The Picture of Daria Cray: A Professor Deshpande Mystery

The Dancer entreats the audience with a blossoming left hand, and although the blazing lights at stage’s edge render invisible the bedazzled masses, She feels the silence, the moment of transit, when observer becomes one with the Dance, believes the doors have opened to a universe of possibilities. With one inviting gesture, The Dancer has become the Conductor of Dreams…

Her fingers pause. A double-tap, and a blue nail hovers over the keyboard. It descends, and all begins again…

**

“These mitigating circumstances,” Curtis murmured. “Whyn’t you explain them to me?”

It was the first time Professor Saanvi Deshpande had met Detective Mead on his own turf. Curtis settled back in his Obama-era Office Depot seat, fingers templed, and mirrored her serenity.

“Daria’s intent was entirely self-destructive. The unloaded weapon was newly purchased, from whom she will not disclose, for the express purpose of ending her life. That it fell from her backpack in the middle of a campus rally was an unfortunate accident that no doubt saved her life.”

“And why would she want to blow her brains out? Blonde and beautiful, according to you a near-perfect GPA, daughter of some rich Chicago writer.” What Curtis didn’t say hung in volumes between the West Side cop and the Mumbai-born arts department head. “And what’s your interest in all this?”

“Daria’s mother, Olivia, was once a faculty colleague, before rising to prominence as a brilliant abstract artist. Her foray into children’s illustration and eventually literature was an attempt, I believe, to connect with Daria.”

“That worked out,” Detective Mead opined.

“That is the crux of my, ah, mitigation,” Saanvi sighed. “I’m afraid Olivia created the tragic circumstances that have led us here.”

“And how is that?”

“She showed Daria the future. Her future.”

Curtis had learned in Saanvi’s company to suspend a certain level of belief, scissors poised. “You mean that figuratively.”

“Materially.”

“I’m not sure you understand ‘figuratively.’”

“Olivia quite literally created Daria’s future. Have you ever read The Picture of Dorian Gray?”

“Think I dodged that bullet. But yeah, Oscar Wilde, magical painting, some lame-ass moral about vanity and narcissism…”

“You have so perfectly captured its essence,” Saanvi nodded. “Would you like to accompany me to a showing?”

**

The Dancer catches his eye, or he catches hers, over a display of Galas and Braeburns and Honeycrisps. Her skills are known to a select few, and although excepting a courageous few who approach the apron with an appreciative token they are faceless, She simply knows. The sturdy woman with him glances up from the Bartletts, and she trades a sharp nod and a perfunctory smile even as her husband retreats to the Russets and Vidalias…

With a breathy curse, she snags the Kroger bag next to the laptop. The fruit spills to the tiles, one rolling into the darkness beyond the kitchenette. Repeating her curse with strengthened commitment, she plucks the nearest apple with a slight stitch in her side, wipes it furiously with her tee, and snaps an angry chunk from it.

She closes the laptop with exaggerated care. It had been a mistake, tonight, and she now can’t focus on the work.

Her own mocking laughter is jarring. “Yeah,” she retorts. “That’s the problem.”

**

“Shit,” Curtis exhaled.

“A viscerally astute assessment,” Saanvi said, elbow-to-elbow before the painting. “Olivia had quite a talent for expressionist reality.”

The lovely young woman was poised in some meadow likely of Olivia’s imaginings, before an easel anchored into the prairie grass, gaze lasered on a fawn poised on the horizon, brush gripped in a raised left hand. The only apparent imperfection were the eyes, unnaturally large and cornflower blue. But as both Detective Mead and Saanvi knew, the portrait’s perfection lie in that single “flaw.”

“Creepy,” Curtis amplified. Professor Deshpande understood: The cop had seen those huge, nearly unreal, utterly dead blue orbs in a guarded hospital room, after a cadre of students slammed her instinctively to the rainbow-chalked concrete of Tillson Union Plaza. The Pulse shootings, the recent beat down at Illinois State, the election year polarity that crackled even on academic ground – the cuffs were applied to Daria’s hospital bed and the social media damage done even as the Student LGBTQ Coalition surged forward to vet one of their own. Saanvi had spent a semester under Daria’s silent, sullen, ultimately deferential examination as the teen sized up her mother-appointed mentor.

“So,” Curtis continued, scanning the nearly barren campus-adjacent apartment, “Mom thought this would be motivational? Saw your friend’s stuff in Chicago one time – thought she didn’t do people any more. I mean, this is, like, amazing. Graduation gift?”

“Birthday,” Saanvi clarified with a new sobriety. “Well, pre-birthday. Olivia painted this 18 years ago.”

“Shit,” Curtis reiterated.

 **

“The state’s attorney says you get some court-supervised counseling, she’ll recommend probation on an illegal weapons charge,” Curtis told Daria as the uniform hesitantly removed the cuff from her freckled wrist. The young woman looked to Saanvi, who smiled encouragingly. “Thing is, Ms. Cray, and your mom agrees, the hospital wants to keep you for a few more days.”

Daria smirked knowingly, her freed right hand locating the bed control. “So I don’t walk into an Amtrak, right? I’m 18, so I’ll sign whatever you want if you tell her to just stay home. Can I talk to Professor Deshpande before they cart me up to the loony bin? I mean, like alone?”

Curtis nodded, and tapped the patrolman’s arm. “Be at the nurse’s station. Looks like they got some Krispy Kremes.”

“I figure you probably did that, so thanks,” Daria said, working at a smile. Her large blue eyes were bloodshot, and, to Saanvi’s discerning view, fearful. “For everything. You know I just suck at the art thing, and I’m a royal fuckup. For example, this shit.”

“We won’t belabor all the inaccuracies in that evaluation, but I think perhaps this counseling will be of great benefit to you. And your mother is deeply concerned for your wellbeing, though I assured her I’d look after you until you’re ready for her.”

“That may be forever. That fucking picture…” The teen turned abruptly to the window.

“Daria?”

“Look,” Daria said, almost inaudibly. “I didn’t want that cop guy to think I was any crazier than, well, than I fucking am, but last night?”

Saanvi placed a hand on her arm, and the cornflower eyes locked with hers.

“I could have been dreaming, the shit they gave me, but I don’t think so. I saw her.”

“Your mother?”

“Me,” Daria snapped. “The other one. Future me.”     

**

The Radiology waiting room was the emptiest at mid-afternoon, so they reconvened there with two cups of truly institutional brew.

“The notion of preternaturally endowed objects is widely held across cultures. Haitian Vodou offers probably the best-known example. A drawing of the subject or the notorious ‘voodoo’ doll is said to possess the power to affect or even control that individual’s health or fortunes or, if we subscribe to B horror movies or poorly written ‘60s situation comedies, inflict pain.

“Some indigenous African and American cultures employ masks, statues, sand paintings, or totem carvings with generally more positive, protective intent, and the mandelas and sacred thangka paintings of Tibetan Buddhism are used in meditation and healing rituals.”

“Mm,” Det. Mead nodded.

“I’m only leading from my particular wheelhouse. But these are longstanding traditions, and for good reasons, be they mystical or merely psychological. Are you familiar with Obeah? Another Caribbean practice, this time intended to manipulate or extort a subject. Certain herbs and plants used in Obeah rituals or potions, like mandrake root and belladonna, have psychoactive effects, and combined with spells, use of a target’s personal belongings or hair or nails, and significant or frightening object placed near the subject’s home instill a sense of unease or terror, making it easier to control decisions or coerce money.”

“I’m more accustomed to bullets through windshields or dead cats artfully placed hung on trailer doors,” Curtis noted. “You got anything maybe, I don’t know, just a little less Mulder and Scully?”

Saanvi nodded pleasantly. “We could look at this from an alternate perspective, if you’d prefer.”

“Believe I would.”

“Van Gogh, Edvard Munch, Picasso, Pollock struggled with potentially debilitating depression, addiction, anxiety, hallucinations, psychotic episodes, or bipolar manifestations that instead informed their work. Pollock’s chaotic energy, Munch’s nightmarish ‘The Scream,’ and, well, Picasso’s surreal and shifting artistic phases. Creativity and dysfunction – one might say they go hand-in-glove.” Saanvi’s lips abruptly clamped into a Giaconda smile, and the cop studied her silently for a moment.

“So you think your friend Olivia may be a little insane in the membrane?”

Professor Deshpande grinned with a waggling finger. “I’m not so certain. Your brilliant young colleague, the forensic virtuoso. Christina? Has she returned to duty yet?”

“Call her Chris if you value your life. But yeah, against department orders, under threat of civil action. Restricted to the lab until her utterly futile maternity ‘leave’ is over.”

“That’s where I need her expertise,” Saanvi said. “I’d be interested, as well, to learn the findings of any psychological evaluation of Daria.”

“You can take on the department easier than you can HIPAA. What’re you hoping to find?”

“Not certain. There appear to be two possible sides to this equation – the psychology of the artist, and the psychology and perhaps physiology of the subject. As you can see in Munch and Picasso’s works, psychoses and bipolar disorder can manifest in a number of anomalies. Figures may have unusually large heads, elongated limbs, or disproportionate torsos, or be broken into disjointed pieces, possibly reflecting a fragmented view of reality. Intense, clashing colors can indicate emotional turmoil, where inclusion of surreal or symbolic elements such as eyes in unnatural locations or abstract shapes, might reflect the artist’s inner thoughts and emotions. If certain shapes or motifs are repeated obsessively, the creator may be laboring under a driving fixation or compulsion.”

“Welcome to The Night Gallery,” Curtis intoned in a creditable Rod Serling. “Sorry, got a streaming addiction. So, the first thing grabs me are the eyes. Girl’s just this side of those tacky old paintings of the kids with the creepy big eyes.”

“Margaret Keane, often referred to as the ‘Wayne Newton of the art world’ and famously exploited by her husband Walter in the Sixties. Walter purportedly was attracted to Margaret by her own large eyes, so one assumes her work was to some extent reflective. But one wonders what other forces may have been at play. In portraits by artists with bipolar or psychotic tendencies, large, exaggerated eyes, may reflect heightened emotions, paranoia, or simply an intense focus on perception and observation.

“Now, there are psychological explanations for the eerily prescient nature of the picture of Daria Cray. Many adolescents today suffer Body Dysmorphic Disorder – obsession with self-perceived flaws in their appearance fueled by social media and bullying. BDD can lead to excessive grooming, eating disorders, even cosmetic surgery. Like extreme epicanthoplasty and eyelid surgery to create the appearance of Barbie- or anime-style eyes. I asked Olivia if Daria has had any such procedure, and she argued she’d never allow such self-mutilation.”

“Fucking mom of the year,” Curtis grunted. “Sick enough she’d hang that thing in the girl’s room. What’d she expect might happen?”

“Artists often have unorthodox expectations,” Saanvi commented. “But to return to point, there also are organic explanations for Daria’s unusual features. Waardenburg Syndrome is a genetic mutation more prevalent in Northern Europe that can produce wide-set, larger-than-usual eyes. And Waardenburg can manifest in a child of non-Waardenburg parents.

“The other genetic possibility is congenital glaucoma, which can make the eyes appear larger due to intraocular pressure. Olivia shows no classic symptoms, and I saw no typical indicators in Daria, either. But I imagine your Chris could address either possibility, possibly with the use of the University’s Biomedicine Department sequencing technology.”

“Shit, you sound like her,” Curtis grinned.

“We are rumored to be the future,” Professor Deshpande intimated. She then paused.

“Uh oh,” the detective suggested.

“Quite possibly,” Saanvi said.

**

Saanvi was suspended over the city, near the summit of a round glassed tower jutting dangerously from the East Loop. Here in the stratosphere – or as a colleague had once coined, the statusphere – she kept her eyes locked on her host, but Olivia Cray’s green orbs meandered from Lake Michigan to the Sears Tower to the Lake Shore traffic seemingly a mile below. Anywhere but the small woman sipping oolong under a Pollock original. 

“I told a friend yesterday we artists frequently harbor unorthodox expectations,” the professor commented. “Of the world, of ourselves, of those we hold dear and those we simply hold onto.”

“You’re an administrator, hardly an artist.” The retort was calm, sullen, Olivia now staring imperiously, framed by the wispy cumuli seemingly within grasp. Saanvi willed herself to maintain the connection.

“What were your expectations? Of Daria, that is? Or were they yours?”

“I have a reception at the Palmer in three hours. I’m sorry about the cheap shot. I know you’re trying to support Daria. I simply don’t understand how.”

“Olivia, my friend has secured DNA results.”

The painter gripped the arms of her Roche Bobois. “I didn’t consent to anything like that. And I’m hoping you didn’t broach anything to Daria – she’s experienced enough trauma without...”

“The truth? Olivia, you are correct. I am an administrator, an academic, an expert of sorts on what and how and why others create. Pour me a bit more tea, if you would.” Olivia rose and reached for the Michael Aram pot, then froze. “Yes, the right hand. Do you believe I wouldn’t be able to discern that Daria’s portrait was the work of a left-handed artist? The stroke direction and pressure, the slight smudging at points typical of one working left to right. Your signature nonetheless is right-handed.

“The few smudges were efficiently but inexpertly repaired, which seem to indicate a skilled but inexperienced artist. Perhaps a student? More importantly, Daria, like you, is a right-hander. And that brings me to the one rational explanation for this precognitive portrait, this vision of the idealized Daria to which your daughter aspired and ultimately surrendered. It is a self-portrait, of a young woman with Daria’s eyes. She must have been very special to you.”

Now, Olivia refilled her cup. “Not particularly, but this was the deal.” The artist bolted the searing tea, as if in penance. “I wanted a child, she’d been knocked up, and her parents disowned her when she switched to an arts major. I could solve both her problems and buy her confidence. Using a sophomore student as a surrogate might not have gone over with the administration. And she showed tremendous potential, so I continued to mentor her over a convenient sabbatical.

“So we’re in the final trimester, and she’s been working on some project she didn’t want me to see. I come home to it one night, hanging in the new nursery. And she gives me an ultimatum. She’ll surrender rights to Daria, but she wants a ‘presence’ in her life. She’d keep her mouth shut, but it was to stay on Daria’s wall until the day I decided to tell her the truth. She had leverage, so I simply signed it as my own and presented it as Daria’s future – as a happy, beautiful young woman.” Olivia laughed harshly. “The DNA test. The left-handedness. Was that bullshit?”

For the first time, Saanvi stared out over the lake shore, at the Navy Pier ferris awaiting beautiful, happy children, and felt only the slightest frisson of vertigo. “Simply a bit of precognitive creativity.”

**

The Dancer steps lithely out of the oasis of pink and aqua as if emerging from a luminous sea onto a dark and clattering shore. She dismisses the acclaim, the clamor that follow her offstage and strides briskly past those now returned to the dock. She is the Captain of the... The Siren of … what, the Briny Deep?

“Fuck,” The Dancer growls as she shoulders into the tiny room that is hers alone Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. The laptop is still open on the makeup table, its blank white screen taunting her and her abortive metaphors. The tiny woman in the folding chair beyond offers a kind smile, as if in compensation. The intruder doesn’t seem rattled by her nudity, which in this venue should make Carlie wary but somehow reassures her. Carlie nonetheless slips on the outsized terry cloth robe supplied by management.

“This thing, whatever it is? No.”

The woman, on the handsome side of 45 or 50, Indian or maybe Pakistani, put together with a modest flair, smiles more broadly. She nods toward the Dell. “You are a writer, as well?”

“As well as this?” Carlie challenges.

“The creative soul finds an outlet,” her guest murmurs. “Whether putting words and experience to paper or pouring athleticism and interpretive prowess into the dance. Or committing heart and soul to canvas.”

“Shit,” Carlie whispers. “I know you.”

“Professor Deshpande. I once worked with Olivia Cray.”

The Dancer drops onto a case of bottom shelf tequila that has aged negligently since the Country Cabana’s third post-COVID reopening.

“Probably had you for a class. How is Professor Cray--? Oh, shit. Of course, you know. How is Daria?”

“She has suffered the crushing weight of a lifelong delusion, perpetuated by Professor Cray.”

“The fuck did Olivia do?” The question is rimed with permafrost.

“I shall tell you, if you’d be good enough to walk me to my car,” the professor offers. “And perhaps accompany me back into town. You know how to find St. Mark’s, am I right? Daria’s photo was all over Facebook and Instagram, and you felt compelled to investigate. This time, I think Daria would like to meet you for real. Needs to, I should say.”

“Gimme about 15. I’m not really dressed for it.”