Win (Windsor Horne Lockwood III #1)(62)

I head past the collection, some bottles worth thousands of dollars. In the far right-hand corner, I find a magnum of Krug Clos d’Ambonnay on the top shelf and pull it. A door opens, and I enter the back cellar. Yes, it is a secret room, if you will, and this cloak-and-dagger may seem a tad much, I suppose, but I think my grandmother just wanted a decent workspace away from prying eyes, yet still close to the grape.

All four walls are lined with six-foot-high file cabinets.

I am not intimidated by the sheer amount of paperwork. I am, in fact, at home here. One reason Myron and I make such a good team is that he is a big-picture guy whilst I am more detail oriented. He is a dreamer. I am a realist. He has an uncanny way of seeing the end game. I am more of a plodder. I don’t take shortcuts. I do the grunt work. A huge part of my occupation involves looking at the minute details of various corporations with a fine eye, to study every facet of a business, to understand their pros and cons, their ins and outs, before making a buy or sell recommendation.

Despite what some masters of the universe claim, you can’t do that on instinct.

I am thus big on due diligence.

Much of my family, especially my dear Grandmama, is the same. She has kept meticulous records on our family. Here, in her favorite sanctum, is every birth certificate, old passports, family trees, schedulers, calendars, bank statements, diaries, financial records, etc., dating back to 1958. There is a square table in the middle of the room with four chairs, legal pads, and sharpened Ticonderoga pencils. I start going through the files. I take fastidious notes. So much of this is in Grandmama’s handwriting, and while I’m not a sentimental fellow—I don’t display family photographs and you will rarely hear me waxing nostalgic—there is something so personal about penmanship, especially hers, the purity and consistency in her cursive, the beauty and the lost art and the individualism, that I cannot help but feel her presence.

I dig into my family’s past. I get lost in it. My mind wants to jump to conclusions, but I resist the temptation. Again, that would be Myron’s forte—spontaneous, disorganized, sloppy, brilliant. He can keep dozens of ideas in his head. I cannot. I slow myself. I need to have backing documentation. I need to see it visually, on the page, before it makes sense. I need a timetable and a map.

Still, as the hours pass, the pieces start coming together.

I hear footsteps behind me. I look up as Cousin Patricia steps into the room. “Nigel said you’d be down here.”

“And so I am.”

“Shouldn’t you be resting?”

“No.”

“You’re okay then?”

“Yes, fine, can we move on now?”

“Sheesh, I was just being polite.”

“Which you know I detest,” I say. Then I ask, “Do you know how old your mother is?”

Patricia makes a face. “Come again?”

“When your parents came back from Brazil, the family didn’t believe that Aline was, as he claimed, twenty. Nigel’s father hired a detective firm in Fortaleza. Their best guess is that she was fourteen or fifteen.”

Patricia just stands there.

“Did you know?” I ask.

“Yes.”

I don’t know whether that surprises me or not.

“It was the seventies, Win.”

The same defense as my father. Interesting to hear it from his niece. “I’m not interested in judging your father. I don’t care right now about the legality or ethics or morality.”

“What are you interested in?”

“Getting the answers.”

“What answers?”

“Who stole the paintings. Who killed your father. Who killed Ry Strauss. Who harmed you and the other girls.”

“Why?”

It is an interesting question. My first thought is about PT and his five decades of guilt over his dead partner. “I promised a friend.”

Patricia’s face displays skepticism. In truth, I don’t blame her for that. My answer sounds hollow in my own ears. I try again.

“It’s a wrong that needs to be righted,” I say.

“And you think the answers will do that?”

“Will do what?”

“Right the wrong?”

It’s a fair point. “We will find out, won’t we?”

Cousin Patricia tucks her hair behind an ear and starts toward me. “Show me what you have.”

*



Perhaps I should warn Cousin Patricia that she will not like what I have to say.

Alas, no.

I would rather get her unguarded, unfiltered reaction. So I dive straight into the breakdown.

“Your father matriculated to Haverford College in September of 1971.”

She arches an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“What?”

“You’re using the word ‘matriculated’ in casual conversation?”

I have to smile. “My most heartfelt apologies,” I say. “Do you know your father originally attended Haverford?”

“I do. Like your father and their father and their father before them for however far we go back. So what? My father didn’t want to go, but he didn’t feel as though he had a choice. That’s why he transferred.”

“No.”

“No what?”