Sharp Edges (30 page)

Cyrus took one look at her and knew he would never be able to talk her out of the idea. On the positive side, he told himself, she would be reasonably safe amid the crowds at the festival. He would only be gone for a few hours. How much trouble could she get into in that length of time?

He did not really want an answer to that question, he thought.

"Try to be subtle when you question people," he said. "It usually works better that way."

"I am nothing if not subtle."

Nineteen

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"I
create images of the raw forces of power and sex." The young man hovered over Eugenia as she examined the sculptures displayed in the booth.

"I see," Eugenia said. "Power and sex."

"Reduced to the essentials."

She nodded. "Essentials."

According to the sign above the booth, his name was Kevin Lanton. He was James Dean lean and intense in a pair of ripped jeans and a flannel shirt. There was something about artists, she thought. Even though she had dealt with them for years, some part of her never ceased to romanticize them.

She responded to them, even when she did not always respond to their work. There was an engaging, single-minded purity to them.

Regardless of individual temperaments and character traits, on some level they all had one thing in common. Their work was vitally important to them. It was their refuge and their passion. In some cases, she suspected, it was their link to sanity.

The most brilliant artists she had met were at the mercy of the forces that drove them to create. They lived on the edge. But the very act of creation allowed them a unique moment or two of exultation that was denied to others. She knew they paid a price for that moment in the fire, but sometimes they produced something that allowed others to experience, however briefly, the heat from the flames.

Not unlike her relationship with Cyrus, she thought. A deep wistfulness swept through her. There would be a price to pay when the relationship ended, but in the meantime she was living in the heart of the fire.

All right, she thought, strictly speaking, she was not exactly living in the heart of the fire at that precise moment. It was ten-thirty in the morning, and she was making her way through the crowded aisles of booths that lined Harbor Street.

Cyrus and Rick, together with Jacob Houston hidden beneath a blanket in the backseat of the Jeep, had left two hours earlier on the first ferry of the day.

The festival-goers had begun arriving in droves on the return trip.

The local artisans and craftspeople who comprised the Daventry Workshops had been ready for the influx of potential customers. Banners waved jauntily in the breeze. At least three dozen colorful booths displaying pottery, glass, paintings, woodworking, sculpture, and textile art had been set up on the main thoroughfare.

Interspersed among the booths were several stands that featured roasted corn, strawberry shortcake, sandwiches, espresso, and soft drinks.

Even the weather had cooperated. The rain had finally stopped. The annual Daventry Workshops Festival was off to a flying start.

Her investigation, however, Eugenia thought, was not going quite so well. Thus far she had talked to only a handful of the local artists. She had learned nothing new. Most had met Nellie Grant in passing, but it was obvious that none of them had been close enough to her to care deeply about her death.

Eugenia forced her attention back to the array of metal sculptures displayed on the table. She could almost hear Cyrus's verdict.
Looks like a bunch of rusted-out license plates welded together
.

"Fascinating." She stroked the edge of one badly corroded plate. "You've found a way to use some of the most symbolic artifacts of our culture to illustrate the potential for both creation and destruction inherent in the forces of power."

"And sex," Kevin reminded her.

"Assuming there is a difference between the forces of sex and power." Eugenia reminded herself that she had a goal here at the festival, and it was not to get sidetracked with conversations about artistic theory. But it was hard to avoid them. She loved this kind of argument. "It's seems clear to me that the energy that fuels one, fuels the other."

"Well, maybe. But you've got to consider the end results."

"Not if you're trying to illustrate the elemental nature of the forces." She was grateful that Cyrus was not around. He would be howling with laughter by now. "You're the one who said he wanted to take a minimalist approach to the subject. Why bother to create two dynamics if there is only one?"

"I'm not so sure there is just one."

"I think it's obvious. You can see it in glass."

"I don't work in glass," Kevin snapped. "The medium is too damn fragile to convey raw power and sex."

"I disagree." She was getting carried away, she warned herself. She really did not have time for this. "What better medium to represent power and sex than one that is both liquid and solid? Glass is a substance that is both strong and vulnerable. It is literally born in fire yet takes shape only when it cools. It illuminates the quintessential nature of all elemental forces."

Cyrus's eyes would definitely have glazed over by now, she thought.

Kevin shook his head. "Glass is too attractive to represent power. Power is raw. Power is ugly. Power is bestial."

"Nonsense. Power is simply transparent and invisible until it is given form and direction. It can't be raw or ugly or anything else. It simply exists, like the wind—" Eugenia broke off abruptly. This was ludicrous. She could not afford to waste any more time. "Look, this is very interesting, and your work is, uh, extremely intriguing. But I wanted to talk about something else."

"Like what?"

"Did you know Nellie Grant?" In spite of the promise she had made to Cyrus, she had been forced to abandon subtlety half an hour earlier when she had first started questioning the artists. It had become quickly apparent that no one was going to respond to the indirect approach. Not that she had made any headway with the direct method, she thought grimly.

"Daventry's last live-in?" Kevin gave his James Dean shrug. "Yeah. I met her at a couple of the parties."

"She was a friend of mine."

"Is that so?" Kevin had obviously lost interest in the conversation now that they were no longer discussing his art. "Too bad about her getting washed overboard. Never could figure out why she went sailing that day."

Eugenia tensed. "Why do you say that?"

"The weather was bad. She must have known it would be dangerous. Some people think she was depressed because of Daventry's death and went out to commit suicide. But I saw her at the party that night. She didn't look like she was seriously in love with Daventry. She looked kind of pissed, if you want to know the truth."

"Any idea why?"

"No. I didn't talk to her. I just saw her from a distance. She was going upstairs for something."

Kevin turned away to greet another potential customer before Eugenia could ask any more questions.

She waited a moment and then decided it would be pointless to push Kevin any further.

She swallowed a sigh and turned to walk down another row of booths. She was wasting her time, she thought.

Two potters and a textile artist later, she was more discouraged than ever. Yes, they had all met Nellie. No, none of them had known her well. None of them had seen anything out of the ordinary at Glass House the night Daventry had died. Most freely admitted that they had been drinking heavily at the party.

She was in the process of removing her wallet from her purse to pay for a stiff double shot of espresso, when she noticed the window of the Midnight Gallery a few feet away. Fenella Weeks had changed the display for the festival. The undersea wildlife paintings were gone. In their place was an edgy, intriguing seascape.

It was one of those rare works of representational art that managed to cross the boundaries. On the surface it was a simple seascape, complete with crashing waves, but underneath it was a great deal more. It had depth and passion and a fierce, vital quality that pulled her to it.

Kevin Lanton had tried to convey the essence of raw power and sex in his license plate sculpture, Eugenia thought. But this picture actually succeeded in accomplishing the goal. It had been executed in shades of green that reminded her of thick glass.

She had never seen Cyrus's fireplace, but she knew intuitively that the seascape would be perfect for it.

She dropped her wallet back into her purse and stepped up onto the sidewalk. She did not take her eyes off the seascape as she walked slowly toward the Midnight Gallery window.

She waited for the picture to become ordinary and dull. But the closer she got, the more compelling it became. By the time she was at the door of the shop, she knew she was going to buy it for Cyrus.

The chimes above the door rang merrily as she let herself inside.

The gallery was empty. Hardly surprising, Eugenia thought. The booths in the street were the main attraction this morning. Few people wanted to browse indoors when they could be strolling through the displays that had been set up outside.

"Fenella?" She glanced toward the rear of the gallery, but there was no one behind the counter. She wondered if Fenella had popped out to get herself a latte or to survey the competition.

The black curtain that concealed the back room stirred slightly in the breeze that blew in with Eugenia. It settled back into place when she shut the door.

"Fenella? It's Eugenia Swift. I want to ask you about the seascape in the window."

There was no response. She stepped around the end of the counter and pulled aside the heavy curtain. The interior of Fenella's back room was crowded, like most gallery and museum back rooms, with pictures and objets d'art that, for one reason or another, were not on display.

Framed paintings were stacked against one wall. A collection of small, hand-carved seagulls perched on a piece of driftwood. Some nondescript pottery sat bunched together on a table.

Eugenia glanced around curiously and then started to step back out of the room. She caught the glint of glass out of the corner of her eye.

She stopped breathing for a few frozen seconds. Then, very slowly, she released the curtain. It fell silently behind her. A deep gloom descended on Fenella's back room.

Eugenia did not turn on the overhead fixture. Enough light slithered around the edges of the curtain to enable her to see the objects on the shelves.

She took one step forward and then another, moving deeper into the dusty storage room to get a better look at the thing that crouched in the far corner. When she was close enough to see it clearly, a queasy, disoriented sensation passed through her. She felt as if she had brushed up against a ghost.

She came to a halt and stared at the piece. It was crafted from sharp fragments of glass and scarred remnants of old metal. It twisted in on itself as if it were a living creature that fed on its own rage and craziness.

Eugenia's skin cooled with shock. She had seen this artist's work before in Daventry's gallery of ex-lovers. Her intuition told her that whoever had created this monstrous thing was capable of murder.

The shelf on which the sculpture hunkered was too high to allow Eugenia a close look. She glanced around and saw a small step stool.

She dragged the stool across the room and positioned it in front of the high shelf. Quickly she climbed to the top step and carefully reached out for the mass of ragged glass and seething metal.

She had to brace herself to pick it up, not simply because the sharp edges made it dangerous, but because some part of her fiercely resisted. She did not want to touch the horror.

She flinched when her fingers closed gingerly around the shards of glass and metal. She could feel the sick fury in it. The sculpture was heavy. Glass always surprised you with its weight, she thought.

Carefully she turned it, angling it to look for a signature. She found it on the bottom of the base.

Fenella Weeks.

"Oh, my God." Reflexively, she tightened her grasp. She felt a cold, burning sting on the tip of one of her fingers. A dark red drop of blood welled.

"Damn."

She strained to listen for the door chimes that would surely ring at any second to announce that Fenella had returned.

An eerie silence came from the other room. She could hear the noise from the art fair, but it seemed distant, as if the festival were taking place in a parallel universe.

A fine trembling started in her hands. Hastily she set the sculpture back down on the shelf. It was a relief to let go of it.

Another drop of blood appeared on her nicked finger.

She looked at it, shocked by the sight. She wondered if she had accidentally walked into some macabre fairy tale where the heroine pricked her finger and disaster ensued.

If Cyrus were here, he would tell her to get a grip on her imagination.

The thought steadied her.

She jumped down from the step stool, took a deep breath, and reached into her purse for a tissue. She found one, tightened it around her bleeding finger, and rushed toward the curtain. An overwhelming need to get out of the shop knifed through her.

If being cool was the first rule of the detective business, don't panic had to be the second. Of course Cyrus probably did not need a rule like that, she thought as she pulled the curtain aside. He would never panic.

The outer shop was still empty, but through the plate glass window in front she spotted a familiar figure wending her way toward the door. Fenella was dressed in a loose, gauzy black dress decorated with an exotic motif. Weighty earrings composed of metal and bits and pieces of other things swung above her shoulders. She carried a foaming latte cup in one hand.

Eugenia knew she could not get out of the shop without being seen. Whirling around, she bent over the nearest piece of studio glass, a muddy-looking, grayish blue bowl.