“One second,” Max said to Alverez, reaching out his hand to stop me from speaking. He leaned over toward me and whispered, “Do you know what it means?”
“No,” I whispered back.
“Do you know anything about the paintings.”
I paused, then decided to tell Max the truth. “Yes. Yes, I do.”
“What?”
“It’s complicated.”
Max straightened up, glanced at the recorder, the red light indicating it was on, and said, “Josie and I need to consult for a moment. We’ll step outside and walk a little, if that’s all right.”
“Sure,” Alverez said, narrowing his eyes. “But you can stay here. I’ll leave the room, like I did before.”
“I’d just as soon stretch my legs,” Max answered.
Alverez shrugged and hit the Off button. “Let me know when you’re ready to resume.”
Max and I walked across the street and stepped up onto the sandy dunes. I picked up a flat gray rock and hurled it toward the ocean. Clouds were rolling in from the west, white-topped waves rippling the ocean’s surface. Max stretched and bent down.
“That’s a relief, huh?” he asked, standing upright.
I choked on sudden tears. “You have no idea.” I grasped his upper arm and leaned my forehead against his sleeve. “Thank you, Max.”
He reached over and patted my shoulder. “Sure, Josie. I don’t know that anything I did had anything to do with anything, but it’s a pleasure to work with you.”
I smiled as best I could given that I was still feeling emotional. My tears gradually abated, and I turned toward the sea. The salty air smelled fresh. I stood up, my smile broader, my confidence returning. “How come you wanted to come outside?” I asked.
“Well, I wanted to make the point that we could. This time, we aren’t here for an interrogation. You’re being asked to do a favor.”
I smiled. “Wow, that’s right, isn’t it?”
He shrugged, and looked mildly embarrassed. “I wanted to crow a little.”
I tapped his shoulder and smiled again.
Max smiled back. “So,” he said, “talk to me.”
“I’ve researched all three paintings. They were stolen from Jewish families before or during World War II. The Matisse disappeared from a small museum on the Mediterranean. The other two were taken by the Nazis.”
“My God,” Max said, turning to look at me, shock registering on his face.
“Yeah,” I said, nodding, responding to his overall reaction, not only his words. “I know. It’s horrible. I think that’s why Mrs. Cabot hired me. I think her daughter, Andi, who’s an immoral shrew, by the way, would make it impossible for her mother to return the paintings to their rightful owners. But if I find them, and announce the discovery publicly, well, Mrs. Cabot will have no choice.”
He nodded. “Makes sense.”
“Here’s the thing. I’ve found them.”
“What?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Where are they?”
“I’ve got them safe.”
After a pause, Max asked, “So why haven’t you brought them forward?”
I looked away, turning to focus on the ocean as I struggled to get my jumbled thoughts in order. “I’m not sure. Two reasons, I guess. First, I thought I ought to hold on to them in case I needed to use them to clear my name. And don’t ask how they’d help me do that, Max, because I don’t know. I don’t have a plan. I just knew those paintings could somehow be an ace in the hole.” I shrugged. “Or, they might be. It’s the only thing I know that no one else does. Knowing their location is, somehow, an insurance policy.”
“What’s the other reason?”
“I need to tell Mrs. Cabot first. I just found them. And today’s her father’s funeral. It seems too awful to tell her today. I just couldn’t do it.”
Max touched my arm again. “You’re a good egg, Josie.”
“A good egg?”
He smiled. “What else?”
“That’s it.”
“Where are they now?”
For some reason, I didn’t want to reveal their location, but I couldn’t justify not doing so. Max was my lawyer, after all. For reasons I didn’t understand, I stayed vague. “In Mr. Grant’s house. I moved them from one secret spot to another.”
He didn’t prod further. Instead, he asked, “How certain are you that someone else won’t find them wherever it is you’ve hidden them?”
“No one but me has access to the house right now, and I’ve arranged it so none of my staff will go near them.”
“I don’t like it, Josie. I think we ought to tell Alverez the truth, and let him take custody of them. Your exposure, your potential liability, if something happens to them, even, God forbid, a fire, is too great.”
I nodded. I hadn’t considered that aspect of the situation before. He was right. “There’s one more thing,” I said, looking down, not really ashamed, but feeling awkward that money came into my reckoning.
“What’s that?”
“There’ll be a reward. It was posted on a Web site. I found them, so I want it. If I turn them over to the police, I’ll lose my claim.”
“No, you won’t. I’ll make certain you’re covered.”
I couldn’t think of any reason not to do as he recommended. “Okay, then.”
“You ready to go back in?”
“Are you sure I should tell him everything?”
He squeezed my arm again. “Yes. I’ll protect your rights.”
Alverez looked somber. His eyes were dark and intent. His manner was serious, even grave. He’d asked if we were ready to resume, Max said we were, and suddenly, the tape recorder light was red, indicating, that once again a record of our conversation was being created.
“Josie has a statement to make.”
“All right,” Alverez said.
“A couple of things before she begins,” Max said. “She has acquired some knowledge of the missing paintings and is going to tell you what she knows.”
“Good,” Alverez said, his tone neutral.
“The paintings, we believe, were stolen. Josie expects to return them to their rightful owners, and if a reward is forthcoming, she expects to claim it.”
Alverez paused and I heard the soft whirr of the recorder. “And?”
Max shifted in his chair. “And we’d like to turn them over to you. But we want to be on the record that you acknowledge that but for the actions of Josie Prescott, you wouldn’t have been able to take possession of the missing artwork.”
Alverez turned to look at me. “Are you saying you have them in your possession now?”
Max said, “Do we have your acknowledgment?”
“When you turn them over, I’ll write you a receipt. I can make no comment about any other aspect of the situation.”
“That’ll be fine,” Max said, but it didn’t sound fine to me.
I leaned over to Max and whispered, “That sounds bad.”
“Nah, it’s standard operating procedure.”
“Okay,” I said, unconvinced.
“Plus, we’ll have a copy of the tape.”
“Josie,” Max said aloud, “tell Chief Alverez what you know about the paintings.”
Taking a deep breath for courage, I said, “I found out that all three paintings were stolen.”
“How?” Alverez asked.
“A Web site.”
“We checked on-line.”
I shrugged. “You checked law-enforcement sites, right?”
“Right.”
“Me, too. I didn’t find the paintings listed there. I found them on a specialized site tracking Nazi thefts before and during World War Two.”
Alverez leaned back and shook his head. “What are you saying?”
“You asked me before about Mrs. Grant’s ledger. The entry that indicated that Mr. and Mrs. Grant bought all three paintings from ‘A.Z.,’ right?”
“Right. Do you know who or what that is?”
I shook my head. “No. Maybe a person. Maybe a gallery.” I shrugged. “No idea.”
“What do you know?”
“I know Renoir’s Three Girls and a Cat was one of several paintings taken from the Brander family home in Salzburg in 1939. Cezanne’s Apples in a Blue Bowl with Grapes was stolen from a well-respected Viennese collector and businessman, Klaus Weiner and his wife, Eva, also in 1939, except that they called it collecting the ‘Jew tax.’ Matisse’s Notre-Dame in the Morning was owned by the Rosen family. They’d lent it to a small museum in Collioure, France, in 1937. In February of 1941, the curator reported it stolen along with, if I recall right, seventeen other paintings.” I shrugged. “Maybe the Nazis got that one, too. I can’t confirm that. But I do know it was stolen, and it had been owned by a Jew.”