CHAPTER 8

SEPTEMBER 17

Sharon shivered as seagulls whirled and screeched overhead. Even though they would only be in Florida until tomorrow morning, and it was the first time she had ever been here, she had hoped to sleep in and then do some shopping. Instead, DeVonte had ordered room service for 8:00 A.M. Then they were up, dressed, and out—to the swimming pool, she thought—but DeVonte headed right for the shore. Instead of taking long, slow strokes in warm water contained by four sides and a bottom, cold, foamy water swirled about her legs. Her mouth was filled with the briny taste of salt. She could hear the clatter of pebbles and shells as they were dragged into the ocean. Waves crashed just inches away. Sand was sucked from beneath her feet. Seaweed, green and slimy, touched her skin. Children ran and splashed and squealed nearby, ignorant of the danger of the undertow. She was afraid.

“Sharon, come on!” DeVonte called. He waved, then dived into the foam-capped swell of wave. “Come on!”

She walked against the incoming force of the waves as she went toward him. Water swirled about her waist and then her shoulders. She stopped. He was out too far. The water was getting too deep.

“Come on!” DeVonte urged. “Come swim with me! Look! I’m out here all alone!”

He grinned at her and beckoned. There was one cold shock of water as she began swimming toward him. She concentrated on the rhythm of her strokes and told herself that she could touch bottom if she had to, even though she knew she could not.

“See! This is great! What did I tell you!”

She tried to tread water as he reached out and held her.

“Come on,” he said, and swam away.

“DeVonte!” She was not a strong swimmer. She was afraid to go farther out.

“Sharon, I’m right over here. Come on.”

He was at least fifteen feet away. Her arms felt heavy as she swam toward him. She couldn’t see his head for the height of the waves. Something seemed to tug at her legs, the undertow, and she was below the water, gulping it in, sputtering as she came to the surface, then down in the water again.

A hand grabbed her arm and pulled her up. She could see the sky. She gasped and choked and coughed up water and held on to DeVonte for dear life.

*   *   *

Marti had gotten up in time to let Lisa know her grandmother was sick without alarming her. Rayveena was not any closer to Lisa than she was to Sharon, and Lisa did not seem concerned at all. Momma was so worried that she had Ben take her to the hospital before the children left for school. Marti left a message for Sharon on the machine, just in case she called.

Marti joined Vik for breakfast at the Barrister. Wood was laid in the fireplace, awaiting a day cool enough to light it. The dark wood paneling and Tiffany-style lampshades made the place seem cozy without the fire.

Nan Conser called about an hour after they arrived at the precinct. When Marti thanked her for dropping off the photos, Nan said, “Oh, I’ve got another box I’m working on. And this is probably far-fetched, but I thought of someone else you might like to get acquainted with, Dexter Penwell. He died a few years ago, but his sons still run the business.”

Marti didn’t mention that so far they had struck out.

“I have thought and thought about this, and I can’t come up with anyone involved with photography other than Jimmy Binslow. But then I thought of Dexter. He was an excellent artist but made his living as a photographer and a sign painter. Like I said, this is far-fetched, but his sons have always worked in the business and they’re old enough to remember how the guild ignored their dad. Maybe this photographer you’re trying to identify is someone who was ignored, too.”

The excluded, Marti thought again. Something about that intrigued her.

*   *   *

After a morning of accomplishing very little, they were at Jimmy Binslow’s around early afternoon. Inside, something smelled good.

“Rabbit stew,” Binslow said. “Fresh rabbit. We’ve got a lot of them around here.”

Marti smiled as Vik made a face. It was obvious he didn’t know that you could get frozen domestic rabbits at the grocery store. It was probably a delicacy now. Momma used to cook them. Fried and then smothered in gravy, they didn’t taste much different than chicken. The smell of wild rabbit was different, but still delicious. Binslow had seasoned his stew with onions and celery and bay leaf. Her stomach grumbled.

Binslow went to the bookcase. “I’ve got the albums here for you. I looked through ’em, but I didn’t see anyone I remembered. No one in particular anyway. Nan’s there, and that Johns woman who ran the shows. No other photographers though. I think I was there mostly because I’m Potawatomi or American Indian or Native American or whatever they’re calling us now.” He spoke without rancor. “Arlene Johns called last night. I haven’t spoken to her in years. She wanted to know if I would be interested in exhibiting again. I’m thinking about it. Be nice for my children, especially now that I’ve got grandkids.”

Marti thought so, too.

Binslow moved slowly as he went to the stove and checked the pot. “It sounds like Arlene has finally found something she’s good at. She’s says she’s a potter now with a studio. And she’s teaching classes. She used to teach art for the public schools, but I don’t think she was happy doing that. It sounds like she likes what she’s doing now much better. You’re sure you won’t have some lunch? There’s always plenty when I make rabbit stew.”

Marti took one look at the expression on Vik’s face and declined. She accepted the albums. Vik was already moving toward the door as she thanked Binslow and promised to take good care of the photos and return them as soon as possible.

“Well, so much for Lucy Carlisle, Jimmy Binslow, and Carrie Pinkham,” Vik said, as they turned onto Route 41 and headed for Lincoln Prairie. “A painter, a photographer, and our very own Grandma Moses. We’ve struck out with everyone your friend Nan suggested.”

“Not exactly,” Marti disagreed. “I think we can be reasonably certain that if there was a young photographer in these parts back then, he definitely didn’t have any contact with anyone in the art guild.”

“And,” Vik said, “does that blow our artist theory? What about Lily Day? We have nothing to go on with the latest arm with hand. Do we throw in the towel on these cases? It seems like a waste of time to me.”

Marti didn’t have any answers.

*   *   *

It was early evening and pleasantly cool when Sharon left the hotel with DeVonte. The concierge had suggested an Italian restaurant about four blocks away. Several stores were still open.

“Let’s go in, just for a minute,” she said.

“With all those suitcases you brought, I can’t imagine what you could need.”

“Stronger suntan lotion,” she said. “And I only brought two suitcases and a carry-on.”

DeVonte grinned. “As heavy as they are, and as full, what else could you possibly need?”

Pulling him by the arm, she went into a store. It was filled with souvenirs and racks of T-shirts and bathing suits.

“See,” she said, rushing to a rack of bikinis.

Laughing, he helped her pick one out. It was hot pink and skimpy. “But you are not going to wear it until we get to the condo,” he cautioned.

“You like the one-piece better?” she asked.

“Only if the beach is crowded. On the island, it will just be you and me.”

She looked at the shelves of souvenirs, thought of Lisa and Marti and all of the kids, but decided to wait. They would be staying here overnight on their way back to Lincoln Prairie. She could get something then if she didn’t find anything she liked on the island.

“Ready for pasta?” she asked, as they went outside.

“Ready for you,” DeVonte said.

“Again?” She laughed. “Already?” It felt good to be loved.

*   *   *

Marti stopped at the building with the DEXTER PENWELL AND SON sign above the door. Beside her, Vik grunted but he didn’t complain. They had stopped for something to eat so he wasn’t hungry, just tired, which didn’t matter. They were both tired most of the time, at least when they were working a case.

The door was ajar. Marti rang the bell then went inside, with Vik right behind her.

“The door was open,” she said, as a slender man wearing glasses, with smooth, chocolate latte skin and a goatee came toward her.

“What brings you here?” Penwell Jr. asked when they showed their ID.

“We’ve been talking to some of the members of the art guild,” Marti said.

“Then like I said, what brings you here?”

They followed him into a room so large that it didn’t seem crowded despite the array of materials and supplies. Signs, complete and incomplete, lined the walls, along with wooden racks that held large jars of paint and shelves filled with brushes and other supplies. Paint-splattered wooden tables had been pushed to the center of the room.

“According to Nan Conser, your father was an artist and a photographer as well as a sign maker.”

“True,” Penwell Jr. agreed. “He was a damned good artist. Studied at the art institute in Chicago. He wasn’t good enough for the art guild though. Here, take a look.”

They followed him to an office. The large metal desk was crowded with papers—invoices, advertisements, bills, mail. Matted and framed caricatures were on the wall behind the desk—Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis, Barbara Jordan, Wilma Rudolph, Aretha Franklin, Shirley Chisholm. Two oil paintings hung on the opposite wall. Both were of three boys and a girl. They were children in one, teenagers in the other. Marti didn’t know a lot about painting, but she could pick out which of the boys was Penwell Jr.; she could tell the middle boy was mischievous and that the girl was bossy and maternal. She didn’t know how the paintings conveyed that, but they did.

The photographs were commercial; weddings, christenings, children. Marti asked their standard questions about the metallic silver and got the same answers.

“Do you remember anything at all your father might have said, back in the late seventies or early eighties, about a particular photographer or photography in general and its exclusion by the guild?”

“Except for Jimmy Binslow,” Penwell Jr. said. He thought for a minute, then shook his head. “No, photography was part of how he earned his living. He didn’t think of it as an art form. The artwork,” he waved his hand toward it, “that was different; but they discovered Carrie Pinkham first and didn’t need anything from him.” The bitterness in his voice was reflected in his expression.

“How is it,” Vik said, “that someone this good painted signs?”

“He had a family. We had to eat. He painted signs that were good, too. And people liked that better. Being a sign painter was much more appropriate for a black man than being an artist back then.”

Vik’s eyebrows almost met. He leaned against the edge of the desk and stared at the paintings of the children for a moment, then said, “Fools, all of them, damned fools. It started with the Indians, and they never got any smarter.” With that, he strode out of the room.

Marti caught up with him just as he reached the car.

“Damnit, Marti, what in the hell is wrong with people? A hundred and fifty years ago we put the chief of the Potawatomis in a cart made out of tree branches and sent the tribe to Oklahoma. Twenty-five or thirty years ago we sent this man to this shop to paint signs. This winter we’ll send dozens of indigents from one church to the next, night after night, for food and shelter. Don’t we ever learn anything? Will we ever get any of this right?”

Marti didn’t say anything. What Vik was talking about was the tip of an iceberg, and she didn’t have any answers.

*   *   *

After the boys were in bed, Marti retreated to the middle room and the card table, where a jigsaw puzzle was in progress. This was one in a series described on the box as Americana country art. Each was a homey scene that looked like something out of the late-nineteenth or early-twentieth century. Johnny always said that when she put jigsaw puzzles together, they looked like anacrostics. That was what this puzzle looked like now, except for the sky. Someone else had been working on it since she last had the time, and the sky was almost completed.

Once she got the frame in place, she just let the puzzle come together. Eventually she reached the point she was at tonight. She sifted through the pieces in the box without focusing on anything in particular and found a piece with a touch of brown that was part of the horse, then another with a diagonal strip of red that was part of a sign, and two that were a dappled, drab, olive green that completed the curtain in one of the windows. She liked the randomness of not looking for the autumn-colored leaves or the gnarled tree trunk or the variegated blues of the sky. Sometimes a section came together. Other times, like tonight, she just added a piece here and there. By the time the puzzle was finished, she would understand the parts as well as the whole.

“Ma, you still up?” It was Joanna.

“Everything okay?”

“Umm. We won tonight.”

Marti sighed. Volleyball season had just started. She had missed the first game.

“That’s okay, Ma. At least you try.” Joanna sat on the opposite side of the table and rummaged around in the box until she found a couple more pieces of blue. Then she traversed the length of the skyline until she figured out where they went. “I know I’ve never told you this, but you are always there when I need you. And I appreciate that.”

Marti wondered what had brought that on and decided it must have something to do with Sharon and Lisa. She found the tip of the horse’s tail and then a doorknob.

“Want some tea?” Joanna offered.

“In a couple of minutes. First, I want to hear a little more about how wonderful I am.”

Joanna didn’t smile. “Really, Ma, I know I can depend on you. Let’s not worry about whether or not you make it to a game.”

With that, Joanna came around to her side of the table and gave her a hug.

*   *   *

When she was alone again, Marti thought about the arms with hands, about the hand they had found in the woods, fingers protruding from the leaves, curved as if it was beckoning her, whispering from its shallow grave, asking her to find out who it belonged to and how it had gotten there. They knew so little. Would they ever know anything more? What was she missing? How would she ever connect a hand with a chip of paint under the fingernail and a finger with traces of metallic silver to any of them? And, if she did, would that bring her any closer to identifying the more recent two, even though all four had traces of arsenic?

She reached into the box of puzzle pieces and began turning over the ones with the colored side down. The orange of one tree’s leaves caught her eye, then the maroon of another, then the white wisp of smoke from a chimney. Soon this puzzle would be completed. She might never find enough of the pieces to the others.

*   *   *

Sharon sat on the balcony and looked up at the stars. They were on the ninth floor and a cool wind blew in from the ocean. She tried not to think about how high up they were. The railing was only waist high. She was afraid to go close enough to it to see how secure it was.

“Here we are,” DeVonte said. He put glasses, a bottle of Chevas Regal, and some soda water on the small table. Heavy-handed, he put more liquor in her drink than she wanted. She didn’t say anything.

“To us.” He raised his drink in a toast.

“To us.” Us. At last. Us. Wait until she got back to Lincoln Prairie and Frank found out. To make it even sweeter, DeVonte was a financial advisor and loaded. Not that that was why she’d married him, but it beat the hell out of marrying another loser. They were going to look at houses in Lake Forest when they got back. Too bad she couldn’t invite Frank to the housewarming.

“You’re miles away,” DeVonte said.

“No, not really.”

“Let me refresh that.” He took her glass before she could protest and topped it off with Chevas. “Drink up.”

She gulped down half a glass. It burned all the way to her stomach. She hadn’t eaten much for dinner. She hadn’t eaten much all day. DeVonte had made a few remarks about women being fat who didn’t look fat to her at all. With her lack of height, she was going to have to be careful. She didn’t ever want him to say that about her.

“Tomorrow we sail to the Bahamas,” he said. “Just wait. The condo is in the middle of nowhere. I got in on the ground floor on one of the few places on the island where they are just beginning to develop. We’ll have enough privacy to make love on the beach in broad daylight, and we’ll be within fifty feet of the water. You’ll love it. More open space than some of the islands. Not too much of the tourist stuff, and we can avoid what there is. We’ll rent a boat. Maybe we’ll buy one. I’ve been meaning to. I love to sail.”

Sharon listened with a mixture of pleasure and anxiety. Ocean, boat, she didn’t like either. But she would learn to enjoy them, be less afraid. They were going to be so happy together. She would learn to enjoy all the things he liked to do. DeVonte topped her glass again. He raised his in another toast.

“Listen,” he said.

She could hear the sound of the incoming tide as waves crashed against the shore.

“Here. Come look. It’s incredible.”

He went to the railing. She shook her head.

“Oh, come on, Sharon, look. It’s beautiful.”

She stood and he grabbed her hand. When she reached the railing and looked down, she felt dizzy.

“Whoa,” DeVonte said, as she leaned against him. “Here.” He put his arm around her. She was safe. With DeVonte she would always be safe. She lifted her lips to his and they kissed.