by Paula McLain
It takes me a while to explain my message-board theory once I’ve shown Will the posting, how it could have been used to target Cameron and possibly Shannan, too. Then I lead him to the storage area, where I’ve left the paintings propped against the wall, not wanting to handle them further in case they’re useful somehow to the investigation.
“These are Jack’s?” Will asks incredulously.
“Crazy, right? It could be a total coincidence that they’re here.”
“Or they’re Caleb’s and he’s involved somehow,” Will jumps to add.
“Caleb? Why would you think that?”
“Because all of Jack’s work belongs to him.”
“Exactly. If he knows about their existence, I mean if he himself has a connection to this studio, wouldn’t he have sold them like he sold everything else? He must not know they’re here.”
“Maybe. Or it could be that his complicated tie to his dad would make him want to hold on to these, right?”
I shrug to acknowledge the possibility as Will calls Leon on his walkie, explaining to him that we have a potential crime scene to process, and that he should alert the team.
Then he turns back to me. “Do we know who was in here last?”
“All the files are in the gallery office. It’s not open yet, but the caretaker’s name is Stan Wilkes. He’s the one who let me in. I could be totally off base with the message-board angle, but I don’t think so.”
“If you are right, he could have reached other girls this way. Maybe he’s already got another victim in his sight lines.”
“I know. These postings could be all up and down the coast by now.”
Will nods, and then stoops to take a closer look at the front-most canvas, still propped with the others against the wall of the storage area. The lighting is bad and the painting’s surface is aged and covered with dust, but the image is visible for all that. It’s abstract and almost primitive looking with a limited use of color, just black and white and blue. The shapes are dramatically angular, and suggestive of something I can’t quite place until Will points it out.
“I think this is supposed to be the carving above the Masonic Hall.”
“Oh, shit. You’re right,” I say, wondering why I didn’t see that right away. “It’s Time and the Maiden. What about the others?”
He pulls his shirt cuff over his hand to preserve any prints and carefully tips the canvases forward. There are four altogether, and they’re all versions of the same tableau, with the same color scheme. A bold white V shape, suggesting wings. A black slash approximating death’s scythe. The maiden’s face round and blotted, her hair a grouping of watery white squiggles. The background rough and thick in each, a dark blue—even through the film of dust—that seems to have been spread like frosting with a palette knife. “Creepy,” Will says.
The obsessiveness is creepy, I have to agree, though painters often return to subjects again and again. Monet and his lilies, or Degas and his dancers. The difference here is that the object that so clearly fascinated Jack Ford, at least for the period in which he painted these, has also fascinated me all my life. “I hate to admit it, but they’re sort of beautiful,” I say aloud to Will.
“Hate to admit it because Jack was an asshole, you mean?” His expression tells me he agrees. “Anyway, we should check these out. Maybe Caleb can help us ID them. I’ll send one of my deputies over to bring him here.”
“I can go. It won’t take me five minutes. In the meantime, get Stan Wilkes to let you into the office.”
“Okay, sure. Just be careful, all right?”
“I’m always careful.”
He gives me a sideways look, as if to say, We both know that’s not true.
(sixty-two)
The distance to Caleb’s house from the Art Center is only a few blocks away, so I walk there, my thoughts quickly returning to the posting, and to the photos I’ve been staring at for days, of Cameron in the grove, of Shannan with her weighted gaze, her guardedness. I’m still far from understanding how all the dots connect, but finding the studio has to be some kind of break. Even if the artists at the Center typically move around a lot, Stan Wilkes should be able to give us a list of names to run through our database. The crime lab techs should also be able to lift prints from the posting fairly easily if the paper hasn’t been overhandled or moved. And then we have the paintings, which hopefully Caleb can help us place.
I pass through the front gate, noticing that the light is on in the garage. Inside, I see Caleb’s large shape crossing in front of the square window. When I head over, tapping on the door lightly, he’s standing in front of a suspended easel with a large canvas on it. From what I can see, the image is abstract, full of dark undulating curves. Somehow it’s escaped me until this moment that Caleb is an artist too.
“Anna,” he says, opening the door for me. “What’s up?”
“Sorry to barge in on you like this.” I step inside and see he’s very much taken over where his father left off. Large-scale pieces. Bold and almost savage lines. “It’s just that we found some signed paintings of your dad’s over at the Art Center. Maybe you can come over and ID them for us, or even help us know who they belong to.”
“Oh wow.” He rubs his hands on a rag he’s holding and then drops it into a nearby five-gallon plastic bucket on the concrete floor without looking down, as if he knows right where everything is. The space behind him is spotlessly organized. Brushes and tubes of color are neatly and even chromatically arranged on his worktable. In Jack’s day, when he painted here, the space had always looked as if it belonged to a hoarder. Now everything is startlingly in its place; the floor swept bare. “What were you doing over there?”
“Just following up a lead on the Cameron Curtis case. The paintings were a total surprise.” I drift a little closer to his easel, and subtly see him move his body in front of it.
“The Art Center. Why would you be looking there?”
I glance at the canvas again, registering something decidedly female in the shapes at play, this time, the curves and dimensions. “Oh, a random tip we got.”
“Interesting.” His eyes flick coolly, electrically, over mine. I recognize the change in his energy, which is almost reptilian now. He’s reading the air between us the way a snake does with its tongue. Reading my mind, or trying. “You’re sure they’re my dad’s?”
I know I can’t hide what he’s already seen. That I’m putting the pieces together. Figuring out what I’ve missed before. What’s been right in front of me. All I can do is play out this game. “Definitely. They’re all of Time and the Maiden. Do you remember seeing anything like that when Jack was alive?”
He frowns a little and shakes his head. “I don’t think so. Let me lock up and I’ll meet you over there.”
“It’s fine. I don’t mind waiting.”
“Oh, sure.” His pupils flick over me again. He seems to be enjoying this. “I just have to grab my wallet and I’ll be right with you. Hang on.”
He locks the garage as we step out into the driveway, and then heads for the house while I stand there, quietly exploding. Can he really mean to follow me over to the Art Center? Is he that bold? And if so, is there a way to let Will know I suspect him once we get there? My mind tumbles on and on as several raindrops hit my face. When I left the cabin this morning, it was chilly and clear, but the sky has gone dark and spongy. I glance quickly toward the house to see if Caleb is coming, and then step toward the locked garage door, peering through the window. I want another look at the canvas again, to confirm my impressions. But this time my eye catches on something else. A photograph pinned over Caleb’s workbench. Black and white and old-fashioned somehow, as if it’s been cut out of a history book.
I lean closer to the glass, on the edge of recognition, when I hear a car start, and then see Caleb pulling out from behind the garage in a white
Toyota pickup. Adrenaline flares as I jump out of the way, wondering if he means to run me over. Instead, he slams on the brakes long enough to shout through the open window, his eyes hardened, almost ceramic. “If you follow me, I’ll kill her.”
Then he punches the gas and fishtails away.
* * *
—
I’m paralyzed for an instant as it all lands, everything that’s escaped me, like a bomb detonating in my mind. How Caleb’s profile is a perfect fit for the kind of man who might flip violently, becoming a killer, a monster. A childhood fractured by abandonment and chaos, his father a tyrant and an alcoholic. The way he’d lost Jenny, the person he loved best in the world, completely powerless to save her. Then the case going unsolved, her killer never found. That piece alone would have been enough to set rage loose inside him, altering him fundamentally, twisting him at the root, as Hap had explained long ago in the krummholz grove.
Somehow I haven’t been able to recognize the tortured quality in Caleb, his woundedness—even when we sat side by side on the bluff that day. Maybe I’ve been stuck confusing his story with my own, or confusing his past with his present. Or maybe I’ve simply forgotten Hap’s cardinal rule, about keeping my eyes open all the time, my trust withheld until it’s earned. Either way, regret is a luxury I don’t have time for. I can’t lose Caleb but don’t have a way to follow him. And every second counts.
Just inside the garage door, there’s a heavy black rotary phone. I kick the doorframe hard, just above the knob, and it clatters open. When I dial Will’s office, my hand twitches, every muscle tense and jangling. Cherilynn picks up.
“We have the suspect,” I tell her. “He’s headed east out of town, maybe toward the highway. He’s driving a white Toyota pickup. The license plate starts with H46. I didn’t get the rest. I’m at Caleb Ford’s house on Kelly Street.”
“I’m sending someone over for you,” she says before she clicks off. “Stay put.”
I feel almost dizzy as I hang up, praying that it’s not too late to stop Caleb before he reaches Cameron. His threat to me, that he’ll kill her if I follow, is terrifying. But now that he’s on the run, chances are that he’ll do that anyway, as fast as he can.
From Main Street, I hear sirens begin to wail. I’m headed out the door to meet the unit when my eyes catch again on the black-and-white photo over the workbench. And now I know why it looks familiar. It’s of a Pomo woman in traditional dress with a baby laced into a woven basket, breasts loose under her garment, a mound of gathered acorns nearby. Her home is cone shaped, made of bark and reeds, and planks of redwood. Just like the shelter I saw in the woods that day.
I race through the door, into the driveway. The rain is falling faster and the sky is nearly black as I take in the lit-up cruiser speeding toward me, desperate to see Will inside, or in the second car just behind it. They both screech to a halt, doors flying open. Will’s face the only one I look for as raindrops pelt sideways into my face and neck.
“He’s gone back to the woods,” I shout, though I know it won’t make sense to him yet. “Back to kill Cameron.”
(sixty-three)
“Can you lead us there?” Will demands to know once I’ve explained everything, still out of breath, my body shaking terribly. “You remember the way?”
It’s not just Will that I have to convince, but all of the state and local officers that have been newly dispatched, dozens of strained faces all pointed at me. The APB has gone out wide with a description of Caleb’s truck, but by now he’s most likely had time to stash it somewhere and start hiking toward the Pomo shelter. I’ve only seen it once, on that long hike from my cabin, and that was miles from where I’d first set out and who knew how far from the nearest road. Can I find it again? Do I actually know where it is?
“Yes,” I make myself say.
* * *
—
Will radios for help from the ranger station and works to assemble every available man for the search-and-rescue mission while I study the map with sickening stabs of self-doubt. There’s an area north and east of my cabin, deep into the green swath of reserve land, that might be right. But is it? Did I cross a service road that day? Is the river that far from the highest ridgeline? Is the elevation right?
“You have the coordinates?” Will asks from behind me.
“Here.” I point at the area I’ve found, hoping to God I’m not mistaken. “The county road will get us within a few miles, but the rest we’ll have to do on foot, splitting into teams with walkie-talkies. Each team will need a photocopy of this sketch I’ve done of the Pomo shelter, along with the coordinates and the plate number of the white Toyota pickup truck registered in Caleb’s name.”
“Got it,” he says. Then his eyes narrow. “You okay?”
“Of course.” I try to breathe. “I’m ready.”
* * *
—
Within half an hour the convoy sets off in silence from town, dozens of vehicles churning up mud along Little Lake Road toward the main entrance for Jackson State Forest, the rain spattering the windshield. With each winding turn, I feel a similar twist deep inside, wondering if we’re already too late.
Will and I ride together without speaking. The sky is so dark it might as well be night by the time we reach the service road, the end of the line for vehicular travel. From there we connect with the rest of the team, all of us in black ponchos that become slick before we’ve even switched on our walkies to set off on foot. I take the lead, trying not to think at all or to let my anxiety cloud my instincts, hoping that my body knows exactly where it’s going and can take me there by feel. But the stakes are so high now it’s hard not to let panic slip in.
We hike for a mile, two miles, twenty-five searchers in a line or sometimes a tight V until the terrain makes that impossible, all of us soaked to the skin. Even when we pull out our flashlights, the heavy atmosphere makes visibility a challenge, the vegetation dripping in one thick mass around us, the hills and valleys growing more and more slick and steep, impenetrable in places. Each time I come to a fork in the trail, I look desperately for landmarks, any sort of sign that I’m on the right track, but it all looks different in the rain. I can’t be sure I’ve ever been here at all, but fight to keep my fear and doubt from showing. The team needs to believe I know the way. I need to believe it even more.
The temperature has dropped and the sky looks black, though it can’t be much past two o’clock. I can see wisps of my own breath beyond the dripping hood of my poncho as I wonder if I’ve gotten us hopelessly lost. I’m exhausted by all of it, the self-doubt and the exertion, the building pressure and the dread. The voices in my head telling me I’ve failed her already, missing the most important clues and signs.
And then it happens. I look up and know I’ve found the right ridge. I scramble through clinging brush and mud to the top, and there’s the Pomo shelter, down below, past shadowy wet deadfalls and bracken, beneath pines and hemlocks heavily drooping with rain—there. The teams behind me make too much noise arriving, drawing their firearms, and I feel myself tensing to the breaking point.
I touch my Glock through my jacket to be sure it’s still there as Will double-checks his safety. “I think he knows we’re coming,” I tell him.
“What makes you say that?”
“The way he told me not to follow him, as if he knew I could figure it out.”
“You were alone that day, when you saw the shelter. You’re probably the only person in the world who could put this all together, even with the photo in his garage.”
“Right,” I say, feeling no better about our odds. “I guess we’ll know soon.”
* * *
—
When Will gives the signal, we move down the rise through drenched brush and foliage, a small army trying to keep surprise and stealth on our side, and most likely failing. Maybe one man should have gone a
lone first, I think. Maybe we should have posted snipers above on the rise—but it’s too late to wonder, and then too late entirely.
When we get there, the shelter has been destroyed, or nearly. The whole site looks as though a cyclone has come through. The support poles and pieces of bark are scattered like kindling. No sign of Caleb.
“Cameron!” I shout, but she’s not here. Inside on the soaked earthen floor I see only traces of her struggle, smears of blood on a tangled sheet that looks like a lurid watercolor painting, and lengths of shredded, sodden ligature. A bucket on its side smells like a latrine. A stained plywood bed looks like an altar and probably has been exactly that as he’s raped and tortured her these weeks she’s been his captive.
Will signals to most of the team to spread out and keep searching. Then he radios out to have the park entrance blocked. When he turns back to me, his expression looks grave, driven. “He’s taken her somewhere. What are you thinking? Where would he go?”
“I’m not sure,” I say, trying to focus through my fear. Through the very real possibility that no matter how close we’ve come or how hard we’ve tried, we haven’t been able to save her.
(sixty-four)
Jackson State Forest occupies fifty thousand acres of reserve land, and is as black in the current storm as an uncharted planet, a nightmare coming true minute by minute. In his dozens of stories over the years, Hap had described every type of challenge in these woods, predators and bad falls, hypothermia, lost hikers. If Cameron has gotten free somehow—a wild, unlikely thought—she could be in terrible danger even without Caleb. But at least she’s in these woods and not anywhere else. I know this territory in my cells, my nerve fibers. If Cameron is here, I believe I can find her.