A Perfect Eye Read online

  They looked up in surprise.

  Dave recovered nicely. “We were hoping you’d come.”

  “Speak for yourself,” her dad said.

  What could she use as a weapon? Long-handled gardening tools in the corner. At the far wall an easel, hanging next to it a rusted contraption and a beat-up hat with a tall crown and wide brim. A table with jars of brushes, tubes of paint, mixing trays, and a dispenser with a picture of a diapered tot in a field of grass. Baby Wipes. A thousand uses, from wiping a baby’s bottom to… “Didn’t know you had grandkids, Dave.”

  “I use the wipes to clean my palette knife.” The chemicals on the blade that killed Kurtz.

  Focus on Dave.

  The sleeves of his frayed dress shirt were rolled over his elbows. One forearm was tied with a rakish bandana. His powerful knees straddling the stool made him look like Hemingway spoiling for a bar fight.

  “It was nice of you to pick my dad up from the hospital, Dave.”

  “Niceness had nothing to do with it.”

  “Friendship, then. But his doctors—”

  “Harry told me about your quarrel. Even a dutiful child has limits.”

  She turned to her dad. Could he walk? “You made your point, Dad. Let’s go.”

  On the easel was a waterlily pond in the style of Monet. The palette and brushwork were right, but it was flat and lifeless. Too fulfilled. Dave hunched over his sketchbook. With her back to him, she slipped a brush from the jar on the table into the bandage on her arm. He pursed his lips and vigorously rubbed out a line. The cream paper was scored through and abraded by erasure marks. What remained evoked her dad, but the lines didn’t flow. Without a master to copy, Dave couldn’t create.

  “Seven is your best work,” she said. The little man was hubris, but he gave the painting a life of its own.

  “And Caillebotte’s.” Dave shrugged modestly. “I like to think I have a Degas in me.”

  My poor ballerina.

  Getting her dad up the slope would be dicey. Alone, he’d get lost in the dark, but freeing him evened the odds. “You painted Seven to prove a point,” she said.

  Dave’s drawing hand tightened in a fist. His forearm tensed. The bandana was stained with blood. She remembered her scalpel plunging through muscle to bone and a wild exhilaration coursed through her. Their eyes locked. Dave set down his sketchbook.

  “Your eye against mine, with Harry at stake?” He smiled. “Okay. What was my point?”

  “To fool the experts.”

  “Why kill Kurtz?”

  “Because he didn’t care.”

  Dave drummed his pencil on his knee. “Why did I break his ankles?”

  “Kurtz was the dog in Pont de l’Europe. The man who crippled you.”

  Dave looked stunned. Keeping her eyes on him, Lily reached behind her. “Put your arm around my waist, Dad.” Dave still hadn’t moved. With her good arm, she hoisted her father from the chair. He sagged. She braced his weight and said, “Count of three…”

  Dave stepped forward with the palette knife.

  With a rush of cool air the door opened.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  “Hi, Lily.” Paul smiled crookedly.

  The first things she registered were his Levi’s and ratty T-shirt. Then what was he doing here, did he know who Dave was? The third was…

  You came back.

  “I’m Paul,” he told Dave as if they were at a cocktail party.

  Dave smirked. “I know who you are.”

  “Then you know I’ve come for Lily and Harry.” Without seeming to move, Paul crossed the threshold. He took another step forward, and Dave waved the knife.

  “Stay right there.”

  Paul held out his hands palms up to show he was unarmed. Stepping between Lily and the blade, he nodded reassuringly. His back was broad and strong. His sweat smelled like cloves. That palette knife would cut through his T-shirt like butter. In the back pocket of his Levi’s was a small round object. Through the worn denim was the trace of a molded swirl. Her mom’s compact? Fear coursed through Lily. Not for her dad or herself.

  You damn idiot.

  “This is quite a studio,” Paul said. “I bet you don’t miss Coors.”

  Dave chuckled. “I go back on occasion.”

  “Keeping your hand in, right?”

  Dave laughed, relaxing his guard another notch.

  Lily heard Paul think. Assess, prioritize…Get Dave. He gestured to her, thumb pointing to the door. He held up three fingers, made a fist, then held them up again. Minutes or count?

  “Caillebotte should be grateful,” Dave said. “I finished his series.”

  “And Kurtz?” Paul sounded so calm. “Is he the man heading into the storm, Dave?”

  Paul gestured again, this time with two fingers. He moved closer to Dave, shielding her so she and her dad could get to the door. Dave seemed mesmerized.

  “Can’t say you didn’t warn him, Dave,” he continued. “What good’s being a genius if nobody knows?” Step by step, he steered Dave to the far wall, all the while nodding calmly to Dave and gestured reassuringly to her. Dave was letting himself be maneuvered, but he had the knife. Did Paul know what that could do? But his priority wasn’t Dave. Finally she saw. Not just saw, but knew.

  He’s brave.

  “What’s this?” Paul pointed to the jawed contraption on the wall.

  “A leghold trap.”

  A heavy chain and padlock were attached. The chain was scratched and the padlock dented. Something, someone had tried desperately to get free. Those jaws weren’t rusted. They were caked with blood. Old, and lots of it.

  “What’s it for?” Paul was buying time, drawing Dave farther from her.

  Eyes unfocused, Dave answered in a hoarse nursery rhyme. The sing-song words were what a child sang to put himself to sleep.

  “I caught a varmint by the leg, and waited then for him to beg…”

  Kurtz’s legs, cut from the frame. Her dad with his bum leg hooked under the chair. Something older—Go now.

  Paul pointed to the farmer’s hat next to the trap. “That your old man’s, too?” They were at the wall by the tools. One was a machete with a wicked-looking pick. Paul kept talking softly. “I grew up on a farm, Dave. Was your old man a farmer, was that beet topper his? I bet he threatened you with it…”

  He kept his back to her, screening her from Dave. The cool air on her cheek said the door was steps to her left. Paul raised one finger to her, then reached in his back pocket. Dave unsteadily waved the knife in warning.

  “He’s the man in Seven—right, Dave?” Paul held the compact to the light and flashed it in Dave’s eyes. Dave blinked. “Now!” Paul shouted.

  Clutching her dad, Lily took three giant steps to the door. At the last minute she turned. Dave was coming at Paul with the machete.

  No.

  “Go, goddamn it!” Paul’s hands were red.

  Her dad’s eyes pleaded. She was his only chance.

  She dragged him out the door.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  They staggered to the road. It was pitch dark, the moon behind clouds.

  “My leg…”

  “I know, Dad. Let’s get to the car.” Stash him there, call 911, get back to Paul.

  His hospital slippers flopped and he was heavier than he looked. He tripped on a root and it took all her strength to catch him. Lily put her good arm around his shoulder and braced his bad leg with her knee. With their dead weight as ballast and their sound limbs propelling them, they scrambled a three-legged race through Dave’s obstacle course.

  She focused four steps ahead, her feet remembering the terrain. Visualize the Prius. 2007 silver hatchback with dents, remote in back pocket. Left turn at the house, ten paces to the curb, Prius around the bend. The clouds parted and the moon peeked out. The Prius glinted. She reached for the remote.

  Shit.

  It was at the shack, in her backpack with her cell. She pried at the driver’s door, kicked
futilely at the hatchback to spring it open. She circled the barricade for a rock. Trigger the alarm… In the house across the street a light flickered. How long to rouse a neighbor? The light went out.

  In the greenbelt something moved. A muskrat, or trick of the moon. On the far side of the creek, traffic lights and cars. Down the ravine, up the gravel, across the bike path, through the creek, then God knew what to the main road. Help was two hundred yards but a thousand miles away. Dave couldn’t afford to let them go. By the time a driver stopped it would be too late.

  Four Mile Park’s fence was too high to scale. Between it and the barricade lay a narrow dirt path to the trails. To its right were the cement culvert and storm drains. The drain pipes were two feet wide and ran under the greenbelt to the creek. Was her dad scrawny enough to fit? They had to move fast.

  “I’ve got a plan, Dad.” She led him past the barricade. He saw the pipes and stopped.

  “I’m not going in.”

  “Remember that kid on Gaylord?” She gave it a moment. It didn’t matter if he’d really saved that boy; he could be a true hero now. “Who will we be if we abandon Paul?”

  He dropped his arms. “It was an accident, Lily.”

  Mom.

  “I know, Dad.”

  “She loved you. I put you in the car to change her mind.”

  Lily held out her hand and he took it. Together they slid down the culvert to the storm drains. He was dehydrated, exhausted and weak. He squared his shoulders and with a grim determination turned to the pipes. They looked dry. But rats and raccoons—even foxes and coyotes—needed a dark hole. Make it a game.

  She gestured grandly. “Right or left?”

  “Left.”

  “Look inside. What do you see?”

  “Mud? It smells like sewer gas.”

  Kurtz was gassed. This was no game. “Details, please.”

  “Sticks and twigs. A nest.” He crawled backwards into the pipe. “Bones and fur.”

  They exchanged a brisk nod.

  “Keep your head high, Dad.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Willow roots, gravel, small boulders. She sped across the dark terrain. The shed loomed. Her backpack lay at the threshold. Inside was a hellscape by Hieronymous Bosch. Dave’s easel and table were on their side. A shelf was torn from the wall, tools were scattered. In the corner Paul crouched, a bloody hand raised. Red bloomed across his chest. Dave towered over him with the beet topper.

  No, no.

  The knife was by Paul’s leg. The shovel was too far to reach, but the leg trap was between her and Dave. She grabbed it by the chain. She swung it at the back of Dave’s head. Flecks of dried blood flew. He dropped to his knees and his hair welled with blood. Slowly he turned. Surprise turned to betrayal and rage.

  “Bitch!”

  Dave grabbed the chain and yanked. Her injured hand was no match for his strength. She went flying to the floor by Paul. She scrabbled for the knife but Dave kicked it away.

  “Who’s perfect now, Lily?” he said.

  She lay against Paul’s thigh. Blood had seeped into his Levi’s, the denim sticky on her cheek. Shakily he ran his fingers through her hair. She buried her face in his chest. He murmured something and dropped his hand to her shoulder. He didn’t smell like cloves. He smelled like an iron nail dug from freshly tilled earth.

  No, no…no.

  She looked up at Dave. “It’s a shitty painting.”

  “What? My Monet—”

  “Seven.”

  “It’s Caillebotte’s best.” The beet topper’s blade was honed. Its tip gleamed wetly. “Have some respect.”

  “It’s unoriginal.”

  He snorted. “I made Kurtz into a landscape. How unoriginal is that?”

  “Seven is as dead as Kurtz because it was painted by a fraud.”

  Dave reared back, and her hand slid to the knife.

  “Fraud?” he bellowed. “All art is artifice!”

  She slipped the knife to Paul and closed his fingers around it. He squeezed back, but barely. “Cell’s in my pack,” she whispered.

  Get the bastard good and mad.

  “Caillebotte twisted with the stick end of his brush, Dave. What’d you do with yours, poke? And your impasto’s as watery as soup. Where’d you get such lousy paint?”

  Dave quivered with rage. “I made those pigments!”

  She lunged at him. He dropped the beet topper in surprise and she kicked it aside.

  Take me, not Paul.

  “Never good enough, were you?” She eased backwards. “That varmint knew it. Who was he, your—”

  “Cunt!”

  Dave two steps behind, she ran out the door. Greenbelt or road? One an obstacle course, the other a false haven. She’d never get past the ravine, but the road would lead him to her dad. She had to end it now.

  She made for the ravine.

  ―

  Lily slid down the slope, tearing her jeans on a rock. Thistles and weeds slowed her descent. A stand of cottonweeds marked the bottom of the dry stream bed, a rustic expressway for predators and prey. Clump, clump whoosh. Dave’s thrashing said he wasn’t far behind. The cottonwoods were the only shelter. She crawled to them and crouched behind the largest one.

  The bark was dry and sharp-scented. She inhaled deeply, catching her breath. Catkins had turned to seed. White fluff tickled her eyes and nose. Something brushed against her hip. It had a hunched back and its fur was coarser than a dog’s.

  Don’t look it in the eye.

  The coyote loped off into the scrub.

  Dave was at the edge of the trees. “Paul’s dead, and I have Harry.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Come out and he’s yours. Fair trade.”

  Was her dad in the pipe, or did he crawl out? If the gas didn’t get him, Dave would.

  “Last chance, Lily.”

  Flickety-flick.

  She peered around the cottonwood. The jolly burgher in shirtsleeves and suspenders held a Bic lighter. The brush was tinder.

  Now or never.

  In the flame’s halo, Dave’s eyes did a crazy jig.

  Dad chose the left hole.

  She reached into the gauze on her arm and pulled out the paintbrush. It was a good one, an Isabey—the kind she used in her lab. The tip held a point. The ferule was nice and sturdy. Nothing but the best for Dave. But this wasn’t really for him.

  “This is for the ballerina.”

  She drove the paintbrush deep into his left eye and twisted.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Lily stood across from Michel’s desk.

  “The Caillebotte is forged,” she said.

  “Non.” His smile stopped short of his eyes.

  Gina nodded in vigorous agreement with Michel. With Kurtz dead, Seven was her insurance policy. But Lily had Angela. You have friends in high places, Michel said when he refused to accept her resignation. Pity about the Degas. Lily held her temper.

  “The forger confessed, Michel.” And was proud of it. Dave planned to write a primer on Impressionism, including recipes for authentic paints. He even said where he got the canvas.

  “Non, non.”

  What would he do with all those T-shirts, mousepads, and coffee mugs?

  “At least have Seven tested,” she begged. “There are noninvasive scientific—”

  “Non, non, non.” Michel rose to his full five feet, six inches, signaling the meeting was over. “Scientific analysis deceives. The eye is king.”

  In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man ruled.

  ―

  Lily put a final touch of glaze on the linden wood frame, then stepped back to examine it. Even under the lab’s unforgiving light, the fine red gilder’s clay glowed warmly through the gold leaf. The sixteenth-century cassetta frame was box-like, with a delicate inner molding and a frieze carved with vines and scrolls. It had taken a month to restore, but not too perfectly. It fit the Titian that The Kurtz Foundation was donating to the museum
.

  The Titian was a portrait of an old man with a long beard, piercing eyes and sunken cheeks. In his elegant skullcap and robe, he gazed into the distance. For most of his existence he’d resided in a seventeenth-century French Baroque frame with raised acorns and oak leaves. The Baroque was in good shape, but ornamental and dark. The dilemma was two frames: one in vintage condition, the other restored.

  “Which frame does him justice?” Lily asked her new assistant.

  “The cassetta’s the right period,” Matt said. “You calmed the patina with the glaze...”

  “But?”

  “It’s a pity to junk the Baroque.”

  For an instant she missed Amy, who was back in school for a Master’s in art history. But Matt had a good eye. Once he stopped seeing art through an economic lens, he’d be fine. Occasionally he needed a reminder.

  “Remember what Degas said?” Lily prompted.

  “The frame is the painting’s pimp,” he recited.

  “Which pimp does the old gent deserve?”

  Matt sighed. “The cassetta brings him to life.”

  She smiled at him affectionately. “The Baroque will find another painting to hustle.”

  As usual on Friday afternoon, the staff was gone. The graft on her arm was almost healed, and she slipped off the sling Elena had made from a swatch of Rosie’s mulberry silk. Since Dave’s arrest, her colleagues had kept a respectful but safe distance. Next week, when she shed the sling for good, the last visual reminder of Dave and Kurtz would be gone. She checked her cell for messages. Two from Paul in D.C. Poor baby!

  The beet topper had missed his aorta, but he nearly bled to death and spent nine hours on the operating table. The FBI made a show of medevacking him when he was stable enough to move. Now he itched to return to duty. On her visits, the nurses fawned over him. But when he flew to Denver next month, he’d have to come to terms with Jack. Each had tangled with Dave and won. Her satisfaction was in taking the eye of the man who attacked them and destroyed the ballerina. That one-eyed king would paint no more.