"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."

I shrugged again, feeling slightly nauseous. "You had a hobby. You were in college. A lot of people are careless with money at that age. How does Graves come into this?"

"I wanted his help. I tried finding him, but for a private detective, he's not easy to find."

"You mentioned his reputation."

"Yes. He has a reputation as a hard ass, but also as one of the best private investigators of stolen artifacts. Gramma was underplaying his prominence. He's a hero in those circles. Hell, he was my hero. I wanted to get him involved."

"And he said no?"

"I never met him. But I got a message telling me to stop looking. Called me a kid who didn't understand what he was getting into, and that if there was a case, Graves would find me. I thought it was the effing mafia at first."

"Geraldine said she found him through family friends."

August shook his head. "I didn't understand that. She won't tell me what family friends, and I find it hard to believe Gramma would run in the same circles as him. From what I understood, he had to have found her."

I was totally lost. While I finally understood August's out-of-character hostility towards Graves, now recognizing it as the charred remains of lost idolization, I didn't understand the latest revelation. Did Geraldine lie to us? Why? And why was Graves there?

I wasn't supposed to be involved in the actual mystery. My battle was supposed to be defending my honor. Other people were looking for the painting, or wondering about its whereabouts—but not me. I was concerned about the painting in the sense of a general care for it, but I wasn't losing sleep over it anymore.

Now, I wondered if the situation I'd found myself in was deeper than I knew. If what I knew to be true, wasn't true at all. How complicated was the betrayal at Whitehill? How many people were guilty of it?

"This is all my fault, El."

I looked up. I waited for the explanation I knew would come, for the flawed reasoning I'd need to fix. I waited for him to explain, to emerge from his wallowed self-pity so I could correct him. I knew August. I knew him better than I knew myself. I watched his mournful expression as his head lowered, and silence toiled in wait. He probably expected me to say something, but there was nothing I could think to say. Not until he explained.

"I never wanted this."

"August, did you take the painting?"

His answer was miserable. "No."

"Then why on earth do you think it's your fault?"

"Because I was boastful," August sullenly admitted. "I thought I was the crow of the crown or whatever the saying is. I went around talking about the museum, and Gramma, and all the art. Practically sung about everything we had to lose; I practically challenged someone to steal from us. Daring the world like we were untouchable."

"That's not—"

"Look, I don't want to get into this right now. I feel shitty enough, El."

Guilt could be found in even the shallowest of crevices. Speckles of blood could be squeezed from the slightest of nicks. Blame could be placed on every shoulder bumped in the night. I wasn't surprised at August's self-inflicted blame; that was just the type of person he was. In his eyes, everyone else's problems were his, everyone else's faults were rooted from him, everyone else's shortcomings were his own. No one could trace the roots of blame to him like he could. He'd always been like that. No, it was something else that surprised me entirely.

Because I didn't know that side of August. I didn't know the person he claimed to have been at some point in time.

Augustus Leon Whitehill was a beautifully pretentious name, but August wasn't. The boy who only grew into his ears in college wasn't an arrogant fool. The man who carried his sister upstairs everyday when she broke her foot wasn't throwing money at problems. That wasn't August.

But he always told the truth, so I would have to take his word for it. I'd have to believe he'd acted that way—but I just couldn't see it. I hadn't seen it. To hear he'd been different, that he'd acted like others I hated, was upsetting. But to August's credit, it had to have been brief. That made me feel better. It was a lapse in judgement, a darkening of the self from the neglected devil on his shoulder. It had to have been. That wasn't August. Not anymore. That was how everyone else was, not him.

Still, it was a bad sign. It warned me a single mistake could only be the first one found—not the first to exist. Was I wrong in how I saw everyone else, too?

No. I know them. I know the souls I surround myself with. I do. Because if I don't know them, how could I ever hope to know myself?

"It wasn't your fault. You could've screamed about the painting in the student union, and it still wouldn't have been your fault. You're allowed to be proud, August. It's not always a bad thing."

He gave me a crooked grin, a brief glimpse of his boyish charm I rarely saw these days. "Pride is a sin, y'know."

"We're all sinners in one way or another. Pride is only bad in excess. You should have pride. You have to. If you weren't proud, you wouldn't work at Whitehill. You wouldn't care about your family's reputation or anything the media says. Look, we can all find blame. You think you're the only one feeling that way? Thinking what if I left at a different time, or paid more attention, or made a different choice? You think you're the only one feeling guilty here?"

There was a mirror before him, and a mirror before me. We looked at each other and saw the reflections we'd hid from.

"It wasn't your fault," August quietly murmured, echoing my words. But that was the funny thing about mirrors—flying projectiles bounced, they weren't absorbed.

"Maybe fault is an opinion."

"Innocent until proven guilty, El. If, when, and until."

I raised my glass. "I'll drink to that. If, when, and until."

I finished off my drink, savoring the bite of liquor that tasted better the more I drank it. August gathered Lena, I spilled more bills from my bosom, and the bartender waved a farewell dripping with judgement, delight, and disdain. The three of us headed into the night.

They were right. The beach would've been a bad idea.

It was cold as shit.

So as we journey on this first draft together, there will be hiccups. Newest hiccup? This chapter was not supposed to be this short! It was supposed to be part of a larger chapter, which like all other chapters before, grew much larger than expected. The task of a second draft and fixing everything grows more daunting by the word. Also, did we lose some readers? But shoutout to whoever started reading recently and caught up! I see you and I appreciate you!

- H