Shadow Image

by Martin J. Smith

  The modem connection was still live. Christensen scrolled down the Press headlines, back through the years, until he reached one published three years earlier that read, “Underhill Boy Dies in Riding Accident.” The story was among the photocopied clippings Brenna got in the mail the day before, but at the time Christensen hadn’t given it a second thought. He selected the story and printed it out, reading on-screen even as his laser printer began to purr.

  The Pittsburgh Press

  (c) Press Publishing. All rts. reserv.

  0762261 UNDERHILL BOY DIES IN RIDING ACCIDENT

  Edition: FIVE STAR

  Section: METRO

  Page: B-l

  Word Count: 155

  TEXT: The young son of industrial heir Ford Underhill died Sunday in what investigators say was a tragic horseback-riding accident on the Underhill family’s Fox Chapel estate.

  Vincent Underhill III, 3, the only grandson and namesake of the former Pennsylvania governor, was thrown from a horse ridden by his father, police said. The gray gelding, one of the family’s champion show horses, apparently balked and reared along a narrow wooded trail, throwing both Underhill and his son, known as Chip. In the confusion that followed, police said the horse apparently kicked the child in the head.

  Underhill’s wife, Leigh, called paramedics to the scene just minutes after the accident, but police said the child was dead on arrival at St. Francis Hospital. A coroner’s report is pending.

  The Underhill family declined comment through its attorney, Philip Raskin, who asked news reporters to respect the family’s need for privacy “at this time of profound and unexpected grief.”

  Christensen plucked the printed version from his output tray and read it again. He remembered the incident, if not the specifics, because of the sudden influx of Underhill money the accident represented to various brain-injury facilities around the city. What were the chances that the horse involved in that accident was named Gray? He returned to the list of Press headlines on his computer screen and scrolled back up the chronological list, looking for follow-up stories. He found two, both published in the week after the accident. But when he tried to read the first, his CompuServe screen blinked a message he’d never seen while searching a newspaper’s electronic library: “Story unavailable.”

  He tried the second. “Story unavailable.”

  Christensen tried the first again with the same result, then logged off. He was too tired to figure it out. He checked his watch. Eleven-thirty. Now he was starting to worry. Brenna had left him and the kids shortly after the Sofa Factory visit, headed to a Seventh Ward fund-raiser. He understood why she had to go. She’d always considered public service a noble calling, never mind the city’s unrepentant culture of petty politics and its tolerance of small-minded, self-serving hacks. “We can’t just turn government over to incompetents who don’t care,” she often said. “Then where will we be?” That’s why she’d outlasted her contemporaries in the public defender’s office, at least until the chance to build a private practice with Flaherty, her longtime friend, proved irresistible. But she’d entered the private sector vowing to continue some civic role, and she’d set her sights on the Pittsburgh city council.

  The Seventh Ward was a clubby shark tank of educated liberal Democrats, and for Brenna it seemed a logical political base. If she was going to swim with them, she at least wanted to swim with her kind of sharks. And she did know a lot of the Seventh Ward players. But presenting herself, an outsider, as a potential candidate was a delicate thing. Even with Brenna’s qualifications, commitment, and name recognition, there were rings to be kissed.

  She should have been back by now.

  Christensen sat back in his chair, rubbing his eyes. How could he find out the name of the horse? Could it be that simple? Trauma, whether physical or emotional, tended to etch memories deeply into the brain, but no one really understood why. Even in Alzheimer’s patients, traumatic memories seemed the most durable. His own theory was that hormones, nerves, cells, and the more traditional components of memory all worked together to preserve the harshest memories, and together they became sort of an early warning system for the body. What better than a vivid memory of pain or anguish or injury to remind us of danger?

  He needed more information. What if one of Floss’s favorite horses was responsible for her only grandson’s death? Wouldn’t at least remnants of that anguished memory withstand the ravages of Alzheimer’s? The context might erode, the overall significance of the events might be lost, but given the circumstances, he’d be surprised if some sort of horse-related imagery didn’t find its way into Floss’s artwork. Could understanding how Floss’s memory cataloged that trauma help him connect with her memories of what happened at the gazebo?

  Eleven thirty-five. Christensen turned off his computer and tucked the printed story into his briefcase. It had been a while since he’d worried about anyone being out late. Melissa gave him fits as a high school junior, but when she’d left to spend the last half of her senior year living with a host family and studying French culture, he’d accepted his loss of control over her comings and goings. And he’d never given Brenna’s whereabouts a second thought until they moved in together. If he told her he was worried, would she be grateful for his concern, or would the confession brand him forever in her eyes as a pathetic, paternalistic schmuck?

  He stared at the ceiling above his desk. The stain was bigger, but still small enough to ignore. Some Crazy Story about Gray.

  He couldn’t wait up any longer. It seemed as if he’d made the kids’ cheesy-egg omelets three days ago, not eighteen hours ago. The museum visit, the missing painting, and everything else about the day was a blur, a sure sign he was exhausted. Besides, tomorrow was Floss Underhill’s first day back at Harmony for adult day care. They could resume their conversation, or try to, and he could talk to her with more confidence than he had during their brief hospital visit. He had every right to be at Harmony and to work with the patients as part of his research, and he didn’t intend to let a mystifying episode with Vincent Underhill undermine that.

  The scene in the street hadn’t changed. Brenna’s usual parking spot in front of the house was still empty. Two doors down, the same car he’d noticed before, a Thunderbird, he guessed, was still along the curb. He squinted into the darkness until he was satisfied that whoever was in it was gone, then flipped on the front-porch light just as a pair of headlights turned the corner onto Howe. He watched until he was sure it was Brenna’s Legend, then watched some more as she wedged it into her spot. Something odd caught his eye as he turned to head upstairs. Their front-porch swing was moving ever so slightly from side to side. The day they moved in, he’d set a small clay pot of nasturtiums on a small table beside the swing. Now it was shattered on the porch floor, just a pile of terra cotta shards and a forlorn clump of soil. And something else: A delicate stitch of damp footprints crisscrossed the porch, a man’s, he guessed, but from a man walking carefully across the dew-slick concrete porch. The prints closest to the door and front windows were missing a heel print. Who the hell was tiptoeing around their porch at this time of night?

  Brenna opened her car door and stepped out, hauling her briefcase and an armload of files. Christensen hurried up the stairs, suddenly uneasy and a little embarrassed that he was behaving more like Brenna’s father than her lover.

  Chapter 15

  The sign on the door said, “Welcome to The Club. You will be going home on the bus at 3 p.m.” Beside it, the bright red hands of a smiling cardboard clock face registered three o’clock. From the other side of the door came music, Sinatra, and a voice that was an improbable mix of Jane Pauley’s gentle compassion and Sgt. Vince Carter from Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. Maura Pearson’s morning art class was already underway.

  Christensen eased the door open and step
ped unnoticed into the art therapy room. Except for the subtle touches— standard-sized furniture and the dozen Alzheimer’s patients gathered around the painting table—it could have been an elementary school classroom. The linoleum was a soothing pale blue, a complementary shade to the plastic chairs on which the artists sat. Along the opposite wall, a spinet piano and an organ awaited the next music therapy class. Each donated item bore a gleaming brass plaque crediting the donor. A full-length mirror on wheels was beside the organ. The self-portraits done with the mirror’s help were among the most remarkable pieces Christensen had seen since undertaking his study. In it, the artists saw themselves in the most poignant and horrific ways, like the man who sketched himself smiling with a pistol to his head. No Harm, No Foul, he’d called it. It hung on the wall, along with other matted and framed examples of the art produced in this room.

  In one corner, beside the large-screen TV, were a small lectern and a big overstuffed recliner. Two aluminum-frame walkers were parked next to the chair. Next to them, Jerry the parakeet danced between his swing and his food perch, raining bird seed onto the floor of his cage.

  Christensen moved quietly toward the table and took a seat as Sinatra kicked into “I’ve Got the World on a String.” Pearson’s students were so accustomed to his comings and goings that no one even acknowledged him. Pearson stood over a woman who looked like a Palm Beach society matron circa 1975—hair done just so, pink Oleg Cassini suit, pearls, perfect nails, attitude. She was stabbing at a thick piece of watercolor paper with a red Mr. Sketch instant watercolor marker. Each new dot released a fresh burst of artificial strawberry scent. Angry red dots pocked the once-white surface.

  “You’re perseverating again, Emma,” Pearson said.

  The woman kept up her pace, applying each new dot with greater force. “It’s my stormy sky,” she said.

  “I’ll say.” Pearson slipped her hand beneath Emma’s elbow, gently but firmly blocking the motion of her arm. At the same time, she moved the dotted paper away from the woman, who made several halfhearted lunges with the marker.

  “I’m not done,” Emma said.

  Pearson stood her ground. “I want you to try something else for me.”

  The dot work was typical of an agitated artist. Pearson always seemed to understand the cue, if not the reason, for Emma’s anger. She released the woman’s elbow, and Emma shifted the marker to her left hand and turned around in her chair. Her face was all outrage and defiance. She poked the marker at Pearson’s white smock, leaving a single red dot where her navel would be. Around the table, all hands stopped moving, all eyes turned to Pearson. The therapist examined the dot as if it were a wound, then snort-laughed. “Well, touché!” she said.

  “She got you,” said Arthur. “Throw her ass out.” The man, maybe seventy, was directly across the table from Emma. As he spoke, he trimmed a Malboro ad from a magazine with blunt-nosed scissors.

  “That’ll be enough, Mr. Gemmelman,” Pearson chided. She stooped down until she was facing Emma and waited until the woman looked her in the eye. “I understand you’re angry with me, Emma, and that’s okay. But I also want to help you understand your body a little better. May I show you something different?”

  Emma nodded, her hostility in check, at least for the moment.

  Pearson got busy taping a new piece of watercolor paper on the table in front of Emma. She took the marker from the woman’s hand and replaced it with a 2-inch-wide brush. “I want you to start with plain water,” she said, moving an unclaimed cup of water to within Emma’s easy reach. “Just brush it straight across, back and forth. Get the paper wet, then we’ll start with the paints.”

  The idea, Christensen knew, was to calm Emma down. To convert her agitated stabbing blots of red into slow, flowing strokes of something pale and watery. He marveled again at Pearson’s patience and her ability to meet each student’s needs just when they needed her most.

  “Everyone else set?” Pearson asked, but her charges were too focused on their work to answer. She joined Christensen in the supplies room, where he’d retreated to store his briefcase.

  “Emma’s daughter was supposed to bring her down this morning, but she had car trouble.” Pearson shook her head. “She made her take the Hopper and it’s got Emma all discombobulated.”

  The Harmony Hopper was the center’s adult day-care bus which, thanks to a state transportation grant, shuttled day patients without charge from their homes to the center.

  “Don’t most of them love the Hopper?” Christensen said.

  “Most of them do, but Emma—” Pearson straightened her spine and turned up her nose. “ ‘Public transport?’ she says. ‘Why can’t a driver bring me?’ ”

  Christensen smiled. “Wealthy?”

  “Demented. Lives in Aspinwall. I’ve got no idea where she got the Jackie Kennedy getup. Oh—” Pearson touched his arm, apparently struck by a sudden thought. “I’ve got something for you.”

  She squeezed between stacked cases of art supplies and removed the pushpin from a paper on the staff bulletin board. After shoving the pushpin back in, she handed him the paper. “The answer to your little rebus puzzle, I think. Saw it in a magazine Emma brought to class. She’s the one who actually noticed it first.”

  The paper was a photocopy of a page from Show Circuit magazine. A single column of type ran down the right side; three advertisements of equal size ran down the left. “The story?” he asked.

  Pearson shook her head. “Check out the ad on the bottom.”

  Christensen read the ad, which detailed the superior rings, trails, and boarding facilities of Muddyross Ranch in Westmoreland County, “home of the annual Oaks Classic.” The word “exclusive” appeared three times. Pearson retrieved a nearby copy of the Once-Lost Images calendar. She flipped it open to April and pointed to the odd interlocking letters etched across Floss Underhill’s pale sun, then to the logo in the ad. She took a step backward, hands on her wide hips, tapping the toe of one enormous unlaced basketball shoe.

  “She’s been painting the logo,” he said finally.

  “Brilliant deduction, Sherlock.”

  Christensen compared the two images. The Muddyross Ranch logo was a combination of the letters M and R, blended inside a circle like part of an old-fashioned ranch brand. Floss’s version still looked like a melted hood ornament, but it was clearly similar.

  “Maybe,” he said. “She organized this Oaks event for years before she got sick.”

  “For whatever it’s worth,” Pearson said. She pointed to the sun in Floss’s reprinted painting. “Floss paints the image so often, even Emma noticed the similarity. I’d bet you a beer that’s what that is.”

  Christensen couldn’t argue. If Floss hadn’t been trying to recreate the image, it was a strange coincidence.

  “Even if it is, it still doesn’t mean anything to me,” Pearson said. “You’ll have to sort that out yourself.”

  “You’ve worked with her a long time, Maura. You don’t have any idea what it might be about?”

  Pearson shook her head. “She’s a horse freak. Beyond that, it could be any of a million things. What’s your guess?”

  He held both the ad and the calendar at arm’s length. “The prominence of it makes me think it’s a top-of-the-mind thing. I mean, I doubt some image that didn’t mean much to her would have imprinted itself deeply enough to show up over and over like that. She probably associates it with an experience of some sort, maybe even a trauma. She’s back today, right?”

  With her foot, Pearson maneuvered a heavy box of art supplies on the floor onto the base of a handcart. “She’s around somewhere. Came by earlier and picked up a sketch pad, but I don’t expect her back today.”

  “She by herself?”

  “Just her home nurse.”

>   Christensen dropped the calendar, then stooped to pick it up. “Selena Chembergo?”

  Pearson tilted the handcart backward and angled it toward the door, shrugging and shaking her head as she headed back to her class. “Another girl. Must be Selena’s day off.”

  The Harmony Center’s rooftop dining deck was the most extravagant of the facility’s many extravagances. Its granite floor was seamless to ease the passage of wheelchairs. A handrail ran the entire perimeter. A computer-controlled water-jet and drainage system kept the deck clean and food-free in spring and summer with a once-a-day 3 a.m. spritzing. Because of the fall rain and winter snow, the deck was impractical for much of the year. On spring days like this, though, with the sun out and the temperature well into the 70s, the staff made sure the patio tables were set up and the bright blue market umbrellas hoisted. The scene could have been some trendy rooftop restaurant if not for the unusually high Plexiglas barrier that prevented demented diners from climbing over the railing and stepping into the parking lot from the building’s third story.

  Christensen sipped his coffee in the sunlight as the automatic doors hissed shut behind him. With two hours until lunch, only a few tables were filled. In a wheelchair at the far end, facing the forested hills behind the building, Floss Underhill was sketching on a drawing pad on a tray across her knees. The shoulder-to-wrist cast still encased her thin left arm, and she rested the bulky thing on the arm of the wheelchair. A young blond woman sat beside her in a Cape Cod deck chair, reading a paperback through dark Ray-Bans.

  Christensen approached slowly, then moved in front of Floss so she wouldn’t have to turn around. “Mrs. Underhill?”

  Her arm stopped moving and she looked him up and down. The younger woman may have looked up, too, but it was hard to tell.