He pulls his shirt cuff over his hand to preserve any prints and carefully tips the canvases forward. There are four altogether, and they’re all versions of the same tableau, with the same color scheme. A bold white V shape, suggesting wings. A black slash approximating death’s scythe. The maiden’s face round and blotted, her hair a grouping of watery white squiggles. The background rough and thick in each, a dark blue—even through the film of dust—that seems to have been spread like frosting with a palette knife. “Creepy,” Will says.

The obsessiveness is creepy, I have to agree, though painters often return to subjects again and again. Monet and his lilies, or Degas and his dancers. The difference here is that the object that so clearly fascinated Jack Ford, at least for the period in which he painted these, has also fascinated me all my life. “I hate to admit it, but they’re sort of beautiful,” I say aloud to Will.

“Hate to admit it because Jack was an asshole, you mean?” His expression tells me he agrees. “Anyway, we should check these out. Maybe Caleb can help us ID them. I’ll send one of my deputies over to bring him here.”

“I can go. It won’t take me five minutes. In the meantime, get Stan Wilkes to let you into the office.”

“Okay, sure. Just be careful, all right?”

“I’m always careful.”

He gives me a sideways look, as if to say, We both know that’s not true.

(sixty-two)

The distance to Caleb’s house from the Art Center is only a few blocks away, so I walk there, my thoughts quickly returning to the posting, and to the photos I’ve been staring at for days, of Cameron in the grove, of Shannan with her weighted gaze, her guardedness. I’m still far from understanding how all the dots connect, but finding the studio has to be some kind of break. Even if the artists at the Center typically move around a lot, Stan Wilkes should be able to give us a list of names to run through our database. The crime lab techs should also be able to lift prints from the posting fairly easily if the paper hasn’t been overhandled or moved. And then we have the paintings, which hopefully Caleb can help us place.

I pass through the front gate, noticing that the light is on in the garage. Inside, I see Caleb’s large shape crossing in front of the square window. When I head over, tapping on the door lightly, he’s standing in front of a suspended easel with a large canvas on it. From what I can see, the image is abstract, full of dark undulating curves. Somehow it’s escaped me until this moment that Caleb is an artist too.

“Anna,” he says, opening the door for me. “What’s up?”