Big Lies in a Small Town Read online

  Adam and Wyatt took off for the interior of the building, while Lisa walked toward the windows and began typing on her phone. Oliver turned to me. “Have you worked on one this size?” he asked.

  “No,” I said, trying to produce a self-confident smile. “This’ll be a first.” An understatement.

  The men quickly returned with the long piece of wood. I watched while Oliver laid it on one of the short ends—short being a relative term—of the canvas and tacked it into place with some device he’d pulled from his pocket. Then he got to his feet, nodded to Wyatt, and they carefully lifted the two-by-four, raising it high above their heads, while Adam and I gently unfolded the canvas from beneath it. Finally the canvas, still covered with the muslin, lay flat on the floor. Oliver stood on one side with Wyatt on the other, and the two men slowly pulled the muslin aside until the full mural was revealed.

  I stared wordlessly at the grimy painting. We all did. It took thirty seconds at least before I finally said what all of us were surely thinking.

  “What the hell?”

  Chapter 6

  ANNA

  December 7, 1939

  Anna was the last to arrive in her hotel restaurant, although she was right on time—noon—and she had the feeling the four men—the important gentlemen of Edenton—had met early to discuss how to deal with her. She wore her dark blue dress—the one her mother had loved on her—along with her white gloves and blue pillbox hat. She thought she looked every inch the lady.

  The men all stood as she approached the table, and once they were seated again, Postmaster Arndt began the introductions. Anna was nearly overcome by the scent of cigars—three of them—in addition to Mr. Arndt’s pipe. The scent of tobacco was something she ordinarily enjoyed, but the air was so thick with smoke above the table that she felt as though she were looking at the men through a foggy window.

  “This is our mayor,” Mr. Arndt said, motioning toward the man to her left. “Sterling Sykes.”

  Mayor Sykes was as short as Mr. Arndt was tall. He had thinning hair, the color of which might have been blond or gray—it was impossible to tell through the haze of smoke. “Welcome to Edenton, Miss Dale,” he said. “I hope you met with no problems on that long drive south?”

  “None at all.” She thought of mentioning how much she’d enjoyed seeing country that was new to her, but if anything, she needed to downplay her unfamiliarity with the territory. Her main problem on the journey had been that it gave her too much time to think about her mother. Too much time to wonder how she could have handled things differently. “I stayed overnight in Richmond to break up the journey,” she added.

  Mr. Arndt motioned to another man, this one of medium height with black, greased-back hair, a ruddy complexion, and deep bags beneath his eyes, despite the fact that he couldn’t have been more than forty. “And this is the editor of the Chowan Herald, Billy Calhoun,” Mr. Arndt said.

  “How do you do,” she said, thinking: A grown man named Billy?

  “You’re a pretty one,” Billy said. “And don’t you have the look of an avant-garde New York artist. All you need is one of them long cigarette holders, ain’t that right?”

  She tried not to wince at the word “ain’t” spilling so easily from the mouth of a newspaperman. And avant-garde? Unconsciously, she touched her bob. She rather liked that description of herself.

  “I do own one of those cigarette holders,” she confessed with a smile. She did. A gift from a former beau, but she never used it. She would have felt silly.

  She moved her gaze to the fourth man at the table.

  “I’m Toby Fiering, manager of the cotton mill,” he said. He was soft-spoken, his voice buttery and warm. Early fifties, thick gray hair, light blue eyes, and a genuine-looking smile. All in all, a handsome older man. “Why isn’t a pretty girl like you married?” he asked, knocking her off balance with the question, although she’d certainly been asked it more than once. “You’re not one of them divorcées, are you?”

  Anna shook her head, her smile forced. “Just haven’t met the right fella,” she said, truthfully. “And I want to focus on being an artist.”

  The men observed her in silence for a long moment. Mr. Fiering finally cleared his throat. “Have you had time to see our mill and Mill Village?” he asked.

  “Not yet, but I’d love to,” she said. Her cheeks were getting tired from smiling. “I’m only here until Saturday, though.”

  “Be a shame to miss the cotton mill,” Mr. Fiering said, and she thought he looked sincerely saddened by the thought.

  They ordered lunch. The men all ordered roast beef sandwiches, but Anna asked for chicken soup. She couldn’t imagine trying to speak at this important meeting around a mouthful of bread. The food was delivered quickly and the men dug in while she took a sip of her soup.

  “I was hoping I might could have had the managers of the lumber company and the Edenton Peanut Factory to join us,” Mr. Arndt said, swallowing a bite of his sandwich. “But it wasn’t possible on such short notice. They gave me their two cents to add to the conversation, though.” He looked at Anna. “I’m supposed to tell you that we ship more than forty million pounds of peanuts a year,” he said, then chuckled. “We got so much industry here in Edenton and everybody wants a piece of that mural pie, right?” A murmur of agreement went up from the men.

  “I understand,” Anna said. She wondered if she should take control of this meeting or if she should allow Mr. Arndt to do so. It felt very forward of her to barge in, yet she was the one who needed their guidance and she wouldn’t get it by sitting mum.

  “Gentlemen,” she said in her most formal voice, “I so appreciate all of you taking the time to meet with me. As you know, I’ve been honored to be selected to paint the mural for your post office, and I’m anxious to begin on it, so I can use your valuable thoughts on what the focus should be. From what I’ve read, the Edenton Tea Party was an important—”

  “Oh, not that tired old Tea Party again!” Mr. Fiering said, his handsome face screwed up as if his roast beef sandwich tasted rancid.

  “Now, Toby,” Mr. Arndt said. “Let the little lady say her piece.”

  She was shaken by the sudden outburst. Off on the wrong foot already. She’d been about to take a sip of her soup, but set her spoon down. “I thought the Tea Party was something Edenton is proud of,” she said.

  “We’re proud indeed, Miss Dale.” Mayor Sykes’s voice boomed so loudly that people at other tables turned to look at him. “We’re very proud that our ladies stood up for our freedom. But that was a long, long time ago. There’s so much more to Edenton these days, and we get a little tired of that all the time bein’ the focus.”

  “I don’t know,” Mr. Arndt said, and Anna had the feeling he was going to be her ally. “When people think of Edenton, they do think of the Tea Party, so maybe—”

  “But it’s the townspeople who use the post office and I think they’d rather see the industry of the day,” Toby Fiering interrupted. “The things that keep Edenton going and growing.”

  “Ah, I see,” she said, hoping to get on everyone’s good side. The image that had been taking shape in her mind of the women of Edenton signing their petition began to disintegrate. “Well, tell me what all of you would like to see in a mural.”

  “The cotton mill, front and center.” Mr. Fiering set down his sandwich and made a sweeping gesture in front of his face, as though he could already picture it. “The biggest industry in the town.”

  “I can think of a few folks who might could argue with you there,” Mr. Arndt said in his calming way. “And Rollie and Stu want to see their lumber yard and peanut factory represented, too,” he continued. “And then of course, there’s fishin’. We’ve got water all ’round us. Plus, our melons. And agriculture, right?”

  Anna’s fingers began to perspire around the handle of her spoon and her soup had barely been touched. “The mural is large but we don’t want to overcrowd it,” she said. “I think I can work in
three to five scenes as the focus. One central image plus a few others.”

  The men were quiet for a moment. Then Billy Calhoun finally spoke up. “You know,” he drawled to the mayor, “if your cousin Martin was doing this paintin’ he’d know what should be in it without bein’ told.”

  Oh, no. That Martin Drapple artist was the mayor’s cousin?

  The mayor raised his eyebrows with a “what can I do?” shrug. “I tried callin’ the government office responsible for the mural,” he said. “Can’t never get through.”

  “You tried calling the office?” Anna asked, appalled. “To complain about me?”

  “Jest don’t make no sense,” Billy continued as if she hadn’t spoken.

  “I wasn’t callin’ to complain,” Mayor Sykes said to Anna around a mouthful of his sandwich. “I just wanted them to know why we thought my cousin Martin would be a smart choice. Nothin’ to do with you specifically, dear. Just with them pickin’ a stranger completely unfamiliar with Edenton. Plus, we all know Martin’s got talent and experience to spare.”

  “Maybe it’s ’cause Martin is mostly a portrait artist that he didn’t git it,” Billy Calhoun said. “Not exactly what they was lookin’ for.”

  “Anyone who can paint a person as good as him would be able to paint scenes from the town,” Toby Fiering argued.

  “Now, boys,” Mr. Arndt said. “We’ve been over this. Miss Dale here is goin’ to be our artist and that’s all there is to it. We have to make the best of it. Let’s help her out here, right?”

  They all turned to look at Anna, and she knew her cheeks were scarlet. They’d started burning when the mayor mentioned his telephone call to the Section of Fine Arts. Thank goodness he hadn’t been able to get through! She needed an okay from the Section on her as yet nonexistent sketch. It horrified her to think the job could still be snatched away from her.

  “I’m only here till Saturday,” she said again, setting down her spoon and straightening her spine. “I’d like to actually see the things that are important to you. The cotton mill.” She looked at Mr. Fiering. “The peanut factory. Et cetera. And I’m sure that the waterfront looks very different during fishing season, so if there are photographs of it I might look at, that would be helpful.”

  “I can tour you through the mill,” Mr. Fiering said.

  “Thank you.” She nodded.

  “You’re right about the waterfront, little lady,” Mayor Sykes piped in. “Every day during the season, we haul in thousands of herring and ship them far and wide.”

  “It’s an industrious little town, isn’t it,” she said, hoping to ingratiate herself to them. She had to admit she was impressed. She’d had no idea this dot on the map was such a beehive of activity.

  “So, do you paint the mural right on the post office wall?” Mayor Sykes asked.

  “No, I’ll paint it in New Jersey and then send it down here to be installed—attached to the wall—in the post office. I’ll have to find some studio space near my home where I can work on it, and—”

  “That don’t make no sense.” Billy Calhoun scowled. “You ought to be here to paint it.”

  “I believe he’s right,” said the mayor. “You’re just getting a taste of Edenton these few days you’re here. You go back up north and you’ll lose the whole feel of the place.”

  “Oh, I can’t stay here,” she said. “I can’t afford a hotel for as long as this will take.”

  “How long will it take?” Mr. Fiering asked.

  She ticked the steps off on her fingers. “Well, first I have to decide what to paint,” she said. “Then I need to make a color sketch of it and submit that to the Section—the government people who make these decisions. Once they accept it, then I need to make a cartoon from the sketch and—”

  “A what?” The mayor’s eyes flew open and Anna smiled. The men probably thought she was planning to make a comical mural for the post office and she could see them getting nervous.

  “It’s a full-sized—so twelve-by-six feet—black-and-white sketch of the mural,” she said. “It’s called a cartoon. I’ll take a photograph of it and send that off to the Section for their approval. And once they give me the go-ahead on that, I’ll begin the actual painting.”

  “Whole lot of steps before you can even get goin’!” Mr. Arndt sounded disappointed about the length of time it would take to have her mural up on his post office wall.

  “Yes, so you see it will take several months,” she said, “and I can’t afford to stay here all that 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 by her, either. This style”—he motioned toward the mural—“this representational style was typical of the murals painted for government buildings back then.” He chuckled. “But it looks like Anna Dale added her own unique interpretation of her subject.”

  My gaze had moved on. It appeared that the mural consisted of one large central section—the three women and the motorcycle—which was flanked by two smaller sections on either side. In the upper right-hand corner, an African-American woman appeared to be holding a basket of some sort, which was full of something indiscernible, thanks to the filth and abrasions. Something was wrong with the lower half of the woman’s face, too. Was she clenching a stick between her teeth? Beneath her, in the lower right-hand corner of the mural, there was a row of small houses. I walked toward the other end of the mural to look at the painting’s upper left-hand corner. I wasn’t at all sure what I was looking at. A boat, maybe? Yes, it had to be a ship of some sort. And beneath it, in the fifth and final vignette, a white man—at least I thought his skin was white beneath the grime—stood tall, holding a log or length of wood or something like it in his hands. Five separate scenes, all of them a mess. The entire mural looked as though someone had attached it to the back of a car and dragged it facedown over earth and stones and mud for miles and miles. To me, the painting—all seventy-two square feet of it—looked utterly beyond saving.