The Fragile Flower

by Kerry J Charles

  Kimberly’s words shocked Dulcie. She swallowed wrong and began coughing. “What?” was all she could manage to squawk.

  Kimberly just shook her head and smiled. “It’s so obvious. It’s the way he looks at you. I must say, he does seem very nice. And you could do a lot worse in the looks department,” she giggled with a soft, bubbling sound. Then she put down her empty coffee cup and waved her hand as if brushing away the topic. “As I say, though, this is the most fun I’ve had in a long time. I have you to thank for that!”

  Dulcie had recovered. “Kimberly, I hope I’ve gained a new friend. Please come by again?” Dulcie put out her hand to shake Kimberly’s.

  Kimberly stood and took Dulcie’s hand in both of hers. She pressed it warmly. “I’m actually considering becoming a volunteer docent, so you may see a lot more of me, whether you like it or not!” She winked at Dulcie as she left.

  #

  Several days later, Nick drove his eight-year-old ugly blue Honda north out of Boston. He was a free man. Everything had cleared the courts, the papers had been signed, and it was over. She had not appeared, of course. Her lawyers were there instead. Initially he had been disappointed. One final showdown might have been nice, to tell her exactly how he felt. On the other hand, maybe it was for the best. He had won. It was a slow, painful battle, but he had won.

  Nick’s birthday was in one week. He would be thirty. A new chapter of a new life. His lawyer had explained the transfer of the trust fund to him. It was something that no one in his family could block, the legacy of his grandparents. Nick thought about them. Although his grandfather had begun the law firm that Nick had been groomed to join, somehow Nick knew that he would have understood why Nick needed to take a different path. After all, isn’t that exactly what his grandfather had done? His father, Nick’s great-grandfather, had been a successful restaurateur, who sold the business he had so carefully constructed when no one in the family wanted to take it over. He had given the money to his son, his only child, to start his own law business. Yes, his grandfather would have certainly understood.

  Nick had already decided that the money would change very little in his life. He would invest most of it. True, he might get a new car. He chuckled thinking that this current wreck had seen better days. The new one would still be practical, though. Nothing flashy. Well, maybe just a little flashy.

  Nick drove steadily on in the silence. He liked the silence. He could think.

  His thoughts drifted to Dulcie. He found them doing this frequently as of late. He knew that she didn’t trust him. He knew that he should have told her from the start about his background. It was stupid to keep it a secret, really. It had been a defense mechanism, a way from feeling the pain himself. He knew that now, and hoped it wasn’t too late.

  #

  Dulcie sat on the deck of her brother’s yacht, sipping a glass of wine as the boat gently moved up and down with the waves. Dan emerged from the cabin. “Jeez, Dulcie, you’re getting to be quite an old hand at this murder thing. I’m actually kind of scared to be around you now. I mean, what if I’m next?” He sat down on the bench opposite her.

  “Sorry, Dan. No such luck. They couldn’t even prove this last one was murder. Everyone is pretty certain it was, but they can only go with attempted murder this time, or so I’ve heard.” She glanced over at him with a sly smile. “So at least that gives you a fighting chance!”

  “That’s all I need to get the hell out,” he muttered. “Of course it did throw you back in with loverboy there.”

  “Will you cut it out?” Dulcie huffed. “Yes, I had to work with him again. But it’s done. It’s over.”

  Dan gave her an incredulous look. Dulcie huffed again. Dan tossed back the rest of his beer and spun around sideways on the bench. “Long day today. Wake me up in half an hour?” He settled back into the cushions. His eyes were closed already.

  Dulcie felt her cell phone vibrate. She forgot that it was still in silent mode. She pulled it out. “Call from NICK” it read. She froze. The phone kept vibrating.

  “You gonna answer that?” Dan said, eyes still closed.

  Dulcie glanced over at him, then back at the phone. “I don’t know,” she said. “I really don’t know.”

  The Dulcie Chambers Museum Mysteries – Book #4

  A MIND WITHIN

  CHAPTER 1

  It wasn’t a face. He never saw a face. It was only curves and lines and colors that seemed to move around each other and grow, from the top of the canvas down to the bottom. It never started with an oval, then eyes, perhaps a mouth next, the tricky nose placed in between, as artists throughout the millennia had painted portraits. His always began at the top and worked its way down. It wasn’t a face. Not to him.

  Dulcie watched in amazement. He began with one swooping stroke. A lock of brown hair starting at the top, sliding half way down the canvas. Then another, and another. Then eyebrows… eyes beneath. A nose… ears… mouth. Chin, neck, shoulders…. Each was perfectly rendered before he moved on to the next.

  She had entered the room only ten minutes before and he had barely glanced at her, yet it was as though she was looking into a mirror. He had captured her likeness so perfectly, so exactly. How was it possible?

  “Has he seen me before?” Dulcie asked without taking her eyes off his work. The woman beside her shrugged her shoulders.

  “Possibly. He has been to the art museum. He might have seen you in a newspaper article as well. Perhaps.” She had a soft accent. French, or possibly French-Canadian.

  The young man abruptly put down his brush and walked to the window. He was done.

  “What now?” asked Dulcie quietly.

  “Now it goes in the stack with the others,” the woman gestured toward the corner of the room. Dozens of paintings were propped against the wall, mostly portraits, from what Dulcie could see. Many looked as though they were of the same person: a middle-aged man. “Unless you want it?” the woman asked Dulcie.

  “May I?”

  The woman shrugged again.

  “I feel as though I should ask him,” Dulcie said.

  “You can try, but I’m afraid you won’t get a response,” the woman replied. It was not said unkindly, simply as a matter of fact.

  Dulcie crossed the room and stood beside the young man. She knew that he was fifteen. She didn’t look at him, she simply stood beside him and looked out the window as he did. He was still, silent. At last Dulcie said softly, “May I have the painting of me?”

  Nothing. Then, in one slow gesture, he turned his hand and opened it so that the palm faced up.

  “Thank you,” Dulcie whispered.

  The other woman in the room had not noticed. She was attending to her work, making sure that the room was in order, that the young man would have what he needed. Dulcie couldn’t know that his simple gesture was the first communication that he had made in months.

  #

  “What the heck is that?” Dulcie’s brother exclaimed as he entered Dulcie’s office in the Maine Museum of Art. He pointed to an odd assemblage of bottle caps. Thousands of them were stuck together, forming a human-sized Statue of Liberty.

  Dan Chambers never minced words, which made Dulcie laugh. However, she knew his reaction would be common among visitors viewing the new exhibit.

  “It’s called Outsider Art,” she said.

  “Never heard of it.”

  “I wouldn’t imagine that you had,” she said. “Most people haven’t. It comes from the French art brut which means raw or rough art. It can mean a lot of things, but it includes art made by people who aren’t professional artists, such as indigents, people with brain traumas, the insane… even children. Basically, they’re compelled to create, usually beyond a level that we would consider normal.”

  “Wow,” Dan simply stated. He hadn’t taken his eyes of the statue. “What’s it stuck together with?” he asked, leaning in for a closer look.

  “Gum,” Dulcie said.

  “You mean like gummy
glue kind of stuff?”

  “No, I mean chewing gum,” she replied.

  Dan instantly pulled back. “Gross!”

  Dulcie shook her head. “Well, it’s completely hardened by now, silly. The thing is at least five years old. The police found it in an abandoned warehouse outside of Boston. They knew there was a homeless guy living there for a while. They didn’t bother him since he never caused any trouble, they said, but they had no idea he was making this,” she nodded toward the statue. “When he died on the streets, they went to the place where they knew he’d been staying and found the statue.”

  Dan was more appreciative standing a few feet back. “I wonder how long it took him to make?”

  “Good question! I have so many questions about it, which we’ll never have answers for, unfortunately.”

  Dan crossed the room and sat in the chair by his sister’s desk. He was still amazed that she was the director of the entire museum. She definitely had the brains in the family, although he had his own kind of common-sense wisdom. “So is this the beginnings of a new exhibit?” he asked.

  “Yes, and I’m pretty excited about it. I’m hoping that it will get people thinking about what really defines art. We always assume it’s Leonardos and such. But it’s much more basic to the human psyche than that. It’s expression and communication, and probably a lot of other things.”

  “Thank you for the lecture, Dr. Chambers,” Dan said with mock applause.

  She smirked at him. “Someone needs to broaden your horizons,” she said looking back at her computer. “I’ve got a lot of pieces coming in over the next couple of days,” she said, scrolling through images. “It’s gonna get busy.”

  Dulcie stood up quickly, making her brother jump. “Hey,” she said, “come down to my car. I want to show you something.”

  They left her office, walking by the museum’s front desk. Dan winked at Dulcie’s assistant, Rachel. She giggled. Dulcie rolled her eyes at her brother. “Stop that!” she mouthed.

  In the parking lot, Dulcie opened the back of her ancient Jeep Wrangler. She had known for some time that she should get a new vehicle, but couldn’t bear to part with it. Not yet.

  “What do you think of this?” she asked, pulling out the portrait of herself.

  “Aaahhhh!” Dan yelled in fear, putting his hand over his heart in mock terror at the sight. Dulcie swatted him. “Sorry. Had to,” he grinned. “But seriously, it’s definitely you. When did you sit for a portrait?”

  “That’s the weird thing. I didn’t. This is another example of Outsider Art. A young man, actually more like a kid – he’s only 15 – painted this of me today. He barely even glanced at me, and I was standing behind him when he made it.”

  Dan shook his head in disbelief. “How is that even possible?”

  “Yeah, I agree. He’s an autistic savant. He paints and draws for hours every day but hasn’t spoken, ever. Not that anyone knows about, anyway.”

  “Huh! I’d never be able to pull that off,” Dan said. “The speaking bit, I mean.” He looked back at the painting. “Or this either, come to think of it.”

  Dulcie glanced over at her brother and laughed. He was such an extrovert. She couldn’t imagine him not speaking. She closed the car door, carefully holding the painting away. “All right, back to work,” she said.

  “Yeah,” Dan sighed. I’ve gotta go scrub down the boat. I hate that chore, but has to be done or it’ll look terrible inside of a week.” He gave his sister a wave and headed off in the direction of the waterfront.

  Dan ran his own business, taking people on tours around Portland Harbor and Casco Bay in his small private yacht. Dulcie was his silent partner, and had invested an unexpected inheritance in his business to buy the boat. Dan lived on board and, with his natural storytelling abilities and ease with people, had made the business thrive.

  Dulcie watched him walk away knowing that his momentary dejection would quickly pass. He loved everything about that boat. She clicked the lock on the door of the Jeep, noticing yet another scratch in the paint. Bringing the painting inside, she carefully set it on a table in her office, tipping it against the wall behind. She stood back and cocked her head sideways as she gazed at it. Xander Bellamy. She had heard of him, but it was the first time that she had met him.

  Rachel knocked on the doorframe of Dulcie’s office and walked in. She stopped immediately when she saw the painting. “That’s awesome!” she said. “When’d you get that done? And why?” Her eyes grew big as she realized she’d just made a faux pas. “I mean, not ‘why’ exactly. But, it doesn’t seem like something you’d do. Have a portrait made. Of yourself. Not that there’s anything wrong with doing that,” she was stammering now.

  Dulcie turned and grinned at her assistant. “Easy, Rachel! No offence taken,” she laughed. “I know what you’re getting at. I’m not exactly the type for self-aggrandizement. I’d rather fade into the woodwork, given the choice.” She looked over at the painting. “But this has kind of a weird story behind it. Have you heard of Xander Bellamy?”

  Rachel thought for a moment. Her clear blue eyes squinted. “I know that name,” she said slowly. Then she snapped her fingers. “He’s the guy that was in the news a few months ago, right? Didn’t his father kill his grandfather or something like that?”

  Dulcie nodded. “Yes, and it was pretty sad. I just looked up the story. His mother had died several years ago, too. He’s autistic and doesn’t speak. His father was devoted to him but I guess the grandfather didn’t have much to do with them, even though they all lived in the same house.”

  “Was he the father’s father or the mother’s? The grandfather, I mean,” asked Rachel. She always tried to get the details straight, a trait that Dulcie loved since it helped with her work enormously.

  “The mother’s father.”

  “And didn’t he fall off a balcony or out of a window or something like that?” asked Rachel.

  “Yes, and there was some speculation that he was pushed by Xander although no one could imagine why. But then the father stepped forward and confessed that he had pushed him. They had been arguing, he said. It was all very strange and tragic.”

  “Sounds it,” replied Rachel. “So how does Xander fit in with this?” she pointed to the painting.

  “He did it,” Dulcie said simply.

  Rachel’s eyes were wide. “Really?”

  “Yup. And furthermore, he did it after barely looking at me, plus it only took him a few minutes. I’ve never seen anything like it. He started at the top, worked his way to the bottom, and never went back to change or touch-up anything. Just put down his brush and walked away when he was done.”

  “But how did he have the colors? Didn’t he need to mix them?”

  “He had a lot of paint on his palette already. The woman that takes care of him said that he’s been doing a lot of portraits lately. I saw a whole bunch in his studio that looked like they were all of the same person. He just used the paint he already had to do my portrait.”

  “Did you ask him to? Why did he paint you?”

  “I have no idea,” said Dulcie. She hadn’t thought about that. Why had he chosen to paint her? “Very good question. I have no idea,” she repeated quietly.

  “Well, that’s a mystery for another time,” said Rachel, adopting her businesslike voice. “Right now, we’ve got some logistics to figure out. You’ve got four more artists for the new exhibit with two or three works each, and then three more with single works, right?”

  Dulcie took a deep breath and shifted gears mentally. “Yes,” she nodded at the list Rachel was holding. “Could you do the usual with shipping and insurance and such? Do you have everyone’s contact info?”

  Rachel nodded, her curly hair bouncing. “No problem.” She turned to Dulcie’s portrait again. “Are you going to include this?” she asked. “That qualifies as Outsider Art, I’d think.”

  “It certainly does, but there is no way I’m putting a portrait of me in the gallery!” Dul
cie saw Rachel trying to hide a smile. “So don’t even think about it!” Dulcie added. “But I do plan on exhibiting some of his work. It’s too incredible not to.” She sat back in her chair. “The difficult part about this exhibit is that every piece has a different story about the artist that made it. I’ll have to figure out a way to tell each story as briefly as possible.”

  “And tactfully, in some cases,” Rachel added. “Anything else you need from me for now?” she asked.

  Dulcie thought for a moment. “Nope. I think we’re good for now, thanks.”

  Rachel was already heading for the door, her untamable hair bobbing up and down and her quick mind eager to take on the next project. Dulcie noticed she gave the bottle-cap-chewing-gum Statue of Liberty a wide berth.

  #

  Adam Johnson wandered through the wine shop following his Portland Police Department partner and fellow detective, Nicholas Black, closely. Johnson tried to suck in his large stomach as much as possible and keep his arms pinned to his sides. He leaned over, ever so slightly, from time to time so that he could see an interesting looking label. A particular one caught his eye, and he gingerly picked it up. The label looked old, with ornate lettering.

  “Pie-Not… pie-not NO-wer,” he whispered to himself.

  “Pinot Noir,” Nick pronounced correctly over his shoulder.

  “Pee-no newarr?” That sounds even worse!” Johnson said, aghast.

  “It’s a kind of grape,” said Nick with a tinge of annoyance.

  “Hmm,” muttered Johnson, carefully replacing the bottle on the shelf. He shuffled behind Nick again as he moved to the next aisle.

  Nick turned to face him. “Don’t you have anything to do? You’ve been following me around for half the day now. I’m on lunch break, you know.”