“Were there any portraits in the collection?”
“There were plenty of oil paintings, but we sold some and put the rest in storage. One of our interns keyed the inventory into an online database a few years ago.” He flashed a toothy smile and wiggled his mouse to wake up his computer. “Let’s have a look.”
Arlo’s fingers flew across the keyboard, the rattling sound tapering off as he scanned some pages. Then tapped another key. Then another. All she could see was the glow from his monitor reflected in his round spectacles. If she struck out here, there was almost no chance anyone else would have records of the Dunstable art.
“I’m glad the intern added a searchable field for date,” Arlo said. He turned the monitor so she could see the archive recordfilled in. “The items purchased at the 1705 estate sale from the Widow Santos are right here. There’s your portrait,” he said. “It’s in our remote storage building.”
A rush of excitement was hard to quell. The portrait might not be of Helga or Reid, butmaybe it was!She and her husband came from wealthy families, certainly affluent enough to commission portraits.
It was hard not to get her hopes up as Arlo led her out of the museum, down the oyster-shell path, and toward the climate-controlled warehouse. Keys rattled as he opened a series of locks, then turned on the lights.
“This way,” he said as they walked down aisles of metal shelving and cabinets. Her heart began to sink as they approached the unappealing leftover paintings of little value. Her jaw dropped in disillusionment as Arlo brought her to the gaudy marital portrait propped on the back wall. It was the one she’d seen the last time she was here. The man wore a peach satin coat and the woman was swathed in pearls and gemstones.
“This is it,” Arlo said. “We tried to sell it a while back, but there were no takers. It’s simply not very appealing.”
She studied the faces. The man’s face was strong, his brows inky black slashes above piercing dark eyes. The woman stared straight out of the portrait, her flaxen hair parted in the middle and gathered smoothly at the nape of her neck. There was a quiet loveliness about her, but her hairstyle seemed so plain for her lavish wedding gown.
“I don’t think this is them,” she said. “They were Puritans. I can’t imagine any Puritan man would be caught dead wearing a peach satin coat with gold ribbons on the sleeves.”
“Remember, this may have been the work of a traveling portrait painter,” Arlo said. “The clothing and background would have been stock paintings, and only the head and faces would reflect the sitter.”
Alice crossed her arms as she scrutinized the portrait. It was still hard to believe a devout Puritan would consent to having his image attached to such an outlandish costume. The style was in keeping with the opulent court of the Royalists, the sort of people William Reid Denby risked his life to challenge.
“Frankly, it’s badly done,” Arlo said. “The best part of the portrait is their faces. The artistry is masterful, portraying character and pride. The countryside behind them is well done, too. Those clothes aren’t in keeping with the rest of the painting. They are a mismatch, almost certainly done by a different artist.”
She’d seen enough portraits of Puritans to know how they dressed. Their clothes were well-made, but austere. They favored black, indigo, and other dark colors, a deliberate rejection of the splashy extravagance found among the Royalists.
Maybe she was letting her imagination run away, but if a man was on the run, desperate to hide his identity, carrying a portrait of himself dressed like a Puritan could be a deadly mistake. And yet . . . he wanted to take a portrait of his wife into exile.
“I think the gaudy clothes were painted on later,” she said, meeting the enigmatic gaze of the man in the portrait. It felt like he was staring out at her, reaching forward from three and a half centuries ago and urging her to find the truth.
Arlo whipped out a magnifying glass and leaned in to scrutinize the beribboned satin coat. “The brushstrokes are different,” he said. “It appears to have been painted by a different artist, perhaps overlaying an earlier image. The only way we’ll be able to tell if there’s something else underneath these clothes is to use imaging spectroscopy.”
“Do you know someone who could do that?” she asked, her heart pounding.
“It won’t come cheap, but I know a fellow in Richmond who could do it for you.”
Alice cupped her face in her hands, staring at the somber couple before her, almost certain she was looking at William Reid Denby and his wife, Helga. Three hundred and sixty years ago he escaped from England, changed his name to Reid Santos, and carved out a home in the dangerous new land. Once it was safe, his wife joined him.
Now all Alice had to do was prove it.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Jack spent the next two days walking every hole of the course at Camp Lejeune, making notes and taking mental snapshots. The greens were poorly contoured, the fairways flat and featureless, and the routing lacked any sense of rhythm or visual drama.
He could turn this into a fantastic course if he could only concentrate without regretting the way he left Alice or worrying about getting back to Baltimore for the funeral on Wednesday. Drafting a landscape plan was a major undertaking and finalizing an accurate budget was essential. Given enough time, he could transform the place into something exceptional:a course that honored its military roots while offering a memorable and dynamic playing experience.
The problem was timing. His proposal was due Friday, and attending the funeral on Wednesday meant he’d have to do a rushed job. Military timelines didn’t bend, budgets had to be airtight, and the proposal format left no room for improvisation.
Jack managed to keep his meeting with the base’s facilities engineer on Wednesday morning, then hopped in his truck for the seven-hour drive to Baltimore. He arrived at the chapel a few minutes after the celebration of life had begun and slipped into one of the open seats in the back pew, carefully propping his crutches beside him.
An older man was at the front of the chapel, recounting how Frank answered his call for help in the middle of a stormy night. The man’s sump pump had failed and water was backing up into his basement.
“Frank didn’t even know me. I’d just moved into town, but I’d heard good things about him at church, and that he was a plumber. He drove through the worst thunderstorm in memory to help a new guy out at two in the morning. When he learned my wife was expecting a baby, he didn’t even accept payment for it. That’s the kind of guy Frank Latimer was.”
Heads nodded throughout the chapel. Another lady stood up to talk about how Frank used to play Santa Claus at Christmas parties, and how the kids would shriek with laughter when he “accidentally” pulled out carrots or broccoli instead of candy. He’d act confused, make a big show of checking his list twice, then make the kids bargain with him to swap the veggies for some candy.
The story triggered a round of warm laughter. Weren’t services like this supposed to be sad and serious? He’d never been invited to a celebration of life, so maybe this was normal. A glance around the chapel showed happy faces. Happy! Maybe Frank’slingering illness had been so long in coming that his passing wasn’t a shock, but this sort of sentimental fellowship was astonishing.
