My gaze had moved on. It appeared that the mural consisted of one large central section—the three women and the motorcycle—which was flanked by two smaller sections on either side. In the upper right-hand corner, an African-American woman appeared to be holding a basket of some sort, which was full of something indiscernible, thanks to the filth and abrasions. Something was wrong with the lower half of the woman’s face, too. Was she clenching a stick between her teeth? Beneath her, in the lower right-hand corner of the mural, there was a row of small houses. I walked toward the other end of the mural to look at the painting’s upper left-hand corner. I wasn’t at all sure what I was looking at. A boat, maybe? Yes, it had to be a ship of some sort. And beneath it, in the fifth and final vignette, a white man—at least I thought his skin was white beneath the grime—stood tall, holding a log or length of wood or something like it in his hands. Five separate scenes, all of them a mess. The entire mural looked as though someone had attached it to the back of a car and dragged it facedown over earth and stones and mud for miles and miles. To me, the painting—all seventy-two square feet of it—looked utterly beyond saving.

I turned to Lisa. “Did you have any idea it was this bad, or that it had…” I pointed to the motorcycle. “Was that what your father meant when he told you the artist had gone crazy? Maybe he’d been referring to the motorcycle?”

Lisa slowly shook her head, her gaze riveted on the mural. “My father certainly didn’t prepare me for this,” she said. “I swear, that old man … if he wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him.”

“You sure you want this hanging in here?” Adam asked Lisa. “Right here in the front room where everybody starts out?”

Lisa let out a long breath. “Oh, shit, I’m not sure of anything,” she said, “but my father was as clearheaded as an old man could be and his instructions couldn’t have been more explicit. So it will hang in here. Once Morgan whips it into shape, that is.”

I steadfastly avoided her eyes.

“I think it’s sick,” Wyatt said, and I knew he was using the word as a compliment. “Without the bike, it’d just be another old painting. This way, it’ll be a jump-start for conversation.”

“It’s definitely fascinating,” said Oliver. “It’ll be an amazing piece of art once it’s cleaned up. It’ll tell some of Edenton’s history, which is just what you want from one of these old post office murals. These little houses, for example.” He pointed to the lower right corner. “They’re the Cotton Mill Village, aren’t they?” He looked at Lisa who slowly nodded.