Chapter 8 - THE PORTRAIT VIVIAN USED AS COLLATERAL.
The missing painting was a portrait of a Black seamstress named Clara Bennett, painted by her daughter during the Harlem Renaissance.
The Reeds displayed it for decades while museum records called the artist unknown.
Naomi recognized the surname.
“Elsie’s father was a Bennett.”
Evelyn confirmed that Elsie descended from Clara. The portrait had been entrusted to the museum on the condition that proceeds support working-class art students and descendants of museum laborers.
Vivian removed the conditions and used the painting as collateral for the expansion loan.
She accused Evelyn of planning to steal it for Elsie.
Evelyn replied, “Restitution is not theft because the current owner wears silk.”
The lender produced the collateral file. Gabriel’s signature appeared beneath Vivian’s.
He remembered signing a general financing approval without reviewing the artwork schedule.
Again, comfort had made ignorance easy.
Then officers searched Vivian’s private office.
They found the portrait’s empty frame—and a recent photograph of the painting inside Naomi’s apartment.
Naomi went pale.
May you like
“I have never seen it there.”
But the timestamp was from the previous night.
