Big Lies in a Small Town Read online

  She took a picture of the local theater as she passed it. The theater’s name stood out in huge letters above the roof: TAYLOR. The marquee announced that Dancing Co-ed with Lana Turner was playing. Her mother would have loved to see that film. Why, Mom? she thought, biting her lip. Why did you do it when there were still things you were looking forward to? Turning her back on the theater, she continued her walk.

  The post office stood across the street from an Episcopal church and graveyard. The small brick building looked quite new. Its four front windows were topped by smart striped awnings, and slender pillars flanked the front doors. A flag flew from a pole on the roof. Inside, Anna felt a jolt of excitement when she spotted the wall where her mural would be installed. The bare space was above the door to the postmaster’s office and she instantly realized that she could divide one large canvas into three images if she chose to. Three images connected to one another by style, but reflecting three different elements of the town—whatever they might turn out to be. She stood there for several minutes, snapping pictures of the space, oblivious to anything else going on behind her in the small post office.

  “Can I help you?”

  She turned at the sound of a male voice and spotted the clerk behind the counter eyeing her curiously. Two customers, both women, were also gazing at her, and she wondered if she looked quite silly standing there in the middle of the room, taking pictures of a blank wall. She felt very much the stranger, then, but she smiled and they smiled back.

  “I’m looking for the postmaster,” she said. “Is he in?”

  “Just knock on that door.” The clerk gestured to the door in front of her. She knocked and was immediately invited inside.

  The man behind the desk was almost exactly what she’d imagined. He was a string bean of a man—middle-aged and very tall. He had a graying brown mustache that matched his graying brown hair. He had on metal-rimmed glasses and he smoked a pipe, a fragrant curlicue of smoke rising toward the ceiling. The only surprise was his remarkably bushy eyebrows. On his desk was a nameplate: Clayton Arndt.

  “Mr. Arndt?” Anna inquired. “I’m Anna Dale. I’m here to do a little research into the—”

  “Why, you’re the artist!” he exclaimed, rising to his feet. It took her a moment to understand what he’d said. It sounded like Wah, yaw tha ahtis! He looked slightly stunned. “I must say, you are not at all what I expected,” he said, motioning to the chair in front of his desk. “Sit, young lady. Sit.”

  She lowered herself into the chair. “What did you expect?” she asked.

  He took his own seat again. “Well, when we learned we were getting a mural, of course we expected a male artist. That’s understandable, isn’t it?” He looked apologetic, his big eyebrows rising halfway up his forehead. “Most artists are men. Women have little time for those pursuits, what with taking care of the home, right?”

  “Well, I don’t yet have a home to take care of,” Anna said, blocking the memory of the small house she and her mother had shared for all of Anna’s life. She thought about adding that she hoped to always be an artist, domestic responsibilities or not, but figured it was best to keep her mouth shut on that matter. She didn’t yet know who she was dealing with.

  “But then we got word that the artist’s name is Anna Dale … right?” He tapped his pipe on the ashtray on his desk, then set it aside.

  “Yes.” She smiled. “That’s me.”

  “So, we got over the surprise of you being a female, but now I see you’re barely out of grammar school! You’re just a girl.” There was unabashed disappointment in his voice. “I’m sure you’re up to all the work this will entail, though, right?” He liked to end his sentences with the word “right.” Or raht. That much was clear.

  She would not let this man cow her. She remembered Mrs. Van Emburgh’s whispered words to her at her graduation. “I’m twenty-two,” she said, holding her head high. “And I recently graduated from the Van Emburgh School of Art in Plainfield, New Jersey.”

  “And there’s another thing.” Mr. Arndt folded his slender hands on his desk and looked perturbed. “When the Section of Fine Arts let us know our artist was from New Jersey, I wrote to them and said, ‘I believe this might be a mistake.’ I was afraid they were throwin’ you to the wolves. I’m sure those boys up in Washington, D.C., think you’re a talented artist who will do a fine job on a mural, but I’m concerned you’ll have a hard time gettin’ a real feel for Edenton and the folks here, what with you being from New Jersey, right?”

  She wasn’t at all sure what he was asking or if he was asking her anything at all. “I plan to do my best,” she said gamely.

  “Well, they said you were selected fair and square, so we’ll make it work, right?”

  “Of course.” She shifted in the chair, hoping to take some control over this meeting. “And who is ‘we’?” she asked.

  “The folks who run this town,” he said. “The movers and shakers. Our Mayor Sykes. Then there’s the editor of our paper, the Chowan Herald. Our various business leaders and myself, of course.”

  “I see.” She realized she’d been mispronouncing “Chowan,” the county Edenton was in, if only in her head. It was Cho-WAN. She would have to remember that. What else was she getting wrong? “Well,” she said. “I’m going to do my best to give Edenton a mural it can be proud of.”

  “I’d like to see your sketch,” he said. He looked toward her hands where they rested in her lap as though she might have the thirty-six-by-eighteen-inch sketch hidden away inside her coat. “Do you have it with you?”

  “I don’t have a sketch yet,” she admitted, then told him about winning the competition based on her sketch of Bordentown, New Jersey.

  “So you have no sketch at all for an Edenton mural?” He sounded aghast, his eyebrows crawling up his forehead toward his hairline again. “Do you have an idea, at least?”

  “That’s why I’m here,” she said, trying to reassure him with a calm voice, although her stomach tightened with anxiety. “I want to learn about Edenton to get a subject—or subjects—for the mural. Perhaps I could meet with … the movers and shakers, as you call them? I need to learn what’s near and dear to an Edentonian’s heart.”

  “A fine idea.” He nodded, finally looking a bit more relaxed. “I can set somethin’ up for next week.”

  “I’m afraid I’m only here for two more nights,” she said. “Is it possible to get together with them sooner?”

  He hesitated, looking thoughtful, then nodded again. “I’ll make some calls,” he said. He picked up a pencil from his desk but did nothing with it other than tap it on his blotter. “There’s somethin’ you should know,” he said, eyeing her from beneath those unruly brows.

  “Yes?”

  “An Edenton artist by the name Martin Drapple—a fella everyone knows—he was born and raised here, as was his daddy. Anyway, he also sent in a sketch to the Forty-eight-States Contest. Understand?” He looked at her to see if she was following him. She was. “No one will think it’s very fair some young girl from New Jersey won when Martin has lived here his whole life, right?” he said. “Martin’s a fine artist, too. Near everyone has a Martin Drapple painting hangin’ somewhere in their house. Everyone expected him to win.” He let out a small chuckle. “’Specially him,” he added.

  “Oh.” She had no idea what to do with this information. What was she going to be up against in this town? If everyone in Edenton had one of this man’s paintings, though, he most likely didn’t need the income from the mural. It sounded as though he had plenty of work to do. Anna, on the other hand, would be flat broke if not for the small amount of money her mother had left her. “Well,” she said, “the judges didn’t know he was from Edenton or that I was from New Jersey.” She wanted to sound strong without being argumentative. “They judged the entries on the merits of the design.”

  “Yes, I do understand that,” Mr. Arndt said. “I only worry that it’s goin’ to put you in an awkward position and I wanted t
o give you fair warnin’, right?” He got to his feet in a signal that the meeting was over. “It just doesn’t seem fair to Martin.”

  He stopped talking and she wondered if he expected her to resign right then and there and turn the assignment over to this Martin Drapple fellow. “Perhaps not,” she said, getting to her feet. “But the decision wasn’t mine to make.”

  “No, I know that, and if the gov’ment says you’re our mural artist, why then I can promise you we’ll do our level best to cooperate with you.”

  She thanked him, then left the post office and began walking back to the hotel, playing the meeting with Mr. Arndt over and over in her mind. She’d started the day with a sense of promise and optimism. After meeting the postmaster, she was not so sure. By the time she reached her hotel, though, she had her confidence back. She would do a stellar job on the mural and ignore any petty concerns about her being a female, or a Yankee, or any of the other complaints they might have against her. She would give this little town nothing to complain about.

  Chapter 5

  MORGAN

  June 13, 2018

  I hadn’t really noticed the town when we drove through it earlier, but now, on the drive with Lisa to the gallery, I took it in. In front of a sunny, clean, touristy-looking waterfront, Lisa made a right turn onto Broad Street and drove past one shop after another in a small, picturesque downtown. The buildings looked old, some of them beautiful and unique, and all well maintained. This was not a dying downtown, like so many others, I thought. There was even an old-timey-looking movie theater with its name, “Taylor,” in a playful script above the roof, but no movie titles were on the marquee.

  “Is that building still a theater?” I asked, pointing toward it.

  “Under renovation,” Lisa said. “It’s supposed to reopen in a few weeks.”

  I continued observing the stores as we drove past. “Is there a computer store here?” I asked doubtfully. This wasn’t big-box territory. “And a phone store?”

  Lisa took her eyes from the road to glance at the shops we passed. “You can get a phone here, but you’ll have to order your computer online,” she said.

  “Okay.” I hadn’t felt a cell phone in my hand in over a year. It would be so good to reconnect to the world, although to be honest, I wasn’t sure who I’d connect with. I’d have nothing in common with my old friends now. And I sure wasn’t going to call Trey. He’d be done with his first year of law school at Georgetown. Anger bubbled up inside me and I shook my head as if I could tamp it down that way. It was probably just as well I wouldn’t be living near anyone from my old life.

  “I know you’re not allowed to have a driver’s license while you’re on parole,” Lisa said, “so you’ll either have to walk to the gallery—it’s less than a mile—or ride with me when I go in.” She made a couple of turns, then pulled into a small unpaved parking lot next to an unpainted, unshingled contemporary structure, totally out of place to my eyes after riding through blocks of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century houses and churches.

  “This is the gallery?” I asked.

  “It is indeed.” Lisa turned off the ignition. “My father had to fight to build it here, even though it’s outside the historic district where there are rules about what you can and can’t build. You can see it doesn’t fit in.” She chuckled, the first time I’d heard any true levity in her voice. “Or rather,” Lisa added, “you can see it stands out, which I’m sure was his intent. You can also see it needs a hell of a lot of work before August fifth.”

  We got out of the car and walked to the huge glass front door, which stood wide open, a fact that apparently annoyed Lisa.

  “We just got the place air-conditioned,” she said. “The guys aren’t used to shutting this door yet.”

  We stepped into a large, bare, high-ceilinged room. One wall was almost entirely made of glass, and the building smelled of wood and paint. The other walls were white, and a silvery-gray tiled floor was in place, but the spacious room was otherwise empty.

  “This will be the foyer, obviously,” Lisa said. “I had my guys hang the drywall and paint in here first thing because this is where you’ll be working and I don’t want them disturbing you once you start.” She motioned to the area in front of us. “There’ll be a counter here with information about the gallery, and volunteers will take turns manning it. And this”—she swept her arm through the air to take in the wall above the nonexistent counter—“this is where my father wants the mural.”

  “Wow, that’s a big space,” I said. “How big is the mural?”

  “Twelve feet by six, I believe.” Lisa looked toward the corner of the room behind us, and for the first time I noticed an enormous roll of canvas standing upright, the only thing in the otherwise empty room. “That’s it,” Lisa said, walking toward it. “I had the guys pull it out of the studio closet and haul it over here last week, but I didn’t want them to unroll it before you were here.”

  I followed her across the tiled floor until we stood next to the broad, towering roll. “I’m five seven,” Lisa said, “so what do you think?”

  I looked toward the top of the roll, which reached a good two feet above Lisa’s head. “Eight feet, at least,” I said. The outside of the roll was covered in muslin. I pulled away a piece of the fabric to find the unpainted border of the canvas beneath it. I touched the canvas, gingerly, afraid it might disintegrate beneath my fingertips and steal my job and my freedom from me before I even began, but the canvas felt firm to my touch.

  “Well,” Lisa said with a reluctant-sounding sigh. “Might as well get a look at this thing.”

  I watched her disappear through an interior doorway to another part of the gallery, calling the name “Oliver.” Soon she returned with three men, two of them wearing sweaty sleeveless tees and multipocketed khaki workpants, the third in a green T-shirt and jeans. They looked at me and I felt their scrutiny. The two in the workpants were about my age, the third closer to thirty. They were the first men I’d seen besides prison guards in over a year. Their presence, their earthy scent, their very existence—especially the green-eyed blond guy who, except for his man bun, looked a lot like Trey—felt intoxicating. All my nerve endings were suddenly on fire.

  “You the painter?” one of them asked. He was as dark skinned as Lisa and wore dreadlocks pulled together into a long plait down his back.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Morgan is the art restorer,” Lisa corrected him. Hearing the falsehood out loud made me wince. “Morgan, this is Wyatt.” Lisa nodded to the guy with the dreadlocks. She looked at the phone that seemed perpetually glued to her hand, but kept talking. “Wyatt’s head of construction,” she said. “And this is Adam, second in command.” She pointed toward the blond guy, whose left arm, shoulder to wrist, was encircled by the tattoo of a snake. Not very subtle, I thought. “And this is Oliver Jones, our curator in charge of the art.”

  Oliver was the older of the three by eight or nine years and he held his hand out to me with a smile. “Welcome,” he said. “Glad you’re here.” He was tall with a techie look about him. Fair skinned, his cheeks boyishly tinted with pink as though he’d just come in from the cold. Angular features and thick dark hair that swept his forehead. Behind his black horn-rimmed glasses, his eyes were so blue I wondered if he was wearing tinted contacts.

  “Hi.” I shook his hand, and when I let go, my gaze returned to Adam. He really did look like Trey. It wasn’t just my imagination trying to torment me. He had Trey’s not-too-tall, not-too-short build. Trey’s broad chest. He stared at me. I was used to it. It was my hair. Shoulder length, deep bangs, naturally blond. From the time I was very small, I’d felt its power—the only power I’d had.

  I pulled my gaze away from Adam, annoyed with myself for feeling any attraction to him. I should be repelled instead. I turned back to the rolled canvas. “Can I see the mural?” I asked.

  “Mm,” Lisa said, glancing one more time at the phone in her hand before she lowered it to her si
de. “Let’s get that thing opened up.”

  The men moved as a group toward the rolled canvas.

  “Better get out of the way,” Wyatt said, and Lisa and I moved back toward the door.

  “I’ve been so curious to see this thing,” Oliver said as the three men tipped the rolled mural onto its side and moved it into the center of the room. He pulled a utility knife from his jeans pocket and cut the straps holding the canvas in place. Then the three of them began slowly unrolling the canvas over the floor.

  “The paint’s on the wrong side,” Adam said as the back of the canvas was revealed.

  “No,” Oliver said. “Actually, whoever rolled this did it the right way. Paint side out. Covered it in muslin to protect it.”

  “I remember my father telling me it had originally been rolled paint side in, though,” Lisa said. I glanced at her and could see that she had a death grip on her phone. She was as worried as I was about what we would find. “I don’t know for how long,” Lisa continued. “Hopefully it didn’t do too much damage.”

  The men had finished unrolling the canvas, which had been wrapped around an enormous, thick, sturdy cardboard tube. Adam and Wyatt rolled the tube aside.

  “It’s massive,” I said, overwhelmed by the sheer breadth of the canvas.

  “So how do we turn it over without wrecking it?” Adam asked.

  Oliver lowered himself to his haunches at one corner of the overturned mural. He touched one ragged-looking edge of the canvas. Lifted it gingerly to peer beneath. “The artist left a good eight inches of unpainted canvas on the borders.” He looked up at Adam and Wyatt. “Get me an eight-foot two-by-four,” he said.