at an art gala in a bespoke yellow plaid suit.
Bingo.
Leafing through the catalog, Kate saw that Hal and Jake Brand had co-written the introduction. The pages were filled with reproductions and essays from critics, and at the end there was an index that listed all of Miranda’s known photos. There was a flyer pressed into the book flap:
November 3, 2013
EGGERS GALLERY
celebrates the reprint of
Miranda Brand: The Complete Works
with a special reception
for honored guests
Keynote by:
Hal Eggers
Owner, Eggers Gallery
On the front of the catalog was a photo of Miranda, a black-and-white self-portrait she had done in her late twenties. Angelic face, spill of dark hair. In it, Miranda was wearing a mock turtleneck that sliced her neck in half, and her eyes were huge and dark, looking in the direction of the camera but focused on some point just beyond it.
Kate had seen the photo many times in the past few weeks; it was one of the main image results when you searched Miranda’s name online. But this version seemed off somehow. After a moment, she realized what the problem was: in the original photo, Miranda’s pupils were dotted with triangles of light, reflections from an unseen window. On the book Kate held, someone had taken a permanent marker and colored over the center of each eye until they looked like paper cutouts. Vacant, dead.
The censored eyes, right under the words Complete Works, gave Kate the creeps. But it was the only copy, so she put ten dollars into the tin bucket by the door and slid the book into her shopping tote, next to the arugula.
On their way home, Louise pointed out a shop called Callinas Crystals. Its entrance fluttered with peace flags and hanging planters.
“That’s Esme’s store,” Louise said. “Come on, let’s see if she’s in. She’s a hoot.”
That piqued Kate’s curiosity. “A hoot” was the same phrase her father sometimes used to describe Louise.
The shop was overly warm, the air thick with incense and the tinny strums of a sitar recording. The shelves were laden with glittering geodes the size of flour bags, tarot decks, and hunks of purple calcite. Although it was filled to the brim, everything seemed meticulously arranged. Kate wasn’t generally into the whole concept of the occult. Last year, during a friend’s bachelorette, she had gotten her palm read at a basement shop on St. Mark’s. The psychic had predicted she would find romance at work. All the Leonard shit had already started to hit the fan, so Kate had yanked her hand away and stormed out.
The cash register at Callinas Crystals was staffed by a man whose skin was so cracked from the sun that he could have been anywhere between fifty and eighty. Bedraggled fringe dangled from the bottom of his leather vest, and his graying dreadlocks were pulled back into a bun.
Esme wasn’t there, he told Louise, not sounding very apologetic. Did they want to leave a message?
Louise hemmed and hawed for a minute. Kate had no idea what message she could possibly be thinking of leaving. Hi Esme, stopped by to show off how weird you are, went home, see you soon, love, Louise?
Louise must have come to the same conclusion, because she finally declined. Then she said with a Vanna White flourish, “Oh! This is my niece, Kate. Kate, Kid Wormshaw.”
“Nice to meet you,” Kid said without looking at her. The lines around his mouth were as deep as canyons.
“You, too.” Kate set the tote down on the floor and ran her fingers over a pile of black crystals. Tourmaline, the sign said. Good for warding off black magic.
“Kid knew Miranda Brand,” Louise told Kate. “He was friends with her—isn’t that right?”
He paused. “Right.”
Kate raised her eyebrows. “I think you’re the first person I’ve met who was actually friends with her.”
“She wasn’t much of a people person,” Louise said.
Kid grunted in disagreement—or maybe agreement? His face seemed permanently locked in a frown, which made it hard to tell—and started poking around the stick of credit card receipts next to the register. Kate took a step forward and rested her fingertips on the glass counter.
“I’m working up at her house,” she said. “Going through her files.”
“I heard,” he said.
“There’s a lot to weed through.”
“I bet.”
“Remember you signed a nondisclosure agreement,” Louise told Kate.
Kate forced a smile. “Thanks, Louise.”
Either Louise heard the annoyance in her voice or, more likely, she was distracted by a shiny object, because she drifted away toward the shelves in the back of the shop. Kate barely stopped