The Death Artist (6 page)

William Mason Pruitt snared the corner of the offending object between his meaty thumb and forefinger. If there was one thing he could not stand, it was anything off-balance–especially one of his prized paintings. He stood back, expelled a puff of forty-dollar-cigar-tainted breath, assessed the sun-drenched Monet landscape–one of the master’s late paintings, from Giverny–which he’d purchased from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art–when was it?–six, seven years ago. He’d sat on the board then, got himself a very special deal, what with the museum desperate to raise cash. So what if the deal was not exactly board-approved? God, you’d have thought he was caught planting dynamite under their precious museum. After that, it was easier to resign quietly from the board than have it turn into a public brouhaha.

Bunch of stuffed shirts.

Pruitt laughed; his jowls did a minihula. He laughed because he supposed most people thought
he
was a stuffed shirt.

If they only knew.

Another laugh, this one deep from a gut that sagged over camel-colored Burberry trousers.

Eclectic tastes, that’s what he had. Like his special fondness–some might call it weakness–for classical art.

With his clumsy fingers, it took a couple of minutes to get the damn tape off; another minute for the bubble wrap. Pruitt’s puffy eyes languished over the delicate incising in the gold-leaf background that surrounded the heads of Mary and Christ. This time it had been a small rectory in Tuscany in need of cash. Too bad those spoilsport Italian authorities no longer sanctioned the selling off of their country’s antiquities. Well, that was
their
problem.

Pruitt eased himself into a soft leather swivel chair, puffed on his hand-rolled Cuban cigar, sent short gray clouds of smoke toward the ornate plaster ceiling of this, his favorite room, the library; a man’s room, all dark leather and mahogany. What was it that girl who thought she was so high and mighty had said about his library, about his whole Park Avenue apartment?
Straight out of central casting
–something derogatory like that. At first, he’d liked her toughness. But not for long. She practically begged for some rough stuff, then didn’t like it. Too bad.

Pruitt lifted the small altarpiece toward the amber light of an antique brass lamp, studied the brushwork and delicate color. So much care, attention to detail. Something Pruitt appreciated. Nobody had any standards anymore. Not his museum, the Contemporary, nor its curators, that’s for sure, or those annoying board members, especially Mr. Ten-thousand-dollar-Rolex Richard Rothstein.
When will those people stop showing off
? Not any time soon, Pruitt was certain.

With the bubble wrap back in place, Pruitt slid the small fifteenth-century altarpiece into the deep lower drawer of his seventeenth-century American desk. He hadn’t quite decided what to do with it–keep it, or . . . Well, that remained to be seen. He pushed himself up from the desk, feeling the full weight of those two to three daily martinis, foie gras at least once a week, black truffles when they were in season, blini and caviar as often as possible. He gave his belly a pat beneath the pink-and-white pin-striped custom-made shirt. Was it time for a diet?

He had stripped down to white boxers and high, thin black socks, but the bathroom scale confirmed the bad news.
The blini will have to go. For a while.
Pruitt’s frown was reflected in the marble-framed bathroom mirror. He leaned in to study the bluish-red veins that crisscrossed the tip of his bulbous nose. Should he have them lasered?

Maybe. He gave himself an extra splash of rosewater eau de toilette. After lingering over his altarpiece and ruminating over his weight gain, there wasn’t time for a real bath. Well, he could bathe when he got home. Tonight was, after all, rough-trade night at the Dungeon. By invitation only. He could hardly wait.

While he selected a fresh shirt, pale blue with
WMP
embroidered on the breast pocket, Pruitt thought about the good news he’d received today–Amy Schwartz had finally given her notice. And it was about time–considering that Pruitt had made her life at the museum about as miserable as possible since he’d come on as board president. Now he could choose his own director, which would certainly not be Mr. Upstart-Latino Perez, or Schuyler Mills. Pruitt couldn’t care less if Mills had put in ten, twenty, or two thousand years as a curator.

Of course Pruitt knew that some people wondered what he was doing at an institution like the Contemporary. But really, he’d become quite fond of his new power base, thought it went well with the more modern image he was constructing. Of course most of what passed for art in that place was pure crap. His good friend Senator Jesse Helms was certainly onto something. But that’s not why Pruitt was there.

He pulled the final loop through the Windsor knot of his Yale tie. The smile reflected in the mirror of his antique walnut armoire was one of pure satisfaction. After all, here he was, president of the board of the hippest museum in the city, treasurer of the attention-getting educational foundation Let There Be a Future, and now acquiring the kind of work rarely seen outside of the most revered art institutions.

He shimmied his tie into place just below his double chin. Yes, life could be sweet.

In the gray, windowless Interrogation Room there was no sense of time.

Kate checked her watch. Almost 10:00 P.M. Could that be true? It could be days. Weeks. To Kate, it felt as if time had broken. That from this day forward her life would be divided: Before Elena’s death. And after.

And yet, she managed to do what was required of her: Follow the cops down to the Sixth Precinct, repeat her statement, sign forms.

She stared at the mirror. For a split second her reflection startled her. Was she really here, in a police station, witness to a crime? She knew that cops most likely were on the other side of the mirror watching her. After all, for ten years that had been
her
role, the cop on the other side of the mirror, judging, considering every gesture, weighing someone’s guilt or innocence.

Kate pushed her hair behind her ears, the gesture immediately feeling false. She felt dislocated, alienated, and yet, at the same time, oddly comfortable. She knew all about station-house life–the role-playing, the petty jockeying for power, the camaraderie of good guys versus bad. And yet, right now all of it, even the dull beige walls and the damn fluorescent lighting, was somehow . . . reassuring. It could have been her old Astoria station.

Another look in the mirror. It was all there, right in front of her, a carefully painted portrait, like pentimento, thought Kate, the underpainting bleeding through, visible–those rough early years just barely masked by the elegant glazing of the last decade. Kate gave herself a knowing look. Whom was she trying to kid? All she had to do was peel off a layer and it was there for all to see: the toughness, the cop, the girl from Queens.

Were they watching her? No way they could think she was a suspect. But still they had to make her wait, answer the same damn questions. She knew that. It was part of the routine. The way it was done. The way it was always done: Ask the question again and again, see if the witness breaks down, if a suspect changes his story. But she’d had enough. And where the hell was Richard?

The door swung open. Mead referred to his little NYPD notepad. “You said you last spoke to the girl on–”

“Look,” said Kate, “I’ve already told the other cop. Several times. And I’m tired.” She leveled a stare at Mead. “And where’s Willie?”

“They’re still going over the facts with Mr. Handley. You want us to get them right, don’t you?”

“Indeed I do,” said Kate. “But it’s time for me and Willie to go home.”

“Just a few more questions.” Mead sucked his teeth. “You said that you arrived at the vic’s apartment around–”

“That information is in my statement.”

Mead skimmed the page. “And Handley arrived before you?”

“Detective. Let me be clear. I have already answered those questions. They are, as I said, in my statement. I would appreciate it if you saved us both some time and read it.”

“But I’d rather hear it from you.”

“Well, I’d rather go home.” Kate flipped open her cell phone, punched in a number. “It’s me, Kate Rothstein. Sorry to call so late, but . . . Oh. You’ve heard . . .” Her voice trailed off. “Yes, I’m here–at the Sixth Precinct–answering questions. But . . . What? Yes. He’s right here.” She handed the phone to Mead, said, “Chief of Police Tapell wants to speak to you.”

“Yeah, Chief?” Mead’s eyes flitted here, there, up to the ceiling, across the floor, anywhere not to meet Kate’s. “Uh-huh. Yeah. Uh-huh.” His body sagged against the wall as though his muscles had decided to go on strike. “Right.” He hugged the cell phone to his ear. “Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.” He sighed, clicked off. “Tapell says you should come right up.”

“And what about Willie?”

“He can go home.”

“I want a uniform to drive him.”

Mead nodded, without looking at her.

One more time, Kate managed to go through the necessary motions: Maneuver her car up the West Side Highway, pull off the exit, stop at red lights, open her wallet, remove her New York State driver’s license and show it to the uniformed guard posted outside Tapell’s West Side brownstone.

Now she sat behind the wheel of her car, head back against the padded headrest, eyes closed, tears pulsing down her cheeks while a montage of images played in her mind: the face of a defensive twelve-year-old who’d won her heart; snippets of conversations over so many dinners; the two of them arguing like any mother and daughter about the practicality of a thin cotton coat right in the middle of Urban Outfitters; Elena’s Juilliard graduation; and again, Elena’s performance piece at the museum less than a week ago.

Kate choked on her tears, the pain like a hot skewer twisting into the delicate muscle of her heart. But once again, miraculously, she managed to survive, dabbed her red eyes with a tissue, fixed her lipstick, put one foot in front of the other.

Minutes later she was inside, waiting, staring at floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Law reviews. Case studies. Every known book on criminology. Hundreds of them.

The library, to Kate’s mind, suited Tapell perfectly. What was it she’d been hearing people call the chief lately–Unflappable Tapell?

Hell, what did they expect from a chief of police–some touchy-feely, soft-hearted mark? Even back in Astoria, when Tapell ran the precinct and Kate was one of the cops, Tapell was all work and no play. But the two had immediately hit it off. Maybe each sensed that the other was going places, that Astoria was just a launching pad. It wasn’t long before Tapell was running the entire Queens NYPD; then, within a few years, Manhattan’s Bureau of Operations. By then, Kate had left the force, was fast becoming a mover and shaker in New York’s elite circle–one that included the mayor. When a cops-on-the-take scandal brought down the former chief of police and his staff, Kate recommended the straight-as-an-arrow Tapell to fill the vacancy.

The door to the chief’s inner office opened. Two heavyset men in ill-fitting suits–detectives, Kate surmised–were practically glued to the chief’s sides.

Kate took in Tapell’s statuesque proportions as if it were their first meeting: almost as tall as herself; broad shoulders accentuated by the pads of the herringbone suit; sturdy, though not quite shapely legs in ultrasheer stockings. Her face was all angles: sharp cheekbones; jutting chin; a high forehead accentuated by hair spiked with gray, pulled tightly back and braided into a severe bun. Her skin tone, a dark burnt sienna, was clear and practically unlined for her fifty-one years. Other than the reddish-brown lipstick that accentuated her sculpted lips, it was hard to tell if she was wearing any makeup. Clare Tapell, New York’s first female chief of police, and an African American, was not what you would call pretty, but she was certainly a striking figure.

Tapell clasped Kate’s hand in hers. “Sorry,” she said. She nodded at the detectives, who immediately took off. “Late-night meeting,” she said. “A man in a phone booth was shot by a passing car–on upper Madison Avenue, no less.” She stopped, still holding Kate’s hand, looked directly in her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Kate. About . . . your Elena.”

The library walls seemed to echo the words in Kate’s ears:
your Elena your Elena your Elena . . .

“And I’m also sorry if the police put you through anything. I’ll have a word with Randy Mead.”

Kate shrugged. “It’s okay. He was just doing his job. I’d had enough of it, that’s all.”

Tapell nodded. “I’ll have him put his best people on the case right away. Mead may come across as a bit of a clown, but he’s smart enough to have gotten himself in charge of the city’s special homicide at the age of thirty-six, which is not bad. He’ll get the job done.”

“I want to be a part of the investigation,” said Kate.

Tapell was about to speak, but stopped, walked across the room, ran her hand along the top of the wainscoting. When she turned, there was a painful frown pinching her strong face. “I don’t see how that’s possible, Kate.”

“Anything’s possible, Clare. You, of all people, should know that.” Kate locked eyes with the chief of police. “I was a cop, under your tutelage, remember? And a damn good one.”

“I know that,” said Tapell. “But that was a long time ago. Now you’re Mrs. Kate Rothstein, well-known art expert, socialite, philanthropist–and one of this city’s greatest attributes as far as I’m concerned. How can I justify putting you on this case?”

Kate let herself sink into the soft leather couch, her adrenaline starting to wane. She closed her eyes; Elena’s blood-stained face winked behind her lids. “There was something there,” she said. “Something . . . I know this sounds weird . . but something familiar in that scene.”

“Like what?”

Kate closed her eyes, tried to see it again–the spare room, pillows on the floor, Elena’s body–but this time it eluded her. “I don’t know. I’m not seeing it now, but–”

“You’re too emotionally involved, too close to the victim, Kate.”