Last Night, page 27
“Sleeping,” CeCe said. “So I came to see you.”
“That’s so sweet! What did you want to tell me?” Isabel asked.
“My auntie said it was odd,” CeCe said. Isabel was a friend, and being so close to her made CeCe feel better. “Odd even, odd even.” She laughed, waiting for Isabel to see how funny it was.
“Hmm,” Isabel said, and CeCe could see she didn’t get it.
“Because we went to the treasure room, and Aunt Hadley said you’re a witness, and it was odd, so odd!” CeCe said, smiling up at her, but Isabel wasn’t smiling.
“What did you just say?” Isabel asked.
“That you are a witness,” CeCe said, her shoulders slumping, suddenly feeling that she’d said something wrong. “You signed the paper for Mommy.”
“Where did you see the paper?”
“At the bank. In the little tiny treasure box.”
Isabel didn’t smile, but she pasted a nonsmile smile on her face, and her voice was pretending to be nice, and CeCe knew the difference.
“Let’s go have an ice cream,” she said to CeCe.
“I don’t want one,” CeCe said, starting to back away.
Isabel’s face was red and angry as her hand shot out and tried to grab CeCe. But CeCe wasn’t going to let her. She had seen that same terrible look on Ronnie’s father’s face, so she knew what to do. She bit Isabel’s hand very hard.
And then CeCe ran away as fast as she could.
49
Hadley woke up feeling groggy. The temperature outside had dropped as darkness fell. She pushed up the suite’s thermostat and turned on the gas fire. It blazed brightly, throwing warmth. She realized she must have dozed off before sunset, so she switched on table lamps, then sat back down on the sofa where she had slept.
“CeCe,” she called softly, in case her niece had gone to her bed and fallen asleep.
Her gaze fell upon Last Night, the book of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century poetry that Conor had brought her, sitting on the coffee table. She and Maddie loved books and had shared favorites. They’d sometimes quoted from them to each other, as a type of secret language—phrases that meant nothing to those around them but sent waves of delight through the sisters.
Hadley had never seen this book before. She opened the front cover, gazed at Maddie’s handwriting on the bookplate. How old had her sister been when she’d inscribed her name?
Hadley paged through the book. One page was marked—a poem by Emily Dickinson. “The Last Night That She Lived.” She read it and felt disturbed. The poem had obviously meant something to Maddie. It talked about how the day, the night, that a person died was the same as any other, except for the moment of death. Hadley had never heard her sister ponder life and death. Maddie had lived with joy and passion. She had sometimes paid the price, but it never stopped her.
Opposite the poem was an intricate pen-and-ink drawing. It appeared to depict a full moon shining through a thicket of brambles, the moonlight creating twisted shadows. Hadley assumed the illustration was original to the book, which had been published in 1898, but the closer she looked, the more she realized that it had been inserted more recently.
It had been drawn by Maddie.
The gnarled branches spelled out a message. Etched into the blank spaces of moonlight were the faces of angels. Hadley stared, letting the words sift through her vision, into her brain.
He is my love
Once and again
And forever
We will meet in the snow
Roses will bloom
When I die
For love
For art
Hadley read and reread the lines. They echoed—or anticipated—the imagery in Maddie’s last painting. She felt unsettled, reading them.
“CeCe!” Hadley called again, wanting to hug her niece and drive the uneasy thoughts from her mind. She had felt bothered ever since being at the bank, finding Maddie’s documents, seeing the unexpected signature on the last page. She had texted Kate and Conor to let them know—not that it meant anything. After all, Isabel worked right here at the hotel, and it shouldn’t really be that weird that she had agreed to be a witness to the signing of Maddie’s will.
CeCe didn’t answer, so Hadley went looking for her. She searched the suite, but CeCe wasn’t there. Hadley felt panic building. She texted Kate to ask if she had seen CeCe. When Kate wrote back to say no, she hadn’t, she had just landed at the airport, Hadley knew she had to check the lobby, the porch, the rest of the hotel, anywhere CeCe might be. She ran down the stairs, not willing to wait for the elevator.
50
Conor looked for Isabel at the front desk, but she wasn’t there. Her colleague Agnes said she was on a break and would be back in fifteen minutes. He texted Joe to hurry. He stepped outside onto the verandah and reread the text Hadley had sent from the bank. He had asked her to let him know who had witnessed the signing of Maddie’s will, and she had sent a photo of the document’s last page. He looked at the two names, one line above the other.
John Morrison
Isabel Almeida
Isabel’s last name was another clue, helping him to put it together. So many cases were built on the thinnest threads of circumstantial evidence. But as the investigation continued, the threads wove together into a story that started to make sense, eventually revealing motive, intent, the mental twists that had led to murder.
There was the book Johnny had denied knowing about, the lie he had lived with Donna, and the one he had lived with Maddie. Was it fun for them to put this over on her? Had Maddie figured it out? Johnny and Isabel. Conor looked inside the hotel again, checking to see if Isabel had come back to the desk. She hadn’t. He hoped Joe would get there soon because questioning her would be up to him.
Conor returned to his spot on the verandah, where he breathed the sea air and waited for Joe. But instead of seeing the detective’s unmarked police car pulling into the turnaround, he saw something he hadn’t expected.
A Subaru drove in. When Dermot went to open the door, the driver waved him away. It was Johnny. He parked there, engine idling, obviously waiting for someone to run out and meet him, jump into the car so he could drive her away. That wasn’t going to happen. Conor walked down the wide, curved steps.
“You won’t be seeing her. Not today,” Conor said, climbing into the passenger side of Johnny’s Subaru. Johnny looked startled, but he got right back on track.
“Maddie, my love, I know . . . ,” Johnny said.
“Not Maddie,” Conor said.
“Then who are you talking about?” he asked, sounding nervous.
“Isabel Almeida.”
Johnny was silent for a long moment. Then he slid a sharp smile across the seat toward Conor.
“What’s that look for?” Conor asked.
“You know her last name. Good for you,” Johnny said.
“Let’s see,” Conor said. “Donna Almeida. How are they related?”
“Isabel’s her younger sister,” Johnny said.
“You and sisters,” Conor said. “Maddie and Hadley, Donna and Isabel. And, let me guess, you love them all.”
“I do,” Johnny said. “In different ways.”
“But Isabel the most?” Conor asked.
Johnny didn’t reply. He stared straight ahead. His cell phone was on the console between him and Conor, and it buzzed. Conor glanced down and saw the screen light up with the name “Belle.”
“Let me guess—Isabel?” Conor asked. “Go ahead, pick up.”
Johnny made no attempt to answer the call.
“Almeida,” Conor said. “One of those names you mentioned, of people Donna included in her will. Relatives. And I take it there’s a connection with the Garson family, too?”
“So what? It’s one big fishing community. They support each other.”
“And kill for each other?”
Johnny gave him a dirty look. “You have a good imagination. Tell me how you think that worked?”
“You set Maddie up,” Conor said. “You loved her, and she broke your heart; you never forgot it.”
“I forgave her,” Johnny said.
“Not enough,” Conor said. “She had too much that you wanted. Her money, her paintings. You saw that she was vulnerable with Bernard . . .”
“That piece of shit,” Johnny said. “He can’t even be bothered to come back here, to be with his daughter. After everything CeCe has been through.”
“Yeah,” Conor said. “But a little ironic, considering you set it in motion—the trauma CeCe has had to endure.”
“Get out of my car,” Johnny said.
“You know your mistake? How I figured it out?” Conor asked. “You’re a smart guy. I bet you can guess.”
“I don’t care, and no one else will, because you’re wrong,” Johnny said.
“You did so many things right,” Conor said. “You contacted Maddie on Facebook, started it all up again. She was unhappy; you reminded her of being young artists together. Before she was MC. Before the world owned her.”
Johnny had both hands on the steering wheel, as if he were driving, but the car was in park, and they weren’t going anywhere.
“That little leather book in your studio,” Conor said. “I asked if you’d ever seen it, and you said no. You said Hadley must have put it there. But when I said I wanted to take it, you asked if I was a poetry fan.”
“So what?”
“How would you have known it was a book of poems if you’d never seen it before?” Conor asked.
Johnny took that in.
“You got Maddie to come back here, to Rhode Island,” Conor said. “Was Isabel already working at the Ocean House? Or did she take the job once you knew Maddie was buying the Sea Garden suite?”
“Aren’t you sick of hearing yourself talk yet?” Johnny asked. But Conor saw that Johnny looked pale. He knew he was hitting home.
“How did Isabel feel when you got Maddie pregnant?” Conor asked.
That’s when Johnny couldn’t hide it anymore. He cleared his throat, looked out the driver’s-side window. Conor saw him swallowing hard, trying to keep feelings inside. It showed Conor something he hadn’t known until this moment.
“You didn’t anticipate that, did you?” Conor asked. “Maddie getting pregnant?”
Johnny shook his head. “It was a surprise to both of us,” he said in a low voice.
“And even more so to Isabel. I’m sure she thought you were playing Maddie, reeling her in. She had no clue that you were sleeping with her. That you had fallen back in love with her,” Conor said, the truth unfolding to him as he talked to Johnny.
“She didn’t expect that,” Johnny said.
“And neither did you.”
“No.” Johnny glared at Conor. “I didn’t want anything bad to happen to Maddie. I did love her. And she knew it. She died knowing I wanted to be with her—we were going to get married as soon as her divorce was finished.”
“But you had two women to break up with,” Conor said. “Both Donna and Isabel. The two sisters. You are quite a player.”
“None of it was malicious,” Johnny said. “Love is love. It goes where it goes.”
“Yeah, but yours went more places than most,” Conor said.
“Lucky you, having a conventional life,” Johnny said. “Enjoy being bored. I told you already—get out of my car.”
“One last thing,” Conor said. “Genevieve.”
“What?” Johnny asked.
“Genevieve Dickinson. It’s pretty clear she was involved. The fake receipt?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Johnny said.
“I think you do,” Conor said, showing Johnny the photo Kate had texted him—of the painting on Genevieve’s easel. It was a copy of the one in Maddie’s storage unit: the woman lying in the snow with roses.
“Last Night,” Johnny said, staring at the screen. “Where did you get that picture?”
“The painting was on Genevieve’s easel. Is she the one who wrote the story of Maddie’s death, before it happened? A painting that predicted the way she would die?”
“No,” Johnny said. “Maddie wrote that story. It was her idea to enact it. It just . . . wasn’t supposed to come true. She wasn’t supposed to die.”
“No?”
Johnny shook his head. “It was performance art. Maddie and I planned it. The Whale and the Swan was such a wild hit, decades ago. We kidded around, dared each other to create something even bigger. Something that would captivate the world.”
“A dead woman in the snow?” Conor asked.
“Yes. A painting of that image by MC would be seen as magical—Jungian, tapping into the collective unconscious. Snow, roses, death. So we set it up. We were planning to stage it—right there, on the path to East Beach. But we needed snow.”
“So you waited?”
“Yes,” Johnny said. “We outlined the sequence in October. The idea was, Maddie would have the painting ready. It would be as mystical as the whale one. And we would do a short film to go along with it.”
“So you would do a video of Maddie pretending to be the character in the painting?” Conor asked.
“Not pretending. Being. You saw the painting, right?”
“A photo of it.”
“It’s a self-portrait. Maddie painted her own face, her own wildness, the poetry she has always had inside her,” Johnny said.
A self-portrait of her dead body, Conor thought.
“So we watched the weather reports, and we decided we’d go for it on the first real snow of the year. We were picturing a light covering—turning everything white but not a serious accumulation. But then the blizzard hit . . . it was so intense, too dangerous for me to drive down from Providence, and crazy to think of Maddie going out in it.” He paused. “I never thought she would. I didn’t want her to get hurt.”
“Just murdered,” Conor said.
“No!” Johnny said. “That wasn’t the plan! I told you—she and I were going to go out on a snowy night, shoot a video based on her painting. That was all.”
“But someone saw her sketch? Or you told them the basics?”
“Donna went into Maddie’s storage unit when she wasn’t there. She was just going to look around, see what Maddie had in there. Then she saw the painting. I swear I didn’t know—she only told me afterward,” Johnny said.
“But she told someone else first,” Conor said. “So when the blizzard hit . . .”
“Isabel was ready,” Johnny said. “She lured Maddie there. I swear, I didn’t know she was going to do it. I had no idea. She must have figured out that Maddie and I were real. And it was her way of getting back at me.”
“By killing her.”
“Having her killed,” Johnny said.
Conor heard the rasp in his voice.
“Look,” Johnny said, “I’m telling you this so you’ll know I wasn’t involved. You’re a cop, I’m taking a chance. But you’ve got to help me, okay?”
“You’re doing the right thing by coming clean,” Conor said.
“So you won’t arrest me? And the Rhode Island detective won’t?”
Conor could have lied to him, assured him that he was out of the woods, but he didn’t. “It’s going to depend, Johnny,” Conor said.
Johnny looked pale. He took a deep breath, exhaled.
“What about the fake receipt from Genevieve?” Conor asked. “You’ve told me this much.”
Johnny shook his head. “Isabel got a kick out of manipulating Donna. They got to Genevieve—it was easy because of the lawsuit; all her information is in the legal databases. It was easy for Isabel to find her on a dating app and pretend to fall in love with her.”
“And Genevieve fell in love back?” Conor asked.
“Yes. She fell hard, crazy in love. She would have done anything for Isabel. It took a while, but Isabel reeled her in. Talked about how Maddie had screwed her out of what should have been hers. She really revved Genevieve up.”
“Worked on her resentment,” Conor said. “That’s a powerful motivator.”
“Yes, Isabel got her red hot. She put her in touch with Donna, and Donna’s law firm was ready and waiting to exploit her.”
“A way to get to Maddie’s fortune,” Conor said. “Who came up with the fake receipt?”
“The Almeida sisters,” Johnny said.
“And they were going to split the million dollars with each other and Genevieve,” Conor said. “Three ways? Or did they tell you about it, too? Were they going to cut you in?”
Johnny had the grace to look ashamed. “I didn’t know, didn’t even guess, at first. But after Maddie died, when Isabel believed they were home free in terms of collecting on the proceeds, she told me everything. She was proud of it.”
“Now Donna’s dead,” Conor said. “Isabel killed her?”
Johnny didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
“I want to hear it from you. Isabel murdered Donna? And together they paid the Garsons to kill Maddie?”
“I swear, Conor, I didn’t know Isabel was going to hurt either of them.”
“How did she get to Maddie?” Conor asked.
“The night of the blizzard, I was home in Providence. It never even occurred to me to text Maddie and tell her our video project was off. I figured she would have known—considering how crazy the weather was out there. Way too dangerous.”
“Okay,” Conor said.
“Isabel told me that CeCe invited her to the suite for tea. It’s frowned on, for staff to mingle with the guests, but Maddie was so cool, she was friendly with everyone. Isabel went to the suite, and Maddie served tea and scones. Isabel just enjoyed it all.”
“Knowing she was going to kill Maddie?”
“No. She and Donna had brought in the Garsons. It was going to be a lot of money for them. Cash, plus they would split the profits from selling the artwork,” Johnny said.
“How would that work?” Conor asked.
“I found out later that Zane came to Fox Point to buy the same kind of lumber I use to build painting crates. He was ready to take them on the boat. He and his brother had contacts who would buy Maddie’s paintings—a black market. Donna and Isabel wouldn’t have to unload them—they wouldn’t have had a way to do that without word getting out. News travels fast in art circles.”
