Still Lives

by Maria Hummel

  “I’m new there,” I say.

  There’s a pause. His plastic smile warps into a pained leer. “Did Kim send you?” he says, a thickness in his voice.

  “No,” I say, astonished.

  “Where is she?” His eyes bore into me, and he doesn’t move, but his words are clogged with emotion. “Why don’t you tell me before I call the police?”

  I reach the door before him. I take the stairs just as the gallerina is coming up, bearing her cardboard tray with two coffees, and push past her, knocking her off-balance so that she cries out and the coffee splatters on the stairs. “Sorry,” I shout, and make it to my car before I can breathe again.

  He could have caught me easily. He could have even locked me in. But he didn’t. I look back at the gallery. Steve Goetz is standing in his bank of glass windows, a silhouette, staring after my escape. He didn’t stop me. He’s not afraid of me. Or, rather, he’s not afraid of being caught in his game. I like games, he said. I’d hate to find out what other games he is playing, but I don’t think he knows where Kim Lord is. I think he was genuinely hoping I would tell him.

  21

  Piano music trickles over the sound of clinking glasses at Luster’s Steakhouse. I hunch alone with a Manhattan at the dark and velvety bar, staring into the bovine carcasses in a huge glass cooler just beyond the dining area. Red meat, marbled with white fat, dangles from hooks. The torsos are motionless, but their skin-stripped shapes look so bare it almost appears as if they are slowly revolving, showing every side. Occasional fog patches cover the glass, blurring the carnage to a crimson haze.

  My whole body is caked in sweat, and I have to keep pulling my blouse loose so it doesn’t stick to my damp chest. Every time I do, the air-conditioned breeze touches my breasts and I shudder at the memory of CJF Gallery and how empty it was as I bolted away from Steve Goetz.

  I’ve called Yegina three times already. No answer.

  I leave her a message. “Hi, I left the office in a rush. I thought I was getting stomach flu, but I guess it was just a little food poisoning. Are we meeting at Luster’s? That’s where I’m heading now. Hope everything’s okay.”

  It surprises me that she didn’t answer. I have a bad feeling about her brother, but I can’t check my e-mail without a computer.

  Someone passes behind me, and Hendricks sits down, two stools away. He is wearing a faded black T-shirt with a spiky skull-propeller thing and the words CORROSION OF CONFORMITY on it. There’s a new cast to his face now: it has gone from sleepy to sharp. He also seems inexplicably longer and taller, like an animal extending from its hole.

  “You look surprised to see me,” he says.

  “I’m not sure this is where we’re supposed to be.”

  I meant about meeting Yegina later, but Hendricks nods and glances into the meat cooler. “Me neither.”

  An awkward silence falls. Where do I begin?

  “You called me because you were worried about someone,” he says. “Who?”

  “It’s gotten more complicated than I thought,” I say.

  “Try me,” he says.

  I take a breath. I can’t look at him. “Did Janis Rocque ever try to buy one of Kim Lord’s paintings? I mean, a more recent one?”

  Hendricks doesn’t answer right away. I sneak a peek at him. His expression is a cross between curiosity and regret.

  “Is that what you were investigating?” I say.

  He jerks his head at the giant carcasses.

  “Can we continue this somewhere outside?” he says.

  We rise and leave the dim, dark air-conditioned interior for the cooling night, the surge of skyscrapers around us. Above each table, the heat lamps are on, their dull fires glowing. Beyond them, I catch sight of the line of red street-pole banners with Kim-as-Roseann-Quinn smiling down on us. Hendricks knew what I was going to ask. I feel triumphant but fearful. If I’m right about Steve Goetz, if Ray Hendricks knows, too, then why isn’t the collector a suspect in Kim Lord’s disappearance?

  We sit down at a patio table, suddenly close and alone. Hendricks is older than I am, but not much older; he has the faint facial lines that you start to get in your thirties.

  “Okay,” he says. “Tell me again why you called me.”

  “I know about Steve Goetz,” I say plainly. “I think you do, too.”

  He threads his fingers slowly together until his hands knot into a single fist.

  “They exhumed Kim Lord’s body this afternoon,” he says slowly. “Her corpse was discovered a few hours ago in the Angeles National Forest. Sniffed out by someone’s dog.”

  I must be gaping, because it feels like my whole face is spilling open. My palm slides over my mouth.

  “There was a significant blow to the skull,” he says.

  In my mind’s eye, I see an anonymous female head, hair streaked with blood, and then my imagination fails and my shoulders start shaking.

  Kim Lord is dead. Her unborn child as well.

  I put my fingers over my eyes and try to press the image from them.

  “Maggie,” Hendricks says.

  I feel him move nearer to me, and then pull back.

  I breathe in hard to keep from crying. I don’t want to cry in front of him.

  “I wasn’t sure how you’d take it,” he says, almost to himself.

  “What caused the blow?” I say. “Do they know? How many days was she there?”

  “I only have the details I told you,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

  “Are you? Why are you wasting your time with me?” I say, blinking back tears. “Don’t you cops have better things to do now that you have a body?”

  “I’m not a cop. I’m a private investigator,” he says. “But you’re right. Janis Rocque wanted to buy a painting by Kim Lord and she couldn’t,” he says. “And when a woman of her power and wealth can’t get what she wants, she gets ticked. Ticked enough to pay someone a ridiculous sum to find out why.”

  His composure isn’t contagious, but it helps. I raise my head.

  “So you found out about the supercollector,” I say.

  “Weeks ago,” he says.

  “And when Kim disappeared …” I pause, struggling to suppress another wave of shock. “You wondered if he had collected her, too.”

  He nods. “Very briefly.”

  “But you don’t anymore.”

  “No,” Hendricks says. “Steve Goetz did not kill Kim Lord.”

  I may be distraught right now, but something in his delivery is off. The inflection landed on the wrong words. Instead of saying “Steve Goetz did not kill Kim Lord,” he said “Steve Goetz did not kill Kim Lord.” As in, Steve Goetz killed someone else? Who? He looked entirely calm when he said it. Maybe it was just the southern accent.

  “Who did—” I say.

  Hendricks cuts me off. “But you recognize his connections with Bas Terrant and Nelson de Wilde, and you want to know more,” he says. “I was curious how you figured that out.” He sounds almost impressed.

  “At the eleventh hour Kim Lord wanted to donate all the paintings in Still Lives to the Rocque, with the stipulation that they never be sold,” I say. “It made me suspicious.”

  Hendricks looks stunned by the news.

  At that moment, the waitress materializes. I order another Manhattan. Hendricks asks for grapefruit juice.

  “Tell me again about this gift,” Hendricks says when the waitress leaves.

  “I proofed the press release on the night of the Gala,” I say. “I thought it was fishy, especially when Bas didn’t announce it. And then I started thinking about provenance, and then I looked up all the people who had collected Kim Lord’s work. With our registrar’s help. All the names appear to be fake.”

  Hendricks folds his arms and studies me again. With some effort, I keep my chin up and study him back, noting the nicks in the collar of his T-shirt. The waitress brings our drinks. Hendricks lifts his and drains it. I gulp at mine, the bourbon burning my tongue.

  “What did
you find out?” I ask.

  “Finish your whole story first.” Hendricks begins smashing the ice in his glass with his cocktail straw as I tell him about Steve Goetz’s supercollector and artificial artist thesis, and about Bas’s history at the Catesby auction house, the article where he spoke admiringly of collectors influencing an artist’s success. I stop before I get to my journey to the CJF Gallery. Hendricks doesn’t need to know that I took such a stupid risk. Downtown darkens around us, erasing Kim-as-Roseann-Quinn’s face on every street pole nearby, leaving only her white smile hanging there and the white letters:

  KIM LORD

  STILL LIVES

  Hendricks smashes more ice, then shakes the glass and slurps the juice and water.

  “That’s it,” I say. “Your turn.”

  Hendricks sets his glass down. He’s about to speak when my phone rings. It’s Jayme. I hit decline.

  “You have cops in your family?” says Hendricks.

  “No. Mostly teachers.”

  “Uh-huh,” says Hendricks, as though settling an argument with himself. Then he slumps over the table. “What I would do for one humid night here,” he mutters.

  “Why did you move to L.A.?”

  He gives me a wary blue look. “Career change. Why did you?”

  “Mostly wanderlust, I guess,” I say. “Moving to the big city was the next thing on our list.”

  I hate that I sound so directionless.

  “Your brother …,” I say.

  The tremor in Hendricks’s face shuts me down.

  “I’m so sorry,” I add. If I lost John or Mark, I would feel severed for the rest of my life.

  “Tell me something,” he says, pushing away his glass. “Look at that couple over there and tell me what you notice about them.”

  He gestures to a man and woman seated by the railings over the street.

  I scrutinize them, puzzled. They both have corporate suits; both their faces are tense and unhappy. Otherwise, they couldn’t be more different. He is tall and dark-haired, his shoulders rounded and sloped, and she is slight and fair, with a big bust, pale eyes, hair that needs lightening. He drinks wine; she drinks water. He wears a wedding ring. She does not.

  I tell Hendricks all this.

  “What do you think they’re fighting about?” says Hendricks.

  I blow out my breath. “I don’t know. They had an affair and he wants to break it off because he’s married and won’t leave his wife.”

  “Could be,” said Hendricks. “You see her left shoulder from here?”

  I peer harder. “There’s some crud on it, I guess.”

  “Spit-up,” says Hendricks. “My guess: There’s a baby. His baby? Hard to know, but judging by her profile and her choice of beverage and her dark roots, the baby’s new. Judging by her expression, he might owe her child support, or be the lawyer for someone who does. The point is, I actually don’t know, and you don’t either. We only know what we see, and then we intuit.” He slows down for this word, intuit. “But the interesting thing about intuition is how little it tells us about the external world, and how much it tells us about ourselves. You think he’s dumping her. I think he owes her money for her child. Our theories reveal us.” He settles back in his chair, past the ring of candlelight, and the next statement emerges from the dark silhouette of his head. “Your problem with that murdered girl in Vermont—you trusted intuition, not facts and logic. You didn’t believe she’d betray herself.”

  It takes me a frozen moment to understand that he is talking about Nikki Bolio. He has been spying on me. Digging deep.

  “The police never found the killer because it could have been anyone in that ring,” Hendricks says. “She bragged about talking to Jay Eastman, one night when she was drunk. Everyone in town knew what she had done. But she didn’t talk to Eastman, did she? She talked to you.”

  Nikki, by the lakeside, turns to me, her long, dopey face flashing with fear and eagerness. “I could show you the Ski-Doo map they use in winter to take heroin over the border, but I know I’ll get caught,” she said. I know I’ll get caught. Was there a thrill in her voice when she said that?

  “Why are you so curious about what happened to me years ago?” I say to him coldly. “It’s none of your business.”

  To my surprise, he looks sheepish and squirms in his chair.

  “You’re right,” he admits. “But something about you didn’t add up. So I asked Shaw, and then I looked into it.”

  I push back from the table. Hendricks makes an abrupt movement with his arm, as if to grab me, detain me, and then, just as fast, his hand lands back down.

  “Listen,” he says, and falters, rowing back in his seat, sighing, looking off toward the skyscrapers around us. “I’ll tell you what I know about Steve Goetz, but then will you please drop this?”

  “For how long?”

  Now Hendricks’s phone buzzes and he glances at it. “I may have to go,” he mutters, rising. Now that he’s the one leaving, and I’m still full of questions, my curiosity surges like a wave.

  “Okay,” I say. “I promise.”

  “You won’t talk about this with Shaw, or any of your colleagues, at least until we find the killer.”

  “I said I promise.”

  Hendricks gives me an appraising glance and then lowers his voice. “Steve Goetz didn’t just underwrite Still Lives. He gave two million dollars to the Rocque in order to guarantee Kim Lord a high-profile spot on the exhibition schedule.”

  I knew it. “Driving up her prices,” I say.

  “And fattening the budget for his pal Bas Terrant,” says Hendricks. “Not illegal, but certainly not in the tradition of the historic Rocque.”

  My phone rings again. Jayme. I hit decline again.

  “So Kim must have figured the whole thing out. She must have felt betrayed at such career manipulation, and decided to donate Still Lives. And they freaked,” I say. “Is that reason enough to kill her?” But even as I’m saying it, I know Steve Goetz didn’t do it.

  “Both Goetz and Terrant have solid alibis for all day Wednesday and Thursday,” says Hendricks.

  Of course they do. I like games, Goetz said. I wish I hadn’t gone to the gallery now. I wish he hadn’t seen my face.

  “Goetz can’t be prosecuted for what he did, can he?” I say, thinking of the shelves in his office, all the catalogs of women artists. “What if there are more victims than Kim?”

  Hendricks hesitates before shaking his head. “Nothing to prosecute. Some might even see it as a career boost.”

  “But Bas could still be fired by the board if they learned of this.”

  “For what?” Hendricks says. “He got a huge donation to put on an exhibition by a rising star.” He tosses down his napkin and moves to rise.

  He’s right, and I am being naïve, but their maneuvers still infuriate me.

  “Something I don’t get,” I say. “If the supercollector never sells an artist’s work, how does he earn his money back?”

  “Steve Goetz is a patient man,” says Hendricks. “Art investments usually take a couple of decades to pay off. Kim Lord’s first show was fifteen years ago. What if he starts slowly selling the work at auction and through the gallerist, all the while paying privately for more media hype? He could quadruple his early investment, and”—he takes one last slug from his glass—“the supercollector becomes a powerful and influential figure in contemporary art. More original than Kim Lord herself.”

  “And she goes down as a fake, created by hype and back-door dealings,” I say. “But she’s a genius.” I hear Brent’s agonized cry on the night of the Gala, It was all her. It was all her.

  My phone rings again. Jesus, Jayme will not give up. I hit decline for the third time.

  “A genius because of this last show,” says Hendricks. “I suspect that Goetz thought she’d be a flash in the pan.”

  “She burned up the pan,” I say.

  “She burned down the whole kitchen,” Hendricks agrees.

/>   For one unshuttered instant, across the table, our eyes meet and I see longing in his. For what Kim stood for? For me?

  Hendricks abruptly stands. “Now you have your answers. Do we have a deal?”

  “No leaks,” I promise. “But who killed her?” I ask. “You must have a theory.”

  Hendricks wavers for a moment above me, the night sky inking his shirt, his hair. “It won’t do you any good to know my theories,” he says quietly. “And I think your boss wants to speak with you.”

  I turn to see Jayme frowning behind me, her arms folded.

  Jayme starts her lecture with the same lacerating poise she maintains in her media previews, her voice cool as a blade. But the deeper she gets into recounting my behavior in the past seventy-two hours—skipping the annual report meeting, giving Juanita the impression that I was trying to steal something from her office, and now sitting at a restaurant when I’m supposed to be home sick—the more a moan of betrayal creeps in. How could I, of all people, do this to her? Jayme trusted me with her past last night, with the anguish she keeps buried, and almost as soon as she did, I started behaving like I want to distance myself from her as fast as possible. Like I want to be fired. I stare down at my empty drink. How do I ask her to forgive me? How can I tell her about Kim’s death?

  “I insist you take a leave for the rest of the week,” concludes Jayme. She has not sat down or unfolded her arms. “Starting tomorrow. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I say. Silently, I practice saying it to her: They found Kim’s body. I see Jayme’s eyes go dull and her shoulders slump. Then I see her once again hoisting herself straight and tall, marshaling her strength to tell me I need a break, I need time, when whatever pain she is carrying has rooted so deep she can’t pull it out for fear of destroying herself. They found Kim with her head bashed in. The words don’t come because I don’t want to be the one to utter them. I don’t want them to be real.

  “You need me to call you a cab?” asks Jayme.

  “No.” I get up carefully from the table and grab my keys. “Thanks for tracking me down. I’ll be at home if you need me.”

  When I get to my car, I call Yegina again and get a curt text in return. I’m home. Everything’s fine, thank you for finally checking. I’ll call you in the morning.