Читать книгу A Head in Cambodia - Nancy Tingley - Страница 13

4

“I found him, you know. His body. His head.” Peggy, Tom Sharpen’s daughter, ushered us into the room, but hung back in the doorway. Lanky, thin, and tense, she wore an expensive sequined top that had no place at ten in the morning and didn’t go with her purple jeans. It was as if she’d decided as she dressed that she needed to look good for us, but then couldn’t pull herself together enough to coordinate a wardrobe. “It made no sense. He made no sense.”

P.P. and I looked around at the freshly painted walls, the newly finished floor, a little confused as to why we were in the room where Tom Sharpen had been murdered.

Following our eyes, she said, “We had to redo the entire room. The floors. Even though the stains were gone, I still saw them. Like a giant Rorschach, that’s what kept going through my mind, so even though we’d cleaned the floor, over and over, I insisted we had to redo it. My brother didn’t want to bother, but my father’s blood had seeped deeply into that wood, it needed to be cleansed. And the walls. The blood everywhere. Even the ceiling.” She looked up. “I still see it and I keep thinking that anyone who might want to live in the house will be able to see it, too.”

I knew what she said was true about the blood splatter from a decapitation. I’d gone online and read about decapitation, arteries severed, blood exploding out of the body, up, out. What I’d pictured was blood squirting up from the neck of the Baphuon-style head, not from a living person. Conceivably because it was more alive to me because I’d held it. Funny the mind’s tricks.

“He made no sense,” she repeated in her trance-like voice. “There he was, over by the desk, but here he was at my feet, his eyes filmy.” She took a slight step back as she looked down. Was she afraid that she was stepping on the spot where his head had lain?

P.P. and I stared at the spot.

“I wanted to talk with him. I think I did talk with him. I said, What happened, what happened? The police told me I said it over and over when they arrived. How could it happen? I asked. Then, What happened? How?“She looked away from the spot. “‘Happen’ sounds like ‘happy,’ doesn’t it? I think I wanted ‘happen’ to turn into ‘happy,’ for the moment to become another time. But it didn’t. It never will.”

Her distress was unsettling and her description so vivid that I imagined the head, the body, the blood. I moved toward her, to comfort her, but she steeled herself. No stranger could comfort her, since no friend had been able to. I felt her unsteadiness, her off-kilter stance, and saw her restless eyes, her self-hugging arms. I said, “It must have been awful. I can’t even imagine.”

Coming out of her reverie, she looked at me more closely and relaxed a little. “What it is. What it means. It’s impossible to explain it to someone who hasn’t experienced it.”

“I’m sure. The suddenness, the violence, the helplessness. I think all I would want would be revenge.”

“Exactly. Someone to find the killer. For them to pay.”

We looked at each other.

“Very difficult,” P.P. mumbled.

She nodded, then seemed to fall back into her trance. “I just really couldn’t understand why he was here and he was there. I asked him, What are you doing? He didn’t know what he was doing. I knew that. But it was a question he used to ask me often. A critical question. Like, Why did you spray blood all over the room? Why did you leave your head where someone would trip over it?” She laughed a brittle laugh.

P.P. and I looked at each other. “The furniture,” he said, trying to get her thinking of something other than her father’s head on the floor.

“Yes,” she said, the tangible pulling her back to us again. “They’re coming to pick it up today. Or tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow. We sold most of the furniture at the yard sale, but nothing from this room. We dragged a few pieces outside, but they didn’t sell. So we’re giving what’s left to Goodwill. No one will know.” She saw our confusion. “No one will know that we had to clean the blood off these. That they were in the room with him.”

“And his papers about his collection? They’re here, in his study?” I asked.

“They were. My brother went through all his papers.” She pointed at the old oak file cabinet. “It’s empty. At least he told me it was. Why are you interested in those? Did you buy something at auction?” It seemed to suddenly have dawned on her that we were there for a reason and that the reason might not be to see the scene of his death.

“Here,” said P.P.

She looked at him, uncomprehending.

“P.P. bought a life-size head from you at the garage sale.”

“Oh, you’re the one who bought it. I thought it was the young couple. They came by early, but I guess . . . Oh, that’s right. They came back in the afternoon and asked to see it again. But you had already bought it. I couldn’t remember then who had bought it. He made me go through the checks, the young man did, to see if I could find the buyer’s name.”

“Cash,” said P.P.

“That’s what I told them. The man was rather belligerent. Said he had told me to hold it for him, that he’d be back, but had an appointment first. Or he had to get cash from the ATM. I don’t remember.” She was thoughtful.

“And the papers, the invoices and notes. Your brother kept them?” I asked.

“Yes, for the auction. He had to. They worry about where things have come from.”

“The provenance,” I said, looking around the room, then back at that spot on the floor. Her description had been so vivid, so touching, that I could picture it, the blood, the head, this woman standing in the midst of it. My voice caught when I went on. “Yes, they do worry about that.”

P.P. stopped trying to move us out of the room and looked at me with concern. I shook my head.

His eyes still on me, he asked, “And the books?” Shelving covered one wall from floor to ceiling. Books filled a good half of the wall, empty niches the other.

“A book dealer over in Berkeley bought the art books. My son is going to pack up the rest for the library.”

“Which dealer?”

“I don’t recall.”

“Is that where he kept his collection?” I asked, nodding at the shelves.

“Yes, some of it. He had the larger sculptures in the living room. Most of them. Some were in the dining room. He even had a space in the kitchen where he put a sculpture. Every time I came over to visit, their placement had changed. As if all those stone and bronze figures could walk around. I warned him he was going to throw his back out if he kept moving those big stones around. Or get a hernia. But he didn’t pay much attention. He never did care about others’ opinions.”

“Stubborn,” P.P. said as he finally herded her out the door.

She released the doorframe with a glance back at the room. “Stubborn and obsessive. He’d gotten it in his head that he’d bought a fake, and he was doing everything to find out for sure and to see how he could get the person who sold it to him.”

“Get the person?” P.P. had managed to lead us to the front door.

“Yes. ‘Nail him’ was what he said.”

“He wanted his money back?” I asked.

“No, the dealer offered him the money back, but he was determined to get this person in trouble. Or ruin his reputation.”

“How did the dealer react to that?”

She shrugged. “Who knows? With my father you only heard one side of a conversation. He could be unpleasant.”

“I’m sorry . . .” But if she was searching for kind words about her father, they escaped her.

She said, “He was coming here.”

“Who?”

“The dealer. From Bangkok. My father was practically gleeful at the prospect. That was when he was talking about nailing him. He seemed to think he could get the man arrested or something. It made him crazy that he’d bought a fake.”

I looked at P.P., who didn’t look back. We were both thinking about Grey. If P.P. hadn’t dragged me off the other night, we’d know now if he’d sold Sharpen the head. “Does your brother live locally?” I asked.

“Yes, he’s in the city.”

“And he has all the papers related to the art?”

“Yes. But as I told you, I don’t think there was an invoice for that head you bought. That’s why we were selling it at the yard sale. We figured it wasn’t important enough to show to the auction house. And we came across it after we’d given them everything else. He was meticulous in his record keeping, so there was an invoice for everything, as well as his notes. There were even some notes about what different people had to say about the art he owned.”

“Different people?”

“Yes, like local collectors. Or some specialists who came here to see his collection. People he met when he went to New York for the big art fair. It’s in March, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said. “He bought there?”

“Sometimes. He bought at auction, and he had a few dealers he liked who attended that fair. He said it was crazy, because they all seemed to save their very best pieces for March, and why didn’t they want to sell them other times of the year. My brother said they did that because they could get more for them if there were competing offers. Is that right?”

“It’s not a bad observation.”

She waited expectantly.

“Brother’s phone number?” P.P. held out the small notebook that he carried everywhere. She wrote the number in it.

“Could you also put his name?” I asked. “No, never mind that. I remember from the obituary. Tom Sharpen Jr.” The obituary was what had led us to her.

“That’s right,” she said. “I’m sorry. I just haven’t been myself.”

“No one would be, after your experience.” I felt the need to fill the ensuing silence. “Do you think your brother would be available today?”

“He works. He’s a lawyer, but he’s pretty easygoing. If you catch him in a free moment, I’m sure he’d see you.” She looked at her watch. “You might even catch him during his lunch. He doesn’t like working then, so he keeps it open.”

She shook P.P.’s hand, and he walked down the drive.

“Thank you so much. You’ve been very helpful. We’re truly sorry for your loss.” I held out my hand and she grasped it. Our eyes locked. “Good luck.”

“If you find anything . . .” she said. She’d seen the look in my eye, just as Tyler had seen it and P.P. had suspected. My determination to solve the mystery of the head, Radha’s, though she thought I wanted to solve the mystery of her father’s death.

“I’ll let you know. I’ll let the police know.”

“I think Grey was the dealer,” I said as we climbed into P.P.’s Porsche. “I wonder if he murdered him.”

“Yes.”

“Yes, you agree that he might have been the murderer? Or that he was the dealer who sold Sharpen the sculpture?”

“Yes.”

Irritated, I looked out the window. We drove through the town streets in silence, then turned north on 280. The tan hills to either side, tufts of green trees on the summits and in the gullies between their low, humping forms. “I didn’t much like him.”

“The collector?” P.P. sounded startled.

“No, Grey. I didn’t know the collector.”

He didn’t say anything. He’d bought art from Grey, and maybe he felt some kind of loyalty. Or perhaps he felt defensive. Of course, he might be brooding, wondering if the pieces he’d bought at the fair were fakes as the head might be.

“The head. The stone head,” he said finally.

I knew what he was talking about. Focus, Jenna, focus on the stone head. Don’t get involved in the murder.

“Don’t worry,” I said. I didn’t have time to find a murderer. For that matter, I didn’t have time to research his stone head. I looked at my watch and thought about Tom Sharpen’s daughter gazing down at her father’s head. Would knowing his murderer give her any relief? Solutions often did make one feel better.

I pulled out my phone to call the brother. As I punched in the number, I wondered if the head had rolled, or bounced.

“THANK you so much for seeing us on such short notice. We’ve just seen your sister at the house.”

“She’s not doing too well.”

“No,” P.P. said.

“I can’t imagine what it must have been like for her.” I looked around the glassed corner office and out toward the Bay Bridge to my right and the glistening water that led the eye to the Golden Gate. I tried to picture the scene without bridges or buildings, but couldn’t. They were as much a part of the scene as my eyes, my curvy body, my impatience were a part of me. This was home, had always been home, peopled and constructed.

He shifted the subject to our reason for being there. “You bought one of my father’s pieces at auction?”

“Not at auction, at the yard sale.”

His generous brows bunched together, a dimple forming in one cheek as he momentarily pursed his lips. He leaned forward then back in his chair in one fluid motion. “We didn’t sell any sculpture at the yard sale. Just odds and ends. Most of the work was too valuable. The yard sale was my nephews’ idea, though my sister ended up doing most of the work. It kept her busy, and it was helpful, I think, in keeping her mind off his death. At least for a short while.

“But all the sculpture went to auction. Amazingly, the auction house managed to fit it all in at the last minute. I don’t know how they produce those auction catalogues so quickly. I think they included my father’s estate in the upcoming sale because he had written extensive notes and they didn’t need to do too much research. He’d written blurbs on each piece, and they more or less lifted those for the catalogue.”

“Your father kept good records?”

“Very good. I think there was only one piece that he hadn’t kept an invoice and notes for.” It dawned on him. “Is that the piece you bought?”

“Don’t know,” P.P. said.

“It was a Cambodian head,” I said.

“Yes. That’s the one. It was shoved to the back of the kitchen cabinet, behind the blender and an old coffee maker. I assumed that it was a modern copy that he’d picked up. He sometimes did that when he was traveling. Bought contemporary sculptures for comparison with the authentic pieces that he owned. He said you had to keep up on the fakes that were being made, so you didn’t buy them yourself. He said there were fads.”

“Fads?” P.P. asked.

“Yes, fads in carving, fads in types of pieces that people wanted to own. He told a story about being on a street in Ho Chi Minh City where they sell antiques—he always put the word ‘antiques’ in quotes.” He drew quotes in the air. “Each shop on this street had a sixth-century wooden carving. He thought it was hysterical that anyone might buy one of those sculptures. But he said that people bought them once they were in Western galleries, because they didn’t know that there was one in every shop on that street. Apparently the forgers had gotten their hands on wood that dated back to that period, so when the wood was carbon-14 tested the date was correct. It was the carving that was wrong.

“So I assumed that head at the back of the cabinet was one of his new ones. I’d already sent the remainder of the collection to auction, and I couldn’t find any notes. Plus, he’d been obsessing for months about a fake that some dealer in Bangkok had sold him. He was furious, had had a lengthy exchange with him.”

“Do you have that correspondence?”

“No. I didn’t find it anywhere. I believe he was speaking with the man by phone, or on Skype. He’d become quite enamored of talking on the Internet. He liked that he could see the person and assess their honesty.”

“He wasn’t very trusting?”

Sharpen looked thoughtful. “If you’d asked me that five years ago, I would have said he was a trusting person. But the more involved he became in his collecting—and he’d become more involved since he retired—the less trusting he got.”

“Because he’d encountered more dishonest people?” I asked.

“I’m not so sure about that. But he’d learned more about the art. And that had made him aware of the forgery trade in Asia. He’d become more skeptical, more critical.”

“Not necessarily bad,” said P.P.

“No, I don’t think it was bad, but it had a negative effect on him. He was more combative. He’d never been one to lie down in an argument, but in the past few years he’d become downright ornery.”

“Ah.” P.P.’s left leg bounced. Sitting was not his forte. I wondered if he was imagining himself as Tom Sharpen, turning cynical as he learned about the art trade.

“That’s too bad. And you think that this head had something to do with it?” I asked.

“I really don’t know. Some piece had him bothered. Whether it was that head or some other sculpture, I don’t know. It may explain why it was pushed to the back of the cabinet and why there weren’t any papers about it. But, as I said, he had been in communication with the person he bought the forgery from—whatever the forgery was—and you would have expected some sort of file on it. Of course, the person who killed him had ransacked his desk and file cabinet, so they may well have taken the receipt or his working file.”

P.P. and I looked at each other. “His working file?” I asked.

“Yes, he had a file on each of his sculptures, even the less valuable ones. But there wasn’t a file on that one. And the killer went pretty thoroughly through the drawer where he kept his collection information. The drawer was open, files splattered with blood, some half pulled out, others out of order. He was meticulous, so nothing would have been out of order.”

“The wood file cabinet?” P.P. asked.

He looked at P.P. “Yes, that’s the collection cabinet. That was the collection cabinet.” His eyes suddenly filled with tears. He looked at his watch and stood. “I have a client coming momentarily, and I need to go over some papers before he arrives. I hope this has been helpful.”

“Yes, it has. Do you by any chance have a list of the dealers he dealt with?”

“No. I do have the folder with the invoices. In fact, I have it here. If you don’t mind me putting you in a conference room, you’re welcome to go through it. I rather doubt you’ll find anything about that head, but it’s perfectly possible I missed something. I know nothing about Cambodian art.”

“That would be very helpful. We’d appreciate it enormously.”

He sat back down and pulled out one of his desk drawers, then lifted out a hefty binder. “As I said, he was organized. There are pictures of everything in there, so you can see what he’d purchased.”

“Thanks. Would you mind if we got back to you with any more questions that we might have?”

“Not at all. Especially if your research helps in finding my father’s killer.”

“That would certainly be a positive outcome,” I said.

P.P. merely smiled as he shook his hand. Sharpen took the binder and led us to an adjacent room. After he’d left, P.P. looked at me and said, “No murders, Jenna. We’re art historians, not detectives.”

The length of his sentence told me he was serious, but he didn’t need to keep making the point that I shouldn’t get involved. The mystery of a stone head was enough for me.