Trophies

by J. Gunnar Grey

  Patricia slowed me with a hand and lowered her voice. "I couldn't leave her there, sitting in that hallway wondering if her brother's going to live or die, and wishing there was something she could do about it."

  I sensed a certain amount of projection here — those sounded more like Patricia's emotions than Lindsay's hospital-corridor ennui — but I let that part pass. After the bluntness of William's rejection, my own eyes were narrowed with resentment and anger. I didn't wish to meet any more of his family and was in no mood for babysitting. "You need to have a brood of your own."

  I suppose my voice wasn't as low as I'd intended, because in addition to Patricia's glare I also received looks from Sherlock and Lindsay. And there was nothing of resignation in Lindsay's pose now. She paused, one foot inside the car and just starting to duck. "Sit back here with me. You and I are going to talk."

  Sherlock coughed but kept a remarkably straight face. There had to be something I could say to convince him family squabbles were out of his bounds, and almost felt ready for that particular discussion, no matter what it entailed.

  "Oh," Patty said. "That's right. You haven't met Lindsay before, either, have you?"

  Lindsay never blinked. Her cool, green-eyed stare was long enough to be both insolent and a warning. Beneath my anger, I felt a stirring of interest and respect. Before I gathered my wits, she ducked into the back and scooted over. I considered several responses, glanced at Patty's dimple, and got in. Under certain combat situations — and this was starting to feel remarkably like a shooting war — the only action one could intelligently take was to wait until conditions improved.

  But even in a defensive posture, covering fire was necessary. I glared at Lindsay. "What do you mean, talk?"

  Car doors slammed all around.

  "I want to know why we've never met before," she said.

  Seatbelts clicked.

  "Why is this an issue?"

  "You're supposed to know your family." She raised her voice over the initial roar of the engine.

  "I never—"

  "You're not supposed to ignore us."

  "You may as well own up, Charles," Patricia said over her shoulder.

  "Pause." I gave Lindsay the time-out signal. It felt like waving a white flag. "Boss, let's stop by the gallery. I never had the chance to speak with the owner last night and as Aunt Edith's heir, I'm responsible for the show now." Like it or not.

  "The gallery it is." Sherlock turned to Patricia. "Will you give me directions? I want those two left alone so they can sort this out." He glared over his shoulder at Lindsay and me. "And that means you'd better be on speaking terms by the time we get there, kids." He shook his head and shifted gears.

  As Sherlock drove from the hospital garage, Lindsay leaned toward me and lowered her voice. "So what's between you and Dad?"

  Out of nowhere, a fist flew at me. I knew it was a memory transformed into a hallucination even as I flinched and started raising my forearms to block. Thankfully, Sherlock wove around a slower driver at that moment and my reaction was camouflaged by the swerve even if my sudden inhalation wasn't.

  A full flashback at the hospital; hallucinations both there and here. My strangenesses were coming out for public perusal from several directions. Damn it, the shaking aftereffect of a one-second-long fight-or-flight impulse already rippled through me. I needed a time-out and didn't want to discuss William or our history, particularly not with his daughter who obviously had an attitude to match mine. For one explosive moment I wondered how rude I'd have to get to force her to back off.

  I turned on her, something ugly on the tip of my tongue, and stopped. Her face was inches from mine. There was neither malice nor fear in her expression. She asked a question; she wanted an answer. It was as simple as that. Besides, this felt like arguing with myself. What was there about second-borns in this family?

  I was beaten and I knew it. That didn't feel very good, either. I iced down the anger and adrenaline, and hunkered down beside her. "We fight."

  "Everyone fights."

  No, I suppose that wasn't much of an answer. "And last time we fought I lost really badly."

  "And that's the reason I never got to meet you before?" There wasn't a trace of sarcasm in her lowered voice.

  "Impala," Sherlock said.

  I looked askance at Lindsay. She looked back ditto.

  "I love it when you talk nonsense," Patricia said.

  "Last year's model, dark blue, nice clean ordinary sedan. Probably a rental. Just the driver. He's keeping three cars back, but he's concentrating on us, not his driving, so he stands out a mile."

  The world stilled around me, even though the traffic didn't.

  "We're being followed?" Lindsay asked me.

  "Seems so." And how we were going to deal with it, with the kid in the car, was a question. But at least the Impala, supposedly a replacement for the battered Suburban, was following us rather than stalking Caren at the house.

  "Why?"

  I shrugged and started to brush her off. But again I looked in her eyes and still found no fear there. "Because the man who murdered Aunt Edith and shot your brother still hasn't found what he's looking for."

  She nodded, wheels turning behind those oh-so-familiar green eyes. "What are we going to do about it?"

  During the remainder of the drive, I told her the entire abominable story. She never took her eyes off me. She asked intelligent questions — "Do they still make ammunition for that Browning?" — but otherwise didn't interrupt. By the time we arrived at the Carr Gallery, she and I were needling each other and I knew I was going to like this one, too. After all, what was between William and me wasn't her fault, either.

  While Sherlock pulled into a spot on the street, she eyed me again. "So why haven't I ever met you before?"

  Oh, yes, she was an Ellandun to the bone. "You know, people who never learn when to let up tend to die very young."

  On the gallery steps I couldn't stop myself from pausing and looking again at the little hidden spot beneath the plate glass window. No sign remained of the blood. But the image of Aunt Edith, grey and staring, her hair falling loose, one shoe kicked off, was as clear to me as if I hallucinated it, and I wasn't certain I didn't.

  "Something wrong?" Lindsay asked.

  Patty froze.

  I pointed with my chin. "She died right there."

  "Charles, you have to let that go." Patty started to turn away.

  But Sherlock stepped up beside me and peered over the railing at the spot. Although the image wasn't in his memory, it seemed he could see or sense her, too, or at least he didn't give me any such foolish instructions. His shoulder brushed mine as if to anchor me. Together we stared at the pristine sidewalk while my breathing slowed. Then he glanced at me, I nodded, and he pressed the doorbell.

  "Trés sold two last night," Lindsay said as the quiet cool of the gallery closed over us.

  Before the doors even opened, when the only people who had seen his work were his friends and relatives, the other two artists, and their friends and relatives. I paused in the entry and stared around. A line of his charcoals, the fascinating faces of people one might meet on the street, hung to the immediate left, and the brilliance of the lighting focused the eye upon them. Inviting alleyways opened off on either end of the line, promising more delights for those willing to step that way. It required a conscious thought to turn to the right, where a few freestanding displays covered less than a third of the floor space and only two large panels were immediately visible.

  The security guard closed and bolted the door behind us.

  "I knew the big oil sold," Patricia said, "but which other?"

  "Tequila Sunrise, the watercolor with the coral-reef colors."

  The one I wanted. Of course.

  Without commenting, I watched the others, wondering if they'd even notice the poor-relation side of the show. But not even Sherlock glanced right.

  "Damn." His eyebrows creased as he examined the charcoal port
rait of a young woman with spiky hair and speculating eyes. "You almost think you know these people, don't you?" He shot me a disbelieving look, as if there was no way I could be related to such an artist, and only then did his gaze stray to the other half of the room.

  For Sherlock not to notice his surroundings, the psychological draw had to be both subtle and deep. A warning bell sounded in the inner recesses of my mind; although it seemed unlikely, perhaps Prissy Carr and Aunt Edith had done their arranging too well. Was being slighted in an exhibition enough motivation for an artist to kill the show's sponsor?

  Sherlock paused, staring at me, his expression fading from curious to suspicious. Without asking questions, he eased to the far side of the ladies, bracketing them between us. He trusted my instincts enough to follow my lead, even though he couldn't possibly know what I was thinking. Perhaps my craziness hadn't made me useless, after all.

  Prissy met us by the rose pastels, her close-cropped blond hair higher than the tops of the picture frames although she wore flats with her cerise pantsuit. The jacket was unbuttoned and only a few swaths of cream-colored silk, draped here and there across her front, protected her from charges of indecent exposure. A huge emerald-cut heliotrope, set in gold filigree, graced her cleavage, and its twin flashed on her left hand. Aunt Edith had held her shows in Prissy's gallery for ten years now and I'd been in and out during all that time, but I'd never gotten used to her taste in clothing. Although I must admit, I liked to look.

  "Charles," she said, "how could you leave me last night when I needed you?"

  I kissed her cheek and she squeezed my arms.

  "Where were you hiding? I looked everywhere." It was a polite lie, of course.

  "Not in my office, you didn't." She shook me before releasing me. "Listen, buster, this is the most exciting show your sweet aunt and I ever put together — I have never seen any other artist's work fly off the walls like this — we've sold two more today, have you heard? — but I still have to fortify myself with Kentucky sour mash before opening. The least you could have done was sneak back there and keep me company while my life flashed before my eyes."

  In the past, Prissy had given me the eye more than once, and more than once I'd been tempted to sample that openly advertised merchandise. Then, each time, I listened to her posturing and wriggled away. There was no way I was going to put up with that all night long; no one was that good. For such a smart woman — and her gallery was a smashing success — Prissy could be a serious pain.

  "But you're here now." Maybe she'd noticed my sideways glance at the roses. "Charles, I am so sorry about Edith. That woman was a treasure. I can't believe she died right on my doorstep."

  I used her pause for air to introduce Sherlock and found unholy glee in the slight, fixed widening of his eyes. Quickly, he and Patricia excused themselves and disappeared behind the gem carvings. Lindsay showed no intention of leaving until Patty grabbed one arm and Sherlock the other. I sighed. It seemed I'd inherited a leech.

  "Prissy, how's the rest of the show going?" I took her arm and guided her toward the other half of the showroom. We stopped before the first big oil, which faced the entry but at such a distance no details were clear, only the blur of vibrant colors. "This is Danny Vasquez's work."

  Prissy straightened the big panel millimetrically. "I just knew his style would blend with Trés' and I was right."

  She was, too. Danny Vasquez painted flower gardens, but not as any gardener ever grew them. In the panel before us, a gazebo and fountain sprawled beside a wall, surrounded by rioting hydrangeas, azaleas, hibiscus, and foxgloves. Climbing roses encircled the gazebo and wisteria spilled over the bricks; underfoot, thyme and creeping phlox stalked the pond's edge. A chaise lounge waited beneath the gazebo's shade, beside it a table holding a pair of reading glasses, an overturned book, and a cut-glass decanter and snifter. One had to look closely to see the hidden animals, birds, butterflies, and smiling faces designed within the scene. I knew Danny spent hours imbedding those little motifs into each of his paintings, for each motif was as detailed and correct as the flowers. And his prices reflected the time he spent on each panel.

  "They do make a good combination," I said. "How's the show going for Danny?"

  She sighed. "He will do these big canvases that take forever to sell and require massive insurance policies in the meantime. I mean, if I ever have a fire, he's set for life. I won't take any more of them, Charles, I swear to you I won't do it, and I don't care how soulful those brown eyes look at me nor how good the work is. And this one, oh, believe me, you could stand here for the rest of your life and not find all the little gizmos he's hidden in there. It's wonderful." She faced me squarely. "He's worried."

  Not a surprise, that. "As to what he'll do without Aunt Edith?"

  "Exactly. And he should be. I mean, as good as he is, people aren't falling all over themselves to invest in these big scenes of his. Now, if he'd listened to Edith years ago and done a lot of little ones with running motifs, roses here, gazebos there, some with fountains, some with hydrangeas — you get the idea, don't you? I could sell that and he would never have to teach another hopeless art student. Now, I don't know what he's going to do and neither does he."

  I glanced around at his other panels, all smaller ones but just as richly detailed. There were fewer than a dozen paintings in his little corner of the show. "Usually he gets more room, doesn't he?"

  Prissy nodded. "Much more. And Charles, was he ever unhappy about that. I must have explained to him a hundred times, this is really an introduction for Trés and Danny should be happy he got any room at all. If Edith hadn't been concerned that no one would bother reviewing a show for a seventeen-year-old greenhorn, well, Danny wouldn't be here. You know, I hate saying something like this about a grown man, but I do believe he was jealous of all the attention Edith gave to Trés."

  "Was he here last night? I didn't see him."

  "Oh, yes, he was here, and he told me you didn't visit with him either." She gave me a crinkly look from the corner of her eye. "That's how I know you didn't look very hard for me. I have my spies. I know you yelled and left in a huff."

  I let her comment slide and risked the question I wanted to ask. "And I suppose he was here late that night fussing over everything with Aunt Edith and Trés?"

  She snorted; there was no ladylike word to describe that sound. "Danny? After all the shows he's done here? He hangs the canvases and leaves. The pub's down the street and it calls his name." She eased me toward the last corner of the showroom, near the back and facing the area where the buffet tables had been. "Have you seen Sidnë's work? I think you'll like it, too." She paused a moment and lowered her voice considerably. "Whether you'll like Sidnë herself, well, that I can't say. She's a bit hard to take sometimes."

  The panel she guided me to was also an oil, almost as large as Danny's signature piece. In the lower right corner was a café scene with wrought iron table and chairs, a green-striped umbrella, and three young women leaning together over coffee and cake. One woman spoke; the other two listened. From the center of the table, as if from the words being spoken and heard, swept the image of a couple dancing at a formal ball. The dancing woman's gown swirled all around, framing and dominating the scene in opalescent blues and lavenders, but it was her face that interested me most. For it wasn't the face of the woman speaking, or at least not exactly; there was something in there of all the women, the speaker plus her two listeners. It was as if the story told by the one was taken in and adopted by the others as their own, too, and shared by them all.

  I glanced at the sign on the side. It was called — of course — We Could Have Danced All Night. The price was average, neither high nor low.

  "What do you think?" Prissy asked.

  "I like it," I said. "It's very sexy. Is all her stuff like this?"

  "Oh, she's a girl, Sidnë is. Lots of beautiful dresses, coffee klatches, manicures, hot tubs, things like that. Of course, you'd never guess it to look at her. But s
he's here, so I'll keep my voice down and when you meet her in a moment you can decide for yourself."

  I leaned close to whisper. "But I'm sure you're right."

  As if I'd flipped a switch, something in Prissy's face hardened. She jerked her head toward Trés' side of the showroom. I followed her past the displays, past the door to her show office, past another door that led into the building's central corridor, to the far side of the showroom, where we paused in front of the third and final door into the rear.

  "All right, something's bothering me," Prissy said, as if I'd wheedled it out of her. "Step back into my office with me, will you? I don't want to discuss this out here."

  I paused. "Am I safe?" After all, she was nearly as big as I.

  "With me, darling? Never." She fluttered her eyelashes at me. But she wasn't smiling.

  I made certain Sherlock saw us leave the showroom. Just in case.

  That third door, buried behind Trés' strategically displayed artwork, passed into a short corridor, with an open kitchen on one side and a small unisex bathroom on the other, and then into the warehouse, with rows of shelves on the right and the back service door to the mews straight ahead. But a path skirted the shelves, leading back across the building to a door on the warehouse's far wall which returned us to the central hallway. Numerous doors sprouted here and there off the corridor, one of which lead back to the showroom. But Prissy pushed through the door leading into her final rabbit-warren area, the offices.

  Her roundabout path circled most of the way around the building. Clearly she didn't want us to be seen or overheard by anyone working in that corner of the showroom, the one we'd have to pass to reach the door directly between the showroom and her office. Was this Sidnë such a major problem?

  In the back of the building, Prissy kept two offices, a fancy show office for meeting clients and artists, the other for what she called real work. It was this crowded cubbyhole, overflowing with files and papers and computer gadgetry, to which she led me now. She closed the door behind us, but when she turned to face me all flirt was gone.

  "Please be discreet with this," she said. "I overheard Sidnë and Edith arguing the night she was killed."