I wondered about Phil Bennett’s caution not to disturb Deborah again. I was familiar with panic attacks. I’d suffered from them since my teens, though it had been five months since I’d had one. Mine were brought on by conflicts between duty and emotion, when my head insisted I do something my heart resisted, or vice versa. Somewhere, buried deep in a drawer, I had an amber vial of Valium pills, prescribed by a doctor, to be taken if I was in a situation that might bring on an attack. I assumed this was what Phil meant when he said Deborah’s attacks were controlled by medication. I was sure this strategy worked well for people whose triggers were airplanes or heights or tight spaces—things that could be anticipated—but my attacks had never been predictable. Five months was the longest I’d gone without one in years. Staying in Busman’s Harbor and loving Chris must have agreed with me on some biological level.
I turned these thoughts over as I bumped back to town along already-potholed Eastclaw Point Road. It was barely December and my teeth rattled as the Caprice, with its complete lack of shock absorption, found every nook and cranny. The heater continued to balk. By the time I got to town, I was freezing and my jaw hurt.
I cruised by our ugly brick fire-department-town-offices-police-complex. If Binder’s official car was there, I would stop and tell him about the gift certificates. There were no state police vehicles in the parking lot, so I kept going.
I pulled my car into my mother’s garage and took a brisk walk down the hill toward the center of town. Walker’s Art Supplies and Frame Shop was in the first block past the corner of Main and Main, right next to Gleason’s Hardware.
I had loved the place when I was a child. The Walkers kept a full supply of children’s craft items like pipe cleaners, tongue depressors, and potholder loops, along with the adult offerings of oil paint, watercolors, and canvases. On Morrow Island, where my family lived in the summer, there was no TV, movies, video games or indoor diversions other than books. My parents were eager to keep Livvie and me occupied, especially on rainy days. Every year before we moved out to the island, we stopped at Walker’s and loaded up on the marvelous craft items in the store. It was like Christmas in June.
A bell over the door jingled as I entered. Barry was bent over his worktable, which occupied a central position in the double storefront. He was cutting a mat to frame a watercolor painting of vibrant spring flowers in a blue vase. He didn’t look up when I entered, which didn’t surprise me. Barry was a little deaf.
I cleared my throat loudly and called, “Hello!”
Barry straightened up slowly, like he was still hurting from his tumble down the hill two nights ago, as Chris had predicted. “Julia Snowden, as I live and breathe. Thinking of taking up art as a hobby now that you’re home? There are some great classes at the Y. Mine, for example.”
I shook my head. “No, not today.”
“Then what brings you to my fine establishment?”
“I want to ask you something about the other night in the restaurant.”
Barry put down his X-acto knife and looked at me. He was a tall man, heavy and jowly. As always, the hair that ringed his bald head stuck out as if he’d had slight contact with an electrical socket. His clothes were baggy and wrinkled, his shoes worn and paint spattered. There was no way around it—Barry Walker was a slob, and in his later years had given up any pretense otherwise.
“Is Fran here?” She usually worked alongside her husband, running the retail side of the business while he cut the frames.
“Nope. Too slow in the winter to keep two of us busy. Last couple winters, she’s worked over at the Cranberry Convalescent Home.”
So once again, my informants at the Sit’n’Knit had been right. I looked around the store. It had always been charmingly disheveled, like its proprietor, but now it seemed dusty and dingy, missing Fran’s touch. The big plate glass windows needed washing and filtered the weak December afternoon light through a haze of dirt. I thought of the store as successful. Artists were the first tourists ever to come to Maine, drawn by the dramatic vistas and bright, flat light. In the summer, it was normal for me to come out of my mom’s and practically stumble over someone sitting on the sidewalk, painting a picture of the house. In fact, if a few days went by and no one set up an easel out front, we began to feel a little neglected. Barry cheerfully met the artists’ needs. In the summer, the store was crowded, but there’d always been enough business for him to stay open all winter. Artists who’d moved permanently to Maine and retirees like Phil Bennett kept it busy. I wondered why things had changed.
Barry’s own paintings lined the back wall. They were abstract, dramatic. Thick applications of acrylic piled on wood in slashes of color. I’d loved his work since I was a child. The paintings never made me think, but they always made me feel. For the first time, as an adult, I wondered about them. They weren’t the kind of art that would be bought by vacationing tourists. Did Barry make his life harder by persisting in this form? If he’d painted lighthouses and waves crashing on rocks, surely he would have sold more.
“I hear Quinn’s home,” I said.
Barry nodded his shaggy head. “She is indeed. Husband trouble, I’m afraid. Still, it’s great to have her and the grandchildren in the house.”
“I want to ask a few questions about the other night,” I said, getting down to business.
“The police were here yesterday. I told them all I could.” Barry sat on a stool beside his workbench and gestured for me to take another. “But fire away.”