Death Come Quickly (21 page)

“She was murdered, wasn't she?” I interrupted again. I was an outsider, not a true-blue Pecan Springer. I wasn't expected to have good manners. But I was now a possible customer, which put Sharyn somewhat on the spot.

“Tragically, yes.” Sharyn shook her head sadly. “I'm sure you remember it, Ruby. A senseless, brutal act. But Christine had had the wisdom and foresight to establish the Morris Foundation, which had already assumed ownership of her collection. At her death, the foundation took over this house and named a board of local people who shared her passionate love of—”

“I think I heard that the neighbor who was charged with her murder was acquitted,” I said.

Now I had her full attention. “Yes, that's true,” she replied carefully. “The police were convinced of his guilt, and so were Christine's friends. I know I was—the man was clearly guilty. But the jury believed otherwise.” She was frowning now, as if she wondered how her friend Ruby could have such an uncouth acquaintance. “It was a heartbreaking end to a life dedicated to the arts. But thankfully, Christine's collection remains with us, a tribute to her memory. We do our very best to take care of it, just as she would have done if her life had not been so tragically cut short.”

Ruby intervened hurriedly, as if she wanted to deter me from making another ill-mannered blunder. “The foundation—how is it managed? The museum has a board, doesn't it? Does the board manage the collections?”

“Those are good questions, Ruby,” Sharyn said, relieved to move toward safer ground. “The board employs the resources of the foundation in the management of the collection. I am the president and there are six—no, currently five members.” She hesitated, then found it necessary to explain her correction. “We just lost one of our members, I'm sorry to say. We'll be filling her vacant position shortly. Our board is responsible for—”

“Was that Dr. Prior?” I asked. “Karen Prior? She was a member of your board, wasn't she?”

Her eyes widened slightly. “Yes. I'm sorry to say that Dr. Prior . . . died last week.” She shook her head, as if in disbelief. “Another enormous tragedy—so senseless.”

“Ruby and I both knew Karen,” I said. “I'm also acquainted with Paul Cameron. He retired from your board recently, I understand.”

“Yes, that's right, he did,” she said, now almost defensively. For an outsider, I had more connections in Pecan Springs than she had thought. “Dr. Cameron hasn't been . . . well, lately. We were sorry to lose him, of course. He brought a great deal of experience to our little group.”

I wondered briefly about that, since Dr. Cameron had told Kitt that he thought Sharyn was “as ignorant as dirt” about art. But it was likely that he had never shared his opinion with Sharyn herself.

She was going on. “However, I'm glad to say that Dr. Cameron's wife, Irene, will be returning to fill Karen Prior's place. She served several terms on the board in years past and has an extensive interest in twentieth-century Mexican art. In fact, she wrote her master's thesis on Mexican women artists. As you can see, she is quite a gifted painter herself.” She gestured toward the floral paintings. “And so helpful.” She paused, adding with evident pride, “Our board is a working board, you see. We share curatorial duties—and a great deal of the work that keeps this place going.”

Ruby frowned. “I don't know a lot about art museums. But isn't that a little . . . unusual? Don't most museums have curators who manage the collections?”

Sharyn nodded. “Yes, of course. But we are less like everyone's idea of a museum and more like a private collection that offers limited public access, mostly to educators and students. And since we are privately funded, our foundation can manage the museum a little more informally. But we assure our friends and supporters that we oversee the collection with the greatest diligence.”

Yes, of course. But there
was
a foundation, which presumably operated as a tax-exempt nonprofit. In fact, my skeptical self was wondering if Christine's motivation for creating the foundation in the first place hadn't been simple greed: she aimed to save herself a bundle on taxes. The initial donation of the art, and the house, would have been tax deductible. The cost of housing, securing, maintaining, and insuring the art—a substantial outlay—could be covered by cash gifts, also deductible. The foundation wouldn't pay sales tax on art it purchased. And if any items from the collection were sold at a profit, the foundation wouldn't pay a cent in capital gains. (A private owner, on the other hand, would fork over at least 28 percent of the gain to Uncle Sam.) Moreover, at Christine's death, there would have been no estate tax. A hefty, IRS-blessed gift all the way around—as long as Christine, or anyone associated with the foundation, did not use it for “self-dealing,” tax-speak for manipulating your nonprofit for your own personal benefit. For example, if the IRS discovers that you have listed a painting as the property of your foundation and then hung it on your living room wall, it will revoke its blessing and is inclined to get nasty about it.

Sharyn was going on. “When we first began to work with Christine's collection, we found it to be very disorganized. Some of the paintings weren't framed and many were not yet hung, simply stacked around the walls and tucked into closets and here and there. We invited a knowledgeable gentleman—the man who had helped Christine acquire some of her art—to serve as curator. He saw to the framing and hanging of the art and established the provenance of her works. Luckily, Christine had maintained a skeletal record of her acquisitions, so he had something to go on. He no longer formally curates for us, but he's always available to answer questions and provide guidance.”

“Just out of curiosity,” I said, “who was he?”

Another uncouth question. Sharyn looked like she wished she could think of a reason not to answer it. “Roberto Soto,” she said, with obvious reluctance. I caught her watching me to see if the name registered.

Of course it did, but that was my little secret. I wondered if Soto was still in the art business. I put a tick beside my mental note to give Justine a call and see what she knew about his current activities.

Reassured by my silence, Sharyn went on. “Mr. Soto has an art gallery in San Antonio and was a close friend of the Camerons—Paul was chairman of the museum board at that time.”

A close friend? Remembering Kitt's report that Paul thought Soto was as “wily as a fox,” I was a little surprised.

“Anyway,” Sharyn continued, “Mr. Soto undertook the work for us out of his affection for Christine, whom he had known quite well. He did such a good job that we haven't had to do anything more than update our current acquisitions. And plan and arrange exhibits for our invited guests, of course. We would do far more if we had the funding to hire even one full-time staff person.” She squared her shoulders and raised her chin, as if she were admitting to a disability. “But we don't, so we simply go on and do whatever we can, always grateful for the board members' generosity with their time and talents.”

“Very commendable,” I said and added, “But surely your board doesn't put in nighttime duty as security guards.”

“No, of course not.” She chuckled as if I had made a small joke, a very small joke. “We employ a security service. When Christine lived here in the house, she installed an excellent alarm system. And I live upstairs,” she added in an offhand way. “Which means that there is someone on the premises at all times. This is a quiet neighborhood, and we've never had any trouble. I doubt that we ever will.”

No trouble—except for a bloody murder, that is. Had anyone inventoried the art to find out whether any of it had disappeared at the time of the murder?

But I was distracted from that question by the thought that the director of the foundation lived upstairs. This small piece of information seemed to throw a different light on the situation. I wondered whether she was paying rent, and whether the IRS might attribute the value of her living quarters to “self-dealing”—which of course was none of my business.

And once more, I remembered that the women had been estranged at the time of Christine's death—so estranged that Christine had left Sharyn nothing in her will. But that situation had obviously changed. Sharyn may not have directly inherited anything from her cousin, but from the looks of things, she might as well have. She was in possession of both the house and the collection, wasn't she? From an outsider's point of view, it appeared that her relationship to the Morris Museum was more that of an heiress than a foundation manager or a board president. I filed the observation under “Think More about This.” I had no idea what it might mean, but it was interesting.

“Well.” Sharyn put down her glass and stood with a smile. “I know that we're all a little pressed for time this afternoon. Shall we take a look around?”

“I'd love that,” Ruby said promptly. “I can't believe that I've lived in Pecan Springs all these years and I've never seen the collection.”

The architect had designed the interior of the house to take your breath away, and it certainly took mine. The stark glacier-white walls, some of them curving or set at irregular angles; the gleaming hardwood floors, displaying an occasional rug (carefully cordoned off as a piece of art); the sweep of vaulted ceilings, visually extending the space; the perfectly designed illumination, both track and recessed lighting. There were no windows on the main floor—partly, I supposed, for the sake of security, but also to avoid light spilling onto the art.

And of course, the walls and floors were just the backdrop. Against them was displayed the art: paintings, collages, and textiles on every wall, pedestals displaying ceramics, shelves filled with jewelry, niches filled with sculptures, vases, folk art figures. I couldn't have begun to name the artists or the works, but Sharyn could and did, proudly. A
fumage
by Antonio Muñiz, two of Enrique Chagoya's lithographs, a life-size acrylic painting of a nude female by Jorge Figueroa Acosta, a sculptural metal figure by Byron Gálvez, a series of brightly woven native serapes, a remarkable trio of large painted masks.

“Amazing,” I murmured. Even I, with my scant knowledge of art, could see that this was one impressive collection.

Beside me, Ruby's eyes were growing larger and larger. “Astonishing,” she whispered.

Sharyn paused with us at the entrances of several smaller rooms, each one painted a different color—dark blue, mahogany, glowing gold—depending on the colors of the paintings displayed on the walls. Then, at the end of the main hall, she led us through a wide doorway into a large alcove and turned on the lights. The walls here were painted a stunning burnished copper color, against which six paintings were displayed.

“These are among our most precious paintings,” she said. “We have two by Diego Rivera and three—actually, three!—by Frida Kahlo. And this—” She turned with a theatrical gesture to a lurid landscape of an erupting volcano that occupied one wall. “This is our Dr. Atl.” She stood for a moment, letting us take them in. “Aren't they spectacular?”

I let out my breath. “Truly,” I said, hardly knowing what to say. Yes, truly, truly spectacular. I turned to look at the painting by Dr. Atl, which pictured fiery lava spouting into the air and spilling over the top of a mountain, reflecting in bloodred flows across the rocky foreground. I let my glance linger on it, wondering—

“Amazing,” Ruby squeaked. “My goodness' sakes. I had no idea. Utterly
no
idea.” She shook her head. “Why, these must be worth a fortune!”

“They are quite valuable,” Sharyn agreed quietly. “And insured, of course. But as I say, they are safe with us.”

We stood for a few moments, looking first at one painting, then at another. And then, ready to go, I turned back toward the wide doorway through which we had come into this room. At the end of the hall, against the far wall, was the glass-enclosed stair I had seen in the documentary, the glass treads seeming to float in space, an artwork in its own right.

And there, beside the stair, was the painting I had seen on that wall, simply framed in dark wood.
Muerte llega pronto.
Death Come Quickly. Karen Prior's favorite painting, by María Izquierdo. And in my purse, slung over my shoulder, was the Sotheby's catalog with the photograph of this very same painting—or rather, a painting by this title, perhaps the same, perhaps different. I wanted to whip it out and compare the two, but something told me that this was not the moment for that.

I stepped close, trying to see the painting clearly enough to remember the details. It was an unsettling work and I doubted that I would ever think of it as a favorite. But there was something about it—the authenticity and power of the emotion, perhaps—that drew me into it. It was a painting of betrayal, I thought. Of a terrible loss. Of a wish for death. A wish for a quick death that would put an end to unbearable pain.

Ruby pulled in a ragged breath. “Oh, my,” she breathed and put her hand on my arm, leaning against me. “China, I—”

I turned to look at her. “Ruby, are you okay?” I whispered.

“Not really,” she murmured. She closed her eyes and opened them again, and her fingers clamped down on my arm, hard, as if she were trying to anchor herself. “I don't think I'm seeing what you're seeing. But please, don't let Sharyn know. She—”

Sharyn was paying no attention to our whispers. She was lost in the painting, gazing at it with a kind of reverence. “It's simply stunning, isn't it? It isn't the most valuable piece in our collection—Izquierdo isn't nearly as well-known as Frida Kahlo or Diego Rivera and her work doesn't command their prices. But the dark, earthy colors, and that astonishing pink flower, and the blood . . .” She took a breath. “This painting was Christine's favorite. And now it is mine.”