The Girl in the Portrait
By Rekha Ambardar
Copyright 2012 by Rekha Ambardar
Cover Copyright 2012 by Dara England and Untreed Reads Publishing
The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.
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This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Also by Rekha Ambardar and Untreed Reads Publishing
False Alarm
If Looks Could Kill
Parting Shot
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The Girl in the Portrait
By Rekha Ambardar
Peggy Maynard had seen the portrait only once. Her husband, Will, had his back to her and hadn’t seen her come into the basement. He’d been busy cleaning brushes while working in his studio, a euphemism for the grungy basement he’d converted into an artist’s hideout.
She’d come downstairs to tell him lunch was ready. Then she saw it—the portrait from the torso up—of a wistful-looking girl of eighteen. She was wearing a flouncy white cashmere sweater that gave her an otherworldly look. Her dark eyes had an arresting quality and her blue-black hair was spread around her as if lifted by an invisible breeze somehow caught on canvas.
Peggy’s chest tightened. She had never seen such beauty. It transcended the boundaries of pulchritude allowed to man or woman. Who was she?
It was on the tip of Peggy’s tongue to ask but at that moment, Will stopped what he was doing and threw a cloth over it and the easel.
Now both the portrait and Will were missing. Twenty-four hours had gone by before she’d filed a missing person’s report at the Boulder police station.
Byer, the detective who got the report from a police officer, shot her a bug-eyed stare.
“Ma’am, you’re sure he didn’t just take a vacation all by himself and neglected to tell you.” He ran his fingers through his disheveled salt-and-pepper hair and his suspenders kept falling off one shoulder. He held a coffee mug in the other hand from which he took a sip and then set it down on the desk.
“After twenty-five years of marriage, Detective? Not likely,” Peggy said.
“Just thought I’d ask.”
Theirs wasn’t a marriage that allowed whimsy of any kind. Will was hardly the spontaneous type, taking off for parts unknown with paints, brushes, and easel as his artistic temperament dictated.
“You’d be surprised how many husbands stray after twenty-five years of marriage, not to cause you any further pain,” Detective Byer said with a delicate clearing of the throat. “Just so you know the facts. Coffee?”
Peggy nodded. Byer poured it out black in a paper cup. “Cream and sugar?”
“Cream. Thanks.” She took the coffee gratefully and cupped her fingers around the container. What was it about a cup of coffee when you were distraught? It had the power to soothe wounded feelings—at least temporarily.
“Was your husband successful as an artist?” Detective Byer asked.
“He’s had some good showings at the Galleria, but lately he hadn’t been selling,” Peggy explained. “He’s been going through a fallow period.”
“So how did you manage income-wise?” Byer asked with as much tact as he could summon, or so it seemed to Peggy. He wasn’t one of your diplomatic cops, but then wasn’t that a contradiction in terms? Cops weren’t meant to be diplomatic or they wouldn’t solve cases.
“He taught art at the Community News Center downtown, and I teach at an elementary school,” Peggy said, resigned to the fact that there would be many more sensitive questions and she might as well steel herself for them.
“So you’re not exactly hurting for money,” Byer said. “Was he depressed for any reason?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t think so. He may have been when his paintings weren’t selling. But his new painting was appraised at a lot of money.”
Byer’s ears perked up. “New painting? What was it?”
“It’s the portrait of a young girl,” Peggy said. “There were many potential buyers but Will was waiting to sell to the highest bidder.”
“Having a lot of buyers must have been a heady feeling.” The officer took out a notepad. “When did you last see him and what was he doing?”
“Well, it was the day before yesterday morning. That’s when I saw him last,” Peggy began pensively.
Her mind trailed back to their morning ritual of having coffee seated at the round table in the patio, a sliding glass door away from the dining area of their small ranch-style home that overlooked the front Range of the Rockies. Boulder was beautiful and she never regretted the day she moved here when she got the teaching position at Taft Elementary School.
Peggy telescoped her thoughts into a brief answer now. “We have our morning coffee on the patio just before I get ready for work and he goes off to the art gallery downtown to discuss paintings he’s currently working on. Then later in the afternoon, he goes to the Community News Center where he teaches art.”
“How long is the class?” Byer asked.
“Two hours I think.”
“Did you hear from him at all during the day?” Byer set aside the notepad as if there were some things that just couldn’t be transcribed into known language. He obviously wanted to study her.
“No. He doesn’t usually call from his cell phone unless there’s a pressing need,” Peggy explained. “I’ll call him if I need him to pick up something from the store.” There’s wasn’t a marriage in which each needed to be in constant contact with the other with a yearning that could only be viewed as sickening. She savored her job and her time away from Will, and she was sure he did the same.
Byer nodded. “Uh-huh.” He opened a pack of chewing gum and popped a stick into his mouth.” He extended the pack toward her. “Want one?”
She shook her head.
“I’m trying to quit smoking and this helps,” he said. “So was yours a happy marriage or just adequate, as they say?”
“We are mellow people. Neither of us wants excitement, if that’s what you mean, Detective,” Peggy said, hoping she didn’t sound defensive or he might latch onto her as the likely cause of Will’s disappearance.
“Was he known to stray outside the marriage? Sorry, but I have to ask.”
“He did in the past. But they all fizzled out.”
“How do you know if he isn’t seeing someone on the side now?” Byer leaned back in his swivel chair and it creaked under his weight.
“I don’t know. I don’t keep tabs on him and certainly don’t sneak around to see what he’s doing when he’s not at home,” Peggy said sharply. Irritation was inching its jealous and ugly head upwards and threatening to explode. There had been fights about Will’s philandering from time to time. But now she had no time or energy to find out if he kept embers alive elsewhere beyond the sanctity of their marriage.
Peggy, for her part, had found satisfaction in her job teaching fourth graders at Taft.
“My husband is not the only thing’s that’s missing,” she said, bewildered by this nagging fact. “The portrait he just finished
is also missing.”
“The portrait of the girl?” Byer’s heretofore glazed eyes bugged out with interest again.
Peggy nodded.
“Any idea who she is?” Byer asked.
“No. I didn’t get a chance to find out.” It would have been beneath her to ask Will, to exhibit curiosity. She never interfered with the models who posed for Will, except one time years ago.
“Can you describe the portrait?” Out came the notepad and pencil.
“It was a young girl about eighteen years old. Very pretty.” Peggy wished she’d asked Will about the girl, but that would show weakness, uncertainty on her part, a repeat of what happened years ago.
“Did he do many portraits?”
“From time to time, when an interesting model came along,” Peggy said. “He never really discussed his work with me. He did a lot of landscapes, still life, that sort of thing.” She pushed a stray, damp lock of hair from her forehead. Anxiety made her perspire. Anxiety at the thought that she had tried her best to figure out Will’s art and had failed. “When Will was in the throes of an artistic attack, it was like being pulled into a vortex. He would forget to surface for meals.”
“Dedicated artist, huh? Interesting,” Byer said. “When did he complete the new painting?”
“A couple of weeks ago,” Peggy replied. “He showed it to several galleries and he was shocked at what they told him.”
“What did they say?”
“That it was a masterpiece and could go for thousands of dollars.”
Byer let out a low whistle. “That’s a switch, isn’t it?”
“I’m sorry?”
“For years he sells nothing and then—bam!”
“That’s right. Suddenly he paints a masterpiece,” Peggy said.
“Now both have gone AWOL,” the detective said half to himself. “Excuse my saying this but it looks like a case of the husband wanting to leave the marriage and not drumming up the guts to inform his spouse.”
Peggy’s heart thudded dully and she felt sick to the stomach, like the time she found out about Irma. Why didn’t she leave him and their marriage? Because they had something once when he was a poor art student and she a student teacher at the school where he brought his paintings for a showing at the school Carnival in spring. And because she never gave up hope of one day having a child, even when Will had. No reason to tell the detective all that and appear even more pathetic to him.
“I don’t know what to think,” she managed to say. “I just want to know where he is.”
“I’ll do my best to find out.” The detective got up. “You can go home now. I’ll be in touch if I hear anything.’
When Peggy got home, she bent over the kitchen sink and bathed her eyes pricking from unshed tears. She’d finally lost the battle after all. Will had apparently left her taking the valuable portrait along with him. The even tenor of her life had been turned over at its very root. Where could he have gone? He couldn’t just hide out somewhere. Or could he? Was it worse? Had he met with harm?
Peggy let the sink faucet run as she applied detergent on a sponge and mechanically started cleaning the few dishes in the sink—cereal bowl, coffee mug, and the small orange juice glass left from the morning. She’d forced herself to eat some cereal and gulp down coffee and orange juice before driving to the police station, not knowing how long she’d be detained there. Maybe she should have just called and had a police officer come to her house for the details. But would they have taken as much interest in the case if she hadn’t gone there?
The slow rhythm of scrubbing the dishes and the flow of the water from the faucet soothed her nerves. It was a form of meditation, listening to water flowing.
The shrill ringing of the phone startled her and jerked her back to what she was doing.
Peggy went into the living room to answer it. It was Carl Morrison, the director of the Galleria.
“Any news?” he asked.
“No,” Peggy said, wondering if she did the right thing in calling him as soon as she decided Will was missing. Carl would now be probably calling every hour on the hour. “I did go to the police station to file a report.”
“That’s good. It’s a start,” he said. “If you need anything….”
“Actually, Carl, there’s something. Just how much was the new painting worth?” Peggy asked finally, although hesitant to embark on that line of discussion since it opened up a host of not very pleasant possibilities, such as somebody harming Will to get their hands on the painting.
“Conservatively I should say about $10,000,” Carl replied. “Why?”
“Will never told me the exact value. Just that it was worth quite a lot of money,” Peggy said. “And he got a kick out of it since nothing had sold for the longest time.”
“Do you know if he told anyone else what the painting was worth?” Carl asked.
“I don’t know if he would or not,” Peggy said. “Do you suspect foul play?” As she spoke the words she felt a pounding thump in the pit of her stomach.
“Don’t know what to think this early,” Carl said. He murmured a few words of comfort and then hung up.
Peggy returned to the kitchen slowly and put on fresh coffee in the coffee maker. While it perked and bubbled the aroma reassured her and she sat on the high stool at the kitchen counter waiting for it to get ready.
Good thing it was summer, albeit late summer, or she’d be worrying about concentrating on her job while waiting to hear from Detective Byer. She’d probably be harassed by questions from other teachers at school. She didn’t want sympathy from anyone while she learned to cope with the situation on her own. Carl was okay. Besides he might be able to shed some light on the painting. Maybe Detective Byer would talk to him too.
By the end of the week, the sweet, balmy morning air revived her dejected spirits a little. Maybe today was the day Will would come home.
She could just see him walk up the front porch steps and into the living room carrying his easel and workbag. He’d say he’d taken a few days off and closeted himself in the rental cabin by the edge of the mountains to paint. And so engrossed was he that he forgot to call. Of course, that excuse wouldn’t fool a fly and he’d look sheepish.
Peggy shook her head at the make-believe scenario she’d just concocted. What had their marriage sunk to if he was reduced to making up such an asinine excuse to explain his absence?
The doorbell rang just then. She got up and walked toward it like a wind-up mechanical doll.
Through the glass panel on the side of the door she saw Detective Byer. Had he some new information?
Peggy opened the door and leaned against it as if bracing herself against—what?
“Detective,” she said. “Have you found out anything?”
“Actually, yes. May I come in?”
“Please do.” She stood aside to let him in.
She waved him into the living room just off the narrow corridor entrance.
Detective Byer sank onto the reddish-brown vinyl sofa and Peggy perched stiffly on a straight-backed chair opposite him.
“Does the name, Irma Vasquez ring a bell?” he asked.
The name sent a jolt through her. It was a name from long ago, eighteen—no nineteen—years ago.
Careful now, a voice warned in her head. “The name does ring a bell, but I can’t remember from where,” Peggy replied casually. Then with more emphasis, she said, “No. I don’t seem to be able to place it.”
Byer shrugged. “Well, maybe you don’t. It’s the name of a former student of your husband’s,” he said.
“A student of Will’s?” So what if a name resurfaced. He husband had known several art students, some of them came over for a glass of wine and cheese and crackers before they went home. Peggy had never objected to Will’s after-hours socializing with his students.
“I put my assistant to work investigating your husband’s current and former students. I thought maybe that would turn up clues as to his whereabouts,” B
yer said. “You’d be surprised how many people remember things from way back. One of the older students showed my assistant a faded photo. One of the girls was Irma Vasquez, somebody who was seen with your husband on more than one occasion at The Cellar for drinks—just the two of them.”
“I see.” It was futile to pretend now.
“The name ring a bell?” Byer asked, peering at her.
“Now that you mention it, yes.’
“Did she ever come here?”
“We didn’t live here. We lived by a creek that flowed off a hill.” Flashes of memory jabbed her mind, and she didn’t want to remember. A craggy walkoff from the hill that was really a cliff, a convenient cliff. An abandoned mineshaft below it. “People used to jog by it, not the safest place for jogging I might add.”
“What was the address?”
“237 Laurel Creek. I don’t know if anybody lives there anymore. It was almost an abandoned old cottage then. We got it very cheap,” Peggy said, hating having to provide him with so much gratuitous information. He should have had to earn it by dragging it out of her.
“The caption under the photo said ‘Utopian Artist’s Colony.’ Did your husband teach there?”
“He taught there, but he wasn’t one of the residents,” Peggy said.
“Your husband was in the picture, too,” Byer said.
“What does it all mean?” Peggy asked. They were going to drag out the past, she knew it. Nothing to do but face the music.
“I don’t know. But Ms. Vasquez died rather suddenly, didn’t she?” Byer asked.
“Ah…yes, I believe so. It was so long ago…”
“How did she die?”
“Some accident. Not sure.” Peggy knotted and unknotted her fingers. “What’s the connection with Will?’
“That’s what we aim to find out.” Byer let out an exhausted breath, as if he’d been climbing stairs and was short-winded. He should watch his diet or he wouldn’t get very far, Peggy thought.
Byer glanced at his watch and got up. “We’re going to dig into this and be back, Mrs. Maynard. Don’t you worry.”
He walked noisily out the front door, turned back and tipped his finger at her in a sort of salute.
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