The Black Painting

by Neil Olson

  “No. Fucking. Way.”

  “What?” Teresa asked, barely above a whisper.

  “I can’t believe this. She gets it all? She gets everything?”

  “Who?”

  Audrey’s murderous blue gaze swung upon her.

  “That old witch. Ilsa.”

  11

  The brick pillars marking Owl’s Point appeared on the left, but Dave slowed only briefly. The wooded part of the property lay west of the house, and the road shaped it closely. Within a quarter mile he saw what he was expecting. A lime green Chevy parked on the grass, half-hidden by pine branches. Dave pulled in behind it and killed the motor. He moved carefully getting out, but still tweaked his ribs. Almost any motion hurt. Breathing deeply against the pain, he approached the empty-looking vehicle. There was rust on the quarter panels, and the windshield was dirty. Balled up fast-food bags sat on the passenger seat, and an Irish cross was glued to the dashboard. Shiny gold plastic. Nothing else of note. Dave turned from the car to the silent woods. Not silent, woods were never really silent. You had to listen closely, separate the sounds. The chatter of sparrows. The distant pock-pocking of a woodpecker. The weighty swish of wind through pine boughs. And what might be feet shuffling in the underbrush. The direction was a guess, but Dave picked a spot and started into the trees.

  It was funny how things went. He had not intended to go to the funeral. It was not his place to be there, and it might have annoyed Philip Morse. Yet morning found him throwing on the darkest clothes he had and seeking directions for Cedar Hill Cemetery. Philip only nodded when he spotted him, standing well back from the grave. Dave assumed his hardest task would be not staring lustfully at Audrey. It was not Audrey who caught his eye, though, but a petite, dark-haired young woman. Her resemblance to Luisa was unnerving. Even now the memory brought him to a halt, hand braced on a damp tree trunk. Teresa, the sickly cousin, Audrey told him afterward. Instantly suspicious of his interest. You could not keep things from women, or at least Dave couldn’t.

  He was certain that Teresa was staring back at him, but then followed her gaze over his shoulder to the lurking man. He had never met Peter Mulhane. The groundskeeper went into hiding after the theft, and was then arrested, but Dave saw him once in a courtroom. Prison had not been kind to Pete. He had the edginess and paranoia of many ex-cons, and he bolted the cemetery grounds before Dave could catch up. The last sign of him was a green car racing away. You might expect a man so unwilling to talk to keep his distance after that, but Dave bet otherwise, and the empty vehicle by the roadside looked like his payoff.

  A hundred yards into the woods he came to a tumbled iron fence, surely the property line. He stopped to listen, but the footfalls—if they had ever been there—were no longer audible. Once again he chose a direction at random and continued into the trees, which were thickly clustered now. The occasional oak or maple opened up the view, but it was mostly pine, and for long stretches he could not see more than a few yards in any direction. He was not easily spooked, but this place was creepy. He would be glad to reach the other side.

  His senses were alert before the stimulus registered. He had not seen or heard anything unusual, but even with his nose so swollen he smelled something. Cigarette smoke. Dave shouldered through branches as quietly as possible. He found a cigarette butt near the base of a big oak, where the scent was sharpest. After a few moments the smell dissipated. But not that eerie feeling which fretted him. Indeed, it seemed strongest right here, almost a malevolent presence. A sound reached him, not part of the natural repertoire. A soft laugh. He waited most of a minute, but it did not repeat. A swath of green was visible through the branches. The lawn of Owl’s Point. He moved in that direction until he made out figures wandering about, members of the returned funeral party. One of them might be the smoker. Had Mulhane come to meet someone? Was the car even his, or was Dave on a wild-goose chase?

  A heavy thud spun him around. He slapped branches aside and was quickly in front of the creepy oak again. The muddy ground was gashed, and a crumpled pack of Lucky Strikes lay there. Directly above were the remains of a tree house that he had missed before. It had been on the far side of the trunk, but still, all he needed to do was look up. Idiot. Someone had been standing ten feet above, laughing at him. Dave heard footfalls rushing away through the woods. He scooped up the cigarette pack and pursued.

  In half a minute he caught sight of a figure scrabbling over the broken base of the fallen iron fence. Faded army jacket, wild blond hair. The man from the cemetery. There was a hitch in his step that Dave had not noticed before. Probably he bruised something falling out of the oak, so the laugh was on him. Even so, he would reach his car before Dave could catch him. Only to find himself blocked by the Taurus.

  “Hey,” Dave shouted, dodging small trees as the road appeared ahead. “Come on, I just want to talk.”

  The figure did not slow down.

  “Peter Mulhane,” Dave said clearly. “What are you running from?”

  Fifty feet ahead and maybe thirty feet from his Chevy, the other man stopped and turned.

  “What do you want?” Mulhane demanded, hands on his knees. Obviously winded. It was a long time since his Marine Corps days.

  “Only trying to give you these,” Dave said, waving the pack of Luckys while continuing forward. “But it looks like maybe you should quit.”

  “Stop there,” Pete replied, straightening up. “I have a gun in my pants.”

  “In your pants? Well, heck, be careful.”

  “No joke, man. You stay right there.”

  Dave stopped and looked over the other man. Mud on his jeans, leaf debris in his beard.

  “You hurt yourself falling out of that tree?”

  “I didn’t fall. Ladder gave way.”

  “Uh-huh,” Dave replied, examining the cigarette pack. “That sounds like falling. Only three of these left.”

  “You keep ’em,” Pete said, walking backward. Dave did not necessarily believe in the gun, but it wasn’t worth finding out.

  “Saw you at the funeral,” he said, keeping pace with the retreating man.

  “Just paying respects to the old man.”

  “After he let you do ten years for a crime you didn’t commit?”

  That stopped him, as Dave knew it would.

  “How do you know I didn’t do it?”

  “I don’t,” Dave admitted. “But it seems to be the general consensus.”

  “General consensus,” Pete spat. “Who are you, anyway? Her boyfriend?”

  “Whose?”

  “Whose, he says. That prick tease. Audrey.”

  Where did he get that? Maybe Audrey had a lot of boyfriends, so it was an obvious guess. And why had Dave been confused about the “her” in question?

  “Did she tell you that?”

  “Nah,” Pete said, shaking his head. “I ain’t talked to her in a while. But she was looking at you that whole time by the graveside.”

  Which meant Mulhane had been looking long and hard at her.

  “I’m an investigator,” said Dave. Figuring, what the hell. “Philip Morse hired me.”

  “To do what?” Pete asked, backing up again.

  “Find out who really took that painting.”

  “Bullshit,” Pete shot back. “Why would he have waited all this time?”

  “Good question. Maybe you should ask him.”

  “He don’t want to talk to me.”

  Pete came up against his car and halted. Dave did also, twenty feet away.

  “So you tried to speak to him. About what?”

  “Hell, man, if you work for the guy, shouldn’t he tell you this stuff?” Pete cackled. It was a good point, certainly.

  “Is that why you’ve been hanging around here? Looking for another chance to talk?”

  “Why would I do that? I’d go to his hous
e, like before. I just wanted to visit the old place. Wasn’t here ten minutes when you showed up.”

  “I don’t mean today. The last few days.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mulhane said, narrowing his eyes.

  “Come on, Pete. You were seen in these woods, a couple of times.”

  “Screw this,” Pete said, yanking the driver’s door open and sliding into the car.

  “Wait.” Dave rushed forward, only to see the other man tug something free from his waistband. Maybe the gun was real, after all. He stopped again. “Take these.”

  Dave tossed the cigarette pack through the open window. Pete shook it, sliding a cigarette into his mouth and tucking the pack in his jacket.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “Let’s get a beer,” Dave suggested. “I’m buying.”

  “Nah,” Pete said, gunning the car to life as he lit up. “If Philip wants to talk, he knows how to reach me.”

  “Some message I can give him?”

  Pete gazed at him several moments with those pale, nervous eyes.

  “Did you know he testified for me?”

  “Philip?” Dave replied. He had been to an early hearing, but off the case before the actual trial started. “No, I didn’t.”

  “His idea, I didn’t ask. Character witness. Kind of funny, since he barely spoke two words to me in my whole life before that.”

  “That is odd.”

  “Ain’t it? And I’ll tell you something else, mister. I haven’t been in these woods for fifteen years until today. See you later.”

  “Hang on, I’ll move my—”

  But Mulhane was not waiting for anything. He reversed into the Taurus with a loud crunch, knocking it back a few feet. Then he cut the wheel hard to the right as he put the Chevy in Drive. Pine branches scraped against the hood and roof, but the car sprang free and zipped off down Long Hill Road.

  12

  She stared at her closed bedroom door, willing James to knock. Knowing he would not. Neither of them knew how to seek comfort, to ask for help. Teresa pictured him doing what she was now. Sitting on his bed with the letter beside him. Lost in dark thoughts, hounded beyond the wall of death by their bitter, controlling grandfather. Damn the man. Though that probably was unnecessary.

  They had all gone their separate ways after meeting Mitchell, but curiosity or common cause would draw them together before long. What would she reveal? James and Kenny knew what they would find in their letters. It was Audrey and Teresa getting the nasty surprise, yet in the end was it surprising? Go to the place that’s most private to you. Most humiliating. That’s right where he would have put his finger. Kenny had warned her, and her unconscious had gnawed at his words ever since. She tore open the envelope believing its contents a mystery, yet as soon as she began reading Teresa grasped the old man’s intent. She did not read closely, just scanned words and phrases. Impaired functioning. Occipital lobe epilepsy. The names of surgeons. The second paragraph dealt with her father, and with a young person’s tendency to romanticize mental illness. Teresa tossed the letter aside then. At some point she would read it through, but the meaning was clear enough. She was a broken thing. She needed fixing.

  Another part of her understood that this was a long-delayed reckoning. Not with her grandfather, but herself. She had suppressed certain questions for so long that they stopped being questions, just shut-up rooms in her brain. The shock of the sprawled body on the sofa blew open those doors. She had found the courage to enter that room of death, and she would need the same courage to explore her interior chambers. To wipe the dust off old uncertainties and seek answers. Who had her father really been, and what had he done that severed him from his family? What did her visions mean, or did they mean anything? Would she be the same person without them? Was she brave enough to find out?

  Oh, and a late addition: What or who had killed her grandfather?

  She stood and paced. Hard questions for someone unskilled at extracting information. She needed more than courage; she needed an ally. Up to now she had assumed it was James. But he could not even speak of his own trouble, and he would make a terrible detective. Audrey was the obvious choice, but she could not be trusted. Kenny was too removed from everything. Philip was the only one seeking answers, but why would he share them with her? He wanted the estate, which meant a fight with Ilsa, of which Teresa wanted no part.

  The front doorbell surprised her. Family and friends had been in and out all afternoon without observing niceties. Curiosity sent her down the hall to the top of the wide, carpeted stairs. Audrey was below, changed into jeans and a dark blouse. She had the door open two feet, her frame filling the space. Blocking the man standing outside, or requiring that he push through her to enter. The man stayed put, speaking in a low voice.

  “Come in,” Audrey said, stepping aside. “But good luck speaking to Philip.”

  He moved stealthily into the hall. Dark blazer, dark circles under his eyes. Swollen nose. The man from the cemetery.

  “Where is our Phil?” he asked.

  “Beats me. Probably upstairs strangling the lawyer. Have you eaten?”

  “Uh, no.”

  “Figures,” Audrey said, with affectionate disdain. Her speech was vaguely slurred, and there was a sway in her step. “Come back to the kitchen. There’s a ton of food.”

  They set off down the hall, and Teresa retreated to her room. Philip’s investigator, he had to be. What was he doing here? What had he learned, and why did he make Teresa so uneasy? She slipped off her boots and went carefully down the back stairs. From the lower flight she could see the closed door of the study and the open kitchen entry. She sat on the second to bottom step. She could not see into the kitchen from here, but could easily hear anyone inside. Especially anyone as loud as Audrey.

  “These are tasty. Not sure what’s in them.”

  “Something indigestible,” he replied with his mouth full. “I’ll stick with the fruit.”

  “That’s how you keep that flat belly.”

  “It was only flat because I was on my back.”

  “Yeah.” She giggled. “Mine ain’t flat in any position, as you know.”

  That answered one question, Teresa thought, shaking her head in wonder. Quick work even for Audrey.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “You mean am I drunk,” Audrey declared, exaggerating the slur. “Yes, sir, I am.”

  “Well, funerals...”

  “If you must know, I’ve had a financial setback.”

  “Ah. Zeke won’t be happy.”

  “Fuck Zeke,” she said viciously. Who the heck was Zeke?

  “I leave that to you.”

  “You think I’m doing him? You think I sleep with every guy I meet?”

  “Only the hopeless cases.”

  “Did you catch up with Pete?” she asked, her tone more casual.

  “I did, yeah.”

  “You going to tell me?”

  “You going to split my fee with Philip?”

  “Philip,” Audrey said acidly, “owes me more than he can ever repay. What’s he giving you, anyway?”

  “I got the impression you and Pete have been in contact. I mean, since he’s been out of prison.”

  “You did, huh?” She was quiet for a bit. Ice shifted in a glass. “He came to see me. Year or two ago.”

  “To catch up? Were you two pals before the theft?”

  “I was fifteen, dickhead. But yeah, I was friendly with him, maybe he remembered that. I wasn’t the only one he visited either.”

  “Who else?”

  “Philip. Ilsa, I think. Maybe others.”

  “What did he want?”

  “You are getting seriously boring with these questions, Davie.”

  There was no reply, just more ice slushing against gla
ss. Audrey tossing back another vodka, no doubt.

  “He asked about the family,” she finally said. “How everybody was doing. Mostly he wanted money.”

  “Did you give him any?”

  “Few bucks, out of pity. What did he tell you?”

  “That Philip was a character witness at his trial.”

  “Oh yeah,” said Audrey in a flat voice. “That was kind of weird.”

  “You know why he did it?”

  “Philip? Why would I know that?”

  “Because you know things. You keep your ears open.”

  “I have to watch what I say to you.”

  “He also claimed not to have been in those woods for fifteen years.”

  “Huh,” she mumbled. “You believe him?”

  “He was convincing. I haven’t been around him long enough to know when he’s lying.”

  “That a skill of yours? Lie detection?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  One of their phones buzzed. The first bars of a pop song, so Audrey’s.

  “I’ve got to take this,” she said. Teresa stood, preparing to flee, but Audrey’s voice went the other way, toward the dining room. Teresa sat again. This was her moment to confront him, while Audrey was out of the room. What would she ask? She was sitting there puzzling it out when he magically appeared. Standing in the doorway, profile to her. A glass of something clear in his hand and an anxious look around his eyes. His eyes, which were dark and round and hypnotic. She did not move. His head went left to right, from the basement door to the hallway, the study, the stairs. The merest shock registered in those eyes, a quick flare around the irises, at finding her so close. Then he simply stared. Teresa should have felt unease, but there was something so tender in his face, and so forlorn, that she was disarmed. She could not look away. He blinked and stepped back, breaking the spell.

  “I’m Teresa,” she said, standing and extending her hand. With the stair giving her a boost, she looked him straight in the face. “Marías. I guess you know that.”

  He took her hand carefully, as if she were an animal that might startle.