The Death Artist (8 page)

By the end of that day, she had talked Richard into signing on to adopt the entire class, to support any and all of them through high school and hopefully college. A decision that had altered Kate’s life forever.

Arlen James put an arm around her, and Kate actually felt, for the moment, safe. But that was about as much fathering as she could take. Memories of her own father crawled into the back of her mind, the tantrums, beatings. No way she wanted to think about that now. She pulled away, gently asked, “Are
you
okay?”

He nodded, though she worried that he didn’t feel quite as good as he looked. Recent trips to the doctor and talk of a pacemaker had made her painfully aware of the man’s age, and the inevitable fact that this man who she loved would not be running the foundation forever.

“Have you seen this?” His fist came down so hard on the
New York Post
article, his desk shook.

James started to cough, the veins in his forehead standing in high relief against his reddening face.

“Please, Arlen. Take it easy.”

“I will not!” He snatched up the
Post.
“Listen to this . . . ‘The victim, Elena Solana, was a graduate of the educational foundation Let There Be a Future, brainchild of high-flying billionaire-philanthropist Arlen James.’ ” He shook his head. “ ‘
High-flying?’ Me
? And I’m not a billionaire, for Christ’s sake. Where do they come off writing this?”

“It doesn’t matter, Arlen. It’s just some writer–”

“And here . . . ‘Police have no motive for the crime as yet, but it looks as if it might be a case of bad luck. One of those
Looking for Mr. Goodbar
stories. Woman picks up man. The wrong man.’ ”

“What?!”
It was Kate’s turn to explode.

“Wait,” he said. “There’s more. ‘The only suspect the police have is another foundation graduate, but his identity is being withheld. The suspect is no longer in police custody, the police claiming there is not enough evidence to detain him. It has been suggested, by an unnamed source at police head-quarters, that the do-good foundation has stepped in to protect one of its own.’ ”

“ ‘The
do-good
foundation’? Let me see that.” Kate snatched the article from Arlen’s hands, picked up from where Arlen left off. “ ‘Or could it be that our new mayor has put a lid on the case, now that he’s been funding the foundation as part of the city budget?’ ” Kate threw the paper on the desk. “Jesus.”

Arlen James sighed. “And I hear this is nothing compared to the
News.
”

No way.
Her eyes must be playing tricks on her, thought Kate, staring at the
Daily News
clipped to the top edge of the kiosk. But no, it was real. Headlines, no less. Whoever said that a culture gets what it deserves was really onto something.

She knew she shouldn’t buy it, but what the hell, her day was already ruined.

Below the banner: “Young Woman in East Village Stabbed to Death. Story on page 5.”

Kate turned the flimsy sheets of newsprint.

Three grainy pictures, side by side: Elena’s high school graduation, Arlen James in a publicity shot, and one from the back of Kate’s book. “Katherine McKinnon Rothstein,” read the small print, “well-known art and philanthropic figure.” Then a couple of lines copied off the dust jacket of
Artists’ Lives,
a mention of her PBS series and the fact that it was Kate who discovered Elena’s body. But the real surprise was that the reporter had done some homework, come up with Kate’s past life as a cop, even her specialty, missing kids.

Oh, yes. Her day could get worse.

He drags a finger across the steel tabletop to create a path in the thick dust.

How thoughtful, considerate, really, that this should be left here, as though someone were watching over him, thinking about his needs.
A guardian angel.
He likes the sound of that, the image, too. He looks up–thin shafts of light stream through the cracked ceiling–pictures a naked winged angel riding the ray like a rodeo cowboy, smiles.

He spreads all three New York newspapers out on the long steel tabletop, opens them to the story of Elena Solana’s murder, which, he would say, not one of them has gotten right. He flips from one paper to the other, looking to see if anyone has commented on his signature. He sits back, disappointed.

Fools
!

But a moment later, he’s got his X-Acto knife in hand, carefully cutting out the newspaper photo of Kate, turning the grainy image this way and that. Then, with his cheap disposable auto pencil, he begins to sketch a pair of crude wings onto Kate’s back. After a moment’s consideration, he adds a halo. He pins it to the wall with a steel pushpin, stops a moment to admire his work.

A guardian angel. Indeed.

He sets his books onto the table, thinks about the girl.

He’d been watching her. The way she moved. Her extraordinary voice. That’s when it came to him. Not exactly a plan. More of an improvisation. But he was getting so good at it. The way he had to improvise with the man, too. Good? No. Great.

But has Kate understood his message?

He wonders, pictures her on those brownstone steps looking so bruised, destroying her lungs with all that tar and nicotine.

It’s time he stopped improvising, began planning, taking himself seriously, as others surely would.

He empties the shopping bags onto the steel table, begins to organize his tools.

The place is damp. He shivers, stares into the cavernous space past beams and pitted walls, the light from the river beautiful, peaceful.

A rat scampers across the dank floorboards. A flick of the wrist. The X-Acto knife in flight, and–
Gotcha
!–the squealing rodent is pinned to the floor.

His reflexes have always been good.

He watches the rat’s tiny claws twitching, tail sweeping up a mini dust storm. Always fascinating, the loss of life.

But enough. There’s work to be done.

He wants to create another message, something bold, something to convince her that they are in this . . . together.

He props his latest souvenir, the small altarpiece, against a couple of books, loads the film.

With each pop of the flashbulb he’s blinded, an image winking in the back of his mind–a knife through a woman’s flesh, a man’s dying gasp, a young girl’s scream. They fade to the Polaroids laid out in front of him, a new set of images developing before his impatient eyes. The last picture’s details are just filling in, but he’s already cutting them into tiny fragments, rearranging them haphazardly, gluing them down so that the original image is unrecognizable.

He plucks the finished work up with gloved fingers. Should he actually send it? The idea so seductive, it gives him a thrill to tease like this.

Of course he’s sending it. No way he’s going to stop now.

He slides the collage into an envelope, sits back, stares at the newspaper photo with wings and halo until the grainy gray dots that make up Kate’s face blur.

Kate thanked her housekeeper warmly, then noticed the large FedEx package from Liz, slipped it under her arm, and headed directly into her home office.

By the time Lucille poked her head in to say she was leaving, the sky outside Kate’s office window had gone blue-black. Kate had already read two of the monographs Liz had sent over: Nicholas Groth’s
Men Who Rape
and Robert R. Hazelwood’s
The Behavioral-Oriented Interview of Rape Victims: The Key to Profiling.
She’d filled half a yellow legal pad with notes.

She picked at her lemon chicken. “Is it all right if I bounce a few ideas off you?”

Richard refilled their glasses with a California cabernet. “Sure.”

“I’m trying to piece together what happened that night. First, the intruder, the street person/junkie theory is no good. Elena had to have been killed by someone she knew.”

“Why’s that?”

“One: There were no signs of a break-in. Two: The front-door lock was not picked or broken. Three: The window was still locked. And four: She was making him coffee.”

Richard peered at her over the rim of his wineglass. “How do you know that?”

“There was an open bag of Colombian coffee on the kitchen counter next to a box of filters and a broken glass percolator on the floor.” Her eyes glowed. “So, Elena makes him coffee–but they never drink it. No dirty coffee cups anywhere–not even the sink.”

“He cleaned up?”

“Maybe. Probably. But I also have a feeling it progressed to sex before they got to the coffee.” Kate lifted her glass, but did not drink. “It may have started out consensual, but they never made it to the bedroom. The bed was still made.” She took a breath, seemed to draw strength from it. “Obviously, something went very wrong.” Kate drummed her fingers on the crystal glass. “I’ve got to figure a way to get my hands on the coroner’s report to know if Elena was raped. Don’t you know anyone in the coroner’s office?”

“Not really.” He frowned. “And then what? I mean, once you get the autopsy, what do you do?”

“I’m not sure yet. But it will certainly tell me more about what happened.”

Richard frowned again. “It worries me, you acting the cop again. You’re my wife now. And I love you.”

“Then be patient, okay?”

Richard managed to smile.

Kate smiled, too. But at the same moment her mind was flooded with images: shards of glass around Elena’s feet, the geometric pattern of the bedroom quilt, congealed blood on the kitchen floor. “Hold me, okay?”

Richard was up fast. He slid an arm over her shoulder, the other around her waist. For a moment, Kate could play the little girl, a role she had to give up too early in life. For a minute, she considered showing him that creepy graduation photo, but no, not now. She didn’t want to ruin the moment.

Richard’s fingers skipped lightly over the flesh of her arm.

“If I asked you to make love to me, would you think I was weird? I mean, is it too soon?”

He grabbed her ass playfully. “Never too soon.”

“You’re a classy guy, Rothstein.” She hugged him closer. “I think I need to lose myself.” Her words, soft in his ear, were little more than a breath.

“So let’s get lost.”

In the bedroom, Kate tapped the music control panel, selected a favorite fifties Motown singer, Barbara Lewis, and sang along with “Hello Stranger” as she tugged her sweater over her head.

Richard stood. Unhooked his belt. Unzipped, yanked at his pants, which jammed at his cordovan oxfords.

“I think it’s shoes and socks first,
then
pants. Didn’t your mother teach you anything?”

“Not about this.” Richard laughed, unlaced his oxfords, tossed them to the floor.

Kate shimmied out of her slacks, lay back against the white cloud of pillows.

“You look beautiful,” he said, standing above her in boxers and high brown socks.

“You would, too.” She made a face. “Without the socks.”

Socks off in a flash, he unhooked her bra even faster, kissed her breasts.

Barbara Lewis crooned about how long it had been.

“I agree with Barbara,” said Kate. She gently tugged Richard’s head up toward hers, gazed into his night blue eyes, kissed his lips.

His tongue moved gently in her mouth.

She closed her eyes: a blue screen, shimmering purple, then red. Richard’s hand was on her breast, fingers teasing her nipple hard. Now the red went deep plum, congealed in the dark theater of her mind’s eye into long vertical streaks. A flash of light–a photographer’s strobe. Stark white. Kate’s lids twitched open. Richard’s face in close-up: foot-long eyelashes, pores like craters. But his lips lay warm on hers; his tongue still dancing.

Kate locked her eyelids shut. Blackness. Yes, that’s it, what she wanted. The void. And touch. To feel alive. His hand stroked her thigh, fingers grazed the edge of lace panties, then slid under.

But now the black had brightened. First umber, then sienna, then to the gray-pink of sickly flesh, which morphed into an arm, a leg, one jutting straight out, another bent; around them, pools of blood as red as overripe tomatoes, spread as though the heart in that violated torso were still pumping. Kate strained to hear the music, but the whoosh of ventricles, aorta, drowned it out–or was that the sound of her own heart beating in her ears?

Richard was on top of her now, erect, wedged between her thighs, warm breath on her cheek.

Behind Kate’s closed eyes, Elena’s stagnant pupils reflected nothing.

Kate’s eyes flipped open. Beyond her husband’s naked shoulder, linen curtains, just barely discernible, undulated like ghosts. Her breath caught in her throat.

“You okay?”

“Yes,” she lied, pulled him closer. “I’m fine.”

Yes, it was okay. She was okay. She’d keep her eyes open, that’s all. She picked out objects in the dark, stared at them until their shapes were tangible, clear: the antique brass handles of the armoire; a bottle of Bal à Versailles on her dresser; Willie’s assemblage–shards of wood, curling wires, impasto paint. But beside the painting a dark-bronze abstract sculpture appeared to pulsate on its stand, then slid off like primordial goo and slumped toward the baseboard, where it coagulated into something vaguely humanoid. From nowhere, a woman in a brown pantsuit materialized, stabbed at the lumpish form with gloved fingers.

She gasped just as Richard entered her, his body moving against hers, his cock a gently determined piston.