by Roslyn Woods
The Point of Death
An Austin, Texas Art Mystery
Roslyn Woods
Contents
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
About the Author
Also by Roslyn Woods
Copyright © 2015 Roslyn Woods
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Contact Roslyn Woods: authorroslynwoods.com
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Chapter 1
From the tiny front porch on East 2nd Street, Margie could see that the neighborhood had come to life during the last hour. A city bus rolled by, spewing its exhaust as it went, temporarily filling the air with the caustic aroma of burnt oil. She could hear the squeaking brakes as it stopped at the corner to pick up a line of UT students with backpacks. Margie noticed that only one of the young people carried an umbrella. The rest are optimists, she thought. She was pretty sure it was going to rain today.
She glanced at her watch after putting the last box of Jeremy’s things on the porch. It was 8:10, and it had taken her, almost to the minute, one hour to pack up his stuff. She went back through the small home’s front door and pulled out a garbage bag filled with clothes and leaned it up against the last box. How had he managed to put so much stuff in her house in such a short time? He had only moved in two months earlier.
“One more thing, Tabitha,” Margie said to the little dog that kept showing up at her front door and was now sitting at her feet. She carefully stepped over the thin, scruffy creature and went back into the house. In a minute she came out with a large, painted canvas. The image was mostly made from thick, white paint and depicted something that looked a tad like birch trees. Short bits of wood seemed to be jammed into the paint along what might be tree trunks. The bottom right corner of the canvas had an autograph boldly scrawled there: Jeremy Bird.
The twenty-four year old woman with the long, copper curls dusted her hands on her jeans and looked at the dog again. “Now he’ll know I meant it.”
She went back into the house for another couple of minutes and came back with a dish of water and a saucer with bits of meat on it for the dog, wondering if she was making a mistake by feeding her. And giving her a name. That might be a mistake, too, she thought. It had occurred to her that the dog might belong to someone in the neighborhood, but if it did, it sure spent a lot of time on her own front porch, and Margie had been worrying about it.
“There you go,” she said, bending down to put the dish near the two chairs on the other side of the boxes. The elfin critter wagged her tail and immediately began wolfing down the food. “What am I going to do with you, and what is wrong with your family that they leave you to fend for yourself like this?” Margie asked. The dog had taken to sleeping on her porch on the blanket Margie had put out there in case she showed up, and last night it had been all she could do to keep from bringing her into the house.
Margie went back inside and closed the blue door. She turned the deadbolt before heading back into her kitchen and washing her hands at the sink. Symbolic, she thought as her mind returned to the subject of her breakup with Jeremy. Now I’m going to bake a cake.
When things weren’t going well, Margie always wanted to make a cake. She had been making a lot of cakes lately. Today she pictured a lemon cake with a cream cheese icing and candied violets. She thought she would have Shell come over, and she’d make a pot of really good, rich coffee. Viennese or Sumatra. They could eat the whole cake if they wanted to, and they could talk about men and just exactly what was wrong with them.
There was something about baking that relaxed Margie, reassured her that she didn’t need Jeremy with his aloof manner and his secretive ways. She could get lost in baking the way Shell got lost in painting, and she sometimes wondered if it wouldn’t be better to just forget men altogether and spend her time making pastries.
Margie put the butter in a bowl and popped it in the microwave to soften. She got flour and sugar from the pantry and was just taking the eggs from the fridge when her phone rang. It was Shell.
“Hey,” she said. “I was going to call you in a few.”
“Yeah?” her friend asked. “How’s it going?”
Margie could hear the concern in Shell’s voice. She was worrying about her and how she was managing with Jeremy today.
“It’s great,” she answered. “I’m pretty much done. If he comes home tonight, he’ll find his stuff on the porch and the locks changed.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yup. I already called the lock and key guy. He should be here in an hour or so.”
“Is that necessary? Changing the locks?”
“Maybe. I don’t want to deal with Jeremy anymore.”
“Wow. What made you decide?”
“I’ve been trying to get him to move out for a while, but the final straw is kind of embarrassing. We can talk about it later. Right now, I’m making lemon cake. You got time to come over before your class?”
“Actually, my class isn’t till two, but I have an appointment with Dr. Leone an hour early.”
“So you don’t have to go over there till one?”
“Right.”
“So can you come over?”
“I’m on my way, but I need some protein before I start in on cake. Should I pick something up for us?”
“No. I’ll make us some breakfast tacos, too.”
“Thanks.”
Margie had graduated from college two years earlier, and her relationship with Shell was the most dependable connection in her life. They had met at the beginning of their second year at the University of Texas, and they had hit it off immediately. If Margie thought about it truthfully, she would have to admit to herself that Shell had been a gift from the universe, a godsend. Margie’s mother had died a few months before they met, and the friendship that developed with Shell had been a great comfort to her. She didn’t know how she’d have gotten through that first year without her mom if Shell hadn’t come along.
As Margie zested a lemon for the cake, her mind went back over an early conversation. She had just learned that Shell had lost her father when she was seventeen, and their mutual losses were a point of bonding for the two of them.
“So you’re really Michelle, but you
go by Shell. Is that right?”
“Yep. I’ve hardly ever been called Michelle.”
“You don’t like it?”
“I like it fine, I just don’t identify with it much. I’ve always been called Shell,” she had said. “I don’t have a lot of family, so there haven’t been many folks to come up with variations. What about your family? Where do they live?”
“What family? You know I lost my mom, but my dad died when I was ten. My half-brother lives in California. We’re not close.”
“Why not?” Shell had asked.
“I think our mothers were jealous of each other.”
“Same dad. I get it. But that’s not your fault.”
“I don’t think my brother blames me. We were just never close. There’s a pretty big age difference. But he did give me my name.”
“‘Margie’?”
“Yeah. I guess everybody called me Margaret after I was born. On one of the joint custody visits—he’s ten years older, so he was probably twelve—he started calling me Margie and it stuck.”
“I like the soft G. I’ve heard Margaret shortened to Margie only with a hard G.”
“They should probably have taught me to spell it with a J, but they didn’t. I don’t know why it stuck. My dad told me Dean called me Margie because he thought I was too little and cute to have a name that was big.”
“That’s sweet.”
“Yeah. I wish—I wish he was part of my life now. He seems like he’s a very nice man. But who knows?”
“You ever hear from him?”
“He flew to Texas to be with me at my mom’s funeral. And he insisted on paying for the service and everything associated with it.”
“That was a nice gesture.”
“Yeah. It was kind of him. I didn’t have a lot of money, and I was worried about having enough for school this year, so it helped a lot. He told me to get in touch with him if I ever need anything. He even said he’d like to help me with school, but I guess I feel shy about it. I don’t want to call and say, ‘Gee, could you pay a few of my bills?’ I want to call him because he’s my brother and we love each other, you know?”
“Sort of. I don’t have siblings, so I don’t know what that would be like. I’d like to have a brother like that.”
“I’ve always wanted a sister, too.”
“Me, too.”
“Margie,” said Shell, once she was seated at the table in the tiny kitchen in the house on east 2nd Street, “you’re not doing as well as your upbeat attitude implies.”
Here it was, a Tuesday, one of Margie’s two days off from working at the bakery this week, and she was standing there in her jeans and lavender blouse with a blue, ruffled apron tied around her neck and back. True, she made a pretty picture with her long red curls tied in a low bow at the back of her neck, but she was baking.
“Why do you say that?” Margie asked, putting two cake pans in the oven and setting the timer.
She stood up and rubbed her hands on the apron that was draped over her, and Shell smiled sympathetically before she answered. “You always start baking sweets when you’re not feeling happy.”
“I always bake sweets, happy or not,” her friend argued.
“But not to the exclusion of real food,” Shell replied, pushing a long lock of ash-blond hair over her shoulder. “When you’re happy you make meals. Besides, you make sweets at the bakery. You don’t need to be doing it on your days off, too.”
“I know, I know. I’m too curvy as it is, and I just start craving sugar and—I don’t know—I’m hating Jeremy right now,” she said, seating herself across from Shell whose large blue-green eyes searched her face.
“You’re not too curvy!” Shell said as she turned and looked through the window at the boxes on the front porch.
“Well, I wish I was as slim as you are. Why do you dress so cute when you’re going to paint?”
“I’m wearing my painting jeans. If you look closely you’ll see paint spatter in a few places. Besides, once we get to class, we all put on smocks.”
“But those darling cowboy boots! You’ve really adopted Austin!”
“Well, I probably shouldn’t be wearing them, but it looks like rain,” she said. Somehow Margie had changed the subject, and Shell wanted to get back to it. “What did Jeremy do, anyway?” she asked.
“He’s seeing somebody else and lying about it,” Margie answered, jumping up as if she’d suddenly remembered something. She turned her back to Shell and started whisking the eggs she had already cracked into a bowl with some diced jalapeños and a splash of milk. It was hard to tell if she was hiding tears or embarrassment. “Look at me! I’m making real food,” she said.
“How do you know, and when did you find out?” Shell asked, ignoring her comment while getting up and going to the cupboard to get a plate for heating tortillas. “How do you know he’s seeing someone else?”
“Lipstick on his collar. Like I said, embarrassing! I sort of knew, and I was trying to convince him to move out last night and again this morning before he left. I didn’t feel right about him. Anyway, I thought I’d do a load of wash this morning. That’s when I found the lipstick. I texted him and told him I was moving him out myself, but he never responded. He’s probably busy with his new girlfriend—”
“Well, that’s just trashy!” Shell interrupted. “I’m glad you’re dumping him! As long as we’re on the subject, I quit liking him at about day two. He’s never appreciated you.”
Margie turned and looked at her friend before she spoke. “If I’m really honest, Shell, I never appreciated him either. It seemed like such a good idea to be with this guy who acted like he adored me, but once he moved in—and I mean right away—I knew it was a mistake. I felt that way about Rod too, and I mean right after we were married. It’s like there’s something wrong with me and I just can’t really love anybody.”
“I think it’s just really hard to find the right guy,” Shell said.
“What about you and Patrick?”
“He appreciated me, but there was no spark. And he’s not completely out of the picture. He’s not letting go very easily.”
“At least you had the sense to tell him he couldn’t move in with you from the start,” Margie said.
“If you can call it sense to keep dating somebody you’ve got no attraction to,” Shell answered.
“Still,” said Margie, “you’ve got to admit, he’s at least a very nice guy. I think there’s something wrong with Jeremy. Sometimes he gives me the creeps. Anyway, I’ve been sleeping on the couch for weeks.”
“How many weeks?”
“I don’t know. Six.”
“Oh for God’s sake, Margie! He’s only been here two months!”
“I know. I really picked a winner this time. At least Patrick is nice.”
“Yeah, he’s nice. But there isn’t any future in it,” said Shell.
Margie nodded and smiled ruefully. “All I can say is, I’m through for a very long time. No more relationships till I’ve got my life the way I want it. I’d like to take a vacation. Just you and me. We could go to Cancun and drink margaritas for days on end. Think how great it would be to not have to deal with men for a while.”
“Sounds delightful, but you forget, I’m in a master’s program, and the painting classes I take at the co-op are really important to me. Dr. Leone is an amazing painter, and she’s teaching me more about painting than any teacher I had in my art major. But maybe we could go this summer before my mom comes to Austin.”
“I guess. I still don’t get why your master’s is going to be in art history. All you want to do is paint.”
“I love it all, Margie. Everything to do with art fascinates me. Art history makes sense, and it’ll prepare me for a career.”
“I know, I just think your career is about your own painting, not the paintings of dead artists.”
Shell shrugged. “I like it.”
“And you like this teacher.”
“Dr. Leon
e? She’s just great. I wish you could have come to the gallery opening at the co-op. You could have met her.”
“I know. I was making a wedding cake at the bakery that night,” Margie remembered. “What’s she like?”
“Well, first and foremost, she’s a really good painter, and she’s generous with her ideas. Oh! And she’s really nice-looking and a snappy dresser. It’s kind of unusual for an art teacher at UT not to dress in the Bohemian art teacher uniform.”
“Big crazy earrings? Wild, crazy gray hair? Frumpy broom skirts?”
“Yeah, and Earth shoes! That’s the uniform. She’s pretty young—I’d guess only thirty-seven or eight—and very stylish! I would call her an iconic Italian beauty. Oh, and she’s super friendly. A breath of fresh air in the department.”
“Well, I’ll probably meet her sometime,” she said. “And, speaking of meeting people, when’s your mom coming to Austin?”
Shell could tell Margie was avoiding any more talk about Jeremy, and she decided to let that conversation go.
“July. She’s renting out the Sacramento house in June, putting all our stuff in storage, and moving here. I’m really looking forward to it.”
“I know. I envy you. Maybe she’ll adopt me.”
“She will. She’s going to be missing her cute first graders. She’ll have to make do with you and me!”
Margie thought her own mother’s death had left her a vague residue of anger. She faced life with a sort of edginess, not tolerating a lot from other people, and even though she had a lot of friends, the circle of people she cared about and felt close to was small. When she had eloped a semester before graduating from college, her friend Shell had known it was a mistake. And when the marriage fell apart in just under a year, Margie was thankful that Shell kept her mouth shut about it. She wasn’t the kind of friend to say I told you so. She just showed up and helped her pack.
“Oh my goodness!” Shell said, looking out the window onto the porch again. “Have you got a dog?”
“Not really. Well, maybe. I started calling her ‘Tabitha.’ I don’t know who she belongs to, and she keeps showing up here, but if she does belong to somebody, they’re not taking very good care of her, and it makes me very angry. She’s running wild in the neighborhood, and she doesn’t even have a collar. I can’t stand the idea that she’s hungry,” she answered.
