Framed and Burning (Dreamslippers Book 2) (16 page)

Unable to shake the feeling that they’d missed something about that first fire at Mick’s place, Cat was still investigating. Sure, maybe crazy Candace did set both fires. It was hard to argue with a confession. But Cat felt she owed it to her uncle to make sure.

She’d combed through a digital catalogue of Mick’s art and decided she needed to talk to some of his regular buyers, people who made a point of collecting his paintings. One of them could have a grudge against him, she reasoned, or maybe they only wanted to destroy some of his work so the pieces they owned would go up in value.
 

Which is how she got to Maysie Ray Duncan, apparently one of her uncle’s biggest fans.

Behind a tower of newspapers dating back to the Sixties, Cat found a piece with Mick’s tell-tale signature on it—a wide M followed by a scribble followed by a cursive T followed by more scribble.

“Oh, that’s
Blue Shift Number Seven
,” said Maysie with delight. “One of my favorites! Number Nine must be nearby. I wanted to get Number Eight, but I was outbid. Imagine that.”

Maysie wore a velvet housecoat over a long silk dress. Her arthritic feet were stuffed into velvet-trimmed slippers. Her face was made up as if she were about to do a curtain call. Her hair was wrapped in a silk scarf tied above her painted-on eyebrows, the fringe falling down over her forehead.
 

“When was the last time you purchased one of Mick’s pieces?” Cat asked, trying not to topple a tower of washed-out dog food cans.

“Let me see… I attend so many of the gallery openings, you know,” she said, as if wanting credit for her society status. “I suppose it was three or four years ago. I like to get them before they really make it big.”

Cat had to hand it to her; that was some shrewd collecting. If Maysie put Mick’s work out to a gallery or auction house now, she’d surely see a huge profit.

“Do you sell the work you acquire?”

“Oh, heavens, no!” Maysie shrieked, reaching out to stroke
Blue Shift Number Seven
. “They’re my babies. Even more than you guys, eh, Melvin?” She picked up one of the beagles and kissed him square on the mouth. Melvin seemed unfazed by the gesture.

“So you’ve kept them all.”

“Of course!”

Cat told Maysie about the fires in Mick’s studio and beach house, and the woman broke down and wept, clutching her chest. “It’s horrible, my dear! That poor man. His precious things.”

Cat left Maysie’s house gasping for fresh air. That had been a bust, but at least her mental picture of who collects art these days got more rounded out.

She debated going further with the next set of collectors on the list. Part of her wanted to head back to the cottage for some hermit time to research more online. She’d recently made a connection with someone at
Art in Our Time
who said she could get access to the archives, which could tell her who wrote that letter defaming Mick to his beloved professor way back when. But it would mean another trip to New York, which was costly. She and Granny Grace weren’t earning any money of course on Mick’s case, and while they’d had a slew of lucrative ones after Cat made her name on the Plantation Church murder, she was conscious of spending more than she earned.

But the next person on the list was someone Mick said dickered with him on the price of his paintings to the point of aggression, wearing her uncle down till he’d parted with an entire series for less than half its market price.

Jerry O’Connell was also prominent in the Catholic church there in Miami, rising to the level of deacon, which is where devout men could fuel their energy without the formality—and personal sacrifice—of the priesthood.
 

Cat hadn’t been to church since Lee’s death, not even with Granny Grace’s friend Simon, who was openly gay and had introduced her to the tolerant church she favored in Seattle. Every time she thought of going, she pictured Lee lying there with blood pouring out of his head, and she became too angry at how arbitrary and senseless God could be. It didn’t matter that her Catholic upbringing had taught her that “God works in mysterious ways.” She didn’t buy that Lee’s death could constitute anything “working” in the world. To her it showed that nothing worked.

So she had two reasons to head back to the cottage instead. But then she thought about her grandmother’s warning that she not get too caught up in online research to the detriment of her “boots on the ground” sleuthing, and she turned her rental car in the direction of the suburban neighborhood near Coral Gables where Jerry O’Connell lived.

His house was a peach-colored compound with a white coral-rock roof, like the houses around it. The white coral rock was popular because it deflected the intense Miami sun. She had to notify him of her arrival through an intercom at the end of his driveway, and he activated the gate to let her in. A circular drive lined with tall palm trees led to a door festooned with audacious pink blossoms, pinwheels of frangipani. The door opened before she could lift the knocker, which was shaped like a seashell.

“Good afternoon,” O’Connell bellowed at her. An Izod shirt stretched tightly over the wide girth of his stomach. Cat wondered vaguely for a moment if the alligator thought he’d be eating well. Shaking her head to dispel the judgmental notion, she gripped O’Connell’s outstretched hand and stepped inside.

The foyer was cool and adorned with a crucifix encrusted with seashells. It was the most beautiful crucifix she’d ever seen, and she had trouble taking her eyes off it.

“Stunning, isn’t it?” O’Connell said. “It was made by one of the boat people you don’t hear about. Not from Cuba. This one was Bahamian. We send them back, you know.”

“Like Elián?” Cat asked, as Elián González had yet to fade from the Miami memory. The boy who was sent back to his father in Cuba after landing ashore in Florida had practically sparked a revolution.

“No,” O’Connell said, a bit more sternly than Cat felt was warranted. His voice put her on edge. “Not like Elián. This Bahamian artist? Dominíc St. Claire is his name. His type lands in Miami pretty regularly, and without the fanfare of an Elián. Unlike Cubans, Bahamians can’t claim political asylum here. So they get sent back, if they’re caught. And they’re usually caught.”

“How did you come by this piece?”

“It’s not a ‘piece,’” he corrected. “It’s a holy crucifix. And I bought it from him at a church sale, when he was staying with my parish. We tried to help him stay, but we failed. Economic hardship in your home country is not sufficient reason to be granted asylum, as it were.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You should be,” said O’Connell. “We should all be.” He turned on his heel and walked down a hallway toward a sitting room that was lit with sun streaming in through floor-to-ceiling windows, not to mention what flooded in from above through skylights.
 

“Here are some of Travers’s paintings,” he said, gesturing toward a far wall. “I have the whole series, but they wouldn’t fit in this room. That would be too overwhelming anyway, so they’re spread throughout the house. Let me know if you want to see them all.”

At that, he sat down in an armchair, opened a box on a table next to him, and brought out a pipe. Cat watched as he filled it with tobacco, lit it, and began to puff.

“Well?” he asked. “What are you looking at me for? Didn’t you come to see the art?”

Cat felt flustered. “I was hoping to talk with you,” she said. “I-I’m interested in who acquires Mick—I mean Mr. Travers’s art.”

“Whatever for? I thought whoever set fire to his studio had been caught.”

“She has. I mean, yes. But there are some lingering questions.”

“Well, if I’d known that, I probably wouldn’t have agreed to this,” he said. “You’re here, aren’t you? So, ask.”

She cleared her throat. “Mr. Travers says you badgered him pretty relentlessly in order to acquire the Seaweed Series at such a bargain.”

“That’s one way of looking at it,” he said. “Are you going to stand there while we talk, Miss, or are you going to have a seat?” He gestured toward a chair.

Cat sat, burning with irritation. “And what”—she crossed her legs and set him with a hard look—“exactly is the other way of looking at it?”

“Art’s priced too damn high. So I talked Travers down to something more reasonable.”

“Did you do the same to Dominíc St. Claire?”

O’Connell chuckled. “No. I did the opposite. He’d priced the crucifix at twenty-seven dollars. A measly twenty-seven dollars! I gave him a hundred for it.”

“So you’re like the Robin Hood of art.”

He didn’t respond to that one. Cat pressed further: “Mr. Travers isn’t super rich, you know. His house isn’t even as nice as…well, yours.”

O’Connell softened a little. “Oh, come on. He’s not a showy artist, I’ll grant you that, but he’s not hurting, either.”

“Would you say you resent artists like Mick Travers?”

“I suppose.”

“They make you sick?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Why collect their art?”

“I like the challenge of not playing the game with them, of talking them down in person. We remove the façade of the art world, the gallery, and the list price, and it’s just me, standing there with a checkbook, saying I’ll buy their art, but for my price. Besides, I like looking at the art once I get it home.”

Cat listened to what he was saying, but she heard an entirely different truth underneath his words. She leaned forward. “Doesn’t it make you feel proud of yourself?”

“No. When it’s in my home, it’s art for art’s sake.” He grinned at her and puffed on his pipe a few times for emphasis.

“I don’t think so,” Cat said. “I think the art is always something else for you. You can’t look at St. Claire’s crucifix without feeling your righteousness.”

O’Connell didn’t respond at first, and then he tapped out his pipe on the side table. “I think we’re done here.”

He led her back through the entry way, past the St. Claire crucifix, which made Cat think of something. She paused before he shut the door behind her and said, “A real Robin Hood would have given St. Claire a lot more than a measly hundred bucks for that crucifix. You got a deal and declared it charity.”

Cat marked Maysie Ray as “not a suspect” but put a question mark next to Jerry O’Connell. At that, she called it a day. The wake was planned for that evening, and some of the people on her list would be in attendance, giving her an opportunity to talk with them unofficially, when their guard would be down and she wouldn’t have to cajole them into an interview.

>>>

Donnie’s parents pitched in with the setup at the gallery, much to the surprise of the gallery owner, Bryson Hughes, who had been the first in Miami to feature Donnie’s work. Helping out seemed to make them both feel like they were part of something connected to their son, Cat observed. They kept a polite distance from Rose, however, and Cat wondered if they were uncomfortable with her being transgendered. Rose’s outfit for the evening had a Morticia Addams look to it, though the campiness was toned down a bit. She was hanging back, looking left out, so Cat asked her to help set up the hors d’oeuvres. They prepared a fruit, wine, and cheese spread, as the celebration was to resemble an art opening, except for the part of the program that would be a more personal tribute to Donnie Hines.
 

Cat noticed that Rose kept checking her cell phone, but Cat couldn’t tell if she was looking for the time or for a message. After the third check, Cat touched Rose on the arm and asked, “Nervous?”

“Irritated,” Rose said. “Roy Roy was supposed to be here, but he’s not. And I haven’t heard from him, either. I can’t believe that gangsta would stand me up today.”

“Maybe he’s just running late,” Cat said, but Rose did not look reassured.

As the guests came in, Cat mingled, making note of who was there. Old Maysie Ray arrived with one of her beagles decked out in a harness identifying him as a service animal. “I need him for my nerves,” she explained to Cat. After a delighted examination of the art on display, Maysie sauntered over to the food table, where she wrapped up sizable portions in napkins and stowed them away in her voluminous handbag. Cat noted that Maysie put herself down for two of Donnie’s works. Bryson was generously donating the proceeds from the sale of Donnie’s art to the Everglades Foundation.

Cat recognized in the crowd the electric-razor performance artist she and Granny Grace had interviewed soon after the studio fire. There was also Kazuo Noshihara, the pocket-lint artist, who must have flown back from Japan for the occasion. He and Granny Grace bowed to each other and launched into a deep conversation.
 

“When I die,” Noshihara said, “I wish to have everyone gather in a gallery in which the art has been removed from the walls.”

 
“Kazuo,” Granny Grace beamed. “That’s very Buddhist of you.”

Cat overheard but steered clear of this conversation, and she managed to control herself from visibly rolling her eyes.

To Cat’s surprise, Jerry O’Connell made an appearance, and she cringed to think that he would have the stones to dicker with the gallery owner over the cost of any of Donnie’s art at a time like this. Still, she had to admit he was a suspect in her mind based mainly on his lack of personal character.