An Investigator Arrived Before The Truck Came For My Pianos

I put my van across the annex entrance at seven.

At seven twenty, a woman knocked on its window. She wore a dark rain jacket and held a plain badge case where I could read it.

"Pawel Zielinski? Celia Navarro. You left half a message about paintings. Then dispatch got your report about a false signature."

"Both were mine. The signature wasn't."

She checked my license, then the freight release.

"Did you authorize an exchange by phone?"

"No."

"Did anyone else have that right?"

"No."

She wrote both answers down.

Celia was thirty-eight, a Mexican American investigator assigned to an art theft team that worked across county lines. She had dark curls tied low and a steady face that gave nothing away for free.

"I can take a report," she said. "I can't decide who owns everything by standing in your driveway."

I liked her a little for saying that.

The freight truck arrived at eight. A driver handed her a second copy of the release.

"Office sent me," he said.

"Which person?"

He looked at the paper. "Dispatch code only."

She copied his license and truck number. He agreed to leave without loading anything. I watched until his brake lights vanished beyond the wet road.

Inside the annex, I struck the low A on my oldest upright.

The room returned the wrong sound.

I stopped.

"What?" Celia asked.

"This one used to make the lamp shade ring."

"Could the lamp have moved?"

"Yes."

I checked it. Same hook. Same height. Then I lifted the lower panel.

The bass strings were new enough to shine. Mine had dark windings and a loose hitch pin that I had marked with blue thread.

The thread was gone.

So was the piano.

Its replacement wore my instrument's number on a fresh brass tag.

"Don't touch anything else," Celia said.

She called for a scene officer. While we waited, I pointed out two more strangers. The cases matched my old photographs from a few feet away. Inside, the tool marks and repairs were wrong.

The attempted pickup had been a cleanup. Someone had already made the exchange.

Emmett arrived carrying coffee.

"What happened?"

"When were movers last here?" I asked.

He looked from me to Celia.

"Thursday. You had a school job. Maddox's crew said you approved humidity treatment."

"You never called me."

"They had forms."

Celia asked him to show her. He said he had left them at home.

"Bring them to the office," she said. "Don't change or discard them."

She said it without raising her voice. Emmett set the coffee down and left.

I found the annex entry book on its hook. Thursday's page listed a crew of four, but only Emmett had signed. I left it where it was and pointed it out to Celia.

"You'll get it back," she said.

"It's a two-dollar notebook."

"That doesn't tell us what it's worth."

I stepped away so the officer could photograph the open page.

My hands had begun to shake. Celia noticed, but she kept asking useful questions.

I showed her the three loss reports and my photographs. She studied the hidden crate walls first.

"Who asked you to open these?"

"I needed to check the braces. Weight behind the piano changes the load. The permission is on each intake."

"And these dates?"

"Camera dates. Job sheets. Invoice receipts."

"We'll need sources besides your camera."

"I know."

She glanced at me, as if that answer had saved us both some time.

The woman at the window made her sit forward.

"Can you enlarge the back?"

There was a torn paper label and half a round stamp.

"I recognize the collection mark," she said. "That doesn't prove theft. It gives me somewhere to ask."

She would not tell me whose collection. I did not press.

By noon, officers had photographed the doubles. I signed an inventory listing each one as disputed property. Celia gave me a receipt for the copies she took.

"Keep your originals safe," she said.

"I did."

She looked toward the substituted pianos.

"Safer than this."

I warmed the untouched coffee. Hers had gone cold while she checked the freight numbers.

"No sugar?" I asked.

"No. Thank you."

It was the first soft thing she had said.

After she left, my phone buzzed. A parent had canceled a tuning. Then another. Someone had posted a complaint claiming I used cheap copies to support false valuations.

Attached was an invoice for $12,000 worth of replica pianos.

My name sat at the bottom.

Maddox called before I finished reading it.

"A bad week can become a bad year," he said. "Let me help you close your books."

"Where are my instruments?"

He sighed like I had refused a warm coat.

"Your originals are gone, Pawel. Who will believe your little archive now?"