Murder Had a Little Lamb (33 page)

But this was not the time to regret the gaps in my schooling. Instead, I sat down at her desk and plopped Max into my lap. Then I nonchalantly reached for the drawer that Ms. Greer had unconsciously glanced at when I’d brought up the subject of Nathaniel Stibbins’s studio.

I hoped my intuition had been correct.

When the drawer opened without the slightest resistance, I let out a sigh of relief. But that didn’t mean my mission was accomplished. Not when I had yet to determine whether the key I was looking for was inside.

It was. Or at least it
probably
was, depending on whether any of the dozens of keys on the gigantic ring lying at the bottom of the drawer was capable of unlocking the art studio.

I started to panic. There wasn’t enough time in a single day to try every one of those keys, and I didn’t actually
have
all day anyway …

And then I noticed the multitude of white cardboard squares surrounding all that metal. Ms. Greer’s compulsion to organize had apparently extended to her duties as keeper of the keys. She’d labeled each one with the name of a building, a room number, and in some cases a descriptive name.

Keys to the keys, in other words.

Ordering my hands not to shake, I methodically began checking each label, one by one. Janitorial closet, chemistry lab, biology lab, dining room, freezer …

Freezer? I thought. They lock the
freezer?

I wondered if this school was full of Ben & Jerry’s addicts like me. But I didn’t allow myself to spend much time pondering that possibility, since I still had a heck of a lot more keys to check.

It was all I could do to keep from yelling something like “Eureka!” or at least “Hooray!” when I finally found the disk labeled “Art Studio—N.S.” Thanks to some persistent fumbling that caused Max to glare at me a couple of times, I managed to pull it off the ring.
I stuck it in my pants pocket with the Milk-Bones, put the other keys back, and closed the drawer.

The next step was getting myself over to the Center for Creative Self-Expression, finding the right room, and hoping that Ms. Greer’s labeling system was accurate.

I used a side door to exit the administration building to minimize the risk of running into anyone. Not only was I still hoping not to have to test the effectiveness of my excuse about all those nasty administrative responsibilities, the clock was ticking, and getting drawn into a conversation, even a pleasant one, could still keep me from accomplishing my goal.

Once I was outside, I finally put Max down. As the two of us made our way across campus toward the linen napkin–shaped arts building, I tried to look as if I was in a hurry, dragging my dog away from the bushes and flower beds that kept attracting his attention. After all, a fear of being late was an excuse no one could argue with, especially with the blessing scheduled to begin in less than half an hour.

I was only a few hundred yards away when I came across two of my students strolling in the direction of the chapel. One carried a birdcage with three chirping canaries in her arms, while the other grasped the leash of a spirited Airedale who, being a terrier, was in way too much of a hurry.

Max instantly went on High Alert.

“Hi, Dr. Popper!” the dog owner called, waving with her free hand. “Aren’t you excited?”

“I sure am,” I replied, thinking, But you have no idea why.

In the meantime, I’d tightened my grasp on the
leash. Max was emitting a low growl, and I could see that throwing him in with so many other members of the Animal Kingdom was going to make for an especially trying day.

But I stopped worrying about what might lie ahead as soon as I reached the doors of the Center for Creative Self-Expression. I was too busy assessing the situation.

Fortunately, the building was far enough away from the chapel that no one else seemed to be in the area. Acting as if I owned the joint—or at least as if I was as entitled to creative free expression as the next guy—I pulled open the door and strode inside, my sidekick in tow.

While in the past I’d always focused on the Music Wing, this time I went in the opposite direction, following the sign that identified the Art Wing. I walked purposefully along the corridor, for the first time worrying about how I’d figure out which room was Nathaniel’s art studio. But then I saw that most of the doors had the same narrow rectangular windows as the practice rooms in the Music Wing.

I peered into each room I passed. They all looked like classrooms. One was outfitted with a dozen pottery wheels, while another had huge tables with the giant squeegees used for making silk-screen prints.

The last one, located at the very end of the long hallway, had black paper covering its window.

Something told me this was the place I was looking for.

Sure enough, when I fumbled in my pocket, took out the key, and put it into the lock in the silver metal doorknob, it fit comfortably. Even though my hand
was so moist that it was slippery, when I tried the knob it turned easily in my hand. Moving as stealthily as I could, I opened the door and stepped inside.

The room was unexpectedly dark, due mainly to the fact that the blinds were drawn. Yet even though Max hesitated, clearly apprehensive about venturing into a space that was not only strange but also dark, I didn’t dare turn on a light. Instead, I blinked a few times, waiting for my eyes to adjust.

As they did, I gradually made out some of the big dark shapes in the room—and realized there wasn’t all that much to see. The large space was basically a classroom that had done double duty as a studio. It was practically empty, aside from a couple of wooden easels and some shelves that housed a haphazard collection of paint tubes and brushes.

But it was the paintings that interested me.

I saw dozens of them, canvases of varying sizes lined up sideways in the back corner, resting on the floor. The fact that they were stashed between the shelves and the wall kept them from toppling over. I then noticed that next to them were three or four big wooden crates that from where I stood looked empty.

“Come on, Maxie-Max,” I said softly, pulling him along with me as I headed over to the paintings.

Sure enough, the packing crates were empty. And the return address on them was the Mildred Judsen Gallery.

These are Nathaniel’s paintings, I thought as I looped the leash through the back of a chair to free my hands. The ones that were about to go on display.

I pulled out one of the canvases. As I did, my heart
was pounding with such violence that it felt as if it had leaped out of my chest and gotten lodged in my throat.

I rotated it gently on its bottom corner so that it faced me, then stooped over slightly to get a better look.

The painting was of a woman wearing nothing but a headdress. She was draped across a couch, shown from the back but glancing at the painter over her shoulder.

I blinked. It looked oddly familiar, but at the same time jarringly different.

I immediately understood why it seemed so familiar. It took me only a few seconds to identify it, thanks to my art history class at Bryn Mawr. It was
Le Grande Odalisque
, painted by the French painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres in the early nineteenth century.

Yet even though I wasn’t all that familiar with this particular work of art, I knew enough to recognize that it wasn’t an exact reproduction. The face on the model was too modern. Too young, as well. And something about the look of it—the skin tones, the pose—just seemed
off
somehow.

The uncomfortable gnawing in the pit of my stomach helped me understand what I was looking at.

My mouth was dry as I hauled out a second painting, this time reaching for one of the larger canvases. I dragged it away from all the others that were lined up in the corner and leaned it against the wall.

The image was strikingly similar. This time it was a re-creation of Botticelli’s
The Birth of Venus
, the same painting I’d recently seen in the art book Beanie had
been leafing through in the school library—and one Nathaniel had talked about in his art history class. The painting featured a nude woman standing on a seashell at the edge of the sea.

And then I focused on Venus—especially her face.

It was Campbell Atwater’s face.

The room was starting to feel very warm.

As I looked more closely, I realized the body wasn’t the same as the one in the famous Botticelli painting, either. This one was taller, more slender, more youthful. And just like in the other painting, this nude woman also had different skin tones from what I remembered seeing in the original.

Which led me to conclude that it was also Campbell’s body.

Oh my God! I thought, growing even warmer as my original hunch started to take shape. Nathaniel had his students pose for him in the nude! He used them as the models in his re-creations of the classic paintings he loved, substituting the faces and bodies of the girls at the school for the original ones. He might have even used the fact that they were famous classics that had earned a place among the greatest works of art in history to sell them on the idea of posing.

My hands shook as I pulled out one more of Nathaniel’s paintings. I recognized this one, too. It was Goya’s
Maja
—the nude version. This painting depicted a naked woman stretched across a couch lined with fluffy white pillows.

Only this Maja also looked familiar. Her face, and no doubt her body, were Vondra’s.

My stomach was so tight that I felt nauseous.

Could this have been what Vondra’s argument with Nathaniel was about? I wondered, my mind racing. Perhaps she posed for him, believing no one would ever see the painting, then learned he intended to put it on exhibit at a prominent New York art gallery—one that was known for its skill at garnering lots of publicity.

Hurriedly I pulled out more of Nathaniel’s paintings, lining them up one by one as if they were on display at a sidewalk art sale. They were all nudes, some in the classical style, some modeled after artwork from the twentieth century. Yet all of them had a more modern look than the original on which they were based, leading me to conclude they all featured young women who had been Nathaniel’s students. Even works that looked as if they’d been inspired by artists with a more abstract style, like Matisse and Picasso and even Warhol, featured models whose faces I was nearly certain I recognized. One looked a lot like a young woman in my class I’d never really gotten to know. Another was a dead ringer for someone I remembered passing on campus a couple of times.

My mind raced as I tried to digest what I was looking at—and what the implications might be. Nathaniel had been on the verge of creating a stir in the art world, all right—mainly by exploiting his female students. He had intended to exhibit these paintings of them in the nude, making a name for himself at their expense.

Until someone stopped him.

As for who that someone might have been, the gnawing in my stomach told me I’d just figured it out.

At least when I combined my gut feeling with the voice echoing through my head.

Claude Molter’s voice.

“They’re so young … so innocent!” he’d said the first time I met him. “There are far too many things that happen in their lives that force them to grow up too quickly.”

At the PTA meeting, he’d said, “I’m completely committed to doing whatever is best for the students at Worth. I’d do anything for those girls. I see them as little flowers that need to be protected.”

And then I remembered something else he’d said. His eyes had been penetrating as he’d told me, “Dr. Popper, you might be better off leaving all this alone. When you go snooping around somewhere you don’t belong, you don’t know what you’re going to find out—or who you’re going to upset once you do.”

He’d clearly found out about what Nathaniel was planning to do. While he claimed he hadn’t actually seen these paintings, at some point, perhaps before their falling out, Nathaniel must have told him about them.

“Let’s just say the people at the Mildred Judsen Gallery know what sells,” Claude had commented to me, “as well as what’s likely to garner them the most publicity.”

In addition to hearing his voice, I was also haunted by a disturbing image: the violin-shaped tie tack I’d found near the remains of my cottage.

It suddenly seemed clear that Claude had killed
Nathaniel—and that the reason had nothing to do with vying for the job of Director of Creativity. It was to prevent these paintings from being put on exhibit. And when he’d realized I was trying to find Nathaniel’s murderer, he’d sent me a warning.

I was still marveling over how neatly everything suddenly seemed to fit together when I heard the door behind me shut softly.

Which told me I was no longer alone.

Doing my best to act calm—that is, as if I actually had a legitimate reason for being in Nathaniel Stibbins’s locked art studio—I turned around. As I did, I forced myself to smile at whoever might have just caught me red-handed.

Standing in the doorway was Beanie Van Hooten.

“Beanie!” I exclaimed, relieved. “What are you doing here?”

“I saw you come in with your dog and I wanted to meet him,” she replied cheerfully. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” I said. “Did you bring your pug today? Her name is Esmeralda, right?”

“You remembered!” she cried. “I sure did. Right now, she’s with Campbell.”

She went over to Max and crouched down. “What a cutie!” she gurgled. “What’s his name?”

“This is Max,” I said. “He’s a Westie.”

Frowning, she asked, “What happened to his tail?”

“He’s a rescue dog,” I explained, not wanting to expose her to the whole nasty story.

As she continued to make a fuss over my dog,
scratching his ears and making affectionate cooing sounds, I glanced over at the paintings nervously. The canvases I’d pulled out were in full view.

I was still wondering what to say about them when Beanie looked up and asked, “What’s with all these paintings? Did Mr. Stibbins make them?”

Her question gave me an out. “I’m not sure
who
made them,” I told her.