decision, and then going through with it? I couldn’t imagine Angelica doing that.” He smiled gently. “I can’t imagine that it was pleasurable for her.”
It seemed so odd a comment that Frank wrote it down in his notebook.
“I wouldn’t put too much stock in what I say, however,” Cummings added dismissively. “I’m not a very good student of mankind.”
“How did you know she was pregnant?”
“She told me.”
“When.”
“On June seventeenth, when she came to take control of her inheritance. It was one of the reasons she gave me for wanting full control of her assets. She planned to keep the baby, or so she said. She wanted to support it herself.”
“She planned to keep it?”
“Yes,” Cummings said.
“You didn’t get the impression that she was going to get an abortion?”
“No, why?”
“Well, one idea is that she died while trying to give herself one.”
Cummings laughed. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Why?”
“My God, if Angelica had wanted an abortion, she could have gotten one from the finest doctors in the world,” Cummings said. He leaned forward slightly. “We’re talking about a very wealthy young woman.”
Frank wrote it down.
“Did she mention an abortion at all?”
“No,” Cummings said. “She said that she planned to have the baby, raise it herself, and at the same time— we’re talking about a young girl here—she was going off to New York to be an actress.”
“New York City?”
“That’s right, that paradise for exiles,” Cummings said. “She was going there.”
“Did that surprise you?”
“Not really. She was drifting, I could tell.”
“In what way?”
Cummings tapped his head. “In here. She was drifting inside her mind.” He shook his head. “I don’t think she had much to stand on, but I think, in whatever naive way she could, she loved that unborn child.” He was silent for a moment, his eyes gazing at his hands. “Who knows about Angelica’s death?” he asked, after a moment.
“Her sister. You.”
“Her killer,” Cummings added quietly.
“Yes,” Frank said, sure for the first time that there was one.
Cummings shook his head. “They’ve been through so much, those two. First the plane crash, now this.” His eyes drifted for a moment, then returned to Frank. “She’s all alone now, Karen.”
“Yes.”
“Angelica’s money will go to her, of course.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, I doubt that Angelica had a will,” Cummings said. “She’d had to have made a will right away, and I don’t think that was a top priority for her. And, of course, if there is no will, then it’s all Karen’s now.”
“But she doesn’t really need it, does she?”
“Need?” Cummings said. “No, she doesn’t need it. But need has very little to do with whether someone wants more money. That’s one of the few things I’ve actually learned about life.” He took a long drag on the cigar. “I don’t need a Cuban cigar, but I want one.” He watched the blue smoke curl upward toward the ceiling. “Lovely house they have out on West Paces Ferry Road. Have you seen it?”
“Yes.”
“Quite elegant. Did you notice the paintings?”
“No.”
“The Devereauxs were quite avid collectors,” Cummings said. “Always going to Paris, Rome. The art in the foyer, it was all given to me by Charles, Karen’s father.”
Frank nodded.
“Karen is quite a painter, actually,” Cummings added.
Frank closed his notebook. “Well, that’s all I have for now,” he said. He stood up. “Thanks for your time.”
Cummings seemed hardly to hear him. “You should see some of Karen’s work the next time you’re over there. I even have one of hers in the foyer.”
“I will,” Frank said. “Thanks.”
“Miss Carson will see you out,” Cummings said from across the room as Frank closed the door.
Once in the foyer, it took him but an instant to recognize the painting that had been done by Karen Devereaux. It was an oil of a little girl standing by a vase of flowers. He stared closely at the swirling colors, his eyes drawn toward the face, the pale, flawless skin and deep blue eyes. It was Angelica’s face, he realized immediately, and it watched him vacantly, its lips faintly blue. Without doubt, it was Angelica, and he felt his eyes move from her face down along her body to her small white legs. He half-expected to find one bare foot and a sad, scraped ankle.
Karen had signed her name in the lower right corner, and as Frank continued to look at the painting, he was surprised that it had not caught his attention earlier. Its colors were darker, its mood more somber; the portrait was vastly different from the ones that surrounded it. Instead of cheerful crowds and gay scenes, there was only the body of a little girl, and a face that seemed larger than the body. It was the face which drew him toward it now, very beautiful as Angelica certainly had been, but with a beauty that now seemed misplaced, misshapened, and which brooded over its own features rather than radiated from them. It was as if Angelica had already known that she would never be allowed to live out her life. Somehow, Karen had painted this knowledge into her sister’s face, a knowledge, Frank realized with a sudden, dreadful chill, that had, in fact, been Karen’s, and not her little sister’s at all.
8
Caleb Stone was sitting at his desk when Frank returned to the detective bullpen. Propped back in his chair, his large belly drooping over the thick black belt of his trousers, he looked like a god of misspent youth.
“Well, I beat on some doors for you,” he said dryly.
“Turn anything up?” Frank asked as he ambled up to Caleb’s desk.
“By the grace of God, I did,” Caleb said. “You ever work Vice, Frank?”
“No.”
“It’s an eye-opener, let me tell you. You walk around the streets, checking out this guy in a high-priced double-breasted suit. He’s got a sweet little wife in Ansley Park, and a son who’s doing just fine at Emory.” He smiled sadly. “Thing is, this is the same guy who likes to tie a woman to the bedstead once a month and beat the shit out of her.”
Frank turned away slightly. “What’d you turn up, Caleb?”
Caleb leaned back in his chair. “Well, when I was in Vice, I used to keep my eye on this little house on Glenwood. A guy people called Sancho used to run a string of whores out of it. One of them was named Beatrice, and dear God, Frank, she was the cutest little thing in the world.” He smiled, almost wistfully, as if his memory were turning faintly sweet. “Black as the ace of spades, and with a wild look in her eye. But goddamn was she cute.” Suddenly the sweetness fell away, and Caleb’s voice took on a dangerous edge. “Anyway, the guy in the suit, he used to pay the price once in a while and Beatrice would meet him at this cabin he had on Black Mountain. For the whole weekend, you know. A real fly-me-to-the-moon sort of thing.” He shook his head gently, and his voice grew darker and more somber. “Well, he used to give Bea a slap once in a while, just for the fun of it, you might say. She let it go. It was just part of the deal, nothing serious. She didn’t like it, she told me, but whoever asked a whore what she liked? One weekend, though, things turned real sour up on Black Mountain, and this fuck did a real
