Palatino for the Painter

by Jessa Archer

  “Very good advice, Mr. Shelton. In case I, you know, need to rob a bank tonight while you’re finishing your book.” I looked down at my dessert. While I could have finished it, I’d probably have regretted it, so I swapped my mostly full cup for his now-empty one. “And that very good advice earns you a second banana pudding.”

  ✰ Chapter Seventeen ✰

  After Ed went home, I walked down to the diner. It was as crowded as I’d known it would be, but I didn’t need to place an order. I just needed to talk to Patsy. And one thing I knew from many years as a customer was that Patsy doesn’t miss her smoke break. Every two hours, give or take ten minutes, she walks out the kitchen door that leads to the parking lot and the dumpster beyond, and lights up. So I just leaned against the wall and waited.

  At 7:04, the door opened. Patsy jumped like a scared rabbit. She cursed loudly, then laughed as she lit her cigarette. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack, Ruth Townsend?”

  “I’m sorry. I just need to ask you something, and—”

  “It’s true, ain’t it? That was Tanya’s car they pulled out of the river.”

  I nodded. “That’s kind of what I needed to ask you about. She worked that last night, the Fourth of July, before she disappeared. I know you thought she’d gone to Nashville, and I don’t blame you for thinking that. Lord knows she talked about it enough. But now we know that she didn’t, and someone told me that there might have been an…altercation of some sort that day. Between Tanya and one of those bikers. Maybe her brother, too.”

  She sighed and then took a long draw from the cigarette before responding. “It’s been thirty years, Ruth. More even. We had altercations, as you called it, all the time. Did you ever wait tables when you were in Nashville?”

  “No. Worked fast food, but I didn’t wait tables.”

  “Well, any girl who has knows that you’re going to get your bottom pinched or have some fool catcalling you at some point. Now that it’s my place, I kick ’em out if they give one of my girls trouble. But Daddy was from a different era, and he was still running the diner back then. He’d always tell us to ignore it if we could, but if they got too bad, he said to dump a pitcher of ice water in their lap to cool them off. Happened at least once a week in the summer. Oopsie.” She grinned. “The bikers were always bad about that kind of stuff, but I don’t remember anything in particular that day.”

  “How did the bikers treat your black customers?” I asked.

  Patsy looked a little surprised. “There weren’t any issues that I recall. Daddy wouldn’t have tolerated any of that. To be fair, though, you know how Thistlewood is. We didn’t get a lot of minorities in here even during tourist season back then. Mostly just Wren and…” She paused, taking another puff before she went on. “Funny. I wouldn’t have remembered this to save my life if you hadn’t asked, but Wren’s brother was in that day. Same time as the River Rats. Joseph, I think his name was?”

  “James. He’s an attorney in Virginia Beach now. Was there trouble?”

  “Not with him. At least, not exactly. I just remembered him coming in to place a to-go order around noon for him and his grandma. Tanya rang him up. They were laughing about something, and then James left. Tanya went over to refill the sodas for the bikers’ table…I think maybe Bud was with them, too. And I don’t know what was said, but she accidentally-on-purpose poured a pitcher of tea on one of the guys. Not her brother, but one of the others. Oopsie.”

  “What did he do?” I asked.

  “Nothin’. He knew better. We’d called the cops on them a few years before. He knew we’d do it again. He just stomped out the side door with his britches lookin’ like he hadn’t made it to the bathroom on time.”

  “But…you said nothing unusual happened that day. I mean, when I asked you back then.”

  She took another puff and laughed. “Because nothing unusual did happen. Like I said, couple of times a week we’d have to cool some guy off. Why are you asking about this now? Do you think that guy had something to do with Tanya driving her car off—”

  “Tanya didn’t drive off the edge, okay? You can tell Jesse and anyone else to just cut that rumor right now.”

  “Then what did happen?” she asked.

  “I don’t know yet. But I’m going to find out. And when I do, everyone can read the actual truth—not a bunch of speculation—on the front page of the Star. Thanks, though, Patsy. You’ve been a big help.”

  When I arrived back at the house, Cassie was already there, curled up on the couch with a book and Cronkite, who completely ignored my arrival. I know precisely where I stand in this cat’s hierarchy. Cassie is number one. I’m number two, although he’s willing to ignore me quite often if Ed or Wren stop by. I stopped being insulted by this long ago, deciding to simply believe that Cronkite is so secure in my affection for him that he feels free to suck up to other people who are physically capable, and possibly willing, to open a few cans of Fancy Feast.

  Cassie held up a finger, which meant she was about to finish the page, and I watched as her eyes scanned over the last few lines of print. She smiled at something she’d read, marked her place, and closed the book.

  “How was your night?” I asked her.

  “Good,” she said. “We grabbed an early dinner at that Mountain View place you mentioned. They were packed, though. We had to eat in the bar.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me. Lots of tourists in town this weekend.”

  She nodded. “Yep. Everyone was talking about the car found in the river.”

  I sighed. “I suspect that’ll be all anyone talks about for a long time. Especially when word gets out that there were two bodies in the car and not just one.”

  “Have you heard anything else about Mrs. Blackburn?” Cassie asked.

  “It was apparently an overdose. Or rather, a fatal combination of prescription medications and alcohol. And Bud Blackburn is Blevins’s top suspect, for both his mom and Tanya. Especially now that he’s disappeared.”

  “What do you think?” Her eyes searched my face.

  “It’s the obvious answer. I just don’t think it’s the right one. But…I’m willing to enlist you as a second opinion once I pour myself a glass of wine. You want one?”

  “Sure.”

  I opened a bottle of merlot and pulled two glasses from the cabinet. A movement from the yard caught my eye as I was filling them. “Cassie! Take a look.” I nodded toward the sliding glass door. I’d bought a curtain after our last ordeal, but we rarely closed it. Cronkite hated the thing, and the sight of the woods behind the house always made my day brighter.

  Cassie slipped her book, The Woman in Cabin 10, onto the coffee table. “Is someone out there?” she asked warily.

  “Sort of. It’s Remy. Out by the shed.”

  Cassie went to the window and peered out at the yearling bear placidly wandering around our backyard. “Listen,” she said, “I know he probably saved our lives and all that, but I’ve got to be honest. Remy kind of scares me.”

  “It’s just Remy,” I said, even though he scared me a little bit, too. “He wouldn’t hurt us.”

  I wasn’t sure why I felt so defensive toward the bear on my lawn. Cassie was right. He was a wild animal.

  “I’m not saying he would,” she replied. “Just that I’m not sure that he wouldn’t, either.”

  I ignored her. “What are you doing out there, buddy? Are you okay?” Great, now I was talking to a large woodland creature through my sliding glass door as if he could hear me. As if he could understand me. The strange thing about the bear in my backyard is I’ve always thought he did understand me. Almost like he was someone I used to know who came back in animal form to watch over my house from the dark woods. My furry guardian angel.

  Remy rolled onto his back.

  “Aw, look at him,” I said.

  Cassie carried the wineglasses over to the table. “Um, that’s…cute, I guess?”

  There was a part of me that wanted to go out and rub hi
s belly, although I decided it might be best not to admit that to Cassie. Not that I’d ever actually do it. I didn’t even pet him when he was tiny and I was nursing him back to health.

  “He kind of looks like a giant dog, doesn’t he?”

  Cassie raised an eyebrow. “Yeah…except for the part where he’s a bear. And he’s probably going to start tipping over our trash in search of some tasty morsels. You know what they say. It’s best to let sleeping bears lie.”

  I wasn’t sure that really was how the saying went. But I got her point.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’m ready to give you my not-so-expert opinion on Bud Blackburn’s guilt or innocence.”

  When I finished filling her in on what I’d learned since she left for work this afternoon, she frowned. “Okay, let’s work backward. Tanya’s car goes over the cliff with this biker guy, Frank, behind the wheel and her in the trunk. If that was all we knew, the most obvious answer would be that Frank killed her and couldn’t live with himself, but I’m pretty sure that’s the wrong answer.”

  “I agree. It doesn’t factor in Wren’s brother getting beaten up, or why Bud, who clearly knew enough about everything to leave a trail of clues for me and for those snorkelers to find Tanya’s car, didn’t stop it. And while I didn’t know this Frank, he doesn’t strike me as the remorseful type. He’d have dumped her body in the river and taken the car. And it doesn’t explain why her clothes were missing from her closet.”

  “Or why he put her in the trunk,” Cassie said. “That’s just weird. The second-most-likely scenario is that Bud did it. His mom found out, so he had to get rid of her.”

  I shrugged. “I really do think that was just an overdose. The question is whether she did it accidentally or intentionally. But I also think Blevins will try to pin everything on Bud, simply because it makes for a nice, tidy package with no loose ends.”

  She frowned. “Do you think there are any clues at Bud’s house?”

  “Maybe. But the only thing I’m likely to find is physical evidence that he painted those pictures, and I really don’t have any doubt on that front. Getting in would probably be easy, since I suspect there’s an excellent chance that the key is still hidden in a little slit on the underside of the doormat, just like it was back in 1987. But it probably has police tape across the door by now, and I have no doubt that Blevins would haul me in if I entered a crime scene. What I really need is to talk to Bud. He will talk to me, Cassie. And I’m pretty sure I know where he’s hiding.”

  She thought for a long moment, and then said, “The place in the paintings, right? Torrance House? Do you think Blevins will check there?”

  “Maybe,” I admitted. “But Ed said it’s poker night. Blevins, and most likely his deputies, will be occupied between nine and midnight.”

  “Is Ed going—”

  “No. And neither are you. Neither is Wren. I have my phone. I have my pepper spray. And I have over a decade of experience as an investigative reporter. This is not a case where I need backup. I simply need to go and talk to him. Alone. He trusts me.”

  “I don’t like this,” Cassie said.

  “I’m sure you don’t,” I told her, reaching over to squeeze her hand. “And you’ll worry. Just like I did the first time you drove off in the car by yourself. Or when you took your first overnight trip with friends. Or spent the weekend with that guy you met in Memphis.”

  She laughed. “Okay. Your radar may have been right on that last one.”

  “But I didn’t stomp my foot and say ‘don’t go!’ did I? You’re an adult. You have to make your own choices, even if they worry me sometimes. And this is my job.”

  “What did Ed have to say about this?”

  “He’s okay,” I told her. “I bribed him with banana pudding.”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “Okay. I may also have subtly pointed out that his ex-wife being unwilling to accept the dangerous nature of his own job—a job that he was good at and that he loved—was what wrecked his marriage.”

  “You call that subtle?”

  I laughed. “Maybe not. But he agreed. He said I should trust my instincts. And be careful. And I will be careful. I’ll also call him if I feel that anything at all is off.”

  Even though I could tell from her expression that Cassie still wasn’t happy with the situation, she said, “Okay. I’m glad I have a good book to distract me.” She stroked Cronkite, who was peacefully purring on the couch next to her. “How would you feel about taking a guard cat along?”

  “Oh, that would work out wonderfully. You know full well I have to sedate him to even get him near the Jeep.”

  “We should get you a dog. A big one. You could name him Backup, like on Veronica Mars.”

  “Because Cronkite would happily share his living space with a big dog.”

  “Okay, then maybe you can just buy a leash for Remy.”

  I grinned. “Now that would be some very impressive backup.”

  ✰ Chapter Eighteen ✰

  A nearly full moon hung in the sky above my Jeep, and the wind whipping through the cracked window was warm and sweet. As I rounded the corner on River Road, I spotted the willow. There was a trace of blue reflecting back from its branches, but nothing like the almost-neon glow that had drawn my eye toward the tree in Bud Blackburn’s painting. The tree still looked eerie and ominous, but that might have been because my imagination insisted on filling in the shadowy figures from the foreground of his other, less-finished work.

  Beyond the tree, Torrance House was perched on a cliff like the remains of some giant beast. The driveway leading up to the hotel was little more than a gravel path after years of disuse, choked with weeds and tall grass that swayed in the breeze beneath the glare of my headlights. Torrance House looked forlorn and a little creepy. That made me sad because I knew it in happier times. It had been a popular spot for weddings when I worked for Mr. Dealey, and I remembered people bringing in photographs from receptions, anniversary celebrations, and the like. The prom had apparently been held there until the gym was added to Thistlewood High in the late 1950s. It seemed a shame for a place that held so many good memories to be abandoned.

  Although, possibly not completely abandoned at the moment. Once I cut the headlights, I detected a faint glow on one of the upper levels. It could have been reflected light or a light shining through from one of the houses on the far side of the river, but I didn’t think so. I coasted forward at a few miles an hour, without headlights, thankful for the moonlight and hoping that any creatures, large or small, would be frightened away by the sound of the engine, since I’d have a hard time seeing them.

  Before I left the house, I’d tried texting and then dialing the number that Bud had called me from this morning, even though I knew it was likely that Blevins would eventually get those phone records and ask why I’d called. Since no one had officially told me that Bud was on the lam, however, I had an excuse. I left a message saying that I was worried about how he was coping. That I hoped he was fine. That he should call if he needed to talk. All typical things that you might say to a grieving friend.

  And Bud clearly did still consider me a friend, even though we’d had no contact in three decades. There had been no other person he’d thought to call when he found his mother’s body on the floor that morning. Just me. That was sad, but I thought it might also be my one advantage. If Blevins reached Bud first, I suspected there would be a confession, real or coerced. And if Bud had anything to do with the killings, I thought the chances of a happy ending for him were pretty slim. Blevins would be more interested in a closed case that looked good come election time than he would be about justice for Bud Blackburn.

  What scared me was that Bud seemed to have a pretty good sense of the gravity of his situation. I was more than a little worried that these paintings, vague though they may have been, were intended not merely as a confession, but as a final confession. While I was almost certain that Bud was at Torrance House, I was far less certain that
I’d find him alive.

  I pulled to a stop in front of the porch and shut the engine off. It was an almost perfectly silent night. I didn’t even hear owls or crickets or any of the normal night sounds I’d grown accustomed to since moving back to Thistlewood. The only sound, and it was a faint one, was the murmur of the river beyond the building up ahead.

  Bud’s truck was nowhere in sight, but it could easily be parked on the other side of the building or in a garage. If he’d parked out in the open, I thought there was a decent chance that Blevins or one of his deputies would have spotted the truck and investigated. Bud might have realized that, too.

  I stashed my pepper spray and phone in the pocket of my cardigan and got out of the Jeep, feeling vulnerable and exposed. Even though I really didn’t think Bud would hurt me, I was on edge. In some ways, my feelings about Bud were very similar to my feelings about Remy. The bear might not want to hurt me, but I wasn’t entirely sure how much control he had. It seemed that something had snapped inside Bud Blackburn, and it was that unpredictability that had me nervous.

  Instead of heading straight inside, I walked around to the back of the house to check for signs of life. Crouching low, I peered around the corner. Beneath the large deck, I made out the headlights of what I was pretty sure was Bud’s truck. The space was so narrow that I was amazed he’d managed to get the truck in there without taking out any of the support beams along the way.

  I took a few steps toward the fence and looked down at the river. It was a good thing they’d built a barrier there. Aside from a few outcroppings of rock, it was almost a sheer drop to the river below.