The Hanging

by Wendy Hornsby

  “Thanks,” I told Early. “Sorry she interrupted your weekend.”

  I put the phone in its base and turned to Jean-Paul. “Sorry about that.”

  “A problem?”

  “Not for me. Looks like folks at my former network think I have something to tell them about that poor man last night. But I don’t.”

  He shrugged; such is the way of things.

  I said, “Let’s see what we can find to eat.”

  Because we were having fish, we chose a Pinot Gris to drink. Holding glasses of wine, we stood in front of the open refrigerator and talked about putting together a meal from the contents. He volunteered to make risotto with grilled asparagus, and that left me to take care of salad and fish.

  I picked up the wrapped fish and weighed it in my hands.

  “I still don’t know how to cook for one person,” I said. “There’s probably enough here to feed half the neighborhood.”

  “Were you married for a long time?” He was bending down, checking the height of the flame under the sauté pan he’d chosen. He dropped butter into the pan to melt.

  “Legally married, not very long,” I said, washing salad greens. “But we were together for a long time before we got around to the legalities.”

  I put the grater attachment in the food processor and dropped in the chunk of Parmesan he needed for his risotto.

  “When we met, Mike was already talking about retirement, and I wasn’t. Wasn’t even close.”

  I whirled the cheese. “He’d bought land way up on the north coast and built a little house, getting ready. A couple more years, he said, and he was going. But I couldn’t work from up there, and I had to work. He thought we should marry, but I told him we couldn’t until we figured out the geography. So we just stayed happily together in the meantime.”

  “But you did marry,” he said, pouring Arborio rice into the melted butter.

  “We got married the day the doctors told him he had cancer.”

  “So that you could take care of him?”

  “So that we could take care of each other.” I started slicing avocado. “And you? Were you married for a long time?”

  “I knew Marian all of my life,” he said, stirring white wine into the browned rice. “We grew up together; she was my best friend. From the time we were children, we knew—everyone knew—that we would always be together.”

  He looked up at me. “She was the first girl I ever kissed.”

  “What happened to her?” I asked.

  “Aneurysm,” he said. “She was fine one minute, the next she was gone. Someone at her office heard her say, ‘Oh!’ and that was all.”

  For a long moment, we were both quiet. He had his back to me, adding hot chicken stock a bit at a time while he stirred the rice. I went over and stood behind him, put a hand on his shoulder. When he turned, he had the same shy smile that I had seen earlier.

  “I have a terrible confession for a Frenchman to make,” he said. “May I tell you?”

  “If you think it’s necessary.”

  “Yes, I think that it might be,” he said. He took a sip of wine.

  “This is an excellent wine,” he said. “And I hope to enjoy a bit more of it. But, when I consider driving back home down that crazy road I drove up on, I think it would be a good idea to say something now, instead of later, when it might be too late. A little too much wine and I might never get home again.”

  “Then I’d better hear your confession.”

  “Everyone expects French men to be magnificent lovers.”

  “Are you saying you’re not?”

  “No, no. Not that.” He chuckled. “My wife never complained. In fact, she was quite enthusiastic.”

  “But?”

  “I told you she was the first girl I ever kissed?” When I nodded, he said, “And she was the only woman I have ever slept with.”

  He watched for my reaction. The only thing I could think to do or say was to refill his wineglass. That seemed to be sufficient answer for him.

  It was a sweet moment, until the telephone rang.

  I glanced at the caller ID screen: Lana Howard, my former boss.

  “Damn,” I muttered.

  “Them again?”

  “Yes, them.”

  “Do you need to take the call?”

  I reached for the phone. “Only to put a stop to it.”

  I didn’t bother with hello.

  “So, Lana, what’s up?”

  “I wasn’t sure you’d take my call, Maggie.”

  “I thought probably the only way to get you and Ida to stop calling was to see what’s on your mind.”

  “What does Ida want?” she snapped.

  “Ask Ida.”

  “Well honey,” she started, and then unwound some platitudes—we all miss you, you have every right to be upset—the full laundry list. I interrupted her mid-sentence.

  “Lana, I’m in the middle of dinner.”

  “Shall I call later?”

  “Please don’t. Let’s hear what you have to say and be done with it.”

  “I want you to do a film for me,” she said.

  “About the late Park Holloway.”

  “Yes. Who better than you, Maggie dear?”

  “You have balls, Lana,” I said. I glanced at Jean-Paul and caught him grinning as he eavesdropped. I winked at him.

  “Think about it, Maggie,” she said. “You can try to get backing to do it on your own. But if you make the film for me you’ll have full access to all of the resources the network can offer, and you know they are significant. We both know this story is ripe, and we both know that there are probably half a hundred hungry folks out there ready to pluck it. But I want you. What will it take to bring you home?”

  Home? I wanted to tell Lana to go to hell. I had worked in television for a long time and knew very well that shows get canceled and people get dumped all the time; it had happened to me more than once. Between network gigs, I had also worked as an independent filmmaker and knew that being out there alone was an even dicier way to earn a living. But the ragged way Lana handled the cancellation still left me feeling raw three months later.

  On that particular afternoon, I had gone up to Lana’s office with Uncle Max, who was my agent as well as my attorney, expecting to sign the new contract that he, Lana and the network had drafted just the week before, with raises for my crew as part of the package; an early Christmas present. Instead, I got the ax and was left to tell my co-workers that they were laid off. When I walked in to deliver the bad news, they had been icing celebratory champagne, waiting to hear their raises were coming.

  That crew was the only reason I didn’t immediately hang up on Lana. Fergie was in financial extremis and I couldn’t carry her, Guido was out huckstering, looking for free-lance jobs. The others were in similar straits. So, I took a sip of wine, and took a deep breath.

  “I will consider doing the film through the network, but only on the condition that you hire back my production team at the pay rate that was established in the contract you reneged on in December.”

  “I’ll call Max and we’ll get started on the contracts right away.”

  “You are right about the topic being ripe, Lana,” I said. “I already have Fergie doing research. So keep this in mind: yours isn’t the only call I’ve had today. From you I learned that handshake agreements mean nothing, so you would be advised not to dick around about getting contracts drafted and signed, because I will take the first offer that meets my conditions, whether it’s your offer or someone else’s.”

  “We’ll get it done, honey,” she said. “Have I ever let you down?”

  “I hope you aren’t expecting an answer to that. Good-bye.” I ended the call.

  Jean-Paul seemed thoroughly amused.

  “Another quick call,” I said to him, dialing. “And then I’m turning off the phones.” I reached out and touched his cheek, he took my hand and kissed my palm. “For the rest of the night.”

  I dialed a
number that went directly to Max’s message system. Saves a lot of time. I told him Lana would call him, if she hadn’t already, and told him my terms to sign with her. Then I turned off the phones.

  “Remind me never to argue with you,” Jean-Paul said, with a wry smile, a little shrug.

  “Might be worth it,” I said. “There’s a lot to be said for making up afterward.”

  Chapter 11

  Sunday morning Jean-Paul and I had brunch on the beach in Ventura before continuing up the coast to Santa Barbara. Lew Kaufman had mentioned that Franz von Wilde, AKA Frankie Weidermeyer, the sculptor whose work Holloway had raised money to buy, exhibited in a gallery on State Street. I thought it would be worth a trip to take a look at the gallery, find out what we could about von Wilde, and with luck, find some link between him and Holloway. An added benefit to being away from the house was that we were also avoiding news-hounds who wanted to talk to me.

  There were over half a dozen galleries on State Street, so Jean-Paul parked at Anapamu Street and we started walking. The day was brisk. Though the sky was still clear overhead, we could see dark clouds gathering offshore, the promised Monday storm approaching.

  As we crossed an intersection, we were buffeted by a cold blast straight off the ocean. Jean-Paul looped my hand into the crook of his elbow and leaned his shoulder against mine.

  “Are you warm enough?” he asked.

  “Out of the wind, yes.”

  I wished for a jacket that covered my butt, but I had chosen a short leather one because it looked good. Jean-Paul, wearing the suit he had arrived in the day before, with the cashmere V-neck sweater from his gym bag over his open-necked dress shirt, no tie, was effortlessly elegant. How the French pull that off is a great mystery to me, so why had I even tried?

  He was easy to be with. Maybe too easy. Once again, there was that problem of geography. Jean-Paul told me that after his wife died their friends had urged him to accept the consular post in Los Angeles as a change of scenery for both him and his son, Dominic. And it had been good for them both.

  What he did not say, and did not need to say, was that this posting wasn’t a permanent assignment. His family, his home, his profession were in France, and one day he would go back there. I needed to keep that in mind, because my home, my family, my work were in California. But in the meantime, it had been lovely to fall asleep in a man’s arms again.

  The first two galleries we visited had never heard of Franz von Wilde or Frank Weidermeyer. But at the third gallery, after the owner was finally persuaded that we did not want a melodramatic seascape to hang over our sofa, we got our first break.

  “Frankie,” she said. “More chutzpah than talent. When he was a kid, I let him put some of his little drawings in my window. He’d stick a great big price tag on them and people would think that was cute and then they’d come on into the store.”

  She leaned in closer to us. “The thing is, he wasn’t kidding about the price he wanted, and cute lasts only so long. But his mother was one of my best clients, so I put up with him.”

  “His mother was a client?” I said. “I thought she had a gallery of her own.”

  “She does now.” She waved to someone walking by on the street. “Around here, we have winter people and summer people, and all of them come for our weather. Clarice and Frankie were summer people. About the time he got out of high school, they moved here permanently.”

  “Where did they live the rest of the year?”

  “Somewhere in the east. I’m not sure they ever said.” She leaned forward, conspiratorial. “Clarice never said anything about her private life. I never met a husband, but money didn’t seem to be a problem.”

  The woman was gossipy, a boon for us. Better yet, she never introduced herself, saving me the need to reciprocate. When your name pops up on the news, people can get notional. It’s better to stay anonymous.

  “Clarice Weidermeyer?” I asked.

  “No. Her name is Snow,” she said. “I have no idea who Weidermeyer is. Or was.”

  “Do you think she opened the gallery to exhibit her son’s work?” I asked.

  “Good Lord, no.” The question amused her. “She knows what she’s doing. She lets Frankie display a few things there because she’s his mother. In the local art market, Clarice Snow is at the very top of the heap. The very top.”

  She never asked why we were being nosy. There was no one in her gallery, so maybe she was just entertaining us to fill some space. We thanked her, promised we’d think about a seascape, and walked on down the street.

  “Did you find out something useful?” Jean-Paul asked, taking my arm.

  “More than I hoped for,” I said.

  He glanced at his watch and asked, “Would you like a coffee?”

  “I would.” My hands were cold.

  He told me that he spoke with his son every Sunday evening. In Paris, it was already evening. We found a small espresso bar in old El Paseo, a 1920s-era shopping plaza a half block off the beaten path, and claimed an outdoor table under a propane heater.

  My telephone had been buzzing in my pocket all morning. While Jean-Paul spoke with Dom, I took out my phone to see who had called. Max left a message: Lana was meeting with him first thing Monday morning; he had called both Fergie and Guido and they were fine with the terms he would demand. Ecstatic is the word he used. Some friends called; Ida Green again, twice, and Roger Tejeda. I called Roger.

  “Important business first,” he said as greeting. “My mom held off on the tamales until this evening so that you and your mom could come. Four-thirty, five work for you?”

  I told him I could probably make it, but could I bring someone?

  “Of course, Mags. We’re all dying to meet him.” He dropped his voice. “And hear all about last night.”

  “Dear God.” I needed to take a few breaths before I asked, “Who’s the spy?”

  “Let me see.” He cleared his throat. “When you spoke to your mother this morning, she heard his voice in the background. She mentioned this to your daughter when they spoke afterward. Casey passed this to Kate when Kate called to invite her and her roommate for dinner.”

  “And everyone will be at your house tonight?”

  “Of course. Max is picking up your mom, so don’t worry about that.”

  “You’re some fine detective, Roger,” I said. “What can we bring?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Santa Barbara.”

  “Wine, then.”

  I called Max. He had the grace to say nothing about Jean-Paul, though I’m sure he had been included in that particular information loop. Whenever he showed up with a new woman, which happened fairly regularly, I did not tease him or comment about her, unless asked.

  He told me that he had given Lana a thirty-six-hour option, for which she paid handsomely. They should have contracts ready to sign by Monday night.

  When I put my phone in my pocket, Jean-Paul was gazing into his coffee with the strangest expression on his face.

  “Is Dom all right?”

  A little head wag—maybe yes, maybe no—was accompanied by a puzzled smile.

  “Dom told me that it was all right with him that I spent last night with you.”

  “You told him?”

  “He knew,” he said, and held up both palms, meaning how is that possible?

  I thought for a moment. “My guess: my mom heard your voice at my house this morning, she told Casey, who speaks with her grandmother Élodie in Paris every Sunday, who then called whom?”

  “My mother,” he said, all things suddenly clear, if mystifying just the same. “Who told my sister, at whose home my son is staying.”

  “It’s a small world, Jean-Paul.” I reached for his hand. “Did your son also tell you that my friends are expecting you for dinner tonight at their home?”

  He laughed. “No, he seems to have missed that. But tomorrow I’m sure he’ll tell me whether I had a good time.”

  The Snow Gallery was on De l
a Guerra, two doors up from State Street. Our chatty gallery owner down the way had been correct about this gallery being the top of the heap. Not a seascape to be seen. Instead, on a freestanding screen facing the front doors, there was a pair of beautiful Millard Sheets Pomona Valley landscapes that dated from the 1930s, a watercolor and an oil on canvas, as well as one of his colorful renderings of a stack of rickety wooden Bunker Hill tenements and their inhabitants painted during the same decade.

  Jean-Paul and I stood in front of them, gawking, for a long, quiet moment. I did not recognize any of those paintings specifically, but I knew the artist, and liked his work enough to have invested in a good-quality print of a painting very similar to the oil-on-canvas landscape. In the print hanging on my living room wall, the background was the sensuous golden hills that are typical of California: their tones were like sun-ripened human flesh, their outline reminiscent of the curves of a naked woman lying on her side. In the foreground there were a red barn, a windmill, and two grazing horses. It was late in the day and the shadows were long. The gallery’s painting suggested the same time of day, but there were three horses, no windmill, and the hills were seen from a slightly different angle.

  “You have that one.” Jean-Paul pointed at the gallery’s version.

  “Same artist, different painting,” I said. “And mine is just a print.”

  “You like this very much?”

  I nodded. “Very much. None of the places in these three paintings exists anymore as you see them. Plowed under, stuccoed over, every one.”

  He peered more closely at the tiny price card posted on the screen beside the paintings. Wagging his hand, he turned to me and said, “Oh-la-la.”

  The bite was high-five figures, each.

  “Those are very fine pieces, sir.”

  The woman who suddenly appeared beside us was exquisite, ethereally so. Eurasian maybe, or Asian with good eyelid surgery. She was slender, wearing a simple black jersey sheath with a gold chain draped around her narrow hips. Her sleek blue-black hair was fastened at the back of her neck and fell in a straight silken shaft halfway to her waist.