Read An Illustrated Death Online
Authors: Judi Culbertson
An Illustrated Death (6 page)
O
N
F
RIDAY MORNING,
I decided to take a break from Nate Erikson’s work and catalog the illustrators that had been his inspiration. I felt like Howard Carter exploring King Tut’s tomb, the treasures were that amazing.
Howard Pyle’s Book of Pirates. The Yearling
by N. C. Wyeth, a first edition
Moby Dick
by Rockwell Kent. I lingered long over the work of Maxfield Parrish. These artists were dead now, and the tradition of beautifully illustrated classics was dying too. What effect would that have had on Nate Erikson’s career?
It was not even noon when Bianca knocked and stepped inside. “We missed you the past couple of days.”
“I had errands,” I apologized insincerely.
“That’s understandable. But we’ll see you today? We want to talk about the memorial tomorrow night.””
“Sure. Thanks.”
O
VER CHICKEN
M
ARSALA,
the family speculated about who would be attending the memorial.
“I don’t know why they didn’t have it in August, when more people were out here,” Claude complained. “The season is almost over.”
“Sweetie, your family’s not the Kennedys. It’s on a Saturday night, after all.”
Lynn’s comment earned her a scowl from Mama. “We may not have been the Kennedys, but we founded Springs!”
“Well, Krasner and Pollock were already here,” Claude conceded.
“
Them.
”
“I suggested doing something at Guild Hall because I wanted to honor Dad’s memory. His legacy. But this feels like it’s turning into a circus.” Bianca frowned at her lunch as if it were somehow to blame. “Everything’s always about
him
anyway. No one remembers that my little girl died too.”
“Oh, we remember.” Claude’s knife slid off the chicken breast and screeched onto the plate. “How could we forget when she caused it all?”
“You don’t know that! You weren’t there. Anything could have happened. Maybe she saw that Dad was in trouble and tried to pull him out.”
A harsh laugh from Puck. He raised his eyes to heaven. “Morgan as lifeguard? That’s a new one. That brat wouldn’t have saved an ant crossing her path. If you hadn’t brought her into this family . . .”
Bianca gasped and Lynn dropped her knife. “That’s
enough
.” Lynn turned on Puck. “What’s wrong with you? She was an innocent little child.”
“Not so innocent that—”
“Enough!” Claude echoed his wife. “Puck, you’re way out of line.”
“Don’t tell me you don’t feel the same way.”
Mama watched the fireworks complacently.
Rosa stared down at her plate.
Were they really talking about a four-year-old child they had all been related to? How mean did you have to be to call a dead child a brat? At least Lynn and Claude had protested. But what kind of grandmother sat there as if listening to a discussion of a neighbor’s unruly dog? If Lynn hadn’t spoken up, I would have had to.
I turned my head to look at Bianca, who was fighting to not cry. I reached out and put my hand over hers, pressing hard.
Puck put down his fork and sighed. “Sorry, Bee. It was just a stupid joke.”
“Never mind,” she said finally.
“It’s this damn memorial that has everyone on edge. I don’t—”
His apology was interrupted by a smart rapping at the front door.
Claude jumped up. “I think it’s for me.”
“Psychic now?” Puck raised his eyebrows.
“He’s expecting something from Japan,” Lynn explained to the table.
After three or four minutes Claude returned with a scowl, carrying a hanger draped in clear plastic with a dry cleaner’s logo. It looked like a woman’s jacket made of nubby, olive green silk.
Gretchen came in behind him. “That’s mine.”
“Why, it’s your Saks Fifth Avenue suit,” said Eve, bemused. “Imagine.”
“I took it in to be cleaned for the memorial.”
“Does it still fit?” Bianca asked.
“I hope so. I may have an important announcement to make, something I know Nate would have wanted.”
“Don’t tell me,” Puck said. “You’re expecting.”
No one laughed.
“Well, don’t keep us in suspense,” Lynn smiled at her.
“I have one more thing to check out tomorrow.”
Eve pushed back her chair, signaling that lunch was over.
I wanted to catch up with Bianca, but going down the front steps Puck said into my ear, “This family is so screwed up.”
He was the last person I wanted to talk to, but I stopped. “I thought this was supposed to be like the Garden of Eden.”
“That’s what they wanted us to think. I know you think I’m terrible, but you know what they used to call me? ‘The Accident.’ Because I was the youngest. If it hadn’t been for my parents, they would have drowned me too.”
Drowned you
too
?
I started to ask him what he meant, but he winked and turned in the opposite direction.
A
T
B
IANCA’S CHALET,
I called to her through the screen door.
“Delhi? It’s open.”
It was the first time I had actually been inside the cottage. Compared to Rosa’s identically shaped living room, the space was calm and harmonious. The predominant colors were daffodil yellow and leaf green, and the tiny tables held interesting objects—small framed photographs, a china cat in a calico design, miniature enameled boxes.
On a smaller chair sat a teddy bear with a red bow around its neck, waiting for someone who would never hug it again. Its innocence broke my heart.
Bianca was sitting on a puffy quilted sofa with a yellow flower design, a photo album in her lap.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She gave me a bleak look, her eyes a map of red lines. “That’s the definition of insanity, isn’t it—doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? They never cared about Morgan. Gretchen was the only one.”
“But why?”
“Because she wasn’t really an Erikson. Isn’t that silly? I had five miscarriages before we adopted her, so I thought they’d be happy for me. Hah. Puck’s right about one thing though. Morgan was a hard case.”
“Morgan was adopted?” I didn’t want that to change my perception of the tragedy, but something inside me eased a little. I hadn’t understood what Puck meant when he accused Bianca of bringing Morgan into the family. I’d thought he meant it metaphorically.
Bianca leaned back on the couch and closed her eyes. “When we finally brought her home from Romania, she was almost two. It was too late, she’d been too neglected. She’d have these tantrums sometimes and bite anyone who tried to get near her. She had to be supervised constantly. I even had an au pair so I could get some sleep.”
She reached back to the table behind her and handed me a small framed photograph of a dark-haired child. “She was the most beautiful child you’d ever seen. I finally knew what it felt like to love someone more than anything. And she loved
me.
When we saw her in the orphanage I opened up my arms and she ran right into them. I didn’t believe them when they said it was a bad sign.”
“Why was it bad?”
“They called it an affective disorder. She’d go to anyone at all. But she was so alive and loving and hopeful, she didn’t understand when people got angry with her.” That brought fresh tears.
“Look.” She stood up and motioned me to follow.
We went into the hall to a room filled with shelves of stuffed animals. A large castle stood in one corner with a princess figurine on the balcony. Bianca opened the closet and showed me a long row of little dresses, princess costumes, and a dozen pairs of shoes on a white wooden rack below. She closed the door again. “Sometimes I just come in here and cry. I don’t know what to do with anything.”
“It’s only been three months. It’s too soon.” I could barely speak myself.
“I had so many plans for her.”
Back in the living room we sat side by side on the couch. “I try to tell myself that it was better for her this way. I think about the years ahead, when I would have had to try and find a place for her in the world. I was worried what she might do to other children and all the rejection she would feel. And yet . . . I don’t believe it.”
We sat in silence, Bianca staring at the pink album she was holding again. “You know what the very worst thing was? I don’t know if I can even tell you without . . .”
“Go ahead and cry.”
“When Gretchen came to find me after it happened and we got to the pool, Rosa was wailing and the others were all kneeling around Dad trying to give him CPR. I couldn’t even see Morgan at first. Then I saw she was lying so still on the cement all by herself. Like a doll someone had forgotten to bring in. It was the end of her life and no one cared!”
In the next minute I was hugging Bianca, holding her while she sobbed and sobbed.
I felt something long-frozen start to thaw in me as well and then I was crying hard too.
Caitlin, Caitlin, Caitlin.
A
F
TER LEAVING
B
IANCA’S
cottage it was hard to go back to the studio. The pleasures of that morning seemed far away, replaced by the sadness that was real life. I had things of my own I wanted to think about. I reminded myself that I would have all weekend to visit the past, but that now I had to finish assessing the books I had pulled out and tidy up the studio.
It was nearly six when I zipped away my laptop and looked around to make sure nothing was out of place. I left the burnt photograph in the fireplace.
Once I was out on Cooper’s Farm Lane the sun was nowhere in evidence and dusk had started to creep in. Automatically I switched on my headlights in the gloom, then realized that another car had pulled behind me from the side of the road, its bright lights flooding my mirrors like a rude gesture.
It seemed an odd coincidence that another car would be right in back of me on this deserted country lane. When Jackson Pollock raced down these roads in his convertible, killing himself and a young woman passenger, it was hours before anyone came by and discovered the carnage.
The mystery car hugged my fender like a magazine salesman. Blinded by its glaring lights, all I could tell was that it was a large, late-model black sedan. When I reached the sign at Sagabonac Road, I was too nervous to come to a full stop and kept going, thankful that there was no traffic from the cross street. It didn’t help that I felt wrung out emotionally from my afternoon with Bianca, facing once again how dark the world could be.
The car started beeping its horn rhythmically like an audience clapping for a matinee to start.
Drivers will beep at you sometimes to point out that you have a flat tire. But other times it’s a ploy to make you stop. On the highway to Pompeii from Rome one summer afternoon, three men in a battered green Fiat pulled up beside us and began honking and gesturing frantically. Colin glanced at them, then pressed the door lock button and drove faster. Our pursuers kept up the charade for several miles before falling away.
Think,
Delhi.
I could pull into a driveway and try to get to a house. But the other car would be right behind me and by the time I got out of the van, I could easily be grabbed or shot.
Call the police
—except that my phone was in my bag on the floor and I’d have to stop the van to reach it. I’d heard that you should drive to the nearest police precinct and honk your horn outside, but I wasn’t familiar enough with this part of the island to know where that was.
The other car stopped honking, but kept following closely.
At Montauk Highway, I had to stop for a red light. As soon as I did, the driver of the other car jumped out, came over, and rapped on my van window.
It was Charles Tremaine, the bookseller from Amagansett. And Manhattan.
I rolled the window down. “My God, I thought you were a carjacker! Or a rapist.”
“This is the Hamptons, sweetheart. And, nothing personal, but why would anyone want to steal this?” He gestured at my 1999 van.
His tone was surprisingly unfriendly, but I laughed. “It’s doubtful. And I’m even older.”
“We need to talk. Flaherty’s is down the road on the right.”
F
LAHERTY’S I
S ONE
of those East End taverns covered in white clapboard that looks more like a house than a bar. It was the folding sign with a Heineken medallion next to the front door advertising “Happy Hour!” that made me pull into the driveway. As I parked and walked past the sign, I saw that it was advertising “Raw Clams,” and “Lobster Rolls with Fries,” in loopy red letters.
I waited for Charles Tremaine to get out of his car and meet me at the door. He looked like a true Hamptonite, dressed in gray slacks, a pale blue V-neck cardigan and expensive loafers. His silvery hair was in perfect order. How long had he been waiting on the road for me to leave? We crossed the threshold into a room that smelled of beer and lemon freshener. To my right was a narrow bar, the stools crammed with people. To the left were small wooden tables with red-and-white checked cloths beneath mirrors advertising liquors.
Charles managed to find us a tiny table in the back corner but didn’t sit down. Instead he turned toward the bar, then, as an afterthought, asked, “Do you want anything?”
So this wasn’t a date. “Chardonnay.”
And you can pay for it yourself for frightening me.
The empty table next to ours had a small black bowl of pretzels. I reached over and set it in front of me.
Charles brought back what appeared to be a double scotch for himself and set my wine down without looking at me.
“Thanks.” I picked up the glass and tilted it slightly toward him. “To the end of a perfect work week.”
He snorted. “For years, my colleagues and I have been dying to get our hands on the Erikson library. I’ve made my wishes clear to the family. I knew Nate personally. When I asked about it last Saturday, I was told Eve would never allow it. Now I turn around and some . . .” He didn’t know what to call me that wouldn’t make me get up and walk out of the bar, so he let the characterization hang in the air.
“How do you know what I’m doing there?”
“They didn’t hire you to wash the floors.”
“I thought you worked in Manhattan.”
He glared at me. “I have an assistant. And I’ll tell you frankly, I can’t believe Eve is allowing it. Does she even know if you’re qualified? What are your qualifications anyway?”
We were on dangerous ground. I took a long sip of my wine. “Have you seen Eve lately?”
“No,” he admitted. “She hasn’t been out since he passed. And they were big partygoers. They gave parties too, for Midsummer’s Night or a croquet marathon. But he was the one with the zest for life. That’s what makes his death so ironic.”
“Do people think what happened was an accident?”
He looked at me and I saw that his eyes were a true gray, the color of suede gloves men sometimes wore with formal attire. “What else would it be? He’d be the last person to commit suicide. Not that he had an easy life, he lost his father in the war and his mother to breast cancer. He was raised by Gretchen’s parents.”
“Is that why he didn’t go to college?”
“He didn’t go to college?” Charles worked on his drink. “I didn’t know that. His uncle was a well-known Shakespeare scholar at Brown. Somebody told me they never got along though.”
“What’s Eve’s background?”
He laughed. “Eve the Southern debutante? Charleston plantation, horseback riding, coming-out parties. Nate wasn’t what her family raised her for. He showed them though. Anyway, let’s talk about
you
.”
“All I’m doing is appraising the books. I’m not buying them, I can’t. From what Bianca told me, they’ll probably go to auction.”
Ethically I couldn’t put a price on a book and then offer to buy it. My only chance to own any was to bid for them along with everyone else.
“It’s a shame to break up the collection. Tell me what’s there exactly.”
I smiled. “You know I can’t do that.” He couldn’t really be expecting me to betray client confidentiality. But what if he went to Eve Erikson, presuming on old friendship, and made her an offer to buy the books outright? She would become hysterical if she learned that someone had been in her husband’s studio touching them.
“Look.” I took another sip of wine, playing for time. “I’ll keep you posted on what’s happening. I’ll let you know when I finish, and what the family has decided to do. Once I’m done I can tell you more about the books. You were right, there are some wonderful association copies. I promise to keep you in the loop.”
He gave me a dry look. “Don’t do me any favors. But I can see why they’d want an outsider for the appraisal. I just don’t get why they’d pick you. To think, if I hadn’t changed your number . . .” He turned his wrist to see his Rolex. “I’ve got to go. My wife will think I’m having an affair.”
“Perish the thought.”
He winked and stood up. “You don’t know my wife. We’ll be in touch.”
I had no doubt that we would.