Murder in Pastel

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Murder in Pastel Page 18

by Josh Lanyon


  A woman. Young? Old? Hard to tell, hard to see past the expression of horror that froze her face. My heart sped up in a burst of fear. I growled, “I don’t know. Just…a woman.”

  Adam’s Anima being fully integrated, he slid his hand down my back and gave my ass a reassuring squeeze. He changed direction. “The blood could refer to the blood of Christ; you know, the life of the spirit as well as the flesh.”

  Some kind of religious experience? I wasn’t religious, why would the woman of my dreams be religious? “Maybe it’s just blood, Adam.”

  “Is it a lot of blood? A bath of blood? That could represent baptism into maturity and manhood.”

  “It’s a lot of blood.”

  “It could be the fear of castration.”

  “Shit—” I wriggled my hips more comfortably against his. “Where did you learn all this?”

  “I read a book once. What was the other thing? She’s painted blue? Blue is celestial, heavenly. It could refer to spiritual energy or intellectual understanding.”

  Adam used a lot of blue in his paintings. Azure skies, ultra-marine seas, robin’s eggs, lupine, electricity: the memory of Adam’s work centered me, tranquilized. I was starting to drowse.

  “What else? A moon? Usually in a man’s dream the moon represents his Anima.”

  “You’re building quite a case for latent homosexuality,” I mumbled, and buried my face in the space between his armpit and chest.

  I don’t know what final interpretation Adam may have drawn from my dreams, because by then I was asleep once more.

  * * * * *

  In the morning I went to see Joel.

  I found him breakfasting on his sun porch: eggs Benedict, turkey bacon and the ever-present pot of tea.

  “Sit, dear boy. Have some breakfast.”

  “Joel, I need to talk to you.”

  Ignoring my protests, Joel rose and went to get me a plate. He was wearing pajamas, white with little red and green frogs; the frogs seemed to hop and leap across Joel’s slender frame as he walked inside.

  I looked about myself incuriously. I knew this room as well as any in my own home. Bright sunlight poured through the glass roof upon the jungle of healthy green plants. Joel was an expert gardener, an expert cook, a connoisseur of art and tea and boys. There were several pastels of exotic adolescents in kimonos on the walls of his bedroom. I could still remember the excited, edgy feeling those pictures gave me as a youth.

  Joel returned with my breakfast and poured tea from the clay Yixing pot into gleaming, white porcelain cups.

  Tea is an art not a beverage with Joel. He claims there are healing, soothing properties in such whimsically named blends as Golden Water Turtle and Jasmine Pacifica. He can speak of pure varietals and tonic herbals as enthusiastically as properties of color and light, brushwork and composition.

  “Now, what has you looking so troubled on this lovely morning?”

  After I finished relating an account of my grandfather’s murder the night before, and Joel had finished expressing shock and horror, I said, “Can I ask you something?”

  “Shoot, dear boy.” Joel pushed his plate away as if his appetite had gone.

  “Who modeled for Virgin in Pastel?”

  “Why, I don’t know. No one knows.”

  “Was it Micky?”

  Joel looked pained. “What a question. Why ask me? Ask Michaela.”

  “I have asked her. She said she wasn’t.”

  Joel gestured as though this answered all my doubts. “Why should she lie?”

  “I don’t know. Who do you think was the model?”

  Joel sat back, knees crossed; he had perfect posture, poised as a pin-up girl.

  “I always thought the model was your mother.”

  “My mother didn’t have blonde hair.”

  “Dishwater blonde, but I was thinking more of her body. Kyria was tall and slim and graceful. It could have been a composite.”

  “But Cosmo painted Virgin after she died.”

  “Exactly. I think he painted it from memory. I don’t believe Virgin is any one woman and that’s why it’s so—so magical.” He gave a vague flip of his hand to emphasize the magic.

  Maybe this was the answer.

  As the leading expert on Cosmo Bari’s work and my father’s closest friend, I figured if anyone knew the model for Virgin in Pastel, it was Joel.

  Glancing around the room, I noted the telescope on its aluminum tripod aimed at Adam’s verandah. I wondered if Joel ever directed that 90mm objective lens toward Adam’s bedroom window. Not a cozy notion. My gaze fell on a corner table nearly swallowed by a Sprengeri asparagus fern.

  Something about that table seemed familiar. Why? It was an ordinary corner table, water-marked and battered from the years. It had a mock handle: a brass lion head with a ring through its mouth.

  Why was that so familiar?

  “More tea?”

  I covered my cup with my hand. “No.”

  “It’s decaf.”

  “Thanks anyway.”

  Where had I recently heard about a table with a decorative handle? When was the last time I had discussed furniture with anybody?

  “How about another helping of these incredible eggs, dear boy? An excellent source of protein. And breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”

  Jenny had been refinishing an old piece of furniture and…

  “What is it?” exclaimed Joel. “What’s wrong?”

  I pointed to the table. I noticed abstractedly that my hand was shaking. “That’s part of a set. The dresser that Jenny found Virgin in Pastel in, that was part of the same set.”

  There were a couple of reasonable explanations for this but Joel didn’t offer either of them. He stared at the table. He stared at me. His mouth worked soundlessly.

  “You hid the Virgin in that chest, didn’t you?”

  I was on my feet. Joel jumped up too, reaching for my arm. I yanked away.

  “It’s not what you think.”

  “What did you do, Joel? Did you kill him and steal the painting?”

  Joel put his hand to his throat. “You can’t think— No, no! I didn’t kill him. I could never—”

  “Don’t lie to me!”

  “I-I’m not. I loved him. I could never k-kill—”

  “But you stole the painting.”

  Joel stared at me, tears streaming down his face. “I stole the painting,” he agreed.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Please try to understand,” Joel pleaded.

  I shook my head.

  “I knew it,” I said. “I knew if you didn’t take the damn thing, you had to have noticed it was gone. You were standing in front of it all night.”

  “No, no, no!” Joel gestured as though warding off the evil eye. “I didn’t have anything to do with the painting disappearing from Adam’s!”

  “Don’t lie to me!”

  “I’m not! Yes, I noticed it had gone, but I didn’t care. I was glad. If you didn’t want it, I didn’t care what happened to it. I never wanted to see that painting again.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Try to understand,” he repeated. “I was a different person then. Desperate. I had gambling debts—I was in hock up to my nuts. The people looking for me would have crippled me, broken my fingers one by one.”

  I raised my face out of my hands (which I had been using to keep my head from blowing off my shoulders). Joel had been talking without pause for almost twenty minutes. It still didn’t make sense.

  “I don’t believe you,” I said.

  “But it’s truuue, dear boy.”

  “Then why didn’t you sell the painting?”

  “I…couldn’t. I meant to of course, but when it came down to it I kept waiting for Cos to come back.”

  “Why did you hide it?”

  “I was afraid. He didn’t come back. I thought it was because of me.”

  “What are you talking about? How did you pay off your gambling
debts if you didn’t sell Virgin in Pastel?”

  “I sold everything else. I sold the brownstone, my collections. I mortgaged the cottage. It isn’t a secret. And then I wrote the book. I paid my debts and I—I learned my lesson. I’ve never gambled since. I don’t even buy Lotto tickets.”

  “What about the Virgin?” I questioned flatly.

  “I hid it. At first I was waiting for Cos. I didn’t know how to simply return it. Then I got scared. He didn’t come back,” Joel repeated.

  “How hard did you hit him? Did he fall? Hit his head?”

  “No, no, no! Kyle, really. It didn’t faze him. He said very calmly, ‘Feel better now?’ Knock him down? I was the one on my knees!”

  Joel’s story was that the night before Cosmo left Steeple Hill, Joel had gone to him begging for money. It was not the first time Joel had been in trouble with bookies, but this time Cosmo said no. Apparently he had not put it tactfully. Joel had begged and pleaded and finally punched Cosmo in the mouth.

  Cosmo had walked away into the woods, into history.

  Joel, drunk and desperate, had walked into Cosmo’s house and three minutes later walked out with Virgin in Pastel.

  “Where was I?”

  “Sleeping. I remember Cosmo warned me to keep my voice down. That’s why we went outside.”

  I stood up. “That’s it? That’s your story?”

  “It’s the gospel truth, so help me.”

  “He just disappeared in the woods. You never saw him again? You never heard from him?”

  “I swear to God that is the truth.”

  “And for a decade you hung on to Virgin?”

  “I didn’t know what to do with it. I was afraid. A few years ago I thought if I could slip it back into circulation no one would have to know and you could have it back. I knew it was a matter of time before it resurfaced. What I didn’t realize was that Vince of all people would find it, or that he would be such an asshole, or that you wouldn’t fight for the thing.”

  “So then you stole it back.”

  “No!”

  “Come off it, Joel.”

  “Listen to me!” Joel sounded frantic. “I did not steal it back. The last thing I wanted was to get stuck with that picture again. And for what? If I was afraid to sell it before, I sure as hell wouldn’t try to move it now.”

  That at least made sense—except that he might not have taken the painting back for monetary reasons. Joel was a collector.

  “But you know who took it.”

  Joel shook his head. “I don’t. Really I don’t.”

  “You’re covering for someone, Joel. Who?”

  “You have to believe me, dear boy.”

  I was beginning to wonder if there was anyone I could believe.

  * * * * *

  I shut the front door and nearly fainted as Adam rose from the chair he had been waiting in. He had a beaut of a shiner that I would have gladly kissed and made better, but he didn’t give me the chance.

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  “Gee Dad, we ran out of gas.”

  “Funny.”

  “Well, I’m one of those funny boys. Look, Adam—”

  “No, you look, Kyle,” Adam snapped out crisp as celery stalk. “People are dying. I want to know what you’re up to.”

  “I’m not killing people if that’s what you’re hinting.”

  “Has it occurred to you that by stirring up—”

  “I’m not stirring up anything! Brett stirred the shit up.”

  “THE POINT IS,” Adam drowned me out, “the circle around you is getting smaller and smaller, or haven’t you noticed?”

  “I noticed. I’d like to keep it from getting any smaller.”

  “You’re not a detective in one of your damn books, Kyle. You’re not… Jesus Christ, you were screaming down the house last night.”

  Gotta admit, I didn’t like being reminded of that.

  “Hey, if I’m disturbing your beauty rest, I can sleep next door.”

  “Kyle!” Visibly Adam struggled for control. “You don’t understand. What you are doing is self-destructive. It’s…dangerous.”

  A frisson of alarm slithered down my spine. “What does that mean? Is that a threat?” My gaze fell on the book he had laid aside when I walked in. Simon’s Conquering Heart Disease. My owner’s manual. “What’s this?”

  He didn’t speak.

  “Planning to knock me off next?”

  Okay, I hadn’t had enough sleep, and I’d had way too many shocks in as many hours. I was scared of more things than I could name. People I had trusted all my life were turning out to be liars, thieves, possibly murderers.

  “Kyle…” He breathed the word out like actors on TV do when they’ve been shot; kind of weak and disbelieving.

  But then he fired back. “I’m not Cosmo. I’m not going to walk out on you when you need me.”

  My turn to figuratively stagger back and see how badly I’d been hit.

  “This has nothing to do with Cosmo.”

  “This has everything to do with Cosmo. Everything that ever happened in this goddamn place has to do with Cosmo.”

  Ah, now we’re getting somewhere, I thought. But I was wrong, because Adam wasn’t talking about himself, he was still talking about me.

  “Can’t you see what this is really about? Cosmo abandoned you. You’re trying to make sense of something that doesn’t make sense. You want it all neatly explained so it won’t hurt anymore.”

  “If Cosmo walked out on me, then where’s the danger? What’s self-destructive about wanting some answers?”

  “I’ll tell you what’s destructive.” Adam picked up the book. “According to this, alcohol will make your heart worse.”

  White-hot fury washed through me. “You can’t let it alone, can you?”

  His eyes were so dark they looked black. “Why won’t you talk to me? You go to the doctor; you’re obviously upset, and instead of talking to me, instead of dealing with it, you get drunk. You go to the Hall of Records, you start asking people questions like you’re playing cops and robbers. What’s going on? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

  “Since we’re psychoanalyzing each other, let me ask you something,” I said. “If Brett hadn’t dragged you, would you have ever come back to Steeple Hill?”

  “What the hell does that have to do with the price of turnips?”

  “No,” I answered my own question. “You would not have.”

  Adam was silent. Then he said more calmly, “You analyze this stuff too much.”

  “Sorry if I’m prone to thinking. It must make a change after Brett.”

  Anger flickered in his eyes, but his voice was level. “Kyle, I care for you. We could have something together. Something worth having. Why are you doing this?”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I wanted to tell him what I feared, but I couldn’t find the words. Then the opportunity was lost forever as Adam spoke.

  “I thought of you as a—a—”

  “Child.”

  “Seventeen-year-old boy. I’m not a pedophile.”

  “I wasn’t planning on turning you over to my Guidance Counselor.” I added bitterly, “Brett was younger than me.”

  Adam sighed. There was a wearied note in his voice that reminded me of how he used to sound with Brett sometimes. “He was an adult. You were how old when I moved here? Ten?”

  “Thirteen.”

  “And I was how old? Twenty-something?”

  “Twenty. You wore size 11 shoes and a sixteen-and-a-half-inches collar. Anything else you want to know about yourself?”

  “That’s my point, Kyle. You were a kid. A cute kid who followed me around like a puppy.”

  Oddly enough, that no longer stung. “I grew up a long time ago, Adam.”

  “What I want you to understand is that I would never have laid a hand on you. Ever. And not because your father and Joel and every other adult in a five-mile radius would have had my balls. I wouldn’t
do that to a child. I wouldn’t use a child.”

  “No one’s suggesting—”

  “But then you were fifteen, and then sixteen, and you—I liked you, Kyle. A lot. You—liked me. I had to make a conscious effort not to escalate things. I had to fix it in my mind that you were off-limits.” He concluded lamely, “It stuck, I guess.”

  “And besides, you met Brett.”

  A long sigh, like a final breath.

  “Besides, I met Brett.” Adam raked a hand through his hair. Not a lot to chat about after that. The truth will set you free. In more ways than one.

  “Kyle, you’re deliberately sidetracking me. Why?”

  “Because I think we should clarify things.”

  “Here we go again.” Adam’s lip curled. “Let me guess, you don’t think we should see each other?”

  Actually my point was that he didn’t have a right to rein me in—hell, I don’t know if I had a point. Let’s say I wasn’t thinking too clearly. Maybe my obsession with the past was self-destructive, but right now my future didn’t appear to have a happy ending in sight.

  And of course once Adam said it, I figured Adam was putting into words what he wanted.

  “There’s not a lot of point, is there?”

  I was still hoping he would argue. Adam said nada.

  “I have to do this.” A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.

  Unless another man’s got a better idea?

  Adam gave a small nod as though at last I made sense. He headed for the front door.

  “Then don’t let me keep you,” he said on his way out.

  * * * * *

  I was afraid if I took time to reflect, I’d fall apart, so I made a beeline for Micky’s and found her in her studio.

  “Where’s the fire, kiddo?” She shook a cigarette out of the pack of Marlboros and lit it. She inhaled deeply, studying the painting on the easel, head tilted, eyes narrowed at blue sunflowers from another planet.

  “I want to ask you something.”

  “Ask away.” Somehow she managed to rake the hand with the cig through her long hair without setting her hair on fire.

  “Were you the model for Virgin in Pastel?”

  Micky whirled, her green eyes feral. “No. I told you no. If one more person asks me that—!”

 

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