by Ann Warner
“Why?”
“Because it would hurt my father. He’s a traditional man.”
“Who married a white woman. Besides, he’s in Kansas. He won’t even know.”
My thoughts stuttered over that phrase “white woman.” I looked down at our intertwined hands, noticing for the first time how much darker mine were than William’s, even though he was tanned year-round from skiing and swimming.
“You already sleep with me. And now you’re my fiancée, so I don’t get it.”
I didn’t know why I felt so certain that moving into William’s apartment on Lakeshore Drive before I married him was a bad idea, but it just didn’t feel right.
“Can we . . . I don’t know. Move a bit slower, maybe? This has all happened so fast.”
“Are you kidding me? It’s been six months.”
The memory of a recent conversation with William’s brother popped into my mind. “Well, well,” Harry had said to me. “So you’re the girl who’s managed to keep William on a leash for four months. Good luck with the next one. I don’t think anyone’s made it past five before.”
The words had puzzled me, as had the nasty way he’d said them. But maybe those words had connected with some tiny whisper of doubt in the back of my mind, leading me now to hesitate over William’s proposal. And Harry’s comment wasn’t the only source of doubt.
William always seemed to need to be moving. In the six months I’d known him, we’d not had a single weekend where we simply lazed around reading the Sunday papers, eating a late breakfast, and going for a walk. No, the minute a chunk of time opened up, William ordered the corporate jet, and we were off. And I was exhausted.
“I, ah.” I kept my gaze on our hands and that enormous diamond. “I think I just need some time to . . . to adjust to the idea.”
“Next week, then.”
“No, I mean, I think I’ll need at least a month.”
He’d let go of my hands abruptly, leaned his seat back, and closed his eyes. His mouth had taken on a petulant shape I’d not seen before, and it wasn’t flattering. For a time, I thought he was faking being asleep, but then he started to snore.
I moved to a seat across the aisle, but I’d been unable to fall sleep. Instead, I sat clenching my hands, feeling the uncomfortable bulge of the diamond against my palm.
When we arrived in Chicago after midnight, he’d put me in a cab with only a kiss on the cheek. Usually, he had me driven home in the limo. It couldn’t have been more clear. I was being punished.
As I got ready for bed that night, I took the diamond off. I didn’t want it to distract me from thinking clearly about my uncertainties.
I didn’t see William for three days, but then he showed up at the art institute to take me to dinner as if nothing had happened, either his proposal or his subsequent snit. But, for me, everything had altered.
In the strange time that followed, I often felt like I was standing to one side, watching myself with William. Weighing and measuring each of our interactions as if they were happening to someone else. Looking for deeper meanings, but deciding eventually that with William what I saw was what I got.
And what I got was a sulky boy rather than a mature man. Slowly, our relationship frayed like a piece of ancient silk that hadn’t been handled carefully enough.
During that time, I was in charge of mounting a major exhibit of twentieth-century American artists at the Winterford Art Institute, where I was a curator. As the opening date approached, it provided me with opportunities to pull away from William. Often I had to work late during the week, and I began turning down at least half of William’s weekend invitations. When we did spend time together, he was irritable and snide.
The magic had departed, and I’d landed back on solid ground with a painful thump.
My refusing to move in with him had another effect. It put off any official announcements of our engagement, something I was grateful for as I worked out the best way to end the relationship.
The night I planned to give William his ring back, I was delayed at work because two paintings for the exhibit due that day hadn’t yet arrived. I left William a message, canceling our dinner date.
While I knew he was becoming increasingly upset in the weeks since he’d proposed, what I didn’t anticipate was that my staying late that night would push him over an edge I didn’t see approaching.
Arriving home that evening, I found him waiting in my apartment. His smile had been an unpleasant one.
“How did you get in?” I asked.
“I don’t know a super alive who’ll turn down a Ben Franklin to open a tenant’s door. And just where have you been anyway?”
“I told you. I had to wait for two paintings to arrive.”
“At nine o’clock at night?”
“They arrived by special delivery.”
He glared at me. “I don’t believe you.”
Nervous, I pushed a strand of hair out of my eyes.
“Hey. Where’s my ring?”
“I don’t wear it at work.” In fact, the only times I’d had it on recently were when William and I had a date.
His smile turned nasty and his eyes narrowed. “Have you even told anyone you’re engaged to me?”
“Have you?”
“Answer the question, my love. Or are you perhaps someone else’s love. Playing me, are you? Getting what you can out of me?”
“Stop it.”
“No, you stop it. Right here, right now. I want to know. Why won’t you move in with me? Is there someone else? Is that it? You’ve been out with him. That’s why you’re late, why you’re never available to see me lately.”
Then more words came gushing out, awful words, terrible accusations. His hand went into his pocket and when it emerged, it was holding a gun. He pointed it at me, saying his anger was my fault.
Time stopped.
I have no clear memory of what happened in the next moments. I know those hours practicing tae kwon do shaped my moves as I struck out at him to kick the gun away. When I was once again fully aware, William was lying on my kitchen floor. Blood spurted from his nose and seeped from the back of his head. I called 911. Paramedics came, and then the police.
As I stood watching, William rallied and whispered in one of the EMTs ears words I couldn’t hear, but they made the man send me a piercing look. Then William lapsed into unconsciousness.
He had a broken nose and he’d fallen, hitting his head on the edge of my kitchen counter. When the police interviewed me, I learned that William had told the EMT I’d attacked him when he asked me to give him back his ring.
He was in a coma for a week, and then he died. His brother, Harry, accused me of assault, and when William died, of murder, and he threatened to kill me in revenge for William. Remembering how William had morphed before my eyes from my lover into a man with a gun in his hand and the clear intent to use it, I had no doubt Harry was capable of a similar transformation.
Although the police told me not to leave town until they finished their investigation, I emptied my bank account, and with a single suitcase, climbed aboard the first Megabus that came along.
It was going, it turned out, to Cincinnati.
~ ~ ~
While I told Abigail about William Garrison, she sat without moving, her pen held against her lips. I stopped speaking, and Abigail pulled in a deep breath and sat blinking for a time.
“Yes. Well. You never told me why you decided to learn tae kwon do.”
I thought it was an odd segue, but then remembering my reason, I realized it was the right question after all.
“I had a roommate in college. She was assaulted. She said she never wanted to feel so helpless again. We took the classes together. It helped her heal.”
I realized I’d spoken in short staccato bursts, as if I were having trouble catching my breath. Which I supposed in a way I was. Because those memories also meant recalling a time when I let fear take over my life.
“Were the police plannin
g to charge you in William’s death?”
“I don’t know. They called me a person of interest. I think they were investigating about the gun before they decided what to do. All I know is, the last time I spoke with them, they said not to leave town.”
Although I tried to minimize it for Abigail, I was almost as terrified of the police as I was of Harry. William was wealthy and influential. Why wouldn’t they believe he was breaking up with me rather than the other way around? Although, if they had decided to arrest me, it would have been easy, once I started working at Brookside, for them to find me. Accepting employment had been both a necessary and a calculated risk on my part. After all, Chicago has so many murders, I was counting on being able to fall through the cracks.
“Yet you left.”
“I was convinced Harry intended to hurt me, possibly kill me. I thought it was safer if I disappeared for the time being. That it would give him time to calm down . . .”
“Do you plan eventually to go back to Chicago?”
“I’d need to know whether the police . . . well, whether they’ve ruled William’s death an accident. But I’d still worry about Harry.”
“I think we’d better move carefully, then. But if you want, we should be able to find out if the police have filed any charges against you.”
I shivered. Then I nodded.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Josephine
Saturday morning, I got up late and puttered around before finally deciding I didn’t feel like going to the dining room for breakfast. I’d just sat down to eat a bowl of cereal when there was a knock on the door.
I opened it to find Jeff standing there. “You really need to answer your phone occasionally, Mother.”
“Oh, did you call?”
“I did. Several times, as a matter of fact.”
I was blocking the way into the apartment, but I really had no choice but to let him in. Since I was still wearing my robe, I couldn’t very well suggest we go to the lobby to talk.
He walked in shedding his coat, which he threw on the couch.
“I was just eating breakfast,” I said. “Would you like something?”
“No. I’ve eaten.”
“At least sit down.” He had started to pace, and it made me cross.
He stomped over to the table and pulled out a chair.
“You say you’ve called? About something in particular?”
“Yes, something very particular. The money Dad left is about to run out.”
I sat staring at him. It just wasn’t possible.
“Mother, are you okay?”
I blinked and shook my head to clear it. The news had momentarily blocked my ability to think.
“Of course I’m okay.” More okay than I wanted him to know.
“I’m sorry to be the bearer of such bad news. It means you’re going to have to move out of Brookside. Before January first. I’m afraid I can’t afford the monthly fees to keep you here.”
“And where do you propose to put me?”
“You’ll have to live with Lynn and me.”
The phrase over my dead body came immediately to mind. “How can all the money be gone?” I said instead.
“There never was as much as you seemed to think there was. Dad bought a lot of speculative stuff that could have paid off big, but didn’t. Junk bonds, that sort of thing. After Dad died, I tried to stem the losses, get you reinvested in something more solid. But, well, one of the investments, a sure thing if there ever was one . . . it tanked.”
“Like Enron?” I said.
His jaw clenched. “Something like that.”
“I see. So the estate is kaput.”
“Yes. That’s the perfect word for it. The remaining stocks aren’t worth what it would cost to recycle the paper they’re printed on. I’m sorry. I did try to fix it.”
“I’m not coming to live with you,” I said.
“You can’t stay here.”
I thought about what I would do if Thomas’s money were the only source of income I had, but the thought was simply too dire to contemplate. Instead, I needed to work out how to convince Jeff to let me figure things out on my own without revealing the extent of the resources I had at my disposal.
“You say I have until January?”
“Which means we need to start planning immediately.”
“And I will.” I decided maybe a partial truth would work. “I have a small inheritance I never told you about, and since your last visit, I’ve been economizing. I’ve found I can be quite comfortable on what I’m receiving from Social Security.”
“But this place costs six thousand a month. No matter how you slice it, you don’t have that kind of money.”
“I think I have enough to live here a while longer, at least.”
“But after January, you won’t be eligible for a refund on your buy-in.” He jumped to his feet and paced, head down.
Then his head came up, and he came to an abrupt halt in front of the Hopper painting. Before I could distract him, he stepped closer. “Wait a minute,” he said. “This painting wasn’t here last time.” He leaned forward, squinting at the tiny line of printing in the lower right-hand corner. “Edward Hopper. I think I’ve heard of him.”
Before I could stop him, he’d clicked my laptop awake and was obviously doing a search. After a couple of minutes, he looked at me.
“Do you think I’m an idiot, Mother? You have a small inheritance, do you? And it was what? An Edward Hopper painting worth millions.”
He was furious, although I didn’t see why he should be. I purchased the painting back in the 1970s because I liked it and I had enough money to indulge that liking. It was none of Thomas’s business then, nor was it Jeff’s business now.
“You didn’t think to mention this, for example, when I came to you, worried to death, and told you money was running low? In fact, you still weren’t going to tell me, were you?”
I debated briefly whether to try to convince him the painting was merely an excellent copy, but decided it was too late for that.
“I want you to leave, T— Jeff.” It shook me to realize I’d almost called him Thomas. But right then he looked and sounded exactly like his father. “I absolve you of all financial obligations for my upkeep and welfare,” I continued. “Just leave me alone to live my life, and I’ll leave you alone to live yours.”
“Does the management of this place know you have a painting worth millions of dollars hanging on your wall?”
It was an echo of one of my first conversations with Devi. Devi, who was now dearer to me than . . .
With a start, I refocused on Jeff. His face had turned an unhealthy-looking red and he was breathing in short gasps. With him that angry, I didn’t know what he might be capable of.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, they are aware.” It wasn’t a lie. After all, Devi was part of management, and she did know about the painting.
Jeff and I stared at each other for a time. Gradually, his color returned to normal.
“Fine. Okay then. I’ll be notifying the business office that the payment responsibility has shifted to you. As of today.”
He stared at the painting for another thirty seconds, then he grabbed his coat and left.
~ ~ ~
I did some pacing before I got dressed and went to see Lill.
She took one look at me and opened her door wide.
“My son came to see me this morning,” I told her.
“Oh my. Not a good visit?”
“No, it wasn’t. He knows about the painting.”
“Oh?” Lill said, and I realized that although she’d seen it, she might not know what it is.
“The one in my living room,” I said.
“The Hopper, you mean.”
“You know?”
“I thought it looked . . .” She shrugged. “It reminded me of something I saw in a museum once. But I just thought it was a copy. I take it it’s an original, which makes it quite valuable.”
&
nbsp; “Quite.”
“And you didn’t want your son to know about it?”
“I have resources my son knows nothing about. If he did, I have no doubt he would have me declared incompetent so he could take them over.”
“Oh dear. That doesn’t sound at all good. Although, I expect there are ways to protect those resources, and yourself?”
“I’ve taken some of them. But if Jeff mentions the painting to Mr. Souter, well, it could be disastrous.”
Lill made us both cups of tea using commercial tea bags. It was difficult to drink it, but I sipped steadily since I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. As a distraction, between sips, I brought up for discussion our suspicions that Edna might be our thief. But we came to no conclusions about how we might prove it.
“We could search her place,” I said. “Sometime when we know she’s out.”
“But if we did find something, it wouldn’t be admissible.”
I sighed and finally gave up on the tea. I’d managed only half, but that was still more than I wanted. I carried my cup over to the sink, dumped the tea, and rinsed the cup. Then I told Lill I’d see her at lunch and returned to my apartment.
When I opened the door, I found Mr. Souter and Jeff sitting in my living room.
“Get out!” I couldn’t remember the last time I was so furious or so frightened. Maybe the day I was forced to sign over my stocks to Thomas.
“Umm, yes, well, Josephine, we can’t do that until we speak with you.” Mr. Souter had stood and now he shifted his feet, refusing to meet my eyes.
“Mrs. Bartlett,” I snapped.
“Yes, umm, Mrs. Bartlett. You see, it appears you have violated one of the terms of your lease.” Mr. Souter’s tone had the sickening quality of too-sweet syrup.
“And that is?”
He pointed at the painting. “As one of the conditions of your living here, you had to disclose any items of jewelry, collectibles, or paintings worth more than $250.”
“What? So you could arrange for them to be stolen?”
When he gave me a startled look, I pressed my advantage. “I know all about what’s going on here. People put things on their lists, and then you decide what you’re going to help yourself to later.” I was so angry I completely forgot that all the signs of guilt pointed to Edna.
