Sacrificial Ground

20

Even over the phone, he realized suddenly, Karen’s voice drew him toward her like an invisible wire.

“Hello,” she said.

“Karen, it’s Frank.”

He waited for her to respond in some intimate way, with a sudden caught breath, a sigh, a whisper.

“Frank Clemons,” he added.

“Yes, I know, Frank,” Karen said with a small laugh. “You’re such a formal man.”

He wanted to stop right there and ask her what she meant, but he knew he couldn’t.

“Listen,” he said quickly. “Have you ever heard of a place called the Knife Point?”

“A gallery?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve heard of it,” Karen said. “James has mentioned it a couple of times.”

“But you’ve never been there?”

“No.”

“What do you know about it?”

“Not much,” Karen said. “James has always treated it as a joke, but that doesn’t mean anything. He’s very rigid when it comes to art.”

“So you don’t know anyone who is connected to the gallery?” Frank asked.

“No.”

“Did Angelica ever mention it?”

“No. Why?”

“How about Derek Linton? Have you ever heard of him?”

“Yes,” Karen said. “He’s a painter. He’s very good.”

“Did Angelica ever mention him?”

“No,” Karen said. Her voice tightened. “What’s this all about, Frank?”

“I’ve found out that Angelica sometimes hung around the Knife Point.”

“Hung around? Why?”

“I don’t know,” Frank told her. “But I also found out that she knew Derek Linton.”

“And they met at the Knife Point?”

“Yes.”

“But what would Angelica be doing at a place like that?”

“She’s been there a few times,” Frank said. “The owner recognized her.”

There was another silence, and in his mind, Frank could see Karen’s eyes as they grew softer and more somber.

“Frank,” he heard her say finally. “Be careful.”

There was a strange, insistent quality in her voice, and Frank could still hear it echoing faintly in his mind as he pulled the car up to 124 Bergen Street. It was a small woodframe house, but it was well-kept-up compared to the rest of the neighborhood. It had been recently painted a gently muted white, and the bright green shutters shone cheerfully in the hard afternoon light.

But there was still something sad about the house, and as he got out of the car and headed up the cement walk, Frank could feel that sadness gathering around him. It was in the soft sway of the flowers that bordered the walkway, and the gentle, lonely tinkle of the stained-glass wind chimes that hung on the front porch. It was in the huge wall of shrubbery that all but blocked the end of the walkway, and which turned the porch into a lush green cavern, one whose moist leaves seemed already to be fading toward a crackling brown.

The door opened not long after Frank knocked, and he saw a tall, very lean man staring at him from behind the screen.

“If you’ve come to collect some bill or other,” he said, “you can forget it.”

Frank pulled out his badge.

The man squinted at the gold shield. “There’s no possible reason why the police would be interested in me.”

“Are you Derek Linton?” Frank asked.

“Yes.”

“Frank Clemons. I’m investigating a murder.”

“Murder?”

“That’s right,” Frank said. “I understand you’re a painter, Mr. Linton.”

“Is that a crime now?”

Frank returned the badge to his pocket. “I need to talk to you for a few minutes. It’s important.”

“You don’t mind a mess, do you?”

“No.”

“All right then,” Linton said. He swung open the door. “Come in.”

The front room looked as if it had never been straightened, and yet, Frank noticed, it did not have the same sense of hopeless confusion which he found in his own apartment. There were spots of paint on the floor, walls and furniture. Stacks of frames leaned haphazardly against the walls, and assorted canvases were gathered together in jagged piles in all four corners of the room. A rickety, paint-splattered easel stood near a large open window as if it were the still-surviving testament of an undefeated heart.

“I do love this place,” Linton said as he eased himself into a light blue overstuffed chair. He took a bottle of red wine from beside the chair and poured himself a glass. Then he lifted the bottle to Frank. “Would you like a drink?”

“No, thanks.”

“Because you’re on duty?”

“Because I don’t want one,” Frank said.

Linton smiled. “Sit down, Mr. Clemons.”

Frank sat down in a small wooden rocker and took out his notebook.

“Very thorough,” Linton said. He picked up a single plastic bottle from an array of medicines which covered the top of the small table beside his chair. “Just a moment, please,” he said, “it’s time for this one.” He placed a large white pill in his mouth and washed it down with the wine. “They’re not supposed to go together,” he said, “but I do what I like.” He replaced the bottle on the table. “Quite a collection of medicines, don’t you think?”

Frank nodded.

“Dying,” Linton said, as he gazed at the assorted drugs. “And don’t want to.” He motioned toward the collection of medicines. “These are all parts of the resistance,” he said, “and they are as far as I will go.” He ran his fingers through his great mane of white hair. “Don’t want to lose this. I’m too vain. Cancer has a way of taking your dignity before it takes your life.”

It had once been a beautiful face, Frank thought, as he gazed at Derek Linton, and although it had now grown slack and terribly pale, it still retained a certain heroic loveliness.

Linton reached for a framed photograph and handed it to Frank. It showed a tall, robust man with beautiful white hair and wild, blue eyes. “That’s the way I looked just a year ago,” he said. He took another sip of wine. “But that’s not what you’re here to talk about.” He leaned back in his chair. “Now, you said something about a murder?”

“Yes,” Frank said. He opened his notebook to the first blank page.

“Do you take everything down?” Linton asked.

“Most everything.”

“Whatever can be said in words, right?”

“I have a bad memory,” Frank explained. “I don’t always trust it with the facts.”

Linton’s face suddenly stiffened. “Forgive me,” he said, “the pain.”

“Can I get you something?”

“No,” Linton said quickly. “Please, it will pass.” He took a deep breath. “I’ve always been very jealous of my dignity. That’s what makes it so hard now. There’s no dignity in pain. None at all.” He shook his head resolutely. “But I don’t want to get into that. Too much self-pity.” He grabbed his wineglass and squeezed the stem. “Please, let’s go on,” he said in a high, strained voice. “The murder. You were talking about a murder.”

Frank took a picture of Angelica from his coat pocket and handed it to Linton.

“Have you ever seen this girl?”

Linton nodded slowly. “Yes. That’s Diana.”

“Diana?”

Linton looked up from the photograph. “Isn’t that her name?”

“No,” Frank told him. “Her name is Angelica Devereaux and she was murdered a few days ago. Her body was dropped in a vacant lot over on Glenwood. It was in the papers. They published this picture.”

Linton’s eyes fell back toward the photograph. “I didn’t know,” he said with a kind of mild self-rebuke. “It’s this damn disease. It isolates you. It’s all you think about. I’m sorry.”

“But you do recognize her?”

“Yes, absolutely,” Linton said. “I met her about three months ago. I was hanging a painting at this gallery.”

“The Knife Point,” Frank said.

“You’ve been there?”

“Yes,” Frank said. “I talked to the owner.”

“Cartier told you everything, then,” Linton said.

“Not quite.”

“What do you mean?”

“He said she approached you that day,” Frank said. “Can you tell me about that?”

“There’s not much to tell,” Linton said. “Of course, I wouldn’t be interested in a … in Angelica, you said her name was?” He smiled. “But I suppose I have my vanity, and I must admit that to have such a beautiful young girl … it was pleasant.”

“What did she say to you?”

“She said she liked my painting.”

“Lifeblood.”

“Yes, that one,” Linton told him. He shrugged. “I don’t really think of it as anything special, myself. But this girl, Diana, or I should say, Angelica, kept talking about it.”

“What did she say about it?”

“That it was beautiful,” Linton said, “that she admired it. What else can you say?” He took another sip of wine. “I think she was somewhat drawn to me,” he added after a moment. He looked at Frank questioningly. “Was she an orphan, by any chance?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, so that’s it.”

“What?”

“Father figure, that’s what she was after.”

“Do you think it was that simple?”

“You never know, if you’re an artist, exactly what it is that people see in you, or in your work,” Linton told him. “It could be anything.” He glanced wistfully toward the rickety old easel. “But it’s a wonderful thing, to be an artist, to touch people in such odd and decent ways.” He looked back at Frank. “I believe that this girl was sincere, that she had responded in some way to that painting. Perhaps that’s just my vanity. I don’t know. But I believe that something in that painting moved her.”

Frank wrote it down.

Linton leaned forward slightly. “Why are you writing all this down?”

“Bad memory, like I said.”

Linton shook his head. “No, it isn’t. It has nothing to do with your memory, bad or good.”

“I like to have all the facts at my fingertips,” Frank told him.

Linton stared at him piercingly. “Bullshit, Mr. Clemons. I’ll bet that you have all those notebooks somewhere. I’ll bet you’ve saved them all.”

For a moment, Frank could see them piled in a box in one of his disordered closets, stacks of little green books, one on top of the other. He had kept them all, as if something in them was worth preserving, the accumulated knowledge of his life.

“Was that all you talked about, your painting?” he asked Linton.

“More or less,” Linton said. “Except for what I noticed about her.”

“What was that?”

“That she was different from the way she looked,” Linton said. “Did Cartier tell you about how she looked that day, Mr. Clemons?”

“I have an idea,” Frank said. “Not everybody’s description was the same.”

“Like a cheap little S&M whore,” Linton said bluntly. “That’s what she looked like. I actually thought she was one of those prostitutes who specialize in that sort of thing.” His eyes narrowed. “She wasn’t a prostitute, was she?”

“I don’t know what she was,” Frank said. “That’s what I’m still trying to find out.”

“Perhaps she didn’t know what she was either,” Linton said. “It’s not easy to know, especially in this world.” He took another photograph from the table beside him and handed it to Frank. It showed Linton in infantry uniform, a young man with a cigarette dangling from his mouth and an Ml strapped to his shoulder.

“World War Two,” Linton said. “I was at Anzio.”

“So was my father,” Frank said. “Or at least not far from there.”

“On that day, when we hit the beaches, I knew exactly what I was made of,” Linton said. “Since then, it’s been anybody’s guess.” He tugged the photograph from Frank’s hand and placed it back on the table. “When your life is flat, when nothing is ever at risk, you have to create your own identity. Maybe that was Angelica’s problem. She told me she was rich. Was she?”

“Yes.”

“Sheltered?”

“I think so.”

Linton nodded. “Maybe she had no idea who she was, and so she dressed up as something she wasn’t. You know, just decided to be something in particular for a day.” He nodded toward Frank’s pocket. “Show me that photograph again.”

Frank gave it to him.

“Ah yes,” Linton said. “The face is the same, but her hair was different, and her makeup. “ He handed the picture back to Frank. “She did look like that when I saw her the first time. And the second time I saw her, she looked completely different from the first.”

“Cartier said that he thought you saw her at least one more time.”

“He was right.”

“Where did you see her?”

“Here, at my house.”

“She knew where you lived?”

“She could have looked me up in the phone book,” Derek said. “I guess that’s what she did, because I know I didn’t tell her where I lived when we were at the Knife Point. I mean, there was no time for that. She followed me out, and this other car wanted to come in, so I backed out very quickly and made a space.” He smiled. “An artist must always give way to a customer.”

“So she just showed up at your house?” Frank asked.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“About two days later,” Linton told him. “And as I said, she looked completely different. None of that S&M black. Just the opposite, in fact. She wore a lovely, frilly sort of light blue dress, and her hair fell over her shoulders. She looked very, very beautiful.”

“How long did she stay here?”

“About an hour,” Linton said.

“What did you talk about?”

“I showed her my paintings. She seemed to like them. She had no education in art, no experience in it. But she seemed genuinely interested. She asked to see my studio, and so I took her into the back room and showed it to her.”

“May I see it?”

“My studio? Why?”

“Just to get a feel for the place.”

“All right,” Linton said with no further question. He pulled himself up and led Frank slowly into the back room.

A rush of bright sunlight swept the room, and Linton’s white hair gleamed brightly in its rays.

“This is it,” he said, “my life’s work.”

It was like a world of half-created things, canvases of ill-formed landscapes, half-colored faces, sketches, drawings, splotches of color that seemed little more than random, careless splatterings of red and yellow. It was as if Linton had spent his life in random, sporadic attempts to capture something that continued to elude him.

“This is where you took her that afternoon?” Frank asked.

“Yes.”

Frank peered about the room. There was something beautiful about it. The canvases were bound evenly, the frames neatly stacked. But it was not order which made it beautiful, it was the struggle to bring some order to everything outside the room, to all that was less tractable than mere frames and brushes.

“It’s a nice place,” Frank said.

“I’ve seen worse.”

Frank glanced toward a vase of freshly cut flowers which rested on one of the tables near the easel.

“A friend of mine brings them here occasionally,” Linton said. “As a matter of fact, she brought them the day Diana came. We were in the studio when Miriam came in. She looked a little surprised to see the girl. She said, ‘Oh, it’s you.’”

“She knew her?”

“I guess she did.”

“Did she say anything else?”

“No,” Linton said. “She just smiled and dropped off the flowers.”

“And the woman. What is her name?”

“Miriam Castle,” Linton said. “And if you’re looking for the closest thing this city has to a real art patron, that’s Miriam.”

“Where does she live?”

“She spends her summers in La Grange,” Linton said. “She’s very rich. She has one of those huge plantations out there.”

“And the address?”

Linton laughed. “You won’t need an address. Everybody in La Grange knows where the Castle plantation is.” He looked slowly around the room. “God, I will miss this place.” He nodded toward the corner. “The girl stood in that area right over there. I gave her a quick tour of the place. I showed her some paintings, some sketches, the usual stuff. It was like giving a lesson to a kindergarten kid.”

“Did she seem that young?”

“She seemed hardly to exist at all,” Linton said.

“Did you ever mention her to … is it Miss or Mrs. Castle?”

“Miss.”

“Did you ever mention her to Miss Castle?”

“No.”

“It never came up?”

“Never,” Linton said. “And that’s not unusual for the two of us. We never talk about mutual acquaintances or anything having to do with each other’s personal lives.”

“Why not?”

“We’ve had a certain division of feeling over the years,” Linton said. “She wanted something that I couldn’t give her.” He stepped back toward the door. “I’d rather not stay too long in here.”

“Of course,” Frank said.

A few minutes later, Frank was on the porch again, staring at Linton through the gray screen.

“Thanks for your time,” he said.

Linton looked at him closely, his eyes still fixed on Frank’s slowly healing face.