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“How’s the Torres going?”
“Wonderful. It’s a work of art.”
“Speaking of art, what do you think it means when a painter creates something totally different from their other work?”
“Hmm. They could be trying to stretch creatively. Or to shift gears completely. Jackson Pollock started off as a realist.” She smiled. “If it’s old and you ask an art expert, they’ll try to tag anything different as a fake.”
“No appreciation for creativity?”
“Not unless they’ve actually created something other than academic articles. I always get a kick when I see some specialist squinting at brushstrokes or underpainting and drawing huge conclusions. Artists aren’t automatons and art’s not just about producing, it’s about diverging.”
She sipped, placed her hand on my knee. “That was pretty puffed up.”
I kissed her cheek. “Could it also mean the artist had come up with something personally meaningful?”
“Sure, that would be the motivation. This sudden interest, why do I think it relates to something nasty? Who’s the artist in question?”
“The female victim was an amateur painter. She left behind a few canvases in her home studio, mostly bland, genre stuff. Her husband found out she’d cheated on him and we found everything dumped in the trash, intact. Except for one painting that looked divergent to me. That, he sliced up.”
“Pretty hateful. He’s the main suspect?”
“If he was involved, he hired someone, but even that’s not clear.”
“Sliced,” she said.
“Corner to corner.” I pantomimed the X.
“Sounds like obliteration,” she said. “But no damage to the others?”
“No, he just tossed them.”
“So obviously that one meant something tohim.”
“Whatever the case, Milo’s not impressed.”
“Milo,” she said, “is a saint among saints but when he’s doing his bloodhound thing, it can be hard to budge him away from the main scent. Especially when he’s frustrated.”
She reached down and ruffled Blanche’s neck. “Unlike this wolf descendant who can always be distracted by momentary pleasure.” Crumble, drop, slosh.
Robin added, “What’s different about the slashed one?”
“The others were full of color and there was no doubt what they depicted. This one was gray, black, white, abstract, and sketchy. Maybe that’s all it was, a sketch, and I’m overthinking.”
We held hands, sipped. Robin put her head on my shoulder. “You don’t have to ask.”
“Ask what?”
“For me to take a look at the screen shot in your phone.”
I stared at her.
“Oh, c’mon, we’re not in Sherlock territory. Actually, I must have a look. You’ve gotten me curious.”
—
I retrieved my phone from my office, had the image loaded by the time I got back.
She said, “That’s a ghost orchid.”
