Art in the Blood - Chapter Six
Mar. 25th, 2025 07:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kalinara posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
i_read_whatIt occurs to me that maybe I was being a bit too quick to say there isn't a murder, or at least something to investigate in this book.
We do have a woman who committed suicide some years back, a man that Jack seems to feel a fairly instant kinship with as the widower and potential killer. (And well, we know something about murders disguised as suicides, don't we?)
Just because it's not immediate doesn't mean the mystery isn't there...
We start the chapter with Jack waking up to the night. Bobbi's on the phone with some bad news: Alex backed out. She's pretty furious. Apparently, he'd told her that he couldn't get into it after all and wasn't ready to get back to painting yet.
Jack thinks that's ridiculous, considering how the man had been last night. Bobbi agrees. Jack has the unlikely thought that maybe Barb Steler had remembered their talk afterward and gone to make trouble, but he thinks no, he'd been careful. Instead, he proposes going over to see if they can straighten things out.
Escott has been Sir Not Appearing in this Book for the most part, but he's definitely curious. He'd been the one to first answer the phone for Bobbi. He's thoughtful, figuring Adrian's probably too professional to indulge in "artistic temperament" games. He recommends Jack bring the receipt, in case they can't talk Adrian back into the project.
Jack has a moment of guilt thinking that he'd been tempted to just influence Adrian the vampire way. I wonder if that'd work, or if would interfere with artistic ability.
So they go to see Adrian, who is far less relaxed. He's got the same guarded expression that he'd had at the party, and both Jack and Bobbi realize it's a lost cause. He explains it as being like writer's block. And when Jack gives him the receipt back, he looks like it's the end of the world, poor guy.
Bobbi and Jack are both on the same page, pretty alarmed. They leave, but agree they want to know more. And they're both concerned about a suicide risk. Jack goes into mistform to investigate.
Alex is on the couch, smoking, but more thoughtful than suicidal. There's a painting of Celia, which we get to observe through Jack's eyes:
The only light came from a small work lamp caged from one of his tables. Its gooseneck was twisted so the illumination fell on a canvas clamped onto his easel. It was a portrait of Celia Adrian. The newspaper photo had been a decent likeness at least of how she looked—Adrian had recorded who she had been. The style was the same as Barb Steler’s portrait, but more mature and assured.
I saw guarded happiness in the blue eyes, a hint of selfishness around the mouth, and an unearthly beauty in every stroke of his brush. It was truth and idealization all at once. Her faults were there, but accepted as part of the whole. He’d loved her dearly, but not blindly.
Aw.
Since Adrian doesn't seem like a suicide risk, and Bobbi's been left alone in the car, Jack goes back. Actually, Bobbi's doing things on her own initiative, having left the car for a grocery and has been getting gossip from the clerk.
I love this exchange:
“You’re not the only one who’s a detective,” she said, sliding into the car.
“I’m only an assistant to a private agent. You call Charles a detective and he’ll come out in hives.”
So we get the lady's perspective. She'd known Celia as "a tall, pretty lady who'd give you the time of day when you asked", and had believed the papers about Adrian being her killer, until she saw his face. Which apparently had been similar to his face tonight. Bobbi admits that she'd been ready to kill him herself, then realized how useless it'd be.
Bobbi wasn't just there for gossip though, she also bought booze, and suggests they go visit Sandra and Evan.
It doesn't quite work out. There's no answer, but people are inside. Bobbi gets her first look at the vanishing trick up close:
“It makes Charles nervous and I didn’t want to give you heart failure.”
“You mean you can just… ?” She made vague gestures. I’d done it once before in her presence, but it had been dark and rainy and she may have missed it, having other things on her mind at the time.
“Yeah, wanna see?”
She was a game girl. “Okay…”
Then I wasn’t there anymore. As though wrapped in cotton, I heard her gasp of surprise. I slipped inside, went solid, and unlocked the door. She jumped when it swung open, but her short blond hair wasn’t quite on end.
“Yeeps! How’d you do that? I thought you were supposed to turn into a fog or something.”
I pointed an accusing finger. “You’ve been reading Stoker again, haven’t you?”
They're so cute.
But there's a point too, which Bobbi kind of hits on when she asks why he never told her about this. Like the feeding. Jack hasn't entirely come to terms with all this. But they can't talk right now. Evan is there, with company.
Now that we were inside, neither of us had much trouble hearing things. Somewhere in the back Evan laughed and a girl’s voice responded, “That’s right, now I’ll hold it here and you shove it in.”
Bobbi’s mouth popped open and she blushed a bright red.
“No, not that way!” the girl complained. “Smoother… get that flap as well.”
Flap! Bobbi mouthed the word.
Evan hears them though, so he comes out. He's surprised but not unfriendly. Apparently, his female friend was helping with the linens. Not a euphemism, Evan apparently doesn't know how to do proper hospital corners.
They ask about Sandra. Evan assumes she was with Alex, or shopping. He is pretty surprised to hear that Alex abandoned the project. It doesn't seem to be a problem between Alex and Sandra, as Evan thinks that if things keep going the way they are, he'll soon have "this rat palace" all to himself.
Jack says he thought Alex might have taken a commission to try to help with Evan's debt, but Evan doesn't think so. Alex has plenty of money, and he'd have given Evan it if Evan asked. (Evan hasn't done that though.)
Evan definitely doesn't buy the painter's block excuse. He actually thinks they should go give him a kick in the pants and tell him to paint. He doesn't think this is like that.
Bobbi says they could go ask and asks if Evan will come with them. Evan isn't comfortable with that idea though, since it's not really his business. And if Alex does turn it down, he figures he might have a chance to take his place.
Jack notes that if anyone else had said it, it might sound grabby, but it somehow didn't from Evan. Evan does admit that he can't charge Alex's prices either. Jack says they can see what works out.
They do end up seeing some of Evan's paintings and it sounds like he might just be a bit ahead of his time:
She smiled and laughed and led us to a corner of the room, where dozens of odd-sized canvases were stored vertically in a home-built shelving unit. We pulled out one after another and I got a pretty good idea why Evan wouldn’t be making much money on his work. It was beautiful stuff, the colors were rich and all over, but for the most part you couldn’t make out what they were representing.
He had a few of what I would call regular paintings. He could indeed please the public if he wished, but he was more comfortable creating his own inner world than recording the one around him. Bobbi discovered an especially large work and tilted it against the wall so she could stand back and get a good look. Sally joined her and both their faces were pinched with puzzlement. All I saw were swirls of fleshy pinks, darker reds, and other warm colors. It looked like another abstract to me. Evan came out, tucking in his shirt.
Evan notes that that one is his favorite. This is pretty funny:
“No title, really, but it is a portrait of a dear old friend of mine. It represents his joy to be meeting another friend he likes very much.”
“I don’t really see it,” said Sally.
“There’s a trick to it, actually. You have to stand at a specific spot for the meaning to become clear.” He put an arm around each of their shoulders and pulled them back about ten feet from the canvas and stepped away. They stared at it, then suddenly broke into twin shrieks of laughter and outrage. Evan beamed.
I was about five feet from the painting and stepped behind the convulsing girls to get a look—and saw nothing but colors.
“Now you’re too far away,” he told me, and urged me forward another foot.
It said a lot for his technical skill as a painter that he was able to create such an effect. Too close, it was nothing but colors, too distant and it was more of the same. Stand exactly ten feet away and you could see it for the large-scale and quite rude self-portrait it was.
It's an abstract dick pic, apparently. Everyone's pretty amused.
After that, Bobbi and Jack go out to dinner. Somewhere a bit less fancy, because Bobbi's too hungry to wait. She's pretty amused by the painting. She considers bringing a friend to see it, apparently a man eater that she wants to protect Jack from. (It's cute banter, rather than genuinely jealous.)
They go back to see Adrian, but his car is gone. That said, he's on his way back. They start to have their conversation, but a phone call from an upset sounding Evan interrupts them. They all head to Evan's house. (Jack hadn't been able to hear Evan's side of the conversation, but he did catch the stress filled tone.)
And this doesn't look good:
Evan was sitting on the steps outside, his hands hanging slack and his head down. Adrian was out of his car and striding up to him before I’d set my brakes. By the time I was out Adrian was already going up to the flat.
Bobbi got out with me. I checked both ends of the street, but didn’t see anything remotely resembling a bookie’s collector. We hurried up to Evan, who took no notice of our arrival. A strong fist closed around my gut and more than anything I wanted to take Bobbi and get out of there.
Evan began to shake his head. A thin keening sound rose from his huddled form and put my back hairs up. Bobbi looked from him to me, her face dead white with alarm.
It really doesn't look good. Jack goes in, he can hear Adrian's breathing ahead of him, and well:
New details impressed themselves into the overall picture: some packages carelessly dropped on a chair, a glove on the table, another on the floor, her purse on its side, a tortoiseshell comb fallen from it.
Sandra was on her back in the center of the room, her head turned to one side, her eyes and mouth slightly open.
Oh dear. You know how I said there wasn't a murder yet... Well, we've got one now.
We do have a woman who committed suicide some years back, a man that Jack seems to feel a fairly instant kinship with as the widower and potential killer. (And well, we know something about murders disguised as suicides, don't we?)
Just because it's not immediate doesn't mean the mystery isn't there...
We start the chapter with Jack waking up to the night. Bobbi's on the phone with some bad news: Alex backed out. She's pretty furious. Apparently, he'd told her that he couldn't get into it after all and wasn't ready to get back to painting yet.
Jack thinks that's ridiculous, considering how the man had been last night. Bobbi agrees. Jack has the unlikely thought that maybe Barb Steler had remembered their talk afterward and gone to make trouble, but he thinks no, he'd been careful. Instead, he proposes going over to see if they can straighten things out.
Escott has been Sir Not Appearing in this Book for the most part, but he's definitely curious. He'd been the one to first answer the phone for Bobbi. He's thoughtful, figuring Adrian's probably too professional to indulge in "artistic temperament" games. He recommends Jack bring the receipt, in case they can't talk Adrian back into the project.
Jack has a moment of guilt thinking that he'd been tempted to just influence Adrian the vampire way. I wonder if that'd work, or if would interfere with artistic ability.
So they go to see Adrian, who is far less relaxed. He's got the same guarded expression that he'd had at the party, and both Jack and Bobbi realize it's a lost cause. He explains it as being like writer's block. And when Jack gives him the receipt back, he looks like it's the end of the world, poor guy.
Bobbi and Jack are both on the same page, pretty alarmed. They leave, but agree they want to know more. And they're both concerned about a suicide risk. Jack goes into mistform to investigate.
Alex is on the couch, smoking, but more thoughtful than suicidal. There's a painting of Celia, which we get to observe through Jack's eyes:
The only light came from a small work lamp caged from one of his tables. Its gooseneck was twisted so the illumination fell on a canvas clamped onto his easel. It was a portrait of Celia Adrian. The newspaper photo had been a decent likeness at least of how she looked—Adrian had recorded who she had been. The style was the same as Barb Steler’s portrait, but more mature and assured.
I saw guarded happiness in the blue eyes, a hint of selfishness around the mouth, and an unearthly beauty in every stroke of his brush. It was truth and idealization all at once. Her faults were there, but accepted as part of the whole. He’d loved her dearly, but not blindly.
Aw.
Since Adrian doesn't seem like a suicide risk, and Bobbi's been left alone in the car, Jack goes back. Actually, Bobbi's doing things on her own initiative, having left the car for a grocery and has been getting gossip from the clerk.
I love this exchange:
“You’re not the only one who’s a detective,” she said, sliding into the car.
“I’m only an assistant to a private agent. You call Charles a detective and he’ll come out in hives.”
So we get the lady's perspective. She'd known Celia as "a tall, pretty lady who'd give you the time of day when you asked", and had believed the papers about Adrian being her killer, until she saw his face. Which apparently had been similar to his face tonight. Bobbi admits that she'd been ready to kill him herself, then realized how useless it'd be.
Bobbi wasn't just there for gossip though, she also bought booze, and suggests they go visit Sandra and Evan.
It doesn't quite work out. There's no answer, but people are inside. Bobbi gets her first look at the vanishing trick up close:
“It makes Charles nervous and I didn’t want to give you heart failure.”
“You mean you can just… ?” She made vague gestures. I’d done it once before in her presence, but it had been dark and rainy and she may have missed it, having other things on her mind at the time.
“Yeah, wanna see?”
She was a game girl. “Okay…”
Then I wasn’t there anymore. As though wrapped in cotton, I heard her gasp of surprise. I slipped inside, went solid, and unlocked the door. She jumped when it swung open, but her short blond hair wasn’t quite on end.
“Yeeps! How’d you do that? I thought you were supposed to turn into a fog or something.”
I pointed an accusing finger. “You’ve been reading Stoker again, haven’t you?”
They're so cute.
But there's a point too, which Bobbi kind of hits on when she asks why he never told her about this. Like the feeding. Jack hasn't entirely come to terms with all this. But they can't talk right now. Evan is there, with company.
Now that we were inside, neither of us had much trouble hearing things. Somewhere in the back Evan laughed and a girl’s voice responded, “That’s right, now I’ll hold it here and you shove it in.”
Bobbi’s mouth popped open and she blushed a bright red.
“No, not that way!” the girl complained. “Smoother… get that flap as well.”
Flap! Bobbi mouthed the word.
Evan hears them though, so he comes out. He's surprised but not unfriendly. Apparently, his female friend was helping with the linens. Not a euphemism, Evan apparently doesn't know how to do proper hospital corners.
They ask about Sandra. Evan assumes she was with Alex, or shopping. He is pretty surprised to hear that Alex abandoned the project. It doesn't seem to be a problem between Alex and Sandra, as Evan thinks that if things keep going the way they are, he'll soon have "this rat palace" all to himself.
Jack says he thought Alex might have taken a commission to try to help with Evan's debt, but Evan doesn't think so. Alex has plenty of money, and he'd have given Evan it if Evan asked. (Evan hasn't done that though.)
Evan definitely doesn't buy the painter's block excuse. He actually thinks they should go give him a kick in the pants and tell him to paint. He doesn't think this is like that.
Bobbi says they could go ask and asks if Evan will come with them. Evan isn't comfortable with that idea though, since it's not really his business. And if Alex does turn it down, he figures he might have a chance to take his place.
Jack notes that if anyone else had said it, it might sound grabby, but it somehow didn't from Evan. Evan does admit that he can't charge Alex's prices either. Jack says they can see what works out.
They do end up seeing some of Evan's paintings and it sounds like he might just be a bit ahead of his time:
She smiled and laughed and led us to a corner of the room, where dozens of odd-sized canvases were stored vertically in a home-built shelving unit. We pulled out one after another and I got a pretty good idea why Evan wouldn’t be making much money on his work. It was beautiful stuff, the colors were rich and all over, but for the most part you couldn’t make out what they were representing.
He had a few of what I would call regular paintings. He could indeed please the public if he wished, but he was more comfortable creating his own inner world than recording the one around him. Bobbi discovered an especially large work and tilted it against the wall so she could stand back and get a good look. Sally joined her and both their faces were pinched with puzzlement. All I saw were swirls of fleshy pinks, darker reds, and other warm colors. It looked like another abstract to me. Evan came out, tucking in his shirt.
Evan notes that that one is his favorite. This is pretty funny:
“No title, really, but it is a portrait of a dear old friend of mine. It represents his joy to be meeting another friend he likes very much.”
“I don’t really see it,” said Sally.
“There’s a trick to it, actually. You have to stand at a specific spot for the meaning to become clear.” He put an arm around each of their shoulders and pulled them back about ten feet from the canvas and stepped away. They stared at it, then suddenly broke into twin shrieks of laughter and outrage. Evan beamed.
I was about five feet from the painting and stepped behind the convulsing girls to get a look—and saw nothing but colors.
“Now you’re too far away,” he told me, and urged me forward another foot.
It said a lot for his technical skill as a painter that he was able to create such an effect. Too close, it was nothing but colors, too distant and it was more of the same. Stand exactly ten feet away and you could see it for the large-scale and quite rude self-portrait it was.
It's an abstract dick pic, apparently. Everyone's pretty amused.
After that, Bobbi and Jack go out to dinner. Somewhere a bit less fancy, because Bobbi's too hungry to wait. She's pretty amused by the painting. She considers bringing a friend to see it, apparently a man eater that she wants to protect Jack from. (It's cute banter, rather than genuinely jealous.)
They go back to see Adrian, but his car is gone. That said, he's on his way back. They start to have their conversation, but a phone call from an upset sounding Evan interrupts them. They all head to Evan's house. (Jack hadn't been able to hear Evan's side of the conversation, but he did catch the stress filled tone.)
And this doesn't look good:
Evan was sitting on the steps outside, his hands hanging slack and his head down. Adrian was out of his car and striding up to him before I’d set my brakes. By the time I was out Adrian was already going up to the flat.
Bobbi got out with me. I checked both ends of the street, but didn’t see anything remotely resembling a bookie’s collector. We hurried up to Evan, who took no notice of our arrival. A strong fist closed around my gut and more than anything I wanted to take Bobbi and get out of there.
Evan began to shake his head. A thin keening sound rose from his huddled form and put my back hairs up. Bobbi looked from him to me, her face dead white with alarm.
It really doesn't look good. Jack goes in, he can hear Adrian's breathing ahead of him, and well:
New details impressed themselves into the overall picture: some packages carelessly dropped on a chair, a glove on the table, another on the floor, her purse on its side, a tortoiseshell comb fallen from it.
Sandra was on her back in the center of the room, her head turned to one side, her eyes and mouth slightly open.
Oh dear. You know how I said there wasn't a murder yet... Well, we've got one now.