Ripped From the Pages (12 page)

“I guess you’re right,” I said after considering his explanation. “And since reporters
will be spreading the word around the country anyway, we could have something concrete
to show people
who come up here hoping to get a look at the caves and the treasure.”

“I can guarantee those reporters will not be allowed to set foot inside the caves,”
Gabriel said.

I nodded. “Good.”

“It would also help us get out in front of the story,” Derek said. “We could advertise
the exhibit from here to the Bay Area and give it an intriguing name to draw more
attention to it.”

“Something like The Hidden Treasures of La Croix Saint-Just? And then a subtitle with
something to do with escaping the Nazis during the Second World War.”

“Excellent, darling,” Derek said with a grin.

“I’m not sure why, but I’m starting to love this idea.” I gazed fondly at Derek. “I
had no idea you had such PR and marketing savvy.”

“Hidden depths,” he said with a humble shrug, making me laugh.

My smile faded. “The only problem is that it’s sure to attract a lot of looky-loos
to Dharma.”

He flashed a wry grin. “Looky-loos earn their name because they look with no intention
of buying. But that won’t happen in this case. Anyone driving all the way up to Dharma
to see the exhibit will wind up spending the day here. They’ll tour the poster display
and follow it up with a visit to the winery.”

“And they’ll shop and have lunch on the Lane,” I added. “What do you think, Robson?”

He had been listening to us toss ideas back and forth. Now he said, “There must be
a greater purpose to the exhibit.”

“There is,” Derek said, all seriousness now. “This is how we publicly demonstrate
full disclosure. The French families think we’re hiding something from them, but we’re
not. We’ll take
pictures of everything exactly as we found it, including the caves themselves.”

“And it’ll be educational and historical, too,” I added.

“All right,” Robson said after a moment of consideration. “And once we have received
the families’ lists of belongings, I would like them to be given a tour of the caves.
It is only fair that they see things as we found them.”

Derek nodded. “I’ll call Monsieur Cloutier to make sure, but I’m confident we’ll have
their lists in hand within another day or two and can schedule a tour this weekend.”

“The sooner, the better,” Robson said, warming up to the idea. “It is most important
that we relieve the families’ apprehension. That is my biggest concern.”

“All of this will help address that,” Derek said with conviction.

I turned to Derek. “I thought of another issue. What if the families balk at the idea
of having their personal items photographed for the exhibit?”

He pondered that one. “I considered that, too, but I don’t believe it’s for them to
decide. We’re documenting a moment in history. We found this cache on winery property
and are detailing it for posterity.” He turned to Robson. “Do you agree?”

“I do.”

“Then all that’s left to do is iron out a few more details,” I said. “Would you like
me to organize things, or would you rather appoint someone else to do it?”

“You are my number one choice, Brooklyn dear,” Robson said with a grin.

“Lucky me,” I said, smiling back at him. “Do you want us to check in with you on each
aspect, or shall we just run with it?”

“I trust you to do everything to perfection.”

Now I laughed out loud. “We’ll see how that works out.”

As we gathered our things and stood to leave, Derek said,
“Can you give us a bit more information about this art appraiser?”

“His name is Noland Garrity,” Robson said, walking with us down the wide hall toward
the front door. “I will be sure to let him know that the books are to be appraised
by Brooklyn.”

“Oh,” I said, touched by his words. “Thank you, Robson. I’ll wait to see if any of
them are left behind once the families have claimed their possessions.”

“So what’s this appraiser guy like?” Gabriel asked.

Robson gave a mild shrug. “A curmudgeonly sort, but he is very good and very discreet.
He worked for many years at Sotheby’s auction house in New York and Christie’s in
Beverly Hills. Now he is a freelance appraiser and author.”

“Sounds legitimate,” Derek said. “I presume it won’t be necessary to run his name
through Interpol?”

Guru Bob chuckled. “No. He is quite reputable.”

I watched Derek’s nonreaction as he reached for the doorknob, and I knew without a
doubt that he would run Garrity’s name through Interpol anyway. Because that was how
he rolled.

*   *   *

I
spent the drive home making notes as Derek and I discussed everything involved in
pulling this crazy idea together.

“We can get a bunch of dramatic statements from people who’ve been inside the caves,”
I said. “We’ve got you and Trudy, my mom and dad, and Robin and my brothers. Oh, and
Stan, from the excavation company. He can talk about it from his own point of view
and make it sound like an adventure.” I grew more excited as I wrote down the names.

“Are you comfortable delegating some of the tasks to others?”

“Oh yeah. I think I’ll ask my mom to be in charge of
gathering everyone’s stories. We can write them out on cards and post them on the
walls along with the photographs. Like they do in art museums.”

“Good idea,” Derek said as he braked for the traffic light before turning onto Shakespeare
Lane. “Trudy can give a historical perspective, telling how her family escaped the
Nazis and traveled here. And if any of the French folks are interested in contributing,
they can each tell their own personal story.”

I gazed at him. “Can we pull this all together before next Wednesday when the reporters
show up?”

“Why not?”

I stared at him. “Yes. Why not?” Glancing down at my list, I wondered aloud, “Will
the reporters be satisfied with photographs instead of being given a tour of the caves?”

“They’ll have to be, since they won’t be allowed inside the caves under any circumstances.”

“Good,” I said. “Because letting them go inside would be a really bad idea.”

“If we entertain them well enough, they’ll go away satisfied.”

“Entertain them?” I stared at my list. “Do you think we need music at the town hall?”

“If you’d like,” he said, “but I was referring to someone giving a guided tour of
the exhibit. Someone with a lot of enthusiasm.”

“A docent or two?”

“Trudy would enjoy doing that, I think.”

I grinned. “She would be perfect. And so would you.”

“Me?” He did a double take, looking at me as if I’d grown a second head. “Absolutely
not.”

“But they’ll love you. It’s the British accent. We Yanks are suckers for it.”

He rolled his eyes. “No.” The light turned green, and he proceeded slowly through
the intersection.

I wrote his name down. “You’ll be great.”

“No.”

“Oh, I just realized that Robin can take the pictures. She’s a fantastic photographer.”

“She does have a wonderful aesthetic style,” he agreed.

“I’ll contact her.” I added it to my list. I was going to be busy for the next few
days, but I wouldn’t be alone. I planned to call every member of my family and everyone
else I knew in Dharma to help me out. With barely one week to pull this together,
I would need all the help I could get.

*   *   *

L
ate the next morning, Trudy answered the door seconds after Mom rang the bell. “Becky
and Brooklyn. What a nice surprise.”

“I hope you don’t mind us dropping in,” Mom said. “But we were in the neighborhood,
and I thought, let’s see if Trudy is home.”

“I love spontaneity. And to tell the truth, I’m happy to see you because you’ve saved
me a phone call.” She swung the door wide open, allowing us room to come inside. “Amelia,
look who’s here.”

If the horrified expression on the woman’s face was any indication, Amelia didn’t
share Trudy’s love of spontaneity.

“I suppose they’ll want tea or something,” Amelia muttered as she stomped off to the
kitchen.

“That would be lovely, thank you, Amelia,” Trudy called. She turned and smiled at
us. “It’s as if she reads my mind.”

“She must be such a joy to live with,” I said, biting my tongue. It’s not that I enjoyed
antagonizing Amelia, but her sour reaction made our impulsive visit even sweeter.

In truth, our visit wasn’t impulsive at all. I wanted to see the
matching bookend that Trudy had told us about the other day in the cave. Mom had agreed
to be my partner in crime—well, not crime, so much as equivocation—and we had memorized
our lines well.

Two hours earlier, Derek and I had accompanied my mother into the caves to watch her
perform her sacred cleansing ceremony. My ears were still ringing from her enthusiastic
whoops, and I could still smell the white sage smoke in my hair. Mom had outdone herself,
invoking the cave goddesses to keep the place safe. I firmly believed that the cave
would last another thousand years with or without Mom’s help, but it couldn’t hurt
to add some extra insurance. Mom was, after all, the powerful Grand Raven Mistress
of the Celtic Goddess Coven of greater Sonoma County. She was not to be messed with.

After the ceremony, Derek drove off in the opposite direction to meet with Monsieur
Cloutier to arrange a tour of the caves for any of his community who wanted to participate.

Now Trudy led the way into the living room, and we sat around the coffee table. There
was an open storage box on the table filled with photos and letters and memorabilia.

“Did we catch you at a bad time?” Mom asked.

“Oh no,” Trudy said, waving her hand breezily. “I’ve just been going through some
of my aunt Marie’s old letters and photos.”

“Oh, your aunt Marie is Robson’s grandmother,” I said, then realized I was stating
the obvious. But now I was even more interested in seeing some of those letters.

“That’s right,” Trudy said. “She gave this box to me years ago, mainly because so
many of these letters were from my mother.”

“That was thoughtful of her,” Mom said.

“She was a sweet lady,” she said.

“What was your mother’s name?” I asked.

“Camille.” She smiled fondly. “I’ve always loved that name.”

“It’s a charming name,” Mom said.

“Yes.” Trudy sighed. “After touring the caves the other day, I was feeling sentimental
about my family, so I pulled these out to read and reminisce.”

“What a good idea.” Mom smiled as she glanced inside the box and lifted a short stack
of letters wrapped with a faded blue ribbon. She held it close to her nose and sniffed.
“Oh, Brooklyn, look at this wonderful old paper.”

To an outsider, it probably looked odd to be sniffing a bunch of letters, but my mom
knew and appreciated that I was addicted to anything having to do with old paper and
books—the look of it, the feel of leather and paper in my hands, the smells. I took
the stack of letters from my mother, ran my fingers across the surface of the paper,
and felt its thickness. Then I took a deep breath, absorbing its scent. “Oh, I love
it. So musty and evocative of a time long ago. And this is a beautiful, high-quality
paper.”

“Isn’t it?” Trudy said.

“Oh gosh, I’m being presumptuous.” I’d just invaded her home and helped myself to
her mother’s precious letters. “I’m sorry, Trudy.”

But Trudy was fascinated. “Not at all. I never thought about it, but of course you
would appreciate old paper. Please look at anything that strikes your fancy.”

But I returned the stack of beribboned letters to their place inside the box and sat
down again. “People really knew how to write letters back in the day.”

“They did,” Trudy said. “My mother’s letters are pages and pages long. She turned
every little trip on the train into an adventure filled with funny events and news
and odd tidbits. I can hear her voice as I’m reading.”

“That’s the true gift of letter writing,” Mom said.

Trudy held up a faded pink envelope. “I was just trying to read this one when you
knocked on the door. It’s from Aunt Marie to my mother, but it’s in a language I can’t
figure out.”

“It’s not written in French?” I asked.

“No.” Trudy chuckled. “I have a feeling it’s some sort of hybrid language the two
of them made up when they were in school. They were girlfriends from a very early
age and attended a convent school near Limoges. For hundreds of years, the nuns taught
the ancient languages, Latin, Medieval French, Coptic, some sort of ancient Hebrew,
among others.”

“That must’ve been challenging.”

“You would think so, but according to my mother, the students used to take it in stride.
My mother and aunt would use a combination of those languages in their letters to
each other so nobody else could understand what they wrote.”

I smiled. “Little girls like to keep their secrets.”

“Most definitely.” She handed the pink envelope to me. “You might find this one interesting,
Brooklyn. Not the letter itself, but the paper is unlike anything else in the box.”

I looked at the envelope and frowned. “There’s a stamp but no address written on it.”

Trudy looked mildly concerned. “Oh, I didn’t realize. . . .”

“It’s probably explainable,” I murmured. “She might’ve slipped another letter inside
a new envelope.” I rubbed the notepaper between my thumb and forefinger. The finish
felt like satin, and I wondered where it had originated. I looked more closely and
could make out part of a watermark. “May I take this with me for a day or two? I would
love to track down this papermaker.”

“Certainly.” She nodded eagerly. “You’ve stirred my curiosity.”

“Yes. Mine, too.” I slipped the letter into my purse, knowing this wasn’t the time
to delve into its secrets. But now I was anxious to study it and hoped I could grab
some time tonight before or after dinner. My friends and family were used to my getting
geeky over things like this.