Born Under a Blond Sign

by V. J. Chambers

  But I was a little worried about going to an art show. I’d only ever been to one, and it was in college, so it was a student art show, not a professional one. I remembered the experience being pretty weird, though. The artist that had held that art show had this thing about carrots. All her paintings were of carrots. Carrots wearing hats and clothes. Carrots lying on chairs, sunning themselves. Carrots with nooses around their necks, hanging from the gallows.

  I found the whole thing vaguely disturbing. And I didn’t get it at all.

  I had a similar experience when I was in school, and I had to take the requisite art class. Most of the art in the class was fine, because it was historical, and that meant it was mostly portraits and landscapes and other pretty stuff. But then we started to get into more recent stuff, and I wasn’t real impressed. Even Picasso didn’t do much for me, and I know that’s some kind of heresy or something. But when I looked at his pictures, they just looked like they were painted by someone who wasn’t very good at painting, to be honest. Plus, from what I understood, Picasso was kind of a nutjob, anyway, and that didn’t make me think his paintings were better. The opposite, actually.

  The more modern the painting, the worse it seemed to get. The paintings just got, well, uglier and uglier.

  The professor of the course said that after the advent of photography, there was no reason to paint realistically anymore, because a photograph would always capture something better than a painting would.

  I understood that, I guessed. But I still didn’t understand why that meant that people only wanted to paint ugly stuff.

  I had a theory, though, and I knew that it wouldn’t be a popular one. I figured painting a realistic picture was really tough. It probably took a lot of time. And I figured that slopping some paint on a canvas was probably a lot easier. If you got paid the same amount for both, then why bother painting something realistic and detailed? Why not just make something ugly and easy?

  I would never say this out loud to Brigit, of course.

  But I basically thought most modern artists were lazy.

  And I hoped that Brigit wasn’t going to be one of those painters who just painted weird, nonrepresentational colors and junk. Because I respected Brigit, and I was going to have a hard time respecting her if that was the case.

  Anyway, I arrived at the show with some trepidation. It wasn’t at a museum or anything, because there weren’t any art museums in Renmawr. It was located in the warehouse district, which had recently been through a sort of hipster rehabilitation. A lot of the old warehouses had been turned into chic apartments and trendy shops, bars, and restaurants. If there was going to be an art show in Renmawr, this was the only place it could take place, because it was the only place that anyone would value art.

  Right away, I realized that I was underdressed. I hadn’t given much thought to my clothing, so I was glad that I’d at least foregone jeans and gone for a pair of corduroys. But I was still incredibly casual compared to everyone else, who were quite dressed up.

  I thought about going back home and changing, but that would have been another hour, what with driving there and back and putting on different clothes. So, instead, I determined that I’d just get in as quickly as I could, say hi to Brigit, and then make up some kind of bullshit excuse as to why I couldn’t stay for much longer. Hopefully, she’d buy it, and she wouldn’t feel as if I was shortchanging her.

  This was a joint art show. It was Brigit and two other artists. I was greeted by the other artist’s paintings when I entered, and they were just as hideous as I had feared Brigit’s were going to be. This artist had lots of paintings of cats and other animals, but they were all drawn in thick black lines, kind of sloppily. And the artist didn’t appear to believe in coloring within the lines.

  I wrinkled up my nose and hurried through the first room as quickly as I could.

  I emerged in another room, and here there was a table set up with crackers, cheese, some wine, fancy plastic glasses with stems, and a bunch of grapes. I decided to help myself.

  While I munched on the cheese and crackers and sipped the wine, I looked around at the paintings in this next room. They were nicely rendered—very realistic looking, almost hyper-realistic, in fact, as if they’d been airbrushed. But they were all incredibly dark. One was a dark storm over the ocean, the claw-like waves reaching for a little ship. Another was of a volcano erupting, spilling hot lava and ash all over a tiny village.

  “Ivy!”

  I looked up to see Brigit, who was wearing a silky black dress, high heels, and dangly earrings. Her eye makeup was dark and dramatic. She barely looked like herself.

  She ran over to me. “I’m so glad you came.”

  I smiled stiffly. “You could have told me this thing was formal.”

  “Oh.” She scrutinized my outfit. “Well, I just assumed you would know.”

  I stuffed a cracker in my mouth and chewed.

  Brigit fidgeted.

  I swallowed.

  “Well,” she said.

  “Well?”

  “What do you think?” She gestured around at the paintings.

  “These are yours?”

  She nodded, grinning from ear to ear. “Yeah, this is my stuff. This is what I do.”

  I was stunned. Brigit was such a sunny, happy person. I would never have imagined that she would be painting things like this. “Well, they’re, um, very well done. You’re very talented.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Oh, definitely. Not like the person in the front room, who looks like a kid drawing with crayons.”

  Brigit rolled her eyes. “Don’t be like that. Art doesn’t have to be pretty, you know?”

  I looked around at her paintings. They weren’t pretty. They were dramatic and epic and terrifying. Maybe they were beautiful in their own way, but they definitely weren’t pretty. “Maybe if you want it to sell, it does.”

  She pressed her lips together.

  “Seriously,” I said. “You want to know why you weren’t able to make a living selling your art, that’s why. Because no one wants to hang doom and gloom above the mantel. But you’re really good, Brigit. You could paint stuff that people would buy. None of that abstract stuff or whatever.”

  She sighed. “I should never have expected you to understand this.”

  “Understand what?”

  “Pretty things, like flowers and landscapes, they’re boring and trite and overdone. There are zillions of paintings of roses and springtime.”

  “Because people like roses and springtime,” I said. “You want to make money, you have to—”

  “Sell out?” she said.

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “It’s like when I take cases to look into unfaithful spouses. You think I like that kind of work? No, I don’t. But it pays the bills, so—”

  “Forget it, Ivy.” She just laughed. “Thanks for your advice, okay? I’ll think about it.”

  I was fairly sure she was just humoring me, but I decided to shut my mouth. This was her night, after all, and I shouldn’t be crapping all over it. Besides, I didn’t really want her to start making oodles of money from her paintings, because then she’d have no reason to work for me anymore, and I’d miss her if she left.

  “Anyway,” she said. “I do portraits too.” She pointed at the far wall, where there were some paintings of people’s faces. None of the people were smiling, and some of those seemed dark as well, but I had to admit they were less, er, adversarial than the other stuff.

  “Those are very nice,” I said. “I mean it, you’re really good. I was worried. I was afraid it was going to be bad, but you’ve really got the ability, Brigit. You’re amazing.”

  She smiled. “I’m just glad you came.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Brigit,” called someone across the room.

  Brigit waved. “Coming!”

  The caller was a man in his late twenties. He was wearing an untucked dress shirt over a pair of black slacks. His dark
hair was gelled and spiked.

  “That’s Kent Mercer,” said Brigit. “He did the other paintings.”

  “The cats?” I said, horrified.

  “No, in the back room,” she said. “It’s mostly machinery and stuff.”

  I made a face. That seemed like a weird thing to paint.

  “Anyway, he’s been flirting with me all night. I’m thinking I’m going to give him my number.”

  Ah, young love, I thought. “Go on,” I said. “You don’t have to keep talking to me. Besides, I’m going to have to be leaving here shortly, anyway.” Shit, I hadn’t thought of a good excuse yet.

  But Brigit didn’t seem to mind. “Okay, well have a good night then.” She gave me a hug. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the office.” And then she scampered off to Kent Mercer.

  Who, I noticed, had a suspicious little white line around his ring finger on his right hand. I narrowed my eyes. “Brigit!” I called after her.

  But she didn’t hear me.

  I considered intervening, but I didn’t want to embarrass her. Still, I felt bad. She seemed to like that guy, and he was obviously a jerk.

  * * *

  Miles rubbed his face. “Yeah, he had a computer.”

  “Do you know where it might be?” I asked. I was standing in the hallway, just inside the doorway at Miles’s house. He wasn’t looking too great. It was early afternoon, but he was still wearing a robe. His hair looked mussed and his eyes were bleary. “I’m sorry, did I wake you?” Miles was usually an early riser, so I hadn’t figured it would be imposing to come by on my way to work today.

  He yawned. “I couldn’t sleep last night, so I took something around three in the morning. I’ve been asleep ever since. What time is it?”

  “It’s 12:43,” I said, checking my phone to get the accurate time.

  “Man.” He massaged the back of his neck, and his robe came open. I could see his chest, and it was beautiful.

  I cast my glance down at the floor, trying to banish the thoughts that were running through my head. Memories of the time that Miles and I had slept together, and how amazing it had been to be with him, how perfect everything had felt. He’d told me that it would never happen again, so there was no reason for me to ever think about it. I cleared my throat. “About the computer?”

  “What about it?”

  “Do you know where it is?”

  “You checked his dorm room?”

  “Yes, it wasn’t there. There wasn’t much there but a lot of clothes. We brought home his notebooks, but they only had class notes in them. Bunch of chemistry equations and outlines about the Crimean War. Nothing personal. We figure that if we had his computer, we might be able to find out more things about his state of mind.”

  “Sure, that makes sense,” said Miles. “Unfortunately, I don’t know where it is.”

  “His roommate seemed to think that he might have taken it home.”

  “Home? Like to my parents’ house?”

  “That’s what the roommate said.”

  “Well, that’s weird,” said Miles. “Gil never went home. He hated it there as much as I do. I don’t know why he’d go back there willingly.”

  “You think the roommate is lying?” Alarms went off in my head, the typical kind of response to information like this. My next thought was whether the roommate had a motive. Then I realized that this wasn’t a murder investigation.

  Damn it. I was used to looking for murderers. This was different, and I had to remind myself of that.

  “No,” said Miles. “I’m not saying that at all. I don’t know if he went home or not. But if he did, I bet he would have brought his computer with him. He would have wanted a distraction from that place. I’ll check, okay? Next time I’m there, I’ll check and see if I can find it.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “That would be great.”

  “Sure.”

  I cocked my head. “How are you holding up?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Honestly, Miles. You can tell me. We’re… friends.”

  He rubbed his face again. “I want to go back to work, and they won’t let me until after the funeral. I’m having trouble sleeping. I don’t know. I guess I’m not fine, but I’m as good as anyone would be under the circumstances.”

  Right. I guessed that made sense. Now I felt like an idiot for asking.

  “It was my father’s gun,” Miles suddenly blurted.

  I looked up at him. “What?”

  “The gun that Gil used,” said Miles. “It was my dad’s. So, maybe that’s why he went home. To get the fucking gun.”

  I didn’t know what to say. This wasn’t going to be an easy case to work, I realized. I was going to have to paint a picture of a very disturbed boy, and what if I never figured out exactly why he’d become so disturbed? What if there weren’t any answers for Miles in the end?

  Man. I wished it was a murder case. Figuring out who killed someone? That I was good at.

  “I’m so sorry,” I finally said.

  He just shook his head.

  “Um,” I said, “there’s one other thing.”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “His phone. We thought that would really help us understand his state of mind as well. But we figured he had that on him at the shooting.”

  “Probably,” said Miles.

  “So, if evidence gets released, do you think that you could make sure we get our hands on it?”

  Miles nodded. “Sure.”

  “Thanks.”

  We were quiet.

  I dragged my toe against the floor. “Um, listen if there’s anything that you need…”

  “Okay,” he said.

  I looked up at him.

  He looked away.

  The silence grew longer and longer.

  “I guess I should go,” I mumbled.

  * * *

  “I asked Miles about the computer and the phone on the way in,” I said as I entered the office.

  “Okay,” said Brigit from behind her desk.

  “That’s why I’m late,” I said.

  “I don’t think you really can be late,” she said, smiling at me. “After all, it’s your office. You’re the boss, and you set the hours. So, you can come in whenever you want.”

  “Technically, I guess.” I mused over that for a minute. “Anyway, he says he’s going to look into it for us. See if he can’t get us the electronics.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Good.”

  “Good,” I said. I strode back to the inner office. Then I paused, hand on the door handle and turned to look at her. “You know, Brigit?”

  “What?”

  “That guy, Kent Mercer,” I said. “He’s married. You should probably steer clear of him.”

  Brigit sat up straight. “Are you just saying that because of the tan line or do you know more?”

  “You noticed the ring tan line?”

  “Well, duh,” she said. “I haven’t been listening to you go on and on about stupid things you see cheating husbands do when you’re on a stakeout for nothing. I paid attention, and I look for these things.”

  “So, then, why were you encouraging him?”

  “I don’t know.” She looked down at her hands in her lap. “He seemed really nice, and he really seemed to like me, and I just didn’t know how to say no to that.”

  “Brigit,” I sighed. She sounded so sad.

  “I don’t really date so much since I graduated from college,” she said, still studying her hands. “It’s harder now. I can’t go out and socialize until all hours of the morning, because I have responsibilities and stuff, and even if I could, I don’t want to meet a guy who’s socializing until all hours anyway, because then he won’t be responsible, and…”

  I wasn’t sure what to say. I really didn’t know how to give advice in this department, because my own love life was a colossal failure. I opened my mouth to say something.

  But Brigit looked up at me and said, “I know that you still stay out unti
l all hours of the morning, so you probably don’t understand. But you only do that because you’re an alcoholic—”

  “I am not an alcoholic,” I said.

  “Whatever,” she said, “you’re in denial about it, but anyone with eyes can see that you drink too much.”

  “Brigit—”

  “And I don’t want to argue about this,” she said. “I’m sorry I even brought it up. It’s just that Kent seems really nice, and I don’t know if he’s secretly an asshole or not. I wish I could find out somehow.”

  “Did you ask him about the tan line on his ring finger?”

  “Yeah, it didn’t exactly come up,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I don’t know how to bring that up without essentially accusing him of hiding the fact that he’s married. If he was, I don’t think he’d be honest with me, do you?”

  “Good point,” I said.

  “What if it’s not from a wedding ring?” said Brigit. “What if there’s some other explanation?”

  “There’s not,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “But you don’t know that. You aren’t certain.”

  I sighed. “You really like this guy, huh?”

  She twisted her hands together. “Kind of.”

  “Well, I tell you what,” I said. “I’ll look into him for you if you want. Nothing special, just tail him a little, see if he goes home to a wife and kids or something.”

  “Ivy, you know I can’t afford you,” said Brigit.

  “This is on the house,” I said. “A favor for you. Because one of us should get to be happy in love.”

  She jumped up out of her chair and ran over to hug me.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said, wincing but allowing the hug. “Don’t get overly excited, huh?”

  * * *

  So, I could have gotten started on the Kent Mercer thing right away, but I decided to do a little bit of organizing in my office. I had a bunch of Gilbert’s notebooks piled on my desk. I’d gone through them, and I hadn’t found anything. I’d return them to Miles soon, but for now, I wanted them off of my desk, so I cleared out some space in a file cabinet for them until then. I didn’t want them cluttering my desk.