The Face of Deceit

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Laurie looked down at him, her eyes bright and flirtatious. “You need to bring your older brothers up here, if they talk like you.” As the heat rose in his cheeks, she laughed. “And especially if they blush like you.”

“French toast is not protein.”

Mason twisted in his seat at the sound of Tyler’s baritone voice to find the officer standing behind him. “No,” he agreed, “but it’s some mighty fine eating.”

“Following us, Mr. Madison?” Karen’s voice teased, but she pulled out the extra chair at the table and motioned for him to sit.

He did, removing his hat. “Not yet. We’re out of coffee at the station, so I came over to get some to-go cups. Mom won’t go to the grocery until this afternoon.”

“Mom?” Mason asked.

Tyler cleared his throat. “My mother is office manager for the police department.”

“Peg’s terrific,” Karen said. “She’s like a mom to the whole town.”

Tyler shifted in his chair, then focused on Karen. “How are you doing?”

She examined her fingernails. “I’m all right. I think.”

Mason touched her arm. “Show him the picture.”

Karen perked back to life. “Oh!” She dug in her purse, pulling out the envelope and handing Tyler the Polaroid. “Those are the four vases. I sold them originally to a dealer in Boston. The name is on the back of the photo, but they moved recently. I’ll e-mail you the new address.”

“Please do. You never know where a clue may pop up.” He held the photo close to his face, studying every detail. “Are they distinctive?”

She shook her head. “Not exactly. I do a lot of vases, many of them of a similar design. Each vase is unique, unlike the others in some way, but they are all of the same type.”

Tyler rubbed his thumb over the print. “What’s this face on them?”

Karen shot a warning glance at Mason and shook her head. “Just one of my trademarks. I do a lot of face vases. They’re my bestselling item.”

“Is it always the same face?”

“More or less. As I said, my trademark. It’s what people expect on a Karen O’Neill face vase.”

“That’s what drew me to do the article,” Mason interjected.

Tyler looked up at him. “What article?”

Mason explained about the magazine article he’d written and his own interest in “face vases.” “One of my grandmothers had a couple of ‘face jugs,’ which tend to be prominent in the South. But sculpting face masks on pottery artifacts is centuries old. Usually they’re stylized, even exaggerated or grotesque.”

Tyler peered at the picture again. “So this isn’t anyone in particular?”

Karen shook her head. “No. Like I said, it’s just out of my head.”

The young police chief squinted. “Looks familiar, though. Are you sure this isn’t based on someone you know?”

Karen’s curls trembled and her lips tightened. “Positive.”

Mason watched, his brow tensing. “It’s the same with writers.”

Tyler looked up from the picture, puzzled by the interruption. “Beg pardon?”

Mason spoke quickly. “Novelists, I mean. They don’t usually base a character on any one specific person. Too easy to get sued, especially nowadays. Characters tend to be composites of people they know, folks they think they know and stuff they just make up. Artists do the same sometimes, especially with abstractions or art like this. Not real. A representation of real.”

“Ah.” Tyler looked back at the photo, obviously not completely convinced. “Good job making it look familiar, anyway. Do you mind if I take this? I’ll get it scanned and get it back to you within a couple of days. And don’t forget to e-mail me that address. I’m sure New York would like to know how the vases got to that auction.”

Karen sighed, a touch of relief on her face. “Keep it as long as you need it. But would you e-mail me the scan? I’ve been meaning to get that done to the old pictures anyway.”

Tyler tucked the picture into his shirt pocket as Laurie brought his four coffees to go in a cardboard box. “Sure. I’ll send it over as soon as I have it.” He stood, put his hat on, then handed Laurie a five-dollar bill as he took the box. “Thanks.”

Mason watched him go, then turned to find Karen staring at him. “What?” he asked.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

He glanced up at Laurie as she set his plate in front of him. “Thanks, Miss Laurie,” he said, picking up his knife and fork. “It looks better than anything even my mama ever put in front of me.”

Laurie grinned. “Thanks, sugar,” she said, picking up on his accent. She placed Karen’s plate down and winked at her. “Don’t let him sweet-talk you into anything.”

Karen stifled a giggle. “I won’t.”

Mason looked from one to the other, his eyes carefully held wide in what he hoped was an expression of innocence. “I have no idea what y’all are talking about.”

“Oh, I’m sure you don’t.” Laurie refilled their cups and beat a discreet retreat.

Mason watched her for a second, then turned back to Karen. “I didn’t have to do what?” he asked, a bite of French toast crowding one cheek.

“Distract Tyler. Thank you for doing it. That was just weird, him looking at the vase as if it were someone he knew.”

Mason swallowed and looked her over carefully. “Karen, how long has Tyler been a cop?”

She paused. “Not sure. Since college, I know. We went to high school together, but he’s older and I didn’t really pay attention. Maybe ten years. Why?”

“All that time here?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

He leaned back in his chair. “I know how you feel about the vases and that face, but you need to think about something, as well. Tyler’s powers of observation are skilled. Trained. This is a small town. He’s going to know most people in this area. Has to—it’s his job. Cops I knew back home could tell you family histories for every kid at the local high school, including who their granddaddies ran around with when they were kids. If he thinks he recognizes the face, then he probably does.”

Karen stared at her plate. “I don’t want to hear this.”

“Why? What if he’s right? What if your memory is picking up on someone you really know and plopping it on those vases?”

She put down her fork and turned to him. “It can’t be.”

“Why not?”

She took a deep breath and dropped her voice so low that he had to lean forward to hear her. “Don’t you understand? That face was chasing me. I was running away because I was terrified. I was running because the person attached to that face was trying to kill me.” Karen leaned back, watching Mason closely, waiting for a response.

He took a deep breath, not wanting to say the words that begged to come out. But if her dreams were a memory trying to work its way out, they were the logical response, the only response. He swallowed hard, dropping his voice. “So has anyone ever really tried to kill you?”

Karen’s eyes met his, evenly, solidly. “Yes.”

From a car across the street, the cold eyes of Luke Knowles’s client watched Karen and Mason’s intimate conversation. “How cozy. Whispering sweetness to him?” The soft voice spoke in the smooth cadences of a practiced speaker, despite the New England edge it held.

The client had not expected Karen and Mason to leave the house so soon, but this provided an advantage, opening up the time frame for the plan by at least fifteen minutes. The client chuckled. A lot could be accomplished in fifteen minutes.

Those blue eyes finally looked away from the café, scanning the street, the mostly closed storefronts. Watching carefully each movement, each blown leaf or strolling citizen. Despicable little town, actually, with its pretentious quaintness and that laughable “arts district.” When this was all over, leaving would be a pleasure as well as a necessity.

But not yet. There was still much to be done, although the first parts of the plan were already in play. First Knowles, now…

The client watched as Tyler Madison bounded out of his office and ran up the street toward the arts district, more lumbering bull than sprinting elk. Even from this distance, the client could hear the rattle and squeak of the leather and metal belts and instruments hanging from the police chief’s body. An even younger—and substantially thinner—officer soon followed, and the client smiled and sat straighter, starting the car’s engine and slipping the car away from the curb. Time for the next step.

THREE

Karen watched as Mason froze for a second, then struggled to swallow the remaining bit of French toast. “You’re not joking, are you?” His voice had a note of disbelief in it, almost as if he wanted her to say she’d only been kidding. He took a quick gulp of coffee, then cleared his throat. “Is this about your parents?”

Karen closed her eyes. She didn’t want to think about it, much less talk about it, but it wasn’t as if it was a big secret; everyone who’d been in Mercer more than a few years knew. She should have realized he would have heard about her parents by now, if not all the details where she was concerned. Sooner or later, Tyler would bring it up, anyway…better that Mason not be caught off guard.

She pushed her plate away and leaned toward him. “Yes. My parents were murdered. I don’t know what you’ve heard, but when I was seven…” Her voice trailed off. No, that was not the way to tell him. She took a deep breath and sat a little straighter, waving away the previous words with one hand. “Most of what I know I’ve learned from folks around town. Old newspapers.” She sighed. “My aunt won’t talk about—but other people have said—” Why is this so hard to say to him! “My father,” she said slowly, “was a real estate agent, one of the most successful in the area. Mom stayed at home with me, and she wanted to make sure neither of us ever got bored. She enrolled me in all kinds of stuff—dance classes, art camps, community theater. I’ve been told she was sweet but quite the determined stage mom. I think she might have had designs on me being a star someday.”

Mason remained still, silent; his eyes focused solely on her face. He did nothing to confirm what he had heard…or what he hadn’t. He just listened.

She took a sip of the coffee. “That day, they tell me I tried out for a local production of Annie. The director later told the police that they loved me. Gave me the role on the spot. My aunt says I had a voice that could make the rafters shake. Mom was so proud. Later, the cops assumed that instead of going home, we went to find Daddy to tell him, to celebrate. Mom had called his office, and his assistant told her about one of his open houses, gave her the address.”

She stopped, hitting the wall of darkness that always occurred at this point in the story. She looked down at her fingernails. Sometimes she wanted to remember; mostly she was glad she couldn’t. Everyone who knew—and sometimes that felt like the whole town—said it was for the best that she never recalled what happened next. Karen took a deep breath.

“Sometime after we arrived, my parents were attacked and killed. Stabbed. A neighbor heard my mother screaming and called the police, but my parents were dead by the time they arrived. They found me in the backyard, bloody and catatonic but alive.”

Mason, frozen in place, muttered something under his breath that she couldn’t quite hear. From the dark look on his face, she was afraid to ask.

“The next thing I remember,” she finished up, “is seeing my uncle Jake when I woke up in the hospital.” She reached for the coffee again. “He had to tell me my parents were gone. No one else would.”

Mason waited, but Karen couldn’t say anything more. She closed her fingers around the cup and tightened her lips, trying to hold back the tears that, more than twenty years after the murders, still edged in from the corners of her eyes.

Finally he let out a long breath. “Is Jake the one who raised you?”

Karen stared at him. Even though the whole town knew the basics of the most infamous unsolved murder in the area, no one who asked about it focused on what had happened afterward. She’d heard enough gasps of shock to last a lifetime. Questions about the killer, whom she couldn’t remember, still swirled in her head. Folks had patted her arm and politely offered their condolences, even years later.

No one had ever asked about the aftermath for her.

She studied him. “Why did you ask that?”

His eyebrows shot up. “I guess it’s the next logical question. The person who came to you in the hospital should be next of kin. I mean, you’ve mentioned that he was your mentor with the pottery, but I don’t think I realized how far back your relationship went.”

She frowned, unsure of his line of thinking. “Jake wasn’t my uncle at the time. Now he is.”

It was Mason’s turn to look confused. He lowered his head and peered at her through his eyelashes. “Say that again.”

Shaking her head, Karen suppressed a grin. “Jake is my uncle now because he married my aunt. Back then, they were still dating.” Her mouth twisted. “My family was odd during that time. Aunt Evie wasn’t sure she wanted to marry an artist, but Jake eventually persuaded her. Shane, my cousin, had it pretty rough, especially before Jake came along. Despite the family money, I’ve heard that my grandmother Elizabeth hated him, made him work for every reward. Jake helped smooth the tension in the family, but Shane left as soon as he could, joined the army and got out. He’s in real estate now. Aunt Evie married pretty young the first time, but her first husband never came back from Vietnam. I guess that’s a bit complex.”

“Not if you’re from the South,” he muttered. “So Jake did wind up raising you?”

“And teaching me pottery—”

“Can you two come with me?”

Karen jumped, twisting to stare at Tyler, who stood behind her chair. Neither of them had heard him come in.

“Now?” Mason asked.

The solemn look didn’t leave Tyler’s face. “Now. Right now.”

Karen glanced at Mason, but he didn’t hesitate. He stood, dropped a twenty on the table and waved his thanks at Laurie. They followed Tyler onto the sidewalk, where he paused only briefly, turning them north toward the tiny arts district of Mercer, speaking as he picked up speed. “Someone broke in to Jane’s gallery and destroyed every piece you had on display.”

Jane Wilson’s Heart’s Art Gallery stood on the corner of Main Street and Fourth, the best location possible, just at the entrance to the Fourth Street Arts Arcade. The rapid growth of Mercer’s arts community in the seventies and eighties had led to an accompanying expansion of tourists to downtown, especially in the summer. The town council had designated Fourth Street as a pedestrian area, closing three blocks of it to motor traffic and planting trees down the middle. Jane’s gallery, specializing in folk art of the area, had flourished, and she’d become one of Karen’s main vendors—and a close friend.