Page 49 of The Night We Lost Him

All Roads Lead to Cece

Terry does pick up.

She is quick to confirm for us that all of Grace’s belongings, devices included, were sent to her and her husband’s apartment in Brooklyn.

Sam and I walk quickly down Tenth Avenue, heading toward the nearest subway.

“The question is,” I say, “how much access do you think Dad gave her?”

“A lot more than me apparently,” he says. “But as much as Uncle Joe? I don’t know. I’d say he used to, for sure…”

“I hear a but there?”

Sam shakes his head. “Well, she had heart trouble a few years ago, and I think she had a heart attack. Before the one that… you know… killed her. It was minor, but she took a real step back from the company after that. She still helped Dad with some creative stuff and branding, but I don’t know how involved she was in the day-to-day operation. Joe seemed to step in more, at least in a forward-facing way.”

“Was there tension between them?”

“Joe and Grace? Not really, no.”

“Not for who had Dad’s ear the most?”

“Think you’re confusing them with me and Tommy.”

I suppress a smile.

“So in theory, if those computers were connected, she could have access to what no one seems to want to tell us about…”

“In theory. Sure.”

We take a left, head toward the subway. The wind is picking up, that blustery early-evening cold.

“What’s your relationship like with her husband?” I ask.

“We’ve met a handful of times. I barely have one.”

“So this is going to go well?”

We hit the stairs, head into the subway. “Can’t really go worse,” he says.

* * *

Grace’s apartment is located in a Beaux Arts building in Brooklyn Heights.

The building is something of a Brooklyn landmark. It’s not too far from the promenade, with uninterrupted views of New York Harbor and the Manhattan skyline, yet in the heart of Brooklyn Heights’ most famous brownstones.

I know these apartments well. Jack has a friend who lives on the fifth floor, and we were here for a dinner party a few months ago. I doubt the doorman recognizes me but he does give us a friendly hello and immediately sends us up to eight, not buzzing Grace’s husband until we are already elevator bound.

When we step off the elevator, her husband is opening his apartment door, offering us a smile.

He looks familiar, which confuses me. I’m sure we haven’t met before. I’ve met Grace’s daughter, but he and I have never been introduced. He is not only familiar, but he is striking standing there in a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt, lean and strong and rugged, with these hazel eyes that bore into you. That are currently boring into me.

He shakes Sam’s hand and ushers us inside to the foyer—which is when my confusion starts to lift. It feels less like we’ve walked into an apartment than into an artist’s studio. Photography equipment fills the living room, and the walls are covered with beautiful photographs and portraits.

This is why he looks so familiar. It’s not that I’ve met him in person or know him personally. But I know him, all the same. He is Paul Turner—the (well-known) editorial photographer. I had a friend in college who decorated her dorm room completely in his magazine covers. I’ve seen his photography exhibits at the International Center for Photography and the Brooklyn Museum. Prints of his work appear on the walls of several apartments I’ve worked on, including Jack’s friend’s apartment a few floors below this one.

I nod, working overtime to hide my confusion: Paul Turner was Grace’s husband? It feels strange that I hadn’t known that. At the same time, why would I have known that? Turner is a common last name. And it isn’t like I was asking my father who his colleagues were married to.

“I don’t think we’ve met before,” he says to me now. “Paul Turner.”

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