Frank pulled out his badge.
The man squinted at the gold shield. “There’s no possible reason why the police would be interested in me.”
“Are you Derek Linton?” Frank asked.
“Yes.”
“Frank Clemons. I’m investigating a murder.”
“Murder?”
“That’s right,” Frank said. “I understand you’re a painter, Mr. Linton.”
“Is that a crime now?”
Frank returned the badge to his pocket. “I need to talk to you for a few minutes. It’s important.”
“You don’t mind a mess, do you?”
“No.”
“All right then,” Linton said. He swung open the door. “Come in.”
The front room looked as if it had never been straightened, and yet, Frank noticed, it did not have the same sense of hopeless confusion which he found in his own apartment. There were spots of paint on the floor, walls and furniture. Stacks of frames leaned haphazardly against the walls, and assorted canvases were gathered together in jagged piles in all four corners of the room. A rickety, paint-splattered easel stood near a large open window as if it were the still-surviving testament of an undefeated heart.
“I do love this place,” Linton said as he eased himself into a light blue overstuffed chair. He took a bottle of red wine from beside the chair and poured himself a glass. Then he lifted the bottle to Frank. “Would you like a drink?”
“No, thanks.”
“Because you’re on duty?”
“Because I don’t want one,” Frank said.
Linton smiled. “Sit down, Mr. Clemons.”
Frank sat down in a small wooden rocker and took out his notebook.
“Very thorough,” Linton said. He picked up a single plastic bottle from an array of medicines which covered the top of the small table beside his chair. “Just a moment, please,” he said, “it’s time for this one.” He placed a large white pill in his mouth and washed it down with the wine. “They’re not supposed to go together,” he said, “but I do what I like.” He replaced the bottle on the table. “Quite a collection of medicines, don’t you think?”
Frank nodded.
“Dying,” Linton said, as he gazed at the assorted drugs. “And don’t want to.” He motioned toward the collection of medicines. “These are all parts of the resistance,” he said, “and they are as far as I will go.” He ran his fingers through his great mane of white hair. “Don’t want to lose this. I’m too vain. Cancer has a way of taking your dignity before it takes your life.”
It had once been a beautiful face, Frank thought, as he gazed at Derek Linton, and although it had now grown slack and terribly pale, it still retained a certain heroic loveliness.
Linton reached for a framed photograph and handed it to Frank. It showed a tall, robust man with beautiful white hair and wild, blue eyes. “That’s the way I looked just a year ago,” he said. He took another sip of wine. “But that’s not what you’re here to talk about.” He leaned back in his chair. “Now, you said something about a murder?”
“Yes,” Frank said. He opened his notebook to the first blank page.
“Do you take everything down?” Linton asked.
“Most everything.”
“Whatever can be said in words, right?”
“I have a bad memory,” Frank explained. “I don’t always trust it with the facts.”
Linton’s face suddenly stiffened. “Forgive me,” he said, “the pain.”
“Can I get you something?”
“No,” Linton said quickly. “Please, it will pass.” He took a deep breath. “I’ve always been very jealous of my dignity. That’s what makes it so hard now. There’s no dignity in pain. None at all.” He shook his head resolutely. “But I don’t want to get into that. Too much self-pity.” He grabbed his wineglass and squeezed the stem. “Please, let’s go on,” he said in a high, strained voice. “The murder. You were talking about a murder.”
Frank took a picture of Angelica from his coat pocket and handed it to Linton.
“Have you ever seen this girl?”
Linton nodded slowly. “Yes. That’s Diana.”
“Diana?”
Linton looked up from the photograph. “Isn’t that her name?”
“No,” Frank told him. “Her name is Angelica Devereaux and she was murdered a few days ago. Her body was dropped in a vacant lot over on Glenwood. It was in the papers. They published this picture.”
Linton’s eyes fell back toward the photograph. “I didn’t know,” he said with a kind of mild self-rebuke. “It’s this damn disease. It isolates you. It’s all you think about. I’m sorry.”
“But you do recognize her?”
“Yes, absolutely,” Linton said. “I met her about three months ago. I was hanging a painting at this gallery.”
“The Knife Point,” Frank said.
“You’ve been there?”
“Yes,” Frank said. “I talked to the owner.”
“Cartier told you everything, then,” Linton said.
“Not quite.”
“What do you mean?”
“He said she approached you that day,” Frank said. “Can you tell me about that?”
“There’s not much to tell,” Linton said. “Of course, I wouldn’t be interested in a … in Angelica, you said her name was?” He smiled. “But I suppose I have my vanity, and I must admit that to have such a beautiful young girl … it was pleasant.”
“What did she say to you?”
“She said she liked my painting.”
“
“Yes, that one,” Linton told him. He shrugged. “I don’t really think of it as anything special, myself. But this girl, Diana, or I should say, Angelica, kept talking about it.”
“What did she say about it?”
“That it was beautiful,” Linton said, “that she admired it. What else can you say?” He took another sip of wine. “I think she was somewhat drawn to me,” he added after a moment. He looked at Frank questioningly. “Was she an orphan, by any chance?”
“Yes.”
“Ah, so that’s it.”
“What?”
“Father figure, that’s what she was after.”
“Do you think it was that simple?”
“You never know, if you’re an artist, exactly what it is that people see in you, or in your work,” Linton told him. “It could be anything.” He glanced wistfully toward the rickety old easel. “But it’s a wonderful thing, to be an artist, to touch people in such odd and decent ways.” He looked back at Frank. “I believe that this girl was sincere, that she had responded in some way to that painting. Perhaps that’s just my vanity. I don’t know. But I believe that something in that painting moved her.”
Frank wrote it down.
Linton leaned forward slightly. “Why are you writing all this down?”
“Bad memory, like I said.”
Linton shook his head. “No, it isn’t. It has nothing to do with your memory, bad or good.”
“I like to have all the facts at my fingertips,” Frank told him.
Linton stared at him piercingly. “Bullshit, Mr. Clemons. I’ll bet that you have all those notebooks somewhere.
