Taciturn by nature, Shaw was talkative on a job; this put the suspicious at ease and made the quiet more inclined to share.
“Evelyn Fontaine’s in town? Really?” The man swiveled and eyed the canvases lovingly. “Quite the talent, isn’t she?”
“Definitely.” Shaw squinted at the center painting. “Oh, it’s a portrait.” His surprise was real; he hadn’t seen the woman’s face at first.
“Takes a minute to spot her, doesn’t it?”
Shaw was impressed.
A stack of information fliers about Fontaine sat on the desk. Shaw picked one up.
Evelyn Maude Fontaine is the founder of the “Layering Movement” in painting. She begins with a realistic sketch of her subject on a blank canvas and then paints over it, following the lines she has drawn, but with variations. Then she applies additional layers, each inspired by, but different from, the one beneath it. Often, Evelyn will paint dozens of layers until she “realizes my vision of my subject.” Her canvases can have as many as forty or fifty coats of paint and weigh many pounds.
Shaw asked if he could keep the flier and, when the man nodded, he folded the glossy sheet of paper and put it in his rear pocket. “It’s an artists-in-residence retreat Evelyn’s at. You know where it might be?”
“Sure don’t. Never heard of any here. They call ’em retreats for a reason, I guess.”
Echoing David Goodwin’s words, though the gallery owner’s voice had a sardonic twinge to it, Shaw believed.
He decided not to ask for a phone number or to leave his for the man to forward. Doing so could spook her.
He did ask, though, “You know Jason Barnes?”
“Who?”
“Evelyn’s friend. Owns a gallery in Chicago. Shows Abstract Expressionist works.”
This amused the man.
As if that’s ever going to come back . . .
“Nope. Sorry.”
Shaw hit the remaining galleries in town, not expecting to have much luck. But that proved not to be the case.
At the last gallery on Jefferson, the fifty-something, frizzy-haired woman behind the counter said she’d heard that Fontaine was at an informal retreat about ten miles outside of town, someplace on Route 83. The attendees were calling themselves the Creative Commons. And, yes, another artist named Jason—last name unknown—was with her.
Shaw returned to the Toyota and from his computer bag in the trunk retrieved a McNally folding map of the area. He paused on the blistering sidewalk and looked over the deserted streets. He noted a corner bar that seemed to be open; the neighborhood was so deserted, it was hard to tell.
Colter Shaw had grown up without internet, TV, or even a movie house closer than twenty hard miles from the family cabin. Radio for listening was all right, though discouraged. Transmitting was forbidden, except in emergencies, as his father said that skilled radio trackers, known as fox hunters, might be trying to track you down—a warning that unsettled the children not because of any threat but because it was another sign of their father’s progressing mental decay. But on trips off the Compound to visit family in Seattle and Austin, Shaw discovered movies. His uncle introduced him to the gritty film noir crime genre, which became his favorite.
This bar—fatigued, dingy, accessed through a mightily squeaking door—was a perfect set for any classic noir. Smoky without smoke, dim, abraded, the space was inhabited by a half-dozen well-worn men and two women of retirement age and about the same number of men in their mid-twenties or early thirties, on lunch break from their construction jobs, having a beer or a shot, or both. Like the street people Shaw had driven past, everyone here was white.
Perching on an unsteady stool, Shaw ordered an IPA brewed in Muncie and bean-free chili. Unfurling the map, he studied Route 83, a winding road about fifteen miles long, ending in a small town to the west. He noted some spreads that might make for good retreats.
But he wasn’t going on the final leg of the search just yet.
As he sipped good beer and ate excellent chili Shaw decided it best not to simply tell Matthews where his wife was, collect his reward, and move on. A wife who disappears without warning, a husband distraught at her absence—and who owns a Glock? Colter Shaw recognized the potential for disaster, even if unlikely—say, five percent? He would have Matthews drive down to Muncie without saying exactly where Fontaine was. After Shaw frisked him—never assume someone is unarmed—they’d proceed to the retreat. Shaw would stay near while Matthews pitched his case to Fontaine and have his phone handy to dial 911, if necessary. Or, if things turned dire, he could intervene himself.
Shaw paid for the meal and walked into the embracing damp heat, making his way to the parking lot. When near the Toyota he stopped abruptly.
A flat tire.
Odd, with rentals. Wheels were the first things that companies inspected before they let a car off the lot.
Then Shaw had another thought: How was it that the owner of the last gallery knew about the Creative Commons and that Evelyn Fontaine was there, while the Greek fisherman—who was selling her work—didn’t even know the retreat existed or that she was in town?
This coincided with the sound of feet moving up fast behind him.
Before Shaw could turn they were on him, two huge men. Their hands closed on his arms, and he was dragged into a nearby alley.
* * *
—
“Did you tell him?” Evelyn Fontaine’s voice was a ragged whisper. “Did you tell Ron where I am?”
Shaw, Fontaine and young Jason Barnes were not in one of the derelict buildings downtown—which, Shaw reflected, would have been a perfect film noir setting where a snitch is tortured to death. Instead, the venue was the comfy Java Joe’s.
“No, I didn’t,” Shaw told the artist.
Fontaine’s intense lavender eyes held his blue. “I hope so. I really do. Or I’m dead.”
As the photo in Matthews’s wallet had revealed, she wasn’t a beautiful woman, despite her husband’s insistence; her face was long, the angles of jaw and cheeks severe. But that face reminded him of a Roman empress’s, her hair was an exotic, calculated tangle, her figure both willowy and voluptuous, and the charisma hinted at in the photo was more than present in person. She had an intense air about her. And those round violet eyes . . .
Evelyn Fontaine was indeed captivating.
She was wearing close-fitting tan-colored jeans and a gossamer cornflower-blue blouse. A half pound of thin wire bracelets encircled her wrists. Her earrings were silver nautilus shells. She wore dusky eye shadow as her only makeup.
How Shaw happened to be here at the moment: Tony, the black-suspendered director of the gallery displaying her canvases, had called Fontaine just after Shaw left. It turned out that, concerned Matthews might come looking for her, she had alerted Tony and other acquaintances in town to look out for strangers asking about her.
“Then I asked some friends from the Commons to invite you to come talk to us.”
Shaw frowned. “They’re artists?”
The young men who had grabbed him were huge, with grips so tight that Shaw didn’t bother to resist, worried about dislocating an arm.
“Sculptors,” Jason Barnes said, by way of explanation.
Ah. Of course. “And my tire?”
“I’m sorry, Colter.” They were on a first-name basis now. “We didn’t want you flying out of town without us having a conversation.”
The twin Michelangelos were gone, since Fontaine’s initial concern was dispelled: that Shaw was a thug hired by Ron Matthews to beat her bloody or even kill her. Shaw had explained about the reward and she’d researched it—and Shaw himself. She’d concluded all was legit.
He now explained his decision to set up a meeting in public, to avoid any altercations.
“No! You can’t say a word!” Fontaine said, eyes widening. “You can�
�t let him know I’m even in the state.”
“The man is a sociopath,” Barnes said.
Fontaine continued. “He seems normal on the surface. But he’s a sadist.”
Barnes asked, “Did he try his tricks with you? Did he cry? Did he say he’d never hurt her? Did he tell you how he was going to change?”
Yes, yes and yes.
Barnes was handsome, with long dark hair and a faint accent. His complexion too suggested Latino heritage, despite the Irish-inflected name. His age was around thirty-five, Shaw estimated, but he could pass for younger. Five-nine or -ten, with a slim build. His pleated black slacks and shirt of rich gray were stylish: SoHo or Michigan Avenue, not the J. C. Penney’s couture otherwise evident at Java Joe’s.
A lover of means . . .
Shaw sipped his coffee and then cupped the mug. “I ran a background check on Ron. Nothing turned up. No convictions or arrests.” He looked Evelyn Fontaine over closely. “What you’re telling me now, you could be saying it just because you don’t want the hassle of being confronted by a man you left for someone else.”
“What?” Her smooth brow tightened with confusion. But only momentarily. “Oh, no, Colter, we’re not together.”
“Somebody told me he’s your boyfriend.”
Barnes laughed. “Oh, Jesus, we’re just friends . . . I’m gay . . . She needed help escaping from him. I’m a huge fan of her work. I wanted to help.”
“I left Ron to save my life,” Fontaine said. “Not for another man.” She rested her hands on the black-laminated table between them. While every other physical aspect of the artist was smooth and elegant, her fingers were blunt, her nails clipped short to the quick, the skin stained with paint. “I don’t know how many times I almost called the police. But I couldn’t. He said if I did, if I told anyone, he’d break my fingers.” She closed her eyes briefly. “My painting hand.” In a whisper: “Once, he even said he’d blind me.”
Fontaine fled for her own safety because Matthews was a closet domestic abuser: ten percent.
The percentage strategy often requires real-time readjustment.
Shaw said, “He’s a convincing liar.”
A bitter laugh from her. “No one knows that better than me. But that’s how sociopaths are. They believe in their own delusions.”
Shaw asked, “Divorce?”
She answered in a determined voice. “As soon as humanly possible. I’m talking to a lawyer but I have to be careful. I’ll need someplace to live that’s safe before I file. Next time”—she cocked an eyebrow—“I don’t want anybody finding me.”
Evelyn Fontaine now placed her hand on Shaw’s forearm and closed her trembling fingers around it. “Don’t tell him you found me. Please, you have to help me.”
Shaw thought of Matthews’s parting prayer:
Please. Help me, if you can . . .
Barnes said, “The reward he’s offered—ten thousand?—we’ll pay you that. Plus, a thousand extra.”
“No,” Shaw said. “If I walk away, I’ll walk because I choose to.”
She gave a wan smile. “Just our luck to find a bounty hunter with a conscience.”
“I won’t say anything to him until I check out what you told me.”
“I’ve got proof. I took selfies of my black eyes and cut lips. And he whipped me once with a lamp cord. And medical reports.” Her hand hadn’t left his arm, and now more pressure was applied. “Come back to the retreat, Colter, I’ll show you. It’s all on my computer . . . And I’ll give you a tour. You ever been to an artists’ retreat?”
“No.”
She smiled again. “It’s a magical place, really. You into art?”
“Only Abstract Expressionism,” Shaw said.
She slipped a glance his way, one of broad disbelief.
“I live for it,” he said.
Her visage morphed into a smile. “Don’t have a clue, do you?”
* * *
—
Ten minutes later they were in Fontaine’s Jeep Cherokee. She was behind the wheel.
It was just the two of them; Jason Barnes had agreed to remain behind and find the two sculptor thugs; together they’d changes the rental car’s tire.
Shaw was watching the scenery move from urban to burb to rural. This happened quickly.
Fontaine asked, “You must have some interest in art? What’s hanging on the walls of your house? Prints from Pottery Barn? A street fair watercolor?” A glance toward him. “Maybe your kids’ finger paintings?”
He gave no response to the last question, which he assessed to be about something other than art, and said, “Maps, mostly nineteenth-century and earlier. I collect them.”
They passed an idyllic scene: a farmhouse surrounded by six-foot-high stalks of Jubilee sweet corn. The image might have been right out of the nineteenth century, if not for the satellite dish and the Prius.
Fontaine mused, “You know, there’s a place in town where you can make your own pizza. I mean, you really make it, not just order it the way you want it. There’s a big oven and you have the spatula. You want, they give you a chef’s hat. A bunch of us from the retreat went there the other day . . . Pizza and beer. You like pizza?”
“Who doesn’t?”
“We’re artists, Colter. You’d think we’d sit around eating charcuterie and crusty bread and drinking absinthe. But don’t we bleed like everyone else?”
Then the smile vanished and her hand went to her eyes, wiping moisture. “Goddammit . . . I loved him. I did. He was so different in the beginning. Then the bad stuff poked through. And I told myself it was just a fluke—he was upset about work, he’d had a fight with a creditor—but the only fluke was him being nice. Didn’t take long to find his real nature.”
She sniffed, wiped her nose with her sleeve.
They drove in silence for about ten minutes or so. Route 83 hardly lived up to the designation “route.” It was an uneven road, the asphalt more cracked and potholed than not, with no shoulder to speak of.
Her eyes swung his way briefly. “How’d you find me?”
“Legwork. I put together a list of people who knew you. David Goodwin was on it.”
“Oh, Dave, sure.” She scoffed. “Me and my big mouth. I told him I had some retreats planned. That was my mistake . . . So, you just go out and find rewards and get them?”
“Or don’t get them. But, yes, that’s the program in theory.”
“You’re kind of the cowboy, aren’t you? You know Frederic Remington?”
On living room wall of the cabin Shaw’s father had mounted a print of Remington’s arresting painting Friends or Foes? (The Scout). The canvas depicted a lone Blackfoot on horseback peering through a cold winter evening at a distant settlement. It was one of Shaw’s favorite paintings. He told Fontaine only that he was aware of the artist. After a moment: “Good of Jason to help you out.”
“He’s been a lifesaver in this whole thing. His gallery’s doing well.”
“For Abstract Expressionism . . .”
“Do you ever smile when you’re being funny, Colter?”
No answer required.
“Not my style,” she continued. “But we didn’t bond over art. It was . . . personal.”
“How long’ve you know him?”
“Not long. Met him at a retreat in Schaumburg. He’d gotten out of an abusive relationship a year ago and we compared notes. His lover was just like Ron. I mean, it’s funny. I don’t think of gay people being abusive. That’s sort of reverse prejudice, isn’t it?”
Fontaine turned off 83 onto a dirt road. “Where the retreat is, up ahead, the land used to be farms. But when Muncie was booming—a hundred fifty years ago—there were factories here. All abandoned now. A nonprofit arts council leases the land and hosts retreats. Mostly painters, but writers and poets too. You can stay for a mon
th or two, cheap, and work on your masterpiece. It’s been heaven for me. I don’t have to worry about coming home. Worry about the insults. Worry about the fist . . . Did you see his ring?”
Shaw nodded.
“It was like brass knuckles. He gave me a hairline fracture.” She rubbed her cheek. “Right here.”
Shaw glanced at his phone, which seemed to make Fontaine uneasy.
He reassured her. “It’s not Ron. Another job.” As he sent some texts, he said, “He’ll want to hear something soon, but I can keep him at bay a little while longer.”
“Thank you, Colter. Really.” Then her eyes brightened. “Can I show you what I’m painting now?”
They pulled onto a wide strip of grass, bordered by trees and shrubbery, and parked. Shaw could see a narrow river and low concrete dam over which the current flowed in a smooth, gentle arc.
Fontaine shut the engine off, and they both climbed out of the car. They walked to the river. A breeze stirred ripples, and geranium petals floated nonchalantly past. Ducks paddled by, while a larger waterbird, starkly white, lingered in the shallows. Shaw didn’t know what it was. He and his siblings had learned a great deal about wildlife on the Compound but only from the perspectives of surviving it, preserving it or cooking it. This stately creature wasn’t made for the casserole pot.
She guided him between an eastern arborvitae and a towering box elder, then along banks thick with foliage. Shaw recognized black chokeberry, sedge, and Brazilian waterweed, a troublesome invader that got a toehold in the U.S. when water from dumped household aquariums made its way into storm drains. Waving hypnotically along the banks was a thick growth of pale bluejoint grass, for which Shaw had a fondness, as he’d once spent three hours in a wide strip of it hiding from a pack of wolves.
“Pretty,” Shaw said, looking about. “So, you’re doing a landscape.”
“Landscape?” She frowned. “No, no, no, Colter. Come on this way.” Fontaine led him along a trail, into a grove where the trees grew thicker, the shrubbery more tangled. Their destination, apparently, was a low brick structure, vaguely visible through the vines and the trees’ late-summer paling green leaves. “I don’t do pretty. This is what I’m painting.”
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