No, cornfield's the wrong image, he decided, watching as she brushed her golden curls into a sunny aureole. She was too decorative and expensive for any farmyard.
He was suddenly reminded of a little rococo church in southern Germany a few years ago. After a glut of Italian Renaissance cathedrals with their ponderous dark marbles and richly somber stained-glass windows, that German church had burst upon his senses like an explosion of light. Clear crystalline windows on three levels had flooded the interior with sunlight, and everything seemed gold and white: a frothy exuberance of gilt-tipped white marble columns; gold-leafed statues, a bright celestial blue ceiling decorated in gaily colored frescoes; and everywhere sunlight glinting and dancing on sparkling white walls and silver gilt trim.
Such rococo frivolity would have been too much like whipped cream and pineapples for a steady intellectual diet; but for dessert or for dalliance…
There must have been some hair of the dog in that tomato juice, Leyden thought, reaching out to gather in her gold-and-whiteness; but she eluded him easily. Half giggling, half shocked, she pushed away his hands and continued dressing.
"Sweetie! You know we can't. Not with poor Riley…"
"What about last night?" he demanded.
"I was in shock last night. All those people. Besides, we only got pickled."
"That's for sure! You were being the brave little widow, comforting everyone with flagons. No apples, though."
Doris looked blank. She was better acquainted with the spirit of the Song of Solomon than with its actual contents. She shrugged it off. "Anyhow, we didn't-I mean-well, wasn't Oscar here?"
"Yeah, he was the last to leave. He helped me carry you up here. But then it seems like there was some female who-uh-oh!"
"What?" asked Doris, who'd decided that a simple off-white sheath trimmed in Irish lace looked chaste enough for her new status. She glanced at him in the mirror and, alarmed by his expression, turned to face him. "What is it, sweetie?"
"Did I tell you that the police officer investigating Riley's death is a woman?"
Doris 's leaf green eyes widened. "She was here-in this room-last night?" Horrified, she reconstructed the room's appearance when she awoke that morning, and then she let out a sigh of relief.
"It's okay, sweetie. You were on my polar-bear longue, and you had all your clothes on."
"But you didn't." Leyden reminded her dryly, "and she could hardly have taken me for your chambermaid." He shrugged "Oh, what the hell? She'd bound to hear about us anyhow."
"Will she think you had anything to do with Riley's getting poisoned?" A thought struck Doris and she frowned. "You didn't, did you, Piersie?"
Leyden winced at that pet name. "Don't be stupid. It's her job to suspect everybody. Anyhow, I'm not the only one who hated Riley's guts."
"You're the only one who could've taken me away from him, though," Doris declared dramatically and threw herself upon him.
Leyden realized that she was suddenly seeing herself in a flattering new light: a woman worth killing for. Oh, dear Lord!
Now he was the one to push away entangling hands. "Didn't you say Riley's sister was on her way?"
"And she's such a dreary, dishwatery sort of person," Doris sighed, "Always complaining about her children," She untwined herself reluctantly. "I guess you'd better go, sweetie. Uncle Duncan's coming over, too. He's going to handle all the funeral arrangements. Poor Riley!"
Uncle Duncan was J. Duncan Sylvester, owner and publisher of The Loaded Brush, probably the country's most widely read and certainly its most influential art journal. He was a shrewd businessman and a thoroughly doting bachelor uncle. There were some who said that Quinn's entrée to the pages of The Loaded Brush had been Sylvester's wedding present to Doris. Her dowry, said the cattier. At any rate, subsequent acceptance by that prestigious magazine had been the final entrenchment of Riley Quinn's reputation.
And that reminded Leyden: "I told Jake Saxer I'd pick up the files on the book so he can keep working on it without disturbing you."
Doris had been examining her exquisite pink nails, wondering if she should change the enamel to a deeper red, or if peach would be more appropriate? Now she looked at Leyden with puzzlement. "But I thought after that fight he and Riley had that Jake didn't want to have anything more to do with the book."
"Fight? When?"
"Why, night before last. I could hardly hear my television for all the yelling going on down in Riley's study. Jake shouted something about taking Riley to court, and Riley said that if that was the way Jake felt about it, he could go to hell before he got an inch of credit. And then Jake yelled that they'd just see who went to hell first and slammed out of the house. So I thought maybe I'd ask Uncle Duncan if he knows somebody who could finish it."
"Oh, I wouldn't do that," Leyden said silkily. "I'm sure that fight meant nothing. Bringing in somebody new would take longer. Anyhow, Jake's familiar with all the material and knows Riley's style. He'll have the book finished and the royalties in your pocket before you know it."
It took several passionate kisses to distract Doris and remove any lingering hesitation; but when Leyden left the brownstone that morning shortly before eight, he left with the manuscript of Riley Quinn's last book under his arm.
Jake Saxer finished trimming his Vandyke beard and examined the results petulantly. He still wasn't convinced it did as much for his appearance as he'd hoped when he grew it. Maybe because he was too fair haired? Dark men always looked better in beards for some reason. More saturnine and incisive.
His hand hesitated over a razor, but in the end he decided against removal. After things settled down perhaps, not now. The beard was a disappointment, yet he felt safer behind it. Less chance for an expression to betray him.
He had chosen a carefully casual rust brown suit to wear today, which struck a note midway between Riley Quinn's sartorial elegance and David Wade's graduate sloppiness. After combing his hair, he gave it an artful mussing with his fingers, then nodded in satisfaction. He looked intellectual and reliable but still hip. Of the arts but not too arty.
Only his eyes betrayed a shifting fear and indecision. Had the police heard about his fight with Quinn? Should he bring it up himself? Wouldn't that make it look as if he attached no importance to it, and that it hadn't been a serious thing? On the other hand, if Quinn hadn't mentioned it to anyone, and if Doris Quinn hadn't overheard them, maybe nobody ever had to hear about it. What the police didn't know certainly couldn't hurt him.
Riley Quinn! That double-dyed bastard! After all the work he'd done! The insults he'd swallowed from other faculty members. As if he could be fobbed off with an associate professorship when he'd been promised!. And damned if Quinn hadn't threatened during their fight to renege on his backing with the college's promotions committee.
Remembered rage held him rigid until he reminded himself that rage was unnecessary now. Riley Quinn was dead. The book would be half his now and carry his name, too, after all; and unless Oscar Nauman suddenly became involved in the departmental politics and actively opposed him, his promotion would go on through automatically.
Everything was set. All he had to do now was recast that chapter that had Leyden lumped-rather wittily, too, because say what you will, Riley Quinn had possessed a devastating way with words-with other artists who'd earned Quinn's displeasure or scorn. He could slip Leyden over three chapters and add a couple of paragraphs about him somewhere between Andy Warhol and Chuck Close. That should satisfy Piers Leyden.
14
WHEN Sigrid Harald arrived at headquarters shortly before eight, she found Detective Tildon in her small office with more coffee and the morning papers. The News had devoted a full page to Riley Quinn's death, complete with photographs and sensational insinuations about the possible motives behind the poisoning.