No Place to Hide

by Susan Lewis

  Justine had no idea.

  “Maybe they’re in storage,” Sallie Jo suggested.

  Justine was about to return to the writing desk when the sound of something moving about upstairs made her stop.

  She looked at Sallie Jo.

  Sallie Jo looked back. “Birds,” she decided.

  Agreeing, Justine carried on rifling through the desk, finding more small albums, a bundle of letters tied with a blue ribbon that turned out to be from her mother, an assortment of pens and pencils, a dried-up bottle of ink, and a small tin of breath-freshening mints.

  By now Sallie Jo had moved across the hall and was calling for her to come look at the amazing seventies kitchen.

  Justine was on her way and already starting to smile at the avocado appliances and flowered wallpaper when another sound from upstairs caused her to stop.

  “Did you hear that?” she whispered to Sallie Jo.

  Sallie Jo nodded.

  Deciding once again that it had to be birds, she was about to move on when Daisy suddenly shot up the stairs.

  “Daisy, come back,” Justine shouted after her.

  Daisy wasn’t listening; she was already charging up a second flight and quickly disappeared from view.

  Sallie Jo came to join her and together they gazed up at the landing.

  Telling herself that no one was up there, so there was no one to hear her, or to harm her precious little dog, Justine shouted, “Treat,” while knowing it was next to useless, since Daisy had never been much interested in snacks.

  Suddenly Daisy started to bark, but from a farther distance than Justine might have expected, suggesting she’d gone into a top-floor room.

  “I wonder what she’s found,” Sallie Jo murmured.

  Reining in her imagination, Justine waited for the barking to stop so she could call again, but it didn’t seem it was going to happen anytime soon.

  Glancing at Sallie Jo in dismay, she said, “I think we’ll have to go and get her.”

  Sallie Jo didn’t disagree; however, neither of them moved.

  “The stairs look quite sturdy,” Justine observed, “provided we tread carefully…” Daisy suddenly stopped barking, but only long enough for Justine to call for her to come before starting again with renewed vigor.

  Seriously glad she wasn’t alone, Justine started toward the stairs.

  “What are we going to do if someone’s up there?” Sallie Jo whispered from behind her.

  Justine’s heart thudded. She had no idea. “Let’s just tell ourselves it’s a trapped bird,” she suggested, and after carefully testing the first step with most of her weight, she started to climb.

  Staying close, Sallie Jo called out to Daisy again, but the dog was clearly deafened by her own noise.

  As they reached the first landing the barking suddenly stopped again. This time it didn’t resume, nor did Daisy come when both women shouted out to her.

  Not sure she had the nerve to go any farther, Justine turned to Sallie Jo.

  “We could wait it out,” Sallie Jo suggested. “She’ll have to come sooner or later.”

  Thinking that might be the best course of action, Justine looked up to the next landing and to her surprise, and relief, she spotted Daisy watching them through the stair rails. “Good girl,” she cooed. “Come on down now.”

  Daisy simply wagged her tail and trotted back to wherever she’d come from.

  As the barking started again Justine braced herself, and attempted the next flight. The treads here were much more decayed, and the banister didn’t feel stable either. Cautioning Sallie Jo not to lean on it, she kept tight to the wall as she rounded a curve, not wanting to think about what might happen if they had to run. Finally she reached the top landing.

  A moment later Sallie Jo was with her.

  “She’s in there,” Justine whispered, pointing to a partly open door only feet away.

  Sallie Jo glanced down at the hall below.

  Justine did the same and immediately wished she hadn’t. It was a very long way to fall.

  Accepting that it was her dog, so she had to continue to go first, Justine bolstered herself with brisk strides toward the door, pushed it open, and immediately screamed as something hit her face.

  “Jesus Christ,” Sallie Jo muttered, quickly ducking out of the way. “Bats! Ugh!”

  Though Justine wasn’t at all keen on them herself, she had no problem deciding they were better than many alternatives. Wrapping her coat around her head, she ventured farther into the room.

  To her amazement she caught the sweet scent again, but so briefly she might have imagined it. “Daisy, naughty girl,” she scolded, going to scoop her up.

  “There must be a bat stuck behind these…paintings,” Sallie Jo declared with widening eyes. “So they are still here,” and going to break open the shutters to let in some light and flapping her hands to shoo away the bats, she began helping Justine to haul off the heavy canvas. They knelt down to examine their find.

  The first garishly ornate frames contained mainly portraits, they discovered, with small brass plaques saying who they were and when the likeness was done. William Benson 1924; Matilda Benson 1926; Alexander Cantrell, 1901; Edward Rossiter 1899; Emily Cantrell 1930.

  “It’s looking to me like you’ve got half your family tree here,” Sallie Jo commented delightedly. “Do you recognize the names? Cantrell, obviously…”

  “I think Benson might have been my grandma’s maiden name,” Justine said, slightly awed by the unexpected find.

  “Oh wow, look at these,” Sallie Jo murmured, arriving at the landscapes. After a while she slowed to a halt and sat back on her heels. “I don’t believe what I’m seeing here,” she stated incredulously. “I mean, it can’t be…”

  Justine was barely listening. Her mind had suddenly flooded with images of the paintings Ben and Abby used to bring home from school. Abby’s invariably had been better. Had Ben sensed her preference?

  “Look at them,” Sallie Jo urged. “I don’t recognize a single one, but the style, the feathery brushstrokes…”

  Justine blinked as she focused on a hazy landscape in various shades of blues and yellows.

  “This is full-blown Impressionism,” Sallie Jo informed her, “and the quality, the workmanship…”

  “I had no idea you knew about art,” Justine commented.

  “I majored in it,” Sallie Jo told her, still rapt as she continued a careful study of each picture. “Where did you say your grandparents were from?”

  “New Hope, Pennsylvania.”

  Sallie Jo’s eyes widened in shock. “You’re kidding me,” she accused.

  Justine laughed. “Why would I?”

  Sallie Jo didn’t answer; she was gazing at the paintings again.

  “Look, there’s something written on the back of this one,” Justine pointed out.

  Turning it so she could see, Sallie Jo read aloud, “ ‘To William and May, great friends, Daniel…’ Oh my God, oh my God!”

  “Who’s Daniel Garber?” Justine demanded, checking the name.

  “Who is he?” Sallie Jo cried. “Only one of the most famous of the Pennsylvania Impressionists. This is unbelievable. I just can’t…Look at this one, it’s signed to your grandparents again, this time from JFF. Holy…I think I’m going to faint.”

  “JFF?”

  “John Fulton Folinsbee.”

  “Is he famous too?” Justine said incredulously. Was she imagining things, or was she really getting flashbacks of these paintings hanging on walls, bright and colorful, each one being described by someone she couldn’t quite see?

  It felt real, almost as though it was happening now, and then it was gone.

  Sallie Jo was reading from the back of the next framed masterpiece, this one of a barn in the fall. “ ‘Dear Will and May, splendid times, with love, Fern Coppedge.’ ” She looked at Justine. “Spring on the Delaware is one of her most famous works and one of my absolute favorites,” she told her.


  “Is that it?” Justine asked.

  Sallie Jo shook her head. “I’ve never seen this one before,” she admitted, and carried on through the collection, looking more now at the backs of the paintings than at the artworks themselves. Each name seemed to mean something to her. “Roy Cleveland Nuse,” she murmured, “Edward Willis Redfield—this is a serious find, because he burned a lot of his paintings…Daniel Garber again, George Sotter, Walter Baum…They’re not all signed to William and May, so I’m guessing the other recipients are your great-grandparents, or even great-great-grandparents.” She sat back again, so flushed with awe and excitement that a layer of sweat had broken out on her forehead. “I can’t say this for certain,” she declared, “but I reckon some of these paintings aren’t even known about. It could be they were commissioned by members of your family and that’s where they’ve stayed, in the family. Shit, Justine, this is blowing my mind.”

  Seeing that quite clearly, and feeling slightly dazed herself, Justine forced herself to admit that she’d never heard of the Pennsylvania Impressionists before.

  “I can give you plenty of stuff to read,” Sallie Jo told her, “but they’re mainly landscape artists from the turn of the last century through the fifties, even sixties. It seems likely your family knew a fair number of them, and if I’m right about this and they do turn out to be genuine, I don’t even want to guess at what this collection could be worth.”

  Justine wasn’t sure what to say.

  “The Redfield alone could fetch something in the region of half a million dollars, maybe more,” Sallie Jo told her.

  Stunned, Justine looked at the paintings stacked in a closely packed row against a large French armoire that might have been put there to protect them from the damp brick wall. In the end she said, “What are we going to do with them, if they’re as valuable as you say?”

  Sallie Jo was ready with the answer. “First up, we have to get them looked at by an expert. I think I can—”

  “But what about right now? Do we just leave them here?”

  Though clearly not happy about it, Sallie Jo threw out her hands. “What choice do we have? No way can we carry them down those stairs, and if they’ve been here for the past thirty years…Do you think your mother knows about them?”

  “I’ve no idea. She’s never mentioned them, but someone obviously arranged for them to be taken off the walls and stored up here.” Taking out her phone, she quickly tapped in a text. Do you know anything about Pennsylvania Impressionists?

  Since it was almost time to pick up the children, they carefully re-covered the paintings with the canvas and were already downstairs, with Daisy, by the time a reply came back from Camilla.

  Just that my grandparents and various other members of the family were patrons for a while. Why?

  Have found possible mega collection in the cottage. Did you know they were here?

  No, I thought they were all sold when my mother moved from New Hope. I think they’re quite valuable now.

  That’s what Sallie Jo says. She’s an art major BTW.

  We need to discuss. Will call as soon as I can.

  Putting her phone away, Justine checked the time and went to join Sallie Jo at the front door. As she got there Sallie Jo put out an arm to stop her going any farther.

  Curious and startled, Justine looked in the direction she was indicating, and to her amazement and alarm she saw a man standing at the shore of the lake, his back to them. They had no way of telling who he was or how he’d got there, and they were none the wiser when he turned around and started ambling toward them.

  “Do you think we should run?” Sallie Jo muttered.

  “Why? He’s the trespasser.” Then, worried he might have a gun, Justine felt her heart starting to thud. He could be some sort of maniac who’d been camping out here and considered the place his home.

  Whoever he was, he wasn’t dressed like a homeless man, though his navy bib-front overalls, pale blue shirt, and workman boots weren’t especially smart either. His fair hair was thick and wavy, and he was so tall and bulkily built that he looked slightly daunting. Apparently he didn’t feel the cold, since there was no sign of a coat—or, happily, a gun.

  “Good afternoon, ladies,” he said amiably as he stepped onto the collapsed patio.

  “Who are you and what are you doing here?” Sallie Jo demanded hotly. “You’re on private property.”

  To Justine’s surprise his arrestingly blue eyes sparked with humor. “Now that was going to be my line,” he told her, stooping to give Daisy a ruffle. “You’re sure a purty little thing. Could it be you doing all the barking I heard?”

  “Are you a neighbor?” Justine inquired, still trying to sound lofty.

  “No, ma’am, me, I’m from midway between here and South Bend, but I happened to be not too far away when one of the neighbors alerted me to your presence on the premises.”

  Justine could only look at him.

  “Why would they do that?” Sallie Jo wanted to know. “You don’t own the place.”

  “Now that is true,” he agreed, straightening up again. “But I kinda keep an eye on it from time to time.”

  Justine’s eyes widened. “The door fell off when we opened it,” she informed him, “which suggests no one’s been inside for a good long while.”

  “Mm, I would agree with that,” and stepping forward he held out a hand to shake. “Alastair Leith,” he told them, taking Justine’s hand first. “Most folks call me Al.”

  Since he seemed friendly, or at least unthreatening, Justine felt compelled to introduce herself too.

  “Cantrell,” he repeated in an interested drawl. “So you’re a relative of May’s?”

  Sallie Jo took over again. “She’s her granddaughter,” she informed him, “which makes her the owner of this cottage, and I’m Sallie Jo Osborne.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Sallie Jo,” he responded, shaking her hand too. To Justine he said, “I’m guessing from your British accent that you’re related to Camilla?”

  Justine managed to stop her mouth falling open. “How do you know my mother?” she asked.

  “I don’t,” he confessed. “Or not anymore. Haven’t seen her since she married your father. I was just a little bitty thing back then, so I guess she won’t remember me. How is she these days? Still in London?”

  Still thrown by his knowledge of her mother, Justine pressed, “Who exactly are you?”

  “Now that part’s easy,” he replied. “My father, Dick Leith, was May’s half-brother, which kind of makes me a nephew once removed.”

  Justine blinked. This man was a distant relative?

  “So Camilla’s taking an interest in the old place again,” he commented, looking up at the time- and weather-wearied facade. “That’s good. It’s time someone brought the old girl back to life.”

  “Do you…? How come you’re taking an interest?” Sallie Jo asked. “Are you…? I don’t get…”

  With a smile that almost made Justine’s heart skip, he said, “Don’t worry, I’m making no claims on the place. It belongs to Camilla, always has, since May and Phillip passed. We just—my father and I—thought we’d keep a check on it until Camilla was ready to sell, or maybe come back. My pa knew how much it meant to May.”

  Unsettled by how easily they were being taken in by this stranger, Justine said, “Have you ever been inside?”

  He shook his head. “Not since May and Phillip went.”

  She wondered if that was true, and what difference it made if it wasn’t.

  “So what do you do midway between here and South Bend?” Sallie Jo wanted to know. “And where exactly is that? I’m guessing the place has a name.”

  “The nearest town would be North Liberty,” he replied. “And me, I have myself a farm over that way. Hogs mostly, but some corn and soybean.”

  Suddenly conscious of the time marching on, Justine said, “I don’t know what to do about the door. It’s completely wrecked and we have to leave.”

&nb
sp; “Oh, don’t you worry about that,” he told her. “There’s a hardware store over in Argos. I’ll bring some wood and seal it.”

  “But then we won’t be able to get in again.”

  “Do you want to?”

  “At some point, yes.”

  “OK, let’s board it up for today, then see about fixing up a door by the end of the week.”

  “Do you think we can trust him?” Sallie Jo murmured as they left him estimating dimensions while they headed back to the car. There was an enormous Ford Bronco parked next to it, which presumably belonged to him.

  “I don’t see that we have much choice,” Justine responded, knowing she wouldn’t feel anywhere near as uneasy about him being there if they hadn’t discovered the paintings. “But listen, he’s been able to get in anytime he wanted for the past thirty years, so why would he wait for us to break the door down before seizing his chance?” After a pause, she added, as much to comfort herself as Sallie Jo, “I think he’s genuine.”

  Sallie Jo nodded as they got into the car. “And kind of cute,” she declared.

  “Yeah, he’s definitely that,” Justine agreed, settling Daisy on her lap. Feeling more than a little bewildered by how the day had turned out, she sat quietly beside Sallie Jo as they drove steadily back into town.

  “Those paintings are still going to be there tomorrow, aren’t they?” she asked as they pulled up outside the day care ministry.

  Turning to look at her, Sallie Jo said, “I can’t believe that neither of us thought to get his card, or at least a number.”

  “No,” Justine murmured faintly, “nor can I.”

  Present Day—Culver, Indiana

  A lengthy phone conversation with her mother that night, plus a helpful Google search, revealed that Alastair—Al—Leith was indeed who he’d claimed to be, a cousin, albeit distant, and a hog farmer based in northern Indiana. This was no small relief, considering how concerned Justine was becoming about the paintings and their possible worth.