Page 39 of Nothing Hiding

Looking stunning, Walter raised his paint smeared hands.

Then Juliette gasped.

From behind him, his model struggled into a sitting position, gaping at the police through her half-painted face and raised her hands too.

"Wait a minute!" Juliette said. This situation had just veered into the impossible. This model was alive? She wasn't a corpse?

“Are you okay?” she asked the woman, hearing the tension in her own voice.

“Um, yes. I think so. What’s going on?” The model blinked, seeming completely disoriented.

Juliette reminded herself firmly that just because this model was thankfully alive, it did not mean this painter was innocent. He could have been doing a practice session.

"What's going on?" Walter said, waving his arms. Droplets of paint spattered the wall from the brush still clutched between his fingers, his voice rising to a tense screech. Then he dropped the brush and grabbed his chest.

“My heart, my heart.” Fumbling in his pocket, he took out a tub of pills. “I have a condition—when I get upset or tense, my heart goes into arrhythmia.”

The tub contained a single tablet, which he quickly swallowed, nearly choking on it in his consternation.

Juliette took a deep breath, trying to calm her racing thoughts. This was not the outcome she had expected. She had expected to find a dead body, not a living, breathing model. But now that she was faced with this new information, her questions would be different, but her suspicion would be just as strong.

"Please, sit down,” she said to her suspect, who was pale but no longer clutching his chest. Obediently, he slumped into a wooden chair. “Is your heart stable now?”

“Yes, yes. It will be in a moment,” he said. She waited for him to catch his breath.

“Firstly, I'd like to find out who this model is, what she’s doing here, and why she seems so confused about her whereabouts," Juliette said. Priorities first. Was this woman legitimately here of her own free will? Was there anything in the least irregular about this paint session? Had she been drugged?

"I'm Andora," the model said, speaking carefully because of the wax coating on her face. She looked in her early twenties, pretty and slender, with curly, auburn hair. "I've been doing a few sessions as a model here. I do get paid. I mean, is that okay?" She stared at Juliette through anxious, wide eyes. “I have to lie very still for hours while he works, so I usually just take half a sleeping tablet and have a snooze.”

That explained the extreme stillness. She’d been asleep.

"That's fine," Juliette reassured her. "If you're here to provide a service, there’s no problem. But perhaps you'd like to go downstairs while we ask Mr. Walter Homer a few more questions?"

"Sure. I will."

She got up carefully, and holding her head still, she went over to the stairs.

As soon as she'd gone downstairs, Walter spoke again.

"What is this? What is it all about?" he asked. "You barge in here. Do you even have a warrant to enter? I was at a critical place in my creation! This was a masterpiece in the making, that I was about to publish on my new blog, Facial Art in Wax and Oils. You have set me back at least an hour!"

"Apologies for the inconvenience," Juliette said.

"Apologies? You think you can just walk in here, destroy a groundbreaking process, then just say sorry?" Again, his voice crescendoed to an irate squeal.

Wyatt spoke up. "Mr. Homer, we're here to investigate a double murder. Unfortunately, that might mean some inconvenience to you, but for now, we have to think of public safety and the victims' families."

His courteous but authoritative tone seemed to strike a note with Walter, who nodded reluctantly. "I guess I understand that. But why me? I mean, why on earth are you here?" he then asked.

"We heard about you online, and there seems to have been controversy surrounding your techniques."

"Oh, yes, there was. A while back, there was a big furor," he remembered. "Due to my own actions, which were ahead of their time. People weren't ready for such experimental art and didn't seem to realize, no matter how many times I reminded them, that the mouse was already dead! I didn't kill it! I found it on my walk, stiff and half frozen. I simply honored its life by making it into art. It didn’t quite work out, but I’ve been practicing since then."

Juliette nodded, understanding his perspective. "I can see how that may have been misunderstood. Just to clear up any other questions, what exactly are those knives doing on your table?"

"I use them to cut the wax," he said. "I use very small amounts, mixed with some non-toxic thinning agents to keep it pliable and shiny."

She still wasn't sure about that but felt ready to continue. "Okay. Tell me now, what were your movements last night and early this morning?"

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