The Skeleton Paints a Picture: A Family Skeleton Mystery (#4)

by Leigh Perry

  “Maybe the killer didn’t expect her to die. It could have been just an attempt to scare her.”

  “That makes a little more sense.” Then I had an awful thought. “Sid, you remember what I said about a student coming in to look for a sketch pad? Maybe she’s the one.”

  “Did she look crazed and vengeful?”

  “No, she looked as if she wouldn’t say boo! to a mouse, but for all I know, she’s an Oscar-worthy actress. Of course, I still don’t know who she is.”

  “Or if her signature matches that on any of the stolen artwork.”

  I checked my watch. “I’ve got an appointment in a few minutes, so we’re going to have to table this. Do you want to stay here or hang out in my office?”

  “I think I’ll stay here and observe your students. If any of them turn out to be a killer, you might need backup.”

  “Sure, that could happen. And Sid?”

  “Yes?”

  “You done good, partner.”

  He grinned and continued to grin as I critiqued my way through my shift at the Lab. The students might have found the view of a grinning skull disquieting, but I was glad to see Sid looking so happy.

  By the time I’d pointed out three dozen comma splices and a misuse of idiom, and suggested that my final customer decide what the premise of his paper was before he worried too much about typos, my time was up and Renee was hovering outside the door to take her shift.

  “I don’t mean to rush you,” she said, “but I’ve got a full slate today.”

  “You’re welcome to it,” I said.

  “Georgia, why is the skeleton still here?”

  “It was too much trouble to carry him home in the snow last night.” That was technically true, because if I’d tried, Sid would have fought me the whole way. “You know, most people would have asked why he was here in the first place.”

  “News travels fast. I heard something about using it as a writing prompt. How did that go?”

  “He was a big success.”

  “He?”

  “He’s male. I had him checked a while back.”

  “You have interesting hobbies.”

  “You are not the first to observe that.” And presumably Renee didn’t even know about the solving crime thing.

  I wheeled Sid back to my office, but since it was time for office hours and I had a pair of students already waiting for me, we couldn’t resume our earlier conversation for a while. Two repeat explanations of next week’s assignment, two excuses for late papers, and four distributed copies of the syllabus later, I locked the door and Sid was able to relax.

  “Man, would I have stiff muscles if I had any muscles. Do you know how hard that is?”

  “Are you kidding? I couldn’t even manage a good game of freeze tag back in the day. I wonder how FAD’s life models manage it.”

  “At least I had plenty of time to think. If we assume Kelly was killed because of her art thieving ways, then we can safely assume that one of her victims killed her.”

  “Right.”

  “So we need to identify the victims.”

  “How? Some of those designs had an actual signed name, but most are illegible, and the rest were initials or symbols.”

  “I don’t suppose there’s a registry of artists’ signatures.”

  “I have no idea.”

  A few minutes on Google informed us that there was not.

  “So on to assumption number two,” Sid said. “The killer must be an FAD student.”

  “Or an FAD professor. Most of the art profs here are working artists, too.”

  “Right, I didn’t think of that.” He tapped his chin. “I don’t suppose you could ask people if they recognize the signatures.”

  “Not without some kind of an excuse,” I said, “but an awful lot of students and teachers have work on display somewhere on campus. I could wander around, looking at pictures and comparing signatures. I might get lucky.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t help with that, unless… What if you put my skull in your bag? Then I could go with you.”

  I wanted to refuse out of hand, but I couldn’t without a good reason. Or better yet, a distraction. “Wouldn’t it be more useful for you to go online and do the same thing? You could check the FAD website—they’ve got a gallery of student artwork.”

  “Good idea. And I bet lots of FAD kids are on Facebook, probably with links to blogs and Tumblr and Instagram accounts and such.”

  “Exactly. You can work in here on my laptop, and I’ll go wander. Just be very quiet.”

  “Nobody will hear a thing,” he promised.

  And he was true to his word. I stood outside the door after he got started, pretending to check e-mail on my phone, and heard only the softest of typing. How he could be quieter with bare finger bones than I was with the padded variety was an eternal mystery.

  While Sid worked, I put on my metaphorical detective hat to go looking for artists’ signatures. I started in our wing, looking at the signatures on every piece I found, refreshing my memory as needed by comparing the signatures with those on the photos I’d taken with my phone. I was trying for a casual air, but nobody seemed to notice me. Apparently it took having a skeleton in tow to really get people’s attention.

  When I’d assured myself that none of the art on display in my wing was from any of Kelly’s victims, I ambled down the corridor to the main building, then took an almost identical corridor to the Illustration wing. I had no luck there, either. After that, I went to Sculpture. I thought it was a long shot, since we didn’t know about any sculptures being stolen, but it was next door and of more immediate interest. There was a sandwich bar in that wing that served terrific meatball subs.

  Next up were Photography, Fashion Design, and Graphic Design. After that, I was heartily sick of looking at pictures, and I decided to go through Sequential Art only because it offered the fastest route back to my office. I nearly changed my mind when I saw they’d put up a display of comic book pages. Lots and lots of comic book pages. I promised myself a chocolate chip cookie—one of the big ones—if I made it all around the room.

  I was about a quarter of the way through when I spotted a superhero splash page with a signature that I thought was a butterfly like the one on the wolf illustration. I pulled out my phone to compare but decided they weren’t the same after all. One was very stylized, while the other was cutesy. Either way, they didn’t match. I was entering the name into my phone, just in case, when I heard somebody right behind me.

  “Taking in the art?”

  I jerked around, startled. Lucas Silva and Jeremy Nolan were standing behind me. Lucas looked amused—Jeremy looked concerned. “Oh, hi.”

  “You know,” Jeremy said, “you shouldn’t be taking photos of student artwork.” He pointed to a prominent sign that said: No Photography or Video.

  “I wasn’t. I was writing down the name of the artist.”

  “Why?” he said.

  “The story looks intriguing and I thought I’d see if the artist had posted any more online somewhere.”

  Jeremy frowned at the picture. “It looks like a standard comic book fight scene to me.”

  I started to tell him that I had a superhero fetish and that I was going to use this comic to fuel my sexual fantasies but remembered just in time that I was a professor and should aspire to decorum. Besides which, Jeremy probably wouldn’t get the joke anyway and would spread the story via the adjunct gossip mill, which would not be a good thing for my tenure quest. Instead I remembered Sid’s advice not to tell people anything I didn’t have to. “What are you two doing in sequential art land? Are you planning to get your students to paint comic book covers? Alex Ross has made quite the career doing that.”

  Jeremy made a face. “I want my students to study real art, not so-called popular culture.”

  I was working on a scathing retort when he said, “Anyway, I need to head out.”

  “You and Renee go celebrate,” Lucas said.

  �
�We will,” he said, looking inordinately pleased with himself, and left.

  Since Lucas didn’t offer to explain, I didn’t ask what Renee and Jeremy had to celebrate. Besides which, I’d had a thought. Since he taught some introductory courses, it was possible that he might be able to identify one or more of the mystery signatures. “Can I pick your brain about something?” I asked.

  “Sure. Why don’t we go to my place?”

  I followed him to the Painting wing, which was considerably busier than the English wing. In their central area every couch and work nook was filled with students who were working and/or socializing. I didn’t bother to check for signatures because instead of being decorated with paintings and sculpture, the walls had been given over to mural painters who, as far as my uneducated eye could tell, had been inspired by urban graffiti artists.

  We had to dodge two groups working on new murals and a bevy of photography majors taking pictures of them at work. To make the scene even more meta, another student was sketching the photographers taking pictures of the students painting the mural.

  The door to Lucas’s combined office and studio was closed, and he stopped to knock loudly.

  “What’s that about?”

  “Just letting my model get dressed before I let you in.”

  I know I blushed because he started laughing.

  “Just kidding,” he said. “There’s nobody in there.” He opened the door and proved it.

  “You are never going to let me live that down, are you?” I said as I followed him inside.

  “Not yet, anyway,” he said cheerfully.

  Once when we’d worked together before, I’d come to Lucas’s office to meet him for a lunch date, and when I opened the door, found myself confronted by the northern end of a south-facing nude model standing on a stool. In other words, his well-muscled rear end was right at eye level. That was bad enough, but I’d distracted the model enough that he’d turned around, meaning that something else had been at eye level. And apparently the model enjoyed his work.

  According to Lucas, I’d turned bright red before excusing myself and running from the room. I couldn’t really blame him for bringing it up now and again.

  “Come on in. Have a seat.” He looked around for a stool that wasn’t covered in paint or paint-related materials, then rolled his own chair out from behind his desk and waved me toward it while he took a stool, presumably unconcerned about any wet paint on it since his pants were already well-anointed. “So what brings you to my humble studio? Were you hoping to find more live models?”

  “I try to keep my ogling separate from my job, thanks just the same.”

  “What a shame,” he said, waggling his eyebrows, which reminded me that he had really nice eyes.

  “Here’s the thing. I’ve found some artwork that is signed, but I don’t know who the signatures belong to.”

  “Meaning that they’re ‘signed’ with a crest or symbol rather than something obvious.”

  “Right. Is there a registry or database to track signatures?”

  “I don’t know of one. I’ve heard that artists register trademarks, but I don’t know of anybody who did. Is it somebody local?”

  “I’m not sure. Can I show them to you?”

  “Sure.”

  I pulled out my phone and flipped through the pictures of signatures for him. “Recognize any of these?”

  He put his hand on his chin. “That stylized butterfly looks familiar, but I can’t remember who uses it. Probably a student.”

  “A student here?”

  He nodded. “I think it was somebody recent, but that’s the best I can say. I’ll keep my eyes open and let you know if I see it again.”

  “Great.”

  “Do I get to know why?”

  “Sorry. National security.” I knew Lucas well enough to know he’d accept that.

  “Fair enough. I actually have a work-related question for you.”

  “Work? You mean you’ve got a job? When did this happen?”

  He put his hand over his heart. “My muse has failed me, and I have nothing left to live for but daily tedium. I’m even now deciding between retail and fast food.”

  “Then who is in the middle of painting that portrait behind you? The one with paint still wet?”

  “Oh that? Paint-by-number. Anyway, what’s the deal with the Writing Lab? With Kelly gone and all?”

  “For now, we English adjuncts are taking shifts. Why do you ask?” I was hoping he wasn’t leading up to a request for me to proofread a paper for him. I’ve been approached by more than one academic from another department asking me to “just take a quick look at” their papers, only to have those requests evolve into proofreading, editing, and even rewriting, all without pay or author credit. Even being treated to a cup of coffee and a muffin would have been nice.

  “Next week I’m going to assign a paper for Advanced Life Painting, and I usually require my students to go by the Writing Lab for input, so I wanted to make sure you guys can accommodate them.”

  “It shouldn’t be a problem. Is there anything special we should know about how you want the papers to be written or formatted or anything?”

  “Not really. To be honest, I’m only assigning a paper because I have to for the ‘Writing Across the Curriculum’ program.” He snorted.

  “Ahem.”

  “No offense,” he said. “I’m completely in favor of all of our students being able to write a decent paper. It’s just by the time they make it to this class, they’re pretty focused on painting. Having to write a paper scares them to death.”

  “I can see that. One time I asked a bunch of English majors to illustrate a paper about their favorite Shakespeare character. I was only asking for clip art or something online. Even a stick figure would have done. But they got so worked up you’d have thought I was asking them to re-create the Mona Lisa. I never did that again.”

  “I get that. Which is why I’m not going to be grading very harshly. The topic is ‘My Favorite Pose,’ so they don’t even have to cite sources. As long as they can come up with two pages that explain why they prefer to paint models in a particular pose, they’ll get an A.”

  “Good enough,” I said. “I will spread the word. Do you have anything more difficult coming up for any of your other classes?”

  “My Intermediate Painting class is going to write a finished artist statement, so that’s a bit more serious, but it won’t be assigned for another month.”

  “Then we’ll talk about that later. Or maybe they’ll have a replacement for Kelly by then.”

  “They would have had to replace her pretty soon anyway.”

  “How so?”

  “I could be wrong, but she told me she was working on something that would be her ticket out of here.”

  “I didn’t know that,” I said, though I wondered if she’d been saving up her ill-gotten gains for a definite purpose.

  “So she said. She wanted to move on to bigger and better things.”

  “Don’t we all?”

  “Not me,” he said. “I mean, I don’t want to count my chickens before they’re hatched, but…”

  “But what?”

  “So the rumor has been going around for months that Professor Liederman is finally ready to retire, meaning that there would be an open tenured position in Painting, but nothing was definite until today. We just had a departmental meeting, and it turns out that Liederman is leaving at the end of the semester. So Jeremy is getting the nod, which we’d all expected because he’s been here the longest. And he is really good.”

  “Okay, I see why you’d want him to celebrate, but I’m missing why you’re so excited.”

  “That’s because you weren’t in the meeting. Administration has noticed that Painting is becoming a very popular major indeed, so they’ve decided to add another tenured position. Guess who’s been here the second longest.”

  “Is it someone who is also really good?”

  “Modesty forbids me f
rom answering.”

  “Lucas, that’s wonderful!” Almost shyly I added, “We’re adding a position in English, too. Of course, we all want it, so my chances aren’t good.”

  “None of that—positive thoughts only. Come on! Let’s go grab a hot chocolate to celebrate. My treat!”

  I couldn’t very well turn that down. I didn’t have any more sleuthing in mind anyway. Of course, I did have to endure more jokes when the snack bar special was a foot-long hot dog, but we still had a great time imagining a brighter, tenured future.

  Chapter Nineteen

  When I got back to my office, I found that Sid had had even less luck than I had. He hadn’t identified a single artist signature, whereas I at least got a “looks familiar” from Lucas. Plus hot chocolate and a cookie.

  “It’s even worse than I thought,” Sid grumbled. “Did you know artists sometimes have more than one signature? Or they change just because they feel like it! Where’s the continuity in that?”

  “We’ll go for a different angle,” I said soothingly. “So are you coming home tonight?”

  “Definitely. It’s dead around here at night!”

  Since I’d been hoping to bring Sid home, I’d brought his rolling bag, which was an old hard-sided one my mother had bought years before. The pattern on the side was called “Antelope,” but it looked like bacon to me, which may be why it was such a good buy. Sid fit in neatly, and he was much easier to transport that way.

  We packed up and I was locking up when Owen showed up. “Hey, Georgia! Where have you been all afternoon? A bunch of students were looking for you.”

  “Really? I was here for my office hours earlier and I didn’t get any e-mail from anybody.”

  “Well, you know kids. They expect a lot out of us. I just hope Professor Waldron didn’t hear them banging on your door, or worse still, Mr. Perkins. You don’t want to make a bad impression at this stage of the game.”

  That was such an obvious dig that I didn’t bother to respond to it. “See you Monday!”