The Artist Colony

by Joanna FitzPatrick

  “Excuse us, Sarah,” said Una, “but our guests are anxious to meet Alain—though I can see he’d rather be somewhere else. He seems to have forgotten that he was the one who volunteered to play Frederic.”

  Robin and Sarah watched Alain and Una join the guests on the patio. Robin stayed behind long enough to say, “I’d like to talk to you privately, Miss Cunningham. Can you meet me at the tower in thirty minutes?”

  Sarah looked over at the unfinished pile of stones. “Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s safe. I built it with my own hands and I can assure you it’s a solid structure.” He looked amused. “And you don’t have to scale it. There’s an interior staircase that will take you to the top.” Una called for him, and he left Sarah on her own.

  She heard a voice behind her—“Sarah!”—and spun around to see a stocky, elderly woman in baggy trousers and a long cape. Her face was shaded under a wide-brimmed bolero hat and a snow-white braided pigtail fell down over her right shoulder.

  She came up to Sarah, stuck out her hand and brusquely said, “I’m Mary Austin. I was a good friend of your sister’s. So glad to finally meet you. Will you join me over here on this bench?”

  This was the author that Sirena had mentioned, a bohemian member of Carmel’s artist colony before the war. The bench she suggested was on a ledge hanging over the turbulent waves. The strong current gushed through a forest of ochre sea kelp rooted to the seafloor.

  After they sat down, Miss Austin struck a match and cupped her hand to protect the flame. She sucked on a corncob pipe until she got it lit. “Ada told me you’ve been studying art in Paris for the past three years,” she said, puffing out a cloud of smoke. “Was it worth it?”

  Sarah paused. She hadn’t expected such a candid question. “Yes, I think so. I’m going to have a one-woman show there at Nouy Gallery. That is, if I can get home soon enough to finish preparing for it.”

  “I’ve heard of that gallery. It would be a feather in your cap. What’s keeping you here?”

  Sirena could have taken lessons from Mary in asking abrupt personal questions.

  “My sister’s death. She’s been falsely accused of suicide and to clear her name I have to find out what really happened to her.”

  “Good. I was hoping that was what you would say.”

  They watched as a fisherman in a boat anchored close to the shore suddenly yanked on a bent, wobbling fishing rod. A salmon struggled against the hook in his mouth as he was dragged across the water’s surface. The fisherman grabbed the fish by its tail and whacked it hard against the side of the boat until it was dead.

  “A damn shame what happened. Ada was an extraordinary individual and a brilliant painter until a monster came up from the sea and stole her from us. A damn tragedy.”

  “So you too think she was murdered?”

  “Well, she certainly didn’t kill herself, did she? That woman was exploding with plans for her future. Death was not on her list.”

  “Do you know who that monster is?”

  Mary puffed on her pipe for what seemed like forever before answering.

  “No. But I received a letter from Ada at my home in New Mexico postmarked several days before her death. She told me about her upcoming exhibit and how anxious she was about Paul deVrais’s recent behavior. He had been in a rage ever since she ended their contract and was threatening to take her to court. She knew what I had gone though as a female artist in this cutthroat man’s world and she wanted my advice.”

  She clamped down on the pipe in the side of her mouth. “Art dealers are greedy and unscrupulous. Book publishers, too. Middle-men who can’t make art but think they deserve to control, even own what isn’t really theirs, particularly when it involves women artists who have no recourse.” She took a few puffs and added, “But I have to say, though deVrais is certainly a bully, I doubt he would have the courage to actually kill someone, even if the reward was a very valuable art collection. Down deep he’s a bit of a wimp, don’t you think? Most bullies are.”

  Sarah asked Mary to please send her the letter. She might need it as evidence.

  “Before you go off accusing deVrais, you should know he wasn’t the only man mentioned in her letter.”

  “What?”

  “Last summer, when Ada and I were sitting out here on this very bench, she told me she’d fallen in love with a dashing adventurer who would take her to his hideaway and make love to her. I’m sure you know how your sister loved romantic interludes. She knew he was trouble. I think it was the sex she didn’t want to give up.”

  Sarah was too curious to be offended by Mary’s insinuation that her sister was promiscuous. Nor could she argue. Ada often had affairs with the wrong kind of men. Sarah had often bailed her out of sticky situations. So had she misread Ada’s telegram? Was this the “mess” Ada had gotten herself into, which had nothing to do with deVrais or the portraits?

  “Apparently he traveled a lot so they only met on the spur of the moment,” added Mary. “In her letter, she told me she had finally met someone who even you would approve of and she wanted to end the sordid affair.”

  A sudden squall brought Mary to her feet. She wrapped her cape tightly around her shoulders. “I’m going to catch a chill if I don’t go inside.”

  Sarah jumped up. “Wait. Don’t leave me without telling me their names.”

  “Sorry, but Ada never told me their names.” She hugged Sarah. “I’m so glad we had a chance to talk before I go back to Santa Fe.” She handed Sarah her calling card. “I’ll send you that letter as soon as I get home, and you let me know when you find out who killed Ada.”

  Sarah was too agitated to stay still. She paced the rocky ledge in front of the bench, turning this unexpected information over in her head until she saw Robinson Jeffers at the entrance to the tower, motioning her to join him.

  He bent his head under an arch and entered without a word. The stairway was very narrow, almost claustrophobic, and the limestone stairs were slippery and difficult to climb. When she finally reached the rooftop, a gust of wind would have knocked off her hat if she hadn’t quickly grabbed the eye-of-the-peacock.

  She sat down next to Jeffers sitting on a stone bench carved into the citadel, and unable to keep her hat on, let the wind snap at her hair. The poet stared off in the distance as if she wasn’t there. His unlit clay pipe cupped in his hand. His jaw clenched.

  “Mr. Jeffers,” said Sarah finally losing patience, “what was it you wanted to tell me?”

  When he turned his eyes on her, the wind seemed to hold its breath waiting for him to speak. “On the Fourth of July, Ada was not painting on River Beach. I would have seen her on my twilight walk or she would’ve stopped by to see me, as was her habit.”

  “But Marshal Judd claims that’s where she drowned.”

  “Marshal Judd is an ass,” he said harshly. “He has no understanding of the sea’s temperament or of Ada’s.”

  Sarah leaned toward the poet to hear him better over the wind. “Around midnight, after the fireworks were long over, I came up here for a smoke. It was a clear night and the full moon illuminated the wide stretch of white sand until I was almost fooled into believing it was daylight.”

  He handed her the binoculars that had been hanging around his neck. “Here, see for yourself. Look southward toward the Carmel River outlet.” She’d never looked through binoculars before and was startled to see how close the beach appeared through the magnified lenses.

  “I heard a fisherman motoring to shore the night of the fourth. With my binoculars I could see his boat was weighed down and he was having trouble bringing it in. When he finally got it beached, he pulled out a bulky sack that looked like it might be full of rockfish, or maybe salmon. It was only later, after I heard about Ada being found near the river stream, that I wondered if he was the one who brought her to shore.”

  In a mix of excitement and horror, Sarah almost dropped the binoculars over the edge of the tower. “But none of this is in Marshal Judd’s re
port. Why didn’t you come forward as a witness at the inquest?”

  “I would have, but Judd thought I was too far away to see anything. It’s not the first time he didn’t believe me. Ask Mary Austin. She was living here when Helena Wood Smith was murdered ten years ago. Judd didn’t listen to me then and he almost let that killer get away, too.”

  Rosie had told her a similar story, but Jeffers didn’t mention Smith’s Japanese killer was almost lynched. She didn’t imagine the poet would have joined that racialist mob. His darker emotions burned from within and were channeled through his provocative poetry. He kneaded his callused hands, hands strong enough to build a tower out of boulders and sensitive enough to hold a pencil and write poems about illicit yearning and desire.

  “Judd didn’t want to waste his time searching for an unknown fisherman when he was certain it was a suicide. I thought you might be more interested in what I saw.”

  “Thank you,” said Sarah with gratitude. “Thank you very much.” But she wished he’d been more insistent with the marshal or gone to the District Attorney. “Would you testify to what you witnessed if the inquest is reopened?”

  “Yes.” He stood up at the portal arch, ready to go down the stairs, indicating that their conversation was over.

  Sarah also stood. “Is there anything else you can think of that might help me find the fisherman you saw that night?”

  He looked down the coast and then back to Sarah, his brows coming together like a hawk. “Sometimes I would see Ada at twilight riding her bicycle toward Point Lobos when I was carrying stones up to here. Sometimes I would see her pedaling back at dawn the next morning.

  “Ada’s temper flared when Una asked her where she went in Point Lobos and why she stayed late into the night. Told Una it was none of her business. Una never asked again.”

  He got up and looked down over the granite balustrade. “I have to go down. Una will be cross if I don’t rescue her from our guests soon. See, there she is now waving up at us.”

  It was a mistake for Sarah to look down. She hadn’t realized how high up they were. Swaths of color encircled the shingled roof of the Tor House, which was now the size of a dollhouse. Dizzy, she sat back down on the bench. “I’ll stay here for a minute,” she said. “You go ahead.”

  “Watch out,” said Jeffers as he looked up from the stairwell’s black shadows. “These stairs are slippery.”

  She was in awe of this reclusive poet who had built this indestructible stone edifice with his own hands. He’d found a way to immortalize his life. Hawk Tower and Tor House would still be standing long after he was gone, even if his poetry was forgotten, though she doubted it would be.

  The dark shaft felt even narrower going down than coming up and Sarah had to squeeze her arms to pass through it. She envied the agile man who had descended so quickly. She took timid steps like a blind person and used her hands to feel her way. She was very grateful when she got to the bottom and felt the ground beneath her feet.

  As she walked into the courtyard looking around for Sirena, several of the guests crowded around her and introduced themselves. She’d come to be known as the sister in the peacocked hat and everyone wanted to meet her and talk about Ada.

  “She was a great artist.”

  “A terrible loss to our artist colony.”

  “Helped many young painters. Encouraged them in their work.”

  “Donated paintings to support local art clubs.”

  “Volunteered to build sets for the theater productions.”

  No . . . No one had seen her on the fourth, but that was to be expected. It was generally known from previous summers that the fireworks frightened Ada and she never came to the beach to watch.

  The sun had slipped behind the horizon and turned the sky a deep orange, deeper than the blooming geraniums in the Tor House garden. She looked around for Sirena, but she must’ve gone home. When Sarah went to say goodbye to her hosts, Una gave her a bottle of Coine-Eairngorm wine to take with her and told her to come back soon.

  She walked quickly under a row of young cypress and eucalyptus trees that would in time grow higher than Hawk Tower, but she hardly noticed them. After what the Jeffers and Mary had told her, she was blind to anything but her own scary thoughts.

  When she reached the cottage gate and looked through the dark windows into the bleak empty rooms within, she hesitated going inside. Over at Rosie’s Lodge, lights were on in the parlor and she heard faint notes coming from the spinet piano. She considered joining them, but then she heard Albert’s frantic bark behind the front door. She walked up the steps and opened the door to a welcoming yelp as he jumped into her open arms.

  She carried him into the kitchen and gave him a well-deserved treat. While he gnawed on a beef shank, she drank a glass of Una’s ambrosial wine between bites of bread and cheese. She had no appetite for anything else.

  An hour later, after writing down what the Jeffers and Mary Austin had told her, she put away her drawing pad and gathered up the inquest paperwork that was spread out on the table into a neat pile. Then she picked up Albert and went upstairs to bed, exhausted.

  MONDAY, JULY 28

  —15—

  Sarah and Rosie stood in front of a white two-story adobe building at the corner of Alvarado and Franklin Streets. An engraved brass plaque on the front door read: ELMER PEABODY, ESQ., ATTORNEY AT LAW. BY APPOINTMENT ONLY.

  The only other law office Sarah had ever visited was the elegant, art deco office of Mr. Foster M. Giles in New York. She met with him before she boarded the train to San Francisco. He’d given her a quick course in estate law and spoken crossly about Ada choosing to write her own will. If he had written it, he’d have given Sarah, the executor of Ada’s estate, a copy.

  The two women mounted the stairs to Mr. Peabody’s office and opened the glass-paneled door. There was no secretary in the outer office to greet them but the desk was neat and orderly.

  Rosie knocked on the inner office door.

  A very skinny sixtyish human scarecrow opened the door. He was dressed as a Victorian gentleman in a three-piece suit with a gold pince-nez perched on the bridge of a prominent nose. He stretched his long, thin neck outward and looked down at Rosie. “Miss McCann, you’re five minutes late.”

  Rosie apologized and quickly introduced Sarah. The ladies were then ushered over to two Queen Anne chairs. Mr. Peabody, surprisingly quick for a man of his age and height, sat down in a massive black leather chair behind his desk. He scrunched his hooked nose and the pince-nez fell down and swung from a gold chain attached to a button hole in his lapel, ready when needed.

  “Tell me now, Miss McCann, what is so important that you insisted on an appointment during my lunch hour?”

  Sarah hadn’t expected him to be so severe, but she sat up straight, met his eyes, and spoke before Rosie could: “I need representation in the settlement of an estate for which I am the executor and the sole beneficiary.”

  “I see,” he said, retrieving his pince-nez and perching it back on his nose. “May I see the decedent’s will?”

  Sarah explained that she didn’t have the will in her possession, but expected to have it soon. She hurried on before he could object. “How long does it normally take to settle an estate?”

  “It’s difficult to say without reading the will, but if it clearly states you are the only beneficiary then it will be fairly simple.” He raised a long forefinger. “However, if another party contests your authority then it would have to be settled in probate court. That is a much more arduous and expensive process.”

  He sensed Sarah’s anxiousness and added, “Is there someone who will contest the will, Miss Cunningham?”

  “Not that I know of,” she lied.

  “Well then . . .” he tapped the same finger on the plunger of a shiny black metal timer clock sitting on the side of his desk. The shrill bell made the ladies jump. “Then by all means, let’s proceed.” He dipped a black Sheaffer fountain pen into the inkwell and the slurpi
ng sound of the thirsty pen held everyone’s attention.

  Once filled, he held the pen’s gold nib over a yellow legal pad similar to the one Mr. Giles had used. “May I have the name of the deceased?”

  “Ada Belle Davenport.”

  He cleared his throat and squinted at her over his pince-nez. “The famous artist who drowned recently on our shores?”

  “Yes. Did you know her?”

  “And your relationship?” he asked, ignoring her question.

  “She was my sister,” Sarah said and asked again insistently, “Did you know her?”

  The scarecrow lawyer screwed the top onto his pen and studied her for a long moment, long enough to make her shift in her chair and re-cross her legs.

  “Considering Miss Davenport is deceased and you, her sister, are the one asking, I can legally tell you that Miss Davenport was briefly my client. I had one meeting with them, that was all.”

  “She was with someone?” asked Rosie.

  “Yes. These matters always involve two people.”

  “And can you tell me who she was with?” Sarah asked when she found her voice.

  He frowned and with one finger on his temple, he rolled his eyes upward as if the answer was on the ceiling. “Right now his name escapes me. I have many clients that I only meet once. I can hardly be expected to remember all their names. I rely on my secretary to keep accurate notes of my meetings. If Miss Honeysuckle were here she could tell you, but she’s on holiday right now.”

  “Could you tell us what the document contained?” asked Rosie, as stunned as Sarah.

  “It was a nuptial agreement.”

  “Nuptial agreement?” said Sarah and Rosie in unison.

  “Yes. I too was taken aback. It’s a highly unusual request here on the Monterey Peninsula. But after Miss Davenport explained her situation and her fiancé had no objection—”

  “Fiancé?” said Sarah, looking down at the gold band that she was wearing on her right finger for safe-keeping.

  “Miss Cunningham, how could you not know of your sister’s impending marriage?”