10

Leah Hardin

It was pretty noisy in the courtyard of the Katharine Mully Memorial Arts Court; the sound of kids’ conversations and their music rose in skittering waves to bounce back down from the high ceiling and around the interior. Leah Hardin barely noticed. All of her attention was focused on the screen of her laptop. She was sitting off to one side of the main courtyard area at one of the tables near the pay-as-you-can café, availing herself of the building’s free WiFi. Her dark hair curtained her face, green eyes gleaming with an electronic blue tint from the light cast by the screen.

She’d just finished two back-to-back volunteer shifts, the first in the Arts Court office sorting electronic invoices because nobody else liked the job, followed by a shift as a barista at the café. She’d decided to make herself an Americano before she went home, and was sipping at it while she went through her email.

Nothing could have prepared her for one of the messages in her inbox. She didn’t know at the time that the message had come to her from halfway across the continent before reaching her here in Newford.

She’d read it through a half-dozen times, but the content hadn’t changed.

It had to be a joke.

She looked at the sender’s name again: sadinsan@gmail.com. She didn’t recognize it, but it wasn’t exactly hard to open a Gmail account. It could be anybody—as benign as a friend playing a prank, or as nasty as one of the trolls she had to keep blocking from her blog’s comments—thinking she’d be gullible enough to believe anything so outlandish.

But she couldn’t shake the funny feeling the email had woken in her.

“Hey, Leah.”

Leah looked up from her laptop to find Alan Grant standing at her table with a coffee in one hand and a muffin in the other.

She and Alan both volunteered here at the Arts Court, helping street kids get in touch with their creativity. The truth was, a lot of the kids just came to hang out, drink free coffee, charge their phones, or use the bathrooms and WiFi. But that was okay. Part of the Arts Court mandate was to provide a safe space for kids who didn’t have anywhere else to go. Tools were provided if they wanted to express themselves: art and writing supplies, musical instruments, even access to computer workstations with word processing, art and music programs. And some of the kids actually took advantage of what was offered.

There was no instruction unless they specifically asked for it. Various artists, musicians and writers in the Newford arts community made themselves available on a regular basis, helping in whichever way they could. They did office work and maintenance, and helped out at the café when they weren’t mentoring the kids.

Alan sat on the Arts Court board and was also publisher of a small press, but he was more likely to be found down here with the kids than dealing with his administrative duties.

“Hey, yourself,” she told him. “How’s Marisa?”

“She’s good,” he said as he sat down at her table. “Right now she’s back at the East Street office doing some actual work so I can goof off here.”

“Like you know the meaning of the words ‘goof off.’”

Alan grinned. “Says the workaholic.” He nodded at her computer. “Did I interrupt your writing?”

She turned her laptop around so that Alan could look at the screen.

“Wow,” he said. “That’s an amazing painting.”

“I know. Even though it’s just shot with a webcam on somebody’s laptop.”

“Who’s the artist?”

“I haven’t a clue. There’s a signature, but I can’t make it out.”

Alan peered more closely at the image. “Yeah, me neither. Who sent it to you?”

“I don’t know that either.”

Alan’s brows went up. “Well, that’s mysterious enough.” He gave the image another scrutiny. “The subject looks really familiar.”

“It’s supposed to be Jackson Cole—the way he looks today.”

Alan gave her a smile. “Well, now I know how come this showed up in your inbox. It’s actually a pretty good fantasy likeness, isn’t it? You could see Cole having grown into this guy.”

“It’s supposed to be what he really looks like—now.”

“Wait a minute...”

“The person who sent this claims to have met him. They say that he’s alive.”

“But that’s

“Impossible. I know.”

Alan returned his attention to the image. He had an expression on his face she couldn’t read.

“Are they saying that he never died,” Alan began, “or...”

“Or what?” Leah asked when his voice trailed off.

Alan seemed to give himself a mental headshake. “Nothing. What did they say?”

Leah told him what the sender had written about being abandoned by a highway in the middle of nowhere and then found by a man that he or she later realized was Jackson Cole. How, for a price, Leah could be told where he might be found.

“How much?” Alan asked.

“The person doesn’t say.”

He lifted his gaze from the image to study Leah for a moment.

“You’re not dismissing this,” he said.

She shook her head. “I want to think it’s just somebody’s bad idea of a joke.”

“But you don’t. Why not?”

“Just a gut feeling.”

“Look, I know Cole’s body was never recovered, but a painting doesn’t prove anything. Hell, these days a photo wouldn’t prove anything.”

“I know. But that’s an amazing painting—you said so yourself. Even with this poor resolution, you can tell it’s the work of a really good artist. Why would anybody with that much talent bother running a scam like this?”

“So let’s find out who the artist is,” Alan said. “Do an image search.”

He stood and turned the computer back toward her, then took a chair next to her so they could both look at the screen.

Leah grabbed the image from her downloads folder and dropped it into the browser’s search box. Moments later, dozens of possible matches popped up on the screen. They scrutinized each of the thumbnails, but the painting didn’t show up in any of them.

“Wait a sec,” Alan said as Leah sat back. “Click on that one.”

The image Alan was pointing at looked nothing like the painting. It depicted a half man/half wolf or coyote figure in some kind of ceremonial Native American garb. But when it expanded on the screen she could see what had caught his attention. The style was similar to the painting that had been sent to her. It had the same brushwork, the same riot of colour in its background.

The picture of the man/wolf came from the website of an online arts magazine based in Arizona. When they clicked on the link to the magazine, an article popped up about a Native artist named Abigail White Horse. There was a photo of her, showing a broad-faced older woman dressed in a plain blouse and a long skirt, her grey hair plaited in a thick braid. She had her hand on the head of a tall rez dog that leaned heavily against her, its tongue lolling from the corner of its mouth. Two more paintings similar to the one of the man/wolf were also included in the article.

“It says she doesn’t sell her work,” Alan said, “and only rarely does shows. You know what that means?”

Leah shook her head.

“Either she sent you that email herself, or it was sent by someone who has access to her studio and her art. A friend or a family member.”

“What are you? A detective?”

“I think I’m doing pretty well here.”

Leah nodded. “Yeah, I guess you are.” She went back to the article. “She lives in southern Arizona, on the Painted Lands Kikimi rez in the Hierro Maderas Mountains outside of Santo del Vado Viejo.”

“With a little more digging we should be able to get a phone number for her.”

“I’d rather confront her in person.”

Alan couldn’t hide his surprise.

“Oh, I know I can’t,” Leah said. “I mean it’s ridiculous. It would cost a fortune, which I don’t have. But it’s a lot harder to blow somebody off when they’re standing right in front of you and you can’t just hang up on them.”

Alan leaned back in his chair and turned to look at her.

“What?” Leah said.

“This would make a good story,” he said. “Obviously, you’re not going to actually find Cole, but the journey itself could be really interesting, given the way you write. There’s this opportunity to tie in to all the things that first drew you to the Rats, and how writing about them changed you—a more personal journey to complement what you’ve already written about Cole and the band.”

Leah wasn’t sure she liked the idea, but she could understand its appeal. She knew she wasn’t alone when it came to the impact the Rats had had on her life. The fans on her blog loved to talk about that sort of thing. She’d only ever touched on it lightly herself because she wanted to maintain a more professional, objective profile. Mostly. But she had other, more personal, reasons not to talk about it.

“Maybe,” she said. “But I can’t just jump on a plane and fly down. The ad revenue from my blog’s okay, but it wouldn’t come close to covering these kinds of expenses.”

“But I could,” Alan said. “If I can get a book out of you for the investment. And if that painting is there, and the artist is willing, it would make a great cover.”

Leah just stared at him.

“I’m serious.”

“You don’t do non-fiction.”

Alan laughed. “Don’t tell Christy that.”

Christy Riddell was one of Alan’s authors whose East Street Press works were divided between collections of short stories and books exploring the folklore and mythology of Newford. Without apology, he always presented the latter as fact.

“I don’t know if there’s a whole book in this,” she said.

“Depends on what you find out when you get there.”

“You’re serious?”

“Absolutely,” Alan said. “Flights to Vegas are dirt cheap. You could rent a car from there and then drive down. You do drive, right?”

Leah shook her head. “City girl. They make public transport for people like me.”

“That could be a problem, except you know what? I’ll bet Marisa would be up for a road trip without much coaxing. I owe her a break, and she loves to drive. Besides, she’s a Rats fan too.”