Jumper_ Griffin's Story Part 16

The tourist buses hadn't started arriving yet and the ones staying locally were still snug in their beds.

I received an odd look or two from the few locals who were out, but they responded with nods or smiles to my unsmiling "bonjour." "bonjour." I wanted something hot to drink, coffee preferably, but the tourist cafes weren't open yet so I found a nook and jumped to San Diego, and bought a m.u.f.fin and a very large latte from a Starbucks that was about to close, then went back. I wanted something hot to drink, coffee preferably, but the tourist cafes weren't open yet so I found a nook and jumped to San Diego, and bought a m.u.f.fin and a very large latte from a Starbucks that was about to close, then went back.

The shadows of the low morning sun threw the stonework of the spire into sharp relief and I used that, sketching the tower and the spire above from the courtyard outside the abbey. I stood up to stretch when a voice said in badly accented French, "No! Retorner, si vous plait." "No! Retorner, si vous plait." Then, immediately, in American English, Then, immediately, in American English, "Where "Where did you get Starbucks?" did you get Starbucks?"

I turned. A redheaded teenaged girl in an enormous black coat sat crosslegged on the stones about ten feet back near the entrance of the courtyard, a largeformat sketchbook propped in her lap. The coat was tucked under her rear and legs, and she wore fingerless gloves and blackrimmed gla.s.ses, comme comme Elvis Costello. She was older than me, but still a student, I suspected. She hadn't settled into her body yetnot the way Alejandra had. Elvis Costello. She was older than me, but still a student, I suspected. She hadn't settled into her body yetnot the way Alejandra had.

"Why shouldn't I move?" I asked her, ignoring the question about the coffee.

"You were part of the scene. I mean, I wasn't going to include you but then you didn't move for the last twenty minutes so I decided I should include you and I really like the way I got your hair and the drape of your coat so you really need to sit back down." She said this very emphatically, with a rush at the end and a stab of her forefinger at the bench where I'd sat.

I raised my eyebrows and she added with a suddenly nervous smile, "Please."

"Very well, a votre service, mademoiselle." a votre service, mademoiselle." I sat back and took up the sketchpad again. "How's that?" I sat back and took up the sketchpad again. "How's that?"

"Turn a little more to your leftthat's it. Are you done sketching? I mean, you can go on sketching but I'm drawing you as you were looking up at the spire, the sketchpad in your lap, right?"

"I'll just look up, thenI'm done with the sketch." I could've worked on it more, but the shadows were vanishing as the sun rose higher, and part of drawing is learning when to leave off.

I was a little angry with myself. I'd been sketching for two hours, at least, and though I'd been vaguely aware of people coming and going, I hadn't been paying attention. What if it had been Kemp?

Well, it wasn't. I drank from the now cold latte but returned to the pose.

"You never said where you got the Starbucks," she said. "I thought they weren't in France."

I knew they'd been in London for a year or two but really didn't know about France. "Don't know. I got this one in San Diego." I started to look around to see how she'd take that but she stopped me.

"Be stillI'm working on your ears. You're from the States? You sound like a Brit. Long way to bring a paper cup. Why bother?"

"My parents moved around," I said, answering the first question. I decided right then to get a travel mug, to avoid this problem in the future.

"You have very distinctive ears," she said.

I blushed. "They stick out like the handles on a sugar bowl."

The girl laughed. "That's . . . sweet."

"Ha. Very funny."

"Couldn't tell it by you. WellI'm done. I'll show you mine if you show me yours."

I raised my eyebrows again and she she blushed. blushed.

"Sketches!"

We sat on the bench. My first impression of her coat was correct.i.t brushed the top of her shoes and the sleeves were rolled back once so as not to swallow her handsa man's coat, large.

I handed her my sketchbook, open to the morning's work. She seemed surprised, then pushed hers toward me. I guess she'd meant it when she said "show," not "handle."

She was working with charcoal pencils and a kneaded eraser on nice coa.r.s.e paper. More impressionistic than a study, but she was rightwith just a few strokes she'd captured the way my hair was sticking up in back and the way my anorak folded as the hem rested on the bench. The tower with its spire and the courtyard walls rose nicely, too; the proportions were good and the shading of the morning light hitting the upper spire was very nice.

Looking at mine she said, "How many days have you been working on this?"

"Just this morning." I looked over at it. Mine was much more of a study, more detailed, more photorealistic, less heart. "I was was here at sunrise." here at sunrise."

She pointed at the stepped arches in the lower tower and the crenellations where the slate roof tiles met the granite. "It's ill.u.s.tration qualityI mean, I'd wouldn't be surprised at all to find it in an architecture magazine or The New Yorker." The New Yorker."

My earsthose large sugarbowlhandle earsburned. "Yes, but it took me two and a half hours."

"This is the sort of thing that takes some people days. days. What's your name? I want to be able to say I met you back in the day." What's your name? I want to be able to say I met you back in the day."

"Ah, well, Griffin. That's my name."

"Griffin?" She held out her hand, palm up, as if coaxing a timid animal out of a cave.

"Griffin O'Conner." h.e.l.l, I said it. It's not as if she'd be asking Interpol about me, right?

She extended the hand farther, taking mine. "Nicetameetcha! E. V Kelson, As in Elaine Vera Kelson, but if you want me to answer, call me E.V., okay?" She gave my hand a firm shake, then dropped it. "So, where are you staying? We're at the Auberge SaintPierre."

She hadn't given me back my sketchbook and was now holding it up at arm's length, comparing it with the spire itself.

"I was staying with a friend's cousin in Pontorson, but I'm leaving today." Both literal truths. Ultimately a lie.

"Oh? Me, too. We did Paris, now five days in London. What about you?"

"I'll be going back home. Uh, who is 'we'?" She looked at me blankly and I clarified, "The 'we' who're staying at the Auberge SaintPierre."

"Ah, the French Club. Trenton Central High School, New Jersey. There's eight girls, two boys, our teacher, and four parent chaperones."

"Ah. And do they know where you are?"

She glanced sideways at me. "Why? You planning on kidnapping me?"

I tilted my head to one side as if I were considering it, then shook my head regretfully. "I've got a bag job at noon, and two s.n.a.t.c.handgrabs for twothirty. I couldn't possibly fit you in. But there's always coffee. If that would be all right with your chaperones."

"Well, yes, sort of, they know where I amthat is, on the Mont, sketching. I'm supposed to meet them back by eleven for checkout." She looked at her watch. "In two hours. If I don't get lost." She stood up promptly. "Coffee. I know where they'll serve cafe au lait and croissants. Found it by accidentthen we can walk a bit, I'm stiff from sitting."

She took one last look at my sketch, and we exchanged books.

E.V. hated New Jersey, having moved there the previous summer from upstate New York. Her father was a chemical engineer, her mother a middle school art teacher whose jobs were always iffy as art funding was always the first thing cut. E.V.'s older brother, Patrick, was a freshman at Princeton and she had a large dog of indeterminate breed named Booger. She wanted to go to the School of Visual Arts in New York City when she graduated in two years. Her current boyfriend had asked her not to go on this trip simply because he needed her to go to a party and he was now her exboyfriend. "Though, to tell the truth, he was on the way out before that. He thought my cartoons cartoons were cute and he wanted me to draw him in the nude." were cute and he wanted me to draw him in the nude."

I learned all this in the ten minutes before we got to the cafe. Over coffee she wheedled out the fact that I was traveling alone and that my parents were dead.

"Oh." Her mouth opened and closed as if she was trying to find something appropriate to say.

I held up one hand. "Miss them terribly. It's been sixOh. It's been seven years. Rather not talk about it if you don't mind. Tell me what you saw in Paris. Better yet," I tapped her sketchbook, "show me."

That worked. As I had the same sketchbook I'd had in Paris myself, we were even able to compare sketches of the same subjects.

I touched a picture of the Seine Seine running under the Pont Neuf and said, "I love the way you did the water here near the lie de la Cite. It's alivemine is more like asphalt than water." running under the Pont Neuf and said, "I love the way you did the water here near the lie de la Cite. It's alivemine is more like asphalt than water."

"So, how often do you draw water?"

"Not oftenit looks too much like asphalt."

"Practice. That's all. Make the next ten drawings you do be of water and I'll bet you catch the trick of it. Pinky deal," she said, holding out her little finger.

"Pinky deal? What do you mean?"

"You shake pinkies to seal the deal."

"How can it be a deal? What are you going to do? For your part?"

She looked at me, surprised. "Oh. I guess that's fair. But I'm telling you you what to do. You should make the matching condition." what to do. You should make the matching condition."

I thought about it. "OkayI draw ten pictures of water and you let me draw you in London London. Sunday."

"You'll be in London London?"

"I can be."

"Draw me how?" she said, her eyes narrowing, and I realized she was thinking about her exboyfriend.

"Fully clothed, in public, but you'll have to lose the coat. Outside, say, in a park."

"We're staying at the Best Western Swiss Cottage but I have no idea where that is."

"Probably near the Swiss Cottage Tube stopit's a neighborhood up Camden Camden way. That's close to Regent's Park. I'll check in with you Sat.u.r.day afternoon." way. That's close to Regent's Park. I'll check in with you Sat.u.r.day afternoon."

"Okay. I think we have theater tickets so don't leave it too late," she said. She took off one fingerless glove and extended her pinky, hooked it around mine, and shook it up and down firmly. She let go and said, "Now you go boom."

"What?"

"Make a fist."

I did and she crashed hers into mine and said, "Boom."

"You're insane."

She nodded emphatically. "Yes."

p.h.u.ket has amazing water, stunning shades of blue and green both still and active. I did my first sketches on Ko Bon island, moving around from the leeward side to the more active waves. I worked in Prismatic colored pencils. I rarely used color but I couldn't stand the thought of trying that transition from deeper water to shallow sand bottom with graphite alone.

Next, I tried the Thames Thames, but it's boring in the cityrow after row of apartments with water views. I went back to Oxford Oxford and dodged tourists until I found a nice spot near and dodged tourists until I found a nice spot near MagdalenBridge MagdalenBridge where I sketched people punting through the round archways. where I sketched people punting through the round archways.

I thought of going back to Oaxaca Oaxaca but it was too painful so I spent some time at Children's but it was too painful so I spent some time at Children's PoolBeach PoolBeach in in La Jolla La Jolla drawing sea lions coming onto the sand or the waves pounding against the other side of the sheltering breakwater. drawing sea lions coming onto the sand or the waves pounding against the other side of the sheltering breakwater.

It was a gray day, overcast, and the ocean was like that, too. Graphite pencil felt right for this water. Monochrome.

Just before I left, I went to a public phone and called the San Diego FBI Field Office.

"I'd like to speak with whoever is handling the March sixteenth murder of the six INS agents."

The woman who answered the phone said, "And your name?"

"Griffin O'Conner. I sent some information last week. By mail."

"Ah. One moment, please."

I got hold music for about twenty seconds. I was going to hang up when a man came on the line. The background noise was different. "h.e.l.lo? Griffin O'Conner?"

"Yes."

"Ah, good. I'm Special Agent Proctor. Give me a momentthey patched you through to my cell phone and I don't want to crash."

The background noise lessened. "There, I'm on the shoulder. Where are you?"

"Surely your office already told you the phone number and location."

Proctor was silent for a few seconds and then he chuckled. "Well, yes, they did. I got your letter. Very interesting reading."

"Has it produced any results?"

"Maybe. A lot of questions, for one thing. What makes you think this Kemp character was involved in the murders at Sam Coulton's ranch?"

I thought about what to tell and what not to. The truth, I decided, or most of it. The only people the truth would hurt were already dead.

Or people I wished were dead.

"Kemp talked to me from there. By phone. He told me to come there or he'd kill Sam and Consuelo. I was afraid, so I called the INS and the sheriff. And yes," I added stridently, "I lied to the INS about there being a bunch of illegals there, but I thought the more people, the less chance of anyone getting" I took a deep breath. "I lied."

"And this Kemp was there when your parents were killed?"

"Definitely."

"What's the common thread here, Griffin? What does Kemp want?"

"Me. I'm the common thread. Kemp wants mehe wants me dead."

"Why? He could've killed you at your parents', right?"

"He tried. I got away. I've got the scars."

"Again, why? What's the motive?"

I shook my head. I still didn't knowit had to have something to do with the jumping. "I don't really know why." A partial truth.

Proctor continued, "And where do Sam and Consuelo come in? Were they friends of your family? 'Cause I'm not finding any record of that."