Murder at the Art Gallery Page 6

  “Maybe it would be better if we did it on the computer,” I said.

  “Yeah, we'll have more room,” Jill agreed.

  We created a fan page for David. We named it Memorial Service for David Towsky at Jacovich Galleries. Katie would be over later with art work that she had created for the page, as well as pictures of some of David's paintings. While Jill edited the Facebook page, I was on my laptop creating the text that was going to go on the page for the show.

  After a half hour, Katie showed up and brought donuts and coffee for us. She brought her laptop so that she could work with us.

  I enjoyed the atmosphere, and being with friends helped ease my troubled mind. Jill and Katie seemed to get along well.

  “How long have you been at the gallery, Katie?” Jill asked.

  “Well, it's been six months. It's not a bad place to work, I'm not crazy about Bernard, otherwise, it's ok there,” Katie replied.

  “What's bad about Bernard?” Jill asked.

  “I don't know, something about him rubs me the wrong way. Plus one day I caught him looking up Jessica's skirt.”

  I laughed “Well, anybody can look up Jessica's skirts Katie. I've never seen her with anything but a micro-mini. Because she's short and she's skinny, she still thinks she's 18. But, whenever she stands up on a stool to make copies, the slightest movement forward and you get a spectacular view of her panties”

  Jill and Katie both laughed at this. Then Jill said

  “Oh wait, I think I've seen her at the mall. She's always shopping at Strawberry's. And in winter, she's wearing those rabbit fur little jackets and walking around with exposed legs in freezing weather.”

  “Yes, that's her. She's a little past Strawberry now. She's pushing forty and dressing eighteen. She really does it for the attention, I think she's single. But some women don't learn that dressing like that is going to get you the wrong kind of attention. She needs to discover shopping at the big girls' store. By the way, Jill, I emailed you the text for a couple of posts. Let me know if it's too much.”

  Jill check her laptop “Yes, I just saw that email.”

  Katie said “I just go to work the way I feel best. And because I just wear a t-shirt and jeans, at first Bernard thought I should dress more corporate. I said Corporate? This is an art gallery and I'm stuck way in the back where nobody can see me. He let it go, I guess he saw that I was not the receptionist. Not that we have one. By the way Jill, I made that art work to the size you mentioned for the Facebook page, let me know if it fits. I'm also sending you the collage of photos of David's paintings”

  Katie was recently out of school and I could see why someone criticizing her way of dress might turn her off. Bernard was an older man, an orthodox Jew, he looked older than his years, so he likely had a more conservative view of the world, thinking that women have to come to work wearing crinoline dresses or business suits. I dressed pretty “business-y” with just a skirt and blouse and I blended in pretty well. Roger was sitting next to me on the floor sometimes, then he would go and see what Katie was doing jumping on the table, then over to Jill, and back to me. He seemingly gravitated to where the action was all the time.

  Roger drifted from person to person. He seemed to gravitate toward wherever the action was. The girls adored him, and I loved him more by the minute. Even when he decided to step on my laptop and edit my document, it was difficult to be angry with a creature who was simply seeking affection.

  *****

  The final draft of our work looked great. We had accomplished much more than we thought we would in only an hour.

  We exchanged high-fives at a job well done. We could only speculate as to how Bernard would react, but we all hoped he would like our work as much as we did.

  Jill had more work planned for herself when she got home. She wanted to place ads for the page to give it visibility. So even if Bernard declined our ideas, at least David would have a page that honored him and his talent.

  After my friends had left, my mind returned to David. How to track down people who knew him. I thought and thought of ways to meet as many people as I could who had known David. Harold could help. He would know more about the people David had hung around with towards the end of his life.

  So far Harold was basically off the list. I had to come up with an angle on how to talk to a diverse number of people that knew David. I thought that maybe Harold could help. I would tell him that I was getting some backstory for David's memorial,. They didn't have to know that this might not happen. Harold would probably know who were the people in David's life that were more likely to have dealt with him on a regular basis.

  But wait, I just realized something. David had also painted portraits. Perhaps there was an old customer with a grudge that did David in. Somebody he knew well enough to have him visit at his house. Maybe one of his clients had become his lover. This was a possibility. I had to see if there was a list of clients from the past. I would ask Margot under the guise that I wanted to interview people for David’s memorial page.

  I picked up my phone before I realized that it was well past midnight. I would call the next morning to see if she’d be able to provide me with a list of David’s clients. Then, I’d talk to Harold to find out more about who David had been spending time with.

  Harold was a big busybody so he knew all the dirt on a lot of the people. If he said I should stay away from anybody, those are the ones I would interview. They may have had cause to harm David. Maybe it was some kind of revenge thing that went too far. Still I had no motive. It's not like David had money. David was overall a nice person. But maybe David had a dark side.

  I guess, at some point, I would learn what happened. But what if I discovered nothing and it turns out that David really did kill himself. That was a reality that I really didn't want to confront. It would mean another person in my life dead. Why did people keep dying on me? First my mother. Then my cat. Then my husband. And now, my friend. Two of the others were understandable, both my mother and my cat died of old age.

  My mother had me later in life, when she was in her late forties. It's possible I wasn't supposed to even be born, but once I was, maybe it gave my mother something to do. Who knows what really happened and why my mother had me so late in life. It's not like I had siblings or anything. Whatever it was, I was an only daughter. As a result, my mother died of old age when most other women still had relationships with their mothers.

  My cat, beautiful Fluffy also died of old age. I looked over at Roger who was sleeping by my feet. It was hard to believe I had another cat in my life. Fluffy had been always in my thoughts for all these years after he passed. And yes, then there was my husband, another person that didn't need to die, especially so young. It was truly hard to even think of anyone else after all these years.

  I really didn't want to dwell too long on those thoughts. I had to think about David and finding a solution to what may have probably been a murder.

  If Fred Stone heard me talking now, he would have been chewing my head off. I could hear him talking in my head.

  “Mandy, there's no evidence, there's nothing there that says somebody came along and poisoned him. There were no prints on the glass, other than his own fingerprints. All the prints in that house, for the most part, were all David's. There was no evidence of violence. There was no evidence that anything suspicious had happened at all. It was all pure and simple suicide.”

  Suicide is never simple.

  Maybe it will turn out that it was an accident. At least David's mother could feel better. And for that matter, I would too. The idea of David killing himself did not sit too well with me. I kept asking myself rhetorically, why David, why??? You had so much to live for. You could have come to me, I would have helped with whatever it was. You didn't have to die.

  I still had to force myself to believe that David was gone. It felt like he had left on vacation, and he’d be back any moment to tell us all what a wonderful time he’d had in Saint Tropez, and then he’d as
k us how his show went, if we’d gotten everything together in time.

  And everything would go back to normal. But David was dead and no amount of wishful thinking would bring him back.

  Chapter Six

  I sat at my desk going over the last-minute changes that Jill suggested we make to our page before submitting it to Bernard. The entrance to the gallery was wide and narrow. I stared out at it, waiting, though I didn’t know what for. Perhaps I had hoped that someone would barge through the sunlit double doors and tell me that David was still alive.

  The phone rang, startling me from my thoughts. It was Margot.

  “Hi Mandy, David’s service is going to be held tomorrow. It’s a one day viewing.”

  I knew why. David’s body hadn’t been discovered until two days after his death, by the cleaning lady he hired to clean his apartment. I was certain that the mortician would have a hell of a time making David presentable. But those people were real artists and David would be viewable one way or another.

  “Thanks for letting me know Margot. I’ll be sure to let David’s friends know where it is.

  I’m just wondering if you might have found a list of David’s old clients?”

  “Why is that important?”

  “Well, I thought it would be nice if David’s former clients could at least know that he has passed and get a chance to pay their respects. I’m sure that many became friends with David over the years and they would be happy to come. Some of them may even be thinking of doing work with him in the future and don’t know he has recently passed.”

  Margot was quiet. Finally, she said, “ok.”

  This gave me an excuse to call Harold and tell him to invite whoever he could because they were having a funeral for David. Even though I had told Margot that I had contacted David’s friends, I was really counting on Harold to come through with the actual contacts.

  I had to move fast because I would only have one chance at the funeral, to talk to all the people that could possibly have killed David. Doing it this way would look less suspicious than if I was just calling people up here and there. If people wondered why I was asking so many questions, I would just say I’m just getting quotes and stories for David’s memorial page. I had no idea who was going to show up, or if I was going to get the brush off from people. But it would give me a good collection people to at least talk to.

  *****

  I was nervous about the meeting I would have with Bernard later that day regarding the page we had made for David.

  I had seen Bernard earlier that afternoon. He had come to work is such a huff that when he passed me on his way to his office, all I caught was a blur of a brightly-patterned shirt and his brown trousers. Even his cane hit the ground with impatient thuds. He had slammed his office door and drawn the shade over the window so that no one could peer in. This behavior was usually an indicator that he was not to be bothered, which caused even more anxiety because I had to speak with him, and it could not wait until his mood had swung in another direction.

  I was confident that Jill and Katie had done wonderful work on the page, and that most people would love what they had done. However, Bernard was in no way like most people. It was a total attitude crapshoot when it came to him.

  The phone rang, and I swiveled my chair around to answer.

  Jill’s pleasant voice greeted me. “Hi, just wanted to let you know that I had time this morning to do additional work on the page. Check it out,”

  I looked at the page and now it looked more professional. It gave me confidence to see how well it had turned out. I was glad she’d called- I was certain that Bernard would be sold on it. Still uneasy about meeting with the grump, but it was a confidence boot I needed.

  When the time for the appointment with Bernard arrived, I went in his office and attempted small-talk, but Bernard was not one for chit-chat. He interrupted me before I could ask about his family, or the weather.

  “So what do you have for me?” I went to his computer and brought up the page.

  Bernard viewed the site, without uttering a sound, for an agonizing ten minutes while I observed from behind him.

  “This page is very nice,” Bernard said. I let out a long sigh. I hadn’t realized that I’d been holding my breath. He seemed to enjoy all the mentions that we’d given the gallery, and he seemed happy with the overall aesthetic of the page.

  “I’ll be honest with you, I like the page, but I still don’t see much value in doing the exhibit, I should really be focusing on bringing in someone new. People want to see the artist alive and if I showed the paintings, people would ask about the artist and there would be none to point the patron to.”

  I was a little angry and taken aback. David was my friend, but I understood that I could not look at this as a personal slight. It was a business proposition, and so I needed sell him on the business benefits.

  “Well Bernard, maybe you’re more used to dealing with tangible objects, but with social media, this page is just the beginning. If we did a memorial service at the gallery and showed the exhibit, we could film the whole thing and put it on YouTube and on Facebook. Afterwards, we could put up a couple of ads up on Facebook, aimed at people that like art and art galleries and these people would find it touching that the gallery did a service in honor of the recently deceased artist. They would be curious as to what other artists the gallery represents, and what other types of art we sell.”

  “So, you’re saying it’s a long-range project. People will discover the gallery and after seeing the David story, people would consider this place a more humane and artist friendly gallery?”

  “That’s one way of putting it, yes. and not only that, you could set the ads up to target only people who are interested in art galleries. That way, people interested in this sort of thing would become aware of the page and hopefully be interested in the visiting gallery, either in person or online.”

  “How much would this cost?” Bernard asked. I knew that was coming.

  “I would pay for it, because I believe in David’s art so much.”

  “No, no, you tell me how much you spent and maybe we’ll go halves, you’re doing a lot of work for this exhibit as it is”

  I omitted telling him that the ads were cheap and in the end, I didn’t want to advertise the page. I just thought it was important to have a memorial at David’s show. I just had to make it look that this would be great for the gallery. Plus I had also hoped that it would improve my chances of getting hired full time. That was another reason why I was taking such a serious interest in the welfare of the gallery.

  Bernard hemmed and hawed for a little while longer.

  “Okay, we’ll do the art show and keep the pictures up for a couple of days. It will fill in the space while I look for someone else to exhibit. Hopefully the Facebook page will bring in people. By the way Mandy, I respect your dedication, if there’s anything else you come up with talk to me, I’m sure we can work together to improve the gallery.”

  I could have jumped up and down, I was so excited, but I kept my cool, thanked Bernard, and told him he will be happy with the exposure that the gallery would receive.

  *****

  After work, I ran home to spend time with Roger. I’d felt guilty that I had been so consumed with David that I’d not spent much time with my new cat. I needed a break from thinking about David. But was not allowed the opportunity, as I remembered that I needed to call Margot for David’s client list.

  I plucked my phone from the charger on my kitchen counter and dialed Margot’s number.

  She answered after the first ring.

  “Hello Mandy. It’s nice to hear from you again,” Margot said. She sounded less hoarse than the last time we had spoken. I hoped she had been crying less.

  “Hi Margot, I'm just wondering if by any chance you’d found David’s client list?”

  “Well, I found a folder with papers in it that looked like invoices and orders. I think that is probably it. Do you really think that h
is former clients are going to come?”

  “I don’t know, but there’s no harm in trying. The worse they could say is no. I know that this is a sad occasion, but I think it can be made more special by inviting those that appreciated his work. It would show that he was loved. That he was not alone in the world”

  “Thank you Mandy for helping out with this funeral. I’m not in the most social of moods and if it wasn’t for my family helping, I don’t know if many people would attend. I was in no state of mind to do what you’ve done for me. I doubt I could have called anyone.”

  “Oh, I completely understand, I’m doing this because I just believe that David was such a talented and special person that he deserves recognition in his farewell. How about I come by? I’ll drop in to say hi for a moment, would that be okay?”

  “Well of course it would, Mandy. I would appreciate some company,” Margot said. We said goodbye to one another and hung up. I made sure to pet and feed Roger before I left. I hadn’t planned on being gone very long, but I still left the television on for Roger.

  *****

  When I arrived at Margot’s house I found her down in spirits. She asked me if I wanted some coffee. We sat down at the kitchen table.

  “My family has been really great setting up the arrangements so that I wouldn’t have to. It’s hard for a Mother to arrange her son’s funeral.”

  And with this she started to cry. I cried too because this whole situation was just so sad. At that point Margot’s sister, Nancy, who was visiting stepped into the room and started to comfort her.

  “It’s okay Margot, we’re all here for you to support you if you need any help.”

  Nancy came over to me and introduced, “Hi, there, you must be Mandy. Margot has been telling me about you. Thank you for your help and your support for Margot.”