“I’m afraid I’ve forgotten it. Given I was in diapers at the time.”
“I’m sorry. And your father. I’m so sorry about that. I shouldn’t be cavalier. Even before what happened the next day it was already awful and surreal. In fact, you might have been the only member of your family I didn’t loathe when I left your house that night.” She stopped. She looked intently at me. “Wait. Do you even know what I’m talking about?”
“I know enough,” I said. “There’s been a lot of Come-to-Jesus in my family over the past month or so. Oppenheimers, as I think you might know, are not natural sharers of information. I figure I’ve got a few more months to get them sorted out before I take off.”
Rochelle raised her eyebrows. “Where are you going?”
“Oh God.” I shook my head. “Not you, too! We just met!”
“I meant … well I guess you’re going to college. I wasn’t asking where.”
“Sorry,” I told her. “Little sensitive.”
Then, without any forethought, at least on my part, the two of us smiled at each other.
I hadn’t been shown a college-era photograph of the woman on the other side of the desk, so I would not be in a position to appreciate the transformation until later, but it was impressive. Rochelle Steiner was still short and still thin, but she no longer looked like a middle schooler trying to pass for a grown-up. The wavy hair she had once braided into submission now landed where it fell, mainly in curls, and the complexion that had stubbornly clung to adolescence had at last moved on. Rochelle wore a simple wool dress and not a single piece of jewelry or lick of makeup. She looked as if it took her about four minutes to get herself dressed in the morning.
“So. Phoebe Oppenheimer. How may I help you today? I doubt you are having an intellectual property issue, and I certainly hope you’re not filing for divorce. Which leaves me with what you told my assistant when you set up the appointment.” Rochelle held up the folder again, then opened it. A single blank sheet of paper was clipped inside. “Tabula rasa.”
I sat forward in my chair. “We’re having—my brother and I are having—a family issue.”
“Which brother? You have two, I seem to recall. One of them lied to me from the moment we met, the other, as I said, I barely knew, but I still want to smack him.”
“You and me both,” I agreed. “Actually, I have three brothers, not two. Which may or may not be relevant. I brought you this.”
I reached into my bag and handed Rochelle Steiner a copy of the letter from the American Folk Art Museum. （The original I had finally delivered to our mother the day after I’d seen Harrison. I had to, since he was obviously going to tell her about it.） When the lawyer finished reading it, she said: “Yes?”
“These artworks were once a part of our father’s collection. They were kept in a warehouse in Brooklyn which my father purchased in the early 1980s. The rest of his art collection is still there, but these particular works have disappeared. Lewyn and I believe that our mother removed them, sometime around 2002, 2003.”
“Well, that’s certainly her right. Unless your father specified otherwise, his surviving spouse is the default heir to his estate. Is that the case?”
I nodded.
“Then they’re her property. She can move them, store them, throw them in the Hudson River if she wants. I hope she hasn’t, it sounds like they’re important, and probably valuable. But there’s no legal issue.”
“We also believe that our father intended them not to be included in his collection. We think he meant them to go to someone else. A woman he was involved with.”
Rochelle raised her eyebrows. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that. Sudden deaths often create this kind of difficulty. Things that don’t get settled while the person is alive, or they’re kept secret and have to come out eventually. Learning about the deceased person this way, it’s got to be very painful for you. And…” she added, “your brother.”