“Just looking at all the possibilities here. Your father is a man of means. He is part of the broader art world-”
“So is, I don’t know-Brad Pitt, but I don’t think he had anything to do with Drew Campbell or the Highline Gallery.”
“There’s no need to get testy.”
She reminded herself why she had allowed him into her apartment in the first place. She was innocent. She was helpful. And she had nothing to hide. Innocent, helpful, forthcoming witnesses do not get angry.
“I’m sorry, Detective. It’s just-well, it’s a long story, but I’ve gone to great lengths to be independent of my family. Part of me thinks I wouldn’t even be in this situation if I hadn’t gone to those lengths, so I apologize if this is a touchy subject. My father and I had a kind of falling-out last year. If you’ve looked him up on the gossip pages, you might be able to figure out why.”
“I’m sorry, too, if I’m dredging up something for you.” They were both continuing their roles in this charade of civility. “But I have to ask: You spent nearly a year turning down your father’s offers of financial assistance, and then, lo and behold, a man you’ve never met before comes forward and offers you this golden opportunity to manage a gallery for a wealthy older man who would remain completely anonymous and allow you to call all the shots.”
“I realize it sounds ridiculous in hindsight, but-”
“It never dawned on you that the man cutting the checks might be your father?”
She felt herself flinch at the suggestion and wondered whether that blink she felt internally had manifested itself for Danes to witness. “No,” she finally said. “It didn’t.”
“ITH. Didn’t your father win an Academy Award for a film called
These questions were taking them into subject areas she never imagined. She knew Danes was wrong. Her father wouldn’t start a business and hire a man to draw her into it, just to force his help upon her. Would he? And even if he would, how did that explain Drew’s death? Or these questions about a missing girl in Jersey?
“I’m sorry, Detective. I don’t think I can help you any more.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I don’t want to talk to you any more outside the presence of counsel.” She pictured Jeff, and then heard her father’s voice once again.
“Cronin, huh? That’s with a C, right?”
She had already thrown back two fingers of scotch when the phone rang. She let it go to her machine. “Miss Humphrey. It’s Robert Atkinson again, with Empire Media? I’d really like to talk to you-”
She picked up the phone and screamed over the screech of her machine. “Please stop calling me. I don’t want to talk to you. If you call my home again, I’ll seek a restraining order.”
She slammed the phone back onto the cradle as her cell phone began to chime. She was tempted to hurl it across the apartment, but checked the screen to see it was Jeff.
“Hi.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah. I finally filled my dad in on everything, then went to Bikram. I’m a little wiped out, is all.” She wasn’t ready to talk to anyone yet about Danes’s theory of her father’s involvement.
“I did some digging around with the corporate filings for ITH. I still don’t have an actual person who’s pulling the strings, but I did manage to get the name of the attorney who handled the incorporation.”
“That’s good, right?” She felt the panic beginning to subside. ITH could mean anything. Her father had made seventeen films in his career. The matchup of the letters was just a coincidence.
“Hopefully. The papers were filed in 1985, which I guess would make sense if this is an older guy who’s been using this corporation for other projects over the years. I thought I’d give the lawyer a call and see if I can get some basic information as a professional courtesy. His name’s Arthur Cronin. His office was closed for the day, but I’ll give him a ring first thing in the morning.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
A lice tried to make herself small inside the tiny alcove at the entrance of her brother’s apartment building. In that day’s street-shopping session with Lily, she’d finally replaced her missing gloves. She’d even purchased a fake fur hat while she was at it, but no amount of bundling was sufficient to protect her from the Icelandic winds pouring up Mott.
Unlike her rental in the East Village, Ben’s Nolita apartment was a condo, purchased in her parents’ names at the top of the market about five years earlier. It had eleven-foot ceilings and thirteen hundred unencumbered, lofted square feet. He paid utilities and maintenance. Supposedly.
She pressed her index finger against the buzzer for the fifth floor, this time holding it down for a complete four seconds before breaking into a staccato rhythm of “ah, ah, ah, ah, staying alive, staying alive.”
A pack of four girls stumbling up the street in platform wedges and miniskirts barely attempted to mask their giggles. “Sometimes he’s just not that into you,” one of them said, giggling, after they had passed.
“Gross! He’s my idiot brother, not that it’s your business. And put some frickin’ clothes on. It’s fifteen degrees out. You look ridiculous.”
More giggles. Jesus, she was turning into one of those crazy old New York women who yell at strangers on the street. She leaned on Ben’s buzzer again until she heard his voice over the intercom.
“I told you, just a second, okay? I was in the shower.”
She had tried calling her father as soon as Jeff had dropped the bombshell about Arthur Cronin filing the incorporation papers for ITH. Jeff wasn’t familiar with the attorney’s name, but Alice certainly was. The phone at her parents’ townhouse rang for two straight minutes without an answer, and her father’s cell went directly to voice mail. When she tried the house in Bedford, her mother said her father had flown to Miami to scout locations for his next film.
Alice got the impression that her mother still didn’t know about Drew Campbell’s murder or its aftermath. She had never followed current events that were not related to culture or entertainment, and apparently her husband hadn’t felt the need to fill her in on her daughter’s current crisis. Alice had said nothing to change the situation, simply asking her mother whether she knew about a corporation her father might have used called ITH. Her mother did not, but said she would try to ask her father about it.
In the meantime, Alice had questions for Ben.
She gave a perfunctory tap before opening his unlocked door. She found him in the living room fully clothed. His hair was dry. The apartment was not particularly tidy. He had some reason for keeping her waiting in the cold. She looked into his face, searching for signs of drug use, but she’d never been good at detecting such things. Or maybe he’d always been good at hiding them.
“I need to ask you something, Ben, and I need you to be totally honest with me. Do you know anything about ITH Corporation? Specifically, I mean any connection between it and Dad.” She told him what she had learned from Jeff about Arthur Cronin being the attorney who filed the initial documents for incorporation. “The police must also know about Art’s involvement, because they were asking me whether Dad might be connected to the gallery.”
Ben shook his head. “I told you, Alice, I don’t know anything about it.”
“But you acted weird the other night when I mentioned the company, and now it turns out Art was involved.”
“I wasn’t acting weird. God, not this again. What would Dad have to do with that gallery anyway?”
“I have no idea. That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I’m starting to wonder whether there’s anything our father
“Jesus, Alice. It’s been a year. Mom’s not going anywhere. She seems fine with him. You’ve got to start forgiving him, too. Lighten up.”
“I thought you said my independence was contagious. You didn’t even call them when you got busted, and now
