think she was always half-expecting that one day, he’d come up the walk, and everything would be like it was. And later, after my mom and stepfather died in a crash, I couldn’t bear to change it either.”
“The POW/MIA debacle is a national stain,” I said. “And it’s on every president who didn’t force the Vietnamese and the Defense Department to come clean.”
Kim bowed her head, and I could tell her eyes were wet. “There are no words to describe what the families went through—the same people who were so loyal to their country that they absorbed the lies in silence. You know, I never even knew my dad, but I always felt connected. I think my mother’s love for him was so great and her grief so profound that it became part of me too.”
Kim took a deep breath and went on. “Now, Brandi Sue Parsons. You can starve on what museums and galleries pay, so I took the journalism route. I was always good at getting people to talk, and I got lucky and picked up regular free-lance pieces for some of the more prestigious art publications. I was doing pretty well too—at least I was eating—but like a lot of people with my degrees, I was dead certain I could find undervalued works and resell them for a fat profit. So when I wasn’t writing about lost Caravaggios or forged Warhols, I hung out a shingle as a consultant.
“Mrs. Parsons, who is two years younger than me, was a former Miss Universe runner-up and the brand-new trophy wife of a wealthy Pasadena developer. She hired me to locate something outstanding for the new mansion her husband was building her. And I did—a wonderful pair of Kubicek watercolors. But the owner would only sell them as a package, and the price was $400,000, twice what Mrs. Parsons had authorized.
“When I explained it to Brandi Sue, she went to see the paintings—a still life and a landscape—and fell in love with the landscape, which was valued at $180,000. So I toldher I’d scout around and see what I could do. I got lucky. I found an investor willing to put up $200,000 in return for an eighty percent share of what the still life might eventually bring. I borrowed against my credit cards for the balance. Case closed. That is, until I sent the still life to Sotheby’s to be auctioned.”
“Let me guess, somebody bought it for half a million.”
“Not even close. One million, six hundred sixty-five thousand, five hundred. It turned out to be one of the artist’s lost works. It had disappeared from the Spanish royal family in 1808, probably looted by one of Napoleon’s officers. Mrs. Parsons read about the sale in the paper and came looking for what she considered her share of the money—which by her logic was all of it.
“Her opening line was, ‘You thieving fucking bitch. You set me up!’ Then she hired a lawyer and accused me of pushing her to buy the landscape when it was the still life she wanted all along.”
“Naturally.”
“The judge threw the case out, but she kept at it with harassing phone calls and poison e-mails. Then one day, as I was crossing the street in front of my apartment, she tried to run me down with her Mercedes. I managed to dive out of the way, but I felt the bumper graze my skirt.”
“Hence the restraining order,” I said.
Kim nodded. “I was really scared. The funny thing was, a few months later, her husband came to see me. He was beside himself. He said Brandi Sue had taken all the money she could lay her hands on, pawned her jewelry and left town with the foreman who’d been overseeing the construction of their new house. She’d also taken the Kubicek landscape, and he wanted to know if maybe she’d contacted me about selling it.”
“I guess he didn’t know the history,” I said.
“I think he was so hung up on her, he wasn’t thinking clearly. He was absolutely sure his foreman had coerced her,maybe even used force. So sure, in fact, he’d made a police report.”
“I’m sure the Pasadena cops jumped right on
“The POW/MIA debacle is a national stain,” I said. “And it’s on every president who didn’t force the Vietnamese and the Defense Department to come clean.”
Kim bowed her head, and I could tell her eyes were wet. “There are no words to describe what the families went through—the same people who were so loyal to their country that they absorbed the lies in silence. You know, I never even knew my dad, but I always felt connected. I think my mother’s love for him was so great and her grief so profound that it became part of me too.”
Kim took a deep breath and went on. “Now, Brandi Sue Parsons. You can starve on what museums and galleries pay, so I took the journalism route. I was always good at getting people to talk, and I got lucky and picked up regular free-lance pieces for some of the more prestigious art publications. I was doing pretty well too—at least I was eating—but like a lot of people with my degrees, I was dead certain I could find undervalued works and resell them for a fat profit. So when I wasn’t writing about lost Caravaggios or forged Warhols, I hung out a shingle as a consultant.
“Mrs. Parsons, who is two years younger than me, was a former Miss Universe runner-up and the brand-new trophy wife of a wealthy Pasadena developer. She hired me to locate something outstanding for the new mansion her husband was building her. And I did—a wonderful pair of Kubicek watercolors. But the owner would only sell them as a package, and the price was $400,000, twice what Mrs. Parsons had authorized.
“When I explained it to Brandi Sue, she went to see the paintings—a still life and a landscape—and fell in love with the landscape, which was valued at $180,000. So I toldher I’d scout around and see what I could do. I got lucky. I found an investor willing to put up $200,000 in return for an eighty percent share of what the still life might eventually bring. I borrowed against my credit cards for the balance. Case closed. That is, until I sent the still life to Sotheby’s to be auctioned.”
“Let me guess, somebody bought it for half a million.”
“Not even close. One million, six hundred sixty-five thousand, five hundred. It turned out to be one of the artist’s lost works. It had disappeared from the Spanish royal family in 1808, probably looted by one of Napoleon’s officers. Mrs. Parsons read about the sale in the paper and came looking for what she considered her share of the money—which by her logic was all of it.
“Her opening line was, ‘You thieving fucking bitch. You set me up!’ Then she hired a lawyer and accused me of pushing her to buy the landscape when it was the still life she wanted all along.”
“Naturally.”
“The judge threw the case out, but she kept at it with harassing phone calls and poison e-mails. Then one day, as I was crossing the street in front of my apartment, she tried to run me down with her Mercedes. I managed to dive out of the way, but I felt the bumper graze my skirt.”
“Hence the restraining order,” I said.
Kim nodded. “I was really scared. The funny thing was, a few months later, her husband came to see me. He was beside himself. He said Brandi Sue had taken all the money she could lay her hands on, pawned her jewelry and left town with the foreman who’d been overseeing the construction of their new house. She’d also taken the Kubicek landscape, and he wanted to know if maybe she’d contacted me about selling it.”
“I guess he didn’t know the history,” I said.
“I think he was so hung up on her, he wasn’t thinking clearly. He was absolutely sure his foreman had coerced her,maybe even used force. So sure, in fact, he’d made a police report.”
“I’m sure the Pasadena cops jumped right on
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