False Impressions

by Laura Caldwell

  My sarcasm didn’t seem to affect Madeline. “Come in, friend,” she said to me.

  And at her words, I felt welcomed.

  Inside, the place was draped in velvety fabric—the walls, the banquettes, the front of the bar, the chairs.

  The manager greeted Madeline with a hug. As at Toi, a reserved sign was flicked off a table for us to take a seat.

  “Sydney Tallon will be joining us,” Madeline told the manager.

  In the meantime, Madeline and I launched into an easy discussion. Once again, I found Madeline fascinating to talk to. It wasn’t that she spoke a great deal or that she told funny stories, it was more to do with how she listened. I hadn’t exactly noticed it when we were out last week, but it occurred to me that I might never have felt that listened to before. Madeline leaned in a little when I spoke; she cocked an ear toward me as if unwilling to miss even a syllable. The way she’d listened made you feel at the center of a comforting bubble. That bubble expanded when she contributed something. Usually it was a small phrase. Life is made of many things to desire, but we still have to choose only one at a time. Or I like how you said that. Or she might murmur, Hmm, yes, interesting, interesting.

  I excused myself to go the bathroom at one point. “You’ll be here when I get back, right?” I said to her.

  She laughed. “Yes.”

  The bathroom was bizarre, as if the whole room were made of black patent leather. When I came out of the stall and went to wash my hands, the unending look of patent leather made difficult to know where to step. And where the hell did the floor stop and the counter and sink begin?

  Another stall opened. “Isn’t that counter the most impossible thing?”

  I turned, surprised. “Oh, hi. You’re—”

  “Jaqueline Stoddard,” the woman said. She wore the same peach-orange cashmere coat and a scarf around her neck. She reached out her hand. “And you’re Isabel.”

  “Yes.” I shook it. “Please, call me Izzy.”

  “Well, Izzy, let me show you how this works.” She pointed at my clutch purse. “May I?”

  I handed it to her. She reached out, then down at an angle. “It works best if you just walk at it.” She took a few steps, stopped when her hand hit something, then placed the clutch down. And right then, it was apparent exactly where the counter was, leading up the sink.

  “It’s an optical illusion,” Jacqueline said. “Neat. But frankly, a pain in the behind.”

  I laughed, thanked her.

  When we reached the table, someone else was with Madeline. Syd.

  Madeline had told me in the cab on the way over that Syd’s family was from Pakistan. As I’d noticed in the photo of him, he resembled a prince from a faraway land. His sleek hair was long, black and in a ponytail. He was a very handsome man.

  He stood and greeted Jacqueline warmly. When she left, he turned his gaze to mine. It was a powerful one.

  Jacqueline and Madeline talked in some kind of art shorthand about a phone call they needed to have tomorrow, then Jacqueline excused herself.

  “Syd, didn’t I tell you Isabel was gorgeous?” Madeline said as we sat.

  “You did, Maddy,” Syd said. “And you were right.”

  “I think it’s the hair,” Madeline said. “I’ve often wished I could be a redhead.”

  “You’re kidding,” I said.

  “It’s true.”

  “Maddy,” Syd said again, laughing. “Your hair is gorgeous.”

  “Well, so is yours.” She looked at me. “Sometimes Syd and I used to wear our hair the same.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  Madeline pulled up some pictures on her phone. In them, Syd and Madeline both wore their long black hair the same length, in the same style. I couldn’t tell if I found the image disturbing or beautiful.

  As I gave Madeline her phone back, I felt Syd looking at me again, but not in the way Jeremy had. It made me feel a little uncomfortable, as if I were being studied as a specimen of…what? I didn’t know. And I didn’t really enjoy the feeling.

  Madeline caught it, too. But when she spoke, her voice was filled only with interest. “What are you thinking, Syd?”

  “Have you ever had your portrait painted?” he asked me.

  “No.”

  “Who would you want to paint her?” Madeline asked.

  Syd looked at Madeline, a huge smile covering his face. “Axel Tredstone,” he said.

  Madeline blinked, then again. She looked at me, looked me up and down. “Oh, my God,” she said. “Oh, my God.”

  “What?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”

  “Axel Tredstone paints women.”

  “Okay…”

  “No, like he really paints them,” Syd said.

  “Right, I get it,” I said. “He paints portraits.”

  “No,” Madeline said, and somehow in that one word her voice was even more intrigued. And definitely sultry. “He puts the paint on your body. Covers you in paint.”

  “She’d be perfect,” Syd said. “At least I think so. She’s so his type.”

  “I agree,” Madeline said.

  “What’s his type?” I was almost afraid to ask. What if his type was “vacuous gingers”?

  “Intriguing women. Women he finds mysterious. He clearly sees something in each of the women he paints, sees something in their personalities, their souls.”

  “He started out painting traditionally,” Syd said. “As he became popular, his fame led him to a lot of women.”

  “He’s a lothario,” Madeline said. Appreciatively.

  They talked more about Tredstone, explaining his artistic evolution. As they spoke, Syd stopped studying me. Instead, he gazed at Madeline as if mesmerized. He glanced at her constantly, even when I spoke, as if wanting to register all her reactions. He smiled appreciatively, almost wistfully, when she said something funny.

  “In painting portraits of these women, and often bedding them,” Madeline continued, “eventually he felt like he had a new understanding of women. So his art changed. His work became more abstract, bold and linear in parts, soft and gentle in others.”

  Now Syd’s gaze was locked on Madeline. And instead of studying her, as he had me, his look held awe.

  “Tredstone has said that the women are wonderful,” Syd said, speaking up. Still, his gaze was on Madeline’s face. “But certain women, he says…certain women have something else entirely. Something so complex that they don’t even see it.”

  “He began painting on their bodies,” Madeline said, seemingly unaware of, or perhaps simply accustomed to the adoration Syd appeared to be sending her way. “And after he paints the women,” Madeline said, “he photographs them.”

  “He’s been wanting to do Maddy for over a decade,” Syd said. Now he didn’t sound exactly adoring. He sounded jealous.

  “Why wouldn’t you do it?” I asked Madeline.

  “Axel and I have been friends and business partners since I was young and just starting out. We know each other on a very deep level.”

  I glanced at Syd. His eyes were slightly hooded now.

  “And I love that relationship,” Madeline continued. “I don’t want to change it because it’s already so multilayered and beautiful.”

  At that, Syd looked down.

  There was a pause that, to me, felt awkward. “Why would you think I would be right as a subject for this kind of thing?” I asked.

  They both looked at me now, almost as if they were seeing something that they knew I never would.

  “What?” I asked.

  Syd smiled, shrugged. “Your asking that question is what would make Axel consider painting you.”

  “Absolutely,” Madeline said. “I’m calling him this week.”

  Syd’s attention, less intense now, shifted back to me. “You look uncomfortable.”

  “No. Well, maybe a little. I’ve…” I faltered, about to say, I’ve never been involved in the arts before, but that would lead Syd to wonder why i
n the hell Madeline had hired someone with no experience.

  “I can’t quite imagine standing naked in front of someone who is a stranger to me and letting him cover me in paint.”

  “Maybe you should be a part of different kind of installation first,” Syd said. “Something…easier.”

  “I could get her into Pyramus,” Madeline said.

  “Perfect,” Syd said. “You always know the perfect thing to do, Maddy. Who would you put her with?”

  Madeline shrugged.

  Syd looked back at me. “Pyramus is a huge installation that’s taking over a whole gallery.”

  “The whole thing,” Madeline said.

  “It’s essentially a pyramid with a treehouse kind of space inside. This structure will be built into the gallery.”

  “And two people at a time,” Madeline said, her voice slowing slightly, as it did when she told an interesting story, “will climb up the pyramid and into the treehouse and spend an hour together.”

  “Doing what?”

  “The time the people spend together could be the genesis for anything. Would you do it?”

  I felt a little overwhelmed by the idea. But I might as well be a good sport, and I might learn more about the morphing concept of “art.” Meanwhile, sitting in an adult tree fort for an hour seemed an easier route than being painted naked.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Actually,” Madeline said, “I think I might be able to get you in tomorrow. And I think I know who I’d put you with.”

  “Who?” Syd and I said at the same time.

  Madeline jutted her chin at Syd. “You.”

  When we left, I still didn’t understand exactly what I was getting into the next day.

  But I did understand two things. One, Syd Fallon was still very—very—much in love with Madeline Saga. And two, I’d have him to myself for an hour.

  22

  It was enraging, literally enraging. Who was this woman? This woman with the long, orange hair who had grabbed Madeline’s attention like never before? Their connection at the club had been obvious, when they were drinking lychee martinis and paying no attention to anyone around them. And now Madeline was introducing her to people in the art world, her many devotees. Or were they her friends? It was hard to tell with Madeline, who cared so little about anyone else.

  So was this woman simply a new favorite pet? Or was she more?

  It was that thought—the thought of Madeline developing a relationship with someone, when she’d denied so many others—that made the rage overwhelming.

  23

  That night, I couldn’t sleep. I was, I realized, sexually riled up. I had been in a relationship for so long—first with Sam, then Theo—that I’d forgotten the desperation that can accompany those moods. The throb that won’t quiet, the one that grows with the thought that you might not be able to fulfill it. Unless on your own. Which wasn’t a bad option. Not at all. But still, when things have gotten past a certain point....

  I threw back the covers and switched my bedside light on. I couldn’t help but turn and look at the other side of the bed—smooth sheets and blankets, when they used to be twisted with heat, with a man.

  I shook my head to shake away the image. I tugged on some comfortable socks, pajama bottoms and a robe and made my way to my home office. Bristol & Associates had recently bought me a slim, white notebook that was synced with their network so I could work from home. But I wouldn’t be able to focus on work. I woke the computer, pulled up a search engine.

  Now, what to do? What to do to get my mind back into my mind and away from my body? But the question only registered at the end—the word body—and then I thought of the artist that Syd and Madeline wanted me to work with.

  I typed in Axel Tredstone. Immediately the screen proliferated into a sea of images, most of women, stunning in ways that embodied power and sex.

  I found the work Syd and Madeline had spoken of—where the women’s bodies were painted so that they looked clothed, as if in a bodysuit that detailed what you might see inside the women, their emotions, as if you could even peer through their skin, into their layers.

  One showed a woman in shades of peaches and pinks. Clouds swirled up and down her arms. Her breasts had been painted as if she wore a bandeau top with a string around her neck, but if you looked closer the string was actually a rope.

  Another showed a woman with a mass of contradictory colors in her torso but her legs had been painted blue with fins, and she reclined on her side, her feet hidden. She looked like a contemporary mermaid.

  I clicked through some of the other images. I found Tredstone’s bio and a series of articles about him.

  Axel Tredstone was born in Munich, Germany. He came to the U.S. when he was 18 to attend the School of the Arts Institute. There he met former students Jim Nutt and Art Green, who took him under their artistic wing. However, instead of focusing on Chicago Imagism, the world that Nutt and Green inhabited, Tredstone’s development as an artist led him on a different path, one that turned an adoring yet analytical eye on women.

  He started with portraiture. Later, he used a technique in which different parts of the subject were removed and shuffled, so that the end result was a painting that had been cut and reassembled, like puzzle pieces that didn’t exactly fit together. Or did they?

  I stopped there and read the last paragraph again, focusing on the word cut, then seeing it in the email Madeline had received. Was Tredstone someone to explore as a suspect?

  The piece concluded that Tredstone became unsatisfied with his new, reassembled portraiture. It still did not capture the mystery of women. The article went on to explain how Tredstone’s technique evolved to painting directly on the women’s bodies, using his intuitive abilities to capture what he saw, felt, heard, smelled for each subject.

  I sat back and wondered what Axel Tredstone would see in me.

  24

  The next morning, I was back at the computer, settling quickly into work, emailing Maggie to update her on certain cases. When that was finished, I opened the email Madeline had received yesterday and that I’d forwarded to myself. I read it again. You will never be forgiven for what you did.

  After meeting Sydney last night, I wondered if the writer could be him. It seemed apparent that he still craved Madeline Saga. Madeline had said that their breakup had almost killed him. Was that true? Could Madeline’s rejection have devastated him so much that he wanted to destroy her in some way? Or maybe he knew that stealing her artwork would kill her and her business.

  I made a few notes about Syd on a white notepad, some other questions I wanted answered.

  Next, I thought over some of the other information Madeline had given me about the move from the Bucktown gallery to the new one.

  I did an online search for “Margie Scott,” “art specialist” and “moving.”

  She was easy to find. Ms. Scott, I learned, was the owner of a company called Chicago Fine Arts Courier. I read the information on the company’s website. Packing and transporting fine art, from painting and sculptures to rare antiquities, requires attention to detail beyond measure. Ordinary moving companies do not possess the necessary expertise. Chicago Fine Arts Courier employs specialists to delicately pack your works of art, using temperature-controlled vehicles and other state-of-the-art moving equipment and security to ensure your art is secure, every step of the way.

  Every step of the way. I thought about how many—many—steps my father had listed that were involved in the art-moving process. That would give someone from Chicago Fine Arts Courier a lot of opportunity.

  I clicked on the site’s link for the owner. Margie Scott, it said, had a degree in art history, was a licensed architect and also an artist with a successful following in her own right. In fact, it was when a relocation of some of Scott’s architectural art pieces went awry that she decided to form her company.

  I sat back from the computer and thought about that. Margie Scott was an artist and knew, from he
r own experience, how and where the process of moving art could go wrong.

  I pulled up the document I’d created with Madeline and bolded Scott’s name. Then I thought of something else I could do about the email. Or rather, I thought of someone. Vaughn.

  I dialed his number. Voice mail. It was a Sunday, but Vaughn had said something the other night about having to work weekends. I listened to his message, then left my phone number.

  He called back within a few minutes.

  “So what do you do?” I said, trying to joke around. “Do you sit in your office and wait for someone to leave a message and then check it?”

  “Hell, yeah,” he said, sounding cranky. “You wouldn’t believe the kind of shit calls we get over here.”

  This wasn’t how I wanted things to go. “Hey, I was just calling to say thanks for that ride home. I know you were irritated with me, but I really mean it—I’m grateful.”

  He was quiet for a second. “Well, thanks,” he said. “It’s part of my job, you know?”

  “Yeah? Well, I was actually calling because I was wondering about another part of your job.”

  He made a reluctant grunt for me to continue.

  “I know from cross-examining you,” I said, “that you’re a very accomplished detective, who has solved all sorts of crimes.”

  “Cut the crap, McNeil.”

  “No, really,” I said. “You’ve worked a lot of different cases, including stalking, right?”

  “You mean cyber-stalking or the old-fashioned kind?”

  I thought about that. “A little of both. I need another favor.”

  The phone was silent for a moment. “Is it about the friend who disappeared from the bar?” he asked.

  “It is. She was around the next day. I guess you were right—she took a header or whatever you called it. But now she’s gotten this threatening email.” I briefly explained the circumstances, not mentioning any names or the art world.

  “You want me to take a look at it?” Vaughn asked. “Forward it. I can look at it now on the phone. If it’s short.”

  Vaughn gave me his email address, his personal one, and that felt oddly intimate.