The Art of Love and Murder (17 page)

“We were perfectly happy until she came to town.” Although she didn’t whine, the hurt rang out in bitter words.

“I’m sorry, Kitty.” He ran a hand through his hair. Hurting her sent a sinking feeling deep in his gut. He couldn’t fault her for his inability to match her affection.

“You don’t sound that sorry.”

“Come on. This is why I wanted to come see you.”

“Never you mind, Chance. I’m not one to cry in my beer. You have fun with your valley girl. But don’t forget, she’s got a life, and it isn’t in Flagstaff. She’s up here nosing around is all, and she’ll be on her way soon enough.” She chuckled sarcastically. “She has a knack for getting everyone stirred up.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re stirred up, aren’t you, sugar?”

“Kitty—”

“You know where the cold Modelo and warm hands are. See you.”

****

The professor flipped a switch, turning on a dull, overhead light and motioned for Lacy to enter first. She quickly scanned the windowless room as she adjusted to the dimness. The room looked to be about ten by ten with cream walls and plush, matching carpeting. An arch led into another dark room. In the center of this room stood a circular, leather settee, not much larger than a footstool. She immediately recognized several sculptures now brought to life from the sketches. The professor had his own private art gallery...full of Muuyaw’s art.

“The sketches
are
Muuyaw’s.”

When he didn’t respond, she turned.

He tilted his head toward the ceiling, slowly blinked and sighed. “Yes, and no.”

“What?”

He smiled at her confusion and gestured toward the settee. “Please, have a seat.”

“Do you mind if I wander around while you explain?” She rubbed her palms together in jittery anticipation.

He lifted an eyebrow, paused and nodded after a moment. He flipped two more switches, and spotlights over each of the sculptures illuminated most of the art.

“Thank you.”

Lacy advanced farther into the room and to her right. She couldn’t sit passively, surrounded by the mystery of Muuyaw and Kaya while he spoke. Maybe the professor in him wanted his audience to sit quietly and listen, and she’d irritated him with not doing this his way, but he’d recovered quickly.

After smiling at him, she began her path around the room. “This is amazing. What did you mean by yes and no?”

“Kaya was a gifted student, a passionate artist and a passionate young woman. I became her...mentor. I encouraged Kaya to give her gift to the world.”

“You mean her art?”

He nodded. “I saw no reason for her to complete her studies before exhibiting her sculptures. I also knew success could interfere with her education. Although talented, she needed more...guidance, direction. Her exuberance and passion needed refining before I could allow the public adoration I knew would come.”

Some framed photographs on a shelf caught her attention, but his last words caused her to hesitate. “Allow” seemed rather harsh for a professor/student relationship. She glanced at him. He still stood in the doorway, tall and erect, the art spread out before him like the domain over which he ruled.

“And so I devised the persona of Muuyaw that would allow Kaya to stay under my wing while letting her art fly on its own. Muuyaw, my moon, and Kaya, my sun.”

She’d guessed. “M for Muuyaw and KM for Kaya Mockta.” The mystery now solved and her suspicion confirmed should’ve brought closure to her search. Instead, as if reaching the anticlimax when reading a novel, she found no satisfaction in solving the mystery of Muuyaw’s identity. She moved closer to the photographs. “Muuyaw and Kaya are one and the same.” Her mission should be complete, yet she needed more.

“One and the same? Yes, but two very different personalities.”

His voice had taken on a sing-song tone. Lacy stopped and regarded him. When she did, he looked back to her sharply.

“You don’t seem surprised.”

“I had a feeling.”

His steps were silent as he appeared at her side. They gazed at the photographs, Kaya at rest, at work, at play.

“She possessed so much life, so much creative force.”

“May I?”

He nodded.

She lifted one particularly playful shot of Kaya on a wooden table, her arms lifted over her head and her hair swirling around her, hip thrown out and bare legs in shorts. Dancing on a table. Two men and a woman sat, clapping their hands. Lacy could practically hear the music and the laughter.

“Mexico. We spent several weeks down there while she finished the seagull.” He gestured to a sculpture at their left. He smiled at the picture. “It wasn’t all work.”

She replaced the frame and picked up another. A close up. Kaya held a pencil in her right hand, eyes cast downward. In her left hand she had lifted a tendril of hair, brushing it along her chin. Lacy’s stomach fluttered, recognizing a gesture she also used when thinking. In another photo, her mother perched on a rock in the middle of a stream. She smiled openly at the camera, flirting.

“Oak Creek Canyon. We spent a good deal of time there.” He picked up the fourth photo. “Even in the winter.” Kaya stood beside a partially frozen stream, snow drifting around her. Her arms spread wide to welcome life, a broad smile on her face as she tilted her head up to catch the flakes on her tongue.

“You two were together a lot.” The photo, although the picture of happiness, left Lacy sad. “Together more than professors normally spend with their students.”

“She was my prodigy.”

His statement grated on her. The term sounded like an expression of ownership.

“We became quite close, symbiotic.”

What an odd description. And an equally odd reaction his words were causing her in defense of her young mother. Smothering.

“That sounds rather sterile.” And domineering. Had her mother grown weary of the professor by the time Hartmut came along? “These pictures look anything but sterile.”

“Would you like me to say I loved her?”

“Did you?” She turned her attention from the photo to his face. He regarded her for a moment, and the professor’s green eyes unsettled her.

“Our relationship went much further than love can take two people. Love can’t describe what we were to each other.”

“But then—”

“Do you recognize this lovely horse?” The professor touched her elbow, guiding her to the far corner.

“Yes, one of the sketches.” They stood in silence as questions raced through Lacy’s mind. How bold could she be, should she be? How had Hartmut come between them? And when? Had Kaya ever really loved the professor? Certainly he had been handsome and charismatic, if his youth were half as attractive as the aged version. Perhaps he’d been nothing more than a professor or a mentor to Kaya. “How did you come to have so much of her work?” Starting with the art seemed a safe place to pry.

“I purchased it. Piece by piece. I believe I have them all, except... I’d like to talk to you about that.”

“You said you encouraged her to give her gift to the world, and now it seems a shame to keep all her creations hidden away.” Her mother hadn’t created all of this to sit in the back room of an ex-lover.

“They aren’t hidden.”

“But—”

“There’s so much you can’t know, Lacy.”

She jerked her head in his direction. “Then tell me, Professor.”

“Perhaps you’d like to know more about Muuyaw.”

Was he kidding? He could separate the artist from the woman to avoid the personal nature of their relationship. Muuyaw, Kaya. Whatever he chose to call her, she wanted some answers.

“What I’d like to know is more personal than what her art meant to you.” His expression showed no response. A hint of anger pattered in her chest.

“Lacy, dear, let’s have some more tea.”

She forced her head to turn away from his steady scrutiny, and glanced around the room one last time. She had to find a way to get this man to tell what he knew. A rush of longing enveloped her, and she found difficulty in coaxing her feet to move. She’d never felt the need to possess anything like she did at that moment, possess a piece of the woman that gave her life. She needed answers about Kaya, her mother, and she wanted what was left of her mother’s life and her legacy—and somehow her spirit.

“Professor, I...”

“If you’d like to stay in here, I can go get us some fresh tea.”

“Yes. Yes, that sounds wonderful.”

When he left, she continued her perusal of the sculptures. She’d offer to purchase some of the pieces of art after he gave her a few more pieces to the puzzle of Kaya’s life. If they’d had an affair, when had it ended? How much time elapsed between Professor Myles Sheffield and Hartmut Luschin? Why did he still keep her identity secret, and why did he hoard her work for only his eyes?

She stared at the photo of her mother dancing on the table in Mexico. He’d once lived vicariously through his wild, young prodigy. The professor had lost her, first on an emotional level then altogether when she died, and now he possessed her through anything physical he could own. And his memories. She scanned the memories haunting this room, and obsession came to mind.

A bit of light spilled into the darkened room beyond the arch. She could barely make out the possibility of more sculptures. It looked like a bird.

“Please, have a seat on the settee, and we’ll discuss your sketches.”

She jumped at his voice behind her. He couldn’t have her sketches.

Lacy sat and took the offered cup. “I’d really like to talk about my mother more first, Professor.”

He walked to the shelves, fussed with the frames to return them to some order he preferred and turned back. “I’m not sure how much more I can tell you.”

“It’s pretty obvious the two of you shared a life for some time, shared friends, art, vacations, education and so much more. Surely you can give me a clearer picture of—”

“No, our world was very small. Just the three of us, so to speak.”

She shivered at his choice of words as he paused and sipped his tea.

“There might have been...Yes, we shared art and each other. We didn’t need anything more.”

Her glance fell on the dancing Kaya.

“The people in the picture were acquaintances Kaya had enticed with her joviality that evening.” His fingers drummed against his teacup. “She was a magnet. She couldn’t help herself.” His voice turned flat.

How much further could she push? “Did you continue to see her after Hartmut arrived in Flagstaff?”

His nostrils flared. He sipped his tea and considered her over the rim of the cup, deliberately slow as if savoring the flavor of the Rooibliss. He gently set his cup on the shelf. “What you’d really like to ask is how you can secure this.” His hand swept in a circular motion, taking in his domain of Muuyaw.

Taken aback, she nearly choked on her tea. Apparently, she’d gotten all the information she would get for today concerning the personal side of the relationship. “I did want to ask you about that.”

“And I want to offer to buy your sketches and wolf.”

She gripped her cup with both hands. “They’re not for sale.”

“And there’s the matter of the chest.”

The matter? “They’re not for sale.”

“Surely, you see they belong with the rest of Muuyaw’s work.” He spread his arms as if extending her an invitation to agree.

“Now that I know they’re my mother’s, they belong with me.”

His mouth set in a hard line.

Her chest tightened under his glare, so she softened her voice, but stood her ground. “Could we make some sort of agreement for me to have a few of her pieces? I’d be willing to offer you a fair amount.”

“There’s nothing fair in such an offer.” He turned his back to her, strode to the carving of a doe and fawn and ran his fingers along the smooth wood of the fawn.

“I don’t understand, Professor.”

“You don’t really need to, do you, Lacy?” He brought his fingers to the head of the doe and stroked.

“I’d like to.” She spoke to his back. When he didn’t face her, her cheeks flamed hot with irritation. “Why would you want to keep such beauty locked away from the world?”

“Whose world?”

“Professor—”

In two strides, he stood before her, took each of her elbows in his hands and lifted her to her feet.

“Ah, my little passionate one, you are your mother’s daughter. You are her greatest creation.”

Trembling, her cup slipped from her hand, but he caught it and smiled. “Let’s not discuss such matters on our first meeting.” He turned from her, retrieved his cup from the shelf and walked to the door. “Shall we?”

Flustered, she avoided his gaze and entered the hallway.

“I have only one morning class tomorrow and nothing until afternoon office hours. Let’s meet for lunch, shall we? I know a wonderful Italian restaurant that your mother loved, and the chef remembers her to this day.”

She’d intended on heading back to the valley tomorrow, certain this meeting would wind up with questions answered. Or at least a plan to pursue.

“I’m not sure. I may need to get back to the café tomorrow. Can I call you?”

Her steps took her quickly back to the dining room and the sketches. Irritation pricking her mood, she packed her bag, the conflict of frustration and curiosity raging.

“You have so much to digest, don’t you, Lacy?” He searched her face, a slight smile on his lips. “Sleep on it. We’ll have a lovely lunch tomorrow and discuss our mutual desires.”

“That’s probably a good idea, Professor.” Her flats clicked on the tile along the short hall to her exit.

He opened the door, and as she left he said, “Tomorrow, then. And now, you must call me Myles, as Kaya did.”

Chapter Ten

“I’d say you have a woman problem.” Chief stood behind the counter, his palms resting flat on the wood and a crooked smile lighting his face.

Chance’s head jerked in his friend’s direction, his pretend interest in the Navajo rug sidetracked. “Where the hell did that come from?”

“From seeing you here in the middle of the day on a Monday when you should be home painting your fence. And that window looks out at the Grand View.”

“This rug might look good in my office. Saw it yesterday.” He nearly laughed at himself, knowing the old man would see through his ruse.