“Did she talk about that?” he asked.
“Not a lot,” Sam said. “But she taught me to be careful. It sucked big-time, the worst nightmare, what happened to her and Aunt Kate and their mother. Also, the art collection—it’s valuable. She didn’t even want to keep the paintings in the house.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Well, because robbers would want them. She thought they would be safer in the gallery—and that we would be safer, too, because the art wouldn’t be a magnet for criminals,” Sam said.
“So why were they in your house? If she didn’t think they should be there?”
“My brother-in-law overruled her,” Kate said, remembering how she’d tried to get Beth to stand up for herself, insist on what she wanted.
“One of the paintings was cut out of its frame,” Conor said. “In the bedroom.”
“Really? Which one?” Kate asked.
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
“I didn’t notice anything in that room,” she said. “Except Beth.”
“Of course,” Conor said.
“Obviously Mom was right, then,” Sam said, her mouth twisting. “About the paintings being safer at the gallery.”
“Because one was cut from the frame?” Conor asked.
“Not just this time. What I meant was, a painting almost got stolen last year.” She paused. “Exactly a year ago—around the time I went to camp last summer.”
Kate felt stunned. Beth hadn’t said a word about it. How could she have kept something so critical from her?
“Your mom never told me,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady.
“You were probably flying. She had Mrs. Waterston for things like that,” Sam said.
“Things like what?” Kate asked, unable to believe what she was hearing.
“I don’t know,” Sam said. “The stuff that happens at home. You’re an important pilot. Mom and Mrs. Waterston had lots of time on the beach to talk about problems. Besides, the painting thing wound up being a lot of worry for nothing.”
Kate was reeling and couldn’t speak.
“Sam, I didn’t see any police reports about a painting stolen from your house last year,” the detective said.
“Because we didn’t report it,” she said.
“Why?” Kate asked.
Sam frowned and shrugged. “It just wasn’t a big deal.”
“Sam! It absolutely was—is—a big deal. Tell me . . .”
“I said almost stolen,” Sam said, her voice rising and face reddening. “It was really bizarre. It turned out the robbers left it behind—they must have gotten spooked or something. We just didn’t find it for a while. Mom found it shoved into the hall closet, behind the rain boots and umbrellas. She hung it right back up in their bedroom.”
Kate felt pins and needles in her face and hands. It couldn’t be.
“Which wall?” Conor asked.
“The one near the window, next to the bookshelves.”
“Who was the artist?” he asked.
“Ben Morrison,” Sam said.
“And the name of the painting?”
Kate closed her eyes. Her entire body felt ice cold.
Of all the Black Hall Impressionists, Kate and Beth loved most the work of Ben Morrison. His love of nature flowed from his brush, and she believed his romantic and tragic vision of love was based on the heartbreak and betrayal he’d suffered. His most famous painting hung in the Wadsworth Atheneum. It showed a young woman on the moonlit lawn of a stone house, dancing alone in a moment of private abandon.
Kate’s family owned a similar painting by Morrison—it depicted the exact same scene, smaller by half, and somehow infused with even greater longing, a sense of the woman’s unmistakable desire. Many art historians considered the canvas superior to the one at the Atheneum. It had already been stolen once, by Joshua and Sally Anderson the night Kate and Beth’s mother had died. It had been returned to the family after the couple’s arrest. And since Beth’s marriage to Pete, it had hung alone, illuminated by a spotlight, on the east wall of their bedroom.
“The name of the painting?” the detective asked again.
Kate’s heart seized. She knew even before Sam said it.
“Moonlight,” Sam said.
It was happening again, Kate thought. Someone else she loved had been killed over that same painting.
8
After Sam got tired, Reid didn’t want to push her for more answers. He thanked her for her help, and Kate walked him to the door. She checked her phone, not for the first time since he’d arrived, as if impatient for a call. Popcorn shimmied against Kate’s side, and she grabbed his red leash and clipped it to his collar.
“I’ll walk you out,” she said.
He watched her go through the routine of disarming and rearming the alarm. At the top of the stairs, she spoke quietly into a microphone, and the only words he heard clearly were autumn garage.
“What did you just say?” he asked, keeping up as she and Popcorn ran downstairs.
“It’s a quote from Franny and Zooey,” she said. At the front door, she turned to see if he knew what she was talking about.
“No idea what that is,” he said.
“A book by J. D. Salinger,” she said. “Beth’s favorite. And mine. Sibling love.”
From her tone, he realized he’d failed some test. It was also clear that as much as he thought he knew about her, Kate’s inner life was a mystery. They walked outside. The temperature had dropped, and fog was creeping in, ghostly in the streetlights. Salt air blew off the harbor, smelling of Long Island Sound, the river, diesel fuel, and beer from the bar next door. Kate cut down a deserted alley that led toward the empty wharf.
“What a paradox,” he said.
She gave him a quizzical glance.
“For someone who has the most sophisticated private security setup I’ve ever seen, you like to live dangerously,” he said. “This is a pretty crime-ridden stretch.”
“I’ve got some moves,” she said, giving a slight smile. “No one’s going to bother me. And I’ve got Popcorn.”
“Right,” he said. “The great watchdog.”
“Don’t insult my buddy,” she said as Popcorn lifted his leg to pee on a pile of trash.
They slipped through a break in an anchor fence to get closer to the river. The black water rippled yellow-orange from garish lights on the other side. General Dynamics—better known as Electric Boat or “EB” to locals—manufactured submarines for the navy and was lit up like a small city. The dark conning towers of two subs rose high above their docks and the river’s surface.
“My brother and I used to think this exact spot would be the best place for Russian spies,” he said.
“Beth and I thought that too,” she said. “Our parents would bring us and our friends to New London for Sail Fest, and we’d walk along the pier eating clam chowder and lobster rolls, looking over at EB and imagining how many of the tourists supposedly taking pictures of the tall ships were actually spies snapping shots of the nuclear subs.” Then, “You have a brother?”