The Portrait of Doreene Gray
Â
To Angel Joe
and the 'rents, and to
the people of
Port Townsend, Washington
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Acknowledgments
Humongous thanks to Jennifer Unter, my agentâyou're a star. Thanks to Marcia Markland, editor; Kat Brzozowski, assistant editor; Sarah Melnyk, publicity manager; and all the other folks at Thomas Dunne Books. Big thanks to Susan Schwartzman, for her great publicity work.
Thanks to all the people who gave such nice reviews to
Chihuahua of the Baskervilles.
Bless you.
Special thanks to Dominick Sekich, who introduced me to another “Doreene” and sparked the whole book. I'll miss having you next door.
Thanks to Chihuahua mavens Nikki Figular (
ObsessiveChihuahuaDisorder.com
) and Ada Nieves (
AdaNieves.com
), and all the other Chi lovers out there (Fawn Frazer, Jan Sugden, Gail Hansen, Debra Gilbert, and I know I'm missing some), for your support of this series. I couldn't write for a better group of people. (P.S. In my mind, Gigi looks just like Nikki's Chico.)
Big thanks to Rhonda Beytebiere, of the Point Hudson Marina, and Walt at PT Outdoors, for help with boating questions, and Kate Burke, Fort Worden Parks Manager, for her help with those big trees! Thanks to Terolyn at the Blue Moose Café.
Thanks to fantastic mystery author Catriona McPherson, for her help with Angus's Scots-speak.
Thanks to Angel's Joe's whole fam-damily, especially Bonnie-mom, for medical info. Extra thanks to Bonnie and Dan French and Kim Graber. Thanks to supportive friends: Red Leather Heather, Poker Jeremy, Thanksgiving Sheila, Phil Brown, Uncle Dennis, and many more. Thanks to writing friends Lynda Hilburn, Karen Lin Albright, and Betsy Dornbusch.
Doreene Gray's house is inspired by the Ann Starrett Mansion in Port Townsend, Washington. Go see it. The Wooden Boat Festival is a real, very wonderful event. My apologies for the various inaccuracies I have included, unknowingly or for plot convenience, when describing Port Townsend. I'd move there in a minute.
The story of the sinking of the S.S.
Valencia
is true. Wikipedia has the goods.
My apologies to the International Fainting Goat Association for the joke I tell about the breed. It's probably physically impossible, but the gag got such laughs, I couldn't let it go.
And finally, thanks to all the dog-rescue organizations out there. You put more love into the world.
You can find me at
EsriAllbritten.com
. I hope to hear from you.
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Contents
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One
Outside the darkened windows of Doreene Gray's second-floor bedroom, a squall buffeted the house and whistled across the gingerbread trimming. A mile away, it sang through the rigging of ships in the harbor of Port Townsend, Washington, whipping the black water into whitecaps, then speckling the foam with rain.
Doreene slid out of bed, grimacing slightly at a twinge in her lower back. At fifty-eight, she could avoid many of the signs of age, but not all.
The young man beneath the sheets stretched one tanned arm across the bed.
“Princessa.”
His drowsy voice was further thickened by a Brazilian accent. “You can't sleep?”
“Don't have a panic attack, Reynaldo. I'm just going to the can.”
“What?”
“Banheiro.”
He muttered something and subsided.
Doreene felt her way across the darkened room, but instead of going to the bathroom, she found the door to a small adjoining bedroom that had been turned into a closet. Under her fingers, the old-fashioned lock plate slid aside to reveal a computerized keypad. Doreene silently tapped a code onto the faintly glowing keys.
Once inside, she shut the door and locked it from the other side. The sound of the storm disappeared, muffled by the surrounding racks of clothes. Still in the dark, Doreene pulled what felt like a coat off a hanger and arranged it at the foot of the door before switching on the light.
A cluttered dressing table sat in the middle of the room, its mirror supported by two upright posts. Doreene sat in the matching chair and leaned close to the mirror. She might have been nearing sixty, but she didn't look a day over thirty. Blond hair curled gently over her shoulders, and her wide hazel eyes looked out from unlined skin.
“Eyebrows might be getting a little thin,” she murmured, running a finger against the fine hairs and then smoothing them back down.
The dressing table had space behind it. Doreene grasped the top edge of the oak mirror frame and rotated it downward. The back side swung into view, revealing a stretched and mounted canvas.
She winced a little at the sight of the hideous portrait. The original oil painting was almost hidden beneath pasted-on bits of paper. Tiny lines of writing served as the furrows that ran from nose to chin. Blotches of red and brown paper, torn from magazine pages, marred the cheeks with an impressionist collage of age.
Doreene pulled open the drawer of the table and removed a newspaper clipping.
Famous Portrait for Sale
Maureene Pinter's painting of identical twin sister to be sold at auction.
The photo below the subtitle showed Doreene's sister, Maureene, one hand raised too late to hide her haggard face. She looked every bit of her age, and more.
Doreene gathered cosmetic-smeared tissues from the table and threw them in a nearby trash can until she uncovered a pair of nail scissors. Trimming carefully, she cut the picture of her sister's face from the article, then looked from it to the artwork in front of her. “Neck, I think.”
She lay the trimmed photo down and found a bottle of foundation. After rubbing some of the makeup between finger and thumb, she carefully shaded the scrap of paper, holding it up to the portrait occasionally to check the color.
Next she uncapped a bottle of clear nail polish and brushed a few strokes on the back of the photo. After positioning it at the base of the portrait's throat, she carefully pressed it into place.
Doreene studied her sister's expression on the drying newsprint. “Didn't expect me to put the painting up for sale, did you? And you have one more shock coming.”
As she leaned back, the newly applied photo merged into the impression of wattled skin. Doreene stroked the smooth column of her own throat and smiled. “If I do say so myself, I've become quite the artist.”
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Two
Two weeks later
In the Boulder, Colorado, offices of
Tripping
magazine (Your Guide to Paranormal Destinations), two-thirds of the staff were having a fight.
Michael Abernathy,
Tripping
's main writer, had the sardonic look of a Greek faun, with the addition of gold-rimmed glasses and blue jeans. He was arguing with Angus MacGregor, editor and cofounder of
Tripping.
A tall, rangy Scot in his early fifties, Angus had the warm smile and twinkling eyes of a kindly uncle, which was only slightly misleading.
Michael raised his voice another notch. “Leaving aside the question of intrinsic value, astrology columns are everywhere. What's going to set ours apart?”
Angus thought for a moment. “We'll couch all the advice in terms of how it affects travel.”
Michael looked over the top of his glasses. “So next to the article on âBest Haunted B&Bs,' you're going to say October is a good month for Virgo to stay home?”
Angus ran a hand through his iron-gray hair. “Maybe we can focus on the paranormal aspect somehow.”
“How?” Michael adopted a girlish tone. “âMarch is not the time to change your hairstyle, Sasquatch. If you need a pick-me-up, focus on those big feet and get a pedicure.'”
Angus burst out laughing. “Perfect! Come up with eleven more and we'll have the first batch done.”
Michael groaned but made a note on his laptop. “All right, but I'm using a pseudonym.”
Suki Oota,
Tripping
's photographer, wandered into the office carrying an iPad and a file folder. In a city where yoga-toned college students inflated the standard of looks, Suki still turned heads. Tall and half-Japanese, she wore her black hair in a short, spiky cut and favored red lipstick. Today she wore torn jeans over black leather boots with an array of buckles. A faux snakeskin tank top in red and black revealed her perfectly toned arms.
Michael looked up. “What's up with all the eyeliner? That's not very steampunk.”
“I dropped the steam,” Suki drawled in her Los Angeles accent. She tossed the folder on Angus's desk and slouched in the other chair. “Can we work on what features to do next?”
“Certainly.” Angus pulled the folder toward him and smiled benignly. “What are these?”
“Suggestions I got through e-mail.” Suki hooked one leg over the arm of her chair. “I don't know what you guys already have.”
Michael opened a document on his computer. “Somebody caught a giant squid with a tennis shoe on one of its tentacles. Oh, and there's a new twist on those goats that faint when they hear a loud noise.”
“What kind of twist?” Angus asked.
“Apparently some of them crap themselves, too.”
Suki rolled her eyes. “Can't wait to take those pictures.”
Angus looked skeptical. “I'm not sure there's anything paranormal about crapping goats.”
“Depends on
what
they crap,” Michael pointed out.
Angus raised his eyebrows questioningly.
Michael shrugged. “Sorry. It's just regular crap.”
Angus shuffled through the printed e-mails. “Let's see what we have here. Ghost, turtle with an image of an alien on its shell, talking tree⦔ He read silently for a moment. “Looks like only one person can hear it. That's a shame. Oh, here's something. Mystery painting. Portrait of Doreene Gray to be sold.”
“It should be âpicture',” Michael said.
Angus looked up. “What?”
“Oscar Wilde's original title was
The Picture of Dorian Gray.
People are always getting it wrong.”
Angus stared at him. “It must comfort your friends, knowing you're always there to correct them.” He tapped the paper. “Considering this is an auction and not a book, and the
portrait
is of
Doreene
Gray, I think Mr. Wilde is not under discussion.”
“I bet Doreene Gray isn't her real name,” Michael said.
Angus scanned the e-mail. “It has been ever since she married Mr. Gray. When the portrait was painted, she was Doreene Pinter. Bit of a lucky break there.”
Suki heaved a sigh. “What's the deal with the picture?”
“It ages but she doesn't, or at least not much.” Angus swiveled his chair and began to type on his laptop's keyboard.
“Who painted the picture?” Michael asked.
“Doreene's sisterâ
twin
sister, Maureene, who ages normally.” Angus turned his computer so they could see the screen. “Here's a photo of the two of them, taken eight years ago.”