Still Lives(22)

No wonder Lynne had looked so furious at the press conference. She hates that sort of Da Vinci Code stuff—conspiracies and quests embedded in paintings.

“Kim Lord’s only been gone forty-eight hours,” I say. “It’s hardly even a police case yet.”

“She’s a famous person and she didn’t appear at her own party. That makes people very nosy.” Kevin pulls out his notebook, reading, “‘The typical still life gives the artist more freedom of arrangement than landscapes or portraits do.’ Freedom of arrangement. Clues.”

“Wow. Rock critic graduates to investigative reporter,” I say sharply.

Kevin grabs a greasy brown bag from the back seat and offers me a foil-wrapped burrito. “Why not?” he says. “I know how to track down leads. But it’d be helpful to hear your take. You know a lot more about this world than I do.”

I accept the burrito, but I’m bothered by his words. Tracking down leads. Like that’s the job. Getting quotes and facts. Never look for the what, Jay Eastman told me. Find the who. Who gets hurt. Who gains. Whose life will never be the same.

I clutch the warm saggy package in my palm. “My take is this: A couple of years ago, an artist barricaded the entrances to his gallery on opening night. He wanted all the fancy insider guests to experience the exclusion of the art world,” I say. “That’s the kind of stagy thing they do these days. They don’t make treasure maps.”

“Maybe not.” Kevin shows me his notebook, filled with small sketches. “But I counted twenty-seven objects in ‘Disappearances.’ Most of it is food: apples, lemons, that sort of thing. But she also included this.” He flips a page to a drawing of a circular object with smaller circles on it. “Recognize it?”

I tell him no.

“It’s an old-time microphone, the kind used by Aimee Semple McPherson. It’s in many of McPherson’s pictures. The artist even painted a faint cross on this one.” He nods at the temple, and I finally connect the name with the female radio evangelist who amassed a huge following giving sermons here in the 1920s and ’30s.

I scan the building. The small windows at the top unnerve me. They look like they belong on a prison. I can’t remember McPherson’s whole life, only that it didn’t end well.

“Was she murdered, too?”

“Abducted. Take a bite and I’ll tell you,” says Kevin.

The burrito is tangy and delicious, and Kevin tells me the whole sordid story. The year is 1926 and Aimee Semple McPherson—in her midthirties, overworked, and embattled in local politics—goes for a swim at Venice Beach and disappears. Her followers flock to the coast to search for her body. One drowns. A diver dies of exposure. The media circus reaches a zenith when the Los Angeles Times hires a plane and a parachutist to search the ocean. A little over a month later, McPherson reappears in a small Mexican town, walking out of the desert, claiming she was drugged and kidnapped by an outlaw couple named Steve and Mexicali Rose. Not only is McPherson’s story full of holes, but it also comes to light that a woman who looked very much like the evangelist spent several weeks in a Carmel hotel with McPherson’s married radio engineer, Kenneth Ormiston.

“But the truth of her abduction was never proved,” says Kevin.

“So the last painting is about abductions,” I say. “But what would be Kim’s motivation for faking her own?”

“When was her last major show?”

“Ten years ago.”

“Isn’t that a long time between big shows? Wouldn’t she need this one to make a splash and drive her prices high?”

I would love to bust Kevin’s theory by telling him about the press release that Jayme showed me, but I can’t. It’s too big a secret to share with a reporter, let alone one I hardly know. “What does your editor think of your angle?” I ask.

Kevin rubs his beard and gazes up at the temple. “I haven’t told her yet. I need more time here.” Then he holds out his hand for my crumpled burrito wrapper. “And, yes, I detect the subtle sarcasm in your voice. She is my fiancée. Of five years.”

“More inquiry than sarcasm,” I say. “Five years?”

“It’s a long story.” He glances at me. “You have one, too, I think.”

“Had.” It’s my turn to avoid eye contact. We both lapse into silence.

“I should get back to work,” I say, brushing tortilla crumbs from my skirt.

Kevin sighs and taps the steering wheel, as if remembering some musical beat, then restarts the car.

“She’d have to have deceived everyone she knows, and risk the backlash when she reappears,” I say. “It would be a huge price to pay.”

A woman in a white dress enters the temple, her head bowed as if she’s already starting to pray. The park and the lake beyond the building make a quiet oasis in the city, without the distracting parade of cars and ads for jeans. I wish I could stay in this pocket of calm.

“But it’s enough of a theory for your story,” I add. “You should write it.”

“Yeah.” Kevin sounds relieved to be back on topic. “There are some holes, I admit. What would you pitch to an editor?”

We pull out into traffic again.

“I wouldn’t even know where to begin,” I say before the silence gets too uncomfortable.