The Body in Bodega Bay (26 page)

“We'll see, won't we? You know, Oscar Wilde once said that the best way to get rid of a temptation is to give in to it. He was talking about vice. You're talking about virtue, but it's the same principle.”

“So, you'll help me talk to Mom and Dad?”

“If that's what you really want.” The tea was ready. I poured.

T
he next morning, I slept in. Angie kept to her room. After lunch, she put on her walking shoes and said she was going out for a long walk. “I've got a lot to think about.”

“I know you do.” I waved goodbye. A long, meditative walk would do her good.

At about one-thirty, Toby called from the gallery, almost breathless. This time he was the one who had big news, and he didn't tease me about it. “Guess what? I found them. I finally found the storyboards!”

“What? Honey, that's wonderful. Tell me!” Immediately, I was as excited as he was. We'd been waiting for this break since first talking with Rose.

“They were hidden in two secret compartments behind the half-column pilasters of Charlie's desk.”

“Say again?”

Toby was eager to share the details, but it was difficult for me to picture what he was describing until he slowed down and patiently explained how he had made the discovery.

“Okay. Picture the big oak desk from the front. There are two carved columns, one on each side of the opening where you put your feet. They look like pedestals, but they're hollow.”

“Yes, I remember them.”

“Behind each one is a vertical compartment, each almost as tall as the desk is high. And they're deep, too, as deep as the space extending to the back.”

“How did you find them?”

“Well, 50 percent stubbornness and 50 percent luck. It turns out there are tiny release catches behind the back of the front drawer. I just kept looking over every inch of that damned desk because I knew it had to be Charlie's hiding place—had to be, by the process of elimination. I'd looked everywhere else. It just took me a while to figure it out.”

“Toby, you're amazing.”

“I don't know about that. I should have worked it out sooner. I've seen plenty of desks with hidden compartments but never one like this. Anyhow, I've got the storyboards, all three of them, and all in good shape. Now maybe we can figure out what Charlie saw in them. I'm closing the shop and coming home.”

Twenty minutes later, Toby rushed into the house with the storyboards under his arm and went straight to the dining room, where he laid them out on the table. I felt we were closing in on the Rublev triptych. We now had located two of the panels. Could Peter's sketches provide the last piece of the puzzle and lead us to the third?

The drawings were done in black watercolor and ink on heavy illustration boards, each about 12" × 20". They were simple in composition. They depicted the exterior of the farmhouse in the Hitchcock film, shown from different angles, partially hidden by trees. Time and again I had looked at the tiny illustration of one of the drawings that had been reproduced in the auction catalog, but with no clue as to its import. Surely, I'd thought, if we could find the actual storyboards, the result would be different; then I could penetrate their meaning. But now, with the originals in front of me, I was no closer to an answer than before. I stared and stared. There had to be more, something about them that had led Charlie to return for the second day of the auction, when he bought the icon. For that was the sequence of events, Toby reminded me. The sale receipts were clearly dated. Charlie bought the storyboards on day 1 of the auction and the icon on day 2. It wasn't by chance that he went back for the icon. But nothing I could see here suggested the connection.

One of the drawings showed the Brenner farmhouse from the front, surrounded by trees and set back behind a split-rail fence. Another showed part of the house from a different angle, closer up, next to the corrugated trunks of some trees. The third showed a side of the house sheltered by an arbor, with a group of trees off to the right. In the film, the children's birthday party takes place under that arbor and spills out onto the lawn. But the drawing looked a little different from the way I remembered the scene. In fact, something seemed to be slightly amiss in all of them. I looked at the drawings close up. I stepped back from the table and looked at them from a distance. I looked at them from the side. Something was definitely odd, but I couldn't say what.

We must have spent hours at it. Finally, Toby said, “We're not getting anywhere. We need a break. Then maybe we can look again with fresh eyes.”

“Agreed.”

Toby went to the fridge and popped open a can of soda, which he brought back to the couch. “Tell me about Sophie again. Peter was seeing her and Rose Cassini at the same time.”

“Yes.”

“Okay. He gave each one a side panel of the triptych. And did what with the central panel?”

“My guess is that he kept it himself. When he dismantled the triptych, he split up his holdings, so to speak. Of the three, the central panel was the most important, so my bet is that he hid it where he thought no one else could find it, somewhere in or around the Brenner house. That was the message he was trying to give Rose when he died. And I was hoping the storyboards could tell us where.”

“That makes sense to me. When the coast was clear, he was planning to retrieve the central panel and collect the sides from his two girlfriends, who didn't know about each other.”

“Yes.”

“I wonder. Do you think he ever had any intention of marrying Sophie?”

“Maybe he didn't know himself. Maybe he wanted to marry Rose. But he didn't live long enough to make a choice.”

“But Sophie thinks he would have married her.”

“Of course she does, and that's why Angie doesn't want us to say anything to her about the icon.”

Toby sighed. “Oh, jeez. And now you tell me Angie wants to go into a convent?”

“Uh-huh.” By now Toby knew all about the other bombshell resulting from our visit to the angel reader.

“If you ask me, she has way too much spirit to be a nun, not to mention flesh and blood.” He scratched the back of his neck. “My stomach's rumbling. I'll find a snack. Too late in the afternoon for lunch.”

While Toby went back into the kitchen and rummaged in the cupboards, I considered our next move. Toby was thinking about money, but my professional curiosity was engaged. I wanted to see the triptych restored and to participate in its recovery. That meant I needed to level with Sophie, despite Angie's reservations. I reasoned that Sophie would be more likely to let her own panel be cleaned if the triptych could be restored in its entirety, so my priority was to find the central panel. I stood in the kitchen door and explained my thinking to Toby as he wolfed squares of Sonoma cheddar on Wheat Thins. He nodded and munched.

I kept talking. “The storyboards must hold the key. So far we've missed the clue. We're going to have to try something else.”

“I'm with you,” said Toby.

“Let's watch
The Birds
one more time now that we have the storyboards and see if we can match any of them with the film. Maybe we can find a shot or an angle that can direct us to the exact site where the house stood.”

“It's worth another try.” Toby got up and went for his coat.

“I'm coming too. While you rent the DVD, I'll pick up dinner fixings. Give me a second to leave a note for Angie.” We were soon out the door.

Angie still wasn't home when we returned. We'd had our eye out for her as we drove to the stores and back. I decided not to worry. Either she was on a very long walk, or she'd stopped for coffee at the surfers' café or the fishermen's café, or the golfers' café. You don't lack for cafés around here.

T
his time we didn't watch
The Birds
from start to finish. Instead, over and over, we stop-started the scenes that gave us a view of the Brenner house and the surrounding trees. With every replay, we became more frustrated. As far as I could see, no single shot in the film precisely matched any of the storyboard views. In a moment of pique, I said, “Hitchcock seems to have ignored these storyboards.” I felt like throwing them on the floor.

Toby admonished me. “It doesn't matter whether Hitchcock used the storyboards for the film. It only matters whether Peter used the storyboards to encode a message.”

Of course, he was right.

As I was absorbing this point, the phone rang. It was George Greeley. He had tried to reach me earlier to let me know he had sent a prompt to set up our Skype connection. Would this be a good time to connect, he asked? It meant an interruption, but I assured him it would be fine. Toby was right here with me, I said. Of course, we'd be thrilled to see the uncovered Rublev. “George, just give me a minute to boot up my computer, and I'll see you online.”

In a few moments, Greeley was on screen, looking proud and ready to display his handiwork. On our side Toby stuck his head into the picture, and I made the necessary introductions.

“Here's what it looks like,” said Greeley. “Don't mind the damaged corner; I haven't started on that yet. But I've removed all the gesso and finished the cleaning.” He brought the icon up to the camera and positioned it until it filled the screen.

The result took my breath away. Toby whistled. “It's gorgeous. It's much more impressive than I imagined,” he said. “You've done a fantastic job.”

The deep, rich blue of the angel's robe looked even more intense on her full, extended arm compared to the partial section I'd seen exposed in Madison. A thinner robe of sienna brown with yellow highlights was draped atop the blue. It fell from the angel's right shoulder, crossed under her left arm, and billowed down to her ankles. The plumes of the angel's heart-shaped wings were visible behind her shoulders—details that hadn't been clear before the cleaning. One hand rested placidly on her knee; the other was poised above her lap. She was seated facing left but slightly turned toward the viewer, giving us a three-quarters frontal view. Her shape was gracefully elongated, but what held the eye was her sweet, delicate face, with its solemn expression and downcast eyes.

“Yes, it's wonderful,” I said, echoing Toby's praise.

“I'm glad you're pleased with the work. Now, it'll take a few more days for me to finish up,” said Greeley. “I've got to rebuild the support, fill in the wood losses, and restore the gilding in the damaged part. But it might be ready by next weekend. I'll let you know.”

“That would be great,” I said.

“There's something else I should tell you, though,” said Greeley. “I had a disturbing call yesterday from someone with an accent, unmistakably Russian. He was asking a lot of questions about your icon. He was specific about that. He mentioned your name, Nora Barnes. He wanted to know when the cleaning would be finished. When I asked him to identify himself, he hung up. That didn't seem right. Do you have any idea who it was?”

I looked at Toby. “No, I certainly don't. Nobody besides Al knew that I was bringing it to you.”

“Then that's very strange,” said Greeley.

“I'll let the sheriff here know about the call,” I said.

“I think you should be careful,” Toby warned Greeley. “Make sure you lock your house at night. And I'd feel better if you didn't let the icon out of your sight until we can get out there to pick it up.”

“All right. I'll do that. I'll call as soon as it's ready.”

“Be careful,” Toby said again.

“I will. You, too,” said Greeley.

As soon as we disconnected, I tried calling Dan, but he didn't pick up.

“Damn,” Toby said.

I didn't like it either. A man with a Russian accent. Did Mikovitch have an accomplice who was still out there somewhere? If so, how did he know that I had taken Charlie's icon to Madison? Toby covered his chin with his hand and scowled. “What are you thinking?” I asked.

“Try Dan again.”

I did. Still no answer. I left a message, asking him to get back to us. In addition to this new worry, I was growing uncomfortable about Angie being gone so long. The sun was sinking in the west, shooting orange filaments across the harbor waters. I felt relieved ten minutes later when I heard her at the door. “You look exhausted,” I said before I could censor the motherly remark. I instinctively helped her off with her jacket. She seemed done in.

“Yeah, I got lost on a path in the dunes.”

“Those paths can be confusing. How did you get back?”

Angie looked evasive, and I concluded I had overstepped the bounds with my protectiveness. But she had an answer. “I spotted the surfers' coffee shack and headed for that. I hung out there for a while, and a nice guy gave me a ride back.” She said this without meeting my eyes.

“Rest up then,” I said. “How about some water for hydration and some wine for relaxation, and I'll start some dinner?”

“I'm too beat. I'll make a cup of tea and take a bath and go to bed.” She turned away and went into the kitchen, as if she didn't want to interact. I left her alone in there and heard her tinkering around. Soon she went into her room without saying goodnight. Maybe, I thought, she'd emerge after her bath, to make nice. But she didn't.

L
ater, sharing a chicken salad and cornbread, Toby and I ruminated over George Greeley's message and what it might mean. Dan still hadn't called back. The thought that another Russian mafioso might be stalking us made my stomach turn over. How could anyone know about my trip to Madison? Al certainly wouldn't have said anything about it to a stranger, and no one else knew. On top of everything else, I was really worried about Angie. She seemed more than just tired. She seemed distraught. Maybe during her walk she had been brooding about her decision to become a nun. “It's totally unlike her to skip a meal,” I said.