Death of an Artist (10 page)

Van recalled an early meeting with him for lunch, to get acquainted, he had said when he called to invite her. He had been charming, flattering almost to the point of embarrassing her, before broaching the matter of Stef's art.

“She's like so many artists,” he had said with a condescending smile. “No business sense whatsoever. I've seen it many times in very talented artists. Such artistic genius leaves little or no room for a practical side to develop, it seems, and even less for a business understanding to grow. Yet there is great commercial value in fine art. Leonardo's
David
can be had as a print, a poster, even a refrigerator magnet. It has real commercial value, you see, and that's not at all to demean the genius of the artist who produced it. Mozart's music, Picasso's art, Georgia O'Keeffe's, it all has commercial value. And so does Stef's. But she can't accept that for some reason.”

“Wallpaper, greeting cards, wrapping paper,” Van murmured.

“Exac—” He stopped and his face flushed. He sipped his wine, then said coolly, “A bit of advice, Van. Don't mock commercial enterprises. By the time you finish medical school and your internship, you'll have such a mountain of debt that you'll be paying it off for the next twenty years. Stef is making pennies with her art, and she could be making a fortune. She could be of enormous help to you, and eventually it will happen, maybe not in her lifetime, but her art will be appreciated and money will be exchanged. Why not while she's still young? While you're still in school? What's she waiting for?”

Van looked at her watch. “I have to go. Afternoon lab. Observing an autopsy. Thanks for lunch. It's been interesting.” She left him at the table and felt his cold gaze on her all the way to the restaurant entrance.

The phrase
maybe not in her lifetime
repeated now in her mind. No! She looked across the table at Marnie, whose eyes were closed as she wrestled with her own thoughts.

“Marnie, do you trust Tony Mauricio? I know you said that Stef did. How about you?”

Marnie opened her eyes, looked surprised. “Yes. Of course, none of us really knows him, but yes. I do.”

“I'm going to ask him for help. He knows about murder investigations. He'll know what we can do and how to do it. We can't let Dale get away with this! We won't!”

 

8

T
ONY
AND
D
AVE
McAdams both stopped working that afternoon when Van tapped on the door and entered at Dave's call that it wasn't locked. She took a step or two away from the door and said, “I'm sorry to interrupt you. I won't take more than a minute. Mr. McAdams, we—Marnie, Josh, and I—are moving back into the rear house, and we wonder if you have some scrap wood or something that would be suitable to put in the runners of those sliding doors and windows. You know, to keep them from opening.”

Dave crossed the workroom to embrace her warmly. “Van, my dear, it's no problem at all. Sure I do. I'll go back and round up some dowels. Would you like a cup of coffee while you wait?”

“No, thank you. I really can't wait. I'm on my way to pick up Josh. There's something else, though.” She looked at Tony. “We also wonder if it would be possible for you to come around tonight. There's something we'd like to discuss with you, if you have the time.”

“Plenty of time,” Tony said. “I'll be glad to come. I can bring the dowels with me, if you'd like.”

She nodded. “That would be fine. Around eight-thirty? Josh will be in bed by then.”

“Eight-thirty,” Tony said.

“Thank you both,” Van said. “I'll be on my way. See you later, Tony.” She left it with that.

For a moment neither man moved. Then Dave said slowly, “I've known Marnie for more than forty years, and she doesn't scare easy. Now they need to secure doors and windows. I'll go rustle up those dowels.” He was frowning as he headed for the storeroom. At the back door he hesitated, then turned to face Tony. “If Marnie needed me to close shop and come to do something, anything, this place would close down in a flash.” Dave's frown deepened to a scowl. “I hope you get my meaning.”

“Loud and clear.” Tony understood that his job description, such as it was, had just changed.

*   *   *

V
AN
ADMITTED
HIM
that night. He was carrying an armload of dowels. “Come in,” she said. “Marnie's up giving Josh a good-night kiss. She'll be here in a second. Let's leave all those here in the hall for now. Thanks for bringing them. We'll distribute them later.”

After he put the dowels in a basket on the floor, she led the way to the living room and the furniture at the broad windows. A coffee carafe and cups were on the table there along with a manila folder.

The sun, low in the western sky, was hidden by fog at sea, causing the fog to glow with an amber light, tinging the room with the same touch of pale gold.

“Nice,” Tony said, nodding toward the windows.

Van nodded. “Sometimes, not often, but now and then I realize just how magical it can be. Too often we take it for granted. Let me take your jacket.”

“This is okay,” he said, draping his light Windbreaker over the back of a chair.

“At least let me pour you a cup of coffee,” she said, smiling. “I'm supposed to play hostess for a few minutes. House rules or something.”

She looked too tense and tired to attempt a smile, but it was a nice smile in spite of that. As she busied herself with the coffee, he thought the prod was for her to have something to do with her hands while they waited for Marnie rather than to fulfill her role as hostess.

“I didn't get a chance to express my sympathy at the memorial service,” he said. “You have my deepest sympathy for your loss.”

She nodded. “Thanks. I saw you there, of course. We appreciated your coming.”

Since it had appeared that half the county had been there, he doubted that many individuals had registered with her at the time. Both she and Marnie had appeared to be shell-shocked, stunned by Stef's death.

Marnie joined them in the brief silence that followed Van's words. She accepted Tony's condolences with a silent nod, then thanked him for coming as she settled into a chair. “We have a problem that we hope you will help with,” she said.

Van looked tired, but Marnie looked devastated, haggard even. She had lost some weight and had, to all appearances, given up sleep. Her hands were shaking.

She leaned forward and said quietly, “We both are convinced that Dale Oliver killed my daughter, Van's mother. He murdered her.”

Tony felt himself tighten in an old familiar way that he did not welcome. “Tell me what you're thinking.” Even he heard the difference in his voice, which had become more distant, colder, as if another persona had flowed into his body, ousting the friendly neighbor and local craftsman.

“From the day he first came here and saw how much art she had produced, how very fine it is, he'd been pressuring her to sell more, the recent things especially, and she wouldn't do it. He said as much the first day he came to the house with Freddi, just to meet her. That day I had the impression that he had been annoyed that Freddi was keeping some of her work on display when it wasn't for sale. I saw the change come over him when he saw how much work she had done, how good it was. I really thought that day that he had come to tell her the free ride was over, either price the work or remove it. I still think that's why he came out here. After he saw the paintings, the way he looked at her, his manner, something changed. I saw it happen. Then he said that she was sitting on a fortune. They were married less than a month later, and the pressure to sell was constant.”

Tony held up his hand. “Wait a minute. Let's do this a different way. Why precisely do you think it was murder, not the accident the investigators decided it was?”

“For all her problems and faults, balance was never one of them,” Marnie said fiercely. “She was up and down those stairs all her life. I don't believe she fell accidentally. And that oil painting they said she was taking down was not for sale. There were a lot of them that she was not willing to sell, and that was one of them. I don't know how he managed it, but he did it. I know he did.”

“They said that Josh left a toy truck on the stairs, and he didn't,” Van said just as fiercely. “He was never allowed to play on the stairs, or in the passageway between the houses. He hadn't even been here for a couple of weeks before that day.”

“The news account said that Dale was at the other side of the house, at the windows here, on the telephone, when he and the person he was talking to heard her cry out. The officers must have looked into that, accepted it,” Tony said slowly. He felt that both Marnie and Van were missing the point, that their dislike of Dale and his attempts to sell art, which was his business after all, was not reason enough to accuse him of murder. An intuitive belief reinforced one by the other that was contradicted by all other accounts was irrational.

“I can't explain that,” Marnie said. “I only know that he did it. I don't know how he did.” She lifted her coffee and took a sip, then set it down again. Her hands were no longer shaking, and she looked harder. “This started, this final act started, back in the spring. Dale put a price tag on all of her art in the gallery, including the pieces she refused to sell, and she was furious with him. She brought everything home and they had a fight over it. The marriage ended that day when he walked out, but she wasn't satisfied. She wanted revenge, to make him pay a price for what she considered betrayal.” Marnie glanced at Van, who was as still as an ice carving, and as pale as one. “I'm sorry, Van, but this has to be said.”

Van nodded. “I know. I saw what was going on.”

“Yes. Stef let him come back. You were here that day when he came back. They fought that night and made up the next day. She pretended things were good between them for a time. He must have thought he had won, and he gave her a contract to sign. This contract.” Marnie opened the folder on the table and brought out the contract, handed it to Tony. “Read it.” She leaned back in her chair.

Tony read it carefully, then looked at Marnie, who was watching him. “Did she ever sign her name that way?”

“No. She was laughing at him, mocking him. When he tried to exercise that contract, she was going to pull the rug out from under him, make a fool of him, and then kick him out.” Marnie drew in a breath. “It was cruel, and she could be cruel, but it was her way.”

“You're speculating,” Tony said. “That's conjectural, not conclusive. Did she say as much to you, admit that was her intention?”

“No. Tony, she was my daughter and I loved her more than I can say, but I'm not blind. I knew what she was doing. She had done similar things in the past. An eye for an eye. Payback for betrayal. I knew what she was doing, and that signature is all the proof I need to know beyond any doubt that I'm right.”

Tony knew just as undeniably that it wasn't enough to justify calling it a murder and Dale a murderer. He turned to Van. “Why do you dislike him so much?”

“It probably boils down to the same basic reason. He has dollar signs instead of pupils in his eyes. A month or two after they were married, he asked me to lunch to get acquainted better.” Van told Tony about it, adding, “He said that Leonardo's
David
had great commercial significance, something to that effect—”

Marnie interrupted, “He said
Leonardo
?”

“Yes. He said there were posters, prints, even refrigerator magnets. That's when I decided I had to get back to class. We were to observe an autopsy, and it seemed more appealing than continuing our conversation.” Van directed her level gaze at Tony. “He doesn't know a thing about art, the difference between Leonardo and Michelangelo. All he sees is a product to exploit. His interest in me, charm, flattery, all an act, gone in an instant. He was as cold as a snake when he realized I had no intention of becoming his ally.”

Still not enough, Tony knew, but he didn't press that issue yet. “Who was it on the phone with him that day? The news accounts simply listed her as his associate at the gallery.”

“Freddi Wordling,” Marnie said. “She's part owner of the art gallery, has been for more than twenty years, I guess, and Dale joined the company about four years ago when her former partner retired.”

“Anything between her and Dale Oliver?”

Marnie and Van both shook their heads emphatically. “She was a good friend to Stef,” Marnie said. “She understands artists and likes them, and she does know art. For the past twenty years she's carried Stef's art, most of it not for sale, and that was all right with her. No pressure to let go, nothing like that. She said when Stef was ready was time enough.”

“The gallery makes something on the art it does sell, obviously,” Tony said. “Do you know what that arrangement was?”

“Thirty-five percent,” Marnie said. “That's pretty standard. I don't think Freddi makes much profit, and she isn't in it just for the money or she wouldn't show so much of Stef's work knowing it isn't for sale.”

Van said, “Freddi called me when Dale put prices on everything of Stef's in the spring. She felt certain that no one here knew about that, and she was right. I told Marnie, and she told Stef.”

“The beginning of the end,” Marnie said bitterly. She touched her coffee cup to her lips, put it down, and rose from her chair. “We've all let the coffee get cold. I'll dump it and put on a fresh pot.”

Van stood to help her, and Tony rose also and went to the windows. It had grown dark as they talked, and the town lights were so obscured by fog that had moved inland that they looked like pastel smears of color against a solid-gray background. With his hands thrust into his pockets, standing slightly hunched, his thoughts were bleak. He knew what they wanted of him, and he suspected he could not provide it. Accusations, assertions, suspicions, two women who openly hated the man, a dead woman with the death labeled accidental already, and not a bare-bones bit of evidence. The contract was not enough, no matter what Marnie and Van thought. Stef had signed it. If Marnie's reasoning was correct, that Stef was making a mockery of it, laughing at Dale, prepared to renounce the contract later, it no longer mattered. Stef's little joke had seriously backfired.