The Sense of Reckoning (32 page)

Ann suppressed a wider smile. “He’s only driving me as a favor. He’s Mike’s partner.”

“Partner? I thought your brother’s business was managing your consulting engagements. Do you have need of two business managers?”

“No, not business partner. Boyfriend.”

“Ah, I see.” Garrick seemed relieved to learn that Ann’s driver was not a professional chauffeur and that her business was not so booming as to need a staff of two to manage it. “Well, he seems to be quick thinking. And polite,” he added pointedly. “A useful person.”

“Oh yes, very useful,” said Ann cheerfully. Good humor restored, she said, “I’m sorry you didn’t get your fee.”

“An unfortunate eventuality.”

“Maybe you could still get it.”

“I fear not.”

“Ellen’s going to have some assets from the sale of the hotel. I’m not sure what happens to those if she’s in jail, but—”

“There’s no fee,” Garrick interrupted.

“What?”

Garrick shifted uncomfortably. “I wasn’t performing the engagement for a fee.”

“But why, then?”

Garrick looked hawkishly at her for a few moments. Finally he said, “I knew her family for many years. She employed me when I first decided to make sensing my profession. She was so young when her father died, and she was so utterly unlike her brother. She was ... someone who needed someone to care for her.”

“
You
cared for her,” said Ann, half statement, half question.

“Yes,” said Garrick. “I cared for her.”

Chapter 49

1950

After the fire, when the Furnesses confirmed Pritchard’s prediction that they would not rebuild Jardin and the staff was looking for work, Chip’s father hired Millie to help at the hotel. Much to Chip’s surprise, his father seemed to enjoy having her around and even occasionally smiled at her friendly teasing. To no one’s surprise, Millie turned out to be a natural at the hotel business and had soon become the de facto manager of the operation, charming guests as they checked in and hiring the best of the workers from Jardin to supplement the hotel staff. Millie became such an integral part of the hotel, and she and Chip spent so much time together, that eventually their marriage seemed inevitable. Chip knew he was a lucky man when she agreed to marry him.

They had their wedding at the Lynam’s Point Hotel on a rainy Saturday in October, after that year’s guests had left for the season. That night, after the reception—attended mainly by Millie’s family and friends and hotel staff—had ended and his father had gone up to his room on the second floor (he had temporarily ceded the fourth floor to Chip and Millie for their “honeymoon”), Chip took Millie’s hand and said, “There’s something I want to show you. Upstairs.”

Millie laughed teasingly. “Oh, is there, Chip Lynam?”

“Yes,” said Chip. They climbed the stairs. On the top floor, Millie turned to go into Chip’s room, but with a tug on her hand Chip led her to the end of the hallway, to the last door on the left. He opened the door, switched on the light, and waved her through.
 

For many years the room had been used for storage, but in ’47, shortly after the big fire, Chip’s father had given him permission to turn it into an office of sorts. An old desk was pushed up to the outside wall, although the slanting ceiling left barely enough headroom for anyone sitting there. A cast-off lamp from one of the guest rooms hung from the ceiling and provided the only light.

She peeked in, perhaps expecting a surprise, but saw only the usual sparse furnishings. “Okay. Now what?”

Chip pulled out the desk chair for her. After a brief hesitation, she gathered the skirt of her wedding dress around her and sat down. Chip pulled a stool over and sat down next to her and took her hand.

“I have something very important to share with you,” said Chip.

Millie nodded, her face a bit scrunched up with puzzlement.

“Do you remember my mother?”

“Your mother? Chip, that was such a long time ago—I think I only met her a couple of times and I was just little, like you.”

“But you remember what she looked like, right?”

“Well, yes, in general.”

“She was pretty, right?”

“Yes, Chip, very pretty.”

Chip didn’t think she sounded completely sincere but plowed ahead nonetheless.

“I loved her a lot, but my father made her go away. He treated her like he owned her—like she was an object. And when she left, I couldn’t protect her.”

“Good heavens, Chip, you were—what—six years old? You couldn’t help what was happening between your parents, or what happened to your mother.”

“I should have found a way. Then when she died, I missed her so much, and I thought I’d never be able to make it up to her, but then I did find a way.”

Exasperation was now mixing with puzzlement on Millie’s face. “Well, I can’t imagine how, but I’ll bite—what did you do?”

“Do you remember that picture the Furnesses had? The one in the library?”

Millie’s eyebrows drew together. “The one the Italian man brought?”

“Yes, that one! And it looked so much like my mother—it was like she had come back—”

Millie stood up. “Chip Lynam, it is our wedding night, and I would have thought you would be interested in me, not in thinking about your poor dead mother and certainly not thinking about some creepy painting that burned up years ago!”

“Millie, wait—”

“No, Chip. Some other time I’ll listen to this story, but not tonight—not on our wedding night.” She pushed the skirts of her wedding dress out the door and walked down the hall where he heard the door to his room—their room—close behind her.

Chip sat staring ahead of him for a minute, then got up and closed and locked the door to the hallway. He knelt by the wall and lifted the section of paneling, which slid smoothly upward. Chip was pleased with his handiwork—he had masked the construction of the hiding place by also installing a set of built-in bookshelves in the small room. He swung open the board on which The Lady hung, then sat down in the desk chair that Millie had vacated.

The Lady looked out at him. Did her small, usually sad smile contain a touch of amusement? He had looked forward to sharing The Lady with Millie—now that they were married, she couldn’t very well report him to the authorities, could she? He spent a few minutes hoping that she would change her mind and come back, but eventually he acknowledged that once Millie had made up her mind to a course of action, she was unlikely to change it without good reason. So perhaps The Lady was meant to remain a secret living solely with him. But perhaps not—perhaps someone would happen along someday with whom he could share the experience.

After a last look, he swung the board shut and pulled down the panel and, closing the door to the room behind him, went down the hall to his new bride.

Chapter 50

Garrick used the key from under the flower pot to open the hotel’s front door. The hotel was now the property of the buyer, and its demolition was scheduled for the following week. The lobby was completely empty now, stripped not only of furniture but even of the architectural details that were sellable—the registration desk, the fireplace mantle. Even the brass fittings on the elevator were gone.

Accompanied by the tap of the antique cane he carried, he made his way across the lobby to the lounge. He had replaced the unattractive utilitarian affair provided by the hospital with a striking Malacca cane with an ivory handle. He no longer needed it for support, but kept it because he was secretly pleased with the effect.

The lounge was as bare as the lobby, the bar having been an especially popular find for the dealers. Garrick crossed to the shallow window seat, beyond which lay the million-dollar view of Lynam Narrows. He lowered himself carefully onto the seat.

“Loring?” he called.

A minute passed, and then Loring appeared at the door to the lobby.

“Good afternoon,” said Garrick.

“Afternoon,” said Loring, his hands in his pockets.

Several seconds passed in silence, then Loring crossed the room to the window and gazed out, his shoulder propped on the window frame.

“So,” he said eventually.

Garrick remained silent.

“How’s Ellen?” asked Loring.

“She’s in Augusta. In Riverview.”

“Ah, the criminal nuthouse. No trial?”

“No. She pled guilty by reason of insanity. Ergo,” added Garrick coldly, “she was sent to the ‘nuthouse.’”

Loring frowned and scuffed the toe of his shoe through the dust growing thick on the floor, leaving a mark that only Garrick could see. “Insane because she believes in ghosts?”

“No. Her lawyer convinced the judge that her belief that my death would not be the end of my existence indicated her inability to distinguish fantasy from reality.”

Loring sighed and looked back out the window. “I’m sorry to hear they put her away.”

“As am I.”

Loring glanced at Garrick. “I would have thought you would be happy after what she did to you.”

Garrick turned to look out the window. “You sister is unbalanced. She misunderstood what she was doing.”

“I think you were always a little sweet on her.”

“She was a spirited young woman born into a difficult situation.”

“Yeah.” They both looked out the window for some time, then Loring spoke. “Garrick, I know it’s too little too late, but I’m sorry for what happened to you. I never thought you’d actually find the painting. I’d seen the buyer come to look at the lot with his architect, heard them talking about their plans, before living people started to fade for me. I figured I could put the two of you off until it was too late, they’d tear down the hotel, and that would be that. It was just icing on the cake that I got to have a little fun at your expense, you were always such a pompous bastard. And I was enjoying having a captive audience—Lord knows I didn’t get a chance to tell my story when I was alive.”

“Why did you tell Miss Kinnear where the painting was?”

“That wasn’t me, that was Dad.”

“She was directed to the painting by someone answering to ‘Loring’—I thought his name was Chip.”

“Chip was his nickname. All the first sons in the Lynam family are named Loring.”

“Ah. That would explain why she described the man she encountered as being pleasant.”

“Touché, Garrick.” A smile flickered across his lips and then faded. “What was Ellen planning on doing with the painting?” he asked.

“She claims she had a buyer.”

“Ellen found a buyer for a stolen piece of artwork?” said Loring, his eyebrows rising.

“That’s what she says,” said Garrick neutrally.

“Jesus, if I had been able to figure out how to find a buyer for it, I would have jumped on it. Maybe I should have told her where it was after all.”

After a moment Garrick said, “Why didn’t you want Ellen to have the painting?”

Loring sat down on the end of the window seat and stared unseeingly toward the marks on the opposite wall where the bar had been. Finally he said, “That painting ruined Dad’s life. It ruined my life. He let life pass him by because he couldn’t pull himself away from the painting, and life passed me by because I couldn’t figure out how to get rid of it. At first, after Dad died, I didn’t want to turn it in because I didn’t want everyone to know he was a thief. Then I didn’t want to turn it in because I didn’t want to get in trouble for not having turned it in.” A cynical smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. “But I guess it had me a little under its spell, because I couldn’t bring myself to destroy it either.”

He stood and turned back to the window. “Then I sort of forgot about it because the hotel was getting deeper and deeper in debt and I was trying to deal with that. And then I found out what we owed in back taxes and at the same time found out that we needed to shore up the foundations or the building would be condemned. I tried to tell Ellen but it was like she thought I was making it up. She was still trying to sell folks wedding packages, for God’s sake. And I was drinking pretty heavily at the time, too. One day it just got to be too much. I thought doing it in the room where the painting was hidden was a bit of poetic justice.”

“I felt it was unusually cruel, even for you, to hang yourself in a place where your sister was sure to be the one to find you,” said Garrick.

Loring began to bristle, then deflated. “Yeah. Not my finest moment, I’ll admit.” After a moment he continued, subdued. “I’m surprised she didn’t look more carefully in that room for the painting, although maybe she wasn’t so enthusiastic about going in there after what she found.” He shook himself. “Anyhow, when I heard someone wanted to tear down the hotel, I thought that would take care of it.” He turned to Garrick. “I gave up on life because that painting took everything from me. But it wasn’t too late for her. I figured if she lost the hotel she’d have a few bad months, maybe a bad year, moaning about ‘the family legacy.’ She’d curse me for giving up on the hotel—Christ, for giving up on myself—and for not letting her have the painting. But then she’d get over it and get on with her life, and she’d have money from selling the hotel. She could do anything—travel, even go to college if she wanted to. People do, even if they’re older. She would have been better off for not having this albatross hanging around her neck. And she’s not too old to find someone to spend her life with.”