Diane Davidson - Tough Cookie

I yawned and took a third trip down prize row. All but three First Prizes and two Honorable Mentions were still for sale for sums in excess of a thousand dollars. Signs announced that the others were on loan. This left me with a question: If these prizewinners are so good, how come they haven’t sold?

But really, the problem was the pretensions of poor, dead Doug. His own paintings had been mediocre and derivative, and he’d believed they’d make him rich. How then could he judge what was good? I felt sorry for him, even in death.

When another five minutes elapsed and I still hadn’t been asked if I needed help, I meandered to the rear of the store to find a trash can for my paper coffee cup. Beside a water cooler, above the garbage receptacle, three collages hung on the wall. They were all by the same person, the artist whose collages I’d seen at the bistro and in Eileen’s home. For some reason, these works of art made me smile. “Spring Detritus” featured torn photographs of bright-white snow melting on churned-up soil, ski poles speared into patches of matted neon green grass, and dirty lilac mittens caught up in the teeth of a yellow snowcat. “Ski Patrol at Dusk” was crowded with images of ski runs in a blizzard, blurred inmotion images of athletic uniformed skiers, a snowmobile hauling a sled with an injured, faceless skier, and dark, forlorn-looking crossed skis, the signal for help.

Finally, there was “Celebrity on the Mountain.” Pieces of photographs showed hordes of burly guards speaking into walkie-talkies, a stand of metal microphones gleaming in the sunshine, a photograph of half of the vice-president’s face. The other half of the veep’s face lay underneath an ad for a videocamera. I laughed aloud, and this finally brought a saleswoman to my side.

“Is there a problem?” she asked. Short and compactly slim, she wore heavy matte makeup on a face framed with chic-cut jet black hair. Her clothes, a black turtleneck and pants edged at the neck and cuffs with faux tiger fur, seemed to have been form-fitted.

“No,” I replied with a very slight smile and a glance at my watch. I had been in the gallery almost twenty minutes. “No problem at all.”

She considered the collages, then sniffed. “They make me want to puke.”

“Puke? If you feel that way, why do you have them here at the gallery? I think they’re wonderful.”

She sneered at me. “They’re saccharine. Do you prefer decoration to art ?”

I looked back at the collages. “How’re you defining ‘decoration’?”

“Doug Portman, our critic, used to say Boots Faraday’s art is purely decorative,” the woman commented with an if-only-you-understood shrug. “We handle Boots because she accounts for half of our profits. Most of it goes to decorators , of course.…”

“So is that how you define ‘decorative’? Who buys it? Or what critic says it’s ‘decorative’?”

Her face turned smug. She looked me and my noncouture outfit up and down. “It’s too complicated to explain.”

“How much for ‘Spring Detritus’?” I demanded impulsively.

Startled, the saleslady took a step away from me. “Uh, two-fifty. That’s two hundred and fifty dollars. You’re going to buy it? Today? Now?”

“Yes,” I said. “Now,” I added decisively. It would make a great Christmas present for Tom, debts be damned.

The woman took down the collage and swaggered to the front counter. I whipped out my credit card and ventured aloud, “To tell you the truth, I think the stuff Doug Portman picked as being good is pretty awful.”

“You’re talking about our town’s premier art critic—”

“You knew him?”

“Of course. Unfortunately, he has just died. Yesterday. In a ski accident.” She scanned my credit card. “There’s no way you’d see Boots Faraday’s work in Doug’s Best of Killdeer picks.”

“I’m sorry to hear Mr. Portman died,” I murmured. “What happened?”

“I don’t know exactly,” she replied. She handed me my receipt. “Probably a snowboarder got going too fast and whacked him. That’s why the authorities are up there investigating.”

“Hmm.” Arch railed against snowboarder prejudice. If something goes wrong and they don’t know why , he’d say, they’ll blame it on a boarder .

“Will it hurt the gallery,” I inquired pleasantly, “not to have the critic reviewing the art you display?”

“Of course it will. Doug loved to talk about art. He would come in and explain things. He was brilliant . And we had a major, major New York art critic in here, who just raved about Doug’s picks.”

“Really? Who was that, exactly?”

“I’m not at liberty to say,” she replied, again smug.

“Ah, well.” I tried to make my tone conciliatory. “Listen, do you have a card for this collage artist? I’d love to write her a little fan letter.”

“If you’re thinking of buying Boots Faraday’s work direct, to cut us out, I’m just telling you, we’re her exclusive agent in this town.” The saleslady spat out her words. When I didn’t respond, she rummaged reluctantly through a drawer and thrust a card at me.

While the woman wrapped the collage, I glanced casually at the card, then gaped at it. Not only were Boots Faraday’s address, phone number, and e-mail printed on the card, so was a miniature picture of her. Boots was handsome and high-cheekboned. She flashed white teeth set in a powerful smile. And she had an enormous mane of ruffled blond hair.

I had seen her before. Where?

“Now what’s wrong?” demanded the saleswoman when she returned and handed me the wrapped collage. “I can take the card back, if it’s giving you as much trouble as our prize paintings.”

I smiled, gripped Tom’s collage, and walked away. I’d had enough art-appreciation-sniping for one morning. As I headed back to the Rover, a visual memory finally clicked.

I had seen collage artist Boots Faraday. Fleetingly, from afar. The previous morning, the day that Doug Portman had lost his life on these slopes, she’d been hanging artworks on the wall of Eileen’s bistro. Then she’d sat down and watched our live filming of Cooking at the Top just like all the other guests.

I stowed the collage in the back of the Rover. Eileen Druckman owned several of Boots Faraday’s works. Did Eileen know Boots Faraday? Had Eileen invited the artist to the PBS show? What about Arthur? Did he know Ms. Faraday?

Stop , I reprimanded myself. If the occasion arose where I needed to talk to Boots Faraday, I now had her address and phone number. And her picture. She shouldn’t be that hard to find.

As I drove toward Elk Path, my mind came back to the image of the blond artist up the ladder. She was an artist deemed “decorative” and not the “Best of Killdeer” by a man who died very shortly thereafter.

Tom always told me to look for what was out of place. Boots Faraday was an artist, not a TV fan, and certainly not a foodie. So on the day Doug Portman died, what was she doing at the bistro? Anything besides hanging artworks?

CHAPTER 11

At five to ten, I pulled into Arthur Wakefield’s driveway. Unlike the other houses along Elk Path, and undoubtedly pushing the limits of Killdeer’s covenants, his residence was painted the darkest gray I’d seen all morning. Charcoal siding contrasted with pearly decks and a steep slate roof. The place had a Loire-Valley château feel to it, which was undoubtedly what le wine-geek had in mind. Or had his mother chosen the place—and paid for it—before she died?

Peering through my windshield, I wondered about doleful Arthur’s agenda. If his mother had left him a good chunk of change, why would he need to work for PBS? Was the wine import business struggling? Or was Arthur living in a Killdeer condo for other, more personal reasons? His letter to the paper suggested a whole lot of rage. At least there was no Subaru wagon parked outside.