by Rick Homan
Ready to head out, I had just picked up my coat when my phone rang. It was Sheriff Adams. I thought about letting it go to voicemail because, if he was calling for a report on Matt Dunkle and Paul Weinert, I had nothing to tell him. Then I remembered to be optimistic. He might be calling to say he had a break in the case and had crossed both Paul and Matt off his list. He might even have arrested somebody.
“Good morning, Sheriff.”
“Good morning, Dr. Noonan. I’m calling to let you know we received a call early this morning from the sister of Edgar Yount. She was calling from his studio. We responded and found her waiting for us here. She had called to report a death. The deceased is her brother, Edgar Yount.”
Chapter 18
I sat on the bed and had to force myself to take a deep breath. “Edgar is dead?”
“Yes. I am very sorry to bring you this news. I thought you would want to know as soon as possible.”
“I don’t understand. He was in good health. He couldn’t just die.”
“He was found hanging from the ceiling of his studio.”
I choked and had to clear my throat before I could ask, “Hanging? Do you mean hanging with a rope?”
“Yes.”
“This is unbelievable.”
“I am sorry. We’re processing the scene now. I have to go. I just stepped outside to call because I didn’t want you to hear of it first through news reports.”
“Thank you.”
I lay back on the bed and tried to stop feeling light-headed. By making this trip to Columbus, I tried to leave my worries behind, but they had caught up with me with a vengeance.
I leaned forward, hugged my knees and sobbed.
I wished I had a recording of my conversation with Sheriff Adams so I could listen to it and be sure I had heard correctly that Edgar Yount was dead. I didn’t want to go on thinking it, and I didn’t want to say it to anyone, if there was any possibility it wasn’t true.
I couldn’t remember Edgar ever saying he had a sister. If he had mentioned her, I couldn’t remember her name. I wondered why she hadn’t come to the opening of the exhibit, especially since it was his first career retrospective.
None of that mattered now. It was absurd even to think about who did or didn’t come to the opening. Edgar was gone. A man with a sense of humor, gentle in his dealings with others, intensely driven to succeed, and quietly competent in everything he did, was gone. My world had a hole in it the size and shape of Edgar. That would never change.
I pulled off my boots, put on my slippers, and walked to the window. An unthinkable thing had happened, but it was nonetheless Saturday. I had to decide what to do and what to postpone. At the end of the day, I would have to reflect on what I had done and decide what I would do tomorrow because that is what people do even when other people die.
It was no longer a day for rest, relaxation, and refreshment. I couldn’t imagine going to museums and enjoying things. There was nothing for me to do in Columbus.
I had to figure out what Edgar’s death meant to me personally and to me as director of a gallery. Surely there were people I should call and emails I should send. I needed to think through those details. The drive back to campus would give me time for that.
I packed my bag and took it downstairs. After I explained my situation to the manager, she said she would refund the charge for my second night if they were able to rent the room to someone else. Within half an hour I was on the freeway heading south.
The most obvious question about what the sheriff had told me was: Did Edgar hang himself? I couldn’t imagine that he had. The exhibit was a high point in his career and he had approached it, as he seemed to approach everything, in a calm, workmanlike manner. It was important to him, but not overly important. He seemed to regard it as one more step on his journey to artistic fulfillment. If he were disappointed in the response—and I didn’t think a review had yet appeared—he would have learned what he could from that and moved on.
But if he did not hang himself, then someone killed him. As I mentally reviewed all the faces I had seen at the opening of the exhibit, I could not think of a single person who had anything bad to say about him. He was an optimistic man with a magnetic personality. None of them would want to harm him. But Mel knew of people who wrote hateful things about him on forums. One of them might have decided to act. Why hadn’t Edgar heeded Mel’s warnings and taken more precautions?
I would have to do something about the gallery. It was full of his paintings. I had signed a contract to show them through the end of February, and he had given us permission. I had an obligation to bring his art and his truth to the attention of the public. The exhibit might be the last chance to see a large, carefully chosen selection of his paintings in one room. I could study the paintings in the weeks to come and make notes on what they had in common and on how they were different. Later, perhaps over the summer, with some additional research, I could write an essay on his career, and that would be the first step toward remembering and appreciating his work.
The freeway sign told me it was time to exit and get on the by-pass around the east side of Chillicothe. After negotiating the interchange, I drove down Route 35 and found the intersection with the country road that ran through Blanton and out to Fuchs College. I must have been in a trance for the rest of the drive, because I remembered nothing of it when I got to campus.
I parked in front of my Rabbit Hutch under an aluminum sky and lugged my suitcase inside. Now what? There was really only one place I could go. As I bundled up to walk across campus, I thought about taking a pocket-sized notebook with me but decided not to. I was not going to the gallery to work. I was going there to spend time with Edgar’s spirit.
When I arrived, Beverly was again on duty, minding the gallery. “You can pack up,” I said. I’ll take it for the rest of the afternoon.”
“Are you sure?” she asked. “This is my second time this week to get paid for my hours without being here the whole time.”
“Don’t worry about it. I just need the place to myself.”
She shrugged, folded her laptop, and put it into her backpack along with her books.
When she got to the doorway, she paused, and said, “Can I ask you a question, Dr. Noonan?”
“Sure.”
“Are you Japanese?”
“No.”
She seemed to be waiting for me to say more. When I didn’t she asked, “So, what are you?”
“American. Born and raised in San Francisco.”
She smiled. “No. I mean, like, my great-grandparents came from Ireland, so I’m American, but I’m also Irish.”
“So am I. My father is the third generation of an Irish family born in this country.”
She nodded. “And your mother?”
Of course, this was what she really wanted to know: Why do I look the way I do?
“My mother is Chinese-American.”
“Oh. Is she from China?”
“No. Her parents immigrated from Hong Kong.”
She smiled and nodded.
“Why do you ask?”
She shrugged. “Just curious. Thanks, Dr. Noonan.” Off she went.
Of course, she was curious. She hadn’t seen many Asian people, let alone a half-Irish, half-Asian woman with straight, black hair and freckles.
After locking the door for my own safety, I stood in the middle of the gallery and took a few minutes to turn and face each of the paintings, one after another. All were familiar; some were like old friends. I enjoyed the feeling that the room was pulsing with energy.
I strolled along the wall full of early work and stopped at my favorite, “Corner Store.” The photorealist technique was as startling as ever, making an unlikely event seem real by giving the illusion it had been photographed, but for me the meaning of the painting had changed.
When I sat with it a week earlier, it seemed mysterious. I enjoyed thinking of different explanations for why the little blonde girl was the only white p
erson in the picture, and why she looked out at the viewer full of joyous expectation while the many African-American people in the picture went about their routine errands unaware that something wonderful was on the way. But less than twenty-four hours after Edgar’s death I could think of only one possible explanation: The Black people could not afford the little girl’s glad anticipation. Hope was a luxury.
Feeling my mood plummet, I walked toward the far corner of the room, glancing at the work of Edgar’s middle-period: “Dinosaur,” “Hung Out to Dry,” “Cheering for Losers,” and others. A week ago, I delighted in the way he used letters and numerals and ironic titles. Today they seemed like a detour he must have taken on his way to becoming a better artist. I couldn’t blame him for pausing to play some pranks, but I didn’t feel like spending time with them.
I moved on to the wall of paintings that represented his most recent work, his Youngstown series, in which he documented the city’s efforts to rebuild following the collapse of its steel industry in the 1970s. Some of these paintings reminded me of architectural renderings of new buildings but included details like old cars and street performers, which are not usually among the tiny figures that illustrate how the finished building will be used.
I especially enjoyed a painting of a multi-ethnic group at café tables in front of a bookstore that had “University” on its window. This upbeat scene was balanced by the shell of a partially demolished former public housing project in the background.
The Youngstown Series was mature work, displaying all the technical wizardry developed in Edgar’s early work plus a depth of understanding not seen earlier. As an artist, he was just hitting his stride. These paintings were a down payment on a lifetime of achievement. It was sad to think we would never see more of what he could do.
I took a seat on the benches in the middle of the room and looked over all the paintings. Those in the corner from his middle period made me uncomfortable. I had tried to understand the use of letters and numerals and the ironic titles as a phase in Edgar’s development, but, when I looked at them in the context of his career, they did not make sense. Their themes had so little in common with the work that came before and after, I doubted they represented some spontaneous impulse from within him. I wondered if he were temporarily influenced by someone or something around him.
I went to the corner and looked at the plaques giving the titles and dates of these paintings. They were all done twelve to fourteen years ago, during the years when Edgar lived in Cleveland, right before he went to Europe.
Edgar’s friends, Mel and Rita, might be able to tell me what was going on in his life at that time. It seemed cold to call them and ask about the paintings when we were all just beginning to grieve over his death, but perhaps I could ask their help with writing a brief obituary to be handed out at the gallery. Sadly, it was now necessary to inform future visitors of the artist’s passing.
Chapter 19
When I got back to my Hutch from the gallery, I felt hungry despite the big breakfast I ate at the b and b, so I heated up some soup and munched some saltines along with it.
Having taken the edge off, I got comfortable in one of my canvas-sling beach chairs and called Mel. To my surprise he answered. “Mel,” I said, “I don’t know if anyone has called you . . .”
“We heard on the news, but there wasn’t much detail.”
“Sheriff Adams called me this morning, but he had just arrived at the studio, so he didn’t know much.”
“I feel numb. Losing two friends in a week . . . I don’t know what to think.”
“You knew them both a long time. I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”
“Rita hasn’t stopped crying all day.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you. I suppose that sheriff will want to talk to me again. Does he think the same person killed them both?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t say anything about that. I don’t think they’re drawing any conclusions yet. Now that you mention it, I was so shocked I forgot to tell him about those threats against Edgar you found on the internet.”
“Yeah. Now I wish I had made a bigger deal about taking precautions.” There was a catch in his throat as he said this.
I stood up, walked to the back window, and rested my eyes on the line of trees outside my backdoor. “Mel, if you feel up to it, I’d like to ask a couple of things about Edgar’s work. I want to add a notice about his death to the brochure we hand out in the gallery. The exhibit will be up for another month, and I think visitors should know.”
“You’re right,” he said. “I hadn’t thought about that. From now on, people will be seeing the work of ‘the late Edgar Yount.’”
Hearing him say that made me choke up for a moment. “I have some notes about the work itself and how it developed over the years, but I’m trying to fill in some biographical perspective. Do you recall when he got that fellowship and went to Europe?”
“Sure.”
“I’m interested in what that meant to him. What was going through his mind leading up to that trip?”
“Mostly he said it was like paying dues. He said American artists can’t just ignore the European tradition. It seemed like something he was checking off his list of chores. Frankly, I think breaking up with Jessica was a bigger deal for him than studying in Europe. They were living together at that time, and he had a hard time giving that up.”
“Was it a nasty break-up?”
“No, not at all. Jess encouraged him to go. She didn’t want him to pass up the opportunity, and they talked about keeping in touch, but they never got back together. You should talk to Ella. She might know more about what he was thinking back then.”
“I’m sorry. Who?”
“Edgar’s sister. Did you meet her?”
“No.”
“I guess you wouldn’t have. She wasn’t at the opening. I wonder why. They’re pretty close. Sorry, they were pretty close.”
“Do you know how to get in touch with her?”
Mel gave me Ella’s phone number and email address and spelled her name for me. We talked a bit more about Edgar’s work in the years before his trip to Europe, but I heard nothing that would clear up the mystery of those ironic paintings. Nothing I said seemed to make the loss of his longtime friend more bearable for Mel. I had to hang up before I started to cry.
After finishing my phone call with Mel, I flopped into one of my beach chairs and marveled at my own stupidity. Less than forty-eight hours earlier, I had told Sheriff Adams that Jess and Edgar were a couple shortly before he went to Europe, yet, when I wanted an explanation for why he used symbols and numbers in his paintings and gave them ironic titles during those years, I ignored the personal dimension of his life. I didn’t consider Jessica’s possible influence on him. Maybe she had an ironic way of looking at things. If so Edgar might have picked that up from her.
It seemed wrong to call Mel again to ask if Jessica might have had anything to do with the paintings now hanging in the corner of the gallery, and I couldn’t think of an excuse for calling Rita out of the blue. Maybe if I called Ella, as Mel suggested, and asked her to share some recollections of Edgar at different stages of his life for the eulogy, she might talk about Jessica. On the other hand, she might be reluctant to have such a long, intimate conversation on the phone with a complete stranger. There had to be another way.
I asked myself how I knew what I knew about Jessica and remembered something from the previous Sunday evening when I went to Edgar’s studio to talk to him after Jessica was killed. When I asked him when he was involved with Jessica, he went to his work area and looked in a notebook. It was in a tall bookcase to the right of his computer table on a shelf full of identical notebooks. Each had a white label on the spine and he had flipped through several before he came to the one where he found the dates of their relationship.
Possibly that notebook contained notes about what passed between them around that time. Would Ella let me s
ee Edgar’s notebooks? My best bet was to call her, introduce myself, and express condolences. That would seem natural, coming from someone who had worked with Edgar over the past month. If that went well, I would ask about access to the studio.
Before calling, I paused and asked myself whether understanding why Edgar made that series of paintings was really the most important thing for me to be doing at that moment. I thought of reasons to go ahead and reasons to wait, but my gut told me to find out now.
I grabbed a scratch pad and a pen, sat at my café table by the back window, and called her.
“Hello. My name is Nicole Noonan. Is this Ella Yount?”
“Yes.”
“Ms. Yount, I am the director of the gallery at Fuchs College. I curated the retrospective of your brother’s work. Working with him over the past two months was a privilege for me.”
“All of those paintings will have to be returned.”
She was several steps ahead of me. “Of course. We will discuss that. I’m calling first to offer my condolences. I am very sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you.”
“I am preparing a notice to insert in the brochure for the exhibit to let visitors know Edgar is gone. I have some questions, and I’d like to see if you want to add anything.”
“I’m sorry. It’s very difficult for me to talk right now, and frankly I don’t like the idea of you using my brother’s death to create publicity for your gallery.”
That hurt. I took a deep breath so I wouldn’t get angry. “That is not my intention, Ms. Yount. More than anything, I want to honor your brother’s work and his memory.”
“You can do that by returning his paintings. I don’t see what there is to discuss.”
I knew I couldn’t blame a grieving sister for feeling defensive on the day her brother died, but I’d had enough. “We have a contract giving us permission to exhibit the paintings through the end of February, so I will need to discuss that with the executor of his estate.”