Last Night, page 24
“She has a lot going on,” Conor said.
“I know. I’ve been sleeping here, up almost every night, trying to hit the deadline. Donna understood the pressure I’ve been under, so she left me alone. I was going to finish before Christmas, and we’d spend time together then.”
After years with Kate, getting to know the artists she represented, he understood that creative people could keep unusual hours, and often needed to safeguard their space, limiting contact with others.
“I’m assuming Donna heard that Ronnie Garson killed Maddie,” Conor said. “How did she react?”
“Total disbelief,” Johnny said. “She knew him from the restaurant, said he worked there one summer, then delivered lobsters with his dad. She said he was a sweetheart. There was some prank he got in trouble for one Fourth of July, but it was an aberration.”
Conor thought of what Joe had said about “the prank” being deliberately aimed fireworks, but he let Johnny talk.
“It upset her,” Johnny said. “She was worried that somehow she had brought danger to Maddie—that because she worked at Cross, Gladding, and White, she’d opened a door to Zane and Grub wanting a piece of her wealthy clients. But I don’t see that.”
“Why?” Conor asked.
“Because she was very discreet about client matters, as well as sensitive to her family.”
“Sensitive in what way?”
“She didn’t flaunt her success. She had more education than anyone in her family, wanted a different kind of life than serving seafood on the waterfront. She thought what they do is interesting and honorable—she just didn’t want it for herself.”
“And she thought they resented her?”
“Yeah,” Johnny said. He was visibly distraught, red faced, as if he’d been crying. “She never wanted them to feel she’d left them, abandoned them, for a wealthier crowd. But you know something? She loved Ronnie like a nephew, and he murdered Maddie. Now I’m thinking he could have killed Donna, too.”
“Resentment?” Conor asked, wondering about the timeline and whether it was possible that were true.
“Money,” Johnny said. “Donna didn’t have kids of her own. Yet. She wanted them, very much. We talked about the future.”
“Getting married?”
“Yes,” Johnny said, his red eyes filling with tears. “We both wanted to be married.”
“You said ‘money’—what did you mean?”
“Ronnie is in Donna’s will,” Johnny said. “So are some Almeidas and Ronnie’s father, Zane. Not that she was rich, but she wanted to make sure to take care of her family.”
“She showed it to you?”
“I was one of the witnesses to her signing it. Could it have been the will, her generosity to those people, that got her killed?”
“Who was the other witness?” Conor asked, wondering if that person—inadvertently or not—might have revealed the will’s contents to Donna’s murderer. At the same time, he still wondered if Donna had stolen Maddie’s paintings, if they had been meant to be transported away aboard the Anna G.
But Johnny didn’t answer. He laughed wryly. “Guess I am destined to witness people signing wills. I did it for Maddie, too. She handwrote a brand new one for herself while she was at the Ocean House, and she had me witness her signature, right there in the lobby. Crazy, right?”
“Handwritten instead of properly done by Jeanne Gladding?” Conor asked. He had investigated deaths where the deceased had left holographic wills. They weren’t valid in certain states unless witnessed and notarized.
“It’s better she did it herself, instead of having that scammer do it,” Johnny said.
He walked away from Conor, braced himself against his worktable, his head down and shoulders shaking. Conor had seen plenty of fake emotion during his career, but he sensed that this was true anguish—not unlike Bernard’s when he first learned that Maddie had been murdered.
Conor knew it didn’t mean that they weren’t involved in the respective crimes—their strong feelings could be about “having” to kill the victims, for whatever reasons, or for losses as yet undisclosed. But, as with Bernard, Conor was inclined to believe that Johnny’s grief was truly over losing the woman he loved.
“Johnny, why did you call Jeanne a scammer? What did Donna say about her law firm?” Conor asked after a while.
“She wasn’t thrilled with their ethics,” Johnny said.
“In what way?” Conor asked.
“She didn’t go into it much. I just know she didn’t like Jeanne. She said that if she were a client, she wouldn’t turn her back on her, because Jeanne would stab it. I chalked it up to greed. Anything to make money.”
“It’s a pretty well-known and respected firm. I’d think they would have high standards,” Conor said, not letting on to what Kate had told him or mentioning his theory about a possible theft of Maddie’s paintings.
Johnny shrugged. “Who knows? Who cares? Donna was thinking of leaving. It bothered her that Jeanne sent her to Maddie’s storage unit, along with Hadley. Made her feel used. And she thought it was a conflict of interest. Our relationship plus her working for Maddie’s attorneys. And she didn’t like not being open with Hadley. But she didn’t have a choice. Jeanne made her go.”
“I wonder why,” Conor said.
“To keep her under their thumbs, she said. The more they dragged her in, the harder it would be for her to leave.”
“Did she ever say anything about planting a fake document?” Conor asked.
“Of course not,” Johnny said.
“How about people from her firm stealing art?” he asked, not directly accusing her.
“Hell no. She would never stand for that.”
His hard tone left no doubt that there was no room for discussion, and Conor decided to leave it at that for now.
Conor looked around the studio. The extensive brick wall space was covered with mock-ups of the murals Johnny and Hadley would paint on the sides of buildings in waterfront towns. A large bookcase was filled with volumes dedicated to New England lore, fishing histories, the natural world, and the whaling industry. Some of the books looked very old, probably valuable.
He looked through the shelves. Antiquarian books pulled him in. They held so much truth and mystery. One of Kate’s favorite things to do was visit used bookstores, spend hours there. While she scoured the art section, Conor would wander around looking for something new to read. She had gotten him hooked. In the beginning, he’d focused on crime titles—police or military investigations. But as time had gone on, he’d started getting lost in the history sections. And even—the longer he’d been with Kate—in books about art history, especially art theft.
He noticed that a shelf in Johnny and Hadley’s studio was filled with art books, including one about the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist. Tucked in—shoved, actually—behind a row of other books was a very slim leather-bound volume titled Last Night.
That got his attention. Wasn’t that the name of the painting Kate had mentioned earlier?
He pulled it out. The book was so old it was almost falling apart. He glanced at the copyright page—it had been published by Crawford House in 1898. Every other page contained a poem, each by a different poet, all having to do with night.
Poems by Robert Burns, William Blake, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, John Keats, and Emily Dickinson, among others, writing about stars, the moon, darkness, secrets, romance. On the page opposite each poem was a very fine and delicate pen-and-ink drawing, done by shading and crosshatching, an image of night.
He turned to the bookmarked page. On it was a poem by Emily Dickinson titled “The Last Night That She Lived.” The words were haunting, about a woman dying, the poet envying the fact she was escaping the pain and difficulties of life.
The poem sent a shiver down Conor’s spine. He wondered why it was significant to the person who had marked the page. Inside the front cover was a bookplate and, in her own handwriting, the owner’s name: Madeleine Cooke. The name she was born with, before two marriages.
“What are you looking at?” Johnny asked.
Conor held up the book, and Johnny gave the cover a quick glance.
“I don’t recognize that one,” Johnny said. “I’ve never seen it before.”
“It was Maddie’s,” Conor said.
“Oh, wow,” Johnny said, suddenly perking up. “Boy, that dates back. She left some of her things with me when we split up. Guess that was one of them.” He paused, frowning. “Or maybe Hadley brought it. Maddie used to give her stuff she didn’t want or care for anymore.”
Conor turned that over in his mind. Why wouldn’t Hadley have mentioned that she had an old book of Maddie’s with the same title as the shocking painting they’d discovered in the storage unit?
“May I take it?” Conor asked.
“You’re a poetry fan?” Johnny asked.
“I thought I’d show it to my girlfriend,” Conor said. “She’ll enjoy seeing the illustrations.”
“Another artist?”
“She owns a gallery,” Conor said.
“The gatekeeper,” Johnny said, a note of bitterness in his voice. But then, as if he’d heard himself, he smiled. “Galleries have a lot of power. And we artists are lucky when we get chosen by one.”
“Well, she feels she’s the lucky one, to have artists trust her with their work,” Conor said.
“Maybe someday she’ll take a look at mine. And Hadley’s.”
“Yes,” Conor said.
“I’m sure she would have rather represented MC—Maddie. I mean, who wouldn’t? Maddie was brilliant, and her work is basically money in the bank for anyone who touches it. Plus, endless fame.”
Was that envy in his voice?
“Don’t listen to me,” Johnny said. “I’m all over the place today. Anything to keep me from thinking about what Donna must have gone through. And, Jesus—Maddie, too. I loved them both, ten years apart, but still. I can’t help but think, Why them?”
“I get that,” Conor said. “Did you and Maddie wind up having that drink?”
“What drink?” Johnny asked.
“Hadley said Maddie told her you two were going to get together and talk.”
Johnny hesitated, then sat down at his drafting table. “Yeah, we did,” he said. “I felt guilty about it because I know Donna would have felt threatened.”
“Did she have a reason to feel that way?”
“It’s a big mess,” he said, letting out a huge breath. “They’re both gone, so what’s the difference now?”
Conor listened, watching his face.
“I loved Donna,” Johnny said.
“You said you talked about marriage and kids with her.”
“No,” he said. “I said I wanted to be married.” He put his head in his hands.
Conor suddenly understood. “But not to her.”
“No,” Johnny said.
“To Maddie,” Conor said.
Johnny looked up. “I didn’t realize, until she came back.”
“That you still loved her?”
He nodded. “The feelings were always there. But what could I do? She left me, became MC, married a movie star. It was over.”
“But?”
“It wasn’t over. I had no idea she felt the same way I did all these years. We were too young when we got married—we couldn’t handle it. I was a pretentious art student, and she was about to become MC.”
“You didn’t see any of that coming?” Conor asked.
“I saw none of it coming—the breakup, her fast track to, well, you know, fame and fortune. And I’m not blaming her for leaving,” Johnny said. “I wasn’t ready for her. I had to be a selfish jerk for a while. She was smart and couldn’t take it, so she took off.”
“And then she came back,” Conor said. “Did you play a part in that? The reason why she chose Rhode Island?”
“Yes,” he said. “We were in touch before she moved out of Malibu. It started over a year ago. I saw an article about her in the New Yorker. I could have asked Hadley for her contact info, but instead I found her on social media. I wasn’t even sure she did her own posting—lots of famous people have a publicist for that, but turns out it was all her. No shield. So I messaged her, and it started from there. But it was tricky.”
“Why is that?”
“Her divorce. It was so vicious; she didn’t want anyone to know about what was happening with us.”
“Which was?”
“Falling back in love, both of us. Full speed. If Bernard found out, he could have used it against her. She didn’t even tell Hadley.”
“But the sisters were close.”
“Yes. Maddie adored Hadley, but she always said there was sisterly rivalry. She knew that Hadley loved her, would have done anything for her, but even so . . . Hadley was jealous. Deep down, she thought Hadley was glad she was getting divorced—that she liked the fact there was at least one area Maddie was failing in. Marriage.”
“Johnny, are you the reason Maddie was splitting with Bernard?” Conor asked.
“To some extent,” he said.
“What extent?”
“Shit,” Johnny said. “I wasn’t the reason—he was an asshole. She would have left him anyway. But us falling in love—that pushed her into it. Gave her a reason to get out. Separating from him, then moving back here.”
Conor watched him closely for a reaction. “You know she was pregnant?”
“Yes, I know.”
“Were you the father?” Conor asked.
It took Johnny a minute to reply. “Yes. She told me, the last night I saw her. She was pregnant—I went to the Ocean House, and we had dinner in her suite. She had a bottle of champagne, chilled in a silver ice bucket. Veuve Clicquot rosé. I had no idea until then.”
“The champagne gave you a clue?”
“I said to her, ‘This is how you live, Maddie. Veuve in the Ocean House. I’m more like Gansett in an old warehouse.’ She told me that beer in a studio was more her speed and that that would be her last glass of champagne for nine months.” He paused. “She didn’t even drink it. It was just a symbol of us celebrating a new life together.”
Conor took it all in. What were the layers of truth and lies here? How had he juggled the two women he said he loved?
“Did Donna know?” he asked.
“One hundred percent no,” Johnny said. “And if you’re saying that Donna paid Ronnie, you’re fucking wrong.” He looked angry, but Conor detected a hint of doubt. “She had no clue about Maddie. Certainly not that she was pregnant.”
“Okay,” Conor said. “And what about Hadley? Any chance you or Maddie let it slip to her? About the pregnancy.”
“No way.”
“Back to Genevieve for a minute,” Conor said. “Are you sure you haven’t heard from her?”
“I haven’t heard from her. You know what? I think the law firm is behind all of it. I believe they did something fucked up with Maddie’s estate, and Donna either knew or they thought she did. Go after Jeanne—she knows it all, I’ll bet anything. They killed both Maddie and Donna. What else can I say?”
“What gives you that idea?” Conor asked.
“I told you before. Donna had a problem with their ethics. Ask Jeanne.”
Conor watched him pace, then stop and stare with a blank look in his eyes.
“Look, this is a bad day,” Johnny said. “And I’m sick of this. Do you mind?”
“I’m leaving,” Conor said. “Thanks for your cooperation.”
“Yeah.”
“Is it okay if I take the poetry book? To show Kate?”
“Sure,” Johnny said. “But it belonged to Maddie, so I want it back. I don’t have much of her left.”
44
Hadley finally heard from Bernard. He called with what he obviously considered to be great news. He told her that after all of Maddie’s encouragement, even nagging, he had finally decided to do a four-episode arc on Border Saints, a hit series on Prime Video. It focused on a United States senator bribed by a cartel boss to ease regulations. Bernard would portray a crooked judge pitting the politician against the drug lord. The job paid very well. It shot in San Diego and the Anza-Borrego Desert, and Bernard was already on set at the time CeCe was rescued.
He told Hadley that the producers were thrilled to have him. They had rushed him into wardrobe. He was running lines, and he could tell that the crew was in awe at having Bernard Lafond in the cast. He was excited because, in the fourth episode, his character got to kick the bucket in a spectacular way—strung up on the border wall by narco-saints. Shooting had already begun, his first scene was tomorrow, and if he returned to Rhode Island, the producers would replace him.
He was overwhelmed with joy at CeCe’s rescue, full of gratitude for the Rhode Island State Police. Since CeCe was safe, he would trust Hadley with her, and reunite with his daughter as soon as he could.
“There’s no life for me with Cecelia unless I do this show,” he told Hadley. “I am ashamed that I begged you for money. That will never happen again. I need to pay my bills, don’t I?”
“You do,” she said. “But, Bernard, CeCe lost her mother. She needs her father now.”
“Hadley, you have no idea how important this show is. Yes, it is popular, but its value is social commentary. The story is so important; it needs to be told.”
“Goodbye, Bernard,” Hadley said.
She looked at her cell phone and considered blocking him. On the one hand, any father who could be so selfish, who could put himself ahead of his child, deserved to be permanently ignored. On the other hand, she had to admit she was relieved that they wouldn’t have to deal with him—having seen his rage that day in the hotel, knowing that Maddie had lived with it, she knew that she would do anything to protect CeCe from it.
Conor needed to talk with her, so she set CeCe up with a puzzle on the suite’s dining table and sat with him in the living room, overlooking the ocean.
