The Black Painting

5

It was the right house, but no one was home. How he could know that without leaving the car was a fair question, yet Dave felt certain. There were obvious tells. No vehicles in the drive, no lights, no gently parted curtain. It was more than that, though. There was something about houses, about the way they sat. They announced their occupancy. This one was empty. No spirits within, living or dead. He drank his coffee and read the New York Times.

He was early. He was always early, a habit picked up during the years when meetings carried potential threat. Arrive first, check out the location, see who else is watching. Dave supposed there might be threats today. The guy was a lawyer, after all, and had reason to dislike him. They would not be of the lethal kind, however, and he was not worried. More curious, which he had not been for some time. Which was the reason he was here at all. That and needing money.

At 8:55 a.m. he decided to survey the property. It was a nice house. Yellow clapboard with white trim, a porch running along two sides. Big, but no mansion. A top attorney from a wealthy family could do better. It certainly could not compare to the old man’s pile of brick by the sea. Then again, maybe the son would inherit that, the father having keeled over yesterday. Dave had read the obituary in the car. The collector got two columns with a photo. The tone was decidedly negative, which was sad. Dave had known the man a little, and it was hard to like Alfred Morse, but he felt a grudging respect.

Tennis court, luridly green lawn, bushes all around the house—laurel, azalea? He wasn’t good with shrubs. Primitive security system. Dave was ready to give hidden cameras a friendly wave, as if he were not casing the joint, but he saw none. He was back in the car sipping coffee when Philip Morse drove up, fifteen minutes late. Older model Mercedes, well maintained. The man was also well maintained, yet stress showed around his cold blue eyes. The eyes always give you away, thought Dave, stepping out of his car.

“Thanks for your patience,” said the attorney. No doubt he had read some asshole’s success-in-business guide that said never apologize. He did not shake hands but headed straight for the house. Dave followed, not hurrying. The side door opened into the kitchen, which was large and white and appointed with the latest gadgets. For the wife, Dave guessed. He would bet twenty bucks that Philip Morse could not boil an egg.

“I’ve been at my father’s,” the attorney said, lighting the gas jet under the steel kettle. He knew how to do that much. “I need to get back as soon as possible.”

“I’m sorry about your father,” Dave replied. “I liked him.”

“You were among the few,” Morse said sourly.

“I would have been happy to go to his house, under the circumstances.”

“I wanted this to be private. Would you like some tea or coffee?”

Dave declined, and Morse turned off the kettle, making nothing for himself. They sat at the kitchen table, and the attorney played with his glasses before speaking.

“My wife is in Paris,” he said pointlessly. Maybe to explain the empty house. “With friends. She’ll be back for the funeral, of course.”

“Of course. Your children are around?”

“My son, Ken. He’s at the house. You know why I asked you here, I suppose?”

The question had an accusatory edge, but Dave was not playing.

“I try not to presume anything. I would guess it’s related to your father’s death, except you called me before he died.”

“I did,” Morse agreed. “You’ll remember I tried to speak to you after your investigation.”

“I remember,” said Dave. “I wasn’t free to talk.”

“You invoked client confidentiality. But your client is now deceased.”

“Well, you would know better than me,” Dave replied carefully, “but I’m pretty sure that confidentiality continues after death.”

“Client-attorney privilege does,” Morse said, “but you’re not a lawyer. And even lawyers are allowed exceptions when settling estates.”

“Are you the executor?”

“I assume,” Morse huffed, tossing his glasses on the table and looking uneasy. “I haven’t seen the will yet. I’m meeting his attorney later, at the house.”

“That case was a long time ago,” Dave noted. “I’m no longer employed by that firm.”

“I am aware of that,” said the lawyer snidely.

“I was required to leave my notes with them.” A half-truth. That he was required to do so did not mean that he did. In fact, Dave had been reviewing them last night. “And my memory isn’t what it used to be. I mean, fifteen years...”

“So you don’t intend to tell me anything.”

“About?”

“About your conclusions. In your report to my father.”

“I see.” Dave leaned back in his chair. It was what he expected, though the timing was odd. Why all these years later, twenty-four hours before the old man’s death? If the attorney knew the death was imminent, then it was estate-related. Money. It was always money. “I’m not sure what I could say that would be useful.”

“Then why are you here, Mr. Webster?”

Yes, why? A rainy afternoon in Madrid. Dim rooms on the second floor of the Prado. Luisa had dragged him in to see something else, but he was taken hostage by those nightmare images by Goya. If they were Goya, no one knew for sure. Maybe his son, or the son painting over the father. Maybe the Devil himself. That was easy to believe when you stood before the works. Fourteen of them. Mad pilgrims with white eyes, screaming a song. Saturn’s dark maw devouring a bloody corpse. Witches floating in the air, the black shadow of the He-Goat before his coven. Fourteen, and one missing. A ghost painting, a rumor. For Dave, an obsession. Three years later Alfred Morse called Luisa’s father, Dave’s boss. There had been a theft. An indescribably precious work. He had no faith in the police. Luisa’s father gave the job to Dave, and his life unraveled. Not at that moment, but inexorably over the months and years that followed. And you ask why I’m here.

“You don’t even know why,” Morse said contemptuously.

“Let’s say out of respect for your father. And your loss.”

“I don’t need your respect,” said the attorney. “I need your assistance. I would not ask if it wasn’t necessary, but it’s you who created this mess.”

“Me?” said Dave, amused. “Do you think I took the painting, Mr. Morse?”

“No, but you apparently thought I did,” the attorney raged, straining forward in his chair. Dave wondered if the man was about to attack him. “You destroyed my father’s trust in me. Ruined our relationship. And now you can sit in my house and smirk at me like that, you pathetic fraud.”

That didn’t take long, thought Dave.

“Even if any of that is true,” he answered, “it’s a couple of days too late to fix it.”

That was cruel, he thought, surprised at himself. Why was he provoking the man? Did he want a fight? Did he want to roll around on the spotless tile floor with the lawyer, trading punches? Dave did not like Philip Morse. Fine. But the man had just lost his father, and there was some truth in his words.

Used to being provoked, or maybe embarrassed by his outburst, the attorney grew calm. He smoothed his hair and put his glasses back on. Like Superman becoming Clark Kent.

“Sadly, that is the case,” he said. “I can’t express my hurt at the idea my father died believing me guilty. Another man might feel shame, but I can see you aren’t such a man.”

“You have it wrong, Philip.”

“Then set me straight,” the attorney insisted. “How does your silence serve anyone?”

How indeed? He should beg the man’s pardon and leave. But he knew that he was not going to do that.

“Why now?” he asked. “Why after all this time did you call me two days ago?”

“Why should I answer that?”

“You don’t have to,” Dave said. The attorney eyed him closely, sensing an unspoken deal. He rose from his chair and went to the sink, gazing out the window there.

“My father had no use for his children,” Morse said. “The feeling was more or less mutual. So his coldness toward me in the last decade didn’t really register. It was only a few days ago that I learned he suspected me of stealing the painting.”

“You had no suspicion before?”

“Why would I?” the attorney demanded, wheeling around on him. “He was upset with all of us when it happened. Like it was some group failure. But I didn’t feel it was directed specifically at me.”

“You think I put that idea in his head.”

“You’re free to deny it.”

And who will you blame, then, Dave wondered.

“How did you hear? Who waited until the last couple of days to tell you?”

“That person only just heard it, as well,” the attorney replied. “I’m not free to say who.”

The man desperately wanted Dave to talk. If he would not reveal his source under that inducement, it was pointless to push.

“I can only speak about the investigation as it related to you,” Dave said. “No one else.”

The attorney moved back to the table and sat.

“Understood.”

His expression was so eager that Dave hesitated. But it was too late to hold back.

“I didn’t come to any conclusions,” he said. “For that matter, I didn’t submit a report. There was nothing on paper, it was all verbal.”

“What, on the telephone?”

“Never,” Dave replied. “In person. In his study. I think we met three times.” The big mahogany desk, the blue eyes even colder than his son’s, a crown of white hair swept back from his forehead. And that empty space above where the demon portrait so recently hung. “That’s how he wanted it done. I reported on my progress and he asked questions.”

“About me,” Morse said.

“All the children,” Dave admitted. “Spouses, the help, the caterers for the wake, dealers and collectors. It was a long list, and I didn’t get through half of them.”

“Why not?”

“I can only conjecture. We didn’t trade theories. Your father kept his own council.”

“Tell me about it,” said Morse, massaging the bridge of his nose. “Conjecture away.”

“He didn’t believe the groundskeeper was the thief. Or if he was, he acted on someone else’s behalf.”

“We all suspected that,” the attorney said dismissively. “But whose?”

“There was a collector who wanted the work very badly,” Dave replied, violating his own conditions. “A man named Charles DeGross.”

“That’s right. He made my father at least two offers. Generous offers, I understood.”

“You encouraged your father to sell to him,” Dave stated, rather than asked.

“And that makes me suspect? My mother, my brother and his own lawyer encouraged the exact same thing.”

“Yes, but they didn’t meet secretly with Mr. DeGross. You did. Twice.”

Morse took a deep breath. Far from looking angry, he seemed relieved to have arrived at the heart of the matter.

“It wasn’t secret. For heaven’s sake, we were in a restaurant.”

“You were in a private room. Alone except for the waiter. And on at least one of those occasions you lied to others about where you would be.”

Morse sighed again and shook his head.

“Your memory is better than you claim,” he said ruefully. “Fibbing to my secretary is not a crime. It was essential that it be kept private. I was, in fact, acting in my father’s interest.”

“Just without his knowledge or permission,” Dave replied.

“You have no idea,” the attorney said sharply. “Or maybe you do.”

“About what?”

“His finances. My father didn’t understand money, and he ran through it at an alarming rate. He paid high prices for works he wanted, and hardly sold a thing. It wasn’t sustainable. Ten million dollars would have gone a long way toward curing his problems.”

“He felt the painting was worth many times that,” said Dave.

“To whom?” Morse asked, tossing his hands up. “You’re not a dealer, but you must understand the market a little. That kind of money was a delusion. No one has ever paid that for a Goya, and certainly no one would without a clean provenance.”

“You think your father acquired it illegally?”

“I don’t know, nor do I care. That painting...” The attorney became glassy-eyed for a moment. As if he went away from the conversation, away from the bright room to some other, darker place. “That painting was never going to a museum,” he rasped, his gaze slowly finding Dave again. “Anyone who would take it for a good price and keep it hidden was doing our family and the world a service.”

Dave held his tongue. They had come to what he cared about, but the questions he wanted to ask would take them away from the lawyer’s concerns, and expose his own. He mastered himself.

“What was your purpose in meeting DeGross?”

Morse nodded, as if he, too, had forgotten the point and was grateful to be brought back to it.

“The first time was after his initial offer. Seven million. I convinced him that my father swearing not to sell was a bluff, that he should go higher. I’m the one who got him to ten million. Not that Dad would have thanked me for it.”

“Which of course he couldn’t,” Dave pointed out, “because he didn’t know. Why the second meeting?”

“DeGross asked for that. After my father rejected the higher offer. He wanted to know if there was any point in continuing. If there was anything left to try.”

“Like stealing, for instance,” Dave baited him.

“DeGross may have been behind the theft,” Morse answered evenly. “But he didn’t share his plans with me. I did not have anything to do with that, Mr. Webster. And I still don’t understand why you stopped the investigation.”

He sounded sincere, Dave had to admit. He might be a good liar, or he might have talked himself into his own innocence. People did that. Or, Dave conceded grudgingly, he might be telling the truth.

“Your father suspected DeGross. I could tell from his questions. But I couldn’t find a link to the groundskeeper or any of the other help. I didn’t investigate the caterers closely, that was another thing I was going to get to. The suspicious behavior I did uncover involved members of the family. Especially you.”

“You mean those meetings with DeGross.”

“That was the worst of it,” Dave confirmed. “Your father was determined to solve the case. He put all his energy into it. When I told him about those meetings, well, the steam went out of him. He didn’t even want to hear about my other findings. He just asked me to leave. The next day he called to say he was ending the investigation.”

They were both quiet for a time. The attorney was so deeply wrapped in thought that the sound of a car pulling into the driveway did not rouse him.

“I understand this is painful for you,” Dave said, risking the other man’s wrath. “And I’m not accusing you of anything. But one way to look at this is that your father was trying to protect you. As important as that painting was, it was more important to him not to implicate his son in any wrongdoing.”

Morse stared at him with a curious expression, and Dave considered the possibility that for once in his life he had said the right thing. A car door slamming erased any response the attorney might have made. He rose quickly and went to the window.

“What the hell does she want?”

Three seconds later the kitchen door banged open and a woman in tight jeans and a baggy coat swept in. Curvy, blond and flushed. And obviously a Morse. She barely paused to throw a contemptuous glance at Philip, but she stopped short when she saw Dave. He stood up fast, banging his knee on the table.

“Sorry, did I interrupt something?” she asked, not sounding sorry. More annoyed that the presence of a guest required a halfhearted courtesy. “Who are you?”

“What are you doing here, Audrey?” Philip snapped. The girl made him nervous, though Dave could not guess why.

“Clothes,” she said.

“Clothes?”

“For the funeral and, like, the next few days. It’s four hours round-trip to my apartment, without traffic. And the cops want us to hang around.”

“I wasn’t aware,” said Philip suspiciously, “that you had left clothes at my house.”

“Don’t be silly,” she said, making silly sound like a humiliating condition. “Cynthia and I wear exactly the same size. Nice to meet you...”

“Dave,” he said, taking her offered hand. Her blue eyes had a warmth missing from her uncle’s, and her smile seemed genuine, if not exactly kind. She had a firm handshake.

“I’m Audrey,” she replied, brushing against him as she passed. More closely than the space required. “Maybe I’ll see you around.”

“Wait, have you spoken to Cynthia?” Philip called after her.

“She won’t mind,” Audrey declared, already in the hall and headed for the stairs. Philip went as far as the kitchen door in pursuit. Then stopped, shoulders sagging.

“My niece,” he said in resignation.

“I remember,” Dave replied. She was a mouthy teen when he last saw her. The children had been off-limits for questioning. Which was appropriate, yet frustrating, as three had been in the house during the theft. One of them had actually been in the room. A boy, in therapy for some trauma. Dave could guess the source of that trauma, but none of the adults would speak of it. He’d met Audrey because she sought him out during her father’s interview. Flirting, he guessed. Or wanting to know what was up, the way teenagers did. She was cute, but fifteen-year-olds were not his thing, and he hadn’t given her a second thought. She was all grown-up now.

Morse shuffled back to the table. Audrey’s entrance had severed the brief bond between the men, and Dave sensed a dismissal. But the attorney sat down again.

“Thank you for telling me those things.”

“I can’t imagine they were what you wanted to hear,” Dave answered, sitting down also.

“No, but not as bad as I guessed. Tell me something else, please. Did you believe I was the thief? Is that what you would have reported to my father?”

“That’s a tough question, Philip.”

“The truth will do. You won’t offend me.”

“I hadn’t made up my mind. I needed more time, and more freedom. You looked suspicious, but so did other people.”

“Like my brother-in-law,” the attorney said. “Ramón.”

“I can’t answer that.”

“You don’t need to.” Morse reached into his jacket and slipped out a checkbook. They had not discussed a fee for Dave’s time, but without asking, the attorney began to write. “What I would like to do is ask you to pick up where you left off fifteen years ago,” he said, tearing the check from the book. “I don’t know how realistic that is.”

“It’s a cold trail,” Dave managed, covering his surprise. Was he serious? “I would have to track down a lot of people. They would have to be willing to talk.”

“Many hurdles,” the lawyer agreed. “Don’t answer now, but consider the possibility. Last question. Or request. Would you be willing to repeat everything you’ve just said to my brother and sister?”

There it was. The old man was gone but not the siblings. Did one of them control the purse strings? Or was this just an emotional thing? Did it matter?

“If they’re willing to listen,” said Dave, “I’m willing to talk.”

Morse nodded and handed over the check. It was for a thousand dollars, far too much. Dave thought of handing it back, then thought better.

“Consider yourself on retainer,” the attorney said. “We’ll be speaking more.”

6

The diner was a mile from Morse’s house, at the first intersection going east. Anyone returning to Owl’s Point would pass this way. There was also a gas station, post office and antiques shop, but little activity this Monday morning. Little to attract Dave’s eye while he ate a late breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast. He could not have said what he was watching for until the red Lexus sped by the window.