Chapter 7 #2
“I’m in charge of investigating what happened. I’m going to do my best to find out who did this to her.”
“It doesn’t matter who did it,” Sam said.
“I think it matters a lot,” he said. He sat down in the brown leather chair opposite her, leaning forward with arms folded on his knees, looking directly into her eyes.
“She’s gone,” Sam said. Tears pooled but didn’t spill over.
“I know,” he said, letting the silence last. Then, “How are you?”
She shrugged.
“Have you seen your dad yet?”
“No,” she said. “He wanted to, but . . .”
Kate watched her close her eyes tight, pull herself together. She also noticed Conor hanging on her words.
“Who is that?” Sam asked instead of completing her answer, pointing at the screen.
“That’s Officer Peggy McCabe. She’s with the Black Hall Police Department, and she and her partner were first on the scene. Your aunt called the police when your mother didn’t answer the door.”
“You found Mom?” Sam asked, head snapping to look at Kate.
“Yes,” Kate said.
“You didn’t tell me,” Sam said.
Kate touched her shoulder lightly. As much as she loved her niece, she felt confused and hesitant, not knowing just what to say or when. She hadn’t wanted to volunteer anything without having a sense of what Sam was ready to hear.
“You mentioned that Popcorn is friendly with everyone,” he said.
“Yes, as you can tell.”
“Does that mean he doesn’t bark when a stranger comes to the door?”
“Sometimes he does,” she said. “But more in a curious way. He’s not exactly a watchdog.”
“Your aunt has a very good security system,” he said.
“I know,” Sam said, glancing at Kate. “Fancier than the one at the gallery. We tease her.”
“What about the one you have at home? Does your family always use it or sometimes leave it off?”
“Depends on who’s coming and going. We usually have it on.”
“Usually but not always?”
Sam gave him a long look. “Always at night. And Mom would have had it set the whole time since she was there alone.”
Kate sat at the end of the sofa next to Sam.
“But it wasn’t on,” Kate said. “We broke in through the sliding door, and the alarm didn’t go off.”
“Would she have let a stranger into the house?” Conor asked.
“Never,” Kate and Sam said at the same time.
“She was nervous,” Sam said. “Because of what happened when she was a kid. At the gallery.”
“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.