"And you think Vaun Adams is one of those."
He sighed. "I'm afraid I do."
Both of them concentrated on the food for a while, although their pleasure was dulled. It was hard not to take a failure of the judicial system as a personal failure.
"So," Kate prompted.
"So Vaun goes through a mockery of a trial, is sent to prison, gets out, travels, ends up on Tyler's Road. He may have known she was here, or he may have come across her at the 'Faire' entirely by accident, but however it happened he found her there three years ago, and when she didn't recognize him because of the beard and the years and the hell she'd been through, he decided to stick around.
"It took him a few hours, but he found Angie that day, a simple, abandoned woman with a small child. She was charmed—God, I'm beginning to hate that word! And in no time at all there he was, living next door, unrecognized, to a woman he'd sent to prison. The one thing that strikes me as odd is that he stuck around Vaun for two years without doing much of anything, other than going off every few days to do some kind of work in the Bay Area. Probably something illegal."
"Tyler's Road would be very inconvenient, but plenty far enough from San Jose to make him feel safe."
"Maybe. At any rate, he plays this little game, living half a mile away, transporting her paintings—already crated—for her, but keeping away from her so her artist's eyes don't see who's under the beard. Until November, when all-trusting Tommy Chesler tells him that he helped box up the painting shown on page 72 of Time magazine, and Lewis realizes that little Vaunie isn't just making a few dollars out of her canvases, she's an internationally recognized artist whose paintings bring in five and six figures. It may have been the money that got to him, and the thought that if eighteen years before he'd played his cards right, he would now be in charge of that income. Maybe it was just the sheer effrontery of the woman, to become such a stunning success despite his efforts to crush her. Either way, his knack for a clever revenge comes into play, and he works out a way of first driving her around the bend, then destroying her reputation, and finally killing her, making it look like suicide."
Kate pulled the magazine back beside her plate, and with her left hand began to turn over its pages. She remembered it now. This article, like the one she had waded through in the glossy art magazine, was also bipartisan, divided into a pro and con. A reflection, no doubt, of the ambiguous attitude of the art world at large toward Eva Vaughn. A few phrases caught her eye, the names of Vermeer and Rembrandt again, and Berthe Morisot.
She glanced at the final paragraphs. The pro writer ended with:
In the thirteenth century the painter Cimabue happened across a young and untrained peasant boy sitting by the road drawing remarkable sheep on a stone. The child's name was Giotto. He went on to surpass his master, and it was his reworking of Gothic forms to include drama and human emotions that paved the way for the Renaissance and changed the face of European art forever. Now in the late twentieth century we have, appropriately enough, a woman, Eva Vaughn, coming to bring form and formalism back to abstract emotionalism. She has brought craft and the human heart back, in forms we thought to be drained empty, and even the most jaded are forced to see classical Realism with new eyes. Giotto's revolution came at the right time. It remains to be seen whether the vessel refilled by Ms. Vaughn can contain her.
On the other hand:
It is impossible to deny the sheer raw talent in these pictures. It is, however, a pity that such power has not been turned to saying something new, instead of a cautious, deliberate reworking of threadbare forms. Paul Klee once said that the more horrific the world, the more abstract its art. If we may apply that theory to the individual, when faced with the style of Eva Vaughn, one can only assume that the artist has led a very sheltered life indeed.
"Sheltered," Kate snorted.
"Ironic, isn't it? The rest of the article wasn't bad, but to end by quoting a man who obviously has no sense of history, and cap it off with a logical fallacy—I wonder if the writer'll be embarrassed when this thing breaks."
"It will break, won't it? It'll all be in print before the week is out."
"Bound to be. No more coffee, thanks." This last was to the waiter, who returned bearing a discreet little tray with two chocolate mints and the bill. It had been an unimaginative menu but a satisfying dinner, and after his preliminary burst of eloquence Phil had left them alone. Hawkin peeled several crushed bills apart and dropped them in the neighborhood of the tray, and looked at his watch.
"Quarter to eight. Hope she's awake. I'd like to sleep in my own bed tonight."
Vaun was drowsing on her pillows after the effort of a meal and bath, but her eyes snapped open when the two detectives walked in. Gerry Bruckner was sitting at the small corner table hunched over a neat stack of typescript with a pen in his hand. A fresh vase of roses, pink and yellow, glowed on the table next to him.
Kate was stunned at the change in the woman. She had been beautiful before, but now she was alive. The muscles of her gaunt face did not move as she watched them come toward her, glancing at Hawkin and then studying, absorbing, Kate; but her eyes, her startling blue eyes, brimmed over with life, filled to overflowing with vitality and awareness and the beauty of being alive.
"Thank you," she said to Kate. Her voice was husky but clear, and the force of the life behind those eyes made Kate want to turn away even as they held her and made her smile foolishly in response. There was nothing to be said to that, and eventually—in ten minutes? ten seconds?—Vaun released her and turned her gaze at Hawkin, who withstood it little better than Kate had.
Gerry Bruckner broke it, finally, when he came up to the bed and adjusted her pillows and rested his hand lightly on her head. She smiled at him, lovingly, and Hawkin cleared his throat.
"Are you feeling up to giving us a statement now, Miss Adams?"
"Of course," she said. Kate took out her notebook and dutifully recorded the details of what had very nearly been the last day of Vaun Adams's life.
There was nothing there. Yes, she had noticed a peculiar taste in the whiskey, but then she'd felt as if she was coming down with a cold, and that always made things taste odd. And yes, the heavy-duty antihistamines she'd taken had probably compounded the effects of drug and whiskey. No, she did not take chloral hydrate. She was a hypochondriac, sure, but drew the line at sleeping pills. No, she'd seen nothing out of place when she returned from her walk. No, she had not realized that Tony Dodson was Andy Lewis, but yes, she supposed it was possible, and that could account for the frisson of apprehension she occasionally experienced when coming on him unawares. She would have to think about it. No, she had not noticed that the painting of the young Andy Lewis had disappeared, but it had been in her studio at Uncle Red's farm in August, she was certain of that. No, she had done nothing very out of the ordinary that Friday, deliberately so, that being the only way to keep the fear at bay. The storm had helped distract her, and she spent the afternoon clearing up some branches, talking to various neighbors about their damage. Yes, she had seen Angie, but not Tony. And finally, yes, she had talked it over with Gerry, and though she did not wish to, she was willing to cooperate by being, in her words, the goat tethered out for the tiger. She looked to be on the verge of saying something else but changed her mind as the whole situation seemed suddenly to be more than she could deal with and exhaustion flooded in.
They left, with Bruckner speaking soothing words and stroking her clean hair, and drove home and slept in their own beds that night. Neither of them, incidentally, slept alone.