Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
J enny snapped awake in the middle of a nightmare.
In her dream, Kristen from Christie’s arrived at the grove to discuss selling the Fabergé egg and brought the four Romanov daughters along for the meeting. It was impossible, but dreams were like that. Jenny sat at the farm table discussing the auction with Kristen while the four Romanov daughters watched from the kitchen, dressed in their ethereal white gowns, their faces expressionless. Jenny tried to offer them a cup of coffee, but they wouldn’t look at her.
The dream was unnerving, even though she shouldn’t feel guilty about claiming the egg. She wasn’t robbing a grave; she was merely starting the process to determine the egg’s legitimate owner.
Jenny sat on the porch swing with Hemingway to await Kristen’s arrival. “Are you sure you want to pull the trigger on this?” he asked. “Once Kristen announces the discovery of the egg, our ninety-day clock starts.”
Looking at the churned-up dirt in her lumpy, barren grove hardened her resolve. “I’m sure,” she said, even though Hemingway’s question screwed her anxiety a little higher. Revealing the existence of the egg was going to infuriate the sheriff, but she couldn’t afford to wait any longer.
Nervous apprehension still swirled as Kristen’s four-door sedan rolled up the gravel driveway, clouds of limestone dust kicking up beneath the wheels as she drew near.
Once again, Kristen was fabulously attired in a flirty skirt that flared out beneath a belt that cinched her waist into enviable proportions. In light of her stiletto heels, Hemingway lent Kristen his arm as she gingerly tiptoed over the gravel drive and up the porch steps. Inside, Kristen’s heels clicked on the plank floors as they headed back to the kitchen for something to drink after her long drive from Miami.
Kristen’s eyes sparkled behind her cat-eye frames as she admired the kitchen. “What a charming carafe!” she enthused as Jenny poured a glass of iced tea. “Is it Steuben glass?”
The jug was what she and Jack used for Kool-Aid when they were kids. “I’m not sure. It’s always been here.”
“What about those vintage Waffle House signs I saw propped against the side of the barn? Are they original?”
“I don’t know,” Jenny said. “My grandfather collected them.”
“It appears he had quite the eye for collectible southern folk art,” Kristen said.
Her grandfather also had quite the eye for old margarine containers, broken radios, and crates filled with moldering issues of the Saturday Evening Post . After he died, Jack went on a binge inspired by Antiques Roadshow to search through Gus’s junk for treasures. He started selling the good stuff through online auction sites before he died, but Jenny never pursued selling the rest.
“Shall we get down to business?” Kristen asked brightly, and Hemingway jumped up to pull out a chair at the farmhouse table. Kristen sat, then opened a sleek alligator-skin briefcase and removed a number of files stuffed with paperwork.
“Let’s start with what our researchers have learned about the egg,” Kristen said. “The Firebird Egg was commissioned by Czar Nicholas in 1896. One of our associates in Russia researched what is known about the fate of the egg, and it isn’t pretty.”
Jenny braced herself. The czarina kept the egg on a bookshelf in her private parlor at the Winter Palace. Nothing that happened to the czar’s family or their possessions during the revolution was going to be a pretty story.
The first photograph Kristen showed them was of the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg. The stately building had broken windows, blackened scorch marks, and the ground was littered with rubble.
“This was taken in October of 1917 right after the palace was stormed by the Bolsheviks,” Kristen said. “The czar and his family were already in custody at a rural house in Ekaterinburg, so the palace was only guarded by a handful of troops, who were quickly overwhelmed. A mob broke through the barricades and streamed inside the palace. The looting was terrible, and the Firebird Egg was lost for ten years after that night.”
“The first sighting of your egg happened in 1927,” Kristen continued. “A Soviet official gave it to his mistress in Moscow. She eventually sold it back to the Kremlin a few years later, but not before she had herself photographed with it. Brace yourself. It’s a very candid photo.”
Kristen opened the file to reveal a black-and-white photograph, and Jenny blanched.
The woman looked a little like Greta Garbo. Her hair was bobbed fashionably short, her skin shockingly white against smoky, kohl-rimmed eyes. She balanced the egg on her head, opened to display the firebird with its spread wings. The woman had her own arms similarly extended in a mocking pose. She was topless, flaunting her bare breasts with a lewd expression.
“She certainly knew how to make an impression,” Hemingway said wryly.
An inexplicable sadness weighed as Jenny stared at the photograph. That egg had been given by a man to a woman he adored. Maybe the czar was a bad leader, but he loved and cherished his wife. Had the world been different, that egg would have eventually gone to one of those four pretty daughters in their white dresses instead of serving as a trinket in an obscene photo.
Jenny fought to keep her voice composed. “You say she sold the egg back to the Soviet government?”
Kristen nodded. “In 1929 it appeared on an inventory of the Kremlin Armory, which is one of the oldest museums in Russia. They display antique weapons, jeweled crowns, and that sort of thing. It was the logical place for it to go, and the Russians still display a lot of Fabergé eggs as proof of the czar’s decadence. The Firebird Egg was only on display for a few years before it disappeared from the inventory in 1935.”
“Then what happened to it?” Hemingway asked.
Kristen leaned back in the chair and twirled a pen. “We don’t have proof, but the egg disappeared at the same time that a diamond tiara and a fine Rembrandt painting vanished from the Armory Museum. The Rembrandt showed up in New York as part of an under-the-table business scheme between the Soviets and American communists sometimes called ‘treasure into tractors.’ I’ve spent the last week looking into the scheme, and I can’t decide if it was an act of sheer heroism or rapacious greed. If I had to choose, I’d say it was a little of both.”
Kristen outlined the “tractors into treasures” program that secretly began in the 1920s when the Russian economy was in shambles after a decade of war and revolution. Bridges and railroads had been destroyed. Horses that once pulled plows had been stolen, killed in the war, or eaten by starving people. Millions of farmworkers had died on the eastern front, and famine left thirty million Russians in danger of starvation.
There was no money to revitalize the agrarian economy, but there were empty castles brimming with artwork and jewels to be seized. Diamond tiaras, Gutenberg Bibles, and paintings by old masters all disappeared into the “treasures for tractors” scheme. At least ten Fabergé eggs were sold by the Soviets, then the cash was used to buy heavy farming equipment, fertilizer, and medicine. The Red Army went on a march through the countryside, gathering up what they could. Some of it was turned over to the Soviet government, some of it simply disappeared.
Jenny’s gaze flicked to the sultry-eyed woman in the photograph. It looked as if the Firebird Egg was one of those priceless antiquities that got swept up during those terrible years of chaos. Kristen continued outlining her theory.
“The USSR wasn’t recognized by the United States, which made trade with them illegal, but for the right price, some Americans were willing to help the Soviet Union get back up on its feet. The Soviets were desperate to buy farming equipment. Tractors, combines, grain elevators . . . they needed anything that could transform the war-torn fields into productive farmland. They also needed fertilizer and grain.”
Jenny met Hemingway’s knowing gaze. It sounded exactly like what the World Famine Commission had been created to do.
Karl Wakefield lived only a few miles away during those turbulent early years of the Soviet Union, and he never denied being a communist sympathizer. He might have been part of the “treasures for tractors” scheme. His phosphate mine was the largest producer of fertilizer in the nation, and Karl would have been ideally poised to make such a trade.
“What did the Rembrandt look like?” she asked Kristen. “The one that disappeared from the Kremlin at the same time as the Firebird Egg?”
“It was a self-portrait of the artist in middle age.” Kristen leaned forward to tap her fingers on the laptop keyboard, then turned the screen so she and Hemingway could see. “Kremlin records indicate that its sale was used to buy ten Ford tractors. The deal was brokered by an anonymous American donor.”
The tension in Jenny’s neck eased. The Rembrandt on Kristen’s laptop didn’t look anything like the one hanging above Senator Wakefield’s fireplace. “If these under-the-table deals saved people from starvation, it sounds like basic human decency,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound too defensive.
“The American agent took a ten percent commission to broker the deal,” Kristen said. “Maybe his motives were humanitarian, but he also made a fortune from the trades.”
Jenny swallowed back her distaste. The horrible photo of the nude woman with the Firebird Egg taunted her. How many times did stolen art need to change hands before it was clean again?
“Did your contact in Russia know the name of the American who brokered the deal?”
Kristen shook her head. “All we know is that the trading went on for decades. Lots of artwork was liquidated with that man’s help, but he insisted on anonymity.”
“Karl Wakefield liked art,” Hemingway pointed out, and he ought to know since he’d ghostwritten two biographies about him. Most of Hemingway’s information came from Karl’s adoring grandson Raymond, who would hear no ill about his esteemed ancestor. Getting rich by taking a cut from famine relief wasn’t something most people would brag about.
Jenny suspected Karl was the anonymous American trader, meaning his descendants would have a legitimate claim on the egg, but her grandfather might have a claim, too.
“My grandfather was a collector,” she said to Kristen. “He prowled through flea markets and estate sales and bought anything he thought might someday be valuable. I’ve never had an expert evaluate his collection. As long as you’re here, would you mind taking a look?”
“I’d be happy to.”
Kristen’s high heels weren’t going to survive walking across two acres of gravel pathways to the storage barns, so Hemingway revved up the ATV to drive them all over. The oversized buildings were made of galvanized steel and anchored to concrete pads. They were ugly, but Jenny had always been proud of them since Gus built them himself.
“Tell me more about your grandfather,” Kristen said once they arrived at the first barn, straightening her mussed hair while Jenny worked a key in the padlock.
“He was born and raised here on the grove,” she replied. The chain rattled as she pulled it off the door handles. She rolled the corrugated metal door to the side, releasing the familiar musty scent from the interior. “Gus was responsible for getting the grove financially sound. He rewired the farmhouse’s electrical system and added the front porch. He built the outbuildings, too. He was an orange grower all his life.”
“And quite a collector,” Kristen said, peering inside at the rows of metal shelving stuffed with bric-a-brac. “Was he ever involved in the New York art scene? Or Paris? Many of the Russian aristocratic refugees ended up in Paris.”
Jenny shook her head. “My grandfather had a tenth-grade education and never set foot outside the state of Florida. He liked vintage art, but mostly he was a hoarder. He was interested in quantity, not quality.”
Hemingway switched on the light, illuminating the aisles of stacked metal shelving. The place didn’t look too bad now that it was organized. The first aisle contained old electronics, television sets, radios, and record players. The second aisle was mainly dishes and kitchen equipment. Jack had grouped materials by type, which accounted for dozens of orange crates filled with cast-iron doorstops, antique clocks, and bookends, all of which had a cheap, mid-twentieth-century vibe.
Hemingway made himself at home on an antique barber chair with a chrome footrest while Jenny guided Kristen farther into the aisles.
“My brother thought these old hunting decoys might be worth something,” she said, gesturing to dozens of carved wooden ducks. “And these crates are full of vinyl albums and turntables. Jack didn’t know if they were worth anything or not.”
Kristen’s curious gaze scanned the shelves with keen intensity, but the slight wrinkle on her nose indicated she wasn’t overly impressed. She was like a shark slicing through the dross, immediately pouncing on items that might be of value and dismissing the rest. She identified two duck decoys that might fetch a hundred dollars each, and the large collection of mismatched Fiestaware dishes that might fetch between ten and twenty dollars each . . . but nothing was valuable enough for taking to auction.
They spent an hour going through both storage barns before returning to the farmhouse in defeat. Kristen went to freshen up in the bathroom before beginning the long drive back to Miami while Jenny and Hemingway made more iced tea.
“Can I get you something to drink before you go?” Jenny offered once Kristen returned, but she shook her head.
“It will just make me stop along the way,” Kristen said. “All I need is your signature on the agreement to let us broker the egg. Then I’ll start the process as soon as I get back to the office.”
Jenny nodded and headed to the desk. She set her glass of iced tea down and laid out the pages of the contract. Why did contracts always have to be so wordy? She leaned over to read the small print while Kristen hovered uncomfortably close. It was disconcerting. Jenny shifted to move a little farther away.
“Um,” Kristen said. “Can I take a look at that coaster you’re using?”
The quaver in Kristen’s voice sounded odd, and Jenny lifted her glass of iced tea to reveal the spiral metal coaster.
“Can I touch it?” Kristen asked.
Jenny nodded, and Kristen’s expression morphed into wonder as she lifted the green coaster made of coiled metal. It was an unusual coaster because it had room for two cups. Whoever made it used a long, thick wire and coiled it from each side to create the identical matching coasters joined by a loop of metal.
Kristen carried it to the window for a better look, turning it over in her hands while holding back laughter.
“Jenny, this is a Bronze Age double-spiral pendant that is somewhere between three and four thousand years old.”
“What?” she burst out. Maybe she hadn’t heard correctly but Hemingway looked equally amazed as he listened to Kristen repeat herself.
“These spiral ornaments were common among the Tumulus people of central Europe a few thousand years ago. The ornament would have been a shiny bronze when it was made, but with age, the copper in the alloy has given it a green patina. Given the workmanship, I’d say it originated in the Baltic or maybe Polish region of Europe.”
This seemed too bizarre to believe. Hemingway opened his laptop and began typing like mad, a little smile hovering on his face as he clicked through some images. He turned the screen so she could see, and sure enough, he’d quickly located several of those distinctive green spiral ornaments in museums throughout the world.
“And I’ve been using it for a coaster?” Jenny asked in horror.
Kristen set the green disk on the table and carefully blotted it with a tissue. “At least it’s waterproof,” she said. “This piece has been restored and treated, which is why it looks almost new. Restoring ancient metal is an expensive process that can’t be done by amateurs. Whoever restored this knew its value and invested a lot in it. Do you know where it came from?”
“From my grandfather’s junk collecting,” Jenny said. “My brother wanted to toss it, but I’ve always liked it. How much do you think it’s worth?”
Maybe it was crass to bring up money, but the mortgage payment was due soon and it was hard to think of anything else.
“Not as much as you might think,” Kristen said. “I’d estimate around four or five thousand dollars. The Fabergé egg is far more valuable and carries the glamor of the doomed czar and his sad German wife . . . but this primitive bronze coil is so much more intriguing to me. It was probably worn by a tribal leader of great status and passed down for generations before getting lost to time.”
“And now it’s here,” Hemingway said quietly.
“Yes,” Kristen said in an equally reverent tone. “I wonder how it happened?”
Jenny had no explanation. Her grandfather was not a sophisticated art collector. Maybe he could have gotten lucky with a once-in-a-lifetime discovery of a Fabergé egg in a flea market, but lightning didn’t strike the same place twice and she had no explanation how he could have come across such a treasure.
“All I know is, that coaster has been in this house as far back as I can remember,” she said. “My grandfather used it as a coaster, too. We all did. My grandfather never suggested it was of any particular value. I don’t think he knew.”
Kristen scanned the interior of the farmhouse with new eyes. “Can I look around the house to see if I can spot anything else?”
“Please do!”
She and Hemingway opened every cupboard in the kitchen, setting out dishes and crockery, then putting them away as quickly as Kristen looked at them. They opened drawers, closets, pulled books from the shelves. Kristen moved fast. It didn’t take her long to dismiss countless pieces of furniture and knickknacks. After going through the first floor with no additional treasures, they headed upstairs, where there wasn’t much to be seen in the bedrooms aside from the clothes and ordinary furniture. It was dark by the time they finished, and their treasure hunt came up empty.
“It’s getting too late to make the trip back to Miami,” Kristen said. “Is there a decent hotel in town?”
“Not really, but you can have your pick of bedrooms if you’d like to stay here,” Jenny offered. “I’ll bet Hemingway will even catch you something for breakfast if you like catfish.”
Kristen flushed and her eyes grew round in admiration. “Really? You catch your own fish?” she said with the same sort of astonishment as when she located that Bronze Age artifact.
“I can’t promise catfish,” Hemingway said. “Sometimes the best I can do is trout.”
“I’m totally fine with trout,” Kristen rushed to say. “I love trout. Or catfish. Or whatever you catch.”
Jenny tried not to laugh at the way Kristen was falling under Hemingway’s spell. Most women usually did.
Why couldn’t Jenny be like most women? Life would have been easier if she could have fallen in love with Hemingway instead of getting wrapped up with Wyatt Rossiter and his gentle brown eyes and deep, strong compassion. Should she have taken his offer to run away to Morocco? They might have been happy there.
But Morocco was in the past, as was any hope of a life with Wyatt. She turned her attention to Kristen. A little more late-night prowling in the mudroom cabinets turned up an early-twentieth-century Coca-Cola bottle Kristen said would be worth around $2,000.
It was cause for a celebration. Or maybe they were just tired and looking for an excuse to quit working and enjoy each other’s company. The difficulties of the past two years made Jenny appreciate the value of a lovely evening. They moved onto the front porch, opened a bottle of wine, and toasted their new friendship while watching the sun melt into the horizon of a glorious Florida evening.
True to his word, Hemingway caught catfish before dawn, and Jenny browned some cornmeal hushpuppies with fried green tomatoes for breakfast. Everything she cooked in the old cast iron skillet had a depth of flavor impossible to produce any other way. It had been used for the past four generations right here in this kitchen.
Kristen looked entirely different this morning. She hadn’t brought an overnight bag, and without her bright red lipstick or hair shellacked into ruthless obedience, she seemed far more approachable as she padded around the farmhouse in a pair of Jenny’s bedroom slippers.
Or perhaps it had been celebrating until after midnight that made everything feel mildly wonderful this morning. They sat at the Formica table in the kitchen nursing cups of strong black coffee, the remnants of breakfast still on the table.
“Once we make the announcement about the egg, your 90-day clock will start,” Kristen said. “Are you certain you want to proceed? It might get you in trouble with your local cops.”
The legs of Jenny’s chair scraped as she rose to rinse the cast iron skillet. The sheriff asked, but couldn’t order her to stay silent about the egg. It was time to take her life back, and the egg might be the key to doing it.
Confidence pumped in her veins as she met Kristen’s gaze. “Let the countdown begin.”