The Death Artist Page 31

  “You and McKinnon, heh, heh, heh.”

  The next person to say a single word was going to get decked. Brown tore the photo off, was about to crumble it in his hand, but couldn’t quite do it. After all, there he was, standing next to Henry Fucking Kissinger. Brown actually smiled, then quickly stashed the picture into his pocket. At least Vonette would get a kick out of it.

  “Brown!” The uniform who called his name was all the way down a long dark hall, just outside Mead’s office, heading toward him at breakneck speed. Brown thought, If this kid says one word—one fucking word about that picture—he’s a dead man.

  “Brown.” The kid stopped short, breathless. “Mead wants you in the third-floor conference room. ASAP.”

  The plastic bag of Kate’s mail sat heavily in the center of the long conference table. Slattery was handing the uniform a large manila envelope as Floyd Brown came into the room. “The lab,” said Slattery. “Tell Hernandez it’s priority. Prints and fibers. Inside and out.”

  Kate was leaning over the image they had just received, reading glasses on, her brow furrowed.

  Mead was beside her, magnifier in hand. “What do you make of it? Do you think—”

  “Please,” said Kate, a hand up to silence him. “Give me a minute.”

  There were two images. One tall, vertical; the other, almost a square. Both contained vague but wildly painted figures in swirling visceral pinks and hemoglobin reds, slashes of crimson and magenta.

  “Looks like a bloodbath,” said Slattery.

  “Shhh!” Kate tucked her hair behind her ears. “Okay. First off, it’s two paintings pasted side by side. They’re both by Willem de Kooning, the great American Abstract Expressionist painter.”

  “They don’t look so great,” said Slattery.

  “They are,” said Kate. “Take my word for it.”

  “Doesn’t sound American,” said Brown.

  “He’s Dutch,” said Kate, trying to be patient. “But he lived, and worked, in this country.”

  Mead whined, anxious. “But what do they mean?”

  “If you guys don’t shut up for two minutes—so I can think,” said Kate, nailing them each with a murderous look.

  Mead backed up.

  Slattery said, “Sorry.”

  In the near distance, there were footsteps, phones ringing, sirens. But the conference room had gone dead quiet.

  A minute passed. Kate remained hunched over the pictures. The squad seemed to be holding its collective breath.

  “Maybe it’ll help if I free-associate a minute,” Kate finally said. “De Kooning. Abstract Expressionism. Two pictures. Two paintings.” She stopped a moment, stared at the wall of crime scene photos. “Two paintings. Two victims! He must be going after two people this time. Jesus!”

  “Are you sure?” asked Mead, his hand twitching on his cellular.

  “No. But I’d say it’s a good bet. I dared him to be clear, remember? This is the first time he’s given us two pictures—side by side. And they’re both figures. That’s two people. I’m guessing everything he does now has to be taken literally.”

  “Shit,” Mead muttered under his breath.

  “I’m going to need my art books,” said Kate. “I want to see the titles of these two—all the pertinent info.”

  “We can try the Internet,” said Slattery.

  “Maybe,” said Kate. “Though I’m not sure these paintings would be there. They’re not particularly well known pictures by de Kooning.”

  Mead already had a patrol car on the line. “I got a car on Central Park West and Eightieth,” he announced. “They can be in your apartment in minutes.” He handed the phone to Kate.

  “Okay,” she said. “Don’t scare the doormen—or my housekeeper. Once you’re inside, I can direct you to the books.” A minute later, Kate led them into her library, specified the two books she needed. “They’ll be here soon,” she said, handing the phone back to Mead. “Depends on the traffic.” She went back to the two paintings. “It’s all got to be in here. Clear. Obvious. That was my challenge.”

  “Suppose he didn’t take you up on it?” asked Slattery.

  “Then we’re sunk,” said Kate. “But I’d bet my life that he did.” She looked from one painting to the other, took a deep breath. “Damn it. I’m stuck. Now you can start asking me questions—anything to jog my brain.”

  “Well, I can sort of see the two figures,” said Slattery. “But I don’t really get it. I mean, they’re a mess, all over the place. What’s the deal?”

  “Okay,” said Kate. “Let’s see if I can sum it up. The artist, de Kooning, wants you to feel as though the painting is coming into existence, like he’s painting it right in front of your eyes.”

  “Oh. Yeah. I sort of get that,” said Slattery. “The way the paint is all swirling around and drippy, right?”

  “Right,” said Kate. “The figures are emerging during the act of painting—right out of the artist’s subconscious, right out of the paint. They’re coming into being.” Kate paced. “What else? What else?” She tapped her lip, ran her hand through her hair. “De Kooning was part of Abstract Expressionism. Jackson Pollock. Franz Kline. Those artists are all about the process. The moment of creation. The painting as an extension of their body.” She stopped short. “Wait a minute. Wait a fucking minute! That’s what my Ph.D. thesis was about—painting as an extension of the body.”

  “How could he know that?” asked Brown.

  “It says so right in the back of my book—and you can be sure that he owns a copy.” An idea took hold in Kate’s mind; a look of shock spread over her face. “Jesus. I just had a horrible thought—that he’s going to prove to me how fucking clear he can be—that he’s going to illustrate my goddamn thesis.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Brown.

  “Painting as an extension of the body. He’s going to use a body—a victim—to actually paint a painting.” The thought came into her mind so clearly, it shocked her. It was like that feeling she kept having, that he was right behind her, directing her, whispering in her ear. As if she could hear him thinking.

  “How’s he going to do that?” asked Slattery.

  Kate shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “Who?” asked Mead.

  Kate returned to the de Kooning prints. “It’s got to be in here.” She reached for the magnifier, ran it slowly over the reproductions. “Wait. Look. He’s drawn on the paintings. Just like he did on the Kienholz reproduction. It’s very faint, but . . .” Kate pointed at the pictures, handed Mead the magnifying glass. “Right there. On the left painting he’s drawn a tiny butterfly and a tiny postage stamp. See?”

  Mead eyed the paintings through the glass, nodded. “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “I don’t know,” said Kate. “Help me out here, people.”

  “Insects?” said Slattery.

  “Mailmen,” said Mead.

  “But what connects them?” Kate shook her head, turned to Mead. “I know this is a smoke-free building, Randy, but if I don’t have a cigarette I’m going to explode.”

  “Smoke away,” he said.

  Kate lit up, inhaled. “So what connects stamps and butterflies?”

  “They’re both small,” said Mead.

  “Not all of them,” said Brown. “I got an uncle who collects butterflies. He’s got a couple of big mothers.”

  “Collects . . .” Kate blew smoke toward the ceiling. “People collect stamps and butterflies. Shit! That’s it! Last time it was a dealer. This time, it’s a collector! Two collectors. He’s completing the art pie. Painter, museum president, dealer, now it’s collectors. Shit.”

  “But who?” asked Mead, sucking his teeth as if he were on speed. “Who?”

  A couple of uniforms burst into the room with Kate’s books—two large coffee-table volumes on Willem de Kooning. “There was a fucking tie-up in midtown,” said one.

  Kate grabbed one book, shoved the other at Brown. “Here. Look for either o
f the paintings he’s sent us.”

  The two of them started flipping pages furiously.

  Mead barked into his cellular, calling for an emergency squad to stand by.

  “Got one,” said Brown.

  “Me, too,” said Kate. They laid their open books side by side. Kate went from one page to the other, ran her finger under titles. On the left: The Visit. 1966–1967. On the right: Woman, Sag Harbor. 1964.

  Kate flipped to the back of the books. “The Visit is in the Tate Gallery, in London. So that’s no good.” She scanned the page, her finger sliding along other titles. “Here. Here it is. The other one. Woman, Sag Harbor. Collection of Nathan and Bea Sachs, New York.”

  “Get the phone book,” said Mead to one of the uniforms.

  “I know them,” said Kate. “They live on Park Avenue, around Sixty-seventh.”

  Mead had the cellular to his ear, already disseminating the information.

  “No, wait,” said Kate. “They have a place out in the Hamptons. Of course. Sag Harbor.” She looked at Brown and Slattery, then Mead. “I asked him to be clear, didn’t I?”

  Now everyone was moving fast.

  Slattery got hold of the emergency squad at Patrol.

  Mead dispatched cars to the Park Avenue apartment, just to be sure, then spelled it out for the Suffolk County Police, giving them the particulars, telling them to get out to the Sag Harbor residence, ASAP. “I gotta call Tapell. And she’ll have to notify the Bureau.”

  Kate stared at the de Kooning paintings. What was it Slattery had said? “Like a bloodbath.” She hoped to God they would get there fast enough to prevent it from becoming one.

  Bea Sachs was disappointed. First, because her husband, Nathan, had not come with her to the artist’s studio, and second, that the artist, now unrolling a large abstract drawing in the corner of the small East Hampton studio, was old. Well, not old exactly, but not young either. Forty-plus, for sure, and not a household name yet, and on top of that, a woman. Three strikes. Forget it. Did this middle-aged artist really think that collectors on the level of Bea and Nathan Sachs could possibly be interested?

  Bea managed a tight smile. She smoothed her short tennis skirt, crossed her legs, which she had been told—by many of her closest friends—were as good as any thirty-year-old’s. Not bad for a woman who admitted to sixty-five. Particularly since next week she would turn seventy-three.

  The artist was saying something about form and function, but Bea wasn’t really listening. What she was thinking was that she would absolutely kill her friend Babs for setting up this dreadful studio visit. After all, she and Nathan had spent years building up their art collection, starting out with second-rate Impressionists, which they sold, of course, after realizing, to their horror, that no one, absolutely no one, gave a hoot for second-rate anything. They made a damn good profit, too, selling it all at auction. And then, with the help of that savvy private art dealer, they started buying up the Abstract Expressionists—Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell—in the late sixties, when the market for that kind of art was way down, everyone dumping it for the new Pop art.

  The “Ab Ex” paintings now hung in their Sag Harbor home, along with a few Warhols and Lichtensteins—naturally, they did have to buy a few of those Pop icons.

  Oh, yes, she and Nathan were very hip collectors. One look at the art that covered the walls of their Park Avenue duplex—the latest, hottest artists to hit the scene in the past five years, and not an unknown name in the group—and anyone could see that.

  Now Bea was trying to think of what to say to cut this visit short, to get home to Nathan, who was coming down with a cold.

  But the artist kept displaying one painting after another. “This one is the progenitor of so much of my work,” she said.

  Oh, brother. Bea thought of a question, just to be polite. “Do you show in New York?”

  The woman artist shook her head. “I would, only my astrologer doesn’t think I’m ready.”

  Oy vey. Bea smiled weakly. “But isn’t it hard selling your work without New York representation?”

  The artist looked distressed by the question.

  Bea was so bored she could cry. And this middle-aged, unknown woman artist just would not take the hint. Every time Bea started to get up, the artist hauled out another boring little abstraction. Abstraction? Come on. Where’s the edge? The cool. Something brand-new that would spark conversation at Bea’s weekly dinner parties.

  Oh, no. The woman was making her tea. Some horrible-smelling whole-earth sort of brew. Bea sighed. She could see there was no way she’d be getting out of here anytime soon. And with poor Nathan waiting for her at home—waiting for the NyQuil and nose drops she’d promised to pick up at the local pharmacy.

  39

  Damn. Who’d have expected a tiny, shriveled old man to be so heavy?

  He’s got his hands under the old man’s armpits, dragging him back and forth, up and down along the wall. Good thing he is wearing the plasticized coverall, or he’d be a fucking mess.

  Nathan Sachs moans, half conscious.

  “You’re making history, Natie boy. History!”

  The once-white wall is a mass of splatters and streaks, looping, swirling red blood, the barely discernible image of a figure emerging.

  “We’re getting there, Natie. Hang on.” He’s breathing heavy, the weight of the old man getting to him. “Just a little bit more. It’s not quite there yet.”

  He strains to lift Nathan Sachs higher, to get the old guy’s stumps up into a clean white area of wall. “That’s it. Just there. We’ve got to concentrate now, Nate. We’ve gotta make it perfectly clear.” The blood, spurting out of the man’s wrists a minute ago, is starting to slow down. He hauls the old man back and forth, back and forth. There’s a puddle of blood on the floor. The old man’s canvas deck shoes drag through it, whipping it up, creating bubbles of bloody foam.

  “It’s looking good,” he says, then almost stumbles over one of Nathan Sachs’s hands. He kicks the amputated appendage away in disgust. “Who needs that,” he says. “I’m painting with the body. The body!”

  He stands back for a view of his painting, the weight of the old man growing heavy in his arms. He drops Nathan Sachs into the crimson river at their feet. The old man curls into a fetal position, his bloody stumps tight against his body. He shudders once. Then lies stock-still.

  Where is she? He checks his watch. He can’t wait much longer. He’ll have to move fast.

  He looks over at the other white wall, the inferior-quality painting he’s taken down to make room for the masterpiece he is going to create with Bea Sachs. Damn her. Leave it to a woman to screw up his perfect plan, his duet. He plucks Nathan Sachs’s other hand off the floor, dips the index finger in blood, then prints his initials—a large D, then an A—in the lower right corner of the wall. But a moment later, he reconsiders. It’s not quite right. He rubs them out with the back of the hand, dips Nathan’s finger in some fresh blood, replaces the letters with a small d and large K.

  Yes, that’s it.

  He stares at Nathan’s severed limb—an interesting prolongation of his own hand—one more way to make a painting as an extension of the body. He should have thought of it sooner. It would have been a lot easier than lugging the old man around.

  But he wanted to be clear. Literal. And a body is a body, no getting around it. This way he is certain he will not disappoint Kate.

  He’s feeling so close to her, as though she were here, in this room, watching him work, viewing the finished painting with him, making aesthetic judgments. What would she say?

  A bit too red?

  Perhaps.

  He scans the room for something, anything he might be able to use, finds it in the fireplace, a few shards of burned wood, homemade charcoal.

  Now, with a few bold strokes, he suggests the outline of a female form, nothing too specific, then draws a pair of large circular breasts, the hardwood charcoal biting into the still-we
t blood on the wall.

  He moves back, takes it in, absentmindedly using Nathan Sachs’s hand to scratch his itchy nose.

  My God, the painting is even better than he expected. She will be so impressed.

  He tucks the hand into the pocket of his coverall. He’s decided to keep it.

  He checks his watch. Should he wait another minute for the wife? No, he’d better not. If Kate has figured it out as he imagines, they will be here soon.

  He doesn’t bother taking the portable electric jigsaw lying on the floor beside Sachs’s body. There’s no need. He’s left no prints on it.

  Once outside, he pulls the plastic bags off his shoes, strips out of the jumpsuit, stuffs them all into the easy-to-carry gym bag he’s left by the Sachs’s back door.

  A minute later he is running past the swimming pool, scaling the picket fence, disappearing into the arbor of trees. There are sirens shrieking in the distance, but he’s almost at the car now.

  Bea Sachs trembled. Kate laid her sweater over the woman’s thin shoulders.

  Mead was huddled with the chief of the Sag Harbor Police Department and three of his local detectives. They’d arrived at the scene just as Bea Sachs was putting her key in the front door. Crime scene cops were now crawling all over the Sachs’s home like pigs sniffing out truffles.

  Kate, Brown, Slattery, and Mead had been in the same car for over two hours, Mead driving ninety miles an hour, the siren blaring the whole way out on the Long Island Expressway. Kate’s head was aching, her nerves on edge.

  Bea Sachs had been over the events of the day five or six times. Her hands were shaking. Her lips trembled as she spoke. She’d left the house around noon to play tennis at the club. She had called Nathan just after to see how he was feeling. He said he was feeling a bit worse, that he was going to take a nap, that she should make the studio visit without him. Bea had promised to pick up the cold remedies he’d requested. Their last communication. Then she drove to East Hampton, to the artist’s studio. After that, to the Sag Harbor Pharmacy.

  The Suffolk detectives were making the usual inquiries—any enemies, anyone who was seeking retribution?—but Kate and the squad knew those were worthless questions. The death artist had chosen the couple—his symbol for art collectors—purely out of convenience. They fit the bill, and their house was isolated.