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He was Santa Claus, pure and simple. At least, he looked the part, and when Beverly introduced herself to Harlan Wilford, he was as jolly as his doppelganger. “So glad to see you are as lovely as your voice on the phone, Miss Laborde. You were asking about silver antiques, I believe. Are you a collector?”
“Of a sort, yes.” She stopped to admire a seventeenth-century Dutch ebony table clock resting on a pedestal in the front of Harlan’s Tossed Treasures store. “I’ve been looking into silver lately. Early American, for the most part. Dummer, Winslow, Revere.”
“Antique Paul Revere piece ay? I don’t know if you heard, but a Revere bowl went missing recently. A collector named Reggie Forsythe believed he was buying the real deal, even had it appraised. But when he got the piece, it was a fake.”
Beverly’s shoulder’s tensed at the mention of the name. Maybe Harlan didn’t notice. “Forsythe, yes, I recall the name. He’s a multi-millionaire, isn’t he? I’d guess he can buy a carload of Revere bowls. Or anything else, for that matter.” Including people, or so she’d heard. Bowls, people, lives. They were all the same to a man like Reggie Forsythe. Just interchangeable commodities to be bought and sold.
Harlan frowned as if reading her mind. “I know I shouldn’t speak ill of folks, ’specially those that might be customers one day, but I’m no fan of Forsythe. There’s philanthropist rich people, and there’s useless-as-a-screen-door-on-a-submarine rich people. Forsythe is the latter kind. But I digress. What can I interest you in? A silver clock or a lamp?”
“Forsythe hasn’t been in here yet, looking for old treasures?” She pointed to the Tossed Treasures logo in the window. “It is on your sign.”
“I do have some items the likes of him might be interested in. Honestly, I’d prefer selling them to someone more deserving. Someone who’d appreciate them, not look at them like scalp marks on a belt.”
“Scalp marks? Are you a historian of Native American lore, Mr. Wilford?”
“Harlan. No one calls me mister. Sounds too much like a plant sprayer thingie.”
She laughed. “Harlan, it is. I’ve been researching Indian folk tales in the region. The Rogers’ Rangers story is particularly fascinating.”
“That the one about a solid silver statue? Some Lady Godiva thing, as I recall.”
“Lady of Chartres. You haven’t seen anything like that turn up?”
“That’s a big no on that one, Miss Laborde.”
“Beverly.”
He smiled. “You staying in town long, Beverly? We ain’t got big-city culture around here, but there’s the Ironwood Junction Museum. Some vintage clothing and toy shops. And the Sugar Train restaurant makes mouthwatering maple pecan-glazed trout. This time of year, they have these killer pumpkin biscuits.”
“I only got in today, but I may take you up on your suggestions. There are a lot of interesting people hereabouts. I ran into one earlier, a Detective Adam Dutton.”
Harlan beamed. “Ah, Adam. I knew his father, you see. I’ve watched Adam grow from a sullen, serious little boy into a sullen, serious young man. Of course, he’s not that sullen anymore. And not as young.” Harlan chewed on his cheek. “He hasn’t had it easy. He’s good at what he does, mind you, but it’s dangerous. There was that incident two years ago . . . “
“Incident? What do you mean?”
“I really shouldn’t talk about it. I don’t think they released many details in the papers. Protecting Adam’s privacy, don’t you know. And the police department’s reputation.” Harlan licked his lips. “It was a drug bust gone bad. Adam was kidnapped and tortured, and . . . let’s just say it wasn’t pleasant.”
Beverly thought back to her talk with Adam. He’d seemed so professional, so self-assured, and she hadn’t noticed any scars. Tortured? In what way? She’d hoped to weasel out of Harlan everything he knew about Adam Dutton but hadn’t expected anything whatsoever like this.
She considered herself a good judge of character and had an inkling Dutton wouldn’t want her pity. Still, she wanted to learn everything she could about him. It was always prudent to get intel on your opponents. And he was clearly an opponent if he came between her and her revenge mission. She rubbed her eyes briefly to banish the image of his mocha-brown eyes staring at her.
“In your ad in the paper, Harlan, it said you also deal in antique documents. Maps, letters, diaries?”
“My former partner got me interested in those. He spent many a day with his nose buried in some archives, forgetting to come up for air nor food.”
“Would you be able to authenticate a document, then? Tell whether it was a hoax or not?”
“Depends upon the document. Easier if it’s English, for instance. Old English is fine, too.”
“Oh, it’s in English for sure.” She reached into a case she wore on a strap and retrieved a plastic sleeve with a yellowed paper inside. “This is what I’d like you to look at. I’d be happy to pay you.”
Harlan flipped the reading glasses parked on top of his head into position and peered at the paper. “Looks a little fragile. And I’ll need some better light with these aged eyes, you know. Why don’t we go to my office? If a customer comes in, they’ll know where to find me, or my assistant can handle it.” Harlan headed toward the back of the store.
And for once, Beverly followed. They wound up in a room like the Old Curiosity Shop, and she even thought she saw some manuscripts peeking out of a grandfather clock in a corner. A sweet smell of lacquer mingled with musty fabric and hints of lemon polish. Beverly wished she could bottle up antique store aromas into a perfume.
She also caught a whiff of popcorn. Popcorn? Then she spied a vintage popcorn machine labeled “Eat Butter Kist Popcorn,” and it was full of freshly popped kernels.
Harlan pulled out a giant magnifying glass mounted on a stand, then carefully removed Beverly’s yellowed document from its sleeve and slid it under the glass. “This an original?” he asked.
“Circa 1900.” Finding this particular piece was a massive stroke of luck. After getting all the info she was able to glean out of the Kornelson estate, she’d gone to a used bookstore in the same town. There, buried in the stacks of old papers in a file box all but ignored under some stairs, she’d stumbled across this little gem of a map. She wouldn’t have given it a second glance if she hadn’t spied Kornelson’s name written in the margin.
Beverly felt a little guilty keeping it, but Kornelson didn’t have any heirs. And the man’s papers were largely forgotten, crumbling piece by piece in a library few people visited. Beverly was quite protective of that map, one of the last traces of a man no one missed.
Harlan went over to a shelf and pulled off a book, flipping through it until he found what he was looking for. He put the book side by side with Beverly’s document and pointed. “Wear lines along the folds. Looks like a cerograph, popular after 1880 or so. Printed on a banknote, a good sign. That’s what you’d expect for pocket maps of that era.”
“That sounds promising.”
“It is. Also, there’s no date on this map. Another good sign. Forgers tend to put dates ’cause they think that makes it look authentic. But that’s not something mapmakers around the turn of the century would do.”
He peered over his glasses at her. “Got any supporting documents?”
She pulled another piece of paper out of the case. “This is a photocopy. Not an original. But it supposedly relates to that map.”
He studied it for a moment. “Can’t make heads nor tails out of that text. A poem?”
Beverly reached over and underlined part of the text with her finger. Harlan squinted at it. “Quite interesting. It does mention some of the features on this map. Where did you find this little mystery?”
Beverly filled him in on her discovery, and he smiled. “Estate archives are treasure troves. I’ll give you that. Well, Miss Beverly, short of radiocarbon dating, I’d say your map here is likely not a fake. Does that help any?”
She gave him a hug. Maybe this wasn’t an exercise in futility, and with any luck, it meant she might be on the right track. Now, if she could just stay one step ahead of Detective Dutton and find her treasure before Reggie Forsythe did, she’d be home free. Easy peasy, right?
