A Head in Cambodia. Nancy Tingley
Asian art. I imagined his disappointment when he saw what he had. It wasn’t a consolation.
I considered going to get my father to help me. Four hands would simplify the task of securing the window. But going back to the house would mean my mother would insist that I stay, that I put my car in their garage until I could get the window fixed in the morning. I wedged one side of the foam board down the opening where my window had been and managed to jam it into place, then I taped the upper edge and sides so that it wouldn’t blow away when I drove.
I pushed the comforter onto the passenger seat, pulled off my soaking coat and threw it on top of the comforter, climbed into the driver’s seat, leaned my head back on the headrest, and closed my eyes, groaning as I thought of the work I still needed to do tonight. Once I’d collected myself, I started the car. A car parked a few cars behind me started too, its lights flashing on for an instant, then going out.
Instinctively I locked the car doors, imagining an arm crashing through the foam board and grabbing me by the throat. Or two arms. Or a machete, its curve falling and in one fell swoop breaking my window and severing my head. Then it dawned on me, my disparate thoughts catching up with each other. This wasn’t just a random break-in.
The rain pummeled the window, making it impossible to see. The street was dark, except for my headlights blurring light across the bumper of the car in front of me. I wanted to scream. Instead I reached into my purse, felt the reassuring bulk of Tom Sharpen’s notes. This must be what the thief was after. The books meant nothing, the Post-its in the books meant nothing. The notes were what was significant. Of course, the thief didn’t know there were notes, or so I hoped.
As I pulled away from the curb, I saw the bedroom light go on in my parents’ house. There they were, unaware of the danger. The thief—was he also the murderer?—knew where they lived and undoubtedly knew where I lived. This wasn’t about the notes, or the books, or the Post-its in the books. This was about frightening me off. A threat not just to me, but also to my family.
Damn Philen for bringing us to the attention of the killer. The idiot. Car lights came on behind me again, and that same car slowly pulled from the curb.
I braked and started to open the door. Then I thought of Grey and how he had tried to intimidate me with his size at the art fair. His smell and his ridiculous thinning ponytail. Damn that Grey. It had to be him, didn’t it? He’d practically admitted it. What was it he’d said? That he’d flown to the States to talk with Sharpen about a piece. That he’d been too late. Or some such. But the point was, he’d come to the Bay Area around the time Tom Sharpen died.
I was sure it was him, a man twice my size. I drove on, turning right, then left, losing the car easily in the maze of streets that wound like snakes around the Berkeley hills.
8
“I’m sorry to bother you again,” I said to Peggy as she handed me a coffee mug. I took a sip. It was so weak, I wondered if she’d remembered to put coffee in the filter. We stood in her sunny, butter-yellow kitchen rather than her father’s house. Perhaps because of that, she seemed much calmer than when P.P. and I had met her before. “I won’t be long.”
“Did you speak with my brother?” She pulled a face as she took a sip, then gazed into her mug.
“Yes, he was very helpful.” As I spoke, I thought about why I hadn’t gone to see him rather than her. His office was closer to Marin, just over the Golden Gate Bridge, I was tired after a sleepless night, and he seemed better able to cope with the murder than she did. Yet I’d rationalized going to her by thinking that I hadn’t visited the Cantor Museum at Stanford for quite some time or the Anderson Collection, with its marvelous collection of modern art. I knew these were merely rationalizations. I was drawn to her fragility, to her proximity to the murder, to the possibility that she would reveal a clue.
She looked at me expectantly, and I realized my thoughts had been wandering.
“I went to see the book dealer who bought your father’s books. Your brother had remembered his name.”
“Oh, were there some books that you wanted to purchase?”
“Yes, always. It’s an addiction.” I thought of my father. I thought of my brother.
“Did he have what you wanted? That would be nice if you had some of my father’s books. He would have liked a young scholar to have them. He was almost as proud of his library as he was of his art collection. He said he had rare ones.”
She was right. There had been some rare books, old French publications that were now difficult to find and expensive. “He was right to be proud. Though I fear young scholars can’t afford very rare books on their young scholars’ salaries.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. I wish I had met you before I sold the books. We got so little money for them that I would have been happier giving them to someone appreciative.”
“Ah, well. Timing. But I did buy a couple of books that I’ve been wanting, so it was a doubly useful trip.” I didn’t bother to mention that someone had stolen them. That someone being the same person who had cut off her father’s head, no doubt. I didn’t tell her. I hadn’t told anyone. I’d spent the night getting angrier and angrier, more and more determined. Which, of course, was why I was here.
She frowned. “Doubly useful?”
“Yes, I found some of your father’s papers stuck in one of the books.” I took another sip, then masked the dishwater taste of the so-called coffee with a bite of one of the cookies that she’d set on the counter in front of me.
She seemed to suddenly realize that we were still standing, and she picked up the cookies and moved toward the kitchen table. “Important papers?”
“Well, I don’t know about that, but they do seem to be his notes about that sculpture that worried him so. The head.”
“I was so sick of hearing about that hunk of stone.”
Taking a seat, I asked, “He liked to talk about it?”
She thought for a moment. “He didn’t like to, I think. It was just that it made him so angry. He’d get worked up about it and go on and on to anyone who would listen.”
“Ah.” I set down the mug with no intention of picking it up again.
“He was convinced that the dealer had intentionally sold him a fake, a copy of some sculpture that he knew. He really was furious.”
“I imagine that was difficult.”
“Yes. I hated it when he got angry.” She picked at a cookie, edging crumbs onto the table.
“I have those notes here with me.”
She nodded, a little puzzled.
“I’ve been trying to decipher them, without success. I thought you might be better able to understand his note-taking.”
“I’m not so sure. But I can look.”
I pulled the papers out of my purse and spread them before her. “I see here who he bought it from.”
She looked. “Yes, that’s right. I was trying to remember. Grey. That’s right.”
That confirmed that. “And of course the invoice has the date of purchase, what he paid, etc.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Then it seems he didn’t do anything with the head for quite some time, until about a year later—he was very thorough, putting dates for everything.”
“Yes, that was him. He was originally trained as an accountant. He was very methodical.”
“He dated every note—he researched and confirmed what Grey had told him, that the head was in Baphuon style. That’s this paper here. He’s written a little blurb describing the head and comparing it to other sculptures.”
“Yes, that’s