Abandoned

by Allison Brennan

  “You’re not testifying here, Dillon,” Max said.

  Dillon looked at Ryan. “Agent Maguire? I often consult for the FBI, but this report is private, not to be used in any trial or be included in any case files. If there’s a need for my services once you make an arrest, you have my contact information and I would be happy to work with you and your office.”

  “Off the record,” Ryan said. “Got it.”

  “I was privy to a lot of Martha’s background because Max and I talked about her at length during the time we spent together in Scottsdale, during the Blair Caldwell murder trial. Normally, I don’t completely trust the recollections of an adult remembering a distant past, but Max is a far better witness than most because she kept journals and she also has a cop-like knack of separating herself from personal trauma. Still, I think you missed a lot of your mother’s psychopathy growing up, because as a child you wouldn’t know how to frame it. Max, you’re okay with me talking about everything you shared with me, right?”

  He sounded concerned, and while she appreciated it, she had nothing to hide. “I talk about my upbringing publicly, I have nothing to hide, especially from David and Ryan.”

  “You have been forthright, but sometimes we forget the pain in our childhood once we look at it through the lens of maturity.”

  “I’m good.” What could she possibly learn that would hurt more than anything that happened in her past?

  Dillon shifted his papers. “Martha left home when she was nineteen and lived off an ample trust fund. She moved around extensively, never settling down for longer than a few months. She lived in hotels, in other people’s homes, on boats, and occasionally a short-term lease. Many teenagers rebel, especially when brought up in a strict home. The Revere house was not physically abusive, but Martha’s parents were strict—especially her mother—and expected very specific behavior and a sense of order, of propriety. They expected their offspring to respect their elders, respect their status in society as being among the upper class, and behave with manners and grace. The Revere home was part of a matriarchal dynasty—Genevieve Sterling was widowed young and grew her husband’s wealth at a time when most women didn’t have such control over business and finances. Her daughter, Eleanor, saw her mother as the leader in the home, and took it upon herself to lead her own home.”

  Max had to interrupt. “Eleanor loved my grandfather. And he saw her for who she was, warts and all, and loved her back. He wasn’t a weak man.”

  “I didn’t say he was. He was a banker, and the Reveres had some money, but the real wealth—the kind most of us never touch—came from the Sterlings, correct?”

  Max hadn’t thought of it that way. “True.”

  “Martha likely was sociopathic from a young age. If I talked to Eleanor—and if she was honest with me—she would tell me that Martha was often in trouble at school because of peer conflicts. I doubt Eleanor would say anything to a stranger—she doesn’t sound like she would ever share a personal detail with anyone outside of immediate family.”

  “True,” Max said. “Martha did get in trouble in school—she told me about it—but I never knew the details.”

  “From what you’ve said, Max, Eleanor would do whatever it took to make any indiscretions disappear.”

  “Yes.”

  “Martha was smart—probably received good grades, even straight As. She would have been capable of it. She likely felt that she was smarter than her peers, and maybe she was in some regard. That sense of superiority grew because she had a strong sense of self. She pushed envelopes because she liked to see what happened. She broke rules because she got a reaction from her proper mother. She did it because of how other people reacted, not necessarily because she wanted something she couldn’t have. If she was supposed to dress for a formal dinner, she would wear something inappropriate. If she was supposed to be on time for a meeting, she would be late because she could get away with it. Essentially, she was a spoiled brat, but because she was smart, she manipulated the entire house.

  “She left when she got control of her trust, on her nineteenth birthday. She was free. There were no strings to the trust, she received her allowance on the first of every month. No requirement to go to school, to get a job. Essentially, free money.”

  “But it wasn’t,” Max said. “Grandma Genie worked well into her seventies. In fact, she never really retired, taking an active role in the company she and her husband created. I didn’t even meet her until I was nine, but it was clear as anything that she valued what she’d done.”

  “Max, you know as well I do that even people raised the same way can turn out vastly different. It’s why I lean toward the nature side of the nature versus nurture debate. Your mother was, essentially, selfish, but it was more than that—clinically, I don’t feel comfortable labelling her at this point, but I suspect she was bipolar, which manifested in her need to constantly be moving around. But being bipolar doesn’t make someone a sociopath. It was simply one more facet to her personality.”

  Max understood what Dillon was saying on the one hand, but she’d seen how Martha’s spendthrift ways had hurt Eleanor and Grandma Genie.

  “Did she just want to hurt her family? Is that why she treated the money Grandma Genie earned as if it was her own personal bank?”

  “She probably wanted to lash out at her mother, but you can’t see it as her desire to hurt anyone. The money was hers, she wanted to do what she wanted. And it was, in essence, her personal bank. Certainly it would have been more than enough for the average person to live on, but your mother spent lavishly so found herself short at the end of the month. That’s when she fully developed her manipulation skills. She dated wealthy men who would pay for everything because she was young, pretty, and smart. She moved on when she received her allowance, because she was incapable of developing a real romantic attachment to anyone.”

  Max suddenly felt that she was more like her mother than she’d thought. Had she walked away from Nick too soon? Had she not given him a real chance?

  “Max,” Dillon said, “I see you thinking, and we’ll talk privately later, okay? Just know that you’re not your mother. Like I said, I lean to the nature over the nurture side. Why is it that some abused children can grow up and never hurt another human being, while other abused children become abusers? We can debate this topic—believe me, it is not settled in my field. My sister and I have debated this concept extensively, and she leans the other way, that nurture plays a stronger role than nature. But most of my colleagues tend to agree that it’s a combination of nature and nurture that creates psychopaths.

  “Which bring me to you, Max. The first nearly ten years of your life you were forced to follow the whims of your mother. Even though you were not what she expected—from her postcards, she never understood why you didn’t want to have fun with her, why you were serious all the time—she kept you with her. I’m certainly not saying she was perfect—she clearly abused you.”

  “She never hit me.”

  “Maxine,” Dillon said sharply, “abuse isn’t always physical. She left you for days, all by yourself, when you were still a young child. She berated you because she didn’t understand you. You were more of a possession to be kept than a child to be raised. But if someone didn’t like you, or didn’t want a woman with a child, she didn’t care. You were hers, and those people—mostly men—could go jump in a lake for all she cared. Until Jimmy Truman. You said from the beginning that you didn’t like him.”

  “I didn’t. The feeling was mutual.” She paused, considered what she should say and how she should say it. “Once, when I was seven or eight, one of my mother’s boyfriends hit me. Said I mouthed off at him, which I probably did. My mother grabbed me and walked out. When Jimmy slapped me, she said I deserved it.”

  She had never talked about it, barely remembered it until these last few weeks when she had been rereading her journals and trying to figure things out.

  “Jimmy Truman was attractive, charming, and a con
artist,” Dillon said. “He may have attempted to con her, and she found it exciting. And I think that’s the key. Every postcard talks about fun. Seizing the day, enjoying the good things in life. Travel. Drink. Food. I talked to my brother-in-law Sean—I know you hired him, so he’s covered under our NDA—and asked if she lived above her means. Meaning, that even with the steady allowance, would she need more to live the way she did? Absolutely, he said. I suspect that Truman gave her the permission, so to speak, to go from manipulative to criminal. It wouldn’t take a big push—like I said earlier, she didn’t respect other people. But with Truman she found her soul mate. The one person who understood who she was and loved her anyway. He fed her psychopathy, helped develop it. Ironically, I don’t think he was a psychopath. He was a con artist, plain and simple. Sociopath? Probably. Most con artists have no remorse for their crimes. But generally, they lack the empathy gene—they may be violent, but it’s not an absolute. With Martha, he met his match, so he brought her into the fold, so to speak.”

  Max let that sink in. David and Ryan were both quiet—maybe too quiet. She almost felt like she was being the one analyzed.

  “You asked me three times, in slightly different ways, why Martha stole the paintings. I have two answers. First, because she could get away with it. It was a game to her. Why she was enticed? That’s harder to figure out. It may have been Jimmy egging her on or Jimmy may have been the one to steal them in the first place. Perhaps he’d been part of”—he glanced down at his notes—“Phillip Colter? He could have been part of his crew. Maybe Martha wanted the paintings for herself because they attracted her. Max, were these seven paintings to her taste?”

  “Yes,” Max said without hesitation. “She loved Degas and all those who followed in his style. Not just that, though—it was the era.”

  “Perhaps Jimmy showed them to her, and they conspired to steal them from Colter—if he’s the thief—and he would be hard-pressed to report them stolen.”

  “Stealing from a thief—oldest trick in the book,” Ryan said. “What if I told you that Colter is known for having masterful reproductions in his collection? Some would call them forgeries, except that he commissioned them.”

  “Interesting,” Dillon said. “Would Martha know the difference? If it was a really good reproduction?”

  “Yes,” Max said. “Martha was a lot of things, stupid wasn’t one of them. Though I guess stupidity has a wide range of factors. I would think it’s stupid to steal from someone who might kill you to get their stuff back.”

  “You need to think like Martha. It’s a challenge. The adrenaline of taking something that doesn’t belong to you—of keeping it, the secret of knowing it. Martha never felt the need to prove she was smarter than anyone. Or prettier. Not even richer. Yes, she spent a lot of money, but she didn’t throw it around publicly. Nothing that put her in the society pages or under scrutiny. To take and possess a masterpiece would appeal to her, even if she couldn’t display it.”

  David cleared his throat. “So an independently wealthy woman who doesn’t need the money steals priceless art because it’s fun?”

  “Yes, and because she can. I think it was a challenge for her, a game, something for her and Jimmy to share, but the pieces they took appealed to her aesthetics.”

  “How did it take Colter so long to figure out that they stole the art?”

  “They used aliases”—Dillon looked down—“Sterling, correct? They may have been in hiding, of sorts. He could have known all along but couldn’t find them. He may not have known their real names. And didn’t you say, Max, that Jimmy only disappeared after he sold one of the paintings?”

  “Yes.”

  Ryan expounded on that point. “That’s how I started investigating Jimmy Truman. I had no idea Martha Revere was involved. I know of the J. J. Sterling alias, but thought it was all on paper. He popped up, sold the Toulouse-Lautrec, then went under again. I came to Cape Haven to talk to friends and family and no one spoke to me. They didn’t like Jimmy, but it’s a small town—they’re not going to talk to a big city cop.” He cleared his throat. “Not that Norfolk is big city anything. But, Doc, why so long? Martha disappeared, and then Jimmy comes out of hiding nearly six years later?”

  “You’re presuming that Colter knew of Jimmy Truman’s involvement. You didn’t until he sold the painting, correct?”

  “Oh, right. Colter thought Martha was working alone.”

  “Which makes sense. In fact, she may have been involved with Colter at one point. She may have seen the paintings herself, decided that she should have them.”

  “So,” Max said, “Martha and Jimmy take assumed names—the Sterling identity—and live mostly in Miami, maybe a bit of travel, and it takes Colter years to track them down. I don’t see my mother hiding. It’s not her style.”

  “This is all speculation. Maybe she used an assumed name when involved with Colter. Maybe he didn’t figure out that it was Martha and Jimmy who stole the paintings until later. We can’t possibly know the reasons. What we do know is that Colter is a thief, correct, Agent Maguire?”

  “Yes, though I can’t prove it.”

  “The seven paintings in the postcards that Max received were stolen using the same MO as paintings you suspect Colter stole?”

  “Correct,” Ryan said. “None of the other paintings have turned up, and only four of the seven.”

  “I hesitate to give you any profile of Colter, but if he stole them and they have never come to market, that means two things: he was hired to steal them for individuals who didn’t intend to sell them—for their private collection, as it were—or he stole them for himself. You said he has masterful reproductions on his property?”

  “We interviewed someone in Dallas who worked for his preferred catering company,” Ryan said. “She worked at several of his parties and he would give his guests tours of his expansive home and tell stories about his artwork, both why he decided to commission it and about the original. Some people remarked that the paintings looked real—he would say that’s the purpose.”

  David asked, “Why would someone just talk to the FBI?”

  David sounded belligerent, but Max didn’t comment. She wasn’t going to get in the middle of whatever it was that was going on with David.

  “Her brother-in-law is a Dallas cop,” Ryan said. “He was friendly with my former colleague who has since retired, had the woman talk to him. Colter was on our radar and this was just one more piece of the puzzle—unfortunately, we couldn’t get a warrant on the information because there was no physical evidence or actual witness to the crimes.”

  Dillon said, “He could have been slowly replacing his collection with the real artwork. No one would have suspected, because he had the fakes displayed and he talked about them. But Martha—an art expert—saw the difference. She knew some of his paintings were real.”

  “Here’s a question for you,” Max said. “If Colter had these perfect forgeries, why not replace the originals with the forgeries? Then no one would know that they were stolen.”

  “I can answer that,” Ryan said. “The MO gave the thief the best opportunity to grab a painting—while it’s en route or in storage. Most of the paintings weren’t discovered missing for weeks, some months. To replace a painting means to replace everything, including the frame, which is extremely difficult. And eventually, the con will be discovered. At some point a museum will authenticate the piece, or an insurance company will inspect the physical property that they are insuring. If there is any difference, no matter how small, it will open an investigation.”

  “But he already had these amazing forgeries.”

  “Security at galleries and museums is generally much higher than security at the loading dock and during transport,” Ryan said. “I’ve consulted with some of the people who lost the paintings and they’ve made improvements, but nothing is one hundred percent foolproof.”

  “My brother-in-law would certainly attest to that,” Dillon said with a half smile.
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  “So,” Max said, trying to wrap her head around multiple theories at once to figure out what was the most logical, “if Martha realized which paintings in Colter’s collection were real, she decided to just take them? Maybe replace them with forgeries of her own so he wouldn’t know?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that, but it would make sense,” Dillon said, “since there were years between those thefts and her suspected death.”

  “And when Colter found out?” David asked.

  “He would be furious. He had been conned. This is key: Colter believes that he is intelligent, cultured, a self-made man. From my limited understanding of his background, I suspect he came from a solid middle-class or upper-middle-class background. For Northampton, he would be considered wealthy, but when he went to college—an elite school—he was surrounded by people who had far more than he did. He coveted not just their wealth, but their experience, their luxury. He absorbed everything, and because he was smart, he was able to adopt the attitude, the style, of those around him. He wanted culture, to be seen as cultured. And yet, a woman who never went to college but was born into culture could see the truth on his walls better than he could. He knew which paintings were real because he was the one who stole them; no one else did until Martha.”

  “He hated her,” Max said.

  “At that point? Yes. We simply don’t have enough information to know when he caught on. Though she used an alias in Miami, she wasn’t truly in hiding. She moved around a lot, but she wasn’t what Sean would call ‘off the grid.’ If she used her real name with him, he would know about her family in California, including you, Max, and may have reached out. Now, this is all conjecture. But Colter’s psychopathy is not: he wants what he considers his. There are three paintings still missing, Agent Maguire?”

  “Yes.”

  “So either he has them because he killed Martha and took them back, or he killed Martha in a rage because she wouldn’t tell him where they were. Either way, he’s dangerous. Don’t be fooled by his sophistication or charm.”