Death of a New American--A Novel
Page 25
I stared at the Stokes portrait so long, I found myself slightly disoriented to turn and see a large man in shorts and sandals snap a photograph of the painting.
Exploring the adjoining galleries, I found myself face-to-face with a vibrant image of a mother and child. The woman is sewing, head lowered in concentration. A small girl, maybe five, leans on her mother’s knee, gazing back at the viewer, chin resting on one hand, pudgy fingers dug into her rosy cheeks. She wears a white smock dress and a curious expression. Who is this person who has come into the room where her mother is sewing? What do they want? Have they brought her a present?
I had seen the portrait before, but I had never noticed until today that she is actually leaning on her mother’s work, which flows over the lap the child might view as her rightful place. And yet the two look quite easy in their separate interests, the mother in her work, the child in the viewer. At the bottom right, you can see the signature of the painter, Mary Cassatt. And if you cared to look at the information card provided by the museum, you would see that the painting is a gift of Mabel Tyler Forbes. Sometimes I wonder who she thought of when she looked at the painting: her own mother—or Rosalba Salvio, whom I see in the woman’s high, dark hair, the strong nose, and air of gentle preoccupation.
The murder of Rosalba Salvio remained a small item on page seventeen in the minds of most people: easily ignored and soon forgotten. It was only when people began to write the history of the Tyler family that the story attracted any attention. It was treated as a macabre incident in the life of a branch of the family that was celebrated in its own time, but had since faded from prominence. In the ’50s, a Long Island writer became obsessed with the case and became convinced that Charles Tyler had murdered the Italian girl shortly before his own suicide. In his book, he drew elaborate diagrams of the house to show how the accepted story of the unknown kidnapper could not be true. But he never came up with a motive, and as no one cared about Charles Tyler except as the relation of other more famous members of the family, his book was not a success.
“That’s pretty, I guess,” said my daughter, coming up behind me.
“Is pretty something you admire?” I asked her.
“Not especially.”
“Then maybe choose another word.” I looked back at the painting.
“Am I supposed to say it’s important, groundbreaking, momentous?”
“What would you say about the Sistine Chapel? The vision of God giving life to Adam? It’s a similar endeavor.” My daughter’s expression told me I had been clever, but not persuasive. “Did you know her brother built Pennsylvania Station?”
“The old station?” Now my daughter looked interested. “No.”
“Alexander Cassatt. His statue used to stand in the grand hall. It was ten feet tall and glared down at you from a pedestal. I felt like arguing with it every time I passed.”
“I suppose they melted it down after they tore down the station.”
“Not quite. I think it lives in a museum in Philadelphia.”
As we moved on to the next room, we found ourselves in front of a very different Sargent. On loan from England, it depicted a row of soldiers, each with his hand on the next man’s shoulder. Blindfolded, the soldiers are unable to see the many men who lie at their feet, dead or dying. The painting was called Gassed. My daughter had little patience with art, but great respect for the power of witness, and she lingered.
“Did you know anyone who fought in that war?”
“A few people.” One of whom had been Sandro Ardito, who lost his life at Meuse-Argonne, fighting for a country he never felt was his, perhaps because he saw it as his only escape. His body was not returned to his sister, who had begged him not to fight the businessman’s war. Another had been Charles Tyler Jr., who joined as soon as he turned eighteen. He was killed in the Second Battle of the Marne; a reporter said of the American forces in that fight, “I never saw men charge to their death with finer spirit.” His father might have relished the compliment; I do not think his mother would. I hardly need remind people of the splendid life and career of Frederick Tyler. I have not seen him for many years, but his sister keeps me informed.
President Wilson, for whom I was not permitted to vote, had promised the United States would stay out of the war. But as is so often the case, that promise was broken and men—tens of millions of gallant, chivalric men—turned the world into a charnel house.
As we left the gallery, a towering statue caught my daughter’s eye and she said, “I don’t like to be maudlin, but it really was a crime that they tore down the old station. Particularly when you consider the monstrosity that replaced it.”
In the bright, airy hall, surrounded by the statues of the heroic and departed, I thought of Penn Station—and the Titanic. (Michael Behan was right about many things, but the short-lived appeal of that story was not one of them.) I thought of the dead who had no monuments to them. Of Alexander Cassatt, so certain that the station would be his lasting monument, while now he gathered dust in a museum. I remembered its destruction, the wrecking balls that smashed through the walls, shattered windows, reducing that architectural marvel to rubble to be hauled away by garbage trucks.
Before leaving we passed again by the pretty Cassatt, and I caught the child’s eye. “That’s the thing,” I said. “Buildings fall. But people go on.”
My daughter observed that was perhaps a mixed blessing. And then we went to lunch.
ALSO BY MARIAH FREDERICKS
A Death of No Importance
YA Novels
The Girl in the Park
Crunch Time
Head Games
The True Meaning of Cleavage
About the Author
Mariah Fredericks was born and raised in New York City, where she still lives with her family. She is the author of several YA novels. A Death of No Importance was her first adult novel in the Jane Prescott series. Visit her website at MariahFredericksBooks.com, and follow her on Twitter @MariahFrederick. Or sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Epigraphs
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Epilogue
Also by Mariah Fredericks
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
DEATH OF A NEW AMERICAN. Copyright © 2019 by Mariah Fredericks. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
Cover design by David Baldeosingh Rotstein
Cover photo-illustration by Larry Rostant
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Fredericks, Mariah, author.
Title: Death of a New American: a mystery / Mariah Fredericks.
Description: First Edition.
|New York: Minotaur Books, 2019.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018049423|ISBN 9781250152992 (hardcover)|ISBN 9781250153005 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Murder—Investigation—Fiction.|GSAFD: Mystery fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3606.R435 D429 2019|DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018049423
eISBN 9781250153005
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First Edition: April 2019