Suspicion

She looked at the therapist. “Hmm?”

“Whose hand is it?”

Ava shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“When did you start having these dreams?”

“They started after my mother…” She couldn’t seem to finish.

“After your mother died,” the therapist said.

The word reverberated in Ava’s head, clanged like a bell, louder and louder. She hugged herself, hands tucked under her arms, pressing down hard. Her heart felt swollen in her chest. “It’s been three months now. I stay up most of the night because I dread going to sleep. I can’t work. I’ve started a dozen different things and they’re all awful and I’ve got this new commission and I’m scared to death.”

“What do you think the dream represents?”

She looked at the therapist, a cool, thin-faced woman from the mainland sitting upright in her chair, hands folded neatly in her lap. She wore brown linen slacks and a cream silk blouse.

“Ava, whose hand is pushing you down?”

Ava shook her head. The silence lengthened, began to feel unbearable. She had an insane urge to scream. An ear-shattering scream like a siren, bouncing off the walls, bringing everyone outside to see what had happened. The therapist had brown hair, cut close to her head. She seemed so… Ava tried to think of a word. Controlled. Yes, that was it. Ava glanced around the room. Two of the plastic slats on the miniblinds were twisted, the framed print on the wall was a Matisse, a bridge and trees, all green and wavery like an underwater scene. God, she couldn’t stand the silence. Her chest was bursting, the scream welling up inside her. Help me.

“Ava, our time’s up.” The therapist stood and moved to her desk. “I’ll be here on the island again next Monday.” She opened a black appointment book and smiled at Ava. “Does this time work for you?”

“Yes,” Ava said, then, “Uh, actually, no.” She smiled so that the therapist wouldn’t take this personally. “I think I just need to figure things out for myself.”

The therapist eyed her for a moment. “Well, you have my number.” She took a business card from a black plastic holder on the desk. “My after-hours number is there, too.”

SCOTT CAMPBELL sat under one of the woven umbrellas at the Descanso Beach Club and tried not to feel irritated that Ava Lynsky was now ten minutes late for their ten-thirty interview. There were worse places to wait for someone to show up. He glanced around the sun-splashed patio just to make sure he hadn’t missed her. He’d never met Ava Lynsky, but she’d described herself when she called to set up the interview. “Long black hair and…” She’d laughed. “Some people say I look kind of like Andie MacDowell.”

Scott glanced at his watch again. Flipped open his notebook, drew a square and then another interlocking square. On the way to interview her, he’d paid a quick visit to the Catalina Historical Society. Back in the mid 1880s the Lynskys had briefly held deed to the island. Later, after it changed hands again, Samuel Lynsky had been partners in the Santa Catalina Island Company. By the time chewing-gum magnate William Wrigley bought the island in 1919, Lynsky and his growing family were involved in just about every aspect of Catalina commerce, from silver and zinc mining to hotel construction and steamship transportation.

Ava Lynsky was an artist. Decorative tiles, she’d told him. His notion of tiles was the type sold in boxes in the flooring department of home-improvement stores; he had no idea what decorative tiles were, but apparently she had a gallery full of them. She’d called to arrange publicity for an upcoming reception. The purpose of today’s interview was to give him some background.

He was more interested in the death of her mother. Three months ago, Diana and Sam Lynsky III had boarded their twenty-six-foot Columbia, Ramblin’ On, and set out for a sail to mark their fortieth wedding anniversary. They’d eaten lunch around noon and then Sam Lynsky, recovering from a bout of flu, had taken a nap in the aft cabin. When he awoke an hour or so later, he told sheriff’s deputies later that day, his wife was gone. A land-and-sea search turned up no sign of the body, and although the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department had not officially closed the case, the consensus was that Diana Lynsky had drowned.

Ava’s father was a local pediatrician, a cofounder of the island’s small municipal hospital and something of a local legend. As the father of a fourteen-year-old daughter, Ellie, whose behavior of late invariably left him scratching his head, Scott was particularly interested in the child-rearing book Lynsky had written. Dr. Sam’s Unorthodox, Iconoclastic and Occasionally Hilarious Guide to Child Raising was prominently displayed in the local bookstore.

Sam Lynsky had offered to take him on a tour of the island that afternoon, and Scott planned to use the opportunity to find out what child-rearing advice the doctor might have. The prospect of Ellie’s upcoming visit filled him with an equal mix of dread and anticipation. Anger at himself, too. Where along the way had he lost touch with what made his daughter tick?

Twelve minutes late now. Scott clasped his hands behind his head and thought about the story he’d written a year or so ago. A honeymoon couple on a Bahamian cruise. A moonlit stroll on the deck, no one else around. She’d lost her balance, the distraught bridegroom said. A week later, the groom was charged with her murder. Such things happened.

He’d had it with crime and grime, though. Ten days ago he’d done his final interview for the Los Angeles Times. A profile of a homeless poet. He’d spent an entire day on skid row getting background. And now he was living on Santa Catalina, the new publisher and editor of the island’s weekly newspaper. A new life for him and, he secretly hoped, for Ellie, although he wasn’t naive enough to suppose his ex-wife would relinquish their daughter without a struggle.

He banished thoughts of Laura to the back of his mind and gazed out at the shimmering horizon. Santa Catalina Island, a submerged mountain range, twenty-one miles long and eight miles wide at its widest point. The island was mostly unpopulated except for the two-square-mile town of Avalon, where three thousand people lived year around and about ten thousand during the summer. Santa Catalina, twenty-two miles off the coast of California and, as the brochures promised, “A world away from the smog, traffic and fast-paced life of the mainland.”

Scott stretched his legs, which still bore the pallor of his former life, led mostly indoors. After two days on Catalina, he’d given up dressing as he had at the Times. The blazers and dress shirts were gone. He wore jeans to the council meetings, and the rest of the time it was Bermuda shorts and one of the ten polo shirts he’d found for fifty cents each at a Salvation Army thrift shop in Glendale.

Out in the harbor one of the high-speed catamarans that traversed the stretch of water between the island and the mainland was churning huge arcs of foaming wake as it plowed past the art deco roof of the Casino carrying yet another boatload of camera-snapping, luggage-toting tourists into Avalon.

“Scott.”

He turned. Ava Lynsky looked more like Snow White than Andie McDowell, he decided. Porcelain skin, red lips and a lot of black curly hair, barely contained by a red bandanna tied peasant-style around her head. She wore a yellow sundress and held the leash of a white poodle the size of a small donkey. The poodle wore a red-and-blue cape.

The dog looked at Scott and growled.

“Henri. Be nice.” Ava Lynsky grabbed the dog’s cape in one hand and pushed at his rump with the other. “Sit, like a good boy.” She smiled at Scott. “Am I late?”

“Fourteen minutes,” he said. “Traffic?”

She stared at him.

“I’m being facetious,” he said. Avalon restricted the number of cars on the island. Golf carts, bicycles and scoot-ers were the preferred means of transportation. His first day on Catalina he’d walked through the entire town in fifteen minutes. “Shall we?” he said.

“Oh, my God, Ava!” A woman in a tropical-colored sarong broke loose from a nearby table to wrap Ava in an enthusiastic embrace. “Sweetie.” She stood back to peer into Ava’s face. “How are you?”

“Peachy.” Ava smiled. “Fantastic.”

“Really?” The woman looked doubtful. “Really, really?”

“Absolutely.” Ava nodded at Scott. “This is Scott Campbell, the Argonaut’s—”

“New editor.” The woman clutched Scott’s arm and beamed at Ava. “This is such a wonderful girl and I just know the sun’s going to start shining for her again. All the stormy weather’s over, sweetie. From now on it’s rainbows and sunshine. And look at that ring.” She grabbed Ava’s left hand. “Have you set the date yet?”

“Probably next summer. After I’ve finished the project I’m working on.”

“And you’re doing better?” Again she peered into Ava’s face. “Doing okay?”

“Have you been ill?” Scott asked after the woman left.

“Of course not.” Her face tinged a pale pink, she removed a pair of sunglasses, a leather-bound portfolio and a bag of potato chips from a red canvas bag. She slipped on the sunglasses, set the portfolio on the table and ripped open the bag of chips. “I could eat my elbow,” she said.

Scott opened his notebook.

“Don’t write that down.” She held out the bag. “Help yourself.”

“No thanks.”

She took a chip, adjusted her sunglasses, glanced down at the dog. Smiled across the table at Scott. “Okay, let’s talk about my work,” she finally said. “What do you know about Catalina tiles?”

“Nothing,” Scott said.

“Well, hand-painted tiles are a Catalina tradition.” She dipped into the bag of chips again. “They’re wonderful. Incredible jewel-like colors. You’ll see them all over Avalon. There’s a beautiful example right in the center of town, the Sombrero Fountain. And the Casino has an exquisite tiled mural of a mermaid in the foyer. You might want to take a look.”

“These are pieces you painted?”

“No.” Her strained expression suggested the stupidity of the question. “Those are historic tiles. The tiles I paint are mostly used in private homes. My theme is the magic and wonder of childhood.” She crossed her legs. “A reflection, you might say, of my own childhood.”

Elbows on the table, Scott regarded her for a moment. She had a tiny fleck of potato chip in the bow of her lip. He debated whether to mention it and decided against it. “Your own childhood was magical?”