The Shadow Box(3)

It’s how I will stay alert and alive.





2





CONOR


Conor Reid arrived at the Woodward-Lathrop Gallery at four forty-five, fifteen minutes before Claire Beaudry Chase’s opening was scheduled to start. His girlfriend, Kate Woodward, owned the gallery in the center of Black Hall, and his sister-in-law, Jackie Reid, managed it. Kate was flying a private charter and wouldn’t be back in time. Conor had promised he would show up to celebrate their friend Claire.

Conor was a detective with the Connecticut State Police and had just finished interviewing witnesses to a hit-and-run on the Baldwin Bridge. A speeding black pickup had clipped a Subaru, smashing it into the guardrail. There were no fatalities, but the car’s driver had gone to the hospital with a head injury. No one had gotten the truck’s license number.

It was the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, and the madhouse of summer on the shoreline was just starting.

“Hey, you made it,” Jackie said, walking over to give Conor a hug. She was married to his older brother, Tom—his first marriage, her second. Conor had liked Jackie and her two daughters right away. Tom was a coast guard officer, often at sea on patrol, and Conor saw how happy Tom was to come home to her.

“Looks like you’re expecting a big crowd,” Conor said, glancing at the bar and catering table, loaded with bottles of wine and platters of cheese and bread and smoked salmon.

“We are,” she said. “Everyone’s excited to see Claire’s new installation, but I think we’ll also get a lot of people curious to meet the candidate. Judging from the calls I’ve gotten, I expect more political than arts reporters. Do you think Griffin will win? Be our next governor?”

“Seems he has a good chance,” Conor said. He had worked with Griffin Chase on many cases. Chase played hard and knew what it took to come out on top.

People began streaming through the door. From being with Kate, Conor knew that there were three types of people who attended art openings in Black Hall: true collectors who intended to buy, serious art lovers who were there to appreciate the work, and people who came for the free food and wine.

On the bar table were plastic glasses and bottles of red and white wine, both from southeastern Connecticut vineyards. Someone had calligraphed a card for the wine: Courtesy of Griffin Chase. Smart, Conor thought: showing that he supported Connecticut businesses.

“Come on,” Jackie said. “Take a walk around with me; check out the work.”

“Sure,” Conor said. He had never been that interested in art; Kate had taught him pretty much everything he knew. Kate was a huge fan of Claire. What she did couldn’t exactly be called paintings, collages, or sculptures, but it had aspects of each. She made shadow boxes, driftwood frames filled with objects from nature, especially the beach.

“Who buys these?” Conor asked.

“Claire has devoted collectors,” Jackie said. “One actually commissioned her to do a private piece for him and his wife.”

“Which one is that?” Conor asked.

“She’s not putting it in the show. It’s back in her studio,” Jackie said. “She told me it’s ‘guarding her secrets.’”

“What secrets?” Conor asked, but Jackie just shook her head. He felt a ripple that sometimes signaled the start of a case, but he figured he was overreacting.

He saw Jackie glance at her watch.

“It’s nearly five, and she’s still not here,” Jackie said.

“Maybe she wants to make an entrance,” he said.

“No, she said she was coming early, to autograph a few catalogs for clients who can’t make it. Let me check on her.”

Jackie stepped away and made a call from her cell phone. Conor took the opportunity to grab some cheese and crackers and survey the room. He would never enter this gallery without thinking of Beth Lathrop, Kate’s sister. He and Kate had gotten close while he was investigating Beth’s murder.

Beth used to run the place; after her murder, Kate had hired Jackie. Conor knew it was hard for Kate to come here; it wasn’t easy for him, either: the building was haunted by violence and tragedy, but it had been in the Woodward family for three generations, and Kate would never let it go. Conor couldn’t help feeling that Jackie was helping Kate keep it in the family, partly for Beth’s daughter, Samantha.

“No luck,” Jackie said, walking over to him.

Conor didn’t reply, distracted by one of Claire’s shadow boxes. It was about twelve-by-sixteen inches, bordered by a driftwood frame, and filled with mussel-and clamshells, moonstones, exoskeletons, sea glass, crab claws, and carapaces. It also contained what looked like the skeleton of a human hand and was titled Fingerbone.

“That hand,” Conor said.

“I know, creepy, right?” Jackie said. He felt the ripple again and sensed her watching for his reaction.

“Reminds me of something,” he said, not wanting to say too much, wondering whether she had heard what Claire told him at dinner on Monday.

“Ellen?” Jackie asked—proving to Conor that she had heard enough. She was referring to Ellen Fielding, a school friend of Jackie, Claire, and Griffin’s, who had died twenty-five years ago.

Griffin’s official state car pulled up in front of the gallery. He stepped out, projecting the confidence and power that everyone in the court system was so familiar with. He wore custom-made suits and Hermès ties, and Conor had heard one corrections officer say he could put his kid through college on Griffin’s tie budget alone.