When Cindy asked what we’d like to drink, I asked for a glass of white wine. Jason opted for water.
‘Oh, you sober artistes!’ she said. ‘Hope you don’t mind if I have a real drink.’
She poured herself a Scotch and soda, then sat down in the power position in the center of the couch while we occupied the armchairs.
‘I know you’re here to discuss my house. But first’ – she turned to me – ‘tell me what you’re up to, Hannah?’
She seemed genuinely interested, so I started to explain my deconstruction–reconstruction weaving technique.
‘Fascinating! I’d love to see your new pieces. Would you be up for a studio visit?’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘But you told me you didn’t handle textile art.’
‘The gallery’s doing well. I’m looking to expand our roster. Can’t think of a better way than to work with select local artists.’ She turned to Jason. ‘Any thoughts about a Leavings exhibition?’
Oh, she was seductive, dangling the possibility of exhibiting our work and establishing a patronage relationship. She knew about artists, how much we need exposure, how enticed we’d be by even the hint of such an offer. I wondered: Was she softening us up for something, or was this just her way of establishing dominance?
‘We’ve stopped taking pictures for Leavings,’ Jason told her. ‘We’re in an editing phase. Like they say, “gotta kill your darlings.”’
‘We?’
‘I’m working with a former student. He handles security and logistics, and he’s got a terrific eye.’
‘That’s the African American kid?’
‘I guess you know.’
Cindy smiled. ‘I know you were inside my house. For quite a few hours, I understand.’
She didn’t say it harshly or with reproach. She simply stated it as an incontrovertible fact.
‘That’s true,’ Jason said. ‘Sorry we didn’t ask permission.’
‘But you didn’t know whom to ask, did you?’ She posed the question coolly.
‘We could have found out.’
She smiled. ‘Don’t worry about it. I won’t go after you for trespassing. Wouldn’t dream of it. But I am curious. What made you choose my house?’
‘It stands out. There’s something special about it.’
‘Yes, there is, which I why I like it.’
‘We assume you’re the lady who stops by every so often and looks it over from her car.’
‘Seems Oscar told your boy more than he should.’
I could see Jason tense up at the word ‘boy.’
‘We’ve been calling you “the Mystery Lady,”’ I told her.
‘Really! “Mystery Lady” – nice! Yes, I am that person. But maybe not so mysterious as you think.’
‘It does seem mysterious,’ Jason said. ‘As if there’s something—’
‘And what do you suppose that “something” could be?’ she asked, her tone turning supercilious.
‘May I ask you a personal question?’ Jason asked.
She giggled. ‘You may ask. I may not tell.’
‘What’s your maiden name?’
Her eyes went cold. ‘Is that relevant?’
‘Does it start with a D?’
‘My maiden name was Dryansky.’ She pronounced it carefully, drawing out the syllables as if to flaunt how foreign and working-class it sounded.
Jason nodded and smiled slightly, and with that smile I suddenly felt the power dynamic shift. I held my breath.
What is he up to? Where is he going with this?
‘When we spoke, you said you held on to the house for “sentimental reasons.”’
Cindy nodded.
‘You were the informant, weren’t you? The one who told, you know …’
Although he spoke softly, and left the sentence dangling, her reaction was swift. She gulped down her drink, covered her mouth with her hand, then rose and started awkwardly toward the bar as if to pour herself another. Then, changing her mind, she turned and faced us.
‘Excuse me. I’ll be right back. Got to visit the loo.’ And with that and a stricken look, she rushed out of the room.
I turned to Jason. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Stab in the dark.’
‘Seems you hit the bulls-eye. How’d you know?’
‘Gut instinct. In the warrant application the confidential informant was designated C.D.’
We waited in silence for several minutes. When Cindy returned, her eyes were red but otherwise she seemed to have pulled herself together.
‘You were saying?’ she asked, this time stopping at the bar to pour herself a second Scotch.
‘I believe you were the young woman in the house who recognized Courtney Cobb, then called the police.’
‘It didn’t exactly go down that way, but, yeah, basically, that’s correct.’
‘Want to talk about it?’
‘Not really. But I will if we can talk about some other things first.’ Jason motioned for her to go ahead. ‘I take it you found something interesting in the house; otherwise, you wouldn’t have sought out my accountant.’
‘“Interesting” is a mild word for what I found. As you know, Hannah wasn’t with me, but she’s seen my photographs.’
‘Was the place in decent condition? I ask because it’s been years since I’ve been inside.’
‘Not bad considering.’
‘And the cupola?’
‘Quite good, I’d say.’
‘The murals intact?’
Jason nodded. ‘Almost as if they’d been painted yesterday.’
She smiled. ‘Well, that’s a relief.’
‘We think they’re masterpieces,’ I told her, ‘or pretty close. As a check, I showed photos to Anna von Arx.’
‘What did Anna say?’
‘She pretty much agreed. Of course, I didn’t tell her where they were from and she knew not to ask.’
Cindy nodded. ‘Masterpieces? I recall them as a bit primitive, but I suppose they’re quite good in their way.’
‘Better than good, Cindy,’ Jason said. ‘This is what I don’t get. Here you have a high-end gallery. You know good art when you see it. You own those murals because you own the house. They’re painted on plywood. They can be easily removed. So why leave them up there where they’re vulnerable to fire, rodents or a leak in the roof?’
She sat back. ‘That’s a long story. Which is what you came for, isn’t it?’
‘We’re eager to hear whatever you feel comfortable telling us,’ I said.
‘I’ll tell you what happened, but off the record. OK?’
We told her OK, and with that she started her tale. She spoke haltingly at first. It was clear she had some trouble getting it out. But then, lapsing into confessional mode, she spoke more rapidly the deeper she got into it.
Her mother and stepfather were alcoholics. There was violence and spousal abuse in the house. At age sixteen she was desperate to leave home. A counselor at her high school told her about the Schechtners, known as Dr Liz and Dr Ted, and their East Calista halfway house, A Caring Place. She went over there, met with them, liked them and was grateful when they invited her to stay. While she stood by the phone, Dr Liz called her mother who quickly gave her consent.
‘She didn’t give a damn about me, stopped caring soon as I reached my teens. I admit I was difficult. We fought a lot. Couple of times she slapped me around. She was more than receptive when Doctor Liz called, happy to foist me off on someone else.’
Everything went well the first few months. She got along with the kids in the house, transferred to the local high school, had twice-weekly psychotherapy sessions with Dr Liz, and group sessions with both docs and the other runaways. It didn’t take her long to assume the role of house princess. Most importantly, she started to feel a lot better about herself and her future prospects.
Then two new girls moved in. They were introduced by phony names: Pam and Jen. The docs made a big fuss over them, and were cagey a
bout their true identities. It was clear to most of the kids that the two new girls were VIPs. They had a bedroom to themselves on the third floor. They didn’t socialize and didn’t take part in group sessions. They were standoffish, spoke to each other in whispers and barely said a word to anyone else.
Cindy tried to befriend them. She’d noticed that both girls did a lot of sketching. She asked Pam if she’d be willing to draw her portrait. Pam shook her head, making it clear she preferred to keep her distance.
Within a few days of their arrival, the new girls started spending a lot of time in the cupola room, which the Schechtners called the attic, but which the kids dubbed ‘the orgy room’ because that was the room where they were encouraged to go when they needed to vent and let off steam.
‘You know,’ Cindy told us, ‘a place where we were allowed to be angry, what Doctor Liz called an “orgy of strife.”’
When Cindy and the other kids asked what the newcomers were doing up there, Dr Liz said they were engaged in a therapeutic art project. When asked for more details, she said they were working out their issues by painting on the walls, that the work was very personal, had to do with the girls’ personal demons, and, no, it wasn’t possible for anyone else to go up there even for just a peek.
This prohibition engendered discontent. Cindy was particularly upset. It was clear that she was no longer house princess. The new girls, whom she thought of as outsiders, were now clearly the Schechtners’ favorites. She was resentful that they’d supplanted her. The Schechtners, she felt, acted oddly around them. Little by little she started to pick up hints that Pam and Jen were in hiding and that their presence in the house was covert. For example, they didn’t eat at the communal table. They’d come downstairs, fetch food from the kitchen, then take it back up to their room to eat. They didn’t help with housekeeping chores, didn’t do the dishes, water the lawn, work in the garden, put out the garbage or sweep the porch. They rarely left the house, and then only in the company of one of the docs. They didn’t go to school but spent all their time in the attic doing whatever they were doing up there. The fumes from their painting started drifting down to the lower floors. Cindy hated the smell.
One day in the cafeteria at school, she overheard several students talking about a pair of local best-friend girls who’d disappeared. Had they been kidnapped, murdered, or were they runaways? No one knew for sure.
After lunch she went to the school library to look through back issues of the Times-Dispatch. It didn’t take her long to find an article about the girls. There was a picture of the girl she knew as Pam identified as Courtney Cobb, and the news that her family was offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to her return.
‘Fifty thousand – that was huge! Back in those days it was enough to cover four years of college. I took the newspaper into the ladies’ room, cut out the article and put it in my pocket. Could I – what’s the expression? – drop a dime on them? Surely Courtney Cobb’s parents deserved to get their kid back. Could I? Would I? I didn’t know. Doing so would be a huge move. There would surely be consequences for the girls, and also for me. For some reason it didn’t occur to me that the gravest harm might fall upon the Schechtners. Greedy fool that I was, I never thought of that.’
She spent four full days thinking it over, then made her decision. The breaking point came when she again tried to talk to Pam, and was, she felt, rudely blown off.
OK, if that’s how she wants it, she’ll have to take what comes. This house will be a lot better off with both those girls out of here.
There was a phone booth at the school. She went into it, shut the door and called the number in the article. A woman answered. Cindy told her she was calling about the Cobb girl, that she knew her whereabouts and wanted to be sure that if she revealed it, she’d be eligible to receive the reward.
She was put on hold, then a man came on the line. He told her his name was Walter Loetz, that he was a police captain, and that if she really did know the whereabouts of Courtney Cobb, he’d very much like to talk to her. They arranged to meet on the corner of Robertson and Weybridge, two blocks from East Calista High. He said he’d drive right over there in a civilian car, park and wait for her. He assured her their meeting would be private and warned her not to mention it to anyone else.
She remembered Loetz well even after so many years. He was fairly good-looking, she said, with middle-parted black hair and what she called ‘a thick cop mustache.’ His manner was patient, his demeanor serious. Cleverly, he didn’t start out asking where Courtney was. Instead, he asked Cindy about herself, why she’d decided to call in and what she’d do with the reward money if her information proved correct.
‘I told him I wanted the money for college. Right away I could see he liked that. He pointed out that I was a minor, so if it turned out I did qualify for the reward, the best thing would be for the money to be set aside for me by the Cobb family attorney until I came of age. That way, Loetz said, the matter could be kept discreet and no one would ever know about my involvement. He asked me if that made sense. It was only after I told him it did that he asked me where Courtney was being kept.’
Cindy was cautious. She’d watched a lot of TV crime dramas. She told Loetz that although she was sure he was honorable, she also knew she couldn’t rely solely on his word regarding the reward. She told him that since the money would be coming from the Cobb family, she also wanted assurances from them.
Loetz seemed taken aback by that, but also impressed by her intelligence and maturity. He suggested they go down to police headquarters, where she could meet with the Cobb family attorney, receive appropriate assurances, and then, once she was satisfied, tell them what she knew.
The attorney, Nathan Silver, turned out to be a friendly, sharply dressed middle-aged man. He assured her that if her information proved accurate, she would be entitled to the reward. His recommendation was that he keep it in an escrow account where it would earn interest. Then, once she entered college, he’d draw on it to pay her tuition.
‘It would be like you were a trust fund kid,’ he said, smiling. She liked that he was dapper and easy-going. ‘How does that sound, young lady?’
She thought that sounded great.
‘I thought it would be so easy,’ Cindy told us. ‘I’d just give them the address, 1160 Locust, tell them that Courtney and the other girl were staying there under assumed names, and that would be that. But after I told them, Loetz and Silver went out to the hall to confer. When Loetz came back, he told me he was going to bring in a stenographer and conduct a formal interview. He’d ask me questions and I should think carefully before I answered. He explained he needed more information to get a warrant to enter the house and remove the girls. He used the words “sharp info,” the kind that would convince a judge. Did I understand what he was looking for?
‘I told him I wasn’t sure. He looked me straight in the eye, then lowered his voice. “I think you’ll be able to tell from the way I phrase my questions that I’m looking for specific answers. But understand, I don’t want someone to come around later and say I asked you leading questions. Know what leading questions are?” I nodded. “I’m not going to ask them in a leading way, but understand that your reward depends on how well you answer. We in sync on this?”
‘After I nodded, he left the room, came back with the stenographer, introduced us, then sat down and started the interview. I picked up right away on the kind of answers he wanted. For example, he asked if the two girls were being kept in the house against their will. I knew the answer would have to be that I believed they were. He asked me about the Schechtners. How would I describe them? When I told him Doctor Ted was very charismatic, he asked me if he had a “cult leader personality.” Again, I knew the answer to that was yes. In truth, there was something cult-leadership-like about Doctor Ted. He asked me about Doctor Liz’s reference to the girls’ “personal demons.” What did she mean by that? By “demons,” did she mean something satanic? By that time I u
nderstood where we were going. I told him yes, I believed the Schechtners might be leading a satanic cult, that in my opinion the two girls had been “brain-washed,” and were now “confined” to the attic of the house in a room that those of us who lived there referred to as “the orgy room.”’
In fact, she said, she believed some of what she’d said – it did seem at times that the girls were ‘confined,’ and there was a certain cult-like aspect to the way the docs ran the house. ‘Satanic?’ Well, that, she admitted, was more than a stretch. It was a lie. But in retrospect it struck her that in the end it wouldn’t have made any difference what she said. Once Loetz had the address, he’d figure out a way to get the girls out of there. Better, she thought, to please Loetz and ensure she’d get the reward than hedge with her answers and risk losing out on the money.
She could tell Loetz was pleased with her answers. Meantime, the steno was taking everything down. She guessed later that the reason Loetz had brought in a steno rather than recording the interview was to disguise the fact that he was leading her responses. She was aware throughout that her words would have consequences, but convinced herself that everything she was saying was part of a commendable effort to return Pam and Jen to their folks. And always in the back of her mind was the $50,000 reward and how much it would mean for her future.
‘I’ve never admitted this before to anyone: I was fully aware at the time that my cooperation was for personal gain. I wanted two things: the reward money and those two girls out of the house. At that point nothing else mattered to me. To this day I’m not ashamed I wanted those things, but, yes, I’m ashamed I exaggerated and lied in the interview. Loetz understood me. He sniffed out my greed. He knew exactly how to manipulate me, and I willingly went along. He got exactly what he wanted … and so did I.’
The raid took place that night. Cindy was surprised Loetz moved so fast. She was eating dinner with the others when there was loud banging on the door. Before Dr Ted could open it, a bunch of uniformed cops burst in, along with two male/female couples. Dr Ted shouted at them, ‘Who the hell are you? What’d you want?’ Dr Liz and the kids started to scream. There was chaos.
The Murals Page 8
