An Illustrated Death by Judi Culbertson Read Free Book Online Page B

uncooked broccoli and asparagus stalks.
    I was floored. Where did this originality and humor come from? “These are wonderful! How long have you been making them?”
    “A long time. I won a prize for ‘Trash.’ ” She reached for a large black album on another table.
    I hoped I wouldn’t be looking at maggots and gnawed bones, but these designs showed crumpled Doritos bags and crushed soda cans turned into art. A stack of batteries formed an Egyptian pyramid. At first I wasn’t sure what I was looking at, then laughed out loud.
    Rosa’s open face beamed. “I knew you’d get it. Galleries always want more of these than I can make.”
    “I can see why. I’d love a set. Do you work as Rosa Erikson?”
    Her mouth twisted. “I’d never use Erikson .”
    She didn’t tell me what name she did use as she led me back to the front door.

 
    C HAPTER T EN
    A S IMPRESSED AS I was by Rosa’s plates, I was happy to be out of her cottage. It was too claustrophobic, too intense. The clutter reminded me of the times I had to go with my mother on visits to ancient parishioners and sit in dust-filled parlors where yellowed antimacassars gave the rooms their only color. Rosa also gave me the feeling I had had as that child of having to choose my words carefully to not give offense.
    I took in a deep breath of salt air. Rosa’s accumulation was not on the scale of the Collier brothers yet, but if there was ever a fire . . .
    Bianca was waiting for me on her porch, motionless in a yellow rocker.
    “So you survived Rosa’s clutter.” She said it flatly, as if I had defied her by going down there.
    “Her work is amazing. Why didn’t Claude want me to see it?”
    “It was her environment he didn’t want you to see.” Then she reconsidered. “No, it was both. It galls him that someone that ditzy can make so much money and he can’t.”
    “You think she’s ditzy?” Unusual certainly, maybe bordering on idiot savant, but “ditzy” seemed a mean-spirited label.
    “Let’s just say she’s one of a kind.”
    “Aren’t we all.” I wondered why Bianca seemed so hard on her sister. “Did she always have so much stuff?”
    “It’s gotten worse. The mess drove my father crazy. He loved her work, he was the one who introduced her to the galleries, but hated the way she lived . . . In fact—” She broke off and slid her eyes in the direction of Rosa’s cottage, as if deciding how much she should share with me. “Right before he died, he gave her an ultimatum. Either she clean up the cottage, get rid of everything, or she would have to leave. He even threatened to have her committed.”
    “To a mental hospital? How could he do that?”
    “He was Nate Erikson.”
    “But still.”
    “Delhi, he wouldn’t have really done it.” She looked amused. “It was only a threat, to try and get her to act normal. I don’t know why he cared so much.”
    I leaned against one of the porch posts. “He was her father.”
    Instead of answering, Bianca stood up to walk me back to the studio. When we were nearly to the door, she said, “Rosa’s real father was our groundskeeper and driver. He and his wife did the grocery shopping, and she was our cook. But then they were hit by a train. Rosa was in the backseat, she was only five. There were no gates or warning lights out here back then, trains never came this far out.”
    The image of a screeching metal collision, a car tossed and crumpled, bleeding bodies and terror spread across my mind, and I couldn’t wish it away. “How terrible . Is that where she got the scar?”
    “I guess. I was only three, I didn’t really understand. Rosa was in the hospital a long time with a head injury and lacerations and when she came out, my parents adopted her. But people can tell she isn’t one of us.”
    I hadn’t been sure. When she’d said she didn’t use the, name Erikson, I’d assumed she didn’t want to be confused with Nate or Regan. If Nate had been threatening to evict her