A piece of footage started playing and there was the nitwit, surrounded by microphones.
“I just opened my door and there she was… all dead! I could tell because her eyes were open and there was blood. Ew! Ew! Ew!”
I rolled my eyes. Why was this woman suddenly everywhere? The reporter came back on and made a quick closing statement and the station went to commercial.
“She lives in a secure building. How did that reporter get past the doorman?” Beth asked sounding stunned.
“I don’t know. But what I do know is that this has nothing to do with us.” I walked over and sat on the bed beside her.
“She asked me for help. She said she didn’t have any friends she could turn to.” Oh fuck! Here we go. I sensed more window hopping on the horizon.
“Beth,” I reached out and grabbed her, pulling her into my arms. I’m not sure if I was trying to comfort her or stop her from whatever she was planning to do. “We don’t even know that this has anything to do with Caitlin. She’s not the only person who lives in that building. She’s just the one who found her.”
“She found her outside her apartment. She said she thought someone was following her. She doesn’t have anyone to turn to and she said I was nice.” Beth sounded miserable. I realized at that moment that I was already being tested. Was I going to respect the wishes of one of my best friends, who specifically asked me not to let his sister get involved in anything that could be dangerous, or was I going to do whatever I had to do so that my girlfriend wouldn’t look so sad. Oh fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Well, at least Braden could only kill me once.
“Okay,” I said tucking a strand of her adorably messy hair behind her ear. “Why don’t you call her, and see if she can come into the office to talk to us. Tell her though, that she has to be completely upfront about everything or we will not get involved at all. Understand?”
“I understand,” she answered and she looked genuinely grateful. She leaned up and kissed me and then pulled me back into bed with her. Caitlin and breakfast could wait for a while. Good choice Mark.
1:00 PM
“Tell us the story. But you had better not leave anything out. And no promises that we’ll do anything at all with the information,” I said to Caitlin, sitting in the orange armchair across from us. Beth and I were sitting behind her desk next to each other. I liked that, girlfriend over here, two hours of my life I’ll never get back over there.
“I had a sexual relationship with Paul. It began a couple of months before my grandfather died.” I grabbed a pen and pad. I still did it Old School when it came to interviews. Can’t doodle very easily on a laptop.
“Paul Gerard?” I asked, taking notes.
“Yes, Paul Gerard, the guy whose house we were at.”
“Wait a minute,” Beth Broke in. “Your grandfather died when you were sixteen.” I could tell she was trying not to sound appalled.
“Right. I was sixteen and Paul was forty.” Alrighty then. I made note of that. “Caitlin = Lolita, Gerard = mid-life crisis.”
“How did that come about?” I asked, trying to stay on track.
“He was a close friend of my grandfather, who was my guardian. He used to come over a lot. In fact, I used to think that maybe he and my grandfather were having a relationship.” I paused. Okay…
“You mean like a…” Beth began and I wanted to reassure her that she wouldn’t be a homophobe just because she found this situation messed up.
“I’ve never had confirmation of it, but I’ve always suspected that Paul is bisexual,” Caitlin interrupted. “Anyway, he paid a lot of attention to me, you know? And I liked it. He made me feel special.”
“Was this at his place?” I asked.
“Yeah, that’s why I had the key.”
“What does this relationship have to do with the painting?” I asked, getting impatient. I didn’t want to hear about how special Caitlin felt with a forty year-old guy when she was sixteen, or any guy frankly.
“He started sleeping with someone else too, and I guess she was the jealous type. Paul was worried that she would do something violent if she ever caught us together, so he suggested that we start having sex at my grandfather’s house.” Smooth! What a dick. Guys like that gave the rest of us a bad name.
“With your grandfather living there too?” Beth asked.
“It’s a big place, and my grandfather was sick by that time, but there were servants wandering around and if we got caught it would be scandalous.”
“It would be more than scandalous,” I informed her. “It would be illegal. You were a minor. That’s a no-no.”
“Anyway, the only room in the place with very limited access was my grandfather’s studio. So, Paul suggested we go there, since nobody would walk in on us. I got the key and we started meeting in there.”
“He cheated on his girlfriend, with the sixteen year old granddaughter of his friend, and possible lover, who was upstairs dying,” Beth said, shaking her head. Yep, Paul Gerard sounded like a real winner. At least Beth never dated him. Even the pornographer sounded classy next to this guy.
“After a while, he started to want to look around while we were in there together. He collects art.”
“So, he was knowledgeable enough to be able to see the value of the portrait of the elderly woman and he knew it existed,” I noted.
“Yeah, and it disappeared on the night my grandfather died, but there was no sign of a break-in. Then about a month later, Paul said we had to end it. I didn’t really care at that point, though, because I had started to figure out what had happened to the painting.” It took her a month to figure that out? Then I reminded myself who we were talking about here.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone back then what you suspected?” I asked.
“I didn’t have any proof. If it weren’t for the fact that my grandfather had left it to me in his will, there wouldn’t be any evidence there even was a painting, and I knew people would believe Paul before they would believe me.”
“How did you find out for sure he had it?” Beth asked.
“A reporter for a local rag did a fluff piece on him a couple of months ago, and took a picture of him in his study. There was a little bit of the painting showing, and I recognized it. I had put a copy of the key away in a bank box just in case I ever needed it for proof. I couldn’t believe it worked.”