Chapter 27
I jump up from the chair, swiping my hands through my hair. So, Riley did lie. She didn’t come right out and say so just now, but she made clear it’s the reason she wants to meet.
And she told someone right afterward, days before she blurted out the story to Morgan.
I wonder now if I should reach out to Halligan. But after he finished chewing me out for going around him, he’d probably say what I’ve already concluded, that in the end this doesn’t change a thing—Ruck still committed both crimes.
But did he? I’m yanked back to the idea of a copycat, a concept that initially seemed far-fetched.
What if the person Riley told her awful story to—or a person he or she told—was someone who hated Mel and wanted her gone from the earth.
This could have given the murderer the perfect way to kill her without throwing suspicion on himself.
If things actually played out this way, Mel’s killer must have hoped Riley would eventually go to the cops so that they’d suspect a serial rapist, and yet in the end it didn’t matter. Ruck was arrested in Plattsburgh less than a month later, and soon after that he was linked to Melanie’s murder.
Is Jack the killer after all? Carter College is a small school, so it’s possible Jack heard about Riley’s rape through someone. Or she might have known Jack herself and told him.
My thoughts rush toward Handler next. It’s possible that Riley, an English major, told him about her experience, hoping to get some guidance about handling school in the aftermath.
Maybe when she broke down in front of Morgan, she’d only gone by the English department office in the hope of following up on an earlier conversation with Handler.
Maybe, maybe, maybe. I really have no clue.
I force myself back to the present. I call Craig’s number and book a ride for later to Edgerton, explaining that I’ll need the driver to wait for at least thirty minutes.
It’s not even noon yet, so I have several hours to kill before leaving.
I told myself earlier that I wasn’t going to take Alison Handler up on her offer to see the studio, but I’ve changed my mind.
Though taking a closer look at her paintings isn’t likely to tell me much, maybe talking to her will provide a tiny bit of insight about the Handlers’ world—and marriage.
I find her business card and shoot her a text, asking if it would be possible for me to drop by in the next hour.
Yes, that would be lovely, she replies soon afterward. You know the address, of course.
Hopefully Handler is hunkered down on campus today. Regardless of whether or not he locked me in the Muse office, I don’t want to run into him.
Even though my hip still aches a bit, I decide to go on foot to Birch Street. It’s been days since I had any real exercise, and besides, walking might help me outpace my guilt for a while and keep thoughts about Bas and Logan at bay for now.
I grab my coat and head out from the inn. Fifteen minutes later, when I’m near the north end of the campus, Chip Conway calls.
“Have you got a minute?” he asks.
“Is it about the archive? Because I never received a link.”
“I know, I know, I’m sorry about that. Melanie’s stuff is there, but I ended up in meetings all morning. Give me until later this afternoon, and I promise to get something to you.”
“Great,” I say, eager to be done. But when he coughs briefly, I realize he’s not going anywhere.
“While I’ve got you, I wanted to mention that I’ve had yet another call from that reporter from the Albany Times Union, the one on the crime beat I told you about.”
“Right. Well, you just have to keep repeating the same message, Chip—that we still have nothing to say about Melanie’s case.”
“Understood. But I’d do a better job at staving him off if I had more information to go on. He’s always throwing something new at me and catching me off guard.”
“New?” I’m on alert now.
“Yeah. Does the name Riley Reynolds mean anything to you?”
Damn. Someone with the police must have leaked information about her. Riley is going to be badly rattled if her name ends up in the news.
“I know she was a student at Carter once,” I say. He’s not getting anything more from me than that.
“Yes, but she left in the middle of the fall term—the same year Melanie died—and never returned. And she’s supposedly back in the area now. You haven’t heard where, have you?”
“Chip, you really need to speak to the state police about any questions you have,” I say, irritated again by how much he’s pushing. “I’m not the correct person to be commenting on any of this.”
“Sure, sure, of course.”
As I hang up and fully focus on my whereabouts again, I realize I’m already on the corner of Oak Street and Birch, and five minutes later I’m in front of Alison’s studio. I start quickly down the path, hoping that if Handler is at home, he won’t have noticed me.
The door swings open only seconds after I knock. Unlike her husband, Alison hasn’t taken her sweet time to respond.
“Ah, welcome,” she says. She offers a smile that’s both inviting and enigmatic, as if she’s pleased I’m here but still savoring a secret from earlier in the day. In the daylight, I notice that her hazel eyes are flecked with gold.
“I hope I’m not throwing off your schedule,” I say.
“Not at all. Please come in.”
It’s the smell I notice first: a rich mix of woodsy scents like cypress and cedar with a hint of something minty, maybe eucalyptus. It’s almost like I’ve stepped into a hidden forest, something magical or dreamlike.
The look of the studio is enchanting, too, even more than I realized when I snooped through the windows. I’m closer to the paintings now, with their vivid yellows and blues, but I avoid fixating on their disturbing images.
Instead, I soak up the rest of the space with my eyes—the large easel in the middle of the room, the rolling carts overflowing with brushes and paint tubes, the antique-looking wooden worktable against the wall on my right.
The door to the back room is open, and I spot a daybed inside and a rattan ceiling fan rotating above it.
Is that room just for reading and afternoon naps, or does Alison escape there some evenings, fretting about a husband she senses might be a cheater?
“What a lovely workspace,” I say. “You must enjoy coming here each day.”
“I do, very much.” She’s dressed in a white turtleneck sweater and flowy moss-green pants, like the mistress of this tranquil forest, and her hair is in a loose knot, with tendrils framing her face.
“When we were first looking in the area, we couldn’t find anything with a suitable outbuilding, but someone at the college knew this house was about to go on the market and told Jeffrey about it. ”
“Is Friday a busy teaching day for him?” I ask, hoping to confirm he’s on campus.
“No, Fridays are when he writes, though today he’s having lunch in Albany with a friend . . . Please take a look around. And I’d be glad to answer any questions you have.”
I don’t have any choice now but to absorb the artwork. For the first time I wonder if she views me as a potential buyer, and my decision to stop by has totally misled her. How thoughtless of me not to consider that.
I approach the painting of the woman with the basket full of mice, and as I fully take it in, I admit to myself that the image might be unsettling but it’s also gripping. Still, I’d never want anything like that hanging in my living room.
I force my gaze to the painting to the left. In this one a woman sits at a kitchen table, echoing a painting on Alison’s website. There’s a horse in this one, too, but it’s tiny, the size of a toy figure, and it’s perched on a dinner plate. The woman is about to cut into it with her knife and fork.
And next to that is one with slightly different colors. There’s a woman in a white dress again, but she’s dark haired and holding a baby doll with bright-orange flames shooting out of its head.
“What do you think?” Alison asks evenly from behind me. “And please be honest. I’m very thick-skinned about my work.”
“I have to admit they’re disturbing, but also very arresting,” I say, turning around. “And I love the colors you use.”
“Thank you, that means a lot.”
“Are these actual dreams of yours?”
“Not dreams I’ve necessarily had. But ones I can imagine myself having.”
“I see,” I say, though I’m not sure I do. Perhaps she’s afraid of mice and conflicted about not having children and assumes those thoughts might haunt her sleep if given half a chance.
“Can I pour you a cup of herbal tea? I made a pot just before you arrived.”
“Yes, please, as long as you’re having a cup, too.”
She smiles serenely and heads toward a wooden stand next to her worktable, where an electric kettle sits along with a large clay teapot and several mugs.
“I’m working on something now that I’d love your thoughts on,” she says, glancing over her shoulder. “It’s at the other end of the room.”
I wander to the opposite side of the studio, where another easel holds an unfinished work.
Next to it is a wooden storage rack with about ten pieces of art tucked into the slots.
As I stop to examine the new work, I spot a flash of silver in one of the paintings on the rack.
Curious, I slide it out a foot or so. I think it’s the painting of the woman with three zippers running up her arm from her wrist.
“This one’s on your website, right?” I call over to her. “Do you mind if I take a better look?”
“Um, sure,” she says, and her comment is followed by the quiet tread of her suede flats on the laminated floor. Suddenly, she’s standing right next to me, empty-handed, as if the plan for tea has been abandoned.
Does she not want me to see this one? Perhaps, I wonder with a start, this work reflects suicidal ideations on her part, and she’ll feel uncomfortable showing it to me.
She slides the painting out and leans it against the wall.
It’s indeed the painting from her website, with a young woman lying prone on a kind of trapeze or swing, her face in profile and her right arm dangling over the side.
Three zippers run side by side from her wrist to the elbow.
And the colors in this work seem more somber than those in the other paintings I’ve viewed.
“And this is a dream, too?” I say. “I mean, one you can imagine yourself having?”
“Perhaps. It’s an older painting of mine, and I don’t remember everything I was thinking of at the time.”
“Is it about self-harm?” I ask, surprised that I’ve dared to go there.
“No, no. I can see how it might come across in such a way, but that’s not anything I’ve ever considered. It’s—just based on something someone told me once.”
I finally tear my gaze away from the bright silver zippers and glance upward.
Since the young woman is lying with her face in profile, it’s hard to get a good sense of what she looks like, but I study the image more closely than I did the other night on the website: the slightly wavy brown hair cascading over the side, the blue-green eyes and high cheekbones, the full lips turned upward in the tiniest of smiles. All suddenly so familiar.
I let out a small gasp.
“Is this—Melanie?” I say.
Behind me there’s only silence now, as if Alison has exited the room, but when I spin around, we’re only inches apart. She’s biting her lower lip, clearly caught by surprise.
“Yes,” she says quietly. “Yes, it is.”
My heart has begun to thrum.
“She told you she hated buttons? That’s why you painted the zippers?”
“Yes.” Alison has composed her face so that it’s now a total blank.
“And—and did she actually pose for you?”
“For several sessions. And I also worked with photographs I took of her.”
In my mind, fragments of thoughts trip over each other: Mel being secretive when Harry asked if she had a new squeeze; her acting awkward around Handler when she and Logan bumped into him; the words “returning to birch” in her haiku.
“Were you and Melanie lovers?” I blurt out.
Alison lowers her gaze, her lips pressed tightly together, and then she looks back at me.
“I’m not going to lie to you,” she says finally. “We were lovers, yes—that last fall before she died.”