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“They broke through the wall this morning,” Beauvoir continued. “And found the painting and other items.”
This was too much for Amelia. “Painting? What?”
“Oui.”
“Sealed in a hidden room?”
Amelia Choquet, tattooed and pierced, a former heroin addict and prostitute, was surprised by very little in life except, perhaps, kindness. But this surprised her.
“The painting was made to look old,” said Beauvoir, “but isn’t. Made to look like a copy of a masterpiece, but isn’t.”
Cloaked in cynicism and armored by indifference, Amelia rarely showed interest, but she could not hide it now. “And sealed up a hundred and sixty years ago?”
“We should show her,” said Jean-Guy.
“You do that, I’m going over to Clara’s. I’ll meet you in Myrna’s loft when I’m done.”
Myrna, downstairs in the bookstore, greeted Amelia like another niece. Since Myrna was a purveyor of books, and the young agent was addicted to them, this made the bookseller her pusher, though actually more like her priestess.
“Find anything?” Beauvoir asked Olivier and Billy, who’d just finished examining the ceiling.
“We think there’s a section that’s been repainted,” said Olivier, “but hard to tell.”
Once in the loft, they stood at the jagged hole in the wall.
“Holy shit,” whispered Amelia. She stared at the painting, her concentration so complete she forgot to click her tongue post. But if she had, it would have been three short. Three long. Three short.
CHAPTER 19
“Bonjour?” Armand called. “You home?”
“In the studio,” came Clara’s singsong reply.
“Can I come in?”
“Of course.” The words were slurred by the brush between her teeth like a bit, but he understood the gist.
Armand stood on the threshold of her studio and watched her work. The large, vaulted room smelled of oil paints and old banana peels, turpentine and an undercurrent of lemon. Not the chemical, headache-inducing scent of lemon cleaner. This smelled of lemonade in summer, and lemon meringue pie at celebrations. It smelled of gin and tonics with a twist on the terrasse on hot afternoons, and honey and lemon tea to soothe a sore throat when sick.
As he watched, Clara applied thick swirls to the canvas. Not with a brush—that remained forgotten in her mouth—but with a palette knife. Great globs went on, apparently at random, with abandon.
Clara Morrow was the real thing. A genuine artist. Not because she was a success—that came and went—but because she was bold and creative. And brave. Audacious. She tried new things, took chances, and evolved.
What was on her easel now was like nothing Gamache had seen her do before. It was abstract, almost aggressive.
She put on one more slash of paint, considered it, then turned to face him.
She was smiling. Her face dabbed with paint, and her expression filled with delight.
“Why so happy?” he asked.
“I was just thinking about Anne Lamarque.” She took the brush from between her teeth, smearing more paint in her hair and on her cheek, and used it to motion at the canvas. “She was punished for many things, including being happy. So I wanted to capture that. The power of it. Happiness as an act of defiance. A revolutionary act.”
He looked at the canvas and saw bold swirls of reds and greens and yellows. And bright blues. All intermingled. They formed no image. And he got no feeling.
He closed his eyes. Paused. When he opened them, he let the painting come to him. To enter through his heart, not his head. With Clara’s painting, like all great works of creation, there was more than met the eye.
And then he saw it. Or, rather, felt it. Without realizing it, he began to smile. The image itself would become clear later, when she’d finished. Or not. Maybe it already was clear. In her smile, and his.
