A Grave Talent (8 page)

She had now circled the room and stood near Hawkin, who was looking at one of a series of worn legal reference books. She eyed the adjoining shelf, filled with delicate volumes with arty titles--poetry by, apparently, modern women poets, a closed field to Kate.

There was a pile of books on the table in front of one of the room's comfortable chairs, and Kate glanced through those. Books on Titian, Poussin, Bellini, and Michelangelo, and three volumes of Christian symbolism, bristling with strips of paper marking depictions of women and children, some classical, most of them Madonnas with child or Pietas. Under the circumstances, Kate thought, a strange topic to research. She said as much to Hawkin.

He glanced at the books, put the legal volume back on the shelf, and moved to the desk. A search through drawers and pigeonholes revealed nothing of immediate interest, and he moved to the two-drawer wooden filing cabinet beside it. It was unlocked, but before he could do more than run a thumb over the manila folders it contained, there was a gentle rattle of silver in crockery outside the door. He drew back his hand.

"I'm taking this upstairs," came Vaun's voice. "It's warmer up there."

"We'll come back," he said to Kate. "No point in letting the coffee get cold."

They followed her up the stairs to the enormous studio. Even on this gray day, three glass walls and a skylight filled it with light. Around the perimeter and down the middle ran long, high worktables, but the immediate impression was of a large space entirely open to the elements--except for one corner, where a room sat above the downstairs kitchen. Its door was slightly ajar, and Hawkin walked over to peer curiously inside, into a storage room for completed paintings, with built-in slots of various sizes along the outside wall. From the looks of it, she was a busy lady. He closed the door and glanced out the window at the hilltop, which dropped off again just beyond the house into a sharp canyon of oak and scrub, the dominant redwood for some reason keeping its distance. Several easels stood waiting in one corner, and the two at the end of the room, backs to the railing that separated the studio from the living room below, seemed slightly reproachful under their stained canvas drapes.

Vaun had put the tray on a battered table that stood between two grimy armchairs and a paint-splattered sofa. She poured the coffee into three rough mugs.

"There's usually a lot more stuff lying about," she said. "I tend to have several pieces going on at a time, but I've put everything on hold until you're finished with--" She sneezed into a hastily retrieved handkerchief, smiled apologetically. "--with me. Sorry, I'm getting a cold. Honey? I haven't any sugar, I'm afraid."

Hawkin looked resigned. "Just cream, thanks."

"It's goat's milk, this time of year. Inspector Martinelli?"

"Black's fine, thanks," she said hastily.

"I didn't know if you'd be hungry, but I haven't eaten yet. Help yourself."

Hawkin took a thick roll with ham in it and wandered unerringly to the work surface below the window.

"Haven't put quite everything on hold, I see," he said around a mouthful. Kate went to see what had captured his attention.

It was a simple, quick charcoal sketch of the view down the hill from this window a short time earlier, black lines on the thick white paper of a spiral-bound pad. The trees that rose up on either side of the page should have dwarfed into insignificance the two central figures walking up the path, but they did not. They towered above the two, certainly, but at the same time seemed to twist slightly away from them, as if flinching from a source of power and threat, and the final impression was of the two humans looming large and ominous at the end of a tunnel or the nucleus of a whirlpool. The woman was turned slightly toward her companion, saying something. He, however, faced directly ahead, and the quick marks that were Hawkin's eyes seemed to look straight into the eyes of the viewer. Kate leaned forward, fascinated, to see the drawing dissolve into a mere swirl of lines and dots.

Vaun spoke up from the chair behind them.

"There's something slightly wrong with the perspective."

"I don't think so," contradicted Hawkin. "No, I think the artist's perspective is very clear indeed."

"I meant technically."

"So did I." He put down his cup and turned abruptly. "Miss Adams, where were you on Monday afternoon and evening?"

Her smile was crooked, but for the first time it touched her eyes.

"So, the truce is not even to last through the meal. You know, there are still some people on earth who feel that when you have shared bread with another, that person cannot be an enemy. Think what havoc that would wreak on our society. Yes, yes, Inspector Hawkin, I shall answer your question." She put her cup carefully down and leaned forward, studying her long hands.

"When I moved here five years ago, it was chiefly because of the solitude. A person in prison has no privacy, ever. It is... I found it very nearly intolerable. After my house was finished, I put a sign out on the Road asking people to keep away, and I saw no one, not a single human being, for a solid month. I took the sign down eventually, but even now I often go three or four days without meeting another soul.

"Since the second body was found, however, it's been different. It's not just me, of course. The whole timbre of the Road has changed, and everyone seems to go out of his or her way to say hello if you're walking past, or drop by for a chat or to borrow something. It's fear, Inspector; I don't have to tell you that. And I have a special reason to be afraid, don't I? Since that second child was found, I've begun to take my walks along the Road rather than away from it. I call out when I hear someone go by down on the Road. I make fires even when it's not absolutely necessary, so people can see my smoke. At first I didn't realize what I was doing, but when I did, I made it a conscious habit. I didn't know if they'd find another body, but if they did, I wanted to have some sort of alibi. An innocent person doesn't think of alibis, I know, but my innocence was taken from me years ago. As I said before, I'm not a fool.

"On Monday afternoon I was here working, as I usually am. In the morning I sketched in a canvas, and I started painting in the afternoon. I also finished another one I had been working on. They're over there." She waved at the two draped easels.

"May we see them, please, Miss Adams?" Hawkin asked.

"Certainly. It's dusty here, even in winter, so I keep them covered. I also don't want my neighbors to see them." She went over to the right one and folded back the cloth, revealing a canvas covered in a light wash of intense blue with several large areas of color roughly brushed on. The underlying outlines seemed to be of a figure on a chair, with a tree overhead, but the lines were mere suggestions at this point. Still, something vaguely familiar stirred in the back of Kate's mind.

Vaun moved to the larger canvas on the left and carefully rolled the cover up and back. "It's still wet," she commented, and stood away from it.

Kate gasped. A woman with brown hair and a blue dress was holding a naked child to her breast. The child was dead. The woman, the mother, had just realized that her daughter's blue, limp sprawl was final, forever. The finish was exquisite, the background detailed, the texture of hair and fabric palpable, and the overall effect on the viewer was of a knife in the heart.

"But that's--my God, you're Eva Vaughn!"

Vaun turned with a surprised look, the first real emotion that had crossed her face since they had arrived.

"You didn't know?"

"I saw your show in New York last year. Al, you know--"

"Yes, I know who Eva Vaughn is. In fact, I helped out when the painting was stolen in Los Angeles a couple of years ago. It wasn't my case, but I remember the painting."

"I owe you thanks, then, Inspector," said Vaun, one eyebrow arched in amusement at the turn of events. "It no longer belonged to me, of course, but the owner is fond of it."

"And here we thought you were some hippie painter who sold magical unicorns at the flea market," Hawkin mused, and turned to eye the door to the storage room.

"Doesn't it worry you just a bit having them all sitting there?"

Vaun actually laughed, warm and much amused.

"Very few of my paintings are worth what that one in Los Angeles was, particularly if they were stolen, and they're probably safer here with the doors unlocked than in a gallery in New York with burglar alarms. Besides, so far--touch wood--none of my neighbors know that I'm Eva Vaughn when I'm 'out there.' That's the main reason why I keep the paintings under wraps until I send them off," she added, and lowered the covers again. She turned back to face the two detectives. It was an awkward moment, which she herself broke.

"But all of that has little to do with your investigation, doesn't it?" She went back and sat on the couch to pour herself another cup of coffee with steady hands. "In fact, considering the sorts of things Eva Vaughn is known for, it may even make your pointed questions that much more necessary. You were asking about Monday, I believe, three days ago. Amy Dodson came up on her pony just before lunchtime with some bread her mother had baked. Angie usually bakes Mondays and Thursdays, and she always sends me some of whatever she's made. I let her use my hillside for her garden, and she feels she owes me for it." Which explained the incongruity of the pale face and hands with the considerable garden outside the door. "She doesn't owe me, but when it comes to her bread, I don't argue. Have you talked with Amy yet?"

"Not yet, no."

"You'll find her a sensible child, very bright. She's had home schooling, like most of the kids here, since she was seven, and her test scores are high-school level by now. Anyway, she was here a bit before one. I also saw her father later, it must've been almost six, because the light was changing too much to paint any more so I went for a walk along the road. He makes a trip to town most Mondays and he was--" She sneezed again, blew her nose, coughed. "He was just getting back. I stopped him to ask if he could take some canvases into San Francisco for me next week, which he's done half a dozen times."

"Did you see anyone else?"

"Did anyone else see me, you mean. I don't think so. It started to rain, so I cut it short and came back here. Someone else went by a few minutes later, but I was already off the Road so I didn't see who it was. It sounded like Bob Riddle's truck, but I can't be sure."

"What did you do after that?"

"The same thing I do every evening. Stirred up the fire, had a drink, read for a while, ate some soup and the bread. After dinner I usually write and sketch. The sketches were lousy, so I used them to start my fire the next morning. The letters Tommy Chesler took down to Tyler's for me on Tuesday, for Anna to stamp and mail. I had a bath, dried my hair, and went to bed, about ten-thirty. And slept until about five the following morning."

"Alone?"

Her smile was ironic, and acknowledged his peculiar right to intrude on her.

"Yes."

"Every evening?"

There was a pause while she studied him, her smile deepening.

"No."

"Who?"

"I think, Inspector Hawkin, we are nearing the point at which I am going to ask you to put this interrogation on a more formal basis."

"Tyler?"

Kate thought she wouldn't answer, but it came eventually.

"Occasionally."

"Why didn't you come down to Tyler's Tuesday morning?"

She must have been expecting the question, for she answered without hesitating.

"These people are my friends." She weighted the word heavily. "I never had friends before, and I found myself reluctant to have you accuse me and peel apart my life in front of them. No one here knows who I am, other than that I'm Vaun the painter. There's no Eva Vaughn on Tyler's Road, and no felon either. Just 'Vaun'."

"Nobody knows?"

"Tyler knows that I've been in prison; I'm not sure if he knows the reason. I offered to tell him, but he said he didn't want to know. He may have found out since then, but he won't have told anyone else."

"You sound very sure of that."

"He didn't tell you," she pointed out. "Tyler is famous for his stubborn refusal to talk about anyone else. The Road gossips find him enormously frustrating."

"Who are the Road gossips?"

She hesitated for a moment.

"You really should ask someone else about that. I'm not fully a part of the Road society. Angie Dodson could tell you. She isn't what I would call a gossip, but she lives closer to the Road and knows better than I do what goes on."

It sounded a feeble excuse for avoiding an answer, but perhaps to respond to the question would have felt too much like informing for a convicted felon's taste.

To Kate's surprise, Hawkin stood up abruptly.

"That'll be all for the moment, Miss Adams. We'll be back if we need to finish 'ferreting about.' You won't leave the area without informing us, please."

"Of course." She too seemed at a loss. "Will you... that is, I suppose I'll need to leave my work as it is for a while. On hold." Her voice came perilously close to pleading.

Hawkin looked down at her for a long minute and finally relented into something close to sympathy.

"That would probably be for the best, Miss Adams."

Kate watched the deadness creep back into the remarkable ice-blue eyes and was annoyed to feel a twinge of sorrow. She's a suspect, Martinelli, she told herself harshly, and ignored the little voice that protested, But not Eva Vaughn!

Outside the house Hawkin set a fast pace down the slippery path, muttering to himself.

"What did you say?"

"I said, what's the world coming to, drinking coffee with goat's milk and honey, that's what I said. It's the most disgusting thing I've ever heard of."

"It wasn't bad black. And those ham sandwiches were great."

"The sandwiches were good. The coffee was disgusting. Can you run in those shoes?"

"Run?"

"Yes, run. To cover ground in a rapid manner. You're supposed to be the athlete here. Would those shoes do for running, or would you need your Nikes or Adidas or whatever they are?"