The Artist Colony Page 10

  He seemed flustered by her question and took a moment before answering. “Yes, Dr. Lewis did tell me that. I thought it’d be better to keep it out of the newspapers as it wasn’t relevant and would just stir things up in the gossip pages. Our village has had enough bad publicity over this case already.”

  Not relevant, thought Sarah, incredulously. “Didn’t you wonder why the father didn’t show up at the inquest? Did you make any attempt to find him?”

  “Nope. I had enough evidence to reach a verdict without digging further into your sister’s personal life.”

  “But certainly her pregnancy would have been a good enough motive to not take her own life?”

  “I disagree. I think an unwed mother’s burden of shame is all the more reason,” said Judd. “You should be thanking me for hushing that up. It wouldn’t have done you no good.” He stood up. “Now I must be going.”

  His metal spurs jingled as he walked across the wooden floor to the hat rack. Sarah felt sorry for the palomino waiting outside to take her master home. He reached for an oversized white felt hat with a porcupine quill stuck in the band. If the situation wasn’t so terrible, Sarah could’ve laughed, but instead she sized up her opposition and started to feel up to the task of dealing with a not-so-sharp cowboy marshal.

  The metal chairs scraped when Sarah and Rosie stood up.

  He turned, pushing the hat down over his small balding head, and said, “I do hope there isn’t some other reason you have in wanting to see these files.”

  “What other reason could there be?” asked Sarah, puzzled.

  “I don’t know. I just thought you might have some silly notion of trying to reopen the investigation . . . for your own advantage.”

  “My advantage?”

  “Western Life cancelled the death benefit in your sister’s life insurance policy because it was a suicide. You’re listed as the beneficiary and a tidy sum would’ve come your way.”

  Sarah hadn’t expected this. “I didn’t know there was a life insurance policy.”

  “That’s odd. Mr. Martin from Western Life Insurance in Monterey sent a letter to you in Paris informing you that the policy premium was cancelled. It’s called a Moral Hazard clause.”

  She shook her head. “I never got any letter from Mr. Martin.”

  He sneered. “No? I’ll ask him for another copy.”

  “Please do,” said Sarah.

  “Now, ladies, I must be off to the bakery before it closes or I won’t get my dinner.” He smiled. “You know what fussbudgets wives can be when their menfolk don’t come home on time.” The two women walked over to the door he held open.

  Sarah, a head taller than the marshal, looked down at his gold-capped teeth that glittered when he grinned. “Then again, how could you know, seeing as you’re both spinsters.” He tipped his hat.

  They stepped out onto the porch. Judd mounted his palomino, pulled the reins to the left, gave the horse’s belly a hard kick with his spurs, and shouted, “Get a move on, Gertrude.” The old mare winced under the kick but obediently trotted toward Ocean Avenue with her bulky passenger bouncing up and down hard in the saddle.

  “What a dreadful little man,” said Sarah, lighting a cigarette and blowing out the anger she’d been holding in. “Is he a real cowboy?”

  Rosie swaggered a bit and imitated his raspy voice, “Yep, certified. I grew up on a ranch in Salinas. When I’m not out patrollin’ our little community, I ride ol’ black bulls in the rodeo shows.” Rosie hitched up her skirt. “Well, I used to anyway.”

  They both laughed, glad to be out of his office and away from his cigar smoke.

  “Has he had any experience investigating murder cases?”

  “Once, ten years ago. He’d just been elected when an artist from New York, Helena Wood Smith, went missing. Several of her friends, writers and artists in the Carmel artist colony, were furious when he didn’t make any real effort to look for her, so they formed their own search party. They found Helena half-buried under a sand dune on Carmel Beach. She’d been strangled. Her friends hunted down George Kodani, a Japanese art–photographer Miss Smith had been living with. When Mr. Kodani finally confessed to the marshal, he was jailed, but an angry crowd gathered outside his cell hungry for a lynching.” Rosie paused. “I’m embarrassed to say some of them were my good friends.”

  “I would’ve never thought that possible in an artist colony,” said Sarah, feeling the horror of such a violent act. “Artists pride themselves on their open-mindedness and justice for all.” It was disappointing to know that the racial tension she’d been feeling was as real here as it was in other small towns in America where Negroes had been lynched. She asked, “Did they succeed?”

  “Fortunately the marshal does believe in law and order. He and his armed deputies were able to break up the mob.”

  “At least he’s good for something.” Sarah looked up Ocean Avenue at Gertrude swishing her white plumed tail as she waited patiently for her master to come out of the bakery. “But that was ten years ago. What has he done since then to keep law and order in Carmel?”

  “Mostly he hunts down drunks and cattle thieves and the Canadian rum runners that come down here to deliver whiskey to their distributors along the coastline. Some say he makes a little taste when a shipment gets delivered.”

  Sarah laughed. “Rum runners? Here in peaceful Carmel? Ada would’ve loved that. She liked the taste of whiskey sours.” She dropped the cigarette on the dirt path and stamped it out under her foot. “Weren’t you at all surprised the marshal was willing to hand over his files?”

  “He probably thinks that after you read them you’ll agree with his verdict, but I think he’s a bit nervous about it. The last thing he wants is for you to find any new evidence to reopen the inquest.”

  “Can I do that?”

  “You can if you persuade the District Attorney there’s a good chance Ada was murdered.”

  “And how do I do that, Rosie? Need I remind you that I’m an artist, not a detective.”

  “By doing just what you’re doing. You were very good at holding your own with Marshal Judd. He doesn’t know exactly what you’re up to, but he knows you’re determined to get to the truth, and he doesn’t like it.”

  They walked down Ocean Avenue toward Camino Real. A late afternoon fogbank hovered over the ash-gray Carmel Bay, as if it were deciding whether to come onto shore.

  From afar Sarah thought she heard a chorus of keening banshees.

  “Rosie, I’d like you to show me where you found Ada. There might be something Marshal Judd missed.”

  “All right. I’ll take you there tomorrow afternoon after I give the girls their lunches. By then you’ll have had a chance to look over the marshal’s report.”

  WEDNESDAY, JULY 23

  —9—

  At 8:30 a.m. Albert barked and Sarah opened the front door of the cottage. It was Riley, the deputy from the marshal’s office, holding a wooden crate in one arm and a thin brown envelope in the other. He asked her to sign a receipt and left before she had a chance to thank him.

  She carried the crate into the kitchen, placed it on the floor, and lay the envelope on the kitchen table, resisting the urge to open either until she had her morning coffee and a clearer mind.

  After she gave Albert some of his favorite Spratt’s dog biscuits, she percolated coffee and prepared a plate of cheese and bread for herself. She stole several glances at the crate. Whatever was inside, like Pandora’s box, it wasn’t going to make her happy.

  When the coffee was ready, she poured a cup and sat in the banquette. She slit open the brown envelope and pulled out two folders. The first was titled: A.B. DAVENPORT: VICTIM OF SUICIDE, and stamped in red: INQUEST CLOSED. The second folder was titled: A.B. DAVENPORT CRIME REPORT—INVESTIGATOR: ALVIN JUDD, MARSHAL

  There was a set of keys in the envelope like the ones Rosie had given her to the cottage, except the alley key to the studio was missing. Something else was stuck in the bottom and sh
e shook the envelope. Ada’s “Peace” pendant and chain fell out. The cyanide was still inside. This made her sister’s suicide even more unbelievable. If Ada had wanted to kill herself, wouldn’t she have swallowed the cyanide and not gone to the trouble of drowning herself?

  Albert licked his bowl clean in a few slurps and jumped up next to Sarah. He sniffed the folders, then sat up on his haunches and watched her attentively.

  The crime report contained a few pages of Marshal Judd’s almost indecipherable writing. She lit a cigarette and prayed for clues to her sister’s murder.

  Judd had noted that the victim’s desk was empty and there was a thick pile of ashes mixed with scraps of paper in the fireplace. He assumed that she had burned her correspondence to prevent anyone from trespassing into her private life after she was gone. A blatant error, thought Sarah, but the marshal wouldn’t know Ada was afraid of fires and would never light one. The handwritten suicide note had been found on the kitchen table under a vase of daisies. Sarah looked at the vase still sitting on the table after Rosie had thrown out the dead flowers. She felt creepy inside. Investigating her own sister’s murder wouldn’t be pleasant.

  Sarah puzzled over what she had learned and said to Albert, “The murderer could’ve cleaned out Ada’s desk after he killed her and burned the will and any other evidence, but that doesn’t explain the suicide note in Ada’s writing.” Albert replied by yawning and stretching his front paws on her lap.

  She turned to the medical report. A Dr. Rosenthal concluded the victim had died from asphyxiation in saltwater and had been floating adrift until the morning tide had pulled her back onshore. Dr. Rosenthal set the time of death between 10:00 p.m., July 4, and 8:00 a.m. the following morning.

  The death certificate was signed by the marshal—“Cause of death: SUICIDE. Manner of death: DROWNING.” It seemed indisputable. Fighting off discouragement, she pressed on. Attached was a copy of the one-page letter from Mr. Jonathan Martin of the Western Life Insurance Company in Monterey. A terse formal letter stating that Sarah was the beneficiary of Miss Davenport’s five-thousand-dollar insurance premium, but it had been annulled because of the policy owner’s suicide. She jotted down: Judd rushed the verdict, encouraged by an insurance company that didn’t want to pay the premium. Was he compensated?

  Not feeling up to the task in front of her, she stubbed out her cigarette, opened the casement window over the kitchen sink, and listened to the surf rolling onto the shore. To her it sounded like waves of endless grief. She returned to the loose papers ruffling in the sea breeze.

  Next was the inquest file. It was dated July 15 to 17, 1924, when she had been on a train reeling across the countryside. The court reporter had neatly transcribed the events with a stenotype machine. The results amounted to four pages of testimony—testimony that stained her sister’s character and questioned her sanity.

  Paul deVrais testified that he had been Miss Davenport’s art dealer for many years. He insisted he’d left for San Francisco the evening of the fourth. Marshal Judd took him at his word and didn’t ask for any proof. He said her death was a tragic loss to him and the art world. When asked about Miss Davenport’s recent emotional state, he used the words “extremely agitated and irrational.”

  Henry Champlin was the next witness. He said he had first met Miss Davenport when she was an art student. He stated that several guests were staying with him over the holidays. On July fourth, they watched the fireworks on Carmel Beach and attended the Bath House dance. He had the decency not to mention Ada’s previous attempt at suicide, but he did say, when asked by the marshal, that it was true that she suffered from melancholy and at times could become “hysterical.”

  She read with interest that Elizabeth Peake, one of Rosie’s lodgers, was perhaps the last person to see Ada alive. Miss Peake testified that at eight o’clock on the evening of July fourth, she was watering Rosie’s front garden when she saw Ada pedal by on her red bicycle. Albert was sitting in the front basket as usual. Miss Peake presumed the victim was going to the beach to paint as she often did at the twilight hour, and called out hello. Ada appeared to be in a great hurry and didn’t wave back.

  Sarah reviewed the marshal’s notes. There was no mention that a red bicycle had been found near Ada’s body. She scribbled down, Important: find Ada’s bicycle. It gave her an unexpected but fleeting thrill to have found a possible clue. Find the bicycle and find where she went that night.

  Rosie’s testimony in defense of Ada’s character and emotional state was reassuring until Judd cut her off and told her to report only what she had seen on the morning of July fifth. “That morning,” she said, “an anxious, barking Albert showed up at the front door of the Lodge. He was covered in wet sand. He had gnawed through his leash but half was still clipped to his collar. When I didn’t find Miss Davenport at home, I followed Albert to River Beach.”

  Sarah put Albert on her lap—“You are such a smart dog”—and read the testimony of Miss Davenport’s assistant, Sirena Silver. She too saw the fireworks and attended the Bath House dance on the fourth. The last time she saw her employer was on July first at her cottage. Miss Davenport was agitated but this behavior was not unusual. Miss Silver had often seen her like that. And, no, she didn’t tell the marshal she’d been fired that same morning.

  The last page was the suicide note, Judd’s conclusive evidence. Sarah recognized the pale yellow linen paper torn from Ada’s Book of Quotables and the purple ink she used for writing:

  Dearest Little Sis,

  I have been at the point of writing this letter for days. My heart has been behaving in such a curious fashion that I can’t imagine it means nothing. So as I would hate to leave you unprepared, I’ll just try and jot down what comes into my mind. All my art [Sarah put the sheet of paper up to the window but couldn’t decipher the word that had been redacted and replaced above with the word art, as if correcting a mistake.] I leave entirely to you to do what you like with. Please destroy all letters you do not wish to keep and all papers. Monies, of course, are all yours. In fact, my dearest dear, I leave everything to you. In spite of everything—how happy we have been!

  Forgive me.

  Ada Belle

  Friday, July 4, 1924

  Taking a gulp of now-cold coffee, Sarah ran her finger over the smeared Dearest Little Sis. She would have wept, if Ada had actually written this letter to her. Instead, she became furious.

  She remembered seeing a book of Katherine Mansfield’s published letters in Ada’s living room and she carried it back to the kitchen. It was easy to find what she was looking for. Ada had bookmarked Mansfield’s dying letter to her husband John Murry.

  She compared Katherine’s letter to Ada’s transcription of that letter, which had been identified by Marshal Judd at the inquest as Ada’s suicide note.

  She let out a scoffing laugh.

  This wasn’t Ada’s suicide note. It was Ada’s transcribed copy of Katherine’s letter to her husband, except someone had blacked out “manuscripts” replacing it with “art,” and forged Ada’s handwriting to write the salutation and the last three lines at the bottom of the page.

  Sarah slammed down her fist and Albert jumped off the banquette. He returned with a leash hanging from his mouth.

  “Not now, Albert. We’ve got to look inside the crate. We’ll go out when Rosie gets here.” Disappointed, he dropped the leash and stretched out on the floor near the crate. Sarah opened the lid.

  A putrid odor of mildew had soaked into Ada’s rosebud shawl. Salt had embedded between the silk threads of the embroidered roses. In spite of the smell, Sarah cradled it in her arms. My impulsive, vibrant sister, how could your wonderful, warm-hearted life have ended so cruelly? Who did this to you? Albert sniffed the shawl and whimpered.

  “Do you know, Albert? Were you with her when she was killed?”

  Moments passed before she could lay it aside. She took out jodhpurs, a jersey pullover, a vest, one canvas shoe, and a pair of white socks stained
with kelp.

  At the bottom of the crate were four polished black stones with 3KG engraved on each one. The stones Judd had mentioned in his crime report. She turned the crate over. Nothing but sand fell out.

  Before Rosie took Sarah to see where she had found Ada on the beach, Sarah showed her the forged suicide note torn from Ada’s Book of Quotables and Katherine Mansfield’s own letter to her husband.

  “This is why we needed you here,” said Rosie. “You’re like Sherlock Holmes. You find clues Marshal Judd is too lazy to see.”

  Sarah put one of the heavy black stones in Rosie’s hand. “Do you know where these come from? What they’re used for?”

  Rosie turned it over and looked at the 3kg engraving. “Abalone divers. They hang them on their diving belts so they can descend quickly to the ocean floor. Why?”

  “Those are the stones the marshal used as evidence to Ada’s premeditated suicide.”

  Near Champlin’s cottage, they took the stairs down onto River Beach and removed their shoes. Sarah could see Rosie was in no hurry to get to their destination. Sarah reassured her that it was necessary.

  They walked on until they reached a swampy lagoon where the Carmel River flowed out into the ocean. Albert dropped down on the sand, trembling, and Rosie said, “This is where Albert brought me.”

  Rosie described Ada staring straight up at the sky. “I closed her eyelids and unwound her rosebud shawl, which was tangled around her neck.” Her voice faltered. “Albert was whimpering just like he is now.”

  Sarah picked him up to soothe him and tightened her grip on her own rosebud shawl billowing in the wind.

  “The morning tide was coming in over her legs,” continued Rosie. “I was afraid she’d be pulled back out to sea like driftwood, but I couldn’t move her on my own, so I ran back to Carmel Point for help. Mr. Jeffers doesn’t have a phone but his neighbors, the Kusters, were home. I used their phone to call the marshal. Then I rushed back and waited with Albert until he came with Dr. Rosenthal and they carried her above the tideline.”