I handed Manny his soda, poured myself a cup of Peet's coffee from the thermos, and set out the samosas, peach chutney, and hot lime pickle. One of the best things about working nights and sleeping late was having lunch for breakfast. I wasn't a scrambled-eggs-and-pancakes kind of gal.
“I wanted to ask you about some of the art at the columbarium,” I began, breaking open a crusty samosa, a savory Indian pastry stuffed with potatoes, vegetables, and spices.
“Miss Ivy said you were asking around,” Manny mumbled through a mouthful of bologna sandwich, which he had insisted on finishing before partaking of the samosas. “I'm a numbers cruncher, remember? I'm not so good with history. You know who you should talk to? Old Mrs. Henderson. She was secretary to the director for fifty-one years, been here longer than Cogswell.”
“No kidding?”
“Can you imagine working here for that long? That's dedication.”
“Or lack of options.”
“You're too young to be so cynical,” Manny laughed. “By all reports, Mrs. Henderson loved this place.”
“Maybe she has family buried here,” I suggested, struggling with the concept of doing anything for fifty-one years. I had a wee problem with commitment. “Do you know where I can find her?”
“She's at a retirement home off Piedmont Avenue. Evergreen Something-or-other. You should look her up.”
“Maybe I will. Tell me, Manny. What do you know about the painting in the Chapel of the Allegories,
La Fornarina
?”
“I know that she's sexy as hell,” he said with a wolfish grin. “What about it? It's a copy from the 1800s. Henderson loved it, had it hanging in her office for years. When she left she made a big deal about getting the Alcove of the Allegories ready for it. Even finagled a grant to renovate it.”
That cheap digital reproduction hadn't been hanging anywhere until recently, I thought.
“What kind of grant?”
“The columbarium enjoys the support of a handful of benefactors who provide targeted grants for special projects. Henderson was a real whiz at grant writing, as is Miss Ivy, believe it or not. Aaron Garnerâthe rich guy with the weird hair?â paid for the restoration of the Fornarina alcove. As a matter of fact, he's funding the alcove you're working on, too.”
“Really? I'm working for Garner in the City. I didn't realize he was funding the mural restoration as well.”
“I don't know what we would do without him. He's devoted to the place.”
My cell phone shrilled out the Mistah F.A.B. hip-hop tune Mary had downloaded when I wasn't looking. That was two weeks ago, and I still hadn't figured out how to change it back.
Amused, Manny watched me root around in my bag for the phone. “You're a rap music fan, are ya?”
“Not so's you'd notice,” I muttered, flipping the phone open just as Verizon bounced the call to voice mail. I recognized the number: Mary. I'd call her back later. “My assistant did it.”
“Mary?”
“Mary.”
“Ah.”
“Sorry about that. How did the columbarium come to own a copy of
La Fornarina
?”
He shrugged. “It's been here forever. The architect, Julia Morgan, may have purchased it in Europe when she bought a lot of other things.”
“Tell me about that.”
“When Chapel of the Chimes was nearing completion in the twenties, Lawrence Moore, the director of the columbariumand crematorium, sent Morgan and her artist friendâ Doris Something-or-otherâon a buying trip to select art and artifacts. Morgan picked up the Roman fountain in the Gregorian Garden on that trip, as well as the Medici lapis-and-malachite table in the Main Cloister.”
“Those are amazing pieces,” I said, recalling the ancient fountain's gorgeous mosaic and the shimmering stones of the Medici table. “Manny, is the columbarium in financial trouble?”
“I can't discuss privileged information with you, Annie, you know that,” Manny said as he doused a samosa with chutney and lime pickle. “These are yummy, by the way.”
“Have another.”
He nodded. “I can tell you this, though. There's been talk that the columbarium may need to sell off some of the more valuable artwork to pay for the earthquake retrofit.”
“Which pieces are they thinking of selling?”
He shrugged. “Well, there's the miniatures collection. But I think Roy's already spoken with you about that. I wouldn't worry about
La Fornarina,
though. It was assessed a few years ago and isn't worth much.”
“Who did the assessment?”
“I don't recall offhand. I could look it up if you'd like.”
“If you don't mind.”
“Sure. Any special reason?”
“I know a few people in the field, that's all.” My non-answer seemed to satisfy the accountant, who started munching another samosa. “I saw Roy Cogswell talking with Billy Mudd earlier. The management isn't thinking of selling some of its land to Mudd, is it?”
“They couldn't, even if they wanted to.”
“Why not?”
“Because the cemetery doesn't own the land, the residents do. ”
“What residents?”
With a sweep of his arm Manny gestured to the hills below us.
“You mean the
dead
people?”
He nodded. “We call them the residents.”
“That's . . . different.”
“Can you think of a better alternative?”
I thought of several. None was better.
“How can dead people own real estate?”
Manny laughed. “It's not as creepy as it sounds. It works like thisâliving people purchase the plots of land in the cemetery, or the boxes or niches in the columbarium. It's a real estate transaction, same as buying a house or a condo. Legal deeds, the whole shebang. Upon the owner's death, the title to the land reverts to a trust in perpetuity. The trust is structured so that the land can't be sold without a vote of the board and the residents.”
“The dead people.”
“That's right.”
“So that would make a vote unlikely.”
“Yep,” Manny said with finality. He checked his watch and began stuffing the remnants of his meal into a crumpled brown bag. “All this talk of death has put me off my lunch, Annie. Remind me of that the next time you ask me out.”
“A columbarium accountant who eats in a cemetery every day should have a stronger stomach,” I said, noting that in addition to his sandwich, Manny had managed to choke down three samosas and taken a huge bite out of a fourth.
“I'm a deeply sensitive soul,” he said with a wink. “Back to the salt mines. Coming with me, or are you going to stay awhile?”
“I think I'll soak up a few rays, while they last. Heyâ good luck deciding on your reception hall.”
“Thanks, but it's not up to me. Never underestimate the power of a future mother-in-law. Soda's my treat next time,” Manny said and started to amble down the road.
I watched as he stopped to chat with one of the gardeners; then I shoved the thermos and sack of leftover samosas into my shoulder bag and picked my way down the hill and around the tombstones to Louis Spencer's crypt. I was several yards away when I spotted a hunched old man wearing a mangy overcoat and a black beret placing a nosegay of violets on the pyramid's steps. The man scuttled away as I approached.
Except for the violets everything was as it had been the other night. The iron gate was still ajar, the balloons and toys and flowers remained, the sad-looking Raggedy Ann stared at me unblinkingly. No yellow police tape warned intruders away, no black fingerprint dust marred the surface of the white marble statues. Then again, it had been a simple grave robbery. It seemed doubtful the busy Oakland Police Department would be pulling out all the stops to find ghoulish fingerprints.
I glanced around to make sure no one was watching, pulled the gate open, and slipped inside. In the light of day the crypt felt more poignant than sinister, and the splashes of light filtering through the cross-and-rose stained glass window highlighted the evidence of decay and neglect.
I peeked behind the sepulcher. The ghoul's tools were still there.
Shutting the gate behind me, I proceeded down the hill to the cemetery offices that were housed in the old caretaker's cottage. Inside, an elderly couple sat at a desk conferring with a pale, curly-haired young man in an ill-fitting blue blazer. Three women in colorful, embroidered saris perched on a brown Naugahyde sofa and paged through a catalogue of caskets. A young couple murmured in German as they perused a map of the graves.
Death and mourning I could deal with. What appalled me was the Tim O'Neill painting hanging over the large stone fireplace. I assumed it was genuine, though I couldn't be sure. My talent for aesthetic profiling was most accurate when I felt an affinity for an artist, and O'Neill's work left me not just cold, but frozen. A self-proclaimed “painter of radiance,” O'Neill mass-marketed digital reproductions of his soft-focus paintings of flower-filled villages and romantic ocean views. At a thousand dollars a pop, he was making a fortune. It wasn't bad enough that cemetery visitors were coping with the loss of a loved one; they also had to deal with O'Neill's cheesiness?
Get a grip, Annie,
I thought.
Everyone has a right to an opinionâand O'Neill's more popular than you'll ever be. Plus, unlike you, he hasn't broken any actual laws.
Other than the law of good taste.
I approached the long reception counter and nodded at the plump, fiftyish woman whose name tag indicated she was HELENAâHEAD DOCENT.
“Good afternoon and welcome,” she said with a subdued smile. Helena's straight blond hair was cut in a pageboy. A single strand of pearls encircled her neck and a coral sweater-set complemented her salmon-toned lipstick. I tried to calculate the odds that there would be a time in my life when my lipstick matched my clothes. The smart money was on “fat chance.”
“This may sound odd,” I began, “but did anyone report a grave robbery the night before last?”
Helena's smile congealed like day-old egg yolk. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the curly-haired man glance at us, but everyone else seemed preoccupied with thoughts of death.
“Come with me, please,” Helena said frostily, and I followed her down a narrow hall to a small conference room.
She slammed the door. “Who are you?” she demanded as she took a seat at the head of an oval table of dark polished cherry. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“I'm Annie Kincaid. I'm restoring some murals in the columbarium.” I sank into an upholstered chair. “The other night I met Cindy Tanaka, andâ”
“Who?”
“Cindy Tanaka. She's a graduate student doing a research project involving Louis Spencer's crypt?”
“I have no idea what you're talking about.”
“She's researching public manifestations of death, or something like that, andâ”
“Never heard of her.”
“Perhaps someone else might know more aboutâ”
“I assure you, Ms. Kincaid,
nothing
happens in this cemetery that I don't know about. I'll grant you that, from time to time, teenagers vandalize the unendowed section, or meet in groups to howl at the moon, or whatever it is they do when they should be at home in bed, but there have been
no
incidents of grave robbing. Why, the very idea . . .” She pursed her orangey lips and glared.
I became aware of the aroma of samosas and coffee emanating from my shoulder bag and filling the small, stuffy room. What with the smell, my ratty overalls, and my paint-stained T-shirt, I feared I wasn't putting my best foot forward. I tried again.
“You've never heard of a Berkeley graduate student named Cindy Tanaka doing work on public mourning?”
“I assure you, I have not.”
“She was taking pictures of Louis Spencer's crypt.”
Helena's lacquered pageboy swung as she shook her head.
“But she had a key to the gates.”
“Impossible.”
“Look, Helena, I'm not making this up,” I said, frustrated. “I met Cindy here, in the cemetery, the night before last. And there was a, uh, incident.”
“What kind of incident?”
“A man in a green mask tried to remove a metal box from Louis Spencer's sepulcher.”
“
What?
Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“This is terrible,” Helena said and stood up. “I'll look into it immediately.”
The head docent scurried out of the conference room. Unsure whether or not to follow, I lingered for a moment before retracing my steps, leaving my business card on the counter in the reception area and heading out to the street.
As I emerged I saw Billy Mudd leaning against my truck. What fun.
Chapter 6
The vulgar will see nothing but chaos, disorder, and incorrectness.
âJames Ensor (1860-1949), Belgian painter
Â
The truly vulgar will see nothing but economic opportunity.
âGeorges LeFleur
Â
I had heard of love at first sight, though I remained skeptical. I had never heard of loathe at first sight, but thanks to Billy Mudd I believed in it wholeheartedly.
With spiky hair bleached bone-white by the sun and skin bronzed to a precancerous ruddiness, Billy resembled the stereotypical California surfer dude. Blond brows and lashes highlighted his cobalt-blue eyes, which strafed the world with icy disdain. A few years older than I, Billy acted much younger, and was far buffer than I could ever hope to be. His relaxed aura, combined with the über-masculine air common to construction workers, was undeniably sexual, though in a way I found repellant. If the Aryan Brotherhood had a surfing and carpentry division, Billy would be its Führer.