Brush With Death (29 page)

“You should volunteer with a local history association, Norm. You know an awful lot about this area.”

He snorted. “My dad was the one. Never shut up about this stuff. Well, time to get to work.”

“One more thing,” I said. “Do you know Aaron Garner's ex-wife?”

“Which one? There's a whole bunch.”

“Helena.”

“Sure, I know 'er. She was two wives ago. Lives down the street,” he added, jerking a muddy thumb in the direction.

“Down
this
street?”

“Yup. The big brownstone.”

“Wasn't that a Designers' Showcase house?”

Once a year a bevy of interior designers descended upon one of the City's nicer homes to showcase the latest trends in furniture and interior design. As soon as the house had been pimped, the place was opened to the hoi polloi, who paid a hefty fee to tromp through the palaces of the wealthy and gawk at how the other one percent lived.

This particular home stuck in my mind because, at the behest of a designer I was then wooing, I had agreed to paint a guest bathroom with an absurd mural that made the occupant feel like a bird in a cage. The wraparound mural had a claustrophobic effect, and was a blatant rip-off of a famous Calistoga muralist, but I had been new in the business. It took me a few years of owning my own studio before I said no to anything short of out-and-out forgery. I remembered the home's windowless basement had been transformed into a mirror-lined, chandeliered ballroom, and an attic room had been labeled “the artist's atelier,” though there was so little natural light no working artist would ever have used it. All in all, it was a rambling, somewhat monstrous, mansion.

Norm shrugged and lit a Marlboro.

“Does anything about Helena strike you as, you know, odd?”

“She lost her kid a while back, so I guess she's had it kinda hard,” he said, blowing out a cloud of tobacco smoke. “Tell you one thing. I wouldn't touch that broad with a ten-foot pole. High-maintenance, society type. Me, I like girls that drink beer from the bottle.”

“I'll keep that in mind.”

“If the interrogation's over,” Norm said, “I gotta go.”

I finished up with the tile layers, consulted with the painters, and went out to deposit my paperwork in the cab of my truck. It was still raining, the anemic sort of drizzle that often passes for rain in the Bay Area. After a day of this I was already getting seasonal affective disorder. As I turned around, Curly Top Russell was standing behind me, holding an umbrella over our heads.

“Hey, Annie.”

“Russell!” I took a step back. The cemetery employee had not mastered the concept of personal space. “What are you doing here?”

“Mr. Garner asked me to look at those headstones you found,” he said, a spark in his pale eyes. “Could you show them to me?”

“I'm late for an, uh, appointment a few doors down. The headstones are in the alley at the side of the house.”

“Oh. Want me to walk you?”

“No, thanks, I'm good,” I said.

He didn't move.

“Let me know what you think. Bye.” I brushed past him and hurried down the flower-edged sidewalk to a massive brownstone structure from the late nineteenth century. I climbed the curved marble steps to the carved mahogany doors and pushed the old-fashioned doorbell.

As I waited I peeked back down the street.

Russell stood in the driveway in the rain, watching me.

Chapter 15

A picture is something which requires as much knavery, trickery and deceit as the perpetration of a crime.
—Edgar Degas (1834 -1917), French painter and sculptor

I have never been interested in ballerinas. Not in painting them, that is.
—Georges LeFleur

“
Yes?
” squawked a male voice through the intercom.

“Um, Dr. . . . Dick?” I stammered. Intercoms made me nervous.

“It's Annie Kincaid. We met the other day at Bayview Cemetery?”

The door buzzed and I pushed it open, pausing in the foyer to allow my eyes to adjust to the dim light. Many of the sumptuous multimillion-dollar homes of Pacific Heights and Cow Hollow were jammed so close together that little sunshine could penetrate their palatial interiors. I took in the entry hall's sweeping staircase and rich mahogany paneling, and realized everything was exactly as I remembered it: same fussy wallpaper, same massive gilded mirror, same tacky knockoffs of Renoir's floral masterpieces.

“To what do I owe this pleasure?” Dick called out as he descended the plush carpeted stairs.

“I hope you don't mind my dropping in like this,” I said. “I thought I'd take a chance on catching Helena.”

“Oh, I'm sorry. She's out. I'm not sure when she'll be back. . . .”

“It was a long shot, but since I was in the neighborhood—”

“Do you live around here?”

“Ha! I mean, I wish. It's a gorgeous area.”

“We like it,” Dr. Dick said with a casual shrug.

“I'll bet. No, I'm working down the street, on Aaron Garner's house renovation.”

Dr. Dick's soft brown eyes flashed. “Ah. The infamous Mr. Garner.”

“I take it you're not a fan?” I had wondered how Helena's new husband, the guts n' butts man, felt about having her ex living close by. My parents insisted on inviting my ex-fiancé to Kincaid family holidays, and that was enough to make me choke on my cranberry sauce.

Dick smiled sadly. “Nothing we all can't cope with. I just wish he'd chosen to live elsewhere, that's all. Let me fix you a drink,” he said, escorting me into the next room. “Do you like scotch?”

“Love it,” I said as we passed through a shadowy dining room with deep red lacquer walls. My step faltered when I noticed my portrait of Chad Garner hanging over the carved stone fireplace. It was a good painting, if I did say so myself. I had been able to capture the intensity and volatility of the teenage spirit, while portraying the gentleness and hope in the boy's dark eyes. When Aaron Garner commissioned the painting he handed me several photographs of Chad, saying only that his son was “unavailable.” It was not uncommon for artists to work from high-quality photographs rather than sittings; these days, few people who could afford to have their portrait painted could take the time to pose for hours, and squirmy young people were the most difficult subjects. Garner had given me no clue that I was painting a memorial to a dead child.

I wondered if my host realized I had painted the boy's portrait. I'd signed it, of course, but unless they were hoping to cash in on a piece, few art lovers took notice of the artist's signature. Dick seemed friendly enough but his wife Helena might not appreciate knowing of my role in creating this remembrance of her lost son.

“Single malt?” Dr. Dick offered, holding up a bottle of eighteen-year-old McCallan.

I shook my head. “I hate to say it—I
really
hate to say it—but I'd better pass. I've got a lot of work to do.”

“How about coffee, then?”

“Coffee would be great, if it's not too much trouble. Are you sure I'm not interrupting anything?”

“Not in the least,” he assured me, leading the way to the kitchen. “I was writing up charts. As luck would have it, you happened upon me on my paperwork day. I relish the break. I went into medicine to heal people, not to push paper!”

I smiled. Silly me, I would have thought paperwork would be a nice break from sticking things up patients' butts.

I took a seat on a swivel stool at the dark granite kitchen counter and watched Dr. Dick putter about. The cabinets were a polished cherry, the gleaming six-burner chrome stove was professional-grade, and a stained glass cupola above our heads filled the room with sparkles of dancing color. It was a pleasant but overblown room, more impressive than cozy. Framed photographs lined one wall, and in a few I thought I recognized a teenage Helena, though her companion had been cut out of the photographs.

“You know, I've been here before,” I said. “When it was the Designer Showcase.”

“Ah yes. I believe half of San Francisco took the tour. You should have seen the carpet!”

“I can imagine. But I'm afraid I did worse than that. I painted the birdcage room.”

“You painted that?”

“I apologize. It was done under duress.”

“How so?”

“They paid me.”

He chuckled. “Some people love it, and when they don't the room's good for a laugh. We bought this place as a temporary abode, anyway. That's why we never bothered to change anything. It even came furnished.”

Dr. Dick and I lived in different worlds. When I needed a “temporary abode,” I slept in my truck.

He set a steaming mug in front of me along with little Italian painted pots of sugar and cream. I savored the rich taste of well-brewed coffee for a blissful moment. “So, are you building a new house?”

“Helena has her heart set on something in particular, but we're not sure if it will happen,” he said, pouring a finger of scotch into a Steuben crystal tumbler. “I don't much care where I am as long as my lovely wife is at my side.”

I smiled. It was nice to know that there were still men who found their stout, middle-aged wives worthy of such love and devotion. Dr. Dick seemed like a keeper.

“Dick, did Helena say anything about a problem at the cemetery?”

“Apparently there was a trespasser last night,” he said. “She ran out of here, irate, when she got the call. She hates it when kids mess around in there.”

“Did she say anything about a recent grave robbery? I witnessed someone trying to take a metal box out of a crypt a few days ago. The person I was with was supposed to report it and turn the box in, but didn't. And then she—well, she was the one who had just killed herself when I saw you at the cemetery the other day.”

“I'm so sorry,” he said. “Was she a troubled person?”

“I met her only once. But before she died she left the box with me, and I meant to take it back to the cemetery office, but to make a long story short, two goons came after me and my assistant trying to get the box.”

“Are you all right?” he gasped. “When did this happen?”

“Last night. I wondered if Helena might have any idea about what was going on.”

“It sounds to me as though you should be careful in that place. I already told Helena I don't want her there after dark unless I'm with her.”

I glanced at the clock. It was almost four. “Thank you for the coffee. I'd better get back to work.”

“Thank
you
for interrupting my paperwork,” he said as he escorted me to the front door, this time passing through a high-ceilinged sitting room. A Tim O'Neill original hung on the wall above a celadon silk couch.

I looked at it, then at Dick.

“Atrocious, isn't it?” He laughed.

“You don't like it?”

“
Hate
it. Looks like it should be adorning the cover of a frothy romance. I like Edward Hopper. Wayne Thiebaud. Real painters. What do you think?”

“I, uh . . .” Long ago my grandfather had taught me to never, ever criticize a host's home or taste, no matter the provocation.
You never know, chérie,
Georges had said in as stern a voice as he was able to muster with me.
The rich have an inconvenient way of being well connected. It is one of the reasons they are so rich. Today's fool is tomorrow's senator.

“It's, um, pretty.”

“And you, my dear, are diplomatic.” He shook his head. “Never understood Helena's taste in art, but she says it reminds her of her time with her son.”

“I heard he passed away. I'm sorry.”

“It was years ago, but it still haunts her. I suppose it always will.”

I said nothing. I could only imagine the pain of losing a child.

“Listen,” Dick said, changing the subject. “Helena bought a painting at an art show last week. It's still in one of those cardboard tubes. It seems to me it must be bad for an oil painting to be stored like that. Since you're here, why don't I show it to you and see what you think?”

He opened the hall closet door and began rummaging through a bundle of cardboard tubes, the kind architects used for blueprints and Haight-Ashbury head shops used for Day-Glo posters. “Aha! Here it is.” He struggled with the plastic plug on one end.

“Need a hand?” I asked, trying to pry the end off as he held the tube.

“What is going on here?” Helena's outraged voice called from the doorway. “You! Dick!”

For a split second I thought she was calling me a dick, and despite my grandfather's tutoring I nearly responded in kind.

“Give that to me,” she demanded, holding out one hand. Dick surrendered the tube. She tucked it under her arm, and turned on me. “What are
you
doing here? Why are you going through my things?”

“I was just—”

“She's working at Aaron's place, darling. When she learned we lived nearby she stopped in to say hello.”

“And you decided to entertain her in my absence?” Helena glared at her husband, who squirmed.

“I'd best be going,” I said, inching toward the door. “Thanks again for the coffee and conversation.”

Neither Dick nor Helena said anything as I crossed the shadowy foyer and slipped out the front door. Hurrying down the steps and along the wet sidewalk, I wondered about their relationship. Nothing in Helena's attitude indicated the least bit of warmth, much less respect, for her husband. I could only speculate what it was about this unpleasant woman that made Dick so smitten.