A Collector of Photographs

Book 12: Murder Room

by Deborah Valentine

Genres: Mystery; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

Artist Roxanne Gautier has gained worldwide fame for her highly praised paintings of homosexual models, but her husband senses a darker side to her dealings when one of her subjects is found dead

Release date: June 1, 1989

Publisher: Bantam

Print pages: 190

Sample

September 16—

Espresso. I could do it in tempera. A dark charcoal set against off-white; the white a spiderweb of insignificant cracks in a style a Venetian glassmaker would have called craquelure. In the
center of the darkness would be a pinpoint of reflected light, as there was at that moment, superimposing my portrait into the shallowness. I lifted the cup to drink from it; the reflection grew
large, then disappeared.

The taste was bitter. I am not fond of espresso; that was why I had ordered it. My reluctance to drink it would make it last a long time, and I could sit where I was, excused and unmolested.
I ordered a pastry and then absently dissected it, separating layers of cream and flaky crust into opposing heaps on the plate. I could imagine them a still life done in delicate
oils—not by me, but by a Flemish master; touched with varnish, adding a sensuousness to the hues of orange and beige.

The restaurant I chose had a brass rod across the windows, dividing it into halves. Above, uncluttered window; below, hanging from large brass rings, blue curtains. I sat at a break in those
curtains so that from that slim opening I could see the building across the street. The window that concerned me was dark, but the draperies were open. The various lights of this busy street, dimly
absorbed by the glass, made the figure there easy to see. He was naked from the waist up, his hands laced behind his head; a pose that emphasized the cobra shape of his torso. Pink and yellow from
the neon lights of a saloon streaked his chest and caught one side of his hair, missing his face until he stretched forward. I saw the scene in watercolors; darkly soaked around the outer limits,
the slashes of pink and yellow so viciously fluorescent they mutilated his features.

He was paid for his beautiful torso. In the morning, he posed for our group of artists, those preferring a collective environment or too poor to afford a private model. In the evenings he
was paid for on the streets, also by those seeking inspiration. And then, in between, there was us.

It had never happened to me before—this willingness to be used, this desire to incorporate someone else into my life. Oh, I had married. Because the man was good, because he
loved me, because he supported my caprices, my work. Because it never occurred to me there might be any other reason for sharing my life with a man. My husband is a wonderful audience for my many
performances; and I, in turn, am a wonderful performer. I can audition the gamut of womanly experience as the situation dictates. Entertaining. Amusing. Sincere. Seductive. Anything in between.
Beyond: intelligence, independence, perceptiveness. I do them all exceptionally well. Paul applauds. He indulges. He encourages. He ignores: the occasional taunts, the detachment I think he senses
even in our closest moments.

My attention was distracted by an old silver Bentley as it rolled by, dented on one side, headlight out on the other. The occupants were caught by a streetlight. Like a photograph, the man
in top hat, the woman with something fuzzy around her shoulder, the chauffeur stiff and dignified. The man and woman were laughing. I could see it clearly, a platinum print displayed in
the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. They passed out of sight. I returned to my window-gazing just as the figure stepped back. I strained to see, but someone pulled the drapes. Not him. I could
see him as the fabric ebbed and flowed and obscured him from sight. His partner. I saw the draperies done in acrylic. White on white—oh, what expert shadowing it would take! And I
could do it, expose it—give it focus. I smiled, thinking of it. I had to go home and begin. It would be the first of my new series, whatever the
consequences.

The waiter brought a small ebony tray containing my change and my stub, but I left them both. Outside I had to step quickly back onto the doorstep of the restaurant, where, hidden, I watched
two men emerge from a narrow stairway. Not speaking, they went in separate directions, one to the crowded end of the street where young and middle-aged men frequented noisy places, the other to the
end of picturesque homes and genteel loneliness. I stayed huddled against the door casing until they were out of sight.

“I don’t want to go,” Bryce said.

Katharine was leaning against the window, one hand in the bend of Bryce’s arm. “God, it’s amazing that planes can take off in this weather,” she said.

He wondered if she’d heard him. Airports are noisy places, even airports in Ireland. Terrible acoustics. Anxious crowds. Machinery in motion. Or maybe she simply did not know how to reply.
Either way, he felt foolish. He put his hands in the pockets of his coat and played with the lint and scraps of paper collected in the seam. When he arrived in San Francisco, he should have it
cleaned, he thought.

“You’ll be back in time for Christmas?” Katharine asked.

“I should hope so. I’ve only made reservations until next Friday.”

He heard her sigh as she let go of him. Why had she gotten him into this?

“Do you think I’m bored?” he had asked her the previous evening.

She had shrugged as she washed her hands. They were in her studio. She had been executing a study of a bust that was, as yet, unidentifiable to Kevin Bryce.

“Maybe a little,” she had said. “But not dangerously so. You have to go to San Francisco anyway, don’t you? Couldn’t hurt, could it?”

Couldn’t it?

The announcement of his flight came over the loudspeaker, drawing him back to the present. Before he boarded, she kissed him good-bye. It was a half-assed sort of kiss, Bryce decided. He felt
compelled to look over his shoulder once, and caught nothing but a glance of her sweatered back.

It had started with a letter. Two letters, to be completely accurate. Both from San Francisco. The first, short and to the point, was from Petter Swensen.

Have a buyer for your Lake Tahoe residence. Can you come to San Francisco to work out some details and sign papers? Would be quicker.

Petter

The second was longer, more oblique in purpose, and addressed to Katharine. It was from a man.

“A really lovely man.” Katharine, no people-lover, had been enthusiastic. “Paul Gautier. His wife and I took classes together years ago. She is a very fine artist.”

She had read the letter at breakfast without comment; folded the paper and put it away somewhere upstairs while Bryce sat at the table and played with the crumbs on his plate.

Once in the air, a stewardess brought Bryce a scotch and soda. She smiled at him, and it crossed his mind that she was pretty before he turned to stare out the window.

“Katharine,” he had protested, “I don’t do that sort of thing. Didn’t you explain to him that I am no longer in law enforcement, and that I was never a
private investigator?”

“Yes,” she said, rubbing her hand with the towel, drying each finger thoroughly. “I think he wants someone to talk to, and from what I told him, he thought you might be the
most . . . appropriate.”

“Katharine,” he answered, “the man has a wife whose activities are suspicious, correct? Forgive me for saying so, but it sounds as if he’s worried that she’s
screwing someone else behind his back. I do not slink behind trees with a camera. That is not, and never has been, my business.

“Of course not. But I believe that Paul is worried about more than whether Roxanne is just ‘screwing around,’ as you so charmingly put it.” She paused. “We have an
artist whose husband finds not only her activities but her canvases increasingly disturbing.”

“So?” he had countered. “We have a man who does not understand the artistic flights of fancy of his spouse. What is so interesting about that? What sets him apart from all the
other slightly confused men of this world?”

“Paul? Nothing. Paul is an almost perfect specimen of what a man is supposed to be—kind, generous, strong, and well-informed. I think you’ll like him, although I don’t
suppose you’ll find him particularly interesting.”

“Then what do you think will interest me?”

Katharine had looked surprised.

“Roxanne, his wife. I think you’ll find Roxanne interesting.”

Bryce had stared at her briefly. “Katharine, are you trying to get rid of me?” he joked uneasily.

She’d laughed, of course.

In the airplane, Bryce thought of all the things Katharine had explained to him before he left. “Explained,” he decided, was misleading. They were conversations, as spare and
ambiguous as her work often was. He thought of them all the way to New York. Somewhere over the midwest he fell asleep. He woke up in San Francisco.

December 1—

Paul called just now. He says we’re having company for dinner. Katharine Craig’s companion. I can’t remember his name. Used to be a cop—does something else
now. Writing? Yes, I think that’s what it is. Wonder why Paul invited him here? Politeness, I suppose. Paul is always so polite. Or is he suspicious? He has such a passion for cause and
effect—the result of being a stockbroker. He looks at me differently nowadays. And he is not so . . . open as he used to be. I miss that, somehow. But it’s also a
relief.

I suppose I will have to be gracious tonight . . .

“Hello. I’m Paul Gautier.”

The man held out his hand and Bryce took it. Gautier was a small man, well-dressed, and completely at home in the expensive ultra-modern surroundings of the restaurant. His face was covered with
a manicured beard; his hair was dark, graying at small points at his temples. Bryce guessed the gray was premature.

“Kevin Bryce.”

Paul smiled and made a gesture indicating they should sit. A waiter came almost immediately to their table and they ordered drinks.

“Is your hotel all right? I wrote Katharine you were welcome to stay with us.”

“I’m fine, thank you. The hotel is very nice.”

Gautier looked reassured.

“Katharine said you would prefer to stay in a hotel. She says you’re a writer. Writers like to be alone, don’t they? Peculiar, I think.” He shook his head and smiled.
“My wife likes to be alone. My wife is a painter.”

“I know.”

“Of course,” Gautier said, and looked embarrassed.

An understanding man, Katharine had said, easy to talk to because he listens. Bryce thought this must be true since she had mentioned his writing to Gautier. It was a subject, because of its
complications, she did not discuss.

“You’re in town on business? I mean, of another sort?” Gautier asked him.

“Yes. I have some property on the west shore of Lake Tahoe. My real estate agent thinks he has a buyer. There are some details to work through and papers to sign.” The one detail
Bryce had not properly worked through was whether he really wanted to sell. The land, along with its cabin, had been his grandparents’ home, and before his move with Katharine to Ireland, his
too. Now it stood empty.

“Nice place, Tahoe,” Gautier remarked. “We have a little house there.” He fidgeted, playing with a book of matches taken from a clean ashtray, and Bryce smiled.

“Yes. More commercial now than it used to be. Katharine tells me you’re a stockbroker.”

“Yes. A little dull to some, maybe, but I like it.” Gautier glanced into the narrow opening of his glass. “I tried explaining stocks to Katharine one day, and nearly put her to
sleep.”

Bryce laughed softly, and Gautier relaxed.

“But you—you have an interest in business, don’t you? Or in some of its theories?”

“I’m more interested in people than in the flow of cash,” Bryce answered cautiously.

“But they can be related, can’t they? Can’t one be directly influenced by the other? Of course they can. You won’t disagree, will you?”

“No.”

“Are you familiar with art at all? I mean, other than Katharine’s?”

“Somewhat.”

“Are you familiar with Kirchner? The German Expressionist?”

Bryce nodded. Gautier leaned forward over the table as if in anticipation, his hands spread open.

“You’ve seen his paintings? Perhaps read something about him and his ideas?” Gautier went on as if confident of an affirmative answer. “Then, with this in mind, in a
society ruled by exchange, especially a society as diverse and money conscious as ours, what would you classify as its fundamental transaction—in its most basic, or base, form?”

“Prostitution,” Bryce said after a pause.

Gautier sat back and tapped his fingers on the table.

“May I ask what this has to do with your wife? You weren’t very specific in your letter.”

“Have you seen my wife’s work?”

“No.”

“Up until a year ago her work did well enough—interesting, I suppose, in its way. But then it took a radical departure—perhaps not so much in style as in theme.” Gautier
picked up his drink, then ignored it. “Color has always been a primary concern of hers. Even her blacks and whites are somehow vibrant. She often applies color thickly, in a kind of swirling
brush stroke—always makes me think of the bay when it’s choppy—but her subjects . . . her subjects are now prostitutes—male prostitutes—and she depicts not just death,
but murder.”

Bryce’s eyes had been fixed into the depths of his scotch. He raised them slowly to meet those of the man across from him. Gautier couldn’t sit still; using a thumb, he carefully
pressed the sweat from his glass.

“What is it that concerns you, exactly?”

“Last September . . . there was a dead boy washed up on the rocks below the Golden Gate Bridge. A beautiful boy. There are a lot of kids like him in San Francisco, although most
aren’t as—successful—as he was. A lot of them,” Paul said, absently.

“Who was he?”

“His name was Taylor Adams. He was an artist’s model, among other things. My wife’s model, more specifically. In her last and most successful show.”

They were silent, and Bryce noticed for the first time that the music softly playing in the restaurant was an Elizabethan Christmas carol. The commercial signs of the season were all around
them: white tablecloths; crimson arrangements of flowers, accented with sprigs of holly; exhausted shoppers resting in booths with hot toddys, large bags from Macy’s or Neiman-Marcus or
Gump’s at their feet.

“What exactly do you want from me?” Bryce asked.

“Separate a few facts from a few lies, if you can.”

“For what purpose?”

“My peace of mind,” Gautier answered wearily, then drained half his drink. Bryce wondered what made Gautier sure separating a few facts from a few lies would guarantee him peace of
mind. “I don’t know what my wife might have seen—what she mi. . .