The Amber Room (12 page)

“I’ll just get right into it. How long have you been on the museum’s board?” the reporter asked.

“Nine years now.”

“You a collector?”

He grinned. “Hardly. Only some small oils and a few watercolors. Nothing substantial.”

“I’ve been told your talents lie in organization. The administration speaks highly of you.”

“I love my volunteer work. This place is special to me.”

A noisy group of teenagers poured in from the mezzanine.

“Were you educated in the arts?”

He shook his head. “Not really. I earned a BA from Emory in political science and took a few graduate courses in art history. Then I found out what art historians make and went to law school.” He left out the part about not getting accepted on the first try. Not from vanity—it was just that after thirteen years it really didn’t matter any longer.

They skirted the edge of two women admiring a canvas of St. Mary Magdalene.

“How old are you?” the reporter asked.

“Forty-one.”

“Married?”

“Divorced.”

“Me, too. How you handling it?”

He shrugged. No need to make any comment on the record about that. “I get by.”

Actually, divorce meant a sparse two-bedroom apartment and dinners eaten either alone or with business associates, except the two nights a week he ate with the kids. Socializing was confined to State Bar functions, which was the only reason he served on so many committees, something to occupy his spare time and the alternate weekends he didn’t have the kids. Rachel was good about visitation. Any time, really. But he didn’t want to interfere with her relationship with the children, and he understood the value of a schedule and the need for consistency.

“How about you describe yourself for me.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s something I ask all the people I profile. They can do it far better than I could. Who better to know you than you?”

“When the administrator asked me to do this interview and show you around, I thought the piece was on the museum, not me.”

“It is. For next Sunday’sConstitution magazine section. But my editor wants some side boxes on key people. The personalities behind the exhibits.”

“What about the curators?”

“The administrator says you’re one of the real central figures around here. Somebody he can really count on.”

He stopped. How could he describe himself? Five foot ten, brown hair, hazel eyes? The physique of somebody who runs three miles a day? No. “How about plain face on a plain body with a plain personality. Dependable. The kind of guy you’d want to be in a foxhole with.”

“The kind of guy who makes sure your estate gets handled right after you’re gone?”

He’d not said anything about being a probate lawyer. Obviously, the reporter had done some homework. “Something like that.”

“You mentioned foxholes. Ever been in the military?”

“I came along after the draft. Post-Vietnam and all that.”

“How long have you practiced law?”

“Since you know I’m a probate lawyer, I assume you also know how long I’ve practiced.”

“Actually, I forgot to ask.”

An honest answer. Fair enough. “I’ve been at Pridgen and Woodworth thirteen years now.”

“Your partners speak highly of you. I talked to them Friday.”

He raised an eyebrow in puzzlement. “Nobody mentioned anything about that.”

“I asked them not to. At least until after today. I wanted our talk to be spontaneous.”

More patrons filed in. The chamber was getting crowded and noisy. “Why don’t we walk into the Edwards Gallery. Less folks. We have some excellent sculptures on display.” He led the way across the mezzanine. Sunlight poured past the walkways through tall sheets of thick glass laced into a white porcelain edifice. A towering jewel-toned ink drawing graced the far north wall. The aroma of coffee and almonds drifted from an open café.

“Magnificent,” the reporter said, looking around. “What did theNew York Timescall it? The best museum a city’s built in a generation?”

“We were pleased with their enthusiasm. It helped stock the galleries. Donors immediately felt comfortable with us.”

Ahead stood a polished red-granite monolith in the center of the atrium. He instinctively moved toward it, never passing without stopping for a moment. The reporter followed. A list of twenty-nine names was etched into stone. His eyes always gravitated to the center:

YANCY CUTLER

JUNE 4, 1936–OCTOBER 23, 1998

DEDICATED LAWYER

PATRON OF THE ARTS

FRIEND OF THE MUSEUM

MARLENE CUTLER

MAY 14, 1938–OCTOBER 23, 1998

DEVOTED WIFE

PATRON OF THE ARTS

FRIEND OF THE MUSEUM

“Your father was on the board, wasn’t he?” the reporter asked.

“He served thirty years. Helped raise the money for this building. My mother was active, too.”

He stood silent. Reverent, as always. It was the only memorial of his parents that existed. The airbus exploded far out to sea. Twenty-nine people dead. The entire museum board of directors, spouses, and several employees. No bodies found. No explanation for the cause other than a curt conclusion by Italian authorities that separatist terrorists had been responsible. The Italian Minister of Antiquities, on board, had been presumed the target. Yancy and Marlene Cutler were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“They were good people,” he said. “We all miss them.”

He turned, leading the reporter into the Edwards Gallery. An assistant curator raced across the atrium.

“Mr. Cutler, please wait.” The woman hurried over, a look of concern on her face. “A call just came for you. I’m sorry. Your ex-father-in-law has died.”

Atlanta, Georgia

Tuesday, May 13

Karol Borya was buried at 11 a.m., the midspring morning cloudy and overcast with a lingering chill, unusual for May. The funeral was well attended. Paul officiated, introducing three of Borya’s longtime friends who delivered moving eulogies. He then said a few words of his own.

Rachel stood in front, with Marla and Brent at her side. The mitered priest at St. Methodius Orthodox Church presided, Karol having been a regular parishioner. The ceremony was unhurried, tearful, and enhanced by a choir performance of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov. Interment was in the Orthodox cemetery adjacent to the church, a rolling patch of red clay and Bermuda grass shaded by mushrooming sycamore trees. As the coffin was lowered into the ground, the priest’s final words rang true, “From dust you come, to dust you go.”

Though Borya fully adopted American culture, he’d always retained a religious connection with his homeland, strictly adhering to Orthodox doctrine. Paul didn’t remember his ex-father-in-law as an overly devout man, just one who solemnly believed and transferred that belief into a good life. The old man had mentioned many times that he’d liked to be buried in Belarus, among the birch groves, marshlands, and sloping fields of blue flax. His parents, brothers, and sisters lay in mass graves, the exact locations dying with the SS officers and German soldiers who slaughtered them. Paul thought about talking with somebody at the State Department on the possibility of a foreign burial, but Rachel vetoed the idea, saying she wanted her father and mother nearby. Rachel also insisted the postfuneral gathering occur at her house, and about seventy-some people wandered in and out over two hours. Neighbors supplied food and drinks. She politely talked to everyone, accepted condolences, and expressed thanks.

Paul watched her carefully. She seemed to be holding up well. Around two o’clock, she disappeared upstairs. He found her in their former bedroom, alone. It’d been a while since he was last inside.

“You okay?” he asked.

She was perched on the edge of the four-poster bed, staring at the carpet, her eyes swollen from crying. He stepped closer.

“I knew this day would come,” she said. “Now they’re both gone.” She paused. “I remember when Mama died. I thought it was the end of the world. I couldn’t understand why she’d been taken away.”

He’d often wondered if that was the source of her antireligious beliefs. Resentment for a supposed merciful God who would so callously deprive a young girl of her mother. He wanted to hold her, comfort her, tell her he loved her and always would. But he stood still, fighting back tears.

“She used to read to me all the time. Strange, but what I remember most was her voice. So gentle. And the stories she’d tell. Apollo and Daphne. Perseus’ battles. Jason and Medea. Everybody else got fairy tales.” She smiled weakly. “I got mythology.”

The comment was one of the rare times she’d ever mentioned anything specific about her childhood. The subject was not one she dwelled upon, and she’d made it clear in the past that she considered any inquiry an intrusion.

“That why you read the same kind of stuff to the kids?”

She wiped the tears from her cheek and nodded.

“Your father was a good man. I loved him.”

“Even though you and I didn’t make it, he always thought of you as his son. Told me he always would.” She looked at him. “It was his fondest wish that we get back together.”

His too, but he said nothing.

“Seems all you and I ever did was fight,” she said. “Two stubborn people.”

He had to say, “That’s not all we did.”

She shrugged. “You always were the optimist in the house.”

He noticed the family picture angled atop the chest of drawers. They’d had it taken a year before the divorce. He, Rachel, and the kids. Their wedding picture was also still there, like the one downstairs in the foyer.

“I’m sorry about last Tuesday night,” she said. “What I said when you left. You know how my mouth can be sometimes.”

“I shouldn’t have meddled. What happened with Nettles was none of my business.”

“No, you’re right. I overreacted with him. My temper gets me into more trouble.” She brushed away more tears. “I’ve got so much to do. This summer is going to be difficult. I wasn’t planning on a contested race this time. Now this.”

He didn’t voice the obvious. Maybe if she exercised a little diplomacy the lawyers appearing before her wouldn’t feel so threatened.

“Look, Paul, could you handle Dad’s estate? I just can’t deal with that right now.”

He reached out and lightly squeezed her shoulder. She did not resist the gesture. “Sure.”

Her hand went up to his. It was the first time they’d touched in months. “I trust you. I know it’ll get done right. He would have wanted you to handle things. He respected you.”

She withdrew her hand.

He did, too. He started thinking like a lawyer. Anything to take his mind away from the moment. “You know where the will is?”

“Look around the house. It’s probably in the study. It might be in his safe deposit box at the bank. I don’t know. He gave me the key.”

She walked over to the dresser. Ice Queen? Not to him. He recalled their first encounter twelve years ago at an Atlanta Bar Association meeting. He was a quiet first-year associate at Pridgen & Woodworth. She was an aggressive assistant district attorney. Two years they dated until she finally suggested they marry. They’d been happy in the beginning and the years passed quickly. What went wrong? Why couldn’t things be good again? Maybe she was right. Perhaps they were better friends than lovers.

He hoped not.

He accepted the safe deposit key she offered and said, “Don’t worry, Rach. I’ll take care of things.”

He left Rachel’s house and drove straight to Karol Borya’s. It was less than a half-hour journey through a combination of busy commercial boulevards and hectic neighborhood streets.

He parked in the driveway and saw Borya’s Oldsmobile nestled in the garage. Rachel had given him the house key, and he unlocked the front door, his eyes immediately drawn to the foyer tiles, then up the staircase spindles, some splintered in half, others jutting at odd angles. The oak steps bore no evidence of an impact, but the police said the old man slammed into one and then tumbled to his death, his eighty-one-year-old neck breaking in the process. An autopsy confirmed the injuries and their apparent cause.

A tragic accident.

Standing in the stillness, an odd combination of regret and sadness shuddered through him. Always before he’d enjoyed coming over, talking art and the Braves. Now the old man was gone. Another link to Rachel severed. But a friend was gone, too. Borya was like a father to him. They’d become especially close after his parents were killed. Borya and his father had been good friends, linked by art. He now remembered both men with a pang in his heart.

Good men gone forever.

He decided to take Rachel’s advice and first look upstairs in the study. He knew there was a will. He’d drafted it a few years back and doubted that Borya would have gone to anyone else to modify the language. A copy was certainly back at the firm in the retired files and, if necessary, he could use that. But the original could be worked through probate faster.

He climbed the stairs and searched the study. Magazine articles lay strewn on the club chair, a few scattered on the carpet. He shuffled through the pages. All concerned the Amber Room. Borya had spoken of the object many times through the years, his conviction the words of a White Russian who longed to see the treasure restored to the Catherine Palace. Beyond that, though, he hadn’t realized the man’s rather intense interest, apparently enough to collect articles and clippings dating back thirty years.

He rifled through the desk drawers and filing cabinets and found no will.

He scanned the bookshelves. Borya loved to read. Homer, Hugo, Poe, and Tolstoy lined the shelves, along with a volume of Russian fairy tales, a set of Churchill’sHistories , and a leather-bound copy of Ovid’sMetamorphoses . He seemed to also like southern writers, works by Flannery O’Connor and Katherine Anne Porter formed part of the collection.

His eyes were drawn to the banner on the wall. The old man had bought it at a kiosk in Centennial Park during the Olympics. A silver knight on a rearing horse, sword drawn, a six-ended golden cross adorning the shield. The background was blood red, the symbol of valor and courage, Borya had said, trimmed in white to embody freedom and purity. It was the national emblem of Belarus, a defiant symbol of self-determination.