An Illustrated Death (17 page)

C
HAPTER
F
ORTY

Y
OU HAVE TO
hide this for me. But you can’t read it unless something bad happens to me.

I went back to the van to retrieve Rosa’s envelope to give to the police. Thank God I hadn’t left it in my house.

Slipping behind the steering wheel, I leaned over and opened the glove compartment, then sat for a moment with the white envelope in my hand. Was I holding a confession to murder? Did it implicate someone else, someone who assumed the envelope had been in Rosa’s cottage?

I had to know. After all, she had given me the envelope with the understanding that I should read it and act on it if anything happened to her. If I handed it to Marselli without knowing what was inside, he might never tell me what it said. Rosa was unconscious, but safe. A delay of a minute or two couldn’t matter.

Yet I couldn’t open the envelope sitting in the driveway. I couldn’t risk someone slipping out of the house and coming up behind me to see what I was reading, or have Marselli remembering something he wanted to ask me and sauntering over.

My heart banging, I started the engine. Bianca might think I was leaving for the day, but I didn’t care.

Once out on Cooper’s Farm Lane, I wasn’t even sure where I was headed. At first I planned to park just out of sight, then turned left onto Springs–Fireplace Road and started to drive. When I saw the Pollock-Krasner homestead I veered into the parking lot. There were already about fifteen cars outside the gray-shingled house. Having other people around, visitors and volunteers, made me feel safer.

As I slit the envelope open with my car key, trying to do as little damage as possible, I thought again that I should have turned it over to Marselli, unread.
But you were the one she gave it to. You don’t know that it has anything to do with Gretchen’s murder or the cottage burning down.

On the other hand, how could it not?

And then it was too late, I was already unfolding the two-page document. I was looking at the last will and testament of Gretchen Elspeth Erikson.

From my frisson of disappointment, I realized I had been expecting something dramatic: an indictment of the twisted darkness of the Eriksons, or a confession from Rosa as to the other deaths. What did Gretchen have to bequeath except her garden tools and a sentimental brooch or two? Rosa probably thought that any will was important.

I kept reading. Gretchen had had a formal will drawn up because she had over two million dollars in bank accounts and various funds. There were references to stock portfolios as well. The bulk of her estate had been left to “my beloved daughter,” Regan Erikson. But Claude, Bianca, Puck, and Rosa had each been left $250,000 to “follow where their dreams take them.” The only other beneficiary named was Peter, Claude and Lynn’s son, with the stipulation that he use the money to travel around the world.

My beloved daughter, Regan Erikson
. Not only had I not known, I hadn’t even guessed. There had been a few hints of course: Regan so concerned that Gretchen hadn’t been at the memorial, her deep shock at finding Gretchen’s body. The fact that Regan bore no physical resemblance to Eve and had felt able to insult her so casually. But if Gretchen was her mother, Nate was surely not her father.
Was he?

The will changed my perception of everything. Was this what someone had ransacked Gretchen’s room looking for? Rosa must have sensed the danger when she gave me the envelope. Why else would she have been worried that something was going to happen to her? Rather than try and find the will in all that clutter, someone had decided it would be easier to destroy everything.

But why would anyone want to
destroy
the will? Everyone benefited. Had they known about it? If there were no will, then Gretchen would be considered to have died intestate and an administrator would be appointed. The proceeds would eventually be distributed among Gretchen’s closest relatives—in this case, her nieces and nephews, all of them sharing equally. They would finally have the money to get on with their lives.

There was an even faster way. If Gretchen’s checkbook had been taken from her room, “bequests” could be made right away. Risky, but another reason to keep her death a secret until the checks had cleared. If the bank didn’t know when she died, it would be harder to prove she had not written the checks herself. Claude was skilled in signing his mother’s name—why not Gretchen’s?

Had Regan and Dai known how much she was going to inherit?

There was another paper in the envelope.

A car pulled up beside me, and I jumped, knocking everything off my lap. When I looked over, a young couple was climbing out of a blue Toyota. Their dreamy expressions told me that Jackson Pollock was still making conquests. I watched them scramble up the white porch steps, hand-in-hand.

The paper was crinkled, the ink washed out in some places, reminding me of a spelling test of Jason’s that had gone through the laundry. The handwriting appeared to be a woman’s, but the few legible words did not tell me anything.
love you and . . . a new life . . . forget what. . .

I needed to get this will and the waterlogged paper to Marselli fast.

H
E WAS STILL
down at Rosa’s cottage.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Not now, Ms. Laine.”

“No, it’s important. I have to give you something Rosa gave me to keep for her.”

“What is it?” He finally gave me his attention.

I looked over at the black hulk of the chalet, at the technician taking samples from its base, at the other cops studying the grounds farther away. Handing the will over to him here would be safe enough. No one would come up and snatch the pages from his hand. But anyone in the family looking out the window would be able to see me hand him something white, see him read it, and have a good idea what it was.

“Can we talk in the studio?”

“Why?” He seemed to root himself more firmly into the grass.

“I think it may be the reason why Gretchen died.”

“Okay.” He reached over, took my arm, and turned me around. He didn’t say,
This better be good
, but the thought hovered in the smoky air.

“T
ELL ME AGAIN
when you got this.” Frank Marselli was making a point.

“Last Wednesday.”

“And you opened this when?”

“Just now. It was addressed to
me
.” Okay, not addressed to, but given to me.

“It didn’t occur to you that if you had turned this over to the police, this young woman might not be in the hospital fighting for her life?”

“No! She specifically told me
not
to open it. She made me promise. She said that something bad would happen to me if I did.”

“So you couldn’t have given me the envelope unopened.”

“I didn’t know it had anything to do with Gretchen.”

His hazel eyes said,
Oh, please
.

We had been down this road before.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I wasn’t. But I wasn’t as cavalier as I sounded. Why
hadn’t
I thought of turning the envelope over to Marselli last week? Yes, I had promised Rosa, but once Gretchen had been found . . . “I guess I thought she was being melodramatic. At the time.”

“What’s this other thing?”

“It was like that when I found it. I didn’t—”

We froze as we heard a click and the studio door opened.

C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-
O
NE

“I
KNEW
I
’D
find you here,” Bianca said tersely. Her ginger hair framed her face in tangled bursts and she had no makeup on. I had never noticed before how many freckles she had. For the first time I realized that if she hadn’t been Nate Erikson’s daughter, she would have looked like anyone. The waitress at the Ground Round, a stewardess on Aer Lingus.

“I saw your van, but I didn’t think it would be business as usual with you.”

So she was going to play it that way. Perhaps she wanted to show Marselli what a concerned sister she was.

I felt a familiar red tide creeping up the back of my neck. “Where did you expect me to be? I stopped at your cottage but no one was there.”

“I was up at the house. It’s not rocket science to figure that out.”

Come on, Bianca. You didn’t even
like
Rosa.

“Terrible things are happening and all you can think about are books. You came down here to work just as if nothing had happened.”

I hadn’t, of course, but I couldn’t tell her what I had been doing instead. I turned to Marselli, who was observing us, interested.

“Your family hasn’t been very cordial to me the last few days. Why would I intrude on them when they’re upset about Rosa and the fire?”

She shook her head. “I’ll never understand you.”

Back at ya.
But it was time to stop this. “I’m worried about Rosa too. I hope she’ll be okay.”

“It’s not as if we didn’t warn her.”

“You warned her?” Now Marselli couldn’t resist.

“About her stuff! That cottage was a fire waiting to happen. If only she’d listened to us and cleaned things out, she wouldn’t be in the hospital now. She could have destroyed the whole compound!”

Didn’t Bianca know that the fire had been deliberately set? “You haven’t talked to the family?” I asked Marselli.

Bianca shook her head. “At least they had the courtesy not to intrude on our grief.”

They get credit for that and I don’t?

“I’ll see you at lunch.” She turned to move away.

“Well—okay.” I could always have my tuna wrap for dinner. “Is Jocasta cooking?”

She turned on me. “Of course not! Without Bessie, she didn’t have a ride. I don’t think the family wants a reminder of what happened to Gretchen anyway.”

“I guess not.”

As soon as Bianca had snapped the door closed behind her, I said, “But Bessie couldn’t have set the fire—you’re still holding her.”

He squinted at me.

“Aren’t you?”

“We brought her in for questioning. That was all.”

“You mean you let her go? She’s home?”

“Not for long.”

“But—she’d have no reason to attack Rosa. No motive.”

Marselli sighed. “What is it with you people? You seem to think that we have can’t arrest anyone till we know
why
they did something. The evidence is what counts.”

“Believe me, it wasn’t Bessie.”

“And you know that because?”

“I think that people have to have a good reason for killing someone.”

“I’m sure she does. We just don’t know what it is yet.”

“It doesn’t seem fair that the people with the least resources are always the first to be blamed.”

He shrugged. “Facts are facts. The family doesn’t understand how Bessie’s fingerprints got around Gretchen’s bed. They said she
never
did laundry.”

“They’re lying. They’re trying to throw her under the bus to save themselves.”

Marselli smiled.

C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-
T
WO

W
HEN
M
ARSELLI LEFT
I sat on Nate Erikson’s metal stool, thinking about Rosa.

I had not gotten very far when the door clicked and I jumped, knocking over my empty coffee cup. I assumed that Bianca had come back to apologize, but someone I didn’t recognize at first stepped inside. Regan looked like a 1940s cigarette ad in her houndstooth-checked suit and jaunty matching hat with a feather. Even her peaked red lips were retro. Again I wondered where she bought her clothes.

“Working on your illustrations?” she asked.

“No. Just thinking about the fire.”

“Can you believe it? It’s one terrible thing here after another. They say bad things happen in threes, and this is already four! I came down yesterday to bring some work to two galleries. I was about to go home when Bianca called. She’d gotten my cell number from Dai and thought I should know.”

I wondered why Regan felt she had to explain it to me.

She came over and leaned against the worktable. “And to have it happen to Rosa. She was always such a lost soul, trying to fit in. She was like a puppy dog around Nate. Pathetic.”

“How long are you staying? Are you invited to lunch?”

“Oh, God. The Family Gathering.” She rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe that’s still going on. Of course I’m not invited. I have to stick around to talk to that detective. I think he’s punishing me by making me wait.” She stood up, but left her black purse on the worktable. “I’ve never had a chance to look around here. Everything was always so hush-hush.” She headed for the bins of paintings.

“There’s a painting in there I don’t understand.”

She turned with an ironic smile. “Only one?”

“It’s not one of the illustrations.” I went over to where I remembered pushing the slashed nude back into place, then felt around until I found it. This time I was careful not to let the canvas get snagged on anything.

“My God.” She took the canvas, holding it away from her to get a better look.

“Do you know who she is?”

“No. After my time, but she sure pissed someone off.”

“Ya think?”

Dark humor.

“The paint’s still fresh. Acrylic gets dusty after a while. Nate painted it though.”

“Didn’t he paint everything?”

She looked at me consideringly.

“Do you think he was involved with her and it ended badly?” I asked.

“Could be. The thing is, Nate was not usually a womanizer. Or if he was, he kept it well-hidden.” She looked over at the collection of costumes. “You know what? Being in here creeps me out. Let’s go for a walk or something.”

I looked at her perky suit and heels.

“I have other clothes in the car. I’ll change. Meet me in five minutes.” She moved back to the table and picked up her purse.

“Okay.” I didn’t remind her to tell Marselli that she was leaving. I was no one’s keeper but my own.

W
HEN
I
REACHED
the parking area I found Regan behind the wheel of a white SUV, now wearing jeans and a paint-streaked sweatshirt. She had pulled her dark hair into a ponytail.

Backing out of the driveway, she said, “It seems like there were years when we never left the property, but that can’t be true, can it? We didn’t go to school, but we weren’t
that
isolated. Still, when you live out here, you don’t run down to the local 7-Eleven for milk. I thought once everyone grew up they’d be glad to leave, but no one did. It was too much like the Magic Kingdom, I guess.”

“Where would they have gone?”

She turned right on Springs–Fireplace Road. “It’s a big world out there, Ms. Bookseller.”

I laughed. “Nate’s not your father, is he?” Not if Gretchen was your mother and you were born after Bianca and Claude.
My beloved daughter, Regan . . .

She swerved, then straightened the wheel. “Who told you that? I didn’t know anyone else knew that.”

“Nobody told me. It’s just the way you talk about him. You call him Nate, not Dad like everyone else.”

She nodded. “He isn’t my real father, but I was raised to think he was.” She turned onto a road bumpy with beach grass and sand. “A few years ago I found out that Gretchen came here just before I was born. She was old enough to know better, but she’d met someone at an artist colony. Anyway, her family had taken Nate in when
he
had no one. She and Nate were close and he was happy to raise me as one of his kids.”

“You never knew?”

“Never. It all came bursting out when I wanted to leave. Dai and I asked him for help, for money, and he refused. Eve told me I wasn’t even their child. What a bitch she is. Gretchen was the one who gave us the money and explained everything. I always knew she loved me, certainly more than Eve did. But I loved her like my
aunt.
I can’t explain, but even when she told me, I couldn’t change my feelings just like that.” She parked at the end of the road beside a narrow strip of beach. The bay stretched beyond us like a table waiting to be set.

“She never thought about taking you and leaving when you were older?”

“Why should she?” She opened her door. “You know what? You ask a lot of questions.”

We walked over to the strip of sand which, up close, wasn’t really sand, but tiny rocks. The water lapped tentatively against them as if not sure of its welcome. It was hard to imagine anyone coming here to swim with all the beautiful ocean beaches of the Hamptons. We were the only people here today, the salt air fresh on our faces.

“We used to have picnics here and pretend we were explorers looking across at China.
We
should have stopped today and gotten a picnic.”

“That’s okay. I’m supposed to have lunch with your family. Or was.”

She found a low boulder and sat down. “They’ll survive.”

I knelt on the sand beside her, trying to get comfortable. “You looked as if you wanted to say something back in the studio.”

“I did?”

“When I said didn’t Nate paint everything?”

“You saw my father’s—Nate’s—paintings at the memorial. What did you think of them?”

“They were impressionistic.”
And not that good.
“Different from his book illustrations.”

“He came back from Vietnam with something wrong with his eyes. Not that bad at first, but it kept getting worse.”

I remembered the powerful magnifying glasses on the worktable. “How terrible! What did he do?”

“Do about what?”

“If he couldn’t see to paint.”

“Oh. He worked it out.” She pushed herself up.

“How?”

She made a noise that was close to a laugh. “Stop with the questions already. I should be asking you some. Like why you’re out here all the time. Why you’re so interested in my family.”

“I told you. Bianca and I—”

“I don’t believe that for one minute.” She started back toward the parking lot and I trailed her. “You know what I think?”

I waited for her to again accuse me of trying to cheat the family out of their money. Or maybe she thought I was a cougar on the prowl, hoping to ensnare Puck
. Lots of luck with that too.

“You’re a journalist. You’re writing a book about my family. You’re trying to find out as much as you can to put in your exposé—and I’ve already told you much too much.” She banged her fist against her temple theatrically. “Stupid, stupid, stupid!”

It was so far from what I was expecting, that I began to laugh. “The truth is much more boring.”

“I don’t believe you. Try me.”

“Your family hired me to appraise your father—Nate’s books, and let them know how much they’re worth. It’s a big secret because Eve isn’t supposed to know.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

She pulled the SUV door open. “I like my story better. I’m always trying to make people more interesting than they are.”

Had I just been insulted?