Thai Die (23 page)

Then what is its real value
? wondered Betsy.
A hundred thousand? More?

No wonder Dr. Booker was so anxious to hold on to it, a rare item like this. Betsy recalled the expression on the curator’s face, which she now thought was an effort to conceal her joy and excitement.

Betsy ordered the computer to print a copy of the article—and of the listing from the stolen art Web site. When she went to collect them from the printer, she found that it had printed the entire list of stolen items. She sighed and went to pay for the copies, only to find that the library didn’t charge for copies. So she dropped a generous donation in the wing’s clear Plexiglas donor box on her way out of the museum.

Eighteen

BETSY drove back to her shop in Excelsior in a daze, thinking about the astonishing find. She found herself admiring the noble Xiu. Forbidden by sumptuary laws to wear the magnificent garments she created for royalty during her life, she boldly wrapped herself in layers of them—and even grasped rolls of embroidered silk with her hands—in her tomb.

Betsy also wondered about the women who worked in Xiu’s shop, spinning and weaving and dyeing. Were they slaves, bond women, or employees? Were they treated kindly? Paid a living wage? Did they love their work? Their boss? The woman, forever anonymous, who made the thousands of tiny, perfect stitches that formed the complex, beautiful, exotic pattern on that one piece of green silk—did she have the same determined patience that modern stitchers had? Surely she did, and the talent that only worked when linked to hard-earned skill, to produce such a work of art!

How amazing to stand at this remove in time—twenty centuries!—and feel a connection with both the shop owner and her talented worker.

Betsy recalled Dr. Booker moving her hand across the face of the embroidery, not quite touching it—proof that she knew, or at least suspected, what it was. Fabrics of this age and rarity were rarely handled, and then only by antiquarians wearing thin white cotton gloves to protect the cloth from the natural oils on human hands. Betsy remembered the weight and textures of the Han silk in her fingers. Hers were probably the last that would touch the piece unprotected.

And she wondered why, if Dr. Booker recognized the silk for what it was, she didn’t tell Betsy.

Betsy parked in front of her shop rather than in back—she needed to do a little shopping after Crewel World closed this evening—and saw a customer standing in the doorway, peering inward. As Betsy approached, she could hear some noise from inside. The customer—Sharon Morton, who spent a lot of money in Crewel World—made a
tsk
sound, then turned and walked away.

Anything that ran a customer off was very bad. Betsy hurried to look in, heard shouting and saw movement. She opened the door, prepared to slam it and run.

But it wasn’t a robbery or assault. Her two part-timers were standing on opposite sides of the library table, screaming invectives at one another, faces red, fists clenched, and fingers pointing.

Betsy had to shout twice to get their attention, but when she did, the noise stopped as if it had been hit with a hammer.

“What’s going on?” Betsy demanded, pulling off her mittens.

The two started explaining, talking over one another, and in a few seconds then were back to shouting. It seemed to have something to do with a missing candy bar.

“Stop it, stop it!” Betsy yelled, waving her knit hat like a warning flag. They obeyed. “How many times have I warned you about this?” She took a calming breath and went on, much more quietly, “No more warnings. You’re both fired.”

That started yet another explosion, but this time all Betsy had to do was raise both hands to make them stop. “I said, you’re both fired. As I came up the sidewalk, I saw Sharon Morton walk away from the door without coming in. Obviously the racket in here scared her off. I wonder how many other customers you ran off? This is not the first time you two have caused trouble in the shop. I can’t have this, I don’t have to put up with it.”

“But she—” started one.

“No, it was
her
—”

“I don’t care who started it or whose fault it was! It took both of you to make the quarrel! This is final—get your coats and go away!”

There were a hot few minutes of silence as the young women gathered their belongings, their faces set hard in anger and flushed pink. They pushed against one another as they tried to go out the door simultaneously. Outside, the cold seemed to vanquish their anger; they looked at each other as if waking from a dream, then went in separate directions, one of them with her mouth pulled down, trying not to cry.

Betsy dragged off her coat, pushed her fingers through her hair, and went to make a cup of tea. She brought it back and sat at the library table. Her knees felt weak, her thumbs numb. Her eyes ached with angry, unshed tears. She wondered which of them would think to start a lawsuit first.

As her heart rate slowed, she thought, not for the first time, that the shop was far more trouble than it was worth.
I do my best
, she thought.
And what do I get? Heartaches! Nuthin’ but heartaches!
That was a quote from somewhere—but who had said it? She groped around in her memory until, accompanied by a smile, she came up with answer: Barney Fife. She took a sip of her tea. Nuthin’ but heartaches.

But Barney was wrong, in his context—and hers. She might dream of quitting, but she knew she wouldn’t. The rewards were simply too great.

She finished her tea and put in a call to Mike Malloy. He was out, she was told, but was expected back in a half hour or so. Betsy said it was urgent but not desperately so and hung up.

Then, because she was too shaken to stitch and couldn’t think what else to do, she pulled a writing pad to her and started to compose a help-wanted ad. It would go online and in the local paper.
Wanted: part-time retail worker for needlework shop.

A new customer came in and interrupted her. She was interested in making a needlepoint pillow for her family’s condo up on Lake Superior. She sighed over a half-dozen seashore-themed painted canvases for twenty minutes, sighed again at the prices, and left without buying anything.

Betsy made herself another cup of tea and sat down to write the next line for her help-wanted ad:
Wages negotiable, depending on experience
—

Then the phone rang. “Crewel World, Betsy speaking, how may I help you?” Betsy said, in a bad imitation of her cheerful voice.

“Did Dr. Booker prove helpful?”

“Oh, hello, Dr. Brown!” The cheer felt more real now.

“Don’t you remember? Please, call me Joe.”

“All right. Joe. Well, she was sort of helpful. She said the fabric was silk, all right. Then she asked if she could keep it for a while to do some research on it.”

“Did she tell you what time period it was from?”

“No. Did she tell you anything about it at the luncheon?”

“No. Should she have?”

“I think so, if what I found out on my own is correct.” She told him of her investigation at the art institute library. He kept making odd little snorts of surprise all through her narrative but fell into a seconds’ long silence when she finished.

At last he said, “You mean to tell me that the Karen Boozer embroidery you wanted identified was really a piece of
Mashan silk
?” He sounded indignant, even angry.

But Betsy could tell he wasn’t really angry. “I’m so sorry!” she said with humor in her voice. “If you had asked around, people might have told you I can’t tell Cari Buziak from Han Dynasty embroidery!”

“Yes, of course,” he said, and added, his tone turned reverent, “My God, what an extraordinary story! Do you know how privileged you are to have had that piece of Han Dynasty silk in your hands?”

“I didn’t know at the time, of course, but now I do. I don’t know why Dr. Booker didn’t tell me what she suspected it was. The look on her face when she saw it makes me think she recognized it. But all she would say was that it was ‘interesting’ and could she keep it for a few days.”

“Maybe you’re wrong, maybe it isn’t what you think.”

“Again, I’m not an expert, but there was a close-up photograph on the Web site of a very peculiar-looking bird, and to me it looked exactly like the bird on the silk. Even the colors were the same.”

“Oh my, that does sound as if you rescued an important artifact from a landfill.”

“Yes. I almost just let it stay in the wastebasket—I would have if it had smelled bad. It would have gone with the paper trash—ended up recycled, maybe, into paper towels.”

“But it didn’t, it didn’t,” he said, as if to reassure the both of them.

“I don’t understand why Dr. Booker didn’t tell me what she thought it was.”

“Perhaps she was afraid you would insist on taking it back, with an eye toward selling it.”

“Is it terrifically valuable?”

“Oh God!” he groaned, and she recalled he was an Asian art collector. But there was that current of amusement running through his voice again.

“Ah,” said Betsy. “But then why didn’t she tell you the news over lunch?”

“Oh, for a very good reason,” said Joe. “This wasn’t a gathering of friends, but a special meeting of the board of directors of the institute. Minutes were taken. She would not say anything on the record about such an important find until she is satisfied it is authentic. There’s a huge industry in Asia making excellent copies of antiquities. But if she concludes it’s the real deal, she’ll report it to the director, and he’ll do some more research himself. If he’s satisfied, in a few weeks the board will get a report with photographs and authenticating documents, and then there will be a press conference.”

“Will the institute get to keep it?”

“Good Lord, no! Something as important as this? No, this is patrimony, part of the nation’s history. It will go back to China.”

“Could I presume on my rescue of the piece to be allowed to see it all restored before it goes back?”

“They won’t restore it here. Think of the repercussions if it’s damaged in the process. No, the institute will just pack it as carefully as they can and arrange for the safest and most secure transport possible back to China. Let them make their own mistakes repairing it.”

“But what about the law enforcement part? It came into the country illegally, remember. The St. Paul police are conducting a homicide investigation, the St. Peter police and sheriff’s department are investigating an assault with a deadly weapon that ended in a death, last night someone shot at Doris Valentine through a window in Wayzata, and I think a suicide in Maple Plain will turn out to be murder.”

“But couldn’t this be about the Buddha statue?”

“No, Wendy was asking Doris where the Thai silk was.”

“Was she? Well, then. What a bloody business! How do you know all these things? Are you married to a police detective?” he asked.

“No, I’m kind of a civilian detective.”

“I thought you owned a needlework store.”

“I do. This sleuthing thing is kind of on the side. And I’m not a private eye, either. It’s just something I seem to have a talent for.”

After a beat, he said, “You are a very amazing person, you know that?”

“If that’s a compliment, thank you.”

“Yes, indeed it is.”

Betsy said, “There are a lot of jurisdictions involved in this, Joe: St. Peter, St. Paul, Excelsior, Wayzata, Maple Plain. I’m surprised the FBI isn’t poking around in this already, considering it’s a smuggling case.”

“Eye See Eee.”

“What?”

“Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE. As a member of the board of an art museum, I know things like that. They’re the ones in charge of smuggling. And I imagine they will be involved in this, if they aren’t already. Lord, Lord, what a mess!”

“Is it all right that I told you about the silk?” asked Betsy. “Should I have let Dr. Booker inform you?”

“Oh, it’s all right. Consider it payback to Dr. Booker for pretending she had no idea of the importance of that torn and dirty—” He stopped suddenly. “How bad is the damage?” he asked.

“That’s another interesting thing,” she said. “I don’t think it’s torn at all.” She described how a piece of cloth might be made to appear frayed. “And if I’m right, that means the dirt will come off easily, without leaving a stain.”

“Someone was being very clever, it sounds like,” he said. “Now, if I might offer to reward you for rescuing this priceless artifact by asking if you would like to increase your pledge, we can both get back to our regular work . . .”

Betsy laughed. “All right, put me down for a five percent increase.”

Nineteen