They drove north again. Into the lowering gloom of evening. Teresa had been leaving it to Dave to speak first, her ire and anxiety growing with every silent mile. Until she realized that he was giving her room. It was her family, not his, and he was letting her sit with these new and wicked truths for as long as she needed.
“How much of that did you already know?” she finally asked.
“First,” he said, “don’t assume it’s all true. We had her cornered, and thieves are liars.”
“People are liars.”
“Well. Yes.”
“Do you believe her?”
“For the most part,” Dave replied. “There’s something between Audrey and Philip. Something unhealthy. And we already knew that Philip and Pete had tangled. What I couldn’t make sense of was Pete’s condition. You never know about people, but I just couldn’t see Phil putting that beating on him.”
“Freddie,” she said. “That’s where he was going in such a hurry yesterday.”
“That’s what I’m thinking also.”
“So put this together for me.”
“Not to lay any ‘mystery man’ bullshit on you,” Dave replied, “but I’m more interested in your take.”
“Starting where?”
“Good question. The more you peel it back, the more there is.”
“Back to my grandfather buying that painting. And what it did to my father, and Philip, and James. And then what Freddie and Phil did to Audrey.”
“Let’s not...” Dave sighed. “I realize it takes a lot of pressure off to blame everything on the painting, but families have been screwed up for—”
“Fine,” she said. “Take Jenny at her word. She blabs to Pete about Philip and Audrey, and now he has something. He doesn’t have to wait for the will to get settled and Ilsa to pay him. So he calls Philip and says what’s it worth to you for me to keep quiet?”
“Good. And Philip says?”
“Fuck off,” Teresa replied. “If I know Philip. Or anyway, whatever he said wasn’t good enough for Pete, because...”
“Because it doesn’t end there,” Dave supplied. “Next thing, Philip tells Fred to go back to California. And tells me to go to the house so that Fred will leave.”
“Right,” she said, slapping the seat. “He’s trying to keep Pete and Fred apart. Knowing Pete will go to him next.”
“But Fred won’t leave. Pete calls him. Says meet me somewhere private and I’ll tell you a thing you need to hear.”
“Jesus,” Teresa breathed. “He must have lost his mind, or forgotten what kind of guy Fred is. Pete wouldn’t be able to get to the blackmail part. As soon as he made the accusation, Freddie would go crazy. Beat the living crap out of him.”
“Exactly,” Dave said. “So badly that he might think later he killed him.”
“But it’s Philip who called us.”
“Because where does Freddie go next?”
“God. To Philip’s house, to see if it’s true. And before Philip can deny it, Fred knocks him around, too. And somewhere in there he tells him about leaving Pete for dead. So Philip calls you, and... Okay, but where are they both now?”
“Another good question,” Dave replied. “Philip was okay by the second time we spoke, so I assume he talked Fred down. Otherwise we would have found him beaten to death.”
“But Fred never came back to the house. Where did he go?”
“My guess would be on a major bender.”
“And Philip went looking for him?”
“Maybe.”
Teresa felt herself getting too agitated and took a deep breath, letting it out slow. A deer stood on the grassy margin by the road, watching them drive by.
“What do we do? Do we call Laurena, or Cynthia?”
“Is anyone going to thank you for those calls?”
“So we do nothing?”
“I don’t know, Teresa. I’m thinking it through.”
“And what about Ilsa?” she demanded. “She connects everything. Don’t tell me you believe she got tipsy and blurted out that secret. You don’t know the woman, but Jenny Mulhane is the last person she would pick as a friend.”
“I think we have to consider it a strategic leak,” Dave agreed. “She knew Jenny would tell her brother, and Pete would try to use it.”
“But how does Pete putting the screws to Philip help her?”
Dave nodded and tapped the steering wheel.
“Do you believe Ilsa was surprised at inheriting the estate?”
“I did at first,” Teresa answered. “I don’t see how I can anymore. Okay, he left most of the paintings to institutions, so she might have figured the other money went to charity. But he must have told her she would be taken care of. Maybe she intuited that the less the children got, the more she did.”
“So she encouraged Alfred in cutting them off.”
“Why stop there?” Teresa twisted sideways to face him. “Maybe it was her idea. She came up with the reasons, and reinforced them in his mind, day after day. They were alone together for years. He trusted her more than anyone, wife and children included. Maybe she’s behind everything. Including bumping off Alfred when she got tired of waiting.”
“Slow down,” Dave said. “You’re doing well, but don’t get carried away. If that’s true, Ilsa has two problems. Pete knowing her secret. Which we know bothered her enough to pay off his sister for more than a decade. And the Morse children banding together to contest the will. She needs to deal with both.”
“On the will, she knows Philip is the key. Fred and Mom wouldn’t have challenged on their own. Why doesn’t she threaten Phil directly?”
“Maybe it’s not her style,” Dave tried. “Or maybe she knows that Philip will call her bluff.”
“Then she knows he’ll call Pete’s bluff, as well.” She waited for a response, but Dave only looked at her. Waiting for her to see the rest. “So Pete will move on to Fred. Who Ilsa knows is violent, especially regarding his daughter.”
“You’re right that Philip is the bandleader,” Dave jumped in, “but he needs your mother and Fred on board to prevail. At the very least, Ilsa blows up that alliance.”
“Without getting her hands dirty. And just possibly she gets Pete killed, which eliminates the other problem, as well.” It was only after she spoke it that a shiver went through Teresa. Could people be that calculating? Could Ilsa be? “Are we reaching here, Dave?”
“Yes,” he laughed. “We’re totally reaching. And it’s true that I don’t know Ilsa well, though I’ve met her a few times. Pretty tough customer.”
“It feels right to you.”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged, working a crick out of his neck. “What do you think?”
That I would rather not know any of this, Teresa mused. Why was I so determined to dig into the diseased heart of things? I could be in Butler Library now, reading about the lives of dead artists.
“That I would like to say it to her face and see how she reacts.”
“There’s an idea,” Dave said, uneasily. “She won’t return my calls. Maybe you would have better luck. But it’s a hell of thing to say to someone, Teresa.”
“We’re not going back far enough,” she replied. Facing down the one revelation she had been avoiding, without even knowing it. “Why does Ilsa have a secret at all? Why did she ask Pete about stealing the painting?”
“Yeah, I’ve been chewing on that, too. It was years ago. Maybe she was impatient for a payoff. Maybe she thought it was an evil influence.”
“Maybe she was asking for someone else.”
“Huh,” Dave said quietly. They stayed quiet for a while, the hum of the car on the road lulling them. Dave turned the headlights on. “Any idea who that would be?”
“You said there was someone you suspected for years. I assume that was the collector you met, DeGross?”
“Yes. Using Pete or one of the caterers. But after talking to the guy, I don’t know. He’s either the best actor I’ve ever met, or he’s still mourning his failure.”
“Idiot,” Teresa said wearily. “He has no idea how lucky he is.”
“You would have a hard time convincing him of that.”
“I’ve been dreaming of my dad a lot lately.”
“Yeah? Happy dreams, I hope.”
“I don’t do happy dreams. They’re pretty intense, though I would probably be upset if they stopped. They’re all I have of him.”
“What happens in these dreams?” Dave asked.
“There are different ones. But I keep coming back to a dream where we talk about the painting. Where he tries to make me look at it.”
“Did you two ever talk about it? Outside of dreams?”
“We talked about Goya.” She closed her eyes and reached back for those exchanges. Memory was such a liar. “I know he said that I shouldn’t be afraid of the portrait. I don’t remember anything more specific. Nothing I trust.”
“What does that mean?”
“I have conversations with my father. In my head. Sometimes sleeping and sometimes when I’m awake. Do you think that’s strange?”
“Not at all,” he replied.
“Well, I do. Later, I don’t know what’s memory, what’s dream, what I made up. I’ve seen him, too. In museums, in train stations, on crowded streets.”
“I’m sure that’s also completely normal.”
“For a couple of years I convinced myself he was still alive. That he faked his death to escape his enemies, and now he was following me around New York. My guardian angel. But I couldn’t maintain the illusion.”
“Not that I have a problem with it,” Dave said cautiously, “but is there a reason we’re talking about your father?”
“Fred said something to me. I didn’t mention it in our information swap. It was too close to home. He said Ilsa was in love with my dad.”
“Uh-huh. I see why that would be weird for you.”
“And you see why I’m mentioning it now.”
“He’s obsessed with the painting. She’s obsessed with him. It works. Asking Pete about stealing it was totally out of character for Ilsa. Love makes us do strange things.”
“You probably know this already, since you see right through me.”
“On the contrary, you are one of the hardest people to read that I’ve met.”
“Really?” That perked her up. Why? Why should it please her to be opaque? And could she back out of this confession now? No, she could not. “I’ve given you these bullshit reasons why I want to know the truth. I’m worried about my family and blah-blah. The fact is I’ve been estranged from them for fifteen years. Not completely, but a bond was broken after the theft. Before last week, my mother had not been to one Morse family event in all that time. It has to do with most of them suspecting my father. All I’ve ever really wanted to do was prove he was innocent.”
“Okay,” Dave admitted. “I actually did know that.”
“Instead, we seem to be closing in on the opposite. That he did it.”
“My problem with your father as thief is the same as my problem with DeGross,” Dave said. “The man I interviewed did not seem like a man hiding something. He seemed like a man whose best friend had died.”
Sad as the words were, they lifted Teresa’s mood more than anything had in weeks. So much so that she wanted to lean over and kiss him. On the cheek.
“Maybe he was upset about Pete taking the rap.”
“Please, don’t take offense,” Dave said. “But was your father the type to get upset about the Pete Mulhanes of the world?”
“He wasn’t a bad guy,” Teresa protested. “He wasn’t like Philip. But when he really wanted something, not much stood in his way. So you’re probably right.”
They drove in silence for a while as dusk turned into dark.
“Do you know where in Pennsylvania Ilsa’s sister lives?” Teresa asked.
“Yes, more or less. Thought of dropping in on them myself, but we don’t know if she’s still there.”
“From here, we can’t be that far away, right?”
“A lot closer than we were in Owl’s Point.”
Teresa slid the phone from her jacket pocket and began to dial.
“You have her number?” Dave asked.
“Mitchell does.”
“He’s going to give it to you?”
“Yes,” Teresa said, without a hint of doubt. “He is.”