by Roslyn Woods
“I can’t stand it if something happens to Carmen and Angel,” Shell said.
“I’ll do everything I can. I’ll hire a lawyer. We’ll do whatever it takes.”
“Oh Dean! This is going to really scare her!” Shell added.
“I know. I’ve been worrying about it all morning.”
They all sipped their coffee, but no one offered to taste the scones, and no one spoke for a while. “I just don’t get it,” Margie said, finally. “If it wasn’t a robbery, what was it?”
“It could have been a robbery,” Dean said.
“But why would that happen in the morning when he’s home?” she asked. “Wouldn’t somebody do that after the day starts and the homeowner is gone off to work?”
“Maybe they thought he was gone,” Dean suggested.
“But his car was sitting right there in plain sight,” said Shell.
“Maybe they saw him leave with the little dog on his morning walk, and he came back before they could get what they wanted so they...” He shrugged slightly rather than say the words again.
It was a possibility. Shell and Margie sat chewing on the idea while Dean drummed his fingers on the table.
“Does anyone know what he kept in his house?” Dean asked.
“You mean aside from the stuff we saw that night at the party?” Shell asked, and Dean nodded. “Obviously, Carmen knows the place upside down. She keeps it clean. She’d know if something was missing probably. Leonardo might know what’s there and its value, too,” she answered. “Billie told me that Leo and Garrett met years ago in Dallas and that Garrett kind of mentored him. Billie says that Garrett was like a father to Leo. Maybe the three of them spent time together. With all three of them together—socially I mean, not at the gallery—I’ve only been with them that one night at the party at Garrett’s, so I don’t know anything about how close they really are. I know Billie didn’t really like Garrett when he first joined us, even though he was glad to get out of the financial fix we were in.”
“But Garrett grew on him, didn’t he?” Dean asked.
“He grew on everybody,” Margie said. “We all really liked him. He made the place feel so welcoming.”
“Yes, Garrett charmed everybody,” Shell agreed. “I often heard Billie and Garrett laughing about things and talking about art, so whatever misgivings Billie had were gone in a short period of time. Anyway, it’s possible Leo and Billie would know if something was missing from the house.”
“Maybe,” suggested Margie, “Gonzalez would let them go through it with him. Maybe they could shed some light—”
“I doubt Gonzalez is going to release the crime scene to people he probably thinks of as suspects,” Dean interrupted. “We’re all suspects, you know.”
“Why?” Margie asked.
“Look at me and Shell. We found the body. We have only each other for a reference about where we were this morning when Garrett was making his tea. Then there’s Leonardo and Billie. They live together, so they only have each other as alibis. It could get hairy.”
“How could it?” asked Margie. “None of us has a motive. We all liked him.”
“They may dig around and conjure up a motive,” Dean said.
Shell shook her head at Margie. She didn’t think they would be accused either, but Dean was still smarting from his arrest last October, and it was hard for him to be objective.
“Oh my goodness,” said Margie. “Look at the time! It’s nearly noon!”
“Yeah,” said Shell. “Maybe we should go pick up some lunch or something. Pregnant ladies have to eat no matter what’s going on.”
“How about you guys stay here and I heat some of the potato soup I made last night and whip up some grilled cheese sandwiches?” suggested Margie.
Dean wasn’t hungry, but he knew Shell and Margie had a long afternoon ahead. Actually, they all did. “Thanks, Margie. We didn’t mean to make you feed us.”
“You know it’s my favorite thing to do, and I need a little distraction right now.”
“What time do we have to be at your appointment?” Shell asked.
“Two-fifteen. It’s just a quick checkup. Make sure I’m not gaining too fast, listen to his heartbeat.”
“After we eat we can all go over to our house and you and I can go on in my car,” said Shell.
“I’m sorry to be asking for help on such a bad day,” said Margie.
“I think I need the distraction, too.”
As a matter of fact, Shell was thrilled to be a part of Margie’s doctor visits. It was evidence of their closeness, and she needed to have a family feeling about Margie. Shell had been so deeply saddened by her mother’s death two-and-a-half years earlier that she had left Austin and moved to Dallas, trying to get away from the pain. She had felt so alone in the world that she had allowed herself to be drawn into a relationship that was wrong for her. When she had broken up with Brad Bauer and returned to Austin she’d had a few realizations. She wanted to make something of her life, focus on her career, and be near the person she thought of as her only, real family, her best friend Margie.
As they drove toward the medical center, Margie interrupted Shell’s thoughts. “He’s kicking,” she said.
Shell reached over and felt Margie’s belly. The baby’s little kicks were obvious and strong, and Shell laughed. It was the first light moment since she and Dean had found Garrett’s body that morning. “We’re all going to love him so much,” she said.
“I know. Sometimes I can’t believe it’s happening.”
“Me, too,” said Shell.
Margie had been more than glad when Shell had returned to Austin last fall. For her, Shell was the sister she had never had. They had called each other “mother and sister rolled into one,” and decided to be there for each other. When Margie’s brother Dean had become a suspect for his estranged wife’s murder, it was Shell who had stepped up to help Margie find the real killer, and it was really Shell who had saved him. After his arrest, Shell had set up a sort of sting for the murderer, and she had taken a bullet in the process, but she had proved Dean’s innocence.
“I won’t be long,” said Margie, as her friend pulled up to the curb at Seton Medical Center. Dropping her off would save Margie the long walk from the parking garage into the office.
“I’ll just go park and come wait in the waiting room,” she called through the window as she drove toward the garage. She put the bright pink ticket from the machine at the entrance on her dash and locked the Corolla. As she walked in from the dark garage, her thoughts were all a jumble about the day. She realized that these were the first moments she’d had to herself, and she knew she needed to think.
Who would want to kill Garrett? Why was the house locked when they got there? She had checked both doors, and they had both been locked. Was a window left open somewhere? How did the shooter get out and leave the house locked? They would have had to enter a locked house—Shell was sure Garrett would have been careful to lock up with all his fine things plus the Travis painting inside—and the shooter would have had to lock the place up again when they left. Or had Garrett opened the door and let the shooter in?
Chapter 7
Gilbert Gonzalez heard tapping on his office window and looked up to see Wilson standing there. He was pointing in the direction of the interview rooms, and Gonzalez was a little surprised. He motioned for Wilson to come in.
“What’s up?” he asked when the door opened.
“William Morrison and Leonardo Parisi are here,” he said with an eye roll that meant he found the relationship of the two men distasteful.
Gonzalez knew the detective was uncomfortable with same sex couples, and he often found Wilson’s right-wing tendencies repulsive, but he didn’t let on. It wasn’t unusual for an officer to be a super-conservative, and Gonzalez had come to expect the politics of other officers to be like that.
“They’re a little early,” said the sergeant, glancing at the clock on the wall of the office he shar
ed with Sergeant Bill Moore. “Oh well, maybe I can finish with their interviews before Maxwell and his girlfriend arrive. That would be better.”
Wilson only nodded. Gonzalez had decided to mention the relationship between Maxwell and the Hodge woman as often as he could. He figured it was better to desensitize the detective by rubbing his face in it than to tiptoe around his feelings. He picked up his notebook.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“Yeah. Who goes first?”
“Let’s start with Morrison. Ms. Hodge said something about his running things at the gallery.”
“Okay,” said Wilson, turning toward the interview rooms.
Gonzalez glanced at Wilson’s desk as he walked through the murder room. There were a few photos spread there. Three were of Garrett Hall’s body on the Persian rug beside his drafting table, the cracked magnifier just above his head. There was also a picture of the melted teakettle, another of the mug from The Phantom of the Opera, and there was a snapshot of the broken glass on the kitchen floor.
By the time he caught up with Wilson, William Morrison was already being ushered through the door. The sergeant nodded to Leonardo Parisi, seated in the waiting area, and went into the interview room.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Morrison,” he said, gesturing for the younger man to seat himself on the opposite side of the chunky metal table, and Wilson sat down at the end nearest the door.
Gonzalez, about medium height himself, noticed that Morrison was about six feet. He looked to be in his late thirties, and his longish hair was light brown and tended to wave, he thought a little too carefully, around his ears. It had the tousled look the sergeant thought he had seen in magazine ads, and his clothes were casual in a way that looked more stylish than most of the folks in Texas.
“Good afternoon,” Morrison answered. “Everyone calls me Billie.” His voice was subdued, his large brown eyes serious.
“Thank you for coming down to the station. We just need to establish a few things about the life of Mr. Hall.”
“Yes. I understand.”
“Do you understand that we’ll be recording this interview?”
“Yes, sure,” Billie said quietly.
“Okay,” he said, nodding for Wilson to start the recorder. “My name is Sergeant Gilbert Gonzalez. Present with me today are Detective Thomas Wilson and William—Billie—Morrison, the director of The Westside Gallery. It is three-thirty-two p.m., and today is Friday, April twenty-fifth, twenty-fourteen.”
Billie Morrison didn’t say anything. He looked at Gonzalez and waited.
“How long have you known Garrett Hall, Mr. Morrison?”
“Only a few months, really. I met him a time or two when I lived in Dallas, just because he was out and about in the art community, but we didn’t know each other. When we came to Austin and rented the space for the gallery in mid-January, we were tight on funds, so we recruited another partner. Leonardo had known Garrett in Dallas. He joined us in early February.”
“You’re saying Leonardo Parisi knew him and suggested him as a possible partner?” Gonzalez asked.
“Yes.”
“So Garrett Hall lived in Dallas, and you invited him to join you at the gallery, and he moved to Austin?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you choose him?”
“Well, Leonardo said he was easy going, so we figured he’d be easy to work with, and he was practically an art expert—he was a dealer and a painter himself—and he had money to invest. He was an answer to our prayers, really. We hadn’t realized how expensive everything was going to be, and we’d signed a two-year lease with an option to buy at the end of the two years. We needed more money to handle all the fixes in the building and keep up with the rent.”
“And the partners at the time were?”
“Me and Leonardo and Shell.”
“So you recruited Mr. Hall, and he was able to help out enough?”
“Yes. Once we knew we had enough capital to keep up the rent, we were able to finish our improvements to the building.”
“Why didn’t the landlord handle the improvements?”
“The place was in bad shape and he couldn’t afford it either, I guess. Plus, when a business goes into a building, they pretty much outfit the place for their needs. For a gallery you need specific things, so he wasn’t interested in providing those. Anyway, we started making renovations and getting low on funds, and he started coming around and complaining about what we’d done. I mean, we were basically making the place livable and he’s acting like he’s got a say in our finishes! I’m telling you, the man has no taste!”
“Did it seem like he wanted to back out of the agreement?”
“Well, I’m not sure. He seemed to want to. At first he was enthusiastic about leasing to us, and then he seemed to change his mind. But it’s just a great location, so we really wanted to keep it, and when Garrett joined us everything became much more secure.”
“Could you give me the name of the owner of your building?”
“Thaddeus Dickson,” Billie answered.
Gonzalez wrote the name down. “So Mr. Hall dropped everything in Dallas and moved to Austin and became a partner,” he continued.
“I don’t know if he dropped the projects he had going in Dallas. I just know that he bought a house here and moved down.”
“So, would you say it was sudden?”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at. He decided he wanted to be part of our gallery. He obviously preferred the idea of living in Austin to living in Dallas. For heaven’s sake, who wouldn’t? Dallas doesn’t have a lot of charm. Do you know anyone who’s been captivated by its allure? It’s almost the armpit that Houston is, and don’t get me started on Houston! So I don’t see what’s so hard to figure out. We had just moved here ourselves, and we were tickled pink to get out of Dallas.”
“By we, you are speaking of yourself and Leonardo Parisi?”
“Yes,” Billie said, looking very directly at Gonzalez. “We’re very much together, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Okay. How did Garrett Hall manage to buy and move into a house within a matter of, what was it, two weeks?”
“Escrows close rather quickly if you pay in cash,” Billie answered.
“Cash?” He was thinking that houses on Avenue H were, many of them, historic landmarks, and while some of them were modest, they were all pricey. He doubted the house could have been purchased for under a million dollars.
“I told you he was well off. It’s not that unusual.”
“Right,” said the sergeant after a little pause. “Can you give me a little background on the gallery?”
“What do you want to know?”
“What was your connection with Michelle Hodge?”
“Well, we were friends in Dallas. She and I both worked at The Southwest Gallery as docents and sales agents, so we got to know each other. Then Bradley Bauer did a show at his gallery and included both of our work, which was very exciting—the Southwest Gallery never offered to show our work—and we started visiting more and became real friends. When she broke up with Bradley and moved back to Austin last fall it nearly broke my heart. But of course, I see now that she and Bradley were all wrong for each other. He was just so…just so…something. And Dean…well Dean is just so right for her. Anyway, she was a really sweet friend, and she’s a wonderful Impressionist. So when Leonardo and I got together and decided to move here and start the gallery, I knew I wanted her to be part of it. What an eye for color she’s got!”
“Did Leonardo Parisi know Miss Hodge?”
“No, but when he met her he loved her just like I do.”
“So each partner invested?”
“Yes, we each put in a hundred thousand. We thought we had enough to get us off the ground, but we didn’t, so we recruited Garrett.”
“And that helped?”
“He basically solved our problems. Plus, we knew we could turn to him if we needed more. As I said, he w
as well off. Now…well, now I don’t know if we’ll be able to keep the gallery going.”
“You must have started to generate some income.”
“We did. Each of us sold some of our own paintings, and a few local artists started showing with us. Plus, we got the Wes Travis paintings, so the first one we sold netted us two hundred thousand.”
Gonzalez didn’t want to act surprised. He swallowed and asked, “What’s the split?”
“Normally, galleries take fifty percent, but with a situation like this where we’re showing the work of a famous artist who’s deceased, we give the owner of the paintings a deal and take less just to make sure she doesn’t give her business to another gallery.”
“And the she you’re speaking of is?”
“Estelle Travis, Wes Travis’s daughter. She’s really a piece of work, but apparently the old cowboy painted a lot more than anybody knew.”
“So what’s the split?” Gonzalez asked again.
“Thirty-five percent for us.”
“So even with the Wes Travis sales, you’re not sure you can keep going?”
“I don’t know, but it’s more than the money, Sergeant! Leonardo is very hurt by this. He feels…He doesn’t know what to feel. He’s sad. Very sad. Garrett was a close friend. We just had to go up to the morgue to identify the body, for God’s sake! We’re all shocked and sad. It’s hard to just pick up and go back to work the next day.”
“I understand, but you’re all liable to lose your investment.”
“Yes. I hope we can pull ourselves together.”
“Did you know of any problems Garrett Hall was having? Did he have enemies?”
“I just can’t imagine that. He always seemed upbeat. He seemed honest and he had a good sense of humor. I liked that about him. He was really very attractive in an older man sort of way.” Here Billie Morrison stopped speaking and looked gloomy for a few moments before continuing, “He wanted to make sure the Travis paintings were genuine, and I suppose Estelle didn’t like the delays. And then, he was the one who started dealing with Thaddeus. He knew a lot about the legality involved in breaking a lease, and he knew how to deal with him. He basically said old Tad the Terrible didn’t have a legal leg to stand on if he wanted to get us out of our building.”
