The Death Artist Read online

  He’s put a lot of thought into the next piece, wants it to be really subtle, challenging—for both of them. And this time he’s going for something really fantastic. He’s bored with solos. This one’s going to be a duet.

  Now, his biggest problem is waiting. He needs to disappear for a while, even if it’s only a few days, make them wonder where he’s gone.

  But how to satisfy his needs? Already there is that longing, the deep, almost crashing need. Will it work if there’s no audience? It used to, in the old days. Of course that was so long ago. He was a different person entirely. Now, things are expected of him. After all, he’s the death artist. And he can’t—he won’t—disappoint them.

  35

  It’s been three days, Liz. Not a word, nothing,” said Kate.

  The front parlor of Payard Patisserie was packed. Skinny women nibbled on salads. Housekeepers picked up boxed cakes. Nannies tried to control their young wards after sugar shock. Kate and Liz were huddled at a small table in this Upper East Side version of the famous French bakery. “I think he’s playing with me, disappearing like this. But still, I keep looking over my shoulder. I can’t sleep.” She pushed her salad aside. “Can’t eat.”

  “If only that would happen to me.” Liz glanced at her half-eaten three-layer pastry concoction. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make light of it. Look, my guess would be he’s just protecting himself, gone into retreat.” She noted the neighboring tables before speaking again, careful to keep her voice down. “Serial killers are smart, Kate. You got too close. He’s backed away. But . . . he’ll be back.”

  “I know that. Believe me, I won’t let my guard down. I couldn’t even if I wanted to.”

  “Good. Just remember, his crimes are manifestations of his fantasies—which he’s acting out—and those fantasies won’t just go away.”

  “No, but I’m pretty sure I can now figure out his fantasies based on the way he stages his crimes.”

  “Serial killers are particularly cunning, Kate. They honestly believe what they are doing is normal and acceptable, which makes them very hard to catch. A significant percentage of them are never apprehended.”

  “Oh, that cheers me up.”

  “Look, I know you’re smart.” Liz peered at Kate gravely. “But every killing makes him stronger, more confident, more convinced that he’s smarter than you, Kate. And mentally sparring with a killer is a dangerous game.”

  “I know. But it’s a little late for me to back off now.” Kate flagged the waiter. “Coffee, please. Black.” She sighed. “Hey, you know a guy from the Bureau, a shrink named Freeman?”

  Liz shook her head.

  “Well, he knows who you are and that we’re friends.”

  “The Bureau never sleeps.”

  “He seemed smart, plus he listened. I liked him. Didn’t hurt that he was good-looking.” Kate smiled. “At least this little vacation gave me time to have my hair done and get a manicure, though I thought I’d just about explode sitting in that chair. Which reminds me. The gala is tomorrow night. Did you get the dresses I had sent over from Bergdorf’s?”

  “Yeah,” said Liz. “But I decided I’d be more comfortable in my plaid polyester jumpsuit.”

  Kate didn’t even blink. “Which one did you choose—the black or the red?”

  “I’m going with the red number. I’ve never had a Valentino—Rudolph or otherwise.”

  “You’ll be stunning.”

  “How’d you know my size?”

  “I just asked for the biggest one they had.” Kate laughed.

  “Bitch.” Liz slapped Kate’s hand, laughed, too.

  Kate suddenly deflated. ‘Truthfully, Liz, I don’t know how I’m going to get through the event. All I can think about is the case, that this maniac is still out there, waiting, and that we can’t do a damn thing about it until he makes his move.” She sighed deeply. “I don’t know how I read those signals so wrong.”

  “Obviously you weren’t alone. The squad agreed with you, didn’t they?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  Liz patted her mouth with a napkin. “So, what other avenues are there?”

  Kate took a sip of coffee, thought a moment. “Well . . . There’s the stolen art—the altarpiece that was snatched from Bill Pruitt’s apartment that never turned up.”

  “I’d go back and rethink everything. That’s what you’d have done in the old days, right?”

  Kate and Slattery were poring over the Bill Pruitt file for what seemed like the hundredth time.

  “Usually they have two doormen working Pruitt’s Park Avenue building.” Maureen Slattery picked a piece of lint off her cotton sweater. “But that night, the night he died, one of the doormen had the Hong Kong flu or something. Let’s see . . .” She plucked the Pruitt folder from a mass of papers on her desk. “The one who was working said no one came up to Pruitt’s that night except for a well-dressed man in his forties. But he thinks that was a lot earlier than we pegged the time of death. And Pruitt must have okayed the guy because everyone is announced in that building.”

  “Did the doorman see the guy leave?”

  Slattery consulted her papers, shrugged. “Doesn’t say.”

  “You mean no one ever did a follow-up on this guy?”

  “I was the one who talked to the doorman. He didn’t remember the guy’s name. All he said was he was white, tall, in his forties, well dressed. Nothing suspicious about him.”

  “Damien Trip was tall, dressed neatly. Maybe a little young for that description.” Kate tapped her finger against her lip. “Was the doorman ever shown Trip’s picture?”

  “Uh . . . no.” Slattery looked down. “I would have done it, should have, but things snowballed kinda fast, you know.”

  Kate caught Slattery’s guilty look. “Forget it, Maureen. It wouldn’t have made any difference.” She lifted Trip’s arrest photo from Slattery’s file. “But I think I’ll show his picture around just for the hell of it.”

  “The doorman admitted to a couple of breaks that night—three minutes for a pee and five minutes for a cup a coffee.”

  “That means at least ten to empty his bladder, fifteen or twenty to refill it.”

  “Probably.”

  “So someone else could easily have slipped through.” Kate lifted the toxicology sheet on Pruitt from Slattery’s desk. “Marijuana. Cocaine. Amyl nitrite. A two-point alcohol level. Jesus. Wasn’t that enough to kill the guy?”

  “According to the lab, no. Pruitt was stoned, but it was all just traces—not enough to kill him.”

  Kate looked again at one of the crime scene photos. “The coroner said that the bruise on Pruitt’s jaw was fresh, that it happened either during the assault, or sometime just before.” Kate thought a minute. “Were there any prints on the scene that were never typed?”

  Slattery rustled through the papers. “There were two sets of unidentified prints, which didn’t link up with anyone on file. I guess until we catch our unsub we got nothing to compare them with.”

  Grecian urns in glass cases. Black-and-white marble floors. The lobby at 870 Park Avenue could have passed for an antiquities gallery—if only the men in uniform were guards and not doormen.

  Kate found the one who was on duty the night Pruitt died.

  “I already talked to the police,” he said, regarding Kate suspiciously. She looked too much like the well-dressed women who passed through these doors every day to be a cop. “I gave them my statement—many times.”

  Kate displayed her temporary ID, along with a photo of Damien Trip.

  The doorman’s frosty mien melted. He took the photograph into his gray-gloved hand, leaned back against the in-laid marble wall. “No.” He shook his head. “I never saw this man. Sorry.”

  “Are you sure? Never?”

  “I’m certain.”

  “According to your statement, Bill Pruitt received a visitor that night.”

  “Yes. But it’s not the man in your photo. He was older. And not blond.”
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  “Can you describe him? Any distinguishing features that you might remember?”

  “Well, he was tall. And wearing a raincoat.” He closed his eyes, sucked on his lower lip. “But his face is a blur.”

  “You remember his coat but not his face?”

  The doorman looked slightly abashed. “A lot of people pass through this lobby.”

  “You must have announced him to Mr. Pruitt. Do you recall a name?”

  The doorman looked down at his perfectly polished shoes, frowned. “It was a crazy night. I was working the door alone. Patrick had the flu, and no one else was on, and so . . .”

  “That’s okay.” Kate patted his arm.

  Could there be something in Pruitt’s apartment that might link him to Trip? They already had the Amateur Films porno tapes—what else could there be? She couldn’t remember seeing Pruitt’s diary. And what about that damn altarpiece? She was here, she might as well have a look.

  Bill Pruitt’s apartment could have been a set for Masterpiece Theatre, all dark wood and leather. Kate scanned the art-work—mostly French Impressionist, a few John Marin watercolor seascapes, a smattering of Early American prints, a couple of Steichen black-and-white photographs from the thirties, but not a sign of any rare Italian art—at least not on view. The furniture appeared to be in place, though the carved doors of a huge armoire were open, the contents—photo albums, rare books, a couple of antique vases—obviously rearranged, pushed into corners, or stacked on the floor in front.

  In the library, Kate went right for Pruitt’s large oak desk. But the crime scene boys had obviously beaten her to it; every drawer was open, papers in disarray. The only things left were bills and canceled checks.

  Had the killer gone through these papers, too?

  Once more, Kate got that eerie feeling she had had at Elena’s apartment—that the killer had been here, that she was doing exactly what he had done. She could sense him like a shadow, hovering. She wheeled around. But there was nothing there. She took a deep breath.

  At the scene of the crime—Pruitt’s bathroom—Kate found little: medicine cabinet empty, nothing on the tub’s edge. The only indication that a human being had ever lived here was a digital scale. Kate pictured Bill Pruitt in high black socks and starched white boxers weighing in, worrying about heart attacks, hardening arteries, strokes. Poor Bill. Those were, as it turned out, the least of his worries.

  So what happened, exactly? Had the killer come in, interrupted Bill’s bath? Pruitt would have put on a robe to answer the door. Then what? They fought. Struggled. The man dragged Bill into the tub, held him under until he died? Or did he punch Bill, then fill the tub and drop him into it? Pruitt was stoned. He would not have put up much of a fight.

  Kate tried to imagine the night. Pruitt dead, his body arranged like the painting The Death of Marat. Then the killer must have moved around the apartment in search of his memento. Was the altarpiece in plain sight? No, probably hidden. It was, after all, a stolen artwork. So the guy took his time going through Pruitt’s things.

  Kate tried to retrace the killer’s steps. She moved from the bathroom into the bedroom.

  It had been torn apart by the cops: the naked mattress sad, sagging slightly in the center; closet open, business suits and blazers shoved around, a pair of charcoal pants on the floor rumpled over several pairs of shoes—wing tips, tasseled loafers, Top-Siders; dresser drawers like small open tombs, their contents—perfectly laundered white and blue shirts with WMP monogrammed on the pockets, along with nine or ten pairs of black socks and at least a dozen starched white boxer shorts—scattered on the floor.

  Nothing like dying to have your life laid bare, your personal artifacts treated with contempt, thought Kate. She checked the bedside tables, pulled open drawers. Nothing of value left, only a pack of unused lubricated Trojans, a half-eaten pack of Spearmint Life Savers, nail clippers.

  Kate moved from the bedroom back to the bath, once again into the library. But it was no use.

  The living room was the only room that had not been ransacked by the cops. Kate stopped a moment to admire a painting. She might as well; there was nothing more to do. A Monet landscape, his garden at Giverny. But the dark room swallowed most of the details. Kate threw back the heavy drapes for a better look. Light poured into the room.

  She lingered a minute, her eyes playing over Monet’s impasto paint and lush color; and when she turned to go, she noticed, too, how the light picked out the fleur-de-lis flocking in the wallpaper, the grain in the dark wood wainscoting, the detail in the Oriental rugs, and something else peeking from the edge of the rug, almost but not quite hidden by the leg of a small end table—a tiny object, glittering in the shaft of light.

  A cuff link.

  Kate gripped it between her thumb and forefinger: a perfect oval of eighteen-karat gold outlined in black onyx, elegant without being fussy. She stiffened. It must be one of Pruitt’s. And why not? It was a common enough style. Still, Kate held her breath as she rotated the cuff link and raised it for closer inspection.

  The inscription was as clear as the day she’d had it engraved: “To R. Love K.”

  Oh my God. The tall, well-dressed stranger.

  36

  Twenty minutes to get to Richard’s office. Twenty minutes of pure hell.

  Richard’s cuff link at the scene of Bill Pruitt’s murder.

  How was it possible?

  Kate stared out the cab’s windows at office buildings, people, signs, lights—everything a blur.

  In the outer office, Richard’s secretary, Anne-Marie, smiled, put her hand out, but Kate sprinted past her.

  “Kate!” Richard’s blue eyes widened.

  Kate stopped short, half in, half out of his office.

  Richard made awkward introductions. “Mr. Krauser. My wife.”

  “Oh.” Kate inhaled, sharply. “Sorry, I—”

  “That’s all right.” The man was either very gracious or scared by the look on Kate’s face. “Your husband and I were just finished.”

  Richard was eyeing Kate suspiciously as he closed the door behind his client. “Do you know who that was, Kate? The German investment banker, who—”

  Kate rolled the cuff link onto his desk.

  “Oh.” The anger drained out of Richard’s voice. “I’ve been looking for this.”

  “I’ll bet you have.” Kate stood still, holding her breath.

  “Where did you find it?”

  “At Bill Pruitt’s apartment.”

  For a moment neither one of them spoke. Then Kate exploded: “Jesus Christ, Richard! What does this mean? Explain it to me. Please.”

  Richard paced to the end of his office, adjusted a framed Warhol Marilyn, which had been perfectly straight in the first place. He turned, regarded her gravely. “Pruitt was embezzling money from Let There Be a Future. I’d found some discrepancies in the financials Pruitt kept for the foundation. I went to see him that night, and—” Richard spoke calmly, though he continued to adjust frames, pick imaginary lint from his pin-striped jacket, shuffle papers on his desk, pace. “Well, it’s not the way it looks, damn it. I simply went there to have him explain it to me. The bastard laughed in my face. He was drunk. I just sort of lost it. I punched him.” Richard’s lanky frame collapsed onto the leather love seat below a series of David Hockney prints—all swimming pools and palm trees and California-blue sky. He looked up at Kate. “You don’t think I killed him, do you?”

  Kate stood looking down at Richard. “I don’t know what I think.” She felt like collapsing, too.

  “Oh, come on, Kate. It’s me. Richard. Your husband.”

  Yes. The husband who had lied to her. Deceived her. Kate’s hazel eyes flashed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I wanted to, but . . .”

  “But what?” Kate shook her head back and forth, trying to make sense of it, but images were flashing in her mind: Richard punching Bill Pruitt, that cuff link on the floor, the bruise on Pruitt’s chin. Kate pressed
her fingertips to her forehead as though trying to turn off the switch to this awful movie. “After ten years of marriage, how could you not tell me?”

  “I had every intention of telling you, but Elena had just been murdered, and it didn’t seem important.” Richard rubbed at his temples. “I figured I’d just tell you later.”

  “Later?” Kate laced her fingers together, her knuckles turning white, but she was listening. She would hear this. “So what happened later?”

  “Later, Pruitt was dead. I still intended to tell you. But Arlen James didn’t want anyone to know about Pruitt’s embezzling from Let There Be a Future. Arlen and I intended to confront Pruitt together the next day. But when Bill was found dead, Arlen was in a panic, worried about the foundation’s reputation. He didn’t want the embezzlement story made public. It was bad enough the foundation was dealing with Elena’s death, then Bill’s. But who’s going to support a charity that can’t hold on to its money?”

  True. Still, Kate could not help all of the doubt that had been stirred up in her. She felt shaky, confused.

  “I was freaked. I mean, Bill was dead, and I’d been there, in his apartment, and we fought—”

  Richard suddenly looked like a little boy, and a lost one. Kate had the urge to hold him, hug him toward her, pat his curls, tell him it was all right. But at the same time everything he’d ever said to her was suddenly suspect, tainted. Was he really working late all those nights? What about the trips out of town? And if he really hit Pruitt, why not take it a step further—that he killed the man? Though she fought it, the image of Pruitt in the bath, Richard holding the man under, took shape in her mind. And what about the way Richard had always looked at Elena—was it more than paternal? Jesus. She did not want to think these thoughts, but just couldn’t stop them.

  “I thought we were a team,” she said.

  “We are.”

  “Were,” said Kate. “If you’d told me, I might have been able to help.”

  “How, Kate?” Richard shook his head. “After Bill’s death it just made better sense for you not to know—knowing could have put you in a very awkward position—you working the cases, and your husband having had a fight with one of the victims. How would that look? It just got too late.” He opened his hands, palms up. “I figured, hell, let it go. Tell her when it’s all over.” Richard lifted a glass paperweight off his desk, rolled it from one hand to the other. “Bill Pruitt was perfectly fine when I left him. Come on, Kate. You know me. I could never kill anyone.”