Desert Winter (21 page)

The scratch of my pen on the yellow legal pad seemed amplified in the well-tuned acoustics of the auditorium. As I wrote, I searched for precise, concrete phrases to express the intangibles of acting—characterization, motivation, interpretation, timing, delivery, and on and on. So much of an actor's craft is intuitive, I found it a struggle to communicate my directions in words and commit them to paper. But I'd been hired to teach, and teach I would.

I'd chosen to sit onstage, in the make-believe world of Laura's living room, the better to absorb the ambiance of the script and inspire my writing. I found, however, that the play's sinister mood, to say nothing of the heinous shotgun violence it sought to untangle, kept tugging my mind from my mission and forcing me to contemplate the real-life murder that had increasingly dominated my thoughts and my time.

Compounding this distraction was the ornate Austrian clock that stood downstage right, peering over the auditorium like a blinded, one-eyed oracle. The convex glass of its round face, now soaped, had looked over Stewart Chaffee's kitchen on Monday morning, witnessing the who and the how of his agonized last moments. I opened my mouth, preparing to speak to the clock, beseeching answers, then quickly reconsidered, chiding myself for such lunacy. Duly self-chastised, I hunkered down and wrote my notes.

After filling several pages, I read them from the start, did some quick editing, then judged them worthy of transcription. I would walk them over to my office, then have the department secretary type them up and place copies in the cast members' mail slots. So I switched on a single work light, shut down the stage circuits, and left the theater through the auditorium.

Emerging from the dim lobby into the full sun of College Circle, I crossed the plaza with my notes, headed toward the administration building. The sky was cloudless, the morning serene. It was the middle of a class period, so there was no rush of students crisscrossing the pavement. In fact, I was alone in the vast courtyard with its fountains and palms, a setting that invited introspection.

My pace slowed. Once again, my mind was drawn to the riddle of Stewart Chaffee's death. I was tempted to weigh my emerging suspicions of both Bonnie Bahr and Pea Fertig, but dismissed this notion as useless conjecture. The investigation was still young.

So I glanced at my notes, studying them as I continued toward the offices. I'd written tips for each member of the cast, including Tanner Griffin and Thad Quatrain. At the sight of Thad's name, written in my own hand, my thoughts drifted to his journalist uncle, Mark Manning, renowned for his investigative skills. He already had a passing interest in Chaffee's murder—his nephew had been with me when I discovered the body. If the investigation could be speeded along, I reasoned, Thad, Tanner, the rest of the cast, and I would all be able to focus more on the play and less on the crime.

I knew that Detective Larry Knoll would hardly welcome the involvement of yet another amateur crime solver, let alone that of an out-of-towner with no working knowledge of the turf or the victim. Still, I had an inkling that Mark's distance and objectivity could prove helpful in unexpected ways. I was reluctant to actively recruit his help, but wondered if there wasn't some way to lure him into the investigation, if only tangentially, and with Larry's blessing. A tall order.

Then I blinked. That very evening, D. Glenn Yeats would host a reception at his Nirvana home for Mark. I would be there, of course. Grant Knoll, who often arranged at-home entertaining for Nirvana residents, would surely be there as well. So why not Grant's brother, Larry? What's one more face in the crowd? Deciding to ask Glenn if I might extend an invitation to Detective Knoll on his behalf, I altered my course across the plaza, heading not toward the theater department's offices, but toward another door, that leading to the suite of presidential offices.

The administration building, indeed the entire campus, was circular in design, with Glenn's lavish suite at the epicenter. While its symbolism was strong and the concept had doubtless looked great on paper, the finished effect of this plan was to befuddle newcomers with curved hallways, abstruse signage, and a numbering system that lacked the essential logic of a grid. It had taken me weeks of practice to find my own office without retracing my steps, but by now the pecking order of concentric orbits had become second nature to me, and I located without difficulty the entrance to Glenn's lair.

It was hard to miss. The twin doors of polished mahogany bore no resemblance to the plain white slabs leading to the offices of Glenn's minions. Stepping inside, I found the sleek reception room empty, its carpet-muffled silence broken only by the gentle, plasticky tapping of a keyboard in the next room.

The typing stopped, and a moment later, a tall, muscular black woman in a Band-Aid of a leather miniskirt appeared in the doorway. “Oh, good morning, Ms. Gray,” she said through a resonant purr. “How can I help you?” Glenn Yeats's secretary was about the same age, not quite thirty, as Merrit Lloyd's secretary, Robin. What's more, they both struck me as efficient and loyal to their respective bosses. Otherwise, they could have been creatures from two different planets.

“Morning, Tide,” I returned her greeting, stepping toward her office. “Is Glenn available?” I looked beyond her desk to the doors of the inner sanctum.

“I'm sorry, no, he went over to the gallery. Shall I phone him for you?”

“Thanks, but I'll just walk over and find him. It's nothing urgent. I was wondering if I might invite an extra guest to his reception for Mr. Manning this evening.”

Tide gave me a sisterly wink. “I'm keeper of the guest list. I'm sure he wouldn't mind.” We'd done this before.

I was tempted by her offer. Through a chortle, I declined, “I'd better ask.”

“As if there's anything he'd refuse you.”

“You're probably right,” I said, sounding bored by the doting of a billionaire. “Still, it's only polite. I just need to have these notes typed up”—I wagged my sheaf of scrawlings—“then I'll go over to the museum and find Glenn.”

Extending an athletic arm, she offered, “Let
me
take care of that for you.”

It would save me a trip through the circular maze. “But then,” I pouted, “the notes need to be distributed to the students' mailboxes.”

She insisted with a smile, “I can handle it, Ms. Gray.”

So I gave her the papers with my profuse thanks, left the office, and headed outdoors, crossing College Circle again.

*   *   *

Although my theater, with its soaring flies, was the dominant feature of the architectural landscape, the new home of the Desert Museum of Southwestern Arts was no less dramatic. In designing the structure, I. T. Dirkman had found inspiration in the organic forms and muted palette of the desert, taking further cues from the primitive aesthetics of the collection that the building was meant to house. The new museum, therefore, was as simple and austere as my theater was fanciful and lyric.

On that Wednesday morning, workmen traipsed about scaffolding in front of the wide, glass-walled lobby, installing and testing lighting fixtures that would accent the building against the night sky. The rush was on. DMSA's inaugural exhibit of kachina dolls would open to the public on Friday evening, timed to the premiere of my play, the better to capitalize on publicity and crowds.

Stepping inside from the warm plaza, I was engulfed by the cool, filtered, processed air that would preserve ancient artifacts while numbing visitors with goose bumps and shivers. Most of the workmen inside the lobby, including the more brutish among them, wore jackets. Their din and babble reverberated against the glass and stone surfaces of the bright, airy room.

Beyond the lobby were galleries for both the permanent collection and temporary exhibits. A gift shop and a trendy little restaurant were being readied to indulge the art-weary. Another concourse led to storage vaults and offices. I assumed that I would find Glenn in the museum director's office, so I headed in that direction. Passing the entrance to the main gallery, though, I noticed a flurry of activity within, and at the center of this vortex stood the college founder and president.

“We can group the photographers over here,” he was saying as I entered. “That'll be a great angle, and they won't be looking into the glare of the lights.” He gestured about the large bare room with its pale gray walls.

“Good thinking, Glenn” said Iesha Birch, an exotic woman in her late thirties, the museum's new executive director. Scribbling on her clipboard, she asked, “Do you want to do an actual unveiling?”

“No, no, no”—he shook his head, as if the answer were self-evident—“it'll be an unveiling in only the
figurative
sense. The reception will be held in the outer lobby; then, when the doors to the main gallery are opened with a bit of fanfare, the entire
collection
will be, in a sense, unveiled.” He prattled on.

Just then I noticed my neighbors, Grant and his young partner, Kane, standing off to the side, speaking to each other. Though I hadn't expected to see them, their presence came as no surprise. Grant, after all, was president of the museum board, and Kane was a design intern in the museum's publicity office, so if Glenn Yeats called a meeting, they were apt to attend. As I approached, they spotted me, each giving a friendly wave.

“What's the big powwow?” I asked.

Grant jerked his head toward the lobby, where we could talk without interrupting the meeting, even though it appeared to be breaking up.

As we emerged into the late-morning dazzle of the glass-fronted lobby, workers were hanging huge banners promoting the opening exhibit. The images of kachina dolls, some ten feet tall, looked like fearsome, prehistoric astronauts. Kane told me, “Mr. Yeats decided to throw a press conference.”

“To announce the doll exhibit?”

Grant shook his head. “That's already been publicized. No, Glenn wants to make a big deal out of Stewart's bequest, inviting the press for the surprise announcement. He feels it's a good publicity angle for the opening of DMSA's new facility here on campus.”

I shrugged. “He's right.”

Grant nodded. “But it's all rather rushed, and I hope it doesn't come across as slipshod. Image is everything, you know.”

“Tell me,” I agreed. We weren't being shallow; we were simply acknowledging that the arts are built on artifice.

“So the Regal Palms will cater. They're expensive, but dependable.”

“It's only money.” I was tempted to add, Glenn will never miss it. But that was presumptuous, and my point was already made. I asked, “When is it?”

“
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow evening.”

“God, that is short notice.”

“Fret not,” said the e-titan himself, striding from the gallery, looking dweebishly Californian in a silk shirt, linen slacks, low-slung loafers, and no socks. “We've got
the
best staff in the world. Everything will come off without a hitch.”

“We'll do our very best,” said Iesha, underscoring something on her clipboard with a determined slash. Her movement caused an oversize necklace of painted bones and gilded shells to clatter against her chest. Then she paused to adjust the pareu that was knotted around her waist. Underneath the colorful, makeshift skirt, she wore black tights, from the ends of which popped white feet sporting acid-green chef's clogs.

I asked Glenn, “Why the big hurry?”

“This is
news.
Bequests such as this will help put Desert Arts College on the map. Besides, it's only fitting that we pay tribute to our benefactor and his unexpected gift.”

I wondered if Glenn was being facetious. Chaffee's bequest, while generous, was nothing compared to the fortune already donated by Glenn himself toward building the campus. What's more, only days earlier, Glenn had not bothered to conceal his skepticism regarding the quality of Chaffee's collection, a disdain that I had interpreted as sour grapes. Why the sudden interest in extolling a gift that the museum didn't much need or want?

As if reading my mind, Glenn explained, “This is spin, pure and simple. When someone leaves a gift of that magnitude to an institution, the public is bound to view it as a testament to the institution's mission and worthiness.”

“Makes sense. But,” I repeated, “why the big hurry?”

Before Glenn could respond, Grant blurted, “This is
your
doing, doll.”

“Mine?”

“Your play,” Glenn elaborated. “Once your play opens on Friday, that's where I'll want to focus our publicity. And if we wait till next week for the press conference, the bequest will be old news. I'd like to do it
tonight,
but that would be pushing things.”

I reminded him, “You've already invited a crowd to your house tonight.”

“Precisely. Which leaves tomorrow evening, Thursday, for the event here at the museum.”

His mind was made up, and I had no reason to dissuade him, but still, the whole notion struck me as off-putting—not exactly crass, but certainly opportunistic. Glenn Yeats, however, had never been criticized for lack of savvy in achieving his goals, so I could only conclude that his plan would in fact enhance the prestige of the college.

Grant was telling me, “On behalf of the museum board, I'll make a little speech out here in the lobby during the cocktail reception, greeting the press and other invited guests. Then, after the doors to the main gallery are opened, Glenn himself will announce the bequest.”

Glenn added, “I'm hoping we can get a few pieces from Chaffee's collection to use as a backdrop for the announcement. The press would eat it up, and we'd get far better photo coverage. I realize the estate may be tied up in probate for a while, but I'm sure
something
can be arranged. With all the extra publicity, we should devote the main gallery to the Chaffee collection for the first few weeks.”