CHAPTER 7: Impasto
After lunch I went to Dr. Foley's office hours to present my case. I waited in the hall as he explained a grade to a young student, who left looking unsatisfied but defeated. I watched him walk a few steps down the hall and hoped he was old enough to go get himself a pint.
"Amy! Walk out to the courtyard with me; we'll avoid the barbarian hordes." Dr. Foley's booming voice startled some of the students standing by me in the hallway. They looked incredibly young to me, though they were probably undergraduates, adults. I shot the girl—no, woman—nearest me an apologetic look.
"I won't take you too long," I called. I shot another look at the woman; she made eye contact this time. I turned back toward the door to Dr. Foley's office. "I'd love your thoughts on a theory of mine."
"Always happy to criticize," he assured me. He turned and locked the door to his office, then seemed to notice the students waiting in the hallway. He nodded at them and turned away toward the door to the courtyard. I hesitated just long enough to hear one of the students let out a slow and shallow sigh. I trotted down the hall and reached the courtyard bench just as he was finishing lighting a cigarette. I accepted one from his case—a Nat Sherman—and let him light it for me with his engraved gold lighter. I took a long drag and exhaled into the air over my head, thinking absently that the trees hadn't grown much in my absence, and that the meager layer of soil in the courtyard was probably to blame. Dr. Foley cleared his throat. I sat up straight, and looked over toward him.
"I've got a case. I'll start with what I have, and what I think about it. I want to know if you can think of any other lines of inquiry, or if you think there's a hole in my explanation."
"Fair enough."
"We have a collection of the following objects: an embroidered cloth worked in copper thread with figures of elephants; a set of six images of saints, all also containing copper thread embroidery; and a set of four small landscape images that all contain a walking figure with a walking stick done in copper thread."
"Religious symbolism to the walking sticks?" He raised his eyebrows at me. I shook my head.
"In two of the images it's clear that the walking stick is flowering. I've got bad image quality, though. I can't tell on the other two, or if it's a development. I immediately think of the flowering rod, you know." I exhaled a long stream of smoke above our heads. "It doesn't line up, and I know it doesn't line up."
"It won't, if one is answering the wrong question," he interrupted. "You are no longer in the business of figuring out what culture buried a body, Amy. You know those answers already." He tapped one heel against the paving stones and gestured for me to continue.
"Exactly. We've got an American woman, elderly, living alone, collecting images that have to do with false death or rebirth."
"Only those themes?"
"I only know of those."
"Tell me what you need to know from me." He glanced in my direction, and I composed my thoughts for a moment before continuing.
"I don't believe she was simply a collector. She only came to our attention because an estate clearance crew found a set of embroidered scenes done on human skin in with her collection."
"Now, Amy," he held up a hand, "to be clear: they were scenes embroidered onto human skin?"
"To be perfectly clear they were scenes in the French Landscape style of the late eighteenth century, and each had a small figure of a man with a large walking stick in the left bottom quadrant of the image. All the skin was from the hands of former prisoners of the USSR—probably those imprisoned in the oil-producing regions of Siberia."
"And where do you see that?" A light breeze curled into the corner of the courtyard near our bench and lifted strands of our hair from our heads. Dr. Foley stubbed out his first cigarette and lit another.
"The skin was tattooed. I found research on prison tattoos in the USSR. They often varied by region. Each of the grounds has the same tattoo—from Siberia."
"How was it enough skin?" He held his hand up and looked at the back of it, then pushed his fingers tightly against one another. "She must have stitched the fingers together, surely."
"Either that or the skin was mounted on a backing. It's difficult to tell from the images I have."
"Images?" He raised his eyebrows, but didn't glance in my direction.
"For now I've got photographs of the embroidered skin. I'll be able to give it a thorough look once I'm back in LA."
"You were saying 'we' and 'our' before."
"I work with a detective. He's researching the source of the skin."
"Ought you to be doing the same?" He grinned, and I bristled.
"No." He looked over at me and smiled, then looked out ahead of us again.
"Convince me."
"He's looking at means. I'm looking at motive. If he hits a dead end, my information could give us a new direction."
"You expect to come in second," he frowned.
"My partner's very good." Dr. Foley let out a noise somewhere between a huff and a growl. We sat in silence for a while. At length I decided to go on. "I can find two links between all the objects: copper and stories of rebirth or false death."
"Go on." He was frowning; I could feel it before I glanced over at him.
"All of the saints have specific links to healing in desperate cases. The pattern of elephants is a traditional design linked to harvest and fertility festivals."
"You're reaching, dear," he chuckled.
"The four images show landscapes from each of the seasons, and the walker's posture straightens as the seasons progress. He loses the burdens he's carrying, as well. If I'm right about the flowering rod, well, I don't even have to explain that."
"You most certainly do," he said. "If you are wrong, you'll have to explain it. You ought to explain it if you are right."
"All right. But beyond the flowering rod, we know the walking stick is done in copper. The copper in the German shroud is reserved for the scenes of transition between death and life. Specifically, it's reserved for images of the ring and the shroud."
"You're muddying up your two links by linking them to one another."
"They are linked," I protested.
"You think so," he said. "But does the copper mean anything in and of itself? Does the theme of death and rebirth? Is there, in fact, a theme of death and rebirth? Recall, Amy, that cultures make a good deal of art around life and death. Even a varied collection would have several images that fit into that theme." I looked down at my hands. He had a point.
"The thematic material is only significant as it relates to the copper." I turned toward him in time to see a small grin pass his face. "The rarest attribute narrows the field most."
"Go on."
"Embroidery is an odd way to use copper. A concentration of artifacts with copper embroidery isn't accidental. It's either to the owner's taste, or it fits a theme. There's a theme to the copper embroidery, including the landscapes. That makes the second explanation more plausible."
"Fine. Now: why do you care?"
"Because I want to know if the lady made the landscapes, or if she just collected them. I think, because they fit the theme so perfectly, that she made them. I hope so. If not, there's someone in LA making landscapes on human skin."
"That's not an answer."
"Yes it is: If the motive is to add to the collection, or to fit the collection, the motive is the woman's. If not, there's another person at work."
"Post hoc, ergo propter hoc? Come, Amy. You know better. You cannot claim that the existence of the collection caused more pieces of the collection to be produced."
"Why not? If she has the skill, and if my partner can prove that she had access to the materials, there's no reason to keep looking for the embroiderer."
"Now you're back to sense." He turned toward me and forcefully brought his palm down on his knee. "Think of what you're doing. If I were to tell you that the Medici family made all of their art collection because it fit their taste and desire for certain themes, would you buy it?"
I felt my shoulders drop. "Of course not, they had to employ skilled workers."
"As does your woman. She might have been the artisan, but she might not have been. You're worrying about the art patron instead of the artist."
"You're forgetting that the art is criminal, though," I rallied. "If it were a piece of furniture, I'd see your point more clearly. But she can't have asked someone to embroider a piece of skin for her."
"Could she not have done?" He raised his eyebrows.
"It's unlikely."
"So are lottery wins and train wrecks, dear, but once in a while," he brought his palms together with a report that bounced around the stone walls of the courtyard. "Once in a while they happen."
"True," I said. I looked over at him. He'd moved his focus into the middle distance in front of us, and he was rubbing his thumb lightly over the engraving on the side of his lighter.
"I suppose one could simply snap," he said.
"Excuse me?"
"Truly, Amy. Why do people like to do things like this? I've spent my professional life with stories like these—people tying a prisoner's arms and legs to four horses before whipping the horses in opposite directions; people tying people up by their heels and smoking them; people crushing one another beneath piles of stones. For the love of heaven, Amy, the other mammals don't do things like this! Why would they? To what purpose? Often it's just to do it. I cannot imagine doing something so permanent 'just to do it' unless one were mad." I'd never known Dr. Foley to seem upset by the macabre. It's just not worth the energy when you work with graves for a living. I struggled to find a response.
"A lot of people are mad," I said.
"We are fortunate not all of them are dangerous." He turned to face me again. "I think it holds together as well as it will, Amy. But you've got work to do. You know this. If there is more embroidered skin out there you aren't finished. You've got to make sure there isn't before you can tie anything together. Few causal arguments survive new evidence." He stretched out an arm to flick the ash off his cigarette far enough away to keep the wind from blowing it back at us. "If I were working this problem I would follow that copper. It takes a great deal of skill to work with it, and you've already found symbolism specific to your case. Yes. Follow that copper thread and find your artisan."