“Your mom looks nice,” I said to Finn, gesturing at the photo.
“She
is
nice,” he said. “I got lucky.”
His words struck a chord in me. “My mom was nice too,” I said of the strikingly clever woman I’d called at her insistence by her first name, Eleanor. She’d never finished her PhD, but she’d always seemed to know so much, especially about people, and now that Lydia too was gone, I felt the loss of my mother even more. She died too young, of a particularly virulent pancreatic cancer that was cruelly, but in some ways mercifully, swift. That was only a few months before I spent my last summer with Lydia, the summer I met Finn for the first time. By the following summer I was married.
“You must miss her a lot,” he said gently, noting the shift in my mood. “I remember how tough that summer was for you.”
It started to come back to me then, how kind he was. Finn was a nice guy. How had I not remembered that part? Around us, the party careened as my impression of him shifted slowly. We talked, exchanging details about our families, our jobs, our friends.
Eventually things on the porch were starting to wane. I walked with Finn off the porch and into the yard. “I used to drop in every once in a while to play backgammon with Lydia,” he said before he waved good-bye, leaving me wondering if that was a warning or a promise. Was he looking for an invitation?
Hamilton was still there, and he approached me with a tiny elf of a man in a flowered tie. “I want you to meet a friend of mine. Ian. He’s called Scotty, though, for obvious reasons. Just listen to him speak.”
“I’m terribly anxious to be of assistance,” the elfin man stated in a thick Scottish brogue, gazing adoringly at Hamilton as he shook my hand.
“Scotty’s the cousin of the brother of an uncle of a baron or something like that. Which makes him rather a snob,” Hamilton explained cheerfully. “He’s also an appraiser at the auction house where I hung my hat in a previous life.”
The little man clapped his hands together, clearly infatuated with Hamilton. “I’m not a snob at all. That’s
him
. But I do still have a job, for now. They haven’t kicked me out yet. I know where all the bodies are buried.”
“It’s amazing how far an accent can take the likes of us.” Hamilton nodded at his friend. “This place is overrun with Brits all spouting nonsense that, to the American ear, sounds so much the richer and more intelligent in our dulcet tones.”
“Like the Englishmen,” I said. “At Gatsby’s parties.”
He looked surprised. “There are Englishmen in
The Great Gatsby
?”
“ ‘Agonizingly aware of the easy money in the vicinity,’ ” I was then forced to explain, quoting from the book I knew almost by heart. Just that afternoon I’d sat on the porch for a bit with a hardcover that had been Lydia’s. I’d opened it to the beginning, savoring the familiar opening sentence again.
In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.
I’d read to the part where Nick Carraway attends the party at Gatsby’s house next door. “ ‘Theirs for a few words in the right key.’ ”
“Oh, isn’t that true?” Scotty cooed in an admiring tone. “Aren’t you clever?”
I wasn’t feeling at all clever. In fact I was feeling as embarrassed, as I usually did when these sorts of things came out of my mouth and I found myself in conversations where I was sure I sounded like a pretentious literary nut. But Hamilton made me feel better.
“Your aunt was mad for that book,” he said to me, with a kindly pat on the arm, as though he knew how I felt. “Oh, did she ever love that book.”
“I never understood it,” Scotty stated, almost plaintively. “I suppose because I’m not an
American
.”
“Or perhaps because you’re not very bright,” Hamilton said with a straight face.
Scotty nodded amiably at me. “I’m not. But I’m really quite good fun.” He pointed at Biggsy hovering behind Miles Noble, eager for an introduction. “I know that chap. The handsome one in the costume. Do you remember, Ham? The opening where the artist was killed out in the street in front of the gallery?”
“I was with you,” Hamilton reminded his friend. “He was run over by a taxi as he took a cigarette in the rain.”
“Don’t you remember?” Scotty exclaimed. “When we were outside and the ambulance was coming? There was someone filming the scene. And do you remember what he said when we told him to turn off the camera? He said, ‘Hey, man, this is art.’ ”
“Empathetic young chap, isn’t he?” Hamilton pointed out. “The poor man’s body was still steaming under the pelting rain. It was rather astonishing.”
“The piece was for sale at the Basel Art Fair later in the year,” Scotty added. “But I don’t suppose anyone ever bought it. In fact, I remember hearing that the artist had
died.
”
“Wouldn’t that have been an ironic twist of fate?” Hamilton asked. “But if he is the artist, he appears to be alive and well, doesn’t he? Living the good life here in the Hamptons.”
They were still chatting about Biggsy when Peck appeared at my side. “I need to talk to you,” she whispered, hand cupped against my ear. “In
private
.”
She pulled me around to the back side of the porch, where earlier in the evening Finn and I had been alone. “Stella,” she whispered urgently. “We’ve been
robbed
.”
4
W
hen Peck said we’d been robbed, I assumed someone had made off with the safe in Lydia’s mothball-scented closet. But the only thing missing, oddly, was the painting we’d been looking at earlier in the evening, the painting—“For L.M. From J.P.”—that had hung above the mantel for as long as we could remember.
“Why would anyone take
that
?” we asked each other as, out on the front side of the porch, the party wound down to its natural end without anyone knowing something was awry. Miles Noble left without saying good-bye and we didn’t tell anyone about the missing painting. It hardly seemed like something worth mentioning.
The next day, however, Peck put forth a theory over a lunch she and Biggsy had prepared from the leftover party food—pink lemonade with cucumber, ginger, and mint; tiny cornbread sandwiches with turkey and chutney; crab cakes on
ciabatta
; homemade potato chips; and a ridiculously delicious avocado and tomato salad with cilantro. The three of us gathered at the table on the porch. The sun was high over our heads in a cloudless sky and the inspiring light that had lured so many artists to this part of the world threw everything into sharp relief.
“Okay, so here’s what I think,” she said, once we were settled in. “It wasn’t until I mentioned Lydia’s paintings that Miles seemed interested in coming over here, right? And then, first thing, he asked me to give him a tour. Right in the middle of the party.” She caught Biggsy’s eye. “I know.
Rude
, right? But he was so into it, I couldn’t say no. And then here’s where it gets weird.” She paused to take a bite of her crab cake sandwich, oozing with tartar sauce, and then washed it down with fresh lemonade before resuming. “He stood before that painting for a long time, much longer than he looked at any of the others. Almost as if he were trying to place it in his mind.”
“I saw him!” Biggsy cried out, his eyes lighting up, immediately fueling Peck’s suspicions. “You were already back outside and he went back in there by himself. Nobody else was around. He was staring up at that painting forever.”
“Here’s what I think,” she said, leaning forward conspiratorially, even though there was nobody who could hear us. “That painting was the thing of value that Lydia was talking about. She probably didn’t want anyone to know what it was because we would have gotten socked with big taxes. And maybe she didn’t want to make it too complicated for us, because how do you divide a painting? Unless you sell it and share the proceeds. That would explain why she worded the will that way.”
“And this Miles guy, he collects art, right?” Biggsy chimed in. “I knew he did—that’s why I wanted to talk to him about my work. But he was too busy casing the joint. Didn’t even hear me.”
Peck gestured at him with her sandwich, sending a dollop of tartar sauce in his direction. “Literally. That’s what happened. He figured out what it was and that it was worth something. Oh God,” she moaned. “I just realized I
told
him. I’m such a blabbermouth, I had to go and tell him all about Aunt Lydia’s will and the thing of utmost value.”
“I had another theory,” Biggsy said. “But now it seems silly. I think you were right. He had that horny look in his eye. He wanted that painting.”
“I’m telling you, there’s something shady about Miles,” Peck added eagerly. This was exactly the kind of drama she would work to create when it didn’t exist, and she was enjoying this immensely. “When I was young and didn’t know better I found it sexy. But when you think about it, how did he make all that money? Oh, I do think he could be a thief. He had it in him.”
I’d been listening rather skeptically as the two of them worked themselves into a frenzy of conviction, but I didn’t really believe Miles Noble would appear, seemingly out of the blue, into Peck’s life and into her aunt’s house and walk away with a painting off the wall, even if it was the one I’d liked best. But I had no other explanation. “What was
your
theory?” I asked Biggsy.
He hung his head. “It’s dumb now.”
Of course this only made Peck and me implore him to tell us what he was thinking, and when he spoke a small smile played at his lips. His looks were distracting. His accent was flat and unplaceable—he told us he’d grown up in Utah, but then he also mentioned having lived in a trailer park in Oregon and summers in Idaho, so the exact source was unclear—and he never sounded particularly intelligent, but it was hard not to be thrown off by the fact that words were emerging at all from such a mouth. It was disconcerting, like one of those Abercrombie ads come to life.
“You know how Lydia always said there was a ghost?” he said sheepishly. Lydia had always enjoyed sharing her tales of the genial figure of the former owner of the house who made an appearance every now and then, hiding a frying pan from the kitchen on the bookshelf, or moving the items on the bar cart. “Well, I’ve seen it for myself.”
“You thought a
ghost
took the painting.” I couldn’t help sounding dubious.
“He’s more of a poltergeist,” he said, looking to Peck for confirmation. “Sometimes he
finds
things.”
“Oh! Oh! What if it’s
Lydia
!” Peck interjected, looking pleased with herself. “Trying to tell us something. Communicating from beyond the grave . . .” Her voice trailed off as she contemplated this version.
“I didn’t think it was Lydia,” he said, in his usual serious tone. “But I did wonder about the ghost of Fool’s House, the original owner. The one she won the house from in a game of backgammon?”
I lifted my hands in protest. “My mother said that story wasn’t true.”
“Well,” he said, still speaking earnestly, “did you look in the closet under the stairs? Lydia once told me the ghost often tucked things away under there for safekeeping.”
“I can’t believe we’re actually discussing the possibility of a friendly ghost swooping in and taking a painting off the wall,” I said. “We’re all adults.”
“Stella’s right,” Peck said with a firm nod, like it was time to get back to the real situation. “If it was a ghost, it was the ghost of lovers past. Miles Noble did this. Maybe it was some sort of mating ritual, the first step in a dance of courtship. Or maybe he really believed it was something of value and he stole it. But we’re going to find out.”
We finished eating and cleared the plates and then Peck, who loved to talk on the phone, began making calls to people who’d been at the party. “Just wondering if you noticed anything
unusual
last night,” she kept saying. “No, no, nothing serious. Just a strange occurrence that we’re trying to understand. Well, I’d rather not say. I’ll tell you everything when I know more.”
To someone else she gave hangover advice—“I’m telling you, grease is the word. Get yourself to the Sip ’n Soda,” she advocated—before hanging up. “That person was so drunk last night he thought I was accusing him of going home with the painting himself,” said Peck. “He offered to search his car and call me back.”
“I think we should go see those peculiar neighbors of ours, the Samuelses,” she said to me, holding her hand over the receiver after she’d placed the next call. The Samuelses lived in the oversized house to the east of Fool’s House, and Peck believed they’d been spying on us from their third-floor window since we arrived. “They might have seen something. Miles sneaking out the back door with the painting under his arm?”
Bethany Samuels sold jewelry at private trunk shows in her home and her husband worked on Wall Street. We would see them, or more often hear them, going from zero to sixty in their Hummer on our quiet little street. They had two young girls who were always dressed in matching clothes, although one was huge and one was tiny and the outfits, old-fashioned smocked dresses and shoes that buttoned on the side, looked odd in such different sizes. They were often being wheeled in a stroller up and down the street by a nanny in a starched uniform, although the big one was old enough to ride a bicycle on her own.
Peck had invited them to the party only to avoid having them call the police to complain about the noise. “She’s a faux-cialite,” she’d said of Bethany Samuels, dismissing her. “And so pushy. Give her four minutes and she’ll try to sell you a diamond ring. But we have to be neighborly.”
Sure enough, Bethany Samuels had arrived at our party with postcard invitations in hand for a jewelry trunk show. “You should come. The best deals on diamonds anywhere.” I don’t know what she thought I would be doing buying diamonds, even at a discount, but she persisted. “Just come and check it out. No pressure. I’m not into aggressive sales. I know it’s a Sunday but so many of us are golf widows I thought it would make sense. Husbands welcome but not necessary!”