Painted Ladies

67

We were standing near the George Washington statue that faced Arlington Street. It was March. There was still snow in the Public Garden, but it was diminishing. Of course, in Boston March is not necessarily blizzard-free, but the odds are better, and so far the odds were holding. We were waiting for Otto.

“His mom e-mailed me last night,” Susan said. “They’ll be in town, and she feels Otto is desperate to see Pearl.”

“Why would he not be?” I said.

“I think it may be why they came up,” Susan said.

Pearl was engaged stalking some pigeons about ten yards from us. The pigeons allowed her to get quite close before they scornfully took wing. She watched them fly and saw them land maybe thirty yards away, and started over to stalk them some more.

“She doesn’t discourage easily,” Susan said.

“Hell,” I said. “The hunt is most of the fun.”

“You should know,” Susan said.

I nodded.

“Lotta trouble, though,” I said. “Sometimes.”

“Are the police going to charge either Winifred or Missy with anything?” Susan said.

“No, an armed man with a history of murder, holding her daughter as a shield? There’s no case there. And no one wants to make one. It’s self-defense.”

Pearl got really low as she closed in on the pigeons, and almost got there before they flew up. She watched them carefully as they flew entirely out of the Public Garden and across Beacon Street, toward the esplanade.

“And the paintings?” Susan said.

“Both there. The cops are having them examined to see which is which.”

Susan looked at her watch and looked toward Boylston Street, where she expected Otto to appear.

“Cops suspect that the copy might have been in the Hammond Museum, and that Prince had the real one on his wall.”

“Do you think that’s true?” Susan said.

“Might be,” I said. “I’m not sure there’s any way to know for sure.”

“What got him killed?”

“Ariel said that Prince was going to cheat them. My guess is he’d authenticate the fake, collect the ransom, take his share, and put the real one back in his office.”

“Could you prove that?”

“Maybe,” I said. “If I had to. But I don’t have to.”

Susan glanced toward Boylston Street.

“What was Ariel’s plan, do you suppose?” Susan said.

“Best we can figure, he was going to hole up there. He had the daughter convinced that he cared for her and was going to take her with him and the pictures when the heat had turned down.”

“You don’t think he would have?”

“The daughter was a way to make sure that Winifred behaved. If he didn’t need her for that anymore, no. I don’t think he’d have taken her. She would have been a bother.”

“A father that would use his daughter as a shield ...”

“Exactly,” I said.

Pearl gave up on pigeons and came over and sat on my foot. She sat on my foot a lot, but always for reasons known only to her.

“It’s hard to imagine,” Susan said, “what he was about.”

“Ariel?” I said.

“Yes. How much was sincere, at least at first, how much was traceable to being the child of a survivor.”

“How much is traceable to his being emotionally barren,” I said.

“That’s almost your standard of good and bad,” Susan said. “The ability to love.”

“Probably,” I said.

“The inability may be traceable to his history,” she said.

“Probably is,” I said. “But it did a lot of damage.”

Susan nodded. Pearl stood up suddenly, her tail wagging very fast. She made little cooing noises.

“Speaking of the ability to love,” I said.

Susan looked toward Boylston Street. And there he was, barreling across the Public Garden like a Cape buffalo.

Otto!