To Steal a Weeping Widow

Chapter Twenty-Six: If, When, and Until

"Le Cabanon de Jourdan" by Paul Cézanne (1906), stolen 1998, recovered 1998 - value unknown

Chapter Twenty-Six

What had I known before the theft?

One couldn't work in the industry without knowing. There was no wading among the community of art without knowing even the faintest of details. They would be greedily scrounged up, unwillingly collected like pollen on sleeves, or thrust upon laps. So what had I known?

The British Museum. The Louvre. The Victoria and Albert Museum. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Museum of Modern Art. Even universities, like Yale. So many others. All guilty of housing, displaying, claiming, and falsely guarding stolen art and antiquities. From rummages of war, looting, lost history, auctions. Art was more than canvas or clay—it was designs, artifacts, jewelry, fashion, emblems of culture, staples of history.

I knew there were mysteries we would almost certainly never solve. Works we would never recover. Credit we would never bestow. Apologies we would never give. I knew of both government-sanctioned stockpiles and illegal crimes investigated by Interpol. I knew of elaborate thefts, inside jobs, and smuggled fakes. Of items impulsively plucked off walls, Nazis bullying while rampaging, and destructive tomb raids. I knew of private collectors hoarding national treasures, deals of 'stays between us', and thieves escaping through fire exits without tripping alarms.

I knew about stolen art. But I also knew August. And his question confounded me, baffling my liquor-smooched mind with its underlying implications.

"I knew some things," I started slowly, "but I get the feeling you're talking about more than common knowledge."

August sighed. It was a careful heave of billowed breath, the whisper of fault of a conscious-ridden man.

"I was obsessed."

"With stolen art? When?" I asked, baffled.

"I was obsessed for a long time. Do you remember freshman year of college, when we took that art history class together?"

"Yes. You did better than I did on the midterm, which was annoying. You didn't try nearly as hard as I did."

"I did try," he said. "But I fell down rabbit holes and spent nights studying mysteries and stolen artifacts. I didn't tell you because I thought you'd think it was silly."

"Why would I think that? Nothing about stolen art is silly. I don't remembering spending much time on the topic in class, but there's lots of intriguing cases out there. I find them interesting, too."

"Eleanor, you don't understand. I wasn't 'intrigued'. I was... consumed by it. I spent money on private investigators, bribes, expert opinions, foreign government reports, anything and everything related to a couple thefts that stood out to me. Like I thought I would be the one to figure it out. In my mind I wasn't limited like the government, or afraid, so I thought I could just slip under the red tape and pay my way through. I figured they have to be somewhere, right?"

I half shrugged, half nodded.

August leaned back, his mind dashing away from the main priorities of the conversation. "You don't just go to a pawnshop with a priceless painting. What are amateurs, especially ones who just got lucky, going to do with whatever they took? You gotta have inside opportunity to sell and a highly skilled fence. So I figured either someone's lying and the works were found, or they were destroyed. Or, who knows, maybe someone's grandma has one hell of a treasure above her piano."

"Good point."

"I spent a lot of money trying to find them. Enough that my dad called. He called it my 'Indiana Jones' phase."