A Fit of Tempera by Mary Daheim Read Free Book Online

thought was an eagle sculpture. The sharp beak spewed flame. Exhaling, Iris stood up and walked out, presumably headed for the house’s only bedroom off the narrow hall.
    â€œWell.” Dewitt Dixon chuckled softly and shook his head.
    â€œShe’s very upset,” Judith explained, sniffing at the lingering cigarette smoke and almost wishing she hadn’t kept her vow to quit. “She found him. We were with her.”
    â€œWhere?” Dewitt had taken out his own case, sleek silver with his initials tastefully engraved.
    Renie motioned through the nearby window. “Out there, in the studio. It happened between five-fifteen and five-thirty.” Catching a warning glance from Judith, Renie shut up. If Dixon had anything to do with the murder, it would be better if he didn’t find out how much they knew.
    A spiral of smoke drifted from Dewitt’s cigarette to disperse among the pine rafters. “This is most extraordinary! Why aren’t the police here?”
    Judith sniffed again. “They will be. Not police, but sheriff. It’s a big county, you know. They could be fifty miles away.”
    The room turned quiet. Outside, dusk was descending, the soft spring light softening behind the mountains and over the river. Judith’s gaze took in her immediate surroundings. Riley Tobias had lived among clutter, with piles of books, magazines, tapes, clippings, and file folders. The furniture was ordinary, neither cheap nor dramatic. Comfort appeared to have been Riley’s goal. But the art that hung from the walls, reposed on tables, and stood in corners was a wildly eclectic representation of contemporary Pacific Northwest painters, sculptors, glassblowers, and printmakers. Some, like the lotus-shaped white bowl, were stunning. Others, such as a suit of armor covered with purple eggshells, were ghastly. As far as Judith could tell,only two of Riley’s own works hung on the living room walls—an early cloudscape and a pen-and-ink drawing of Mount Woodchuck. It occurred to her that she would much rather have either one than the ugly—if expensive—painting Riley had given her. It also occurred to her that she was being crass.
    It was Dewitt Dixon who broke the silence. “Tobias had an agent. He used to deal strictly with galleries, but he was too much of a maverick to work in the normal way. And he was big enough to get his way. I dealt with his agent initially. What is his name? Silvanus? Shouldn’t he be told what’s happened?”
    â€œThat’s up to Iris,” Judith replied.
    Dewitt nodded once. “And family? I think there was a brother, back in New England.”
    There was. Judith remembered that, along with the fact that Riley’s parents had been dead for years. She also recalled that he had been born in Indiana, on a bulb farm, and had gone west as a very young man in the fifties. He had heard the call of the Beat Generation and had hit the road. Making the North Beach scene had strengthened his resolve to become an artist, but the Bay Area hadn’t suited him. San Francisco had physically and spiritually hemmed him in, he’d once said. A brief, disastrous marriage had rounded out his disillusion.
    â€œHe couldn’t go any farther west, he couldn’t go back home, and L.A. appalled him,” Judith said, more to herself than to Dewitt and Renie. “So he had to head north. That’s how he ended up here, where he found his artistic soul.” She gave a little jump, a bit startled by her own musings. “Excuse me, I seem to be eulogizing out loud. Family?” She gazed at Dewitt Dixon. “Yes, of course, the brother…Iris would know how to get hold of him. That’s up to her, too.”
    Indeed, it was all up to Iris, Judith realized. Iris had been Riley Tobias’s mistress for twenty years; Iris had found his body. She had divided her time between a waterfront condo in town and the cabin on the