Murder is an Art

by Bill Crider

  “I think we should all have a look at the painting,” Jorge said. “I haven’t had a chance to visit the art exhibit yet.”

  “Very well,” Fieldstone said. “You should see it before forming an opinion. It was done by one of our prison students, after all.”

  That explained why Jorge had been asked to come to the little meeting. Val Hurley was chair of the art department, Sally was his immediate supervisor, Naylor was her supervisor, and Jorge oversaw the prison programs. Nothing like spreading the blame around. That way, even if the painting had something to do with black magic or Satanism, which Sally seriously doubted, none of the blame would stick to Fieldstone.

  “Let’s all step over to the gallery,” Fieldstone said. “And have a look at the painting.”

  Jorge was the closest to the door, and when he opened it, Sally thought she saw Eva Dillon hastily shove what looked like the remains of a Snickers into a desk drawer. Sally gave her a thumbs-up and led the way to the gallery, which was upstairs in the Art and Music Building next door.

  Jorge followed her up the stairs, and when they went through the gallery’s doors, she said, “You might want to sign the guest book, Jorge. The students appreciate your support.”

  Jorge said nothing, but he smiled, revealing teeth almost as white as Fieldstone’s. Sally had heard that dental students got part of their training by doing work in the prisons. Evidently they did a good job.

  The gallery was a long, narrow room, shaped like a capital T. The entrance doors were at the foot of the T, and there was a small white pedestal to the right. The guest book sat atop it.

  Jorge glanced down the length of the gallery.

  “Which painting is Mr. Talon objecting to?”

  Talon, who had come in behind him, said, “That one right down there.”

  He pointed to the end of the room, at the crossbar of the T. Sally looked in that direction and saw what might have been a section of a goat’s head in a painting that was partially concealed by the wall. She vaguely recalled having seen it on her previous visit, but she certainly didn’t remember any numbers on its forehead. Of course, she wouldn’t have been looking for them. Goats weren’t her favorite animal.

  “Let’s have a closer look,” Jorge said, leading the way down the narrow room.

  The walls on both sides held paintings, watercolors, and drawings done in pencil, charcoal, and pen and ink. Many of them were amateurish, but a number showed real promise, or so Sally thought. However, she wasn’t much of an art critic; her tastes ran to the sweeping landscapes of the Romantic era, and there was nothing like that on display. Instead, there were still lifes of fruit, some teddy bears, several portraits, and lots of cow skulls.

  The middle of the room was filled with sculptures, mostly free-form, some of them ceramic, others plaster, and some made from metal that seemed to have been scavenged from a junkyard. Sally was careful not to brush them as she passed. Most of them seemed precariously balanced on their white pedestals.

  When they had all gathered at the end of the gallery, Roy Don Talon stood in front of the painting of the goat and pointed in triumph.

  “There it is,” he said. “Plain as day—six-six-six. The Number of the Beast!”

  Sally looked at the forehead of the goat. As far as she could tell, there was nothing there at all.

  5

  “I don’t see any numbers,” Jorge said, leaning toward the painting. “And it doesn’t even look much like a goat. It could be a buffalo, maybe.”

  Sally was glad to hear him say it; the animal didn’t look much like a goat to her, either. It looked more like a sheep with horns.

  Talon stepped forward, nudging Jorge with his shoulder. If he was trying to push Jorge aside, it didn’t work. Nudging him had about as much effect as nudging a Chrysler.

  “Look here,” Talon said. He tapped the painting with a finger. “You mean to tell me you don’t see any numbers right there?”

  “Not a one,” Jorge said. “All I see is hair. Or maybe it’s wool. Are you sure this isn’t some kind of Rocky Mountain sheep?”

  A flush was spreading from the base of Talon’s neck up to his ears. He said, “It’s a damn goat, an imp of Satan, and those are numbers right there on its fiendish forehead!”

  “It looks more as if the hair is just tangled there,” Sally said. “I don’t think there are any actual patterns in it.”

  Talon traced the curves of the hair with his fingers. “Now then. You see? Are you going to try to tell me those aren’t sixes?”

  “They aren’t if you look at them this way,” Jorge said. He put out a hand that could have crushed Talon’s like a paper cup, and traced the hairs in a different direction. “This way, it looks more like nine-one-one. It could be a subliminal suggestion to call the police. I’d call this a law-and-order painting.”

  Talon’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve heard a thing or two about you, Rodriguez. You’re real big about spending taxpayers’ money on helping prisoners get themselves educated and ‘rehabilitated.’”

  Sally could actually hear the quotation marks around the last word. Talon clearly didn’t have a high opinion of the effects of education on prisoners.

  “There have been quite a few studies done,” she said. “All of them show that the one thing that reduces recidivism more than any other is education.”

  Talon turned his gaze on her. “I guess you think something like this picture is educational.”

  Sally nodded. “I do, yes. It’s a good creative outlet, and it gives the men something to do with their time.”

  “Men?” Talon said. “You mean convicts, don’t you?”

  “They’re still men,” Jorge said.

  Talon swiveled his neck and glared at Jorge, who returned the car dealer’s stare with mild amusement.

  “Now, now, gentlemen,” Dean Naylor said calmly. “Let’s not forget why we’re here.”

  Sally had wondered when Naylor would speak up. He would be the one Fieldstone was counting on to smooth things over, and if anyone could do it, he could. He was the college’s master of double-talk. Sally had once gone to his office to get the answer to what she thought was a simple yes-or-no question. When she had left an hour later, she still didn’t have an answer. Not only that, but she’d forgotten the question.

  “We’re here about this Satanic picture, is what we’re here for,” Talon said.

  Naylor smoothly insinuated himself into the narrow space between Talon and Jorge. Sally marveled at his skill; Naylor wasn’t a small man, and she wouldn’t have thought there was room for him.

  “Let’s examine the picture again,” Naylor said. “I think we can all agree that the … um, numbers aren’t really as plain as they might be.”

  “Maybe so, maybe not,” Talon said. “But that’s because the convict is trying to hide them. You can see them if you’re looking. They’re there all right.”

  “I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” Naylor said. “And I think you’ll agree that it’s the right thing.”

  “Not unless you take down that picture, I won’t,” Talon said. “It doesn’t belong on the wall of a college art gallery. As a taxpayer in this district, I think it’s offensive.”

  Naylor said, “I was going to suggest that we simply have a group of our instructors come in and evaluate the picture. We’ll have them come in and critique the exhibit, without giving them instructions to focus on any particular picture. If even one of them suggests that this painting of a … um, goat suggests Satanism, or finds it offensive in any way, we’ll remove it from the walls at once.”

  Talon seemed about to launch into a criticism of this approach when Val Hurley spoke up. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. It’s censorship of the worst kind. It’s just not acceptable.”

  Talon said, “Now you just hold on there. That’s not censorship. It’s a good idea. I think ever’body will see that this is a subversive and offensive picture and that it ought to be taken down off that wall as soon as they look at it. Wh
o’s gonna be on that panel, Naylor?”

  “Faculty members from several different departments,” Naylor said. “I’ll get a good cross section of the college.”

  Hurley protested again. “I don’t think that’s fair. I think you should pick people who are at least a little familiar with the principles of art.”

  “Bull corn,” Talon said. “Naylor, you get some real folks in here, not a bunch of artsy-fartsy types.” He looked at Sally. “Pardon my French again, ma’am. You gonna get real folks, Naylor?”

  Fieldstone stepped in. “Of course we will, Mr. Talon. You don’t have to worry about that. People from the business department, the nursing area, automotive repair. Maybe the welding instructor.”

  Talon smiled. “Sounds like a good cross section to me. I like for things to be done fair and square.”

  Sally had to admire the guile of Naylor, Fieldstone, and Hurley. They were playing Talon like an old fiddle. If she hadn’t known better, she would have bet that Val had been rehearsed. For that matter, maybe he had.

  “Why don’t you come back to my office with me?” Naylor said to Talon. “I’d like to get your ideas on ways we can improve the college, if you’d be willing to share them with us. I’m sure you have some valuable suggestions.”

  “Well, I do have an idea or two,” Talon said.

  “Great!” Naylor said.

  The dean slipped his arm around Talon’s shoulder. That was one of the things about him that Sally didn’t like. He was a touchy-feely type, and sometimes he made her uncomfortable. She had to admit that he touched both men and women, and she knew that he meant nothing by it, but it still bothered her.

  Talon set his ten-gallon hat on his brush-cut hair, and Naylor led him out a door at the end of the crossbar, the two of them talking animatedly about the future of Hughes Community College, Sally supposed.

  Jorge watched them go. “Another soul made happy,” he said.

  “He thinks he’s happy now,” Fieldstone said. “Later, it might be a different story.”

  “When the painting doesn’t come down?” Sally said.

  “It’s a possibility.” Fieldstone tugged at the knot of his tie. “But we can’t afford to have people interfering with academic freedom.”

  “Why not just explain the concept to him?” Jorge asked.

  “Why not try to explain it to this sculpture?” Val Hurley said, putting his hand on an amorphous ceramic piece.

  Jorge smiled. He was handsome when he smiled, Sally thought, in a sort of gangsterish way.

  “How can you be so sure the committee will give you the right evaluation?” he asked Fieldstone.

  Fieldstone nodded toward the painting. “Do any of you see any numbers?”

  “No,” Sally said.

  “Of course not,” Hurley said.

  “Just nine-one-one,” Jorge said. “Obviously symbolic of the police state. It would be better if this were a painting of a pig, though.”

  Fieldstone grinned. “That’s not the interpretation you gave before, but who knows? You may be right. At any rate, now it’s time for all of us to get back to work. Dr. Good, I need to see you and Mr. Hurley in my office. We have something else to discuss.”

  What now? Sally thought. Then she remembered A. B. D. Johnson and his complaint.

  “We’ll be right there,” she said. “I need to have a word with Val first.”

  Fieldstone turned to leave. “Ten minutes?”

  Sally nodded. “Ten minutes.”

  When Fieldstone was out of earshot, Jorge said, “That was pretty slick work, Val. Did you get together with Naylor beforehand and plan it?”

  “No. But I could see by the way things were going that Talon wouldn’t agree unless he thought it would be to his advantage. So I just helped him think so.”

  “Well,” Jorge said, “it was well done. If you ever want to run a con on somebody, you’ll do okay.”

  “I don’t want to con anyone,” Val said. “I just want to be left alone to teach my students.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Jorge said. “That’s all any of us asks for. Just time to do our jobs. Walk you back to your office, Dr. Good?”

  “I have to talk to Val before we go to Fieldstone’s office again.”

  “Right. I forgot about that. See you later, then.”

  Jorge left by the same door that Naylor and Talon had gone through. When it had closed behind him, Val said, “He seems like a nice guy. Did you ever hear why he was in prison?”

  “He killed someone,” Sally said.

  “I know that. But who did he kill?”

  Whom, Sally thought, but she said, “I don’t know. Right now, though, we have to talk about your chair.”

  “My chair?”

  “Your new office chair. A. B. D. Johnson is upset.”

  Val smiled a goatish smile. “I’m shocked.”

  Sally laughed. “I’ll bet. Anyway, I just wanted to warn you that he’s threatening to send a memo of complaint to Fieldstone. In fact, that might be why Fieldstone wants to see us. A. B. D. might have bypassed the memo and complained in person.”

  “Dr. Fieldstone doesn’t like complaints much, does he?” Val said.

  “No. But you don’t have to worry about this one. It doesn’t have anything to do with you, not really. And that reminds me—did you pick the pictures to be displayed in this exhibit?”

  “No. They were juried. Of course, I was on the jury with the other art instructors. I didn’t like that painting, though. No one did.”

  “Then why is it here?”

  “Because it was the only one submitted by any of our prison students. We thought it would be a nice boost for him to have it on display here.”

  “Too bad it didn’t turn out that way,” Sally said.

  “Oh, it’s a nice boost, no matter what Talon says. We just won’t tell the artist there was any controversy.”

  “Good,” Sally said. “And if you see A. B. D. coming, you’ll know what he has to say.”

  “Thanks for the warning. I hope that’s not what Dr. Fieldstone wants to talk to us about. I don’t feel much like defending my chair to him.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Sally said. “It’s probably something else.”

  But she didn’t really think so.

  6

  Jack Neville was working on an article for Golden Disc when A. B. D. Johnson stopped by. Golden Disc wasn’t what anyone would consider a scholarly periodical, but no one at Hughes was required to publish scholarly articles, or any other kind of articles. So Jack could write whatever he wanted to write and send it wherever he wanted to send it.

  “Working on another one of those academic monographs?” asked A. B. D. “Maybe something about Bobby Rydell as an innovative stylist?”

  Neville looked at Johnson, taking in his scuffed loafers, his baggy Dockers (clearly not the wrinkle-free variety), his sad face, his unruly hair. Neville didn’t appreciate Johnson’s sarcasm, and for a second or two he considered making some disparaging remark about Walt Whitman, particularly the Calamus poems, but he restrained himself.

  He put down his pen, leaned back in his chair (not the executive model), and said, “I’m writing about Buddy Holly, if you’re really interested.”

  “I’m not,” Johnson said. His bluntness was one of the things that Neville didn’t like about him. “I came by to talk to you about your chair.”

  “My chair? Are you kidding me?”

  “I’m not kidding. That chair’s in pretty bad shape. It’s ripped there on the back.”

  Johnson pointed, but Neville didn’t bother to look. He knew the chair’s shortcomings, which were many.

  “So?” Neville said.

  “So some of the stuffing’s leaking out. And I’ll bet it squeaks.”

  “The stuffing?” Neville asked.

  “The chair.”

  “Oh.”

  Neville leaned forward. The chair squeaked.

  “By George, you’re right,” he said. “I guess i
t needs a shot of WD-40.”

  “Val Hurley has a new chair,” Johnson said. “An expensive one.”

  Neville shrugged and leaned squeakily back again. “Good for him.”

  A. B. D. shoved his hair up off his forehead. It fell right back down. “Doesn’t it make you angry that some people spend money for things like chairs when the school’s short of money? Hurley could just as well have used his old chair for a few more years, just like you’re doing.”

  “Don’t get all worked up about it. A chair’s not that expensive.”

  “It’s not the money,” Johnson said. “It’s the principle of the thing. I think it’s outrageous, and I think someone should do something about it.”

  “Not me,” Neville said. “I have to prove that Buddy Holly was a more innovative artist than Elvis.”

  A. B. D. Johnson snorted. “That’s the trouble with this place. Nobody cares about anything important.”

  “You don’t think Buddy Holly is important?”

  “You know what I mean. Everyone has a secure little job, and we’re all supposed to be happy as long as nobody rocks the boat.”

  “Look,” Neville said. “Here’s the way it is. I’m not getting rich, but I’ve got a good job, and I love doing it. I even get to write articles for Golden Disc, which I probably couldn’t do if I were working for some big university. I’d have to work on serious studies of the significance of the lack of punctuation in Quentin Compson’s section of The Sound and the Fury, or on something else that doesn’t really interest me. I’d be spending the rest of my time worrying about getting tenure or complaining about having to teach composition classes just because I wouldn’t be supposed to enjoy them. But I like teaching composition, which is what I do here. So why shouldn’t I be happy and satisfied?”

  A. B. D. gave him an exasperated look. “Because nothing ever changes! We need to shake things up, get some new blood in here, get a fresh start!”

  “Well, you shake things up, then. I’m more interested in writing about Buddy Holly.”

  “Apathy!” Johnson said. His face was getting dangerously red. “That’s all there is around here. No wonder this school’s going to hell in a handbasket.”