Dead men are heavier than broken hearts.
—Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep
THE RETURN TRIP to Quindicott started out in the strangest silence.
Numbed by Old Walt’s death, Brainert and Seymour actually stopped sparring. Instead, the two stared at the road ahead, lost in their own thoughts.
I was alone in the back seat, but there was no privacy for me.
Another cornpone cop buying a flimsy frame job, griped the ghost.
Maybe not, Jack. You heard Sheriff Taft. The state police are going to investigate.
Yeah, that sure gives me hope.
Why the sarcasm? Don’t you believe they care?
Care? Doll, smarten up. After a few long, hard years on the job, what most coppers care about ain’t a mystery. If they can’t close a case quick, they’ll use a big broom to sweep it under the rug.
I refuse to think the worst. We should at least give them a chance.
Just then, Brainert cleared his throat and turned to Seymour. “I noticed you took a rather long time to fill out that police report. What were you writing, the sequel to War and Peace?”
Behind the wheel, Seymour shrugged. “I was only doing what Ilsa, the she-wolf of the Blackstone jackboots, ordered me to. I wrote down everything that I witnessed inside that house this morning.”
“But you barely stepped through the door. What could you possibly have ‘witnessed’?”
“More than you, Brainiac. You wouldn’t even cross Walt’s porch, yet I watched you scribbling away for ten solid minutes.”
Brainert grew somber. “Along with accurate testimony, I provided my extemporaneous thoughts on Mr. Waverly’s demise. And in deference to the occasion, I felt the statement should include a few stanzas of Dickinson’s posthumously published ‘Because I could not stop for Death.’”
“Oh, that should go over big.” Seymour caught my eye in the rearview. “So, Pen. You were in that house a long time with the sheriff. What did you find in there?”
“Enough to get me thinking . . .”
For the first time, I told my friends about Walt’s late-night phone call and his unexpected visitor, the same person who had wanted to buy Harriet’s painting.
Brainert turned in his seat. “So you think Walt and this buyer quarreled over that deranged self-portrait? And because of that, Walt ended up dead?”
“I honestly don’t know. I wish Walt could tell us . . .” Silently, I even asked Jack if he could find a way to contact him (on the other side). The ghost was not amused.
I’m a spirit, not a psychic, Jack reminded me. It wasn’t the first time.
Whatever cosmic purgatory Jack was confined to, he was there with no companionship. Except for me, apparently.
“I don’t understand the value of Walt’s notebooks,” Brainert argued. “Why would anybody want them?”
“I’ll bet I know,” Seymour said. “You saw how pushy Walt was yesterday, trying to sell us everything in the place. He probably did the same thing with this disappointed buyer, applied pressured to buy a substitute item. And then I’ll bet Walt and this buyer started arguing. The buyer could have caused the accident in anger and then panicked and took the notebooks because by then, Walt had already made the buyer sign their name and address inside the book, right next to the painting that Walt was taking down. Get it? You see? The buyer’s name would have been linked to that painting. Bingo! Culpability! I’ll bet this person was trying to cover up any evidence they’d been there!”
Brainert turned around again. “Pen, is that what the sheriff thinks?”
“No. In fact, I could tell she thought I was making too much of the missing notebooks. And the late-night visitor, for that matter. In her view, Walt’s death was no more than a tragic accident.”
“And you believe that, too?” Seymour asked.
“Not after last night’s phone call,” I admitted. “The most logical motive I can see is based on what Walt told me. He was adamant that his sales stay private.”
Brainert raised an eyebrow. “Over his dead body?”
“It certainly looks that way to me. And my bet is the visitor didn’t take Walt’s no for an answer. I think those notebooks were taken for one reason—to discover what Walt refused to reveal. Who bought the Harriet McClure painting.”
“That makes sense for the blue notebook,” Brainert agreed. “But why take the others, too?”
“I’m not sure . . .”
All of us in the van fell silent at that mystery. All but one.
The answer’s there, honey, if you ask the right questions.
What do you mean?
Ask yourself, what’s inside those notebooks? And then ask why a person so interested in one particular painting would want all that information. Take your answers. Add them up, and—
“You’re right, Jack!”
“Who’s Jack?” Brainert asked.
“And what’s he right about?” Seymour added.
I thought fast. “Jack is a kind of expression, that’s all.”
“It is?” Brainert’s eyes narrowed skeptically. “Since when?”
“Don’t let him bait you, Pen,” Seymour replied smugly. “The professor’s rarified circles don’t use urban slang. In other words, he don’t know jackshi—”
“That’s not what I meant,” I quickly clarified. “I was just excited about a possible theory on Walt’s missing notebooks.”
“So tell us,” Brainert pressed. “What’s your theory?”
“It makes sense if you think it through. The red and black notebooks were packed with information about Walt’s past sales over the years. The person visiting Walt was very interested in Harriet’s painting. Those older notebooks of Walt’s might have been taken to trace back who owned that painting before Walt did.”
To my surprise, Seymour laughed. “Come on, Pen. Why would anyone be so obsessed about an obscure self-portrait? Or want to trace who owned it in the past? Harriet isn’t famous. The painting isn’t worth all that much.”
“And it’s supposed to be cursed,” Brainert pointed out.
Seymour waved his hand. “I don’t believe any of that crap.”
“I don’t either. Not as a rule. But it is rather coincidental that within hours of Walt Waverly selling it, he ended up dead.”
“Oh, come on, Brainpan,” Seymour scoffed. “You can’t pin Walt’s death on Harriet. If that painting were cursed, then answer me this: Why didn’t anything bad happen to the man during all those years he owned it, huh?”
“Something bad did happen,” I pointed out.
“What?” Brainert and Seymour asked in duet.
“Don’t you remember? Walt told us himself. Three years ago, his wife helped him move Harriet McClure’s self-portrait out of their attic and into their library. He said it was ‘the last good day’ before she got sick.”
For a long minute, we all sat in tense silence.
Finally, Seymour shrugged. “Well, I’m not worried. Harriet and me, we’re completely simpatico.”
“Or completely unhinged,” Brainert muttered.
There’s one more thing you amateurs are forgetting, Jack said.
Since I was the only one who could hear him, I had to be the one who asked. What?
If last night’s visitor has the old man’s blue notebook, then it means our murder suspect knows where your mailman lives.
The ghost was right.
“Seymour, listen to me. This is important. You need to be careful from now on—”
“I’m watching the road!”
“No, I mean, about the painting.”
“What? The curse again? I told you, I don’t believe—”
“Not the curse. If anyone contacts you with an offer for that painting, you need to alert the state police.”
“Aw, don’t worry about me, Pen. I have no intention of selling Harriet. And anyone who comes to my place looking to take her from me is going to meet my little friend.”
“Who?” Brainert smirked. “Your parrot?”
“No, the Louisville Slugger leaning next to my front door.”