Trophy Widow (13 page)

“Isn't that crazy?” she said brightly, looking from me to her husband to Benny, who was still grumbling at the painting. “I mean, I remember that Jack brought it home—what, eight or nine years ago, right, honey?—and put it down in the basement. We had no idea it was so special. Why, we never even unwrapped it until you called today.” She looked at the painting. “It's certainly, well, brash.”

And, I thought, completely different from the other works of art in their living and dining rooms, all of which were either prints of famous Impressionist paintings or posters advertising museum exhibitions of works by famous Impressionist painters.

“What attracted you to the painting?” I asked Jack.

He shrugged. “I don't know. I supposed I must have liked it.”

“Had you bought other art from the 309 Gallery?”

He frowned. “I don't recall.”

Benny spun around. “You dona recall?” he said in his strange accent. “But surely you recalla de owner, Meez Cummings, ya?” He gave Jack a lecherous wink and put his hands on his hips and thrust them forward twice. “Magnifica, eh?”

Jack leaned back and frowned. “I don't remember her.”

Trying to ignore Benito, I asked Jack, “What exactly appealed to you about this painting?”

“I don't know.”

“Did you view other paintings at the gallery?”

“I don't remember. I may have just called over there, asked them if they had a painting by this Curry guy. I remember going by to pick it up. I didn't really spend much time in the gallery.”

“What made you interested in Sebastian Curry?” I asked.

He shrugged, clearly uncomfortable with this line of questions. “I think someone told me he was going to be the next big thing. I suppose it seemed like a good investment opportunity.”

“Did you have it appraised at the time you bought it?”

“No.”

“How about since then?”

“No.”

Margo asked me, “Do you think our painting is worth a lot of money?”

“Hard to say,” I told her. “Some of his work may have held its value, but I know of at least one of his paintings that was recently appraised for only four hundred dollars.”

Margo looked at the painting and then back at me. “That's not so bad, is it?”

“Not if you paid less than a hundred dollars for it,” I said, glancing at her husband.

“How much did we pay, hon?” she asked him.

He glanced from his wife to me and back to her. “Uh, something like that—or maybe a little more. I don't remember. It's been a long time.”

“Less than four hundred dollars?” I asked, trying to keep my voice neutral.

“Yeah,” he answered, averting his eyes, “somewhere around there.”

Benny turned around and announced, “Now Benito ees done.”

“What do you think of it, Señor Benito?” Margo asked hopefully.

Benny shook his head. “I am sorry to say zat deesa work eesa—how shall I put eet?—decidedly pedestrian and derivative.”

***

The three of us were having dinner at the Lynch Street Bistro in the Soulard area—Benny, Ellen McNeil, and me.

“I don't know about your guy,” Ellen told us, “but Allen Sutter definitely did not have a thing for Samantha Cummings.”

“How can you be sure?” I asked.

“Because I met his companion Tony.”

I looked at Benny. He shrugged. “So maybe Allen swings both ways.”

Ellen shook her head. “Not this cowboy. Trust me. Allen and Tony have been a couple for a long time. On a wall in their den are framed photographs of the two of them together that go back more than ten years.”

While Benny and I had been meeting with the Foleys, Ellen paid a visit to Allen Sutter, a psychologist who specialized in designing motivational seminars for corporations. His name was one of the twenty-three on the list. Ellen knew Allen, having sold him a painting about a year ago.

“So what was Allen's story?” I asked.

“He was surprised there was that much interest in Sebastian Curry,” Ellen said. “He told me he regretted buying his painting and eventually gave it to a gallery on consignment. It sold for about three hundred dollars.”

“Did he tell you why he bought it in the first place?” I asked.

“Not really. He was about as vague as your guy—said he thought Curry was an artist on the rise. Claims he viewed the purchase as an investment, but that when Curry's reputation appeared to be going nowhere he decided to cut his losses and sell it.”

“What the hell is going on here?” Benny asked. “You've got this Sutter dude claiming he made an investment but then bailing out at a huge loss after only a few years. Why not keep the damn thing in storage in the hopes that one day Sebastian Curry gets recognized as America's answer to Vincent van Gogh? Then you got Jack Foley. That stiff claims that he was making an investment, except he's so secretive about it that he never even unwrapped the painting during all those years, never told his wife that he shelled out fifteen large for that piece of shit, and acts like he remembers almost nothing about it.” Benny shook his head, confused. “I was hoping that maybe these guys were
shtupping
Samantha, that maybe that's why they seemed uncomfortable talking about the paintings, but I have to admit that Rachel's got a point there. I mean, we're talking about twenty-three guys in the space of less than two years—and she's engaged to Michael Green for part of that time. Even if she's the greatest lay of the century, fifteen grand is still a lot to pay for some nooky. And where does that leave your gay caballero?”

Ellen nodded. “You've got a lot of smart, successful men making the same dumb decision at the same art gallery. Something's fishy.”

“I agree,” I said. “It's one thing to overpay for something you love. I did it once. Back when I was in law school and really scraping by, I went to an art fair on the Boston Common one Saturday afternoon and ended up paying two hundred dollars for a painting of a peasant woman.” I turned to Benny. “It's the one in my kitchen.”

He nodded. “Oh, yeah. Two hundred bucks? Whoa.”

“I couldn't help myself. I fell totally in the love with the woman in the painting. I made the artist hold it until I could take the T to my bank in Cambridge and come back with the money. It was a crazy thing to do. Two hundred dollars was my food allowance for two months, but that didn't matter. I had to have that painting. It seemed more important to me than food. It still does. I love it. I keep it in my kitchen so that I can see it every morning at breakfast and every night at dinner and then again when I make some tea before bed. But these guys.” I shook my head. “I don't get it. They pay fifteen thousand dollars for paintings that they don't seem to have any emotional bond with. In fact, none of the men that we've talked to even liked their painting. Not even Don Goddard. As for Jack Foley, it sounded like he may not have even seen his before he bought it, and that really makes no sense. Even if he was buying it purely for investment purposes, you'd think he'd at least want to see what he was buying before he wrote the check.”

“Or in his case,” Benny said, “hand over the cash. Sounded like his wife had no idea what he paid, which tells me he didn't write a check or put it on their credit card.”

“So where do you go from here?” Ellen asked me.

I leaned back in my chair and frowned. “I've got to find a way to talk to Samantha Cummings. I have an investigator doing a background check on her. He's coming by tomorrow morning to show me what he's found. Maybe he'll have something worth pursuing. I'm also going out to visit Angela again. Tomorrow afternoon. Bring her up to speed on this stuff. Maybe Millennium will ring a bell for her.”

Chapter Fourteen

No bells tolled for Angela Green. She knew nothing about Millennium Management Services, had never heard of Sebastian Curry, and had no idea what paintings Samantha Cummings had carried in her gallery.

We were in the interview room at Chillicothe Correctional Center, and I was bringing Angela up to date on my investigation. I'd driven out there that morning through a steady rain that started falling an hour out of St. Louis and stayed with me the whole way. It was still gray and chilly and gloomy outside, the sky occasionally illuminated by a distant flash of lightning, the rain a steady drum roll on the roof. Inside, it was as cozy as I could make it. I'd brought along a large thermos filled with hot green tea blended with honey and ginseng, two pottery mugs, and a big tin of
kamishbroit
, which my mother had baked special for Angela.
Kamishbroit
is a deliciously crunchy Yiddish pastry that's a cousin to the Italian
biscotti
—except that my mother's
kamishbroit
makes the finest
biscotti
taste like stale Wonder bread.

Angela apparently agreed. She was nibbling on her third piece of
kamishbroit
and sipping her tea as I went through the thick investigative file that Charlie Ross had put together on Samantha Cummings. Most of the stuff was fairly unexceptional—creditor claims against her gallery after it closed down; a speeding violation that a traffic lawyer plea-bargained down to excessive vehicular noise; a garnishment action against her son's father, Ray Franco, who worked on the minivan line at the Chrysler plant in Fenton.

The story of Ray and Samantha had briefly occupied the police's attention after Michael Green's murder. The two had never married. They'd been living together when she got pregnant, but Ray moved out a few weeks after Trent was born. He married another woman within a year and had since fathered two children with her. Although Samantha eventually got a child-support order against Ray, his poor compliance record filled the court file with garnishments, show cause orders, and the like.

The police had brought Ray in for questioning during the murder investigation. Oddly enough, he'd briefly been a suspect—odd because Ray seemed to have every financial reason to want Samantha to marry a prosperous man like Green, since maybe she'd finally stop hounding him for child support. In any event, Ray Franco had an airtight alibi. On the night of the murder he'd gone to the Cardinals game with three coworkers from the Chrysler plant. After the game, they'd partied down on Laclede's Landing until the bars closed and then headed over to a strip club on the east side, where they stayed until five-thirty. They watched the sun rise from the parking lot, drove back across the Mississippi, stopped at a Denny's in south St. Louis, had a huge breakfast, and then drove to the plant, where they reported for work at seven sharp. In addition to his three pals, each of whom corroborated his story, there were bartenders or waitresses at each stop along the way who remembered the rowdy foursome.

“Here's an eerie one,” I said, handing Angela a photocopy of a three-paragraph news clipping from the
Post-Dispatch
. “This guy committed suicide in front of her town house.”

“Really? When was this?”

“About six months after your trial.” I pointed to the top of the page, which showed the date of the article. “The guy's name was Billy Woodward. He was thirty-three.”

“A pay phone?” she said when she finished the article. “Was he actually talking to someone when he shot himself?”

“That's a really eerie part. Charlie copied the police file. The pay phone across the street was off the hook when the police arrived. The phone company records showed that he was talking to Samantha just before he shot himself.”

“Oh, my.”

“Samantha confirmed it. Here's a photocopy of his suicide note.”

I handed it to her. It read:

dear sam:
no more waiting for woody—sayonara.

“Woody?”

“Nickname, I guess,” I said. “His last name was Woodward.”

“Who was this guy?” Angela asked. “How did she know him?”

I pulled out the police report and turned it so that both of us could see. “She claimed that Billy was an old boyfriend who'd harassed her on and off for years—both before and after Michael Green's death. He was kind of a creepy, pathetic character. Served four months on a burglary charge when he was twenty. Prison psychiatrist diagnosed him as manic-depressive and put him on medication. Went to a vocational school to become an electrician but dropped out. Held a variety of odd jobs over the years—shoe salesman, bartender, forklift operator. Even acted in a few porno films when he was younger.”

Angela made a face. “This was a boyfriend of hers?”

“A long time ago, she claimed. She hadn't seen him in years. According to the police report, he spent most of his time lifting weights at a local gym and visiting talent agencies in town. He worshiped Arnold Schwarzenegger. He used to tell people at the gym that someday he'd be an action-hero movie star, too—just like Arnold.” I shook my head. “Not likely. His career was going nowhere. For the last six months of his life he was basically unemployed except for a few short gigs as a fashion model.”

“A fashion model? Was he that good-looking?”

“Sort of. The police found a few shots of him at his apartment. The kind you'd use for a portfolio, I guess. Charlie made a copy of one.” I flipped through the folder. “Here it is.” I studied it a moment. “Not bad, I guess. What do you think?”

Angela took the picture. Her eyes widened and she gasped. “Dear God.”

“What?”

“That's—oh, Lord—that's him.”

“Who?”

“John. That's my John.”

“John?” I repeated with a frown. And then I made the connection. “Oh. My. God.”

***

On the drive back to St. Louis from Chillicothe, I tried to organize my own thoughts, having left my poor client's in a shambles.

That Angela had never until now made the connection between Billy Woodward and her mysterious John was not surprising. She was in prison by the time he'd committed suicide, and the newspaper account had not included his photograph. She hardly seemed a porno fan, and thus wouldn't have been likely to see him in one of his films before prison, and certainly not after. At least that part made sense.

But nothing else about Woodward did. Why had he killed himself on Samantha Cummings's doorstep? Why had he identified himself to Angela as John? Why had he disappeared on the night of the murder and remained incognito until after Angela entered prison? Where had he gone? And why? Why hadn't he come forward during her trial? Maybe there was some connection to Michael Green's murder, but I couldn't even begin to figure out how to connect those dots—or any others, for that matter. From Millennium Management Services to Sebastian Curry's twenty-three paintings to the suicide of Billy Woodward, there seemed no logical relationship to anything, yet all seemed somehow connected. Even more puzzling was the fact that all roads—including the money trail—seemed to lead to Samantha Cummings, who was the least logical connection of all. Even if she despised her fiancé—and where was the evidence of that?—she nevertheless had every conceivable financial incentive to keep Michael Green alive long enough to say “I do.” His premarital death was an economic disaster for her.

In the fading light I drove east on Highway 70 and tried to pinpoint my own role in all of this. I'd been retained to defend Angela in Sam Squared. That particular winding road led back to Samantha Cummings, the mother of the plaintiff in Sam Squared. Eventually, I would have the opportunity to take Samantha's deposition and get answers to at least some of these questions. But I had several questions for Samantha that would draw a vigorous objection from her lawyer on the ground that they were entirely irrelevant to the claims in the case. I needed to find a way to overcome that objection. Better yet, I needed to find some golden nugget of information that would convince the lawyer to let me talk to her privately. The best place to pan for that gold now seemed to be in the life and death of one Billy Woodward.

By the time I reached my office, I had the beginnings of a Billy Woodward game plan. I was surprised to see Jacki still there—it was after six o'clock.

“Rachel, where have you been? I've been trying to reach you on your cell phone.”

“The battery's dead. What's wrong?”

“Sheila Trumble has called three times. She's going crazy.”

“Why?”

“The health department is closing down the Oasis Shelter. The last time she called she told me they were boarding it up and making all the women and children leave. Sheila is over there now, helping the women pack up their stuff.”

“The health department?” I repeated. “I can't believe this. Nate Turner is behind it. I just know it.”

Jacki handed me a message slip. “Here's Sheila's cell phone number.”

I dialed it, standing at Jacki's desk.

“Sheila?”

“Oh, Rachel, thank heavens it's you. I can't believe this. These poor women. What can we do?”

“I'm coming right over, Sheila.”