Intimate Portraits

by Cheryl B. Dale

  “Won’t take long?” Iris wailed. “With all we’ve lost? Oh, my, the photography records, the outstanding accounts, the customer listings, the bank deposits. How will we ever get them straightened out?”

  “We’ll manage, Iris.”

  Iris didn’t listen. “Not to mention the books. How will we ever figure up the amount of taxes we owe? The IRS will be after us for sure. What’ll we do?”

  “I bet they have procedures set up for fires. Don’t worry, we’ll get through this.”

  “And our customers. How will they find us? We had a man come in Friday evening at closing. He was anxious to get you to do some of those pictures of his wife, but he’ll never be back now.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course he’ll come back. We’ll put out ads and let everyone know what happened. You have the studio credit card, so why don’t you call the newspapers and get started on that now? Let the radio stations know, too. When we get moved, we’ll do some more ads for our new location. Oh, and talk to our computer guy and ask him about file recovery from our backup. He’ll need to get started on that right away. And have him find you a laptop to work on at home for the time being.”

  After a long conversation in which Autumn alternately agonized and comforted and gave Iris instructions about calling the insurance companies and accountant, she put her phone down with a huge sigh of relief.

  Rennie, fresh from the shower and smelling of her soap despite wearing yesterday’s corduroys and sweater, handed her a steaming cup of coffee. “Sounds like she’s taking it hard.”

  “I’ve got to keep her busy. Otherwise she’s going to worry herself to death. And me along with her.”

  “You’d think it was her studio, the way she was carrying on.”

  “Iris has been there for years, since before my grandfather died. She’s a good person but she’s also a worrywart. Not that I care. I don’t care about anything today. I feel wonderful.”

  Even her appointment with the arson investigator didn’t bother her. Not after the past night.

  After she bathed and dressed, she and Rennie drove to the Degardoveras so he could change clothes.

  Good thing no one was there to remark on her high spirits.

  The place was welcoming in its clutter: an afghan on the sofa pushed back where someone had been lying to watch TV, a newspaper scattered around an easy chair, jackets thrown over chairs. The Degardoveras lived in a home, not a decorator’s dream like her aunt and uncle. She’d fled to them when things at her house got too bad. Their chaos still comforted her.

  She plucked a magazine off the pile on the floor and thumbed through it till he came out fastening a cuff on his button-down shirt. After he tucked the tails into his jeans, she stood. “Ready for the lions’ den?”

  His usual sidelong smile seemed abstracted. “It won’t be that bad.”

  “No.” Not with him beside her.

  He shrugged into his down jacket, pulled out his car keys, took a deep breath. “Ready?”

  “Rennie, is something bothering you?”

  “Not a thing.”

  Too shy to delve, she dropped it.

  Maybe he was tired. She certainly was. Tired and sore.

  That brought on a pleasurable frisson from reliving last night and this morning. The reasons why she was so tired and sore.

  Downtown, Captain Cunningham of the Arson Squad waited for them. A petite round-faced woman with cornrows and eyes as brown as Rennie’s, the captain exuded a no-nonsense air.

  “I appreciate your calling and coming by so promptly.” She looked across a cluttered desk at Autumn and Rennie while a portrait of Georgia’s current governor beamed down at them from over her shoulder. “Is this your lawyer, Ms. Merriwell?”

  “My lawyer?” Autumn caught herself. “No. A friend.” She introduced Rennie and waited.

  Captain Cunningham was business-like. “As I understand it, Ms. Merriwell, you left for Helen Friday evening. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  Under patient prodding, Autumn told her story. The captain heard it out in its entirety before getting down to detailed questioning that included pinpointing the time Autumn and Rennie had left Atlanta Friday afternoon.

  At length, she sat back in her chair. “This was definitely arson, Ms. Merriwell. The ashes aren’t yet cool enough for us to dig around in depth, but it was obvious from the way the file cabinets were left open and the different points of combustion.”

  Rennie, quiet in the background, spoke up, “I think you ought to know that someone tried to stab Autumn Saturday night. And a woman wearing a jacket like hers was murdered at the cabin next to the one we were staying at in Helen. I’m afraid all this, including the fire, may be connected.”

  Captain Cunningham’s eyes popped. She sat up straight. “What?”

  Autumn caught his sleeve. “Rennie, we don’t know that what happened in Helen has anything to do with the fire.”

  But she wasn’t sure.

  The captain took a deep breath. “Tell me about it.”

  So Autumn had to go into more particulars about the Helen trip.

  When she finished, Captain Cunningham turned from the computer where she’d been taking notes and frowned. “It does seem a bit coincidental, doesn’t it, Ms. Merriwell? The personal attacks on you after your studio was set afire Friday night. You don’t know of any enemies you might have?”

  Autumn shook her head. “No.”

  “No old husbands or boyfriends?”

  “No.”

  The captain cocked her head to one side in mild disbelief. “And no idea why someone would want to hurt you or destroy your property?”

  “No. There’s no reason anyone would hate me that much.”

  No reason at all.

  ****

  By midmorning, long after Autumn and Rennie had got up from their well-used bed and left for the arson investigator’s office, Sam Bogatti was recovering from his small plane ride.

  A nail-biting trip, but with the help of his stress exercises, he’d survived. Even the airsickness was going away.

  This was shitty, coming back to stinking Hotlanta.

  After stowing his working bag in the back seat of a nondescript rental car, he got in, still steaming but trying to control it. He couldn’t let resentment get to him. That was what got you caught, being so mad and uptight you forgot to think.

  Finding a busy shopping center en route, he took less than five minutes to switch license tag plates. Soon his rental car blended into the many vehicles clogging Atlanta’s expressways as he headed across town toward Autumn Merriwell’s condominium.

  After he broke open a fresh pack of Juicy Fruit gum, he rolled up a piece but didn’t stuff it in his mouth right away.

  Bad vibes. This whole deal shouted screw-up. He better be extra careful.

  This was the last time he’d take on a job without knowing everything. Like who was behind the contract and why.

  ****

  As Rennie drove his Lexus toward Gus Huertole’s campaign headquarters, Autumn tried to forget her interview with the arson investigator. The captain had been nice enough, but her skepticism showed. The way she said, “Um hum,” and the way she sighed and tossed a pen down. Her upraised brows.

  A car full of elderly people pulled up beside the Lexus at a red light, laughing uproariously.

  Nice someone was enjoying themselves.

  She bit a nail. “Captain Cunningham believes I set the fire to collect the insurance.”

  “Forget her.” Rennie touched her thigh. “She isn’t worth wrinkling that pretty brow over.”

  “You heard her asking for the information of my insurance company. And with you bringing up all that stuff that happened in Helen, she probably thinks you’re in some kind of scam with me.”

  “Autumn, don’t. If she does suspect you of anything, it won’t take long to prove she’s wrong. Don’t worry about her.”

  He was right. What difference would worrying make?

>   Rennie loved her. After all these years, he’d said he loved her. Even if she’d had to push him, he’d said it.

  And he knew she wasn’t an arsonist, so whatever anyone else thought didn’t matter.

  She reached across the console and took his hand, comforted by his answering squeeze. She was so happy she even hummed along with the radio.

  The country station updated traffic information every few minutes so they were among the first people in Atlanta to hear about Sarita Sartowe’s death.

  Her mouth dropped.

  No, he didn’t say Sarita Sartowe. Can’t be.

  Rennie reached for the radio, turning up the volume.

  “—and police are treating it as a homicide. Again, breaking news. Sarita Sartowe’s body was found in her family’s northeast Atlanta mansion this morning. We’ll cut into our programming for more bulletins as they come in.”

  Rennie pulled over to a side street and found a place to pull out of the traffic. “Did he say homicide?”

  They looked at each other in stunned disbelief.

  A riot of images raced through Autumn’s mind.

  Sarita, giggling as she thumbed through the proofs, dancing around the living room, telling Autumn she absolutely positively had to do her concert promotion photos and wouldn’t she please please please consider moving out to LA.

  Rennie broke in on the disjointed memories. “It’s got to be connected. Everything that’s happened. You and Sarita and everything else. There’s got to be some connection, Autumn.”

  He sounded far away, like a stranger.

  Sarita’s photographs would have made the studio’s reputation, her reputation. But Sarita was dead and there would be no photographs.

  This is not a time to be thinking of yourself.

  Dead. Sarita was dead.

  ****

  “Autumn.” Rennie gripped Autumn’s shoulder and willed her to look at him. When she did, he saw she hadn’t heard a word he’d said.

  Trusting. She was too trusting. Too naïve.

  “Rennie, how can Sarita be dead? I saw her Friday and she was fine, she was—”

  “Autumn, it’s connected.” Cold balled up in his stomach. “The fire, Kiki’s murder, someone trying to knife you. It’s all connected to Sarita. It has to be.”

  Autumn still wasn’t listening. “I took her the proofs and she looked at them and loved them. She was so happy with them and me. She was going to use them for publicity and she said I could choose my customers, that they’d line up at my door. She danced all over the room after she saw them. She was like a kid. Oh Rennie, she was so alive. Who would have done such a thing? Everyone admired Sarita.”

  “Not everyone,” he muttered.

  Autumn didn’t hear.

  Her outer coat of toughness was gone. Her soul was as fragile as he’d suspected. If the police locked onto that vulnerability, they’d split her wide open and leave nothing but the frightened child who’d never trust anyone again.

  He had to protect her.

  “Autumn, listen to me. We have to make plans. We may have suspected something was wrong before, but now we know. And you’re in the center somehow.”

  She started to shake her head.

  “Autumn!”

  She stiffened. A magician’s hand might have slipped across her, transforming her, calming her. And something else.

  Wary. She was wary of him.

  The face of his princess. Set against him.

  He’d known it would happen.

  “Rennie, do you think I had anything to do with Sarita’s murder?”

  “What? Of course not.” He took both her hands. They were freezing. “But her murder must have something to do with the other stuff that’s been happening. There’s nothing else to explain it.”

  She started to protest but he tightened his grip. “Be honest. If your butt pack hadn’t been in the way, whatever slit it would have slit you.”

  She shrank back.

  He held onto her. “Don’t turn away from me, Autumn. This is serious. Kiki Ballencer was murdered. Wearing a jacket like yours. Don’t you see? It’s all tied together with Sarita. Now Sarita’s dead, too.”

  “But why? Sarita was fine when I left her. She was so sweet to me. So happy. And she was so pleased with the proofs. She was like a little girl.”

  “The proofs.” Rennie had forgotten them. “Autumn, the police will see the proofs, realize you were with Sarita Friday. You have to talk to them.”

  “The police?” She tugged at her hands. “I don’t want to. They already think I set the fire.”

  He tightened his grip. “I don’t want you to have to talk to them either.” For his own selfish reasons. “But you have to. The fire’s part of it, too. It has to be. This will make them see you had nothing to do with any of this.”

  But that wasn’t true. Someone was trying to implicate her. Or kill her. Because of Sarita.

  Francisco. Had his brother met Sarita in the last few weeks? Had he seen her here in Atlanta?

  No. Francisco had more sense than to hang around a woman who’d made it plain she was through with him.

  But Francisco and Sarita. He’d never seen Francisco so obsessed about any woman.

  Autumn wet her lips. “I don’t want to get involved.”

  “I don’t think you have a choice.”

  “I’m afraid, Rennie.”

  He started to reassure her but couldn’t.

  “So am I.” For his brother; no one could tell what Francisco might have done if he was somehow involved, if he’d lost his temper. And for himself.

  Once the police started sifting through Sarita’s background, the ugly details of his involvement would all come out. Autumn would have to know. He ought to confess. Before…

  He couldn’t. Not now. “I’m afraid, too, Autumn. But you’ve got to go to the police. Sooner or later they’ll see the proofs and be suspicious if you don’t tell them.”

  “All right.” She pulled away but covered her eyes. “You’re right. I see that now. I can’t think straight.”

  “We’ll start with Captain Cunningham. She should be able to advise us.” He cranked the Lexus and started back the way they had come.

  Francisco couldn’t be mixed up in Sarita’s murder.

  “What about the necklace and other jewelry?” Autumn asked after they rode a few minutes.

  The jewelry. Autumn thought the jewelry in Sarita’s photos had come from the exhibit.

  Francisco was close to the Huertoles. Could he have somehow gotten it and given it to Sarita?

  No. Sarita had dropped Francisco months ago. He might have seen her again, but he wouldn’t risk his job and reputation by borrowing museum jewelry. Even if he could. Not for Sarita. Not after the malicious way she’d discarded him.

  And even if Francisco could have gotten the jewelry, if he’d seen Sarita while she was in Atlanta and she’d talked him into loaning her the jewelry, did that explain the accident to Autumn? Or Kiki’s death and the studio fire? What did they have to do with Sarita?

  Francisco would never hurt Autumn.

  No, his brother couldn’t be mixed up in any of this.

  “Rennie?”

  She was waiting for an answer. What had she asked? The jewelry. “What about it?”

  “You know. I told you it looked like that in the exhibition. Do you suppose it’s connected to the fire and what happened in Helen?”

  “I don’t know.” He needed to talk to Francisco. He could tell if Fran was implicated in whatever was going on by talking to him, questioning him, watching him. His brother had never been able to lie without a shift of the eye, a twitch of his lip.

  But surely Francisco wouldn’t have put Autumn in danger. And he couldn’t have had any part in borrowing—stealing—priceless jewelry for Sarita. Fran was reckless, but not suicidal.

  No, he had to be wrong about his brother fitting into this mess. “The jewelry could be replicas. We don’t know that it’s the same stuff.”


  “I have the thumb drive. We could make some more prints and compare the pieces.”

  “We could.” The more he considered, the more he believed the jewelry must be a part of whatever was going on.

  That brought it back to Francisco. He was close to the Huertoles and had once been Sarita’s lover. Could he have hoped to win her back with the jewelry? If so, it had to be without Danielle Huertole’s approval or knowledge.

  How could Francisco have been so foolish?

  But now the jewelry was back where it belonged. That TV interview last night proved it. And Sarita was dead.

  Rennie didn’t like what he was thinking.

  Francisco was impulsive, given to rash acts later regretted. And Sarita had driven him wild. He had worshiped her.

  The Degardoveras didn’t know about Francisco and Sarita.

  Their mother had jumped on Rennie when he dated her in high school. Fran wouldn’t have dared let Reseda know how involved he was with a woman she despised.

  But Francisco had been seriously depressed when Sarita dumped him. If he’d thought the jewelry might get her back, would he have risked everything to reclaim her?

  No. Impossible.

  Rennie would have to confront Francisco. Alone.

  As soon as Autumn talked to Captain Cunningham.

  ****

  Getting into the gated condo complex was a piece of cake. A small car entered, and Sam followed it in.

  When he found the photographer’s condo number, he parked up the street and looked around. There weren’t too many nosy people around these places because most people worked weekdays. The few he saw today seemed engrossed in their own affairs.

  Like they should be. Everybody ought to mind their own business. Make the whole world a lot easier to live in.

  He got out a new stick of gum. Then he unzipped his bag and pulled out the Ruger and its silencer.

  It was messy and loud. But it was also quick and easy.

  Final.

  Okay, if she answered the door, he’d pop her and push her inside before anyone saw. If she was gone, he’d get in through the garage door and wait.

  Drawing on latex gloves, he fiddled in his bag for the garage door code gadget. Then he screwed the silencer on his gun, hid it beneath his coat, and left the car.

  He ambled down the empty sidewalk toward Autumn Merriwell’s condo. The gum helped his dry mouth.