Framed (8 page)

Angry now, she stopped and caught her breath. He was supposed to return to her. They’d been practicing it; she thought he understood. Oh, well, in the excitement of the chase anything could happen, especially with a young dog. She called aloud, and off in the distance, she heard him bark. “Mac, come!” she shouted, making her voice as stern as she could.

Whether it was his training or his fear at being out in the open alone that brought him back Elsie never knew, but after far too long a time, he showed up and sat at her feet. She had to pat and praise him for returning, especially if she wanted him to associate returns with good things, but it was obvious he needed a lot more practice in the woods.

Elsie decided they’d had enough for one day and turned back to where she thought the lane was. Somehow, however, they’d gotten turned around, and they walked a much longer way out of the wood than they had into it. When the land fell away to the west she realized she was going in the wrong direction. She turned around to retrace her steps. But the paths didn’t seem to go where she remembered, and she found herself following a faint track northward. It wound around some glacial erratics and dipped into a slight depression before becoming clearer and bending to the east, where she wanted to go. She decided to stay on it for a while.

Before long she came upon signs that someone maintained the track now and then: a downed tree had been cleared to the side, and low branches trimmed. It must be a snowmobile track, she thought, and then she remembered the landowner mentioning such a track that crossed the road a bit farther on from where she had parked. She stepped out with more confidence.

Mac tugged on the leash, and she let him move ahead of her. The ground grew a little damp, and he was happy looking for frogs. They rounded a curve and came to a group of erratics, left by the last glacier. Six or seven large rocks clumped together on a bit of high ground, with trees growing among them and an alder bog on the far side. Elsie decided she needed a rest, so she called Mac to her side and found a comfortable place to sit.

She had water and an apple in her fanny pack. She gnawed on the apple, tossing the core away when she was done. Mac watched her eat but didn’t quite beg. She gave him a drink and a doggie cookie. The rocks looked familiar somehow, but she couldn’t think why. She shrugged. New England was thick with miscellaneous boulders dropped by glaciers. The thought amused her—glacier droppings, deer droppings. Sue would appreciate the humor.

It was getting later than she had planned. She got to her feet and moved on. The track did end at the road, perhaps three quarters of a mile farther on. It was marked with one of those little snowmobile club signs to help riders find it. She turned right onto the road and found her car after only five minutes’ walk. Mac made no objections to jumping into the truck; he flopped down with his head on his paws. Elsie wished she could let someone else do the driving as she headed for home.

Chapter Eleven

Brush & Bevel was empty of customers, which was fortunate for them. Whenever she felt unsettled, Ginny rearranged things. At home, she rearranged furniture. At work, she rearranged paintings. At the moment every picture in the gallery was propped up against a wall or a divider, awaiting her decision on where to put it. She stood in front of the window, looking toward the back of the shop to imagine how it would look if she grouped all the artists in alphabetical order.

That was silly, she told herself. That would put the Anton Siberutes next to the Froma Salopeks, and the two clashed in color, style, and subject. They would look awful next to each other. It would also put Bourne’s wild animal portraits and Berger’s landscapes together, which wouldn’t look quite so bad, but it would still form an unhappy pairing. All right, forget the alphabet. Stupid idea, anyway.

Ginny was tempted to pull all the Bergers together and feature them in the center section, where they would catch the eye as customers walked in. She decided against it, since she would need to do that later, once she had a definitive identification of the nude as a lost Berger painting.

Jerry Berger. Part of her itched to put it on display right now. Another part, the savvy businesswoman part, urged her to wait until she had all the cards in her hand—provenance, price, permission to make prints—before she hung it publicly. A tiny but loud part of her wanted to tear it from the stretchers and burn it. Damn, she could use a drink!

No, not at work.

The framing workload was light, so she’d given both her employees the day off. She didn’t work alone often, and she missed her staff. She knew Elsie had plans to take her husband’s dog out for training in the woods and who knew where Sue might be. Maybe out on her bike or tramping around down by the river. At any rate, Ginny was alone for the day. It looked to be a quiet one, too, with no customers coming in. She began shuffling prints around to see where they would show to best effect.

Just when she couldn’t stand being alone any more, Mark Horner from the Chowdah Bowl stuck his head in the door. “Hey, I’m going fishing! Want to come?”

The absurdity of the proposal was just what she needed. “With you? On a boat? Not in this lifetime!”

He was always inviting her out on his beloved fishing boat, and she was forever refusing him. She had no desire to go out to sea with him or anyone else, or to catch big fish, which inevitably entailed nasty things like cleaning them. Besides, she was sure she’d get seasick.

He caught something in her tone and walked the rest of his body into the room. “Are you okay? You look upset.”

She brushed her hair out of her eyes and found a smile for him. “Look at this mess. Of course I’m upset!”

He looked around. “You’re right. It’s a mess. But you do this at least three times a month. Why does today have you so upset?”

She opened her mouth to explain, but nothing came out. After all this time, did she really intend to confess her long-ago affair to a fishmonger? No, that was unfair; Mark was a good person and much more than a seller of fish. Under the cover of his mocking laugh, he was always available when she needed help. She knew she could count on him in disagreements with the landlord, and she was glad the Chowdah Bowl lay between her shop and Jemmie’s. Too bad about Mark’s two ex-wives.

“Are you worried about Jemmie? He’s been much quieter since DiAndreo talked to him.”

“Not really. He’s more silly than scary. He gives me the creeps. No, it’s something else, Mark. I can’t talk about it yet.”

“Good gossip?” His eyes lit up with delight. “About somebody I know?”

She laughed. “No, not at all. Don’t worry, you’ll know as soon as I can tell you. Thanks for stopping in. I guess I was just feeling lonely.”

He gave her a concerned look, and then made the best offer he could. “I’ll send over some chowdah. You haven’t eaten lunch, have you?” He spun on his heel and strode out.

No, she hadn’t eaten, but that was the least of it. Mark was kind, in his own rough way, and she was grateful to him. But she still had this mess to clean up, and she still had to deal with the nude and her complicated feelings about it. She went back to work, stopping only when a bewildered teen dropped off a bowl of clam chowder complete with oyster crackers. No doubt about it, she felt better after eating.

So she felt fortified when the phone rang. Without any premonition, she lifted the receiver and answered in the normal way. “Hello, Brush and Bevel.”

“Is this Ginny Brent?” asked a rough-voiced man with a strong accent.

“Yes.”

“I got a note heah to call you about my bah,” he went on, dropping his r’s in the classic New England style. “I’m outta business now, but what can I do f’ya?”

Ginny sat down hard on a chair. “You got my name from North Shore Sales?”

“Yuh. Mitch says ya wanted a name of some painteh fellah?’’

“Yes. Yes, thank you for calling. What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t, but it’s Jack Morgan. I used ta own Cap’n Billy’s down on the Cape. All the drunks useta call me Cap’n, but I never went ta sea. I figger, I don’t need ta be a sailor ta serve booze.”

Ginny laughed in spite of herself. “No, Jack, you don’t. About this painting—”

“See, that’s the trouble. I only bought Billy’s about three yeahs back, lock, stock, and barrel, as they say. Even came with a cah, would ya believe. It didn’t run fer shit, but it was a cah. Anyway, if theah was a painting, it was theah when I bought the place. I nevah put anything like that up.”

Ginny deflated. “Oh. Well, then, I’m afraid—”

“Mitch says you’re looking fer a gift fer your husband, that right?”

“Yes.”

“And ya sent him a little tip fer his help?”

“Yes,” she agreed with a sinking heart. How much was this going to cost her? “I could do the same for you.”

“’Cept I don’t know about any ahtist. Tell ya who might, though.”

“Really?”

“No shit. The guy I bought the bah from, he knew all that type up in Provincetown.”

“What’s his name? I’ll give him a call.”

“He might not remember, now.”

“Doesn’t matter, Jack. I’ll just try anyway.”

“Matt Baldwin. I dunno if this number’s still good, it’s kinda old.” Jack recited it for her and grunted when she read it back to him. “That’s it. I oughta warn ya, he’s a crazy old coot. Sold the bah ’cause he got religion. Least that’s what he said. I think he sold it ’cause he couldn’t make a livin’ at it. I sure as hell couldn’t. Damn drunks.”

Well, Ginny thought, it was less than she wanted but more than she hoped for. She tucked the scribbled number into her briefcase and went back to work, very much heartened.

Chapter Twelve

Although Sue Bradley would have enjoyed riding her bike or tramping around down by the river, which she was wont to do whenever her day off coincided with good weather, she indulged in neither passion. Despite the sunny, mild weather and the temptation of a spring hike, she made other plans. Yaneque’s visit and the mysterious oil painting had piqued her interest, so she called an acquaintance she had at the weekly paper that served the Temple Mountain area and made an appointment to use its archives.

The
Town Crier
was just moving into the computer age, so most of the archives were still on microfiche. Some of the very oldest issues, old enough to qualify as genuine antiques, were still on actual newsprint, carefully preserved in special clear envelopes. Sue didn’t need to go back that far, however. She was interested in two stories that went back ten years.

Her contact was Jim Cooper, a hyperactive reporter who attended most of the board meetings in the neighboring towns. He signed her in and led her down the stairs to a basement room that should have been damp but wasn’t, though it smelled of old dust and disuse.

“You’re lucky I’m here today,” he said. “Just had to come in to meet with the editor. We’re planning a big story on the new conservation land, and we needed to touch base and look at some maps together. Anyway, here you are. You know how to work these machines? Put the fiche in the holder here, and slide this handle back and forth, up and down, till you find what you need.”

“How do I pick out a particular story?”

“You know the date?”

“Not precisely. It was winter, ten years ago.”

“Good enough,” Jim said. He ran his finger down a line of cabinet drawers and opened one, riffling through the cards inside until he found the appropriate envelope. “Here you go. November, December, January. If that’s not the right one, just look in here for the next one, or the one before, whatever you need. Don’t put anything away, though. We have an intern who does that, and he goes crazy when he finds things out of place. Can’t blame him, I suppose. Anything else? Oh, the water cooler’s upstairs, sorry about that. So’s the ladies’ room. All set?”

“I got it, Jim. Thanks a lot. See you around sometime, right?”

He bustled away, and Sue sat down with a sigh. Such a lovely day outside, and here in this basement, she couldn’t even look out a window, since there were none. She set her notebook and pen to one side and tested the motion of the handle. It was so easy to work that she had to remember to slow her movements in order to keep the type on the screen readable.

It didn’t take her long to figure out the system. The microfiche was set up almost like a book; each page of the newspaper was displayed in its entirety, though only a part of it showed on the screen at any one time. Moving the handle up and down let her read from top to bottom of the page. If she moved the handle to the right, she could move to page two, page three, and so on to the end of the issue, and then on to the next week. A leftward move took her back to the previous page or issue. It was like a time machine, she thought, spinning through the month in a single motion. The whimsy delighted her.

It was tempting to read through the pages one by one; old stories that tickled her memory jumped out at her and begged for her attention. The fire at the Churchville general store; kids rescued after they tried to cross the river on thin ice; the perpetual debate over the placement of new roads. Preparations for the big Thanksgiving parade that traditionally got rained out brought a sad smile to her face. Only two years ago, the long-time organizer had died, and no one stepped up to take her place. The parade faded into the past. Maybe someone would start it up again this year.

Enough of that. Sue took a firm grip on the handle and edged forward a couple of weeks, searching for stories about a big snowstorm. She knew it had happened before Christmas, because Yaneque had mentioned she’d been released from the hospital in time to put up her tree. An accident with a logging truck and a delivery van on top of the pass would surely have rated some kind of story. Maybe not page one, but something.

Ah, there it was. The accident didn’t rate page one, but the snowstorm did. A large picture of an impressive snowplow hurling a wave of snow took up the top third of the page in the December 8 edition of the
Crier
.

Second Storm in Two Weeks Dumps Eight Inches

Temple Pass Closed

The second significant storm of the season dropped up to eight inches of snow on parts of the Monadnock region Tuesday. State and local crews worked all day and into the night to clear roads already lined with high banks of cleared snow from previous storms. Most schools and many businesses closed early or did not open at all.