“Yes, Tom,” Reid said, glad for the chance to tell her.
“Older or younger?”
“He’s older,” Reid said.
“Like me,” Kate said. “Are you close?”
“We are,” he said, meeting her eyes. “Were you and Beth?”
“Our whole lives. We thought we had such a happy childhood till . . .” She trailed off.
“You lost both your parents,” he said.
“In different ways,” she said. “Our mother died, yes. Beth stayed in touch with my father after he went to prison. I never saw him again. Or took his calls.”
“You know, my brother found the paintings,” he said.
She stopped to face him.
He nodded. “Tom was on the Coast Guard ship that boarded Rembrandt. The Andersons had their running lights off—trying to slip offshore without being seen. Tom was on deck and spotted them. And when he went aboard, he found the artwork stashed in a hidden compartment. The first painting he pulled out was Moonlight.”
“Please thank him for me,” she said, her voice catching. “Now it’s gone again. And so is my sister.”
They walked in silence while Popcorn explored the oily pilings of a ruined dock. A tugboat chuffed past. The sound of I-95 traffic crossing the Gold Star Memorial Bridge, although half a mile away, was unending white noise, but Reid and Kate were close enough for him to hear her phone buzz. She reached into her pocket, looked at the screen, and put it back.
“Waiting for a call?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “A close friend. I want to be the one to tell her about Beth.”
“That wasn’t the friend?”
She shook her head. “People I haven’t talked to in ages are coming out of the woodwork. They’ve heard; they’re leaving messages. I don’t want to speak to them.”
“No,” he said. “I get it.”
“I hope I can help Sam,” Kate said, “half as well as my grandmother helped me.”
“Will she live with you?” he asked.
Kate glanced up, surprise on her face. “No, with Pete, of course.”
“Oh, right,” Reid said.
“Why wouldn’t she?” Kate asked, stopping.
Reid didn’t answer. He stared into her green eyes, trying to read them. And he felt her trying to read him back. He had made up his mind about Pete right away and was doing his best to fight his bias. Was Kate’s reaction a sign that she trusted Pete enough to want Sam to stay with him?
“You think he did it?” she asked.
“What did you mean, early today, when you said you could have stopped it from happening?” he asked, avoiding her question.
“Now I’m a suspect?” she asked. “Me and Pete together? You’re an idiot.” She started to walk away.
Reid took a deep breath and knew he had to be careful with what he said. He didn’t want to lead her. “Tell me what you mean,” he said.
“I wouldn’t go to the corner with Pete. The only reason I even speak to him is for Beth and Sam’s sake.”
“Earlier you said you hate him. Can you explain why?”
“You’re the detective. Haven’t you uncovered all the dirt?”
“The investigation is just beginning,” he said.
“Well then, start with Nicola Corliss,” Kate said.
“Okay,” Reid said, keeping his voice calm. He didn’t want to let on how much he already knew, had known all along, and he needed to listen as dispassionately as possible to everything she had to say.
“She is—or was, till Beth fired her—a gallery employee. An assistant curator. Beth and I hired her straight out of grad school at Bard. She wrote her master’s thesis on Childe Hassam’s flag paintings, but her great artist love is, you guessed it, Benjamin Morrison. Those are the reasons we chose her from among the other applicants.”
“Why did Beth fire her?”
“Because even more than Morrison, she loved Pete. And he loved—or loves—her right back. My sister is so smart and wonderful, but she re-created just about every mistake my mom made. She married a guy just like my dad, who cheated with a grad student, broke her heart.”
“How long had Pete been having the affair?”
“He kept ending it. It was over; then it wasn’t; then it was. Beth tried to believe him for as long as she could. But she was over it—done.”
“How did Nicola react to Pete’s stopping and starting back up?” he asked.
“Why?” Kate said, stopping dead, turning to face him. “You’re not saying she could have done it?”
“No. I’m just trying to get the full picture,” Reid said, envisioning the murder scene, staged to look like a rape. Kate had seen it too. She seemed mostly focused on the lies Pete had been telling Beth, but could she imagine Nicola doing it? “But tell me how she reacted to Pete saying he planned to stay with Beth.”
“I’m sure she wasn’t happy,” Kate said. “But we weren’t exactly confidants.”
Reid nodded. “You say Beth was done. She was going to leave him?”
She did not answer the question. She just stared into the swirling black water. “Look, even though he broke Beth’s heart, he didn’t kill her.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“He was out in the Atlantic Ocean with five other guys. Besides, you heard what Sam said about Moonlight. Whoever took it last year probably came back to steal it right this time.” She looked at him. “Only this time, he took everything Beth had. You saw what he did to her, the lace around her neck, right? Was she raped?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Well, even my dad didn’t arrange for the Andersons to sexually assault my mother. To do that to her, to us. But considering what my father did, I do realize that supposed loved ones can do terrible things. But I can’t imagine Pete, regardless of what a creep he is, hiring someone to do that to Beth.”
They were silent for a moment, Reid wondering exactly how to put it—whether to tell her he thought Pete had killed her himself before he left. He had caught some attitude from Tom earlier that day after the helicopter had landed. When Pete had refused to be interviewed, saying he needed to see his daughter before he did anything else, Reid and Tom had stood by the helipad, watching him walk away.
Reid had looked at Tom and opened his mouth to speak. He’d been about to say, Guilty as hell, but Tom had shaken his head.
“Don’t go there yet,” Tom said. “Let it play out.”
“Tom, I know this guy.”
“No, you don’t. And you don’t even know the sisters—you just think you do.”
“He’s a liar and a cheater, and if you saw Beth . . .”
“You want to be taken off the case before you even get started? Keep your head down and do your job,” Tom said sharply, being an asshole older brother.
Now Sam had confirmed she and Pete hadn’t seen each other yet. So much for the concerned father. Walking along the waterfront, Reid glanced at Kate.
“I don’t believe he had it done,” Reid said slowly.
“Oh, because you think I did it?”