The Hanging

Chapter 4

After the meeting, agreeing to skip lunch as we walked toward the student gallery to speak with Sly, my uncle watched me closely, as he had watched me for most of the last year, looking for emotional leaks.

“It comes and goes, Max,” I said in response to the unspoken question. “Good days and bad. But I’m all right.”

“Give it time, honey. It hasn’t even been a year. Just give it time.”

I looked away. Sometimes, if I was very busy, I might pass an entire hour without thinking about my husband, Mike. More and more, I found myself actually thinking about Mike rather than about my loss. And more often than not, lately, those memories made me happy.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you, Maggot,” Max said, using a family nickname. “And I know you’d never say, but how are you fixed? This temp job can’t be paying you much, and you have a daughter in college.”

I patted his hand. “I’m fine, Max. I have Mike’s LAPD pension and some savings, I still get royalties and residuals from a few of my old documentaries, the network gave me a good buyout, and there’s always the prospect that one day we’ll get my mother’s French estate through probate. So don’t you worry about me.”

“Worrying about you is what I do best,” he said as he opened the door of the student gallery in the campus arts complex and held it for me. “And Lord knows you’ve given me a fair ration of practice. But if you need-”

“I love you, Max.” I kissed his cheek on my way through the door. “And I’m fine.”

Sly, wearing his uniform (black T-shirt, black button-front Levis, black boots-he was trying for a three-day beard, but all he had produced was noticeable fuzz) was deep in conversation with a woman I did not recognize. He was pointing out something on the sculpture taking shape around a tall frame in the middle of the high-ceilinged room.

The woman was somewhere north of middle-aged, and though she was tiny and pretty, there was something about her carriage that conveyed authority. She listened to Sly with a focus that was so intense that it was clear she was enormously interested in what he was telling her.

As the door closed behind us, Max stopped to bat at something above his head. “A bird must have flown in with us.”

He was looking around for the bird so he missed the little smile that passed between Sly and the woman when they turned to see who had come in.

Eyes darting around the room, Max said, “Where is the damn thing?”

“It’s a dove,” the woman told him. “A shadow from the past.”

Max turned to her, his brows furrowed. She extended her hand.

“I’m Bobbie Cusato. And you are Max Duchamps. Sly told me about you. Lovely to meet you.”

“And you.” Max bowed slightly, a gesture left over from a recent visit to France. Mrs. Cusato was some years older than he, but he seemed quite taken with her. More interested in her, certainly, than he had been in Joan Givens.

I recognized her name. She was one of the local movers and shakers, a community activist and fund-raiser. If I had ever imagined her in my mind’s eye, I would have expected a matron dripping with jewels and stiff with haughtiness. She was anything but. Beautifully but simply dressed in well-cut woolen slacks and a deep red sweater, there was a sparkle in her eyes that held promise for a lively sense of humor; she had tucked a bright red hibiscus flower behind one ear.

“This is Maggie MacGowen,” Sly said, gesturing toward me with an upturned palm and a poise that would have made Miss Manners herself damn proud; my eyes welled up. “Maggie, Mrs. Cusato was on the award committee.”

“Maggie, I’ve heard so much about you,” she said, offering her hand. “We have a mutual friend in Kate Tejeda. And of course, I know you from your television programs.”

“Lovely to meet you, Mrs. Cusato,” I said.

“Oh, please, call me Bobbie.”

“So, Sly,” Max said, head thrown back, looking up at the sculpture that very nearly reached the ceiling. “This is the beast?”

“The beast,” Sly said, happily accepting the label.

“Sly was explaining his work to me,” Bobbie said. “Last time I saw it, it was a sketch and a model and a color wheel. I knew it would be wonderful, but this…” She gestured toward the sculpture, still hardly assembled. “Beyond, far beyond, anything I could imagine.”

I had to agree.

Sly, who had no known history of his own, had been enthralled by a California History class he took with Kate, and by the golden, rolling hills that are the scenic backdrop of the campus that became his haven. His piece would be a graceful, kinetic cascade of ceramic tiles formed to represent the textures, colors and shapes of the hills, all of it strung together by an invisible system of slender steel cables. Among the hills, he incorporated design motifs from the various phases of the region’s past, beginning at the top with images painted by the Chumash in local caves a thousand years ago, followed by abstracted bits of Baroque and Mission architectural elements from the Spanish epoch. From there, a spill of red, white and green, the colors of the Mexican flag, morphed into the blue, channeled waters of the California Aqueduct that became a ribbon winding among glazed aluminum grills representing the perfectly groomed and plowed fields of local commercial agriculture in the modern era.

The piece was beautiful, subtle and complex. At a distance it would be a colorful, ever-moving organism. Up close, a mosaic of historic tableaux, each one exquisite by itself.

Max was distracted as Sly explained his work.

“Where’s that damn bird that flew in?”

“The dove is an illusion, Max,” Sly said, grinning. “Or maybe it’s a ghost.”

Max looked at him through narrowed eyes, not amused.

“Optics, Max,” Sly said. He reached into the unfinished piece and tapped a tiny crystal. As the crystal moved, it picked up light and made the dove fly around the room.

“That’s why I call it Palomas Eternas, Eternal Doves. People come, they go. But the birds are constant. Borderless. Eternal.”

“It’s something, kid.” Max started on a circuit of the sculpture, comparing the series of sketches affixed to the wall with the work in progress. “It’s really something.”

Sly followed him, answering questions, pointing out details.

Bobbie moved a step closer to me as she watched Max and Sly. “Kate tells me you’re very close to Sly.” It sounded like a question. She was smiling, but I had a feeling that the smile was cover for something weighing on her.

“I’ve known Sly since he was a little boy,” I said.

“He thinks of you as family.”

I smiled and nodded. “Mike and I, and our kids-his son, Michael, my daughter, Casey-were certainly the closest thing to family Sly had ever known.”

Sometimes people questioned why Mike and I had not adopted Sly or taken him in as a foster child. The answer that I never bothered to give them, because it really was no one’s business but our own, was that when I took Sly in off the streets, his problems were larger than Mike and I knew how to handle.

All the years that Sly was a ward of Los Angeles County, Mike watched over him, watched over Child Protective Services to make sure that Sly received everything he needed, and that he came to no harm. Mike had no authority to oversee Sly’s foster placements, or to drop in to visit without prior notice, but he did. He also had no authority to set up extra counseling sessions when Sly reached the county’s set quota, but he did that, too. Most kids in the System don’t have a Mike to look after them, but they all need one.

Before Mike made detectives, he was an old-time LAPD street cop, a cowboy. Because of that experience, until the very end of his life he generally found ways to get things done, his way. If anyone with Child Protective Services took issue with Mike’s buttinski ways, they didn’t get very far with their grievance.

Bobbie turned away from Max and Sly, who were on the far side of the gallery, to speak with me again.

“Kate told me you were meeting with Park Holloway this afternoon to set him straight about the installation of Sly’s work.”

“We met.”

“It came out well?”

“It did.”

She glanced around to see where the men were.

“I learned something very disturbing,” she said. “I thought that because you are so close to Sly…”

I said, “Something about Sly?”

“Only indirectly.” Again she checked to see where he was. My palms were sweaty and my heart raced; with Sly, you never knew what was coming next. She cleared her throat. I interrupted before she could say anything.

“Bobbie, I know where we can get a cup of coffee.”

“Let’s.” She took my elbow and we started walking.

Lew Kaufman kept the makings for coffee in a small faculty lounge about halfway between his office and my studio. The room was well-used and ill-tended, furnished with mismatched chairs and an old Formica-topped kitchen table. Everything was spattered and smeared with representatives of every imaginable art medium: clay, paint, plaster, chalk and charcoal among them. The place smelled vaguely of turpentine. But the room was quiet and the coffeepot was a very good French press.

While Bobbie searched for a chair with four intact legs, I filled and plugged in the kettle, ground some beans and measured them into the press. From the selection of mugs on the counter next to the sink, I found the two that were the least stained and rinsed them with kettle water when it began to steam.

“You said you learned something disturbing?” I leaned against the sink, facing her, while I waited for the water to boil.

She nodded, took some time before she spoke.

“At the meeting with Park, did he agree that he had no authority to change the terms of the award?”

“Reluctantly, but yes,” I said.

“What Park tried to do was unconscionable. Even if he didn’t get away with it, the attempt was still a terrible insult to Sly.” She looked up at me. “How is Sly doing? I hesitated to ask him because I didn’t-I don’t-want to upset him.”

“He was very hurt,” I said. “It still stings. But you can talk with him about it. The kid may be more resilient than you think.”

She smiled as she said, “He’s very fond of you and your late husband, you know. And your son.”

“Michael. My stepson, actually.”

“He told me he had a room of his own at your house.”

“He did until he got his own apartment in Anacapa. But he only ever stayed with us on weekends and school holidays.”

“Where was his family?”

The kettle whistled so I turned and busied myself pouring water over coffee grounds and fussing with the plunger. My friend Kate was very fond of Bobbie, had spoken of her several times. I knew that Bobbie’s influence was in no small part responsible for the selection of Sly’s sculpture. But what she was asking about Sly’s personal history was Sly’s story to tell, not mine.

I placed a mug of coffee and a jar of powdered creamer on the table beside her and found a chair with at least three fairly stable legs and brought it to the table.

I sat back and looked at her for a moment, collecting my thoughts before I said, “Sly has never known his biological family.”

She declined the creamer-I didn’t blame her, it did look a bit chunky-and sipped her coffee, eyes focused on something far away. When she said, “Damn the man,” the words came from deep down inside; I knew to whom she referred. “He had no right.”

Her pretty face was tight with indignation when she turned it toward me. “I knew Park was up to something, but I didn’t know what it was. And I should have guessed. He is such a schemer.”

Bobbie rose and paced across the room, obviously upset. After a few deep breaths, a bit more composed, she came back and took her chair again. Setting her coffee aside, she leaned toward me.

“In any community,” she said, “there are certain go-to people, for money, for volunteers, for whatever. Kate and I are go-to’s whenever money is needed. Or, in this case, wanted. Park went to both of us last fall, after the committee had selected Sly’s work, and asked for us to contribute to a backup fund in case Sly failed to produce his piece; it is an ambitious work, even for a more experienced artist.”

“What did you say to him?”

“We said no, of course,” she said firmly. “It wasn’t a secret that Park was not pleased that Sly won the sculpture award. But it was just stupid of him to ask me for money for a runner-up award, so to speak.”

“You weren’t worried that Sly could get the piece made?”

“There was some concern among the committee about whether Sly could pull it off,” she said. “But Lew Kaufman, who sat on the committee, of course, assured everyone that Sly had the backing of the entire Art Department as well as access to all of its resources. Sly needed them, and he used them. His application was given weight because it would involve so many people across the campus.”

“Does Holloway have something against Sly or Sly’s work?”

“Not Sly specifically, no. Clearly, Park had a favorite candidate; he lobbied us to select him. But we chose Sly.”

“Who did Holloway prefer?”

“Franz von Wilde. According to Park he’s a fairly well-established artist from the Santa Barbara area. He has a relationship with a reputable gallery on State Street and has had his work exhibited in some regional art museums. And of course, he had once been a student here.”

“Sly told me that Holloway wanted to display the work of a professional artist,” I said. “Was this von Wilde’s proposal to the committee of museum quality?”

“Frankly, I thought it was ordinary,” she said. “Derivative. Belonged in someone’s backyard spouting water. And I said so. But Park, well,” she smiled grimly, “he could have been a used-car salesman. He said that the committee was biased toward Sly, which was true, and that his only interest was in seeing that the decision was fairly reached.”

“The committee was biased,” I said. “Between you and Lew…”

She smiled. “And a few others. Sly made such a wonderful presentation to the committee. We fell in love with the way he incorporated history and geography into his artistry. His design belongs to this place as none of the others would. The work is not only beautiful, lyrically so, but there is whimsy.” She raised her hand toward the ceiling and inscribed the path of a flying dove. “There is definitely whimsy.”

“Is that coffee I smell?” Lew Kaufman shambled in. There was a new smear of something across his cheek. He selected the next-least-objectionable mug from among the collection on the counter and filled it from the pot. “So Bobbie, Maggie. What’s up?”

He carried his mug to the table, leaned down to kiss Bobbie’s proffered cheek, and left a terra-cotta streak behind; the Mark of Lew, I was beginning to think.

Bobbie thumbed the smear off her cheek. “I was just going to tell Maggie about something I learned this morning.”

“What’s that?” He slurped his coffee.

“You know that Park tried to get money from me last fall to buy the bronze bowling pin from Whatshisname if Sly…”

“Bombed?” Lew said. “Yeah. Franz von Wilde. Bullshit. When he was a student here his name was Frankie Weidermeyer. Putz.”

“You knew him?” Bobbie asked, taken aback. “You never told the committee.”

“Didn’t want you to think I was prejudiced.”

“But you were,” she said, smiling broadly.

“Sure, but not toward Weidermeyer. Back in the day, he took a few of my studio classes. I always thought he was more arts-and-crafts than fine arts; not top of the heap, talentwise, even there. But when your mommy owns a big gallery, I guess talent doesn’t matter so much.”

She repeated, “You never said.”

He laid a big stained hand on her shoulder. “Bobbie, I knew I didn’t need to. I trusted your good judgment.” He chuckled. “Did look like a big bronze bowling pin, didn’t it?”

“Well, hell.” She cocked her head to study his long, expressive face. After a moment, she said, “The thing is, Lew, I just learned that Park bought the bowling pin after all. That’s why he wanted to take down Sly’s work. He’s stuck with that ugly thing now. Probably embarrassed.”

Lew slammed a hand on the table, upsetting my mug. “Dammit,” he spat, rising to grab paper towels. “If there was ever someone who needed to be strung up by his balls, it’s that bastard. Of all the colossal gall.”

He mopped the table with paper toweling off a big roll and slam-dunked the sodden wad into a trash can. Still upset, he refilled my cup, nearly overfilling it when he looked away to speak to Bobbie.

“How the hell did he manage to come up with the money?”

“He went out on his own and raised it. Kate and I turned him down when he solicited us, but others wrote checks,” Bobbie said.

“Several others,” she added. “And he did it without going through the Foundation. David Dahliwahl had pledged money for an engineering scholarship. But when Joan Givens took tax forms to David, expecting him to give her a check, he told her that Park had already collected. In December.”

“Aha,” Lew said, catching my eye. “That’s what Joan wanted to talk to Park about after our meeting.”

“Could be,” I said.

I thought of the file she brought to the meeting and the papers she was laying in front of Holloway when the rest of us left. The Foundation was the only legitimate fund-raising organization on campus, and apparently Holloway had sidestepped them. Illegally.

Lew dropped back into his chair. “Who else did the bastard tap?”

“I made some calls for Joan,” Bobbie said.

Lew gestured for her to go on.

“Ruth Carlisle, Melvin Ng, and the Montemayors all gave checks to Park. There were others.”

Bobbie looked from me to Lew, making sure she had our attention, drawing out the drama a bit. “Park collected enough loot to buy that awful piece several times over. And none of it went through Foundation accounts.”

“Bastard,” Lew spat, happy, I thought, to have something more to hold against Holloway.

“I think we’ve established that,” I said. “What happens now?”

“Joan is taking what she has to the Board of Trustees,” Bobbie said. “I hope we can avoid legal action, but that will depend on Park’s response.”

I slid off into a sort of nether zone, thinking about a possible film project-Park Holloway-and didn’t hear what they said next. Lew called my name and brought me back into the grubby comforts of the faculty lounge.

I said, “Sorry. What?”

“I asked if you were finished for the day,” Lew said.

“Pretty soon.” I glanced at my watch. “In another hour the light should be right to film the stairwell.”

“Couldn’t it wait until Monday?”

I shook my head. “It’s supposed to rain again on Monday. This may be my last, best shot before the piece goes up next week.”

“You might run into Park,” Lew said.

I shrugged. “So what if I do?”

“Didn’t Sly say something this morning about taking a twelve-bore?”

“And didn’t I tell him to watch what he says?”

With the puzzle of Park Holloway on my mind, I went into my little office with about an hour to kill. Right away, I turned on my desk computer and Google-stalked him. There were over a hundred thousand Internet hits. Getting through them would take half a week, time I did not have.

Not so long ago, I would have called on my personal assistant, Fergie, to see what she could find, and Jack Flaherty in the network’s Archives and Research department to do the same. The two of them together could, and did more than once, find the proverbial needle in a haystack for me. But I had been severed from those resources.

When my series was canceled, my entire production unit at the network was laid off. I knew Fergie was still looking for a job, so I called her, hoping she had some time I could buy.

“How’s the job hunt going?” I asked her after we had established that we were both just fine, thank you.

“Oh, Maggie.” She burst into tears. “There’s nothing out there. I went to an interview this morning and there were thirty people filling out applications. For one half-time file clerk position.”

“Damn,” was all I could think to say.

“It’s hopeless.”

“Fergie,” I said, “I need some help doing background research. Would you be interested?”

After a pause, she asked, “For pay?”

“Of course.” I told her what I wanted. “Right now it’s just exploratory. Snooping actually. If we come up with something, I’ll go look for backing to make a film.”

“If there’s something to find, I’ll find it,” she said, sounding like my fierce assistant again instead of a defeated whelp. “And if you decide to make a film, you better hire me, boss.”

“Couldn’t do it without you. But for now, I’m thinking there might be a week’s worth of work for you.”

“Great. You’re a lifesaver,” she said. “What kind of money are we talking?”

“The same rate the network paid you.”

There was a pause.

“Maggie, I couldn’t make my condo payment on the first.”

“How much do you owe?”

When she told me, including a late penalty if she didn’t get the payment in by the tenth, I did some rough calculations, gulped, and said, “Okay, kiddo, that’s about seven days of work. I’m sure we’ll find plenty for you to do.”

“In advance?”

Thinking, Lordy Maggie, you need a keeper, I said, “Sure.”

She gave me her account information so I could make an immediate electronic deposit. As soon as we said good-bye, that’s what I did, feeling Mike looking over my shoulder as I did, hearing him say, “Maggie, she’s twenty-seven years old. She should be able to figure things out by herself.” And me answering, “Times are tough.”

I looked at the clock; it was just after four. Usually, those few people who were not furloughed on Fridays cleared out early to get a head start on the weekend. I wanted to film the empty stairwell without the shadows of people around the vast open spaces of the administration lobby interfering with the shot. The outer doors would lock automatically at exactly five, so a few minutes before that, I decided, would be the best time to go over. At that hour, the people should be gone and the sun would be low in the sky and streaming straight in through the big glass front doors.

My students had been assigned to edit a five-minute film. I had some time, so I booted the office computer and opened one, but I found myself too distracted by Fergie’s tale of woe to really concentrate on it. What was happening to the rest of my laid-off crew? I hadn’t talked to my longtime film partner, Guido Patrini, my technical guru, for over a week, so I gave him a call.

For many years, Guido had moonlighted by teaching a graduate course in film production at UCLA. So I opened the conversation by asking him, “Tell me how you assign grades to student films.”

“In the old days we used to throw them at the wall and see what stuck. But that’s tough on the hardware. So I set up criteria when I give the assignment and then I assess how well they use those parameters to build something that is both technically and aesthetically interesting. A low grade suggests maybe they should major in psych, a high grade means they may one day earn the chops to bang their heads against Hollywood’s door.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Since I plagiarized the assignment from your course syllabus, Guido, you should grade them for me.”

“Nice try,” he said, chuckling. “I’d be happy to sit down with you and go over a couple with you, but I’m in Colorado finishing up a freelance gig.”

I told Guido that Fergie was still looking for work, and asked him to be on the lookout for something for her, that even a short-term gig would be helpful. He promised he would.

We talked for a while about nothing in particular until it was time for me to gather my things and go over to the administration building to shoot my few seconds of footage.