Framed (5 page)

“He’s got a potty mouth and he’s loud, but he doesn’t threaten. He’s just so weird!”

Carol, who had been quiet up ’til now, said, “I’ve heard things out of him I wouldn’t want my kids to hear. He scares some of the high schoolers who work for me in the afternoons. One girl even quit because of him.”

The policeman said, “I think I have enough information here that I’d be justified in having a talk with him. Do you want me to?”

Since it had come to decision time, everyone paused for a deep breath. Ed the landlord was the first to break the silence. “I would appreciate it, Tom. I don’t expect my tenants to be one big happy family, but when you’ve got one that upsets everyone else, it can be a big problem. I don’t have quite enough to kick him out, but sometimes I’d like to.”

Ginny summed it up. “In the end, it’s up to you, Tom.”

DiAndreo looked around the room. “Okay. I’ll stop in over the next couple of days sometime. I don’t want it to look like I’ve come directly from all of you guys. Does that work?”

There were murmured thanks and a general sense of relief. After Tom DiAndreo got back into his cruiser, everyone talked for a few minutes before returning to their respective shops.

Mark Horner thanked Ginny for arranging the meeting, and said with complete sincerity, “You know you gals can always call any of us at the Bowl any time you need us. I’m serious. We’ll come right over and jump on him if we have to.”

The thought sparked one of Elsie’s silly moods. “I can see it now,” she giggled. “One outraged gorilla—that’s Jemmie—two little froggies, and half a bushel of quahogs. And me and Sue with shards of glass in our hands!”

They laughed. “Who needs glass?” Sue said. “We have razor blades, X-Acto knives, box cutters. Even fallouts from beveled mats are sharp enough to cut skin.”

“Not to mention my kitchen,” Mark added. “Chopping blades, paring knives, and a meat slicer could do lots of damage.”

Ginny nodded. If someone wanted to do harm, there were plenty of deadly weapons to choose from, ready to hand. She shivered.

Chapter Six

April turned to May; the daily routine of Brush & Bevel was busy enough to prevent Ginny, Sue, and Elsie from spending too much energy on any one problem. The Berger painting—though never forgotten—faded into the background behind the Jemmie incident and the wedding rush. Every year, it seemed, it became more popular to have a photo of the happy couple displayed at the reception in lieu of a guest book, with an extra-wide mat for guests to pen their best wishes and sign their names. Brush & Bevel now stocked an assortment of precut mats and ready-made frames for the convenience of harried brides, or more likely maids of honor or mothers of the bride, who never seemed to remember the memento until the last moment.

Besides the routine framing, there were always the unusual objects customers wanted to preserve. May often meant souvenirs of First Communions, christenings, and gifts for teachers. This year a dance school wanted to honor a retiring teacher by framing a pair of her ballet slippers, and an equestrienne brought in a bronzed set of her horse’s shoes. The staff always enjoyed the creative challenge such items entailed.

Sunny returned one day to finalize her mat choice. She also brought along a handful of stones that had been fitted with snug coats of felt in swirls of bright colors. Her idea was to set them in the frame as if they were part of the beach. Ginny, her lips twitching, dissuaded her by pointing out the stones were way out of proportion. “Well, can you paint the frame? In swirls like the felt?” the irrepressible woman asked.

Ginny hid her amusement as best she could and thanked the stars Sue was downstairs at the moment. “We could, Sunny, but you’re artistic. Why don’t you do it? Then it would be exactly what you want.”

The red-dyed hair bobbed as Sunny nodded. “Do you really think I could?”

“Of course,” Ginny assured her and rubbed her nose. Sunny danced out the door on clouds of elation.

A week after Sunny’s visit, in mid-May, Jenna Rudolph returned at last to Brush & Bevel with the painting they all believed was a Jerry Berger. Her round, pleasant face was quite serious as she entered. Sue and Elsie started to excuse themselves, to allow Ginny to complete the agreement in private, but Jenna asked them to stay. “You should hear this. You will be caring for this painting, and I want you to know how I feel.”

Ginny settled them all in the “living room” area of the shop, where the upholstered chairs and a faux fireplace created a cozy nook. She offered coffee or a soda from the deli, but Jenna declined. It was a Tuesday, usually a rather slow day when few customers came in and the staff could count on getting a lot of framing done. “I’m glad you decided to go ahead,” Ginny began.

Jenna shrugged. “Well, I sort of feel I have to. I almost feel like I owe it to this painting.” She held it up on her lap, studying it for a moment. “I didn’t like it at first. I’ve never been very fond of nudes. And to think of a woman naked in the woods like this, and an artist sitting there doing her portrait—well, it makes me rather uncomfortable.”

“If it’s any consolation,” Ginny interjected, “Jerry—if this really is his, which I think it is—Jerry usually worked from photographs. He would have taken pictures of the rocks, maybe when she was with him, maybe not. If she was there, she was probably clothed. Then he would have photographed her in his studio and combined the two. I don’t think he would have made her sit for hours out in the woods.”

Jenna considered that, nodded, and continued. “The more I looked at it, the more I came to like it. It isn’t—naughty, you know. She’s quite pretty really. Then when I heard about how she died…I did some research and looked at his other paintings. I like them. I read about how he killed her and then himself, and I wondered why he would have done it. Then I thought, maybe she deserves to have her side of the story told.” She ran her fingers along the edge of the canvas and laid the painting on her lap. “I’ve just about decided to go ahead, but I want to know as much as possible about it. About her and the artist, I mean. About how they died. What can you tell me?”

Ginny settled deeper into her chair. She had half-expected this request for more information. People were endless gossips, and a murder was juicy enough without adding in the suicide bit. She cast back in her mind. “It was a long time ago, the year we had so many big snowstorms early in the winter, everyone thought we’d be buried until Easter. The first I heard of it was when the newspapers reported Abby Bingham missing. I couldn’t believe it. She was such a nice lady. Always doing things for the community. Anyway, it was right after a really big storm, and at first, the police thought she’d gotten into some kind of accident in the snow. So they were checking all the hospitals and so on. Then they thought maybe she and her husband Mike had been fighting and she ran away, but that turned out to be a dead end. The story faded away for a while, a couple of weeks at least. You know how it is: new stories get the front-page coverage, and it was right before Christmas. Mike kept bugging the cops, I heard.”

Elsie stirred, but kept quiet. Mike had done a lot more than bug the cops, but Ginny wanted to stick with a sanitized version of the story.

“Then, I think it was the day after Christmas, or maybe it was right after New Year’s, a couple of hunters were out in a field up north of here, tracking some deer, and they practically fell over the bodies. There had been a light snow, so they were covered, but it was obvious they were dead. They had, um…been there a long time, long enough for the coyotes to get at them.” Ginny swallowed hard. “The hunters called the cops right away. The cops came and got what they could, and eventually figured out it was Jerry and Abby. From what they could piece together,” she grimaced at her choice of words, “he shot her and then himself. But I never understood it. I never would’ve pictured him with a gun.”

Jenna nodded. “But it’s so mysterious, what people do. It could have been a murder/suicide. The cops thought it was.” It sounded as though she was trying to convince herself. Her fingers tightened on the painting again. Her voice grew firmer. “All the more reason to put it out there. It’s a terrible story, but people should hear it!”

“I’d go softly on that point,” Ginny cautioned. “The police did decide it was murder/suicide, but the case is still open. I don’t want to do anything that would damage their reputations or cause a scandal. The painting is good enough, or it should be once it’s cleaned up, to add to Jerry’s status, and that’s all I care about. If we go forward with this, Jenna, I want you to understand that. This is about the art, that’s all. Even though you own the painting itself, Jerry’s family would be very upset if we raked up that old dirt about his death. I’m afraid I have to be firm about that.”

After a long moment, Jenna inclined her head. “Well, let’s just start by confirming this is really a Jerry Berger. Can we go over the agreement again?”

****

Sue and Elsie excused themselves, choking down their curiosity. Ginny would never reveal the contents of the agreement, of course. She was adamant about protecting the privacy of her clients. There were certain details they would have to know, such as whether and how the piece would be framed, and what the asking price would be if Jenna decided to sell it; maybe even the lowest price Jenna would accept, though that was something a potential buyer would never know. But sooner or later, they were sure, she would tell them why she had held back so much of the story from Jenna.

Sue offered to join frames today, but Elsie urged her to do the mat cutting instead. As a rule they shared all the various duties involved in completing the orders, but there was no sense denying they each had particular skills. Elsie had a real knack for getting sometimes-recalcitrant frame legs to join together without gaps, and Sue knew her way around the computer better than Elsie did. Both of them knew how to pin needlework and prepare works for dry mounting, but Sue enjoyed pinning while Elsie didn’t, and the aerosol adhesive used to dry-mount less valuable prints didn’t make Elsie sick as it did to Sue.

“I do need to get some practice on the computer,” Elsie said, “but you know how long it takes me to do a mat. Yaneque will be here before lunch to pick up those mats to take to Keene.”

“Oh, geez!” Sue exclaimed. “I forgot about them. I’d better get a move on!”

She booted up the computer and turned on the compressor for the cutter. While they warmed up, she gathered the mats she needed to cut and the four relevant work orders with the specifications. The mat cutters in general were very versatile, but the one at a gallery in Keene was an older model that couldn’t handle the required cuts. The Keene gallery had called and asked Brush & Bevel to cut them; they’d faxed the designs and arranged for a pickup.

Sue looked over the first design, a complex one with multiple openings, a triple mat, and several decorative flourishes. She would have to keep her mind on business when she would rather be thinking about the Berger painting.

After nearly an hour of painstaking work, she was satisfied with the project. She cut the remaining three designs and wrapped them for Yaneque to pick up and take to Keene.

****

Elsie, meanwhile, set up the joiner and eight frames. For a wonder, they all went together so well she only had to set one frame into the vices for additional gluing. She was relieved. She wanted to think about her memories of Jerry and Abby while she worked.

What was Ginny holding back, and why? Did she have reservations about the police conclusion that it was murder/suicide? She wondered if Ginny had more information.

It had seemed so inexplicable back when it happened. There was no tension that anyone knew of between Abby and Jerry, or between Abby and Mike. Jerry lived alone, but he was at ease with both men and women. Elise smiled to herself, remembering how much she’d enjoyed it when Jerry came into the gallery. She had liked Abby, too, without complication. They were both nice people.

So who might have killed them? The police had cleared Mike Bingham, and judging by his demeanor, he’d been devastated by Abby’s death. Elsie could never think back to that day when he appeared in the gallery without a shudder. Even now, her heart leaped into her throat sometimes when she opened the stairwell door. It was uncanny how he’d sat in the dark, gun in his lap, waiting. Just waiting. He perched on one of the tall chairs at the design table, and when she came through the door, he turned and snarled at her. It was almost an animal sound, deep in the throat, and that sound alone was enough to root her to the spot. Glaring straight at Elsie, he had demanded to know where he could find Abby.

Of course she’d had no answer. She said something inane, something about how the police were still looking for her. It was only then she saw the gun. A handgun, and though she had no idea what brand or caliber it was, it looked very lethal. Mike held his hand over it, not gripping it, thank God. That was all that saved him from a jail sentence; he hadn’t made an actual threat with the gun.

Ginny filed charges, of course. As sympathetic as anyone could be toward a man almost insane with grief, she still refused to let him get away with invading her business and frightening her employees. He paid a fine, surrendered the gun, and agreed to attend some anger management sessions. Elsie couldn’t remember whether he’d finished them.

After Abby’s funeral and his court appearance to settle the trespass charges, Mike went away. He couldn’t bear to live in Mill Falls anymore, he announced when he resigned his position as alderman. No one blamed him much. He went someplace out west, to a dry flat country as different as possible from the tree-covered mountains of New Hampshire. Over time most folks forgot about him.

Now it had all come back to haunt them. Why were memories of sudden death so vivid? How could such a minimal connection with the victims have become such a scar on their hearts? Brush & Bevel’s owner had had only a business relationship with the Binghams, and not much more with Berger, however much she admired him. Elsie realized then that she couldn’t remember just how Ginny had become involved with Berger’s estate; she would have to ask her boss to refresh her memory.