Forgotten: A Novel

by Catherine McKenzie

  “Right. Eyes front, boys.”

  We watch the silent movie unfold. The Sunday before Christmas is a slow day. The first visitor is an elderly man with a cane who arrives at 11:08. Over the next several minutes, there’s a trickle of traffic. Harried-looking mothers with young children, a couple in their early twenties with their hands entwined.

  “Oh shit,” J.P. says.

  I take the remote from I. William and hit Pause. “What?”

  “I just remembered something.” He stands abruptly and walks toward the conference table, riffling through the stacks of papers, candy wrappers, and bottle caps. He locates a crumpled piece of paper and scans it. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. They’re about to discover that the painting’s missing.”

  “What happens then?”

  “They shut the whole thing down. No one out or in.”

  “How long was the museum closed for?”

  He checks his notes. “Two days. There’s no way our guy could stay in there that long.”

  My mind crowds with doubt. This has to be the answer. Doesn’t it?

  “Let’s keep watching. He still has time.”

  I hit Play.

  11:12.

  11:13.

  I. William’s face is so intense I almost believe that it’s going to work. That the mystery man crouching hidden in a marble bench holding a painting worth millions of dollars is going to reveal himself. Instead, a family arrives, a little boy of about four years old darting in and out of the metal detector. The guard reaches out to snatch him by the collar, just missing him. His mother looks affronted. She speaks precisely enough that you can read her lips, demanding to see his supervisor. The head guard comes over to placate her.

  A man comes into view behind the family. He’s wearing a plain tan overcoat that reaches past his knees. One hand is holding a cell phone to his ear while the other is thrust in his pocket. His hair is hidden by a black ski cap, similar to the one Dominic was wearing when I first met him. As he passes the commotion caused by the four-year-old and his angry mother, he gives them a quick glance, revealing his profile. I feel a flash of recognition.

  “No fucking way,” J.P. breathes.

  “It’s Victor Bushnell,” I. William and I say together.

  Chapter 25: The Half-Life of Happiness

  Holy crap,” Monty says.

  “Dude,” I. William says, “we just figured out that a billionaire pulled off a massive art theft, and all you can say is ‘holy crap’?”

  Monty looks sheepish. “It seemed appropriate at the time.”

  “But hold on,” J.P. says, staring perplexedly at the screen. “He’s not coming out of the museum; he’s going in. That doesn’t make any sense.”

  The air seems to leave the room.

  “You’re totally right,” I. William says. “What do we do now?”

  I watch the silent movie playing out on the screen, my gut churning. Something offscreen draws the attention of the guard at the metal detector, as well as Victor Bushnell’s. Clearly, someone’s discovered that the painting’s missing.

  Bushnell turns abruptly on his heel and leaves the museum while the guard’s focus is diverted. Moments later, several guards come into view, all talking and gesticulating excitedly.

  “He left,” I say quietly.

  “What’s that?” I. William asks.

  “He left. Victor Bushnell. When he saw the guards coming. Why would he do that if he didn’t know about the theft?”

  “But he couldn’t have stolen it, right? Not personally. Maybe he had an accomplice?”

  Something niggles at the edge of my brain. “Wait a second. Oh, I know . . . wrong movie.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean . . . we’ve been assuming that the thief was hiding in the museum overnight so he could take the painting out of the museum. But what if that isn’t it? What if he never took the painting out at all? What if it’s still in there somewhere?”

  “And that’s why Bushnell was there?” J.P. asks. “To take it out?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But he’d be running an awful risk. And it didn’t work.”

  “No, I know. But it still could. Once all the chaos has died down, he could walk in and take it anytime.”

  “But why would he steal his own painting?”

  “He has a large personal loan. The painting’s collateral for it.”

  He shakes his head. “But why steal it? Why not just sell it?”

  “But then he wouldn’t have the painting. This way, he gets out of his financial pickle and either keeps the painting or sells it on the black market in a few years.”

  I. William pops a pretzel into his mouth. “We should tell Matt about this.”

  “No,” I say. “Not yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “I want to make sure first.”

  “Make sure of what?”

  “That he did it.”

  I. William points over his shoulder. “Isn’t that his face up there on the screen?”

  “Yes, but we should make sure there isn’t some other explanation for him being there. And that the painting’s still in the museum.”

  Please, please, let the painting still be in the museum.

  “Wouldn’t they have searched for it already?”

  “I’m not sure they did,” I say, a flash of my mother’s words in the night coming to me. “And I think I have an idea where it might be. Let me make sure before you say anything to Matt, okay?”

  I. William shrugs and positions a can of spray cheese above his mouth.

  “That’s disgusting,” J.P. says.

  “How do you know unless you try it?”

  “Trust me. I know.”

  I sigh. “Can we focus here for a second, guys?”

  They grumble their assent.

  “Thanks. I. William, maybe you can find a facial-recognition specialist who’ll confirm that’s really Bushnell.”

  “On it.”

  “And, J.P., if you could clean all the physical evidence up and collate it; we’ll need that if there’s ever a court case.”

  “No problem.”

  Monty puts up his hand.

  “Seriously, Monty, still with the hand?”

  “What should I do?”

  “How about summarizing what we’ve found until now?”

  “Should I leave out the snacks?”

  “That would probably be a good idea. Email it to me when you’re done so I can review it.”

  “When do we crack the champagne?” J.P. asks.

  “Soon. I promise. Don’t stay too late.”

  “There’s no danger of that.”

  The next few hours pass in a blur as I persuade Detective Kendle to come with me to the museum and check on my hunch—that Victor Bushnell hid the painting in the base of the bench in his gallery, and that it’s been sitting there ever since because he hasn’t had the opportunity to remove it. If I’m right, it must’ve been killing him to know it was there the whole time during Dominic’s show. Or maybe he doesn’t care about the painting at all and it really is just about the insurance money?

  Detective Kendle flashes her badge at Security, and I follow her through the metal detector. She says something to the head guard, and he swears loudly, the guttural sound echoing off the marble walls. He stabs his finger toward two guards standing on the other side of the room in a gesture reminiscent of World War II movies—eyes-on-me and follow. They comply, and when we get to the gallery it seems like we’re all holding our breath as the youngest of the guards pries open the seat lid and looks down into the empty bench.

  Detective Kendle takes over. She pulls on a pair of latex gloves with the expertise of a surgeon and moves her strong fingers around the base until they catch on something—an almost
invisible latch to a hidden compartment. And there it is: a rolled-up piece of innocent-looking canvas that people are willing to pay millions for. The young guard reaches for it until Detective Kendle’s bark stops his hand. She reminds him about fingerprints as she plucks her phone from her pocket. She glances at me, looking mildly surprised, as if she can’t quite believe this is really happening.

  I just shrug and look away, trying to figure out what I’m feeling. Shouldn’t I be elated? Or at least relieved? Wasn’t I happy today? For a moment? Right when we figured out the last piece of the puzzle, I felt elated. And now all I can feel is the echo of it, a small, uneven beat on the contour of my heart.

  The half-life of happiness, I guess.

  Chapter 26: A Piece of the Puzzle

  Let me get this straight,” Sunshine says the next afternoon as I navigate through traffic in the fire-red MINI Cooper that she rented but feels too stressed out to drive. “Victor Bushnell stole his own painting?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “But why?”

  “It likely has something to do with the loan he took to finish building his corporate headquarters when his stock price sank in the market meltdown.” It was right there in the investigator’s report. The building was supposed to be the Trump Tower of his enterprise, but when the credit crunch arrived, the banks weren’t willing to lend the company—already overextended—any additional money. They would, however, be all too happy to lend it to Bushnell, provided he could give them the right kind of collateral, of course.

  “He went to all this trouble because of a building?”

  I shift the car awkwardly, depressing the clutch at the wrong moment.

  “It’s not just the building. If he doesn’t make his loan payments, the bank will call the loan, and that could trigger a cascade effect. His whole business could have gone up in smoke.”

  “But I thought he was a billionaire?”

  “Just on paper. He pretty much leveraged everything he had.”

  “That’s our exit coming up.” She points to a green sign that hangs above the highway.

  “Where are we going, anyway?”

  “You’ll see. Go on.”

  I accelerate to pass a van blocking my access to the off-ramp. “There’s not much more to tell, really.”

  “How’d he hide the painting without the guards seeing?”

  “He was in the last group of guests to go into the gallery. He told the guard that he’d forgotten something in the room right before the guard locked it. The guard let him go back in alone.”

  “Well, that wasn’t too smart. Look lively.”

  I turn my attention back to the road. It curves sharply to the right.

  “Easy on my gears!”

  “This wasn’t my idea, remember?”

  “It wasn’t an idea, honey, it was a vision.”

  That’s what she’d said on the phone earlier. She’d had a “vision” about me and wanted to pick me up so she could take me somewhere. I asked her if we could do it another time.

  “Do you think I get visions like this every day, Emmaline?”

  “I’m kind of busy.”

  “The memo will wait. I’m picking you up in thirty minutes.”

  “How the hell did you know I was working on a memo?”

  “I told you, I—”

  “Had a vision. I heard you.” I stared down at the blinking light on my Dictaphone. That had to be a lucky guess, didn’t it? “I really need to work on this. Can it wait until tomorrow?”

  “It can’t. It’s important. I promise.”

  I heard the seriousness in Sunshine’s tone, a seriousness I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard before. And it occurred to me that what I was doing could wait a few hours. That I owed Sunshine that, at least.

  I agreed to go, spent the next twenty minutes dictating, then synched my Dictaphone with my computer, sending the file to Jenny.

  “Can you have this finished by the time I get back?” I asked her as I buttoned up my coat. “And I need you to password the file.”

  Her eyes flitted briefly away from her Facebook page to meet mine. “Sure, no problem.”

  “I still don’t get why he’d steal the painting himself,” Sunshine says now.

  “Maybe he couldn’t find anyone he could trust. Or maybe it was the thrill of it.”

  “I guess . . . Stop the car!”

  I brake, checking the rearview mirror to make sure no one’s behind me a fraction too late. A man in a black Mercedes slams on his brakes and swerves to avoid me, applying his horn liberally. I catch a flash of his finger as he passes within inches of my bumper.

  “Sorry about that. I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “No problem. Why did you want me to stop?”

  She straightens her wool hat. “Because we’re here.”

  “We are?” I realize we’re in front of the gates to a cemetery. My mother’s buried within.

  A chill runs down my spine. “What are we doing here?”

  “We’re going to visit your mother.”

  “What? Why?”

  “She was part of my vision.”

  I feel queasy. “I’m not sure this is a good idea.”

  “I know, dear. Well, let’s go, we don’t want to be late.”

  “Late for what?”

  “You’ll see.”

  I sigh internally as I put the car in reverse with minimal fuss. I back up far enough to pull into the entrance. The front gates look imposing.

  “Are you sure it’s open?”

  She nods. “I called ahead.”

  I put the car into first. The gates swing open like the automatic doors at the grocery store. I press the accelerator lightly, being cautious, since the road doesn’t appear to have been plowed since the last snowstorm.

  Maybe it’s the change of season, but nothing looks familiar. I’ve only been here once, the day of my mother’s funeral. It was warm then, and bright. And of course, I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going as I followed the hearse through the groves of trees and rolling grass.

  “I don’t remember where to go.”

  “Just follow this road.”

  We drive in silence for a few moments, our location staying our tongues.

  “Park at the top of the hill.”

  I give the car a bit of gas. The wheels begin spinning halfway up the hill, and we stop moving forward. The smell of burning rubber fills the car. I try the brake, but it has no effect. We come to rest at the base of the hill and skid off into the ditch. My hands are shaking.

  “I guess I should’ve listened to the car-rental company and got the one with the four-wheel drive, eh?” Sunshine says with a wavering smile.

  “Not part of your vision?”

  “I don’t get practical information like that, I’m afraid. Anyway, off we go.”

  “Shouldn’t we do something about the car?”

  She flings her scarf over her shoulder. “It’ll keep. Come along, now.”

  I grit my teeth and follow her out of the car, leaving the hazard lights blinking. I climb up the bank of the slippery ditch, buttoning my coat against the cold. We trudge through the snow to an area that feels vaguely familiar. We get to a cleared path, and now I recognize where I’m going. My mother’s grave is up ahead, past a large stand of trees. Their dark branches are highlighted by a dusting of snow.

  “Sunshine, is this really necessary?”

  “Shh. We’re almost there.”

  My hands feel cold and stiff inside my gloves. I want to turn back, but something propels me ahead.

  Sunshine disappears behind the black trees. I take a few last strides and catch up with her. She’s standing at the foot of my mother’s grave, looking down at a bunch of dried-out yellow roses half buried in the snow.

  “We’
ve missed him,” Sunshine says with uncharacteristic bleakness.

  “Who?”

  “Your father.”

  “This is about my father?”

  “I saw him so clearly.”

  “Sunshine, please tell me what’s going on.”

  She grimaces guiltily. “I was meditating this morning, and I had a really clear vision of this place.”

  “And my father was here?”

  “Yes. He was holding a bouquet of flowers.”

  I walk toward her. Even faded, the roses are oddly vivid in this black-and-white world.

  “Are you playing some kind of trick on me?”

  “Oh, Emmaline, how could you think such a thing?”

  “I’m sorry. I just . . . I don’t know why you brought me here.”

  “I thought it might bring you some peace, of course.”

  Of course. How could running into my father leaving flowers to the woman he abandoned years ago without a backward thought bring me anything but peace? Was he even really here?

  I realize with a saddening certainty that I don’t want to know. What I do know is enough, and it’s time to let go of the hurt that I’ve been holding on to for so long. It’s time to say goodbye, not just to my mother but to my absent father too.

  “I wish you wouldn’t,” I say. “Try to bring us back together, I mean.”

  “Why not, dear?”

  “Because I have to choose whether I want him in my life. You can’t do the choosing for me.”

  She raises a hand to my cheek. Her fluffy mitten tickles my skin. “I wish I could.”

  “I know. Thank you for trying. But I think . . . I’m going to let him be where he is, wherever he is.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. For now anyway, yes.”

  She sighs. “Well, should we head back to the car?”

  I look at the curve of my mother’s headstone. I remember picking it out a few days after she died, but I’ve never seen it in place.

  “Will you give me a second?”

  “Of course.”

  Sunshine crunches away, her boots squeaking through our footprints. When she’s out of sight, I turn and crouch down. I take off my glove and trace my fingers along my mother’s name, Elizabeth Kara Tupper. She kept my father’s name to the end. BELOVED FRIEND AND MOTHER, it reads, WE WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER.