Part 24 (2/2)
”But it affects me.”
”Yes. It does.” He was silent for a moment and then he gave her a little smile. ”Just try to be patient with me. I'll work it out eventually.”
”And then things will return to normal?”
”I hope so. Just give me a little time, Hannah. That's all I ask. Will you do that for me”
”Of course,” Hannah said. What else could she say? But she was left with a vague and unsatisfactory answer to what was obviously a big problem. Rather than dwell on it and make both of them miserable, she smiled brightly and asked, ”What did you learn from Kyle Williamson? I've been on pins and needles, waiting to hear.”
”I learned a lot.” Norman returned her smile. ”I like him and I think the feeling's mutual. At least he really opened up to me. He reminds me of me at that age. A little nerdy, a little bit too non-athletic to be very popular with the girls, and a little too eager to speak up in cla.s.s when he knows the answer.”
”He sounds like a kid I might like,” Hannah ventured.
”You would. And he's not really a kid. He's got a degree in music from Juilliard, but it's like he says, there's not much work for a concert pianist who came in fourth in the important compet.i.tions and didn't quite make the concert circuit. You know what I mean?”
”I do know. I thought for a while that I wanted to write poetry. I cared so much and I tried so hard. I put my heart on the page, but I just wasn't good enough.”
”Do you still have any of your poetry?”
”It's probably kicking around somewhere in the guest room closet.”
”If you're willing, I'd like to read it sometime.”
”Maybe sometime,” Hannah said, wondering if that would ever come to pa.s.s. She couldn't help but doubt the depth of their relations.h.i.+p. Right now, at this moment, Norman was his old self. But he could change in an instant to that distant stranger.
”I painted,” Norman said. And then he was silent. Hannah wondered if he were wis.h.i.+ng he hadn't revealed that about himself.
”What did you paint?” she asked.
”Houses.” Norman waited for a beat and then he chuckled. ”Gotcha! You're thinking house painter, right?”
”Yes, I was. But you painted...?”
”Cityscapes mostly. I concentrated on urban architecture. Houses, apartment buildings, landmarks...that type of thing. Mine were a bit different than most because the frame was always a window. And occasionally the perspective was not from the window itself, but from a point across the room from the window.”
Hannah stared at Norman in amazement. She'd seen several paintings of that description in the house Norman had built. She'd a.s.sumed they were prints of famous works, or original oils purchased for their investment potential. ”The belfry?” she asked referring to the painting she'd noticed hanging in his study.
”The bell tower at Notre Dame. I painted it after a trip I took as a student. It's my last one.”
”But it's beautiful. I love it. Why did you stop painting?”
”I'm a lot like Kyle. I realized I wasn't good enough to make a decent living at it, so I went to dental school.”
”That doesn't mean you have to give up painting. You could paint on the weekends, or at night, or whenever. You don't have to stop creating!”
”I might take it up again someday...as a hobby. But the fire to succeed as an artist of note is gone.”
”But you shouldn't just give up. You should...”
”Do you still write poetry?” Norman interrupted her with a question.
”I...I...no. I haven't written anything since I left college.”
”Point made,” Norman said.
”Point taken,” Hannah replied. ”I just wish that...”
”Another time. Don't you want to hear why Kyle flunked Professor Ramsey's Intro to Poetry cla.s.s?”
Hannah nodded, pulling herself out of her self-indulgent dream, where they traveled to wonderfully scenic places so that Norman could paint and she could write. ”Tell me,” she said.
”Kyle told me his girlfriend broke up with him right before Christmas. She said she was in love with Professor Ramsey.”
”Oh, no!” Hannah said, feeling sorry for the jilted student.
”They'd both enrolled in his Intro to Poetry cla.s.s, and Kyle convinced himself that it was just a pa.s.sing thing and she'd come around as soon as she saw that he still loved her. The first day of cla.s.s rolled around, and Kyle managed to sit next to her, but she wouldn't even speak to him. That was the way things went for the first week of cla.s.s. Kyle kept trying, and she kept refusing to have anything to do with him. He said he had to watch her flirting with Ramsey and that it was really hard to take.”
”I can imagine that! Poor Kyle.”
”And then Professor Ramsey started singling her out for things, keeping her after cla.s.s, and inviting her to visit his home campus at Macalester. Kyle could tell she was falling completely under his spell, and he just couldn't stand to watch it any longer.”
”So he started skipping cla.s.ses, even when there were tests?” Hannah guessed.
”That's about the size of it. Once he realized that Professor Ramsey was returning his girlfriend's overtures, he stopped going to cla.s.s altogether. It was just too painful to watch them interact. He would have dropped the cla.s.s, but it was too late to drop, so he just took the failing grade.”
”That's really sad.”
”I know.” Norman gave another little sigh. ”He was very stoic about it. And he was also very convincing.”
”Convincing?”
”He convinced me that he still loved his girlfriend and he was hoping to get her back now that Professor Ramsey was dead.”
”Did he tell you the name of his girlfriend?”
”No. I asked, but he didn't want to say. And I didn't think I'd better push it or he'd clam up and stop answering my questions.”
Hannah was silent for minute, digesting all that she'd learned. ”He's certainly got a motive, especially if he thinks he can get his girlfriend back now that his rival's dead. What about Wednesday night? Does he have an alibi?”
”Yes, and it's a good one. There's no way Kyle could have killed Professor Ramsey since he was hundreds of miles away from the scene of the crime. He flew out to Arizona State University on Wednesday morning to watch his sister graduate, and his parents were with him. They were all having dinner at T. Cooks at the Royal Palms Hotel when Professor Ramsey was killed.”
COTTAGE CHEESE COOKIES.
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