‘I worked with the information I had. Under pressure, mistakes get made. I swore out that application based on belief.’ Suddenly, he turned angry. ‘Hey! I don’t get why you’re here. What the hell do you want?’
‘I want the truth, Mr Loetz. I think you knew what was going on, and you worked very hard to make it legal.’
‘What do you think was going on?’
‘A reverse kidnapping.’
He scoffed. ‘No such thing!’
‘Sure about that? A kid runs away from home. Her family wants her back. They get the police to snatch her, then send her off with some so-called cult deprogrammers who brought in props like an upside-down crucifix and sprayed six-six-six on the walls to make the place look like a satanic cult house. Ever since that night no one – not her friends, her teachers, the girl who was with her in the house – have seen or heard from her.’
‘Like I said, Ms Nguyen, there’s no such thing as a reverse kidnapping. A family can’t kidnap its own child.’ He stood. ‘I think it’s time for you to go.’
At the door, he gazed into my eyes. ‘You have a sweet face,’ he said. ‘Too bad you came all this way for nothing.’
But of course I hadn’t come for nothing. I’d learned a lot and recorded the interview. That night I went over to the Capehart and played it for Jason and Hannah.
Jason Poe
I was impressed by how much information Joan got out of Loetz. Even though she did most of the talking, he never denied her interpretation of the raid.
It had been two weeks since Penny Dawson had hung up on Joan. I’d hoped Penny would call back and was disappointed that she hadn’t. If anyone knew the backstory on the murals, she would be the one.
Joan offered to do a deep search for her. There were about 75,000 people living in the Florida Keys. If Penny hadn’t fibbed about that, Joan thought it would be possible to find her. But even if we did, then what? We couldn’t stalk her or harass her. That would only turn her off.
‘First let’s see if we can find her,’ Joan said, ‘then we’ll figure out how to make an approach.’
I had lunch with Tally, told him I was ready to stop taking photos for Leavings.
He grinned. ‘Finally!’
We had all the images, around twelve hundred, on our respective computers. I asked him to go through them and make a first cut, picking the ones he thought were the best. I’d do the same and then we’d compare. We agreed to limit our first cut to a hundred.
‘So now we’re going to work on the murals?’
I told him that’s what I wanted us to do and that I was thinking about approaching the CPA firm where the tax bills for the house were sent. Maybe they’d give me the owner’s name if I suggested I was interested in purchasing the place.
‘It’s not worth anything, according to Oscar,’ Tally said. ‘No one wants to buy around there. You’d have to think up a decent reason, like gutting it and then turning it into a photo studio. What’ll you say if the CPA asks you to make an offer?’
‘Tell him I’ll need to make a top-to-bottom inspection first.’
‘You really want to go back in there.’
‘Oh, yeah! I want you to see those murals and I want to see them again.’
‘Since whoever owns it hasn’t abandoned it and Mystery Lady comes by every so often to check it out, I have a hunch the CPA firm will blow you off.’
Mystery Lady – I liked that. And I thought Tally was probably right. If she was the owner, showing interest in the property might be a good way to flush her out.
I decided to approach the CPA firm cold. I drove over to the address on Doverland Avenue, a short, nondescript, worn-down, two-story shopping strip – drugstore, pet grooming salon, seedy-looking barbershop on the ground level, with a couple of dentist offices and the offices of Meyers and Lee Certified Public Accountants upstairs.
There was a crabby-looking middle-aged lady at a desk in the front office. She gave me a stony-faced ‘May I help you?’
I told her I was interested in a property, which, according to city tax records, was billed to her accounting firm.
‘What’s the address?’
‘It’s 1160 Locust.’
She nodded, told me to take a seat, then went to a back office, knocked on the door, entered and closed it behind her.
She returned a couple of minutes later.
‘Mr Meyers asks why you’re interested.’
I handed her my card. ‘I’ll tell him that myself.’
She looked at my card, gave me a dirty look, went back to the rear office, knocked and went in. This time when she came out, she gestured for me to enter.
An overweight guy in his fifties with a shaved head stood up from behind a desk.
‘Jeff Meyers,’ he said.
We shook hands. He motioned me to a seat, then studied my card.
‘You teach at the Art Institute, Mr Poe. Photography Department, it says here.’
‘Correct.’
‘What’s your interest in the Locust Street property?’
‘I’m looking for a studio in an inexpensive neighborhood. The house intrigues me and it looks like it’s been kept up.’
‘To buy or lease?’ he asked.
‘Can’t say yet. Need to get inside and check it out.’
‘Well, whatever you have in mind, it’s not going to happen. That property isn’t for sale or for rent.’
‘If that’s the case, why ask why I’m interested and if I want to buy or lease?’
‘Curious, I guess.’
‘Will you at least pass on my interest to the owner?’
‘Sure.’ He stood up. ‘I’m sorry you came all the way over here. It’s usually best to call first, save yourself the time.’
The lady in the front smirked as I came back out.
‘Edgar?’ she asked.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Edgar Allan Poe – you related?’
I ignored her.
‘Well, excuse me!’ she said.
I didn’t like Meyers much and I definitely didn’t like his receptionist. Meyers’s queries were intrusive and his front-office gal was rude. Why all this secrecy regarding 1160 Locust? Why were the taxes billed to a third-rate accounting firm? Why act so cagey about who owned the property? And who was the Mystery Lady who came by every so often to stare at the house?
Could all of this have something to do with the murals?
Rob Kraus, dean at CAI, was a busy guy. Besides running the school, hiring faculty and having to deal all day with difficult art students and temperamental teachers, he also taught a course, ‘The Business of Art,’ which every CAI student was required to take.
As Rob put it when he addressed us at the start of every year, ‘Unlike most private art schools that only care about collecting tuition, I don’t want to send our kids out into the world with any illusions. I want them to know how tough it is to make a career as an artist, how harsh the world is out there. I want them to understand that being an artist isn’t just about the work you do in the studio. It’s also about how you interact in a ruthlessly competitive society. Thus my course “The Business of Art,” in which I instruct our aspiring artists on what they need to know to survive.’
To which I say, Bravo!
I liked Rob. He took his teaching seriously. He also knew a good deal about the legal aspects of fine art practice, which was why Hannah and I cornered him in the CAI cafeteria.
After some chatter about our curriculum and an exchange of gossip regarding extramarital goings-on at the museum, I broached a subject that had been bothering me regarding ownership of the Locust Street Murals.
‘Here’s a hypothetical, Rob. Say, forty years ago I give a dinner party in my New York City loft, and Willem de Kooning is one of the guests. He gets tipsy and asks if he can paint something on one of my walls … say, the bathroom to spruce it up. I tell him to go ahead, so he goes into the bathroom and he paints one of his terrific “angry woman” nudes on the tile wal
l. Assuming I own the loft, who owns the painting?’
‘That’s easy,’ Rob said. ‘He owns the rights to his image, but you own the actual work.’
‘Even though I didn’t pay him or commission it?’
‘Doesn’t matter. Also doesn’t matter if he asked your permission to paint it. You own the wall so you own what’s on the wall. This comes up all the time with graffiti artists or someone like Banksy who goes around the world stenciling and painting stuff on building walls. Their artwork belongs to the buildings’ owners, who have a perfect right to paint it over if they want, or, in the case of Banksy, cut off that particular chunk of wall and then put it up for auction at Sotheby’s.’
‘Thanks, Rob, you’ve answered my question.’
‘Don’t mention it, Jase. Next time try me on something a little more taxing.’
After lunch I walked Hannah back to her studio. En route, I mentioned that since Rob seemed to know about Anders Carlsen’s affair with Anna, it was safe to assume plenty of other people knew as well.
‘Except for Carlsen’s wife. I think Anna would die if she knew people were gabbing about it.’
When we reached her studio, she showed me two pieces she was working on. As I stood admiring them, she explained she was employing a new technique. She’d woven same-size pieces of blank cloth, taken them off her looms, painted similar abstract forms on them using different colored dyes, unraveled the pieces and was now in the process of reweaving them, combining the warp from the first piece with the weft from the second, and vice versa. The result of this laborious process would be a pair of twin-like weavings, each the ghost mirror image of the other.
I found this mind-blowing. ‘Utterly brilliant!’ I told her.
A couple days after my unpleasant visit to the offices of Meyers and Lee, I found a message on my voicemail: ‘Hello, Mr Poe. My name’s Cynthia Broderick. We haven’t met. I’m calling because I understand you’re interested in my Locust Street property. Call me back if you’d care to discuss.’
She had one of those upper-class accents – the kind Scott Fitzgerald described as ‘full of money.’
I immediately returned her call. I have a vivid memory of our conversation, a turning point in our quest to discover the origin of the murals.
‘Hello, Ms Broderick, this is Jason Poe.’
‘Thanks for getting back to me.’
‘What can I do for you?’
‘I think it’s more what I can do for you.’
‘You own the house at 1160 Locust?’
‘I do.’
‘I take it you got my name from Jeff Meyers.’
‘Seems you made quite an impression on him.’
‘Oh?’
‘He found you rather … hmm … presumptuous.’
‘Did he?’
‘His old bag of a secretary, Alice Confessore, didn’t like you at all.’
‘What didn’t she like about me?’
‘Your arrogance, she said.’
‘I found her obnoxious.’
‘I’m not surprised, Mr Poe.’
‘Please call me Jason.’
‘Please call me Cindy.’ She paused. ‘Those two, Meyers and Confessore – they’re nasty. I rather like that in CPAs.’
‘Well, to each his own …’
‘I know who you are, Jason. I know your work. You were quite well known some years back – the fearless war photographer, the guy who liked to go in close. I remember seeing a photo of you in a safari jacket, cameras crisscrossing your torso like ammo belts. “Quite the intrepid photojournalist,” I remember thinking at the time.’
‘Guess I’ll never live that one down.’
‘Here’s the thing, Jason – if I hadn’t heard of you, I wouldn’t have bothered to call. As Meyers told you, my Locust Street property isn’t for sale. If you’re wondering why, I guess you could say I’m holding on to it for sentimental reasons. But because I had heard of you, I did some internet research. What do you suppose I found? That in addition to your teaching duties at Calista Art Institute, you’ve been hard at work photographing stuff people leave behind when they abandon houses. This project, I understand, involves forays in the dead of night – intrusions not likely to be welcomed by property owners.’ She paused. ‘That sum it up?’
‘My compliments on your research.’
‘I think we should meet and discuss your interest in my property. Are you free this weekend?’
‘I am.’
‘Please come by my gallery tomorrow.’
She owns a gallery!
She gave me the address. ‘I close at six. Six thirty would be good. Ring the bell and I’ll let you in.’
Hannah Sachs
I was working late in my studio at CAI when Jason called. He was down in his office on the second floor. Could he come up right away? Of course!
I’m no Nancy Drew, but as he recounted his conversation with Cindy Broderick, it didn’t take me half a minute to deduce she was the Mystery Lady Tally had told us about.
I knew Cindy. The Calista art world’s small. Everyone knows everyone else. A few years back I’d showed her my portfolio. She was respectful, but told me she didn’t handle textile art. That was OK. The market for what I do is small. When I told this to Jason and he asked what her gallery was like, I was surprised he’d never set foot in it.
‘You should have,’ I told him. ‘It’s the best contemporary gallery in town. She specializes in pricey big names like Eric Fischl and Jennifer Bartlett.’
‘Photography?’
‘Some. I’ve seen a few good pieces there – a Mapplethorpe lily and a large multi-image collage by the Starns.’
Jason shrugged, said he was surprised people in Calista would be interested in stuff like that.
‘You still think everyone here’s a hick. Actually, there’re several hundred committed collectors in town, of which maybe twenty are very serious.’
‘So she deals in high-end art, yet holds on to a rotting old house on crummy Locust Street. What does that tell you?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘She damn well knows what’s in her attic. That’s why she’s holding on to it. Will you come with me tomorrow?’
‘Of course! I’ve been waiting for you to ask.’
I told him what I knew about Cindy, which wasn’t all that much. Yes, she had a plummy accent, but she wasn’t from a moneyed background. She was local, smart, very good-looking, and had somehow wangled herself a scholarship to Mount Holyoke College. There she’d majored in Art History and French Lit. Presumably that’s also where she acquired her social skills and way of speaking. After college she came back to Calista, got a job as an assistant at the Easton Gallery, met, dated and married a wealthy Social Register type named Carter Broderick, divorced him after a few years, and used her settlement money to buy out Lane Easton and take over his gallery when he retired.
‘She’s done well with it. She knows how to sell art. She waits for clients to come to her, then grooms them. She talks the usual gallery spiel about buying only what you love, and how it’s always better to buy one really good piece than half a dozen minor works that’ll just clog up your walls. There’re women around town who don’t care for her. They see her as an upstart and are probably jealous of her looks. But most people, men especially, are quite taken with her. She’s honest, and she’s willing to take back a piece if a client changes his mind. She also makes a practice of loaning pieces out, letting her clients live with them a while, but never pushing them to make a decision.’
‘So, the gallerist of one’s dreams,’ Jase said. ‘She was a little snooty about an old portrait someone took of me.’
‘The one where you’re draped with camera straps from your Hemingway days?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Sounds like she knew you and Tally were in her house.’
‘Oscar, that old guy at the observatory – Tally thinks he keeps an eye on the place for her.’
The Easton Gallery was on W
averly Square, the best retail location in the East Side suburbs. The square, at the intersection of Waverly and Middlebrook, was near my alma mater, the private girls’ school, Ashley-Burnett. The gallery was situated in a cluster of upscale shops including Gucci and Hermès boutiques; Cooks & Crooks, a bookstore specializing in cookbooks and mysteries; Tranche, a pâté and cheese shop; the Left Bank, a Parisian-style café; the Wizard of Odds, an antique store; and ‘O’, a sushi bar/Asian fusion restaurant.
Jason, as instructed, rang the bell. Through the window I could see Cindy moving toward us. She cocked her finger at me in recognition, unlocked the door, beckoned us in, then relocked it behind us.
‘Hannah, Jason – of course! You know each other from CAI. Happy to see you guys. Let’s go to my office.’ She escorted us through three gallery rooms to the back.
‘Next week we’re opening a Dana Schutz exhibition. I’ll send you invitations.’
She was gracious and well groomed – designer jeans, off-white blouse, turquoise and silver necklace, light eye make-up, glossed lips, light brown hair held into a ponytail by a chocolate-colored velvet scrunchie. And her voice, that moneyed, plummy tone noted by Jason, completed the picture of the archetypal gallerist – elegant, understated, mistress of the soft sell.
Her office was appointed with a sawhorse-style desk with inch-thick glass top, three-seat Corbusier couch and pair of Corbu grande comfort armchairs, all with matching chrome frames and fitted black leather cushions. There was a set of signed framed Rauschenberg prints on the walls, and a built-in wet bar with miniature fridge.
The Murals Page 7
