Bones of Contention (8 page)

Chapter Fourteen

Giddy with excitement, Dinah returned to the great room to wait for Lucien and tell him the good news. She was a millionaire, heiress to works of one of America’s premier artists, emancipated from the grind of crummy jobs. She could take charge of her life, pursue her anthropological studies, maybe even finance her own expeditions.

Much as she loved the paintings, marvelous as it would be to have them all to herself to look at whenever she liked, keeping them just wasn’t practical. It was so good of Cleon to say that he didn’t mind if she sold. With the money she got from the sale, she could do anything, go anywhere, indulge her every whim. Or, she could sell one and keep the other, a cake-and-eat-it solution. Lucien would know what to do. He had a friend who owned a gallery in New York City. St. Jean Dupree. It was in his gallery that Neesha found the Homers and Lucien had helped Cleon negotiate the purchase. Maybe St. Jean could exhibit the paintings for her and one of his well-heeled clients would snap them up in record time.

From the kitchen came a hubbub, clanging pans and strident voices. A door slammed. Dinah stuck her head out and saw Neesha storm up the stairs.

Dr. Death bopped out behind her. “Not a multi-tasker, that Tanya,” he said through a plume of cigarette smoke. “Rigid, plodding, one thing at a time. Grumbles when you offer her advice. I’m off for a pre-dinner jaunt to work up an appetite. Come along?”

He was probably about as sober as he was ever likely to be and she did want to gather whatever knowledge he had about her father for her mental casebook. But she was too keyed up right now. “No. No thanks, I’m waiting for Lucien.”

He rambled out and she went back to the bar. She ought to go help Tanya out, but Tanya didn’t need another know-it-all standing over her shoulder, however well-meaning.

Waiting was Dinah’s least favorite thing, especially when she had earthshaking news to report. She needed to say it out loud to believe it herself. “I’m stinking rich,” she told the boars on the wall. Their dead eyes stared back at her, underwhelmed, and her feelings of elation began to dwindle. It was premature to start celebrating. She was still broke. She’d still need to touch Lucien for a floater until the paintings were legally hers and the proceeds of their sale in her hot little hand.

The sound of a car sent her dashing to the front door. She flung it open, saw the Charade, and went running down the stairs. Eduardo got out, pulled a pair of crutches out of the backseat, and helped Lucien to his feet. Once Lucien had balanced himself on the crutches, he swung toward the house like a trapeze artist gaining amplitude to fly to the next bar.

“You’re pretty spry on those things,” she said.

“There’ve been some dicey moments, but I’ve been practicing most of the day.”

“Can I fix you a drink? I need to talk to you.”

“Sure. Eddie can take his shower first.”

Eddie’s magenta Polo shirt showed underarm perspiration marks and his hair was damp and tousled. “How does anyone live in this inferno? Mon Dieu!” He blotted his dripping brow with a monogrammed blue hanky and betook himself upstairs.

Dinah followed Lucien inside to the great room, helped him settle into a chair and went behind the bar. “The usual?”

“Two jiggers, please. Lots of ice.”

Without measuring, she glugged a couple of inches of Makers Mark over ice and handed it to him.

He said, “You wouldn’t believe how much Aboriginal art there is in little ol’ Katherine. There’s a lot of really cool stuff about the Dreamtime. With your pash for mythology, you should check it out before you fly the coop.”

She waited until he’d had a couple of sips of bourbon. “I have big news, Lucien.”

“What’s that?”

She took a huge, pregnant breath. “Uncle Cleon gave me the Winslow Homers.”

“To hang in your room? That oughta brighten the décor.”

“No. In his will. They’re mine to do with as I please.”

His expression conveyed something less than unalloyed joy. In fact, it was seriously alloyed.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Don’t you see what he’s done? He’s pitted you against Neesha. She wants the paintings.”

“Tough cookies. Her decorator can find her something else to match the French wallpaper.”

“At least she has a spot on her wall. Where the hell would
you
hang them? You said yourself you’re in the wind.”

“I don’t know where I’d hang them. Lucien, aren’t you happy for me?”

“You want me to do handsprings? Sure, I’m happy for you. I know you’ve always liked them. But liking them’s one thing, keeping them’s another.”

“I thought I could sell one and use the proceeds to buy a house somewhere.”

“That’d be a mistake. You wouldn’t realize a tenth of its worth. The market for American art’s no good right now. You should hold off for at least five years.”

Her excitement fizzled. “You really think so?”

“I know so. Sotheby’s had to pull a John Singer Sargent from their catalog just last week because there were no bidders. Wait ’til the demand for realism rebounds. I could keep your paintings for you at my place until the time’s right. Five years down the road, their value will shoot through the roof and you’ll be filthy rich. By then, you’ll be married and living in a McMansion with more rooms than the Louvre.”

Five years down the road was a stupefyingly long time, and marriage and a McMansion were highly dubious milestones along the way. But at least he didn’t take the position that selling them was a sacrilege. She’d heed his advice for now. In the meantime, she’d have to live.

“While my masterpieces are appreciating on your wall, could I borrow a couple thousand until I get resettled? I’ll pay you back.”

“Take as long as you need. I’ll write you a check first thing in the morning.”

So that was that. Oh, well. All the more reason to embark on a serious career. She gave Lucien a hug and, before she went upstairs to dress for dinner, she stopped by the kitchen to see how Tanya was bearing up. If the proletarians couldn’t afford to revolt, they could at least commiserate.

Chapter Fifteen

Regular as the tide, the family rolled into the great room for the de rigueur cocktail hour. Dinah picked up emanations of wariness, but everyone presented a smile and a veneer of conviviality. Wendell chatted with Lucien about art, Eduardo chatted with Neesha about the plans for her new gallery, Margaret chatted with Cleon, and Dr. Fisher lectured Tanya—something about the importance of the liver and kidneys.

K.D. sipped a pink mocktail while she bent Dinah’s ear. “Daddy never obeys the rules of grammar except, of course, when he’s in trial or handling a big case. But he can be incredibly profound. When I was writing my Envy story, I asked him if he had ever envied anyone and you know what he said? He said, ‘Everybody’s like the moon, sweetness. We all got our dark side.’ Daddy speaks his mind so openly, even when he knows it upsets people, that I can’t imagine him hiding anything. But it was a beautiful thing to say, wasn’t it?”

It was certainly an interesting thing to say. Dinah thought that Mark Twain or Pink Floyd or somebody famous had said it before Cleon, but it was interesting that Cleon would quote it. Interesting that he would evade K.D.’s question. Interesting to muse on how many of the perfectly calibrated smiles in this room hid dark feelings.

Cleon interrupted the conviviality to announce the unveiling of the Homer watercolors. Mack brought Lucien’s easel downstairs and set the small, unframed but beautifully matted pieces at the end of the bar where the dim light from a pair of sooty sconces did nothing to enhance their beauty. Tanya brought around little nuggets of Brie and crudités and the crowd clustered around the paintings for a better view.

“I’ve promised ’em to Dinah,” said Cleon, raising his glass in tribute. “She can keep ’em or auction ’em off to the highest bidder. You don’t care, do you, Neesha? They’d stick out like corn pone at a sushi bar in your new gallery. You’re into more avant garde artists, right, darlin’?”

“Do what you like,” said Neesha. “You always do.” She shot Dinah a weaponized smile and moved as far away from the usurper as possible. K.D., looking more titillated by the mini-drama than angry, followed her mother.

Margaret gloated. “Your bride’s in a sour mood this evening, Cleon.”

“She’s in mournin’,” said Cleon, topping up her martini. “Nerves all to shreds, worried how she’ll get on without me to baby her.”

Neesha’s snit and Cleon’s sarcasm extinguished the remaining smiles. Dr. Fisher slapped his pockets and went outside for a smoke. Mack excused himself to go and see about something in the kitchen. Wendell moved off to an armchair in a lonely corner and appeared to check his cell phone for messages. Quaffing an evil-looking brew he called a Lord Byron, Eduardo plopped down in one of the club chairs and gave Lucien the evil eye. Lucien slouched in his wheelchair, swilling bourbon and jiggling his healthy leg up and down on the footrest. There was definitely discord between the two, but Dinah couldn’t tell if it related to sex or the family dynamics.

Seeing no friendly port in the storm, she loitered at the end of the bar listening to Margaret lambaste Cleon.

“You’re holding your money over our heads like a piñata. It’s not right, keeping us blindfolded and playing us off against each other. You should make your intentions known.”

“Your avarice is showin’, Maggie.”

“
My
avarice?”

“All right, I know you ain’t out for yourself. But don’t badger. I mean to be fair. I’d be loco to short your boy, Wendell. You’d come after me hammer and tongs.”

“That wouldn’t be feasible once you’re dead.” She said it lightly, almost flirtatiously, and rushed on before he could retort. “You’ve never bonded with Wendell. You needn’t deny it. But he’s always done you proud. Good grades, football scholarship, respectable job. He’s a fine son and a good man. He deserves more than a pat on the head. More than your gold-digging beauty queen.”

“Ease up now, Maggie. The law compels a man to provide for his widow.”

“The law guarantees a widow a third of her husband’s estate unless the prenup states otherwise. If I know you, your prenup has an airtight cap on what she can inherit.”

He laughed. “The bar lost a crackerjack when you didn’t go to law school.”

“I don’t need a law degree to know how your mind works, Cleon Dobbs. You’d make damn sure that when the merry widow remarries, your replacement doesn’t live high, wide, and handsome on your money.” She finished her martini, smacked her glass down on the bar, and seemed suddenly to notice Dinah.

“Your brother Lucien looks lonely, don’t you think?”

Chagrined, Dinah took her glass of wine and drifted over to see if she could eke some conversation out of Lucien. She dragged a metal folding chair close to his and sat down. She said, “You were right about Neesha wanting the Homers. She’s shunning me like the pox.”

He rattled the ice in his empty glass. “You don’t much care, do you?”

“I won’t after I leave here. It’ll be awkward until I do.”

“It’s in Neesha’s interest to gloss over any unpleasantness. Keep your head down and she’ll be her usual cloying self.” He shook an ice cube into his mouth and munched. “Have you sounded out Cleon about your father?”

“Not yet. It’s hard to find the right moment.”

“You will. Just remember, the coward dies a thousand deaths.”

Mack stole up behind her. “Congratulations, Dinah. Those Homer watercolors are a treasure.”

She said, “If I listen to Lucien, they’re not going to generate any spendable treasure until I’m old and gray. He’s been touting the pleasures of delayed gratification.”

Lucien ignored her little dig. His eyes rested on the paintings. “Homer may be America’s greatest artist. What he did with light and water is near miraculous.”

A bothersome thought occurred to her. Could it be that Lucien wanted the Homers for himself? Could his advice not to sell be tinged with self-interest?

Mack had a different view of the artist. “He was good. But to my eye, he’s rather austere. Too literal. Limited by the apparent reality.”

Lucien grinned. “You’re a chauvinist, Mack. Admit it.”

“Okay, I admit it. Aboriginal art is deeper and more spiritual. It’s a manifestation of some creative act of the ancestors. It involves you, pulls you into the story and the symbolism. It’s like going to church.”

Mack seemed to have vanquished Lucien’s funk. As Dinah listened to the two aficionados riff on symbolism and the ritual power of art, she glanced over at Eduardo. He was watching their interplay with a look of pure malevolence.

“Heads up, all of y’all!” Cleon motioned everyone to gather around the bar. “I got another bequest to announce.”

When they were all dutifully gathered, he clamped an arm around Wendell’s shoulder. “Your mama and I have been talkin’ about your love of the water, Wendell. I want you to have somethin’ personal from me, somethin’ more meanin’ful than money. And so I’ve decided to leave you my yacht, the Suwannee. She’s a fifty-five footer, a peach of a boat, moored down in Sydney. You can cruise home like a tycoon.”

Wendell’s face registered surprise and a slow, cautious dawning of pleasure. “Well, that’s wonderful. Awesome. Thank you, Dad.”

“You’re welcome as the flowers in May, son.” Cleon set down his martini, clamped his free arm around Neesha and squeezed. “Promise me you’ll take Neesha and the family on a cruise. Help ’em through the grievin’ process.”

“Of course,” said Wendell. “Of course, I will.” Looking strangely discomfited, he disengaged from Cleon and turned to Dinah. “Do you do much boating around Puget Sound, Dinah? It’s the most fun in the world. I have a little Bayliner, the Wave Walker, back home in Brunswick. I take her down the Florida coast a few times a year. But a luxury yacht. It’s unreal. Out of this world.”

Margaret said, “The yacht isn’t all you can expect from your father, Wendell. He’s promised to be fair and even-handed with the rest of the estate, haven’t you, Cleon?”

“I’m as good as my word, Maggie. Count on it.” He chuckled and picked up his martini. “Now you mind you don’t have more fun than’s good for you, Wendell. They say a boat’s like a mistress. If a man ain’t careful, she’ll be his undoin’.”