Driven to Abstraction - Chapter 1

Driven to Abstraction
Chapter One


         I suppose people never look the way you expect.  On the drive to Azurville, I’d put together a mental image of my client, Andi Harmon.  From her voice on the phone, I imagined a tall, no-nonsense dark brunette with strong features and a commanding presence.  Instead she was petite with short hair, tussled in every direction.  All the tips were bleached white about an inch from the top and dusted with a raspberry pink tint.  Well, she was an artist, wasn’t she?  So, I could throw my preconceptions out the window.  Except I couldn’t, because the windows had bars.  And my client wore drab jail garb.
         My name is Zillah Bluestone and I’m a small business consultant.  My first clients are the two owners of Total Abstraction, an art gallery in a mid size artsy southern Oregon town.  My base of operation is at a small desk in the far corner of my childhood bedroom where my ten-year-old daughter, Lucy, and I have taken up residence with my widowed mother while I finish my business degree via the internet.  The business was started out of desperation, given the dismal economy of my childhood hometown, Zephyr Cove.           
         “Andi.”  I extended my hand.  “I’m Zillah. 
It’s so nice to finally meet you.”
         With the tips of two fingers and a thumb, she shook my hand, then scurried around the table and sat down across from me.
         My first meeting as a business consultant was not as I imagined.  I used to dream of this day, years ago, while I attended college.  I’d wear an expensive gray silk suit with a crisp white shirt beneath it, my black designer briefcase clutched in my manicured hand.  Charging up the steps to the entrance of a city high rise, confidence would radiate from me in waves.  I’d walk into the meeting and take charge, my ideas flowing like Niagara Falls.  The crowd would cheer.  I’d be a hit.
         Hmm.  The bright glare of reality shriveled my dreams down to size.
         “I’m glad you could meet me here,” Andi said.  “I don’t want to waste any more time.  The gallery grand opening is set for two weeks from now.  It just doesn’t make any sense to postpone it because of all this nasty business.”
         Her body moved in sharp darting gestures as she spoke.  Something mouse-like in her mannerisms, expressions, even in her features reminded me of the colorless rodent atop a pest control van.  Of course, the county-issued gray sheath just added to that image.  Her colorful hair, at least, brightened the sallow shade of her skin.
         “If you don’t mind me asking, Andi, what nasty business are you talking about?”
         She squirmed a bit, and turned her eyes away from me.
         “It’s Candace.  She’s been murdered.”
         “Candace Lunk, your partner?”  My voice rose to a high pitch.  So much for the professional demeanor I was trying to project.
         “Yes, and can you believe they actually arrested me?  They think I killed Candace.”  Andi’s little nose perked upwards and twitched in a sniff of indignation.
         I hadn’t prepared myself for this possibility, that my first business reference would be from a killer.  Looking around at the institutional green walls and the black iron bars on the high stucco window, it was easy to make assumptions.  Innocent until proven guilty, I reminded myself.
         “Well, I can see how I might look like a suspect.  I mean, I was the first to find her body and I had no witnesses for an alibi.  You see, I’d spent all evening at the gallery, alone.  Most everything else they’ve come up with is purely circumstantial.”
         Andi paused a moment, looked towards the hefty matron at the exit door and back at me.
         “On the other hand, there are some very definite no-brainers that prove my innocence.  You’d think law enforcement would get a clue,” she said loud enough to draw the matron’s attention.
         “They said the body had been moved,” Andi continued.  “I haven’t the slightest idea how they could tell, but if they know that, how could they suspect me?  I mean look at me.”  She held out her spindly arms and looked down at her thin torso.  She probably weighed all of ninety pounds.
         “Candace was at least a good six inches taller than me and fifty or sixty pounds heavier.”  Her small round eyes looked straight into mine.  “I was framed.”
         I wondered how many murderers had used that line.  I didn’t want to sound skeptical, though. 
         “How did that happen?”  I sounded skeptical.
         “A man called me about placing his work at the gallery.  I needed more artwork for the grand opening.  Oh, we got lots of calls from people wanting us to show their abstracts.  There’s no shortage of artists out there.  The trick is to find pieces with just the right style and quality.  As the man described his work and clicked off his references it sounded like his work might have potential, worth looking at anyway.  When I got to the address he’d given me, it was nothing but an empty lot.  Empty, except for Candace’s abandoned car.”  Andi stopped.   
         Actually it seemed she had quit breathing.  Andi’s eyes became glassy, peering into thin air.  It was the kind of look I got on the twenty-fifth of every month, when the checkbook read two dollars and fifty-eight cents.
         “Abandoned, so you mean the car was empty?”  I said.
         She jerked back to the present. 
         “It was dark and it took a few minutes for my eyes to adjust, but I noticed a heavy odor when I opened the driver’s door.  Candace never won any awards for house cleaning.  I figured she kept her car the same as her apartment.  Anyway, the overhead light came on dimly and then blinked out, but I could see a glint of keys dangling in the ignition.  I sat down in the driver’s seat and reached for them.  That’s when I heard a buzzing sound from the back seat and turned around.”
         I didn’t like where this was heading, and a little fantasy flitted through my mind.  Maybe I’d never left home this morning, and all this was a bad dream.
         “I couldn’t make it out at first so I reached into my purse for the tiny flashlight I keep on my key chain.”  Andi’s lower lip quivered a bit, but she plowed on.
         “There she was, covered in tatters of duct tape.  Her foot, it was mangled and bloody, and flies swarmed around it.  Her right arm was stiff and set away from her body.  The ring finger was missing.  I was almost certain it was Candace, I mean it was her car, but I had to be sure.”
         It was enough.  I was thinking, you can stop now, I don’t need to hear this but my curiosity kept the words deep in my throat.
         “The plastic bag taped around her neck was so filthy, she continued.  “I couldn’t see her face until I reached over the back of the seat and tore it open at the front.  Then I wished I hadn’t.  Death by asphyxiation, that’s what the coroner’s report said.”
         My stomach churned a bit.  I was glad I’d been running late today.  If there had been time to stop and get something to eat, lunch may have threatened to make a return visit.  A shaky gasp escaped my throat.
         “Yeah, it was ghastly,” Andi said.  “Really strange, too.  There were swirls of paint around her head, blue, green and red.  A toe stuck out of her nose and a finger out of her left ear, her’s I suppose.  I lost it.  I turned in the seat and vomited right there on the ground next to the car.”
         “So you drove to the police station or you called them on your cell phone, right?
         Andi fidgeted in her seat.  “Not exactly.”
         She exhaled slowly before she continued.  “I thought of going to the Try’em and Buy’em car lot.  My husband, Mel, was on duty but he’s never been good in a crisis.  I didn’t know what to do.”
         Andi’s eyes became glossy with the threat of tears.  I was envious in a way.  I hadn’t cried in a very long time.  Losing control wasn’t an option for me.  For the last ten years I’d raised my daughter on my own.  You have to stay on your toes to make sure you do an important job like that the right way.  Through it all, and even before, I suppose I’d been in training for the iron fortitude female contest.  I didn’t like making mistakes and even worse I hated failing.
         My right hand was resting on the table, and I turned my wrist just far enough to reveal the puckered, scarred skin on the underside of my arm, running from wrist to elbow. 
         “I think I was in shock,” Andi said.  I just drove around for a long time until I thought of Sinclair, my attorney.  I called him and asked him to meet me at his office.”  She flared her little nostrils and let out a deep breath.  “Sinclair’s wife answered.  Asked me a thousand and one questions, like she always does.  You know, I wasn’t in the mood for her harassment.  She finally put him on.”
         “And that’s when you and your attorney went to the police?”
         She looked down at the table and picked at an invisible flaw with her blue-painted nail.  “Not exactly.”
         She was quiet again for a bit.  “We sort of, ah, just talked and stuff for a while first.  But eventually we did go to the police.  A lot of good that did me.”
         “What do you mean?  If you reported the crime, surely it made you look less suspicious.”
         “Yeah, maybe if I’d gone before I got home the next morning.  My husband said a detective had been around asking questions.  The cop wanted to see me down at the station as soon as possible, said he’d be back if I didn’t show up.”
         “You didn’t go till the next morning?  No wonder they suspected you.”
         She looked at me with eyes of fire and I knew I had responded too bluntly or, at least, hit a sore spot.  I wondered whether her reaction had to do with the “talk and stuff” she and Sinclair engaged in until dawn.  I’d had those kind of “talks” myself, but not within recent memory.
         “Well, at least you went,” I said.  Somehow I couldn’t get the right amount of consolation in my voice.  “If you hadn’t, it would’ve been worse for you.  And certainly they found other evidence they’re following up on, maybe some unidentified fingerprints or a witness.”
         Andi squirmed again. 
         “Not exactly.”
         I wished she’d stop saying that.
         “The police had already been alerted to the crime scene by an anonymous caller.  Actually, the only fingerprints in the car were Candace’s and mine.  There was another set of footprints, women’s high heels in a larger size than mine.  Unfortunately, they led right out toward where my car was parked in the dirt lot.  They matched the tire tracks up to my little van’s.  And they said there was a paper cup on the ground outside Candace’s car that had my DNA on it, too.  Probably from when I threw up.  Oh, and a crumpled paper bag from the Northern Sampler was found nearby.  It’s a gift shop near my gallery.”
         “So, it wasn’t your cup or your bag?”
         “No, I didn’t even see them.  The cops said the cup was found under the car.  It was full of sugar and some kind of latte flavoring.  I told them, I only drink my coffee black.”
         Andi’s eyes shot a pointed laser beam at me.  “Look, I didn’t kill her.  I didn’t have anything to do with it.  This is all a big mistake and my attorney will get this straightened out and I’ll be out of here in no time.  The bail hearing is set for tomorrow at nine.”
         I smiled.  “I’m sure everything will work out.”
         Actually, I wasn’t at all sure.  In spite of numerous red flags waving in a monsoon wind, I ignored the temptation to jump up, make a beeline for the door, leap into my pickup, and head back to the comfort and safety of home.  But, I knew that wasn’t an option.  There was too much at stake. 
         “Besides, maybe the anonymous caller saw something important and will come forward,” I added.
         Andi continued in a calmer tone.  “Perhaps.  I hope so.  You can’t imagine how dreadful this is.”  She spread her left hand across her forehead and stared down at her right one on the tabletop.  She had the look of a migraine coming on.  She pulled both hands up in front of her face and squinted. 
         “My god, I’ve got to get to my manicurist before I can do anything.” 
         She looked over at me suddenly as though just remembering I was there. 
         “I’ll meet you at the gallery some time after nine tomorrow,” Andi said.  “I’m afraid I’ve lost your cell number.  I forgot it by the phone, when I called you earlier.  Likely one of the inmates got hold of it.  It’s another world inside here.  Leave your business card with the guard and I’ll get in touch.”  Andi motioned to the uniformed woman at the door.
         “Oh, sorry, I don’t have any cards with me.  How about if I meet you in the afternoon, say about three.”  I hadn’t thought about needing business cards.  After all, I didn’t expect to be consulting formally until I completed my business degree.
         “Sure, that should work out.  In the meantime, why don’t you head over to the gallery and have a look around?  There’s a spare key under the terra cotta pot at the front door.  Oh, and Zillah, I prepared a little art project for you.  I’d like you to get a feel for abstract art.  You’ll find a box of supplies and a canvas on the receptionist’s desk as you enter the gallery.  There are instructions in the box.  Take it with you and see what you can come up with.”
         After glancing over towards the guard, she stood as though to dismiss me.  I mentally rolled my eyes, but didn’t respond.  I was interested in learning about her business, but I was never good at art in school, and I’d hoped to get the information I needed regarding the abstract art business, second hand, from Andi.
         “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather wait until this is all cleared up?” 
         Okay, so I was wavering.  I really didn’t know if I should fight or fly.  This whole thing was starting to feel creepy.  Still, I’d let it be Andi’s decision, in spite of what it would mean to me to give up this job and the fee it would bring.
         “Yes, I’m quite sure.  Candace has already cost me enough.  She won’t cost me the gallery too.”
         I readied myself to leave, and turned as I heard footsteps coming our way.  A well-groomed, middle-aged man in a tan summer suit approached us.  His strong musky aftershave slapped me in the face before he was close enough to acknowledge.
         Andi’s eyes held steady on the man.  “Zillah Bluestone, this is my attorney, Taylor Sinclair.  Zillah is the business consultant I’ve hired to help with the gallery.”
         “Very nice to meet you, Ms. Bluestone.”  He held out his hand.  We shook as I voiced a similar greeting.
         “Till tomorrow afternoon, then.”  I nodded at Andi, and headed towards the exit.  As the guard pulled open the heavy metal door that separated the visiting room from the outside free world, I turned to say one last goodbye but my hand stopped mid wave. 
         “No body contact.” I heard the guard say.
         Andi was in the arms of Lawyer Sinclair and they weren’t exchanging brotherly-sisterly pecks on the cheek.  Rather, it seemed to be a winner takes all saliva-sucking contest.