While I was still taking that in, he added, ″So I′d like your professional opinion, Kate. Do you think any of those girls I neck-rubbed for cash will bust me for my past as a junior high gigolo? I′m afraid of winding up on Entertainment Tonight.″
″Okay, ding-ding-ding! That′s my bullshit meter going off,″ I said. ″You totally made up that whole story about the dog and the fingers and the girls′ necks.″
″Would these fingers lie to you?″
Facing the temple on the hill, Medina placed a hand over his heart. ″As Zeus is my witness,″ he said. ″Absolutely true. Except for the dog part.″
″Hmm. Well, as Scarlett O′Hara said, ′As God is my witness, I′ll never be hungry again.′ I′m hungry, so can we eat our picnic now?″
″I thought you′d never ask. And don′t worry-I didn′t bring any radishes with me, Miss Scarlett. ″
It was much too soon for my heart to fall for someone new, but my taste buds rolled over for Medina′s gourmet picnic faster than a cheap date on Hollywood Boulevard.
He unpacked an astonishing array of treats from the woven basket he′d brought in the canoe. When the unwrapping revealed nuggets of roasted portabella mushroom, goat cheese, and red peppers on focaccia, I broke into applause.
″Now I can′t wait to see the dessert,″ I said.
″Oh, that will be the best of all,″ he replied. ″I made chocolate pot de crème with fresh raspberries. My grandmother′′s recipe.″
If Medina had summoned Zeus from the temple above us and asked him to pronounce us man and wife at that very moment, my stomach would have happily said I do.
Over the chocolate and glasses of dry rosé, our conversation turned much more serious. I finally told Medina that his patient Jana had been my friend.
″I didn′t know you knew her. That carjacking was such a horrible tragedy,″ he said. ″My heart went out to her family. In fact, she had an appointment with me the afternoon before it happened. ″
″I know. I had lunch with her that day, by coincidence. She′d just come from the appointment at your office.″
Medina′s eyebrows shot up. ″Wow, that is a coincidence,″ he said. ″You don′t by any chance have a camera crew hiding behind the temple ready to ambush me with questions about my patient, do you? I know you′re a good reporter but…″
″No, silly!″ I laughed, a bit too hard.
When my laughter died away, a jolt of sadness replaced it. ″Actually, all I know about Jana′s death right now is a bunch of disconnected information,″ I said. ″The police seem to be in a hurry to put her case behind them. They′ve arrested the guy they say shot her. They don′t seem to want to know about anything that doesn′t fit in with their story line.″
″I know. I saw that piece you did on the news. His name is Antoine something?″
″Antoine Hurley. But I can′t let it go at what they′re saying. There′s something missing for me in the picture they′re trying to paint. Maybe there′s too much noise on the graph, as my old science teacher would say.″
Medina plucked a long blade of grass. ″Well, you know what the artist Seurat would do in this situation.″
″No. What would he do?″
Turning the blade of grass on its side like a scalpel, he traced a line around my lips. ″Seurat believed that you have to juxtapose all the tiny, disconnected dots of color next to one another,″ he said. ″Then you have to take a step back to see the big picture. That′s the only way you′ll see what′s really going on in the painting.
″So you have to put all the color dots-those are all your disconnected bits of data-down on the canvas. Then take a step back. That′s when you′ll be able to see what shapes emerge.″
Medina kept stroking my skin with the blade of grass. Long, slow brushstrokes. The sensation gave me goose bumps. I felt hypnotized.
I don′t know diddly-squat about colored dots, but that grass-blade thing gave me the most sensual feeling I′d had in months. And we hadn′t even kissed yet.
That came next.
When I got back to the studio from our lunchtime picnic, I decided to test out Medina′s theory about brainstorming by using color-point analysis. Maybe art theory could actually help me think through Jana′s murder.
Put all the color-dots-those are your disconnected bits of data-down on the canvas, he′d said. Then take a step back. That′s when you′ll be able to see what shapes emerge.
Of course you could write that same information down and then start brainstorming, but I liked the idea of taking a more visual approach to brainstorming. The problem was that my artistic skills stopped developing when I was in kindergarten. So when I got back to the studio I decided to use technology to substitute for talent. I′m sure Seurat would have approved. In fact, I′m sure he would have been a computer genius on top of all his other abilities.
Using a shareware program I downloaded from the Web, I assigned a specific color to every type of information I could think of that was related to Jana′s murder. The information bits, colored by type, appeared as small bubbles. Then I told the program to sort the bubbles in various ways. I kept adding and sorting the information bits, looking for patterns.
An hour later, all I could see in the dots was a kaleidoscopic bubble bath.
What I did not see, interestingly, were very many green bubbles, which was the color assigned to the police′s favorite suspect, Antoine Hurley.
Most of the bubbles were in the yellow zone. That was surprising. Yellow was the color I′d assigned to the information about the Putnams′ house and Jana′s purse. It was as if the clustering of the bubbles indicated that there was some importance to the fact that Jana had left her purse at the Putnams′ house on the night of the Newbodies get-together.
My graph didn′t jibe with what Luke and the other homicide investigators were saying. Maybe my bubble theory was for the birds.
I pinned the graph on the side of my cubicle and sat for a while, staring at it. I definitely felt that the exercise had been worthwhile. The bubbles were definitely showing me something. But I couldn′t get ahold of the image.
Clearly I′d need a genius like Seurat to figure this whole thing out.
I realized I hadn′t spoken to Shaina since her uncle Belmont had whisked her away to the Bahamas.
I called the cell phone number she′d given me.
Shaina picked up right away and said she was doing great.
″I′m coming back to Durham next week,″ she said. ″I want to talk to the police again. I feel bad.″
″About what?″
″I was so upset when I first talked to them about the carjacking. I just don′t think that guy who took the car shot Mom. I think there was someone else involved. Maybe someone who was waiting around the corner for them.″
Chapter 39
Stocking Talk
Lots of women these days don′t like to wear nylons. I totally don′t get this. (P.S. Wearing shoes without nylons makes your feet smell.) Stockings even out your skin tone and don′t have to be uncomfortable.
– From The Little Book of Beauty Secrets by Mimi Morgan
″I′ve found out that the human-organ racket is fishier than my last name,″ Fish said.