I was alone in the foyer of the gallery, balancing on the ladder as I cleaned the top square of the fourth row. After my conversation with Lisa, I started timing myself. The twelve-by-six-foot mural was divided by twine into seventy-two squares and it was taking me about forty-five minutes to clean one square. I had to work slowly, nearly holding my breath each time I set the cotton-tipped dowel to the surface of the painting, afraid of missing a speck of flaking paint and scraping it off by accident. To clean the entire mural should take me approximately fifty-four hours. I could only do so many hours at a time, though, before my shoulders and back began to seize up on me. I figured it would take me ten days to do the cleaning alone. Lisa would not be happy about that.

I gave myself a fifteen-minute break between each square, so I was sitting on the bottom rung of the ladder drinking a bottle of water and listening to Post Malone sing “Congratulations” when Oliver walked into the foyer. His mouth moved but I had no idea what he was saying.

I pulled out my earbuds and gave him an apologetic smile. “What did you say?” I asked.

“The conservation paints and other supplies I ordered for you are here,” he said. His own earbuds hung around his neck.

“Oh, cool.” I pointed up at the mural. “It’ll be a while before I need them, though.”

“Well, you’re making progress. It’s looking good.” He stood away from the mural to study it, hands on his hips.

“How well do you know Lisa?” I asked.

“Lisa?” He looked surprised by the question. “Not well at all. I’d been to Jesse’s house a few times over the years, and I knew she lived with him and was his primary caretaker toward the end, but I never actually saw her there. She was—and I guess still is—a workaholic real estate agent. She called me when he died and said he wanted me to curate the gallery, which wasn’t a surprise. He’d told me as much. And I know she’s in a time crunch to get this place up and running.”

I looked down at the bottle in my hand, remembering back to the night before when I’d caught Lisa in tears. I didn’t think I should share that with Oliver.

“I think she’s a challenge, Morgan,” Oliver continued, “but she also gets things done, so hang in there. I just do what she tells me to do unless I think she’s completely off the wall. She’s leaving the placement of art entirely up to me—with the exception of having the mural in the foyer, which was Jesse’s wish.” He nodded toward the mural. “I think between the gallery and her job, she’s extremely stressed.”

“Do you know anything about the will?” I asked.