The Wrong Stuff (6 page)

“Look at this beautiful handkerchief,” Jane said.

Tim looked over quickly. “
GET WELL
?” he read aloud.

“Yes, it looks like a child embroidered it, doesn't it?”

“I guess that won't make it into the trash pile,” said Tim.

“No, of course not. Can you imagine how much work that was? Maybe for her mom who had the flu? That isn't the kind of thing that's trash, Tim,” Jane said. She shook an old Sucrets tin.

“Jeez, they haven't put Sucrets in tins in years, have they? Do they still make Sucrets? That can go, right?”

Jane opened and closed the tin. She held it out open to Tim, on its side. “I thought it would make a sweet little picture frame, sort of a craft project for…” Jane stopped.

Tim laughed. “When is the last time you did a craft project with Nick?”

“I might want…”

“Jane, he is more interested in sports at school, science with Charley, and building a bicycle out of old parts with me than making a picture frame out of a cough drop tin,” Tim said, then added more gently. “He's growing up, dear.”

Tim was right. Jane knew it. But still, that tin might come in handy for something. She dropped it back in her bag along with the lucky buckeye and Belinda St. Germain's book, which made it even heavier than usual. Tim had slowed the car down and turned onto an almost hidden road. They approached a tall, intricately worked iron gate. An iron stand, hidden by clematis vines and climbing roses, still lush with fall blooms, housed the state-of-the-art intercom system. Tim gave their names, and the gate swung open.

“Welcome to Campbell and LaSalle, honey,” said Tim.

“Remember the commune down at school? When you came to see me at college and we visited my friends who were living in the Bucky Fuller dome they had all built together?” Jane asked, hanging out her window, looking at the lush woods, trying to spy some of the hidden cabins Tim had described.

“Yeah, your friends' kids wandered around looking like feral cats. Frightening place.”

“Didn't little Moonbeam or his sister…?” Jane asked, starting to laugh.

“Yes, the little animal child peed on my shoe. The mother said it was because he liked me and wanted to mark me as his own.”

“I still get a Christmas card from his mother. Moonbeam goes by Bob now. He's in mergers and acquisitions.”

“Still peeing on people.”

“Oh my,” Jane said. Her mouth remained open as she stared at the main building of the Campbell and LaSalle complex.

The first impression given by the lodge, as it was called in the brochure, was somewhere between the most inflated, nostalgic, selective memory of the perfect summer camp and a presidential retreat. Set among majestic pines, the low, rambling log building was both impressive and inviting. Was it a Northwoods Camp David or 4-H Camp Shaw-wa-na-see? The twig furniture on the long front porch gave it the perfect look, but the piles of cushions and padded footstools emphasized that it wasn't only for a photo shoot. People could actually wrap themselves up in one of the Pendleton blankets stored in an open chest under the eaves and watch the sun rise over the tree line. Or set? Jane looked up and noted that the sun was still high overhead, not giving her much of a clue as to which direction the lodge faced. She always liked to know her directions and usually considered long, twisting driveways her personal enemy; but here, she realized, she felt less lost than enchanted.

As soon as Tim stopped in the large circular drive, she opened the door and listened. At first, nothing. Then a distant sound of water. A rushing creek? A waterfall? Was it just the trees breathing in the wind? Jane got out, closing the car door as softly as she could manage, not wanting to disturb this scene.

There was a corkboard, tastefully framed in hand-carved twigs hanging on the massive front door. A note was pinned there with what Jane would swear was a pine needle. The paper was most certainly handmade, delicately imprinted with ferns and wildflowers.

“Do you mean, if customers show up, they have to wait until four
P.M.
to pick up a piece of furniture? Or to have an appraisal done?” Jane asked. “They can run a business like that?”

“This is not just any business,” said Tim. “It is, my cretin junker friend, Campbell and LaSalle, as every brochure and hand-lettered note is going to remind you. The ‘we at Cambell and LaSalle' is going to wear pretty thin by tomorrow afternoon, I guarantee you. But they do cast a spell, yes?” Tim asked. “Note that we're whispering,” he added.

He was right. Jane couldn't make herself disturb the silence. Yes, it seemed a bit pretentious, but then again, Campbell and LaSalle seemed to have earned the right to set this stage. The property was magnificent. Jane gestured to a path and Tim nodded. They knew each other well enough to know that both would want to explore. Both would hope for the open door.

No luck at the first cabin.
WRENS' NEST
had blue shutters with cutouts of birds in flight and an inviting windowbox filled to overflowing with blooming fall pansies. A copper kettle filled with what appeared to be kindling sat next to the front door. Unfortunately, it was a
closed
front door.

Jane and Tim saw similar still lifes on the front porches of
BLUEBERRY HILL, LADYSLIPPER, TWO WINDOWS,
and
FRIENDS' RETREAT
. All had closed doors.

At the end of the path was a large barn. A small sign at the entrance read
THE WOODSHOP
. The huge, garage-sized doors at one end were closed, but another smaller set of Dutch doors stood open.

Jane headed for the open door and Tim followed.

“It's more than a woodshop,” said Tim, “it's practically Blake Campbell's laboratory and emergency room. He sees each piece of furniture that comes in here like a patient. He does triage, research, and treatment here.”

Jane saw immediately what Tim meant. One-half of the barn was a workshop: row upon row of woodworking tools all hanging or standing in place, including two large workbenches and power tools. A large, tented area looked like the private operating room of a mad scientist. Another wall of shelves held solvents and finishes and brushes. The upper gallery of the barn housed a library as large as that of a small liberal arts college.

No one seemed to be around, but the door had been open. Jane walked up the open stairs to the gallery of books and noted that, for as many research volumes and histories, there were an equal number of art books and hundred-year-old magazines encased in protective plastic. The research library was not limited to academic art history but encompassed all the popular looks of the day, the year in question. On top of an oak library file was a framed card that said, “We at Campbell and LaSalle research the history of each precious object with our minds, our eyes, our touch, and our hearts.” Jane felt Tim behind her, breathing over her shoulder as he read the card.

“‘We at Campbell and LaSalle' have a giant hand-carved hickory stick up our ass,” Tim whispered.

“‘We at Campbell and LaSalle' could use a Grey Goose vodka on the rocks,” Jane whispered back.

Jane noticed that one of the larger furniture volumes was open on top of a large partner's desk. There was a small business card stuck in the page, and she could see pictures of chests with arrows and annotations. Maybe someone had been looking up Claire Oh's Westman chest? As she moved around to the other side of the desk to get a better look, Tim called to her to come down with him.

“I hear someone in the back office,” he said. “Let's go introduce you to Blake.”

Jane decided she could revisit the gallery later. It seemed much more interesting to meet half of the “we at” boys.

When they entered the office, beautifully appointed as Jane knew it would be, they found it empty. What Tim had heard was music from the CD player. Mozart, of course. Jane felt certain that the
Best of Motown
or
Willie Nelson's Greatest Hits
were rarely played at Campbell and LaSalle.

A smaller door at the back of the office was open to the outside, and Jane walked out following a trail that led to a sparkling creek. Jane could see it shining like a ribbon at the end of the walk. The sun, the trees, the beauty of this place began to overwhelm her. Jane thought about the most recent nugget of Belinda St. Germain's treatise that she had read.

Belinda had a point. The trees were perfect, the brook babbled, even the stones in the path seemed the perfect mix of pattern and randomness. The sun, sinking lower in the sky, sent the light slicing through this clean and crisp air, providing picture-perfect illumination.

Yes, Belinda.
Jane thought,
I don't need anything in this moment except what nature has given me: trees, water, stones, light.
Even the red wool plaid shirt by the water's edge seemed a welcome splash of contrasting color on the landscape.
Oh, Belinda, if only you were here to see this man drinking in the clear water, in this perfect setting,
thought Jane, noting that the only sounds were the whispering leaves and the few faint notes of Mozart that filtered down from the barn.

Jane watched the man at the water's edge. The realization that he wasn't drinking, wasn't moving, wasn't breathing, washed over her slowly at first, then flooded her system. She ran to his side and pushed him over, getting his face out of the water. She listened for breath, then started hitting his chest, breathing into his mouth, hoping she remembered her CPR class instructions. She heard footsteps behind her, turned, and saw Tim punching numbers on his cell phone. Someone new came up behind her, moved her aside, and took over the CPR, pleading with the plaid-shirted man between breaths, “Come on, Rick, damn it, come on.”

Jane turned to Tim, who had just finished giving directions over the phone and whispered, “‘We at Campbell and LaSalle' seem to have a dead man on our hands.”

Blake Campbell stood in front of the large, stone mantel in the great room of the main lodge and faced those assembled. Although he claimed to have been sleeping when he was summoned from “quiet time,” he now looked alert, competent, with a sad-but-of-course-I'll-cope-someone-has-to-lead-the-troops tightness around his perfect mouth. Jane had never seen anyone in person who looked and sounded more like a model, and she had been in advertising for over fifteen years. Still, she shook her head and whispered to Tim that she had never even seen a head shot as perfect looking as Blake Campbell in the flesh.

“He's always reminded me of a sketch—no flesh and blood. Like those Hamilton cartoons in the
New Yorker
. The rich, naïve narcissists,” said Tim, adding, “he's a nice guy, though. I've always liked Blake. His looks have worked against him actually. And his name. And his money. No one takes him seriously.”

“My favorite was when the man and woman are in this barn looking at a hen and the guy is holding an egg up and saying, ‘Nature never ceases to blow my mind,'” said Jane.

Tim looked at her.

“My favorite Hamilton cartoon,” Jane said. “Who's the reality check?”

Jane gestured toward another man who walked in and stood next to Blake Campbell. For every impeccable cashmere strand woven into Blake Campbell's Missoni sweater, this man had an answering unraveled acrylic thread dangling from his generic V-neck. The unshaven scruff that added just the right touch of Hollywood-style ruggedness to Blake Campbell's face, made this man look unclean, unkempt, and vaguely unhealthy—more like someone who had been in bed with the flu for a few days. He had an I-must-cope look in his eyes as well, but it was more of an I've-always-had-to-clean-up-the-messes-haven't-I stare.

A third man entered and Jane recognized him as Glen LaSalle. She had heard him give booth lectures at several antique shows. He'd appeared on several of the shelter and appraisal programs that had sprung up on television, following in the well-made footprints of the
Antiques Roadshow
. Average height, thinning hair, and serious glasses, he had the professorial look of the expert. Most recently Jane had encountered him when he'd pushed her aside and took over the CPR for the plaid-shirted man down by the stream.

“Funny how Glen LaSalle is the spokesman of Campbell and LaSalle. You'd think Blake would be the figurehead,” said Jane.

“Too pretty. I told you, no one takes him seriously, even though he's just as much the brains. He's certainly the chemist in the operation,” said Tim.

Although Blake and the scruffy man were in front of the crowd of anxious residents, artists, and clients who had assembled when the “gathering bell” had rung, it was Glen LaSalle who began addressing the group from his position by the side door.

“Sorry to disturb quiet time, but we have some terrible news,” Glen began. Two uniformed policeman came into the room through the side door opposite LaSalle. Jane, as she watched the faces of the listeners, saw worry turn to fear in an instant.

“One of our guests has had an accident,” Glen said, then stopped. He looked like he wasn't sure what or how much to say now that he had started this whole thing and looked first at Blake, who gave the slightest shrug, then at the man next to Blake.

“I'm Sergeant Murkel and I apologize for my appearance. I was off duty when I responded to this call. I'm afraid that one of the resident artists here, Mr. Rick Moore, was found dead at approximately three-ten
P.M.
” Murkel went on to explain that although it was much too early to say anything definitively, Mr. Moore appeared to have drowned.

Jane watched the jaws drop, the fidgeting hands still, the eyes blink, the breathing quiet as the eleven people in the room took in the news. One woman, age thirty-something to fifty-something with straight hair hanging to her waist, took the hands of the woman and man on either side of her on the leather couch and bowed her head, as if leading them in prayer.

“Drowned?” Tim whispered to Jane. “The creek is only ten inches deep.”

“He was lying facedown in it. I didn't really get a good look, but he didn't look banged up and the bushes and plants weren't trampled like there had been a fight or anything. No blood. His clothes weren't torn. The only thing at all…”

“Jeez, what are you like when you
do
get a good look?” Tim asked. “You scoped out that scene like it was the flea market table at the St. Stan's rummage sale.”

“…strange,” Jane continued, paying no attention to Tim's interruption, “was that he didn't have shoes on, just big, thick walking socks, the kind padded on the bottom and the instep, but no shoes. In fact, one of the socks had snagged and was practically off. His left foot was bare.”

Sergeant Murkel had said that he and the other officers would like to speak with everyone. They were going to set up an office of sorts in Blake Campbell's studio, which was located between the barn woodshop and the gallery, which was directly behind the lodge. Jane took out the Campbell and LaSalle booklet Tim had given her earlier and studied the map on the back. Although it wasn't to scale—every building and landmark was more spread out than this cozy little drawing implied—all the visitors' cabins, artists' residences, and work spaces were drawn in. The lodge faced east, and the gallery was just west of it. Jane tried to memorize it like a watch face. If the lodge and gallery were at twelve o'clock, then the barn was at ten. That would put Blake's studio at eleven, just behind the trees from where Jane had found Rick Moore.

Jane saw Blake wave and nod to someone in the doorway to his right. Jane supposed it led to the kitchen since the young woman standing there wore a white canvas apron over her tight blue jeans. Blake then signaled to Glen, pointing toward the kitchen and nodding.

“Cheryl and the staff have tea prepared, but instead of setting up in here as usual, we're going to ask that you please serve yourselves from the kitchen and be as comfortable as you can here in the great room while the police finish up their business,” said Glen, and after one beat, “Rick loved tea time. Especially the way we at Campbell and LaSalle celebrated it every day. I think we should all go on and enjoy it now.”

“‘We at Campbell and LaSalle' love our tea?” Jane asked. “He's an animated brochure.”

“I'm going to cut him some slack here,” Tim said. “I think maybe there's just some comfort in retreating into a script.”

At least the script had merit. Jane realized that she had never seen a tea table laid out quite like the spread at Campbell and LaSalle.

There were the sandwiches: smoked salmon and heavenly date bread and butter; cucumber, cress, thinly sliced radishes, again with that real, pale butter that made you forget your name when it melted on your tongue; and, as a matter of fact, tongue; and pastrami, shaved so thinly and placed so delicately on rye rounds, painted so beautifully with a brown mustard, that each little morsel was a work of art; and the chicken salad and curried egg salad on dense white bread cut into shapes of hens and eggs.

The sweet trays were laden with slices of cake and scones; tiny muffins that looked carved out of some rich marble; butter cookies and fruit tarts; and whole multi-tiered trays reserved for chocolate: dark chocolate mint cakes, éclairs, slices of seven-layer cocoa bliss. Bowls of whipped cream and fresh fruit were interspersed with the trays.

“The berries alone are exotic. Where in Michigan in late fall do you get strawberries that look like that?” Jane asked, overwhelmed with the bounty laid out before her.

“Glen and Blake are both loaded: family money, earned money, inherited money. They're green magnets. This property belonged to Blake's grandfather. It was the family compound, hunting lodge, and summer camp. He and Glen decided to run this place from here and make it a mecca for artists and people who appreciated fine things,” said Tim, heaping his plate with sandwiches.

“Are they a couple?”

“Not everyone who dresses well and has taste and good manners is gay, my dear,” Tim said, adding, “more's the pity. Glen was widowed years ago. His wife was a painter who died in a car accident. Blake's never married, but as you can imagine, there are several willing consorts-in-waiting.”

Jane looked over at Blake, who was drinking tea and talking to the long-haired woman speaking directly into his ear. He was bending close to her, listening intently, and nodding. The police were circulating, asking guests one by one to step out into Blake's studio for interviews.

A blond young man, wearing jeans so covered in paint splatters that it looked more like a purposeful fashion statement than the garb of the workingman, came over to Tim and began talking as if they had been studio mates for years.

“I warned him about that tent, but no, he was such a know-it-all, really more like a got-to-know-it-all, I guess. He kept saying he had to learn the process. That was his thing, the process,” he said, shoving a curried egg salad sandwich into his mouth.

“I'm Jane and this is Tim,” said Jane. “What are you talking about?”

Tim turned to her, his back to the blond, and mouthed more than whispered, close to her face, “Very subtle PI technique,” and turned back to the man now working on the smoked salmon.

“We just arrived. We were walking around, and Jane found Rick down at the creek.”

“I'm Mickey. Painter,” he said. “Sorry I just launched in on you, but Rick, man, if anybody was going to fuck up around here…oh, sorry,” Mickey said, bowing his head to Jane.

She was touched. When did any man, especially such a young man, show respect by censoring language anymore? Her own son, singing along with rap on the radio, half the time sounded like he was raised in a sewer. Jane never knew whether it was better to inform Nick that he was saying/singing things in front of her that he shouldn't or better to ignore it so he would never know what most of it meant. Wishful, dreamy parental fog was the place where she most frequently found herself. But here was Mickey, in his little Eminem blond crew cut, apologizing for dropping the F-bomb. Nice to know that people still believed in civil discourse.

“It's okay, nothing I haven't heard before,” Jane said, smiling.

“Cool,” Mickey said, looking down at her feet. “They just looked kind of new, and sometimes chicks get freaked out when accidents happen, you know?”

Jane looked down and saw the salmon and crème fraîche on the toe of her left boot and wondered how long she would have to wait before frantically cleaning it so the potent combo of oil and butterfat would not leave a permanent stain.

“So as I was saying, if anybody was going to fuck up around here, it would be me is what all these uptight fuckers think, not Rick. He was always careful. You know, read the labels and directions and all that bullshit.”

Tim nodded. “So you think it was related to the chemical…?”

“Yeah, sure. Rick was spending so much time in Dr. Campbellstein's laboratory, we were calling him Igor,” Mickey said, snorting and dropping chicken salad on Jane's other foot. This time he just smiled, looking like he might high-five her.

“Mickey?” The woman with the long, straight hair called and gestured to Mickey to join her and Blake at the sweets table.

“Good thing,” said Jane. “He looked like he might want to turn me into a canvas for a food-fight series. What chemicals are you talking about?”

“I heard a few others talking about Rick Moore. He did a lot of work aging and coloring wood for restorations. He was experimenting with some of Blake's recipes. They figure he was overcome and disoriented and headed outside.”

“And ended up facedown in the creek?”

“If your eyes were burning from ammonia or if you couldn't breathe or were gagging, it might seem like the thing to do…get up close and personal with a cool drink of water.”

“Pardon me? Tim? We've met here before. Roxanne Pell.”

Jane hadn't noticed Roxanne before. She must have been standing in back when Murkel spoke to them. Jane would have remembered her. A striking redhead, tall, slender, with a quality that Jane would have to call poise. Comfortable in their own skin was how Charley characterized people like Roxanne. Their acceptance of self gave them their beauty. Jane, for just a moment, wondered if it was too late in life for her to get some of this kind of confidence for herself.

“…and this is Jane Wheel. She's joining my business, and I wanted her to see for herself where very lucky pieces of furniture and art get their new leases on life.”

“I am so sorry about your unfortunate introduction to Campbell and LaSalle,” said Roxanne, shaking Jane's hand. “Nothing like this has ever happened before. Even with all the woodworking we do, we haven't had so much as a cut that needed stitching. This is painful for all of us.”

“Was Mr. Moore here with a family or friend?” Jane asked.

Roxanne shook her head. “He came for a month or so every year. More if we had a special project for him. One of Blake's people, although he participated in every aspect of craft. He could build, and he did exquisite carving. He painted, too. Called himself an amateur, but some of his landscapes were quite fine. Glen wanted some of his pieces for the gallery, but Rick was shy about it, just liked the process. He wanted to learn about finishes this time, so Blake was working with him.”

“I'm not sure I understand. Is this a school, too?” asked Jane.

“This is, let's see, an art gallery, a summer camp, a retreat, a shrine, a commune.” Roxanne paused and looked at Tim. “What else, Tim?”

“A congregation, a country club, a finishing school, a vocational high school, a gourmet paradise,” said Tim, gesturing toward the rapidly emptying chocolate tower and excusing himself to partake.

“Campbell and LaSalle is many things to many people,” Roxanne said, “it's so hard to characterize.”