"Once we get to Brisebois, we'll need to comb through the first victim's house thoroughly," Sterling said. "It’s been four days since the initial crew passed through there, so we’ll essentially be playing clean-up…looking for things others might have missed."
Vivian knew this and, oddly enough, enjoyed the idea of such a challenge. Still rather new to this gig, she often found it hard to balance herself on the line of wanting to solve a puzzle and being driven by the desire to save lives.
“If the victims are linked,” she said, “their murders could just be a smokescreen.
“How so?”
“The murders could be a distraction from the killer's real motive. It might really be just about the art. I know I’ve met some people in my past who would have easily killed someone for the two and a half million dollars Nina Caldwell’s painting will fetch.”
Sterling nodded. “Yeah, same here."
Their conversation dwindled as the train continued its journey, the landscape shifting from urban sprawl to pastoral scenes. As the countryside zipped by, she found herself wanting to once again focus on the fact that she should be on the way to the city of Geneva to meet Olivia—even though Olivia had no idea. But she pushed it away, finding it easier to set it aside the deeper into the case they got.
The rhythmic clacking of the train against the tracks formed a steady backdrop as Vivian looked through the case files on her phone with her forearms resting on the fold-out table that sat between them. Her eyes, sharp and unyielding, scoured the documents for any errant strand that could weave the two murders together.
She eyed the photograph of Peter Hart, which appeared to have been plucked from a website. He was dressed in a tailored suit, the kind that whispered of private gallery viewings and exclusive auctions.
“No forced entry at Nina’s,” she said quietly, as if to herself. “None at Peter Hart’s either. And paintings taken from both locations. For Peter, though, we do at least have a name for the painting. Morning Crown by the artist Claude Birsch.”
“You know it?” Sterling asked.
“Can’t say that I do. You have to remember, Sterling, I was an art thief not a connoisseur.”
“Yeah, but surely you picked up on a few things, right? Sort of like an accidental education.”
She thought about it for a moment, recalling her long, intense study sessions not only of the museums and galleries she’d broken into, but the interests of her buyers. “Yeah, I suppose I did learn quite a bit.”
“Anything to help with this case?”
“Maybe. I just…nah, probably not.”
“You never know unless you share it, Fox. What? What are you thinking?”
"Why take just one piece? The single piece that they’re taking from the homes feels like it’s personal, not just valuable. You heard Nina’s friends. That painting had a personal connection with Nina. I wonder if the same might turn out to be true with Peter Hart."
Sterling nodded, his brow furrowed. They both knew that art like this didn't just vanish into thin air; it ended up in the hands of collectors who valued secrecy as much as the art itself. And for a personal item to be taken implied that the killer might have some sort of connection to both victims, enough of a connection to know about the close personal ties between the buyers and the paintings.
But Vivian knew that might be getting a little too far ahead of themselves. First, they needed to have a look around Peter’s home and speak with his wife.
So she continued to look through the case files, finding that Peter Hart’s life seemed clean—almost sterile. No criminal history. No known enemies. He sat on the boards of art organizations. He made donations to children’s programs related to the arts.
She leaned back in her seat, the leather creaking under her weight. The train car swayed gently, lulling passengers into a sense of comfort and trust. But for Vivian, the wheels in her mind churned tirelessly.
She did not nap, but she did feel as if she zoned out, lost in the intricacies of the case, trying to figure out the link between panting and murder, between value and the dark desires of the human heart. It was odd to view art through a new lens, from a new angle. But it was also quite interesting, helping her to understand the lure of a beautiful piece of art through the eyes of someone other than a greedy collector or a trained art thief.
Eventually, the train rolled to a gentle stop. Vivian and Sterling disembarked and wasted no time hailing a cab outside of the train station. Compared to Lyon, the station was small and the flurry of activity outside of it was little more than a slight buzz.
This made catching a cab very easy. As they filed into the back seat, the driver said something in French. It was a quick and rather hard sound; Vivian could only make out a few words. Sterling, however, seemed to understand the man perfectly well. They conversed for a bit before Sterling gave the man the address of the Hart residence.
The little town of Brisebois was quaint and idyllic. A simple Main Street thoroughfare emptied out into a mostly rural area where just a few shops were on the outskirts. This area gave way to wide open spaces, almost painfully pretty and green.
Vivian was so taken by the beauty of the town that she didn’t realize they’d come to the address until the cab slowed and turned onto a stretch of gravel lane. The cab rolled to a gentle stop, gravel crunching under the tires as Vivian and Sterling glimpsed the Hart residence for the first time. It stood proudly and a bit rugged, an architectural portrait of old money and aesthetic appreciation, nestled on an expanse of land that stretched like a green sea to the horizon. The architecture was classic, pillars flanking the front door as if guarding the lonely widow within.
"Looks like something out of a period drama," Sterling muttered, paying the driver.
"Or a tragedy," Vivian replied. She stepped out of the cab, the air crisp, carrying the faint scent of flowers from the meticulously maintained gardens surrounding the home. Sterling was right, it did look like a set piece from a movie; all that was missing was some slightly daunting ambient music for the score.
They walked up onto the porch, a simple concrete slab with gray and white stone inlaid. Vivian’s hand hesitated above the brass knocker. The knocker itself was shaped in the visage of some ancient deity, one with wide and eerie eyes. The sound it made was like the breaking of bones, a menacing sound that, in Vivian’s opinion, did not bode well for the visit ahead of her.
Within about ten or fifteen seconds, the door creaked open, revealing a woman whose sorrow was etched into her features more profoundly than any artist could capture. She looked sad and hollow. When she opened the door, it appeared as if she was leaning on it for support. Vivian guessed her to be in her mid-thirties, which would have made her eight to ten years younger than Peter.
“Bonjour?” the woman asked.
“Hi, are you Mrs. Hart?” Vivian asked, hoping the woman spoke at least a bit of English.
“Yes, Evelyn Hart.”
“Mrs. Hart, I'm Vivian Fox, and this is my partner, Michael Sterling," she said softly, flashing her badge. “We’re here on Interpol business and were wondering if you’d allow us to ask some questions about what happened to your husband.”
Evelyn Hart thought about it for a moment. Her posture and sad eyes indicated that talking about the murder of her husband was perhaps the last thing she wanted. But she slowly nodded her head and opened the door wider to allow them inside.
“Thank you,” Vivian and Sterling said at the same time.
As they crossed the threshold, Vivian noticed that Sterling hung back slightly, allowing the women space.
“First of all,” Vivian said, “I’m incredibly sorry for your loss.”
“That is kind of you to say. The funeral was yesterday and…and Christ, I still feel him in this house.”
Evelyn Hart’s English was quite good, though a bit clipped. There was no hesitation as she struggled to find the right words.
She led them into a den area. Ornate furniture was positioned to face a large fireplace. A massive painting hung over it, a depiction of the Paris skyline, done in a strange and streaky abstract fashion.
“We’ll do our best to keep this brief and to the point,” Vivian said. “We have reason to believe that a recent murder in Lyon may be connected to your husband’s own murder. I can’t imagine the number of questions you’ve already answered for the police, but I hope you can manage just a few more for us.”
“That’s fine. I…I’m willing to go through anything just to get some answers.”
“We appreciate that. First and foremost, I wonder if you can think of anyone who Peter may have recently had ill words with. Anyone you can think of that might have actually wanted this to happen.”
“No. It’s a question the police asked many times, but I could think of no one.”
“Would you mind walking us through the moments leading up to the discovery of his body?”
Vivian wished she was better with terminology. Surely there was some nicer, more comfortable way to easy this poor woman into such questions.
“I’d come home from town, from my job. I work part-time at the library. Not really a job, even. Just something to do. When I got home, I called out to Peter to ask if he wanted to head outside for a walk. It was a gorgeous day and Peter had been walking a lot recently. He said he wanted to drop a few pounds. When he didn’t answer, I…”
She trailed off here for a moment, fighting with emotion for the first time since they’d arrived.
“We can wait a bit if you need some time,” Sterling said.
“No, no…it’s okay. I…I walked to his study because I knew he’d been working that day. He has an office in town, and another one in Lyon, actually, but he’d been working out of his office here at home for the last few weeks. Which I really liked. So I went in to ask him about the walk and he was face down in front of his desk. There was…there was blood everywhere.”
Vivian recalled the details of the case file. Peter Hart had been found dead in his office, in front of his desk. There had been a knife planted high in the center of his back, as well as two other stab wounds to his right side.
“And the police files indicated that there was no sign of breaking and entering,” Vivian commented.
“That’s right.”
“And out front, on the porch, I didn’t see any sort of security system. Is that correct?”
“That’s right. It’s one of those things we kept meaning to get around to but just never did.”
“Nothing inside, either?” Sterling asked.
“No…”
“So, Mrs. Hart, what can you tell us about Peter?” Vivian asked. “How would you describe your husband to a complete stranger?”
Evelyn seemed baffled over the question at first, as if she wasn’t quite sure how it was relevant. But then a smile slowly came to her face and she did her best.
"Peter was so much more than an art collector," Evelyn began, her voice gaining strength as she spoke of her late husband. "He was passionate about sharing his love for art with others. He did everything he could to ensure that local museums thrived, just like those in Paris. He wasn’t much of an artist himself, though he did try on occasion. But I believe he was fine with just being a massive supporter of the arts. He believed art was meant to be experienced by everyone, not locked away in private collections. That's why he donated so generously."
"Sounds like he made quite an impact," Sterling said.
"Oh, he did," Evelyn nodded solemnly. "He wanted to democratize beauty, to let it breathe and inspire. This house... these artworks... they were his life."
Vivian resisted the urge to glance at Sterling; the weight of their task felt heavier in this shrine to a man who had lived for beauty. She cleared her throat, refocusing on Evelyn.
“Can you take us to his office?” Vivian asked.
The slight smile instantly disappeared from Evelyn's face, but she got to her feet right away. She nodded and waved them on to follow her. "Of course. This way."
Evelyn led the way through a series of interconnected rooms, each more glamorous than the last. Some rooms had the look and feel of something right out of Versailles, while others were more like a small woodland cabin. Yet, oddly enough, it all worked. The same was true of the art. There were paintings all along the hall. Some of them were clearly very well-preserved prints of more famous works—a Rembrandt here, a Caravaggio there—all a testament to Peter Hart's impeccable taste. Evelyn moved along with a sad sort of pride, her hands occasionally brushing against the gilded frames.
After leading them down a small hallway, Evelyn led them through a wide doorway. It was a very stately-looking office—professional but also quite inviting. The room itself was roughly the size of Vivian's entire apartment. There was a thin bookcase against the wall directly beside the doorway, but other than that, the walls were adorned with more paintings. And Vivian's somewhat trained eye could tell that these were the real deal. She saw nothing completely out of this world or jaw-dropping in terms of notoriety, but she could tell that every painting in Peter Hart's office was an original.
But it was not just the art that caught Vivian's attention; it was the precision with which it had been displayed — measured, deliberate, perhaps a reflection of Peter Hart himself.
But of course, there was a painting missing. The empty spot stood out like rot along the walls, an open space between two paintings on the far wall.
The floor to the office was wooden, with a large Oriental rug placed under the massive oak desk. Vivian smelled something like light pine and a stringent cleaning scent. She assumed someone in the past few days had cleaned up Peter’s blood.
“These are all original paintings, right?” Vivian asked.
“Yes, they are. These were his favorites.”
“And the one that’s missing…did he care for it more than the others?”
“I know he used to. Lord knows he spent a fortune on the damned thing. I’ve been assuming that whoever killed him must have done it for that painting.”
“Would you happen to know the name of the painting that was stolen?”
“Yes. It was ‘Le Compagnon de Chagrin.'” Her eyes lingered on an empty space on the wall where the echo of the missing masterpiece loomed large.
"’Le Compagnon de Chagrin?’" Vivian echoed, feeling a cold finger trail down her spine. Something about the title nudged at her consciousness, a disquieting sense of recognition. Why did that sound familiar? And why did her stomach feel as if it had dropped as low as it could go?
Le Compagnon de Chagrin…translated to English as The Companion of Sorrow.
"Can you describe it?" she asked, trying to keep her voice steady.
Again, Evelyn didn't seem to understand the nature of the question she was being asked. Surely, she was more concerned with finding the person who'd killed her husband than the painting that had been taken. Even still, she pulled her phone from the folds of her skirt, her fingers deftly navigating a search. After a few moments, she turned the screen toward Vivian.
The breath hitched in Vivian's throat as she looked at Evelyn’s screen. ‘Le Compagnon de Chagrin’ was hauntingly familiar. The woman…the frown…the mirror.
It was the very same painting she’d noticed hanging in Nina Caldwell's house.
"Dammit," Vivian muttered under her breath, her mind racing with the implications.
"Is something wrong?" Evelyn inquired, a frown creasing her brow.
“What is it, Fox?” Sterling asked.
"Peter's painting... ‘Le Compagnon de Chagrin.’ It was at Nina Caldwell's house. It was hanging in the same room as the painting that was stolen."
Sterling’s eyes went wide for a moment before he was able to rein in his surprise. “You’re certain?”
“Positive.”
They shared a moment of silent understanding. This was no coincidence; it was a calculated move by someone who wanted to weave these tragedies together. It was a breadcrumb that had intentionally been left behind.
"I…I don’t understand,” Evelyn said. “What’s going on?”
Vivian let Sterling answer the question, not wanting to reveal more than she should about an active case. She still felt slightly chilled by this revelation, a feeling that seemed to intensify the more she considered the implications. She walked over to a window situated directly behind the desk. The curtains were drawn back to reveal the Hart estate's expansive grounds, where the shadows of afternoon stretched long and thin like the fingers of an unseen hand.
Sterling was done with his brief explanation. "Mrs. Hart," Vivian began, her voice steady despite the eerie feeling that had taken over. "Did anyone take particular interest in the painting before it was stolen?"
“I don’t think so. I mean, Peter was always joking about all the people he had on a list that wanted to buy some of these paintings. But he never seemed afraid or worried about it. He always mentioned it sort of like a joke, you know?”
“But no one ever truly hounded him about it?”
Evelyn paused, a distant look clouding her eyes as she delved into her memories. "Ah, oui. There was one man," she said finally. "This was months ago, though. Maybe even as much as a year.”
“Do you know his name?” Sterling pressed.
“Calvin Marks. He’s…he’s a local gentleman. He owns a small gallery space downtown. It hasn't been doing well, I've heard." She wrung her hands, the fabric of her dress whispering with the movement. "He came by a few times in the past, asking about the painting. Said it would be a centerpiece that might help his gallery start to flourish. When it was clear Peter had no intention of selling, Calvin even asked about renting it out. Like a lease, I suppose.”
"Did Peter ever agree to it?" Vivian asked, her gaze locked on Evelyn's face, searching for any flicker of doubt.
"No, he didn't," Evelyn replied. "Peter loved that painting. He wouldn't part with it, not even temporarily."
“Do you recall things with Mr. Marks and Peter getting heated?” Sterling asked.
“Oh, no. Nothing like that. Of course, I suppose it could have; but if so, Peter never told me.”
“And you said he lives locally?” Vivian asked.
“Yes, right here in town. I’m not positive, but I believe his apartment is right above his gallery.”
"Any chance you have his contact information?"
“I don’t, but I feel certain Peter would have had it in…”
Again, Evelyn had to stop herself before getting too emotional. Rather than try to carry on, she went to her husband's desk and opened his laptop. After logging in and clicking the mouse a few times, she found what she was looking for. Vivian took a quick peek and saw that it was a contacts list from her husband's digital ledger.
“Right here,” she said, pointing to a listing in the ledger, labeled: Marks, Calvin.
Vivian typed the address and number into her phone. “Thank you, Mrs. Hart.”
"Of course," Evelyn said.
"Would you excuse us for a moment?" Sterling asked gently, signaling Vivian to step out into the hall with him.
Vivian followed Sterling just out of earshot, her heart pounding with a sense of urgency. "What’s up?” she asked, wondering if she’d perhaps done something wrong. Maybe she’d asked too many questions, or maybe she’d asked leading questions.
“This connection,” Sterling said. “Hart’s stolen painting…you’re one hundred percent sure it was in Nina Caldwell’s place?”
“Yes.”
“Could it have been a print?”
Vivian thought about it for a moment before shaking her head. “I’m fairly certain it was an original.”
“How big was it?”
“Not too big. Maybe a foot and a half tall.”
Sterling considered something for a moment, nodding. “Do you mind wrapping up here with Mrs. Hart? I want to call Detective Lombard and see what we can do to nail down the name of Nina’s missing painting.”
“Sure thing.”
She stepped back into Peter’s office while Sterling made his way down the hallway to make his call. Even before Vivian spoke to Evelyn again, her eyes went to the empty spot on the wall, curious.
“One last question, Mrs. Hart. I wonder, in the chaos of everything that has happened here, did you notice any paintings anywhere in the house that didn’t belong? Maybe one you’ve never noticed before?”
Evelyn shook her head and then smiled in an almost guilty way. “No. I would have certainly noticed. There have been spans of time since he died that I did nothing but walk around the house, looking at the paintings and thinking of him. I’ve looked at each and every one of these paintings at least a dozen times in the past few days. If there was a new or different one, I would have certainly seen it.” She cocked her head, puzzled. “Why do you ask?”
“Just checking,” Vivian said.
But still, her eyes wandered back to that blank space where Le Compagnon de Chagrin had once hung—staring as if all the answers they might need might be hidden there, where an empty space had been left behind.