Lesson In Red

by Maria Hummel

  “I did,” I said.

  “And you were impressed by it.”

  When Janis had written to me yesterday, asking about the trip and inviting me to lunch, I had given her a brief summary of my impressions.

  “She had talent,” I said.

  “Talent,” Janis muttered. “Talent is like salmon eggs, Maggie. You mean you think she had the potential to do great work, but you aren’t sure.”

  I knew Janis’s combative tone was a test and not a judgment. “I mean she had real presence on-screen,” I clarified. “A magnetism. You can’t fake that. But it would all depend on what she did next.”

  She propped her head on the window, but her attention was still on my face. “You spend much time in galleries?”

  “I try to go down there once a week,” I said. “Dee and the crew do terrific work.”

  “Not our galleries,” she said. “Commercial galleries. Blum & Poe. LACE. You ever want to be a gallerina?”

  She said the last word, gallerina, with a slightly mocking tone. The term carried both the spite and the admiration that people (well, yes, including me) had for the beautiful, cool young women who often operated as gatekeepers to the upscale art showrooms.

  “Not really,” I said, puzzled. “I don’t do that well with rich people.”

  My voice crumpled as I realized my gaffe, but Janis chuckled. “No kidding,” she said, then held up her hand when I tried to apologize. Her driver sped down the hill and turned right on Olive, neatly threading past a man pushing an ice cream cart stickered with images of ice pops and cones. “I’ll let you hear everything from Ray first.”

  I kept myself from reacting at Ray’s name, but Janis had sunk into her seat, shutting her eyes. Without her stern, bright gaze, she looked older, frailer than fifty-three. The veins stood out in her neck and hands. It seemed unfair to observe her this way, stripped of her usual armor, and yet I had the odd feeling she wanted me to see it, her tiredness, and that this was a message, too.

  A few more blocks, and the corporate skyscrapers of Bunker Hill receded behind us. Janis would have been a young child when the city razed hundreds of the hill’s “blighted” Victorian mansions and relocated thousands of its residents to erect the face of L.A.’s new downtown. She would have come of age in the decades-long fiasco that followed: housing towers on the summit with sixty percent occupancy, while in the hill’s shadow the simultaneous demolition of Skid Row hotels and sharp increase of homeless Vietnam vets and the mentally ill led to the rise of permanent tent cities in the street. In her twenties, Janis had watched her father campaign to convert a former police-car garage into a contemporary art museum, and when he died young, she had carried on his vision and made it hers. She fought the late-eighties culture battles with the Rocque’s epic exhibition Indecency, showing every artist decried as “offensive” by a powerful U.S. senator. She paved the way for the country’s first major Chicano art retrospective, financed the nineties’ whimsical displays of dirty dinner dishes and sea creatures in formaldehyde, and led the Rocque into the twenty-first century with Still Lives. No wonder she was weary.

  Now the faded glamour of the old theater district sprang up around us. In the building’s first stories, red-and-yellow sale signs advertised knockoff watches and jewelry. Grand windows and porticos vaulted above them, blackened by smog and crusted with pigeon droppings. Yegina had told me these blocks were filled with illegal garment sweatshops, but if people really were working upstairs, they didn’t come near the dusty panes. The upper stories projected emptiness and ruin. The only life was at the street level: a pop-up Pentecostal church, vendors of cheap, glittering luxuries. A bridal and tuxedo store spilled to the sidewalk with poufy pastel shirts and dresses, but even it looked less vibrant than impulsive, as if the storefront could fold up tomorrow and disappear.

  Janis opened her eyes. “Dee wants a tux from that place,” she observed, staring out the window.

  “She’d look fantastic in one,” I said. With Dee’s choppy blond hair and lean form, she could pretty much wear any garment and make it seem cool and carefree. “Maybe for her show next week,” I added.

  Dee was in an “ethereal punk” band and had invited me and Yegina to their upcoming gig. I was pretty sure her style would outstrip her musical ability, and very sure that we would love it anyway. That was the Dee effect, and she still cast it, even through the hardship of keeping her crew together after they’d found out the whole story of Kim Lord’s death.

  “Maybe,” said Janis, brightening for the first time as she gazed at the tuxes. A gift for Dee. It was touching how much Janis liked being generous.

  The car slowed; we were outside Café Francesca. The restaurant occupied both floors of a narrow brick building where two streets arrowed together. Downstairs and upstairs patios extended in tiers, each girded by a delicate, white wrought-iron rail and shaded by red umbrellas. The food was delicious, and usually a little beyond my budget.

  Janis Rocque leaped out. “We’re late,” she said. I hurried after her upstairs through the creamy yellow rooms of the restaurant and out to the top deck, where couples were sitting, holding menus. It took me a moment to register one couple in particular: They sat at a four-top, talking intently. Ray’s back was to me, leaning forward in a navy button-down, but the instant we arrived, he twisted as if someone had called his name. His blue eyes caught mine, then looked away. The woman with him had black hair combed down to her shoulders and wore a pale purple suit that hugged her curves. Detective Alicia Ruiz had the same thick eyebrows and calm, receptive face, but she appeared different and, frankly, much lovelier than when I’d last seen her. New uniform? Or was this her day off?

  They both rose when they saw Janis. She motioned them down, pulled out a chair, and gestured for me to sit. I obeyed reluctantly, perching on the spindly, white metal seat pounded into the shape of grape clusters.

  “Here we are,” Janis announced, still standing. “I believe you both know Maggie Richter.”

  Ray and the detective exchanged a look, and the detective’s fist curled on the table, as if she were steeling herself to say something.

  “Nice to see you again,” Detective Ruiz said to me.

  I nodded. I had been expecting to see Ray, but not Ray and a police detective. Especially not this detective. I knew that she was sharp, and I also knew I had lied to her last spring during the Kim Lord case. Was this an actual criminal investigation? It couldn’t be. Police and journalists didn’t usually mix well—a police presence could threaten relationships with vulnerable sources, and journalists could make a PR nightmare for cops. “You look well,” I told her.

  Then I allowed myself a glance at Ray, who was wearing one of his blank courteous looks. The beard and cap were gone, and his brown hair had been cropped close to his head. He looked thinner somehow, more careworn. He rose and held out his hand, greeting me, his voice even, palm warm and dry, but when we touched, I saw tension jump in his face.

  “Maggie has generously agreed to come here without knowing very much about this affair,” Janis said, sitting down. “Ray and Alicia are here to give you the details and explain the legal parameters of what I want you to do.”

  What I want you to do. The ownership in that statement did not escape me. No other potential reporters had been vetted, I felt certain now, because Janis could not oversee them the way she intended to oversee me. And yet there was a heaviness in her tone that distracted me, as if beneath her usual clear directives some dark emotion was dragging at her.

  A waiter appeared at the table with an inquiring look. Detective Ruiz checked her watch. “Water’s fine,” she muttered.

  “Let’s order everything now. We need to eat,” commanded Janis. “Croque Monsieur is ham and cheese. Madame adds an egg.” She tapped at Ray’s menu. “Madame is too rich if you ask me. But you do what you want.”

  “Sounds great,” Ray said to Janis. “You choose for me.” He handed her his menu.

  Detective Ruiz rubbed her f
orehead with a manicured finger. “Why don’t you order for all of us. If that’s okay with Maggie,” she said, then added without waiting, “Light on the garlic; I’ve got meetings all afternoon.”

  I shrugged my agreement. There was some battle being waged, but I wasn’t going to engage with it until I understood what it was. Janis rattled off what sounded like seven courses, the waiter left, and a silence fell. The morning haze had burned off, and the patio was blinding. Across the street, a couple of mothers with small children entered a Pentecostal church, its red marquee letters blazing, JESUCRISTO ES EL SEÑOR.

  Janis began, “Let me first say that you would be paid well for your time, and that I can’t have any gossip about this, regardless. Not to anyone.”

  “I understand,” I said, and then my heart sank, though I didn’t know why. Janis gripped the table, as if momentarily unsteady, and then released it. She sighed.

  “You brought the DVD?” she asked Ray.

  He looked confused by her question but nodded.

  “Give it to me,” she said.

  She held up the silver disc in its sleeve, shining it at me.

  “For a variety of reasons, some quite alarming, I had to fire my personal assistant of ten years in July,” Janis said. “My new assistant found an entire closet full of mail that had never been touched, mostly pleas for my appearance at openings I could never attend. Among them was a package with this video and a note.” Janis paused. “Brenae Brasil sent it to me before she died.” She examined me. “You want to know why you’re here. I believe that something systemic is wrong with that school—something you’ll see on this video—and it led to Brenae Brasil’s suicide. I want that uncovered. The artist asked for my help, and I didn’t give it in time. I want to remedy that now, as best I can.”

  So many questions flew into my head, I didn’t know which one to pick. The odd mix of sympathy and frustration on Detective Ruiz’s face made me choose.

  “Brenae Brasil,” I repeated. “But her death was investigated already last spring. By you?” I asked the detective.

  “By LASD, not LAPD,” the detective said to me. “It happened in Valdivia, so it was a county job. But yes, it was thoroughly investigated.”

  “And there’s no doubt it was a suicide?”

  “There’s always doubt. But very little this time.” Her phone buzzed. She glanced at it and turned it off, stuffing it in her pocket. “First, I just want to interject, with all due respect to you, not knowing what the hell this is all about, that everything we say is confidential from here on out.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Except—”

  “Completely confidential,” the detective said again in a firm tone.

  “Got it,” I said.

  “In the early morning of March 13, Brenae took some sleeping pills, put a pillow over her head, and shot herself,” said the detective. “The college discovered her body when she didn’t show up for her job at the campus Super Shop. She was also off her depression medication, had been doing poorly in classes, and had recently lost her funding for her second year. There was a note on her laptop that said, Watch me.”

  “No funding for her second year,” I said. “Really?” According to Lynne’s introduction the other night, Brenae had come to LAAC on a full two-year scholarship. If Brenae had stayed on without her scholarship, she would have owed the school tens of thousands of dollars. If she’d left, no degree. It was a terrifying position to put a student in. Even a cruel one. “But I thought she was a star.”

  “She was at odds with the school,” said Janis. “As you’ll see.”

  “LASD knew there were two other films made by Brenae Brasil in the months before she died, both of which she submitted to Hal Giroux,” Detective Ruiz said to me, “but no copies have been found. Giroux denies ever possessing any. He says he watched them on her laptop in his office when they met about Brenae’s academic probation. There are no files of either on her hard drive. In fact, it appears that her laptop was tampered with after her death.”

  “This, we think, is one of the films,” said Janis.

  Ray inserted the disc into his open laptop and aimed the screen at me. It was hard to see the footage in the bright light. A title card said LESSON IN RED in bold white letters, and then a camera showed a couple on a mattress on a bare floor, a blanket covering them. The man was on top, and his rhythmic motions underneath the blanket suggested sex. The woman’s eyes, Brenae’s eyes, were blank, her mouth slack. The man’s head had been blurred out by editing, emphasizing the thrust of his hips. The blanket wrinkled and shuddered, slipping down, exposing one of Brenae’s breasts. A toneless female voice spoke over the images:

  He comes.

  He asks me.

  I say yes.

  What can I say?

  What will happen if I say no?

  Where will I go?

  The three questions repeated over and over, louder and louder, building like Ravel’s Boléro. As they did, a red tone crept over the scene, deepening and darkening until it blotted out the figures on the screen.

  Unlike the sensual and almost glamorous tone of Packing, this video was gritty, dull, and excruciating. Limbs and heads, the jolting rhythm of sex. A bad taste flooded my mouth. When I looked down at my hands, I saw that they were fisted, my thighs pressed tight together.

  “It’s horrifying to watch, isn’t it?” said Janis, her eyes on me. “Imagine making it. Showing it.”

  “I was,” I said.

  “It appears to be Brenae’s. Obviously, the footage includes her, and the voice matches hers as well,” the detective said. “Though anyone could have sent it to Janis.”

  “What did Hal Giroux say about it?” I asked.

  Janis’s voice was low, almost tender. “Maggie, it’s my belief that Brenae’s suicide may be tied to Hal Giroux himself,” she said. “That’s why this has to be done so carefully.”

  Hal Giroux. His name flowed like water through the history of the L.A. art world. He was the longtime director of the graduate program at LAAC, the launcher of dozens, maybe hundreds, of important careers. There was no love lost between him and Janis, but we showed his rising artists regularly at the Rocque.

  “Here’s the note that came with the artwork,” said Janis, holding out a photocopy of a handwritten letter, the letters tense and clear.

  Dear Ms. Rocque:

  I have long been an admirer of you and your museum, and it was such a pleasure to meet you at the Chavez opening. I would be honored to invite you to my studio, but my college has become a hostile environment for me. Please view this example of my work, and perhaps we could arrange to meet elsewhere. I desperately need your help, and hope you will reply soon.

  —Brenae Brasil

  “I honestly don’t remember meeting her,” muttered Janis. “Some of those East Side openings are like heat waves in a sardine can, and I greet strangers as a way of fleeing.”

  “How do we know it’s Brenae’s handwriting?” I asked.

  “It matches samples from her apartment,” said the detective.

  The last words in Brenae’s note sounded so vulnerable. “I wonder what help she wanted,” I said.

  “I have been wondering that, too, ever since the moment I read it,” said Janis.

  The sun had shifted again in the sky, falling on my end of the table like a brilliant wall.

  “But how do you think Hal Giroux was involved?” I blinked through the light at Ray.

  Instead of answering, he gestured to a waiter passing. “Can we move that umbrella over a little?”

  We all waited while the waiter dragged a second umbrella closer to us. Cool shade poured over me.

  “Someone deleted two files on her laptop after she died, judging by the medical examiner’s determined time of death,” he said. “In fact, not just deleted, but shredded. That means someone found her body and then made sure they got rid of this”—he held up the DVD—“and one other file. LASD ran into a dead end there, despite some rigorous attempts.�
��

  A gunshot in the heart of LAAC. Files shredded. A paltry memorial. The death and its response didn’t match up.

  “Out of curiosity,” I said, “what was Brenae wearing when she was found?”

  I saw the detective exchange looks with Ray.

  “She wasn’t wearing clothes,” the detective said reluctantly.

  “None?”

  “Not a stitch.”

  This surprised me, and then it didn’t.

  “Why do you ask?” said Ray, intent on me.

  “She grew up in a Luso-American farming community. Catholic and conservative,” I said. “Suicide is a violation of Catholic doctrine. To strip yourself naked, too—for a young woman, unmarried . . . I know this is the twenty-first century, but it’s still a huge statement.” Or maybe it wasn’t Brenae’s statement. It was someone else’s. Someone who wanted her not just dead but shamed as well.

  The detective shifted; she hadn’t expected me to come prepared.

  “Out of respect for the family,” she said, her words freighted with judgment, “we don’t always release details.”

  There it was. The battle between Alicia Ruiz and Janis: involving Ray meant that the investigation stayed an investigation, but involving me meant that it could become a public story. Open, exposing, and potentially out of control.

  “So what do you need me for?” I said.

  No one spoke up immediately, and in their silence I heard the clatter of the restaurant, the whoosh of cars passing below.

  “It’s a bit unusual,” said Janis. “Go ahead, Ray.”

  Ray seemed to hold a brief consultation with his knuckles, and then nodded.

  “Having a person on the inside can be an effective investigation strategy in sensitive communities,” he said. “People won’t let their guard down with known investigators, but the fact of an investigation often stirs them to talk to one another. An inside informant can glean a lot of information.” He paused. “Tomorrow Hal Giroux’s crew starts building his next show at the Westing Gallery. His crew—all four of them—are current or former LAAC students, and they were once close with Brenae. They may have insights into what went on at LAAC. I’ve approached them on Janis’s behalf, and they are willing to be interviewed. But meanwhile, we wanted to have someone observe them, too. Janis has worked out a deal with the Westing owner. For someone to work at the gallery and listen in. While they build Hal’s show.”