Painted Truth

by Lise McClendon

  The cabin belonged to Ray Tantro, at least until last week.

  As I parked the car and walked up the drive under the cooling shade of the aspens, the scene made me stop. This was the cabin of my dreams. Secluded, private, shaded but sunny, hell, it even had a creek, something my fantasy hadn’t conjured but that fit right in. It looked like my uncle Lars’s cabin in the Crazy Mountains, where as a child I went every summer with my cousins and played dominoes and crazy eights and made pearly everlastings into necklaces. Ray, wherever he was, must be missing this cabin, these flowers, the breeze, the smell of sage. Not to mention his mother’s kiss, good sex, and eggs over easy.

  I stood still, trying to feel Ray’s spirit. Would he remain here, was there unfinished business that caused his creative energy to hover, dissatisfied, unable to rest? I strained to feel him, to use my instincts, but again they failed me.

  The air rippled with heat. The yard around the log cabin was dry and lifeless, the grass burned yellow and flowers dead. Ray hadn’t been much of a yardman. The house, made from peeled pine logs, was small, twenty feet wide and fifteen deep, with a green metal roof glinting with sun. The window trim had once been green too but had disintegrated in the intense mountain sun.

  After getting extra lug nuts from the Conoco guys (who were appalled at my story and scurried about guiltily) and dropping off Eden at the gallery, it was close to three before I was out of Jackson again. The traffic was getting worse as the weather got warmer. It was approaching what I considered the best week of the summer—weather-wise if not stress-wise. The first week of August, a time when you didn’t have to put on your down parka in the evening. Somehow the tourists had heard about my weather prediction and come in droves.

  I hadn’t expected to find that the police had sealed off the cabin for evidence, since the death was officially a suicide. Besides, it hadn’t taken place here. I was right. The cabin looked as if Ray had gone into town for a six-pack and was expected back shortly. I circled the house, looking for anything that might tell me something about Ray. In the back a long metal chain was wrapped around a tree and stretched straight into the matted grass. A large plastic bowl sat under the tree and evidence of the canine variety was everywhere. It was all I could do to avoid stepping in the dog shit.

  Where was Ray’s dog? I turned toward the house, hoping the animal hadn’t been left inside. The back door was scratched and chipped by what looked like clawing. A well-used red woven leash hung from the knob. A ratty curtain covered the door’s window on the inside. I tried the knob and the door swung open.

  In rural America people still don’t lock their doors. Especially if they’re not home and there’s not a rapist or axe murderer on the loose. Ray had no reason to fear burglars. He probably owned nothing of value. As I stepped inside and looked around the dim, dirty interior of the cabin, that much was obvious.

  Idyllic setting aside, this place was a dump. The cracked linoleum on the kitchen floor was covered with muddy tracks. A small sink overflowed with dirty dishes, and the cupboard doors hung open, revealing blackened fruit and empty cereal boxes. Junk mail and advertising flyers, a couple of last week’s newspapers, and a postcard postmarked Las Vegas lay scattered on the kitchen table. I read the card quickly:

  “Hi. Laid up here with nothing but TV. Don’t know nobody. Nurses are cute—esp. Tonya! WOW! Feel like shit. Coming this way? G.”

  I tucked the postcard into my pants and tiptoed out of the kitchen that smelled like onions, fungus, and beer.

  The living room was furnished in early Salvation Army. An old burnt orange sofa was covered with yellow dog hairs and fronted by a wobbly metal TV tray on which sat three Pabst Blue Ribbon beer bottles and an empty bag of Cheetos. On the floor more dead soldiers lay on dirt-colored shag carpeting. An old television set with a rabbit-ear antenna was propped up on a fruit crate on the other side of the room.

  No paintings graced the log walls. They were bare but for an auto-shop calendar in the kitchen. The place had an expectant staleness. It waited for the master to return, to come back with another six-pack, to clear his mind, to find a meaning in the chaos.

  A strong Scandinavian urge to hose down the place grabbed me. I fought it off and moved on. A door led to two small bedrooms and a bath. I went into the bathroom first, looking for anything that looked personal. Instead I found Ray had run out of toilet paper and Comet. His medicine cabinet was cleaned out. Not even a toothbrush remained.

  In the back bedroom a single mattress on a Hollywood frame was covered with two old wool blankets, a rumpled white sheet, and a bare pillow. The dresser was wood-grain vinyl. I pulled open the drawers carefully and looked under a couple of pairs of jeans, a mangle of Tshirts and socks, and worn boxer shorts. More of the same sat in a pile in the corner, waiting for laundry day. The closet held cowboy boots, Ray’s most extensive wardrobe item, some eight pairs in various states of disrepair. A jean jacket, a couple hats on the shelf. A spare life, depressing in its dullness.

  The front bedroom was Ray’s studio. North and west light streamed in through the windows, making it bright and giving the artist a view of the Tetons proud in the distance. On the floor Ray had thrown a huge olive tarp held down at the corners with bowling-ball-size rocks. In the middle was a heavy wood easel, a card table on which paints and brushes sat in an untidy heap, and a small wooden stool. On the easel a heavy green drape covered a canvas.

  I stood in the doorway, my heart pounding. This was the artist’s sanctum, his place of imagination, the heart of his soul. Here Ray exercised his talent, searched his subconscious. I had

  been inside dozens of artists’ studios, including Martin Ditolla’s, and never gotten the charge I felt at the door to Ray’s studio. He was alive in here yet. He would be alive in his paintings forever.

  I stepped inside the room. The tarp crunched, an awkward arrangement over the carpeting. It was matted down in the center and in a path to the door. The folding card table full of supplies caught my eye, the mashed tubes of paint, the smeary palette still full of puddles of tints. I picked up a big brush, over an inch across with a long, batonlike handle. It had a hefty feel to it, substantial. I waved it around experimentally and set it down. I stared harder at the table. All the brushes had color on them, paint dried on the bristles. Most artists are compulsive about cleaning their brushes, caressing them with paint thinner until the bristles are spotless. There were close to twenty brushes of all sizes, all ruined with hardened oil paint. Ray was awfully careless with his supplies. But then, he wouldn’t be using these brushes again.

  I lifted the drape off the easel carefully. The hope of finding a masterpiece in an unlikely place was the curse of the art dealer; a surge of anticipation charged through me. This could be it, the moment that changed my life, that made my reputation, that set me for life. As I threw the heavy cloth back to reveal the canvas, my heart sunk. Blank, completely empty, untouched by the hand of the artist.

  Blank as Ray Tantro’s last twenty years.

  I MADE TWO phone calls at Dornan’s before checking my lug nuts and heading back into town. With the best hamburger in a basket and best view in America, Dornan’s is Moose’s restaurant, an unimposing ranch-style place attached to the wine shop and general store. An old-fashioned back bar is its main attraction—that and the incomparable view of the incomparable Tetons. I didn’t come out here enough, I thought, walking through the airy dining room to the pay phone in the back. A couple of cowboy types sat at the bar, sipping beer.

  High Mountain Veterinary served as the county animal shelter on the side. The woman who answered had the warm voice of an animal lover.

  “I’m curious about a dog that may be up for adoption. It belonged to Ray Tantro, the man who died in the fire last week,” I said.

  “Yes, how sad that was,” the woman replied. “He brought the dog in early in the week. Monday, I think. I guess he planned to do it then.” She gave a shuddering noise. “The poor thing acts like it knows. Always whining. S
uch a sweet dog.”

  “Has anyone been in to claim him?”

  “Not a soul. We talked to Chief Frye about it and he didn’t really know what to do.”

  “Can I put my name in, then? I can’t get him—oh, what’s his name?”

  “She’s a she. Saffron. ‘Cause she’s a yellow lab, I guess. He called her Ronnie. God, I’m getting all choked up now.”

  I let her blow her nose, then continued. “I can’t pick her up right away. And there’s still a possibility somebody might claim her.” I gave her my name and phone number and told her to call me if anybody came in to claim Saffron.

  My next call was to Margaret Elliot, the county coroner. She was reluctant to speak to me, but finally, with effort, I made an appointment to see her at home that evening.

  Out in the parking lot the sun seared the dull eggplant paint on the Saab Sister. A swarm of biting flies hovered over two kids drawing with a stick in the dirt. The air smelled of pine and clover and sage. I tipped my face to the sun and made a promise to myself to enjoy summer. It wouldn’t last forever. It would disappear, replaced by a familiar chill that colored the aspens

  golden and brought a violent end to the burst of flowers with a hammer of frost. I opened the door of the Saab and got in. Summer would have to wait.

  EVEN THE FACT that someone had illegally parked in my private alley parking spot, causing me to drive around for fifteen minutes to find somewhere reasonably close to the gallery and triggering a summer-afternoon craving for a gin and tonic—even all that couldn’t quash the feeling, the hunch that had formed in my mind on my drive back from Moose. All I had to do was prove it.

  I bounded up the four worn wooden steps into the Second Sun. Preoccupied, I hadn’t looked in the windows or I might have circled the block and gone up the back stairs as usual. Inside the air was warm with laughter and salsa. Two groups of tourists roamed the left side of the gallery, their heads together. On the other side Paolo was dumping a huge bag of tortilla chips into a wooden bowl next to Eden. Wearing a blue work shirt that belonged to me, she drank something cool and talked to a dark-haired man with his back to me. Looking at the art on the walls was Martin Ditolla in his wheelchair chatting with another local artist, Jacob Laughlin.

  My running shoes made my approach next to silent; I was grateful. Maybe I could escape this impromptu party and collapse upstairs by myself. I had to think, my mind seemed to be exploding with half-formed ideas. I patted Martin on the arm as I passed. He smiled up to me.

  “There she is! Alix is here, everybody.” Martin’s voice boomed around the hard surfaces of the gallery. Even the tourists turned for an instant to recognize my arrival. Martin’s sandy-gone-gray hair was pulled into a ponytail above his blond beard. He looked healthy and tanned. Jacob saluted me with his drink.

  I stopped midstep. Maybe a drink wouldn’t hurt. I was so jacked up from this day. From out of nowhere I could hear the lug nuts again, falling into the hubcap. With the perspective of a half-dozen hours the incident seemed clearer, the intent obvious and menacing. The scene on the road changed in my head. The Saab teetered on the edge of the asphalt, then plunged off, tumbling, crashing toward the Snake River below. Inside I was a Ping-Pong ball. A cold sweat climbed up my back.

  “Alix, my dear,” Jacob said. “How is the tourist trade treating you?”

  Like a dead skunk in the middle of the road. I smiled at Laughlin. “Peachy, Jake. And you?”

  The man talking to Eden was now looking at me. All right, a drink, a few chips. It wouldn’t kill me. My throat was on fire anyway. Martin had a club soda in his hand, balancing it on his knee.

  “How about a drink, Alix?”

  I jerked my head. That voice, God! It was Carl. His clipped, police-duty haircut was grown out and he’d grown a mustache, a rather nice one. His tanned face crinkled into a smile. “You look surprised.”

  Eden and Paolo had smirks on their faces. “I—I’d love a drink,” I said, hoping to regain my composure. “What are you having?”

  “Gin, vodka, tonic, soda, limes, or any combination,” Paolo said, glancing at his desk, which had been transformed into Party Central. He looked over his shoulder at the customers. “Carl, can you do it? I’ve got some work to do.” He stepped away. We could hear his broad conversation with a couple admiring a print of the Tetons.

  “Urn. Gin and tonic, okay?” I ran my hand through my hair, suddenly aware of the grease still on my fingers from the tire work and the rank smell wafting from my armpits. “I’ve got to put my backpack down. I’ll be back in a second.”

  In the tiny bathroom I dug out a brush and tried to do something with my hair. Pushing it behind my ears and trimming my bangs once a month was the extent of its pampering. At least I had a little color in my cheeks. Probably from blushing at the sight of Carl. Had I forgotten he was arriving today? Had I missed a message? I tried to remember when I’d looked at notes on my desk. I found an old peach lipstick in the bottom of my backpack and tried to apply it to my cracked lips. I got most of the grease off my hands after three washings. Dirt and grease clung to my jeans, and ugly sweat stains darkened my short-sleeved plaid shirt. I splashed water on my chest, feeling it run down my invisible cleavage. No wonder old lady Tantro hadn’t opened up to me; I looked like a bum.

  Eden, Martin, and Jacob had moved to the front of the gallery, where two of Martin’s pieces were prominently displayed. I still hadn’t talked to Martin about the prints. He was probably under the assumption we were still dance partners in the great ballroom of fame and fortune. I hated the thought of telling him the whole thing was off. Well, I’d been doing a great job avoiding it so far. I didn’t know what Jacob Laughlin thought he was doing here. He came around now and again to try to get us to show his elk-bugling stuff, but we always told him no. He looked sunburned today, his round jowls soft as he downed his drink.

  Carl handed me the drink, the glass sweating and bobbing with a lime. He pulled me closer, giving me a small kiss on the lips. “It’s good to see you. I wish I could say you look the same.”

  I took a sip. The gin charged through me. “I’m sorry, I… Did you call?”

  “Three days ago. Didn’t you get the message?”

  I shook my head. “I mean, I knew you were coming. I’ve just been busy.”

  “Did you have your lesson today?”

  “Lesson?” Yes, by God, I learned a lesson today. Check your lug nuts before driving.

  “Kayaking.” Carl examined my face, his eyebrows together. “Last week didn’t scare you off, did it?”

  “I’ve been too busy. I had planned on going today, but Eden was with me then—” I stopped, toying with the idea of telling him about the near-disaster and wondering how much I would have to explain. “Have you ever heard of lug nuts spontaneously loosening themselves?”

  Carl frowned, deeper than before but not enough to mar the golden tan of his face. He was wearing exceptionally far-out clothes for him, baggy, knee-length shorts and rafting sandals and a T-shirt that read “A River Runs Through Me.” He looked—dare I say it? He looked kind of groovy—for a cop.

  “You’re looking healthy,” I said, giving him an approving smile.

  He reached out and took my chin in his hand, tipping it up toward the lights. “You didn’t tell me about this.”

  I pulled away. “What? You can hardly tell anymore.” I touched my eyes self-consciously. The yellow and green had almost faded. Or I was just getting used to it.

  “Looks pretty crooked to me. When are you getting it fixed?”

  My hand flew to my nose. “Fixed?”

  “The zigzag. I had one like that once. A drug bust that didn’t go quite the way it was planned. It hurt like hell.”

  “Is it that bad?”

  Carl shrugged. “Didn’t you notice?”

  I opened my mouth to explain my mirror time h¡. en pretty limited when Eden grabbed my elbow, bumping me so that I almost splashed my drink down my shirt. “She has been soooo wonderf
ul to me. I bet she didn’t tell you that, did she? Well, she has.” She gave Carl a drunken grin and slipped her arm through mine. “We have some kind of weird cosmic destiny, us two. Don’t we, Alix? Like those Norse gods, we’re headed across the rainbow bridge on a grand adventure together.”

  Carl and I stared at her, swaying with her drink held high in a one-woman toast.

  “You’ve been reading too many ‘Mighty Thors,’ Eden,” I mumbled. What the hell was she talking about? I forgot all about my nose. Eden had that effect on me. I forgot about everything else but her problems. Weird cosmic what? Oh, shit. Where was Paolo?

  I saw my partner talking to another couple with surfer hair and Day-Glo hiking boots about some local pottery. Californicators, no doubt. For a moment I had an urge to march over there, take Paolo by the ear, and tell him what I thought of his mouth. He must have told Eden about selling his share of the gallery. He had told her she could be my partner. Then Eden pried her hand off my arm and staggered away. Carl was looking at my nose again, and my lips. I felt my anger dampened by gin and fatigue and the immediate presence of Carl Mendez.

  “Listen, can we get out of here?” Carl finished off his drink and looked at mine like he wished it were empty. “You want to get something to eat?”

  CARL WAITED FOR me while I showered, blew-dry my hair, and changed into clean pants and a low-necked silk blouse that I had been saving for him. I even put on mascara to take his eyes off my schnoz. I stuck Ray’s postcard on my dresser mirror before throwing the jeans into the laundry basket. By that time it was seven o’clock. Carl helped me on with my dad’s old hunting jacket, my favorite comfort. He seized the opportunity to nuzzle my neck, then turned me around for a real kiss.

  “God, I missed you,” he said. He touched his nose to mine, rabbitlike, which caused me to jump back in pain.