than an inch square. They both were looking for images that matched the picture Chris Franklin had emailed.
MK’s initial research had proven correct. The paintings were arranged chronologically. Courbet moved from the indoors to the outdoors when he moved to Switzerland. The fresh air seemed to have invigorated him. There must have been thirty paintings of mountain peaks that might have matched the picture.
MK opened her computer. She scrolled through the Yale data. Most of Courbet’s output found its way to museums or corporations or wealthy investors. Nine were unaccounted for—described as whereabouts unknown or missing . Of those nine, four had names of an interior, a studio, a ballroom, or of a girl. Two were of flowers in a meadow, three were called Le Dent de Midi .
MK was electric. “This has to be the one.” MK began searching the galleries where his sales originated. “Isn’t that area somewhere in the south of Switzerland?
Kate lifted her head from the catalogue she was studying. How ironic. Less than a year before, Ascalon had a small project for Siemens in Geneva. Peter probably flew right over the peak Courbet painted.
“We should concentrate on this name in these books. What a goldmine Clarissa turned out to be.”
“Is that your curator friend?”
“Yes. Wait until she hears about this.”
MK was churning with the same energy Kate used to throw full-throttle into her deals.
Kate closed all of the catalogues except the two with pictures that matched the one in her hands. The picture on Chris Franklin’s wall had a name. Kate doubted that finding its history would be as simple. There was nothing for her to do while MK studied the information she’d downloaded, so she checked her email. With nothing to capture her attention, Kate opened the folder of Amigo documents she carried in her briefcase in the hope they might speak to her as fluently as had the Courbet.
Jack Carpenter certainly hadn’t said anything about Amigo being interested in Ascalon on the flight to Pittsburgh when Kate was rushing to see her mother before she died. That would have been obscene. But when they spoke a week or so after the funeral, when Kate called to thank him for his kindness, hadn’t he said the three of them should talk? His exact words were: This could be interesting for all of us. Did that mean anything? Kate certainly didn’t think so at the time, but in a world where truth has become as elastic as taffy, any plaintiff’s lawyer worth his Allen Edmonds could twist those eight words into years of litigation.
MK reached for Kate’s arm. “I found what I was looking for on the gallery list. Three paintings with this name can’t be accounted for. One was sold by a gallery in Basel, another by one in Zurich and a third in a private sale at an exhibition. The gallery in Zurich apparently has been closed for years. The one in Basel is still around. It’s a one-in-a-million chance, but we can call them in the morning.”
Kate admired MK’s ingenuity, or maybe it was her dumb luck. But she sighed at the knowledge that Ed never would trust MK to make the trip. She was supposed to be on track to make history, or at least a couple of days’ worth of news, for stepping into a position no woman had ever achieved. But she was now reduced to the drudgery of looking for bits and pieces. And for what? Finding that someone once bought the painting would prove nothing except that someone once bought the painting.
Some deals are pushed ahead by timing, others by their own internal passion. This one was beginning to feel like a lesson in how to be forced against both her will and her better judgment to chase a bad idea down a blind alley.
TWELVE
Kate called a car and was home by six. Mack wanted hot dogs. Kate agreed, so long as he had a bit of a salad. Peter was lighting the grill when Sarah burst into the front door shouting at the top of her lungs.
“I’ve been asked to play a solo at graduation. How
MK’s initial research had proven correct. The paintings were arranged chronologically. Courbet moved from the indoors to the outdoors when he moved to Switzerland. The fresh air seemed to have invigorated him. There must have been thirty paintings of mountain peaks that might have matched the picture.
MK opened her computer. She scrolled through the Yale data. Most of Courbet’s output found its way to museums or corporations or wealthy investors. Nine were unaccounted for—described as whereabouts unknown or missing . Of those nine, four had names of an interior, a studio, a ballroom, or of a girl. Two were of flowers in a meadow, three were called Le Dent de Midi .
MK was electric. “This has to be the one.” MK began searching the galleries where his sales originated. “Isn’t that area somewhere in the south of Switzerland?
Kate lifted her head from the catalogue she was studying. How ironic. Less than a year before, Ascalon had a small project for Siemens in Geneva. Peter probably flew right over the peak Courbet painted.
“We should concentrate on this name in these books. What a goldmine Clarissa turned out to be.”
“Is that your curator friend?”
“Yes. Wait until she hears about this.”
MK was churning with the same energy Kate used to throw full-throttle into her deals.
Kate closed all of the catalogues except the two with pictures that matched the one in her hands. The picture on Chris Franklin’s wall had a name. Kate doubted that finding its history would be as simple. There was nothing for her to do while MK studied the information she’d downloaded, so she checked her email. With nothing to capture her attention, Kate opened the folder of Amigo documents she carried in her briefcase in the hope they might speak to her as fluently as had the Courbet.
Jack Carpenter certainly hadn’t said anything about Amigo being interested in Ascalon on the flight to Pittsburgh when Kate was rushing to see her mother before she died. That would have been obscene. But when they spoke a week or so after the funeral, when Kate called to thank him for his kindness, hadn’t he said the three of them should talk? His exact words were: This could be interesting for all of us. Did that mean anything? Kate certainly didn’t think so at the time, but in a world where truth has become as elastic as taffy, any plaintiff’s lawyer worth his Allen Edmonds could twist those eight words into years of litigation.
MK reached for Kate’s arm. “I found what I was looking for on the gallery list. Three paintings with this name can’t be accounted for. One was sold by a gallery in Basel, another by one in Zurich and a third in a private sale at an exhibition. The gallery in Zurich apparently has been closed for years. The one in Basel is still around. It’s a one-in-a-million chance, but we can call them in the morning.”
Kate admired MK’s ingenuity, or maybe it was her dumb luck. But she sighed at the knowledge that Ed never would trust MK to make the trip. She was supposed to be on track to make history, or at least a couple of days’ worth of news, for stepping into a position no woman had ever achieved. But she was now reduced to the drudgery of looking for bits and pieces. And for what? Finding that someone once bought the painting would prove nothing except that someone once bought the painting.
Some deals are pushed ahead by timing, others by their own internal passion. This one was beginning to feel like a lesson in how to be forced against both her will and her better judgment to chase a bad idea down a blind alley.
TWELVE
Kate called a car and was home by six. Mack wanted hot dogs. Kate agreed, so long as he had a bit of a salad. Peter was lighting the grill when Sarah burst into the front door shouting at the top of her lungs.
“I’ve been asked to play a solo at graduation. How
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