Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [524]
“Looks like she may have left in a hurry,” Tully said, but was wondering how someone could live in the middle of her work space. He knew he couldn’t.
“You might be right. She seemed very upset about her grandmother’s death.”
“So you spoke to her before she left.”
“Just briefly.”
Tully ignored the art stuff, a challenge in itself, and began searching for a desk and computer. O’Dell had given him a list of things she needed him to check out.
“Where the heck did she keep a computer?” He glanced back at Dr. Patterson, who stayed at the wall of paintings, looking with a tilted head as if she could see something in the random splashes of paint. Tully could never figure out art, despite his ex-wife Caroline having dragged him to gallery after gallery, pointing out social injustices and brilliant interpretations of individual pain and struggle where Tully could see only blobs of black paint with a mishap of purple splattered through the center.
“Do you have any idea where she may have kept her computer?” he asked again.
“Check the armoire.”
“The armoire? Oh, okay.” The cherry wood monstrosity took up almost one wall, and when Tully began opening doors and drawers it grew, spreading out into the room with swiveling shelves and sliding hideaways and, yes, a small laptop computer that seemed to be swallowed up inside.
“Do you know if this was her only one?”
Dr. Patterson came over and ran her fingertips over the armoire’s surface, almost a caress.
“No, I think she had a couple of them. She liked the mobility of laptops. Said she could go to the park or coffee shop.”
“So she may have had one with her in Connecticut?”
“Yes, I’m sure she did. She e-mailed me from Connecticut.”
He opened its lid, carefully, touching it on the sides with the palms of his hands, purposely not disturbing fingerprints or adding his own. Then he used a pen to press the on key.
“I should be able to get into her e-mail with a few tricks. It may take a while,” he said, as he brought up her AOL program. He hesitated when the screen asked for a password. “I don’t suppose you could save me some time. Any idea what she may have used as a password?”
“She wouldn’t have used her name or any derivative of it.” She stared at the screen and Tully thought he had lost her attention again when she added, “Try Picasso. I believe it’s one ‘c’ and two ‘s’s. He was her favorite. She used to say she was a whore to Picasso and his work. You may have noticed some of his blue-period influence in her paintings and the cubism influence in her sculptures. Especially her metal sculptures.”
Tully nodded, though he wouldn’t know cubism from ice cubes, and keyed in P-I-C-A-S-S-O, again using the tip of his pen. “No go.”
“Hmm…maybe his first name, then.”
Tully waited, then realized she thought he knew this. Geez! He should know this. If ever there was a time to impress her, this would be it. What the hell was it? She wasn’t helping. Was it a test? He stole a glance her way only to discover that her eyes had been distracted again, her face with the expression of someone lost in thought and trying to find the answers in the wall of paintings. And so even Tully’s flash of brilliance was lost on her when he finally keyed in “Pablo.”
“Nope. Pablo doesn’t work, either,” he announced, perhaps a bit too proud for someone who had just keyed in the wrong password. He waited. He glanced up at her again and waited some more. Finally he stood up, stretching his back, towering over her.
“I know what it is,” she said suddenly, without turning her eyes from what looked like an anorexic, pasty self-portrait, a nude with the metal frame cutting her below the emaciated breasts. “Try Dora Maar,” she told him, spelling it slowly while he keyed in the letters.
“Bingo.” Tully watched AOL come to life, announcing, “You’ve got mail. ” “How did you know that?”
“Joan started signing some of her paintings as Dora Maar. It’s complicated. She was complicated. That one,” Patterson pointed out, “reminded me.”
“Why Dora Maar?”
“Dora Maar was Picasso’s