The Ginseng Conspiracy (A Kay Driscoll Mystery) (32 page)

I looked at everyone who passed by, and then looked behind to see if I could recognize anyone—anyone at all—going back into the park. Without thinking, I asked, “Phil, did you see who it was?”

“Who was what?” Phil asked with concern.

“Did you see who pushed me? Did you recognize anyone from Sudbury Falls in the crowd?”

“I didn't see anyone push you. I thought you missed a step and fell.”

“Phil, someone push me off the curb.”

“Are you sure? I was right next to you.”

“You
were
right next to me,” I said, quietly repeating his words. I should have been looking over my shoulders with everyone these past few days telling me to be careful. But I thought I was safe here away from the madness of Sudbury Falls.

“Do you want to...should we go home?” Phil asked.

“No, let's just sit down in the park a minute. I need to sit down,” I repeated in a softer voice. “I still want to see the Pissarro exhibit. I'm fine. Just a little sore.” My back was killing me, and I had abrasions on the palms of my hands.

“Should we go somewhere so you can clean up?”

“Thanks. I'll use the restroom in the museum.”

We walked back into the park and sat down on a nearby bench for a few minutes. I rested my head on my arms that were over my knees. I wondered if there would have been a dark car like the one in the alley at Sonnie's flying down the street in front of the museum, ready to hit me if I'd been out in the street further. The thought made my blood run cold.

Things were spinning out of control, and I couldn't stop them. An ominous feeling overcame me and along with it, a flood of uncertainties. The man who came to my rescue...did he look familiar? The woman...had I heard her voice before? Phil...no! Had I recognized that coat on the man who hastened back toward the park? And the saxophone player. He kind of looked like John Stewart with a beard. Had he looked at us a bit too long when we passed him? Phil put his arm around my shoulders. I snapped out of it. “I'm sorry, Kay,” he said as he started to massage my neck. He bent down and kissed the top of my head. I looked up at his ashen face, his concerned eyes fixed on mine.

I glanced past him over to the bronzed ballerina, the age of innocence. Murder, the last thing on one's mind.

We walked back to the corner across from the museum. This time, I stood a couple of feet from the curb until the traffic lights changed. As a calming meditation, I counted the fifty-five steps while I shakily walked up them to the museum entrance, being careful not to trip and hurl backward.

We had just managed to make it in for our allotted time. After using the restroom to wash up, we started at the Pissarro exhibit. The show this afternoon was an aesthetic, as well as a popular, success. The gallery was filled with admirers and art aficionados. As I walked around, I looked not only at his paintings but also at the people viewing them to see if I recognized anyone.

My favorite paintings of Pissarro's were of his peasants and laborers. I was pleased to see a few of those among this collection. A while back I attended a Pissarro exhibit in Milwaukee where they had been conspicuously absent. I remembered from art history that Pissarro, a fervent anarchist, empathized with the laborers and portrayed these people with a sense of respect and dignity. My mind wandered from these peasant paintings, which had a complete absence of any pretense, to the deceit and deception of the charade in Sudbury Falls to wondering who deliberately pushed me off the curb into the oncoming traffic.
Stay in the moment, Kay.

Upon finishing the Pissarro exhibit, I wandered into the next room featuring other Impressionist artists, pleased there was less of a crowd to push through. I had no idea where Phil was. My mind started to wander to what Marissa had reported overhearing at the patisserie:
What should we do with Kay Driscoll?
Was the push between my shoulder blades what Al Stewart, Bill Murphy, and Dr. Anders' had decided on for a solution to their problem? I moved on to an alluring Georges Seurat painting,
A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte,
at the far end of the room, borrowed from the Art Institute of Chicago. My entrancement with the piece was broken by loud voices from the next room.

“Look at the beautiful colors in this
Water Lilies
painting, the interesting optical effects. I love the concept of his capturing a split second on canvas.”

“Particularly the unusual display of light reflecting off water. He didn't think of the objects he painted as a foliage or the rippling water but tried to capture the shapes in front of him and the colors, a blue oblong, a streak of green.”

“That's why you must allow your eye to view the painting as a whole rather than to look at each item in the painting. Feel the overall mood.”

I took my eyes from the Seurat painting to the two older women, one tall and one short, studying Monet’s
Water Lilies
, trying to outdo each other in their superlatives of his genius and their knowledge of Impressionism. Was I being unfairly cynical? I knew Monet could paint the sound of the water, as I'm sure they did, also, but did they need to tell everyone in attendance?

They moved on to the next painting while my attention went back to admiring the Seurat, thinking about an art class I took in college when I chose to study his technique of painting, using tiny dots to emphasize that light was a vibrant mixture of pure colors. Now I was starting to sound like those women. Like Seurat, Pissarro had also used pointillism.

“Look, the entire surface of this painting glows with sunlight,” said the taller woman.

“It penetrates everywhere, even the shadows,” the shorter woman added.

“The air circulates, the light embraces, caresses, and illuminates forms.” The taller woman's voice went up an octave.

Good thing the taller woman ran out of verbs. Who knows how shrill her voice would have gotten. I shook my head, not believing how intolerant my thoughts had just been, my nerves so frazzled by the events of the past two weeks, the recent threat on my life. Stress was the only explanation I could give.

Someone put their hands on my back. Startled, I nearly jumped out of my skin. My heart started pounding hard. What was the worst that could happen to me here? Be pushed into the painting and have the alarm go off. After thinking about that, I realized the museum probably was the safest place to be. I could move into the restricted area surrounding a painting in a second and have a team of gallery attendants by my side the next.

“Kay, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you.” Phil said in an apprehensive voice. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine. A little jittery.” I looked past him. “Did you enjoy the exhibit? Did you notice anyone from Sudbury Falls?”

Before Phil could answer, an elegant-looking older gentleman with a well-heeled, beautiful young blond on his arm walked by us and said none too quiet, “Pissarro never let his work be defined, my dear.”

“Camille Pissarro established his importance by being engaged with a particular set of visual ideas. He was strongly defined by a set of intellectual positions invoking ideas and philosophical questions in a visual form,” she responded.

My philosophical questions—
How could such things go on in a place like Sudbury Falls? How could so many people be involved?—
had resulted in visual clues important to solving the case: the toxicology report, the sunglasses, the recorder, the persons Phil saw in the restaurant talking about the murder, and more. Like in a painting, the clues had come together in different shapes and hues to present a whole. A pointillistic answer to a murder!

I looked up at Phil, lifted my eyebrows, my signal that it was time to move on. We wandered through the rest of the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art and decided to leave. The closing time was approaching.

We exited the museum and walked down the fifty-five steps. This time I didn't count them. A storm was brewing. The wind had picked up and turned cold. The sun had gone down below the tops of the buildings. We crossed the street into the park, which had lost its enchantment for me. Glowing street lamps cast shadows on the deserted, curving paths. The aura of dusk would have made the impressionists envious of such fine subject matter. Danger seemed to lurk at every turn. Spooky gnarled trees with tangled branches twisted upward, their projections silhouetting the sky. I saw something move over by a group of trees. Who was in the shadows? A jogger came up from behind us and startled me. My throat constricted. Pure fear overtook me. It crept in my body and coursed through my veins.

I shook it off. I wasn't going to be a victim to fear. I refused to be a victim. I needed to take control of my fear as I had when I confronted Dr. Anders on the Vermilion Pathway a few days ago. I smiled at Phil and put my arm through his. An impenetrable calm came over me, something that even the bleakest of thoughts couldn't shatter.

* * * *

Later in the evening, I sat in the living room reading a cozy mystery. Not James'—I had given up on that. I realized I hadn’t told Phil yet about my conversation with Thom, but then, I heard the music of Santana come on. I felt its beat. I looked up and smiled. Phil knew there was one song in particular I loved and couldn't resist and, as Phil would say, drove me to desire. He would pronounce the word “desire” with a slow faux accent which had turned into a little quip. He offered me a glass of wine. Behind the offer I could almost sense his lips looking for that faux accent. No need to utter the word. I put my book down and took a sip, looking up at him. He smiled. He took my glass, put it down on the coffee table, and extended his hand out to me. I accepted his hand, and he pulled me up to him.

With an invitation to leave my mood behind, I joined him in a rhythm of romance. We started dancing, doing a salsa. I surrendered to the raw beat and began swaying. I began to think about how everything had started to heat up with the Ball, with Phil being late and my walking there alone. How my life would have been different if he had come home on time that evening and we would have gone to the Halloween Ball together. I made a few missteps, and then Phil did. We laughed. When the music ended, Phil picked up our wine glasses as I turned off the living room light. Santana’s music had done it again. Desire
took over my need to tell Phil about my conversation with Thom.

Monday, November 14

That morning, Deirdre arrived on my front doorstep looking fabulous in an eggplant stretch knit dress with cap sleeves and a straight, fitted skirt. Eggplant was one of those few colors that looked great on everyone. She accented her richly-hued look with black pumps and small hoop gold earrings. Deirdre had obviously chosen new shopping grounds for this outfit. After Phil came downstairs ten minutes later, we all got into his Volkswagen and drove over to Elizabeth's house.

I started to get out of the car to go up to Elizabeth's porch when her front door opened. Elizabeth walked out wearing a tight, black dress and showing more cleavage than would be expected for such an occasion, a big contrast to Deirdre's high scoop neckline. She had on a black, wide brimmed hat with a bit of a veil coming down over her face. Fluffy, black, chandelle feathers adorned the crown. My first thought was that Elizabeth and her hat would never fit in the back seat of Phil's Eos. My second: was Elizabeth really going to wear that into church? Elizabeth looked at me, at Phil's car, and back at me.

“Where's your minivan, Kay?” she asked.

“It’s been stalling,” I replied.

Without another word, Elizabeth turned around and went back into her house. I shrugged my shoulders as I got back into the car. A couple of minutes later, Elizabeth came out carrying her hat and purse. She got into the back seat with Deirdre and held her hat on her lap.

We drove in companionable silence. A more somber mood settled over me as we neared the church. The mood was interrupted a couple of times as I noticed Phil looking into his rear view mirror, smiling. We parked two blocks away. There were already plenty of cars lining the street. After getting out of the car, Elizabeth removed a hand mirror from her purse, handed it to Deirdre, and proceeded to adjust her hat, looking in the mirror. Deirdre looked annoyed but held her hand steadily at arm’s length in front of Elizabeth. I walked over to Elizabeth not saying a word, shook my head ever so slightly thinking, what are you doing, Elizabeth? Deirdre glanced at me and deepened her expression of annoyance and giggled. I tried my hardest to keep a straight face. Phil, who had continued to walk toward the church, happened to glance back and, seeing that our procession had stopped all forward progress, discontinued his trek, looked toward the sky, and raised his hands up in the air.

“Kay, I know what you are thinking,” Elizabeth said, watching me out of the corner of her eye as I watched her put on her hat. “Women don't follow tradition anymore.” She tilted the front brim toward her forehead.

“Elizabeth, this is not a Royal Wedding. This is—” I didn't need to tell her what the occasion was. She knew as well as anybody. But her response and action were typical Elizabeth, and I had to accept her the way she was, a sweet friend, willing to offer a helping hand whenever needed, who displayed a flamboyant flair for dressing which more often than not was inappropriate for the occasion.