Groundwork for Murder

by Marilyn Baron

  “All it really needs is a mixture of cadmium yellow hue and white to make the right side of the cypress light up and sparkle. Like your eyes do when you paint.”

  Alex smiled. He was almost back to his old self, complimenting, flirting.

  “I’m never sure if it’s good enough or not. I keep second-guessing myself.”

  “Alexandra, Monet worked like a madman, sometimes on dozens of paintings at once, redoing and retrying. He was never satisfied with the outcome. When he finally showed his work, one day he would be happy with it and the next day he wouldn’t. At some point, when the painting found its place in the total effect of the series, Monet felt the painting was complete.”

  Alex desperately wanted to find her place in the series of her own life situation. Maybe it was a process she would never resolve. But being here with Nick, painting outside gave her a reason to get up in the morning. He made everything sound so easy.

  “Professore Anselmo, have you been there? Have you been to Giverny?”

  “Many times,” Nick answered. “Every artist should make the pilgrimage at least once, if for nothing else than for the beauty and the inspiration. His gardens come alive in his paintings. They are magnificent, much like your garden here.”

  “That’s flattering, Professore, but I’ve seen the pictures. I’m no Monet, and this is certainly not Giverny.”

  “Nick. You must call me Nick. After all, we’re friends, aren’t we?”

  Friends. It felt like more than that when he talked that way.

  Nick admired her backyard view and cast his arm toward the lagoon.

  “And this is your Giverny. That is what you must focus on. And you must never second-guess yourself. Always follow your instincts. If you’re stuck, at some point just move on to the next scene in the series and find a different light and mood to express the feelings of your cypress and yourself. And speaking of gardens, let’s talk about your herb garden. First, we need to select the herbs. What sort of herbs did you have in mind?”

  “Well, I thought maybe some oregano, rosemary, sage, tarragon, bay, and chives to start,” Alex said, “unless you have some additional selections in mind.”

  “Maybe some chamomile, Egyptian onions, lemon balm, and mint?” Nick suggested. “Chamomile fights stress, you know.”

  “That could come in handy.” She smiled, daring to look into his eyes for a moment. “I’ll go with whatever you say. You’re the expert.”

  Nick laughed. “Well, I would hardly call myself an expert. Mr. Reed went over everything with me at least a dozen times last night so I’d sound like I knew what I was talking about. I’m not the usual person they get to plant herb gardens, but he said you’d asked for me specifically.”

  Alex blushed.

  “Well, I—”

  “It’s okay. I’m glad you did. I could use the work, so thank you. Now, let’s talk about where to plant this garden. It needs to be a place with good sun, good drainage, and good soil.”

  “Well, I happen to have all three. I was thinking right near the lagoon, over here.” They walked the backyard together to select the right location, and Nick made some recommendations about designing the layout. The way he described the garden made it sound like a work of art.

  “I think you’re going to enjoy having an herb garden,” Nick said. “We had one when I was growing up in Italy. My mother was an excellent cook. She swore by fresh herbs. Your garden will improve your landscaping and your cooking. You can cook, can’t you?”

  Alex rolled her eyes. “That depends on who you’re talking to. I’m not exactly Julia Child.”

  “Well, your neighbors will be impressed anyway. Let me get what I need from the truck. I’ll be here most of the rest of today, and I’ll be working on it over the next few weeks.”

  “Talk about cooking, would you like me to fix you something to eat and drink? I made cookies again.”

  “Yes,” Nick said eagerly. “Thank you.”

  “I’ll set the food on the table out here, so it’ll be ready when you come back.”

  Alex went into the house to put together a nice snack tray and start something hearty for lunch. Nick was obviously hungry.

  ****

  Week after week, Alex executed another painting in her series. Nick continued to do her lawn and invariably worked his way over to her easel to offer advice and gently correct her mistakes. The more he guided her, the more her technique improved.

  He pointed out the likenesses and differences in Monet’s Houses of Parliament, London series. Alex brought out her old art history book from college, and they combed through the book together.

  “You see, Alexandra, Monet used the same size and viewpoint of the Palace of Westminster, yet he explored the differences in weather and time of day. In this one, Houses of Parliament, Effet de brouillard, it is foggy and gray and mysterious, and the water looks still. The Houses of Parliament, Sunset, has more peaches, oranges, and purples. The sky is more colorful, and the water has more movement.

  “Alexandra, bella, the sky is overcast in your painting. Nothing is defined or highlighted.”

  “How can I fix it?”

  “Make your beloved cypress the shining star,” Nick advised. “It should be brighter than the laurels behind it, so it will be the dominant image. As it is, there’s not enough contrast, and it just blends in. It’s inconspicuous. The eighty-foot pines in the background are not the focal point. But don’t be afraid to embrace the subtleties in the painting.”

  Alex wanted to do more than embrace the subtleties of her painting. She thrived like a sunflower on the attention and encouragement Nick showered upon her, attention she sorely needed. She enjoyed the French history lessons he threw in, but what she really wanted were French kissing lessons.

  Luckily, Nick couldn’t read her naughty thoughts or interpret the way she trembled when she looked at him, although sometimes he seemed to have an uncanny ability to look right through her and invade her mind like he had already invaded her heart.

  “Nick, sometimes I have trouble starting a painting,” Alex confessed. “It’s that first stroke of the brush, you know?”

  “Bella, think of it as a first kiss,” Nick said, standing next to her at the easel. “The brush is soft and full of wet paint waiting to make contact with the pure white canvas—like warm and willing lips, longing to explore yet hesitant to surrender. When the paint touches the canvas or the lips meet, they each land as softly as a feather floating through the air, searching for the perfect place to light. And when it finally happens, it’s a relief. A longing fulfilled.

  “After much contemplation, the first dab of paint is just one of many colors to follow, just as the dream of your first kiss is the start of many more to come,” Nick explained. “Neither can be duplicated in quite the same way.”

  Alex wondered if he was really talking about painting or if he was trying to seduce her. She wanted to kiss him at that very moment. But what if his intentions were only to instruct her and were nothing personal?

  “So Alex,” he continued, staring into her eyes, “the start of a painting, like the first kiss, is a commitment of sorts. You can’t take it back. It happens. You may try to change the image on the canvas or adjust the colors. You may try to rationalize the kiss, but in your mind and in your heart it is permanently etched, never to be forgotten.

  “As you allow the painting to develop, the brush will move freely across the canvas without hesitation. If you overthink it, it becomes overworked and the colors muddy. As with the lovers, the kisses grow more passionate and love develops over time. If they try to explain why they should be together, it will cloud their relationship. The paint and the canvas. The man and the woman. Each pairing a work in progress using only the inner spirit as a guide to either move the painting forward or realize the potential of true love.”

  Alex was once again captivated by Nick’s words and his passion for painting. He gave life to the kind of feelings Mark would never express, had never spok
en.

  She thought about how Nick had initially blended into her landscape, going unnoticed until she had discovered his identity. She wouldn’t have known him if she’d passed him in the street. No doubt she had.

  At first, he had been nothing more than just another tree, one of many blades of grass, a leaf on a palm, a ripple on the water. Now, in her eyes, he represented the mixture of cadmium yellow hue and white that added the sparkle on the side of the cypress, where the sun illuminated it on most mornings. He was the vision she saw when she drifted off to sleep at night and the first thing she saw when she woke up each morning—and she could think of nothing else.

  Chapter Ten

  Clandestine Art

  Alex looked forward to the weekly routine that had developed. She would leave a bag of groceries by the front doorstep, and on each successive visit, Nick would leave a new sketch, anchored by a conch shell. She had lined the shells up in her laundry room so she could look at them when she worked indoors. She regularly picked up each shell in turn to admire its lovely shape, listen to the sound of the ocean, and breathe in the fresh scent of the sea.

  In the artist’s second sketch of what she had labeled his Clandestine Series, the same lovers were dining and laughing, incognito, in an out-of-the-way outdoor restaurant, The Beach Café. That café was right around the corner from the soup kitchen, which, until she’d become reacquainted with Nick, she’d driven by numerous times on the way to Jacksonville Beach without ever really noticing it.

  On the third week, he brought a sketch of the lovers walking hand in hand, barefoot in the sand, the stars twinkling in a jet-black sky, their heads huddled in a gesture of longing.

  Then there was a sketch of a private getaway on a motor speedboat, the woman’s hair whipping behind her, her head raised and tilted for her lover’s waiting lips.

  Some sketches bordered on the erotic: The unrecognizable couple, naked, their bodies entwined on the beach; The lovers saying their last goodbye at the doorstep, his hand caressing the top of her breast through her sleeveless sundress, hers making a final pass at his crotch.

  Alex tried to look away, but the drawings were too good and too compelling to ignore. They drew you in whether you wanted in or not.

  The furtive lovers were always touching, always facing away from the artist, their profiles slightly in shadow, like they didn’t want to be caught. By his wife? Her jealous husband? This couple was clearly hiding something.

  Each sketch grew bolder, portraying their risky relationship as more desirable, more dangerous.

  By now, Alex had quite a collection of clandestine art. She kept the sketches hidden in a portfolio case in a corner of her studio. She looked at them frequently, like a voyeur, trying to divine the lovers’ secrets.

  She knew she couldn’t hide this talent from the world. As much as she dreaded another meeting with Elizabeth at the Diamond Gallery, she would brave the gallery owner’s disdain and the chance she would be rebuffed once again to speak with her tomorrow at the gym. Nick was a fantastic artist, a man who needed and deserved a show. And she was determined to get it for him.

  Another plan began to form in her head, or maybe it had been there all along. Dominick Anselmo had been a household name in the art world. Any gallery would be lucky to stage his comeback. It would involve high drama: Where has the master been for all these years? Does he still have what it takes? The mystery and hype surrounding such a show would make any gallery owner salivate—and be grateful, possibly agreeing to any terms.

  And what if those terms were to display a few paintings by an unknown artist, the prodigy of the great Nick Anselmo. If Alex could pass herself off as such, as part of a package deal, she could guarantee her work would see the light of day.

  What she was proposing was probably not even ethical. But it might be the only way she’d have a shot at her dream. She realized she was willing to achieve that dream at any cost. She was impatient and had reached the end of her rope. This was her time.

  She should ask Nick’s permission to proceed. But the new Dominick Anselmo was a very private person. He wouldn’t give his consent. She decided she wouldn’t tell him until the deal was sealed. They were her sketches; he had given them to her. She could do what she wanted with them. And what she wanted was to showcase his talent and hers along with it.

  The art world would go wild. They had gone too long without their golden boy. And she was finally going to get her big break.

  Chapter Eleven

  Like the Mona Lisa

  Alex tapped Elizabeth Diamond tentatively on the shoulder. She’d waited for the woman for nearly an hour, and she was too impatient to wait another minute.

  The gallery owner kept up the pace on the treadmill. She must be some kind of a superwoman with superhuman stamina. She showed no signs of slowing. And she looked perfectly put together, even in her workout clothes at the Y. Alex tapped Elizabeth’s shoulder a second time.

  Elizabeth whirled angrily toward the interruption and fixed Alex with a chilling stare.

  “Oh, it’s you,” she said, still refusing to break her stride. “Can’t you see I’m in the middle of a workout? I don’t want to lose my focus.”

  “I’d like to talk to you,” Alex said confidently.

  “About?” Elizabeth said, continuing to stare straight ahead, picking up speed.

  “I’d like to show you something. I promise you, you won’t be sorry.”

  “More of your mediocre paintings?”

  Alex bristled but refused to be goaded.

  “Not mine. Dominick Anselmo’s.”

  That got her attention. Elizabeth stopped the machine and glided off.

  “The Dominick Anselmo? No one’s seen hide nor hair of that man in ages.”

  “I know. But I happen to have a collection of his recent sketches.”

  “Not his traditional medium,” Elizabeth said evenly, barely able to contain her interest.

  “No, but they’re very good. Magnificent, actually.”

  “Well, if Dominick Anselmo drew them, I imagine they’re very good. If he drew them.”

  “He did. They’re signed and dated.”

  Elizabeth wiped her pale brow with a clean white towel, opened up her bottle of water, and took a long drink.

  “How do you know Dominick Anselmo?” The woman sounded doubtful, and her tone was accusatory.

  “He was my art teacher in college.”

  “And you’re still in touch?”

  “We’ve recently become reacquainted.”

  “Okay, you’ve piqued my interest. When can I see these magnificent sketches?”

  Alex had the portfolio with the sketches in the trunk of her car, but the gym at the YWCA was not the proper place to bring the gems to light for the first time.

  “I can bring them over to your gallery this afternoon, if you’d like.”

  “Why can’t Mr. Anselmo bring me his own sketches?”

  “He’s a bit of a recluse. He doesn’t see many people.”

  “I’ll say. Where has he been hiding? Under a bush?”

  Alex stifled a giggle.

  “You’d be surprised. I’ll bring them over this afternoon, and thank you.”

  Elizabeth reached for her hand.

  “If this is legitimate, it’s I who should be thanking you…” Elizabeth hesitated. It was obvious she didn’t even remember her name.

  “Alexandra. Alexandra Newborn.”

  “Right, Alexandra Newborn,” she said smugly, pulling back her hand to take another pull from the water bottle. Then she turned and walked away. Her audience with the fabulous Bitsy Diamond was officially concluded. She had been summarily dismissed.

  Alex flew over to the weight area, which she’d nicknamed the Testosterone Zone, where Vicky was doing bicep curls. She could barely contain her excitement.

  “I have another appointment at The Diamond Gallery this afternoon to show some more of my art work.”

  “You’re a glutton for punishment
. That woman has no taste. Why are you wasting your time and talent on her?”

  “Because her gallery is the best in the city, and I need the best for what I have in mind.”

  “I wish you luck.”

  “Thanks.”

  Vicky pursed her lips and fixed Alex with a questioning stare.

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “There’s nothing to tell yet. Gotta go.” Alex rushed out of the gym.

  ****

  Alex drove home, bathed, and took her time getting ready. She put on a navy pinstriped suit, wriggled into a pair of stockings, stepped into her navy pumps, and gingerly unwrapped the new designer handbag she’d just bought at Blossom’s. She looked in the mirror and, for the first time in a long time, she liked what she saw. She looked like a professional. Not a mother of two, not a neglected housewife, not an artist who painted in her laundry room, but a professional who was capable of making her dreams a reality.

  She was psyched about showing the Dominick Anselmo sketches. She knew they were good—they were more than good. They weren’t her work, true, but she would be the one responsible for unveiling them to the world. She could take some pride in that accomplishment. And if she could sneak in a few of her own paintings as part of the deal, so much the better.

  Once Elizabeth saw Nick’s drawings, they would no longer be private. Elizabeth would try, as any good gallery owner would, to wrest control of the treasures. Alex, on the other hand, was going to lay down some guidelines and leverage the sketches so she had some input about the way they were framed and displayed. She was going to protect the integrity of Nick’s work.

  Which brought to mind her own integrity, or lack thereof. What she was doing still didn’t sit right. More and more, she felt like she was in league with the devil. But she wasn’t going to start getting cold feet now, when her dream was almost within reach.

  Alex snagged a primo parking space in front of the gallery and saw that as a good sign. She got out of her car and strode into the Diamond Gallery carrying a portfolio full of the drawings Nick had left at her doorstep over the last few months—and a selection of her best new work.