Darker Than Any Shadow

Chapter Twenty-two

I found the Styles Gallery smack in the middle of a Dunwoody shopping center with almost half of the bays vacant. It was a common sight in post-downturn Atlanta and its outskirts. After rebounding from the late nineties crash, areas like this one were struggling once again.

The gallery seemed to be doing well, however. The window display contained a large oil painting, three of them actually, a triptych in edge-of-night blues, the colors swirled together like a tornado had touched down on the canvas. I looked closer. Each lacy tendril of paint was a stream of words. More poems, frame after frame of poems.

I pushed open the door, and a blast of ferociously cold air hit my sweaty skin. I looked around, surrounded by words. Every painting, every sculpture, every inch of wall space, all wrapped in words. And, I was willing to bet, every single word was Frankie’s.

A black cat sat inside the door. It had one good eye, a golden orb that appraised me, unblinking, with feline disdain. As I watched, it slinked underneath a table until all I could see was its tail whip-stitching the air.

“Can I help you?”

A woman came from the back and stood behind the counter. She was short and plump, with shoulder-length brown hair cut jagged at the ends. Small gray eyes lurked behind thick black glasses. Her tank top and fringed short skirt were summertime cool, but the cowboy boots must have been like twin saunas. The eyelash-fringed knitted scarf around her neck certainly wasn’t helping—it made her look like a boho Muppet.

Textile artist, Padre had said. I smiled. “You must be Debbie.”

She pushed her bangs aside. The skin on the back of her hand was a maze of black glyphic tattoos, as dark and shiny as only new ink could be.

“Nice work,” I said. “Very familiar. You must have been a big fan.”

“Who are you?”

“Tai Randolph. You don’t know me. But I know you.”

I showed her a photograph I’d pulled from the Atlanta team’s website, one of many I’d found of Debbie, behind the mike, in the spotlight. This one showed her standing next to Lex, looking feverish with excitement.

“You wanted to be a poet too?”

She shrugged. “Maybe. So?”

“So I hear you’re a fixture at poetry events. Which makes me wonder, why would Lex’s biggest fan, and a wannabe poet herself, miss the team debut?”

“I had to work.”

She was getting skittish. I noticed a stack of mugs on display in front of me, balanced in a neat pyramid. I picked one up. It was mass-market ceramic, emblazoned with one of the paintings in the display case. I checked the price sticker.

“These look cool. I’ll take two.”

I handed them to her, and she took them to the cash register. She rang them up with one eye fastened on me, like she thought I might try a smash and grab.

I leaned on the counter. “Frankie said you were working. But I think you were at Lupa.”

She picked up a sheet of tissue paper with forced nonchalance. Her eyes were liquid behind the glasses, but I could see appraisal in them. I’d tripped a switch. Could I see her stabbing somebody in the heart, watching them die up close and personal, then setting a fire to cover up the evidence? Maybe. She had the look of someone with an edge.

She kept her eyes down as she wrapped paper around the mug. “There’s nothing to tell. Lex called, I brought him some CDs, and then I came back here. I didn’t hear about the murder until the next morning.”

Lies coming hard and fast, one right behind the other. I realized I didn’t need Trey to peg them—they were as easy to spot as low-hanging fruit.

“You were the last call he got before he died, you know. I was there in the hall with him.”

Her gaze darkened. “So you’re the one who told the cops.”

“Nope. They figured it out themselves because they have access to cell phone records. I don’t, mind you. I had to actually see the number on the phone. Which isn’t missing anymore, by the way, as of this morning.”

“I don’t have to talk to you.”

I ignored her. “So why is this a secret? All you did was bring CDs, right? That’s not illegal. Neither is being a groupie. I mean, even if you were sleeping with him—”

“Shut up!”

Before I could reply, the door to the back room slammed open and Frankie stood there, hands on hips. She squinted at me. “I know you. You’re Rico’s friend, the one dating the human lie detector.”

I smiled. “Tai. Hi again.”

She shut the door behind her and pointed at the painting in front of the counter. “Take that in back and get it ready for mailing.”

Debbie did as she was told, scurrying out like a startled rabbit. I kept smiling. I’d been doing so much on-demand smiling that the corners of my mouth felt like they were about to crack.

She returned the smile, but her lips barely curved. “Can I help you with something?”

“Did you know your employee was the last one to see Lex alive?”

“So I’m hearing. The cops came by this morning and asked her all about it.” Frankie waved a hand at the mugs. “Did she finish ringing these up?”

I shook my head. Frankie pulled out a cardboard box and placed the wrapped mug inside, then picked up another sheet of tissue paper. “You didn’t come here to get mugs.”

“I came to talk to Debbie. She was there the night Lex died.”

Frankie shrugged. “So I’m discovering. But it’s not my concern.”

“You’re not worried you’ve got a potential murderer in your shop?”

“I suspect if that were the case, that nice detective would have hauled her downtown.” She regarded me craftily. “I’ve heard he does that.”

I ignored the dig. I knew she was up to something, but until Vigil AKA Maurice Cunningham spilled his beans, I had no clue what it might be. Better to keep that ace up my sleeve until I needed it.

Frankie finished wrapping the second mug and put it in the box. Then she unrolled a length of cream-colored wrapping paper and sliced off a section with large silver scissors. “Do you believe in testimony, Tai?”

I hesitated. “Like in court?”

“Like in life, this one and the next. Do you believe that we are all prophets here, if we only heed the word and open our mouths?”

I stood there, dazed. What in the hell…

She pulled the edge of the paper up and secured it with a piece of tape. “Someone’s trying to destroy our team, but I’m not letting that happen. That’s the message. You can trot it right back to Padre.”

“Padre?”

“He wants to take leadership of the team away from me. He thinks I don’t see through him, but I do. All his offers of help, all his assistance, all so he can be a star again. But he needs to let it go. We’re a new generation, with new visions and new horizons, and he’s ancient history.”

“I didn’t—”

“Our team will heal itself, and we will move forward. And if Padre wants to join us, he’s welcome, but if all he wants to do is instigate and sublimate and pontificate…” She dusted her hands as if wiping off dirt. “Then he should stay out of the way.”

How did we end up talking about Padre? But it was interesting, yes it was. There was a schism here, and it went way beyond who controlled the team. Maybe even beyond the documentary.

She closed her hands on the box and shoved it toward me. I put it in my bag.

“Here’s the thing, Frankie. I’m here because I’m Rico’s friend, and because I’m trying to figure out what happened at the debut party that ended up with a dead guy. So forget Padre, maybe you want to explain to me why I shouldn’t be telling the cops to be suspicious of you?”

“Me?”

“You were arguing with Lex Friday night. Rico said you were about to drop him from the team.”

“That’s my responsibility as team leader. So what?”

“So nothing maybe. But with all that fortune and fame on the line—”

“I already have fortune and fame. I do this for the love of the word.”

Right, I thought. Frankie’s gallery was a hall of mirrors—nothing but wall to wall Frankie Styles Incorporated. Love of the word, my ass. Frankie loved Frankie.

She narrowed her eyes at me. “One of us has been taken and the rest spared, like the spirit of the Lord passed over the firstborns after the plagues.”

I stared open-mouthed. She was quoting Exodus. Any second she’d get to Revelations, with three-headed beasts and the whore of Babylon, and then I’d run, flat out, as fast as I could for the door. Homicidal I could handle. Pseudo-evangelical nuttery? That terrified me.

But Frankie took a deep breath, and the crazy evaporated. That was when I knew she was capable of becoming whatever she needed to be to get whatever she wanted. She was a Russian nesting doll of personas.

“Talk to Rico,” she said. “Tell him he’s got the team in his corner, if he wants to be a team player.” She jabbed her chin at me. “Now it’s your turn. Pick a corner.”

I shouldered my bag. “I never left my corner.”