Palatino for the Painter

by Jessa Archer

  “Ruth.” He seemed surprised. “You came.”

  “Well…you asked me to.”

  “I didn’t think you actually would, though. Thank you. Do you want to come in?”

  “Sure,” I said, although that wasn’t entirely truthful. It’s not that I was afraid of him, but the whole thing was weird. When he called, I’d asked if it was okay to bring Wren with me. Comforting the recently bereaved is not one of my strong suits, and it is literally part of Wren’s job description.

  Bud had seemed nervous about that, however. He just wanted to talk to me, he’d said. So I’d agreed, but the cell phone in my pocket was on, and Ed was monitoring from his Silverado, which was parked a few blocks away.

  Stepping inside, I blinked a few times to help my eyes adjust to the darkness. The curtains had rarely been drawn when Tanya lived here. As a blue-eyed blonde, she had burned easily, but that girl had loved the sun. And even though it wasn’t rational, I wanted to snatch the curtains open and let some light in. Then it might feel at least a little like Tanya’s house again.

  “What happened?” I asked as Bud shut the door behind us.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. When I came downstairs, she was just lying on the living room floor. I checked her pulse, but she was already cold.”

  “What did the medics say?”

  He frowned. “Medics?”

  “Yes. When you called 911. What did they say?”

  He shook his head back and forth quickly. “I just called you.”

  I glanced toward the living room. Now that my eyes had adjusted to the dimness, the room began to come into focus.

  Was that a leg on the floor, extending just beyond the couch?

  Yes, I believed it was.

  I sighed and hurried around the couch. Mrs. Blackburn was sprawled in front of the coffee table. Her body was cold and rock hard to the touch.

  “Call 911, Bud. You should’ve called them first!”

  “Why? She’s…dead. Even I can tell that. What good would an ambulance do?”

  I stared at him. “You have to call 911. It’s required.” I reached into my pocket for my phone and remembered that Ed was on the other end. He wouldn’t be happy that I cut the call, but I unlocked the iPhone screen and punched the three digits. For a moment, I was afraid Bud would try to stop me. That he’d rush into the room and rip the phone from my hand. But he didn’t. He just stood quietly in the doorway and listened as I talked to the dispatcher.

  When I finished, I went back into the foyer, not wanting to stay with Mrs. Blackburn’s body any longer than I had to. Bud opened the front door, and warm sunshine poured inside.

  “I can’t believe she’s gone,” he said as he stood in the bright patch of light. “What am I going to do now?”

  “You should call your aunt. And your father. I’m sure he’ll want to know, even if they’re divorced.”

  Bud turned toward me. He seemed surprised. “They’re not divorced. He just got tired of living here.” He looked down at his hands. “I know you never believed Tanya ran away.”

  “No,” I admitted, “I didn’t. Tanya wouldn’t have done that. We were moving to Nashville in a few weeks anyway. It never made sense. Wren didn’t believe it, either.”

  He shifted his weight, seeming uncomfortable. “I was a crappy brother. Ran around with the wrong people. But I did love her.”

  “Why didn’t you speak out?” It felt wrong to ask him that when he’d just learned that his mother, and almost certainly his sister, were dead, but I kept remembering his face that night in the hallway. “You didn’t believe it, either. I could tell.”

  “I just had to ignore it.” He scratched the stubble on his cheek. “I had to. That’s what my parents said. And I tried. It worked for a while. Then I started drinking more, and…” He smiled sadly. “Did you know that I was married once?”

  I shook my head.

  “For just a few years. When I lived over in Asheville. Her name is Annie. I have a son there, too.”

  “That’s…wonderful,” I said, because I honestly couldn’t think of anything else.

  “I’ve never seen him.”

  “Oh.” So much for me trying to cheer him up. I was failing miserably. To be perfectly fair, though, this was a truly impossible situation.

  “It was my fault,” Bud went on. “I couldn’t stop drinking. Annie kicked me out, and I came back here to live with Mom and Dad. Her next husband wanted to adopt the baby. Didn’t seem fair for him not to have a daddy there, so I said okay. I thought about leaving again, but then Dad took off, and somebody had to stay here with Mom. She had…spells.”

  Spells. I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but I really didn’t want to ask any questions at this point. I’d never really liked his mother, but she hadn’t seemed mean until after Tanya was gone. And then yesterday, she’d cranked the vicious up to eleven. Of course, I’m not sure how I’d have reacted if Cassie had been missing for thirty-two years and then someone I hadn’t seen during that time turned up on my doorstep to tell me that her body had possibly been located.

  “Listen, Bud, you’re going to have to fill out some paperwork when they get here. I should probably go. But…” I hesitated. Telling him to call me if he needed anything was precisely why I was there. “But you can call me later if you need to talk, okay? I mean, after you talk to your dad and get everything set up with Wren—”

  He shook his head. “No. She’s from Maryville originally. My aunt still lives there, so that’s where we’ll have our services.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I was going to say Wren or someone.”

  That wasn’t true, but I definitely shouldn’t have assumed anything. And they did have family in Maryville. “Maybe…you should call your aunt?” I suggested gently. “I mean, that’s her sister, right?”

  “You’re right. That’s a good idea.”

  I opened the door. “So yeah. Call your dad and your aunt. They can probably take it from there.”

  An ambulance pulled into the driveway. I said a silent prayer of thanks that I’d parked at the curb. Otherwise, I’d have been trapped.

  And then Blevins edged his vehicle right behind my Wrangler. So much for my quick escape.

  I stepped aside to let the medics enter. Bud followed them into the living room, still giving his mom’s body a wide berth.

  Blevins looked up as he got out of the car, apparently noticing me for the first time. I gave him a little half wave.

  “Townsend,” he said, straightening his hat. “What is it with you? First Edith Morton, and now this. I’m beginning to think you magically appear every time an old lady dies. Someone looks in the mirror, says your name three times, and—poof—Ruthie’s in the house.”

  Okay, that was mildly amusing, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of letting him know it. “You’re the one who roped me into this,” I said. “Bud called me when he found her. I had no clue that it was the only call he made.”

  He leaned in. “Hey, I didn’t mention this earlier, but Bud had a weak spot for you back in high school. If you play your cards right, you might be able trade Ed in for a younger, more agile model.”

  I reminded myself that he was in uniform. Punching him would probably get me tossed into a cell. So I simply uttered a few choice words that do not bear repeating and then added, “Remind me not to do you any more favors.”

  “You didn’t do this for me, Townsend. I don’t even think you did it out of loyalty to Tanya, although that may have been a secondary motivation. This gave you an excuse to dig around and get more details for your story. I’m guessing you didn’t learn much, so I’m going to give you a scoop, so you get it straight in your little paper. The report just came back confirming what I already suspected. Tanya Blackburn was not the person behind the wheel of that car.”

  My jaw nearly hit the sidewalk. “They’re certain? I mean, has there even been time for them to do a full analysis?”

  “Don’t need to. Tanya was what?
Five-five, tops? The driver was nearly six feet. And male, which we could tell from the—”

  “Shape and tilt of the pelvis?”

  “I was just going to say his boots and Harley Davidson belt buckle.”

  “And that’s why you make the big bucks, Steve. Believe it or not, there are women who are six feet tall, wear boots, and ride Harleys.”

  “Never seen one in Thistlewood,” he said with a tight smile.

  “If you suspected it wasn’t Tanya, why even have me come talk to her family? Sally Blackburn is dead in there. I didn’t see any sign of a struggle, so I’m guessing she had a heart attack. Maybe a stroke. An overdose, for all I know. I didn’t poke around, because I wasn’t looking for a story, contrary to your smug assumption. Any one of those causes of death can be linked to stress, however. So next time you suspect a bit of information is false, maybe you should share that with the person you con into delivering it. Mrs. Blackburn might still be alive if you’d acted like a professional.”

  Blevins looked a bit shaken by my comment, but he recovered quickly.

  “I’ll be by later to take your statement about Sally Blackburn. In the interim, maybe you should steer clear of elderly ladies. You seem to be hazardous to their health.”

  ✰ Chapter Eleven ✰

  Ed pulled into the lot behind the building just after I did. “You’re grounded, young lady. Our agreement was that you would leave the phone on so that I’d know you were safe.” He gave me a wry grin. “And yes, I know why you cut the call. If you’d waited on Bud Blackburn to take the initiative, I’m guessing he’d still be trying to decide whether to use the phone downstairs or the one upstairs to call 911.”

  “Blevins just told me the body wasn’t Tanya. It’s male.”

  “Oh,” he said, looking as confused as I felt.

  “Get this, though. He says he suspected it wasn’t Tanya even before it was confirmed, based on boots and a belt buckle. And yet he asked me to go tell Tanya’s mom—and Bud—that it was probably Tanya. He knew I’d do it, too. All he had to do was mention the possibility that they’d find out through the grapevine, and I trotted off to do his bidding.”

  I planted a hard kick into one of my Jeep’s tires.

  “Feel better?” Ed asked, as he thumb-typed a text, most likely to Billy, into his phone.

  “No. I still want to kill him, and now my foot hurts. And it doesn’t make sense. That car was Tanya’s baby. We even joked about how she wouldn’t let anyone drive it. Not Bud, not me, not Wren. She said it was an ugly hunk of junk, but it was her ugly hunk of junk.”

  “Could be some guy she was seeing. There are plenty of guys who have to be the one behind the wheel.”

  It was possible, but I wasn’t buying it. Tanya’s taste in guys ran more toward what Cassie sometimes called emo. Artistic types. The only one she’d been seriously interested in had graduated and headed off to art school two years before we graduated. I started to protest that Wren and I would have known if she was seeing someone, but it felt like I was rehashing all of the arguments I’d made to any adult who would listen in the weeks after Tanya vanished.

  So I just shrugged. “More likely someone stole her car. Guys in boots and Harley belt buckles were not Tanya’s style. Either way, I’m not sure it changes anything. I can’t really think of a scenario where someone crashed Tanya’s car into the river and she’s alive.”

  We went in through the back door to find Wren flipping through the 1987 binder I’d left on the desk. Cassie had pulled up a chair next to her and was munching on one of the brownies, which were indeed the kind with that yummy streak of cream cheese in the center.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked Cassie. It was still only a little after ten, and she’s not a morning person, so I was a little surprised to see her out and about.

  “I’ve been working,” she said with a little grin. “I just came over here to get some paper so that I could sketch out some ideas for setting up the shop, and I found Wren here with brownies. They’re good, too. Is Tanya’s mom really dead?”

  I nodded. “If I had to guess, I’d say it happened late last night.”

  Ed continued texting while I gave them a brief overview of my past half hour. Then he stashed the phone in his pocket. “Any clues as to how she died? Signs of struggle or…”

  “No sign of struggle at all. She was just slumped onto the carpet, cold as ice. And…I’m a lousy reporter. I should have at least poked around in the kitchen and bathroom. Checked to see if there were pill containers. Or something. I was just so flabbergasted that Bud hadn’t even called 911.”

  “How’s Bud doing?” Wren asked.

  “He’s holding it together, but it’s a bit like he’s…um…well, like his elevator doesn’t go to the top floor these days.”

  She and Ed both nodded, then Ed said, “That’s pretty much any day ending in y. I don’t know how sharp Bud Blackburn was in school—he was probably in first grade when I graduated—but I dealt with him several times as sheriff. Good-tempered fellow, wouldn’t hurt a fly, but he gets falling-down drunk in public every few months. I had an agreement with Jay over at Beatty’s to cut him off when he started getting sloppy, and give us a call. The officer on duty would come around to the bar and drive him home rather than letting him walk. It’s all of five blocks, but driving him home meant the school-kids and tourists wouldn’t have to see good old Bud passed out on the sidewalk the next morning. But Blevins decided that a thimbleful of gasoline and ten minutes of a deputy’s time, when he was probably just cruising around anyway, was a waste of county funds. Started booking Bud for public drunkenness, which did no one an ounce of good. For all his talk of hating paperwork, Steve Blevins is happy to generate another pile if it means he can make a few people miserable.”

  Although Ed’s comments were pretty much in line with what Wren thought of Blevins, she seemed a bit surprised. I think it was hearing that many words coming from Ed in one serving. He doesn’t usually rant, but I’d already heard him go off on several occasions about the changes—few of them good—that had occurred in the sheriff’s department since Blevins took over.

  “Well, Steve had just rolled up when I left, so Bud will have to deal with that glorious ray of sunshine in addition to making arrangements for his mom. I told him to call his dad or his aunt, because I’m not really sure he can handle it on his own.”

  Cassie pulled in a deep breath, almost like she was steeling herself against something, and then asked, “So, Wren…how long before they bring the body to you at Memory Grove?”

  The question surprised me a bit. During the whole Edith Morton case, my daughter had admitted that she sees things on occasion. Ghosts, I guess you’d call them. In the past, Cassie had tended to steer clear of all things death and funeral related after being pretty shaken up at my parents’ funeral when she was a teenager. While I wasn’t entirely surprised by her revelation, I haven’t pushed for details, since she doesn’t really seem to want to talk about it. The one thing she did tell me was she was trying to get past her fear and accept the ability as a gift. Maybe even a useful one.

  Cassie still wouldn’t go to Wren’s house, though. Wren lives above the funeral home, and I think that’s a bridge too far for Cassie. The fact that she was even asking Wren a question about the whole business of death and burial was a big enough step.

  “Oh, they won’t be bringing Mrs. Blackburn to my place,” Wren told her. “Probably Heavenly Rest over in Maryville, but definitely not Memory Grove.”

  While I already knew from my discussion with Bud that she was right, it still seemed a little odd to me that Wren said this with such complete certainty. I didn’t want to press the point with the others around, however, so I made a mental note to ask later why she was so sure that Sally Blackburn’s body would be taken elsewhere.

  “Did you handle the arrangements for Lucy McBride?” Cassie asked.

  “I did,” Wren said. “That wasn’t too long after your mom moved back here. I
t was a packed service. Ms. McBride taught for nearly fifty years, so she’d interacted with pretty much everyone who lives in Woodward County.”

  Cassie looked over at the canvases. “Did anyone mention that she painted?”

  Wren shook her head and looked to me for confirmation.

  “I don’t remember anything about her having any hobbies other than reading,” I said. “Maybe it was something she took up recently. The biggest question for me, though, is why she picked these subjects.”

  Ed shrugged. “Speaking both as a cop and as a writer, the answer in cases like these is usually the obvious one. The person who painted those pictures had something to do with the crime. And maybe she had a guilty conscience. The only problem with that is that I can’t even begin to imagine Ms. McBride killing anyone.”

  “But she clearly knew something,” Wren said as she gave Ed a brownie. I declined…they looked good, but checking Sally Blackburn for a pulse I knew I wouldn’t find seemed to have killed my appetite.

  “Her house was right across from the Blackburns,” Cassie noted. “Do you think maybe she saw something? Or heard something?”

  “Maybe,” I said, but it didn’t really feel right to me. Along with my parents and Mr. Dealey, Lucy McBride was one of the adults I’d tried my best to convince that there was something odd about Tanya disappearing.

  “And that might explain Tanya,” Wren said. “But three of those paintings seem connected more to what happened to James. I hadn’t really thought a lot about them happening on the same night. I mean, Tanya didn’t show up at the party, but we didn’t really have a clear sense that she was missing for several days. Looking at those paintings, I’m starting to wonder if the two things aren’t connected somehow.”

  “Your gran worked at the school,” I said. “Was she friends with Ms. McBride?”

  Wren made a seesaw motion. “Friendly, but not friends. Which leaves James…”