Dark Exhibit

by Rick Homan

  There was no rule that the student on duty had to stay by the door, and I was always happy to see a student paying attention to the art, but at first I couldn’t tell what he was up to. He nodded his head as if he were listening to someone, but there was no one there. He gestured to his left and to his right as if referring to different paintings. As he turned in my direction, I could see his lips moving. Apparently, he was showing imaginary guests around the exhibit and practicing his gallery talk.

  There was only one way to avoid the embarrassment of catching him rehearsing. I ducked back from the doorway, hoping he hadn’t seen me, and tiptoed away. Then with heavy footsteps I walked straight into the gallery and paused to glance at the guest book so he would see me before I saw him. After a few moments, I looked around the room as if I wasn’t sure at first he was there. “Oh, there you are. Good afternoon, Paul.”

  “Good afternoon, Dr. Noonan.”

  Mission accomplished: I saw no embarrassment on his face. “Quiet this afternoon?”

  “I had a few visitors after lunch, and an older couple came by an hour ago.”

  I looked back at the guest book and saw the couple had filled in the “From” column, with the word “Dayton.” I tapped that line in the book and said, “I don’t think we’ve had anyone else from Dayton.”

  Paul nodded. “They were on their way through to Athens. They have a daughter at Ohio U.”

  I made a mental note to give him credit for taking an interest in the guests. I would jot that down in his folder when I returned to my office. “How nice,” I replied. “I’ve been teaching here a year and a half, and I still have so many places to visit. I’ve never been to Dayton. I hear the museum there is worth visiting.”

  “It’s not a bad collection. Wide, but a bit shallow.”

  “Oh? You’ve visited it then?”

  “Yes, many times.”

  “Is it a long drive from here?”

  “I don’t know, a couple of hours I suppose.”

  “You haven’t made the drive?”

  “No, but I’m from Lima, so I’ve stopped there on my way down to Cincinnati.”

  That settled that. Since Lima was nowhere near Jessica Fabrizio’s hometowns—Louisville, Cleveland, and Albany—Paul had no geographical connection to any of the places where she had lived, studied, and worked. Therefore, I could suggest to Sheriff Adams that Paul had no history with her.

  Since Paul was in a pleasant mood, I thought I may as well extend our conversation. Glancing around the room and speaking as if thinking out loud, I said, “I suppose everyone’s talking about Jessica Fabrizio, that poor woman who was here on Saturday.”

  “You mean the bitch?” The sneer on his lips was almost as disturbing as the word he had used.

  “Paul! That’s a terrible thing to say about one of our visitors. Why would you say that?”

  “She was just . . . She gave me a hard time about signing the guest book, and, when I tried to give her the brochure, she just blew me off, and walked right over to the artist.”

  “Of course, she did. She didn’t need an introduction. They were old friends.”

  “She was rude.”

  “Let’s get one thing straight, Paul: You are here for the guests; they are not here for you.”

  “Fine! You don’t have to make such a big deal out of it.”

  His face flushed and his nostrils flared. With his arms crossed and his hands clasped over his biceps, I could see the tendons leading to his fingers stretched like cables.

  I glanced at the door of the gallery to make sure it was open and shifted my position a few steps so I could look through the glass panels on either side and see if anyone was nearby in the corridor. “It’s after three-thirty. Why don’t you go now? I’ll lock up.”

  He was out the door almost before I was done speaking, and I locked the door behind him. Then I fished my phone out of my purse and pulled up the emergency-call screen in case he came back.

  Chapter 12

  Paul had put himself back on the suspect list by admitting he started a feud with Jessica on Saturday afternoon, just before we closed the reception. I recalled that he also tried to join the dinner party Edgar and his friends were forming and got the cold shoulder from them. Could he have been so jealous of the attention Edgar showed to Jessica that he followed her to her motel room and killed her? I wouldn’t have believed that, but after seeing his reaction to the mention of her name it seemed all too possible.

  Mission not accomplished: Paul was back on the suspect list, and closer to the top. I would have to report that to Sheriff Adams.

  The remainder of the afternoon was taken up with a trip into Blanton for groceries, driving very slowly all the way on the snowy roads. Steadman’s was larger than a corner store back home in San Francisco but smaller than a suburban supermarket. It had all the basics, and it was convenient.

  Pushing my cart through the aisles at Steadman’s, I remembered how last year I had discovered that for a third of the year fresh fruits and vegetables were scarce in Ohio. Growing up in California, I took for granted having fresh produce year-round. Now I bought most of my veggies in the frozen food section.

  This week I treated myself to a frozen pizza to which I would add some toppings. Although it would take a longer to prepare in the tiny oven of the all-in-one set of appliances that came with the Rabbit Hutch, the baking would help to heat the room.

  Once I had driven home, stowed my groceries, and started the oven, I called Abbie. “Have you eaten?”

  “No.”

  “I have pizza and red wine.”

  “I’ll make a salad. Give me ten minutes.”

  Knowing Abbie was on the way gave me permission to ignore the butterflies in my stomach. I closed my laptop, unplugged it, and put it away in the bedroom. I tidied up in there, in case Abbie had to come through to use the bathroom, and worked my way out to the bigger room putting some things away and neatly stacking others. As I did so, I breathed easier and stood straighter. With mats and napkins on the table, and a cutting board, knife and plates standing by for when the pizza was done, all I had to do was pour two glasses of wine.

  I heard a knock and yelled, “It’s open.”

  Abbie stepped in and paused by the door to look around at my outdoor furniture and the fake lawn made of green doormats stitched together, which took the place of a rug in the middle of the room. “This place still cracks me up.” She pointed to the center of the ceiling. “All you need is a heat lamp up there, and we could pretend we were on vacation in Florida.”

  “Have a seat,” I said, taking the salad from her and dishing it onto the plates. “The pizza still has a few minutes to bake.” I brought the wine glasses to the table and handed her one. “Here’s to Groundhog Day!”

  “Only two weeks away,” said Abbie.

  We drank. I hadn’t been to Columbus recently to replenish my wine cellar (the cabinet under the kitchen sink), so I was down to the bottle labeled, “Red Table Wine.” It was drinkable and well within my food budget.

  “You’ll have to forgive me if I seem a bit distracted,” I said. “My department met yesterday morning, and my attempt at being collegial blew up in my face.”

  “What happened?”

  “Irving Zorn said we should have a career track in animation. I asked if any of us has any experience in animation. Zorn went berserk and accused me of all kinds of things.”

  Abbie smiled and shook her head. “Of course, he did. He wanted to keep doing what he does and slap a new label on it. You challenged him to use a little imagination and put some work into it.”

  “I didn’t mean it as a challenge. If he didn’t agree, fine, but his reaction was way over the top.”

  Abbie frowned for a moment. “What time was this meeting?”

  “Lunchtime”

  “I don’t know Zorn, but I’ve heard that if you want to have a reasonable conversation with him, it’s best to do it earlier in the day. Apparently by lunchtime he’s usual
ly pretty well lubricated.”

  It hadn’t occurred to me that Zorn might have been drunk. He certainly wasn’t acting silly like someone at a party, but maybe there were different kinds of drinkers with different kinds of symptoms.

  After another sip of wine, Abbie asked, “Have you invited me to your Hutch so my sparkling personality can brighten the long, winter evening?”

  “Of course. Also, to reboot that conversation we had Sunday evening.”

  “The one in which it was revealed that the love of my life was jealous of you last year?”

  “I’m not worried about that part,” I said. “I want to revisit the part where you advised me to dig up information about Weinert and Dunkle and feed it to the sheriff.”

  “Right. How’s that going?” she asked.

  “Downhill and the brakes have failed.”

  “Oh dear. I hope you have more wine.”

  “You know I do.”

  The oven gave a ping, and I got up to get the pizza.

  “Smells good,” said Abbie. What’s on it?”

  “Italian sausage and Cantonese stir-fry.”

  “God bless America.”

  I brought the plates to the table and we ate for a few minutes.

  Abbie paused, took a sip of wine, and asked, “So what seems to be the problem?”

  “The general idea was to see if my intern, Paul Weinert, and our colleague, Matt Dunkle, had any connection to the woman who was murdered. The good news is I can’t see how Paul could ever have crossed paths with her before last Saturday.”

  “And the bad news?”

  “He’s still calling her nasty names because of something that happened at the opening.”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing much. Paul has this idea that the internship is his chance to shine, to show everyone he’s a rising star in the art world.”

  Abbie nodded. “Internship Syndrome.”

  “So, he took offense when Jessica breezed by him to talk to Edgar instead of waiting by the lectern for him to do his welcome-you-to-the-gallery routine.”

  “Oh my. He really is a diva. Why is this bad news?”

  “If he’s still yelling insults at the mention of her name four days later, was he angry enough on Saturday to follow her to her motel and kill her?”

  “Seems like a stretch.”

  “Can we rule it out?” I asked.

  “I guess not. Wounded pride can be a powerful motivator.”

  “So, should I report this to the sheriff?”

  Abbie pursed her lips and stared across the room. “It’s not your job to do any of this, but if you’re going to talk to the sheriff, yeah, I guess it would be wrong to ignore it. What did you find out about Dunkle?”

  “Not much, but I am worried about one thing. He got his doctorate at SUNY at Albany.”

  She shrugged. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Jessica Fabrizio got her BA at Albany.”

  “And I’ll bet you’re about to tell me they were there at the same time.”

  “For three years.”

  Abbie sipped some wine and swished it around inside her mouth before speaking. “It’s a big school.”

  “Almost 20,000.”

  “It would be entirely possible for two people to be there and never cross paths.”

  “Entirely.”

  “Still,” she said, “their being there at the same time doesn’t exactly point in the right direction.”

  “No, it does not.”

  We ate in silence for a couple of minutes.

  “What if I don’t talk to Adams?” I asked. “I didn’t promise him a report. Maybe I should sit back and let him do his job.”

  “And go to bed every night knowing you might have information that might help him catch the murderer?”

  I shook my head. “Nope. That’s not going to work.”

  “You know what you know. There’s no way to not know it.”

  “That sounds profound. More wine?”

  “No thanks.”

  We finished eating.

  Abbie sat back and said, “I think you have to tell him.”

  “Even though the part about Paul brings the investigation and the headlines closer to the gallery?”

  “It will, for a while, but look at it this way: If Weinert or Dunkle killed her, the investigation will get here sooner or later. You may as well get it over with.”

  I drank the last of my wine. “When I invited you over, I was hoping you could explain to me that all this was not as dark as it seemed.”

  She smiled. “You wanted me to torture the data so it would say what you want it to say, and that is what we economists do, but in this instance we are not working with labor department statistics.”

  “Mom always says, ‘Your friends are the ones who tell you the truth.’”

  “Thanks for the pizza and the wine.”

  “Thanks for the salad and the truth.”

  Chapter 13

  After Abbie went home, I called Sheriff Adams and left him a voicemail suggesting we meet the next day, Thursday, sometime in the afternoon. I wasn’t happy, but I also wasn’t depressed. For all I knew, at that moment he might have been arresting someone in Cleveland for the murder of Jessica Fabrizio. Likewise, police in Louisville might solve the crime tomorrow. But, if neither of those things happened, I would tell Adams what I had discovered and hope for the best.

  Wondering if Paul had become so enraged with Jessica at the opening as to become dangerous reminded me of another possible source of danger. Edgar asked me about security when he arrived for the opening of the exhibit. When I asked why he was concerned, he said he was just nervous, but maybe he was aware of a real threat. If so, it may have had something to do with the murder of Jessica. At least it was worth asking him.

  I called Edgar, and he answered. “How are you doing, Edgar?”

  “Still pretty freaked out.”

  “It must be hard.”

  “I’m just spending a lot of time walking around with a sketchbook and a pencil. I can’t really work, but drawing seems to calm down the demons.”

  He sounded shaken. “I’m glad that works for you. Have you heard any more from the Sheriff?”

  “No. Have you?”

  “No.”

  “Good,” he said with bitter satisfaction. “Maybe he’s focusing on the person who really did murder Jess.”

  “I hope so, Edgar. By the way, do you remember asking me about security for the opening?”

  “Security? What about it?”

  “When you and Mel and Rita arrived for the opening, you asked about security for the event.”

  After taking a moment to think, Edgar said, “Oh, right. Yeah. Thanks for taking care of that.”

  “I’m wondering why you thought security might be an issue.”

  “It was nothing, nothing you need to worry about.”

  I was getting very tired of being told that. “Still, I’d like to know why you were worried.”

  “It was something Mel said. He thought somebody might be out to get me.”

  “Why would Mel think that?”

  “It was just something he found on the internet.”

  This was like pulling teeth. “What did he find?”

  “Some racist remarks about me. I don’t think it meant anything. Mel was concerned because this was my first career retrospective exhibit. He’s a good friend, but he can be kind of a mother hen sometimes.”

  “Maybe he was right to be worried. Jessica was at the exhibit, and she ended up being killed.”

  “Nicole, I don’t know who killed her or why. I don’t see why anyone would. But what Mel was saying had nothing to do with her. Really just forget about it.”

  “Did you mention it to Sheriff Adams when he questioned you?”

  “No, it didn’t come up. Nicole, this is really bringing me down. I have to go, but keep in touch if there’s any news.”

  We hung up, and I sat feeling very unsatisfied. I wa
s annoyed that Edgar hadn’t told me earlier of a potential racist incident at the opening. I couldn’t see how it might have lead to Jessica’s murder, but I couldn’t assume it hadn’t.

  I was tired and a little sleepy after the meal I had eaten and the wine I had drunk, but I needed answers. I called Mel, but got his voicemail, and asked him to give me a call. Maybe if he told me the source of these racist remarks, I could make up my own mind about whether they were relevant.

  I kept myself awake for another hour, but, when he didn’t call back, I went to bed.

  Along with having a spectacular view of a downward-sloping, wooded hillside, faculty offices in the Arts and Humanities Building were blessed with a southeast orientation. This meant the morning sun warmed them in winter, which in my opinion was a great way to start the day. The sun had taken the chill off my office when I popped in before my Thursday morning class, and the room was comfortable when I returned to have lunch at my desk. I had brought with me a sandwich and an apple.

  I found a message from Adams on my office phone saying he would come to my office at 2:00 p.m. This wasn’t exactly what I’d had in mind. The sheriff’s cruiser parked in the visitors’ lot and Adams in full uniform walking across the campus and through the building to my office were bound to set tongues wagging. I called him back, and when he answered, said, “Thanks for your message, Sheriff. There’s no need for you to come to the campus. I could meet you for a cup of coffee at Emma’s in Blanton, or somewhere else if you wish.”

  “I appreciate the offer, but if it’s all the same to you, I’ll come to your office. Is that a problem?”

  “No. No problem. I’ll be here.”

  Oh well. It was worth a try

  I ate while grading quizzes and kept busy until two o’clock updating assignment sheets and reading about trompe-l'oeil, a French phrase meaning “deceive the eye.” Some works of art make you think you are seeing not just a picture of something but the thing itself. A wall at the end of a corridor might be painted to look as if the corridor extends further, and the effect can be so convincing that people will touch the wall to see if they can continue walking. I had read that photorealism might be considered an example of trompe-l'oeil since the paintings make you think you are seeing a photograph. Others disagree. Such is the work of an art historian.