A Crossworder's Delight (13 page)

Nantasket's main building consisted of a one-story structure fashioned from honey-colored bricks with sixty private suite apartments stretching along the cliff's edge in a wide V pattern; thirty on either side of the central reception area. An enclosed walkway led to a spacious dining room that also had a partial seaside view, a workout room, a recreational lounge and library, a unisex hair salon, and an exercise pool. It was designed for active older people, the “fifty-five plus” crowd who enjoyed whipping up special meals in their private kitchens. Many still owned and drove their own cars. And although there was a nursing staff on duty at all times, the residents were more than capable of functioning independently.

For those whose health and cognitive skills had declined, and who required more sophisticated medical facilities and an expanded professional staff, NRC-2 lay across the street. Charlie Chew was emphatically not a resident of NRC-2. At eighty-four years of age, he was as hale and hearty as he'd been when he'd been a “mere stripling” of sixty.

Belle and Rosco entered the retirement community's reception area just before noon. It had already been tastefully decorated for the holidays with garlands woven out of pine and cedar. A manger scene had been set up on the left side of the entry and a menorah to the right, and a large balsam pine tree had been placed in the center of the lounge.

No ornaments had yet been hung on the tree, but a number of cardboard boxes sat at its base along with an aluminum stepladder.

“This is a nice setup,” Rosco said to Belle as they walked toward a young red-haired woman sitting behind a long granite-topped reception desk. “It looks like our Mr. Chew has done well for himself.”

A nameplate on the counter read “Kitty Katlyn, RN,” but the woman was not outfitted in a nurse's uniform; instead she wore a demure blue suit and striped blouse.

“We're here to see Mr. Chew,” Rosco said. “He's expecting us; Rosco Polycrates and Belle Graham.”

“I'd recognize that face anywhere,” Charlie Chew nearly shouted from across the room. He was as tall as Rosco, thin and angular, and walked erect and with the confidence of a person who had spent a lifetime being in charge of most situations. “I'm a true crossword junkie, Ms. Graham,” he continued. “I have every one of your annual collections. First thing I do is rip the answer pages out of the back and feed them to the paper shredder.”

“Bravo,” Belle said with a pleased smile. “But please call me Belle. This is my husband, Rosco.”

“I would have guessed that. News of your investigations does reach us in the NRC, but you've sure done a good job of keeping your mug out of the papers, Rosco. I somehow envisioned you as more of a bookish type, but you look like someone who can handle himself physically. Brawn
and
brain.” They shook hands. “Why don't we step into the lounge. Most folks are having lunch right about now. We shouldn't be disturbed there.”

“We hate to make you miss your meal,” Belle said.

“Heck, I don't eat lunch.… Never have. A healthy breakfast and a solid dinner; that's it for me. Lunch? Espresso and a cigar, and I save that for three in the afternoon when most folks are taking a nap.”

Once in the lounge, Belle and Rosco sat together on a small tweedy couch while Charlie Chew chose a wing chair upholstered in the same nubby and clublike fabric.

“So,” he said, “what's all this about?”

Rosco started. “A good friend of ours, Stanley Hatch—”

“
Stanley
Hatch is still around?” Charlie said with a laugh and a knee slap. “That old dog must be a hundred if he's a day. His son visits me once in a while. Young Stan, he's called. Hasn't been here in ages, though. Nice kid.”

“Ah … actually, it's the son I'm referring to,” Rosco said. He was about to add that
young
and
kid
might not be the optimal words to describe the current owner of Hatch's Hardware, but Charlie had intuited that on his own.

“Of course you are. I don't know what I was thinking there for a moment … Funny how names stick with you.
Young
, for a middle-aged guy.… Okay, so
this
Stanley Hatch, who's no longer as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as he once was, is a buddy of yours, and …?”

“He told us that back in the late forties you were a member of VFW Post 85 in Newcastle,” Rosco continued. “And that a man by the name of Mike Marz had also joined?”

“We were more than fellow members,” Charlie answered, his face losing some of its sparkle and his eyes misting slightly. “Mike and I fought side by side in Patton's Third Army throughout the war. The whole shebang: North Africa, France, and right into Germany. We were buddies all the way through. Thick and thin. Right up to that damn hunting accident after we came home. That was a bad time all around, I can tell you. The community did what they could to help. I remember a neighbor lady in particular who befriended Mike's widow … but it was tough; a young gal like that with two kids. I'm sure you know Mitch and Morgan. They own the inn now.”

“Yes, we do,” Belle offered after a moment. “Actually, that's why we're here. We're looking for someone who was close Mike, especially during the time
following
the war.”

Charlie suddenly slumped in his chair. For a moment, it looked as though all the stuffing had been knocked out of him. “It's about that darn painting, isn't it?” he said in a muffled tone. “Rosco's a PI. He's been hired to find it. I should have figured that one out pronto.” He sighed deeply and seemed to settle even lower into his seat. After another long moment, he spoke again. “I did consider ignoring that letter I received in October, considered playing dumb or pretending I'd never gotten it … but at my age … well, I wanted to purge the incident from my life. I wanted to see everything returned to the rightful owner.…”

Rosco and Belle hadn't a clue what Charlie Chew meant, but they chose to remain silent as though his words were only corroborating information they'd already been supplied.

“Am I right? The museum in Salzburg has put you on retainer to retrieve Mike's painting?” Charlie asked Rosco; and without waiting for a reply followed it with, “Sure, that makes sense; the museum figures I'm ducking them, so they put a pro on the case.”

Belle glanced at her husband, but he made no response other than to gaze steadily into Charlie Chew's face.

“I may be an old man, but I know which end is up. Why else would you set up an appointment to interview me? Have you seen it? The portrait, I mean?”

“No. No, not yet,” Rosco said, which wasn't technically a lie.

“Silly question. Of course, you haven't. From what the curator wrote me, I gather no one has set eyes on it for a long, long time.”

“Actually,” Rosco said, clearing his throat and forging ahead with a spur-of-the-moment fib, “the curator in Salzburg didn't supply a heck of a lot of information. There was a language problem, and that heavy Austrian accent … Well, I'm still not sure I have all the details that clearly in our mind. This is why we opted to come to you directly.”

“Well, I promise you I did respond to the initial letter the museum sent back in October. And their follow-up letter only arrived here on Friday. That's the first I realized things had gotten fouled up. Why my reply was never received on their end, I don't know. Must've been lost in the mail, but I explained everything I knew. I really wanted to come clean about this entire affair. It's gone on far too long.”

“Since your correspondence to the curator was lost,” Belle joined in, keeping up the deception, “he asked us to locate you and get the entire story firsthand.”

“She,” Charlie corrected. “The curator's a woman.”

“She, of course,” Belle covered with a quick smile. “I was thinking of her assistant, Herr Holtzelfritz. That's who Rosco has been dealing with.”

Rosco refrained from rolling his eyes and said, “Maybe you could outline your involvement in this, Mr. Chew?”

“I … I just want to get it settled. That was my intention in October. I want everything to come out right.”

“Everyone does, Mr. Chew,” was Belle's quiet response.

“It all goes back to the war … toward the end. Like I said, Mike Marz and I were in the same platoon, and as we moved into southwest Germany we came across a fortified bunker. It was loaded with artwork: paintings, marble and bronze sculptures, even some tapestries. We had no idea the pieces had been moved there from Austria. Stolen, actually … Anyway, there were these two smallish paintings, a matching set. We didn't know how valuable they were. They were just nice pictures, pleasant souvenirs … One scene depicted a woman seated at the end of a rectangular table in an ornate parlor; in front of her was a fancy porcelain, hot-chocolate set. The other painting portrayed what looked to be her children; they were at the opposite end of the same table, anxiously waiting to be served their treat. Everyone was decked out in their finest.”

“And you and Mike Marz decided to bring the two paintings home with you,” Rosco said, more as a statement than a question.

“Yes. I'm certainly not proud of what we did, but we were younger, and … and we'd been through a lot, and somehow we just … well, we just grabbed them. We imagined the gesture keeping us bonded for life, like blood brothers. I kept the portrait of the mother—although I didn't display it. Mike had the one of the kids.… It wasn't until I needed to make a down payment on my first home, and discovered I could sell my painting for three thousand dollars—which was a princely sum back then—that we learned what we had.

“Two genuine Henri-Paul Vénérers; mine was signed and dated 1760—making Vénérer a contemporary of Boucher, is what I was told.… The woman was Empress Maria Theresa of Austria; one of her children was none other than the five-year-old Marie Antoinette. And we all know what happened to her.… Needless to say, Mike was thrilled with my windfall. He planned to bring his portrait out of hiding and sell it, too, but then he was killed in that awful accident.…” Charlie released another heavy sigh, again pausing in troubled thought.

“I'm glad my Vénérer finally ended up back in the museum it was originally looted from. Really, I am. And Mike's should be there, too.… I know what we did was wrong, taking the pictures from that bunker … but after I'd sold mine, my career began to take off, and I didn't want to risk a scandal for myself or my family.…” Charlie shook his head. “What I should have done was tell Mike's widow right away; selling the portrait would have helped her financially.… But she was an awfully proud lady. It would have really hurt her to know that her husband had taken something that didn't belong to him, so I just … I just kept my trap shut, and left everything swept under the proverbial carpet.”

“Until the museum recently acquired the painting of Maria Theresa, and decided to attempt to reunite her with her children?” Belle mused.

“Yes. They traced the one painting back to me. I swear I responded to their letter back in October,” was the pensive reply. “I can't understand why they never received it.”

“We have good reason to believe that Mike hid the painting behind the framed Longfellow poem that hung in the inn,” Rosco said.

“Oh, I outlined all that in my letter,” Charlie told him. “Everyone at the VFW post thought it was a huge joke that Mike clamped that old poem to the wall—like it was made of solid gold—but I knew better. I knew what was going on.”

“So, all these years you were aware where the Vénérer was hidden?” Belle asked.

The old man squinted and stared into space. “Well, Mike never told me for certain that that was the spot he'd chosen, although it didn't take a brain trust to put two and two together.… I explained my suspicions in my response to the curator in October. I suggested she contact the Marz twins personally, but I asked her not to mention my name to the boys.” Charlie ran his fingers through his white hair and shook his head. “I'm glad this has been finally settled. It's weighed on my conscience for sixty years.… I'd guess that painting's worth an awful lot of money now—especially with the two together.… I'd like to go with you when you pull the poem off the wall. I'd like to see the picture one last time before it's sent back to Austria … as a sort of memorial to Mike and what we went through together.”

“There's a problem with that, Mr. Chew,” Rosco said. “Someone's already beaten us to the punch. The portrait was stolen this week.”

Charlie sat in absolute silence as he absorbed the information.

“Did you confide its location to anyone other than the curator?” Rosco continued. “Anyone in your family? Or an acquaintance here?”

The old man made several small clicking sounds with his mouth, and then finally said, “No. No one. I wrote the curator, but that was it.”

“A letter which he … er, she, never received,” Belle added.

“Did you take your letter directly to the post office? Was it registered?” Rosco asked.

“No. We leave all our correspondence at the front desk, and someone hands it off to—” Charlie paused once again. “Wait, you know what? I gave that letter to Reggie. He's a nurse here. His wife, MaryJane, too. They're terrific people, and genuine health nuts which is good for some of us. geezers … I remember asking Reggie to take it to the P.O. for me, because it was international mail and might require more postage than I'd affixed. I would have driven it over myself, but my grandson had borrowed my car for the Halloween weekend.”

“I guess we should be talking to Reggie and MaryJane,” Rosco said, almost to himself.

Charlie laughed. “What? You think they hijacked my letter?” He laughed again. “Reggie and MaryJane have been at the NRC for years. Besides teaching yoga and all that ‘good diet' business, they handle our weekly entertainment. I hardly think they would do anything as outrageous as tampering with the mail, let alone stealing a painting.”