"I don't think we can help you. I don't really know that much about him. He died around 1960, I think. Other than this painting shit hanging over our heads, it's ancient history."

"So that's it?" I asked. "You know nothing more about him?"

"Nothing."

"Except," said Amanda, "that he wrote a book."

Chapter 24

"A book?" Sabrina and I blurted out almost simultaneously.

"Oh yeah," said Bill. "Forgot about that."

"That was a pretty big 'forgot'," I said.

"Hey," he said, showing a bit of anger. "Unlike you, we've tried our best to forget about him and anything associated with him. Up until your sister," looking at Sabrina, "and that other guy long before her came by, I had forgotten all about him … except for the paintings."

"Someone else came by?" I asked.

"Yeah, some Italian guy. Nice enough. When he found out I didn't know anything, he left."

"When was this?"

Bill looked to Amanda for help. "I don't know. Couple of years ago maybe."

"More than that," said Amanda. "Closer to four years."

"Did you tell him about the paintings or the book?"

"I've never told anyone about the paintings—sort of the family curse…"

"I know all about that," I mumbled.

"As for the book, I forgot we had it."

"You have a copy?" asked Sabrina.

"I just said that, right?"

The longer I knew Sabrina, the more I realized that there were things you just didn't say to her. Anything that violated her personal space in some way—such as when Russ was staring at her boobs. Bill had just committed a verbal violation—a snide comeback. She probably had to deal with those on a constant basis in prison when she first got there, but probably not so much toward the end. I could see why. Her face turned to stone and she just stared at Bill. And this was no ordinary stare; there was venom behind it.

Bill caught it. He had to. He would have had to have been dumb as a stump not to. The room went deadly silent. I didn't say anything. This was Sabrina's battle to win—and winning was the only option.

"Uh, sorry. Didn't mean it that way," Bill finally said, looking down. We had a winner, and the pecking order was now firmly established.

Amanda got up, coming to Bill's rescue, and went over to the built-in bookcase on the wall. It only took her a minute to find what she was looking for. She came back with a fairly new looking hardcover, minus a dust-jacket, and handed it to me.

Etched on the front cover and spine were My Criminal Life: A Novel, by Preston Flynn. I quickly looked through it, then handed it to the book expert. Sabrina opened the cover and looked at the first few pages.

"It was self-published in 1958," she said.

"Self-published?" I said. "They had that back then?"

"Yes, but back then you had to pay a publisher to publish it for you. They were known as vanity presses. You still hear the term, but not as much, as self-publishing becomes easier and more accessible for people to do it themselves. Back then it was assumed that you were some kind of hack and could only get published if you paid someone to do it for you. The publisher he used was probably one of the smaller ones. I've never heard of it … which means nothing."