CHAPTER FOURTEEN – THE SECOND LIST

The emergency board meeting took place on Monday afternoon.
I attended because Imogen had asked me to explain how the discarded pieces reached my yard.
Nina attended with an attorney.
Bernice attended without speaking to Celia, who had retained separate counsel.
The meeting began with the board confirming that disputed artwork would remain unavailable for sale while the ownership questions were examined.
Gregory announced that Celia had been placed on administrative leave pending an independent review.
A board member asked whether that decision would end the organization’s programs.
Gregory said classes could continue on a limited basis with separate oversight of funds and property.
The answer did not satisfy everyone.
Several instructors wanted to know whether they would be paid next month.
A donor demanded to know why the board had trusted Celia’s reports for so long.


The argument became sharp enough that Gregory called a brief recess.
During the break, Nina approached me.
She said investigators had discovered a second inventory list.
That list included artworks absent from the public catalogue because they were intended for private sales to favored donors.
Some artists had no idea their pieces were being offered at all.
The revelation expanded the inquiry, but it also created a practical problem.
Staff now had to locate objects that had never been assigned public lot numbers.
Nina had helped make the second list and could identify several storage locations.
She agreed to cooperate under advice from counsel.
“I keep thinking about the first day I knew this was wrong,” she said.
“I could have left.”
“You also could have spoken,” I replied.
“I know.

”
I did not try to ease her discomfort.
The artists had lived with the consequences of other people’s convenient silence.
When the meeting resumed, Imogen asked the board to establish an independent return process with clear contact information and item-by-item verification.
She also asked that residents be given copies of any forms bearing their names.
The board approved a temporary process while lawyers worked through the disputed agreements.
The decision was not a confession of legal liability, and the review remained unresolved.
Still, the residents finally had an avenue to ask for their own property without relying on Celia’s staff.
Bernice was called to explain the intake confirmations.
She described the August meeting, the delays, and the assurances she had given.
When a board member asked whether she had understood the agreements at the time, Bernice answered carefully.
“I understood enough to know I had not explained them properly,” she said.
“I signed anyway.”
The room went still.
She then acknowledged deliberately throwing objects into my yard and filing a false complaint against me.
“I thought somebody else would force the question I was too frightened to ask,” she said.
“Instead, I frightened a child and damaged property that wasn’t mine.”
I watched June’s face as she listened.
My niece had insisted on attending the open portion of the meeting.
She was taking notes for herself, not for school.
When Bernice finished, Gregory asked whether I wanted to speak.
I stood and described the objects that had landed in my yard and the danger to June.
Then I held up a photograph of the blue ribbon I had found on the first morning.
“Somebody made that piece of art,” I said.
“Somebody attached that ribbon to it, and somebody else decided it could be destroyed.”
I looked toward the board.
“The people who made these works deserve to be asked what happens next.”