by James Hayman
McCabe and Savage barely noticed the locking of the doors. Both were too distracted by the large oil painting hanging over the fireplace. A portrait of Aimée certainly. Not as they’d last seen her, dead on the Loring Trail, but amazingly alive. She was looking down at them as if she was just itching to leap off the wall and join the conversation. She was dressed in an elegant, low-cut black evening gown, her blonde hair swept up high on her head, a string of pearls around her neck and a wry, mischievous smile on her face.
What struck McCabe as odd about the painting was that the canvas itself looked far too old to be a portrait of Whitby’s daughter. It showed some of the same signs of aging that Kyra once pointed out as she was giving him a quick lesson in art authentication. There were also some barely noticeable repairs on the gold frame.
Whitby joined them. “I asked you to come to the island because I wanted you to see this painting.”
“This couldn’t be a portrait of your daughter,” said Maggie.
“It’s not, but it might as well be. It’s a painting of my great-grandmother, also named Aimée, commissioned by my great-grandfather. It’s by an artist named Mark Garrison. She was twenty-eight when he painted it. Ten years older than my Aimée.”
“The resemblance is extraordinary.”
“Yes, the two are practically identical. You can see it not just here but also in some old family photographs. Put them side by side with photos of my daughter and, except for the hairdos and clothing, it’s next to impossible to see any difference.”
“Interesting,” said McCabe, “but why was it so important that you had to show us this immediately?”
“To be honest with you, I don’t know if the painting itself has any direct bearing on what happened to my daughter last night, but because of the timing, I think it might. That’s when I unveiled it to the more than two hundred people who attended the party. Plus, I suppose, the waiters and other help who were in the room. The fact that Aimée was killed only a few hours later may just be a weird coincidence, but I’ve been around long enough not to believe in coincidences.”
“Had anyone seen it before last night?”
“It’s been in private hands for more than a hundred years. I purchased it at auction less than two months ago. Only my wife and daughters and a few close friends saw it when I first had it delivered. But no one else except a restorer who did a little work on it and made some repairs to the frame.”
“What possible connection could unveiling a painting have with the murder?” asked Maggie.
“I don’t know for sure that it does. But there are circumstances surrounding the creation of this painting that are certainly connected.”
“Okay. Where would you like to start?” asked McCabe.
“Why don’t we all sit down?” Whitby pointed them to a pair of chairs that faced the fireplace and the painting above it. McCabe supposed he wanted them to look at it as they spoke. Whitby then took the seat facing them. The face in the painting smiled down at the detectives from over Whitby’s right shoulder. From this vantage point McCabe had an eerie sense that the first Aimée Whitby was hovering over her great-grandson and, like him, wanted Maggie and McCabe to know something.
Whitby spoke first. “I told Detective Savage that I watched Tom Shockley’s press conference this morning. I learned that Aimée’s body was found nude, that she was stabbed in the abdomen and that the letter A was carved into her upper chest deeply enough to have formed permanent scars had she survived. Accurate so far?”
“Accurate,” said Maggie.
“Shockley also said the body of Aimée’s English teacher, Byron Knowles, washed ashore in Cape Elizabeth. An apparent suicide.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think he killed her before killing himself?”
“We think that’s one possibility,” said Maggie, “but only one. We’re not certain that he’s the killer.”
“Why not?”
A frown line formed between Maggie’s eyes. “Just what are you getting at, Mr. Whitby?”
“Answer my question first, then I’ll answer yours. Why don’t you think Knowles killed my daughter?”
“I didn’t say that,” said Maggie. “I said we weren’t certain.”
“Do the two of you agree with Shockley that Knowles’s death was a suicide?”
“He sent his wife a text message that makes it look that way.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Again we think it’s possible.”
“But not certain?”
“That’s right. Not certain. Both Aimée and Knowles may have been victims of a killer we have yet to identify.”
“Shockley said Knowles was married.”
“Yes,” said McCabe. “With one child and another on the way.”
Edward Whitby paused and took a deep breath before asking, “Do you have any evidence that indicates Knowles was having an affair with my daughter?”
Maggie and McCabe exchanged glances. “We know he was,” said Maggie, closely watching Whitby’s face as she spoke. “We have clear evidence that Byron Knowles and your daughter have had an active sexual relationship since at least last November.”
McCabe didn’t know what reaction he was expecting from Whitby, but there was practically none. His expression remained more sad than angry. His eyes drifted to the view of the ocean beyond the stone patio. “How old was Knowles?”
“Thirty-six,” said Maggie. “Twice your daughter’s age.”
“Was he planning to leave his wife?”
“We don’t know. All we know is that the marriage wasn’t in good shape and that Knowles’s wife suspected he was having an affair. She told us she didn’t know with who.”
“Any evidence that Aimée told Knowles she wanted to break things off?”
“Not that we’ve seen.”
“And you’re not certain whether or not Knowles killed my daughter?”
“Either he killed her,” said McCabe, “or somebody is trying very hard to make it look that way. Now perhaps you can tell us what connection this painting may have with your daughter’s death.”
“My daughter is not the first murder victim in this family. The woman you see in that painting, my great-grandmother, the first Aimée, was also murdered. The story goes that she was murdered by Mark Garrison, the artist who painted the portrait. Garrison was also her lover. He killed her here on Whitby Island by stabbing her in the abdomen. He also carved a letter A into her chest, just like the one Tom Shockley described this morning. After killing Aimée, Garrison committed suicide in the small studio we have here on the island.
“It seems perfectly obvious to me that my daughter’s killer, whether it was Knowles or someone else, knew about and copied the details of a murder that happened here on this island one hundred and eight years ago. Not only were the two victims physically identical, so was the method of killing them and so was the fate of the suspected killer. That’s what I thought you should know before proceeding with your investigation. I thought it might change the way you approach it.”
Maggie and McCabe exchanged glances. A copycat murder with identical victims. Whitby was right. Knowing that changed everything. Including the possible meaning of the letter A.
“What was Garrison’s motive?” asked McCabe. “Why did he kill her?”
Looking up once again at the portrait, McCabe had the strangest feeling that the woman looking down from over the fireplace was listening with great interest to every word they were saying. Perhaps only she knew the answer to his question.
“Like I told you earlier, Mark Garrison was Aimée’s lover. The police at the time came to the conclusion that after what they called an illicit assignation in the studio, Aimée told Garrison that her husband, my great-grandfather, had learned of their relationship and because of this she could never see him again.”
“Did your great-grandfather confirm that he knew about the affair?”
“Yes. He told Deputy Inspector Elijah Han
dy of the Portland Police Department, who was the chief investigator on the case, that he had discovered what was going on and that he had confronted Aimée with an accusation. He said that after many denials she finally admitted the truth. After which she asked for a divorce. He said no. Divorce wasn’t an option for someone in his position. She threatened to leave him. He told her that if she did, he would never allow her to see her children again. He said that with her being an admitted adulteress, he was sure any judge would grant him custody. Since my great-grandfather had most of the judges in the state firmly in his pocket, and since most of them were puritanical and suspected all foreigners, but particularly French foreigners like Aimée, of immoral behavior, I’m sure he was right.
“Anyway, my great-grandfather said at the inquest that he wouldn’t divorce Aimée because, in spite of the affair, he still loved her. He also feared that the scandal of divorce would damage the reputation of both the Whitby family and the Whitby business.
“He told the jury that he demanded that she break off the affair immediately, send Garrison packing and say nothing of it to anyone. Apparently she gave in and agreed to tell Garrison that they could never see each other again.”
“Okay, then what happened?”
“It’s a little murky. As best we can reconstruct it, Aimée must have arranged for Garrison to meet her secretly on the island, where she planned to tell him their affair was over. She may also have allowed him to make love to her one final time, I suppose as kind of a farewell present before breaking it off. After which she gave him the bad news, and Garrison, in a rage at being rejected, grabbed a knife, stabbed Aimée and carved the A in her chest.”
“What makes you think they made love before she told him she was breaking it off?” asked Maggie. “Was her body ever examined by a doctor for signs of sexual intercourse?”
“Not to my knowledge. Apparently the police concluded they’d made love because she was naked when she was discovered at the bottom of the cliff at the far end of the island by three fishermen. Anyway, it seemed likely to the police at the time that they had made love. I truly don’t know the answer to that.”
“Okay. So she tells him she’s breaking things off, he loses his temper, grabs a knife, stabs her and carves the A on her chest,” said McCabe.
“Yes. That’s what the inquest concluded.”
“But there’s no proof it actually happened that way?”
Whitby sighed. “Not really. I suspect my great-grandfather applied pressure on the mayor, the attorney general and the coroner to make the whole thing go away as quickly and quietly as possible. Unfortunately, the newspapers didn’t cooperate with his efforts. It was exactly the kind of sordid tale they loved, and they played it to the hilt.”
“Did anybody have any idea what significance the A might have had?” asked Maggie.
“No one knew. Journalists had a field day comparing it to Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter. You know the book? Hester Prynne forced to wear a scarlet A for being an adulteress? Which Aimée was. But Garrison was also a married man and just as guilty of adultery, so the idea that he wanted to mark her with the label has always bothered me. Of course the A could have stood for something else, including her name. So who knows? In any event, the knife wound didn’t kill her. She fled the studio and apparently ran, for reasons known only to her, toward the high cliff on the seaward side of this island. Garrison supposedly gave chase, and Aimée either fell or was pushed by Garrison over the edge.”
“How does anyone know this?” asked Maggie. “Weren’t the two of them alone on the island?”
“No one really does. It was pure conjecture on the part of Inspector Handy, based on the fact that one of the fishermen—just a boy of twelve— who came ashore in a dinghy to try to rescue her later testified at the inquest that, as they were loading her body onto their boat, he spotted a man’s face peering at them from over the edge of the cliff. The boy waved at him, but he didn’t respond. He simply disappeared.”
“Did he know who the man was?” asked McCabe.
“No.”
“Did the police show the boy any pictures to help identify him?”
“No, they did not.”
“It would have been standard police procedure to do so. Even back then.”
“I think there was considerable pressure from the Whitby family to just make the whole thing go away. Blaming Garrison for both Aimée’s and his own deaths. Whether she fell or was pushed by Garrison, she was somehow still alive when the fishermen found her. She died on the way back to Portland, where they handed her body over to the police.”
“And Garrison? What happened to him?”
“The story is that, overcome with guilt and horror at what he had done, he took his own life. Hung himself in the studio.”
“How did he do it?”
“With his belt. He looped it around his neck. Attached the buckle to a large hook that was attached high up on the wall and kicked away the stool he was standing on.”
“Did the fall break his neck?”
“No. According to the doctor who examined the corpse, he died of asphyxiation.”
“Did he leave any kind of suicide note?” asked Maggie.
“Yes, a note that said ‘I am consumed by guilt. I loved her far too much to go on without her.’ ”
Maggie looked over to McCabe. “ ‘I can never forgive myself for the terrible things I have done,’ ” she said.
“I’m sorry. What?” asked Whitby.
“Nothing,” said McCabe. “I assume the note was handwritten?”
Whitby looked at him oddly. “Why do you ask?”
“I’m just wondering if anyone ever analyzed the handwriting to see if it was actually written by Garrison.”
“I have no idea. Are you saying somebody else might have written it?”
“I don’t know. But checking it should have been done even in 1904. How about the press? With a famous painter killing the wife of a prominent businessman, I would think the newspapers would be all over it,” said McCabe.
“As I said, they were. It was hailed by William Randolph Hearst and others in the yellow press as ‘the murder of the century,’ even though the century was, at that point, only four years old. Happily, at least as far as the Whitby family was concerned, another murder took the title just two years later.”
“The Harry Thaw case.”
“Yes, Thaw shot and killed the architect Stanford White in 1906 on the roof of the old Madison Square Garden in New York. Hearst quickly made that one the new ‘murder of the century.’ You obviously know of that case.”
“At least in the Thaw case there was no doubt about who the murderer was. Hundreds of people saw Thaw do it.”
“Do you think there should be doubts about this one? That Garrison might not have been her killer?”
McCabe shrugged. “Based on what you’ve told us, there was almost no real evidence to prove that he was. All they had were two dead bodies, a suicide note, which could have been written by anybody, and an unidentified face peering over the edge of the cliff. Pretty much everything else seems to be based on nothing more than guesswork. And what the victim’s husband told the police. Which, I take, no one ever questioned?”
“No one dared. My great-grandfather was the most powerful man in Portland.”
“Some might say the same about you.”
“They might.”
“How about the police records on the case? Are they available?”
“No. In 1904, the police department was located in the old city hall building. Four years later, in 1908, the building burned to the ground, and any records that existed were destroyed.”
“Including Garrison’s note?”
“Including Garrison’s note. What I know comes from the press coverage and from the transcripts of an inquest that concluded that Garrison was the killer, that he took his own life and that no one else was on the island.”
“Was there any evidence that might have suggested Garrison w
asn’t the killer?”
“Just one thing. One of the local reporters, a man named Charlie Hough, wrote in the Press Herald that he interviewed the boy, Jack.”
“And?”
“Hough wrote that just before she died, Aimée whispered a name into Jack’s ear. He said the name Jack heard was Edward and definitely not Mark. Hough asked the boy if he was sure he heard Edward. Jack said yes.”
“Doesn’t mean Edward killed her,” said McCabe. “Maybe she was just asking for him.”
“That’s what the police concluded.”
“Did Edward have an alibi?”
“Not really. He said he was working alone in his office at home. The housekeeper said she saw him there.”
“Did Hough write anything more about the case?”
“Not for the Press Herald. Shortly after that first article appeared, Hough was fired by the paper and never heard from again. At least not in Portland.”
“How many people today know the details of the 1904 murder?” asked McCabe.
“Pretty much anyone who has an interest in the case can learn all about it. All they have to do is go to the Portland Public Library and look it up in the Press Herald archives. It’s all there on microfiche. Including Hough’s piece. Transcripts of the coroner’s inquest following the murder are available in the files of the Cumberland County Court.”
“Okay. Easy to research,” said Maggie, “but to mimic the cutting of the A, your daughter’s killer, whether it was Knowles or someone else, would had to have been at least aware of what happened with your great-grandmother.”
“Yes.”
McCabe looked up at the face of the first Aimée. “One thing puzzles me. You said this painting was commissioned by your great-grandfather. Yet you also said you recently bought it at auction. Why hasn’t it been here the whole time?”
“After painting it, Garrison took the canvas back to his studio in Boston for a few finishing touches. He was dead before he got around to doing them. Because Edward refused to pay Garrison’s widow the remainder of the commission, she refused to let him have the painting. Because she needed the money, she eventually sold it, along with most of the rest of his work. As I said, I purchased it at an auction this past April in New York. Cost me several million dollars, but I’d wanted it for years, and it had only just become available. Garrison’s work, and especially this piece, is much sought after because of his talent but also partly because of the scandal that surrounded the end of his life. I unveiled it for the first time at the party last night. I can’t help thinking that my daughter’s death must somehow be connected to my purchase of this painting.”