Big Lies in a Small Town - Diane Chamberlain Page 0,146
looked up as we walked inside, but before he had a chance to say anything, Judith dropped her cane to the floor with a clatter.
“Oh!” She raised both hands to her face. “Where…? How did this…?” She turned to Gloria. “I need to sit,” she said.
Before Gloria could budge from Judith’s side, Oliver raced across the foyer, grabbed a chair from the side wall, and slipped it behind the old woman just in time. Judith nearly fell into it. She pressed her hand to her mouth.
“Do you have some water?” Gloria asked me, and again, Oliver was quicker than I was, producing two small bottles of water from behind the information counter. I seemed to be too numb to move. Oliver unscrewed the top of one of the bottles and handed it to Judith. The second, to Gloria.
“Judith Shipley?” he asked the older woman, as I had only moments earlier.
Judith was drinking from the bottle, her hand shaking wildly, her gaze riveted on the mural.
“Yes,” I answered for her. Yes, she was Judith Shipley, but if I’d had any doubt that she was also Anna Dale, it had been erased the moment she reacted to the mural. I walked to the side of the foyer to grab another of the chairs and carry it over to where we had gathered, and Gloria sat down on it without a word. She looked at Judith with genuine concern in her dark eyes.
“I knew this would be too much for you,” she scolded. “You know you don’t travel well any—”
Judith raised a hand to stop her. “It’s not the travel,” she said. “It’s this mural. I … It’s been so long since I’ve seen it.”
I looked at Oliver to discover he already had his eyes on me. I was sure he had the same questions running through his head that I did. How should we approach this? At this point, was there any danger to Judith in revealing that we knew the truth? And how much did Gloria know?
Oliver ducked the questions by getting two more chairs for us, and we sat in a semicircle in the middle of the foyer, all of us gazing at the mural.
“I’m Oliver Jones, the curator for the gallery.” Oliver finally introduced himself. He nodded in my direction. “And Morgan here is the person who restored the mural.”
Judith looked at me as if seeing me for the first time. “Jesse had it?” she asked.
“Yes.” I looked directly at her. “An artist named Anna Dale painted it.” Almost without thinking, I reached over. Rested my hand on top of hers. Took a deep breath. “Judith…” I glanced at Oliver and he nodded. “We believe that you are Anna.”
“What?” Gloria looked annoyed. “Who the hell is Anna?”
Judith didn’t look at me, but to my surprise … and relief … a smile began to light her face. “I haven’t heard that name in a very long time,” she said.
“Are you Anna?” Oliver asked. The gentleness in his voice touched me.
Judith nodded. “I suppose there’s no harm in saying that now,” she said. “I doubt anyone’s going to lock up an old woman after eighty years.”
“What are you talking about?” Gloria asked.
“Oh, hush,” Judith said to her. “I’ll explain it all later.” She looked at Oliver, then me. “How did you know? Did Jesse say something?”
“I never met Jesse,” I said, “but in his will he asked that I be the one to restore the mural, and I—”
“Ah,” she interrupted. “You were one of his projects?”
I smiled. “Apparently, though I have no idea how he even knew I existed,” I said. “Anyway, Jesse kept the mural in his studio for many years, and—”
“Here? In Edenton?” Judith looked stunned, her eyes wide.
“Yes,” I said.
“All those times I visited him here, and he never told me he still had it.” She looked bewildered. “I knew he…” She seemed to catch herself, then continued. “I just didn’t know he still had it,” she said.
“It was in terrible shape when I started working on it,” I said. “But I gradually discovered some strange things about it. A lot of … disturbing images, and—”
“Yes, yes.” She nodded. “I was going through a … a rough patch when I worked on it. It was a difficult time for me.”
“What are you talking about?” Gloria asked again.
“I understand that now,” I said. “I understand it because I read your journal.” Across from me, I could almost feel Oliver tense. We were heading into delicate territory.