Sacrificial Ground (29 page)

“The heat,” Karen said quietly. She turned to him. “You know, it doesn't surprise me that Angelica was up to something. Her life was too flat. It was too much like mine.” She smiled softly. “But yours has action, doesn't it?”

“Some.”

“It seems more real,” Karen added. “And I think maybe that's what Angelica was after, something she could touch, something real.”

“Is that what you're after, Karen?” Frank asked.

“Perhaps.”

“And you think you'll find it in New York?”

“I think I will try to find it there,” Karen said. “But this city, at least for me, is full of ghosts.”

Frank took his second right and eased the car slowly up and over a small hill.

“There it is,” Karen said, pointing to a narrow side street. “Gallery Row.” She smiled derisively. “Like everything else in Atlanta, pretentious.”

Frank pulled the car over to the curb. “I thought we'd just walk it together. Go into each gallery, see what we can see.” He smiled. “I don't have a plan, Karen. I'm just trying to find my way out of a dead end.”

She took his arm, and he felt a tremor run through him. He wanted to sweep her into his arms and carry her away to some place where they could be alone forever, where she could paint and he could think through the whole scattered landscape of the life he had seen through the battered golden screen of his badge.

“We'll just take them one at a time,” he said.

“All right.”

There were three galleries on the block. The first of them was called New Palette. It was in a large Victorian house which had been painted bright blue with white shutters.

“It's all mythological themes,” Karen said a few minutes later, after they had walked through each of the gallery's brightly lighted rooms. “Nothing but paintings of Diana and Aphrodite.” She glanced down at a small plaque beside one of the paintings. “Vincent Toffler,” she said. “He must be interested in—what would you call this—erotic mythology?”

“Whatever it is, it doesn't sell,” someone said from behind.

Frank turned to see a short man in jeans and sweatshirt. He peered at them through thin wire glasses.

“I don't suppose you'd want to buy any of this stuff,” the man added. “Maybe for the barn, or some bathroom you don't use anymore?”

“If you don't like them, why do you sell them?” Frank asked.

The man shrugged. “I'm just the manager, not the owner,” he said. “Ours is not to reason why. Now, what can I do for you?”

Frank took out his badge.

The man looked surprised. “Police?”

Frank handed him a picture of Angelica. “Have you ever seen this girl?”

“Very pretty,” the man said, “but I'm afraid I've never seen her.” He laughed. “And believe me, if something like this came in, I'd notice.”

“She's dead,” Frank said.

The laugh died away. “Oh, sorry.” He handed the picture back to Frank. “I didn't mean to be disrespectful.”

“Are you sure you've never seen her?”

“Absolutely. Why?”

“She's been seen in this area before, in the galleries on this street.”

“Not in this gallery,” the man said. “I don't mean to be crude, but she does have a certain look a man is liable to notice.”

Frank put Angelica's picture back in his pocket. “Okay, thanks.” He took Karen by the arm. “Let's go.”

The next gallery was called the Hidden Agenda, and it was small and considerably more modest than the first.

“I've always liked this one,” Karen said as they walked through the front door. “It has a little bit of everything. It's not as rigid as the one James and I own. But then, we have a rigid clientele.” She seemed to brighten as she glanced from here to there in the front room. “Look, that one's by Edgar Benton,” she said. She walked over to it. “He's very good.” She walked to the next painting. “And this one's by Stirling Fox.”

“You know these people?” Frank asked.

“Slightly,” Karen said. “Stirling has a tendency to be reclusive. One hardly ever gets him to a party.” She shrugged. “It's part of his persona.”

“And the other one?”

“Edgar's more social. He's been over to our house a few times.”

“Did he know Angelica?”

“Not that I know of,” Karen said. She stared at the painting. “He's very intense in what he does.”

Frank looked at the painting. It was of a brilliant streak of light passing through a dark cloud. It was entitled
Consummation
.

“Does that look like it was painted by a very intense person?” Karen asked, as she continued to gaze at it.

“Yes,” Frank said.

“Well, that's the way Edgar is,” Karen said casually. She turned quickly and walked into the adjoining room. A tall man in a brown double-breasted suit stood near the center of the room. Karen walked up to him immediately. “Hello, Philip,” she said.

“Hello, Karen,” the man said effusively. “So good to see you.” His eyes softened. “I heard about Angelica. So sorry.”

“You knew Angelica?” Frank asked.

“Yes,” Philip said. “I saw her off and on before she died.”

“Where?”

“Here in the gallery,” Philip told him. “She would come in and walk around for a while. I hadn't seen her since she was a very little girl, and I'm sure she didn't recognize me. I could tell she was going through a stage, so I didn't introduce myself.”

“What do you mean?” Frank asked, as he showed the man his badge.

“Well, by the way she was dressed,” Philip explained. “Always something different. It was like she was in costume.” He looked back at Karen. “I really can't tell you how sorry I am about what happened to her.”

“Did she come alone?” Frank asked.

“Yes.”

“And left alone?”

“Always left alone, as far as I can remember,” Philip said. “Are you making any progress in the investigation?”

“Some.”

Philip shook his head despairingly. “It's terrible what can happen in this world, isn't it?”

“Yes,” Frank said, then suddenly realized that Karen had left the room.

He found her standing alone on the front porch of the gallery. She was staring up at the steadily darkening sky. “I'd like to believe that Angelica was up there somewhere, but I don't.”

Frank draped his arm gently over her shoulder. “There's only one more gallery, Karen. Then you can go to New York. You won't hear from me again until I've found the man who killed her.”

Karen nodded slowly. “All right,” she said.

It was called the Broken Frame, and it was a small, neatly painted building, white with lavender shutters. Inside, the rooms were bright and well-lighted. A young woman in a wildly colored peasant dress greeted them at the door.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hello,” Frank said. He glanced about the room. The paintings were carefully arranged on the wall so as not to be crowded together. The colors were pastels, and they added their own delicate light to the interior of the room.

“Just browse all you want,” the woman said. “No pressure at the Broken Frame.”

Frank drew out his badge, then a picture of Angelica Devereaux. “Have you ever seen this girl?” he asked.

“Yes,” the woman said. “This is the girl who was found dead not far from here.”

“Her name was Angelica,” Frank said.

The woman continued to gaze at the photograph. “She never mentioned her name. She would just stand around. She never spoke to anyone.”

“Did she ever talk to you?”

“No,” the woman said. She looked at Karen. “You must be her sister. I can see the resemblance.”

Frank pointed to the picture. “Did she look like this in the picture?”

“Yes, just like this,” the woman told him. “Very fresh and beautiful. She wore lots of lace. High collars. She sometimes looked as if she'd walked right out of
Gone With the Wind
.”

“Did you ever see her with anyone?”

“No.”

“She was always alone?”

“Yes.”

“Did she ever leave with anyone?”

The woman smiled. “Lots of people tried to get her to leave with them. And, you know, sometimes, I think she liked that. She would sometimes throw one of those ‘come hither' looks. But only at other women.”

“Other women?”

“Yes,” the woman said. “She didn't seem interested in men at all.”

Frank took out his notebook. “Did you ever see her talking to other women in the gallery?”

“No,” the woman said determinedly. “As I told you, she never talked to anyone.”

“But she seemed to concentrate on women?” Frank asked again.

“Absolutely,” the woman said. “It was strange. She would look at them with this odd glance, shy, but not really shy, if you know what I mean.”

Frank wrote it down. “How many times did you see her in here?”

“Three, maybe, four,” the woman said. She turned suddenly to Karen. “It's just hit me, you must be Karen Devereaux.”

“Yes,” Karen said.

“We have two of your paintings,” the woman said happily. “I liked them so much, I bought them from another gallery.” She tugged Karen cheerfully into the adjoining room. “See,” she said. She pointed to a small, delicately rendered portrait of a man sitting in a wing chair, his hands folded neatly in his lap, a look of terrible, wounded concentration in his eyes.

“My father,” Karen said, almost in a whisper.

“And that one,” the woman added. She turned Karen slowly around to face the opposite wall.

“Oh, yes,” Karen said. A smile suddenly struggled to her lips.

The painting was of a vase of flowers. It was done in muted colors with a light, feathery brushstroke, and as Frank looked at it he could feel a kind of solemn pleasure flourishing in it, rising, against all odds, to claim its own bright space.

“I'll take it,” he said, before he could stop himself.

Karen turned to him. “Don't be silly, Frank,” she said. “I'll give you a painting.”

He looked at her somberly. “But I want this one,” he said.

The woman wrapped the painting while Frank asked her a few remaining questions. Then he picked it up carefully and took it to the car.

“Where are you going to hang it?” Karen asked.

“My apartment,” Frank told her, “it could use a touch of something nice.”

“Is it one of those drab, broken-down, private-eye sort of places?” Karen asked with a light smile.

“That's about right.”

“How long have you lived there?”

“It feels like my whole life.”

She looked at him tenderly. “Take me there, and I'll help you hang the painting.”

The dinginess of his apartment seemed even greater with Karen standing in the middle of it, but she didn't seem to mind.

“It really is one of those private-eye places,” she said with a laugh.

“I told you.”

She walked to the middle of the room, then turned slowly, examining the walls. “Over there,” she said at last, “that would be the best place for it.”

Frank rifled through several cabinets before he found a nail. Then he hammered it into the wall, and together he and Karen lifted the painting onto it, then stepped back to take in the effect.

“Very nice,” Karen said. She looked at him. “It brightens the room.”

“Yes, it does.”

Karen continued to look at it for a moment, then walked over to the window, parted the blinds and peered out. “I was happy when I painted that,” she said.

Frank walked over to her. “You can tell you were,” he said.

The first wave of rain suddenly swept down over the city, and a gust blew it forcefully against the window pane.

“I want a storm,” Karen said, “I want a wild, booming storm.”

“Maybe you should paint one,” Frank said.

She turned toward him. “Do you think a single afternoon can make a difference?”

“For that afternoon, yes,” Frank said. And then he drew her into his arms.

24

I
t was late in the evening before Karen left, and as Frank sat on his sofa, staring at her painting, he could still feel the warmth of her body as it had clung to him hungrily hour after hour. She had talked once again of leaving this city full of ghosts, and as he continued to gaze at the painting, it struck him that she had not painted the flowers themselves, or the almost translucent blue vase that held them, but the airy ghosts of these things. It was as if she had been able to feel the slowly fading pulse of each leaf and petal, and it was this overall sense of steadily departing life which she had captured.

He had bought the painting because it was hers, and because he thought it might brighten the space around him. But now he could see nothing but its sorrowfulness, its mournful sense of departure and farewell.

He walked into the kitchen and fixed himself a quick meal of beans and nearly burnt bacon. He ate it with a single slice of white bread. It was a joyless, bachelor's fare, he realized, and each mouthful tasted of a life that had itself turned utterly flavorless.

He returned to the living room and once again sat down on the sofa. He felt the need to view his life as some kind of whole, as if it could be captured in a single tone or color. But nothing held firm. Nothing but his work, his pursuit—however blind and full of error—of something which could be called justice, or at least, retribution. People had to pay for what they did, and he was one of the ones who made them pay. It was the badge which gave him the right to do that, and he suddenly found that he wanted to cling to it with all his remaining strength. Nothing could bring back Sarah or Angelica or Ollie Quinn, or any of the scores of others whose bodies lay torn and broken in his memory, but whose spirits still moved sleeplessly through him. They were more real to him than all the living who crowded the streets and buses. They lived more fully in his mind, and their flesh was warmer and more tangible. It bled and bled, as if the one great heart of all the unjustly dead still beat on through the ages, their cries still ringing out through time, heard like a low moan in the ground, or like a scream echoing above it.