The second new piece of information had to do with why Randy had gone off the deep end, which may or may not have had anything to do with his murder. She suspected that he had recognized that it was Spiegel who did the painting of the Falls View. If Morris had, why shouldn’t he? As Spiegel’s assistant, he had been intimately acquainted with his work. She thought back to the scene at the gallery. Had Randy’s comments, “I see them” and “This time I’m certain I see them,” referred to Spiegel’s initials? Which led to the next question: what was it about the prospect of Spiegel’s being alive that had been so frightening? Could it have been losing the paintings that Spiegel had given him? If Spiegel was alive, he could retract the gift agreement. But the prospect of losing the paintings didn’t seem to warrant Randy’s extreme reaction, or his sense of paranoia. Maybe the reaction had just been a cocaine-inspired fear of ghosts. Then again, maybe the painting really had been done by Verre, who had reproduced Spiegel’s technique and concealed Spiegel’s initials for some obscure reason of his own.
Looking at the tape recorder sitting on the coffee table, Charlotte was suddenly reminded of the Broadway play, Angel Street, in which she had starred in the early forties. It had later been made into a movie, Gaslight, starring Ingrid Bergman. The fact that she’d had to turn down the movie role because she’d been committed to another project was one of the major disappointments of her career. Apart from starring in the role she’d made famous on Broadway, she had missed her only chance to have played opposite Charles Boyer. It was probably a good thing; chances were that she would have fallen for him, and he’d been happily married. She bemoaned the dearth of sophisticated stars like Boyer in today’s movies. By comparison, today’s heroes struck her as overgrown sixteen-year-olds. But all that was beside the point. The point was that in Gaslight, the husband tries to drive the wife slowly mad. Had somebody—Spiegel or Verre,—been trying to do the same to Randy? And if so, why? Taking a long swig of her drink, she resolved not to think about it anymore for the moment. To do so was like trying to tell what was glass and what was reflection in one of Spiegel’s paintings. From studying the Spiegels on Jack’s walls, she had learned that in order to do this it was necessary to fix on a single point and determine whether it was reality or illusion, and then extrapolate from there. Even then, you often got it all wrong and had to start over again.
The same was true in a murder investigation. You had to take one point and follow it up. You couldn’t allow yourself to be thrown off track by chasing after every lead. Since she had no idea how to pursue the Arthur Lumkin lead, she decided to follow up on the Verre lead instead. In order to tell if he was reality or illusion, she would have to compare his likeness directly to Spiegel’s. And for that, she needed a photograph of Spiegel. His self-portrait told her little: a vague reflection showing a man of average height and weight with dark hair. How should she go about getting a picture? she asked herself, and decided to start by checking with Tom. Now that he was back, she wanted to fill him in anyway. With his connections at the New York newspapers, he might be able to dig up a photo. There must have been a photo with Spiegel’s obituary. For that matter, it might be handy to get copies of the obituaries, too. The next step would be to pay a visit to Spiegel’s ex-wife, Louise. She might also be able to provide a photo, and Charlotte wanted to talk with her anyway. Maybe Louise could give her a better sense of what this man of glass was all about.
10
Back from his trip and eager to get in on the investigation, Tom picked Charlotte up at ten the next morning. He had suggested that she use him as an entrée to Louise Spiegel. When Charlotte had called Louise to make the appointment, she’d said that Tom was interested in doing an article about her ex-husband. Tom’s journalistic pursuits came in handy as excuses for asking people questions that they might not ordinarily want to answer. As they headed out to Paterson in the Buick, eliciting admiring glances from passing motorists, Charlotte filled Tom in on what she had discovered, namely that Lumkin had returned to the diner on the night that Randy was killed, and that Verre and Spiegel were probably one and the same.
At the mere mention of the words “new identity,” Tom launched into a long discourse on the methods for creating one, starting with taking the name of a dead baby from a gravestone, the old grade B movie trick. Tom’s experience in writing about true crime had left him with extensive knowledge of such arcane matters.
“Wild man Plummer,” said Charlotte, as Tom, having expounded on the various ways of obtaining a phony birth certificate, moved on to the subject of altering one’s fingerprints with acid …
He laughed.
In Mack Sennett days, every Keystone Kops story conference had had its wild man, an average Joe who was hired to sit at the conference table and toss out words at random—monkey, ambulance, chopsticks. The idea was to get the juices of creativity flowing among the writers. The Mack Sennett wild man was a Hollywood legend. That Tom was Charlotte’s wild man was their private joke.
“No, seriously,” Tom said. “The United States is the world’s easiest country in which to forge a new identity. You know why?” Pulling out his wallet, he flipped it open to his driver’s license. “This little document here. Which is used all over the country as a means of identification, but was never intended for that purpose.”
They had gotten off at the exit for the historic district, and were now waiting at the stoplight in front of the museum.
“By the way, where are we going?” Tom asked.
“The Manor District, on the east side,” she replied. She was studying the map that lay open on her lap. “Turn right here.”
They were just turning onto Market Street when a cluster of people on the sidewalk in front of the Ivanhoe Gallery caught Charlotte’s eye. A banner hanging from the building read, in gold letters on a purple ground: “Fine Arts Auction Today.”
“Look. There’s an art auction at the Ivanhoe.” She checked her watch. “We’re early,” she said. “Our appointment isn’t for forty-five minutes.” They had allowed the usual amount of time, forgetting that the traffic on a Sunday morning would be light.
Tom looked around, saw the sign, and then met Charlotte’s eye. Without a word; he pulled into the museum parking lot. “It’s a wise man who knows when he’s beaten,” he said.
“You mean you can’t say that in Latin?” Charlotte teased.
Tom shot her a dirty look.
Then they got out and headed up the street to the gallery.
A sandwich board on the sidewalk in front of the gallery read “Going Out of Business. Everything Must Go.” Next to the sandwich board stood a rack holding a collection of auction catalogs. Charlotte and Tom each took one.
“Hello again,” said Diana, who stood at the head of the access ramp that covered a section of the steps. She waved a hand at the auctiongoers gathered on the patio below. “I finally decided that I couldn’t make a go of it. A spur of the moment decision.”
“What are you going to do now?” asked Tom.
“I think I’m moving to Paris,” she said with a radiant smile. “I’m selling everything, my inventory as well as the works from my personal collection.”
The Diana of today was a different woman from the Diana of earlier in the week. She looked stunning in a sleeveless dress of red stretch fabric, which she wore with dangling jet earrings that emphasized the slender elegance of her long, white neck.
“Not bad,” said Tom, speaking about more than just Paris.
Diana addressed Charlotte: “If you’re still interested in Louise Sicca’s ‘Lemon Meringue,’ it’s for sale. Most of the ceramic pieces in the show were on consignment from the artist, but that particular one belonged to me.”
“There you go,” said Tom, giving Charlotte an encouraging nudge.
Diana opened the catalog, and then handed it to Charlotte. “Here it is,” she said, pointing to the entry with a fingernail whose polish exactly matched the red of her dress. “Lot Number Fourteen.”
No sooner had they taken their seats than Diana mounted the podium. After a few words about her regrets at leaving Paterson, she introduced the auctioneer, who was from a New York gallery. Then she stepped down and took a seat next to Jason Armentrout.
“I guess you were right about the Pernod,” said Tom, directing his gaze to the couple, who were chatting intimately.
“Unfortunately for you.”
“Aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus,” he said. “Sometimes even the good Homer sleeps, or, you can’t win ’em all.”
“I’m sorry I challenged you,” said Charlotte.
The first lot, called “Pine Barrens,” was an abstract landscape of trees at the edge of a pond. The roots descended into a black pool edged with deep purple, from which a hint of light shined upward. Charlotte loved it, but she was saving her money for “Lemon Meringue.”
The bidding for “Pine Barrens,” which went for fifteen thousand, set the pace. It was fast and high, perhaps because of the New York auctioneer. A charming art nouveau poster of a couple in evening dress went for five thousand, a brooding oil of a mountain for ten.
“Look!” said Charlotte, as Number Four went on the block.
It was a painting of a diner, not as folk-arty as Randy’s or as glitteringly precise as Verre/Spiegel’s, but with a certain charm. Charlotte had the feeling that she’d seen it before, but she couldn’t recall where or when. Paintings of diners were everywhere these days.
“Are you going to bid?” she asked Tom. “The price is low.” The catalog listed it as unsigned and undated, and gave the estimated value as fifteen hundred dollars, reflecting its lack of provenance.
“I think so,” Tom replied, his eyes gleaming with excitement.
As the bidding opened, Tom’s arm flew up. His offer of five hundred was acknowledged by the auctioneer, and the bidding was on. There were a lot of bidders, but as the price went up everyone except Tom and Jason dropped out. Jason finally won the picture for twelve hundred.
“I’m just as glad,” said Tom as the auctioneer’s assistant set the next painting on an easel. “I thought it was going too high.”
When “Lemon Meringue” finally came up for bid, Charlotte was primed. To her surprise, there were few bidders. She supposed that material illusionism had a limited audience. She ended up buying it for seven hundred.
“Diana was selling it for two thousand,” said Tom as the gavel came down. “You got a deal.”
Charlotte was pleased. As Diana had said, magical things were always happening in Paterson.
They stayed for a couple of more lots, and then left. A few minutes later, they were heading through downtown Paterson, top down and radio blasting. If it had been salsa on the radio instead of sixties rock and roll, they would have fit right in. The mood of the city was buoyant: it was a glorious day, and the sidewalks were crowded with shoppers. Though downtown Paterson must once have looked like that of any other older American city, the influx of Latino immigrants had given the aging district the atmosphere of a South American open-air market. Much of the merchandise was displayed on the sidewalks. Huge bottles of pig’s ears and knuckles, sweatshirts emblazoned with photographs of Malcolm X, plaster statuettes of the Virgin Mary: it was all to be found on the sidewalks of downtown Paterson. Driving through the hustle and bustle, they continued on for a few more blocks, and suddenly found themselves in a neighborhood of perfectly groomed lawns and charming houses that was separated from the urban blight by only a stoplight and an invisible line that somehow managed to keep the inner city at bay.
The address they were looking for was on Park Avenue, and they found it, fittingly enough, overlooking a beautiful park. The house was quite large, and in the English cottage style, one of the most charming on a street lined with pretentious English Tudors and Spanish colonials.
Louise was just emerging from a carriage house at the back as they pulled into the driveway. “I like your car,” she said.
She was a tall, slightly plump woman with long, rangy limbs. In general type, she resembled Bernice, they were both large women with full faces, but where Bernice’s features were sharply drawn, Louise’s were soft. She must have been beautiful once, in an earthy kind of way. Charlotte could easily imagine how she must have looked in the sixties. Her long, full black hair; round, tanned, full-cheeked face; and rich, caramel-colored eyes were made to go with peasant blouses and Mother Hubbard skirts. But the face was now lined and careworn and the long black hair, now streaked with silver, looked out of place on a woman her age, even tied back in a ponytail.
“Thank you,” Tom replied. After slamming the door shut, he ran a loving hand over the polished surface of the front fender. “She’s my pride and joy.”
Louise joined them at the car. “Forgive my appearance,” she said. She wore a soiled white apron over a pair of sweat pants and an oversized man’s pin-striped oxford-cloth shirt. “I’ve been working. I’m a ceramic artist.” Then she held out her hand. “Louise Spiegel,” she said.
Once introductions had been dispensed with, along with the Charlotte-Graham-the-movie-star explanations that always went along with them, Louise led them toward her studio in the carriage house. Her recent works were displayed on shelves just inside the door: a dish of hard candies, a linzertorte, and a tray of cupcakes—all glitteringly, appetizingly real.
Charlotte immediately recognized them as being by the same artist as her recently acquired purchase. “I just bought your ‘Lemon Meringue’ at the Ivanhoe auction,” she said. “I didn’t realize that you were also Louise Spiegel. I’m delighted to meet you.”
“You did!” said Louise, clearly pleased. “I’m glad you like my work. Diana’s done well for me. I’m going to be sorry to see her leave. I’ll never be a Don Spiegel,” she went on, referring to the ostensible reason for their visit, “but I like what I do.”
Charlotte was surprised at her self-deprecatory tone, but it offered insight into the problems with the marriage: a woman who lived in the shadow of her husband. Of course she would never be a Don Spiegel, but she could be a Louise Sicca and seemed to be doing very well at it.
“I think you’re being overly modest,” she said. “I find your work fascinating, though I couldn’t begin to tell you why.” She touched a finger to the raspberry filling of the linzertorte; it was hard and cool. “What is it?” she asked. “That your eyes tell you one thing and your sense of touch another?”
“Yes. In art critic parlance, it’s the conflict between the visual and the tactile clues. Or between expectation and reality. The result is a disturbance in your sense of reality. There’s a lot of mystery in it; it’s like a magic trick. That’s why I like to call it material illusionism.”
“I just thought of why I like your work so much,” said Charlotte.
“Why’s that?”
“It reminds me of my profession. This is a piece of clay pretending to be a torte. If you look at it as the role [the linzertorte], it divulges that it isn’t real; and if you look at it as the actor [a piece of clay], it oozes raspberries.”
Louise smiled, and her face lit up. She had good teeth, large and white and even. “I never thought of my sculptures as playing a role before. But that’s certainly what they do.”
“How did you decide on food as a subject?” Charlotte asked.
“I used to do tiny ceramic rooms, complete with furniture,” she replied. “Then one day I did a kitchen, and I got hooked on kitchens, complete with utensils, serving dishes, food. It finally dawned on me that it wasn’t the kitchen so much as the food that I liked doing.”
“After that, it was just food?”
Louise nodded. “Just desserts, now. Please, have a seat,” she said, gesturing to a small living area made up o
f castoff furniture.
As they took their seats, Louise busied herself in a kitchenette, from which she emerged a few minutes later carrying a tray laden with coffee cups and a linzertorte. “One advantage of using food as your subject is that you get to eat it afterward.”
“It looks almost as good as your artwork, but not quite,” Charlotte said as Louise cut the torte, and transferred the pieces to the plates.
“Now,” Louise said as she passed the pastry and the cups of coffee. “What is it that you wanted to know about Don?”
Tom pulled out a reporter’s notebook. “Maybe you could start with how you met,” he said, not wanting to jump right into it. “I gather you’ve known him longer than anyone else he associated with.”
“I’ve known him … I guess that’s not the right tense, is it?” She started over: “Better to say, I first met him in college—Indiana University. We were both art students there. After college, we went to graduate school together at the Rhode Island School of Design.”
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