Chapter 9 #3
“And I did see some,” she noted. “I’m just really hoping you can pull this off on time.”
“Of course I can,” he stated, changing his tone. He looked back at the animals. “I still can’t believe that they’re just lying like that. It’s as if they’re posing.”
“Partly because I think they can read my mind.”
“That’s amazing, but, looking at them right now, I would say they can,” he conceded. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” He grabbed a pencil and started sketching by hand now.
She watched as he zoned out right in front of her. She smiled, absolutely appreciating an artist who could do that.
A few minutes later, he stared at her and shared, “I just really want to get at it.”
She nodded. “Is that my cue to leave?”
He winced. “Would you mind? As much as I want them to stay here so I can create a live portrait, I’m not sure how long they would hold that pose.”
“Probably not long,” she replied, “so good that you got your photos to go by.”
“I’ve got quite a few photos,” he said, as he picked up his camera and started looking at them from the back preview window. He smiled and nodded. “They really are something.”
“I know,” she confirmed, “and my grandmother absolutely loves them.”
“In that case, it’s a beautiful gift,” he admitted. “Okay. I’ll need to shuffle around a few things, but, if you’re okay with the price, then I’ll get it done on time.”
“I’m okay with the price,” she murmured, telling herself off for the thoughts going through her head. It was for her grandmother, and, for Nan, it was worth anything. Doreen asked, “Do I get to see it in between?”
He frowned, then shrugged. “I guess that’s fair enough.”
She laughed. “Or are you one of those artists who doesn’t want people to interfere with your work until it’s done?”
“Kind of,” he noted reluctantly. “Also, if you don’t like it, but I’m already in the swing of things, it’s really hard for me to change direction. And that’s the problem with doing custom work,” he muttered.
“Do you only do custom work?”
“No, I do a lot of my own,” he stated. “However, I don’t have the same social media presence that a lot of artists do. So it’s a lot harder to sell that way.”
“What about a gallery showing?” she asked him curiously.
He shook his head. “No, I don’t have any exposure to that either. It’s more or less people like you, who come along and want something, and I just work away at it,” he shared.
She smiled and nodded. “Have you been here long?”
“A lot longer than you apparently,” he said, adding a chuckle, “if you haven’t heard of me before.”
She smiled. “I’ve only been here a little over nine months. So …”
He nodded. “My family has been here for quite a while, generations even, for some of the family anyway,” he muttered, and then he winced. “I don’t know if I’ll make that deadline after all.”
She froze. “What do you mean? You just said you could.”
“Yes, but we’ve just had a death in the family.” He frowned as he stared at the doorway. “I’m okay to not go to the funeral and all that mess,” he muttered. “I probably wouldn’t be allowed to participate in a lot of it anyway.”
She winced. “I’m sorry, and of course that’s really bad timing on my part then.”
“It’s not as if you knew,” he noted, with a wave of his hand, “and to some degree it wouldn’t matter in terms of my work because I have to work in order to pay the bills.” He looked around, then frowned. “And I really could use the five hundred bucks.”
“I don’t know what to say,” she replied.
“That’s something you’ll have to figure out, but I do need to know that you can complete it by her birthday.
It would be terrible if you had to stop somewhere along the line and not finish on time.
I need it by my grandmother’s birthday. It will not be okay to show up empty-handed. ”
“No, I wouldn’t do that,” he stated, as he waved his hand. “I’ve got a decent start already, so maybe I’ll just continue.” He looked at his other cameras that he had here and frowned, then turned to her again.
“Did you have somebody else’s project started already?” she asked.
“Not for somebody else. It’s just a picture I was doing for myself.”
“Oh nice,” she said. “I imagine that’s a huge problem when you’re an artist, where you have to do things for other people for the money, but it would probably be much more rewarding to do the work that you want to do for yourself.”
“It is, but I do need the money, so I do the work for other people too.”
“Right,” she replied, not sure if she should apologize as she felt she was interrupting him. “I guess the question is whether or not you feel as if you can do this timely and want to do this or not,” she stated. “If it’s a no, then I need to figure out something else for my grandmother.”
“I’ll do it,” he declared, then winced. “I hate to harp on the money aspect, but I do need the money, so that’s my answer.”
“Good enough,” Doreen said. “And do you think you have enough pictures?”
The animals were starting to stir, but he nodded. Then he looked at them again, shook his head, and added, “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“They’ve come to understand a lot of what I do. It just takes time, and they have to wait for me,” she shared, with a laugh.
“Do you work?”
Doreen sighed. “It’s a completely different world for me now. I am single after many years of marriage.”
“Right,” he muttered, “that’s never easy either. Although my wife and I have been together since time began, I think,” he stated, with a harsh laugh, “sometimes it still doesn’t get any easier.”
She looked at him in surprise. “The marriage doesn’t?”
“No, the marriage doesn’t,” he acknowledged, “but then I’m hardly anything to write home about.”
She studied him carefully and suggested, “The wheelchair has nothing to do with it. The gift is in being you. The gift is in the artwork you draw for others and for yourself,” she shared. “If you can’t be you, no point in trying to be somebody else because that doesn’t work long-term.”
He looked at her and nodded. “I believe you, but, when I don’t provide very much in the way of income, it makes other people think that I’m not doing enough.
Even though I am in a wheelchair, I never really saw myself as disabled.
So, once you hear that label applied to you, and you realize there’s something to it, it’s hard to shrug it off. ”
“Of course it is, but then maybe it’s just not a good relationship.”
“No, it probably isn’t,” he agreed, “but being alone sucks too.”
She smiled and nodded. “I’ll give you that. It really does.”
“So, you’re still recovering from your divorce?”
“Kind of, and maybe not,” she replied, with a smile.
“I am now engaged to be married again, but my ex-husband was murdered not very long ago,” she shared.
“That threw things into a big uproar. So, I’m still settling his estate and tying up everything.
” She shrugged. “It does leave me in an odd position.”
“We’ll have to do that with my sister’s place too,” he muttered. “It’s just a mess.”
“I’m sorry.” Doreen frowned, wondering if she should say anything. “I did hear about a woman killed just recently in a kitchen.”
“Yeah, that’s her,” he noted. “Pretty heartbreaking all around.”
“I’m sorry. Did she have family outside of you guys, like children?”
“No, no children,” he replied, “and, if anything good is in the whole mess, that’s probably it.”
“I’m so sorry. That’s not easy.”
“No, it sure isn’t,” he muttered. “She’s my sister, though we weren’t close. She was always telling my wife that she should leave me because I wasn’t a whole man.”
She stared at him and gasped. “I don’t like her already.”
He gave a bark of laughter. “Doesn’t matter whether you do or not, since somebody obviously hated her a whole lot more.”
“And that’s not anything anybody wants to deal with,” she pointed out. “As I know, murder itself is incredibly invasive, what with the police, the media, just everything.” She shook her head as she stared out of the window.
She didn’t even need to pretend anything in this instance. Her relationship with Mathew had been quite rough, but having been the prime suspect in his murder had really opened her eyes to the whole process of what people go through in police investigations.
“Yeah, not fun.” Danny turned to her and asked, “Did the police look at you for the crime?”
She nodded. “They absolutely did. Thankfully the bad guy was found out to be his long-term assistant,” she shared. “And that helped get me out of the limelight.”
“That’s good because, without that, it’s pretty rough.”
“You’re right,” she agreed. “It was terrible.” She looked down at her animals and smiled. “These animals really helped get me through it.”
“Good for you, and this should be a great gift for your grandmother.” He hesitated and then added, “I hate to return to mundane business, but I don’t do any commission work without a deposit.”
“Ah,” she replied, with a nod, “that’s understandable.”
“I would like 50 percent upfront.”
She asked him, “Card?”
“Not if I don’t have to,” he said, with a sigh. “Too many fees.”
She nodded. “I’m not sure what cash I have on me.”
“You can go to the bank and come back, if you like,” Danny suggested. “As much as I’ve already started it, I won’t allow myself to work on it further, not until I at least get that much.”
“In other words, you’ve been burned before.”
“I absolutely have, and it’s not anything I want to go through again.”
She pulled out her wallet to see what she had. She’d gotten into the habit of carrying cash, and she was planning on going shopping, but this was important too. “I don’t have that much on me. I do have $150, so I’ll leave that with you, and I’ll go to the bank and come back.”
“Good, thank you.” Danny accepted the money gratefully.
“Give me a few minutes.”
He nodded. “It’ll take that long just to get to town.”
“I know. I wasn’t really planning on the extra trip.” Then she shook her head. “I should have asked ahead of time.”
“And I should have told you ahead of time,” he noted, “but I’m not very good on the business side.”
“You’re doing fine. I’ll be right back.” She got all the animals ready and left the room. As she headed out the front door, the woman called out to her.
“Did you leave a deposit?”
“I left him part of it,” Doreen clarified, “and I’ll run to the bank now to get the rest of it.”
The other woman stared at her but didn’t say anything.
Doreen, an odd feeling in her stomach, headed out and went straight to the bank.
It took about twenty minutes to get through the lines, and then she drove back out to the house.
Nobody answered when she got there. Frowning, she knocked several times, and then wasn’t sure what to do.
She picked up the phone and called him, and he did answer.
“Hey, I’m at the front door trying to bring you the rest of your money but getting no response. ”
There was silence at first, and then he spoke. “Are you here for a painting, or are you here snooping?”
“I’m sorry?” she asked.
“My wife recognized you.”
“Recognized me how?” she asked. “What do you mean? I want a painting for my grandmother.”
More silence came, but he finally replied, “Hang on.”
She waited at the front door, wondering what difference it would make if they did recognize her. She really did want the painting for her grandmother. And the fact that the animals had posed so beautifully just added to it.
When he opened the door, he studied her for a long moment. “My wife says that you’re that amateur detective.”
“I don’t know about amateur detective,” she clarified, “but I am certainly involved in a lot of the cases in town, yes,” she stated, looking at him. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
He frowned, looked back into the house, and added, “I’m not sure, but she seems to think that you came here for some other reason.”
“I came here to get a painting done of my animals for my grandmother,” she repeated, “and, if your wife knows anything about me, she knows that these animals are very dear to my heart, and, as I’ve already said numerous times, the portrait is for my grandmother’s birthday.
Goliath and Thaddeus were hers when I arrived here, and I took over their care as Nan is in a home. ”
He nodded. “And you don’t have any other reason?”
“Is there anything else that I’m supposed to have a reason for?
” she asked in exasperation. “You’ve already told me that your sister passed away, that it was murder.
You brought it up. It’s not as if you told me any class secrets or anything.
It’s not as if I was asking you questions about that either. ”
“I don’t know anything,” he muttered. He glanced back in the direction where his wife would be and finally nodded. “Okay, fine, I’ll continue with the painting.”
“I would hope so,” she stated, staring at him, because, at this point, she really did want that painting.
And, yes, she had thought it was a great idea to get it done, regardless of the fact that he was apparently part of the same family.
Doreen sighed. “Anytime you want to talk to me about any of this mess, feel free,” she offered, “with or without your wife’s permission.
” She gave a nod to the interior of the home.
“Especially if you’re concerned about something. ”
As he looked at her, his gaze narrowed, not in anger, more in contemplation. He nodded. “We’ll see.” And, with that, he accepted the money in her hand, handed her a receipt then shut the door in her face.
She slowly walked back to the car, not even taking the animals out this time. As she sat here in the driver’s seat, thinking about what had just transpired, she saw Danny’s wife at the front window, staring out.
Doreen started the vehicle and slowly backed out of the driveway.
That was a very interesting response from him.
And also a very interesting response from his wife.
Doreen didn’t always think guilty people did things like that, but it did seem as if guilty people always did those things.
And she didn’t have a clue what on earth was going on, but it was obvious that something was up.
She lifted a hand and waved at the woman, who frowned back at her, then up came her middle finger.
Doreen laughed, put the vehicle in Drive, and slowly drove away.