Big Lies in a Small Town - Diane Chamberlain Page 0,20

time.”

“What about Miss Myrtle?” Mr. Arndt looked around the table at the other men.

The mayor nodded. “Good idea! I bet she’d be tickled pink to have company.” He turned to Anna. “Myrtle Simms is a widow, lives across from the railroad buildin’. Her girl Pauline just tied the knot and moved out, so she has space and was talkin’ about takin’ in a tenant. I bet she’d be happy to take you in for no cost to you atall, but she could surely use some rent money, given that big ol’ house of hers needs work.”

“Oh, I couldn’t do that!” Her mind raced with the idea. She couldn’t stay in Edenton. She had nothing here with her, to begin with. Only two dresses, one pair of shoes, a couple of changes of underwear, and very little money. Worst of all, she had none of her painting supplies with her.

“It’s a right fine idea,” Billy Calhoun said.

“I’ll talk to Miss Myrtle ’bout it tomorrow and call you at the hotel with what she says,” Mr. Arndt said.

“I don’t have anything with me,” Anna said.

“Your family can send what you need down to you, can’t they?” the mayor asked. “And we have stores.” He smiled. “We ain’t some little backwater.”

I have no family, she thought, but kept her mouth shut. What was waiting for her at home in Plainfield? She had no beau. Her friends from high school and Van Emburgh were scattered to the wind. The house she’d shared with her mother felt painfully empty. She’d have to ask Aunt Alice to go to the house and pack some things for her and ship them down, but the Edenton men were right. It would be good to surround herself with the town she planned to paint.

“Is there studio space I can rent here?” she asked. “Someplace big enough for me to paint the mural? I’ll need quite a bit of room.”

The men fell silent, brows furrowed in thought. “I don’t know no studios,” Billy Calhoun said.

“Martin just paints in his attic,” the mayor said.

Mr. Fiering spoke up. “What about that old abandoned warehouse out by the Carters’ place? Hasn’t been used in ten years, at least.” He looked at Anna. “It’s outside of town a ways, but not too far,” he said. “You’d have your peace and quiet for workin’.”

“Don’t have heat,” Mr. Arndt said.

“We’d have to cart in a couple of space heaters,” the mayor said, then turned to her. “How ’bout we take a look at it tomorrow? Me and you? If it looks like it might work for you, and Miss Myrtle says she’d love to have you, which I can guarantee that’s what she’ll say, you’ll stick around?”

“All right,” she said, rather impulsively. “I will.” And she smiled. She had the feeling she’d won these gentlemen over after all.

Chapter 7

MORGAN

June 13, 2018

I stared down at the mural where it lay on the tiled floor of the gallery foyer. I saw the tremendous damage—the grime and scratches and huge sections of abraded paint that nearly masked the images on the canvas. And I saw what had stunned all of us. What left us shaking our heads in confusion and sent a weird shiver up my spine.

In the center of the mural, in fairly extreme close-up, three women dressed in eighteenth-century garb sat around a small table. One of them held the shards of something—a white teapot?—in her outstretched hands.

“This is supposed to represent the Edenton Tea Party, no doubt,” Lisa said. “But”—she pointed toward the skirts of the women in the painting—“this makes absolutely no sense.”

Piercing the small circle of women was the front end of a motorcycle. It protruded from between their filthy skirts, its rider not visible behind the women’s torsos.

“It’s an Indian,” Adam said. “That is so awesome.” He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his khaki workpants, then looked at Lisa. “I assume they didn’t have motorcycles in the seventeen hundreds?”

“The artist must’ve been smokin’ somethin’,” Wyatt said. “Who the hell painted this thing?”

“The artist’s name was Anna Dale,” Oliver said. He stood above the mural, arms crossed in front of his chest, a frankly delighted expression on his face. “This is fascinating, don’t you think?” he asked, his gaze on me, and I nodded. “I Googled Anna Dale and read that she won the competition to paint this mural,” Oliver continued, “but that was the only information I could find on her. I haven’t been able to track down any other work