The Deadly Art of Deception

by Linda Crowder

  “I had to promise to lock up in order to get him to leave. Don’t lock it behind us though. I don’t have a key.”

  The fairy bells twinkled again. “You don’t have a key to your own door?”

  “I never lock my door. I’m sure it’s around, but somebody woke me up too early this morning and pushed me out the door before I had a chance to look for it.”

  “I didn’t push you out the door. You were running away so you wouldn’t have to talk about Frank.”

  There was fog on the bay this morning, a sure sign that winter was coming. It dampened the usual noise, though on Thursdays there was never much noise to dampen. “There isn’t anything to talk about. I told you he was just concerned. I bet Jack gave him an earful last night.”

  Taylor sighed and her face clouded like the fog. “I shouldn’t have come back.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re always welcome, and I’m always happy to see you. Since you mentioned it though, I do wonder why you’d want to come back. There must be so many painful memories here.”

  Taylor didn’t answer. Instead, she abruptly crossed the street and started down the boardwalk that edged the dock. I kept pace with her but said nothing, giving her time to collect her thoughts. At the end of the pier, she stopped and leaned on the rail, looking out at the fog. I listened to the muffled sound of the foghorn from the lighthouse and the gentle lap of the water against the pilings beneath us. “It was worse in Seattle. So much noise. Everybody going on with life as if nothing happened. I felt like I was betraying him.” She stared out at the boats tied up in the marina. The sun was beginning to warm the air, pushing back the fog. “It hurts so much, Cara. People don’t understand how it feels to wake up every morning and reach for him and not have him there.”

  “So you came back.”

  “I feel Johnny when I’m here. It’s all I have left.” She spun around and started walking again.

  I hurried to catch up. “Why don’t we go out to the house today? I have to crate yesterday’s sales for Kenny, but after that I’m free.”

  “I thought you said it was rented.”

  “It is, but Mr. Peterson won’t mind us stopping by, and I bet you’d feel better taking a look at the studio.”

  At the mention of the studio, Taylor slowed her pace and I was able to catch my breath. “Is it...?”

  “Untouched. Just like Johnny left it. Dad put a lock on the door, but that’s the only thing we’ve done.”

  A smile drifted across Taylor’s face. “Do you know where that key is?”

  “Dad has it. He knows how I am about keys.”

  “I always liked your dad.”

  “You go pick it up while I’m working, and by the time you get back, I’ll be ready to head out.”

  “Thanks, Kenny. Have a safe trip.” He honked his horn and waved an arm out the window as he pulled away from the gallery. Sales had been sluggish yesterday, so I’d had half the packages as I’d shipped the day before. Two cruise lines had paid their last visit of the season and would send their ships south for the winter so Coho Bay would close out the last week of the season working only three days instead of six. It had been a spectacular season for The Broken Antler, due in part to the demand for Johnny’s work, but the interest in his paintings had spurred sales for other artists as well. I knew Johnny would have liked that.

  When I finished, I went to Mel’s to pick up the key to the boat. Taylor was waiting for me with a picnic basket, and we headed to the marina. She bubbled with conversation as we walked. Dad had been thrilled to see her. They’d hit it off from the time she’d stepped off the ferry from Juneau the summer she came to help me launch the gallery. She might look like a delicate flower, but she knew the business end of the hammer. She helped Dad with the finish carpentry in the apartment while Mom worked with me to lay out the exhibit space in the gallery.

  We climbed into Dad’s twenty-six-foot cabin cruiser, one of the smaller boats at the marina but larger than most of the pleasure craft I’d seen in Seattle. The water is a fixture of life here and while the Inside Passage is calm compared to the open ocean, in places the mountains can funnel the wind, stirring up the normally placid water. None of us would have felt comfortable running up to Juneau or over to Sitka in a smaller boat, and you needed a cabin to keep out the spray and the rain.

  Taylor stowed the picnic basket while I fired up the motor. Or at least I tried to fire up the motor. It sputtered but didn’t catch. I opened the hatch and grabbed a flashlight to take a look. There were many things I knew about, but engines were not one of them. I tinkered with it for a bit, then climbed up and hit the ignition again. Sputter. I tried again, then hollered to Taylor to hit the starter. Still nothing. I climbed back into the cabin.

  “That’s the extent of my knowledge of motors,” I told her. “We’ll have to get Dad.”

  “We can’t. Your folks were headed out to the wilderness area when I left.”

  “Oh, shoot. I forgot about the moose count.” I slapped the hatch lid shut. My mother was a wildlife biologist and my father an environmental scientist. Both worked for the State of Alaska, and every September they spent a week holed up in a forest service hut in a designated wilderness area documenting the moose population. I’d been so busy it had completely slipped my mind.

  “You ladies need a little help?” We both turned and looked at Frank.

  “The motor won’t turn over, and I’ve run out of things to try.”

  “Sounds like the fuel filter. Got a spare?”

  I opened the bin Dad used to store tools and spare parts and rummaged through the contents. “Doesn’t look like it. Are you sure?”

  “Let me take a look.” Frank jumped down into the cruiser, and Taylor and I stepped aside to give him access to the hatch. He disappeared, and we could hear him muttering to himself. After about twenty minutes, his head reappeared. “Fire it up, Cara.”

  I hit the ignition. There was no sputtering this time, but there was no reassuring hum of the motor either. In fact, there was nothing at all. “You broke it.”

  “It was already broken.”

  “Well now, it’s worse.”

  “Hang on.” He disappeared, and I heard him muttering again. “Okay, try again.”

  “Still nothing,” I called, though Frank could hear that as clearly as I could.

  He climbed into the cabin and shut the hatch. “I just wanted to make sure. It’s the fuel filter.”

  “Lovely. I’ve gotta catch Kenny so he can pick one up for me.”

  “He’s already gone. You could try him on the radio, but he’s probably out of range by now.”

  “He can’t be. I just gave him my shipment.”

  “An hour and a half ago, Cara,” said Taylor, looking at her watch.

  “Cripes! I’m sorry, Tay. I’ll talk to him tomorrow, and Dad can pop in the new filter when he gets back. Mr. Peterson will be leaving then, and we can get him moved out and you moved in all in one trip.”

  Frank studied Taylor, who’d been sitting silently on the bench outside the cabin while we worked on the motor. “You moving out to the island? Thought you were just here for a visit.”

  “Who told you that?” I asked when Taylor didn’t respond.

  “Simmons was telling Lennon. I was just along for the ride.”

  Taylor stood up and grabbed the picnic basket. “We’d better go, Cara. No point in sitting here all day.”

  “I could run you out there,” Frank offered.

  “Hey, that’s an idea. Thanks,” I said.

  Taylor stood poised to climb out of the boat, her foot on the ladder, her back to Frank. “I wouldn’t want to bother you.”

  “It’s no bother.”

  I was puzzled by Taylor’s reaction, but I decided to bail her out. “Tay’s right. You’re in your boat all week. Last thing you want to do on your day off is ferry people around the bay.” Taylor turned to look at me. Her eyes, shiny with tears, tugged at my heart. She was proud, and the intense
emotion of her first trip out to the island was best kept private.

  Frank went along with me, though he had a puzzled look on his face. “You have a point there. Let me know when Kenny brings you that filter, and I’ll put it in if you need to get out there before your dad gets back.”

  Taylor climbed out of the boat without another word and headed toward shore. I knew she would be in tears before she made it across the street.

  “Sorry, just trying to help,” said Frank, pulling my attention away from my retreating friend. I noticed his flannel shirt and old jeans were now smeared with grease.

  “I appreciate your offer. So does Taylor. It’s just that she hasn’t been back to the house since Johnny died.”

  “And I would have been in the way.”

  “She wouldn’t have wanted me there either, seeing his studio again for the first time. She just doesn’t have a choice since she doesn’t have a boat.”

  “How could she have lived on an island without a boat?”

  “It was Johnny’s. After he died, Jack took it back. Didn’t bother anyone at the time because we all figured Taylor wouldn’t be coming back.”

  Frank leaned against the wall of the cabin and crossed his arms. “She fell for Johnny pretty fast from what I hear.”

  “Did you ever meet Johnny?”

  “Only in passing. He died not long after I moved here. I remember stocking up on bear spray.”

  “Lot of people did. Even locals get careless until someone gets hurt.”

  “Is that what happened to Johnny? He got careless?”

  “I don’t know. Taylor says she nagged him about going off on his hikes without some kind of protection, but he didn’t listen. Johnny grew up here, so people thought he should have known better.”

  “Shouldn’t he have?”

  I turned away from him and looked out over the bay. “Johnny never thought about anything else when he was sketching. You could talk to him, and he wouldn’t hear a word you said.”

  “And he went off that day to sketch?”

  “Yes. He dropped Taylor at the gallery and headed out.”

  “Did she stay with you the rest of the day?”

  “Yes. We were still together when we heard the news. Why so many questions?”

  “Curious. She doesn’t seem like his type.”

  “Why would you say that? You didn’t even know Johnny, and you’ve barely met Taylor.”

  “I know her type.” There was an odd flavor of bitterness in his words.

  I rose to Taylor’s defense. “And just what type is that?”

  “The type who uses men. The type that’s more interested in what’s on the surface and doesn’t care about what may be going on underneath.”

  His description was uncharitable, but as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t deny its ring of truth. “She loved Johnny,” I said at last, “whatever you may think.”

  “Didn’t it surprise you? Her falling for him?”

  I noticed Frank didn’t ask if I’d been surprised that Johnny would fall for Taylor. I suppose that was a no-brainer. “Maybe. Johnny was sweet, but he was awkward and shy around outsiders. That’s to be expected when you grow up in a town full of hermits.”

  “You’re not a hermit.”

  “When you’re asking people to spend thousands of dollars for something they can’t even take back to the ship with them, you can’t get away with hiding behind the cash register. Besides, people like to know the story behind the work, and I love telling those stories.”

  “So what was so special about Johnny?”

  “To be honest, I think Tay fell in love with his art. Have you ever seen his paintings?” Frank shook his head. “He had a real gift. He used to tell me he just painted what he saw, but a camera can do that. Johnny captured the spirit of what he painted. You see it in his work. Place one of his paintings next to a less talented artist, and the difference is clear. They could be painting the same landscape, but in Johnny’s you’d hear the waves and smell the pine. People come into the gallery and stand for hours looking at the only two paintings I have left. You can lose yourself in them.”

  “And Taylor lost herself?” It was clear by the look he was giving me that Frank did not believe me.

  “Something like that.” I pulled my sweater tight, hugging myself against the sudden chill, and I wasn’t sure it was coming from the wind as much as the company.

  Frank watched me, and I wondered if he even noticed the shift in mood. “Did Jack always hate her, or has it only been since his son died?”

  I pulled the key out of the ignition and pushed him out of the cabin. “Enough of your questions.”

  “I feel like I came in during the middle of this movie. I like to know what I missed.” We climbed out of the boat and walked toward the stairs that led up to the boardwalk.

  “Except it’s not a movie. These are real people with real pain. Tay’s had more loss in her life than anyone deserves. It’s not fair what happened to Johnny.”

  “Especially for Johnny.”

  I stopped walking and looked intently at Frank, wondering if he was making another joke, but there wasn’t a trace of humor in his expression. I lowered my eyes. “Especially for Johnny.”

  There was no sign of Taylor when I got back to my apartment. I dropped my sweater on the couch, picked up the book I’d been reading the night before, and settled into the chair next to the window. I thumbed through until I found my place and started to read. As anyone could tell by looking at my bookcases, I love to read. I mean, I love it. When I open the pages of a book, the world around me disappears. I’d told Frank that Johnny couldn’t hear me when he was at his easel. Well, I couldn’t hear anything when I was lost in the pages of a good book. I can read through anything, even an Alaskan blizzard, which my father calls hurricanes of the north. I stock up on books in the fall, and then all winter long, tucked away in my cabin, the world opens up to me in their pages.

  I only live in town during cruise ship season. Come October, I pack up and head for a sturdy and snug log cabin, deep in the woods, a few hundred feet from the cabin where my parents live. Some people might not want to live so close to their parents, but they are good about giving me my privacy, and, in turn, I’m good about respecting theirs. There is a third cabin for Mel and Bent, but people got used to eating at the restaurant during the first season and clamored for them to keep it open during the winter. Families who ate there contributed food since Bent didn’t have time to hunt or grow a garden, and unlike the season when the Health Department was prone to make unannounced inspections, nobody said a word when he served home-butchered meat and home-canned fruit and vegetables.

  Since their first winter in town, Mel and Bent had been after me to stick around, and I was giving it serious consideration. Mom and Dad had stubbornly resisted moving, and I couldn’t blame them. They didn’t have a place in town, so they’d have to live in Mel’s guest room and that might be a little too much togetherness even for my family. I didn’t like the idea of them being out in the woods by themselves all winter though, so if they didn’t come to town, I doubted I would. I’d have to make up my mind soon. Next week the ships would sail away for the last time, and most of the population of Coho Bay would scatter until spring.

  The door banged open, then slammed shut. “Cara!”

  Jumping up, I leaned over the banister and looked down at Taylor. She was fumbling with the locks. “What’s the matter?” I called down to her.

  “Call the police!”

  “He’s out fishing. What’s wrong?”

  “What do you mean, he’s out fishing?”

  “It’s Thursday.”

  “So the whole police force is out fishing?”

  “Dan is the whole police force. What’s wrong?”

  “What is wrong with this town?” She punctuated every word with a stomp on the next step as she climbed up to me. “We could all be murdered in our beds, and they’d say, sorry, it’s Thursday.”

  “N
obody gets murdered in Coho Bay.”

  Taylor threw open the refrigerator door. “Milk! Why don’t you have anything to drink in this place? What’s the matter with you?”

  “Why do you need the police?” I could see she was upset, but her hysterical attack on me and my town was beginning to grate on me.

  “What I need is a beer. Surely there must be one beer somewhere in this town?”

  “Not on Thursday. Tay, focus! Why do you need the police?”

  She let out a string of profanity. One or two of the words she unleashed I’d never heard before, but I didn’t think now was the time to congratulate her for creative swearing. Instead, I went into the living room and sank back into my reading chair. “When you’re done being a drama queen, you can tell me what’s wrong.”

  She let out what I can only describe as a primal yell. I really have to tip my hat to Tay. She does drama better than anyone I know. She clenched her hands into fists and took a deep breath. “Somebody is trying to kill me.”

  She had my attention now. “What? When?”

  “Just now.”

  “Somebody tried to kill you, and you’re giving me crap about milk?”

  “Do you want to hear this or not?”

  I sat back again. “You almost had me there. Do you want to try again, this time without the cheesy music?”

  Taylor came into the living room and perched on the arm of the couch. “You’re not making this easier.”

  “I’m sorry. Go on with your story.”

  “I went for a walk.”

  “After you left me at the boat?”

  “That jerk.”

  “Who?”

  “You’re defending him? Because you finally noticed he’s got six-pack abs, suddenly he can do no wrong?”

  “Frank? When did you see his abs?”

  “Can we not make this about Frank?”

  “I’m not making it about Frank. You’re the one who brought him up. Why is he a jerk all of a sudden?”

  She put her hands on her temples and started massaging. “You are not taking this seriously.”