“On top of the alimony.”
Kipper exhaled. “No big deal. Like I said, I do very well.”
“So give me the chronology,” said Milo. “Marriage, divorce, et cetera.”
“Sum my life up in one sentence, huh?”
“A few sentences, sir.”
Kipper unbuttoned his suit jacket. “We met right after we got to Rhode Island. Instant chemistry, within a week were living together. After graduation, we moved to New York and got married—fourteen years ago. Four years later, we got divorced.”
“After the divorce, what was your contact with your ex-wife?” Milo’d avoided using Julie’s name in Kipper’s presence. Emphasizing the severed relationship.
Kipper said, “Our contact was occasional phone calls, even more occasional dinners.”
“Friendly phone calls?”
“For the most part.” Kipper’s finger massaged the watch face. “I see where this is going. Which is fine. My buddies told me I’d be looked at as a suspect.”
“Your buddies?”
“Some of the other brokers.”
“They have experience with the criminal justice system?”
Kipper laughed. “Not yet. No, they watch too much TV. I suppose I’m wasting my time telling you I had nothing to do with it.”
Milo smiled.
Kipper said, “Do what you have to do but know this: I loved Julie—first as a woman, later as a person. She was my friend, and I’m the last one who’d ever hurt her. I have no reason to hurt her.” He slid his chair back several inches, crossed his legs.
“Friendly phone calls about what?” said Milo.
“Letting each other know what we were up to,” said Kipper. “And I guess what you’d term business calls, too. Around tax time. I needed to account the alimony and any other money I sent Julie. And sometimes she needed extra.”
“How much extra?”
“A bit here and there—maybe another ten, twenty grand a year.”
“Twenty would be almost double her alimony.”
“Julie wasn’t good about money. She tended to get into tight spots.”
“Trouble living within her means?”
Kipper’s big hands lowered to the granite surface of the table and lay flat. “Julie wasn’t good with money because she didn’t care about it.”
“So in total, you were giving her nearly forty thousand a year. Generous.”
“I drive a Ferrari,” said Kipper. “I don’t expect any merit badges.” His body shifted forward. “Let me explain Julie’s history to you: Right after graduation she had an initial burst of success. Got placed in a high-quality group show at a midtown gallery and sold every single painting. She got great critical notice, too, but guess what: It didn’t mean she made serious money. Her canvases were priced from eight to twelve hundred dollars, and by the time the gallery owner and her agent and every other gimme-type took their cuts, there was maybe enough to buy lunch at Tavern on the Green. The gallery kicked her price up to fifteen hundred a picture and told her to get productive. She spent the next six months working. Twenty-four hours a day, or it seemed that way.” He winced.
“Tough regimen,” said Milo.
“More like self-destruction.”
“She have help keeping up her energy?”
“What do you mean?” said Kipper.
“We know about her drug problem. Is that when it started? Cocaine can be an energizer.”
“Coke,” said Kipper. “She was into it way before that—in college. But yes, it got intense when the gallery demanded she make instant art at an inhuman pace.”
“What pace was that?”
“A dozen canvases within four months. A crap-monger could have splashed that together, no problem, but Julie was meticulous. Ground her own pigments, laid on layer after layer of paint, alternated with her own special glazes and varnishes. Was so picky that she sometimes made her own brushes. Could spend weeks making brushes. And frames. Each one had to be original—perfect for the painting. Everything had to be perfect. Everything became a project of immense significance.”
“Her current works have no frames,” I said.
“I saw that,” said Kipper. “Asked her about it. She said she was concentrating on the image itself. I told her it was a good idea.” One hand closed in a fist. “Julie was brilliant, but I don’t know if she would have ever achieved real success.”