Death of an Artist (24 page)

He goes back through the studio, closes the door after him and goes downstairs, out to check, make sure she's dead. If she isn't, it's easy enough to finish the job, another twist of her neck, another smash of her head on concrete. Inside again, he starts the CD player, and using the sounds as his cues, he calls Freddi, ebullient, bubbling because, he tells her, Stef is coming along, has agreed to sell more work, recent work. The scream sounds, and he goes to the door and waits for the CD to finish. When it's done, he puts his cell near the planter where it's safe and will be found; his last call will confirm the time he called Freddi. He retrieves his CD and stashes it among music CDs in the van. Later he will reformat it or simply burn something new onto it. Then he waits for the cops and act two, where he plays the bereaved, shocked, and agonized widower. A little soapy water in his eyes makes that perfect, he is weeping for his beloved.

But the numbers didn't add up, Tony thought morosely. Dale needed money now, and Stef's art was more like a separate 401(k) that would pay off over the years. He got up to replenish his drink and put on his Windbreaker. The apartment had been hot and stuffy when he got home that night; now it had cooled off a little too much and he was nowhere near ready for bed.

He sat in his darkened living room, lit only by a sink light from the kitchen. He would find the right guy in Newark, pass on the information about the fake ID and credit cards, let them go on from there, or not. There had been a scam going, he recalled, with flooded cars from one of the recent hurricanes. The cars were toast, and most of them ended up crushed to a block of metal and shipped off to China, where the metal was reprocessed. But some were sold cheap at salvage auctions for usable parts, and some of them ended up in used-car lots, cleaned up, paint touched up a little, and they were sold as good used cars, only to fall apart within a couple of months. Dale Oliver might have been involved, but it made no difference here and now.

Dale might take the whip to his stable, Tony thought then. He had looked over Dale's contract with the greeting-card corporation, a multibillion-dollar business with an insatiable need for new original art, not only for individual purchases, but wholesale to stores, big-box stores, mom-and-pop stores, and for charities that sent out thousands, hundreds of thousands, of packages of cards, hoping for return donations, new donors to add to their base. Corporations, universities, sales forces, all sent out thousands of cards, and they wanted original art for print cards as well as e-cards.

The payment schedule in Dale's contract agreed to pay him five thousand dollars for every two to four original works of art delivered to the corporation, depending on the quality of the paintings. The corporation then had the art to recycle forever after. According to Freddi, her artist Moira was making two thousand, and her work was going for two hundred fifty dollars a painting. That meant that twice a year Dale got five thousand, paid her one, and pocketed four thousand. With eleven artists already in his stable, it could mean a yearly income of up to a hundred thousand dollars, but it would be staggered throughout the year, and there was no guarantee that each and every one of the artists would keep producing at that rate. It wasn't like an automated factory cranking out endless strings of spaghetti. And Dale Oliver needed money now, within the next week or so.

Tony sat up straighter and drained his glass. Stef had produced thirty years' worth of art, hundreds of paintings, he thought, and recalled what Van had said, that Dale mentioned that all art was exploitable, even
David
was available as a refrigerator magnet.

“He intended to add Stef to his stable!” Tony said under his breath, and cursed.

She signed her death warrant when she signed that contract. Dale would have known about her past men, her past marriages. He would have known she would ditch him, nullify that contract, and he killed her to keep that from happening. Thirty years of art to exploit. Four thousand dollars at least for every two or three paintings he delivered. In Stef's case, he would keep it all, and neither Marnie nor Van would ever know what he had done, and that meant five thousand for every two or three works of art. Her work, even her more conventional work, was superior to anything else in his stable; no doubt hers would be worth more. He could sell hundreds of paintings to the corporation. A few big sales, a museum piece or two sold, would make her other art more valuable, more expensive. That was Dale's out, his pot of gold at rainbow's end. If she hadn't played a game with her name on the contract, it would have been done by now, and he would have been out from under the bus.

But first she had to die.

Of course, Dale would deny that such was his intention. He said, she said. A draw. What a prosecutor would see was a suspicion, possibly a plausible suspicion, a hypothetical method, an equally hypothetical motive, and not a scrap of hard evidence of murder. Even a mediocre defense attorney would demolish a case like that without raising a sweat.

Tony brooded, lifted his empty glass, put it down. He didn't want to get drunk. He went into the kitchen, poured leftover coffee instead, and heated it in the microwave. It was bitter, but he sipped it, welcoming the bitterness as fitting.

The real question, he thought then, was what in hell did he think he was doing? Stef had meant nothing to him. An unstable woman, eccentric, thoughtless, often cruel, indifferent to anyone's opinion, a burden on her mother, and a trial for her daughter. And a brilliant artist who was tormented by the truth she was compelled to paint. An artist just reaching the height of her talent. What would she have done in the years ahead? But she had been nothing to him.

Her family meant nothing to him, acquaintances, no more than that. Van was forever off-limits, and Marnie, with a multitude of friends, needed nothing he had to offer except for this one task that he could not accomplish.

“Knock it off,” he muttered to himself. He knew perfectly well what he was doing. He intended to apply so much pressure to Dale Oliver, coming from all directions, that he would be forced deeper and deeper into a corner until in desperation he would do something stupid, something that would justify Tony's shooting him.

He was planning to kill Dale Oliver. Not just beat the shit out of him. He was going to kill him. Possibly to make up for all the others who had gotten away with it. Possibly because of that desperate, scared kid holding a gun, the kid he should have shot and didn't. Possibly because his own guys had shot him in the back. Possibly because he had never shot anyone. Possibly because for twenty years he had been a good cop, knew exactly where the line was and was always impeccable about keeping on the right side of it. Possibly because he had come to hate and despise Dale Oliver more with every new bit of information that had come to light. He knew he had lost any shred of objectivity, a cardinal sin in investigations. He no longer could step back and look at this case with an impersonal eye. He had let his feelings take over. If this had happened when he was still on the homicide detail, at this point his captain, Mark Rosini, would have sent him off for a vacation. He had no intention of walking away.

The line he had observed for so long had vanished. Poof! Gone.

It was late, and he was tired down to his bones. He poured out the remaining bitter coffee, rinsed the cup, and turned off the light. In the bathroom, brushing his teeth, he looked at his reflection in the mirror and said in a low voice, “Welcome, Wyatt Earp.”

Sleep refused to come. He lay with his eyes closed, pretending he was drifting off, and his mind kept going over the past few days, that one day in particular. Van had made the kid with his gun leap into his head again. His shaking hands, dead white face, big scared eyes magnified by his glasses.

His thoughts took a fast-forward to the day Mark Rosini had come to his apartment. Captain Rosini, longtime friend, his superior.

“Goddamn, Tony, you're looking better,” Mark said heartily when Tony admitted him to the apartment.

Not quite a lie, but close. At least no tubes were in various parts of his body as they had been the last time Mark had visited at the hospital. Using crutches, Tony made his way back to a recliner chair and motioned toward the couch.

Mark perched on the couch. He was lean with a voracious appetite, the envy of those who claimed that looking at food made them gain weight. He was ten years older than Tony, not good in social situations, and was an extremely good captain. There was an awkward silence that Tony felt no inclination to break. Finally Mark said, “The guys send their best wishes.”

Tony let it pass. That wasn't what Mark had come to say.

“Lincoln Doherty's been around,” Mark said after another pause. Doherty was with the law firm that handled what the press sometimes referred to as delicate situations. “You know the family sued for ten million? They're about to settle for something like two.”

Still Tony made no comment. A common enough practice. Get it settled and out of sight as fast as possible. Avoid going to court, no matter what. Bury it. He knew.

“And, goddamn it! They're trying to give you the shaft! I'm supposed to persuade you to take that desk job. Hell with that desk job,” Mark said, and for the first time Tony felt Mark had left the script. He was winging it. “I talked to Sid this afternoon. He's sticking to his guns. He told Doherty to fuck off, meet again in court if that's what it takes. I told Sid anything I can do, any of the guys can do, we're there for you. I mean that job, if you wanted it, great with me. But to force it on you. They want to keep you in the chain of command, keep you quiet. Fuck that!”

“Thanks, Mark,” Tony said. “I appreciate that.”

Tony had been in law school with Sid Byerly for a couple of years. Sid had continued, and they had remained close friends. Sid was a successful trial attorney. He had come storming into the hospital while Tony was still groggy with dope and he had raged, “Not a word! For God's sake don't sign anything! Keep your mouth shut. Not even name, rank, and serial. They know who the fuck you are. This is my baby, Tony. Mine. Your own guys shot you in the back, for Christ sake! Goddamn cowboys! This one is mine, and don't you forget it.”

Tony nodded at Mark. He knew Sid was sticking to his original demands. A good settlement, total medical coverage for the rest of Tony's life, highest disability pension, enough to live on comfortably for a year or two after he finally got around to the hip replacement.

“He'll get what he's after,” Mark said. “He'll get all he's after. What's next for you, Tony?”

“I don't know,” Tony said. “Out, away. That's as far as I've got. Someplace where I don't have to wonder if everyone I see on the street is packing a gun, where kids don't point guns at their parents. The cowboys are in charge, Mark, and I'm tired. Just tired. From the highest office in the whole fucking country to the box beds in alleys, nothing but guns, trigger-happy cowboys. They'll be sending newborns home from the hospital with their own little pink or blue first guns.” He paused and said bitterly, “It sucks, Mark, from top to bottom it sucks. Even when we nail them, they manage to walk. I want out of it.”

“Yeah,” Mark said heavily. “I hear you. Soon as Rory gets out of school, I'll be looking for that place, too. Let me know if you find it.” Rory was Mark's youngest son and had recently started going to the university. “You know when you're likely to take off?”

“Soon as I get rid of them,” Tony said, indicating the crutches. “And when Sid says go.”

Mark rose from the couch. “I guess that's what I came by to say.” He was awkward again. “I'll see you before you take off. But if you skip in the middle of the night, and I wouldn't blame you if it happened like that, well, you know.”

Tony pulled himself up and took his crutches again. “I know, Mark. Couple of weeks, maybe a month. There'll be time.”

“Yeah. Well, I'd better get back.” Mark went to the door, then turned and gave Tony a big hug. “You take care of yourself, Tony. Get that hip fixed. Just take care.”

“You, too. I'll let you know if I find that place.”

Lying in bed, the scene in his head real, fresh, and alive, Tony closed his eyes tighter. They had both been near tears that day. They had known that was the real good-bye. There might be a little party later, dinner with the guys, something, but that was the final good-bye.

Cowboys, he thought then. He had become one of the cowboys. It felt right, where he belonged, where he had a role to play.

 

19

V
AN
ROAMED
THROUGH
the house restlessly after delivering Josh to day care. Waiting for something to happen was the hardest part, she told herself several times, but that didn't help. Finally she decided to paint Josh's room, keep busy all day, accomplish something.

Marnie was nearly as restless as Van. She walked to the shop, where a folding screen had been put in front of the alcove. Molly's two nieces were working. They smiled brightly at her and continued helping customers. The shop was busy with summer people looking for souvenirs, postcards, sweatshirts, whatever. She didn't linger and had no desire to talk to anyone in town, accept condolences again, and the looks of sorrow that appeared on nearly everyone's face when people saw her. She walked back home.

Later she stood in the doorway of Josh's promised room and for a moment felt disoriented because it was so bare. No paintings lining the walls, filling all the space. She blinked hard and cleared her throat. Van stopped painting and turned toward her.

“Midge just called,” Marnie said. “She wanted to know if we could make it to their place for the Fourth of July. She urged us to come. I said we would. Josh will love it. If you'd rather not, I'll call her back.”

Every year Midge and Pete Fellows had open house for the Fourth with a potluck dinner, and when it grew dark, from their lovely big deck high on a bluff overlooking Newport Bay, the fireworks were a holiday treat. Van had loved it as a child and she knew Josh would also. This was the first year she felt he was old enough for the event, and already he was excited by the idea of fireworks, his own sparklers.