Romancing the Brush: An Austin, Texas Art Mystery (The Michelle Hodge Series Book 3)

by Roslyn Woods

  “Is there anything more personal than art? But I take your point. Let’s see…We talked about life and death and relationships…the paranormal…philosophy. You name it, really. He was a man of ideas, and he was interesting to talk to.”

  “So, would you say it was a friendship based on ideas?”

  “I would say it was a friendship based on a mutual affinity. Nothing more, but I suppose, that’s a lot, isn’t it?”

  “How long has it been since you’ve seen Garrett Hall, Dr. Turner?”

  “I saw him in February. He was driving through to Austin and we met for lunch. He told me his plans for the gallery he was joining down there.”

  “Did you talk often?”

  “Actually, we did for a time, but you know how that goes. ‘Way leads on to way.’ We hadn’t spoken since I saw him in February.”

  “So, how long have you been at Baylor?”

  “Sixteen years.”

  “Are you a religious man, Dr. Turner?”

  “I would say…no. I work at a religious school, so I keep that little factoid under my hat. Several of us in this department are agnostic or worse. The administration doesn’t really need to know.”

  “Are you married?”

  “Yes. Wife and two kids,” he said, gesturing toward the photos on his desk.

  “Will you be at the memorial tomorrow?”

  “I’d like to be. I really would. My daughter, Emily, is getting married tomorrow, so I won’t be able to attend.”

  “Family comes first,” said Gonzalez.

  “Yes. Yes, it does.”

  “I’m afraid I have to ask a rather important question Dr. Turner.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Where you were last Friday morning?”

  “I was here. I teach a ten o’clock class on Fridays, and I have an office hour from seven-thirty to eight-thirty, but I usually just stay here till time to head over to the class.”

  “Did you see students or someone else during your office hour?”

  “I always do. The schedule is here if you’d like to see it.” Turner handed a binder that looked something like an old-fashioned grade book to Gonzalez. There were dates penciled in, and he slid his finger along the dates up to Friday the twenty-fifth. Apparently Turner had met with two students during that hour. It was enough for now. If he had been here at seven-thirty, he couldn’t have been in Austin between six-thirty and seven-thirty and made it on time to his office hour.

  “Well,” said the sergeant, looking at his watch, “It looks like it must be just about time for you to head over to that class now. Thank you, Dr. Turner. I think that’s all for now. I appreciate your giving me a little bit of your time today.”

  “No problem.”

  Chapter 29

  Gonzalez heard Wilson tapping on the window of his office door. He signaled for the younger man to come in. “Yes?” he asked as the door opened.

  “Your interview with Walter Friedman? He’s here.”

  “I’ll be right there,” said Gonzalez, taking another sip of coffee before gathering up his notebook and a couple of pencils. The drive back from Waco had been tiring, and he had some important questions for the lawyer he was about to speak with. He stood in his office for a moment, just wondering how he would address the questions. By the time he got to the interview room, Wilson and Walter Friedman were already waiting. “Thank you for coming in,” he said, shaking the older man’s hand.

  “How can I help you, Sergeant?” asked Friedman. He wore glasses and was mostly bald and sixtyish, with longish silver hair around his ears.

  “We need to know who stands to inherit the Hall estate,” said Gonzalez. “There are a lot of questions about who might have had a motive to kill him.”

  “The will is going to be read at my associate’s office this evening. You’re welcome to be there. In fact, it might be helpful to me if you were there.”

  “You expecting trouble?”

  “It’s not likely, but it’s possible.”

  “We can probably be there. Can you give me an inkling about the people who stand to inherit something from Garrett Hall?”

  “It’s really at my discretion since I’m the executor, but I need your promise that what I tell you won’t go beyond these walls until after the reading tonight.”

  “You have that promise,” said Gonzalez.

  Friedman looked at Wilson who also nodded soberly and waited.

  “Marlon Hall stands to inherit two hundred thousand dollars, as does his mother, Garrett’s sister-in-law. It will be metered out in monthly payments so they can’t burn it up quickly. Garrett said they had a history of bad financial decisions, so he had me set it up this way.”

  “Okay,” said Gonzalez, waiting.

  “A substantial amount will go to the art department at the University of Texas,” he added, “and there is also a bequest for The Westside Gallery in Austin. The remainder of the estate, including houses—the one in Dallas and the one here—and all the money and investment accounts and other possessions, including a fairly valuable art collection, will go to Leonardo Parisi.”

  Gonzalez was surprised. It didn’t quite make sense. Leonardo Parisi had said he was just a close friend. How close was he? “Can you estimate the value of Parisi’s part for me?”

  “A little over five million dollars. Possibly more. The actual worth of the estate depends on the changing values of the houses and the art.”

  “I would think there might be an upset over this with the family.”

  “Yes. Garrett Hall expected to live a long time, but he had me prepare the will, and he made me his executor because he wanted someone experienced to manage things in the event that disputes should develop. He called me recently to add the bequest for the Westside Gallery. He expected his nephew would contest everything, so he set the will up so it would be impossible to break. It’s ironclad.”

  “Do you know why he didn’t leave more to his only nephew?”

  “I only know that he said the nephew would be upset and what I’ve already told you.”

  “About the nephew making bad financial decisions?”

  Friedman nodded.

  Gonzalez thought for a moment before continuing. “Mr. Friedman, there is a murder investigation going on. If any of the people who stand to inherit are suspects in the case, the will can’t proceed.”

  “I’m well aware. I intend to read the will to the interested parties. The estate will remain in probate until your investigation has come to a reasonable conclusion. May I ask, are any of the parties I’ve mentioned…suspects?”

  “Formally, no. Am I considering any of them? Yes. Yes, I am.”

  Chapter 30

  When Gonzalez joined Marlon Hall and Wilson in the interview room on Friday afternoon, Hall shook his hand in a friendly way.

  “Please be seated, Mr. Hall,” said the sergeant.

  “I’ve already explained that we’d like to record the interview,” said Wilson.

  “Great. Good,” said Gonzalez, sitting down himself. “And you’ve agreed?” he added, addressing Marlon Hall.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “That’s great. Let’s get started then.” He opened his notebook and signaled Wilson to start the recording. Then he spoke, “This is Friday, the second of May, twenty-fourteen, and it is two-oh-two p.m. I’m Sergeant Gilbert Gonzalez. Present with me are Detective Thomas Wilson and Marlon Hall, the nephew of Garrett Hall.”

  He looked up from the notebook. Hall was smiling benevolently. He was a small man. Gonzalez knew, from the information Wilson had given him, that Hall was thirty-three years old, five feet and five inches tall, and he weighed a hundred and forty pounds. Sitting across the table from him, the sergeant noted that the younger man’s hair was beige. Not blond and not brown. Not ashen, like Wilson’s. He decided it must be some artificial color. Even though it was fairly short, it was styled into a somewhat puffy arrangement and appeared to be sprayed in place. His skin was pink, his eyes gra
y. He wore a white shirt, a red tie with tiny, white polka-dots, and a blue sports jacket. In the lapel of his jacket was an American flag pin. Just looking at him, Gonzalez thought, Southern Baptist.

  “Tell me about your uncle,” said the sergeant.

  “What would you like to know?” His accent was even more southern than Gonzalez remembered from the phone conversation.

  “What was he like?”

  “Well, let’s see. He was born in Atlanta. He went to school at UC Irvine back in the late seventies. I’m afraid he ran around with a crazy crowd. At least, that’s what my father and grandmother thought. But he did well. Got his MFA, did some publishing, went to New York, then moved back to Georgia for a time. But his mother and my dad and mom moved to Texas, so I suppose that’s why he eventually came here.”

  “When was that?”

  “Oh, I’m not sure. He was probably in his late thirties. I was just a kid. Maybe nineteen-ninety-five?”

  “Did he have a job?”

  “He taught for UT. He consulted. By then he was sort of known I guess. People called him to do lectures and things. It wasn’t my world, so I have to admit I didn’t pay much attention, and I never liked the people he kept company with.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Lifestyle. You see, my uncle was a flaming homosexual. I prayed for him. I witnessed to him. God knows my heart that I was faithful in my prayers for the man, but he was hell bent from an early age.”

  “How did this quality show itself?”

  “Well, he never married. He was always hanging around with other men. And let me tell you, they weren’t watching the football game! He was going to cocktail parties and art shows and music things with these very odd people. And who knows what crazy orgies those men were having? Once in a while some man would move in with my uncle. Actually live with him. I even saw him holding hands with one of them. Don’t think I didn’t talk to him about it. I did. I said, ‘Uncle Garrett, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. You need to give up your sinful ways and follow him.’ I told him that ‘Jesus stands at the door and knocks, and if any man, any man, hears his voice and opens the door he’ll come into him and sup with him.’ That’s what I told him. And do you know what he said? He said, ‘I pray for you, too, Marlon.’ Can you imagine that? Who did he pray to? The devil? It would have to be the devil!”

  “And yet,” said Gonzalez, “we have phone records that seem to indicate you went to see him every once in a while, and fairly recently, about four months ago. What was that about?”

  “Well, it’s a funny thing, Sergeant. You see, I witnessed to Uncle Garrett for years, and then I kind of got sick of him and let him go. I didn’t realize what was happening at the time, but God was testing me. God wanted me to give uncle Garrett another chance, and I resisted it. I did. I was resisting God’s will. And so God said, ‘Marlon, you’re going to go broke.’ And I did. I went completely belly-up-broke. It was awful—or I thought it was awful at the time—but God knew what he was doing. You see, Sergeant, God has a plan for all lost souls to come to him.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Well, when I went broke I had to go to Uncle Garrett and talk to him about the family financial situation.”

  “This is when you were…thirty-three years old?”

  “Yes, but God gave us certain families for his own reasons. Who am I to argue with God’s will? Anyway, I went to Uncle Garrett—Daddy had been gone for a good three years at the time—and I told him about Mama and me and how we needed some of the family money.”

  “The family money? Had your uncle inherited family money?”

  “Well, no. He earned the money himself, but of course that was with God’s help. Anyway, I told him about Mama and me being broke.”

  “How did that go over?”

  “Well, at first, he wanted to know what I’d done with Daddy’s money. And I was honest. I was. I told him I’d done with it what God had asked me to do.”

  “Which was?”

  “Well, we lived on it for three years, and some of it I sent to help spread the good news in France.”

  “The good news?”

  “That Jesus Christ has come to save us from our sins. That the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”

  “Aren’t they Catholic in France?”

  “Well, yes, many of them are Catholic, but there’s a cult if I ever heard of one! Anyway, some missionaries came to our church to talk about their work in France and all the little children who’d never heard God’s word, and I was moved by the spirit of God to give them a portion of our money.”

  “How much of your money?”

  “Well, nearly all of it. It made me so happy to think of all those smiling-faced children receiving God’s word. You have no idea what a blessing it was to my heart.”

  “I can imagine. So you told your uncle you’d given your money for mission work in France.”

  “Yes, and Uncle Garrett wasn’t happy. Of course, not having Jesus in his heart, he thought that was a waste. He talked about Catholicism and how the French had already heard about Jesus long before the Southern Baptists had. It was as if he’d never heard of John the Baptist! He said Daddy’s money would have been better spent giving food to the hungry or getting clean water to people, not knowing, of course, that God’s word is the bread of life and that Jesus himself is the living water!Anyway, I just sat there praying for Uncle Garrett in my heart. And then, the most wonderful thing happened! God moved his heart. At first he looked angry, and then he patted my shoulder, and he said he wouldn’t give me a dime, but he’d send money to my mother. Of course, that’s effectively the same as giving money to me! I don’t want to say that God tricked my uncle, but it’s almost like he did.”

  “And so?”

  “So he set up with his lawyer to send my mother a monthly check. We don’t have a savings account, but we get a nice little monthly sum to take care of our bills and even have enough left over to do some charity work.”

  “Seems like everyone should have an Uncle Garrett. But I don’t see how it was God’s will.”

  “Well, you see, I was able, when I saw him, to witness to him for Jesus again, and you can see the miracle of how God changed his heart to do his duty by his family.”

  “Was he changed in any other way?”

  “Well, we’ll only know when we reach the sweet by and by. I hope he accepted the Lord. I don’t know what will happen to those of us who are left here on earth, but I’m sure God has a wonderful plan for our lives. We’re going to see the lawyer this evening, and I have to believe Uncle Garrett has continued to remember his only family in his will.”

  “Where were you on Friday, April twenty-fifth, Mr. Hall?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Were you in Dallas?”

  “Last Friday?”

  “The day your uncle was shot and killed.”

  Marlon Hall looked at Gonzalez and then Wilson. “I had driven down to Austin the night before for a Creationism conference.”

  “You were in Austin?”

  “Yes, that’s what I said. I’d gotten here the night before. I stayed at The Radisson Downtown. Right where I’m staying now.”

  “And where were you that morning between six-thirty and seven-thirty? Were you at the hotel?”

  “Well, no. I walked down to the river walk with my Bible for my devotional time. I was asking for God’s help with this whole textbook thing. You know, the liberals are trying to keep God out of the textbooks our children use in school, but I’m sure you know about that.”

  “I’ve heard,” Gonzalez said. “So, were you alone when you went down to the river to pray?”

  “I’m never alone when I go down to the river to pray. Jesus was with me the whole time.”

  Chapter 31

  Gonzalez stopped in the murder room on his way to his next interview. It was three o’clock and he wanted to look at the bulletin board. Wilson had posted photos he had printed out of four sus
pects. None of them had alibis, and each of them seemed to have at least one motive or another. The pictures of Leonardo Parisi and Billie Morrison were both there. So were those of Thaddeus Dickson and Marlon Hall. No criminal history could be found on any of them. It was rare to have four suspects and find them all without histories.

  “Hello, Ms. Travis,” he said as he entered the interview room.

  “Hello,” she answered. She was already seated, and Wilson had gone over the preliminaries about recording.

  From where Gonzalez stood, he could see that Estelle Travis was wearing a black, western shirt with turquoise buttons. Her platinum hair was arranged in some sort of twist at the back of her head with what looked like a silver belt buckle and a stick keeping it in place. Her skin was tanned, darker than his own, and a little too made-up for the sergeant’s taste.

  “Let’s begin.” Gonzalez named the people present and the time before proceeding.

  “I hope this won’t take long,” Ms. Travis said. “I have places to go and things to do.”

  “We, on the other hand,” said the sergeant, “have very little to do.”

  “Funny,” she answered with a little smile. She tilted her head slightly, appearing to size him up. “What is it you want, Sergeant Gonzalez? I knew Garrett Hall. He was pretty nice. He—the gallery really—sold three of my father’s paintings last February. What else do you need to know?”

  “When did you meet?”

  “I don’t really remember. I’ve been going to art shows in Dallas and Fort Worth for a long time, and I met Garrett Hall at one of those a few years ago. Then, more recently, I was at some show up there and Garrett Hall introduced me to Leonardo Parisi. I told him about some of the pieces in my private collection. He said he’d like to see them. So when he started the gallery here in Austin he contacted me. I came over, looked at the place and liked it. It seemed like the right time to me.”

  “I understand Garrett Hall was recently looking at three new pieces you were thinking about selling through the gallery. Is that right?”