by Joan Rylen
The adjustable platform was lined with wooden planks that dropped 120 meters.
“The sign says we are on the tallest structure between Montreal and New York City,” Kate said.
“I believe it,” Wendy said. “I’m having Sky Screamer flashbacks.”
“Poor Astroworld is a goner now,” Vivian said. “We spent many a summer day there. I had my first kiss on the gondola ride there.”
“Meeeemmmmmorrrieeeessss,” Lucy sang out, twirling around like she was Julie Andrews on top of a mountain.
“Wrong song!” Vivian yelled.
The door swung open and a family came out, so Lucy stopped, smiled nonchalantly and walked to the pay binoculars next to Vivian, nudging her in the process. “I know that’s the wrong song, but it was more fitting.”
They toodled around inside and out, looking at pictures and reading about the two Olympic Games that had been held there.
“I need a snack,” Kate said. “Can we go?”
Wendy dug in her borrowed purse and pulled out a granola bar. “I brought this in case of emergency.”
Kate took it gratefully. “Thank you!”
They piled into the elevator, and again, Vivian’s ears popped as they changed elevation quickly. They took the same seating arrangements on the chair lift going down, and Vivian snapped pictures with her new phone, including a shot of Lucy and Pierre snuggling in front of her and a selfie. I need to get more sleep! I have bags under my eyes! She threw on her sunglasses and took another picture. That’s better!
They hit the restroom and grabbed a drink before leaving. April wasn’t in sight and another lady was behind the register.
They got into the SUV and Kate drove out of the gate and down the road toward Main Street. She cruised through town to Mike Grimm’s studio, situated on the shore of Mirror Lake. The girls and Pierre got out and walked up to the door. A sign saying “Come around back” hung in the window.
The group found four tables set up with easels and canvases along the edge of the lake. A group of women ranging in age from 20 to 70 worked on replicating the original artwork. Mike looked very beatnik wearing all black, hand resting on his chin, as he walked behind the painters and stopped to give pointers.
“Welcome,” he called and waved the five of them toward a table loaded with bottles of wine and a platter of cheese and crackers. “Join us for the Mirror Images painting class. I’ve got extra easels and canvases.” He ran toward the back of the studio. “Get a drink. I’ll be right back.”
Vivian didn’t want to stay for a painting class, but she knew they couldn’t just barge in and start asking questions about Mary Beth and April. Her eyes landed on the shopkeeper from You Name It, Mary Beth’s cousin, who had an empty seat and easel beside her. She nodded toward the cousin and said to Pierre and the girls, “This sounds like fun, we should stay.”
Kate’s gaze drifted over the group of lakeside painters and settled on the cousin and the empty seat beside her. “I’m in. I need something to hang in Little Plum’s room anyway.”
Pierre groaned and took a step backward. Lucy hooked her arm through his and reached up to give him a kiss. He smiled as he leaned down to her. “You’re going to have to make this up to me. It’s insulting to my manhood.”
Lucy’s eyes narrowed. “We’re here to gain information. You can tough it out.” She laughed and led him to the table behind Vivian.
Kate and Wendy sat beside them and Mike ran out of his studio with set-ups for the girls and Pierre. Mike gave them instructions on getting started, and Kate immediately picked up her brush. She looked at the original artwork, a stormy sky, then started mixing colors and placing a few brush strokes across her canvas. Mike moved on, checking the other painters.
Wendy looked from Kate, to her plate of paint, to the original and back. She picked up her brush. “Here goes nothing.”
Vivian grabbed a glass of white wine and settled in next to Mary Beth’s cousin. “I bought some souvenirs from you a couple of days ago.”
She glanced at Vivian. “I remember you. You had the snoring friend in the teepee. I see you’re not dead yet. How are things going at Turlington Farms?” She put emphasis on Turlington.
“Going fine, Brandon hasn’t tried to kill us.” Vivian dabbed a bit of white into her black, then held out her hand and introduced herself. “What’s your name?”
“Christine. How’s that bitch Tracy treating you?”
43
Vivian could see how Tracy wasn’t the warmest person and how the people in town wouldn’t think too highly of her being married to Brandon. Turlington Farms survived based solely on tourists, not locals. She dabbed yellow onto her work of art, then turned to Christine. “She can cook, I’ll give her that. She’s fixed a lot more than breakfast for us.”
Christine snorted. “She trapped Brandon, ya know. Not that I care, he deserves every bit of hell on this earth that’s coming to him, but I don’t care much for Tracy.”
Vivian stopped working on her background. “What do you mean ‘trapped’?”
“She said she was pregnant. They got married shortly thereafter.”
“Oh no. Did she miscarry?”
Christine worked on her tree. “I don’t have any proof, but if I had to guess, I’d say she faked it.”
Vivian dabbed at her canvas, working on the stormy sky. She coughed a few times at Christine’s statement. “That shouldn’t surprise me, but it does. Wow. That’s stooping low to get married.”
Christine stopped painting and leaned in close. “Tracy wanted him since high school. I was two years behind them in school, and I remember. She was heartbroken when he broke up with her, took her a long time to recover. Then she started dating Scott, and she seemed happy.”
“Who was Scott? The plumber who ran off to Omaha or wherever?”
Christine laughed and had a sip of wine. “The butt-crack-jeans plumber. He was never going to marry her. She eventually figured it out, and next thing you know, he moved off.”
“Why wasn’t he going to marry her?” Vivian asked, wondering what happened in Tracy’s past to make her fake a pregnancy just to get married. She’d have to be pretty desperate. But then, in Vivian’s experience, marriage was overrated.
“He slept with every girl who came along. Any opportunity that presented itself, boom, he was on it. He wasn’t the kind you settle down with and raise a family.”
Vivian lowered her paint brush, feeling sorry for Tracy. Being cheated on was the pits, and to stay in a relationship where that continually happened, she just couldn’t imagine it. That’d make me a bitch, too.
Mike swung by and looked over Vivian’s shoulder. Vivian worked on highlighting the leaves, then set down her paintbrush and picked up her wine. She had a sip and then another, and decided her tree highlighted by a blue moon was as good as it was going to get.
She clinked glasses with Christine. “To a job well done. Sort of.”
Lucy showed off her painting, which did indeed look like a mirror image of the original. She set it down and picked up Pierre’s painting. “A kindergartener could do better.” She rubbed his bald head, then kissed it. “But you’ve got other talents.”
Wendy rolled her eyes and showed them her painting. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. What was supposed to be a tree didn’t resemble a tree, and her blue moon was more purple than blue, and not quite round.
Pierre gave her a high five. “I see you’re as talented as I am.”
Wendy glanced at her painting and then back at Pierre. “I feel bad I wasted this paint and canvas!”
The group of ladies had started to get up and compare pieces, so the girls and Pierre made their way to Mike’s studio. It was a one-room shop with a desk in a front corner and paintings lining the walls. Mike was in deep conversation with a fifty something bottle blonde who had her hand on his shoulder. He took a step back as he nodded toward his painting she was admiring.
“He looks like he needs saving,” Kate said and wandered
over. “Do you mind if I use your restroom?” she asked him.
He flashed a smile and pointed her in the right direction.
Vivian slowly walked past a couple of paintings that appeared to be a sequence. All were stormy skies with a non-descript person holding their face in an agonizing scream. She went up to Mike, who was still being held captive in conversation.
She lightly touched his elbow. “Sorry to interrupt. I’d like to find a painting for my son’s room. Can you show me around?”
Mike’s bright blue eyes sparkled, and he flashed a smile of relief. “Excuse me, Carrie.” He walked to a closed door and pushed through it, waving to Vivian to follow. “I’ve got my tamer pieces back here.”
Vivian followed him into the storeroom, where Mike had almost covered the walls with paintings of various sizes. Some resembled the stormy, screaming person, others were of vines climbing toward a dark sky, and others were of dragons big and small, scary and not so much, breathing fire and yet some with lopsided grins.
Wendy walked in. “Why don’t you have more of these displayed?”
Mike shrugged and gave a grin, similar to his dragons. “I want to show off my best pieces and not clutter the front.”
Vivian looked over his dragons. “These are really good.” She took one off the wall, a dragon perched on a castle wall, its claws breaking into the rock, with a town in the distance. “I’ll get this one for Ben. He’ll love it.”
Vivian turned to show Mike the piece she wanted, but her eyes landed on a painting just behind him and she couldn’t speak. A chill went through her.
Tall evergreen trees lined a lake and reflected on the surface. The night sky twinkled with lights; fog rose up off the water. A woman shrouded in white floated in the middle of the lake, her face turned from the viewer. The stillness made it clear: She had drowned.
By now, Kate had joined them. “I noticed a framed picture in the hallway back there of you and a young woman,” she said. “She’s beautiful. Who is that?”
Mike glanced at the painting behind him, then smiled at Kate. “An old friend who passed away.”
Kate returned his smile. “I’m so sorry to hear that. Were you close?”
Vivian cut her eyes to Wendy, who had also noticed the painting. Lucy and Pierre stepped into the storage room and Vivian looked at them, then to the wall behind Mike. Lucy sucked in a quick breath, then started coughing to cover it up.
Kate looked back and forth between Mike and the painting of the drowned woman. “Is this painting of your friend?”
“Yes, it’s how I envisioned Mary Beth.”
The small storeroom seemed to close in on Vivian. She needed out of there, and away from Mike. She held up the painting for Ben. “I want to get this, because uhmm, we need to go. How much is it?”
Mike turned from Mary Beth’s painting to Vivian. “I’ll give it to you for $30. Let me get my Square and ring you up.”
He walked out of the room and Vivian mouthed to Pierre and the girls, “Oh my god, it’s Mary Beth.”
Mike walked back in and looked at his visitors. “Is everything fine in here? You seem like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Vivian handed him her credit card. I wonder if I’m doing business with a killer.
Pierre led Lucy and Kate out of the small room and Wendy lingered in the doorway as Mike swiped Vivian’s card. Thankfully, the Square reader worked on the first try.
Mike had Vivian sign the receipt on his phone with her finger and said, “I hope your son enjoys the painting.”
Vivian shoved her credit card into her purse and walked toward the door. “Thanks, I’m sure he will.” She walked into the main gallery and toward the front door where Pierre, Lucy and Kate stood waiting. “We gotta get back, see you around.”
Mike looked at everyone, then back to Vivian, eyebrows raised in question. He tapped his right index finger against the side of his leg. “Sure. Float – I mean swing on by anytime.”
44
Vivian practically fled Mike Grimm’s gallery, glad to be out of there, especially since night was falling. His demeanor was odd, and the painting of Mary Beth’s drowning had unnerved her. Kate unlocked the door on their rental, and once they were all safely inside, Vivian said, “Did y’all see that painting? Can you believe it?”
Kate started the engine. “Grandpa was right to be suspicious of Mike. That painting was eerie. It could be his way of bragging about what he’d done.”
Pierre rode shotgun for a change and turned to Kate. “Why wouldn’t he have that painting in the main gallery where it’s more visible?”
“It might upset the locals,” was all Kate could say.
“He’ll never sell that painting,” Wendy said. “He doesn’t need to have it displayed in the main gallery. He knows where it is. I bet he goes back there and looks at it a hundred times a day.”
Vivian shivered, not liking the idea of Mike getting pleasure from killing Mary Beth. She glanced at the time on her phone. “We’re supposed to meet Larson in 30 minutes at Lake Placid Brewery. Why don’t we head on over there, unless anyone has another stop to make.”
No one did, so Kate, now an expert with directions in town, drove them to the brewery. She parked and turned off the car. “Could April be in trouble dating Mike?”
Vivian opened her car door. “I think we need to talk to Larson. He’s local and might have a good perspective on all of this.”
The girls and Pierre walked into the rustic Adirondack building and grabbed a long table off to the side of the bar. Everyone had a beer except Kate, although she said she’d like one at this point. The group went over possibilities and potential suspects until Larson arrived.
He sat on the bench beside Vivian and greeted her with a kiss. “Good to see you.”
She squeezed his leg and left her hand there. “I’m glad you’re off tonight so we could get together.”
His smile faded a bit. “I’m on call, but let’s hope our citizens don’t start any fires tonight.”
The waitress came by to take Larson’s order, but her smile faded when she noticed Vivian’s hand on his leg. He ordered a cup of hot tea since he was on call, and the waitress quickly returned and set the cup down with a clatter.
Vivian waited for her to walk off before turning her attention back to Larson. “Speaking of Lake Placid’s fine citizens, we’d like to talk to you about a few of them.”
She and the girls explained how they’d been looking into things since finding Rebecca’s jawbone. They told him about Grandpa’s files and that they didn’t think Nicole had accidentally gotten E. coli poisoning. They also told him about their suspicions on Brandon, Jeremy and Mike Grimm.
Larson shook his head when they mentioned Mike’s painting of Mary Beth. “He’s definitely eclectic and he’s been a smart-ass his whole life. I’m not sure anyone missed him while he lived in Oregon.” Larson fiddled with his empty cup of tea, the waitress hadn’t been by in a while. “A killer — ” His phone emitted three high-pitched beeps. He glanced at the screen and threw $5 on the table. “Crap, there’s a house fire. I’ve got to go.”
“Can I go with you?” Vivian asked and flashed a smile. “I’d love to see you in action.”
Larson leaned over to give her a kiss and paused. “Sure, but you’ve got to stay in my truck.” He picked up his $5 and threw down a $20.
Vivian turned to the girls and Pierre. “I’ll text y’all the address on the way.”
Larson tugged at her elbow and they hustled out the door. He didn’t waste time with chivalry, just clicked the locks and had the truck started and in gear before she had even closed the door. “Buckle up,” he said as the tires squealed and they took off.
He slowed down at a red light, then blew through it once he knew it was safe. He gave Vivian the address to the fire, which she texted to Wendy.
“I don’t know the situation yet, so it is imperative that you stay in the truck unless I tell you otherwise.” He took a right and they were in a cu
te neighborhood. “I don’t want anyone getting hurt.” He paused. “Though I wouldn’t mind having to give you a little mouth to mouth.”
He screeched to a stop and threw the truck in reverse. “Dammit! Missed my turn.” He wrenched the wheel to the left at the next intersection and put the truck into drive again.
Vivian rubbed his shoulder. “I’ll behave.”
Larson turned onto a street lined with cars, a fire truck, two cop cars and an ambulance. Emergency lights lit up the night, and the smell of smoke intensified as he drove closer to the fire.
Finally, Vivian saw it. In addition to the billowing smoke, the house gave off an orange glow. A large tree in the front yard was burning, too. Larson pulled to a stop a hundred yards away, grabbed his gear out of the back seat and got dressed.
“This looks pretty bad,” he said through the open door as he pulled on his boots. “We could be here awhile.”
“I can leave with the girls, but I’d like to watch the action for a bit,” Vivian said, taking in the scene. Hoses ran from the fire truck to the yard. One fireman stayed at the truck, and two more held the hose while another sprayed water at the base of the flames.
“Any idea whose house it is?”
“I’d say whoever is in the back of the ambulance,” Larson said. He gave her a final warning to stay put and ran off, helmet in hand.
Vivian watched him run down the street to the fire truck. Mmmm, mmmm, good. As he got out of sight she turned her attention to the ambulance. Sheriff deputies Stokola and Young stood at the back, talking with someone in the bay. Stokola was writing on her notepad. Just then, a navy blue Grand Cherokee zoomed past her, Kate at the wheel.
Vivian shoved open the door and jumped out, then ran after them, waving her arms. “Here I am!”
BOOM! An explosion on the side of the house sent debris sky high. Vivian watched in horror as a burning piece of something flew onto the street, landing right in front of the SUV. Kate slammed on the brakes but couldn’t stop in time. She drove over it, where it caught the undercarriage on fire. Kate pulled to the curb and stopped, but no one moved to get out.