Then I went to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. SAIC, 155 years old, prides itself on being “a leader in educating the world’s most influential artists, designers, and scholars,” according to its website. Georgia O’Keeffe studied there, along with Grant Wood of American Gothic fame and a whole bunch of other famous artists whose names I didn’t recognize.
I’d called and sent emails to as many staff members as I could, looking for anyone who remembered Axel Parris. The one response I’d gotten was from an instructor named Dan Vining, who agreed to meet with me between classes.
The school was next to the actual Art Institute, with its twin lions looking down on Michigan Avenue and its world-class art collection waiting inside. I hadn’t visited it in years. I made my way around the main building to the school entrance, told the woman at the front desk that I had an appointment, and walked through the halls in search of the right classroom.
The students were mostly in their 20s, with some older—a few my age and beyond. They carried backpacks, sketchbooks, book bags, and assorted art supplies. I’d sort of expected berets and paint-stained smocks, but these would-be artists could have been any group of college students in any school: busy, nervous, eager, bored, hungry, or just looking to get laid.
I found Dan Vining in his classroom, eating a sandwich at a small desk in the corner. Easels were set up around the room, with paper hanging over them waiting to be turned into art. He looked up. “Oh. Hi. Tom Jurgen?” He waved me over.
Vining was in his 30s, with black hair, wearing a white T-shirt and jeans. I pulled a chair over as he took a swig from his water bottle. “Sorry, if I don’t eat lunch now I don’t get a chance for the rest of the afternoon.” He smiled. “So what can I do for you? Axel Parris?”
“My client is basically looking for more background on him. She’s done a show of his paintings, but she’d like a little more information than he’s given her. Do you remember Axel?
Vining nodded slowly. ”Yeah. He was good. You have to be reasonably talented to get in here at all, although that takes in a pretty wide range of whatever you call talent.” He chuckled briefly. “Anyway, I had him in drawing and in painting—advanced for painting. He’d improved, but I can’t really take credit. I mean, an instructor can only do so much aside from telling you what color paint to use.” He paused for a bite of his sandwich.
“He got better as an artist?”
Vining nodded. “I think he learned to loosen up. A lot of people start out wanting to create an exact replica of whatever picture we have in our head. Like a photograph of an idea, clear and perfect. For me, you have to let go and figure out what the idea wants to look like. You’re guiding it, but you can’t force it. It seemed like Axel figured out how to let the art speak to him, instead of him speaking to it. If that makes sense.” Vining shrugged. “I know, it all sounds like jibber jabber, but that’s the best way I can explain it.”
“No, that makes a lot of sense.” I nodded. “What was Axel like?”
Vining paused, thinking carefully before choosing words. “He didn’t talk a lot. He didn’t like critiques, but he never got angry. I mean, nobody really likes feedback unless it’s ‘That’s the greatest thing I’ve ever seen,’ right?” He smiled. “But he actually incorporated it into his paintings later, so he was listening. But under the surface . . .”
He paused. “You got the sense—I did, anyway—that he was holding everyone in contempt. The other students, instructors, me.” He laughed nervously. “I mean, I’ve been doing this for 10 years, I know I’m not perfect, so I didn’t let it bother me. Actually, when he left, he gave me one of his pieces. I was surprised.”
“What did the piece look like?”
Vining took out his phone. “Here it is. I kept it in my office at home for a while. I had to move it out into the garage later.”
The image on the phone showed a clown with red hair snarling at the viewer. He had yellowed teeth and hollow white cheeks, and empty black eyes surrounded by black circles.
I felt like the clown could see me. Too deeply.
“He called it Laugh, Clown, Laugh.” Vining put the phone away. “I had to put it away. It got too distracting.”
I could imagine. “Would you mind sending that to me? I’d like my girlfriend to see it.” Maybe Rachel could pick up something from the image.
He punched a few keys to email it. “Anything else? I’m sorry, I’ve got to get ready for my next class . . .” He started packing up the remains of his lunch.
I nodded, and hesitated over my next question. “I’m not sure how to put this—my knowledge about art pretty much starts with the Mona Lisa and ends with dogs playing poker.” Vining smiled. “Is Axel . . . good?”
He hesitated. “Axel is—he’s very effective at using art to convey emotion. I mean, you can tell that from the picture, just on my phone. It’s kind of undisciplined, but he’s letting the emotion through, and using technique to focus it. It makes you uncomfortable, but I think that’s the point. So yeah,” he nodded. “He’s good. In that sense.”
“He’s in an exhibition at the Marian Krantz gallery,” I said.
“Yeah, I meant to hit that opening last night.” He shook his head. “Guess it didn’t end up the way they planned.”
“Do you have any idea where he is now? Where he lives, who his friends are?”
Vining looked puzzled. “Doesn’t Marian Krantz know? I have no idea, really. He didn’t have any friends that I ever noticed.”
“What does he look like? I can’t find any pictures of him.”
Vining thought for a moment. “I think there’s a yearbook picture of him. Not really a yearbook, but a graduation picture with a sample of everyone’s work. If I find it, I’ll send it to you.”
“Thank you. And thanks for your time.” I stood up, we shook hands, and I left him to get ready for his upcoming class.
My next stop was Gallery 340, down the street from Marian Krantz. Axel’s ex-girlfriend, Gabrielle Keyes, was one of three owners there, a small nonprofit gallery dedicated to marginalized artists—BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and so on.
Inside the door I looked at a sculpture of a tree, or possibly a man and a woman embracing. Or maybe two men. Or two women. I couldn’t be sure. The tag on the pedestal read Study #3, which didn’t help at all.
“Hi there!” A young man waved from behind a desk. “Ask me anything. Or just look around. I’m Eliot.”
“Hi, Eliot.” I took out a business card. “Actually, I’m looking for Gabrielle Keyes. Is she here?”
“Gaby?” He squinted at the card. “Uh, yeah, she’s in back, just let me . . .” He picked up a phone. “Gaby? There’s a guy here, Tom, uh, Jurgen. A private detective, I guess. He wants to talk to you?” He put the phone down. “She’s coming.”
Gabrielle Keyes was in her 30s, short, in jeans and a sweatshirt from SAIC, where I’d just visited. Curly black hair, a sharp nose, and a puzzled frown. “I’m Gaby Keyes. What’s going on?”
“I’d just like to talk to you a few minutes. About Axel Parris.”
She darted a glance at Eliot, who lifted an eyebrow. Her eyes came back to me. “Is there any trouble?”
“No.” As far as I knew for sure right then. “Just a routine sort of background check. For Marian Krantz.”
“Oh.” Still puzzled, she led me to the back of the gallery and around a corner. A small glass-topped desk held a laptop and a landline phone. An office door was open a few feet away, with a man and a woman talking quietly inside.
Gaby sat down behind the laptop. “What’s going on?”
I sat. “Marian Krantz is—a little worried. She doesn’t really know much about Axel, aside from his paintings. She has some concerns, and asked me to find out about his background.”
“Is this about last night? At her gallery?” She shuddered.
“No.” Maybe. “She hired me before that happened. She said you know Axel.”
Gaby looked at the floor. “Yeah. We dated for a while.”
“What’s he like?”
She looked up at me sharply. “What do you mean? Is he dangerous? Is he crazy?”
“Is he?”
She turned away. “He’s—intense. He can be laughing and happy one moment, and then switch to weeping if something made him sad, like a stray memory of his mother or a homeless cat on the street. Sometimes he can explode out of nothing and nowhere, and the next minute be just fine.” She rubbed her nose and looked back at me. “Mostly he just poured everything into his art.”
“You didn’t show him here at this gallery?”
She shook her head. “He understood. That’s not why—he understood our mission. Underrepresented artists. He wasn’t—like that. And he was okay with that.” She peered at me, suspicious. “We didn’t date too long. Just a couple of months. We split up about six months ago.”
“Did something happen?”
Gaby stared at me defiantly. “It’s none of your business.”
I nodded. “Fair enough. How did he get with Marian Krantz?”
Her shoulders relaxed a little. “I suggested her. I thought they’d be a good fit. She shows that kind of stuff—abstract but not too far out there. Younger artists with a vision. Even a disturbing vision, sometimes. I guess she went for what Axel was doing.”
“She’s never met him in person.”
She nodded. “He’s a pretty private person. I met him at a party, and he was hardly there. Just long enough to have a drink, get into an argument, flirt with me, and leave. He texted me later that night.” A brief smile faded quickly from her face.
“What about Archie Hammond?”
Her eyes widened. “Last night? I don’t see how—yeah, he was mad at Archie for that one review. He threw—” She stopped and shook her head. “What does that have to do with Archie getting stabbed?”
“I don’t really know.” There wasn’t any reason to connect him to the murder. Axel was just a slightly odd artist, as far as I knew. But something nagged at me. “He has a distinctive —style? Is that what you’d say? Lots of strong colors, dark and moody. Is that right? I don’t know much about art.”
Gaby laughed. “He used to say he put his blood into his paintings. He studied—” She pointed to her SAIC sweatshirt—”here, but he listened mostly to himself. His own feelings, emotions.”
“Which could be intense.”
She nodded. “Yeah. Here, let me show you something—” A phone in her back pocket buzzed as she stood up. She looked, smiled, and answered as she led me through the open door. “Hi, babe. Yeah, she called, we’re going to meet at—hang on a minute.”
She sat the phone down on a desk and turned to a large metal filing cabinet. The two people turned and looked at me. I stood in the doorway. It was a small office for three people at once. I didn’t want to crowd anyone.
Gaby reached behind the cabinet and pulled out a framed painting, leaning it against the desk. “This is Axel. He gave it to me right after—after. He called it Friend.”
In front of an emerald curtain blowing in a breeze I could almost feel on my face, two indistinct figures held hands. One figure kept its hand behind its back, while the other lifted an arm high, fingers wide.
Gaby smiled at it. “You can see how we used the figures to show—ahh!”
She screamed.
Gaby stumbled back. She dropped to the floor, still shrieking, as her two partners stared in shock. Blood stained her sweatshirt.
A knife jutted from her chest.
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