A Drunkard's Path (21 page)

As I headed to my car, Natalie chased after me.

“I forgot to say anything, since we were all caught up with Oliver,” she said.

“Kennette.” I realized what she was about to tell me. “You had lunch.”

Natalie looked disappointed. “I tried. I really did. But somehow I ended up talking about how I met my husband and what baby names we were picking out and, well, everything except her.”

“Believe me, I know.” I smiled. “The same thing happened to me.”

She looked relieved. “I did find out one thing, though. Kennette said her mother hates the idea of her being a painter. She said she envied you having so much support.”

“Well maybe that explains why she had so little money and nowhere to stay,” I said.

“Oh, she did have somewhere to stay. I remember now. I was trying to find out where she came from and the most I could get out of her was that when she first came to town she got a room with a girl she met, but then the girl ran out on the rent.”

Did she say the girl’s name?” I asked.

“No.”

“Did she say where the apartment was?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. You did better than I did.”

“Do you want me to try again? I really want to help.” Natalie looked so sweet, so hopeful.

I grabbed her hand. “Let’s have your mom try next. I think it’s less suspicious that way. But you should find out if anyone’s filed a missing-persons report on Sandra or Lily.” I paused for a second, then added, “Or Kennette.”

I got in my car and was about to put it in Drive when I realized Bernie was knocking at the window. As soon as I rolled it down, she stuck her head in the car.

“I couldn’t say this in the house, obviously,” she said. “But we’ll be at the shop on Sunday at one o’clock sharp.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Bernie. Why are you all coming to the shop on Sunday?” I asked.

She sighed and slowly explained, “We’re finishing Carrie’s quilt top.”

I nodded. “I’m sorry. I’m involved in so many conspiracies that I can’t keep them all straight.”

“Fun, isn’t it?” She moved away from my window.

Was it fun? The sad, maybe sick, part about it was that, yeah, it was a little fun.

 

 

 

 

O
liver was late to class on Thursday, and as we all stood behind our easels waiting, I wondered if maybe he’d made a run for it. There were rumblings among the class about a student who’d died. One girl heard that she committed suicide over a love affair gone wrong. Another said it had something to do with drugs. Kennette and I exchanged glances but were silent. I wanted to ask if anyone actually knew Sandra and had any real information about her, but based on the whispers I doubted I’d find what I was looking for. Besides, just as I was thinking of what I could say, Oliver arrived full of breathless excuses about trouble with his car.

“Before we start today,” he said, “I want to talk about a student we lost over the weekend. Sandra Thomas. We still don’t know all the facts about how she died, but we do know that she was a gifted artist and a sensitive soul, and it is a tragedy for her to have died so young.”

I looked around. Everyone looked appropriately somber for about thirty seconds. Then a few hands went up, asking what still life we were going to paint in today’s class. Oliver shook his head.

“Not yet,” he said. “Sandra wanted to be a painter. Sadly that dream will never become a reality. But I want to keep her dream alive in my own way so I will be offering a scholarship in her name to two of the students in this class.”

Whatever genuine sadness there was quickly dissipated as excited students starting planning for their shot at stardom.

“I will choose the students that I think show the most promise, which will make it very difficult since this is a very talented group of artists,” Oliver continued. “I will make my decision at the end of the final class, in three weeks.”

Everyone but me applauded at the speech. I was wondering if he would still be teaching the class in three weeks or if he would be in jail for the murder of the girl he was so beautifully eulogizing.

As we were packing up after class, Oliver looked my way. “Nell, if I could see you in my office.”

I followed him down the hallway. He let me walk into the office first then closed the door behind me. I felt as if he was either about to share an important secret or silence me forever. Just in case it was the latter, I stood close to the door, waiting for him to say something. But he just sat and stared into his hands, seeming to struggle to come up with the right words.

I knew he was about to tell me that he had an affair with Sandra. I almost said it for him, but he looked up at me, finally ready to speak.

“I just wanted to say that obviously I cannot choose you for the scholarship, given my relationship with your grandmother.” Oliver spoke quietly, as if he were nervous about hurting my feelings.

“That’s what you wanted to talk to me about?” I rolled my eyes. “I couldn’t care less about the scholarship.”

He looked taken aback. “It’s got nothing to do with your talent.”

“No, it doesn’t. It’s got to do with your relationship with Sandra. All that crying, private meetings in your office. Whatever your guilt, I don’t need you working it off by paying for my classes.” The words came tumbling out of my mouth. I was angry. And I was surprised I was so angry.

And so was Oliver. “There was nothing romantic going on between Sandra and me,” he said. “I assume that’s what you are alluding to.”

“Then what was going on?”

I could see a redness creep up from his neck, but I couldn’t tell if it was embarrassment or anger. “She had certain ideas. Delusions, really. I felt sorry for her. But I did nothing I need to explain, even to the granddaughter of the woman I . . .” He stopped short of saying
love
but it was obvious that was what he wanted to say. And just the idea of the word punctured my anger.

“Maybe not,” I admitted quietly. “But I would like you to explain the arrest for pushing your girlfriend into a painting.”

He smiled. “You are every bit as inquisitive as Eleanor said.”

He was treating the whole matter so lightly. I’d been waiting for answers, going over clues in my mind and coming up with nothing. Oliver had those answers and all he could do was smile.

“That’s not an answer,” I finally said.

He nodded. “You’re right. I know you’re worried about your grandmother and perhaps you have a right to be.” He gestured toward a chair in the corner. “Sit down and I’ll tell you everything.”

I sat and waited. Oliver leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. He appeared to be searching for a place to begin.

“When I was a young man,” he started, “I was full of ambition and ego. I knew I had talent, and I was impatient to prove it to the world. I suppose that’s true for many young people, except I was also angry and, at times, abusive.”

“I know that you had a drinking problem,” I said. “I know that you stopped sometime in the late sixties or seventies.”

“I stopped that night. The night you were referring to. The young woman was my girlfriend and she was, like me, talented and ambitious. But she was troubled by demons even darker than mine.”

“Does that mean drugs?”

Oliver nodded. “I’d say it was the sixties, but that would be an excuse. We let ourselves get caught up in the times and our youth and our terrible need to be someone. And in the process we both hurt people we loved very much.”

“According to the paper, you pushed her.”

“It was my first solo show. I was drunk. I was always drunk in those days. Julie was trying to make me jealous and it worked.” He ran his hand through his thick white hair. “She and I were like gasoline and a match. And it just got out of control that night.”

“I know you got arrested, but what happened afterward?”

He smiled and shook his head. “I sold out the show. Isn’t that awful? There are always people with money who, what’s that old saying? People who want to go slumming.”

“How were your paintings slumming?” I asked.

“Well, an unknown artist has a solo show and gets arrested,” he said. “Suddenly I was controversial. I was dangerous. It launched my career, I’m embarrassed to say. But it also got me to see that I had to change. I wanted people to like my work. Instead Park Avenue types bought my paintings as a way a way of rebelling without all the mess and complication.”

“What happened to Julie Young?”

“I went by her place a few weeks after the show and brought her money. She was working on a truly amazing piece. She made large collages with fabric and things she’d found on the street. She was quite talented.”

“What happened to her?”

“I lost track of her. It was better for both of us. At least for our mental health. I’m not sure if it was what was best for our work. There was something about the turmoil. It’s a sad truth that after years of perfecting your technique you may find that your best work is behind you and you have to go to great lengths merely to find inspiration.”

Oliver looked so sad and his explanation was so reasonable that I felt guilty for having pegged him as a killer. Unless he was one. I still didn’t have all my answers, but I wasn’t sure I should try and get them all in one day.

The problem with Oliver was that I liked him. I liked the effect he had on my grandmother, and I liked the idea of having such an interesting, talented, and accomplished artist as a friend and teacher. I wanted to believe his sad stories and innocent explanations.

“I guess I’ll see you on Saturday,” I said as I got up to leave.

“I’m glad we talked.” He smiled shyly.

I left his office and walked toward the main hallway. It was crowded with workers, making it difficult for me to get out of the building. Two guys nearly dropped a large crate on my foot as I waited to leave.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“We’re bringing in the last of White’s paintings for display.”

“Display where?”

He pointed toward an open door at the end of the hall. “It’s going to be a permanent gallery. Look for your tuition to go up to pay for it.”

“I thought the paintings were a gift.”

He frowned. “The paintings were. Security wasn’t. Those paintings are worth a fortune and now the school has to install cameras and lasers and have twenty-four-hour guards. Some gift.”

I nodded. Since the door at the end of the hallway was open, I decided to walk down and take a look. Whatever security they were planning, it had not been installed. Workmen walked in and out of the room without giving me a glance.

Most of the paintings were still on display from the night I’d met Oliver, and it looked like at least ten more were in crates, waiting to be added. I walked past
Nobody
, the painting of the woman lying in her own vomit, past the nudes of women he’d painted in the seventies and eighties, and toward
Lost
, the apparent treasure of his collection.

There she was, a woman in a dress that looked to be from the 1950s or early 1960s. She was sitting on a bed, staring out the window, deep in thought. It was as if she had forgotten that Oliver was there. There was, as in all his paintings, an element of sadness to it. But there was something in this one that the others lacked. There was a sweetness to it, even love. It made sense that this was the painting he considered his masterpiece.

I stared at it for a long time, looking at the details such as the fold in her dress and the way her hands rested on her lap. It slowly dawned on me that I had seen this image—or something very similar to it—before. And not just on the night of the gala but in the photograph I’d stolen from Sandra’s apartment. Though the dress wasn’t polka-dotted, it was the same dress. The woman in the photo was the woman in this painting, and her facial expression in Oliver’s piece matched the one Rich described in the photo he saw on the ground. I was staring at a link between Oliver and the two dead girls.

But did it mean Oliver had killed them? Maybe Sandra stalked Oliver and stole the photo. Oliver had called her delusional, and he’d probably say the same thing if I told him about the photo. Or maybe there was a different answer, a darker one. Maybe Sandra had a connection to that photograph and through it to Oliver. And maybe Oliver did kill her to keep her from revealing that connection.

Every time Oliver explained away my suspicions, something happened to make me question him all over again. And while I was going back and forth, Eleanor was falling in love with him.

For the first time I thought about dropping the whole thing. I’d rather let a killer walk the street than risk my grandmother getting her heart broken. But I knew I couldn’t. If Oliver was a killer, would he stop at two victims?