The Gallery (11 page)

She thought she'd feel safe when she reached her room. She didn't. Her hands shook as she got out her brushes and paints. As she squeezed color on her palette.

Paint from your emotion
. She would. She had plenty tonight. She would paint from her fear.

She piled blue and gray in layers at the bottom left of the canvas like icebergs, waiting, watching. A night sky of ebony. A lopsided, waning moon, as cold as the ice below.

From a navy-colored ocean, a killer whale breached, his body slick with trailing drops of water, the surface breaking into teardrops of clear crystal. The whale's body, black patterned with white, matched the landscape, but his energy, his powerful leap from the ocean depths suggested a contrast.

He would glow, glow with phosphorescence. She searched for cad yellow light, squeezed out a worm of paint, drew it lightly around the whale's body. A hint of green. A dry brush dragged still another cool color across the yellow.

“What are you afraid of?” the smooth voice said, drifting from the shadowed corner behind her.

“Oh!” She jumped and dropped her paint brush. She bent to pick it up and felt foolish. “I didn't know you were here.” She wiped paint from the floor.

“Your concentration, your focus was excellent. Perhaps I shouldn't have disturbed you. Frightened you.”

“I'm almost finished. I guess I'm still jumpy from someone following me on the way over here.” She'd tell him. See what he said.

“You're alone in the building.”

Thanks—I guess, she thought.

“You're welcome.”

He could read her mind.

“That surprises you?”

“Hey, stop it.” She tried to smile and turned back to the painting.

The moon radiates with the same colors, the same green and yellow glow
.

“Echoing the algae on the whale,” she whispered.

Perhaps the wall of ice on the left

“would reflect the glow.” She dragged some yellow and a touch of green paint along the iceberg.

And below, under the water, in the ocean depths

“a hint of blue,”

and gray
,

“just like the ice, as if he burst from ice way down, from the depths of icy darkness, the unknown.”

Silence surrounded them. She studied the picture. Decided it was finished and that she liked it. The style was a bit more realistic than her others, but the mix of colors set it apart, kept it from being just another nature picture.

She remembered the title of a book she'd seen while passing a bookstore window.
The Moon by Whale Light
. Maybe that idea stayed in her mind. Could she call her painting by the same name? The idea, the image fit perfectly.

She didn't know how long she had sat there, pulled into the cold, arctic glow, but at about the same time she started to shiver, a sharp sound startled her.

Even through the thick brick walls of the old building, she heard the siren shriek through the night. The wail seemed to stop very close to where she worked.

fourteen

Q
UICKLY SHE CLEANED
up, but found then she was afraid to leave the building. Funny that she felt more comfortable—safer—in this musty basement room with someone—a ghost she'd have to call him—here with her, than she did out in the real world.

But knowing what had been happening on campus combined with the siren so close caused an apprehension that froze her blood and numbed her legs.

Finally she stood. She climbed the stairs, walked down the empty hall, leaned on the front door to open it. As soon as she turned right and rounded the corner of the art building, she raised her hand to shield her eyes. The area around Varsity Pond was lit up as if a fraternity was holding a rock concert there.

There was no concert.

A crowd had gathered. Slowly she walked up behind some students. “Do you know what's happening?”

The story had circulated fast. “They're dragging the pond.”

“It takes two days to drain it.”

“Who—what are they looking for?” La Donna asked.

“Someone reported a scream, some cries, and a splash.”

“They're afraid another girl has been killed.”

Several people helped tell the story. La Donna didn't add her share. She didn't say,
that could be me they're looking for. I think he followed me earlier
.

Should she find a policeman and tell him she thought someone was looking for a victim around eight o'clock? She didn't know that. She didn't see him. No, she wouldn't talk to the police. She had no real evidence.

She walked back to the sidewalk just west of the art building and cut downhill to College Avenue, watching as policemen searched the woods with their spotlights.

Under a street lamp she glanced at her watch. It was eleven. The streets were almost empty, except for an occasional car. No one was walking.

Hurrying from light to light, she stayed alert, ready to run at any noise.
He has already killed tonight. He has no need to kill again
.

Where did that idea come from? She didn't know. It seemed logical. For the first time in a long time, she wished she had a close girl friend. Someone she could call when she got home to an empty house and needed to talk. Just to share ideas. Maybe someone to share the idea that it had almost been her tonight, that she was playing with fire to keep going onto campus alone after dark.

Lights were still on at Johnny's house. She knew his mother liked to stay up late. Mrs. Blair had trouble sleeping. Did La Donna dare ring the bell?

She did. She pushed it, hoping Johnny would answer. He stayed up late, too.

Mrs. Blair peeked out, then opened the door. “LaDonna, what are you doing out here so late?”

“Is Johnny home? Or asleep. I just needed to talk to him.”

“He's in the shower. He hasn't been home long, but he came right in and headed for the bathroom. I expect he'll come back downstairs before he goes to bed. He usually stops and talks to me for a minute. It's the only time we have together most days.”

What Mrs. Blair was really saying was, go home, LaDonna. Johnny is mine now. I don't want to share him.

“Well, okay, I'd better go. Tell him I said hi and that I'll talk to him tomorrow.”

“I'll do that, LaDonna. Now you hurry home, you hear? You shouldn't be out here so late by yourself. You didn't come off the campus, did you? I just watched the news. I don't even like for Johnny to be up there.”

LaDonna wasn't going to share anything with Mrs. Blair. “I'll run. Don't worry about me.”

She did run after looking up and down the sidewalk in front of the Blairs. At her own door, she hurriedly pushed the key into the lock and twisted, jumped inside and slammed the door. Leaned against it.

Johnny just came home? And went straight to the shower? Would someone who just murdered a girl be covered with blood? It might depend on how he killed her. Strangling someone wouldn't cause the killer to get bloody. Stabbing her would. Especially if she fought, as Katherine had.

Without wanting to, LaDonna pictured Johnny's long, strong fingers on black and white piano keys. She felt his hand in hers. His hand at her waist, long fingers pressing in slightly to pull her close for a hug or to keep them together walking with his arm around her.

Johnny could not kill anyone, she said over and over to herself as she headed for a shower. Are you sure? that other self said, as if it was a part of her.

I'm not sure of anything anymore.

She showered, slipped into an old soft nightgown, and lay on her bed. She stared at the faded wallpaper, the cracks in the ceiling that she had made into animals and plants when she was very young.

She snapped off the light. Lay in the soft darkness for what seemed like hours. Nothing made sense to her since Mr. Sable had come into her life. What did that mean? Nothing really. And one thing was right. Her work.

She felt good about tonight's painting.

fifteen

T
HERE WAS NO
way LaDonna could avoid reading the headlines in the newspaper the next morning.

CAMPUS KILLER STRIKES AGAIN

Her dad studied the front page while he sipped his coffee. The smell made LaDonna nauseous. She'd be lucky to keep down tea and toast.

When her father handed her the front page of the paper, she debated whether or not she wanted to read the article. Curiosity won. Someone would tell her anyway.

Teachers said that Minette Waterson was the most promising young artist they'd seen for years. Waterson stayed on campus late last night to finish hanging her senior show, a show that will now hang as a memorial to this young woman
.

Around ten o'clock police were called to Varsity Pond by women from the nearby sorority house. One of them had heard screams, what sounded like a fight, and then a splash. Another witness said he saw someone running in the direction of College Avenue right after ten
.

It took police less than an hour to locate Waterson's body. Speculation is that she was dead before she hit the water, however. There were numerous knife wounds on her body, one of which was probably fatal
.

Retracing Waterson's steps before she reached the pond, led back to the art room where she had spent the evening. The young artist's work is nothing short of spectacular
.

The police are continuing their investigation. Anyone with further information or who was in the vicinity of Varsity Pond last night is asked to come in and talk with authorities
.

LaDonna stared at the newsprint, which blurred before her eyes. I spoke with her. She had my job. She was in the basement. I should go in, she thought over and over. I know I should. And would they get it out of me that Johnny got home about ten thirty? That he immediately went to shower? That someone who knew me called my name earlier? Someone tried to frighten me. Guilt battled with fear.

Another list of police questions filled her mind. Where did you go after someone tried to frighten you? Why didn't you call us then? If she said she went to paint, they might ask to see her painting, or where she was painting. Then they might ask if she went straight home at eleven o'clock. She could say yes. There was no one at her house to say she didn't.

This was all too complicated.

“LaDonna are you all right?” Her dad stared at her.

“Yes, Dad. Thanks. I guess with as many people as there are on campus, a couple are certain to be—be—” LaDonna wasn't sure what to call someone who would murder women for no reason, or none that anyone could see.

“Crazy.” Her dad finished the sentence. “This killer is psychotic. He probably acts perfectly natural most of the time.”

Her dad seemed so sure about his statement, but LaDonna agreed. Again she realized the killer could be someone she knew.
He called your name
. “Someone called my name.”

“What? Someone called you last night?” Her father seemed interested.

“Oh, no, I was just thinking out loud. It was nothing, Dad, nothing.”

She put her cup in the sink and dashed out of the house.

Johnny wasn't at school. She missed him. And what did that mean? Was he sick? Hiding out?

She messed with a canvas in art class. Mr. Rodriguez ignored her, giving a lot of attention to Merilee. Eric Hunter spent the class setting up a still life and helping three girls do charcoal sketches. LaDonna had the strange feeling that she was invisible.

She tried to think invisible was good right now. Her instinct told her to lie low. Not volunteer information that could be twisted and turned against Johnny, or anyone else. She hurried up to the college campus after school. She had changed her mind about going straight to work. She wanted to see the senior show the young woman who was killed had stayed late hanging. There might be something in her work that would tell LaDonna more about her. She felt as if she really wanted to know Minette Waterson.

Another building held the art labs where most of the actual painting, sculpting, iron work, crafts was done. LaDonna hurried past her classroom building and into the long hall of the next where paint, glue, wood, and clay smells mixed into a heavenly aroma—if you were an artist.

LaDonna was reminded of the smell of newly sharpened pencils, her new paint box, the new book smells of first grade.

She passed a display of batik and stopped to look at the work, stalling, she knew, but she let it be all right.

Last year she had been obsessed by silk screen, but now she knew fine art would be her major in college. Painting. She could never make a living with it, at least not right away, but she'd work someplace in order to paint. Roddy was trying to get her a scholarship in art. Maybe Minette Waterson was here on an art scholarship. Was that why she had first accepted the job from Glen? Was her spectacular art salable? LaDonna would compare it to what she was doing. What would four more years of experience help her to produce?

Go in the gallery, LaDonna. Go in and see her paintings
. Somehow LaDonna had equated seeing Minette's art to seeing her body at a funeral service. She took a deep breath, swallowed, and pulled open the door to the student gallery.

The place was jammed with people. That didn't surprise LaDonna. Curiosity seekers. People with a morbid sense of needing to see. Did she fall into that category?

Did it matter why she was here?

Spectacular was the right word for the reporter to have used. Incredible, terrific—all those superlatives. Tears came to La Donna's eyes that hadn't been there before. Within a few minutes Minette returned to life through her work. What a wasted talent.

Like Katherine. Was that the key to the killer's victims? Women who were incredibly talented? The woman who got away was a dancer. Or was that a coincidence? Those students would work long hours, creating or practicing.

She was staring at a long, narrow canvas picturing a young man, a man with an elongated body, long, slender hands that reached for the sky. The piece was entitled “Desire.” LaDonna understood the emotion. The reaching for, the longing for something.