The Point of Death: An Austin, Texas Art Mystery (the Michelle Hodge series Book 1)

by Roslyn Woods

  “She looks like she’s maybe a Yorkie mix—very cute!—but she’s really thin. If you’re going to start feeding her, maybe you should take her to a vet. She’ll probably need to be spayed and treated for a few things.”

  “Do you think I should? I mean, do I have any business committing to a pet?”

  “Seems like she’s committing to you. And she’s not looking very healthy.”

  “Jeremy hates dogs. I’d certainly rather have Tabitha than Jeremy.”

  “You’ll be getting the better end of that trade by a long shot.”

  Chapter 2

  It was a good thing thirty-four year old Donald Carter was starting to lose his hair. The slightly receding hairline added nearly five years to his appearance, and in his profession, looking like you’d lived a little was a plus. Who wants to take advice from a psychologist with no experience?

  Today, in his office that overlooked the river from a high-rise on Cesar Chavez Avenue, his eight o’clock client had tears in her eyes. She patted her face with a tissue and looked up from the couch where she sat.

  “I’ve been looking at a painting all week,” she said softly. “I’m supposed to give the artist—a student of mine—a critique of it today. But you know, it doesn’t need a critique.”

  “Can you tell him that?” he asked.

  “Her,” she answered. “Yes, I’ll tell her. I think I’ve mentioned her to you before.”

  Donald Carter looked at his client. Her dark eyes with their long, black lashes, were filled with pain.

  “Can you tell me about the painting?” he asked.

  “It’s a tree. I think it’s a sort of tree of life, and the branches are tortured and beautiful at the same time. I think it’s a wisdom tree—or maybe a tree of strength. I guess I don’t really know, but when I look at it I feel safe for a while. I feel like it doesn’t matter that my life has fallen apart.”

  “What do you think it is about this particular painting?”

  “Maybe there’s something mystical about it, or maybe it’s just so deeply rooted. It doesn’t question how it got where it is, and I’m so lost now.”

  “Are you lost?”

  “I think I’ve lost the foundation of my life.”

  “Is it possible you’re just telling yourself that? Is it possible that people outside you aren’t, and can never be, the foundation of your life?”

  “You’re trying to get me to see that my marriage isn’t my foundation?”

  “Is it?”

  “I thought it was. I suppose I don’t really know what my foundation is. Maybe I’ll find it. You see that picture there?” she asked, nodding toward a framed photograph of the Arc de Triomphe on Donald Carter’s office wall. “I lived there once.”

  It seemed like a non sequitur, but Donald Carter didn’t speak. He looked at her and waited until she continued.

  “One lovely summer in Paris! That was when I believed the world was opening up before me with only happiness.” She paused and almost smiled. “I was eighteen. Now I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  “What would you like to do?” Donald Carter asked, his own expression both focused and impersonal.

  “I’d like to kill someone,” she answered, smiling ruefully, “but I’ll probably just do what I have to do to hang onto what’s left.”

  “What do you want to hang onto?”

  “My art. It’s important to me, but I want him, too. That’s just crazy, isn’t it?”

  “You seem to be telling yourself that it is.”

  “Because my mind says it’s a hopeless situation, but my feelings say don’t let go.”

  “So you’re fractured.”

  “Yes. I’m the broken glass in a mirror that’s barely held together by a cracked frame, and nothing can change that.”

  “Having more than one thought doesn’t make you broken glass. Maybe you’re telling yourself that nothing can change your life,” he said quietly. “You don’t have to believe all your thoughts. You can choose new thoughts.”

  “I really don’t think I can,” she said, brushing a tear away with the tissue before allowing her head to fall back against the back of the sofa. “You psychologists think it’s just a matter of changing your mind. It’s my heart, Dr. Carter. It’s my heart that can’t change.”

  Donald Carter was typing notes on his computer when Geraldine Engstrom tapped on his door and poked her head into his office.

  “Yes?” he asked, wishing she would give him some space.

  “I wondered if you’d like a cup of coffee. I’m getting one for myself anyway.”

  “No, thanks. I’ve already had too much coffee this morning.”

  “Ah, come on, Donald. You need a coffee break, don’t you? Haven’t you seen two clients without a break? I have, and I need a break.”

  “I take breaks when I need them. Right now I need some time to type up a few notes.”

  “Oh. Have it your way,” she said, smiling sweetly at him and closing the door.

  He knew what she was doing. Geraldine wasn’t accepting the fact that he wasn’t interested in becoming involved with her, or anyone, but nothing she said or did to make herself attractive was going to change that. It was annoying the way she kept pushing.

  The death of Donald’s wife had thrown him, and his move to Austin two years earlier had been an attempt to start a new life. The counseling practice he had joined was doing well, and he had rented a small house within five minutes of downtown. He was auditing a poetry writing class a UT, collecting a few books, and meeting a few people. It was a good start.

  In a minute Geraldine opened the door again. “I brought you a jelly donut. I know how you like sweets,” she said. She carried it in on its paper plate and placed it on his desk. “And I also brought you some water. If you’ve had too much coffee, at least you should keep up your fluids.”

  For heaven’s sake, leave me alone. I don’t want your donut, and I don’t want your company.

  “Right. See you later,” was all the acknowledgment she got while he continued to type.

  She couldn’t help but take in his distance, could she? She turned her slim figure around, tossed her thick blond hair over her shoulder and looked back at him with a valiant attempt at a sexy smile. “All right then. I’ll see you later,” she said, but he didn’t look up again.

  The truth was, even if he had been ready for a relationship, she wasn’t the kind of woman he’d want to be with. True, she seemed to be having some success at counseling people with any number of issues, but he wondered how it was possible since she didn’t read him very well. She thought she was going to win him over, and he knew it wasn’t ever going to happen because he didn’t find her the least bit appealing. Objectively, he supposed she was nice-looking, but there was something about her Donald Carter disliked.

  She was back in ten minutes. “Listen,” she said, seating herself in a chair across from his desk. “I’m going to The Violet Crown to see Dan in Real Life tonight. I think you should come with me.”

  So her plan was to take him to see a movie about a widower who meets someone new. Now that’s original.

  “Look, Geraldine,” Donald said, “I can’t.”

  “I like you, Donald.”

  “I like you, too,” he lied, “but I’ve got something planned for tonight.”

  “Oh? Have you got a date?” she asked. He could hear the edge in her voice, but he couldn’t help her.

  “Yes,” he lied again. “I’ve met someone I like a lot.”

  There was a pause while Geraldine took in this new bit of information. “Well, good for you!” she said brightly. “I’m glad to hear you’re getting out.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “Now, I’ve got some more to do here,” he said, hoping she’d get up and go.

  “What’s she like?”

  “She’s nice,” he said. “I’m busy right now, Geraldine.” It was the only way to get her to leave him alone, and he was relieved to see the door close when she fi
nally left.

  Chapter 3

  Shell noted the overall gloom of the cloudy January day as she got into her champagne-colored Corolla. It wasn’t very cold for this time of year, and she had only donned a windbreaker over her blue sweater and jeans when she had gone out earlier. Her black cowboy boots were her only nod to the possible weather that loomed. She waved to Margie who stood on the tiny front porch looking rather forlorn.

  Breaking up is hard to do, she thought as she turned north on Chicon and headed for the co-op. It was too bad Jeremy had turned out to be such a jerk, and Shell was glad the locks had been changed this morning.

  Margie had divorced her husband of less than a year only a few months after graduating from college, and Jeremy Bird had appeared to be an improvement when he had shown up. He was an artist, for one thing. He was seven years Margie’s senior, and two months earlier, when he had moved in with her friend, that had seemed good, too. But only a few days into their cohabitation, Shell had taken a dislike to Jeremy, and it had taken all her willpower to hide it. He was conceited, and he talked down to Margie, a behavior Shell could barely stomach. He didn’t like computers or microwaves or any technology other than his phone, which he could only use for calls and texts. He even acted superior about Shell’s paintings because he himself disliked representational art. As far as she could tell, his own work was a mixture of glue and twigs and different shades of white acrylic paint. It was awful.

  The co-op was near the corner of MLK and Airport Blvd. She noted how run-down the neighborhood was as she approached the gray, cinderblock building and parked her car in the lot beside it, but she remembered how happy they had all been to acquire a lease for a building of that size—almost four thousand square feet—for a reasonable sum. And the neighborhood around the building seemed to be going through a period of gentrification. The improvements promised to make their location better as time passed. A grant from one of the university donors would cover the rent for two years, and the money they were to take in from admission to the gallery and other events would cover the cost of utilities and miscellaneous expenditures while allowing them to save for the future when the grant funds would run out.

  Shell had been looking forward to her meeting with Dr. Leone. The teacher was her advisor at the university, and she had taken a special interest in Shell’s painting. She had even taken one of her pieces home to spend time examining, so she could give her a “quality critique,” and she had asked her to bring a few more finished paintings to this meeting today, too.

  Shell was glad it hadn’t started raining yet when she parked the Corolla next to Dr. Leone’s blue Volvo, the only other car in the lot. Students would start drifting into the co-op in another half hour, but that should still be long enough for her to have a pretty good conversation about the direction of her work.

  Shell carried the three oils she had selected up the six steps to the building’s entrance and leaned them against the wall while she tried the door. Surprisingly, it was open. She had expected to have to ring the bell since Dr. Leone’s was the only car in the lot.

  Holding the door open with her knee, she lifted her paintings and walked in. The entry was still dark, but she could see pretty well, and she stopped and leaned her pieces against the front desk and dropped her pack there. It was surprising that the lights weren’t yet on. It occurred to her that her teacher might be in the gallery, but it, too, was dark when she leaned her head in. She must be in one of the offices or the classroom, she thought.

  Shell could hear the heels of her boots clicking on the wood floor and echoing through the building as she walked by the dark sculptures in the hallway. “Dr. Leone?” she called.

  Opening the classroom door should have been a relief. It was a large room, big enough for twenty easels, and the windows in there were large and uncovered, so there was plenty of light to see, even if the sky was gray and threatening rain. The room was filled with easels and chairs, and there was a sink and counter at the back beside a wall of student lockers. The counter was well spattered with paint, as was a long table on the left side of the room that held numerous jars, buckets, and cans of brushes and palette knives.

  “Dr. Leone?” Shell heard her own voice echoing through the room. “Are you here?” Nothing.

  She had a sudden feeling of dread. It felt like the moment in a movie when the music was building to a crescendo and someone was about to jump from a hiding place. The hair on her arms stood up, but she stepped forward, moving steadily toward the front of the room.

  Everything was as it should be. The easels were poised and waiting for the students, the drafting table in the front was set with a camera and projector, the screen pulled down and ready for a lesson.

  And then she heard a sound behind her. She turned and looked back into the dark hallway. It had to have been the door at the entrance, or some door in the building, opening and closing.

  “Hello?” her voice echoed, then silence. Maybe it was nothing. A draft closing an interior door, or the building settling.

  She turned back to the front of the classroom and stepped forward. That was when she saw the shoe. It was peeking out from behind the desk at the front of the classroom. It was red with a pointed toe and a spiky heel. And it had a foot in it.

  Shell rushed forward. Dr. Leone lay on her side with a pool of blood beneath her head. Strands of her dark hair had fallen from the pins that had held them on top of her head and now appeared to be matted in the burgundy puddle. One arm was lifted above her head, and the ruby red of her sweater looked bright against the blood beneath it. Her eyes were open and staring at a leg of the desk before her, her red lips parted in surprise, and the polished wooden handle of a knife was protruding from the base of her skull.

  The interview room at the police station was painted a cool, minty green. Sergeant Bill Moore was asking all the questions while Detective Gonzalez looked on, but Shell didn’t know what else to tell him.

  “Like I said,” she answered, “the door wasn’t locked. There were no cars except Dr. Leone’s in the lot.”

  “And why was it, Miss Hodge, that you were the only one there when class wasn’t scheduled to start for another hour?” he asked, tilting his head a bit as he looked at her with narrowed eyes. He had the look of a military man with his gray crewcut and starched shirt.

  “We’d made an appointment. I was to come early to talk to her about my work. I was to bring some paintings. Only when I got there, the place was dark. I started calling her and she didn’t answer. Finally, I found her on the floor in the classroom.”

  “And you know nothing about the palette knife that was stuck in the base of her skull?”

  “What am I supposed to know about it? There are dozens of palette knives right there in the containers on the table in the classroom. It was probably one of those.”

  “Do you dislike your teacher, Miss Hodge?”

  “No! She’s my favorite teacher, and she’s my advisor! I’ve taken Art History from her at UT and I’m in her Aesthetic Theory class right now. This class at the co-op was just extra and for fun because she’s really a good painter.”

  “You mean, she really was a good painter.”

  “Right.”

  “Do you know of anyone who had a problem with your teacher?”

  “I really don’t. She was just very gregarious and everybody liked her as far as I knew.”

  “She was a pretty lady. Was anyone jealous of her?”

  “I have no idea, Sergeant.”

  “Where would I get a list of the students in your class and the other members of the co-op?”

  “Gina Sanguinetti or Brigitte Gersten. Gina’s a student in the class, but she works the front desk and usually opens and closes the place on the days it’s open. I think she keeps track of things for the co-op.”

  “And Brigitte?”

  “She keeps the class list for Dr. Leone, takes attendance, that kind of thing.”

  “Do both of these women have keys to t
he building?”

  “I think so. I know Gina does.”

  “Do you have contact information for these women?”

  “I do for Gina because we’ve become friends. We sit next to each other in class.”

  “But you don’t for Brigitte?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so, but I can check the syllabus from the class. It might be on that.”

  “Have you met Dr. Leone’s husband?”

  “Yes. He came to the opening.”

  “And do you know him personally?”

  “No. I just met him and about two hundred other people that night.”

  “Do you recall his name?”

  “Sure. Yes. It’s Irving Jansen.”

  “Not Leone?”

  “A lot of women keep their own names, Sergeant.”

  “All right, Miss Hodge,” the sergeant said. “Give Detective Gonzalez your information and the contact numbers you have for anyone else in the class. And stay available. I may need to talk to you again.”

  “Okay,” she said, relieved to finally be leaving the interview room. She sat with the detective for a few minutes while she gave him her contact information, and she got up to leave.

  Outside the interview room she saw that Irving Jansen was already waiting to be interviewed. His face looked white, but she didn’t think it was appropriate to stop and speak to him. It wasn’t likely he would remember her anyway. Why had they asked her for the name of Dr. Leone’s husband if they already knew it? Apparently they just wanted to see what she knew. It seemed strange.

  “What the hell happened?” Margie asked as she watched Shell sink into one of the chairs at her dinette. “You’re as white as a sheet!”

  “Dr. Leone was murdered today,” Shell answered, leaning against the table and rubbing the back of her neck while she stared at the lace pattern of the tablecloth.