The Artist Colony Page 5

  Kree-aaahh, kree-aaahh. Sarah looked up to see an orange-billed tern sweep over their heads and plunge into the sea. Before she could ask him when he last saw Ada, he pulled a gold watch and chain from his waistcoat pocket and said, “We must speak more about Ada, but I can’t miss tonight’s train to San Francisco.”

  He pushed himself up and adjusted his waistcoat. “Ada told me you were a modernist.” She nodded. “Well then, you might learn a thing or two in my class about the rules of technique. Ada did. Of course, soon after we worked together, she received that first prize at San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts Exposition and she did whatever she wanted. Are you as talented?”

  “I don’t know,” Sarah murmured.

  He brushed the sand off his trousers, picked up his spats and shoes, and swung a suit jacket over his shoulder. “Let’s find out. I’ll see you here at nine sharp, Monday morning. We’ll have time to talk after my class.”

  Before she could accept or decline, he was halfway up the dune.

  She had just stretched out on the blanket to take a much-needed nap when she felt a spray of icy seawater on her face. The perpetrator was a petite boyish-looking girl of eighteen to twenty who was standing over Sarah shaking her wet bob of shaggy black hair.

  “Sorry,” the girl said, looking down at Sarah. “I didn’t mean to get you wet.” Sarah wasn’t sure that was true.

  A smile graced the girl’s heart-shaped face when she plopped down on her towel. Sarah thought of violet petals pressed into powder when she looked at her eyes. The face was bronze from spending time outdoors. The girl stretched her short, muscular legs out on the sand, still wet from her swim.

  The students got up to leave and took the beach blanket with them. The girl offered Sarah a dry corner of her towel.

  “I’m Sirena. A student in Mr. Champlin’s plein air class, like them.” She pointed to the departing students. “My back ached so much from standing and painting I took a swim.”

  Sarah introduced herself and said, “Mr. Champlin just invited me to come to one of his classes. What’s it like?”

  She kicked up sand. “Boring! First he put us through a week of lectures on theory in his miserable dark studio, and then we had to make studies of his marine paintings. Today was the first day he let us out. Why should I have to sit and listen to a lecture on painting? I already know how to paint.”

  She jumped up and crouched down next to Sarah. Her black, bushy brows disappeared under her bangs. “Between you and me, I don’t think he wants to be on the beach after what happened. It reminds him too much of Ada. You see, they were close, close friends, or they used to be, if you get my drift, and her suicide—”

  Sarah raised her hand to hush the girl. “Before you say anything else, you should know Ada was my sister.”

  “But that’s why I’m telling you. Miss McCann told me you were arriving today and who else would be sitting out on the beach in a very chic suit other than Ada’s sister from Paris?”

  Sarah laughed in spite of the girl’s sassiness. “How do you know Miss McCann?”

  “I live at the Lodge,” she said as if Sarah should know that. She dug her hands into the sand and started building the foundation of a sandcastle. Sarah liked the girl’s creative playfulness and began to dig a moat around the rising castle to protect it from the incoming tide.

  With agile hands the young girl sculptured wet sand into a turret and lay it on the castle roof. “How long are you planning to stay?” she asked, interrupting their silent work.

  “I don’t know.”

  When the rising tide had almost filled the moat and started to capsize the castle, Sarah asked, “How did you know Ada and Mr. Champlin were close friends?”

  “Buggers! Don’t you know who I am?”

  “I guess not.”

  “I was Ada’s studio assistant. I knew her pretty well. I’m surprised she never mentioned me.”

  “She didn’t tell me much about the people she knew here.”

  “I don’t know why not. We’re a pretty interesting group. Anyway, that’s why I know about her relationship with Mr. Champlin and that’s why Marshal Judd asked me to be a witness at the inquest.”

  “You were a witness?” asked Sarah, becoming more and more interested in this odd girl. “Was it difficult? Being a witness, I mean.”

  “Not really.” Even though Sarah had dug out a deep moat the sandcastle was sinking under the incoming tide. Sirena knocked down the crumbling remains with a push of her hand. “Except that Miss McCann was cross with me. She has this silly notion that Ada was murdered, but we all know it was a suicide.”

  Sarah looked over at the circle of five or six young men who were still talking loudly around the fire pit. If everyone knew it was a suicide, why did Rosie concoct her own story of foul play? Was it an overactive imagination or could Rosie just not find it in her heart to blame Ada for her self-inflicted death? Hadn’t Sarah felt the same sense of denial when she saw that headline in the newspaper?

  “What did you say at the inquest?” asked Sarah.

  “Oh, just things. Don’t worry. I didn’t tell the marshal about you.”

  Sarah snapped around. “What about me?”

  “That Ada was furious when you told her you wouldn’t come to Carmel.”

  How like Ada to complain about me, thought Sarah, when I’m not around to defend myself. “What else did she tell you?”

  “Just that you’re stubborn and unforgiving.”

  To hear this spoken out loud, even though it was true, was like a slap in the face.

  “I’m sorry,” said Sirena, seeing Sarah redden. “I shouldn’t have said that. Don’t take it too seriously. Ada was probably just kidding. She was like that.”

  Sarah raised her stinging eyes to the orange sky as the sun’s disc slipped below the horizon.

  “I better be getting back.” She jumped to her feet and brushed the sand off her skirt. “Miss McCann will be wondering what happened to me.”

  “I’ll come with you,” said the girl, oblivious to the pain she had just caused Sarah. Either she was incredibly insensitive or just very young, thought Sarah, watching the girl jump up and shake out the towel.

  On Sarah’s second call, Albert ran over from the fire pit where a few stragglers were scooping sand onto the last embers. When she picked him up, he licked her salty cheeks. Sarah was grateful for his sympathy and hugged him to her chest.

  When they reached the top of the sand dune, she realized she’d left her shoes on the beach.

  “I’ll get them,” Sirena said, running back down. She returned seconds later with the patent pumps in her hands. “I wish I could afford shoes like these. They’re the bee’s knees. Did you buy them in Paris?”

  “Yes, but they weren’t expensive,” said Sarah, putting Albert down. She brushed the sand off her feet, leaned against a fence post and put on her shoes.

  “You know it was Miss McCann who found her,” said Sirena.

  “No, I didn’t know that. On this beach?”

  “No. Over there.” Sirena pointed south where Sarah had walked earlier with Albert. “See that rocky outcrop? It’s called Carmel Point. On the other side is a clamshell-shaped bay. Your sister’s body was found on the beach near where the Carmel River flows into the sea. She often went to paint there. She said that’s where she wanted you to paint by her side like you used to. Before you got pig-headed and went off to Paris to paint on your own.”

  Enough, Sarah wanted to scream, but instead put on her jacket and buttoned it up against an approaching wall of fog that had followed them up the sand dune and crept under her clothes.

  “You seem to know a lot about my sister and me, but I don’t know anything about you.”

  Sirena shrugged. “There’s not much to tell. Your life and Ada’s are far more exciting than mine could ever be.”

  “Did you two come to the beach often?”

  “In the mornings we’d go for a swim and then if there was an approaching fogban
k, like this one, Ada would run into it and act like a banshee.” She laughed and raised the towel over her head like a cape. “Watch. I’ll show you.” She flew into the dense gray cloud and started wailing.

  A clammy fear gripped Sarah. When she was a child, Ada would read her stories of Irish folklore; the banshee, a female fairy, was a predictor of death in a family. Ada enjoyed wailing like one because it frightened Sarah, who had slept with a light on in her bedroom ever since.

  Sirena reappeared and dropped her cloak when she saw Sarah’s face. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  The temperature had dropped and the girl started hugging her chest and shivering. Her lips purple. Her bathing suit still wet from her swim in the ocean. “Here. Take this,” said Sarah. She pulled her rosebud shawl out of her satchel and held it out.

  Sirena turned away and started running up the road. She shouted back, “Thanks, but I like the cold.”

  Albert had run between Sarah’s feet when Sirena had wailed and was still trembling. Through the dusky light she could barely see the girl and ran to catch up to her, Albert running close behind as if attached to her feet.

  SUNDAY, JULY 20

  —4—

  Upstairs in Rosie’s Lodge, Sarah had been up since dawn reading through the packet of letters she’d brought with her. Letters that Ada had sent her that might give her some indication as to why Ada would kill herself.

  She reread the last telegram Ada sent her on June 20: I’m in deep trouble, Little Sis. It’s about my portraits and only you can get me out of this mess. Come now. Please.

  At the time, Sarah had thought it was just another ploy, though the most compelling one to get her to California. She knew Ada meant well, but she wasn’t about to leave Paris, where she was finally getting her first real break.

  Proud of herself for standing her ground and not being swayed by Ada’s theatrics, she’d put away the telegram and forgotten about it. But rereading it now, she heard the desperation in Ada’s voice for the first time and wondered why she hadn’t noticed it before.

  She had written back, assuring Ada that it was only jangled nerves and that her collection of portraits would be a tremendous success. She promised to come to her October exhibition in Manhattan, adding that she was to have her own exhibition in Paris the month before. Sarah hadn’t told her sooner because she didn’t want her showing up and stealing the limelight as she’d done back in January at the Whitney Studio Club.

  On the night of the school exhibit, Sarah had waited and waited for her sister to arrive. When she finally did show up her fans hovered over her, demanding autographs. Ada was only too happy to oblige. She only glanced at Sarah’s submission, which had won the first prize for originality, and mumbled, “Interesting.”

  I could’ve killed you, thought Sarah, blowing smoke from her cigarette out the bedroom window. Surprised by her own animosity, she quickly said, I didn’t mean that, Ada. I promise I’ll never think that again. Yes, I resented your indifference to my work and yes, I was jealous of your successes, but I never stopped loving you. I never wished you dead. There were just those moments when I didn’t like you very much. The competition, the broken promises, the put-downs . . .

  None of that mattered now, she told herself. What did matter was that she keep the promise made at Keens. She was Ada’s executor, and it was up to her to ship Ada’s portraits to Eric Crocker’s gallery. He’d already been in touch with Sarah and said he’d have to cancel if they weren’t delivered soon.

  She hurried downstairs and burst in on Rosie in the kitchen making her lodgers breakfast. “Do you have a key to the cottage?”

  Rosie smiled. “I was wondering how long it would take you to ask me for the key. As my Da used to say, ‘Your feet will bring you to where your heart is.’”

  “Sorry, Rosie, but I don’t know what you mean.”

  Rosie opened the kitchen sideboard and handed Sarah three keys dangling from a yellow ribbon.

  “Your heart belongs in that cottage. You just have to get your feet to take you there. If you’ll wait a moment, I’ll finish rolling this loaf of soda bread and come with you.”

  “Thanks, Rosie, but I’d prefer to go on my own.” If Rosie was disappointed she didn’t show it. It was the little dog who looked up at Sarah plaintively. “Come join me when you’re done here and please bring Albert with you.”

  A gust of wind rustled through the sprawling oak in the front yard of the Sketch Box as Sarah passed under it. Whispering leaves fell down around her. She knocked at the pale blue front door foolishly hoping Ada would swing it open and say, “Thank goodness, Little Sis, you’re finally here.”

  Her nervous hand shook as she took the keys out of her pocket, slid the latchkey into the lock, turned it counterclockwise until it clicked, and stepped inside. Ada’s well-worn tweed jacket hung on a hook in the entryway; the vanilla fragrance of Shalimar still lingered on its collar, as if Ada had just taken it off. The reality of Ada’s death hit her hard in the stomach—her sister was never going to wear that jacket again.

  She pushed away her grief and, not taking any time to stop in the living room, rushed through an archway that Rosie said led into the kitchen and that the studio door was set in the wall to the right of the sink. Despite her impatience and the obstinate padlock, she finally got the door opened.

  The odor of linseed oil, turpentine, and cobalt chloride escaped from the studio and tickled her nose when she stepped inside. Slanted rays of the morning sun drifted through a skylight and illuminated the landscapes that were hanging from the white plastered walls. Sarah’s eyes crossed the paint-splattered cement floor to a grand window framed in the northern wall, a window as important to a painter as pen and paper is to a writer. Its mellow light cast a soft glow over the canvases propped against the other walls.

  The studio was an immense space with a large storage loft at one end, and even though Ada had described it in detail, Sarah was still impressed. No wonder Ada couldn’t wait to show it to her.

  Few artists ever had a studio of these proportions. In Paris, she was cramped in a communal Académie studio where the students had to share splinters of light coming through one window.

  “This is simply glorious,” she whispered, arching her back to look up through the blue, blue sky framed in the skylight. Her eyes followed the stream of dust motes down onto a large canvas propped up on an easel. She wondered if it was something Ada was working on before she died and walked over to it. She recoiled. It was not Ada’s work.

  Thick brush strokes of oily ebony paint had created monstrous waves that seemed to be flailing down on a narrow strip of beach. The blood-red sky above the waves was like the underworld in Dante’s Inferno. She touched the crest of a foamy black wave. The wet oil stained her finger and sent chills down her back. The canvas had been recently painted.

  On the sink was a wide brush soaking in a Mason jar of muddy turpentine. A smaller paintbrush was lying on a palette of red and black oils. A shuffling noise came from the loft above her head and she froze in fear.

  She heard Rosie calling her name and ran out of the studio into the kitchen, slamming and locking the door behind her.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Rosie, seeing Sarah’s pale face.

  “Does anyone have permission to use Ada’s studio?”

  “Not anyone I know of, though it’s certainly possible. Why?”

  “Because someone is in there right now. Where’s Albert?”

  Rosie called him and he came running in from the living room. Sarah unlocked the bolt. Albert ran in ahead of them, barking.

  “Why, it’s gone,” said Sarah, staring at the empty easel.

  “What’s gone?” asked Rosie.

  “There was a painting here on the easel.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I know what I saw, Rosie,” she snapped, “and I heard someone up in the loft.”

  “It could’ve been mice.”

  “No, Rosie! Someone was just in here.
Look at the sink.” She held up her blackened finger. “The canvas was still wet. The paintbrushes. The palette.”

  On the far side of the studio, Albert was sniffing and scratching at the alley door. She ran over and flung it open onto an empty lot. Albert took off barking down a flagstone path that led to the front of the cottage and the road. Rosie called after him, but he was already out of sight.

  “What is this side door used for?” asked Sarah.

  “Ada used it to bring in art supplies or to carry out her finished paintings. Otherwise she kept it locked.”

  A ladder was leaning up against the loft. “Well, someone else has a key. Look at the splotches of black fingerprints going up the rungs.”

  “There must be some explanation,” said Rosie. “Ada could’ve loaned her studio to one of the students to use while she was away and gave them a key.”

  “But she isn’t away, Rosie. She’s dead and everyone must know that. And why hide in the loft and then grab that horrible painting and run off?”

  Rosie put her hands on her waist. “I don’t know. Maybe they were too embarrassed to be caught.”

  She made a quick decision. “If you don’t mind, Rosie, I’d rather we keep this to ourselves. I’m going to Henry Champlin’s art class tomorrow. I’ll look at the other students’ work to see if anyone paints canvases like the one I saw and, if so, I can deal with that person directly without filing a complaint with Marshal Judd. Meanwhile, would you help me look for the portraits? They have to be in here somewhere.” She walked over to the stacks of canvases leaning against one wall and started flipping through them. Rosie started looking through another stack.

  Disappointed with her search, Sarah climbed up the ladder and started to look through the canvases in the loft.

  Twenty minutes later when she came back down, she shrugged and Rosie raised empty hands.

  “Where else could Ada have stored them?” asked Sarah. By now she was frantically looking in every corner of the studio.

  “There’s the upstairs bedroom.”

  They hurried back through the kitchen and turned to the right at the end of a hall. Rosie waited below while Sarah climbed up the spiral steps. The pretty room contained a bed covered in a quilt, a round rug across the wide-planked polished floor. The bay window had an unobstructed view of the Pacific. A door stood open revealing an empty closet.