The Portrait of Doreene Gray (5 page)

Michael smirked. “You think Reynaldo was a candy striper at the hospital?”

“Candy something.” Suki looked at her watch, which featured a pink cat in pirate's garb. “It's after noon. Can we find somewhere to eat?”

Angus started toward the minivan. “Good idea. I got some recommendations from a very nice woman named Amy, online. I sometimes wonder how we wrote magazine articles before the Internet existed.”

“There were magazines back then?” Suki asked, unlocking the car.

“Amazingly, yes, but the pages were made of wood, and they were printed with ink squeezed from seeds. It was all very awkward.” Angus leaned over and looked in the rearview mirror. “Do you see the man in the white Impala, across the street and slightly behind us?”

Suki adjusted her side mirror until it showed the car in question. “Shaved head, dark glasses, killer tan.”

“That's the one. He was there when we first came, but I didn't see him inside with the rest of the press. Did you, Michael?”

Michael looked out the rear window. “No, but I stayed at the back of the room.”

Suki still had her camera around her neck. She lifted it slightly and took a picture of the man's image in her side mirror, then handed the camera back to Michael. “Put this in the bag, will you?”

*   *   *

They found the recommended pub on the waterfront, up a vertiginous flight of stairs. The place had the feel of a men's club crossed with an antiques market and installed in a rather nice attic. Upholstered and wicker chairs clustered around tables topped with wine-colored cloth. Gilded frames were much in evidence.

The waitress brought water and menus and left.

“What's our budget for meals? Michael asked. “Is Pendergast feeling flush?” Len Pendergast was the orthodontist who financed
Tripping.

“We have a reasonable meals allowance, and it is part of the job,” Angus said. “I think I'll have the crab cakes.”

When the waitress came back, Michael ordered the cioppino.

Suki closed her menu. “Small Caesar, with salmon. Angus, are we walking around for a while after this?”

“I think so, yes.”

Suki looked up at the waitress. “Then I'll also have an oyster shooter on a separate tab. Michael, you want one?”

“Okay, thanks.”

The waitress looked at Angus. “And you, sir?”

“Iced tea, thank you.”

She took their menus and left.

Angus leaned back in his chair and drummed the fingers of both hands on the table. “Well. This is certainly an interesting story.” He pointed to the camera, which Suki had brought with her and placed on the table. “Let's have a look at the man in the white car.”

Suki brought up the photo and zoomed in on the man's face. “I don't see anything new. Dark tan, shaved head, sunglasses—maybe expensive ones. Looks like he might be a big guy.” She handed the camera to Angus.

Angus studied the screen with pursed lips. “Doesn't look familiar.”

“Let me see,” Michael said, hand hovering near the camera.

“You'll get your turn, Mr. Grabby.” After a few more moments, Angus handed the camera to him.

Michael took off his glasses and peered at the image. “If that's his right hand just above the edge of the door, it looks like he's wearing a big ring. Maybe he's with the Mafia.”

Suki took the camera from him. “Where?”

He pointed. “Right there. See the shiny bit?”

“That's the top of a phone. He's probably texting someone.”

Michael leaned over and looked again. “Oh.”

“They had two security guards there,” Angus said. “Maybe he's the outside man.”

“Speaking of the guards,” Michael said, “Doreene yelled ‘anda' at them. That's ‘go' in Spanish.”

“And in Portuguese,” Suki said. “They could be friends of Reynaldo's or Lupita's, but either way, I don't think they spoke much English. When I got up to the rope around the painting, I asked one of them to move to one side, and his only response was to kick the leg of my tripod back when it crossed the line. When I told him what he could do with his foot, he didn't even blink.”

“Did you get a picture?” Angus asked.

“Yeah, but the colors are pretty murky, and I couldn't get any real detail.” Suki pushed the scroll button on the camera before handing it to Angus.

He studied the image. “Not exactly a flattering portrait, is it? Michael, did you research the sisters' background before we left Boulder?”

“Yeah.” Michael took the camera and looked at the photo while he spoke. “All I could find on their father was his name, Sean Pinter. Their mother divorced him and remarried when the twins were pretty young. Then Mom died, leaving the stepfather in charge. He died in a boating accident when Maureene and Doreene were eighteen.”

“What kind of boating accident?” Angus asked. “Any suggestion of paranormal activity?”

“He got drunk, went out in a boat, and drowned,” Michael said.

“So we could say spirits were involved in that death.”

Michael dropped his forehead to the table. “Please tell me you're joking.”

“I'm joking.” Angus caught Suki's eye and winked. “Go on, Michael.”

Michael raised his head. “Apparently Maureene was pretty attached to her stepfather, because she went into a real funk after he died. Shut herself up in that cottage and wouldn't talk to anyone. Finally Doreene asked Maureene to paint her portrait, as therapy.”

“Had Maureene painted before?” Suki asked.

Michael nodded. “She'd gone to art school and was starting to get some local attention, but I guess the portrait blew everyone away.”

“So Maureene went on to become a famous artist and Doreene married Mr. Gray,” Angus said. “Where's he?”

“Dead.”

Angus raised his brows. “Another boating accident? Are we talking family curse?”

“Sorry. He fell off a mountain.”

Angus smiled. “Still, you have to admire this family's capacity for dramatic death. Makes our job that much easier. Go on.”

“Hank and Doreene Gray were big travelers,” Michael continued. “They were mountain trekking in Argentina when Hank got too close to the edge. It crumbled, and Hank fell so far they had to leave his body there. Doreene came home a widow.”

Suki took back her camera. “Did Maureene ever get married? If her husband died, too, my money's on
went hang gliding and was attacked by condors
.”

“Maureene never married.” Michael held up a finger. “But she does have a daughter. The rumor is that her agent at the time was the father, but she's never said, and he's not her agent anymore.”

“Is he dead?” Angus asked eagerly.

“No. And before you ask, neither is Maureene's daughter, Lyndsay. She married an Englishman and moved to the UK. They own a chain of high-end lingerie stores.”

The waitress brought the oyster shooters. “Here you go.”

Angus smiled at her. “Thank you.”

“Did Doreene and Hank have any children?” Suki asked when the waitress had gone.

“No,” Michael said. “They were only married four years before he died, and Doreene never married again.”

“Aw,” Suki said. “How sad to have to console yourself with an endless parade of luscious young men.” She tossed back the oyster shooter and licked her lips.

 

Seven

The next day, they went back to the house for the promised interview. Angus led the way along the path to Maureene Pinter's cottage. Suki carried one of her cameras on a tripod. A few birds chirped in the surrounding trees. Overhead, clouds threatened rain.

“Let's keep this interview friendly and nonconfrontational,” Angus instructed, shooting Michael a glance.

Michael rolled his eyes. “I know. We're not here to debunk the story, we're here to … What was the rest?”

“Shed enough light to explore mysterious corners, but not so much that we fade the colors,” Angus recited.

“The colors of what? Something that has corners?”

Suki swung her tripod clear of a dead branch. “I wonder why Maureene lives in a cottage where there's room for her in Doreene's big house. I thought twins were supposed to be super close.”

“Maybe the cottage has better light for painting,” Michael said, “or maybe, after fifty-eight years, they've had enough closeness.”

Angus shrugged. “Perhaps the stepfather left Doreene the bulk of the estate, and that's why Maureene was depressed after he died. Best not to ask. Property is often a sore spot with families.”

They came around a bend in the path and saw a single-story frame house painted gray with blue trim. As they approached the front door, a bark sounded from inside the house.

Angus knocked to the accompaniment of more barking. After a few moments, the door swung open and Maureene Pinter stood there, the Scottish terrier at her feet. Maureene's hair was wet. She wore cotton pants and a heather-green sweater with a smear of black paint on the cuff of one sleeve. “Come on in.”

“Cute pooch,” Suki said as they trooped inside.

“Thanks. Her name is Hilda.”

Hilda trotted around them, sniffing shoes.

Maureene looked around the room uncertainly. The couch held a stack of magazines and unopened mail in addition to a fleece blanket covered with dog hair. “I guess we could sit at the table.” She made a vague gesture toward a wooden kitchen table that sat beneath a wide window. The view outside was of trees.

“The table's good for me,” Suki said. “You don't mind if I take pictures while we talk, do you?”

“I guess not.”

“Great, and can you sign this photo release?” Suki handed Maureene a card and watched while she read it and signed the bottom. “Thanks,” she said, taking it back.

“I'll just clean the table off,” Maureene said, picking up a plate with toast crumbs. She took it through to a galley kitchen, visible through a doorway.

Michael picked up a cardboard box of paints from the table's top and set it on the floor next to his chair before taking his seat. Suki didn't sit, but unfolded her tripod.

Maureene came back, looked around, then spotted the box of paints and picked it up. “Gotta keep things off the floor. Hilda sometimes chews.” She put it on the windowsill before sitting.

Michael took his digital recorder out of his pocket and held it up. “Do you mind if we record this interview?”

“That's fine.” Maureene perched on a chair and ran her palms down her thighs.

Angus folded his hands on the tabletop and smiled. “Ms. Gray, did you know there was something special about the portrait when you first painted it?”

“I knew it was my best work. It was the first time I hadn't planned the life out of a painting, just did a few preliminary sketches and went for it.” At the sound of Suki's camera powering on, her shoulders hunched slightly.

Angus gave Maureene a reassuring smile. “And how long was it before you or your sister noticed that the portrait had changed?”

Maureene put her hands on the table as if to rise. “I forgot to ask, do you want anything to drink?”

“No, thanks,” Angus and Michael both said.

“I'm good,” Suki said, eye glued to her camera's screen.

Maureene pushed back her chair. “I need a glass of juice or something. Talking makes my throat dry.” She got up and went into the kitchen, where she could be seen taking a glass out of the cupboard and opening the fridge and freezer doors.

Michael switched off his recorder and raised his brows at Suki, who shrugged.

Finally Maureene came back, ice tinkling in a glass of orange juice. “Sure you don't want anything?”

Angus shook his head. “We're fine.”

Michael switched the recorder back on. “Ms. Gray, I understand that you painted the portrait as therapy, to deal with the death of your stepfather.”

Maureene took a long drink of her juice, then rubbed her thumb along the sweating glass. “Yeah.”

Angus took up the questioning. “Do you think the emotion you were feeling at the time might have imbued the painting with its unusual qualities?”

“I don't know. Maybe.”

The others waited a moment, but she didn't say anything more. In the silence, Suki moved the tripod.

“Why do you think the portrait changes?” Michael asked, his tone significantly less diffident than Angus's.

Maureene looked up from drawing trails in the condensation on her glass. “I assume Doreene changes it. Why, I have no idea. She's always been a little obsessed by the painting, and now Reynaldo says she talks to it.” She leaned forward in her chair. “What do you think is going on with the painting?”

“We were kind of hoping you could tell us,” Michael said drily.

Angus gave him a quelling look. “There are several possibilities that spring to mind. Doreene might be performing a ritual, designed to maintain her youth. Or perhaps she feels the painting has developed its own spirit, and she is communing with it.” He eyed Maureene intently. “Ms. Gray, would you say either of those things is possible?”

Maureene shrugged, then turned in her chair so she could see Suki. “Don't take any photos of artwork in progress, okay? No sketches or anything.”

“You got it.”

Behind Maureene's back, Angus lifted his hands in a frustrated gesture.

Maureene checked her watch, an antique man's timepiece with a paint-specked crystal. “I'm having lunch at the main house today. Do you want to come? You might be able to ask Doreene some of these questions.”

Angus perked up. “If you don't think it would be a problem.”

“It shouldn't be.” Maureene stood. “Let's go.”

They collected their things and headed toward Doreene's house, with a slight delay while Hilda milled around outside and Maureene encouraged her to do her business.