Shadow Image (9 page)

Christensen stepped into the hall, leaned against the doorjamb, and closed his eyes. Dinner was grilled cheese and Campbell's Chicken Noodle. Homework had been postponed. Baths had been marginally effective. After some tactical back-scratching, both kids nodded off on the couch while watching a Discovery Channel special on walruses. By any measure, he should be exhausted. But he wasn't.

He creaked down the stairs and into the office, which remained a maze of moving cartons and upended furniture. The considerable chore of unpacking what they'd moved was falling to him, since Brenna was so seldom home, and he wanted to make at least some progress before bed. The nearest carton was labeled DEN BOOKSHELVES. He split the packing tape with the letter opener he found in his top right desk drawer. The top item in the box was a picture frame turned facedown. He turned it over and came face-to-face with his father.

Molly had taken the picture one Thanksgiving early in their courtship, but it so perfectly captured the damaged spirit of the man that it had, for Christensen, become a defining image. Edward James Christensen was sitting in his reading chair, a half-full tumbler of Johnnie Walker on the chair's sturdy arm, his nose in a Sidney Sheldon potboiler. At the moment Molly opened her camera's shutter, he recalled, his parents' house was alive with holiday clamor. Half a dozen young cousins kept the decibel level high, competing with the dull roar from a dozen grown-ups watching a televised college bowl game. But the image of his father, the damaged mathematics teacher alone there in that rear den, so typical of his life at home, was a portrait of a functioning alcoholic retreating into himself, to a place where his wife and children were never able to follow.

Christensen folded the frame's rear prop and set the picture on his desk. His father was an angular man in the same way as Christensen, but the years and liquor had softened his face. His salt-and-pepper hair was swept back and anchored by Vitalis in the same reliable way his only son used Paul Mitchell Sculpting Lotion. To this day, Christensen wore the same rimless spectacles his father had preferred in the years before his death. That his parents' marriage had survived his father's emotional retreat was remarkable. That they'd raised two children, Jim and his older sister, was testimony to his mother's will. If their father had found any joy in that, neither Christensen nor his sister could say. He was that much a mystery to his children.

The photograph was buried for years in a family memento file. When Christensen had run across it three years earlier, as he struggled with Melissa's rage in the wake of Molly's death, he'd framed the print to remind himself how damaging an emotionally detached parent can be.

“Where you gonna put him?”

Christensen spun around, more reaction than movement. Brenna was standing at the office door. How long had she been watching?

“Jesus.” His heart was pumping pure adrenaline. “When did you get home?”

Brenna laid her suit jacket over the arm of a chair. She crossed the room and wrapped her arms around his waist. She smelled the same as when she left that morning. “Just now. So where does Dad go? Back on the corner of your desk?”

“Always,” he said. “Long day for you, huh?”

“Long and strange, and I'm in a deep hole on the Mother-of-the-Year title.”

“Taylor's fine, but he does want to see you. He's not over the first-day jitters yet.”

“He's awake?” Brenna pulled away and started for the door.

“Finally crashed about thirty minutes ago,” he said. “He tried to stay up, but he was one tired soldier. Spent the whole day tight as a drum, compliments of Annie and her new-kid horror stories.”

Brenna let the words settle, then dabbed at the corner of her eye with her finger. “Well, shit,” she said.

“I talked to her about it.”

“No, no, not that. I just needed to be with him today and I wasn't.”

Christensen pulled her back to him. “But I was, Bren. It's okay.”

She rubbed away a tear that had curled from the outside of one eye. Her attention had shifted over his shoulder, up toward the ceiling. He turned and looked, too. “Does that look like it's bulging?” she said.

“Where?”

She pointed to the spot above his desk where he'd noticed the stain the day before. “That whole section looks like it's bowed out a little. Is that a stain?”

“I told you about it yesterday, the stain I mean. I checked and I think it's old.”

“But does it look bowed to you?”

“Hard to tell because it's so white.” Christensen looked again. “No.”

Brenna kicked off her shoes. In her stocking feet, she was a foot shorter than him. He kissed the top of her head.

“I tried to call you all afternoon. Liisa said she didn't want to interrupt, so I didn't push it.”

“It was pretty nuts.”

“I wanted to tell you about the hospital.”

Brenna seemed to lose her focus for a moment. “I completely forgot you were going,” she said. “Right after we talked this morning, I … geez. So what happened?”

Christensen looked at his watch, then nodded toward the kitchen. “Want some tea?”

The microwave clock read 11:34. Brenna poured the dregs of her decaf Constant Comment into the sink, rinsed her cup, and opened the dishwasher door. She closed it with the cup still in her right hand, his panicked Post-it note from that morning in her left.

“Kachunk?”

“That was the sound,” he said. “It started, then it just stopped. Just one more thing we'll probably have to replace.”

Brenna spun the dial to normal cycle. The machine was dead, although everything else in the kitchen was working. “It's on its own circuit. You checked the breaker, right?”

He felt himself suddenly exposed, as if he'd forgotten to check his car's gas tank before replacing its engine. “Of course,” he lied.

“Really?”

She had him. He shook his head.

“It's the circuit, Einstein. I'll check it before we go to bed. You're pathetic, you know.” She leaned back against the counter and crossed her arms, cradling her breasts beneath the white silk of her blouse. “So what's your best guess about why Vincent doesn't want her to have paints or cigars?”

“No idea.” Christensen leaned back in his creaky kitchen chair, grateful for the change of subject.

“And you can't see her ever remembering what happened on the deck?”

“It's just not that simple, Bren. Her memory's like Swiss cheese to begin with. Getting her to remember something specific, even something traumatic, it's a crapshoot. I'd need hours and hours to work with her over weeks or months, with no guarantee that anything she remembered would be accurate.”

She smiled. “What good
are
you?”

“Afraid you're on your own on this one,” he said.

Brenna twisted a strand of her hair in one hand and studied it a long time.

“What?” he said.

She dropped her hair, but her eyes roamed the kitchen. “Myron.”

“The TV guy?”

Brenna nodded. “He's a cagey son of a bitch, but he's good, too.”

Christensen's face must have given away his confusion.

“I called him back this morning, just to see what he wanted. Off the record. I've dealt with him before. Pretty straight shooter. Jim, he's up to something on this case.”

“He interviewed the witness, right?”

She turned around, swabbed a pool of chicken noodle soup from the tile counter with a dishrag, then turned back. “That, too. Says Chembergo told him more than he told the deputies, and he says the guy didn't sound like somebody with an ax to grind. ‘Scared shitless,' was the way he put it, actually. Beyond that, Myron said he's been kicking over the rocks in Ford Underhill's background for more than six months.”

Christensen shrugged. “Standard pre-election stuff, Bren. Levin probably had to get in line behind the Republican National Committee.”

“No, that's not—” She searched for words. “The thing is, I've done Myron some favors along the way, on other cases. He owes me.”

“So?”

“He said he just wanted me to know why he's so interested in Floss's accident. Jim, he says he's close to breaking something pretty big about the Underhills. ‘Little skeleton in the family closet,' is what he said.”

Christensen sat forward again in his chair. “Cue the eerie music.”

“He wouldn't talk about it.” Brenna waited. “What he did say was pretty weird, though.” Another pause. “Really out of left field.”

“I'm still with you,” he said.

“Stays between us?”

He nodded.

“Myron's saying there's gonna be a shitstorm, and I might want to think twice about taking this on. He says what happened to Floss this week might have been somebody trying to keep her quiet.”

Christensen shook his head. “That's pretty far out in left … He's a TV reporter, for God's sake. They don't report anything unless it involves smashed cars or picket signs.”

“Myron's different. And he's not a Chicken Little kind of guy, at least off-camera.”

“So you're taking him seriously?”

“There's only one way he gets any points for telling me that, Jim, and that's if he's right. He knows he'd be screwing up a decent relationship by just blowing smoke.”

Brenna opened her arms to him as he crossed the kitchen. When he held her close, she sighed. “So what do you think?”

“Your call, counselor,” he said. “When's all this supposed to happen? Before the election?”

She nodded.

“I think that's your answer. Somebody on the other side probably got this guy Myron's ear. To him, it's Watergate. But I'd bet a nickel it's nothing that'll seem the least bit relevant the day after the election.”

Brenna ran a hand around his belt and patted the back of his jeans. “Any mail?”

“On the counter. So it's okay to load the dishwasher?” He was pouring an extra measure of Cascade into the soap dispenser when Brenna tapped him on the shoulder.

“What's this?” She was holding the Once-Lost Images calendar he'd set on the counter with the day's stack of catalogs, home-equity loan offers, and credit-card bills.

Christensen took the calendar from her and fanned its pages, stopping at April. “Maura organized a gallery showing of some of the art produced by the patients in her Harmony classes. It's a fund-raiser for the Three Rivers Alzheimer's Association. They're selling calendars and auctioning off the pictures.”

He handed the calendar back, open to Floss Underhill's painting. She read the title and artist's name. “Florence?”

“Floss.”

Brenna studied the image. “They're horse people, that's for sure.” If she found any significance beyond that in the painting, it didn't register on her face. “When's the opening?”

“Later this week, down at the Sofa Factory. I think I need to go.”

Brenna flipped half a dozen pages of the calendar, reading the captions beneath each image. “This really
is
interesting stuff.”

“There's so much we don't know,” he said.

She leveled the same curious gaze at him. “Will Maura be at the opening?”

He nodded.

“Why don't we all go?” she said. “I've
got
to meet this woman. And after the past two days, we should all be ready for a family outing.”

“With the kids?”

“Why not? It's on the north side, the Mexican Wars area, right? We can hit that little barbecue place beforehand.”

Christensen smiled. For the first time since he'd started his research at Harmony, Brenna finally seemed to share his fascination with Alzheimer's art, or at least with the eccentric Maura Pearson. “Deal,” he said, looking again at the microwave clock. “I'm going to bed.”

He turned toward the stairs. Brenna turned toward the back door. She flipped on the backyard floodlight, unlocked the deadbolt, and stepped outside in her stocking feet.

“Bren, you coming?” he called through the open door.

“When I find the circuit breakers.” Her voice shrank as she moved into the shadows and rounded the corner of the house. “We've got no power, remember?”

“It's made entirely of individual pieces of whole-wheat toast,” Brenna read from the wall-mounted plaque beside an installation titled
Jesus, Lightly Browned.

Both kids were standing remarkably still beside him, staring at the life-size image of the crucified Christ on the facing wall. “Wheat,” he repeated. “Interesting medium.” He leaned in for a closer look. “How'd they get the crown-of-thorns pattern?”

Brenna socked his arm. He was grateful for the attention. He'd seen so little of her since Sunday, felt her slipping into the gray zone where little else outside a case matters. And with whispered rumors that the crime lab had found someone else's skin beneath Floss's fingernails, the Underhill situation was becoming more than just another case. Would she have come along on this weeknight family outing if it didn't promise some insight into Floss Underhill? Did he really want to know the answer?

“Where do people come up with this stuff?” Brenna said. “A room full of balloons getting blown around by fans? What's with that?”

“This is weird,” Annie said. “Let's go.”

Christensen squeezed his daughter's shoulder. In the ten minutes they'd been strolling through the Sofa Factory looking for the Once-Lost Images exhibit, only two things had sparked any interest with either Annie or Taylor. The first was
Head-to-Head with Toyota,
a hideously mashed Chevy Chevette—the nameplate still dangled from the hatch lid—that Christensen interpreted as a wry comment about the decline of the American automotive industry. Taylor solemnly pronounced it “cool.” Annie was more taken by a dynamic piece called
Bad Environment for Monochrome Paintings—
a sealed room aswarm with houseflies and hung with large white canvases on white walls. An equal number of flies lay dead on the white floor. “Way gross,” his daughter said, but he had to pull her away.

Brenna nodded toward a wide door to their left. “I bet it's that way.”

The kids shuffled ahead, keeping their distance, whispering whenever they spotted a flash of nudity in one of the works. He took Brenna's hand as they walked.

“What do you mean he was weird about it?” he said.

“Who?”

“The Underhills' security guy.”

“I don't know. Just a feeling I got. Staggers talks in vagaries. He says he'll do things and he doesn't. Like the life-insurance stuff. He didn't seem to have a problem the first time I asked for it, but now every time I ask I get the same runaround about how Raskin has those files Downtown, not at the house. ‘Temporarily unobtainable,' he said.”

“You don't really think that's important, do you?”

Brenna shook her head. “These aren't the kind of people who'd try to rip off a life-insurance company. They own a couple of them, as a matter of fact. If someone did push her, you know that Mercer and Dagnolo are looking at all the obvious motives. And they probably could find
something
that looks suspicious enough to blow out of proportion before the election. But that's not the point. I asked for the information, Staggers agreed to get it, then nothing.”

“You said he didn't seem too bright.”

“He's working on it.”

Christensen laughed, remembering her story about Staggers's earnest and constant pursuit of self-improvement. “Tried dealing with Raskin directly?”

“All tied up on campaign stuff, his secretary said. He hasn't returned my calls.”

“Vincent?”

“Him either. I've been trying to get back over there to talk to the gardener and his wife. Staggers was supposed to be setting it up. So why hasn't it happened? They live right there on the property, for God's sake. How complicated could it be?”

From a narrow exhibit space hung with open umbrellas and dangling polyurethane cuts of meat, they followed the children into an open room that was either another incomprehensible artistic statement or undergoing renovation.

Annie turned around. “This is creepy. Can we go?”

Christensen spotted a small Once-Lost Images sign outside a narrow door, through which he could see an apparently clean, well-lighted place. Outside the door, a guest register was open on a small pedestal. He directed the kids toward the door. “Through there, guys. This is where we're going.”

“Strange place to have an Alzheimer's fund-raiser,” Brenna said. “Who picked it?”

They looked at one another, then mouthed “Maura” at the same time.

Christensen stopped and signed the register, flipping back to the first page. The opening was an obvious success so far. Seven-and-a-half pages were filled, each with twenty-five names. For all her eccentricities, Maura Pearson was a remarkably magnetic personality. Her sixth sense for people with large checkbooks was legendary around Harmony, and it was the main reason the center's art therapy program was one of the country's best.

He picked up an exhibit catalog, handed it to Brenna, and pushed into the crowd. Annie and Taylor had gravitated toward a gallery employee, a zaftig woman of about twenty-five with a stunning array of piercings and deep, deep cleavage. Christensen counted three studs in her nose alone. She appeared to be answering questions from a young black couple interested in one of the paintings as the children waited patiently, no doubt to quiz the woman about her appearance.

“Number fourteen,” Brenna said, reading from the catalog. “That's Floss's.”

They began with the painting just to the left of the door, Number 1. The watercolor showed a white sailboat skimming across a blue bay toward some distant harbor. The simple scene was rendered in bold strokes of bright color and titled,
Racing for Cocktails.

“This piece was painted three years ago by Candace, an early second-stage patient at the time,” Brenna read. “She spoke often of family vacations at Lake Chautauqua when she was a teenager. Though her family never had a home there and did not own a boat, relatives say many of Candace's wealthier friends did.”

“She died right around the time I started working at Harmony,” Christensen said. “Maura talks about her a lot.”

The next painting, an acrylic, was an odd family portrait—two people, a man and a woman, standing proudly on either side of a computer terminal as though it were an only child. The background was deep burgundy, the woman green, the man pale yellow, the computer a brackish purple. Artist: Walter. Title:
Talk, Talk, Talk.

“Walter was a deep second-stage patient when his wife began participating in an online caregiver's support network,” Brenna read. “He knew she relied on the terminal for comfort and communication, and at first resented its presence in their home. Eventually, he accepted the computer as an important part of their household.”

Christensen studied the picture, so full of bright colors and smiles. “A pilot program run out of Harmony,” he said. “They put terminals and Internet connections into homes, thinking the caregivers would use them to talk to doctors about care decisions. They ended up talking among themselves, being there for each other. You should read the postings, Bren. It's the kind of poetry only people on the edge can write.”

Three paintings down they passed the kids as they debriefed the human pincushion. She was leaning down to talk to them, and Brenna caught him staring as they circled wide. “Excellent breasts, well displayed,” she whispered. “Don't you think?”

“What?”

“She could be your daughter.”

“Shhh.” Christensen strained to overhear their conversation, wondering what Annie might be talking about so soberly with someone so exotic.

“Where else?” his daughter was saying. “You know what I mean.”

They waited to laugh until they were safely out of earshot. Christensen turned and watched as the embarrassed woman urged the two children along. “Curious little thing,” he said. “Mind if I move out when she's twelve, Bren? Just for five years or so. Bren?”

She had moved on, toward the only empty spot on the gallery wall. He caught up to her, then realized what had drawn her attention.

“Number 14,” he said.

“Where is it?”

The wall plaque described the empty space. Artist: Florence. Title:
Some Crazy Story about Gray.
A
laminated copy of the
Press
review with its photograph of the painting hung cockeyed from a pushpin beside the plaque.

Brenna flipped pages of the catalog and read: “Florence was an avid equestrienne, and she rode a horse named Gray to many victories in competition. She speaks of Gray with great emotion, perhaps because she lost the horse several years ago following a tragic accident.”

They looked at each other. Christensen scanned the walls again to see if any other paintings were missing or not yet hung. But the space in front of them was the only irregularity on the whole perimeter of the gallery. He shrugged.

“Ask somebody,” Brenna said.

He hadn't yet found Maura in the crowd. A young man dressed all in black was leaning against a nearby wall, ignoring everyone, one black Beatle boot resting flat against the wall. He was wearing the most god-awful set of horn-rimmed glasses Christensen had seen since the early 1960s, a retro-hip victim down to his flattop haircut and Speed Racer belt buckle.

“Are you with the gallery?” Christensen asked.

He nodded, extending a flaccid hand. “Can't talk sales, if that's what you mean. Auction's this weekend. They should be back in thirty minutes or so.”

“No, no. I'm not a buyer.” Christensen nodded toward the spot where Brenna was standing now with both kids, still inspecting the empty wall space. “I'm just curious about the missing painting over there.”

The young man smirked, an expression that completed the caricature. “Took it out right before we opened tonight,” he said. “We didn't have time to rearrange everything.”

Christensen waited, hoping for some further explanation. “There was a picture of it in the paper last week, you know, with a write-up about the show. They had a picture of that painting, see, and then when we got here it was gone.”

The young man studied his fingernails.

Christensen wanted to smack him. “We were just curious, see.”

The kid shifted the Beatle boot to the floor, then put the other one up against the wall. Conversation seemed to greatly inconvenience him. “Alls I know is they called a couple hours ago and wanted it down. So Evan took it down, like, fast.”

“Evan, the gallery director?”

Christensen knew the question was dumb. Everyone knew local iconoclast Evan Garde, the former Corky Chaiken, a man best known for once quipping that he wanted to be Andy Warhol for fifteen minutes. Christensen interpreted the young man's look as one of raw contempt. “You must know a lot of Evans,” he said finally.

“Who wanted it down?” Christensen asked. “The Harmony people? The patient's family?”

“Bingo,” the kid said.

“Which?”

“Family, I think. The lady from Harmony seemed a little jagged off about it.”

With the publication of Floss's painting in both the Once-Lost Images calendar and the
Press
article, its fundraising value no doubt had increased enormously. Christensen couldn't imagine Maura Pearson taking it out of the show, much less off the auction block, without raising some hell.

“So they did take it out, though.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Because the patient's family wanted it out?”

The young man looked around. “You should talk to Evan.”

“So the family said ‘Jump' and everybody said, ‘How high?' ” Christensen said. “Why is that?”

The kid looked around again. Another smirk, this one more conspiratorial than the last. “Slam dunk, man,” he said. “They've got
bucks.”