Framed and Burning (Dreamslippers Book 2)

by Lisa Brunette

  Soon Cat’s stomach was grumbling, and they hadn’t yet found the letter Cat was looking for. “Let me take you to lunch,” Jacob offered. “Some of these strip malls out here hide amazing mom-and-pop restaurants.”

  He took her to a place called Star of India that had a buffet. Cat was no food critic, admittedly, but she’d never had Indian food this good before. The place seemed to be run by a family, the mother in a beautiful orange sari working the cash register, and her daughters waiting tables. Cat could see an older gentleman in the kitchen banging well-seasoned pots around.

  As Cat dug into a helping of curried chickpeas, she asked Jacob, “So are you a frustrated artist? I mean, is that what you really wanted to do?”

  Jacob again nearly choked on his laughter, and this time on his food as well. “You’re so to-the-point,” he said, but his face was glowing, and it seemed to come out as a compliment.

  “I didn’t mean for it to sound like you shouldn’t want to do what you’re doing.”

  “To answer your question,” he said, wiping his face with a napkin, “no.” He elaborated: “My parents always subscribed to Art in Our Time. I grew up reading it. But that wasn’t the only magazine. We had the Atlantic, too, and Harper’s. But it was art I loved to read about most.”

  “And you never wanted to make any of it?”

  Jacob laughed. “I never progressed beyond stick figures. No. Talent. Whatsoever.”

  Cat smiled. Jacob’s honesty, not to mention his rare lack of ego, made her like him even more. He paid the bill and told her not to worry, he’d get reimbursed for it, and then they headed back to the warehouse.

  About fifteen minutes into their search, Jacob cried, “Eureka!” He produced a postmarked envelope and the letter he’d retrieved from inside it.

  Cat took it delicately, examining every square inch. Emblazoned with the words ACCEPTED in bold blue all caps, the letter was on watermarked bond typing paper, and it had been typed on an electric typewriter. She could tell that by the level lettering and the faint smudge left by the ribbon along the edges. It was signed Mick in Miami, but it wasn’t her uncle’s handwriting, of course. There could still be fingerprints on the letter, she thought, especially since it had been so well preserved in the archives. The paper hadn’t even yellowed. And perhaps she could have someone analyze the handwriting. But she needed more.

  She turned over the envelope, and a clue jumped out at her: the postmark. The cancellation read Apr. 29, 1974, and around the circle instead of Miami it said, Ft. Lauderdale, FLA.

  Cat immediately thought of Chester Canon, who’d had his house in Fort Lauderdale back then as a summer home. After retirement, he’d given up his New York apartment and moved there permanently. April twenty-ninth was probably Columbia University’s spring break. That’s when he sent the letter, Cat realized. No other suspects had ever lived in Fort Lauderdale. The postmark should be New York, Miami, or even Sanibel. Chester would have had no reason to conceal the letter’s origin to that extent. It merely needed to sound authentic enough to publish.

  “Why do you think this was published?” Cat asked Jacob.

  “Oh, art MFA programs are always political. You know, people say academia kills art. I’m sure the editor back then snapped this up. People love gossip, and here, disguised as a confession from an art student? That’s gold.”

  Cat was ready to head back, but first she had a hunch about something she wanted to follow up on. It would require a detour, and taking Jacob into her confidence more than she would normally. She looked into his big, brown, trusting eyes and decided to risk it.

  “How’d you like to meet Clive Smith?”

  “Uh…sure.”

  Cat still had Clive Smith’s address in her phone. She gave Jacob directions, and they were at Clive’s front door twenty minutes later. The artist himself answered the door, the look of surprise on his face soon replaced by suspicion.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, Mr. Smith,” Cat said, putting some heft into her voice, “but there’s been a new development in Mick Travers’s case, and I need to ask you a few more questions.”

  “I thought they caught the killer,” he said. “I read it in the art news.”

  “They did,” she said, partly to put him at ease and partly to keep the facts a secret. “But there’s been a new development I’d like to discuss with you.”

  “And who are you?” he asked, looking pointedly at Jacob.

  “I’m an editor at Art in Our Time,” Jacob said, holding out his hand. “And I’m a big fan of your work.”

  Clive’s face softened at that, and he opened the door to them. “Very well,” he said. “Come on in.”

  Once they were seated in the living room, Cat began. “Mr. Smith, I want to ask you about that letter again, the one in the magazine.”

  Clive looked at Jacob. “Is that why you’re here?”

  Jacob gave him a nodding shrug.

  “What about it?” Clive asked.

  “We’ve found the original, in the magazine’s archives,” she said. “I know you didn’t write it.”

  “Fantastic detective work,” Clive said sarcastically. “Now you best be going.”

  “There’s just one thing,” Cat said. “I know nearly without a doubt who wrote the letter. But it contains details about the curriculum in that professor’s class that the author wouldn’t have known. You were in that class, though. You would have known.”

  “But you said I didn’t write the letter.”

  “Yes, but you gave information to the person who did.”

  Clive was quiet. He sighed heavily, looking out the window at the backyard, where a robin pecked at a worm. “I swear. Mick Travers is not worth this.”

  “You know something,” Cat said, her voice gentler. “Tell me.”

  “All right,” he said. “Listen, I’m not a drinking man normally, but I could use one right now. You two want a glass of whiskey?”

  Cat looked at Jacob, who shrugged in a gesture of “Why not?”

  “Okay,” she said.

  Clive disappeared into the kitchen and came back out with three tumblers of whiskey on a tray. He gave Cat hers first, then Jacob, and then he sat down with his between both hands, as if it had the ability to warm him.

  “One night we were at this pub near campus. Everyone except Mick. Annie Lin, Norris, a bunch of first-years, too, but they didn’t really know what was going on.”

  Clive took a pull on his whiskey, closed his eyes briefly, and then went on.

  “We were pretty drunk, and as usual, the subject of Mick came up. Chester Canon was there, and he seemed to enjoy the way we raked Mick over the coals for this or that. He fanned the flames, totally breaking out of his professorial demeanor, telling us what a phony Mick was, what a hack.”

  Clive set his drink down. “In retrospect, I wish I’d left at that point. It wasn’t healthy, what we were doing. We were jealous of Mick, so we egged ol’ Canon on, taking glory in having our anger at Mick validated. Then at one point, Canon got onto the subject of how Mick had been championed by Professor Altair. He thought Mick was all that and a bag of chips, you know what I’m saying? And Canon couldn’t stand having Altair best him on that Emerging Artist Award. So he cooked up this scheme to make it look like Mick had betrayed Altair, in public.”

  “And you went along,” Cat said, “giving him details to put in the letter.”

  “Yes, we did,” Clive said. “Canon’s the one who typed it up and sent it, though. I never thought he’d actually do it, till I saw the letter in print.”

  “And how’d that make you feel?” Cat asked.

  “I’m not proud of this,” Clive said. “And I’ve worked hard to successfully distance myself from it. But I have to admit, I took some pleasure in it at the time.”

  Cat felt ashamed for the man, but sad for him, too.

  “So if you’ve got the killer,” Clive said, “there’s no connection between the letter and the fire after all.”

  �
�That would be the logical conclusion,” Cat said.

  “But you know Canon sent it anyway, don’t you,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  As they rose to go, Jacob commented on the paintings on Clive’s wall, the ones Cat had thought of earlier during their drive.

  “I think your work is some of the finest example of process painting,” Jacob said.

  “Why, thank you, son,” Clive said.

  “But these are from the Eighties, aren’t they? It looks like you’re still active.” Jacob gestured toward paint visible on Clive’s hands. “I’d love to see what you’re working on.”

  Clive’s drawn face broke into a genuine grin. “Oh, I’m dabbling in my old age here, but I’ll show you.”

  They followed Clive down a narrow hallway to a room that opened up to double ceiling height, with skylights added for natural light. Cat realized it was the garage, converted into a studio.

  On a bank of easels were paintings that looked no different from the ones they’d seen in the living room. Cat was amazed at how well Jacob hid his disappointment, though. He asked Clive questions about the way he layered and how often between layers. Then as they turned to leave, Jacob stopped, Cat nearly bumping into him.

  “Oh, my God,” he said, walking over to a grouping of strange sculptures along one side wall. “Are these new?”

  Clive came over, sounding apologetic. “Oh, those are for my grand-baby, Ru. She loves them.”

  “They’re astounding!”

  Cat watched as Jacob examined the sculptures, which to Cat looked like what you’d get if you crossed an old-school Fifties-era wooden child’s toy with an African statue. One had red spikes coming out of its head, but when Jacob touched them, they were soft, likely made of silicone.

  “That’s so Ru doesn’t hurt herself,” Clive said. He seemed actually bashful about these pieces. Cat was amazed at the change in his attitude.

  “They really are great,” Jacob said. “Do you mind if I take a few pictures?” He took his phone out. “We have this blog… These would be great on there.”

  Clive looked flabbergasted. “Okay,” he said, as if he were still thinking it over, or maybe he couldn’t believe his sudden good fortune. “Sure.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Candace was wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, and her gray roots were showing. Mick felt an unexpected pang of sympathy for her as she shuffled over to the table where he was sitting. A guard hovered nearby.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, which is how Pris told him to start the conversation. Back in their cottage kitchen, he’d protested, saying he had nothing to be sorry for, but then Pris told him he should say it anyway, that it would take the wind out of Candace’s sails and improve his chances of getting some answers from her.

  “What are you sorry for?” Candace scoffed. “I’m the one who set the fires.”

  That hadn’t seemed to work, so Mick shifted to his sister’s second suggested concession. “I forgive you,” Mick said, though he followed it with an involuntary cough. It was hard for him to say these things to Candace. Even if she didn’t set the first fire, she’d still destroyed his home. And his burning anger toward her felt like it would never run out of fuel.

  Candace glared at him incredulously, her arms crossed in front of her chest. “Did you get religion or something? Shit, that would be the day, wouldn’t it?” She roared with laughter.

  “Candace,” Mick said, reaching across the table to try to hold her hand. He noticed her nails had been bitten to the quick.

  “Don’t touch me!” she screamed.

  The guard tensed, stepped forward.

  Mick motioned to him to stay back. “I’m fine, really.”

  “Why are you here?” she demanded.

  “I-I wanted to see you,” Mick said. “It’s been so long, and…” his words failed him. It was times like these he wished he could paint a picture to illustrate the feeling.

  “Aw, did Mickey miss me?” she taunted. “You want a lick of your Candy?”

  He winced. The phrase came out of their lovemaking play so many years ago.

  This script of Pris’s he was following wasn’t getting him anywhere, so he dropped it, clearing his throat and starting over the way he should have when she’d sat down.

  “Candace, look. I know you didn’t kill Donnie, so quit being a damn martyr.”

  Her eyes went wide, and she began to shake her head. “No, no, no, no, no! You don’t get to say what the truth is. I do.”

  “You’re acting like a crazy woman, C. And this isn’t you. Come on. You’re better than this.”

  She fixed him with a look that seemed perfectly lucid. “My lawyer says I’ll be charged with first-degree arson for your precious beach house, Mick. Even though you weren’t even living there! And since you’re so beloved by the art world, I’ll probably get the max, which is thirty years. I’m fifty-seven, so that means I’m locked up till I’m practically dead anyway. Might as well ’fess up to both crimes. It’ll make me famous.”

  “You stupid, vain, competitive woman,” Mick spat out. “You know Florida carries the death penalty, right?”

  She stared at him, blinking.

  “That’s right, the electric chair. You killed an upstanding man in the prime of his life because you’re jealous of the man you were really trying to kill. They’ll think you’re a monster. And you set fire to a building that a whole bunch of other artists lived in, too.” Mick laid it on as thick as he could, even though he was pretty sure even Florida, as enamored as it seemed to be with frying folks, wouldn’t seek the death penalty in her case. But he needed her to think so. “You know my studio was right next to a school, and they were having parent-teacher night? Oh, they’ll fry you, honey, like a piece of candied bacon. This is Florida, remember? They’ll take a lady killer and strap her into Old Sparky toot-sweet.”

  She continued to stare at him as if realizing she was a kid playing a grown-up game.

  “You don’t want to die for this, C. Besides, if you go down for the crime, we never catch the real killer.”

  She kept staring and began to bite one of her fingernails.

  Mick let out a heavy, emotion-laden breath. “You would have liked Donnie. Remember how you and I used to watch brown pelicans, diving into the waves? Imagine if you painted the arcing motions of their flights. Yeah, that’s Donnie. A real talent.”

  “Not like me,” she finally said. Her voice was dull.

  “Is that what this is about? You feeling sorry for yourself because you haven’t made it big? Well, neither had Donnie. He was my assistant.”

  “I know that.”

  “And you’ve got an eye, Candace. I never told you that, but I should have. You just needed to get out of your own way.”

  “Oh, what do you know about it? You hardly even looked at my work.” She uncrossed her arms and leaned forward, staring at him with those big blue eyes he used to wish he could get lost in.

  “My sister bought one of your pieces. It’s hanging in the place where I’m staying.”

  “Your sister’s too loyal to you.”

  “That’s probably true. But that’s not why she bought your piece. She liked it. She had a feeling about it.”

  “You just feel sorry for me.”

  “Right now, Candace, you’re right that I feel sorry for you. But that’s not it. I don’t want you to waste any more time than you have.”

  Candace’s eyes started to fill with tears, but Mick could see her resisting the emotion.

  “What if I didn’t set the first fire?” she said in a very quiet voice, and staring across the room, avoiding Mick’s gaze.

  “Then we’ll figure out who did,” he said. “And we’ll see if we can get them to go easy on you about the beach house.”

  Candace met his gaze, and the tears slipped down her cheeks. “I never thought this would be my life, Mick. Alone, you know…” She stopped, choking up.

  He reached for her hand, and this time, she didn�
�t pull away.

  “I know,” he said. “I know.”

  She wiped her tears on the sleeve of her orange jumpsuit. “I’m not like you. Making art wasn’t the only thing I ever wanted.”

  “You wanted me to make a home with you,” Mick said. “But I’m no good for that. I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” Candace said, removing her hand from his. Her voice was so quiet, it was almost a whisper. “I know I was never as good as you.”

  He didn’t know what to say, and her words made his eyes fill with water.

  “I think I need some help,” Candace said, biting her nail again. “This is all…too much for me.”

  “Maybe we can get your sentence reduced,” he said. “I mean, you weren’t trying to kill anyone.”

  “Yeah,” she said. She looked resigned.

  He sat there for a moment longer, but there was nothing left to say. Soon, the guard said “Time,” and Mick got up to leave.

  “One last thing,” Candace said, her voice going hard again. “I’d appreciate it if you’d stay the hell out of my dreams.”

  The guard gave Mick a knowing look, as if to convey his sympathy for her apparent derangement. Little did he know, thought Mick.

  >>>

  He returned to Ernesto’s cottage after that hoping to hear from his real estate agent about touring live-work lofts. He was eager to get out from under his sister’s friend’s charity and start painting for real again.

  But when he stepped in the door, Pris and Cat were embroiled in an intense conversation about Cat’s findings in New York. He overheard the mention of Chester Canon’s name.

  “Don’t tell me Chester the Molester is your primary suspect now,” he said.

  His sister and Cat greeted him with hugs, ignoring his comment.