Chapter Eleven
White Mules
Kelsey
excused herself from a conversation with a customer who was reviewing the
hanging photos in her studio. She retreated
through the archway to the office area, where she cleared papers from the circular
table and deposited them on her desk.
Vin Illick and Nicky Hayes were due to visit at
From
under the desk she withdrew a framed photograph. On the wall to the right of the archway, a
photo of a blossoming cherry tree hung at eye level. She took it down and hung the picture from
beneath her desk in its place, then studied the new image. Would it be enough? It had been almost ten weeks since she’d seen
the tracks around the sycamores at Carderock.
They hadn’t come from the parking lot nearby, but from the Billy Goat
Trail below. And the snow had been
cleared from every inch of the railing-boards.
It must have been Vin -- she hadn’t mentioned the spot to anyone
else. Bryce might have heard her
statement at the party but wouldn’t have understood the allusion. The clue led nowhere, but she’d needed to
know whether the hook had been set. Ten
weeks ago it apparently had been. Was it
still? She hoped so, since she couldn’t
find the truth without him.
Vin
parked near the narrow storefront of the Thomas, Ainge Photography Studio. It was Monday, so the lot at the
A
meeting with a wedding photographer and a chance to size up Kelsey Ainge -- two
birds with one stone, he thought. Three
weeks ago they’d finally settled on October 19 as the wedding date. That would give Nicky’s parents a week at
home after they returned from two months in
And
now they needed to pick a photographer.
They’d already met Joel Bettancourt and liked his wedding portfolio, but
Kelsey Ainge had good client references and Nicky agreed they should see her
work as well. Vin still had the business
card she’d given him at their house last fall.
And now he saw its puzzling tagline printed in green on the studio door: Today Made Timeless. He followed Nicky in.
An
entryway table held business cards and a vase filled with spring hyacinths. The front half of the studio was configured
as a gallery, with framed photos hung on a central partition and the windowless
walls. Track lights illuminated the
artwork.
He
couldn’t see anyone in the gallery, but there was an archway at the far end and
a back room behind it. Nicky sidestepped
along the partition, pausing to study each image. Vin walked down to the arch. The back room was an office and Kelsey was
standing next to a desk in the corner, wearing a cardigan sweater and listening
to a prototypical
Kelsey
made eye contact and held up a finger for Vin to indicate she’d be finished
soon. He rejoined Nicky, who was examining
a photo of a bride and groom feeding each other cake, arms entwined. It was shot from an intermediate angle in
black and white.
“I
like the perspective of this shot,” Nicky said.
“And the fact that it’s black and white.
It makes it look…”. She hesitated
for a second.
“Timeless?”,
Vin offered.
“I
don’t know. Maybe ‘classic’ is a better
word.”
He
nodded and put his arm around her waist.
Her hair smelled like lilacs.
They edged down the partition, studying the wedding photos. Vin was glad that their own plans were
finally taking shape. And the process of
nailing things down seemed to have lifted Nicky’s spirit over the last six
weeks. The days following their
ill-starred snowshoeing trip had been dismal.
She had seemed distant and depressed, almost inscrutable for a while,
and he had grudgingly buried himself in the Rottweiler project. At least he’d managed to get the company to
sign off on phase one and accept the invoice he’d sent. And then both he and Nicky had come up for
air at the same time. After all the snow
disappeared in late January. After the
ensuing flood.
It
was his idea to fly to
The
wheels had kept turning after they flew home from
And
while his career planning wasn’t quite on the same trajectory, he knew that
Nicky had grown more comfortable with his consulting situation. Rottweiler had paid him for phase one and
he’d recently submitted a proposal for phase two. Phase three would probably last into the
fall, so it didn’t make sense to look for a job until after the wedding. The truth was that he’d become attached to
the flexibility of working at home; it allowed him to go for a bike ride on a
short winter day or take Randy for a run on the towpath before it got
dark. Or spend a few hours at the
library, though he hadn’t done that recently.
That might be another reason Nicky seemed more relaxed. She thought his “treasure hunt” -- his
fascination with Lee Fisher’s note and the 1924 event at Swains Lock -- was
ebbing or over.
On
the surface it appeared she was right, but deep down Vin wasn’t sure. He knew that the words in Lee’s note had infected
him, and that though the virus might be in remission, it wasn’t entirely
gone. Joined sycamores, Lee Fisher, K.
“Good
white mules are really hard to find.”
Vin was startled from his reverie.
Kelsey had approached so quietly that he hadn’t noticed her. She was looking over their shoulders at a
color shot of a bride’s silk hemline, with tanned legs and pedicured feet
extending from a white folding chair into lush grass. The bride wore white, backless shoes with
open toes and crossing straps. One foot
was halfway out of its shoe and the shoe had capsized in the grass.
“I’m
sure they are,” Nicky said. “Those are
gorgeous, but we’re getting married in October, so I don’t they would work for
me.”
“A
little too summery,” Kelsey agreed. She
led them back through the archway to the office area and offered seats at the circular
table. Vin put his folded sunglasses on
the tabletop while Nicky asked if Kelsey was available on October 19. Kelsey said she was, then asked standard
questions about the wedding size, venue, and time of day.
Vin
surveyed the room as Nicky answered.
There were L-shaped desks on each side, with their vertices in the back
corners. Landscape photos and nature shots
hung on all the walls, and waist-high bookcases girded the front half of the
room. In response to something Nicky had
said, Kelsey walked over to a bookcase, pulled out an album, and brought it to
the table.
“I
loved this wedding,” she said, “and what you’re describing reminded me of
it.” She oriented the album and Nicky
studied the photos on the first page.
“The
stone house is beautiful.”
“It
was at an old estate that had been converted into a vineyard. The reception was in a barn the owners had
turned into a tasting room, and there was a huge patio with a view down the
hillside and out over the vines.”
Nicky
rotated the album to give Vin a better viewing angle. When they’d finished reviewing it, Kelsey
slid a glossy data sheet across the table that laid out the parameters of her
wedding packages. As Nicky read them and
Vin scanned sideways, Kelsey rose to answer the phone. Vin watched her glide to her desk. Very cat-like.
He
stood up and was drawn to a photo on the far wall of a great blue heron
standing in a shallow bog. “Heron --
Dierssen Waterfowl Sanctuary” was written in pencil under the print. A nearby color shot showed a seven-arch stone
bridge spanning a tranquil body of water, the late-afternoon sun imparting a
pinkish hue to the stones. It was titled
“Monocacy Aqueduct --
“Pretty,
isn’t it?” Nicky had joined him. “Do you think we should get a quote?”
“Sure -- knowledge saves.” They turned as Kelsey approached, apologizing for the interruption. Nicky said they’d like an estimate based on her standard package, so Kelsey took down their mailing address.
“It
sounds like you have a vision for the event,” she said, “which I always hope for
when I talk to couples about a wedding.
It’s important to know what you want,” she added, turning toward Vin,
“and to know why you’re here.”
He
smiled tightly, canine teeth pressed to his lower lip, and glanced over her shoulder
at his sunglasses lying on the table.
“Thanks
for your time,” Nicky said.
“I
enjoyed it,” Kelsey said. “I’ll be in
touch.”
Vin
followed Nicky back to the archway, then stepped sideways to examine the
picture hanging beside it. It was a
close-up of a sunlit stone block in a scarred old wall. The block’s gray face was stained with
patches of white and pale-green lichen, and the branching shadow of a sapling
curved across an upper corner. Its right
side helped form the edge of the wall.
Carved into the block was a symbol he had seen before.
He
felt suddenly lightheaded as he remembered where. In the old shed, on the plank that had
guarded the drill, the photo, and Lee Fisher’s note. He leaned closer to read the penciled words
below the image. “Mason’s Mark --
She
was reviewing the photos on the other side of the partition. On the way to the car, they compared what
Kelsey had shown them with what they’d seen from Joel Bettancourt. Vin was neutral and Nicky liked Kelsey’s work
a little better, so price might be the deciding factor. As he was backing out of their parking spot,
Vin braked and looked at Nicky.
“I
forgot my sunglasses. I must have left
them in her office.”
Nicky
sighed disapprovingly. “At least you
realized it before we got home.”
He
double-parked and hopped out, leaving the engine running, and jogged to the studio
door. When he reached the archway,
Kelsey was off the phone. She looked up from
her desk as he entered. “I thought you
might be back.”
“I
forgot my sunglasses,” he said with a smile that vanished instantly. He retrieved them and circled toward her desk,
squinting at her in silence for a second.
“And I forgot to tell you something.”
She
raised her eyebrows inquisitively.
“Be
careful on the Billy Goat Trail below Carderock. There’s a bridge out.”
“I’d
heard about that.”
“And the warning sign is poorly placed.”
Her gray-green eyes flitted left and right, steadied.
He
gestured to the photo beside the archway. “That’s an interesting picture,” he
said tersely. “A mason’s mark?”
She
nodded. “That’s what a park ranger
called it when I showed it to him.”
“It
reminds me of a symbol a friend of mine showed me once. Maybe you know him. Lee Fisher.”
She gave a thoughtful look and shook her head. He searched for a hint of uncertainty or
guilt but couldn’t find one. “One more
question,” he said. “Is there something
you want from me?”
She
stood up and leaned her thigh against the top of her desk, regarding him calmly. “I want you to find what you’re looking for.”
“That’s
funny. I was starting to get the
opposite impression.”
He turned to leave but pivoted in the archway. “I just thought of something my friend Lee
once said: ‘be careful you don’t share
my fate.’ You might run into those words
in a library book sometime.”
“That’s good advice,” she said with a smile
that reinforced his suspicions. “I’ll
keep it in mind.”