“Don’t worry; I’m aware of it,” Sam said, knowing she sounded stiff. Every time she thought of her father killing her mother, she wanted to die. It wasn’t possible. He wasn’t the greatest dad sometimes, but he would never do that. She dug her nails into the palms of her hands.
“Julie’s just scared. That cop came to talk to me about the dumb book. Why my mother had to mention it to him I have no idea. It was just a thriller my mother picked up at the library book sale. I read it, and then my dad did, and I guess he gave it to your dad.”
“What book?” Sam asked.
“Meat Locker. This restaurant owner kills his business partner and hides the body in a refrigeration unit to slow the decomposition of the body. I mean, there’s more to the story than that, but that’s the part the cop wanted to know about.”
“I don’t remember seeing it around our house,” Sam said. “And you never mentioned it before.”
“Well, I forgot about it,” Isabel said. “Mom’s the one who called the detective to tell him about it.”
“Your mom?” Sam asked, shocked that Mrs. Waterston would get involved, would say anything that might implicate her dad. “How could she do that?”
“Well, she’s worried about you, Sam.”
“I’ve lost my mom, and now she wants to help them take my dad away too?” Sam asked.
“No! She just wants . . . to do what’s right. For everyone. For your mother. And you too, of course. I mean, if your dad did it, it could be dangerous. Sam, don’t be mad!”
Sam started walking faster, and they didn’t talk the rest of the way. Foley’s was a general store, set in the midst of Hubbard’s Point. Only locals went, or even knew about it. It stocked basic food and supplies along with beach toys, and in the back, it had a snack bar with the best lemonade and grilled-cheese sandwiches in the world. Isabel and Sam sat at one of the old scarred oak tables. Generations of kids had carved their initials into the wood, and it was not only allowed but encouraged.
“Ha, look,” Isabel said, pointing at her parents’ initials: SB & NW. “Hello, hypocrites. Is this that different from graffiti?”
“Well, it’s allowed here,” Sam said.
“Where are your parents’ initials?” Isabel asked. “You’ve never shown me.”
“They didn’t grow up in Hubbard’s Point,” she said. “So they’re not here.”
“Maybe you should carve them. To commemorate . . .”
Everything Isabel had said on the way here reverberated through Sam like seismic waves. People thought her dad had killed her mom. Did Sam think that? She told herself no. But right now, despair bubbled up and boiled over.
“To commemorate the fact that my father basically lives with someone else? And has a kid with her? I think my mother had a boyfriend too.”
“Really?” Isabel asked. Sam could see it came as a shock—everyone thought her mother was pretty much a saint.
“I’m almost positive. He’s this guy we knew from New London. I didn’t think about it before she died, but now, looking back, she was happy when she was around him.”
“That must suck, thinking that,” Isabel said.
“It doesn’t,” Sam said. “It should, right? As Julie would say, ‘It’s weird; it’s strange,’ but for some reason, it doesn’t suck. I’m just glad my mother was happy.”
“You have to quote my sister?” Isabel asked.
“Come on. You know I love Julie. She’s the only one who tells it straight. Everyone else is so polite and walking on eggshells around me. Not wanting to upset me. I know they talk about it when I’m not there.”
“Are you grouping me in with the polite people?” Isabel asked.
“No,” Sam said. “You’re my best friend. But to be honest, it fucked me up to hear about the book just now, and you talking to the detective. I mean, I know he’s interviewing everyone, but I still hate it.”
“How do you think I felt?” Isabel asked. “Having to talk about how my best friend’s dad might have killed her mom?”
And then, because she just couldn’t take it anymore, Sam ran out of Foley’s and left Isabel sitting there.
40
Sam returned to school just before Labor Day, and Kate took a leave of absence from Intrepid Aviation. Nearly two months after Beth’s death, she began spending days at the gallery. It was just a quarter mile from Black Hall High, so she and Sam could drive together from New London.
Being at the gallery made Kate feel closer to Beth. She sat at her sister’s desk, Popcorn lying at her feet. Time was passing, and still Beth’s killer hadn’t been caught. Conor seemed sure Jed hadn’t done it. Her thoughts veered wildly between still believing it was Pete and starting to wonder if it really had been an art theft. And a sexual assault. She thought of the horribly torn underwear beside Beth’s bed—and what it had been used to do to her.
It was all unthinkable. She tried to get the picture of Beth lying on her bed out of her mind, the marks around her neck, her blankly staring eyes. Her fingers trembled as she paged through a thick black ledger Beth kept of all the paintings that came through the gallery. It calmed and soothed her to think of the things Beth had always loved, had been good at. After a few minutes, she lost herself in Beth’s notes.
Kate had always been informed about the most important acquisitions and sales. A few key paintings stood out; Beth had written about them, filled paragraphs with question marks and red arrows, words that were circled or boldly underlined. She’d been searching for clues, more information than the previous owners had been able—or willing—to supply. Works of art were a mystery—their meaning, provenance, and authenticity—and to study them, one had to become a detective and an academic.
Kate examined the small oil on a display easel beside Beth’s desk. Beth had determined that the landscape, unsigned, was by Ben Morrison, the same artist who’d painted Moonlight. Could there be any significance to Beth’s having had it right next to her desk?
It had been found with over fifty other paintings in the attic of a saltbox on Sill Lane. Edith Peck, a ninety-five-year-old recluse who had never married, had collected works of the American Impressionists who had painted in the Black Hall Art Colony. Morrison had lived there from 1898 to 1905. After Peck’s death last December, it had come to light that she had two great-nephews in Bangor and a great-niece in Rochester, none of whom had any interest in owning the paintings.
Miss Peck’s family wanted the Lathrop Gallery to sell the paintings on consignment, but Beth had asked Kate to agree that the family purchase them outright.
Beth worked out a price, and Kate concurred. Edith Peck’s family had felt it was fair, and the deal was made. Pete objected. He thought they were paying too much.
“They’re not Metcalf caliber,” he’d said. “We’re talking about a couple of LeBlancs, a Potter, a Giddings, and a few unsigned that might be Morrison? What you’ve got is a bunch of barely-knowns.”
Pete was correct about the fact that the works Miss Peck had collected—other than the possible Morrisons—were by artists not terribly sought after, but the passion of collectors had always escaped him: the thrill of discovering a new artist; the love of beauty; the deep satisfaction of owning a picture done over a hundred years ago, outdoors on local hills or riverbanks, of scenes that still existed today.