A Fit of Tempera

by Mary Daheim

  Iris was nervously plucking at the fine fabric of her coffee-colored slacks. “It must have happened very quickly,” she said, almost in awe. “How long were we at Nella’s? Five minutes? Ten?”

  “No more than ten,” replied Renie, who had an astute knack for judging time. “Maybe what happened was that the killer sneaked in back of the studio while you were getting us. Then, as soon as we came along and continued to Nella’s, whoever it was dashed into the studio and…uh…ah…” Succumbing to an unusual fit of tact, Renie faltered and fumbled with her brandy snifter.

  Attempting to steel herself, Iris took a deep breath. “It doesn’t seem real, does it? It’s as if we’re talking about a movie or a play. You can read about murder every day in the newspaper or see it on TV, but when it actually happens—” Iris stopped, a hand to her mouth. Tears welled up in her eyes. Setting the brandy snifter down on a side table, she frantically scanned the small, untidy living room. “My purse…” she murmured. “A handkerchief…”

  Judith spotted the leather shoulder bag at the other end of the futon sofa. She crossed the room to fetch it for Iris, who failed in her effort at a grateful smile.

  “Damn,” Iris said in a shaky voice. “I don’t seem to have any self-control! This is so awful!”

  Judith and Renie both offered sympathetic expressions. Patiently, they waited in silence for Iris to marshal her composure.

  “We couldn’t see him at first because those big windows don’t come all the way down,” Iris went on in a rush. “If only we had stopped to ask him to come with us! I’d have rather put up with a tantrum twenty times over than sacrifice Riley to our silly feminine pride!”

  “Regrets are useless,” Judith asserted flatly. “You—and Renie and I—would do the same thing again. It’s very rare that, when we talk about might-have-beens, any of us would actually change what we did in the first place. We act instinctively and in the context of the moment. You’ve nothing to regret, Iris.” Seeing a resigned expression creep over Iris’s face, Judith continued. “What’s important now is to move on and try to help the sheriff find Riley’s killer. Where did that wire come from, by the way?”

  Iris nodded jerkily. “Riley kept some picture-hanging wire in the studio. I don’t know why—he never actually hung any pictures there, he just propped them up or put them on easels.” The brief resignation was erased by another look of dismay. “Did you see how tight that wire had been pulled? It had cut into his skin and—”

  Iris’s vivid description was mercifully interrupted by a pounding at the door. Relieved at being spared a recollection of the gruesome details, Judith leaped to her feet. “I’ll get it. It must be the sheriff.”

  It wasn’t. A distinguished middle-aged man wearing a khaki safari suit stood on the small, square back porch that faced the highway. Before Judith could say a word, he pushed past her and entered the house.

  “Where is Riley?” he demanded in a deep, resonant voice. “If he isn’t really dead, I’m going to kill him anyway.”

  Staring from over the top of the sofa, Iris took one look at the newcomer and let out a piercing scream.

  THREE

  IN A FLURRY of sound and motion, Iris Takisaki flew off the sofa, dashed through the narrow corridor that separated the kitchen from the living room, and attacked the newcomer. Judith grabbed at Iris, vainly trying to pull her away. Renie struggled with the soft leather armchair, attempting to get up. In the end, it was the distinguished-looking man in the safari suit who was able to stop Iris from doing serious damage. He grasped her around the waist and lifted her bodily into his arms, then marched into the living room and threw her back onto the sofa. Iris gasped for breath; the visitor dusted off his safari suit.

  “Really, Iris,” he remarked in that deep, cultured voice, “you’ve no cause to do me harm. All I want is my painting. I’m paying seventy thousand dollars for it, you know. Riley has stalled me long enough. If he had one of his fits of whimsy and sold it to that hangdog Hungarian, I’ll sue.”

  Somehow, Iris managed to look graceful in the after-math of her tumble onto the sofa. She lifted her head and glared at the visitor who had now moved into the center of the room and was smoothing his silver hair.

  “You killed him!” The words shot out of her mouth.

  Judith involuntarily retreated a few steps from the man Iris had just accused of murder. It was possible, of course. Obviously, somebody had killed Riley Tobias. “Excuse me,” Judith ventured. “Who are you?”

  The man gazed at Judith in a bemused manner. She had the feeling that he thought she ought to know—or wasn’t worthy of enlightenment. “I’m Dewitt Dixon. And you?” He didn’t offer his hand.

  The name rang no bells. “Judith Flynn,” she responded, then gestured at Renie, who had finally managed to extricate herself from the leather chair. “My cousin, Serena Jones.”

  To Judith’s astonishment, Renie went over to Dewitt Dixon and planted a big kiss on his cheek. “Hi, Dewitt. I haven’t seen you since the gallery opening at the university last spring.”

  Judith couldn’t believe her eyes or her ears. Dewitt Dixon was giving Renie a bear hug. “How’s Bill?” he inquired. “Your husband had teeth problems that night, as I recall.”

  “Right.” Renie stood back as Dewitt released her. “Ulcerated, root canal, gold crown, the works. We sold two out of our three kids to pay for it. How’s your spouse?”

  Strolling to the stone fireplace that Riley Tobias had built with his own hands, Dewitt Dixon leaned against the natural pine mantelpiece. “She’s fine, the last I heard, which was Florence. She found the Uffizi redundant.” It suddenly seemed to strike Dewitt that his conversation with Renie was inappropriate under the circumstances. His cool blue gaze shifted to Iris, who was half-sitting, half-lying on the sofa. It would have been a seductive pose had her black eyes not been rimmed in red and filled with malice. “Tell me, Iris,” Dewitt queried, “is Riley playing some practical joke?”

  Iris glared some more at Dewitt Dixon. “It’s not a joke, you fool. Riley’s dead. Someone killed him. Was it you?”

  Dewitt shed a fraction of his seemingly imperturbable air. “Killed him? Good Lord! When?”

  Sitting up straight, Iris reached for her purse and pulled out a gold-leaf cigarette case. Still silent, she extracted a black cigarette tipped in gold and lighted it with what Judith had thought was an eagle sculpture. The sharp beak spewed flame. Exhaling, Iris stood up and walked out, presumably headed for the house’s only bedroom off the narrow hall.

  “Well.” Dewitt Dixon chuckled softly and shook his head.

  “She’s very upset,” Judith explained, sniffing at the lingering cigarette smoke and almost wishing she hadn’t kept her vow to quit. “She found him. We were with her.”

  “Where?” Dewitt had taken out his own case, sleek silver with his initials tastefully engraved.

  Renie motioned through the nearby window. “Out there, in the studio. It happened between five-fifteen and five-thirty.” Catching a warning glance from Judith, Renie shut up. If Dixon had anything to do with the murder, it would be better if he didn’t find out how much they knew.

  A spiral of smoke drifted from Dewitt’s cigarette to disperse among the pine rafters. “This is most extraordinary! Why aren’t the police here?”

  Judith sniffed again. “They will be. Not police, but sheriff. It’s a big county, you know. They could be fifty miles away.”

  The room turned quiet. Outside, dusk was descending, the soft spring light softening behind the mountains and over the river. Judith’s gaze took in her immediate surroundings. Riley Tobias had lived among clutter, with piles of books, magazines, tapes, clippings, and file folders. The furniture was ordinary, neither cheap nor dramatic. Comfort appeared to have been Riley’s goal. But the art that hung from the walls, reposed on tables, and stood in corners was a wildly eclectic representation of contemporary Pacific Northwest painters, sculptors, glassblowers, and printmakers. Some, like the lotus-shaped whit
e bowl, were stunning. Others, such as a suit of armor covered with purple eggshells, were ghastly. As far as Judith could tell, only two of Riley’s own works hung on the living room walls—an early cloudscape and a pen-and-ink drawing of Mount Woodchuck. It occurred to her that she would much rather have either one than the ugly—if expensive—painting Riley had given her. It also occurred to her that she was being crass.

  It was Dewitt Dixon who broke the silence. “Tobias had an agent. He used to deal strictly with galleries, but he was too much of a maverick to work in the normal way. And he was big enough to get his way. I dealt with his agent initially. What is his name? Silvanus? Shouldn’t he be told what’s happened?”

  “That’s up to Iris,” Judith replied.

  Dewitt nodded once. “And family? I think there was a brother, back in New England.”

  There was. Judith remembered that, along with the fact that Riley’s parents had been dead for years. She also recalled that he had been born in Indiana, on a bulb farm, and had gone west as a very young man in the fifties. He had heard the call of the Beat Generation and had hit the road. Making the North Beach scene had strengthened his resolve to become an artist, but the Bay Area hadn’t suited him. San Francisco had physically and spiritually hemmed him in, he’d once said. A brief, disastrous marriage had rounded out his disillusion.

  “He couldn’t go any farther west, he couldn’t go back home, and L.A. appalled him,” Judith said, more to herself than to Dewitt and Renie. “So he had to head north. That’s how he ended up here, where he found his artistic soul.” She gave a little jump, a bit startled by her own musings. “Excuse me, I seem to be eulogizing out loud. Family?” She gazed at Dewitt Dixon. “Yes, of course, the brother…Iris would know how to get hold of him. That’s up to her, too.”

  Indeed, it was all up to Iris, Judith realized. Iris had been Riley Tobias’s mistress for twenty years; Iris had found his body. She had divided her time between a waterfront condo in town and the cabin on the river. Iris must know everything there was to know about Riley Tobias. Judith was strictly an outsider. She locked gazes with Renie; the cousins communicated wordlessly. It was habit as well as kinship, a communion forged in childhood.

  “Look,” said Renie, taking her cue, “we should go. If the sheriff wants to talk to us, we’re next door.” She gestured in an easterly direction.

  Dewitt Dixon looked surprised, even a trifle alarmed. “You’re leaving?” He inclined his head toward the bedroom, where Iris presumably had fled. “What about her?”

  Judith was not without sympathy. “It’s terrible, I know. But she’s got to cope. We all do. I gather she wants to be alone right now. Iris strikes me as a very strong, capable woman. If she needs us, we’re only a shout away.”

  The dew was already beginning to settle on the grass in the meadow. Renie started off at an angle, clearly intent on circumventing the studio. In a low voice, Judith hailed her cousin.

  “Hold it—we ought to take another look at the body, coz.” She stopped, standing next to a ramshackle fence decorated with all manner of objects from old horse collars to new ceramics.

  Over her shoulder, Renie looked askance. “Why? Seen one body, seen ’em all. I don’t feel like a ghoul this evening. Besides, I’m starving. It’s almost seven o’clock.”

  Hesitating, Judith finally gave in and followed Renie through the woods. Her cousin was right: It would be ghoulish to study Riley Tobias’s corpse. It would also be difficult, since there were no lights on inside the studio. Judith knew better than to touch anything until the law enforcement personnel arrived. Which, she realized, was taking a very long time. Carefully stepping over the uneven ground, she tramped along the primitive trail that zig-zagged among the vine maples, cottonwoods, hemlock, cedars, and fir.

  The old cabin seemed to welcome them back. Even its flaws were a sign of comfort in a world turned suddenly violent.

  “Don’t tell me,” said Renie, going straight to the stove to make sure the fire hadn’t gone out, “you’re sleuthing. Dammit,” she went on with considerable fervor, “you’re going to get us involved. I should have known your sudden departure had nothing to do with my attitude to cease and desist. You just didn’t want me to bitch about being hungry.” She yanked open the icebox and began hauling out steaks, lettuce, and tomatoes.

  Judith was holding up her hands in protest. “Wrong, coz, wrong. We were with Iris when she found the body. We were also the last people to see Riley alive—except for the murderer. We’re witnesses. We have a very real obligation. Surely you can see that.”

  Renie gave a little snort. “Let’s try seeing where you put the potatoes. It’s going to take forever to bake them in that old oven. I suggest we have hash browns.”

  “Fine.” Judith rummaged under the little counter that divided the kitchen from the living room. A moment later, she was at the sink, peeler in hand. She was also humming.

  Renie gave her cousin a suspicious, sidelong look. “You’re putting Riley Tobias out of your mind?”

  Judith kept peeling potatoes. “Of course I am. I’m thinking about calling home after dinner. I’m thinking about Joe. And Mother. Oh, and whether or not Mike will really graduate from college this year.”

  Renie paused in the act of putting a thick New York steak in the heavy cast-iron skillet. “Then how come you’re humming Strauss’s Artist’s Life waltz?”

  Her big dark eyes looking startled, Judith dropped a potato. “I am? Oh, dear!”

  Placing the two steaks in a puddle of hot butter, Renie sighed. “You’re hopeless. Get another frying pan for the spuds. I’ll light the lanterns.” She stomped out into the living room.

  Judith watched Renie fill and pump the lanterns. “I was sort of surprised when you greeted Dewitt Dixon like an old college chum. You’ve never mentioned him to me.”

  “Probably not,” murmured Renie, waiting for the first lantern to catch. “He’s one of those people I run into at art and design shows. Most of them are a pain in the butt, but I have to be nice just in case they turn into potential clients. It drives me crazy. Being nice, I mean.” The lantern flared and she nodded approval at her handiwork. “Dewitt’s a real stuffed shirt. Big bucks, good taste, dedicated art buff. But he’s still a pain.”

  “An urbane pain,” Judith noted. Renie didn’t reply; she was concentrating on not setting fire to her fingers.

  Five minutes later, the potatoes were frying, the steaks were sizzling, the salad reposed in the icebox, and Judith and Renie had poured fresh drinks. Two Coleman lanterns hung from sturdy hooks in the rafters. In the kitchen, a bracketed brass lamp fixture glowed on the wall. Darkness was settling in over the cabin, and the only sounds were the rippling river, the crackling fire, and the tremor of the leaves in the gentle spring breeze. It would have been a perfect setting for repose—had a dead body not been lying two hundred feet away.

  As if to remind the cousins that the world was seriously flawed, sirens wailed out on the highway. Judith and Renie looked at each other.

  “The sheriff?” Judith turned but didn’t get up from her place on the sagging sofa.

  “It’s about time,” Renie replied. “Maybe he won’t bother us until we’re done with dinner.”

  Judith didn’t respond. The sirens drew closer. But before they stopped, she heard the sound of footsteps on the porch. Startled, she almost spilled her drink.

  Renie got up out of the mohair armchair that had once sat in their grandparents’ front parlor. “Maybe it’s Iris,” she said, crossing the room. Cautiously, she opened the top half of the Dutch door.

  Judith was right behind her. The balding middle-aged man with the mustache appeared much more frightened than the cousins. He all but cringed when Renie asked him to identify himself.

  “Clive Silvanus, at your service,” he said with more than a hint of a Southern accent. “Good Lordy-Lord, isn’t this a d-d-dreadful day?”

  Renie opened the other half of the door. “You got that right. Come on in, or a
re you armed and dangerous?”

  “Ah’m t-t-terrified,” Clive Silvanus replied, scooting across the threshold. Indeed, Judith noted that his teeth seemed to be chattering. He was neatly, if blandly, dressed in a tan sport coat, beige slacks, and a brown tie. The white dress shirt seemed at odds with his saddle shoes. Upon closer inspection under the lantern light, Judith saw that Clive Silvanus had soft brown eyes, a small, soft mouth, and a very soft chin. His pale skin looked soft, too, despite the soft brown mustache. Judith wasn’t surprised to see him collapse onto the sofa.

  “It’s th-th-the end of the world. As Ah know it,” he added, eyes rolled back into his head. “Who could have foreseen this d-d-dire d-d-day?”

  Nearby, the sirens stopped. Presumably, the sheriff had arrived at Riley Tobias’s house and studio. Judith pretended she didn’t notice the police activity, lest her acknowledgment cause Clive Silvanus to get the vapors.

  “Yes,” she agreed, holding her scotch against her breast. “It’s pretty terrible. Would you like a drink?”

  With his head lolling against the floral pattern of Auntie Vance’s old sofa, Silvanus let out a little gasp. “Strong drink! Oh, my, yes, bourbon and branch water, if you p-p-please. It will do me good.”

  Renie also rolled her eyes, but for a different reason. “It’s my bourbon and I only brought a pint. As for the branch water, you’re lucky to get any at all. We had to haul these containers from Riley’s well and my arms still hurt. You can forget about ice, because I’d have to chip it off the old block. Thank your lucky stars we’ve got glasses. When I was a kid, we used to drink out of old jelly jars.” Renie swished off into the kitchen.

  Judith was torn between amusement and dismay by her cousin’s minor diatribe. Clive Silvanus, however, appeared unmoved. In fact, he looked traumatized, and Judith really couldn’t blame him. Silvanus was Riley Tobias’s agent, and no doubt his client’s sudden death had come as a terrible shock. While Renie made Silvanus’s drink and checked on dinner, Judith said as much to their visitor. But Clive Silvanus surprised her.