The Skeleton Paints a Picture--A Family Skeleton Mystery (#4)

by Leigh Perry

  “Well…” What I really wanted was a chance to ask Sid, but that would have been awkward. I glanced over at him and realized one thumb bone was held up, and he was nodding his skull ever so slightly. “Okay, I guess it’ll be all right.”

  “Thanks, Georgia. I owe you. Hey, are you up for dinner tonight? As payback for loaning me Sid?”

  Now Sid was nodding, and I knew it wasn’t because he was invested in my love life. He wanted me to pick Lucas’s brain. That didn’t thrill me because I liked Lucas, but eating alone didn’t thrill me either, so I said, “That would be great.”

  It took a little while for Lucas to get ready to go, and unfortunately, he never left the room, so I didn’t have a chance to talk to Sid privately. The best I could manage was a pat on his skull, which I could tell he appreciated.

  Parking being scarce in what passes for downtown in Falstone, we left my minivan on campus and Lucas drove us to Antonio’s, the town’s best Italian restaurant. Antonio’s is also Falstone’s only Italian restaurant, but it is actually pretty good. The decor is bare brick with out-of-focus photos of Rome, Venice, and Tuscany hanging on the walls. It was early enough that we had our pick of tables, and we were soon enjoying steaming plates of lasagna. Since we were both driving, we regretfully passed on the wine.

  After the requisite amount of small talk, I asked, “So how’s tenure process going on your side of the campus? Are you still feeling confident? And Jeremy, too?”

  “The chair assures us that the positions are ours to lose,” Lucas.

  “That is so exciting.”

  “I know! I never really intended to spend life teaching, but at FAD I don’t feel like just an academic.”

  “Not that there’s anything wrong with being an academic,” I said dryly.

  “Sorry, no offense meant,” he said with a grin. “It’s just that academics—real academics like you—are into research and writing papers. Right?”

  “Yeah, that’s fair.”

  “I never cared about any of that. I just wanted to paint. But somewhere along the way I realized I really like teaching, too. It makes me feel like the Italian and Dutch masters with their studios, sharing their expertise with young painters. I’ve had some incredibly talented students, and nurturing their talent is amazing. I’ll always be an artist first, but teaching doesn’t take away from that, and having a secure income is only going to make it easier for me to focus on the art. Being broke all the time is kind of a distraction.”

  I toasted him with my soda. “To the end of distractions!”

  We clinked glasses.

  “So how goes the tenure battle in your department?”

  “It started out being kind of awkward,” I said, “but now it’s getting downright nasty.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “Oh? What have you heard?”

  “Look, I don’t even know if it was true.”

  “Lucas, you can’t leave me hanging.”

  “Somebody—and I don’t want to say who—somebody said your father called and tried to influence Professor Waldron to give you tenure.”

  “Does anybody seriously believe that? How could my father influence anybody? He can’t afford to bribe her. If he did call Professor Waldron, it had nothing to do with me. Feel free to spread that around!”

  “Hey, I didn’t believe the rumor. I’m just telling you one of the ones I heard.”

  “One?”

  He hesitated.

  I just waited.

  “Okay, did somebody really accuse you of trying to spread rumors that FAD is a hotbed of art theft just to make points with the department?”

  I sighed.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have brought it up. Let’s talk about something else. I hear we might get more snow.”

  I was tempted to go along with him—okay, perhaps not to complain about snow, but tackling just about any other topic. Then I decided I might as well face it head-on. It wasn’t like my interest was any secret. “Given that you’ve already heard a lot, I may as well give you my side of the story.” I was fairly thorough, though I didn’t bring in Indigo or Marissa by name.

  By then we’d finished our meals, but since we hadn’t been able to have wine, Lucas insisted we should order dessert and I respected him too much to argue. As we ate our tiramisu, I concluded, “So that’s what’s been happening. I’m not doing this to make myself look good or to make FAD look bad. I just don’t think stealing art is right. I wouldn’t have thought that was a controversial position.”

  “It is and it isn’t.”

  “Seriously, Lucas?”

  He held his hands up defensively. “Hear me out. First off, copyist artists have a long and honored tradition. Some instructors think it’s the best way to learn how to paint. The idea is that after copying the work of the masters, an artist will be prepared to develop his or her own style. Some museums still have copyist programs, and Ashwin teaches a class on it. Of course, copyists usually sign their copies with their own names, and then on the back put something like ‘Copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa by Georgia Thackery,’ so it’s not forgery.”

  “Okay, I can see that.”

  “Then there are professional copyists who make replicas of art to sell for decoration. Some of them even use the same kinds of canvas and pigments so the copies are as close to the original as possible, but they do that thing with signatures, too.”

  “So still not forgery.”

  “Right. Then you get your homages, your parodies, your pastiches, and your swipes.”

  “Swiping sounds like theft.”

  “It’s a particular usage. You read comics, right?”

  I nodded.

  “You know that pose with two opposing superhero teams facing one another? That’s shown up in plenty of comics, and I don’t even know who the first artist to use it was, but it’s not considered plagiarism.”

  “‘It had to happen,’” I said. Fortunately, Lucas read enough comics himself to get the joke.

  He went on. “There’s also something called—and I’m probably pronouncing this wrong—détournement, which is when you take a well-known image like an ad or logo and warp it to make it mean something else.”

  “Like when somebody took the HOPE graphic with Obama and made it NOPE?”

  “Exactly. And another mouthful for you: cryptomnesia. That’s when you saw something but forgot it, then remembered it later and thought it was your own idea. That does count as plagiarism, but at least there’s no malice in it. So all of those are kind of like art theft, but not really.”

  I thought about it as I ate my last bite of tiramisu, then shook my head. “I get what you’re saying, Lucas, but none of those apply. The designs I saw are direct copies—same subjects, same poses, same composition. I don’t even know exactly what composition is in the art world, but I do know you’re not supposed to duplicate somebody else’s.”

  “Generally speaking, you’re right.”

  “And you’re definitely not supposed to commercialize somebody else’s work. This is theft.”

  “Given all that, I wholeheartedly come down on the side of ‘this is wrong.’ Is there anything I can do to help you track the guy down?”

  As much as I liked Lucas, I had to shake my head. I could only imagine Sid’s conniption if I brought somebody else to the team, especially somebody who could be a suspect. “No, thanks. It’s bad enough that people are talking about me—I don’t want to risk your shot at tenure.”

  He agreed with obvious relief and went on to other topics, including his insisting that I quote the limerick my student had written with Sid as a writing prompt:

  “‘A lonely young skeleton named Cheech

  Found romance was out of his reach

  Though longing for dating

  He kept hesitating

  Boner’s only a figure of speech.’”

  Lucas burst out laughing, and I grinned, too, though Sid hadn’t been nearly as amused when the studen
t read it out loud. I suppose it had cut a little too close to the bone.

  We finished the evening on a convivial note, and when Lucas drove me back to FAD to pick up my minivan, I was glad to accept the offer of a kiss on the cheek. Had I been able to discuss it with Caroline, I was fairly sure we’d have decided that it was a “maybe” kiss, meaning that it was the kind that could lead to more serious kissing at a later date. Unfortunately, after the way she’d been acting, that was out.

  Thinking that Madison might like offering dating advice to her aged mother, I did call Pennycross as soon as I got back to the bungalow, but she couldn’t talk long because she had an essay due in world history the next day. I would have spoken to my parents instead, just to check on that phone call to Professor Waldron, even though I knew they hadn’t been trying to talk her into giving me tenure, but they were at a concert on campus and wouldn’t be back until late. I even tried to call Deborah, usually the last person I would go to for dating advice, but she was out bowling.

  And of course, I couldn’t talk to Sid.

  Despite getting home later than usual and going to bed sooner, it was a long night.

  Chapter Thirty

  Friday did not get off to a promising start. There was no Sid to help me clear the snow off the minivan, and when I got to campus and went to buy a cup of hot chocolate at the Roundling’s snack bar, Dahna and Renee were conferring with one another, only to stop when they saw me. Though it was nice that they were friendly again, I had a hunch that I was the reason. There’s nothing like a shared enemy to bring old adversaries back together, but I really didn’t like being the shared enemy.

  To cap it all off, after I got back to my office, Caroline marched in.

  “We need to talk,” she said.

  Surprisingly, I was ready to talk, too. “Yes, we do.”

  She pulled the door closed and sat down on the guest chair without being invited.

  “If this is about my father calling Professor Waldron, let me say again that I knew nothing about it until after the fact. Actually, I still don’t know what it was he called about. All I know is that he would not call to try to pressure Professor Waldron into giving me the tenure job, even if he could. He doesn’t play that kind of game, and neither do I.” I was pretty sure my eyes were snapping with righteous indignation.

  “I know that.”

  That pretty much killed the righteous indignation. “You do?”

  “Okay, I admit I believed the rumor at first, but Harry Potter showed me the way.”

  “He did?”

  “Last night I went home and I was still furious at you. But my husband was out of town, so while I was eating dinner, I turned on the TV. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was on.”

  “Didn’t we just watch that a couple of weeks ago?” Back when we were friends? I finished mentally.

  “That’s right. And remember how we both decided that Ron Weasley was being an idiot? Harry told him he didn’t put his name into the Goblet, but Ron was sure he had, even though he had no reason to distrust his best friend. And we threw popcorn at the screen every time Ron showed up until he apologized, because he was being such a dink. Well, here.” She pulled a snack-sized bag of popcorn out of her pocket. “I think you should throw this at me.”

  “Are you saying you were being a dink?”

  “I was being a big old dink. I know you, Georgia, and you are not the kind to take advantage of having parents in the field to get a job. Yeah, sure, you’ll get gossip and introductions from them. That’s called networking. You wouldn’t try to use them to crowd other people out.”

  “No, I really wouldn’t. And they wouldn’t do it, either. Unless maybe they’re really sick of having me live with them, which I don’t think they are. With me they get Madison.”

  “So whatever your father called Professor Waldron about, tenure wasn’t it.”

  “Right.”

  “Besides, anybody who knows Professor Waldron knows that she would not respond well to either a carrot or a stick.”

  “You’re right again. And now I’ve got a whole head of anger going wanting. There must be somebody I can yell at. Wait, who started that rumor?”

  “I heard it from Owen, but I don’t know where he got it.”

  “Can I throw popcorn at him? Or maybe something heavier?”

  “No, let me handle Owen. Maybe I can get the source of the rumor out of him.” She looked hesitant. “So anyway, I let the whole tenure thing go to my head and I’m really sorry. Can you forgive me?”

  “Harry forgave Ron, so I think I would be a dink if I didn’t do the same for you.”

  “Does that mean you forgive me?”

  “Of course I forgive you.”

  Caroline smiled, I smiled, and we went for the awkward friend hug. She didn’t stay much longer, but when she left, it felt as if we were back to normal.

  After that I was feeling downright cheerful during office hours, despite having to hand out three copies of the syllabus to students, and my mood only improved when it was time to go retrieve Sid. I even waved at Renee when I saw her going into Jeremy’s studio. There were two students still working feverishly on their portraits of Sid, and Lucas seemed to be putting last touches on his, so I found a stool I hoped was free of fresh paint spatters and watched them work. I was tempted to make faces at Sid, since he wouldn’t be able to reciprocate, but decided I was too mature. Besides, Sid is skilled at revenge.

  Lucas finally noticed me sitting there, finished up his piece, and came over. “I’ve got two artists working—are you in a hurry?”

  “‘You can’t rush art,’” I said, then was disappointed when Lucas showed no signs of recognizing the source of the quote. “Can I see the ones that are finished?”

  “Sure, but don’t touch. Some of the paint is still wet.”

  “I’m not the one whose fingers are covered in paint.”

  Lucas looked down at his hands. “I see what you mean. You better not touch me, either.”

  I resisted a flirtatious response both because students were around and because Sid would give me a hard time about it later if I did. We took a spin around the room and I was pretty impressed by the work. A couple, including Lucas’s, were so good that I could clearly recognize the form shown as Sid and not some random skeleton.

  By the time we were through, the last artist had finished and I could finally pack Sid up in his suitcase and wheel him away. Lucas invited me to dinner again, but I told him I had a previous engagement. I wouldn’t mind another date sometime but not that night. I had too much news for Sid, and I wanted to know what he’d been up to as well.

  It was early, but I had no appointments and whatever work I needed to get done could be done just as easily at home as at FAD, so I stopped at my office just long enough to grab my things and headed for my car. It was not, for a change, snowing.

  When I got into the minivan, I said, “Sorry, Sid, I can’t open your bag. There are too many other cars around.”

  “That’s okay,” he said from inside the suitcase. “I can wait.”

  We got to the bungalow, and after a quick look around for more footprints, I wheeled him inside. Once the door was shut, I turned to let him out, but he was unzipping the bag himself.

  “How are you doing?” I asked.

  “Other than a desperate need to stretch, move, and talk, I’m fine. You?”

  “Good.” We moved into the living room and I told him about Caroline’s visit, but he wasn’t overly impressed.

  “It’s great that you worked out your interpersonal relationships,” he said, “but can we get back to the case?”

  I stuck my tongue out at him, which he hates even more than he hates raspberries. “Fine. What did you see and/or hear and/or find when you snooped around? I am assuming that you snooped around Lucas’s studio last night.”

  “Of course I snooped around! I wasn’t there for my beauty sleep.”

  “True. You’re beautiful enough already.”

&
nbsp; His eye sockets narrowed. “You’re sucking up. Why?”

  “I’m just in a good mood.”

  “Whatever. So I searched the studio first, but there really wasn’t much there. Just art supplies and half-finished portraits of me. Some of which are wonderful, by the way. Then there are others I barely recognized as me.”

  “Art can be very subjective.”

  “Easy to say when you aren’t the subject. Anyway, after that I went into Lucas’s office.”

  “I thought he locked the door.”

  “Georgia, what does your sister do for a living?”

  “Yes, I know Deborah is a locksmith, but I didn’t know she’d taught you.”

  “She didn’t, but she’s been teaching Madison, and as part of that process, she bought Madison an instruction book, which Madison left unattended where I could read it. The rest was just practice.”

  “Don’t you need lock picks?”

  “I had my set in the suitcase.”

  “You have lock picks?”

  “They’re easily obtained online. Which reminds me. You may notice some odd charges on your PayPal account.”

  “It’s your stipend—you can do whatever you want with it.” Sid couldn’t make money, so I gave him access to my accounts for those things he wanted. He preferred that I not refer to it as an allowance.

  “I started with Lucas’s office. His computer has lousy security, which I really appreciated. I searched through as much of his hard drive as I could but found nothing relating to art theft. Nothing in his paper files, either, which are surprisingly well-organized for an artist, despite a lot of multicolored fingerprints on everything. Then I searched for secret hiding places under furniture and behind file cabinets and in heating vents. I was very thorough, but there was nothing.”

  “I’m glad. I like Lucas.”

  “One, just because I didn’t find anything that doesn’t mean he’s not Scarlet Letter. And two, will you stop having the hots for our suspects?”

  “Just as soon as you stop suspecting guys who are hot.”