Dark Exhibit

by Rick Homan

  “Ignore the colors, and ignore what row they’re sitting in. If you read left to right, the letters spell RAHOWA.”

  I flipped to another page in my notebook. “Edgar wrote that in his journal.” I showed Gillespie my note, which read, “RaHoWa = Racial Holy War.” “So, this is another neo-Nazi code?”

  “It’s not exclusive to them. There are several sources for white supremacist movements. “Neo-Nazis are one. The Ku Klux Klan had a different origin. There’s an apocalyptic Christian movement and there are others. The idea of racial holy war is common to all of them. They use the first two letters of each word to make up the abbreviation, ‘RaHoWa.’ It’s used as a greeting or as a cheer at rallies.”

  “I guess you would have to know that word to recognize it in the letters the cheerleaders are wearing.”

  He nodded and glanced to the left. “Yeah. I’m starting to think that Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight wasn’t just a coincidence.” Returning his gaze to “Cheering for Losers,” he said, “It’s also clever what he did in this painting with the visitors scoring 0, while the losers, presumably the home team, scores 14.”

  “Why is that clever? I don’t get it.”

  “14 is another code number, like 88. It refers to ‘the fourteen words.’”

  “Edgar had that in his notebook, too.” I showed him my note: “Jess tells me neo-Nazis believe in ‘the fourteen words.’”

  Gillespie nodded. “The fourteen words are a statement written by a white supremacist leader named David Lane: ‘We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.’ So, the artist is saying ‘the fourteen words’ is for losers and those who chant ‘RaHoWa’ are cheering for losers.”

  “Amazing. This stuff is all apparent in the paintings, but you have to know about it before you can look for it.”

  Gillespie walked back to “Hung Out to Dry.” “In this context, I’m thinking the date, November 11, 2011, could also be expressed as 11/11/11. Since K is the eleventh letter of the alphabet, the date could be a coded way of saying KKK. If so, the white sheets on the line would refer to the Klan’s ceremonial costume, and the title would suggest the Klan is finished, ‘hung out to dry.’”

  “So, this is another code?”

  “I’ve never seen it, but it could be out there somewhere.”

  “I didn’t find it in Edgar’s journals. I could have missed it, or maybe he invented it.”

  “What about the next one?” he asked as he walked past those we had looked at to the one called, “Honor.”

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “What do you see?”

  “There’s a pool of blood on a patch of dirt and a handgun lying next to it.”

  I took a guess at what it meant. “People get shot and die in the dirt?”

  “Yes, they do, but this illustrates another white supremacist slogan: ‘Blood, Soil, and Honor.’ They are willing to shed blood to defend the soil they think is theirs and by doing so they believe they maintain their honor. The painting shows us the blood and soil and leaves us to assume the weapon symbolizes honor.”

  After hearing Gillespie’s explanation, a painting I had not found all that interesting now had a chilling significance. “I don’t understand why people organize around the idea of hating other people. Why do they feel so threatened? Is it really about jobs and neighborhoods?”

  “I’m not a sociologist. My work as a psychologist has more to do with post-traumatic stress disorder and how that creates a chronic heightened level of activity in the limbic and sympathetic nervous systems. Being in that state makes one susceptible to conspiracy theories. Perhaps that’s why all the white supremacist groups have an apocalyptic view of society. All their writings essentially say, ‘We are fighting for survival, and the end is near.’”

  “Wow. You’ve given me a whole new way of looking at these paintings. I can’t thank you enough.”

  “I’m happy to do it,” he said, glancing around the room. “Maybe you can explain something to me. Most people wouldn’t recognize these codes, so how did the artist expect them to get the message?”

  I was glad he asked. “An artist like Edgar works a little differently from a political cartoonist or a designer creating a poster. There is no explicit message. Artists are constantly observing their world and taking note of things that delight them, or trouble them, or confuse them. When they paint, all these impressions get mixed together until the image feels right. When that happens, they can let go of that idea and move on to the next one.

  “I don’t think they’re conscious of trying to say anything to anyone about it. Being satisfied with the painting is what they need. I hate to use the tired old metaphor about the grain of sand that stimulates the oyster to create a pearl, but it’s kind of like that.”

  “That’s interesting. Thanks.”

  “If you’re not in a hurry,” I said, “there’s something else you might be able to help me with.”

  Chapter 27

  Gillespie and I sat on one of the padded benches in the middle of the room. I liked the way he sat with both feet flat on the floor, hands resting on his thighs, and back straight. Despite the upright posture, he seemed comfortable, as if he could sit that way for hours.

  I crossed my legs and leaned toward him. “I know from the artist’s notebooks that he got these codes from the woman he was living with around the time he made these paintings. They broke up years ago, but she showed up at the opening of this exhibit two Saturdays ago. The next morning she was found murdered in her motel room.”

  “That’s terrible,” he said.

  “Last Saturday, the artist was found in his studio. He’d been hanged.”

  Gillespie glanced around the room, as if taking inventory of the paintings. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “I don’t know if they’ve determined whether or not it was suicide, but I’m inclined to think he was murdered too.”

  “Do the investigators think the two are related?”

  “I’ve spoken with the sheriff, and he’s not drawing any conclusions yet. He’s interviewing people who knew them both when they lived in Cleveland ten years ago. But I’m concerned about another possibility. A member of the faculty here at Fuchs was in a relationship with the murdered woman about fourteen years ago when they were both attending SUNY at Albany. Since there’s no reason to think she was ever involved in this white supremacist stuff, I’m wondering if she might have heard about it from him.”

  “Do you have any reason to think this faculty member was ever involved in such a movement?”

  “No, but, if he was, he might have been offended when he saw these paintings at the opening last Saturday. He might also have seen her with the artist, and decided they had both ridiculed his beliefs. If he’s still involved with one of these movements, his feelings of betrayal might have been strong enough to give him a motive to kill them.”

  Gillespie thought about that for a moment. “I see what you mean, but if you don’t know for certain he was involved in a movement . . .”

  “Well, to start with, is it possible that a member of the faculty here could be involved in such a group?” My heart raced as I said this. “Is there such a thing as a highly educated neo-Nazi?”

  “Sure. Although the majority of those active in white supremacist movements are poorly educated and often underemployed, there are well-documented instances of highly educated men who become leaders in these movements. I can think of several with PhDs in the sciences.”

  “So how do I find out if one of our colleagues is involved?”

  Gillespie winced as if preparing to address a painful subject. “This is one area where technology is not our friend. If you go back to the 1950s, you find groups like The American Nazi Party founded by George Rockwell. They tried to operate like legitimate political parties. They rented storefront offices, recruited members, elected officers, held rallies, raised funds, and cranked out newsletters on a mimeograph machine. They didn’t try to operate secretly.
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br />   “All that changed in the mid-1990s when the World Wide Web came along. Most of the action now is on social media sites, monitored discussion groups, and so on. So instead of attending a meeting, joining a party, and getting a newsletter in the mail, new recruits create an account using a fake name and join an online group anonymously. That makes it harder to find out if an individual is involved.”

  “That’s a little scary.”

  “No doubt about it. And social media has made these movements more scary in two other ways. At its height, the American Nazi Party had less than a hundred fifty members. Today anyone can create a page on social media, put out some provocative statements, and have thousands of followers signed up by the end of the week.

  “Also, twenty or thirty years ago, a member of a movement would attend a meeting once a week and maybe take part in the occasional rally. Today on social media people are trading conspiracy theories and calling for some kind of Armageddon six or eight hours every day. This is the subject of my research, the echo-chamber effect.”

  “That is beyond scary,” I said.

  “If it makes you feel better, there is also opposition online. People opposed to white supremacists create fake identities and join the hate groups to monitor them. That way if the leaders of a group call for people to turn out and demonstrate, these monitors can inform law enforcement in advance, alert the press, or organize a counter-demonstration.”

  “That makes me feel a little better, but with most of this happening online and anonymously, I guess there’s no way of knowing if our colleague is involved.”

  Gillespie looked away for a moment and clasped his hands. “There are ways.”

  When he didn’t continue, I asked, “What can I do?”

  “It’s not anything you can do. There are people in these opposition groups who make a specialty of discovering the identities of people in these movements. Not everyone in the opposition approves of this. Some think anonymity is necessary to free speech; others think free speech has its limits. It’s an endless debate. Anyway, if you think it’s really important to find out if this colleague is involved, I can put you in touch with someone.”

  I didn’t like the idea of getting involved in an underground movement, especially one that could expose me to violence. On the other hand, violence had already landed on my doorstep in the form of two murders within a week. I decided to go a little further and find out if there was evidence that Dunkle was involved. If there was, I could present that evidence to Sheriff Adams.

  I looked Gillespie in the eye. “All right. I need to find out. Who do I call?”

  “I can’t give you any names or numbers, but I can set something up and let you know. When is the best time for you to meet someone?”

  “This evening.”

  “It’s probably not going to happen that fast.”

  “I teach tomorrow morning, but I’m done at eleven, and I’m flexible in the afternoon.”

  “Perfect. I’ll get back to you.”

  We walked to the door of the gallery and shook hands. His hand was warm. “Thanks again,” I said.

  He nodded and left. As he walked down the hallway, his stride lengthened and his pace quickened. I wondered if he was a runner and thought I might ask if he’d like to go running together. I’d enjoyed our conversation. He had a way of focusing on the subject while remaining warm and personable.

  I sat again on the bench. As I looked at those paintings in the corner, my heart started pounding and my hands and feet felt cold. Those images were now emotionally radioactive for me. Staying here with them was not a good idea. Not only would I feel alarmed, but this late in the afternoon there wouldn’t be much daylight left. I didn’t want to walk home in the dark, and I didn’t want to be that helpless female who calls campus security for a ride on campus. I locked up and went to my office for my coat.

  After leaving the Arts and Humanities Building, I walked north on Kiefaber Lane, passed the library, and paused to look at the construction site to the east. In the early darkness, security lights outlined the steel skeleton of a building that would open sometime next year and be the home of the new school of business. I had seen renderings which showed lots of exterior glass facing across the lane toward the academic quad.

  The big-city shine of this newcomer would contrast with the collegiate gothic look of both the Library on the south end of the quad, and the Old Classroom Building on the north, as well as with the shopping-mall feel of the student center on the west side of the quad. Of course, I wouldn’t be here to see it.

  Walking fast along the quad toward College Avenue warmed me up and thawed out my brain. I understood that I was mixed up with people who hide their identities, both neo-Nazis and those who oppose them. That was my new reality. I hadn’t wanted to enter their world, but doing my job had put me there. Like it or not, I had to accept it, and assess realistically how dangerous this was. One thing was clear: The white supremacists would kill me if I got in their way.

  Chapter 28

  I crossed College Avenue and started down Ohio. There were no sidewalks on this side of campus. My footsteps made crunching sounds on the gravel roadway. A couple of times I stopped to listen for other footsteps, either behind me or ahead of me, but I heard none.

  In a conflict where everyone was anonymous, how could I be sure who was a neo-Nazi and who was in the opposition? I had just met Gillespie and told him everything I knew except Dunkle’s name. How did I know which side he was really on? I knew and trusted Abbie, but did she know Gillespie could be trusted? A professor studying the psychology of neo-Nazis would be perfect cover for someone who in fact was a leader in that movement. Maybe I had just exposed myself to a dangerous group on campus.

  When I rounded the corner of Ohio and Montgomery, I stopped and stared at my Rabbit Hutch. Something was wrong. Usually I leave a light on when I know I’ll come home after dark, but no light showed in the windows.

  I remembered coming back after my classes to do some chores before going to the gallery to meet Pat. I tried to recall each thing I did before walking out the door—washing my hands at the kitchen sink, changing my sweater, bundling up in my winter gear.

  It was all so routine I didn’t know if I was remembering doing it today or every other day this week. I might have flipped on the light switch by the sink, or I might have skipped it this time.

  Looking further down Montgomery Avenue, I saw lights on in Abbie’s Hutch and thought about going there directly. Pride made me decide not to. I got my rape whistle out of my purse, bit down on it, and went to the door of my Hutch.

  My heart was pounding as I unlocked the door and stepped in. I left the door open behind me, not much caring if the room got cold, and used my scarf, to tie the door knob to the coat hook on the wall. If there were an intruder waiting for me, that would make it harder for him to trap me by closing the door.

  I took a few steps into the middle of the room and listened. No sound but the wind.

  I picked up a book from the table. Its weight told me it was the one with color plates of Flemish masterpieces. It was far too valuable for what I had in mind. I traded it for the old hardback dictionary I’d had since high school.

  I switched the rape whistle to the other side of my mouth to give my teeth a rest and adopted a stance I knew well from when I played softball. As the hand with the dictionary swung back, my opposite foot stepped forward and I followed through, pitching the book through the bedroom doorway and putting a decent arc on it.

  My aim was a little off, and it ricocheted off the door, hit the side of the bed, and landed on the floor. If there was anyone lurking in there, I was hoping the movement and noise would draw him out.

  No reaction.

  I snapped on the floor lamp by the beach chairs and the lamp on the café table. The light switch by the sink was in the on position. I switched it on and off a few times and thought the bulb must be burnt out.

  To be on the safe side, I walked to within two arm’s le
ngths of the bedroom door and peered in. Light spilling from the living room showed no one in the room. In horror movies, the killer often hides under the bed. Fortunately, my futon frame was so low as to make that impossible. Also, fortunately I hadn’t bothered to pull the curtain over the opening to my closet. In the dim light I could see there was no one hiding among my clothes. I stepped in and switched on the lamp on the bedside table.

  The bathroom door was closed and I couldn’t remember if I’d left it that way. Without taking my eyes off the door, I backed up to my dresser, opened the second drawer, and fished my hammer out from under my sweaters. Holding the hammer just above and behind my head, I walked toward the bathroom door, whipped it open, and stepped forward, ready to scatter the brains of whoever lurked within.

  All clear.

  I repeated the procedure with the shower curtain. All clear.

  With hammer held at shoulder height, I walked back through my humble abode with fond memories of the Saturday mornings I spent watching “Xena, Warrior Princess.”

  I untied my scarf from the door knob, closed and locked my front door, and resigned myself to wearing my coat indoors for the rest of the evening while the electric heaters struggled to catch up.

  With my hammer in my coat pocket, I grabbed a bottle of red wine and a juice glass, flopped in a beach chair and poured myself half a glass. Keeping the hammer handy on the side table, I called Abbie. It went to voicemail. Maybe her phone was off. Maybe she wasn’t home and had been smart enough to leave a light on.

  A knock at my door made me grab for the hammer, inhale a mouthful of red wine, and try to stand up, all at the same time. I wound up sitting on the floor, coughing, and holding my hammer shoulder-high.

  What had I done with my rape whistle?