Fine Art of Murder Read online

  Kendall fell in love with the painting the moment she saw it, though that wasn't the reason the adulterer and his mistress were dead.

  Infidelity, like that committed by her ex, was a powerful motive.

  Eyeing the tube again, she smiled and closed the trunk. Kendall swiped her credit card, pumped the gas, and got back on the road to Philadelphia.

  Hoosier Salon

  Stephen Terrell

  The Hoosier Salon is Indiana's oldest annual juried art exhibition. For more than ninety years, it has served as a showcase for Indiana artists and an outlet for their work.

  Ironically, the Hoosier Salon's birthplace is in Chicago. A group of women artists from Indiana, but living in Chicago, formed themselves into the Daughters of Indiana. In 1925 they organized the first Hoosier Salon exhibit at Marshall Fields Department Store in downtown Chicago. Participating artists were required to have lived at some time in Indiana, a requirement that still exists.

  Nearly one-third of the original exhibitors were women, an unheard of number for that time. All four living members of the Hoosier Group (T.C. Steele, William Forsyth, Otto Stark, and J. Ottis Adams) exhibited at the inaugural Hoosier Salon, with Covington artist Eugene Savage winning the top merit award for his painting Recessional. At the second exhibition, Wayman Adams won top prize for his painting The Art Jury, a group portrait of the four surviving members of the Hoosier Group.

  After two years, Hoosier Salon Patron's Association was formed. The nonprofit organization still operates the Hoosier Salon. In 1942, the event moved to Indianapolis where it has since been held in various local locations, including the Ayres and Blocks department stores, the Indiana State Museum, and the Indiana Historical Society.

  Notable participants include William Victor Higgins of New Mexico's “Taos Ten,” Little Orphan Annie cartoonist Harold Gray, and Abe Martin creator Frank McKinney “Kin” Hubbard. Recent artists have included K. P. Singh, Floyd Hopper, Nancy Noel, and Martha Slaymaker.

  The Hoosier Salon now operates year-round galleries in Carmel and New Harmony.

  Sketches in Black on White

  C. L. Shore

  January 21, 1991

  New decade, new suit, new city, new digs. My sister helped me find this apartment. It's in a part of Indianapolis that used to be pretty swank, but it isn't now. I can afford it, that's the main thing. Definitely more space than I've had for the last twenty-plus years. More privacy, too. And I can catch the bus in front of the building. You can't say that about every place in Indy.

  I actually had a few household things my sister's been storing for me all this time. She's had the space since she inherited the parental home. I took my cut in cash. Guess she deserves the house, and she needs it more than I do, with three kids and two dogs. Oh yeah, and a husband. He and I never got along very well. In the new lingo, I didn't see male bonding in our future.

  But, thanks to Sis, I have a settee, a chrome table, and two chairs, and what they used to call a hi-fi that still plays the twenty vinyl albums I own that didn't warp. And a couple of wall clocks that even tell time. Heck, I'm domesticated. But I need a bed. Sis lent me an air mattress and a sleeping bag. It'll keep me warm ’til twenty below, so I'm set even if the heat goes out in this fourth floor walk-up.

  My location on Meridian Street is not far from the Herron School of Art building. They're thinking of moving the school, I hear. What a crying shame that would be. I loved the old place, the studios up on the third floor letting in the natural light, the smell of paint thinner when you walked in the door. If I hadn't been drafted, who knows, maybe I'd be an artist today.

  For the last couple of decades I've been limited to pencil on dime-store sketch pads my sister sent me. And now, charcoal. There was a box of sketching charcoal in my stash of things in storage. I'll start trying to reacquaint myself with it, practice a little here and there.

  Tonight, I'm going to enjoy peace and quiet. No yelling down the block. No clanging metal doors. A leaky faucet? Not gonna bother me.

  January 28, 1991

  Finally got around to walking to Herron School of Art. It was quite a walk in the cold, but I'm in pretty good shape. The smell of paint thinner and linseed oil greeted me when I opened the door, just like it did decades ago. I breathed deep and started coughing. Too many unfiltered cigarettes over the years. Some of the kids walking back and forth on the first floor turned and looked. One stared.

  The aroma brought back memories and I wasn't gonna let a punk kid spoil it.

  I took a drawing class back in the day. Wasn't thinking of a career in art, but just taking the class for fun my freshman year. Then I got drafted, and spent the next few years in Nam after becoming an Army medic. I picked the role because of the relatively long training, hoping the war would be over by the time I finished it. No such luck. I was never in battle but saw the bloody messes afterward and heard horror-filled stories that made my skin crawl. I still can't believe I was medically discharged. Army doc said I would go psycho and harm myself or others if I stayed in. Not true, but I was glad to get stateside. I looked up some guys I knew in basic training. A few of them were back home, too.

  A few of us vets moved to Philly together. I learned a little about crime there. I guess you could say it was a crime school with an internship. We all had jobs, but we dabbled in drugs and stolen cars. I didn't get arrested until I moved back to Indy and a simple car heist went south. I'd earned myself a multiple year stint at a lakeside resort, one without a view. But I did get a degree, courtesy of the state. BA in General Studies. Maybe someone will overlook my record now and hire me. Ha!

  I took the stairs up to Herron's third floor where the sketching studios were. All of the doors were closed. Class was probably in session. Probably naked women behind a couple of those doors. Might be worth it to scrape up tuition money just to look at those women. A buzzer went off, doors opened, and the halls were filled with people, young kids mostly. Like on the first floor, I attracted a couple of stares. Did I look that bad, that old? The idea was depressing. I headed home. Maybe I'd come back another day.

  January 29, 1991

  They say the sense of smell is closely tied to memory, and I think that's true. The aroma of paint thinner took me back to the more innocent self I'd abandoned long ago. I'd slept a deep sleep with many dreams. Most I don't remember, but in one, I dreamt about being in art class, a sketching class, and drawing a hot girl named Lorraine. In real life she'd been in my class and sat next to me while we sketched the nude models in front of us. It came back to me, how her face and the body of one of the models became the headline feature of my late adolescent dreams. Lorraine appeared engrossed, studious, and even business-like in our classes together; but my dreams, then and now, were far from studious. I woke up in a cold sweat.

  I'd forgotten about Lorraine after I'd been drafted. But now I saw her in vivid color, even texture and smell. I remembered her face: it was heart-shaped, which was considered the ideal back then. Her hair was a light brown, almost blonde, and fluffy. She wore it pinned back from her face, drawing attention to her hazel eyes and her perfect mouth. I'd fantasized about messing up her shiny pink lip gloss. She had great legs and wore her skirts on the short side. She was an art student as well, as I remember. I think her specialty was sculpture.

  I shook my head and stumbled to the kitchen, searching for the blue can of Maxwell House. I'd make a full pot. One thing about life on the outside, I had my own kitchen and could drink as much coffee as I wanted. I plugged in the percolator and headed to the bathroom to shave and shower while it was brewing. So far, I'd never run out of hot water. Another blessing, something many people take for granted.

  After a couple cups of joe and a stale donut from the grocery store, I found my box of charcoal and a cheap, but decent sketch pad I'd bought at a Walmart. I started to draw Lorraine's face. I worked on it for about thirty minutes, and the developing picture looked pretty good, I thought. I'd captured her innocent look, the spacing of her ey
es, and her fluffy hair. Her eyes looked directly at me. I decided to set it aside and continue to work on it later.

  I needed to put a few bills in the mail, so I got my jacket and walked the four blocks to deposit them. When I reentered the lobby, an old man was struggling to keep a hold on his groceries while opening his mailbox.

  “Here, let me help,” I said. I caught the bag just as it slipped out of his hands. Everything stayed within the brown paper except a tube of toothpaste. I picked it up and put it back on top. “Why don't you throw your mail on the top of the sack, then you'll only have one thing to carry?”

  “I will. Thanks, young man.” He took his brown paper sack and headed up the stairs. It looked like he was having trouble. I caught up with him in three steps. “Here, I'll carry this to your apartment. You'll have both hands free for the key.”

  “Okay,” he said as he continued to climb. “I'm glad my place is on the second floor. Don't know how long I'll be able to live here, though. Probably will need a place with an elevator soon. Or an apartment on ground level.” He found his keys and fumbled a minute before he found the right one. “Come on in. You can put the stuff on the table, there.”

  His apartment had a different floor plan than mine. His was larger. We entered a dining room, which my smaller apartment lacked. His living room was bigger, too, with a nice window looking out on Meridian Street. My living room faced a littered alley and the dull windows and bricks of another apartment building about thirty feet away.

  I put the sack on the dining room table. It looked to be a nice piece of furniture and had six matching chairs. His sofa was in good shape, too. Kind of odd. In this building. I suspected most tenants probably had Goodwill-type furnishings, like mine.

  “Well, thanks,” he said after catching his breath. “Name's Sam. Sam McCutcheon.”

  For some reason, I didn't want to give him my last name. “I'm Max,” I said. “New guy, fourth floor. Seems a nice place.”

  Sam shrugged. “It's okay. I used to have a home in Meridian Hills. But I moved here when I could no longer drive. I like to be close to the School of Art.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, I used to teach there. Sculpture. But can't do it anymore. Requires a fair amount of physical strength. And a studio. I had one for a while at Herron, even after retiring. Professor Emeritus, you know. But like I said, I no longer can do it. Sometimes I sketch a little.”

  I looked at the pictures on the walls. They were actually photos. Photos of sculptures. “Are these pictures of your work?” I asked.

  “Yes.” The old man backed up to a recliner and sat down.

  I took a quick look around. There was a male nude in one, a soldier in another. A female nude in the third. She had a heart shaped face. Lorraine. I could feel my heart rate double. I'm good at the poker face, though.

  “Well, nice to meet you,” I said. “I've gotta run. Stuff to do.” I needed to get back to my own place and ponder these new facts about my neighbor. It seemed almost spooky. I mean, I'd just been thinking about Lorraine, and I'd been handed a connection to her. Seemed like fate the more I thought about it.

  It was eleven thirty and I was hungry. I heated up a can of chili on the stove and wolfed down every last bean. Then I went back to work on my charcoal sketch of Lorraine. After finishing the portrait, I started another sketch, a full-body view this time, based on the photo I'd seen downstairs. It was like I was inspired to take back Lorraine. Take her back from the old man. Maybe I should say older man. I mean, I'm no spring chicken, but I can walk up four flights of stairs without getting winded.

  January 31, 1991

  For the third day in a row, I awoke thinking about that heart-shaped face. Had it changed over the last twenty years? Would she remember me? I needed to stop this obsession with a memory. After clearing my mind of Lorraine's image, I looked at the square of sky visible from my bedroom window. Clouds gave it a dark gray appearance and tree branches whipped back and forth. A good day to stay inside. Maybe a good day to sketch. If I could get her face right maybe I could exorcise this obsession. Or maybe I could find her, make contact with her. Maybe the old man could tell me about Lorraine's whereabouts. At least give me a clue. Then I made a plan.

  I pulled on a sweatshirt and jeans and started the percolator. In spite of the weather, I made a brief neighborhood run, north of 38th Street. I passed a hardware store just beyond the intersection. Good to know it was there, but I was going to try my luck at a resale consignment shop I spotted right across the street. I found what I wanted, a four-cup and a two-cup thermos. A buck each.

  I made the purchases and jogged back home through the wicked, damp wind. I'd only been gone eleven minutes. I washed both thermoses at the sink. Poured myself a cup of coffee, filled the larger thermos for refills during the day. I'd take the smaller one downstairs to the professor. I wasn't sure if he was a coffee drinker, but I'd bet he was.

  I knocked on the door. There was a delay and I heard shuffling. After a minute, the door opened. The prof appeared wearing wrinkled pants, a dingy white shirt, and a cardigan. His sweater had dried stuff on it, looked like oatmeal. I wondered if he'd slept in his clothes in his recliner.

  “Oh, hello neighbor,” he said. “How are you?”

  “I brought some coffee.” I hoisted the thermos. “Can I interest you in a cup? I thought we could talk about art. One thing I didn't tell you a couple of days ago. I was an art student at Herron for one semester. Until I joined the Vietnam War effort.”

  His eyes widened. “You don't say! Well, come in! Never thought I'd meet an art student in this building.” He backed up from the door, shuffling his feet in reverse. “I do drink coffee, although I prefer tea. Or whiskey. A little early in the day for whiskey, though.” He started to laugh, but ended up coughing. “But as long as I have sugar on hand, I'll drink coffee.” He pivoted and started shuffling forward this time, toward the kitchen.

  I expected to see him locate sugar in a bowl, but he struggled with a five-pound bag of the stuff, bringing it down from a cupboard. After rummaging through two drawers he located a spoon. He took two teacups from a shelf and I poured coffee into each. He loaded two heaping spoons of sugar into his cup, stirred, then sipped.

  “Ah,” he said. “Been a while since I've had coffee that tasted this fresh. I could get used to it.” He moved a pile of envelopes to one side of the dining table, clearing a place for the cups. I kept my eye on the one with the sugar because I didn't want it placed in front of me. “Here, have a seat. We can talk about Herron. Whose classes were you in?” He pulled out the chair closest to the kitchen.

  I sat and took a tentative sip. I had the right cup. “You know, I can't remember my teacher's name. It was a beginning drawing class. He was a tall, skinny guy. This would've been the fall of 1970.”

  The prof considered this as he sipped more coffee. “Probably Reasonor. He taught beginning drawing and painting then.”

  “Sounds familiar. I only took the one art class. And English 101. Art, because I thought I might want to pursue it as a major. English, because it was required for all freshmen.” I set my cup down. “But I was drafted. Couldn't say I minded too much. Getting a degree as a part-time student just seemed like that could go on forever.”

  “Yes. Yes. I guess it could seem so, particularly to a young man.”

  I was relieved the prof didn't bring up the GI bill, or what I'd done after the service. “Anyhow,” I began. “I think I recognize the model in one of your sculptures.” I gestured toward the living room. “The woman, there. I think her name was Lorraine.”

  “You have an impressive memory, Max. Yes, her name was Lorraine. Lorraine Yoder. Came from the Berne area, Mennonite stock, but I think her family had left the fold. She was the stereotypical pure and innocent farm girl… until she came to my class, that is. Earned part of her tuition by modeling for me privately.” He sat back and started laughing. A small, high-pitched, weaselly laugh. Not meant for my benefit. “Lorraine real
ly earned her tuition.” He sat back wearing a satisfied look and brought the teacup to his lips. “Those were the days. Great job with satisfying benefits, if you know what I mean.”

  I wanted to leap from my chair and grab him by the throat. I knew what he meant—sexual harassment. Abuse of authority. With a strong display of willpower I didn't know I possessed, I remained in my chair and concentrated on maintaining a neutral expression. A blank canvas.

  “The times have changed,” I said, after I trusted myself to speak.

  “Oh, yeah.” The old man sighed. His more serious expression returned. “She was a lovely girl, a lovely girl.”

  My original plan was to suggest we could do some sketching together. Now, I couldn't stand being in the same room with the man. My cup was empty. I stood.

  “Well, I hope you enjoyed the coffee. Maybe I'll come back with more, the next cold, windy morning we have.”

  “Thank you, Max. You're thoughtful. The coffee was good, as was the conversation.”

  Well, that's your opinion. I picked up the thermos and let myself out of the apartment. When I climbed the stairs to my own place, I paced my small living room for at least a half hour. The nerve of the guy, the nerve…. He was a dirty old man, pure and simple. I couldn't let go of my need for some kind of retaliation. He couldn't get away with something like that. It wasn't right. He'd made it clear he didn't have any regret. He needed to pay. Pay up.

  A new plan started to take shape. Hazy at best. I needed to do a little legwork first. I bounded down the stairs to street level and walked to the nearest bus stop. After studying the sign, I mentally sketched a schedule for the following day. I'd head to the downtown commuter campus of the state university. I might have to walk around a little, but I think I could get enough information to put my plan into action. After walking back upstairs to my own place, I realized I was hungry. It was noon, and all I'd consumed so far was three cups of coffee. I opened two cans of Campbell's chicken noodle soup and dumped them into a pot.