An Illustrated Death (9 page)

C
HAPTER
N
INETEEN

“Y
OU BROUGH
T THE
pictures?”

Bianca came into the studio while I was setting up my computer for the day.

Silently I reached into my woven bag and handed her the brown envelope.

She pulled the photographs out, frowned, and scanned them quickly. Then she laid each one on the worktable. As a group, they were pathetic—clichéd landscapes, clichéd children, the pastel tint faded. But she’d said she would be finding a real artist anyway.

After a moment she turned to me wonderingly. “These are beautiful—exactly what the book needs! Who knew? Meeting you this way, it must have been karma. Do you have other photos? Can you do more?”

I was stunned by her reaction. I had never anticipated that they would be anything other than a stopgap measure. “Are there still darkrooms? It seems like everything’s digital now.”

“I’m sure you could find a lab online. Digital has made black-and-white photos into an art form. Acrylic paints never replaced oils.” She began collecting the photos, holding each one carefully by the corners, and returned them to the envelope. “Let’s show Mama!”

“Now?”

“Why not? She’s up at the house.”

“What do you think she’ll say?” I was surprised by how strongly I wanted Eve to like them too.

“We’ll find out.”

E
VE WAS SITTING
on an overstuffed sofa in the great room, legs crossed, reading
Art in America
magazine. “Lucien is showing at Acquavella again,” she told Bianca. I couldn’t tell if she felt vindicated or aggrieved by that. For a moment I was surprised to see her reading
Art in America
—but why not? Despite some occasional confusion, her intelligence had never been in doubt.

“Delhi’s brought her illustrations to show you,” Bianca said. “I’m very excited about them.” Excited, but I saw she was also biting at her lower lip.

I handed Eve the manila envelope and watched as she extracted the photos.

She scanned them rapidly, then thrust them away like an advertising circular she had no interest in. “These are photographs! What Nate did, those were book illustrations. Bianca, you must find a real artist.” She pointed a bony finger at me like a fairy tale witch. “This one must leave now.”

“Mama, that’s silly. These are just what I was looking for.”

I told myself Eve was reacting that way because they were photographs, not because of their quality. Wishful thinking, but I said, “Maybe you’ve never heard of Toni Frissell.”

“Toni? I knew Toni. What about her?”

“She did a beautiful book of photographs to illustrate
A Child’s Garden of Verses
and one of Mother Goose rhymes. They’re considered classics.”

“She photographed her children.” Her face softened. “She brought me a quilt when we moved here. She was as old as my mother.” Then she glanced at my photos again. “Are these your children?”

“Some of them.” I meant some of the photographs, but either interpretation was true. There were no pictures of Jason.

“Well, do what you like,” Eve told her daughter. “It’s
your
book.”

She said it the way someone might say, “It’s your funeral.” Bianca gathered up the prints quickly and we left the room.

When we were outside she said, “You’ll need to read my poems, so you can figure out what other photos we need.”

“Your mother wasn’t enthused . . .”

“Don’t worry about her, she’s just upset over Gretchen. They had tea every afternoon and now her routine’s disrupted. Who’s this Toni person, anyway?”

“Toni Frissell? She started out as a fashion photographer, then went on location during World War II as a photojournalist. She took a lot of pictures of the Tuskegee Airmen. After the war she did some beautiful black-and-white photographs for books.”

“Tinted like yours?”

“No.”

“Well, I like yours better. When did you take them?”

We started down the front steps. The blue hydrangeas drooped, but the black-eyed Susans bloomed on.

I put my hand to my face as if the pressure would make me remember. “Fifteen years?” I don’t know why I said that. I knew exactly how long ago it was.

“Is your recent work different?”

“There
is
no recent work.”

“Why not?” She picked up the scent immediately.

“It’s a long story. A sad story.”

“Tell me.”

I was ready. If anyone could understand what had happened and how I felt, Bianca would. After we returned from England without Caitlin, we had never told anybody what happened. The tragedy had been packed away with the tiny toddler dresses, never to be talked about. Now unpacking time was here.

But as we came around the corner we saw Rosa struggling with an oversized coffee table, half out of the trunk of the old tan Volvo.

“God in heaven spare us,” Bianca muttered.

The coffee table did not look heavy, but it seemed awkward for one person to get a grip on. As we got closer, I said, “Let me help you.”

“Don’t!” Bianca commanded, but I was already moving toward Rosa.

The table was the type that had probably been popular in the 1970s, with leather squares on the top and tooled in gold around the edges.

“Can you believe someone put this out with the trash?” Rosa asked me, her dark eyes incredulous.

“It just needs a little work,” I agreed.

“No, it doesn’t! It’s perfect the way it is.”

I helped her maneuver the coffee table out of the car, and between us we carried it to its new home.

T
HE CLUTTER OUTSIDE
Rosa’s chalet seemed worse than a week ago. I saw a new tower of empty Easter baskets on the porch, their pink and green wicker sides crushed as if stomped on by petulant children. A cartoon-eyed rabbit had joined the flock around Snow White. I wondered if anyone had thought about taking away Rosa’s car keys.

“Where are you going to put it?” I asked.

“I’ll find a place. Come in, I need to give you something.”

I followed her into the living room, wedging myself into an opening on the couch between tottery stacks of clothing.

Rosa pushed aside a tower of magazines and sat on the piano bench opposite me. Suddenly she thought of something and turned to burrow on the upright piano top, finally unearthing a brass-framed photograph. The brass had been tarnished by time.

Nate Erikson, wearing an ermine cape, had his arm around a small girl in a tutu with angel’s wings. Her gap-toothed mouth was opened in delight.

“That’s you?”

“Me and Dad, at a Midsummer’s Night party. I miss him a lot. And Aunt Gretchen. They were the only ones who ever—” But her dark face looked as if she was unwilling to finish the sentence. “Something bad is going to happen,” she whispered.

“What do you mean?”

“I hear noises outside at night. Someone is trying to get in and hurt me.” She pushed up and disappeared into a side room.

I waited on the sofa, feeling oppressed by the multitude of objects everywhere, the ghosts of people now disappeared. I couldn’t think of a way to describe the subtle energy that radiated from them, other than as the heat that sunburned skin gave off. Against the far wall several unframed canvases were stacked together and I got up to look. Did Rosa paint, as well as do ceramics? The canvas facing me was of a woman with long black curly hair wearing a white blouse and a red shawl around her shoulders. She wasn’t anyone I could identify by name and yet I knew I had seen her before.

Then Rosa was back, and saw me looking at the portrait. “That’s my mother. My
real
mother. Gretchen painted it before the train . . .”

“She’s lovely.
Gretchen
painted it?”

“She put her name there.”

The “Erikson” had blurred with time, but I could make out the G.

Then Rosa had hold of my arm. “You have to hide this for me.” Her voice was a dramatic whisper. “You can’t look at it unless something bad happens to me. Do you promise?”

I took the legal-sized white envelope from her and slipped it into the manila envelope of photographs. “I promise. But I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the first time I had been wrong.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY

T
H
E PHOTO
R
OSA
had shown me nagged at me all afternoon. What bothered me was its similarity to the picture of Nate and Morgan that had been burned. Had Rosa come in, seen the photo on the worktable, and incinerated it in a fit of jealousy? Because she, and only she, could be Nate Erikson’s fairy princess?

I was packing up for the day when there was a soft knock on the door and Bianca stepped into the studio. “I brought you my poems.”

“Great. I’m looking forward to reading them.”

“Are you keeping track of the time you spend here?”

“Of course.” I gave her a figure, glad that the subject had come up. I badly needed to be paid.

“That’s about what I thought. We decided we’d keep a running total and reimburse you when the books were sold. Okay?”

I blinked at her. But this was what rich people did. They ran a tab, and since you wanted to seem as cavalier about money as they were, you agreed. Sometimes the money never materialized and there were lawsuits.

Either I had to align myself with gracious living, or tell Bianca how I really felt.

I chose the low road. “I need to get paid,” I said. “Now.”

Her face closed like a morning glory at sunset, consigning me to the great unwashed where she had first assumed I belonged. Was this the end of my book appraising career? Even if it was, I had no regrets. What I had learned about illustrated books and Nathaniel Erikson’s milieu was priceless.

She eyed me to see if I could be intimidated, then said grumpily, “You want a check
now
?”

“That would be great.”

A stagy sigh as if she had hoped for better from me.
The revolt of the working classes.
“I’ll have to get a check from Claude. It may take a while.”

Was he going to argue with her too?

“It’s only five. I can wait.”

“No, close up here. I’ll meet you at your van in ten minutes.”

Bianca took much longer than ten minutes. An early evening haze was starting to blur the farthest hills when she returned. “Here. Is this good?”

I looked at the slip she handed me through the window. The amount was exactly what we had agreed on. “Thanks.”
Long Island Power Authority thanks you too.

As Bianca headed back toward her cottage, I noticed the signature on the check: Eve Erikson. But how—then I decided that Eve herself had not signed it. Was Claude his mother’s executor? Had she agreed he would write checks on her account to pay for household expenses? What would she say if she saw one for over a thousand dollars made out to her daughter’s collaborator?

Get this puppy to the bank.

W
ITHOUT OPENING IT
,
I put the envelope Rosa had given me in the glove compartment under a collection of maps and repair bills. I wondered if it was something Gretchen had given her for safekeeping, something that Rosa was now afraid she would not be able to protect. The sounds she was hearing at night were probably no more than the deer so endemic to this part of Long Island or raccoons foraging in the garbage. Subconsciously she was probably worried about Gretchen.

Where
was
Gretchen now? I could accept she was at Regan’s, but why hadn’t she come to the memorial? She had had her suit cleaned and planned what she was going to say. Even if she hadn’t been on the program, they would have been happy to let her speak. If she had been in an accident . . . But all three cars—the Lexus, the Toyota, and the battered Volvo station wagon—were on the gravel circle.

I was worried enough to call Regan Erikson that night. The number was listed under “Harada, Dai” the only one in Kinderhook.

One of the boys answered and I asked for their mother.

“Mommy, there’s a lady on the phone.”

The receiver clunked onto a table, and then a scraping as it was picked up again. “Hello?”

“Regan, this is Delhi Laine. I was the one who admired your work and talked to you at the reception. Bianca’s friend?”

“I remember you.”

“I should have told you that the reason I know the family is because I’m illustrating a book of Bianca’s poems. So I’m out at the compound a lot.”

If a silence could go cold, this one did. “You’re an artist too?”

“A photographer.”

“Here I thought you were just a book dealer.”

So she had read my card. “It’s not
just.
I love books, they’re what my life is about. There’s not a big market for tinted photographs anyway.”

“So you’re like an actor who waits tables.”

She hadn’t been listening.

“The reason I’m calling is to make sure Gretchen is with you. Bianca would kill me if she knew, but Gretchen left so quickly and didn’t leave a note or anything . . .”

“With me? Why would she be with me?”

“Well, nobody’s seen her since before the memorial.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Gretchen went off to do an errand Saturday afternoon and never came back. I mean she did, the car was there, but she wasn’t. Would anyone else have picked her up to take her to Guild Hall?”

“How should I know? This doesn’t make any sense. I have to talk to Dai. What’s your number?”

The phone rang fifteen minutes later. “I’m coming down tomorrow morning to find her. Something’s happened. Maybe she hit her head and wandered off into the woods. She could be lying there unconscious!”

“You’re going to the house?”

“Where else?”

“They don’t know I called you,” I warned.

“Don’t worry, I won’t say anything. At least you cared enough to phone. I’ll tell them the truth: that I got worried when I didn’t see Gretchen at the memorial. They know I stay in touch with her. Will you be there?”

“Probably.”

“See you tomorrow then.” She hung up.

I clicked off too, feeling uneasy.

It was time to read Bianca’s poems.