O' Artful Death Part 19

It was a portrait of Willow, a nude done with a sublime combination of painstaking care and abandon. The blues and pinks of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and arms swirled and climbed the canvas. She looked up at the artist with something that could only be love and in turn the artist had looked at her-and rendered her-with such pa.s.sion that Sweeney was compelled to look away.

For the painting was very, very good and because of the way it had been hidden away, she knew that he would never show it to anyone. She knew that he would not hurt Britta or his family, that he was unlike his grandfather in this central way, and she understood a number of things very suddenly.

"It's good, isn't it?"

She turned around suddenly, the painting still held out in front of her, and found Gally watching her from the doorway.

"Gally, I ... the door was open and I ... I'm so sorry."

"You shouldn't be sorry," he said. "You're not the one who's doing something wrong."

He reached into his pocket and came toward her. Sweeney put the painting down and held her breath.

"I found these in the hallway," he said. "This morning."

She reached out to take her earrings, cold and sharp on her palm. As he turned to go, she stammered out "Your Dad said I could look at his work sometime. I ..."

Gally stopped and turned to look at her. "You don't understand anything," he said. And he left her standing there holding the painting, the plastic wrapping around her feet on the floor.

TWENTY-NINE.

DECEMBER 23.

WHILE THE HOUSEHOLD huddled at breakfast, grief stricken and afraid-Britta and Patch nervous and grim, Gwinny and Trip bickering and Sweeney feeling deserted by Toby who was still at Rosemary and Electra's-the day was exuberantly beautiful. The sky was the blue of cornflowers or far-away oceans, a summery unseasonable blue. And the sun shone brilliantly down, sparkling in the trees, which seemed to have been decorated by hand with garlands of ice and snow. huddled at breakfast, grief stricken and afraid-Britta and Patch nervous and grim, Gwinny and Trip bickering and Sweeney feeling deserted by Toby who was still at Rosemary and Electra's-the day was exuberantly beautiful. The sky was the blue of cornflowers or far-away oceans, a summery unseasonable blue. And the sun shone brilliantly down, sparkling in the trees, which seemed to have been decorated by hand with garlands of ice and snow.

Trying to cheer them up, Patch and Ian made pancakes and sausage, but no one was very hungry and as soon as she could, Sweeney said that she needed to pick up some things at the drugstore and headed for town.

She had not been able to get the image of Sabina's bare library wall out of her head as she'd tried to sleep the night before. And her conversation with Cooper only intensified her curiosity. He had seemed very interested in the fact that the relief was gone and she knew that he was wondering if whoever had killed Sabina had taken the relief, if it was related to Ruth Kimball's death and the other burglaries in the colony after all.

She had not thought of the burglaries as being very important-other than as a motive for Carl to kill Ruth Kimball-because there had not actually been one at the Kimb.a.l.l.s' house, but the fact that Sabina's house had been burgled had to have significance.

"We close at noon, you know," the librarian told her as she came in the front door of the library. If she recognized Sweeney from town gossip, she didn't let on.

"That's fine," Sweeney said. "I've just got a couple of things to do."

"Okay. Can I help you with anything?"

"You showed me where the older papers were a few days ago. Do you have more recent editions? I was interested in looking at the last year."

"Go downstairs and take a left into the first room you see. They should be stacked in chronological order, but sometimes people mess them up. I'm afraid they aren't indexed."

Sweeney thanked her and went down to the dank bas.e.m.e.nt.

The newspapers were stacked in a case that ran the length of the wall and had compartments into which the issues for each month were kept going back about fifteen years. She took out the papers for July through December of the current year, and sat down at an unstable metal table in the middle of the room.

There was nothing in the first paper, except for strange little stories about small town life that she found delightful even if she didn't really have time to read them all. "Mega Squash Wins First Prize!" proclaimed one headline. "Lucky Pooch Escapes From House Fire," was another, with a dramatically rendered tale of an Airedale that had hidden himself under the kitchen sink as his family's home burned and then burst out as firemen were cleaning up the mess.

The next paper, dated July third, however, had an item on the second page about the ongoing investigation into a burglary a few days earlier at the home of George Farnsworth in Byzantium. "Carl Thompson of Byzantium was questioned by the police, according to confidential sources. Stolen from the house were an a.s.sortment of books, electronic equipment and artwork. According to police, an original sculpture by Byzantium colonist Bryn Davies Morgan was also among the items taken."

She read aloud. "Thompson has prior convictions for burglary, possession of an illegal substance and possession with intent to distribute. Reached at his home Tuesday, he denied any involvement with the burglary. There was another blurry picture, this one of Carl standing in front of what looked like a supermarket. He had a hand up in the air and was half turned away from the camera.

None of the other July newspapers yielded anything interesting, but August was a different story.

The weekend of the ninth, there had been another burglary. This time, it was at Upper Pastures, "the home of Jack Morgan, also of Byzantium." The Morgans, the article noted, were summer residents of Byzantium and had already gone back to their primary residence in New York.

That was Willow's uncle and aunt, who spent summers in the colony. The burglary had been discovered by Alan Hancek, a caretaker, when he entered the house to adjust the thermostat. The items taken ranged from stereo equipment to a vase to clothes to "a few pieces of original artwork and a small bust by Mr. Morgan's father, the Byzantium sculptor Bryn Davies Morgan."

Once again, police sources had apparently told the paper that Carl Thompson was under investigation for the crime.

She went on with the papers.

During the last week of November, the day after Thanksgiving, there had been a burglary at the home of Dennis Parsons. The items stolen were essentially the same as before, including some paintings and small sculptures by Morgan and, once again, police had questioned Carl, but hadn't made any arrests.

November didn't offer up any more incidents, though during the first week of December, shortly before she and Toby had arrived, she found an account of the burglary at the Rapaccis' house. Again, the stolen items had been small, decorative pieces, a few paintings.

And that was it. There didn't seem to be any connection with Mary, though it was hard to tell from the newspaper accounts what had been taken.

She thought for a moment. The items seemed completely random. Could the burglar be mentally ill? She hadn't considered the possibility before that it was someone who was driven to steal and then had to murder so he or she wouldn't be found out.

She hurried up to the reference section and pulled down Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary and went to the Ks. and went to the Ks.

"Kleptomania-Impulsive stealing, the motive not being in the intrinsic value of the article to the individual. In almost all cases, the individual has enough money to pay for the stolen goods. The stealing is done without prior planning and without the a.s.sistance of others. There is increased tension prior to the theft and a sense of gratification while committing the act."

Oh well. It had been a long shot. The burglaries were obviously well planned. The burglar would have to know what was in the houses, then find out when the occupants would be gone. She discounted the notion of her crazed kleptomaniac, robbing houses for some dark gratification, and went back to her idea that the burglaries had something to do with Mary's murder.

But what exactly it was, she couldn't begin to imagine.

THEY SPENT THE rest of the day in front of the fire at Birch Lane, Toby suggesting intermittent games of Scrabble that went on and on because no one's mind was on the game. Ian had asked her once if she was all right, but mostly left her alone, and Gwinny sat behind Sweeney on the floor and braided her hair. It would have been a pleasant day if they didn't kept remembering that Sabina was dead. rest of the day in front of the fire at Birch Lane, Toby suggesting intermittent games of Scrabble that went on and on because no one's mind was on the game. Ian had asked her once if she was all right, but mostly left her alone, and Gwinny sat behind Sweeney on the floor and braided her hair. It would have been a pleasant day if they didn't kept remembering that Sabina was dead.

Sweeney was so tired she thought she'd collapse into unconsciousness as soon as she got into bed that night, but instead she lay there, her heart pounding, the events of the day flooding back along with the sounds of the noisy old house, the mechanical whirrings and hummings and the sounds of old wood settling at night. She fell asleep once, but awoke again when the digital clock on her bedside table read 3 A.M A.M., and knowing there was no way she was going to rest, she decided to go downstairs and try to read. She put on a sweater over her pajamas and found her notes and the copies she'd made of Myra Benton's diary pages.

The dogs started as she came down the stairs wrapped in the comforter from her bed, then quieted when they saw who it was. She switched on a table lamp in the living room and wandered around looking at the Wentworths' art and photographs. On a table behind the couch was a group of black-and-white baby pictures. She picked out the twins, sitting on a beach blanket, one smiling and one scowling. On the walls were paintings by Gilmartin and a beautiful portrait that Sweeney knew was of Patch's mother, Delia Gilmartin Wentworth. It had been painted just before she got married, Britta had told her.

There was a small bookshelf over by the window, filled with antique volumes of poetry and drama. They looked fragile, their spines frayed, the gold-leafed pages covered with dust, and Sweeney hadn't dared to touch them, but now she ran a finger along the old books and read the t.i.tles, Ralph Waldo Emerson's Works, The Roman Century, Aristophanes, Tennyson's Collected Poetry Ralph Waldo Emerson's Works, The Roman Century, Aristophanes, Tennyson's Collected Poetry. She carefully lifted the Tennyson from the shelf and opened the thin, red fabric cover. On the t.i.tle page was a woodcut of Sir Lancelot, and the words, "Lancelot said 'That were against me; what I can I will;' And there that day remain'd, and toward even, sent for his s.h.i.+eld."

Tennyson! What was it about Tennyson?

Sweeney replaced the little book and looked again at the portrait of Delia Wentworth. She was a beautiful woman, a real blus.h.i.+ng bride, Sweeney thought, smiling.

That phrase, blus.h.i.+ng bride blus.h.i.+ng bride. It rang a bell somewhere. The diary. Sweeney sat down on the couch and flipped through the photocopies she'd made of Myra Benton's diary.

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.

There it was, a blus.h.i.+ng bride. Had Mary had a lover? Sweeney had a.s.sumed the first time she'd read the section that the love was unrequited. But why did brides blush? Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but it was about s.e.x, wasn't it? What if Mary's love wasn't so unrequited, after all? She thought about what Dammers had said about the s.e.xual appet.i.tes of the colonists, about what Sabina had told her about Gilmartin.

So perhaps Mary had been involved in a s.e.xual relations.h.i.+p with Gilmartin. If she had gotten pregnant and threatened to reveal the relations.h.i.+p, maybe he'd decided that killing her was the only option. Under that scenario, Morgan and Jean Luc Baladin would have helped him cover it all up, pretend that Mary had drowned.

She paced around the room, trying to think it through. What about Morgan and Baladin? Maybe Mary had been having an affair with one of them. She thought back to the picture of Baladin and Mary, the way his hand gripped her shoulder, his handsome face and flowing mustache. He was much nearer her age. Maybe they had been having a relations.h.i.+p and she had gotten pregnant. But why would Baladin have killed her? He was presumably a single man ... but then she didn't know that. It was entirely possible he had a wife back in Europe, wasn't it?

There was also the possibility that he wasn't married, but had no intention of marrying a poor girl from Vermont. How would Mary have reacted to the news that she was to be abandoned, pregnant and alone?

Might she have killed herself? It was possible that she had drowned herself in the river, wasn't it? But if Mary had committed suicide, then why had someone resorted to murder-twice!-to prevent the truth getting out. Suicide had been considered somewhat shameful in those days, but, really ... The only person who might have a reason for keeping it quiet was Jean Luc Baladin. But none of his descendants lived in the colony.

Or did they? She hadn't thought about that. What if ...?

Sweeney thought about the three deaths that were now all a part of this. Her father had loved engines and had entertained himself when the painting wasn't coming by buying small appliances or lawn mowers and disa.s.sembling them into a heap outside his house in Boston. She'd hated it when he did that. It had always made her feel unsettled, empty inside. But she recognized now what the appeal had been and wished she could put this thing together like an engine, the many disparate parts, perfectly oiled, working together as a practical unit.

She heard the dogs rus.h.i.+ng toward the stairs and then footsteps sounded in the hall. She stood up suddenly to find Ian watching her from the doorway.

"I guess I'm not the only one who can't sleep," he said casually, coming over and sitting down in a chair across from her. Her heart sped up a bit.

"Guess not." She forced herself to stay calm and she wrapped the comforter around herself more tightly.

He leaned forward, and she saw a scratch on the side of his face. She hadn't noticed it. It must have been from scrambling down over the brook to help her the night before. "Are you okay?" he asked. "You must be very shaken."

"I'm all right."

There was an awkward silence and then he said, "I came down to read. I couldn't sleep, after ... everything."

She nodded. "Me, too."

"What are you reading?" He stood up and came over to sit next to her on the couch, his hands folded in his lap. He was wearing a bathrobe, sweatpants, a pajama top and dark leather slippers-an old man's slippers. It was hard to think of him as anything other than a shy, intelligent Englishman who seemed to have a crush on her.

"Nothing." She tucked the hand holding the notebook under a fold of the comforter.

Ian watched her for a moment, then said quietly, "Why do you seem so scared of me? You make me feel like Mr. Hyde."

"I'm not scared of you."

"Then why do you act like it?" He was trying to keep his voice down, but he was angry and his anger p.i.s.sed her off. What right did he have?

"You ask me questions about why I'm here and what I'm doing like you're some kind of a detective or something. I could ask the same of you, you know."

"Look, I know, I know."

Watching Ian, she was aware that the line of thought she'd been pursuing before he came downstairs had pushed itself again to the surface of her consciousness and was forcing her to come back to it. She didn't think Jean Luc Baladin had any relatives in the colony, but ...

He turned on the couch so he was facing her. "Look here," he said. "I'm sorry about what I said at the party. When we were in the sleigh."

"What do you mean?" She had no idea what he was talking about.

"What I said about artists offing themselves. I didn't know who your father was until Patch told me today. I'm sorry."

"Oh G.o.d. I didn't even ..." But now she did remember him saying it. Strange, it hadn't even registered. "That was a long time ago. I've pretty much dealt with all that stuff," she told him nervously.

"So you didn't answer me. How are you holding up?"

"Not very well. I keep seeing her face. Every time I close my eyes."

Pain crossed his face; he almost winced, and something about his eyes made her think of the picture of Jean Luc Baladin and Mary. Ian's brow had the same brooding set to it that Baladin's had. In fact, when she thought about it, Ian looked remarkably like Jean Luc Baladin. She hadn't seen it until that moment.

And suddenly, her mind was a confusion of thoughts. She could hardly put them into order.

"Ian, remember when you said that you were from Suss.e.x? Did you mean that you lived there or that it's where your family's from?" She took a deep breath, trying to make sense of everything that was running through her head. "I mean, where is your family from?"

He flinched and then watched her for a few seconds, blinking once before saying carefully, "Suss.e.x."

"And are they all English?" It was quiet in the living room and her question seemed very loud to her, a disruption of the silent room.

Ian looked down at his hands, then up at her, his eyes darting away nervously. "Why the sudden interest in Ball family history?"

She sprang up from the couch. Ball, Baladin. Of course!

She looked down at him, her heart racing, uncertain if she should be afraid or triumphant. "I think I know who you are."

Ian stared at her. "What do you mean?"

"I think I know who you are," she said again. "I think you're related to a French sculptor named Jean Luc Baladin."

He looked so surprised that at first she thought she'd gotten it wrong. But then he smiled a small, sad grin and looked into her eyes. "Yes," he said simply. "Jean Luc Baladin was my great-grandfather."

Sweeney stepped back. "But, was there something between him and Mary Denholm? Did you know that ..." She wasn't sure now what to ask him. "Did you ... Did you come here to kill Ruth Kimball?"

"Kill Ruth Kimball?" He looked genuinely shocked. "Why would I ... Sweeney, Ruth Kimball was my cousin."

He smiled when he saw her face. "You see, Mary Denholm was my great-grandmother."SWEENEY PACED UP and down the room while Ian watched her in the low light, a small smile on his lips. She tried to put it all into order-the stone, and Ruth Kimball's death, and then Sabina's-but it refused to fall into place. and down the room while Ian watched her in the low light, a small smile on his lips. She tried to put it all into order-the stone, and Ruth Kimball's death, and then Sabina's-but it refused to fall into place.

She sat down next to him on the couch. "Help me out here. Obviously she had Jean Luc Baladin's baby before she died. Or wait, did she die? Or did they ...?"

He said, "No, she didn't die. She lived to the ripe old age of seventy-eight in England. I think they decided to run away to Europe when she found out she was pregnant and they staged the death so it didn't cause a scandal. I'm still putting it together myself. But this will explain a lot. This is what brought me here." He took a manila envelope out of his bathrobe pocket and handed it over. Sweeney opened it and found a stack of handwritten diary pages inside. They had been torn out of a bound book and she recognized the handwriting as Myra Benton's.

"My father died last year and when I was going through his things I found this. It had been sent to his father-Jean Luc's son-years before by Myra Benton's son and I don't know if he knew what it was or what it meant.

"The way I always heard the story was that Jean Luc swept Mary off her feet during the summer he was invited to Byzantium by Morgan and brought her back to England. That's where they anglicized the name. For the rest of their lives, they lived between Paris and Suss.e.x.

"There was always this sense of something unexplained when my father talked about his parents and his grandparents. I always felt like there was something there that wasn't whole, if you know what I mean. Before I found the diary pages, all I knew was that Mary was from New England. But no one ever talked about America, about her family. I'd always been curious. Then when I found these, I figured out part of it. Obviously there were still a lot of unanswered questions. I had been friends with Patch and Britta and after I did a little research into who Myra Benton was, it seemed like such a coincidence that they would be from Byzantium. I arranged an invitation and ..." He shrugged. That's why I came early, so I could find out more about the family. I panicked when you said you were looking into it, too."

Sweeney took out the pages. "I've read everything leading up to this," she said. "You can't imagine how frustrated I was when I discovered these pages were missing. And all the time you had them ...."She began to read aloud.