The Stroke of Winter(50)

“She ran off,” Wyatt said, elongating the word. More of a statement than a question. “Do you know why?”

Kathy sighed. “This is ancient history,” she said. “But I really don’t feel good about airing my friend’s dirty laundry, even after all of these years.”

Tess and Wyatt exchanged a glance.

“It could be important,” Wyatt said. “It might even help us find her, or at least find out what happened to her.”

“I don’t know how,” Kathy said. “Listen, honey, I have to run—”

“No, Mom,” Wyatt said. He caught Tess’s eye, and she nodded. What’s one more person knowing, she thought. The word was getting out fast. “You don’t understand. Tess found a couple of portraits of Daisy at La Belle Vie during the renovation.”

“What?” Kathy said, her voice a harsh whisper. “Paintings of Daisy?”

“Yeah,” Wyatt said. “They seemed rather . . . disturbing.”

Kathy was silent for a moment. “How so?”

“One is from the point of view of someone standing on the street, looking into the windows of her house. It’s really disturbing, Mom, as though her husband was going to erupt at any minute. Is that accurate, do you know? Was Daisy’s husband that kind of man?”

More silence from Wyatt’s mother, as though she were turning the thoughts over in her mind.

“Okay, kids,” she said. “I haven’t said this out loud for a few decades, but yes. Yes, he was. Daisy’s husband, Frank—that bastard—was not a good man. He was abusive. To her and the kids. We didn’t use that term back then. But that’s what it was. She confided in me . . .” Kathy’s words trailed off. “But I think it’s okay now, after all of this time, for me to tell you.”

Tess’s stomach knotted. The vision of the painting, the view inside Daisy’s house with the husband glowering in the living room and her crying by the stove, screamed in her head.

“Can you shed any light on what was going on during that time? When she was married to this Frank and had young children?”

“She was talking about leaving Frank, but I thought it was just her venting to a friend, you know?” Kathy went on. “Back then, women just sort of stuck it out. That’s the way it was. But she did go.”

“She never contacted you afterward?”

“No,” Kathy said. “It really hurt for a while, if you want to know the truth. We were good friends. I thought she’d come to me. Or let me know where she was. That she was safe. But she just vanished one night, and I never heard from her again. Like she was in witness protection or something.”

“Was she?” Wyatt said. “Do you think she was in witness protection?”

“Oh, goodness no,” Kathy said. “We had no idea about anything like that back then.”

“So, then what?” Wyatt asked. “She went missing. Did her husband—Frank—ever file a police report?”

“He did,” Kathy said. “All of us were questioned. He was investigated by the police. At least that was the rumor around town.”

Kathy was quiet for another moment, as though deciding whether to voice her next thought. Both Wyatt and Tess stayed quiet, too, allowing her the space to make that decision.

“I’ve always suspected he killed her, to tell you the honest truth,” she said, finally. “I hate to say it out loud, but that’s what I’ve thought, in the back of my mind, over the years. I really didn’t believe Daisy would leave her children. No matter how bad it got with Frank. The police sort of thought that, too.”

“So, they knew he was abusive?”

“Honey, this is a small town. Everyone knew everything. And yes, we all—including the police—knew Frank was a wife beater. Again, another horrible term. This story seems to be full of them. But that’s what abusers were called at the time. And I told the police that, too. I didn’t sit silently by. You should know that. They investigated but didn’t find anything.”

“What happened to him?” Tess wanted to know.

“Frank? Nothing. He took the kids and left Wharton a year or so later, and nobody has heard from him since, that I know of. Good riddance to him. But not the kids. I would’ve loved to have seen Daisy’s boys grow up. I’ve worried about them over the years, living with that monster without Daisy there to get in between them.”

Wyatt winced at Tess before posing his next question. “Mom, this may sound like an off-the-wall question, but do you know if Daisy ever had a relationship with Sebastian Bell?”

Kathy was silent for a moment. “A relationship? What do you mean?”

“Well, you know. A relationship.”

“Daisy knew him. We all did. Everyone in town did. The world knew of him. He was already famous during those days. They had just opened the art gallery, if I’m remembering correctly. But a relationship? You’re talking a romantic one?”

“Yeah. That’s what I was asking.”

“No,” Kathy said. “Kids, I don’t know if I should be saying this, but after all this time . . .” She sighed. “Sebastian wasn’t the Bell Daisy was involved with.” Kathy paused for a beat. “It was his son.”