Alexa had known real physical and emotional pain in her own life, but she felt lucky not to have felt the kind Casey LePointe West had.
She thumbed through the pages of Casey’s book. Alexa felt as though she should be wearing cotton gloves to keep from soiling the page corners. Casey’s work had an intensity to it, an edge that held Alexa in its thrall. Each of her subjects seemed to have been stripped of pretension, their souls reflected in their expressions, their eyes.
The photos weren’t captioned with the subjects’ names, but with dates and geographic locations where the images were taken, or perhaps where the subject lived. “10/09/04-West Virginia” was a man whose face was so blackened with coal soot that his eyes seemed to be twin pools of turquoise water surrounded by a fire-scorched, heat-cracked wasteland. Alexa went from each image to the next, pausing a few seconds to study the people depicted. “5/27/03-Georgia Coast” showed an elegant, elderly, seated woman regally posed, her ancient skin glistening like wet bronze. She wore a starched servant’s uniform, her rheumatoid hands folded together on her knee. She possessed a raw pride and peered through rheumy eyes that seemed to convey that she had lived her life at peace with the universe.
Alexa’s cell phone rang and she opened it and saw that Casey West was calling her. “Hello.”
“Hello, Alexa. I thought I should call to tell you something wonderful.”
“I heard Gary sent a letter to your uncle.”
“I’m just now driving over to see it,” Casey said. “Of course, I’m going to be pissed off at Gary for all of five minutes. I can’t believe it! What was he thinking? I should be furious for what he’s put us through, but I’m not.”
“I’m happy for you and Deana,” Alexa said, not wanting to throw a wet blanket over Casey’s elation by saying that she’d believe it when she saw Gary with her own eyes.
“Listen, if you aren’t too busy, could you come to Unko’s?”
“I suppose. Why?”
“I could use a friend along for moral support. It’s not necessary if you’re busy. I wouldn’t ask, but Unko has a way of sort of intimidating me. Honestly, I wouldn’t ask, but if you’re there, maybe it won’t be so one-sided.”
“Where’s Grace?”
“She had some errands to do for her parents to get them ready to leave the city. We’ll all be leaving for Manhattan as soon as Gary gets back. We’re sure not going to stay here. A couple of weeks away will be like a second honeymoon.”
“Give me the address.” I need to see the letter for myself anyway, Alexa decided.
Alexa scribbled down the address on St. Charles Avenue. Before she left, she slid the book back in its slipcover and started to put it into her suitcase, remembered the postcards, and decided against it, putting the volume instead into her briefcase with her laptop. She dressed quickly, and before leaving the room took the folding knife from under her pillow and slipped it into the bottom of her purse.
40
Alexa drove up St. Charles Avenue, following the GPS lady’s unemotional directions, and when the helpful lady informed Alexa that she was at the destination, Alexa turned into the driveway of a monstrous, two-story stone mansion surrounded by a tall wrought-iron fence. The sturdy man standing inside the gate opened it just enough to come out. He asked her if she was expected and, even though she said that she was-and what reason would the FBI have to lie about it?-used his radio to call someone to ask if the FBI agent could enter the grounds.
The gate swung open and Alexa drove into the enclosure. Lush foliage grew on a swale that was strategically placed to hide the LePointes from the street. She passed beneath a portico that would protect people from the rain while they got in and out of vehicles. Alexa drove to the courtyard, where LePointe’s dark Bentley Continental and a Range Rover were parked beside each other. Alexa parked beside Casey’s Rover and strode to the front door, passing through open gates to a cage of decorative wrought iron. The downstairs windows also had the same elegant filigree work-attractive, and effective security. The security measure must have been expensive. And she wasn’t surprised that the construction of the home had taken five years. The Civil War-era structure was so pristine that it looked as if it might have been completed six months ago.
A thin, dark-skinned woman wearing an apron over a starched uniform opened the door. Deana was beside her, and the little girl smiled at Alexa. “Hello, Deana,” Alexa said.
Deana spun around and ran down the hall, laughing.
“Stay with me, baby girl,” the woman called out to her.
In the vestibule behind, a vase holding an enormous spray of exotic flowers stood on a table crafted entirely of cut glass. Alexa entered and looked up at a dome that crested thirty feet above the table. The dome was made entirely of elaborate stained glass-a garden scene with greenery and multicolored flowers made brilliant by sunlight. A wide stone staircase floated up to a mezzanine with the same filigree motif in bronze railing as outside. From an arched throat in the foyer, a hallway punctuated on either side by several doorways extended deep into the home.
Alexa saw Deana and a female figure in a flowing silken gown at the far end of the hallway. The woman began waving her arms and striding in a series of exaggerated movements as she made her way toward the front. Deana stood against the wall laughing melodiously as the bizarre ballerina came toward her. Alexa saw that she was elderly, her long gray hair cascading to her shoulders. She appeared to be attempting an interpretative dance, but her joints and muscles could no longer produce fluid movements. Well before she arrived at the foyer, the woman turned abruptly, bowed with her extended and intertwined arms aimed at a doorway, and, raising her right leg awkwardly, lurched, vanishing through it, with Deana following her.
“That’s Mrs. Sarah,” the servant told Alexa.
“Dr. LePointe’s wife?” Alexa asked.
“She have the Alzheimer’s,” the woman said in a soft voice. “She believes she’s a dancer up in New York City, and it’s nineteen-whatever-it-was when she was up there.”
“Sorry to hear it.”
“Dr. LePointe and Ms. West are in his study. I’ll show you back.”
As Alexa and the maid passed the doorway Sarah LePointe had chosen, Alexa turned and saw Mrs. LePointe-arms waving as though she were drowning-prancing energetically around the furniture in a large formal sitting room. The maid lifted Deana up onto her hip. Sarah LePointe’s eyes were hidden behind large sunglasses-her mind generating music she moved to, her face illuminated with a smile of pure pleasure. Alexa envied the woman her beautiful delusion, and hoped she didn’t stumble over something and snap her hip.
Alexa heard Casey’s raised voice through the heavy door as she approached it. The servant knocked and Casey fell silent. LePointe called, “Come in.”
Alexa was first struck by the Jackson Pollock painting that took up the entire wall behind the desk. There was a sharp contrast between that oil and the likewise massive oil seascape on the wall to its right-a painting that Alexa was sure she had seen before in a book. She pulled her eyes away and looked at Casey, whose face was flushed.
LePointe motioned to a chair. “Please sit down, Agent Keen. You know art?”
“I know the difference between a Pollock and a Turner,” she said, bringing a smug smile to his lips with her accuracy-and perhaps the fact that she would appreciate the value of both. “Usually I see paintings of this quality only in books or museums.”