A Grave Talent

away, looking slightly embarrassed.

'Write him out a receipt of some kind, would you, Casey?' he asked, but she already had her notebook in her hand. As she finished, a thought occurred to her.

'Mr. Jameson, that painting of the lumberman's daughter? And any others people around here might have— does anyone know what it is they have? An early Eva Vaughn would be a pretty valuable thing, I would have thought.'

'Nobody but the family knows. We don't talk about her. She wanted it that way.'

Kate could well imagine that. This family's ability to keep their mouths closed was probably the only thing that had stood between Eva Vaughn and a massive influx of vultures, disguised as reporters, onto the dirt of Tyler's Road.

Hawkin moved towards the paintings, but Jameson stopped him.

'Leave them here,' he ordered. 'You can bring your car over for them later. If we make Becky hold lunch for us, she won't be happy.' He turned to the door and then drifted the wheels to a halt against his callused palms. Something else was on his mind. 'It's not good,' he said finally. 'I don't like not knowing just how she is. I want you to have them tell us the truth. You can do that.'

Hawkin took out a small notebook and pen, wrote a few words, and then handed the sheet to Jameson.

'This doctor can tell you whatever you want. I'll let him know you'll be calling.'

'Thank you.' He folded the sheet carefully and buttoned it into a shirt pocket. He took a last look at the studio and shook his head. 'I often wonder what Vaun would have been like if she didn't have this… 'gift.' Curse is more like it. It's made her life hell; it tortured her mother. God forgive me, I can't help but think it was also at the back of Jemma's death and now these three—' He stopped, took a long and shaky breath, exhaled carefully, took off his cap and ran a hand across his hair, and put control back on along with the hat. 'I remember an essay she wrote once in high school, an English assignment. Becky still has it somewhere. They were supposed to write on a word, any word, to research it and say what it meant to them, that kind of thing. Vaun chose the word talent. She started out talking about a talent as a kind of Roman coin and then went on to say that money was a form of energy, neither good nor bad in itself, just energy. 'It's how the talent is spent that makes the difference,' that's how the paper ended. Clever, it was, better than most of her schoolwork. But sad. At that time, she thought she was in charge. She never has been. Her talent has eaten her up, from the time she was a bitty little girl. She can never be normal, never be free and happy, not while this 'gift' has her. I think she knows it, too, now. I'm sure she does. It's a terrible thing to say, but I wasn't all that surprised when I heard she'd tried to kill herself. She's a sad girl, is my Vaunie. Not just sad, I don't mean to say that, but she has very few dreams left. All she has is her 'gift' and the world she paints. All she has is her eyes and her hands, and if one of them fails, that will be the end of her.'

He turned his head and looked straight up at Kate, and she was shocked to see tears brimming into his tough eyes. 'I love Vaun like a daughter, and this talent of hers is not a happy thing. I wouldn't wish it on an enemy.' He blinked, gave the paintings a final glance, and yanked hard at his wheels, disappearing down the ramp at a heart- stopping speed. He was halfway to the house before Kate and Hawkin caught up with him.

17

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The house smelled of onions and hot cheese and nutmeg. Kate excused herself and ducked into the small bathroom just inside the back door. She was relieved to find that the blood had only reached as far as the lining of her jacket. She took off her blouse, pulled off the soaked bandages, and replaced them with two sterile pads and a plastic-backed six-inch square, held down with lengths of tape. It was awkward, but she got it on. She sponged off her blouse, one chosen that morning for the dark colors and all-over pattern, dried it with toilet paper, and got dressed again. Wrapping the gory evidence in more toilet paper, she thrust it into the waste basket, used the toilet, washed her hands, opened the door, and nearly collided with a tall man with red hair whom she had last seen as a boy on canvas, splitting wood.

His arrogant blue eyes probed lazily over her body from hair to ankles before rising slowly to her own eyes. She felt herself stiffen and blocked it immediately, but she could never do much about the impersonal smile that came to her lips when this happened, the civilized version of the raised-hackle snarl.

'Well, well,' he said. 'I must say that when Mom told me a police lady was coming today, I didn't expect someone like you. I'm Ned Jameson, and I'll shake your hand when I'm a bit cleaner.'

'Casey Martinelli. Isn't the ground a bit wet for turning today?' she asked innocently, and she was unprofessionally gratified to see a flush of anger start up, before he decided that it was the simple question of a female nonfarmer.

'A bit. Not too bad.' He turned to put the black rubber boots he carried onto a sheet of newspaper near the door, and she glanced at his clothes. Mud from knee to hips and fingertip to shoulders was probably not normal. She turned away to conceal her smile.

The cat had disappeared from the window seat, Kate noticed, replaced by Hawkin, who was seriously discussing a multicolored, much-jutting Lego construction with a small brown-haired boy in patched jeans, while a toddler with a head of the most stunning red curls Kate had ever seen sat glued to Hawkin's other side, her little round body twisted forward to watch their faces as she followed the conversation with serious concentration.

Kate exchanged an amused look with Red Jameson and moved to one side to let pass a slim woman with darker red curls and a heavy casserole in her hands. She plunked the pot on the table, wiped her hands unnecessarily on her apron, and held out her hand to Kate.

'Joanna Olsen. The two monsters are mine, Teddy and Marta. My neighbor was going to watch them for me but one of hers is coming down with something, so we'll just have to shout over them.'

'They'll be fine, Joanna,' said her mother's voice from behind Kate. 'Let's sit down now, Miss Martinelli there, and Alonzo, you can sit there.'

'It's Casey, Mrs. Jameson.'

'Then I'm Becky. What's wrong, Teddy? Oh, all right, you can move your chair next to him. Where's Ned?'

'Upstairs changing. He was kind of muddy.'

'I told him…' began his father.

'Now, Red, we know you told him not to, but he was anxious to do something and he's gone next week, so he had to try. You'd have done the same thing when you were thirty. We won't wait for him, though. Some salad, Casey?' Her voice was almost sharp and she thrust the bowl to her guest in an emphatic change of topic. 'I hope you like tomatoes. Ned grows them year-round in his greenhouse.'

Lunch was a full farmhouse meal, a hot dish of chicken and herbed rice, hot mixed vegetables and a salad, two kinds of bread rolls, three jams, and bottled spiced peaches for dessert. Kate ate more than she usually ate in an entire day, and when after the meal Joanna carried a heavy-lidded Marta off upstairs, she wished she could join the child, thumb in mouth and all.

Ned Jameson had come in halfway through the meal and dug into the food with great concentration, answering direct questions without looking up from his plate. The conversation eddied around him, his sister juggling admonitions to her offspring with tales of her cousin Vaun, of whom she was obviously very fond and very proud. Red and Becky Jameson contributed, and even Teddy piped up.

'Auntie Vaun is teaching me to paint. She said that if I like it I can have my own paints maybe for Christmas. She painted a picture of me. I had to sit very still, and she gave me a Lego space cruiser to put together so I'd sit still enough, but Matty's too little to do that, so she just makes drawings of her.'

'I've seen that painting,' said Hawkin. 'It looks just like you.'

'Was that in her studio?' asked Kate.

'When I was there yesterday,' he said, nodding.

'Did you see Auntie Vaun?' Teddy asked quickly. 'She's sick, isn't she? Is she going to be all right?'

Spoons around the table stopped in midair. Ned Jameson's jaws went still as he awaited Hawkin's pronouncement, oddly intent.

'You like your Auntie Vaun, don't you?' Hawkin asked the child.

'I love her,' he said simply. 'And she loves me.'

'I could see that in the painting. I hope she'll be okay. I'm not a doctor, but some good doctors are taking