Watch for the Dead (Relatively Dead Book 4) (20 page)

“But I can try, can’t I?”

“Of course.”

Abby decided to change the subject. “So, how was your day, dear?”

“Busy.” And Ned described what he’d done to catch up after his all-too-brief vacation, and what he had to do for the rest of the week, and Abby nodded and smiled and wondered what other resources she could find for Olivia and Samuel.

She and Ned were doing the dishes when the phone rang, and, picking up the landline, Abby saw it was her mother. “Hi, Mom! You made it home safely?”

“Of course we did, dear. Not even much traffic. I wanted to thank you for asking us to join you. We had such a lovely time! Of course it was nice to see you, and to meet Ned and Ellie. You all seem very happy together.”

That was about as perceptive as her mother got, Abby thought. In this case she was right: they had been happy at the beach house. Happy enough that even her parents noticed. But then, they had liked Brad, so maybe that wasn’t a good standard to go by.

“I’m glad you could join us. We should get together more often. We’ve got plenty of room here.”
If I ever finish repapering the guest rooms
.

“We might just take you up on that, one of these days. Listen, there was something else I wanted to tell you. You know when we were talking about family, and what had come down from our ancestors. Gosh, it seems silly to call people who we knew, or almost knew, ancestors. But anyway, Olivia and her daughter and granddaughter?”

“Yes?” Abby prompted.

“And you know I said we hadn’t inherited much from them. Well, I’d forgotten about the painting.”

“What painting?” Abby asked, trying to remember any old painting in the house when she was growing up. Her parents, or more specifically her mother, had not been into collecting art of any kind. Most of what had hung on the walls had been nicely framed family photographs.

“The one of the boat. The oil painting. Remember? It hung over the mantelpiece. Still does, in fact.”

“Oh, right, that one.” Abby had been so used to seeing it there that in her mind it had simply become part of the wall. “What about it?”

“Well, that came down through the family. I took a closer look at it today, and it looks like it was painted in 1891, which would be about the right time for Olivia to have bought it new.”

“Interesting. Were there other paintings that you remember? That might have been sold over the years?”

“No, not that I recall. You know that we didn’t end up with much furniture either—just that chair you have and a couple of small things. Nobody on my side ever talked about it, but I got the feeling that all the good stuff—you know, silver, jewelry, anything really nice or valuable—got sold off when the money dried up. People didn’t talk about such things back then, but it would explain why it’s all gone, wouldn’t it?”

“It could. So why did they hang on to this one painting, do you think?”

“Maybe if she bought it new, Olivia didn’t think it was worth much? I don’t know—I’d just be guessing. But I thought you’d be interested.”

“I am. Since we have so little to go on, anything might be helpful. Listen, can you take some pictures of it and send them to me?”

“Way ahead of you, dear. I asked your father to take a whole bunch of digital pictures, and he said he could offload or upload them or something and email them to you. Which he’s doing right now.”

“That’s wonderful!” Abby hadn’t realized her father had moved into the twenty-first century with his technology. “Can you make sure he gets pictures of the back too? Like, if there are any labels, or anything written on it?”

“Of course. You know he’s very thorough. So you be sure to let me know what you think, when you’ve seen the pictures.”

“I will. And thank you.”

“I want to help, Abby. After all, it’s my family too. I just didn’t pay much attention before now. So, what did Ellie’s mother say about the kitten?”

“She pitched a fit, no surprise. We’ve got her with us now. But I’m hoping that when Leslie calms down she’ll reconsider, and I’m sure Ellie will keep working on her.”

“She starts school tomorrow, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, that’s right.” Her mother really had been paying attention. Maybe she was looking forward to grandchildren?
Not now, not yet
. “I know there’s a lot going on at their house—maybe it wasn’t the best time to add a kitten.”

“Cats choose you, dear, not the other way around. Well, I should let you go. Watch for those pictures from your father, and we can talk later. Love you!” Rebecca hung up quickly, leaving Abby slightly bewildered.

Ned had finished the dishes while Abby was on the phone. “What was that all about?”

“Well, a thank-you, for starters. And then she started talking about a painting that probably belonged to Olivia. I’d forgotten about it completely—it’s just part of the background. But given how few things my family kept, for one reason or another, it’s interesting that that particular item survived. She said Dad is emailing me pictures of it. I can check it out tomorrow.”

“What’s it a picture of?” Ned asked.

“Boats on the sea.” Abby felt a chill run down her spine: Ocean? Boats? Was that more than a coincidence? Had the sea meant something to Olivia? Did the painting relate somehow to Cape Cod? “I think I’ll wait until tomorrow to look at the pictures—maybe my brain will be working better by then. Or maybe I should get back to our endless list of home improvements—my mother was making noises about visiting. Are you okay with that?”

“Of course I am. I don’t know why you kept them away for so long.”

“Chicken, I guess. I mean, they assumed I was settled with Brad. It was hard enough to explain how that blew up so quickly. I didn’t want to get their hopes up until I knew you and I were serious.”

Ned smiled. “So you’ve decided we are? Serious, I mean?”

“Ninety percent sure, anyway. You’re welcome to keep trying to convince me. And I think my parents like you, not that they have the best taste in the world.”

“I’ll work on it.” He pulled her close and got started convincing her.

• • •

The next morning Abby lay in bed thinking about what she remembered about her first days of the school year. She’d always liked school, which put her in the minority. She was a bit troubled by some things Ellie had said about her school, although she could understand what Ellie was talking about. Being a smart kid, and quick to catch on and to get schoolwork done, meant you risked antagonizing the other people in your class. And if you hid that, you got bored.
Been there, done that,
Abby reflected.

But as she looked back she realized that she had much clearer memories of her summers rather than of her teachers or classmates. Not that those summers been particularly special. She’d had friends who she saw sporadically over the summer, and she’d spent time at various day camps. She and her parents had taken occasional short vacations to various places of interest—she had vague memories of Gettysburg and Washington, D.C., and maybe Williamsburg. A couple of times her family had rented one or another tiny cottage at the shore, but those had been a far cry from Olivia’s nice house. Mostly they’d been ticky-tacky little houses jammed together to maximize rental income, usually a block away from any beach. Everything had always been damp and sandy, including the sheets. Whichever town they were in was always filled with greasy fast-food joints and cheap stores selling tee shirts and miniature golf courses with floodlights for night. She wouldn’t call her memories exactly glowing, but it had been pleasant enough.

The thing is, now she knew the world better. Olivia’s house, and the ones surrounding it, had belonged to people with money. Since most of them came from the Boston area, they weren’t into flashing it around, but the houses were nice—and most of them probably came with a maid’s room. It would have been an entirely different experience to spend a week or a month or a summer in a place like that.

The temperature was pleasantly cool, so she should take advantage of it. She jumped out of bed—dislodging Olivia, who jumped off the bed and trotted down the stairs—pulled on shorts and a tee shirt, brushed her hair, and went down to the kitchen, where Ned was drinking coffee and reading the morning paper. Olivia had joined him and was sitting on the paper, as Ned tried to read around her. “Is there more of that?” she asked, pointing at his mug.

“Of course. I’ve eaten, but I’ll keep you company while I finish my coffee.”

Abby poured herself a mug of coffee and stuck two pieces of bread into the toaster. “Back-to-school day. I always liked September—it seemed like the beginning of the year. Most of my friends thought it just meant the end of summer.”

“I felt the same way,” Ned admitted. “We never had a lot of money, so we didn’t go much of anywhere during the summer. I think my parents dragged me to all the local historical sites, mostly because they were close and free.”

“Well, that would have been nice. I hate going to places like that during the school year. They were always filled with noisy school groups, so you couldn’t really enjoy anything.” The toast popped up, so Abby buttered it and sat down at the table.

“Amen to that. But schoolkids have a short season—you can’t see much of anything once it starts snowing.”

“There is that,” Abby said. “You have anything planned for the rest of the week?”

“Catching up, planning ahead. The usual. You?”

“I’ll take a quick look at that family painting, and then get back to working on the house, I guess. I need to get out of my head. Think it’s cool enough to wallpaper? If it gets too hot, the paste acts funny and the paper doesn’t stick right.”

“You’ll have to tell me—I’ve never tried it.” Ned stood up and carried his mug and plate to the sink. “I should be back by six. I’ll cook.”

“Sounds good.”

Five minutes later she waved good-bye at him, latched the screen door, and settled herself at the dining room table with her laptop. Olivia settled on her lap and went to sleep. Abby booted up and retrieved her father’s email with attachments. “So, let’s see what we’ve got.”

Chapter 21

Abby downloaded the photographs her father had sent, then printed them out on full sheets of paper so she could study them. She laid out the printouts across the dining table and realized she did recognize the painting, but it was one of those things that had always been there. She’d grown up with it and filed it under “painting on the wall” and never paid attention after that.

If she had been asked to describe it, based on her memory, she would have said it was a picture of a boat on a stormy sea. Looking more closely, she realized that it was actually two boats, a small one in front of a larger one; in addition, there were one or two fully rigged boats visible in the distance. At least she’d gotten the stormy sea part right, but the clouds were high and fluffy, so the boats weren’t out in a storm. The nearest (though smallest) boat looked like a one-man fishing boat, with a heap of white stuff toward the front—fish nets?—and a large barrel in the middle that she couldn’t explain. The bigger ship seemed to be pulling away, out to sea. It had three sails. And that exhausted all that Abby knew about sailing vessels. She had no idea if the two ships were somehow connected to each other, or whether they were close to shore or far out at sea (although the littler one didn’t look like something she’d want to be out too far in).

There was a signature in the lower right corner, for which she had to track down a magnifying glass. When, after a five-minute search through multiple drawers in the house, she found one at last and used it on the painting, she decided that the signature appeared to read:
Thomas Clarkson 1891
. She hadn’t exactly expected to see Rembrandt or Monet, but that name didn’t ring any bells. Overall the execution of the painting was fairly professional, in her nonprofessional opinion. At the very least she was sure that it hadn’t been painted by an amateur.

She looked at her father’s photo of the back of the painting and found there was a label by the framer—in Westfield. What did that tell her? Assuming it had belonged to Olivia, the label suggested that she had had it framed during the time she lived in Westfield, between 1900 and her death. So the earliest date would have been nine years after the artist had painted it. That was nice to know, although it barely narrowed down the date when Olivia might have acquired it. Of course, it could have been given to her unframed at any date from 1891 onward, and she had seen to the framing later. Did it matter? Not really, Abby decided. What mattered was
why
Olivia had kept it—and somehow convinced her heirs to keep it—when everything else had been lost or sold.

Maybe it would help to know more about the artist? Abby dug into that research. By the end of the day, in addition to a slight headache and stiff shoulders, she had gleaned a handful of not very useful facts. One, Thomas Clarkson had played fast and loose with his name for much of his life: Abby found examples of his works under Thomas Clarkson, Thomas Clark, and T. Oliver Clarkson. Did the man have identity issues? He had been born in 1827, one of the later of nine children of a Lynn couple, and he and one of his brothers had been shoemakers in Lynn for quite a few years. Somewhere in there he had started painting (although Abby had trouble seeing how anyone could make the jump from shoemaking to artist), and by 1875 he was calling himself a marine painter in one or more Lynn city directories. He had also begun exhibiting in local shows, with the likes of better-known Thomas Eakins of Philadelphia, and had done fairly well, winning a prize here and there.

Abby had an “aha!” moment when she found that by 1880 he was exhibiting his paintings in a Market Street store owned by William Flagg, Olivia’s father—finally, a connection! Clarkson had exhibited there again in 1882, and a few years later he had his own studio in Lynn, with various other artists, known collectively as the Lynn Beach School. He had died in 1892, leaving quite a trail of marine paintings, if auction reports online were any indication. They were nice works, overall, although Abby thought the one her parents had, painted near the end of his career, was among the better ones. Currently they were selling modestly, in the low four figures—the Kimball family wasn’t about to get rich from that one painting.