Wallflower (42 page)

But, Melissa explained, there was a second act to the story, the scandal that arose later on. Aretzsky, heartbroken, disdained and scorned, turned bitter and took to drink. And, as is so often the case, the excesses of his infatuation were equaled by the intensity of his disillusionment. After several months, unable to rid himself of his obsession, he began work on a second portrait of Victoria far different from the first. It was the same size: enormous. She was in the same pose: singing. She wore the same clothes and jewelry: her diamond necklace and scarlet dress. But there the resemblance stopped. Instead of the heroic, idealized features he had painted the first time around, the features in the second picture were deeply characterized. That second portrait, painted out of heartbreak and bitterness, purported to show her as she really was: spiteful; selfish; mean.

"
I have to hand it to Aretzsky," Melissa said.
"
He caught something, no question about that. It wasn't the face Vicky showed the world, but it was a face I'd seen a couple of times when she
was off her guard. Maybe it wasn't the real Vicky, but it did show a hidden side of her, particularly around the eyes and mouth. Aretzsky put everything he felt into it. It was truly a picture informed by hate. That's what people who saw it said. And people
did
see it! Aretzsky saw to that! He had a show at the Howard French Gallery at Shaker Square, and his big new picture of Vicky was the first thing you saw when you walked in.

"Well, she was furious! Who can blame her? Still, I think if Aretzsky's second portrait hadn't contained a certain amount of recognizable truth, she might have been able to laugh it off. But the way she went around expressing her outrage only made people eager to see it for themselves. And when they did, they began to talk. People were fascinated. The subject came up at dinner parties: Which picture showed the true Vicky, the first or the second? There were people who even reread that old Oscar Wilde story
The Picture of Dorian Gray
and then expounded on the parallels. And there was talk, too, that ugly though the second picture was, it was also, because of its passion, Aretzsky's greatest work. I remember Vicky coming in here at the time, sitting in the very chair you're sitting in now, Lieutenant, looking at me, shaking her head. 'Oh, Lisa'—she always called me that—'why did I ever let him paint me in the first place?'
Why?"

Melissa turned to Janek, widened her eyes. Clearly she reveled in the effect of her tale.

"The answer, of course, was her insatiable vanity, which Aretzsky was more than happy to requite. But she didn't really want to know the answer to her question, so I kept my thoughts to myself. She did, however, try to do something about that second picture. She approached certain of her wealthy admirers and begged them to buy the portrait so she could have the pleasure of seeing it destroyed. From what I understand some fairly substantial offers were actually made. But no matter how much he was offered, Aretzsky refused. The man simply wouldn't sell. And why should he? Think about it. That picture was his revenge. You don't sell out your revenge, do you, Lieutenant? At least not if you feel wronged the way Aretzsky did . . ."

Peter Aretzsky, as it turned out, died just a year after Victoria Archer. In Melissa's judgment, he never recovered from his obsession with the singer. The second portrait? Melissa had no idea where it was. The scandal subsided long before Vicky died. Wasn't it always like that? Melissa asked. People couldn't get enough of something, gossiped about it endlessly, then, a year later, wondered why they ever cared.

"
Bev? Of course, I remember Bev. She's a psychoanalyst in New York, isn't she? Oh, just a therapist? Well, it's all the same to me. I don't know much about that kind of thing, but I know Vicky did a real job on the girl. The way she scampered around after her beloved 'Mama' like there was an invisible leash and collar around her neck! You had to wonder what she got out of it. The honor of being Vicky Archer's daughter, I suppose. Still, everyone thought it was pretty peculiar, but no one dared say a word. 'Oh, Bev's just going through an awkward stage right now'—that's what Vicky would say if you gingerly brought the matter up. 'A stage'! 'Right now'! You had to laugh! Vicky kept Bev awkward from the day she was born. I sometimes wondered if she kept her that way to make herself look better by contrast. Because, you know, the other daughter, Millie, wasn't drab at all. That's the way it is sometimes: One daughter serves the mother while the other strikes out on her own. I've seen it happen again and again. I just hope Bev has straightened herself out. Sometimes you can't do that, you know. You get twisted, and then, after the person who twisted you passes away, it's too late to change and have a normal life. . . .
"

Janek decided to let her ramble on. Better that she reminisce at random, he thought, and add her little homilies about life, than for him to question her too closely about Beverly and then be forced to explain why he was interested.

"
How good a singer was Vicky Archer? You're really putting me on the spot, Lieutenant. Let's just say she was very good. Did you know she was on network TV once? The Carson show, I think. After that she played a club date in New York. But she wasn't quite good enough to make it there, so she came back here, where she could be sure she'd always be a star. And for a few years, at least, she had this city at her feet. Well, maybe I exaggerate. But you have to understand, the Fairmount Club Lounge, where she hung
out and sang, was a kind of mecca for a number of us. Vicky was a goddess there."

Melissa shook her head.
"
If I close my eyes—"she closed them—"I can still see her standing in that cone of red light they always put on her, sultry, sexy, her hair red like a flame, crooning those great old songs, 'Black Coffee,' 'My One and Only Love,' 'Don't Smoke in Bed.'" Melissa opened her eyes again. "So, how good was she? Still want to know? Let's say she was Cleveland's answer to Peggy Lee. But let's face it, even at its height the Fairmount Club Lounge was no Persian Room. Cleveland just isn't New York, is it? I'm afraid not," Melissa added crisply, a ripe smile signifying a slightly mean satisfaction at finally being able to pin her old friend a little lower on the board of talent than perhaps old Vicky would have liked.

I
t was past seven when they got back to their motel. Aaron, who'd bought a Cleveland restaurant guide and had been eating his way through it since the day he'd arrived in town, wanted to try a highly recommended Chinese restaurant in a shopping center not far away. They drove there, ordered dinner, but didn't like it much. Every single dish was sweet.

Back at the motel Janek watched TV for a while, then went to bed. At 1:00 A.M. he was awakened by his phone. It was Melissa Walters. She sounded slightly frantic and very drunk.

"Sorry to wake you, Lieutenant, but I had to call. Something's been preying on me ever since you left. Then, when I phoned Millie Cannaday and found out why you're here, I just couldn't rest easy until we spoke."

Was she a crazy old lady, or did she really have something for him?

"About what?" Janek asked.

"About Bev. I don't think anyone else knows it except for me. Anyone else living, that is."

"Knows what?"

"It has to do with her being a wallflower. It's a terrible thing,
Lieutenant. I'd rather not discuss it on the phone if you don't mind."

She suggested he join her for breakfast the following morning at a coffee shop around the corner from the Alhambra. She would explain everything then, she promised. Again she apologized for waking him up.

H
e had Aaron drop him off, feeling this was one interview he might handle better on his own. Melissa Walters was waiting for him, already sipping coffee. No powder, eye shadow, lipstick, or rouge was on her face that day. It was a ravaged old lady who sat across from him. Two plastic place mats, doubling as breakfast menus, decorated the table, along with a single rose lying on a dainty plate.

Janek ordered toast and coffee. Then he turned to Melissa.

"
Well?" he asked.

"
There was something Vicky told me once, back years ago. She was drunk when she said it. I'm sure she didn't remember afterwards." Melissa paused.
"
It was a terrible thing, Lieutenant. A truly terrible thing . . ."

It concerned the two MacDonald boys, Stuart and James. The brothers, it seemed, had had some kind of crush on Victoria. They came around to the lounge all the time, gazed at her intently, mesmerized by the way she sang. Vicky always liked young men, liked their fresh young bodies, but the MacDonalds, still in their teens, were too young even for her.

Still, Vicky was not a woman to waste a pair of infatuated boys. She'd been worried about Beverly at the time, feeling the girl was socially retarded, too shy with males, frightened even by the notion of sex. Her prescription for that was simple.
"
All Bev needs is a really good lay," Vicky said.

In the end that was how she decided to employ the MacDonalds: as studs to initiate Beverly into the rites and rituals of physical love.

"
To use a couple of kids enamored of you to get your own
daughter hot and bothered—it was a rotten idea, and I think deep down Vicky knew it was." Melissa shook her head. She seemed highly disturbed by her story, a sign to Janek that it was probably true.
"
But once she got the notion into her head, she couldn't let it go. I don't know what happened exactly, except that there was a formal dance and she chose that occasion to sic the boys on to Bev. The whole thing went sour, as it was bound to do. First, there were two of them, which was crazy on its face. And second, the MacDonalds were just a pair of horny kids, not romantic at all. They made some kind of crude, clumsy pass, Bev got hysterical (at least that's what the boys reported to Vicky; Bev apparently never said a word), and the end result was just the opposite of what Vicky intended. Instead of learning what sex was about and how great it could be, Bev discovered it was horrible and never wanted to engage in it again.

"
When Vicky told me what she'd done, she was practically in tears. She'd botched it, she admitted, and now she didn't know how to make things right. Even now I can remember her words: 'I didn't want her to be a goddamn wallflower, Lisa. Now I'm afraid that's what she's going to be.'
"

That was what Melissa wanted Janek to know. She probably wouldn't have thought of it if Millie Cannaday hadn't mentioned that the MacDonalds had been murdered and their sex organs glued up by Beverly's patient. Then, when Millie mentioned the wallflower signature, the pieces just fell together in Melissa's mind.

As he listened, Janek couldn't help feeling sickened by the tale even as he was exhilarated by the knowledge that he had finally found a motive for at least one set of Wallflower killings. He thanked Melissa, paid the breakfast check, and went out to walk the cold, windy streets of Cleveland Heights.

He wandered aimlessly. The story haunted him. Everything about it rang true—except for Victoria Archer's tears. He could give no credence to her regrets. On the basis of everything he'd learned about the woman, he believed she probably
did
want Beverly to be a wallflower, and that was the real reason she'd set her daughter up. Monika would understand, Janek thought. She would analyze it clearly. She'd say that although Victoria may have
thought
she was sorry about the outcome, deep down in her subconscious she was pleased by it.
Very pleased.

So Beverly had sent Diana Proctor out to kill and glue the MacDonalds in revenge for what they'd done to her after a dance years before. And the two toothbrushes Diana had brought back as trophies to be offered up to the image of Victoria on the wall—were they the symbols of the brothers' sex organs, sources of their mutual offense?

It was vile and sick, Janek thought, and also totally wrong. For, even if one believed in revenge, it was not the MacDonalds who deserved to be glued. It was Mama. That, Janek thought, was the ultimate irony in the whole grotesque and monstrous affair: that Beverly, the avenging wallflower, should have offered up trophies to the very woman who caused her to become a wallflower in the first place.

Janek made his way down to the University Circle area, then phoned Aaron at the motel. While he waited to be picked up, he was struck by a powerful idea. He pulled back from it; it seemed too perfect. Then he slowly brought it out again, rotated it, examined it, looked at it from every side. Perhaps, he thought, there
was
a way to break Beverly, induce her to confess. . . .

T
here they were, two Manhattan cops in a strange mid-western city, looking for a picture painted by an artist who had died seven years before.

"
How do we find it? We go classic, Frank," Aaron said. And that's just what he did.

Although it was a textbook example of investigative work, later Janek would marvel at the elegance and speed with which Aaron brought it off.

He went straight to the Cuyahoga County Courthouse, where, after some mild flirting with one of the clerks, he obtained the estate file for Peter Aretzsky. Aretzsky's sole heir and executrix turned out to be one and the same person, his sister, a Mrs. Nadia Malkiewicz, who, as it happened, was conveniently listed in the Cleveland telephone directory. Aaron called her. Yes, she was Peter Aretzsky's sister. Yes, she had inherited all his unsold work. Yes, she had the big picture of Victoria Archer. Yes, she would be willing to show it to the detectives. When would they like to see it? Now? Fine, they could come right over.