Consigned to Death (15 page)

I needed to stop thinking.

“Chicken,” I said aloud, and smiled. “I’ll make Monterey chicken tomorrow night or Sunday.” I liked to cook, and I was good at it. Whenever I want to improve my mood, I cook.

When I was thirteen, just days before my mother’s death from lung cancer, she’d made a ceremonial presentation of her recipe box. Her handwritten index cards contained a treasure trove of family favorites, and I’d made them all, adapting the proportions so I could cook for two, and lately, for one.

I’d make Monterey chicken tomorrow or the next day, but tonight my mind wouldn’t be silenced. I sipped my drink and thought about Mr. Grant’s paintings, the Jules Tavernier garden scenes.

It wasn’t unheard of for a curator or owner intent on protecting a treasured canvas to arrange for an artist to paint a second image over the first, secure that the priceless original would remain safely disguised. Once the danger had passed, the second layer of paint could be removed. But Tavernier had died in the 1800s, so he couldn’t have worked to disguise paintings stolen by the Nazis. Yet there was something about those paintings that seemed out of whack.

I reviewed what I knew about them. They were among the least valuable of Mr. Grant’s possessions. Yet they were the most valuable of all the artwork I’d seen. The other paintings were inexpensive reproductions, and there weren’t many of them. It’s odd, I thought, that the Grants would have reproductions in that houseful of treasures. And not many of those. Mostly the walls were decorated with family photographs. There was something else, but whatever it was escaped me.

I sipped my martini and stared out into the silvery night. Seeing the light shimmer on the fluttering tall grasses reminded me of a toast my father coined, meaningless, but pleasing nonetheless:
To silver light in the dark of night,
he’d say, and raise his glass. I mouthed the words, lifted my drink, and was relieved that I didn’t cry.
Progress
, I told myself. If I could repeat my father’s toast and stay dry eyed, I was definitely making progress.

As I watched the gently shifting shadows caused by the pale moonlight and a light breeze, I realized that, as the crow flies, Alverez was probably less than five miles away. Fox Point Road, where he lived, was on the other side of the meadow, past the stand of birch and maple trees that flanked the forest on the edge of the property, on the other side of a small tributary called Knight Branch.

I wondered if he was sleeping, or if perhaps he was wakeful, looking out of his window, thinking of me. Remembering the magnetism we’d shared, I became tearful, grateful that my ability to respond to a man and feel womanly, which for so long had been attenuated, was intact.

It was close to midnight when I took a last sip of my second martini, finally relaxed enough to sleep. Just as I was swinging my feet to the floor, the phone rang, startling me.

“Hello,” I said, braced for trouble.

“How ya doing? It’s Wes. I hope I’m not calling too late.”

“No,” I said. “I’m awake.”
Wow,
I thought,
Wes does quick work. Could he have answers to my questions already
?

“About what I said, that I’d like to interview you. I wanted to let you know that if you changed your mind, I’ll be at the paper tomorrow morning after nine.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know,” he said, “the interview.”

“What interview?” I felt as if I’d wandered into a hall of mirrors. Nothing was as it appeared. Had I gone insane—agreeing to an interview with Wes Smith? It wasn’t possible.

“Yesterday. You asked that I call you.”

And with those words, I finally understood that Wes was being discreet. He knew I hadn’t agreed to an interview—he was being careful, which could only mean that he was assuming that my phone was tapped. Whether it was tapped or not, he was smart to presume that it was, and I was stupid not to have thought of it before.

“Ha, ha, Wes. I told you,” I said, playing along, “I won’t talk to you. Besides which, I have the auction tomorrow—and the tag sale.”

“When do they start?”

“I need to be there by nine.”

“Okay. I’ll be at the Portsmouth Diner at seven.”

“Is that the place by the Circle?” I asked, thinking that we weren’t doing a very good job of being circumspect, and that anyone listening to our conversation would know we were arranging to meet.

“Yeah, that’s the joint.”

“Well, I’ve told you that I won’t talk to you,” I repeated, wanting to be on the record, in case the call was, in fact, being taped, and Max ever needed to defend me against a charge of interfering with an official investigation.

“I understand,” he answered. “Just in case, write down my cell number.”

I did, told him good night, and hung up.

Wes sounded confident, even excited, and it was contagious. That must mean that he had answers he knew I’d be glad to hear. I couldn’t imagine what they were, but I allowed myself to feel optimistic.

I smiled as I climbed the stairs, and I was still smiling as I fell asleep.

W
es was leaning against an old dark blue Toyota in the parking lot of the Portsmouth Diner when I pulled in just before seven. It was thickly overcast and cold, and he wore a red-and-black checked woolen jacket buttoned to his chin.

I pulled up near the front in response to Wes’s signal. I lowered my window and he said, “Go ahead and park. I’ll drive.”

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“You’ll see.”

“Wait a sec!” I called as he walked away. From the back, he appeared rounder than he had from the front. If he wasn’t careful, he’d be fat before he was thirty. “What about breakfast?”

“Later.”

I pulled into a space and hurried to his car. Looking in, I spotted crumpled-up coffee cups, candy wrappers, and fast-food bags covering the floor in back, stacks of papers haphazardly placed on the backseat, and a portable CD player wedged between a scuffed, old briefcase and a battered CD storage case. It was a pit.

Reaching across from the driver’s side, Wes swept crumbs from the front seat onto the floor. Gingerly, I sat down and latched my seat belt, wrinkling my nose with distaste. The metal was sticky.

Wes revved his motor and accelerated as if he were on a race track, then, when he came up on a slower moving vehicle or red light, pounded the brakes to stop. And he did it over and over again. It was nauseating. Reaching Portsmouth Circle, a rotary that served as the unofficial entrance to the city from the interstate, felt like a major accomplishment. Wes swung south on 1-95, and at the next exit, reeled east toward the ocean.

“If we’re going far,” I said, turning to look at him, “let me drive.”

“What’s the matter?”

“You drive like a maniac.”

Amazement showed on his face. “What are you talking about? I’m a good driver.”

“Oh, God. Slow down, will you? You’re not a good driver—you’re a jerky driver. If you don’t stop it, I’m going to get sick.”

“Okay, okay.”

He slowed to a reasonable speed, but his driving stayed staccato. I readjusted my grip on the overhead handle, and hung on.

Fifteen minutes later he slammed to a stop at the edge of the dunes in Hampton Beach. The sky was overcast and thick. It looked like rain. I held on to the dashboard for a moment, relieved that we were uninjured and no longer moving.

“Wow. Whatever’s going on, I sure as shooting hope it’s worth what I just went through on that ride.”

“So,” Wes said with faux concern, “are you always cranky before breakfast or only when you’re with a new man?”

“Oh, God, save me from fourteen-year-old race-car drivers.”

“I’m twenty-four,” he protested.

“Well, you look and drive like you’re fourteen.”

“You’re getting old. The older you are, the younger other people look to you.”

“Did you bring me to the beach so you could insult me?”

“No,” he said, opening his door and stepping out. “That’s just an added benefit. Come on, don’t get me started. Follow me.” He handed me the portable CD player he’d extracted from the backseat. “Take this.”

“What in the world? ...” I began, but he disappeared behind the car and opened the trunk. He pulled out a scraggly woolen blanket and a scuffed red-and-white Playmate cooler and locked the car.

“Ready?” he asked.

“For what?”

“Come on.” He scrambled up a dune, pushing through tall grass, and with a sigh and a shrug, I followed.

Wes headed toward the ocean, and looked around. He selected a fairly level spot about ten feet from the surf. Snapping the blanket to lay it flat, he smoothed it out and sat down, gesturing that I should join him. The wind off the blue-black ocean was bitter, and I shivered as I sat down, lifting the collar of my pea coat and rubbing my hands together.

As I got settled, I looked around. Wind-whipped whitecaps rippled across the ocean surface. The beach was mostly deserted. I saw someone sitting about a hundred yards to the north, huddled in a lawn chair staring at the ocean, and far to the south, a man was throwing driftwood to a golden retriever. Each time the man tossed the branch, the dog dashed away and retrieved it, trotting with a jaunty swagger, to drop it at his master’s feet.

Wes turned on the CD player, and Frank Sinatra began to sing “Fly Me to the Moon.” “I have no reason to think you’re wired, and I damn well know I’m not,” he whispered, leaning toward me. “But I’m going to be quoting a police source, so I can’t take any chances. With the ocean sounds and the CD, if we whisper, we should be fine.”

“Are you serious? You think I might be wearing a wire? You’ve been watching too many movies.” I noted that even as I expressed incredulity, I whispered.

Wes leaned back, resting his weight on the palms of his hands. “You might be right. So what? Indulge me, okay?”

I shrugged. “Sure.”

He pulled a thermos of coffee, two plastic mugs, and a box of doughnuts out of the Playmate. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten a doughnut. I took a honey-glazed and nibbled. It didn’t taste like food. It tasted like dessert. Wes took an oversized bite of a chocolate-glazed doughnut. He used the back of his hand to wipe away smudged chocolate from his cheek.

“What do you want to hear about first?” he asked. “Phone, prints, or background?”

“It doesn’t matter. Phone, I guess. Were you able to learn who called Mr. Grant?”

Wes nodded. “Basically, no one.”

“What do you mean, ‘basically’?”

“His daughter, a widow named Dana Cabot who lives in Boston, called several times. So did his next-door neighbor and his lawyer, Epps. Also, there were two business calls.” He shrugged. “Other than that, no one but you and another dealer, Barney Troudeaux, called him during the last month.”

“What kind of business calls?”

Wes reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a single sheet of lined paper, folded into a small square. Consulting it, he said, “His doctor’s office. And Taffy Pull, a candy store on the beach.” He refolded the paper and placed it on his lap.

“Nothing there seems to stand out, does it?”

He shrugged. “Not to me. The police are checking them out.”

“Do you know what they’ve learned?”

Wes pursed his lips. “No.”

“Your source won’t tell you?”

“My source says he—or she—doesn’t know.”

“Do you believe him—or her?”

He turned both hands up and gave me a “my guess is as good as yours” look, then smiled, and said, “I’ll keep pushing.”

I nodded. It was hard to imagine that calls from a candy store or his doctor were relevant. The former was probably a sales call, and the latter was most likely routine.

“Did Mr. Grant make any calls?” I asked, thinking that perhaps he’d initiated one or more of those calls.

“No one but you, Troudeaux, and his lawyer.”

“Not even his daughter?”

“Nope. No other calls.”

“Was he in frequent touch with his lawyer? Mr. Epps?”

“Doesn’t look like it. There were a couple of calls, but earlier in the month. Nothing from, or to, Epps in the last week.”

“How about Barney? When did Barney last call him, or vice versa?”

He smiled. “Are you ready? Troudeaux called Mr. Grant at seven-thirty-two the night before he died.”

“The night before,” I repeated. I turned toward the ocean, and watched as water rushed in, then slowly seeped away. “What does he say they talked about?”

“Changing an appointment.”

“What appointment?”

“Did you know Mr. Grant kept a diary?”

“Yes. My appointment to see him the morning he was killed was in it.”

“Right. Well, apparently, so was Barney Troudeaux’s. Troudeaux had an appointment to see Mr. Grant the morning he died, too.”

“That morning? You’re kidding!”

“Yeah, at nine. Except that Barney said he called Mr. Grant and changed it.”

“How do you know?”

“My source tells me that Barney said that Mr. Grant agreed to change the appointment to three that afternoon.”

“Why the last-minute change?”

“A board meeting for the association Barney heads up.”

“But he would have known about a board meeting sooner than the night before,” I objected.

Wes shrugged. “Looks like he screwed up and double-booked himself.”

“Were there any calls on the day Mr. Grant was killed?”

“Yeah. From you, his daughter, and his neighbor. That’s it.”

“But then how did Barney learn that Mr. Grant was killed?”

“I don’t know. Does it matter?”

I shrugged. “I’m just wondering ... did he show up at the Grant house for his appointment that afternoon?”

Wes looked intrigued, wiped his chocolate-sticky fingers on his jeans, and wrote a note on the folded square of paper. “Good question,” he said. “I’ll check it out.”