Read Online Better Homes and Corpses by Kathleen Bridge - Free Book Online

Adam Prescott holding Caroline Spenser’s hand. An older man who closely resembled Adam stood behind Caroline. Cole hid behind a group of black-attired mourners, his head turned toward his mother, his left hand clenched in a fist. There was no sign of Jillian. Perhaps she’d been home recuperating from the boating accident. And I couldn’t find anything on the motorcycle accident involving Cole and Tara. The Spensers had probably paid off the local paparazzi to keep it hush-hush.
    After an hour of poring over my notes, I had a sense of the lives the Spenser family led, with one exception—Cole’s.There was barely any mention of him. Jillian was the same in every photo, hovering at the edge of a dance floor, looking ill at ease, toting either a champagne flute or wineglass, dressed in her usual nondescript clothing.
    The most recent society photos featured Adam and Caroline at A-list social functions and important auctions. They seemed cozy in front of the camera.
    There was one article about Cole from a North Carolina weekly, the
Brunswick Light.
    TALES AROUND TOWN BY BRENNA
    Our very own Mary Ann Webber may be the next bride to walk down the aisle! A little bird told us that Mary Ann, owner of the Sunset Flower Shop, was seen accepting a small gift at a comfy table for two at the Captain’s Inn from local Cole Spenser. Rumor has it the lucky lady received a three-and-a-half-carat emerald-cut diamond, housed in a robin’s-egg-blue-and-white ring box. Dare we say Tiffany? We wish the couple all the best!
    I wasn’t as surprised by the engagement as I was by the fact Cole had enough money to buy an outrageous ring from Tiffany. Doc told me when Cole left New York, he renounced his inheritance. I jotted down a note to do a search of all the local North Carolina papers to see if there was anything more to be found on this self-exiled family member. Or was “self” the right word? There was also a newspaper blurb about the resident artist who lived in a guesthouse on the Spenser grounds. Salvatore’s bio in
Artist’s Monthly
made him out to be the next Picasso.
    SALVATORE—MODERN IMPRESSIONIST
    Born in Lisbon, Portugal, of poor grape pickers, Salvatore studied in Paris and spent his apprenticeship repairing paintings in the Louvre. In 1975 he moved to America and became known as the Hamptons’ “diamond in the rough.” He is famous for his avant-garde art and notorious for being temperamental with his models (male and female) while living a hermit-like existence in the guesthouse of Charles Spenser’s, of Spenser Communications, East Hampton estate. Salvatore promises to be a modern visionary.
    I doubted Salvatore was much of a visionary because the article was thirty-five years old and I’d never heard of him. It must be his signature on the bottom of the family portrait at Seacliff.

CHAPTER

    EIGHT
    I woke to an unseasonably warm March day. Warm enough to remove the top of the Wrangler. I straightened up the cottage, which took about two seconds, and scanned the classifieds for future garage sales. I jotted down the addresses so I could stop by before the sales started. I wasn’t afraid of the
no previews
line found in most ads. I knew from past experience the owners would rather receive a stack of cash than endure the monotonous task of stickering individual items or lugging heavy pieces out to their driveways.
    The sun was brilliant and only a few clouds hung over a calm ocean that shimmered like mercury. As I sped down Montauk Highway, I turned up the volume on the radio and chanted aloud to Madonna’s “Papa Don’t Preach.” The vegetable stand on the outskirts of East Hampton had pulled back one section of its plastic tarp, showcasing an assortment of plants: tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths. Good-bye, winter.
    I made it to East Hampton in fifteen minutes, my personal best. I left the blacktop lane that led to the Spenser estate and took a gravel road that wove through a forest of pines until I came