Painted Truth

by Lise McClendon

  “Ow! Shit.” I held my nose, feeling the crook at the bridge and surveying the damage.

  “You’ve got to get that fixed,” he said. “I bet you can’t even breathe out of that one side.”

  “I have developed quite a snore.” I grinned, the pain receding. “You may want to sleep in another room.”

  He pulled my hand. “I can stand a little snore.”

  I looked at my watch, then the door. “Can we eat kind of fast? I have .. .” He frowned. “I’m sorry. I made this appointment for eight.”

  He walked abruptly to the window. “We don’t have to do this.”

  I watched his tense back, silhouetted against the glass. “Dinner, you mean?”

  He sighed and turned around. “This visit, vacation. I can tell you weren’t expecting me.” He glanced at the pile of blankets on the couch.

  “Eden is staying here, but it’s temporary. She had nowhere else to go.” The double bed in my room was the only place for him. I guess I had made up my mind on Carl for the evening. It would be nice to lie next to his warm body again. But somehow the fatigue and anxiety in my brain wouldn’t let me grasp the anticipation. Where was the electricity of last summer? My mind reeled with the events of the last week that I hadn’t told him. Where would I start? The prospect of it tired me more. “The appointment shouldn’t last too long. I have a lot of things to tell you.”

  He came toward me, moving slowly in his own fluid way. “I have a few things to tell you too.”

  I held out my hand. “Come on, I’m starving.”

  BY NINE O’CLOCK the streets of Jackson crawled with tourists, streaming into and out of bars and restaurants, shopping bags on their wrists, sandals and hiking boots and cowboy boots on their feet. The glitter on their new shirts caught the streetlights as the sky turned purple. Carl and I fell into step silently, dodging shoulders and children lost in the murky shadows of the crowds. We walked with hands in pockets, heads down, thoughts of the coroner’s meeting pounding against our skulls.

  Carl had read the autopsy report four or five times, memorizing it while I questioned Margaret Elliot. She lived in a small upstairs apartment in an old house near the playground, an apartment filled with old-lady things like her spoon collection and china poodles from all over the world. Margaret didn’t seem old, but her collections dated her. I made small talk about poodles and spoons, telling her I was a collector too. There is a bond, an understanding of the irrationality of possession, between collectors.

  As we talked, not necessarily about Ray Tantro, I watched Margaret. She had been pretty once and still took care of herself, even though she had the blocky backside of a desk dweller. Tonight she wore a silver nylon jogging suit that looked brand-new. It matched her hair in an uncanny way that made you thankful for that slash of pink lipstick on her mouth. Her bridge glasses, tinted lavender, added color.

  She was opening a case to show me a china dog when I noticed we were the same height. I guess it wouldn’t have been unusual, but it struck me like a blow to the back of the head that we were not that different. Single, living alone, professional women. My first reaction was to reject that. I was not like Margaret Elliot. I would not grow old alone. I would not wear bridge glasses. I would not crochet.

  But stoics are strong believers in fate. The trade winds took the Vikings wherever they blew. I could learn to collect spoons. I could start perming my hair and go on bus trips to Las Vegas. Yeah, right. And pigs could fly.

  All these thoughts, and the lack of a breakthrough from the autopsy report, led to a mild depression as Carl and I walked through the crowds back to my apartment. He told me he thought the autopsy results were conclusive, from a law enforcement point of view. Tantro had died from his drug and alcohol binge. The fires were just a coincidence.

  “Do you want to go get a drink or something?” I said, pausing at the corner of the square. The night sky was a melted velvet color, soft and high. Wood smoke hung tangy and motionless in the air. A rangy cowboy with his tiny girlfriend wrapped under his arm laughed as he fell off the boardwalk into the street She reached down, took off her high heels, and he swept her up into his arms.

  “I gotcha, darlin’!” he said as her hair fell in a curly blond waterfall. Her laugh filled the air. “I won’t let the crocodiles bite yer ankles!”

  Carl took my hand. His was warm, despite the chill in the air. He backed me against the pillar of the overhang next to a sportswear store on the corner, pressing close. I felt my breath catch in my throat. “I’d rather go back to your place,” he said.

  He smelled like aftershave and wine. With a fingertip I touched his short, dark mustache that hid flavors of oregano and pepper. He was a handsome man, there was no denying that. But he’d changed since last summer, and there was a year under my belt as well. I couldn’t say, if anyone asked, how badly I needed him. How badly I wanted him.

  Over Carl’s shoulder I watched the cowboy weave his way through the crowd and under the antler arch on the corner of the square. The girl kicked her bare feet, her tight dress inching toward her crotch as passing tourists’ eyes bulged and they whispered behind their hands.

  “Tell me again,” I said.

  “What?”

  “The basic stuff about him. From the report.”

  Carl sighed and stepped away. “Okay. Male, Caucasian, between thirty and fifty years old, weight approximately one fifty, height five foot eight, old fractures in right femur, left tibia, clavicle, and left thumb, enlarged liver, poor dental health …”

  “Wait. How tall are you?”

  “Five eleven. Why?”

  I grabbed his hand. “Come on.”

  I unlocked the gallery and picked up the phone at my desk, rifling through the phone book. I found Esther Tantro’s number, looked at my watch, and dialed. After four rings she answered, a wary voice.

  “Mrs. Tantro, this is Alix Thorssen. I talked to you this morning about Ray’s paintings.” She murmured. “I was thinking about that picture of Ray you showed me. The basketball squad? What position did Ray play? I’m just curious.”

  “Position? I—I…”

  “Like forward, guard, center? Was he the center, Mrs. Tantro?”

  “Let me think. I believe so. Isn’t that where the tallest boy plays? He was tall by then. Some of the other boys passed him by later. But then he was the tallest.”

  “I remember that in the picture. How tall was he?” I held my breath.

  She sighed. “I’ll never forget the day he passed six feet. He was fifteen. Couldn’t even drive yet and don’t think he didn’t point that out. Used to be the best apple picker we had. So tall, with those long arms.”

  She rambled but I only half listened. Six feet tall. Ray was six feet tall, or more. Not five eight like the burned corpse. I tried to sound sorry about his death again and hung up. Carl stood in the doorway to my office, arms folded.

  “He was six foot. At least.” I spun, grinning.

  Carl frowned. “So. It wasn’t him. Who’s the crisp?”

  My heart was pounding, and I had a strong urge to put my arms around Carl to celebrate. I gave in, pulling him close. I squeezed his chest and let out a little squeal of delight. Ray Tantro was still alive! He hadn’t died in the fire at Timberwolf Arts. He could still talk and paint and tell me the secrets of the magic profession of light and illusion.

  Carl kissed me. I remembered last summer, when his lips tasted like honey. For a moment Ray Tantro receded as Carl’s mustache tickled my upper lip. Then I pushed out of his arms and spun around. Grinning, I turned back and held out my hands. Carl took them and pulled me in. “The question is … Where is Ray Tantro?”

  9

  CHARLIE FRYE, IN all honesty, was not a bad person. A Republican with a crew cut is not necessarily bad. Not at all. Frye had grown up on a ranch in Idaho, just over the Tetons, grew potatoes with his father and grandfather, then spent his entire adult life selling auto, home, and life insurance to good old boys like himself here in Jackso
n Hole.

  He and his friends were the hidden people of Jackson. They sold feed, fixed axles, wired family rooms, wrangled a horse or two, and generally stayed out of the tourist business. They were normal, everyday people, hardworking and not particularly ambitious. They weren’t interested in skiing or eating gourmet food. They wanted a good life and believed they had found a piece of it here in paradise. They put up with the rest of us because they had to.

  Frye’s office in the town hall faced north. The room was grim and stale with the Venetian blinds half closed. Someone had run their fingers across the slats, emphasizing the filth. The morning was dull and cold, not like August is supposed to be. I tried not to smell the banana peel in the wastebasket. It was too early in the day to gag.

  I stood in front of Charlie’s desk and crossed my arms. “Ray Tantro is still alive.”

  Charlie sipped his coffee, amused. “You see him, did you?”

  “The man in the fire was five eight,” I said, laying my hands on the piles on his desk. The police chief responded by grabbing his plastic coffee mug and sitting back in his chair. “Tantro was—is—at least six feet tall. His mother confirmed that.”

  Charlie Frye smiled, slyly. “She just offered that up, huh? Little Ray was six feet tall?”

  “I asked her.”

  Charlie was casual today in a frayed, blue-and-white plaid cotton western shirt with pearl buttons, turquoise string tie, and polyester jeans. “Isn’t this a little out of your line?” he said between gulps of coffee.

  “You hired me to appraise his paintings,” I said. ‘That involves doing a bio on the artist. I spoke to his mother to try to get more information.”

  “And she spontaneously offered that her son was six feet tall? What, pray tell, does that have to do with his paintings?”

  “Did you ask her?”

  Frye slammed his mug down on the desk, sloshing the last drops onto a sheaf of forms. “Don’t push me, girl. We got trained detectives on this case—”

  “Like Gary Hayden? What’s he trained in? Shoe shining? You said yourself your men were more interested in jaywalking. Come on, Charlie.”

  Frye was standing behind the desk, turning purple.

  “Charlie, please. Look at the autopsy,” I pleaded. “The man in the Timberwolf was only five eight.”

  His brush of gray hair had been recently mowed, revealing a white scar near his left temple that had begun to glow like a headlight. The pulse in his temple throbbed, nearly audible. With concerted effort, mostly in his neck, his violet shade receded, ending at his fingertips with a quiver.

  He took a shallow breath. “So you said. And the so-called real Ray Tantro was a fucking skyscraper.” He leaned forward menacingly. I stepped back before we could crack heads. “Now. You got the appraisal finished?”

  Jesus God, the man was impossible. With his tantrum checked, I felt my temperature rising. I clenched my fists and made myself look through the Venetian blinds at the bicycles and tubs of flowers and grayness that had cloaked the town in the night. The first day of August and the weather should be great. The bleakness wasn’t much better looking than Charlie Frye.

  My hands shook. I stuffed them in my pockets. “I’m working on it. That’s how I found this out. Talk to Mrs. Tantro.”

  “I have. She identified him. She had him goddamned cremated. You want me to tell her that, maybe, just maybe, they shake-and-baked the wrong guy? That some artsy-fartsy says, Oops, you fried the wrong guy? Wait a sec, your loving son may still be walking and talking?”

  He stepped out from behind his desk, staring at a group of certificates on the wall proclaiming him president of Kiwanis 1985, Good Citizen of the Year 1989, Rotarian Extraordinaire.

  He turned to me with a Father Knows Best look. “Let the guy go, Alix. He’s dead.”

  I stared at him, unwilling to engage in the comment artsy-fartsy. I thought I knew Charlie Frye. When I’d worked for him at the insurance agency he’d never been more than a redneck good ol’ boy, greasing the way for the flow of money, or, if he smelled a rat, turning off the spigots. But this was different. “He’s not dead. Don’t you see, Charlie? He’s alive. Somebody else died in that fire.”

  Frye squinted, his bushy eyebrows wiggling. He crossed his arms and squinted at me. “You want to know what I see? I see a private citizen with a bee in her little bonnet, trying to stir up the hive. Go back to your artsy friends, your little art gallery, those rich fags and hippies.” He walked back behind his desk and sat down, swiveling royally. “This is big-league stuff. Let the boys handle it.”

  I felt my color rising. My throat swelled with emotion. “The boys?”

  Frye reached over and patted my hand. “And brush your hair while you’re at it. You’re much prettier when you brush your hair.” He picked up a form from a pile on his desk and began to read.

  My breath was shallow and tight. My ears pounded. I shut my eyes tight for a second, trying to stay in control. Think, girl, think. His words swirled in my head instead: You’re prettier… brush your hair. I’d owned my own business so long that this kind of dismissive chauvinism hit me like a bitter wind in August.

  “Charlie Frye, I’m going to say it one more time,” I said just above a whisper, the only way I could talk at all. My shoulders were hunched, tight, and I felt like I could explode. “The man in the fire was not Ray Tantro. You made a mistake. Ray Tantro is still alive. If you choose not to acknowledge that mistake, it’ll be on your head.”

  Frye folded his hands together. His supercilious calm repulsed me. “His relatives identified him. We had an inquest. It’s over. Everyone is satisfied.”

  “Everyone but me.” My voice was low, and if it hadn’t been wavering it would have been hard. It rose suddenly as I spit out my last bullet: “Is it because of Buck Boyle? The election? Is that why you won’t investigate?”

  Charlie’s left eye twitched. A snarl entered his voice, something far from Good Citizen of the Year. His eyes burned at me. “I’m going to forget you said that. And you can forget the fucking appraisal. I got work to do.”

  IT WASN’T YET eight-thirty in the morning when I left the town hall. To control my anger I had to do something, so I drank a double espresso straight up at the coffee bar down the block. When I stepped back outside into the mist that obscured the mountains, I felt like a rocket ready to take off.

  I hadn’t slept much last night. Eden and Paolo invited themselves upstairs to continue the gallery party in my apartment. In my excitement, I didn’t care. I sat in a corner, wrestling with theories. The others treated me like a potted plant. Even Carl gave up on me and got happy on the chardonnay, falling dead asleep on my bed at eleven. When I finally collapsed onto the bed, I felt nothing but a warm presence. My mind reeled and spun all night

  In the apartment now Carl had made coffee and looked mildly hung-over. Glasses, wine bottles, and pizza boxes littered the coffee table and counter while Eden snored, facedown on the sofa. Her blankets had slid to the floor, revealing short suntanned legs and cotton underwear with holes. Carl was getting a good look at her left cheek. I covered her up.

  “Where’d you go?” Carl poured himself coffee.

  “Police chief. The asshole.” I flopped down in a chair. “He won’t investigate. Says I should let the boys handle it.”

  “Ooh, bad move, chiefìe. ” Carl grinned at my scowl. His black hair was wild this morning. He wore my old yellow chenille robe. As he turned to look in the refrigerator for milk for his coffee, the fabric split up the back in a loud crack. I laid my head down on my arms at the table, trying to think.

  “Hardly likely, eh?” Carl said, setting a coffee mug in front of me. It was the last thing I needed after the espresso, but I wrapped my hands around it anyway, the warmth reassuring.

  “Hmm?”

  “I said,” Carl repeated, sitting at the round oak table, “it’s hardly likely you’ll let it go.”

  “Would you?”

  Carl shook his head. “I just ta
ke orders. Either I’m on the case or I forget about it.”

  I straightened up. “Well, I can’t forget about it. Somebody died in that fire. I want to know who. You asked the question last night yourself—who’s the crisp? It was made to look like Ray Tantro, which leads me to the conclusion that the man didn’t die willingly. You know he didn’t drink and shoot up downers on his own accord. But even more, I have to know what happened to Ray Tantro. It’s like I know him somehow. Like I am him.”

  Carl frowned and excused himself to the bathroom. I guess I was a little too much to take this early in the morning. The sun worked its way through the fog, a traveling rectangle of blue light from the east window. It hit Eden’s bare foot sticking out the end of the blankets.

  Carl didn’t understand. What was Ray Tantro to me? I felt so strongly about him, but why? I had tried to become an artist. From being the best artist in my high school class I had studied under a strict, belittling taskmaster at St. Olafs. That art professor hadn’t seen in me whatever it was the high school teacher had. He rode me constantly, criticizing everything, praising nothing. When I decided not to go back to St. Olafs it was the biggest relief of my life. Also, I thought later, the biggest failure. Maybe I should have stuck with it. Maybe that professor was some kind of test I had failed.

  I was never the equal of the early Ray Tantro, but still I felt communion with him in the force of our mutual failures. I had moved on, successfully I’d like to think—although lately, with the gallery problems that’s a question. Tantro had crashed and burned, unable to repeat the genius, unable to handle the pressure of fame, unable to remake his life into whatever he wanted it to be.

  Last night I had stared at my little painting by Tantro, looking for answers in the magenta patches of snow and in the sagebrush shadows. There was a violent beauty in Ray Tantro’s painting, a lushness that threatened to explode. The edginess of his painting gave it its power. Now, in the blinding glare of hindsight, it also predicted his demise.