The Lighthouse

To the left of the front door was a three-foot-high raised platform, also painted white, displaying a group of driftwood birds. Each was composed of a single piece of wood, perched on spindly coathanger legs. Beady eyes, which were actually bits of broken glass, stared blankly. The beaks were made of bluish-black mussel shells; the wings of seagull feathers, several of which made the birds look as if they were molting. Alix shook her head and turned to the right, where a similar platform held a collection of items made from shells. Some of these weren’t bad: simple, gracefully formed nautiluses and conches-undoubtedly ordered from a supplier rather than plucked from the hazardous local beaches-mounted on plain wooden bases. Others, however, were standard tourist fare: coasters and trays with shells laminated under plastic; abalone-shell ashtrays; oven-proof dishes made from what a clam had once called home. A larger, taller central platform directly under the skylight held other grotesqueries: driftwood lamps with hideous pleated shades; ceramic sea lions and brass whales; redwood burl clocks. Above all this, suspended from hooks around the edges of the skylight, were garishly glazed pottery windchimes. The breeze that had followed Alix inside caught them, making them clank and jangle.

The place was deserted. But after a few seconds, a slender, wiry woman with long dark hair pulled back in a severe knot appeared in an open doorway behind the sales desk. “Be with you shortly,” she called.

“Don’t hurry. I just want to browse.”

Alix moved to the wall at the left as the woman disappeared again and examined the paintings there. They were of different types: standard seascapes, poorly done, almost of a paint-by-the-numbers quality; cutesy depictions of birds, seals, and sea lions that imparted almost human qualities to the creatures; photographs of the neon-light school, sentimental iridescent scenes of lovers wandering the shoreline. But interspersed among these were occasionally startling canvases, abstract oils that were close to being good-good enough to make her stop in front of one and then another.

True primary colors. Crisp lines. Hard-edged forms. Slick, sophisticated Cubism, reminiscent of the work of American abstractionists of the twenties. Too slick, though. And there was something else wrong with them too…

She moved on to a third canvas, a study in red, yellow, and blue, with occasional stiff intrusions of black and white. Something disturbing about this one, too. But what? On the surface, sterility. Too strict an adherence to color and form. Didn’t express anything. But underneath… yes, strong emotion tightly reined. It made her wonder what the work would be like if he-she? — really let go.

Alix leaned forward to read the small signature at the bottom of the canvas: C. Lang. Lang’s Gallery and Gifts. Most likely the work of the owner. She wondered if the dark-haired woman who was working in back-she could hear vague sounds coming through the open doorway-was C. Lang, or merely an employee. It would be interesting to find out-to perhaps talk shop with someone who had at least a measure of talent.

She owed herself some pleasure this morning, which was the reason she’d stopped here in the first place. She’d been on her way into Hilliard with a load of dirty laundry when she’d spotted the gallery and decided to stop in and put off her chores a little longer. Not that anything she experienced today would be truly pleasurable; she was tired and had one of those scratchy headaches that come from a restless night. Jan had not returned until almost midnight, long after she had crawled into the four-poster; and when he’d come in he had tiptoed around, obviously thinking her asleep and trying not to wake her. If she could have asked him why he’d lied to her, perhaps found out that he’d simply overlooked the half-full tobacco pouch, then she might have rested better. But somehow she had preferred uncertainty to the prospect of a long middle-of-the-night confrontation. And now she was paying for it with a headache.