Big Lies in a Small Town - Diane Chamberlain Page 0,72

“you’d realize how much better it looks now. I’ll show you a ‘before’ picture later.”

“I like all the blood,” Nathan said. “It’s so sick.”

Everyone except Lisa laughed.

“If you say so, Nathan,” Lisa said, then let out a sigh. “Well”—she peeked at the phone in her hand—“I’m not happy it took two weeks just to clean this thing, but it obviously needed it. Quite a difference. And I have to say I have no idea what to make of it.”

“That Indian.” Adam shook his head. “So crazy.”

“What Indian?” Nathan asked, most likely scanning the mural for a warrior in headdress.

“He means the brand of the motorcycle,” I explained. “See the motorcycle tire and red fender poking out from between the women’s dresses?”

“Why is it there?” Nathan asked.

“Wish we knew the answer to that,” Oliver said.

As soon as I’d started working on the motorcycle, I’d understood what Mama Nelle had meant about Jesse covering it over. Anna had painted the mural thinly, but in the area of the motorcycle, the paint was extremely thick as though the cycle had been painted over and then repainted, maybe more than once. Maybe even more than twice. I couldn’t explain why, but Anna and Jesse seemed to have some sort of duel going on there.

“We should make a list of all the strange things the artist put into the mural, so we can add them to your wall text about it, Oliver,” Lisa said. “Make it sound mysterious. Make gallery visitors try to guess what message the artist was trying to convey.”

“If they figure it out, I hope they’ll tell me,” I said, shaking my head. I looked at Nathan. “Want to see what else we uncovered?” I asked him as I walked toward the painting. “You have to come closer to see.” I had a funny feeling as I moved toward the mural with the boy at my side. A sense of intimacy and ownership of the painting. It was more mine than anyone else’s in this room. “There’s also this little skull peeking out of a window.” I pointed to one of the little Mill Village houses where Anna had painted a small, hollow-eyed skull in one of the windows. “And there’s a little man in the reflection of that mirror the woman’s holding, right where you’d expect to see a reflection of her face. And there are not only drops of tea coming from the shattered teapot but drops of—”

“Is that blood, too?” Lisa moved near us, hand on her chest. “Oh my God. I wonder if my father remembered how disturbing this thing is when he thought of hanging it in the foyer?”

“There is a lot of blood,” I said, almost apologetically.

“She was, like, possessed.” Nathan sounded frankly delighted. “The artist.”

“She may have been,” Oliver said.

“It’s a mess,” Nathan said. “All those places where the paint’s, like, worn away?”

Lisa let out a pained sigh. “It is indeed still a mess.” She knotted her hands together around her phone. “But you have a whole month left.” She gave me a hopeful look. “I’m sure you can do it.”

I glanced at Oliver, whose expression told me he doubted anyone could do all the necessary work—and do it well—in a month. Then I nodded at Lisa.

“I’ll do my best,” I said.

Lisa left, and Adam and Wyatt went back to work in the rear rooms of the gallery. I looked at the box of inpainting supplies waiting for me on the floor by the ladder.

“You look nervous.” Oliver smiled at me.

“Can you help me after lunch?” I asked. “Just to get me started?”

“Of course.” He turned to his son. “You hungry, Nate?” he asked.

“Starving!”

Oliver pulled his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans and handed me a twenty. “You and Nathan get lunch for the three of us while I move my computer out here to the foyer. That way, I can supervise you for a few days,” he said. “Chicken wrap for me.”

“Thank you,” I said, happy to know he’d be close by. I’d pictured myself running back and forth to his office, dragging him to the foyer to advise me on every brushstroke.

Nathan and I set out for Nothing Fancy, talking about what we’d order for lunch: a BLT for him, chef’s salad for me. Then Nathan pointed to my ankle.

“Is that one of those exercise things?” he asked. “Like, it tells you how far you walk every day?”

I’d thought my jeans had been long enough to mask the monitor, but apparently