had married the king of Jordan and become Queen Noor, or when Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier—not that he was Muslim, but he was sort of foreign-looking. Babby must have thought all Saudi men were princes, and I was going to be a celebrity or something.” Michelle laughed. “Looking back, I think all the tales my grandmother heard from Mazie and Hoyt about their travels and seeing the rich people who came to Wynderly …

“I don't know … probably being around all those things in the house from all over the world … Well, it must have warped Babby's view of life,” she said. “Anyway, I came back to the States and knocked around here and there for a few
years. I wasn't about to come back home. Then both Babby and Mother died, and when my father got sick, well, I didn't think I had much choice.”

She took a deep breath and straightened her back. “So here I am. Not that I intend to stay. Certainly not
now
.”

Unless they put you in jail, I thought. Taken at face value, Michelle's story sounded fine. But a kernel of doubt kept nagging at me. I didn't know whether to chalk it up to being a suspicious appraiser, or if that trusty sixth sense was kicking in again.

Dear Antiques Expert: When going through some boxes packed away from my great-grandparents' house, I found a pretty porcelain mantel clock. Taped to the back was a picture of it sitting on their living room mantel. There are no markings on either the clockworks or the porcelain case. It does have a key to wind it up, though. I'm wondering if it is valuable and worth repairing?

At the end and turn of the 19th century, Austrian and German factories made a wide variety of porcelain cases—from small and simple, to large and elaborately decorated—to hold clockworks. Today a simple porcelain mantel clock from that era usually sells for around a hundred dollars, but fine, large porcelain clocks by factories such as Meissen can soar into the thousands. A clock specialist can estimate the repair costs, but regardless of the clock's value, the photograph shows how much your ancestors treasured their clock. I would keep it, working or not.

M
ORE THAN FOUR HUNDRED
years ago Shakespeare had written that discretion was the better part of valor. If some subversive plot was brewing on the Wynderly battlefield, there
was no way I was going to be part of it. Forget the valor.
Discretion
was the word to live by.

I had stood on the front porch until the taillights on Michelle's car faded. Only then did I venture out to my own car to grab both briefcases and take them back to my room. Once inside, I slung my bag and coat over my shoulder, called out a cheery thanks to Ginny, who was rustling about in the kitchen, and headed straight to my room.

Little matter that the chicken thigh I was calling dinner was cold and the glass of chardonnay I poured was warm. I wolfed them both down. I was licking the last crunchy crumbs of batter off my fingertips when there was a knock on the door.

“Sterling?”

I opened the door and Ginny Kauffman wedged her head and shoulder inside. “You sure are popular,” she whispered.

It was the second time I had heard that comment, and I didn't like it any better now than I had the first time.

“Professor Fox.” She motioned toward downstairs.

“Damn.”

Ginny Kauffman winked. Then, holding the door with one hand to steady it, she rapped on it with her other. Turning her head in the direction of the stairwell, again she said, this time louder, “Sterling.” And to me she mouthed, “Want me to tell him you're not here, or in the shower?”

I shook my head no. “Thank you, but tell him I'll be down in a minute.”

It had been tempting to avoid him. I was chomping at the bit to get to the papers in my briefcase, even though I was dead tired and emotionally exhausted. But with Fox so intent on cornering me sooner or later, I decided to get it over with.

T
HIS TIME
I
SAT
in the Victorian gentleman's chair. Frank Fox, all tittery and twitchy, chose the sofa where he spread himself out.

“I knew I was taking a chance on catching you, but—” he began.

“No, no. It was my fault,” I apologized. Like Michelle had said about Peggy Powers, he was, after all, a board member. “
I
should have called
you
, and I would have, but my time hasn't been my own tonight, and my cell phone doesn't work at all.”

Fox cut to the chase. “I don't know how much you know about my research.”

“Nothing, I'm afraid.” My voice sounded flat, even to my own ears, but I was becoming tired of pretending to be excited, or upset, or ignorant, as the situation demanded. At least I was being truthful this time.

Fox beamed. “Actually, the hydrosphere is quite exciting.”

“Hydrosphere?”

“Why, yes. Universities teach several courses dealing with the importance and evolution of water's role in the universe.”

“I see.”

“I happen to have a few papers I've written about vessels with me.” The sofa creaked as he leaned over the arm to get his briefcase.

“Vessels?” I knew I was tired, but what
was
he talking about?

“Well, not just
any
old vessels. Ancient vessels,” he said, handing me a manila envelope.

When, for the second time that night, I remembered the seventeenth-century Delft water bottle that I had figured was
worth seventy-five thousand dollars or more, I got a queasy feeling. I decided it was in everyone's best interest if I feigned as much enthusiasm as I could. “Oh, of course,
water
vessels.”

“I knew you'd be excited,” he said, edging so close to the edge of the sofa I was afraid it might tilt over. “I got the idea while watching a National Geographic special,” he began. “
And
, from being on the Wynderly Foundation board, of course. What an honor that is. Hoyt was interested in these things, too, you know. There are several fine vessels in the collection.”

“So,” I said in an attempt to shift the conversation back to Fox, “you're at the University of Virginia.”

“Well, no, I mean, not
yet
… not at
the
University. I teach at a small college not too far from there.”

In truth, I'd already figured that out. One of the traditions at the University of Virginia is the addressing of professors as Mister, rather than Doctor or Professor, part of Jefferson's rules of equality, at least for men. But to be polite, and certain, I had given Professor Fox the benefit of the doubt.

“And you'll have to forgive me if I'm not really familiar with what you do,” I said. “You say it's the hydro …”

“Hydrosphere,” he said.

“Living over in Leemont and meeting so many new people here … well, I'm struggling to simply remember names and keep everyone straight.”

“Of course you are. But I have to tell you, when I saw you come into the board meeting yesterday, I thought I was dreaming. I've cut out practically every column you've ever written.”

“Why, thank you,” I said slowly.

He jumped right in, emphasizing his words the same way he had underlined them in his notes.

“Since I'm such a big fan of yours, do you think—I mean, would you possibly have enough time while you're here to see my collection. Well, it's not really
my
collection. I mean it
is
a gift that
I'm
responsible for, so in that way it
is
my collection, but it's going to the college.” He stopped and beamed with pride. “But I'd like for it go to
the
University. More people would see it that way. That's why I need you. Someone with your reputation would be an, an
endorsement
of just how fine a collection it is. I'm sure it would draw a lot more attention with
your
name associated with it.”

I forced a smile. My bet was that Frank Fox was thinking that if the University of Virginia accepted the collection, he'd be the natural pick to be its curator. I had the uncomfortable feeling I was being set up.

“Professor Fox, I, well, you see, I'm here on this one specific job and my time is limited. I'm not sure Babson and Michael would approve of my taking time away from the Wynderly investigation to …”

A wry smile crept across Fox's face. “Investigation? So
that's
what it is after all.”

“No, no. That's not what I meant to say.
Appraisal
. It's not an investigation, it's an appraisal. But you have to
look
at the pieces, investigate them, when you're doing an appraisal.”

Fox shifted his cumbersome weight forward in a way that a body language expert would have labeled confrontational. “There's certainly nothing to
investigate
as far as Wynderly goes,” he said. “You couldn't have taken what Tracy DuMont said seriously. She's a real
trouble
maker. She could write a
check to help the board get through this …” He hesitated long enough to choose his word carefully—more carefully than I had chosen mine. “This
difficulty
, and not even miss it. I don't know
why
she's being so selfish. Not with all her tens, maybe even hundreds of millions.”