Painted to Death, page 3
Now, I wandered back over to the counter after picking up a seltzer and a bag of shrimp-flavored chips, idly glancing down each aisle to see if Arun, Stephanie’s brother, was stocking shelves somewhere. Unfortunately, he was not. But that was okay, I told myself. I was here to talk murder, not flirt with the person I’d only had a crush on for two years.
I plonked my snacks down on the counter, Stephanie turning around to ring me up. She must have noticed my face, the grimace that had been in place since the detectives had called me out of class.
“Sammy, what’s wrong?” she asked, putting the purchases into a small bag. She was the only person who could get away with calling me Sammy. I chalked it up to the fact that she had simply never asked permission.
I sighed dramatically. Steph knew about Catherine and everything that had been going on, and of course she was sympathetic. But I had a feeling that her understanding might not extend to what amounted to meddling in a police investigation. Some people are just funny like that.
“The police came to talk to me today,” I started. That was good – a nice, understandable reason to be a bit upset. “They asked me pretty much the same questions they asked Benny.”
Steph nodded, having already been texted the full details from last night.
“They seem to think that it might have been an accident, or maybe even that Catherine killed herself on purpose.”
Steph’s eyebrows knitted together. She did not approve of indecision, apparently even when it came to the police. “Why is there still confusion about it? I would have thought they’d have answers from the lab or the doctor, or whoever it is that examines crime scenes, by now.”
I shrugged. “Well, they do know she died from an insulin injection. So, the real question is whether she intentionally gave herself the injection knowing it was too much, or whether she got mixed up and maybe meant to use glucose, so that the whole thing was an accident.” I paused, wondering if I should take out the sketches to show Steph. “They even showed me all these photos of her studio, the crime scene.” But then I imagined smoothing out a crumpled piece of paper on the counter in front of her, a mess of dashed lines and cross-hatched shadows, and I thought better of it.
“I’m sorry, Sammy,” she said. “That must have been really tough to have to look at.” She patted me on the hand, turning back to her work at the shelves behind the counter.
I think some people would have found Stephanie a bit harsh, maybe not soft enough, but I loved this about her. I would take her brief hand pat over Rebecca’s endless tutting any day.
I let the silence lie for a few moments, while I tried to decide if there was any way to delicately phrase my next question.
“Is it crazy of me to think that I should look into this more?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation, not even bothering to look at me.
Thanks for that, Steph. I slumped harder into the counter.
“I know. But there’s something about all this I can’t shake, something that just seems wrong.”
She turned around from restocking e-cigarette cartridges. “A twenty-two-year-old girl just died, Sam. Of course something seems wrong.” She laid a conciliatory hand on my arm. “Also, that’s what they all say before diving into some murder investigation they clearly don’t belong in.”
I wasn’t sure who exactly the “they” was meant to be, but clearly it included me and was not a group I should want to be a part of.
“I wish I could show you these photos, though,” I said. “There was just something there – or not there – or …” I trailed off. “I can’t explain it. All I know is, Catherine would never have killed herself. Accidentally or not. And I know I saw something that just doesn’t make sense.”
I was not going to get another hand pat for this dithering. Stephanie turned back to her restocking, and I knelt to cuddle Paul, the calico cat the Phans kept at the store, who had just decided to grace us with his presence, i.e. beg for treats. I leaned over the counter, reaching down to the shelf below it for Paul’s bag of treats, putting his allotted three at his feet.
I knew Steph was right. Catherine and I hadn’t even been the closest of friends. I’d liked her, of course, and I’d had fun with her. But we were party-on-the-weekend-together friends, sit-next-to-each-other-in-class-if-you-don’t-know-anyone-else friends. Not investigate-each-other’s-murders-without-question friends. And I’m not some typical detective story protagonist, the “they” Steph presumably meant, who’s always filled with alcoholism and inner demons to drive me, despite making zero sense as a motive for actual human behavior. No previous unsolved murder of a family member for me, thanks, and no disappeared sister. Unlike seemingly every other woman my age, I’m not even a true crime junkie (only my mom), because that shit is just too real. But this, this nagging puzzle, whatever it was that I couldn’t put my finger on, this was just begging to be solved. Give me an Agatha Christie or Dorothy Sayers any day: nothing pulled me in faster than a classic mystery, a good old who-has-done-this.
I left Stephanie to her work as the lunch-time crowd started to trickle in. Popping my headphones in while I walked, I decided to call my mom as I walked the last few blocks home. I could usually catch her on her lunch break about now.
True to form, she picked up on the second ring.
“Hi honey,” she said. “How are you? Everything okay?”
I don’t know if this is a script that all moms follow, or just something she had picked up over the years, but this was how my mom started every call, with the double check-in.
“Fine, just fine,” I said, giving her a double affirmation in return. “How are you doing? Work okay today?”
My mom, Mrs. Green to her students, was a fifth-grade teacher at the elementary school I had gone to as a kid. It might seem like a cushy job, but between standardized tests and parents, let alone the kids themselves, I knew it could be a stressful nightmare at times.
She exhaled noisily. “Not too bad today. We’ve got a snowstorm coming tomorrow, so at least there’s that to look forward to.” The truth was, teachers wished for snow days even more than their students did. “How about there?” she asked. “Are you getting snow tomorrow?”
“No, I don’t think so,” I said, as she made her usual Mom noises about this being good.
I was silent for a second, long enough for her to correctly read into my pause.
“What’s really going on, Sam? Is everything okay there?”
I should have thought this through a bit more before dialing, I realized now. My mom was pretty easy going, but I couldn’t see her responding well to the idea that I thought I should start investigating my friend’s death.
“I’m okay, really. Just a little shaken up, that’s all. The police pulled me out of class this morning to ask me about Catherine.” I decided I would start with that and see how it went.
“I’m sorry, honey,” she said. “Did they keep you for a long time?”
“No, it wasn’t too bad. It’s just …” I paused, although I felt bad keeping her waiting, knowing that she’d be on the edge of her seat by now. “Some of their questions made it sound like they’re maybe not looking in the right directions.”
She seemed to be considering this. “Well, keeping in mind that they might not be sharing all the details with you since it is an ongoing investigation, what makes you think that?”
I could hear snippets from her favorite podcasts between the lines, or in the fact that she actually just used the phrase “ongoing investigation.” But her reasoning was helpful.
“They were making it sound like Catherine had killed herself, maybe even accidentally. I just can’t believe that would be true.”
But no matter how many times I said this, I knew there was more to my investigating urge than just this. I thought I had known Catherine well, but at the end of the day, it was entirely possible that she died by suicide.
“I’m sorry,” my mom said again. “I know that must be a hard idea to accept. I think you just have to be patient. I’m sure everything will get cleared up soon.”
I left it at that. We made a few more minutes of small talk, moving from the weather to my various aunts and uncles, while I walked up our street and started climbing the stairs to the top floor of our triple-decker. So far, it seemed like I had one solid vote against looking into Catherine’s death, and one half-vote that could be for either option, since my mom didn’t really know what she was voting for and you could read into her comments either way.
At least, that’s what I told myself.
Chapter Four
Since it was still early afternoon, I mercifully had the apartment to myself for a while. Mel worked most evenings after school at a restaurant a few streets over, so she often got home late, but Rebecca could usually be counted on to turn up promptly at half past five.
I grabbed some leftovers from last night’s dinner and settled in at the desk in my room. We wouldn’t have our own individual studio space at school until next year as seniors, so for now the desk in my bedroom, along with a small bookcase and a few large bins of supplies, was my only permanent workspace. Understandably, it was neither neat nor clean. There were splashes of paint across the surface of the wooden desk and the contents of one of the large plastic supply bins was currently spilling out across the rug in the center of the room, with wooden beads, odds and ends of Styrofoam, and most of an egg carton cushioned in the deep carpet. It would be a nightmare to vacuum, but luckily, I rarely did. On top of the desk was a work in progress, an assignment for the sculpture class I took on Monday and Wednesday mornings. This was the first year I was finally able to take the open studio classes offered in each section, where students could work without specific assignments and be critiqued each week on their self-directed projects. This semester, the sculpture open studio was being taught by Agnes Pinel, who was basically my role model for all things art and life. She was probably the oldest professor in the sculpture section, the kind of older woman who’s only grown more graceful and regal as the years go by. Agnes (she insisted we call her by her first name, a request made by professors guaranteed to make us swoon) usually wore the kind of simple elegant clothing few people can really pull off – long layers in shades of gray, topped off by a towering mound of silver hair. She was the only person I’d ever known who actually knew how to wear a silk scarf.
Her own work was equally cool, geometric forms in cold smooth granite and marble, objects that looked so perfectly like their materials that you would never guess they were really made of foam and wood and paint, or whatever other materials she could conjure into these new forms. But she was accepting of any kind of sculpture work, unlike other professors who expected their students to be disciples of only their personal style. She even took my work seriously, no matter how miniature, or made of materials that should be or were actually trash.
The piece on my desk I was supposed to bring in and show in class tomorrow morning, but it still wasn’t finished. I had recently been revisiting some of the objects from the dollhouse I’d made as a kid, updating them with new materials or designs. This week, I was working on the set of furniture from the original living room: miniature sofa and ottoman, towering bookcases filled to the brim, a few wiry lamps. Only, in this version, I wanted the materials to be clear, for it to be obvious that the legs on the coffee table were really popsicle sticks that still had their brand markings on them, or that the curtains I made (even though there weren’t any windows yet, or really even a dollhouse) were actually tissues, hung on rods of cotton Q-tips. Agnes had loved the pieces I’d brought to class so far, and wanted to push me to use more and more disparate materials.
The sofa and ottoman still lay on the desktop, their tufted cushions complete (socks I had cut up and resewn, their athletic ankle bands and gray lines in the toe still identifiable) but missing legs and trim. There were a few different leg options still strewn about, like stacking those wooden beads or breaking apart that egg carton. In any event, there were a solid couple hours of work left. On the other hand, I also had a paper due for my Thursday morning class, a film seminar about media from the Atomic Age. I had written a pretty good outline over the weekend but knew there was a lot more to do before it was due. I hesitated for only a moment before picking up the egg carton.
I only looked up at the sound of the front door, blinking as my eyes readjusted to the dim room outside of the bright spotlight my lamp cast over the desk. I fumbled to find my phone in my pocket. It was already after five o’clock. I heard Rebecca calling down the hall, and got up to greet her, gingerly propping up the nearly finished sculpture against a small tube of paint.
Rebecca seemed surprised to see me. She had just put her backpack down and was unpacking a few bags of groceries on top of the kitchen table.
“How long have you been home?” she asked. “You don’t usually beat me here.”
I picked up a container of coffee and turned to put it in the cabinet. I had been so focused on working all afternoon, I hadn’t had time to decide how much I wanted to tell Rebecca about this morning. I didn’t think I could do a repeat of the previous evening, and in all honesty, she deserved a break from always being the supportive one.
“Why don’t I cook dinner tonight?” I said instead of answering. “I’d be happy to. We got out of class early this afternoon, so I had some extra time.”
Rebecca looked at me warily. I was a perfectly generous roommate, but it’s true I didn’t usually offer to cook. Nor was my cooking really that good.
“That sounds nice,” she said slowly. “I’ll open a bottle of wine. We can cook together.”
I grinned, forever impressed at her diplomacy, and once again thinking what a great mom she would be.
“Toss me that package of pasta,” I said. “I’ll get it started.”
We worked in silence for a few minutes, Rebecca chopping onions and garlic for a sauce while I got a can of crushed tomatoes simmering. Once everything was bubbling away nicely, we both sat down at the small kitchen table, leaning back in our mismatched chairs. She had poured a small glass of wine for each of us, and was now idly swirling hers.
“How about you?” I asked. “How was your day?”
Rebecca had always been one of the more serious in our group of friends, but recently a small furrow had shown up between her eyebrows, a line of concern I rarely saw her without since Catherine’s death. I wouldn’t be surprised if I soon saw a few gray strands appear in her blond hair.
She sighed, then seemed to collect herself. “Not bad, usual Monday.” She smiled thinly, pausing. “I had lunch with Benny today.”
I nodded, but didn’t ask anything further. With Rebecca, sometimes the best thing to do was to sit and wait, let her tell you whatever she wanted to in her own time. I could see her jaw clenching and unclenching, as if she was literally chewing over her next words.
“Sam, I’m really worried about him,” she said finally. “You know how I mentioned the other day about wanting to find him some help? Someone to talk to right now? A professional, not just us.” I nodded, noting how generous it was of her to say “us” and not “me,” since she had taken on most of the emotional work these past few weeks. “Well, I tried to bring this up with Benny over lunch. But he’s just so resistant to the idea. He kept saying he would be fine, he just needed to work through it on his own.” Rebecca paused again. “I’m worried I pushed a bit too far, because eventually he snapped at me, something about how I might believe in therapy but that’s not the way everyone was brought up. As if I should be ashamed for even thinking that he would need help right now.”
I felt my anger rising. I was always quick to jump to people’s defense, but especially Rebecca, and especially in this situation. Who could possibly say she had done the wrong thing by suggesting a counselor? But I knew that wasn’t the response Rebecca was looking for here. I stayed quiet, instead standing up to stir the sauce.
I could understand where Benny was coming from. He’d been raised in the kind of staunch, pull yourself up by your bootstraps New England family that stayed true to their Puritan roots, even all these generations later. Compared to my mom, who usually shared a bit too much about her coworkers’ love lives or students’ family issues, Benny’s parents hardly ever said a personal word. I had only met his father once, when he’d come up for an exhibition at the end of my first year, but the man had made a lasting first impression. He was not exactly a formidable figure, but a trim man who stood shoulder to shoulder with Benny’s five seven or five eight. I was never clear on what he did, exactly, only that he’d worked at a financial management firm for decades, building it up into a veritable empire of telling other people what to do with their money. For all his senior year bluster about day jobs and gallery representation, this was the real reason Benny never seemed truly worried about what he would do after graduation. When Mr. Stockton had died suddenly of a heart attack last year, we’d all assumed that Benny’s future was set. I know this seems like a crass thought to have at the time, and obviously we never asked Benny about it directly. But the rest of us were barely employable as gallery receptionists and had a long future of minimum wage ahead of us, so it was fair that this would be on our minds.
