“Like Sharice and me?”
“By today’s standards, you two are normal.” She drank some of her saltless margarita. “I just remembered something Segal said in an interview—‘My first models had to be people who were convinced I wouldn’t kill them.’ He said most models didn’t mind having plaster on their bodies. But having it on their head freaked them out. Of course he also noted that he never covered their nostrils.”
“Prather put straws into Ximena’s nostrils so she could breathe, but he could have come back after the plaster hardened and plugged them up.”
“Did he stay in there the whole time just watching the plaster dry? Because if he didn’t, anyone could have come in and closed off her air supply.”
“I don’t know if Prather stayed while the plaster hardened. Fletcher wondered if there might be poison in the plaster itself.”
“Yes!” She bolted upright and assumed her Girl Detective face. “There’s a classic murder mystery in which the blind victim is killed by poison on her Braille cards. You want to guess the title?”
“She Never Saw It Coming?”
“No.”
“She Never Felt It Coming?”
“No.”
“The Fingertips of Death?”
“Are you trying to guess or just joking around?”
“Well, you didn’t give me much to go on. How about a hint?”
“You were warm with the word felt.”
“Hmm. Felt … touch?”
“Getting warmer.”
“The Touch of Death?”
“Even closer.”
“Fatal Touch?”
“You missed by just one word. It was titled The Fatal Touch.”
“Not bad, considering I don’t read murder mysteries.”
“You couldn’t have read this one. It doesn’t exist as a real book.”
“It’s one of those ebooks?”
“Nope.”
“A book on tape?”
“No.”
“But you said it’s a classic.”
“It is. It’s the title of a book written by a character in a mystery about three aging murder-mystery writers who become murderers for hire using the classic techniques they wrote about before their books stopped selling because they were too intellectual and puzzle-oriented and everyone had started reading thrillers that don’t use poison because the deaths in thrillers have to be gory and noisy.”
When Susannah gets excited, she often packs too many words into one sentence. Strangely, they still make sense once you parse them.
“Ximena wasn’t blind,” I noted, “so the Braille-card method wouldn’t have worked on her.”
Susannah’s eyes narrowed. “Her eyes may have worked, but maybe her voice didn’t. You did say she never spoke.”
I thought she might be on to something. “You think she may have been dumb?”
“Hubie! That’s a terrible thing to say.”
“No, it’s not. It’s only terrible when you use it to describe someone who’s stupid. It’s okay to use it when describing someone who can’t speak because that’s actually what dumb means.”
“It may have meant that at one time, but now it’s politically incorrect.”
“So what do we now call someone who is unable to speak?”
“Speechless.”
“You have got to be kidding. Speechless means temporarily unable to speak because you’re overcome with emotion. It’s not a permanent condition.”
“Yeah, but it sounds better.”
“It sounds better to call liver ‘chocolate ice cream,’ but it still tastes awful.”
“Just don’t use the word dumb, okay? People will think you’re insensitive.”
“I’m a very sensitive guy. Anyone who doesn’t think so is dumb.”
“Can we get back to Ximena? Maybe the reason she didn’t yell out for help was because she wasn’t able to.”
“More likely it was because her mouth was covered with plaster.”
“Couldn’t she break the plaster just by opening her mouth? The jaw muscles are pretty strong.”
“Remember, she was also wrapped in gauze. If a continuous loop went from under her chin to over her head, that could make opening her mouth difficult. And even without the gauze, it would be hard for her to open her mouth. Jaw muscles are strong when they close because they evolved that way back when we had to crunch bones in the animals we ate when we lived in caves. But jaw muscles aren’t strong when they open because there is normally no resistance to that motion.”
She tested my claim by first biting on her finger to feel how strong the jaw muscles are when closing and then by opening her mouth while at the same time trying to hold it closed with her thumb under her chin and her fingers pressed across her upper lip to show how little force it takes to keep your jaw shut.
I pretended I didn’t know her.
“I think you’re right,” she said after her experiment was complete. “We need to get a list of everyone who was in the gallery after the plaster was applied and a log of when they came and left.”
“We?”
“Well, you probably. As a member of the art faculty, it’s easier for you to get that info.”
“As a member of the police department, it’s even easier for Whit to get it.”
“Yeah, but will he share it with you?”
“Why would he?”
“Because without it, we can’t find out who murdered Ximena.”
“We don’t know she was murdered. And if she was, it’s Whit’s job to figure out who did it.”
“But she was your student.”
“Yes. And I’m saddened by her death. But it’s not my job to find out how it happened.”
“Fletcher may need your help.”
“If he thinks I know something that might help his investigation, I’m sure he’ll ask me. And I will cooperate like any good citizen. But I am not going to try to solve a murder.”
She ignored my refusal to play detective and said, “I know there’s a security camera in the gallery. If he lets you look at the comings and goings, you may know some of the people.”
“If he wants me to look at it, I will, although I see no reason why he would ask.”
She looked disappointed.
21
I was happy to get back to the condo, where I hoped to get Ximena’s death off the front burner of my overheated mind.
It was not to be.
When I asked Sharice what she had in mind for dinner, she said, “Let’s see if you can guess when the scent begins to fill the room.”
Shortly after she went to the kitchen, the doorbell rang. I opened the door and saw Charles Webbe.
And very little else. At six-three and two twenty-five, he pretty much fills a doorframe.
He had on his usual dark-blue suit, white shirt and conservative striped tie. The suit was so well tailored that the pistol tucked against his left rib cage was easy to miss.
Several years ago, he ran at me with that pistol drawn. I thought he was going to kill me. In fact, he was trying to prevent my being killed. Obviously, that was prior to my learning that he was an FBI agent. He was working undercover and sporting dreads. When that assignment ended, the dreads gave way to a shaved head and a dark-blue suit.
He is impressive in that suit, his body as hard as coal and just as black.
“The English gentleman at your shop told me you now live at this address. Got a minute to talk?”
I invited him in and we sat on the two Barcelona chairs.
“I was surprised to hear you’d moved,” he said. “You had an affinity for Old Town.”
“Still do.”
“You don’t strike me as a condo guy.”
Before I could reply, Sharice came out of the kitchen.
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Charles stood up. “Good evening, Miss Clarke.”
“Please call me Sharice.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, then looked at me. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you had company.”
“I don’t.”
He was momentarily confused.
Sharice said, “It’s my condo, Agent Webbe. Hubie lives here now.”
He was silent for a moment. Then shook his head. “There goes the neighborhood.”
When we stopped laughing, he said, “I can’t call you Sharice if you call me Agent Webbe. So it’s Charles, okay?”
“Deal. I just opened a bottle of Gruet. Would you like a glass?”
“Why not? I’m not officially on duty.”
She asked me if I also wanted a glass. I told her I’d already had a margarita.
“Just one?”
I nodded.
“Good boy. You can have a small glass of Gruet.”
She served piñon brittle with the Gruet.
I bit into the brittle and asked if it was approved by the American Dental Association.
“Only if you’re living with a dental hygienist who can make sure you clean your teeth properly.”
“In that case, I’ll have a second piece. So, Charles, are you here as an agent or a friend?”
“Both. I want to talk to you as a friend, but the topic is a case I’m interested in. Well, it’s not a case yet, but I think it will be—the death of Ximena Sifuentes. Whit Fletcher told me you were there when they removed the plaster and discovered she was dead.”
Sharice asked if she should leave the room while we talked.
“I’d actually prefer that you stay,” he said. “Seeing as you two are a couple, you can be helpful recapping our discussion after I leave. Sort of a second pair of ears.”
Sharice put her hand on my arm.
I asked Charles why the FBI might be interested in Ximena’s death.
“We’re responsible for investigating hate crimes.”
“Her death was a hate crime?”
He shook his head. “We don’t know. We’re not even sure it was a crime. The medical examiner’s finding was that she died from asphyxiation, but he hasn’t determined if it was accidental.”
“How could it be accidental?”
“I know someone put straws in her nose so she could breathe. I don’t know anything about art, especially weird things like making a mold of someone’s body. Maybe the person who put the straws in had a lot of soft plaster on his hands and some of it accidentally got stuck in the straws. Or maybe after they left her, bits of torn gauze were floating in the air. She aspirated some of it, and it clogged her nasal passages. I’m not a forensic scientist, just a flatfooted cop. I’ll wait for the lab guys to tell me what happened.”
“But you wouldn’t already be looking into it if you thought it was an accident.”
He nodded. “Those two scenarios I tossed out seem unlikely. I just suggested them because I’m supposed to keep an open mind.”
Sharice tightened her grip on my arm and said to Charles, “You think she was murdered, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“Why would it be a hate crime?”
“Any crime can qualify as a hate crime if it’s motivated by prejudice.”
“You think she may have been killed because she was Hispanic?”
“I doubt it. Although the prejudice in most hate crimes is usually racial or sexual, I suspect the prejudice in this case was against her disability.”
“Which is?” I asked.
“She was deaf.”
“Oh my gosh,” I said. “Susannah suggested that, but I sort of dismissed it.”
“She was in your class,” Charles said. “How could you not know she was deaf?”
“It’s a studio class. I assign activities. They don’t have to make presentations or do book reports. Whenever I gave her instructions, she followed them perfectly. So I assumed she heard me.”
“No. She read lips.”
The restroom encounter now made sense to me. When I told Ximena she was in the wrong restroom, she shook her head to disagree. She knew what I said. But she didn’t respond to my second comment because she was walking toward the stall and couldn’t see my lips.
“I know a bit about prejudice,” said Sharice, “and I imagine you do too, Charles. But who would be prejudiced against someone just because she couldn’t hear?”
“You probably know the federal mint has a program to have a quarter dedicated to each state. When they selected Helen Keller to be the image on the Alabama quarter, someone in Alabama blogged that no one had asked him if he wanted a ‘deaf, dumb, blind and ugly woman’ on the state quarter.”
“That’s also awful, but it seems more like hate speech than hate crime. It’s not like the blogger attacked someone.”
“A few years ago a deaf guy using the Library of Congress was stabbed from behind. When the police screened the security video, they saw the assailant was mocking sign language behind the deaf guy’s back immediately before stabbing him. The assailant had never met the deaf guy. He just attacked him because he was deaf.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Hate crimes never make sense. They arise from a twisted, irrational mind.”
He asked me to write down everything I could remember about Ximena. Who she interacted with in the class. Anything she carried with her. What she wore. Anything, no matter how seemingly insignificant.
After Charles left, Sharice asked, “Have you figured out what’s in the oven?”
“I smell potatoes, anchovies and nutmeg, but I can’t think of any dish that has those three ingredients.”
“Wow, your nose is good. It’s a dish from northern Quebec called Les expulser de la maison.”
“Expel them from the house?”
“I would say your study of French is going well, but that one is all cognates and too easy. Colloquially, it’s more like ‘kick ’em out of the house.’ It stays light in northern Quebec in the summer past midnight, and guests sometimes don’t know when to leave. This dish is served as a signal that after you eat it, you should go home.”
The anchovies were chopped and spread over thin slices of potatoes. Cream was added to about half the depth of the potatoes and grated Parmesan and nutmeg sprinkled lightly before baking. Sort of scalloped potatoes with attitude. The dressed watercress on the side lent color and a false sense of eating healthy.
The cold Gruet paired perfectly with the hot, starchy russets.
“So I’m supposed to go home now?”
“You are home, Hubie. I’m going to take a shower. Want to join me?”
“You know what happens when I see you naked.”
She gave me a lascivious smile. “I was sort of counting on that.”
The girl knows how to get my mind off negative things.
I sprang from the table and began unbuttoning my shirt while opening the door to the terrace. When Geronimo hesitated, Benz swatted him gently on the nose and herded him onto the terrace. Benz likes watching the pedestrians below while Sharice and I are otherwise engaged. He also knows we want Geronimo out there as well.
Fast-forward. If it had been an old movie, I’d have lit a cigarette and passed it to Sharice. It should have been a perfect moment. A sexy woman under the covers. Something by Puccini playing on Sharice’s computer.
But my bliss had turned to panic as I held her in a postcoital embrace.
I’d felt a very small lump in her breast.
Every thread of my emotional fabric urged delay. Think about when and how to break it to her.
My conscience was unmoved. The when is now, it said. And the how is straightforwardly.
I returned my hand to the locale in question and tried to ban any tone of concern from my voice.
> “I think I felt a small lump here.”
She was on her back. I felt her muscles tighten and still as she stopped breathing.
She slowly exhaled.
She slid her hand under mine. I moved it around and pressed gently upon it.
When she remained silent, I said, “Maybe I was mistaken.”
“No. I feel it.”
“It’s very small.”
“Yes. But it’s there.”
Neither of us spoke for several minutes.
She finally turned on her side and cuddled against my chest. I felt her warm breath and the rise and fall of her breathing.
“You’re going to stay with me, right?”
“Toujours.”
She giggled. “I never should have suggested you learn French.”
“I said it wrong?”
“No, you said it right. Even your accent is getting better. It just seems silly hearing French from you. It should be Spanish.”
My relief that she could giggle and then joke about my French was short-lived.
She started sobbing.
I held her close and waited. It must have been a full five minutes.
She pushed her head up and looked at me. “I’m not going through that again.”
I swallowed hard. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. It’s tiny. Probably nothing to worry about.”
She nodded.
But I knew what she was thinking.
22
As she does every morning, Sharice roasted green coffee beans when she awoke. She ground them up and brewed them in her compact espresso machine.
The roasting part was my alarm clock. I arrived at the table in time to see her stream heated milk and espresso into two mugs I’d made. The black one has my name written in white letters in my handwriting. The white one has Sharice’s name in her handwriting.
I never thought I’d stoop to making mugs, but romance has a way of undermining previous attitudes. She liked writing on the unfired clay and then seeing the results after I fired the mugs in my kiln.
“You want breakfast?” she asked.
“How would you like a picnic brunch instead?” I countered. I figured a picnic might lessen her apprehension.
The Pot Thief Who Studied Edward Abbey Page 11