1 Death on Canvas

by Mary Ann Cherry

  With vibrant colors rioting upstream and down, the sculpted canyon lived up to its name. She stood in awe. The sheer immensity of the landscape made her feel small—insignificant. She added a note to her mental wish list. In future, she'd allow an entire week to amble through the park, time to stop and put brush to canvas. No wonder Thomas Moran spent so much time painting the area.

  Jessie took several photos, then stored the camera and pulled the backpack from her shoulder. So much for a whirlwind sightseeing trip, she thought, pulling out a 5x7 watercolor tablet and a travel sized watercolor palette. She could do some small studies, then make a larger oil later from memory and the mini paintings.

  She unscrewed the cap of a water jug, took a healthy swig and then poured water into a mug-sized plastic tub useful for wetting and cleaning her brush. Jessie stood on the viewing platform, looking out and down. Way down. Below her, clusters of plastered mud nests clung to the vertical wall and cliff swallows darted about in frenzied flight, feeding unfortunate insects to their young on the fly, with fast food efficiency.

  The lofty canyon walls were painted with orange, yellow and rosy hues. Grey rock, and the contrast of evergreen trees clinging to the sides added more dimension of color and in the gorge far below glistened a silvery sliver of whitewater. Jessie could hear the roar of the falls.

  Goosebumps rose on Jessie's arms when she realized she stood on the edge of the Inspiration Point promontory where, in 1975, an earthquake severed a massive section of the point, including 100 feet of the original viewing platform, and dumped it into the Yellowstone River far below. She shivered. Then she picked up her small paintbrush and made several color sketches of the scene in front of her, finishing the last miniature landscape surrounded by awed tourists marveling at Jessie's skilled rendering of Inspiration Point.

  She was too engrossed in her work to notice them at first. When she did, Jessie nodded and smiled at the people who had been watching her paint. She reached into her backpack, pulled out a small stack of business cards and fanned them out with an inquiring gesture. Most of the entranced tourists took a business card. Then she said a firm goodbye to her audience, stored her supplies into her pack, took a last long look at the impressive gorge, and began the hike back to the Greyhawk.

  Curious bystanders are one thing Thomas Moran would not have had to cope with when he painted the east wall of the canyon.

  Reaching the Hawk, Jessie slid in behind the wheel. Jack sauntered to the front of the motorhome, leaped to the passenger seat, kneaded the cushion into submission and flopped down, looking at Jessie with his usual "get this show on the road" expression.

  "Homeward ho, Jack," she told the cat. "Why can't you be a burly chauffeur named Tom, instead of a lard-bottomed, old Butter Tub? And don't look at me like that," she said to his feline smirk.

  She backed out of the parking space, put it in drive and stepped on the gas. As she moved forward, the motorhome pulled drastically to the right, bouncing erratically over the pavement.

  "Blast it," Jessie slammed her hand on the dash. "That's a flat tire, for sure. Shoot. We're not going anywhere soon," Jessie said to him. "

  She drove with care to the side of the parking area, killed the motor, and got out to check the tires. The back dual tires on both sides were fine, but the front right tire was flat as a popped balloon. She sighed, squatting down and looking disgustedly at the tire, hand on her hip. Whenever her pickup had a flat, she'd changed it herself. There was a spare in the storage of the motorhome, but this was more than she wanted to handle.

  She was just straightening when a huge Gulfstream trailer pulled into the parking area and slid into the spot next to Jessie's Hawk. As soon as the engine died, teenagers poured out of the motorcoach, followed by a wide-shouldered, middle-aged man with a shaved head. He nodded his head up and down, counting the teens as they headed off down the trail to Inspiration Point. Then he muttered something to himself and turned around to stick his head into the doorway of the Gulfstream and yell. In a couple of seconds, a teenager as broad as himself scrambled down the steps onto the parking lot, a sleepy look on his face.

  The man clapped the boy on the back and gestured down the trail, but the boy had noticed her standing dejectedly by her punctured tire and pointed toward her. The two walked over to the Greyhawk, the man lumbering like a bear, the teen with the swaggering walk of a sixteen-year-old. The big man nodded at Jessie, then squatted down as limber as a child and peered at the tire.

  "Say, Miss," he said, standing back up to tower over Jessie. "They don't get much flatter'n that."

  The father and son stood side-by-side, arms folded over their chests, big feet spread apart, like mirror image oaks. Both looked questioningly at Jessie, the older man doing a mechanical head-bob that matched a nervous, tapping foot.

  "Yeah, it's a good one," Jessie said. When it became clear she was reluctant to ask for help, the father spoke.

  "You got a spare?"

  Jessie nodded, looking hesitant. She pulled her phone from her pocket and checked it. "But, I see we have coverage here. I can call emergency road service."

  "Nah. They'll charge you an arm and a leg. I'm used to this. Back home I run an auto shop. We'll whip that tire off and slap it on while Lukey's cousins are off admiring the view. Where're my manners? I'm Ed, and this here's my son, Lukey."

  Jessie gave them a twinkling smile and Jessie held out her small hand to shake Ed's wide mitt. "Jessie O'Bourne."

  While the two rolled out the spare, Jessie punched in Arvid's number to let him know she'd be later than expected getting back to Sage Bluff. Before the call connected, Ed pointed to her flat tire.

  "You know, Miss. This looks like somebody ruined this tire valve on purpose. Shoved something sharp into it—knife or something. Ask your repair guy what he thinks when you get home."

  Jessie gawked at him. "Vandalism?"

  "Could be."

  "Hello?"

  As Jessie heard Arvid's voice, she felt a spasm of guilt. She was going to be giving away his caramel rolls.

  Chapter 19

  Yellowstone Park, present day

  As father and son loosened the lug bolts and put her spare tire in place, the thought of Moran painting the park distracted Jessie from their efforts. She'd spent most of the previous evening dipping into the shoebox of Amber's correspondence. There were copies of letters addressed to a lawyer's office in Sage Bluff, Montana and to the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions. It was correspondence Amber had begged from Moran's descendants and so many other sources that Jessie marveled at the girl's ingenuity.

  The grad student had included copies of old newspaper articles from 1918 and 1940, and one manila envelope contained original letters from Moran to Father Michael, the priest who was head of the old Indian school. The outer envelope was marked 'return to Lucille Sullivan'. Jessie had no idea who that was, but suspected her to be a relative of Father Michael's. Luckily, an address accompanied the request. It was a Helena, Montana, address, she recalled.

  "There you go." Ed interrupted her thoughts. "All done."

  Jessie thanked him profusely and handed him the foil wrapped package. As he walked away she heard him say, "Hey, Lukey," he said, "Look at this. Caramel rolls. We hit the jackpot."

  Climbing back into the Greyhawk, Jessie hugged her cranky cat. Jack gave her a slant-eyed look and a tail twitch. She grabbed a bag from the glove compartment and shook out a couple treats for the tom. Then went to her small refrigerator and grabbed a cold soda.

  Sipping from the can, she thought back to one wordy letter from Moran to Father Michael that gave her a sense of the man behind the paintbrush. In it, Moran described the visit to St. Benedict's school while the priest was absent, and he gave specific instructions about where to sell the donated paintings to get the best price. The letter was full of colorful description and humor as well. There was an odd comment about the nun who was teaching the children at the school. He described the nun's appearance as though the priest
had never seen her before, and asked. "Does this sound like the regular teacher? If so, she's a mean one." Amber had attached a sticky note by the comment with a cryptic 'compare photo from Jim O'Bourne' written in ink. From Jim O'Bourne! What photo? Jessie thought. And compare the missing photo to what?

  She looked out through the motorhome windshield. It was obvious from the letter to the priest that Moran really wanted his missing paintings to help fund St. Benedict's. Reading that letter had jolted her memory. As a teenager, she read a journal Thomas Moran gave to her Aunt Kate. It was a family keepsake, and was probably still in the den bookshelf. The style of writing was exactly the same, even though the journal was written in a tiny hand to save space and was meant to be instructional. It was full of advice on choosing colors and materials and developing brushwork, with comments about scenery or wildlife encountered in Wyoming and Montana. Lively anecdotes about Moran's experiences were sprinkled in. The last quarter of the journal was written by Kate Morgan. Jessie made a mental note to locate the hundred-year-old journal when she got home and read it again—this time, for clues instead of painting tips.

  Stashing the soda in her drink holder, then rummaged through a kitchen cupboard until she found a granola bar. She opened it and munched it thoughtfully. She crumpled the empty wrapper and added it to a trash bag behind the seat. Feeling refreshed, she reached over and rubbed Jack's head until he purred in a deep rumble, then Jessie sat back and started the engine. She looked both ways for traffic before she pulled out onto the Wyoming highway, but as she drove, her thoughts were still on the past.

  What happened when her great, great aunt Kate was a little girl at St. Benedict's school?

  Chapter 20

  Sage Bluff Sheriff's Office, present day

  "I can't believe Jessie would just take off to Denver and not give me a heads up. She should stay in town, since she's on the suspect list for Amber's attack."

  "Did you tell her not to leave town, Russell?"

  "Well, no, but—"

  "I got the feeling you and her don't get along, so maybe she didn't see any point in jawing with you." Arvid narrowed his eyes. "She just happened to run into me when she was getting gassed up for the drive."

  "We get along just fine," Russell said indignantly.

  "Naaah. You shoot sparks off each other."

  Russell glared. "First of all, we do get along fine, she's like a kid sister. Second, I don't like her taking off to Denver by herself just because of some dumb idea. I—"

  "Huh," Arvid said. "A sister, eh? And you think that girl don't drive all over the country with that Greyhawk going to her art shows and galleries? Probably handles it fine, too." At the dark look on Russell's face Arvid cleared his throat to hide a smirk. "She'd probably call you a chauvinist. You're not a chauvinist are you, Russell? Because that comment's sort of—you know—oink, oink."

  "Never mind, Arvid."

  "Well, what she told me was that the Reynolds couple wanted help searching through the research their daughter left in Denver. Mostly because the officers in Colorado didn't believe her thesis had anything to do with the attack. There was too much stuff to gather and ship."

  "Arvid, the cops there aren't stupid," Russell said. "They probably felt the idea was just too iffy, an art history type of thesis getting someone killed. It is an odd angle, you have to admit."

  Arvid ignored him and went on, "Course, even if they did wonder if the girl's findings could be important, would the Denver cops know what they were looking at? Doubt it, when it comes to the art research. You or I wouldn't neither."

  "Hmph," Russell grunted. "So what's Jess going to do? She can't be butting into a murder investigation."

  "Nup, she can't. But Jessie does think she can pull Amber's documents into some sort of paper, or even a book, that would wind up with Amber Reynolds' name on it. Might be a clue in there somewhere that helps her find the Morans. But Jessie says even if there isn't, it's a worthwhile project anyway. And the parents would feel a tad better. It's gotta be hard to lose a kid."

  "I can imagine. No, actually, I can't." He looked down at K.D., who was stretched out on his stomach on the floor, coloring furiously on a brown paper bag Russell had saved from grocery day. "I don't want to even think about it."

  Arvid watched the little boy for a minute as well. Thinking hard, he pushed his lips in and out, in and out. Finally he said, "You know, I think you're hunting for a drug angle that isn't there. No drugs in her belongings. None in her bloodstream. No record of her ever being involved in drugs in any way. Now—"

  "Yeah, yeah Arvid, I'm beginning to think you're probably right." Russell waved his hands in resignation, and flopped into his desk chair, swiveling back and forth in the seat. "We got word this morning from North Dakota. Amber's ex-boyfriend, Jake Ward, has been in the Williams County jail since last Monday—before she was assaulted."

  "What'd they tag him on?"

  "Running a drug business on his truck route delivering supplies to the oil field. Someone in Williston got wise and turned him in."

  "I'll be danged. Enterprising little booger. How was he working it?"

  "The jerk would drive a big loop—pick up oil rig drilling parts and other legitimate supplies for one of the companies pulling oil out of the Elm Coulee Oil Field. But every time he stopped for fuel, he'd also pick up and deliver his own special goodies, including prescription drugs. Especially pain killers. . . Hydrocodone and Oxycodone."

  "What a scheme." Arvid shook his head. "It's a shame, too, isn't it? Kid smart enough to plan all that could have done okay in college if he'd just applied those smarts. Mighta made something of himself. No guarantee he only made sales where he got his gas, though. And I bet he's responsible for a lot of the dope coming through Sage Bluff. Anybody verify that?"

  "Yeah. Well, we don't have it locked in, but Sage Bluff was on his route, all right. Detectives up in Williston are working through his gas receipts, thinking he wouldn't have stopped long at each place—might have made his deliveries right at each fuel stop. Or at the café where he picked up lunch. Most of the towns are in a tri state area and are just spots on the road—places like Spearfish, North Dakota, Douglas, Wyoming, Dillon or Custer, Montana. Places where it's harder to get drugs."

  "It could be anyplace he stopped two seconds for a stop sign, Russell."

  "I know, but Jake Ward won't say. He keeps swearing he wasn't the brains."

  "Will he give the ringleader up?"

  "Don't know. The Williston police keep pressuring him. They think it's a good bet. Jake keeps saying he's gotta check on something before he makes a deal."

  "Huh. How does he think he can check on diddly from prison?"

  "An extensive 'con network', I guess. Beats me. Anyway, the fuel bills are a start. I already sent Lenny down to the Get and Go Gas—that's where the receipt was from here in town. It might take some time to find proof he had a cohort here in Sage Bluff. And, the drug problem here could be a separate matter—might not have anything to do with Jake Ward."

  "Bet it does, though."

  "Yeah. And I suspect his accomplice here is one pimply-faced teenager whose teeth chatter every time a patrol car pulls up to the pump."

  "Hey, I know which kid you mean," Arvid said. "Always looks guilty, like he has the whole cash register hidden in his shirt pocket, when I walk in. He's a blond shrimp with an Adam's apple that always has a Band-Aid plastered to it. Like he can't learn to shave. He's not real short, but he's kind of slight built." Arvid snapped his fingers. "Duane, that's his name."

  "You nailed it," Russell grinned. "They're pressuring Jake to open up about his partners, but so far he's so close-mouthed you'd think his lips were super glued. No luck. All he'll say is that it's such a wide network, we'll never close it down."

  "Kind of strange for him to make that comment when he's behind bars himself." Arvid stroked his five o'clock shadow. "Makes me wonder if he isn't even close to being the top rung on the ladder."

  "I'll bet yo
u're dead on there, too." Russell paused. "You could be right that Amber had nothing to do with the drug route, too. The cops up there told him about Amber Reynolds. They say Jake's a big, strapping guy, but he broke down and blubbered like a baby."

  "What about his buddies? They have any reason to hurt her?"

  "Jake insists his friends didn't know Amber. He'd never introduced her to them. Said she dumped him as soon as she figured out he was doing drugs. Poor schmuck hadn't wanted her to know he was dealing, not just using. He didn't think she'd found out. Jake said he always hoped he could make a bundle, get himself straight and maybe make amends."

  "Poop," Arvid said. "Not likely. Druggies lie to themselves all the time. Once you get hooked, the habit just reeeels you in—you can't wriggle off the line."

  Blanche knocked lightly and stuck her head in the door. "Oopsey. I forgot to tell you that Jessie went to Denver, Russell. She said to tell you she'd be home Sunday."

  Russell glared at her, then cocked his thumb at Arvid. "I know, Blanche. Mr. Know-It-All here already told me. Thanks, though."

  "You're welcome," Blanche murmured sweetly, retreating.

  "So, Arvid," Russell said, getting up from the chair. "I'd like to get a step ahead of the FBI agent. And I still think Jessie misheard the Reynolds' girl. I can't believe anybody on our team would be involved in something like that. And like I told Kennedy, no cops on the night crew could even have been in the vicinity." Russell nudged K.D.'s Spiderman tennis shoe with his own large boot.

  "Daaaad," K.D. grumbled. "You almost made me mess up."

  "Sorry, kiddo. But time to pick up. Let's get ready to go, buddy. I'm dropping you at playschool or at your friend, Joshua's, for a couple hours."

  Arvid looked thoughtfully at Russell, remembering how certain Jessie had been about Amber Reynolds' fear of the police, but he said nothing.

  Russell didn't notice Arvid's speculative look. He was bending down with a look of awe at his son's drawing of a horse and rider. He whistled. K. D. looked up at him with a gap-toothed grin. His father gave him a thumbs up, tousled the boy's hair and then straightened. "Well, let's get at it. C'mon, K.D."