Outside is a person she doesn’t, at first, recognize.
All she sees is that it’s a woman, and that the woman has gray hair.
Judyta
1950s | 1961 | Winter 1973 | June 1975 | July 1975 | August 1975: Day Four
When Denny Hayes finds Judy, she’s pacing in circles around her desk like a defeated boxer.
Hayes watches her sympathetically.
“Goldman said you were upset,” he says.
With effort, she sits in her chair. “What’d you get from him?”
Hayes pauses. “Nothing,” he admits. “He clammed up when you left. Didn’t say another word.”
Then—looking over his shoulder, lowering his voice—“LaRochelle was the one made us go in. Outside the room, he was telling us he was concerned that Sluiter was playing with you. That he wasn’t giving you the truth. But what I think it really was,” he says, “was LaRochelle wanted to be able to say he finished the job himself.”
Judy’s shoulders sink.
“I would have let you keep going,” says Hayes.
Judy nods. “I know.”
“If it makes you feel better,” says Hayes, “conservator from the Hyde Collection is on her way to the Preserve right now to see about removing that paint from Barbara’s room.”
Judy has been so focused on Sluiter that it takes her a moment to remember.
When she does, a question comes to mind: “How did the parents react?” Judy asks. “Are they okay with it?”
“Good thought,” says Hayes. “I was wondering the same thing. But I heard from the captain that they’re fine with it. The father is, at least. Didn’t hesitate.”
This, in Judy’s mind, could mean one of two things: it could be a mark in favor of the innocence of the Van Laar parents. Or it could be that there was never anything interesting on those walls to begin with.
Before she leaves for the Preserve, Judy makes a request of Hayes: “Will you tell me what happens today with Sluiter? Will you call me, even if you’re not at the Preserve?”
Hayes nods.
• • •
The conservator is a tall young woman, maybe as young as Judy. She wears large glasses and white coveralls. In her right hand is a bucket; in her left is a drop cloth.
Her name is Anna, she says. She’s here to look at the paint.
Judy, being the one to come up with the idea, is also the one to oversee it.
She leads Anna into the main house, and then down the hallway to the pink room.
Anna the conservator enters the room first, puts her bucket down. Takes in the very pink walls, the neatly made bed, the surprising square footage of the room.
“Any idea which wall I should start with?” she asks.
“I think it’s the one behind the bed,” says Judy, thinking of the picture Barbara drew. The plan for the mural.
Anna moves with confidence. Spreads her drop cloth on the floor. Kneels to the ground and reaches into her bucket, removing from it a metal container of acetone and something that looks like a large Q-tip.
She dips the Q-tip into the acetone, applies it to a tiny spot in a corner.
When she takes it away, a tiny patch of green blooms through the pink.
“Well,” says Anna. “That’s a good sign. Looks like oil paint underneath. Which means I might be able to remove the latex paint on top without damaging the underlayer.”
She returns to her work, making her tiny circle a tiny bit larger. Yes: there’s green, and some black next to it.
Anna glances back over her shoulder at Judy.
“You know this is going to take me a really long time, right?” she asks. “I mean days.”
• • •
Toward the end of the afternoon, a young investigator comes up the hill to find them in the main house. He looks flustered.
“Are you Luptack?” he says to Judy. She nods.
“Captain LaRochelle is on the phone for you. He says it’s urgent.”
When Judy reaches the phone in the Director’s Cabin, she finds Denny Hayes has reached the grounds as well. He’s the one holding the phone. Around him, a little crowd of curious onlookers has formed. She takes the receiver into her hands, angles her back to them.
