Kate knew herself in terms of her career and passion for flying. Her personal life was another matter. At thirty-nine, like Mathilda, she had never married. People saw her laughing, driving, flying, and they didn’t realize they were seeing a ghost. No one knew that ghosts could freeze—just like mist or vapor forming lacy crystals on windows in the winter—but Kate’s spirit had turned to ice that day in the basement. It had been November, and the cellar had been damp, but all three of them jammed together, all that body heat, had given her a fever. Despite feeling scalded, Kate had been frozen, and when she had thawed, her life force, every possibility of desire, had trickled out of her.
She didn’t care about owning a house in Black Hall, about tending an English country garden. She and her sister had been bequeathed many paintings by the Black Hall Impressionists, but unlike Beth, she displayed few. She didn’t think about having a child and sending her to the right schools, the best camp. In her mind, she longed to be touched and held and loved, but her body refused it. Ghosts couldn’t feel.
Kate had watched Beth and their two best friends—Lulu and Scotty—flirting and dating and talking endlessly about the exquisite torments of love and passion. Kate convinced them she didn’t care about such things. She kept busy trying to outfly all the male pilots she knew, just as Mathilda had done in the war and beyond.
Beth had been the one to do those other things. She had met Pete when he’d visited the gallery, fallen madly in love and married him at twenty-two, had a perfect daughter. She had taken over the gallery, leaving Kate free to fly. She was great at cultivating wealthy collectors, and she assisted law enforcement agents and insurance investigators on the trail of criminals who had stolen paintings from museums and other galleries. She had become something of an expert in the psychology of art thieves—whether those who made it their careers or one-timers, like their father.
He had been behind the crime. He had needed money to fund his gambling habit. Beth’s theory was that all thefts and cons were born of insatiable need and that their father’s had been to restore his bank account—as much for the sake of the family as himself. Kate considered that to be bullshit. If he had had any insatiable need, it had been to keep blowing money at the casino and supporting his young mistress. The fact that his wife had died, and that she and his daughters had gone through hell, had been less important than achieving his goal.
And even after what he did, convicted and locked away for life, Beth was kind to him. She was all good. Through everything, she’d never stopped volunteering—especially at the soup kitchen and homeless shelter. She had been as excellent as anyone on this earth could be. Thinking about her sister, Kate felt her eyes blur with tears. She had to squint hard so she could see the dangerously short runway. She judged the length, determined a steep approach, maintained speed, reduced throttle, and touched down.
Mathilda would have been proud of her landing, especially through teary eyes. And that made Kate sad, because Mathilda had never felt truly proud of Beth. She had loved her. She and Ruth had enjoyed holidays at the Lathrops’ house, occasionally attended openings at the gallery that Mathilda’s parents had founded. Mathilda had been happy she’d lived to meet Samantha, her great-granddaughter. But she’d always felt Beth had taken the expected way, the society-approved path as a woman.
Although she’d never said it out loud, Kate knew that Mathilda hadn’t truly believed that Beth had attained excellence.
But Kate believed it. She always had—her sister had been excellent in more ways than anyone knew. Anyone but Kate. Because they were sisters. Forever. Even now. Especially now. Kate climbed out of the cockpit and took a deep breath. It was time to go find her niece.
5
The state police helicopter landed at the Martha’s Vineyard airport, and a police officer from West Tisbury drove Detectives Conor Reid and Jennifer Miano to Coast Guard Station Menemsha. An American flag snapped on a tall flagpole outside the USCG’s big white red-roofed building on the hill above the harbor.
Reid stood on the dock, watching a forty-seven-foot boat coming through the inlet. His brother, Tom, a Coast Guard commander, had been on his cutter in Woods Hole, across Vineyard Sound, about fourteen miles away. As a courtesy to the Reid brothers, Menemsha Station had deployed one of its forty-seven-foot motor lifeboats to pick up Tom, and the vessel had met Huntress in Vineyard Sound to escort it to the USCG pier in Menemsha Harbor.
The Coast Guard boat docked, and Reid watched Tom and a crew member jump onto the dock to help cleat off Huntress’s lines. When the sloop was secure, Reid walked toward Tom. It didn’t happen often enough, but because he worked in coastal towns, Reid’s investigations sometimes intersected with the Coast Guard.
“Thanks for getting the husband here,” Reid said, shaking his brother’s hand.
“Husband, not suspect?” Tom asked.
“Remains to be seen,” Reid said.
“I can’t believe it’s Beth Woodward,” Tom said. “Shit, Conor.”
“I know.”
“Have you talked to her sister yet? What’s her name again?”
“Kate. And yeah, I talked to her. She found the body.”
“Jesus.”
“What do you think of him?” Reid asked, gesturing down the dock toward Pete. “First impression.”
Tom glanced over his shoulder. Pete and his friends were clustered by the stern of the boat, all talking on cell phones. “Arrogant, that’s for sure,” Tom said. “Just now, when they were docking, I heard him giving everyone else orders. You know—‘You take the bowline; you stay in the stern.’ Does he own the boat?”
“No.”
“He’s a dick,” Tom said.
“Sounds like it,” Reid said. “Can you hang around? I want to speak more after I interview him.”
“Yeah. I’m off for the weekend. Heading home.”
“Great, you can ride back on the chopper. Thanks for helping with this.”
“No problem,” Tom said.
“There’s something else,” Reid said. “The painting was stolen again. Cut right out of the frame.”
“Which painting?” Tom asked.
“You know the one.”
Tom stood there, obviously shocked. He had played a role in catching the girls’ father’s accomplices and, therefore, helping to bring Garth Woodward to justice. Of the several paintings stolen the night Kate, Beth, and their mother were tied up, Moonlight was the most valuable and the one that captivated the jury. Tom shook his head now and clapped his brother on the shoulder.
Reid walked toward Huntress. Jennifer Miano stood by the sleek sailboat’s stern, speaking to each man and taking notes. He saw her writing down their names in her notebook. As he approached, he noticed a very tan, very blond man standing off to the side, his posture straight.
Reid recognized Pete. He’d seen him often enough over the years, and earlier that day, he had examined some framed photographs around the Lathrop bedroom. One, next to the window with the air conditioner, had shown him in a tuxedo, standing beside Beth in a black gown, surrounded by old and valuable-looking paintings. The thing that had struck Reid then was the fact that the monogrammed sterling-silver frame had been coated with frost. The air-conditioning had been that cold.