The Artist Colony

by Joanna FitzPatrick

  Mr. Kassajara lifted the shell to strike him again, but stopped when he saw the current was pulling the boat out to sea with Sarah banging and kicking against its hull. He dropped his weapon, dove into the water, and pulled the boat back to shore.

  He was starting to untie Sarah’s arms when Robert came up from behind him and cracked Mr. Kassajara over the head with the butt of his revolver. Robert climbed back into the boat, revved up the motor, and headed for the Ocean Queen.

  When they reached the schooner, Robert cut the motor, untied the rope around her wrists and ordered her to climb up the ladder. Onboard, he quickly tied her hands and her feet and sat her down on the deck next to the pilot house that he went inside. She could hear him calling his crew on the radio. They were to wait for him beyond the international line where they were safe from the coast guard. He would be joining them soon.

  In his hurry, her ropes were loosely tied and she was able to squeeze one hand free and then the other. She untied her feet, tore the gag from her mouth and crept up the steps of the pilot house. The blue sheen of his revolver was sticking out of the holster he’d hung on a hook.

  Her rage against this man who had killed her sister and who had probably used this very gun to kill Sirena and who had left Mr. Kassajara and Albert wounded or dead on the beach made her reckless. She pulled the gun out of its holster “Raise your hands or I’ll shoot,” she said, sticking the gun in his back.

  He laughed. “C’mon Sarah, I don’t have time to play now. Put that gun down.”

  Off in the distance the engine of a powerboat could be heard.

  Robert cursed, “Damn, it’s the coast guard.”

  Sarah ran out on the deck to call out to them and Robert chased after her. They struggled with the revolver. It went off and the explosion burst into the sky. The gun fell, clattered down on the deck, and slid out of reach.

  Robert rushed for her again but his eyes were still blurred from the acid and he tripped on the anchor line, fell forward, and hit his head. He staggered up, blood dripping from a cut on his forehead.

  She ran to the bow. A painted wooden sculpture of a woman gleamed in the moonlight. She crawled out onto the figurehead and hung over the waves lapping against the ship’s hull.

  Her hands began to slip on the damp wood and she hugged her arms around the woman’s neck and tightened her legs around her torso. If she could just hold on until the coast guard got there.

  Robert called from the deck. “C’mon Sarah, stop playing hide and seek with me. Where are you?”

  The noise of racing engines became louder and suddenly searchlights lit up the Ocean Queen. It panned over Sarah’s body clinging to the figurehead. Robert saw her in the lights and began to crawl toward her. She pulled herself farther out and gripped her hands on the long tresses. Robert aimed his revolver at Sarah and pulled the trigger but the bullet missed her.

  Several more gunshots were fired from the coast guard’s boat. Robert’s head snapped back and he fell overboard. Sarah hung on to the figurehead and watched as the orange jacket sank, dragging him down under.

  Sarah crawled off the figurehead just as the searchlights were panning across the Ocean Queen. Afraid of getting shot, she ran to the stern just as Mr. Kassajara was climbing up the ladder onto the deck.

  Her teeth were chattering and her voice was hoarse. “Is Albert all right?”

  “Yes. He’s waiting for you on the beach.”

  Mr. Kassajara took her hand and helped her over the stern and down the ladder into his waiting skiff below.

  They had just reached the shore when Marshal Judd rushed up and shined his flashlight in their eyes. With his other hand, he pointed his gun at Mr. Kassajara. “Freeze!”

  Albert snarled and Sarah cried out, “Put that down. He’s not the one you want.”

  Judd dropped his arm. Sarah picked up Albert and held him tightly.

  “What’s going on here? Someone reported a rum runner. Where is he?”

  “Out there,” said Mr. Kassajara. More boats had arrived and Robert’s schooner was ablaze under the searchlights. Uniformed men were climbing aboard like black spiders.

  “Who called the coast guard?” said Judd. “This is my jurisdiction.”

  Without answering, Mr. Kassajara put an arm around Sarah’s waist and walked her up the beach to his truck parked next to the old cabin. Judd stood by, bewildered and speechless.

  A black police wagon with the gold U.S. Coast Guard emblem on the door pulled up and several men jumped out and rushed down to the shore. They ignored the tall, young woman holding a small, scruffy dog in one arm, her other arm around a short, old man.

  —30—

  Rosie was waiting for them at the lodge. She put her arm around Sarah and brought her to the couch. Mr. Kassajara knelt in front of the fireplace and started stoking it.

  Once Rosie was certain Sarah wasn’t hurt, she looked back and forth from one to the other. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense, what happened?”

  Mr. Kassajara told her about the fight on the beach and that Robert had been killed by the coast guard. While he was talking, Sarah felt her eyes closing. They didn’t open again until she heard Rosie exclaim, “Bejeezus. It’s a miracle you’re both alive.”

  Still chilled, Sarah sat on the footstool by the now-roaring fire. Her throat stung from the ether Robert had drugged her with. Rosie poured her a glass of water from a pitcher. Mr. Kassajara sat on the footstool across from her.

  Albert put his paws on Sarah’s knee, cocked his head, and looked at her until she picked him up.

  She turned to Mr. Kassajara. “How did you know where to find me?”

  “I came to the Sketch Box earlier this evening,” said Mr. Kassajara. “I wanted to tell you it was the rum runner who killed my granddaughter and probably your sister, too. I wanted you to go with me to the marshal with what I knew. The front door of the cottage was wide open. I called out but no answer. I looked inside for you and then I went into the studio. I turned over the canvas on the floor and was startled to see the rum runner’s portrait.”

  “So all this time you knew about Robert?” asked Rosie.

  He nodded. “He kept his schooner anchored in our cove. That’s how Sirena met him. She often dived at night for abalone and he saw her out diving and asked her to model for him. Said he would pay her good money.”

  He took a sip of tea from the cup Rosie offered him and put it down. “I dropped Sirena off several times at the cabin to model for him. I knew he was not a decent man, but she would not listen to me. She said she needed the money to pay for her classes.”

  He paused and looked down at his hands. This was not easy for him and Rosie and Sarah waited patiently for him to continue. “The night before my granddaughter died she told me about delivering the rum runner’s message to Miss Ada.” He looked up at Sarah. “She did not know what he’d written. She was going to tell you that when you met.

  “After I saw the portrait, I knew you were in danger and drove to the Hagemeyer cabin. Miss Ada’s red bicycle was outside. The cabin was empty. I saw the photos of you and Miss Ada and Sirena on the wall. I ran out the door to look for you and heard barking in the tool house. Albert was inside.”

  Albert sat up when his name was called and Sarah cupped his face. “I’m so sorry, Albert. You tried to warn me about Robert several times, but I didn’t listen. And then I put your life in danger when I went to confront him with what I’d learned. Will you ever forgive me?”

  The little dog yapped once and turned over for a belly rub. They all smiled, a reprieve from the sorrow and regret they all shared.

  Mr. Kassajara looked over at Rosie. “I brought Albert with me to Miss Rosie hoping you’d be here.”

  Rosie leaned forward in her armchair eager to tell her part. “After Mr. Kassajara told me Robert was a rum runner and he might be holding you hostage, I telephoned the coast guard. I told them there was a smuggler’s schooner anchored in Whalers Cove and they’d better hurry out there if they
wanted to catch the ringleader. I called Marshal Judd and told him the same thing.”

  “That was quick thinking, Rosie,” said Sarah. “I wish I had been as smart. I never questioned whether Robert really was a successful Hollywood photographer, or a wounded soldier, or a nice guy.” She realized that even the story about his brother’s suicide was probably made up to gain her trust and sympathy.

  “Was he even in the navy?”

  “Oh yes, he fought in the war,” said Mr. Kassajara, “but for the Royal Canadians. After the war he returned home to Vancouver and went into the distillery business with his father. Prohibition offered them an opportunity to make lots of money. His father is known as the Rum Baron and their fleet of ships sail from Vancouver to Los Angeles distributing whiskey. His son was second-in-command.”

  “I even suggested he should help you find Ada’s killer,” said Rosie. “And I thought I was a smart detective.”

  Sarah turned to Mr. Kassajara. “Do you know how he met my sister?”

  “Miss Ada often came to paint in the Cove, and after they met he started taking her out on his schooner.”

  Sarah imagined Ada at the helm, sailing out into perilous waters with Robert by her side, and loving the adventure.

  Rosie served more tea. Mr. Kassajara thanked her and took a few sips before putting it down and looking directly at Sarah.

  “I will always remember the light of hope in my grandchild’s face when she told me you had invited her to go back with you to Paris and go to art school. I had not seen this hope in her eyes since her parents died and I had sent her away.”

  His voice broke and she reached for his hand that was so like Sirena’s.

  “Yes, I also saw the light of hope in her face when I made my offer and that’s how I will remember her.”

  “May both Sirena and Ada find peace in the afterlife,” said Mr. Kassajara. He started chanting Namu amida butsu and Sarah and Rosie joined him.

  After Mr. Kassajara left, Sarah returned to the Sketch Box with Albert. It was two in the morning and she was exhausted, but she wouldn’t sleep this night. There was too much work to be done.

  She entered Ada’s studio and picked up Robert’s portrait off the ground and placed it back on the easel.

  One by one she took the blank canvases leaning against the wall and pulled out the nails from the backs of their frames and peeled off the outer layers. It took until dawn to carefully liberate thirteen of the portraits hidden underneath. Each one was thrilling to see uncovered.

  While she worked, she wondered what Ada’s state of mind had been like when she spent all day alone painstakingly hiding the portraits under the blank canvases so deVrais wouldn’t find them, knowing when she was finished she’d have to meet Robert at Whalers Cove . . . my past indiscretions might end up being the cause of my ruin.

  Sarah loved the painting of Katherine Mansfield, but the last one she uncovered took her breath away. It was a portrait of Sarah that Ada started back in January at their apartment before their fight. Ada had her pose in an upright chair in front of an amber curtain to emphasize the golden flecks in her deep green eyes. Her cheeks were flushed from sitting next to the coal stove. Her chin rested on her open hand as she stared out of the canvas, as if challenging the viewer to capture her inner thoughts and feelings in a fleeting moment.

  Poised radiance came to Sarah’s mind. She had never thought of herself that way and was surprised and very pleased by the understated beauty of her sister’s artistic impression of her. She was glad she had listened when Ada had said: “Sarah. Be still and look at me. Open those gorgeous eyes wide so I can make you immortal.”

  As the morning light streaming through the northern window lit the portraits she had lined up against the wall, she considered the significance of the series. Each portrait had an individual life of its own, strong personalities expressed in a palette of rich colors and smooth strokes by the painterly hand of a great artist.

  It was up in the loft that she found the last hidden portrait—a larger canvas than the others. It was a self-portrait of Ada. Long red hair fell loosely over her bare shoulders. Her left hand spread over her slightly swollen stomach under a painter’s smock. Alain’s gold band glimmered on her left ring finger. She must have added the ring at the last moment; it was still moist from her brushstroke.

  A joyous bride and mother-to-be, thought Sarah, with an aching heart.

  I can’t bring you back, but I will build a bridge between you and your paintings. Your legacy will live on. I promise you that my dearest sister Ada Belle.

  When she stood up and looked down from the loft, she saw Robert’s sea-gray eyes staring at her from the easel and knew the first decision she would make as Ada’s executor.

  She climbed down the ladder and stood in front of him. “No! Robert. You will not be in Ada’s exhibition. I have much more suitable plans for you.”

  Palette knife in hand, she felt Ada guiding her hand as she roughly scraped the paint off the canvas until there were only splotches on a raw surface. She picked up a wide paintbrush and brushed over the remaining splotches with titanium white until Robert disappeared. Completely.

  In her mind, she saw what she would paint over him—a full figure of Sirena wearing her white diving suit.

  And how perfect to bury Robert underneath her. She was certain Ada would’ve wanted this.

  As she layered short brushstrokes, Sirena’s large violet eyes came into being through a spectrum of blue and red pigments. She imagined the painting on display at the Nouy gallery on opening night: Ama—Ode to a Sea Maiden.

  She continued working throughout the morning fueled by Una’s Coine-Eairngorm wine.

  When she finally took a break, she telephoned Eric Crocker. He was very pleased to hear the portraits had been found and that she would immediately arrange for them to be crated and sent to his gallery in New York. She told him that one of the portraits had been permanently destroyed but there were still fifteen pictures for the exhibit. Her only request was that the two portraits, the portrait of herself and Ada’s self-portrait, could be displayed, but were not for sale.

  SUNDAY, AUGUST 17

  —31—

  On the afternoon of the memorial service in Point Lobos, Rosie, Sarah, and Albert met Alain at the Monterey train depot in a hired car. He looked much healthier than he had ten days ago. His expression was solemn but his dark brown eyes were clear. He stared at the porcelain urn on Sarah’s lap. She asked him if he would like to hold it. He hesitated, then agreed and folded his hands around it protectively.

  As their car headed south along the coastline, Sarah looked out at the silver-blue bay. Ada’s life had ended on its shore, but her passion for eternal beauty would live on, expressed in her work and in the hearts of those she left behind.

  News had traveled fast through the art world, and as executor of Ada’s estate she’d already received several requests from museums that wanted to acquire an Ada Belle Davenport painting for their permanent collections.

  Albert stuck his head out the back window of the Ford sedan to feel the wind against his face. His ears pressed back. Sarah joined him.

  She had announced in the Pine Cone that the memorial service would be held that day at Whalers Cove at sunset and, as they got closer, people were already on the road walking or driving in the fading light to the designated spot.

  Alain, Rosie, Sarah, and Albert stepped out of the car in front of the abalone cannery, merged into the procession, and took the wooden steps up the hill to the summit overlooking Carmel Bay.

  Sarah was wearing a black silk kimono Mr. Kassajara had given her for the celebration. He’d told her it was the traditional costume worn at a shonanoka service to celebrate the crossing of the dead into the afterlife. She draped the black shawl with the embroidered crimson roses that Ada had given her over her shoulders. Folded over her arm was Ada’s matching shawl.

  She recognized several people she had met during her short stay in Carmel. Gus Gay from
Oliver’s art supply store, Mr. Peabody with Machiko Inaoka, Armin Hansen, William Ritschel, and Una and Robinson Jeffers. Henry Champlin, who was in San Francisco at the time, had taken the train down to Monterey.

  Marshal Judd was not there. He had taken a sudden leave-of-absence from his job after the coast guard found papers on the Ocean Queen connecting him to the smuggling operation at Whalers Cove. He was on their payroll.

  Paul deVrais was also away, but he had given his accountant instructions to attend to any confusion in regard to monies he owed to Ada’s estate. Mr. Peabody with Machiko’s help had sent letters to all the collectors and dealers holding Ada’s paintings that they were to deal from now on with Sarah directly.

  Tajuro Watanabe, the young nisei that Sarah had met in Whalers Cove, introduced her to several relatives from the Silvia family. Sirena’s Portuguese grandmother had recovered from her illness and walked beside Sarah with a determined stride so like her granddaughter’s. Sarah reached out and took her arm, Rosie on her other side.

  The procession formed a semicircle around Mr. Kassajara who was waiting for them on the rim of the summit. On each side of him, as Sarah had requested, two easels displayed Ada’s self-portrait and Sarah’s new painting of Sirena, which she had finished in a flurry of painterly concentration in four days.

  As the sun slowly sank in the west, Sarah and Mr. Kassajara dipped into the two urns with their white gloves and, handful by handful, flung Ada and Sirena’s ashes over the precipice. While Mr. Kassajara quoted from the Sutra, the ashes swirled like silver pigments brushed onto a brilliant orange canvas and fell into the azure waves below.

  Sarah dropped Ada’s shawl over the precipice and a gust of offshore wind sailed it above the waves until it was out of sight.

  Several days later, as Sarah locked the front door of the Sketch Box, she made a promise to return. It had been a sad parting with Rosie, but her dear friend had promised to visit her in Paris the following winter when her lodge was empty of art students.