by Neil Olson
“I’m guessing neither side will contest the grants to the grandchildren,” Kenny explained. “Yeah, it could take a while, but you’ll need that money just as much in six months or a year. Maybe more.”
Audrey rolled onto her hip and pulled the folded envelope out of her back pocket. Teresa nearly laughed, as her letter was in exactly the same place. None of them were going to leave the incriminating words lying around.
“I need it, sure.” Audrey unfolded the envelope and slid the letter out. “But I’ll be damned if I’m going to be blackmailed by a dead man.” She glanced at the note once more, then extended her arm until the corner of the paper met the candle flame. It took a moment to catch, but soon the creamy sheet flared to life, illuminating the dim corners of the room. The letter curled and blackened, vanishing inch by inch. Audrey let go and the final unburnt shred drifted slowly to the floor, as the room grew dark again.
“Fuck the money,” she said.
Teresa let out the breath she had held for half a minute. Mesmerized by her cousin’s performance, and inspired. Audrey had nailed it. It was not tough love Alfred offered, but blackmail. Which is why she must refuse. She tugged her own letter out of her back pocket. She had meant to read it properly, but that would not happen now, and maybe it was for the best. Before she could reconsider, Teresa touched the letter to the flame and stared in fascination as it ignited. Feeling heat on her face and her fingers. Releasing the corner at the last moment.
“Fuck the money,” Teresa said.
Audrey hooted and clapped her hands. Kenny stood and marched out of the room.
“Screw him,” said Audrey, with a dismissive wave. She was very drunk. Was it wise, Teresa wondered too late, to emulate a drunken person?
“Turn around,” James said to them, having moved away from the window.
“Huh?”
“Turn around,” he repeated. Then more insistently, “Turn your backs to me.”
Teresa and Audrey exchanged a look, but complied. There was the sound of scraping wood. A floorboard or panel being shifted. Teresa tried to remember a hidden compartment in this room, but nothing came to her. He never told them to stop averting their gaze, but they both turned back when the room brightened a third time. James wore a deeply solemn expression as he gave his own letter to the greedy candle. Determined to get the job right. Yet Teresa saw something unusual in his face. A restrained joy, perhaps, at doing something so reckless. Or maybe it was only the flames dancing in his dark eyes.
“Fuck the money,” he said softly, just as Kenny strode back into the room. In his hand were the half dozen torn strips of his own letter. He knelt down and fed them to the flame one by one, until they were gone.
“Fuck the money,” said Kenny, arms dropping to his side.
And they were done. Ashes skittered along the floor, and the room smelled of smoke and beer and rebellion. Teresa felt a tingling throughout her body and took deep breaths to stay calm.
“So that’s that,” said Audrey. “And may the demon take any of us who goes back on his word. Now, Kenny, honey. How would you feel about making your favorite cousin a loan?”
14
“Mr. Webster?”
Dave looked up from the glossy magazine to the woman behind the desk. A long article on Matthew Barney had stupefied him into near speechlessness.
“Sorry, yes?”
“Mr. DeGross is off the phone.” She had been stealing glances at his bruised face for the last ten minutes, and now took the opportunity to stare openly. “If you would like to go in.”
Dave tossed the magazine aside and went through the door to her left. Where the outer office was full of the sounds of Madison Avenue two stories below, the inner sanctum was quiet. A swaying locust tree filled most of the back window, and the furnishings were spare. An old sofa, a few chairs, a bookcase and some second-rate landscapes. Either Charles DeGross had no taste or was anxious that you should not know what his tastes were. The man himself was short with curly gray hair and lively eyes behind thick lenses. His suit was expensive, but hung awkwardly on his squat frame. He did not hide behind his desk as Alfred Morse had, but came straight to Dave with a smile and a firm handshake.
“Mr. Webster, welcome. Very good to meet you.”
“Thanks for making the time.”
“Nonsense, thank you for breaking up the dull routine of my day. Please, sit.”
Dave did so, laboring to order his thoughts. He had come to expect anything from civility to open hostility from his interview subjects, and was comfortable with that. He grew calm in direct proportion to their agitation. The collector’s warmth threw him. He had hoped to leave DeGross for later, collecting clues from others first. But Philip’s siblings were no help, Fred drunk and hostile, Miranda cagey and silent. Ilsa Graff would not talk at all, and no one knew where to find Jenny Mulhane. DeGross, whom Dave expected to be elusive, agreed to an appointment at once. And here he was.
“Tell me, how is the Morse family?” DeGross asked, with a convincing tone of concern, as he settled behind the desk.
“Bit of a mixed bag. There’s a lot for them to sort out.”
“They are not a close family, I think.”
“I think that’s fair.” Get off this subject, Dave. “I was hoping we could discuss your relationship with them.”
“So you said on the phone. This is on behalf of Philip?”
“He’s the one who hired me, yes.”
“This time,” DeGross said. He did not actually wink, but it was in his voice. Dave had wondered if the man would remember him from those years before, when DeGross had adamantly refused to speak. Had threatened legal action against Dave if he so much as telephoned him a second time. “Hired you to...?”
“Review past events which might have a bearing on the estate,” Dave said, being as vague as possible. “I can’t say more than that.”
“Of course. In truth, Philip is the only member of the family I can claim to know. I am somewhat surprised not to have heard from him regarding this visit.”
“He’s allowed me a degree of latitude,” said Dave, improvising. It had become clear to him that Philip was focused on the will. Reopening the investigation into the theft had dropped from his mind. He had written Dave another check—barely enough to cover the damage to the Taurus—but had not directed him what to do next. So Dave was winging it.
“You mean that he does not know you are here,” DeGross concluded.
“He wouldn’t be surprised,” Dave lied. “We talked about your association. If you want to call him, I’ll wait. Or we can reschedule.”
“Not necessary,” the collector replied with a wave of his hand. “Our association was brief, and I don’t know what I can tell you that Philip has not already. You are welcome to ask whatever you want.”
Like, did you steal the painting? Maybe better not to start there.
“You say Philip is the only Morse you know. Did you not know his father?”
“A little. We met once or twice, I think. At auctions. Exchanged a few words.”
“Did you use intermediaries when you offered for the Goya?”
“At first,” DeGross said. “But we were both dealers, in addition to being collectors. Both forthright by nature, I would say, so we ended up speaking.”
“Not in person?”
“By telephone. I made the first offer to his assistant, the second directly to him.”
“I wasn’t aware of an assistant,” said Dave. Though it made sense for a man like Morse to have one.
“A German woman,” DeGross specified. “Or Swiss, maybe. Formidable.”
“Ilsa Graff?”
“That’s the name.”
“She was his housekeeper,” said Dave. And heir, as it turned out.
“More than that, surely. I understood her to be involved in all of his importa
nt decisions.”
“Philip told you this?”
“He might have,” DeGross allowed. “Anyway, that was the impression I received.”
“It may be true,” said Dave. There was so much he did not know. “Seven million and then ten million dollars.”
“Correct,” the man replied, not feigning a cloudy memory.
“That’s a lot of money, Mr. DeGross.”
“Not enough for Morse. Though he did consider the second offer for a few days.”
That was interesting. A man who would not sell at any price would not need to consider. Alfred Morse never told Dave his reasons for refusing the offers, or whether there was a magic number that would have changed his mind.
“I remember a figure of twenty million dollars bandied about,” DeGross added, before Dave could ask. “Which was absurd, of course. Yet there was no promise he would sell even for that.”
“Some would say ten million was absurd.”
“Many would, yes.”
“What compelled you to go that high?”
“An excellent question,” the collector said. Yet no answer followed.
Then another question, the most obvious question in the world—though it had struck him only now—occurred to Dave.
“Wait, when did you see the work?”
The man smiled thinly. As you might at a slow student who finally solved a difficult problem.
“Do you think me so brave, Mr. Webster?”
“Meaning?”
“I never saw the work.”
Though it was the answer Dave expected, his reason rebelled.
“You offered ten million dollars for a painting you had never seen?”
DeGross smiled wider and nodded. Like they were laughing together at the foolish doings of a mutual friend.
“That’s...” Dave struggled to say what it was.
“Madness? It’s a hard thing to explain, but I had no doubt of the painting’s existence. Nor any doubt that I should know it for authentic when it was in my possession.”
“Why wouldn’t you demand a viewing?”
“There was no need to demand,” DeGross answered. “Morse invited me to come see it.”
“You didn’t want to,” Dave said, nearly in a whisper. “Did you ever intend to look at it? You know, after you bought it maybe?”
“I had not really made up my mind about that.”
“Why did you want it at all?”
“My apologies for not offering before—would you like a drink, Mr. Webster?”
“No,” Dave said, though he must have looked like he needed it. And the thought was suddenly tempting, despite the earliness of the hour.
“Did you know that Philip Morse wanted to be an artist?” DeGross asked.
“I didn’t.”
“No reason you would. His father, who revered artists above all men, mocked him. Humiliated poor Philip for such an indulgent and grandiose idea. The boy considered art history, then settled for history, then finally went to law school.”
“As his father intended.”
“Yes,” the collector sighed. “Mustn’t disappoint Daddy. But I’ll tell you this, he was a pretty fair artist at one time. He had the makings.”
He let the words sit, and Dave’s mind circled them hungrily. DeGross was not the sort of man to tell pointless anecdotes.
“My God,” Dave breathed. “He saw it. He was the only child to see the Goya.”
“Yes,” DeGross purred.
“So, what, he painted it?”
“You’re quick, David. Not a painting, a sketch. From memory. But, oh, what a sketch. What an awful and beautiful thing. It was enough for me. Both the image itself and what it cost him to make it, to show it to me. It convinced me that all I had heard and read was true.”
Dave felt unmoored. Sick. As he had those years before. A sickness that sent him hunting a cure more poisonous, a cure he never found. Though he lost plenty.
“You know what I mean,” said DeGross.
“Pretend I don’t.”
“That first expert. The one sent to examine the paintings while they were still on the walls of the quinta, one hundred and fifty years ago. Illness, insanity, suicide. Then the marvelous Marquis de Salamanca, the first owner.”
“Alleged,” Dave managed to say.
“Of course. It’s all alleged, David, don’t be a pedant. He saw what use could be made of the thing. Creating an aura, frightening enemies, not to mention the inexplicable luck in business which attaches itself to the owner. At first. Fortunes made and lost. Yes, José Salamanca had a great time of it, until he was ruined and had to sell. Alfred Morse had less flair, but he used the painting the same way. Don’t believe he was upset by that art historian expiring in front of it. Perfect for burnishing the legend. It wouldn’t surprise me...ah, but I risk saying too much.”
“You believed all that, and you still wanted the thing?”
“Who would not want that?” DeGross demanded to know.
“Most people.”
The collector resettled himself in his chair and gazed at Dave with something like disappointment in his eyes.
“Thank you. I accept the compliment. Not everyone would have the courage to take possession of such a painting, that’s true.”
“You weren’t buying a painting. You were buying an idea, a ghost.”
“A demon, you mean.”
Here it was, out in the open. There was no smile on the man’s face. He was deadly serious, and Dave now understood Philip Morse’s frustration with his father. How many men like this were there in the world? Wise enough to know the risk, mad enough to want to take it. Rich enough to pay for it.
“Would you have gone higher than ten million? If he pushed you?”
“Probably,” DeGross said after a pause. “I wish now that I had.”
“Do you know what happened to the work?”
“What do you think?”
He was not faking his passion, Dave would bet anything on that. It was equally clear that it had gone unrequited. Still troubling him like a great love that should have been.
“Did you ever try to find out?”
“I made inquiries,” DeGross admitted. “Not among the family. Morse and the police would not have tolerated that. I put out feelers to the sort of people to whom such a work might eventually come. Really, even that should not have been necessary.”
“Because anyone who knew what he was doing would come to you. Who else would possibly offer more?”
DeGross let his silence be his assent. They sat in that unhurried silence for a little while, until the collector spoke again. In a hushed voice.
“Do you have a guess? Any guess at all where it might be, Mr. Webster? I know you made inquiries, too, after you were removed from the case.”
Dave clenched his left hand into a fist to avoid any other outward sign of distress. It was a pointless exercise. Everyone involved knew his story, and someone like DeGross would not even find it odd.
“It was hard for me to let go,” he said. “I knew the artist so well, knew the other works. I had been longing for a job like that. To have to leave it unfinished...”
“And go back to insurance cases. Which was your father-in-law’s primary business.”
“Yes. But all I did was waste my time. Researching. Seeking out people who wouldn’t speak to me. I had too little experience, no useful contacts. I learned nothing.”
“I suppose we would not be sitting here if either of us knew the work’s whereabouts,” DeGross said sadly. “Still, if any small clue were to come your way.”
“I would be obliged to share it with Philip.”
“Philip,” DeGross snorted, as if the name were a joke. Though he had been speaking compassionately about him just minutes before. “I can recompense yo
ur time and trouble far beyond the limited imagination of Philip Morse, I promise you. Don’t say anything now, just keep that in mind.”
“I have to ask,” said Dave, “do you still have the sketch?”
“No. I never had it, he only showed it to me.”
“So it’s in his possession?”
“I should have said...” DeGross hesitated, with a little shake of the head, but then continued. “He burned it. Right there in front of me.”
“Burned it,” said Dave numbly. Tasting the dry ash on his tongue.
“It wasn’t the first time, nor probably the last. He drew it over and over again, you see. Never the same way twice, or so he said. And he burned them all. It was a sort of expiation, I suppose.”
“Or exorcism.”
“A better word,” DeGross agreed.
“And if he did it again and again...”
The collector nodded slowly, watching Dave’s troubled eyes.
“Yes. Then it clearly did not work.”
15
Fred met her at the train. She was spooked to see him driving his father’s Jaguar, but more alarmed to smell whisky on his breath. Yet they made it to the house without incident. Teresa looked out the windshield at the brick mansion and sighed. Forty hours away, now back to this haunted place. She could have remained longer in the city. Could have gone downtown to inventory the works in storage, which were the more valuable ones. Could have seen Marc, or caught up with her pal Julian, or spent more than two blessed nights in her own bed. But Teresa knew that if she stayed away from Owl’s Point for too long she would not be able to return. Especially with everyone gone.
Not everyone, of course. Not with all that art on the walls. Teresa being there alone was acceptable to no one. Ilsa had communicated her intentions. She would not support Philip in contesting the will; indeed she would fight for ownership. Not from any strong desire, but because it was Alfred’s long deliberated wish. She had no interest in taking up residence, however. Philip wanted to hire a security firm, but Fred insisted he had nothing to do for a while, and there were guns in the house. Guns, booze and jangled nerves, thought Teresa. Great.
