The Body in Bodega Bay by Betsy Draine Page B

detail. Oh, yes, I think the museum will be pleased.”
    â€œThat’s amazing,” said Toby. I could tell he was getting into it. “But now how do you know there isn’t still another painting underneath the one you’ve removed?”
    â€œI don’t,” said Al, evidently content with himself. “There’s a remote chance that there’s even an earlier image under this one, but the risk of ruining the icon would be too great. Now that I’ve got an eighteenth-century panel with an eighteenth-century image, it’s time to stop.”
    â€œSay you didn’t stop. How would you know for sure you’ve gone too far?” Toby persisted.
    â€œWell, if you get down to the gesso—that’s the primer—then you’re in the crapper, because that means you’ve gone and wiped out the original image. Goodbye, painting.” I was familiar with gesso. It’s a white, chalky mixture that artists laid down on raw wood as a primer to create a smooth surface on which to paint. “Once you expose the gesso,” Al went on, “there’s no going back.”
    Toby nodded soberly. “But what if you’d found gesso underneath the layer you just removed? What would you tell the museum?”
    Al raised his palms and contorted his features into an expression of mock horror, then confided with a grin, “Thank God for tenure.”
    Toby laughed. “I thought you didn’t believe in God.”
    â€œIt’s just a saying. Besides, it never hurts to be polite.” Then Al looked at me, as if in warning. “But seriously, folks, it’s a delicate business when you’re dealing with an older panel, because the question always is when to stop. In this situation I was pretty confident, but yes, there’s an element of risk.”
    â€œThat would be the case with ours, then, if we found it, wouldn’t it?” I said.
    â€œExactly,” agreed Al.
    Toby picked up the thread. “In our case, something you said earlier has been bothering me. If the same kind of supports were used in the nineteenth century as in the Renaissance, what makes you think our panel is any older than the nineteenth century?”
    â€œI’ll show you. Let’s take another look at your picture.” Toby handed Al the photo showing the reverse of the panel. “See here?” Al asked, tracing his finger along the top horizontal wedge across the back. “This wood is of a lighter color than the rest of the panel, which suggests that these wedges are replacements of the originals. The early icon makers hammered their wedges into place but didn’t use glue, and eventually the strips became loose and fell out. You wouldn’t expect to find replacements in a panel of more recent construction. So my guess is that your icon dates back at least to the 1600s, if not earlier.”
    I was thinking hard. “I can see why it’s so important to examine the panels. But there was only one photo of the icon in Morgan’s auction catalog, and the same was true of their catalog online. I checked. The picture was of the front of the icon, showing the angel. So how could anyone, say a prospective bidder, know what the back was like or that there was any reason to think this particular icon, listed with a low estimate at a secondary auction gallery, was much older and more valuable than its description?”
    Al shrugged. “They couldn’t.”
    Toby, who had been staring at the cleaned icon, looked up at me. “You’re right. That would explain why there weren’t lots of bidders. No one was interested.”
    â€œWith two exceptions,” I pointed out. “Charlie.” I waited a beat.
    Toby finished my sentence. “And whoever killed him.”

4
    R OSE CASSINI , the consignor of the icon, had agreed to meet with us the next morning at her home in Cazadero. On the way, we stopped off in Duncans Mills so Toby