"That's Timothy Bauer, lived down the road. He was one of Lewis's followers. He died a couple years later, higher'n a kite on something and ran his car off the levee into the canal."
"No paintings of Lewis, then?" asked Hawkin.
"Isn't there one?" Jameson sounded very surprised, and wheeled himself forward to look. "There isn't, is there? Used to be one. Vaun must have taken it," he said doubtfully. Hawkin shot a glance at Kate, who felt her tiredness abruptly leave her.
"Was it in here, Mr. Jameson?" asked Hawkin, sounding only slightly curious.
"Yes, between the one you took out and the one over there. I know, because I used to look at these sometimes, and I used to avoid that slot—I didn't like to see his sleazy face. Maybe Vaun didn't either and finally burned it." He sounded as if he found that a more likely possibility than his niece wanting it. Hawkin knelt down to replace the two he had removed and looked closely at the adjoining two slots. The odd bits of carpet that lined the bottom of the case were indented wherever a painting had rested over the years. The pile was notched clearly in the slot from which he had taken the young man and in the one where the young woman putting on her makeup had rested. Between them was a gap, one of several in the storage wall, and an indentation showed that a canvas had indeed rested here, although a thin layer of dust had had time to drift across the matted pile.
"Pity it's not here, said Hawkin easily. "I'd have liked to see his face, and how she saw it."
"You didn't see it in her studio, then?" asked Jameson.
"Do you remember what it looked like?"
"I sure do. He was sitting in a turned-around chair, his arms along the back of it, his chin on his forearms. Shirtless. He had a tattoo, I remember, on his upper arm, a snake or something. He looked sweaty, and when I first saw it all I could think was, Thank God he put his pants back on before she painted it."
"It had sexual overtones, then?"
"Yes. I don't know why, something in his face, I guess. It was awful. But it wasn't there, then? In her house?"
"I may have missed it; there's a lot of paintings. When did you see it last?"
"Years. It's years since I actually looked at it—like I told you, I didn't like to see him. I think it was here last summer, but I couldn't swear to it."
"No problem—just curiosity. Mr. Jameson, I'd like to borrow a few of these paintings, if I may."
"Which ones?"
"The two final ones, and two or three of the earlier ones. I'd be interested in having someone more knowledgeable than myself look at them and tell me about her state of mind when they were done. It could be very helpful," he added.
"Oh, well, sure, if it'd help you. You'll have to be careful of them."
"We will. I'll get them back to you as soon as I can," he said. He retrieved the last pair, rested them next to the first pair that Jameson had shown Kate, and then went back and unerringly pulled out the second one of Jameson, squinting into the sun from the seat of a tractor. He put it next to the other four, and Jameson turned away, looking slightly embarrassed.
"Write him out a receipt of some kind, would you, Casey?" he asked, but she already had her notebook in her hand. As she finished, a thought occurred to her.
"Mr. Jameson, that painting of the lumberman's daughter? And any others people around here might have—does anyone know what it is they have? An early Eva Vaughn would be a pretty valuable thing, I would have thought."
"Nobody but the family knows. We don't talk about her. She wanted it that way."
Kate could well imagine that. This family's ability to keep their mouths closed was probably the only thing that had stood between Eva Vaughn and a massive influx of vultures, disguised as reporters, onto the dirt of Tyler's Road.
Hawkin moved towards the paintings, but Jameson stopped him.
"Leave them here," he ordered. "You can bring your car over for them later. If we make Becky hold lunch for us, she won't be happy." He turned to the door and then drifted the wheels to a halt against his callused palms. Something else was on his mind. "It's not good," he said finally. "I don't like not knowing just how she is. I want you to have them tell us the truth. You can do that."
Hawkin took out a small notebook and pen, wrote a few words, and then handed the sheet to Jameson.
"This doctor can tell you whatever you want. I'll let him know you'll be calling."
"Thank you." He folded the sheet carefully and buttoned it into a shirt pocket. He took a last look at the studio and shook his head. "I often wonder what Vaun would have been like if she didn't have this… 'gift.' Curse is more like it. It's made her life hell; it tortured her mother. God forgive me, I can't help but think it was also at the back of Jemma's death and now these three—" He stopped, took a long and shaky breath, exhaled carefully, took off his cap and ran a hand across his hair, and put control back on along with the hat. "I remember an essay she wrote once in high school, an English assignment. Becky still has it somewhere. They were supposed to write on a word, any word, to research it and say what it meant to them, that kind of thing. Vaun chose the word talent. She started out talking about a talent as a kind of Roman coin and then went on to say that money was a form of energy, neither good nor bad in itself, just energy. 'It's how the talent is spent that makes the difference,' that's how the paper ended. Clever, it was, better than most of her schoolwork. But sad. At that time, she thought she was in charge. She never has been. Her talent has eaten her up, from the time she was a bitty little girl. She can never be normal, never be free and happy, not while this 'gift' has her. I think she knows it, too, now. I'm sure she does. It's a terrible thing to say, but I wasn't all that surprised when I heard she'd tried to kill herself. She's a sad girl, is my Vaunie. Not just sad, I don't mean to say that, but she has very few dreams left. All she has is her 'gift' and the world she paints. All she has is her eyes and her hands, and if one of them fails, that will be the end of her."
He turned his head and looked straight up at Kate, and she was shocked to see tears brimming into his tough eyes. "I love Vaun like a daughter, and this talent of hers is not a happy thing. I wouldn't wish it on an enemy." He blinked, gave the paintings a final glance, and yanked hard at his wheels, disappearing down the ramp at a heart-stopping speed. He was halfway to the house before Kate and Hawkin caught up with him.
17
Contents - Prev/Next
The house smelled of onions and hot cheese and nutmeg. Kate excused herself and ducked into the small bathroom just inside the back door. She was relieved to find that the blood had only reached as far as the lining of her jacket. She took off her blouse, pulled off the soaked bandages, and replaced them with two sterile pads and a plastic-backed six-inch square, held down with lengths of tape. It was awkward, but she got it on. She sponged off her blouse, one chosen that morning for the dark colors and all-over pattern, dried it with toilet paper, and got dressed again. Wrapping the gory evidence in more toilet paper, she thrust it into the waste basket, used the toilet, washed her hands, opened the door, and nearly collided with a tall man with red hair whom she had last seen as a boy on canvas, splitting wood.
His arrogant blue eyes probed lazily over her body from hair to ankles before rising slowly to her own eyes. She felt herself stiffen and blocked it immediately, but she could never do much about the impersonal smile that came to her lips when this happened, the civilized version of the raised-hackle snarl.