no idea, but too much. I’ve decided I have to like this studio because I am never moving again.”
“You’ll like it here. It’s not too cultish. Artists are encouraged to be involved, but if you aren’t, no one judges you . . . Oh, wow, is that new?”
Derek was looking at her recent sketch, the one she was calling “The boy was back again the very next night.” He looked at it for a long time, and Hen realized that the boy on the branch looked more like a small man. Like a dwarf, really, and Hen worried a little that he might find it offensive.
“It’s like looking at someone’s dream,” Derek said. “It actually sent a shiver down my spine.”
“Me, too,” Hen said, then added, “That’s the type of art I like, when it freaks you out.”
Before Derek left, Hen promised him she’d take a break during Open Studios and come look at his stuff. She still didn’t know what his stuff was, exactly. When she was alone again, she finished etching on her plate, the CD player now playing the Lost Highway soundtrack. She slid the plate into the acid bath, then quickly began one of the sketches for Lore Warriors. It was a scene toward the beginning of the book, when the evil Santa Claus is emerging from the fireplace. She sketched an idea quickly, one in which just his foot was emerging, then did a version in which a clawlike hand was visible as well, plus just a sliver of the creature’s face. It wasn’t half bad. She’d gotten so engrossed in the drawing that she worried she’d left the plate in too long. But after removing the wax, adding ink, and doing a first run through the press, it turned out perfect, one of the best things she’d done in a while. She ran several more prints, then quickly sketched an idea for the second illustration she owed the publisher. Before she knew it, Ani DiFranco was singing again, the player having cycled through all five discs, and Hen realized she was starving. It had been a good day of work. She locked her studio door, shut down the lights after yelling out to see if anyone else was in a basement studio, and emerged back into the bright sunshine of the day.
Chapter 14
After the detective left, Matthew went back inside the house. He had planned on making mulligatawny soup, one of Mira’s favorites, so that she would have something to eat if she was hungry when she got home. Instead, he rooted through the freezer for a frozen dinner and settled on some French bread pizza.
While he ate, he began the process of finding out everything he could about his neighbor. She, or maybe the husband, had obviously called the police. It was the fencing trophy, of course. Hen (who didn’t really look like a hen; she was a fox, the exact opposite) was the one who’d spotted it, who somehow knew about its connection with Dustin Miller. And now she’d brought the police to him, something that had never happened to him in his entire life. It had gone okay, he thought, or as well as it possibly could have. He did wonder why the detective hadn’t asked to look around or asked anything about the trophy. He assumed that was because it would have made it far too obvious that he’d been turned in by his neighbor. And, of course, Matthew could have refused, could have asked that a search warrant be provided. No, it was clear that it was nothing more than a fishing expedition. And with the trophy gone, the police would have nothing to connect him with Dustin Miller.
Matthew did a search using “Henrietta,” “Lloyd,” and “wedding” and instantly got a wedding page. Henrietta Mazur and Lloyd Harding were their full names. He almost did a search for “Henrietta Harding” but realized there was a much better chance that she hadn’t changed her name and searched for “Henrietta Mazur” instead. Because of her illustrations, she was all over the internet. She had her own website, plus she was on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. There were surprisingly few pictures of her, but there were multiple images of her work: dark, intricate etchings that Matthew found intriguing. Many were from children’s books, but he found a Boston gallery that had thumbnail pictures of some of her original artwork, and Matthew studied them. He didn’t know too much about art, but