O' Artful Death Part 14

Then she poured herself a scotch and put on her favorite flannel pajamas. Comfortable and warm, she stood in front of the bay window in her little living room looking out over the square. She'd been living on Russell Street so long that she'd come to know the scene by heart, the neon-signed diner and the VFW hall across the way.

Down below, pedestrians crisscrossed the square. A couple looked for cars, then dashed across the street and disappeared into The Auld Sod, the best Irish bar in the neighborhood.

She looked down at the spot where Ian had been standing. What did he want? She hadn't been able to shake the feeling that he had some business business in Byzantium, that he was somehow wrapped up in the mystery of Mary Denholm's death and Ruth Kimball's murder. And now he'd followed her to Boston. in Byzantium, that he was somehow wrapped up in the mystery of Mary Denholm's death and Ruth Kimball's murder. And now he'd followed her to Boston.

She remembered the credit card receipt she'd picked up accidentally with her books the day he'd driven her downtown. She'd forgotten to give it back to him, so it was still in the front pocket of her research bag. She got it out and found the name of the restaurant, "Jane's Diner," in Suffolk, a large town next to Byzantium, and saw that he'd spent $11.93 on eggs, bacon, coffee, orange juice and a cranberry m.u.f.fin. She was about to put it back when she saw the date printed in small faint purple type. It was three days before she and Toby had arrived in Byzantium.

Yet, when Patch had introduced Ian to them, he'd said he had just arrived from London. She remembered it distinctly now. Patch told them that Ian was exhausted because he'd just that day arrived from London. Sweeney couldn't imagine why Patch would have lied to them about it, so Ian must have lied to Patch.

But why?

Sweeney forced herself to stop thinking about Ian. She had the rest of Myra Benton's diary to read and she settled down on the couch. She worked her way through seemingly endless descriptions of Benton's work on a sculpture.

She had been reading for almost thirty minutes and she was growing bored of Myra Benton's confessional. There was a sly intimation of some kind of romantic adventure with a student of Gilmartin's, but no mention of J.L.B. She still hadn't reached the summer Mary died.

Finally, in May of 1890, Myra Benton was back at Byzantium.

And then: July 6, 1890-The girls and I went for a lovely picnic today at the pond and asked the Denholm girls to come along as they do not have much fun on account of their father's strictness. We brought cold meat and drank water from the little spring on the way and Ethel said it was the first picnic she had ever gone on and that she was enjoying herself immensely.It is just the time of year when the wildflowers are blooming and as we walked, we saw flowers of every variety. They were so beautiful, I could hardly believe they were of nature and we plucked them up and made little crowns for ourselves. I came upon Mary picking the petals from a daisy and saying, to herself, he loves me, he loves me not, and I asked her who her sweetheart was and she said she would not tell me and then flushed so deeply I could not help but laugh and tell her that she looked exactly like a blus.h.i.+ng bride.

The next pa.s.sage of interest was dated July twenty-sixth, 1890: M. and J.L.B. had most terrible row tonight. I was coming back from the Ladies Guild meeting at the Church and when I had brought the horses into the stable and put them away I thought I would pa.s.s by the studio and have a word with M. about my "Hermione" work, since I have been so distracted and have made no headway these last three weeks. In any case, thinking M. might have some words of advice, I took a lantern and started for the studio when I heard them screaming at each other like jealous women."I won't have it," J.L.B. called out. "It's madness, sheer madness. The deception, the lies, it's too much.""My dear man, surely you see that it is ... unavoidable." M. was far more measured than J.L.B., but still his voice rose from the studio and reached me where I stood, s.h.i.+vering on the path. I would like to say, dear diary, that I turned on my heel and went straight back to the house, but instead I waited there and eavesdropped, knowing they were too involved in the discussion to leave the studio and find me.Then, to my surprise, I heard G's voice also. He spoke softly and I could hear only the fragment of a sentence, something that sounded like "... and I wish things could be different."The three of them fought on like that for a few minutes more and I was about to go when I heard M. say something about "Mary." Mary Denholm it must have been, because J.L.B. said shortly after "the poor wretched girl, that Louis Denholm is a tyrant." They must have moved to some other part of the studio because I could not afterward hear them so clearly.I went back to the house and felt guilty all that night for listening.

M., as she already knew, was Morgan and G. was Gilmartin. And here again was the mysterious J.L.B. What did it stand for? She searched back through the entries from that summer and found only a short entry, in early May, that she had missed the first time, stating that "J.L.B. arrived from the station."

The use of the initials indicated that Myra Benton knew J.L.B. before he arrived in Byzantium, Sweeney decided. Since he appeared to be using the studio, he must have been a student who was working with Morgan.

The next entry was a few days later, on August first.

There is something the matter with M. He spent the morning away from the house, when he usually works in the early hours. I heard him tell the housemaids that he was going to Mr. Denholm's to discuss the purchase of a piece of land, but for some reason I did not believe it to be the case. While he was gone, J.L.B. sat by the window and watched the long drive up to Upper Pastures, waiting for M.'s return. When M. came back, the two of them went down to the studio-I watched from my window-and did not return for nearly two hours. After lunch, I remarked to M. that he had not worked that day, but he did not offer any explanation for his strange behavior. For his part, J.L.B. seemed moody and snappish one minute and quite elated the next.

Sweeney skimmed over the next two weeks' worth of entries, which detailed nothing much more interesting than a picnic at Winkle's Lake, a crow's nest discovered over the front door, and an angry little sentence about J.L.B. using the studio almost twenty-four hours a day and not allowing anyone else in. Then, with a sense of foreboding she read August 28, 1890. I can hardly believe what has happened. Life, so short and impermanent, has been stilled by the hand of time August 28, 1890. I can hardly believe what has happened. Life, so short and impermanent, has been stilled by the hand of time. Myra Benton had written the melodramatic words with a flourish of underlining and exclamation points. Sweeney's heart began beating faster-she held her breath.

Mary Denholm is dead!This morning, as I awoke, I heard one of the housemaids beneath my window, talking to the Denholms' house girl and she was saying that Miss Mary had disappeared the day previous. She had told her mother-the father was not to be told, because he did not approve of it-she was going to sit for Mr. Gilmartin and then to go for a bath in the river and she did not come back for dinnertime. When she had not returned by dark, one of the girls went over to Birch Lane to ask if they had seen her and he said that they had worked in his studio by the river for three hours, after which he had dismissed her. The household was up most of the night waiting for her to return, but did not alert the colony because they suspected she had merely gone off, as she sometimes did.Then, early this morning, Gilmartin rose to paint by the river and he saw her poor body and carried her out of the dark water and to her very own home, the last time ever she would enter those doors.I wept in my room and when I went downstairs, found the household deep in the throes of mourning. Mrs. M. cried that the girl was so young and should not have been allowed out swimming at all, until one of her daughters reminded her that they themselves had been out the morning before and would they die too? We a.s.sured them they would not and comforted each other as best we could. M., however, was not to be found and when I traveled down to the studio to console him, I found him hard at work, on the piece he had been at for some time, the large Narcissus for the Derringer Center in St. Louis. When I showed him that my eyes were red from weeping, he looked at me strangely and said, 'Dearest Myra, be a sensible woman. There are some things that are for the best. You must not be so sad.' I thought him cruel and heartless, told him so, and went back to the house.

August 30, 1890The events of the past 48 hours seem so strange I know not what to think of them, nor what to do. Today was the day of Mary Denholm's burial and what should we awake to but the news that J.L.B. had left before dawn for the continent!! He said good-bye to no one, according to Doris, and told her only that he had been called to Europe on business of the most serious kind. He drove himself in one of the carriages and left it at the station in Suffolk for M. to pick up later.What is there to say of the funeral? The women wept terribly. Mrs. Denholm was inconsolable, though she tried to remain calm. Dear Mary. She was a beautiful girl and so young.

Nothing about the gravestone. Surely, Myra Benton, a sculptor, would have remarked on the strange stone. Her heart pounding, Sweeney turned the page. But there wasn't anything more. The pages after that had been ripped out of the journal. The deckled edges of the old paper lay against the binding like a scar.

She grabbed the box and went through it, looking for the pages. But there wasn't anything to be found except for a little note on the library's letterhead indicating that the journal had been missing the pages when it was donated. "Donated in damaged condition," the note read, indicating the missing pages and convincing Sweeney that they weren't to be found anywhere.

It wasn't fair. Just when she'd been getting so close. She went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face to calm herself down. Why? Why did the pages have to be missing. It wasn't fair, G.o.dd.a.m.nit. She picked up a bottle of hand lotion that was sitting on the counter and flung it across the bathroom. It bounced unsatisfactorily against the wall next to the tub, opening and dribbling its contents over the floor.

She went back out into the living room and took a sip of her scotch, then paced around the room. Okay, she didn't have the last couple of pages, but she did have a lot. She would work with what was there. Sweeney turned back to her own notebook. Say Morgan had had made the gravestone. But it wasn't possible, was it? Dammers had said so. If he had sculpted it, why would he disguise his style? The stone was in the same style as the relief. So J.L.B., whoever he was, must have made it. made the gravestone. But it wasn't possible, was it? Dammers had said so. If he had sculpted it, why would he disguise his style? The stone was in the same style as the relief. So J.L.B., whoever he was, must have made it.

Wait a second. Sweeney flipped quickly through the diary pages, until she came to one of the entries she had looked at cursorily because it didn't mention Mary.

July 28, 1890. I went down to the studio to clean up for M., since I had not done it in a week or more. I also hoped to get some work done on my Hermione, since she has sat alone and untended beneath the canvas cover for 10 days now. But when I arrived at the studio door, J.L.B. came out to meet me and announce that he was using the studio and I was not to come in. We had words about that, but he blockaded the door with his body and short of wrestling him to the ground, there was nothing I could do. When I returned to the house and told M. what had happened, he merely smiled and said J.L.B. was working on a project and I should let him be.It is unfair the way women are treated as second cla.s.s citizens in this world.

TWENTY-TWO.

SWEENEY YAWNED and stretched her pajama-clad legs beneath the table. She was tired and frustrated and the Tylenols she'd taken to suppress her hangover were starting to wear off. But she had to figure this out. What had J.L.B. been working on in the studio and why, after Mary was dead, had he left Byzantium so suddenly? and stretched her pajama-clad legs beneath the table. She was tired and frustrated and the Tylenols she'd taken to suppress her hangover were starting to wear off. But she had to figure this out. What had J.L.B. been working on in the studio and why, after Mary was dead, had he left Byzantium so suddenly?

J.L.B. was the mystery here. Who was he? Where had he come from? That was what she needed to know. But there was no mention of anyone with those initials in any of the books about Morgan or the Byzantium colony. He had been in the colony a very short time, a summer only, and despite his obvious talent, he had never produced anything of distinction.

She went back and read the poem again. Until she found out differently, she would have to a.s.sume that he had also written the poem. If J.L.B. thought of himself as Death, then he must have killed her. But why? She got up and walked around the room, trying to figure it out. Was he a sociopath? Had they been lovers and had a fight? She found the latter description more interesting than the former. Or ...

Sweeney turned back to the painting in the Gilmartin biography. She'd looked at it a hundred times, but she was as struck by it as she had been the first time she'd seen it. What about her original theory, which was that there had been an accident while Gilmartin was painting Mary? What if there had been an accident, not while Gilmartin was painting Mary, but while she was modeling for J.L.B? That was an interesting possibility.

Racing back through the pages, she considered Myra Benton's account. J.L.B. had been working on a mysterious sculpture a week before Mary's death. If it was Mary's gravestone, then ... Sweeney stared at the painting. Then he must have known in advance that she was going to die.

Wait a minute. She looked back through the diary. Myra Benton had overheard a conversation between J.L.B., Morgan and Gilmartin a couple of weeks before Mary's death. What had Morgan been saying?

"Surely you see that it is unavoidable." And Gilmartin had been there, too. And Gilmartin had been there, too.

If Morgan, Gilmartin and J.L.B. had all been talking about Mary's death long before she was dead, that meant that ... The enormity of what she'd realized hit her. They had been in it together. And it hadn't been an accident while she was posing for a painting. They had planned planned to kill her and they had made the strange gravestone to mark her grave. But why? to kill her and they had made the strange gravestone to mark her grave. But why?

That was the question she couldn't answer. It didn't make any sense. Why? Why?

Stymied, she turned back to the box. From what she could tell, the rest of the material related to Myra Benton's life after she'd ceased coming to Byzantium as Morgan's student. There were letters to and from friends, including a telegram from Herrick Gilmartin congratulating her upon the unveiling of her Women Textile Workers Monument in New York.

Most of the black-and-white photographs in the box were from the 1920s and '30s and showed a much older Myra Benton with a child Sweeney a.s.sumed was her son Piers. In one, they sat on a bench in front of a body of water Sweeney recognized as Lake Geneva. In another, a plump Myra and a teenage Piers stood in front of a large house, a German Shepherd by Piers's side.

But at the bottom was an envelope of obviously much older photographs, on thick paper, sallow with age. One showed Gilmartin and a group of other colony artists sitting on a blanket in a field. In Myra Benton's hand on the back, it read "Colony picnic at the pond 1901."

A few other pictures showed similar scenes, the colonists standing around at Upper Pastures or Birch Lane-the women in long white linen dresses, their hair piled up on top of their heads. The men had on linen suits and looked jolly and drunk.

She flipped through them and then she came to a picture that made her heart stop.

Mary Denholm was standing with a group of men, none of whom Sweeney recognized. It was a rare candid shot and she was laughing in the picture, her head thrown back, a hand up in front of the camera. It made Sweeney feel good somehow, to see her so alive. She turned it over and read the now-familiar writing: "Paul Evans, ? ?, Geoffrey Church, Jean Luc Baladin and Miss Mary Denholm."

She turned it back over and stared at Jean Luc Baladin. He was a tall, dark-haired man, with a flowing mustache. There was something continental about him. His clothes were cut slightly differently than the other men in the picture, his hair left longer.

From the picture, his dark, heavily lashed eyes stared out at her. There was something romantic, but subtly sinister about his full lips and high cheekbones and she noted that his arm was wrapped tightly around Mary's shoulder; his knuckles clenched the fabric of her dress.

Jean Luc Baladin. She'd found J.L.B. She jumped up and grabbed the Encyclopedia of American Artists Encyclopedia of American Artists from the bookshelf above her desk. But when she turned to the Bs, there was no Jean Luc Baladin to be found. She went over to another shelf and pulled down the giant volume of European artists. It wasn't organized as efficiently as the American one and she had to hunt a bit for the Bs. But she scanned down the listings, and suddenly there it was: from the bookshelf above her desk. But when she turned to the Bs, there was no Jean Luc Baladin to be found. She went over to another shelf and pulled down the giant volume of European artists. It wasn't organized as efficiently as the American one and she had to hunt a bit for the Bs. But she scanned down the listings, and suddenly there it was: Jean Luc Baladin, 18601930. Born in London, the son of a French immigrant father and an English mother, Baladin was a young a.s.sociate of some of the later Pre-Raphaelites. He was considered to be a promising member of the Academy, but did not live out his potential after his 30s. He died in Suss.e.x at the age of 70.

Well, so much for the theory she'd been formulating that he hadn't left Byzantium at all. She found her address book and quickly dialed Bennett Dammers's number. He would know who Jean Luc Baladin was. But the phone rang and rang. Finally, a mechanical voice told her that he wasn't home, but that she could leave a message. She obliged, asking him if he had ever heard of the artist and telling him she'd be back in Byzantium tomorrow. After pouring herself another scotch, she paced around the living room, trying to work it all out.

She had the name now. And she was sure that Mary Denholm had been murdered. What she was also increasingly sure of was that Ruth Kimball had been murdered in order to keep her from revealing the truth about that first murder.

It took a moment for that to sink in, and another moment for the implications of the realization to become clear.

To figure out who had killed Ruth Kimball, all she had to do was figure out who in Byzantium needed to make sure that the truth about Mary Denholm's death didn't come out. Sweeney remembered a logic cla.s.s she'd taken in college. "If A, then B." In this case, it was "The descendant of whoever killed A killed B."

The information she'd gotten from the diary implicated three people: Jean Luc Baladin, Bryn Davies Morgan and Herrick Gilmartin. Baladin was a puzzle, but the involvement of Morgan and Gilmartin meant that there were two people in Byzantium who had a clear and vested interest in keeping the truth hidden: Patch Wentworth and Willow Fontana. But then there were the rest of them, too, Britta and Sabina and Anders and Electra and Rosemary. h.e.l.l, if she hadn't driven up with Toby herself, she would have had to suspect him, too. She found herself wondering where he had been on the day of the murder and admonished herself.

And, she realized, there was Ian, who had lied about when he arrived in Byzantium.

Why would Ian want to kill Ruth Kimball? He had never even been in Byzantium before. would Ian want to kill Ruth Kimball? He had never even been in Byzantium before.

This was crazy. She could go around like this for days. She found herself wondering if Ruth Kimball had sat as she sat now, going over and over the facts, trying to figure it out. And she had figured it out. The murder proved that. But what what had she figured out. That was the question she had to answer. That was everything. had she figured out. That was the question she had to answer. That was everything.

Sweeney turned out the lights in the living room and took her drink to bed with her, setting her alarm for 6 A.M A.M. the next morning. She'd spent the past few days resolving the mysteries of the past. The time had come to address those of the present.

TWENTY-THREE.

DECEMBER 19.

THE STORM THAT had been threatening for a day broke as Sweeney drove north toward Vermont the next morning. The Rabbit was creeping along in the early morning mist rising off the snow when the skies suddenly opened in a torrent of rain and sleet that narrowed her visibility down to a one-foot tunnel. had been threatening for a day broke as Sweeney drove north toward Vermont the next morning. The Rabbit was creeping along in the early morning mist rising off the snow when the skies suddenly opened in a torrent of rain and sleet that narrowed her visibility down to a one-foot tunnel.

By the time she crossed the bridge to The Island, the brook was full and swollen, was.h.i.+ng up against the banks, chunks of ice bobbing along violently on the current.

She parked the Rabbit in the Kimb.a.l.l.s' driveway and picked her way through the broken toys and a few pieces of trash lying in the snow along the flagstones leading up to the house. The rain had washed away much of the snow and the landscape now looked washed out and dirty, the dark, flooded ground showing through here and there like old stains.

The house was a typical New England farmhouse, two-storied, white with black shutters and a porch on the front. Paint was peeling from the sides of the building and shutters were missing from a few of the upper story windows. Sweeney could see that part of the roof had been patched with a piece of metal. An old junk car sat in the driveway, and rusty appliances and bags of trash lay around the bottom of the porch. A barn to one side of the house had seen better days; the roof sagged in the middle like the back of an old horse.

The state of the property provoked a pang of sadness. Ruth Kimball had probably always meant to clean it up, but never gotten around to it. And now she never would.

Sweeney climbed the five steps up to the porch and knocked on the front door, her heart beating nervously. She'd been so intent on getting up, returning the library materials to Marlise, and getting back to Vermont that she hadn't planned out exactly how she was going to do this. You couldn't, after all, just blurt out, "h.e.l.lo. I think someone killed your mother because of what she knew about Mary Denholm's death."

The door opened and Sweeney was about to launch into an explanation of who she was and how she'd gotten interested in Mary Denholm's gravestone when she looked down to find a little girl staring up at her. She looked about ten but her tiny, skinny body made her head of tight brown curls and the giant eyegla.s.ses that sat on her nose look disproportionately big. Her skin was a soft cocoa color and she wore overalls and a bright pink T-s.h.i.+rt. This must be Charley.

"Who are you?" the girl asked, staring up at Sweeney through her gla.s.ses.

"Is your mother here?" Sweeney asked.

The girl just stared and asked again, "Who are you?"

"My name is Sweeney St. George and I'm a researcher, a professor. I was wondering if I could speak with your mother."

"I'm Charley."

"Hi, Charley. Could I come in? It's very cold."

Charley stepped aside and allowed Sweeney to walk past her into the house. "Sherry's still sleeping," she said. "I'm supposed to wake her up at eleven, but I can wake her up now."

Sweeney looked at her watch. It was 10:45. "No, no. I don't want you to do that. She'll be up soon. Is it okay if I wait?"

Charley nodded solemnly.

The living room was a Victorian interior left too long in the sun. Red-and-white wallpaper had faded to pink, and an old high-backed sofa was the color of tea-stained linen. The rest of the furniture was made up of original pieces mixed with new ones. Another sagging couch stood out from one wall at an angle, as though someone had started to move it and then changed her mind. A La-Z-Boy chair, upholstered in blue velveteen, reclined between the couches, and the television was on to a cartoon show that featured a talking wolf. On the low table, a game of Concentration was spread out, half the cards turned over as though someone had been playing and then been interrupted.

"Do you want a drink?" Charley asked politely.

"Okay. If it's not too much trouble." The girl disappeared silently and came back into the room a couple of minutes later, holding a blue tinted gla.s.s filled with cherry Kool-Aid. She handed it to Sweeney, who slipped out of her coat and sat down on the couch.

"Thank you." After a few minutes she said, "I'm so sorry about your grandmother."

Charley just stared at her. "Is that your real hair?"

"Yes."

"Sherry has red hair like that, only she buys it in a box and puts it on in the bathroom like shampoo. That's called dyeing. Not like being dead, but like making something a different color."

"I always wished I had a more regular hair color. Blond or a nice brown, like yours."

"Really?" Charley sat down on the couch next to Sweeney and stared at her hair some more. Sweeney checked her watch. It had only been five minutes.

"What grade in school are you in?" Sweeney had another sip of the sweet Kool-Aid.

"Fourth," Charley said. "I'm younger than everybody else, though, because my birthday's in December, but they let me in anyway because I started reading when I was three."

"Three? Really?"

"Yeah. I don't remember, but Sherry says I started reading newspapers."

"This is a nice house."

"Yuck." Charley wrinkled up her nose and looked at Sweeney in disbelief. "No it's not. Not like the Wentworths' house. It's old outside, but new inside. They have a white white couch. And they have suits of armor, like the knights of the round table. Gwinny let me touch one once. She's their daughter. She baby-sits for me sometimes, but next year she's going to boring school. She's going to be an actress. Have you ever read Morty Dee Arthur?" couch. And they have suits of armor, like the knights of the round table. Gwinny let me touch one once. She's their daughter. She baby-sits for me sometimes, but next year she's going to boring school. She's going to be an actress. Have you ever read Morty Dee Arthur?"

"Yes," Sweeney said, trying not to smile. "Actually it's Le Morte D'Arthur Le Morte D'Arthur, the death of Arthur." She p.r.o.nounced it carefully and Charlie copied her, almost perfectly.

"Is that what that means? Mort Mort. Death."

"Yes," Sweeney said. "In French. But it's not in French, Le Morte D'Arthur Le Morte D'Arthur, I mean."

They were silent for a minute.

"Have you you ever read ever read Le Morte D'Arthur? Le Morte D'Arthur?" Sweeney asked, for something to say.

"No. The librarian at school told me about it. I wanted to read a book about King Arthur, but all they had were baby books, with pictures."

"That's too bad. I bet you could get it at the regular library, though."