The Cold Room. J.T. Ellison
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was pretty sophisticated. Either he’s trying to get media attention or he wants us to see how brilliant he is. But the Conductor. Where did they get the name from?”
Page gestured over her shoulder at Elm’s office. “The new guy told them there was a CD playing classical music.”
Taylor shook her head, pinched her fingers across the bridge of her nose. Damn it. She wanted that detail kept quiet. “You have to be kidding,” she mumbled.
“Nope.” She leaned a little closer to Taylor. “Are you doing okay? I know this is hard.”
Taylor sat back in the chair and sighed deeply. “You’re sweet to ask. I’m fine. This is just a hiccup. Besides, I like getting my hands dirty. I spent a long time on this side of the desk, it’s a bit like coming home. I always did love the investigative side of the job, it was the administrative crap that was no fun. So this is the best of all possible worlds right now—I get to follow leads, do the legwork, and hopefully solve this case quickly. It’s why I became a cop in the first place, you know? Right the wrongs, and all that.”
Page stared at her for a moment, then patted Taylor’s shoulder. “You’re a gracious woman, Taylor. I’ll see you later, I’ve got to get to court.”
“Put away the bad guys, Julia. We’re all counting on you.”
“Bah,” Page said, but grinned.
As she left, Taylor glanced at her watch—it was 9:30 a.m. Perfect timing. It would take her fifteen minutes to get to Forensic Medical. She closed the notebook, stuck it in her back pocket, and started from the room. She wasn’t lying to Page; she did have a sense of nostalgia and adventure about all this. Even when she was the lieutenant, she liked to be in the trenches with her team, guiding and directing from the field, instead of from her office.
And truth be told, she’d been a stellar detective, which was a bane and a curse. Do the job too well and you get promoted, with all the attendant headaches. She couldn’t deny that she missed having command of the murder squad, but she’d live. She was still a cop, with a job to do.
She negotiated the rabbit warren to the door, saw the new sign-out whiteboard nailed to the wall to the left of the door frame. She balked for a moment, then moved her magnet to “Out of Office,” wrote “Forensic Medical” in the column next to her neatly printed name and walked out the door. She’d learned one thing during her thirteen years on the force. Sometimes, you pick your battles.
Seven
Gavin had a new voice mail when he returned to his studio this beautiful sunny morning. He listened to it before he shed the messenger bag slung around his shoulders. It was from the primary on his latest job. Her name was Wilhelmina, and she paid well for his services.
“Gavin, the new photos are in. Would you look at them and see what fits the Frist exhibit catalog requirements? The deadline is Tuesday, and we certainly don’t want to be late. Oh, and thank you.”
The thank-you was an afterthought. Wasn’t that always the way?
He set his breakfast—a whole-grain bagel with organic peanut butter and a ripe banana—on his desk and started his computer. The messenger bag went on the chair next to his desk, the one covered in industrial orange-and-brown tweed. All he could afford at the time he bought it, he was pleasantly surprised to see it was more handsome than it looked online. His desk was made of solid oak, a plank, thick and sturdy, across two sawhorses. His chair—sleek, ergonomic black leather—was his prize. He could drop the arms when he needed to work at the drafting table in the corner, under the plate-glass window that overlooked the brick of the building next door.
The computer took exactly three minutes to boot up. He took the time to nibble on the banana and look at the stains of pigeon shit on the exterior ledge above his window. Amazing how they landed in such interesting shapes. It was the velocity from their flight, he knew, but still. He wondered if Jackson Pollock had been inspired by something so simple, so organic. But even an artist of his caliber couldn’t reproduce that randomness.
A chime let him know his computer was booted and ready. He quickly located the e-mail from the Strozzi Palace museum in Florence. He read the brief message, the English broken but passable.
Enclosed please find pictures requested by you for the exhibit to start 11 June.
Grazie mille.
He clicked Download All and waited, watching his screen fill with shot after shot of gorgeous pictures. The Strozzi was a beautiful building, a former palace, home to the noble Strozzi family—sworn enemies of the Medicis. It was a geographical square block of stone and columns and open courtyard. He dreamed of going there one day. To see Italy, walk among the history, the beauty, gaze for hours upon the priceless artwork …
He couldn’t help himself. He gazed at the Strozzi pictures, strolling through time, reveling in the detail, living through the luscious artistry of the photographer. The short angles, the presentation, the perfect balance of light to show off the art were masterful. The paintings breathed colors into his screen; the sculptures so visceral that it seemed the edge of a bicep or the length of a thigh could be stroked, the flesh alive under the finger.
The photographer on this shoot was truly superb. Gavin couldn’t have done better himself. He played a game with himself. There were only three museum collection photographers he knew who were this talented.
If he were to guess. Gavin went through the photos again slowly, deliberately ignoring the line at the very bottom of the page that would give him the answer. The edging was unique, the angles for the light dramatic. It had to be the work of Tommaso.
That was his only name. Tommaso was reputed to be a difficult man to work with, but one of the most brilliant still photographers in the industry. A rock star in the art world.
Gavin snuck a look. He was right. The pictures were by Tommaso. A bloom of happiness spread throughout his stomach. He knew his stuff, that was for sure.
He shot a message back to Wilhelmina, acknowledging he’d received the photos and would have the catalog press-ready by the deadline. Then he started the laborious process of designing.
Gavin enjoyed his job. He was a freelance graphic designer by trade, and often did work for the printers in downtown Nashville. He did contract work for ad agencies, for sports teams, for all of the cultural corporations of Nashville. But the art photos were his true love.
His studio was off Broadway, way off Broadway, in a small storefront that butted up against the alley for a Thai restaurant. The scent of cumin and rotting cabbage was just bearable. As was the price of the shop. He couldn’t work for someone directly. It was better this way.
His desired vocation was photography, but he’d found it difficult to make a living with his camera. He had skills, but his eye was no match for someone like Tommaso. So he’d started his pre-press business, typesetting catalogs and developing Web sites. His work was sought after, and he quickly rose to prominence. He was known as the quirky designer who wouldn’t talk to clients, only took orders online, didn’t return phone calls but sent plenty of e-mails and never, ever missed a deadline. He didn’t like to talk to people if he could avoid it. There was no point. He just didn’t have that much to say. He couldn’t relate. To be honest, there was very little that couldn’t be expressed in an e-mail.
He was good at his job, and people recognized his talents. In a few short years, he had developed a wonderful niche that made him money and allowed him to revel in art. He typeset museum catalogs. He had started small and worked his way in through a side job designing museum Web sites. Once he was established, he did exhibition catalogs and permanent collection catalogs from all over the country. A couple of years ago, he’d gotten big enough to branch into catalogue raisonnés, the monographs detailing the life’s work of a particular artist. He’d done a lovely job with a Picasso monograph last year, and was bidding to do several more.
That reminded him, he needed to look at the status for the Millais. He scanned his e-mail, but there was nothing