Wall of Glass

by Walter Satterthwait

  I climbed up the steps into the bumble-bee rumble of conversation and spotted, among the crowd, a few people I knew. Two Santa Fe artists, Doug Higgins and Bobbi Kitsman, were sitting on the portico rail, talking to each other over plastic wineglasses. I nodded to them, and then nodded to a filmmaker friend, Sally Jackson, who was standing a few feet away. At the front door, I stopped for a minute to talk to Claudia Jessup and Jon Richards, both writers, who introduced a friend of theirs visiting from New York, someone named Meredith Rich. Jon asked me about the bruise on my cheek, and I told him I’d cut myself shaving. He asked me if I shaved with a bowling ball.

  Inside the gallery I moved through thickets of chatter and streamers of scent. Lauren, Giorgio, Opium, Clinique, Chanel—the Chanel reminding me, with the immediacy that only the sense of smell can give, of my visit to Silvia Griego’s house.

  As I eased around one formally dressed cluster of talking heads, I bumped elbows with a man in a white sports-coat. A few drops of wine sloshed from his plastic cup, and he turned toward me, the annoyed glare already beginning. He took in the bruise on my cheek and he blinked and turned back to his friends. Even if you have the right of way, you don’t pull out in front of a ’65 Ford with a crumpled fender.

  Without trying to, without really wanting to, I caught snatches of the conversation buzzing around me. It seemed to be divided equally between Griego’s death and the art on display.

  “… horrible, I heard she was raped … is delicious, and he’s got such a supple feel for line … police haven’t any idea at all who … lacking a certain subtlety of texture, and … I mean, Silvia, for God’s sake, who would’ve thought … I only wish he’d chosen colors that were less honest …”

  The artwork under discussion was a series of paintings hanging on the walls of both rooms of the gallery. They were all very much alike, splashy abstracts with a few recognizable symbols—leather moccasins and deer antlers and bison heads—floating across the muddle. They had titles like The Medicine Man Has Passed Away and the Sun Dance is Dead. Meaty stuff.

  Someone tapped me on the shoulder and I turned. Denim work shirt, pale blond hair, delicate young male features, a grin that displayed a lot of teeth. Kevin Leighton. “Hey, Mr. Croft. How you doin’?”

  “Fine, Kevin. But the name is Joshua.”

  There was a girl standing at his side, and it wasn’t until she smiled, showing two rows of painful-looking silvery braces, that I realized it was his sister, Miranda. She wore a dark plaid skirt and a yellow sweater and she seemed more comfortable with her body tonight; and, with a figure that showed a lot of promise, she had every reason to be. She wasn’t wearing her glasses and her eyes seemed bright and shiny with excitement. Without the smile, without the braces, I wouldn’t have recognized her. It was as though by leaving her home, leaving her parents, she was able to fill out, ease up, become a different person.

  Kevin asked me, “What happened to your face?”

  “I was eating a burrito,” I told him, “and it blew up. How are you, Miranda?”

  “Oh, okay, I guess,” she said, abstracted, her glance skittering around the room. She turned to me, smiled with pleasure, “It’s a nice opening, though, isn’t it? I mean, even if most of these paintings are sort of bogus.”

  “It’s swell,” I said. “Your mother didn’t come?”

  The girl’s face went tight and guarded, and I realized that I’d asked the wrong question.

  Kevin showed a nice quick sense of diplomacy and interjected, “My mother wasn’t feeling too well. She and Mrs. Griego were pretty close, I guess.”

  Miranda brightened suddenly, waving off to the left, then turning to her brother to say in a rush: “It’s Janice, Kevin, I’m going over to say hello.” And then she was gone.

  Kevin watched her weave through the crowd, then turned to me and confided, “They had a big fight tonight.”

  “Your mother and Miranda?”

  He nodded.

  “What about?” I asked him.

  He shrugged. “Nothing. They never fight about anything real, do you know what I mean? Sometimes it just seems that my mother thinks Miranda can’t do anything right.”

  I nodded. Felice, super-competent as she was, would be a difficult mother. She’d be difficult, probably, in any capacity.

  “So what brings you here?” Kevin asked me. He grinned. “You think maybe you’ll spot somebody wearing my mother’s necklace?”

  I smiled. “Nope. Looking for someone. What about you? I wouldn’t have pictured this as your idea of a good time.”

  “My father thought someone should go. My mother didn’t want to—like I said, she was pretty tight with Mrs. Griego.”

  “You’re representing the family. You and Miranda.”

  “Yeah. Miranda likes all this stuff.” He looked around him with the weary cynicism that only an eighteen-year-old boy can achieve. Or a thirty-eight-year-old private detective.

  Not looking at me, he put his hands in his pockets and said, “You know, I was kind of a jerk the other night. When I came to your office.”

  “Don’t let it bother you, Kevin. I’ve spent years at a time being kind of a jerk.”

  “Well, anyway,” turning to me, “I apologize.”

  “No need to. I appreciate your help.”

  “Yeah, well,” a shrug, “if I can help you any more, let me know, okay?”

  It was an offer of friendship, and I would have been a boor not to accept it. I smiled, held out my hand to shake his, and said, “I appreciate it, Kevin. I’ll do that. You take care now.”

  He grinned and nodded.

  “I’ll see you later,” I told him. “I’ve got to find someone.”

  And, like Miranda, I moved off through the crowd.

  In the narrow room leading to the gallery’s office, the Santa Clara pottery and all but one of the kachinas had been carted off to make room for two trestle tables, one loaded with hors d’oeuvres and cold cuts, the other with bottles of liquor and California champagne. Naturally, it was in here that most of the deadbeats—a friend of mine calls them The Cake-Eaters—were hanging out, after having made a quick obligatory pass around the gallery. These are the people who’ve never been seen buying groceries or eating in restaurants. They move from opening to opening like chimps swinging from branch to branch for bananas.

  And it was in here that I found the person I was looking for.

  Talking with animation to a big man dressed like an honorary Indian in a headband and a buckskin shirt, her pert head cocked, her tight blond curls agleam, she was wearing a clinging black long-sleeved top, scoop-necked, and another black miniskirt, this one made of leather. As mourning clothes went, they weren’t bad at all. Unfortunately she was also wearing a pair of those patterned gray pantyhose that make women look as if they’re suffering from impetigo.

  I tapped her on the shoulder. When she turned to face me, all the Pepsi-Cola brightness fizzled away from her wholesome face. I seemed to be having that effect on a lot of people lately.

  Her features stony, she said, “What are you doing here?”

  “I came for the canapés,” I said. The guy in the buckskin shirt was glowering at me from beneath a single dark Neanderthal eyebrow. He didn’t look like he avoided ’65 Fords with crumpled fenders. He looked as if he drove one.

  The Pepsi-Cola girl said, “I gave the police your name. They know that Silvia was upset after she talked to you.”

  “Good,” I said. I reached into the inside pocket of my blazer, slipping out the Polaroid print, and showed it to her, holding it so Buckskin couldn’t see it. “I don’t suppose you mentioned this to them?”

  Instinctively, she reached for it. I snatched it away, tucked it back into my pocket.

  Her mouth was set in a tight frown, her lower lip curled. “What do you want?”

  “Let’s talk. In the office.”

  She took a deep breath, let it out, nodded once crisply. She turned to Buckskin. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, Ca
rl.”

  Carl glanced at me, said to her, “You okay, Linda?”

  “It’s nothing,” she said, touching him lightly on the arm. “Business. Be back in a minute.”

  The door to the office was only a few feet away. She opened it, and I followed her inside. Neither of the two television screens was on. Apparently, whoever was in charge had decided that no one would try to walk off with any of the paintings hanging outside. I agreed.

  She flicked the light switch and turned to face me. “That photograph,” she said. “You got it from Silvia.”

  “Yeah.”

  Her mouth parted and her eyes widened as she realized, or thought she did, what that meant.

  I shook my head. “I didn’t kill her. Sit down.” I closed the door.

  She sat down behind the desk and crossed her arms protectively over her breasts, exactly as Silvia Griego had done in that same chair only the day before. It seemed to me like a week ago.

  I sat in the white padded chair opposite her. “Your name is Linda?” I said.

  She nodded. “Linda Sorenson.” Her voice was small and guarded. Huddled against herself like that, wary, uncertain, she looked about sixteen years old.

  “Linda,” I said, “I didn’t kill Silvia and I’m not going to hurt you. I’m a licensed private investigator and I’m looking for a necklace that was stolen sometime last year. Your friend Silvia knew at least one of the people who could’ve been involved in the theft. When I spoke with her yesterday, she denied any knowledge of the necklace. That may or may not be true, but I think Silvia Griego was involved in something that got her killed. I want to know what it was.”

  “What—” it came out scratchy, and she cleared her throat, “—what are you going to do with the photograph?” She winced suddenly, remembering. “There’s more than one,” she said. “Isn’t there?”

  “There are three of them,” I said, “that you’d be interested in. If you cooperate with me, I’ll hold them until this thing is cleared up. Then I’ll destroy them or mail them to you, whichever you want.”

  “You could’ve made copies.”

  “I didn’t. All I want is any information you can give me about Silvia Griego.”

  “I’ve never done anything like that before,” she said, unlocking her arms, leaning forward. “With a woman, I mean. I’m engaged. He’s a really good man, and we’re getting married in September. I’ve never seen that woman again, either. I mean, not that way.” She actually fluttered her eyelashes and blushed. I hadn’t witnessed anyone doing that for a long time, and I thought it was fairly fetching. “Honestly,” she said. “I was drunk and coked up, and I didn’t know what I was doing.”

  “I believe you,” I said. I didn’t, not really, despite the blush. In the photographs she seemed to be displaying a lot more expertise than she was giving herself credit for now. But at the moment, my belief in her was less important than her belief in me. “And I don’t have any reason to hurt you. I only want to know about Silvia.”

  She frowned. “What do you want to know?”

  “How long had she known Frank Biddle?”

  She shrugged. “For four years, at least. He was hanging around as long as I can remember, and I started here four years ago, as assistant director. Silvia made me the director two years ago.” Adding this last bit because she was rattled, I think, and wanting to reestablish her importance to herself.

  “What was her relationship with Biddle?”

  “They used to sleep together. Not all the time. Occasionally.”

  “How occasionally?”

  She shrugged. “I dunno. Once a month, maybe. Sometimes Silvia liked to do scenes.”

  “Scenes?”

  The eyelashes fluttered and she blushed again. It was slightly less fetching this time. “You know. Sex stuff. Fantasies. Sometimes she’d call him up and he’d come over in a pick-up truck and they’d do it in the back. Things like that.”

  “How do you know?”

  “She told me. She was proud of it.” She frowned again, bemused, and gave a small shrug. “Like that was a big deal, making it in a pick-up truck.”

  “This was here at the gallery?”

  She shook her head emphatically. “No, no, Silvia was always really straight at the gallery. Prim and proper, you know? No, she did all this at home, at her house. Sometimes she organized parties there, too, and once in a while she’d ask Biddle to come.”

  Her face crinkled slightly when she mentioned his name.

  I said, “You didn’t like Biddle.”

  She shook her head. “I thought he was creepy. He was always coming on to me, staring at my breasts.”

  Involuntarily, my own glance dipped in that direction.

  She fluttered her eyelashes again, but left out the blush. Maybe she forgot it. She did remember, though, to reach up and run her fingers through her short blond curls, which tightened the material of her low-cut top against the breasts in question.

  “Had she been seeing Biddle recently?” I asked.

  “No. Not since last year, in the fall.”

  “Do you know why she stopped seeing him?”

  She shrugged. “I never asked.”

  “These parties,” I said. “They were the ones in the Polaroids?”

  She nodded. She was more relaxed now. She had decided that she knew how to handle me.

  “How often did you go to them?” I asked her.

  “Only that one time. Honestly.” She held up her right hand, two fingers raised. Scout’s Honor.

  “Then how do you know whether Biddle went?”

  “Like I said, Silvia was always telling me about her sex life. I mean, sometimes, that was all she talked about. She’d say, ‘Listen, Linda, you’ll never believe what I did last night, I had Frank over and we did blah blah blah.’ She really thought it was fascinating.”

  “Why listen to her?”

  She looked at me as though the question were senseless. “She was the owner here.”

  “Right.” I had a sudden image of the two women, the older one confiding her sexual adventures with a kind of excited, almost frantic pride; the younger one listening, nodding and smiling with a feigned interest that masked boredom and, apparently, contempt. It occurred to me that although the older had been dead for almost twenty-four hours, the contempt was still alive. I said, “How often did she have these parties?”

  “Not very often. Once or twice a year. She hasn’t had one for over a year—that one, the photograph you’ve got, was the last one.” Another shrug. “I think the AIDS thing, all the stories about people dying, I think that sort of scared her.”

  “Did Stacey Killebrew ever come to these parties?”

  “Stacey who?” Frowning, puzzled.

  “Big guy, works out with weights. Light brown hair, light brown mustache. Yellow teeth.”

  She shook her head. “No, I never—wait, was he a friend of Frank Biddle’s? I mean, like a long time ago? Two years, maybe?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Uh-huh, yeah. I saw him here with Biddle once or twice. Then I didn’t see him for a long time, and then he came by here again a couple of months ago. It was in the morning, I was coming to work, and he was leaving. I asked Silvia about it and she said he was delivering something.”

  “Do you know what it was?”

  She shook her head. “No. I mean, I didn’t know it was important. Was it?”

  “Maybe. Who handled the accounts for the gallery?”

  “I did. I signed all the checks, kept the records, and Silvia and I went over everything together at the end of the month.”

  “Do you know anything about a company called Liebman and Sons in Germany?”

  “Sure, in Munich. We do a lot of business with them. The Germans are crazy about Indian art, especially the old stuff, the artifacts. Silvia told me there’s this German writer, Karl May, Its M—A—Y, but they pronounce it my. Anyway, he writes these crazy Westerns, and the Germans love him. They all want to be cowboys.”
r />   “How long has the gallery been dealing with Liebman and Sons?”

  “Since before I came to work here.”

  “And how much business have you done with them?”

  “Money-wise? Altogether? Well … over the whole time, I mean the four years I know about … maybe sixty thousand dollars. Maybe seventy, I don’t have the exact figures. But that’s pretty close.” She raised her eyebrows, made herself look helpful, open, trustworthy. “I could look them up if you want.”

  I shook my head. “What happened to the money?”

  She frowned, as though wondering why I’d want to know, and then shrugged, as though deciding motives didn’t matter. “Some of it went to pay outstanding bills. The rest went into the corporation account.”

  But none of it, evidently, had gone into a numbered account in Berne. I said, “The gallery was doing well?”

  “Sure, really well. Of course,” her face going slightly sour, her voice slightly weary, “we never did well enough for Silvia.”

  “Silvia was greedy.”

  “Well, no. I wouldn’t put it that way, exactly.” She raised her eyebrows again. “I mean, after all, I don’t want to speak ill of the dead or anything. It’s just that Silvia was sort of an anxious person. Insecure, I mean. You know how women can be sometimes, when they get older? And money was like a security blanket for her. Profits were down a little bit this year, not much, nothing to worry about, you know? But Silvia was all bent out of shape. I mean, she was practically living on Valium.”

  I was glad I’d never been around the girl when she did want to speak ill of the dead.

  “What sort of things did you sell to Liebman and Sons?” I asked.

  “Artifacts, mostly. Hopi pottery and ceremonial stuff from Awatovi. That’s the ancestral Hopi city. The new stuff was all kachinas.”

  “Who made the kachinas?”

  “John Lucero. He’s the only kachina artist we carry.”