Flying Solo(19)

She’d been in Seattle for fifteen years, and she did think of it as home. But Maine was where she was from, where she was made. She was made as a ten-year-old asking her brother to come over and help lift up a rock so she could see the starfish and hermit crabs and sea urchins. She was made watching live lobsters wherever she could, which was practically everywhere. Not because she liked to eat them, but because the segments of their bodies and their deep brown armor were like nothing she’d ever seen outside of the world of bugs. And she was made by the birds she learned to spot while sitting on lawn chairs in the backyard with her father, accumulating advice and mosquito bites at a rapid clip while they shared a bag of M&M’s.

When she got to Wybeck, she found Ransom & Sons Antiques along a quiet street, between a post office and a yarn shop. The front windows were crowded with clocks, lamps, paintings, little side tables, and a tall white vase speckled with black.

She opened the door and the bell rang, but at first, she couldn’t see anyone. The aisles were Brooklyn-bodega narrow, and the inventory was spilling out past the end of every row. Just as Laurie was about to say something, she saw a man poke his head out from behind a stack of boxes. He was tall and thin with white hair, and she liked him instantly. “Afternoon,” he said.

“Afternoon,” she said back. “I’m wondering if you can help me. I have a question about whether something is worth anything.”

He wiped his hands on a white rag and came toward the front of the store. “Well, whether something is worth anything is right up my alley, so I’ll give it a shot. I’m Joe Ransom.” He held out his hand, and she shook it.

“Hi, I’m Laurie Sassalyn, and I have a question about this.” She set the box under her arm on the glass counter, above a display of fishing lures. She unwrapped the duck and set it down in front of him. “I’m cleaning out my great-aunt’s house, she passed away recently, and I found this in her cedar chest. I don’t know anything about it, but it seemed like she had kind of set it aside, and I was wondering whether you might be able to tell me anything about it. I’m happy to pay you for your time, obviously.”

He waved one hand. “If I didn’t like a mystery, I’d have a hardware store.” She could tell this was not his first time using that line. He put on a pair of glasses that had been hanging around his neck. “So you’ve got a decoy here, obviously of a wood duck. Lovely crest, beautifully made.”

“I did get that far.”

“Well, you’re on the right track, then. How old was your great-aunt?”

“She was ninety-three. I don’t have a clue how old this is, though.”

He picked it up and looked closely at it. “Huh. It’s in very good condition. In fact,” he said, tipping it back and forth to let the light hit it, “it’s in such good condition that I don’t think it was ever used.”

“Is that unusual?”

“It is. These are collected now, of course, like folk art. People like ’em, and they sell for good money sometimes. But decoys were mostly made for real hunters, not just for decoration. When I see one that’s been around a while, it’s generally either been repainted at least once—usually a lot more than once—or it’s been subjected to a lot of time outside, sometimes in salt water. Sometimes it’s even been shot at.”

“Wow, that’s a lot for a floating duck to have to put up with.”

“It sure is. In fact, one reason people pay a lot of money for the really old ones is that most of them haven’t made it this long without their heads or their tails breaking off. This guy looks…old, but also like it just came out of the shop, which might make us think it’s not a real antique.”

“Oh, okay. I did have somebody tell me they thought that might be true.”

“Hang on, don’t give up on him yet. I’m just getting started.” He turned it over. “Huh. Look at that mark.” He took out a magnifier and ran it over the paint on the wings. “Huh. Well, isn’t that interesting.” And then he said it again: “Huh. Interesting. Did you say where your aunt lived?”

“I didn’t. Just over in Calcasset.”

“Huh.” That was four. Four huh noises. How many made up a true exclamation? What was the exchange rate? “So what I’m noticing about this is that it’s in the style of a guy named Carl Kittery. He made decoys from, oh, I want to say about 1940 to 1980. I think his last piece might be 1982. Do you see how the wing is painted? This pattern?” The wings had painted white Vs, made of very thin lines and neatly lined up, alternating bigger and smaller rows. “This is his very specific way of painting feathers, like a signature. Although I’ve never seen a wood duck from him, so that would be unusual. And the other thing is, he has a mark that you generally find on his decoys, and it’s similar to this, but it’s not quite this.”

“Oh.”

“See this ‘CKM’? That’s for ‘Carl Kittery, Maine’ in his mark. But it should have a year after it. It would say ‘CKM65’ or ‘CKM78’ or what have you. And on top of that, his mark would have had three little dots underneath the circle that signify his wife and two daughters. There’s some variation in the first ones, the very early ones, that don’t always have the full mark. He hadn’t even developed it yet, his daughters weren’t born and he was a young man making pieces for hunters. But for one of those early ones to turn up now would be a real surprise, and this doesn’t look that old. I’ve sold Kitterys myself, and I’ve never heard of partial marks like this. So this looks a little more like it was somebody trying to imitate the mark without quite forging the mark.”