To Steal a Weeping Widow

Chapter One: The Price of Pride

"View of Auvers-sur-Oise" by Paul Cezanne (1879/1880), stolen 1999 - value $10 million

Chapter One

Geraldine Whitehill was a proud woman.

She had the type of pride that didn't intermingle with arrogance, but instead seeped from honor. Pride wasn't used as fuel for elite reasonings or unyielding ego. It flickered in her as a warm celebratory light borne from her loved ones, her life, and her endeavors. She was proud, but she was proud of others and what she had achieved, and it was rightfully earned.

That made it different from arrogant pride. Arrogant pride didn't bend under the weight of wrongdoings; it fed narcissistic tendencies and corrupted the mind. Celebratory pride nurtured relationships and cultivated selflessness.

Geraldine Whitehill was a proud woman.

She'd reached her late seventies but hadn't yet crumpled under the weight of her years or reached a state of frailty. She was no young dame, as she often jokingly reminded us, but that only meant she had more to share. She aged with grace, as the best people tended to do.

She was my role model. A matron of the arts, a grandmother, a widow. She spent her days digging into the roots of the community and planting color among the desiccations. She encouraged growth and recovery when hardship rocked foundations and wills. At the time of the theft, she'd been a pillar of the local community and art world for over forty years.

When her husband died over ten years before, a withdrawn man who adored her and her pursuits, Geraldine had dedicated herself completely to art and its various forms. She'd thrown herself into another branch of passion to make up for what she'd lost with her husband's death. Choosing to seek another form of it where she could, unable to find passion in love anymore until she was reunited with him—yet it'd still burned within her. The fiery thrill laid dormant until channeled elsewhere, when she'd flipped the coin and explored another form. There was passion in love and there was passion in art. She'd lost her love, but she hadn't lost art.

And she loved art.

The gallery was a monument to her and her family. Whitehill Museum and Art Gallery was one of her sources of pride, and I could still remember opening night. A dazzling affair filled with champagne and checkbooks, but the most memorable portion of the evening hadn't been the ribbon cutting, or her grandson's speech, or even the first trickle of guests into the exhibits. It'd been Geraldine. It'd been the look on her face when she'd realized how much art would be shared. When she'd realized the scope of all the new programs that'd feed the creativity of children, all of the people who'd get to see what she saw in the works around the museum. That'd been a great night.

It was two years later, and I would have to tell my mentor what portion of truth I could. The woman I looked up to, who I worshiped and tried to emulate, would have to be told what happened.

The Weeping Widow was gone. The shining jewel of Whitehill had been stolen.

The gallery was crawling with cops, security, museum employees, and so many others. It was late, but the bustle that followed crime had only just started. I answered what questions I could, gave my statements, and checked in with detectives, but I was waiting for her.

It was my job to tell her.

Not only because I was there at the time and had worked there for years, but I was also a family friend of the Whitehills. If there was anyone I would want to deliver the blow, as much as it may personally pain me, it was myself.

I knew she would've been reached as soon as any commotion began, the family surely informed the moment the alarms went off. The works there either belonged to her, were on loan from her close circle, or were borrowed from other galleries. Save a few pieces meticulously displayed at her estate for personal enjoyment, the museum held much of her private collection. The works were mostly on rotation, except for a few permanent residents of the hallowed halls. The Weeping Widow was one of the permanent works. She'd cried day and night in her ornate frame, but now she wept somewhere else. Somewhere Whitehill no longer protected her.