Page 1 of Hawkeye

1

JOSIE

“There’s a shadow box waiting for you in the conservation room.”

I flashed the director of appraisals for Wynnock Auctioneers a quick smile. “I’ll get right to it, Mr. Smythe.”

“I’m sure you will. That’s why I hired you.”

His faith in me meant a lot. “Thank you.”

Being given a project like this straight from Mr. Smythe was a big deal for an apprentice appraiser, but I’d quickly proven that I had more knowledge about military memorabilia than any other junior member of the team.

Snagging my badge from my back pocket, I scanned it and entered my code to get into the secured room. Then I grabbed the heavy canvas apron off the peg and pulled it over my square-neck top, tying it at my waist so the colorful wide-leg trousers underneath stayed out of the solvents. The enamel clip had already lost the fight with my bangs once today. I shoved them back off my face, checked that my vintage earrings wouldn’t catch on anything, and tugged my bangles off my wrist to put them in the apron pocket.

The shadow box was on the holding shelf. At around fifteen pounds, I gently eased it onto the felt-topped workbench. Then I reached for the intake folder, flipping the packet open with a knuckle.

The box had arrived two days ago as part of a larger estate consignment from a local clearance company the house used often. The intake paperwork appeared to be in order. The piece was accepted, subject to specialist assessment and provenance verification, rather than being automatically placed at auction.

“Let’s take a look at you,” I murmured.

I angled the task light onto the frame first. It was mahogany, with original brass corners that were tarnished. When I tugged on a glove and ran it along the underside, the joinery was smooth in a way that could only have been hand-cut. Tiny carved anchors sat in the molding where a factory piece would have left the edge blank. Someone had spent a lot of time building this piece.

I tipped the edge up just enough to find the maker’s mark, but it had been worn down over time and was only a partial mark. But enough remained for me to recognize the San Diego craftsman who had created the shadow box. Gerold White was famous for his exceptional furniture, but he’d also done private commissions before he died in the 1940s. Which meant this box was one of his rare early-twentieth-century naval presentations.

“Impressive,” I breathed, tracing my gloved finger over one of the carvings.

In the early 1900s, most shadow boxes were built by shipmates or anonymous artists. White’s mark created a baseline value of a couple of thousand dollars without considering the contents.

Shifting my focus to the items placed inside the box, I quickly realized I was dealing with a multigenerational family memorial that started with a 1942 Black Widow Navy Cross in pristine condition. The WWI Victory Medal with campaign clasp and the Purple Heart on either side must have belonged to the same man. Paired together, and with the rarity of the dark-finished variation of the cross, the earliest medal group was worth five figures.

A later service medal sat lower in the display, no less impressive even though its value was lower. There were photos behind the original wavy glass too, including a formal portrait from generations back.

But instead of studying them more closely, my gaze was drawn to a challenge coin wedged near the bottom. It was newer, and I couldn’t help but wonder about the story behind it.

Then I got back to work and found many other things to consider. Faint scratches in the glass that appeared to be older. Brass tarnish consistent with age. Newer rear hanging hardware. None of that posed major issues, but the disturbed dust beneath the backing's edge worried me. Then I turned it over and found fresh scoring around two screws at one of the joints, fine plaster residue in the rear joints, and a shallow pry mark exposing wood that hadn’t darkened yet.

Maybe the estate company had been careless when removing the shadow box, or it had been rehung shortly before the property was cleared. But thinking about it alongside the vague history in the source file, my brows drew together.

“Focus on the contents before jumping to conclusions,” I reminded myself.

I pulled out the physical inventory before carefully turning the shadow box glass side down. Then I photographed everything before swinging the front glass open. The antique box and the earliest medal group were described accurately in the inventory, but the later contents were grouped under the vague phrase “family military additions” with no further details.

Since it seemed to be the most recent addition, I examined the challenge coin more closely. BLACK CROWNS MC — SABLE CANYON circled one side. The word “Sentinel” was engraved along the edge, and the reverse of the coin bore a short series of digits. I had no idea what either meant since none of this was noted in the source file. The coin wasn’t even listed anywhere on the inventory, which cast the provenance of the entire box into doubt.

Since the file didn’t include anything to establish how the collector’s estate acquired the Black Crowns coin, I couldn’t assume the estate legally owned any of the objects added after the oldest medal group.

Walking over to the terminal on the opposite wall, I ran a search of public records and found the name engraved on the Navy Cross. The most memorable moment of Admiral John Whitstone’s career came during the Battle of the Coral Sea. After dive-bombers left his flagship burning and listing sharply to port, he personally directed the anti-aircraft defense while mapping out a high-risk flank attack. The resulting counterstrike caught the enemy fleet entirely by surprise, cementing his place in naval history.

“That’ll drive the price up even higher,” I whispered.

Which meant I needed to make Mr. Smythe aware of the provenance issues immediately. After sending him a quick message asking him to join me in the conservation room, I tried to connect the admiral with the Black Crowns MC and came up empty, which wasn’t surprising since he’d died in the 1950s.

When Mr. Smythe came in, I turned the box so he could see the damage to the back first. Then I went over the deficiencies in the paperwork.

“Good catch.” He shook his head. “It will be removed from the catalog queue and placed in the auction house vault. I’ll also have client services request additional documentation from the estate clearance company. Maybe they have an explanation that will clear this all up.”

Nodding, I glanced at the challenge coin. “The Black Crowns might know what Sentinel and those numbers mean.”