Dead Sleep

11

In the main conference room of the New Orleans field office, a strategy meeting is deciding what direction the NOKIDS case will take from here. I am not at that meeting. I’ve been banished to SAC Bowles’s office. Once again, exclusion defines my status as an outsider. The meeting is being chaired by a deputy director of the FBI, and includes the U.S. Attorney for New Orleans, the New Orleans chief of police, the sheriff of Jefferson Parish, and various other big shots. It’s amazing how they come out of the woodwork when there’s a whiff of success in the air.

While I wait, my mind whirls with memories of Marcel de Becque, his paintings, his beautiful Vietnamese servant, and the photo of my father on his wall. But these memories are only static crackling around the electric knowledge that, if Daniel Baxter’s plan is not overruled, I will soon be facing suspects – men who may have killed my sister – in the hope of rattling them into betraying themselves. This prospect does more to settle my soul than anything I’ve tried in the past year.

Agent Wendy, my bodyguard, has walked in twice and tried to make small talk, but I couldn’t concentrate, and she took the hint. This time when Bowles’s door opens, John Kaiser walks in, his face all business. As the door closes behind him, I catch sight of Wendy looking in from the hall.

“You ready?” he asks.

“What’s happened so far?”

“Lots of nothing. The bureaucrats had to weigh in. Beaucoup jurisdictional asses to kiss on this one. The Deputy Director and the U.S. Attorney are gone. They wanted to meet you, but I told them you weren’t a big fan of the Justice Department.”

“There are certain elements I like better than others.”

Kaiser smiles. “The big news is, we have four suspects. And all of them were here in town the day Wingate died in New York. We’ll both hear the details in there. When we get done, I’d like to talk to you alone. We never got dinner. Maybe we can have a late meal, if you’re up for it.”

“Sure. Wendy, too?”

He blows air from his cheeks. “I’ll handle that. Let’s go.”

It’s a quick walk to the conference room, which is stunning in size and decor. I expected a ten-foot table and some doctor’s office chairs. What I find is a forty-foot-long room with a window running the length of it, giving a panoramic view of Lake Pontchartrain, recognizable in the dark by the receding lights of the causeway. The conference table is thirty feet long and surrounded by massive blue plush executive chairs with the FBI crest embroidered in the upholstery, where a tall man’s head would rest. At the near end of the table sit the usual suspects: Daniel Baxter, SAC Bowles, Dr. Lenz, and Bill Granger, the head of the Violent Crimes Squad. Piles of paper and files are spread out between Styrofoam coffee cups, half-empty water bottles, and a triangular speaker phone. Kaiser takes a seat beside Granger, opposite Bowles and Lenz, and I sit beside him.

Baxter looks tired but resolute at the head of the table, like a sea captain who has spent days riding out a hurricane but has now come within sight of his home port. When he speaks, his voice is hoarse.

“Ms. Glass, we’ve made phenomenal progress in the past eight hours. The sable brush hairs led us to the Tulane University art department. With the help of the president of the university, we’ve determined that this particular order was placed by one Roger Wheaton, the artist-in-residence at Newcomb College, which is part of Tulane.”

“The name sounds familiar.”

“Wheaton is one of the most highly regarded artists in America. He’s fifty-eight years old, and he came to Tulane just two years ago.”

“About the time the disappearances started,” says Bill Granger.

“Wheaton was raised in Vermont,” Baxter continues, “and except for four years spent in the marine corps, lived his life between Vermont and New York City. For the past ten years he’s been besieged by offers like the one that brought him to Tulane, but he’s something of a recluse, and he always rejected such offers before. But two years ago, he accepted the position at Tulane.”

“Why?”

“We’ll get to that in a minute. The main point is that Wheaton didn’t order the special sable brushes only for himself. He has three graduate students taking studio classes for full credit, and they’ve been studying under him since he arrived. Two are male, and followed him down from New York. The other is a woman, a Louisiana native.”

“One of your suspects is a woman?”

“She has access to the sable brushes, and the taser used in the snatch of the Dorignac’s victim makes a female perpetrator possible.”

As unlikely as this sounds to me, I go right to my next question. “Wheaton brought his own students with him?”

“Tulane hired Roger Wheaton for his reputation. It’s a feather in their cap to have him, and he was given absolute. discretion over whom he would select for his program. Wheaton also teaches a lecture class – fifty-one students -and any of them could conceivably have got hold of these brushes. But we’re not going to use you in that phase of the investigation. Wheaton and the three graduate students will be our targets.”

“When are we talking to them?”

“Tomorrow. All of them, no matter how long it takes. I want to minimize any chance of interaction between them prior to questioning. Before we go into details, though, you should understand our position in the present climate. The Investigative Support Unit normally works in an advisory capacity for state or local police agencies. We provide expertise relating to serial offenders, but the police do the legwork. They conduct the interviews, make the arrests, and get the credit. However, in a long-running case like this one, where we have knowledge that crimes will likely be committed in the future, we become heavily involved in all aspects of the investigation.”

“I understand.”

“We have a unique situation here in New Orleans. The spread-out nature of the city has created a jurisdictional nightmare. There are seven separate police departments involved in these disappearances. And though not all of them have homicide detectives, there are over two dozen detectives working this case. We’re presently leading the joint task force, but all these police detectives would like to interview Wheaton and his students. However, the most potent weapon anyone could have in such an interview, Ms. Glass, is you. And to put it bluntly, you’re on our team.”

“For the moment.”

Baxter gives Kaiser a quick glance, but Kaiser remains expressionless. “We’ve also managed to gather many of the Sleeping Women at the National Gallery in Washington, something metropolitan police agencies could never have managed. Because of this, and because of jurisdictional rivalry, we’re going to be given the first shot at these suspects. All four have been under surveillance from the time they were identified, but they won’t be approached until after we go in tomorrow. The pressure on this investigation is enormous. The victims in this case come from affluent families. One of the Tulane students was – is – the daughter of a federal judge in New York. So, while we interview Roger Wheaton at the university, NOPD will be searching his residence from top to bottom. We’re already turning his life inside out, insofar as it exists on paper. His three students get the same treatment, though I’m not optimistic in two cases. Investigating art students is like investigating waiters; they almost don’t exist on paper. Right now none of the four has a paper alibi for the Dorignac’s snatch. All four were at an opening at the New Orleans Museum of Art until seven-thirty p.m. The chancellor verified that. Beyond that we know nothing.” Baxter’s dark eyes burn into mine. “Tomorrow, Ms. Glass, we are the point of a very bulky spear. We have to hit our target. If we miss, we lose the best chance we’ll ever have to surprise our UNSUB into a confession.”

“I get it. Let’s have the details.”

Baxter shuffles a stack of papers. “I’m going to give you a quick sketch of each,” says Baxter. “This is for John’s benefit, too.”

SAC Bowles gets up and kills the lights, and a large screen hanging from the ceiling at the end of the room comes alive with white light.

“I want you to see all four first,” Baxter says. “See if any look familiar. Then we’ll break them down. These images are being relayed from our Emergency Operations Center, which is also on this floor.” Baxter leans forward and addresses the speakerphone on the desk. “Give us the composite, Tom.”

Four photos appear simultaneously on the screen. None looks familiar, or even like what I expected, but why would they? My mental picture of artists comes from books and films, mostly images from other centuries. When I hear the word “students,” I think of people in their twenties. The oldest here – Roger Wheaton, I presume – is wearing bifocal glasses and reminds me of Max von Sydow, the actor. Severe and Scandinavian-looking, with shoulder-length gray hair. Beside his photo is a fortyish guy who looks like an ex-convict: hollow-eyed, unshaven, tough. Then I realize he’s actually wearing prison garb.

“Is that guy a convict?”

“He’s done two stretches in Sing Sing,” says Baxter. “We’ll get to that. We’ve got a real grab-bag of weirdos, here, I kid you not.”

“Is that a scientific description?” asks Kaiser.

Bowles belly-laughs.

“These faces ring any bells?” asks Baxter, cutting his eyes at me.

“Not so far.”

The other man in the composite is stunningly handsome, and my sixth sense tells me he’s gay. I generally make this judgment based on physical appearance, speech, and behavior. All I have here is a photograph, but I’ve spent most of my life studying photographs, and this guy I feel certain about. The woman is also attractive, with long black hair, light skin, and black eyes. But despite her skin tone, something about her features suggests African blood.

“The older man is Roger Wheaton,” says Baxter. “The convict is Leon Isaac Gaines, age forty-two. Raised in Queens, New York. The third man is Frank Smith. He’s thirty-five, and also a New York native. The woman is Thalia Laveau, thirty-nine, a native of Terrebonne Parish here in Louisiana.”

Now I’ve got it. Thalia Laveau is a Sabine, a racial group the FBI has probably never even heard of.

“All four suspects lived in New York for a time,” says Baxter, “so all could have ties to whoever killed Wingate.” He leans toward the speakerphone. “Put up Wheaton alone.”

The composite vanishes, replaced by a candid shot of Roger Wheaton. The artist has deep-set eyes behind his bifocals, and a long, strong face. He looks more like a craftsman than a painter, a genius with metal or wood.

“Before we do his bio,” says Baxter, “let’s deal with why Wheaton came to New Orleans. Three years ago, this reclusive artist of international reputation was diagnosed with scleroderma, a potentially fatal disease.” Baxter turns to Dr. Lenz. “Arthur?”

Lenz sniffs and inclines his head toward me as he speaks. “Scleroderma is commonly thought of as a woman’s disease, but it does affect men, and usually with more severity. The external symptoms, such as hardening of the facial skin, et cetera, are not always obvious or even present in men, but the internal damage is accelerated. Scleroderma is vascular in nature, and causes scarring and eventual failure of the internal organs, including the lungs. One particularly important symptom in Wheaton’s case is called Raynaud’s phenomenon. This is a spasm and constriction of the blood vessels of the extremities – usually the fingers, but sometimes the nose or the penis – which is caused by contact with cold temperature, usually air or water. These attacks completely cut off circulation to the digits, sometimes for long enough to cause irreversible tissue damage. Amputations aren’t uncommon. Sufferers frequently wear gloves for most of the day.”

“Wheaton moved south to avoid this?” I ask.

“Apparently, though that kind of move isn’t advised by physicians. It’s pointless, in a way. There’s more air-conditioning in the South, and even opening a refrigerator can bring on an attack. But the university has taken great pains to accommodate Wheaton’s special needs. The artist Paul Klee suffered from scleroderma later in life. It greatly affected his work. His paintings became very dark in content, and the damage to his fingers forced him to change his painting style completely. He-”

Baxter has raised his hand. “We need to stay macro here, Arthur. There’s a lot to cover.”

Lenz likes to hear himself talk, and does not take kindly to interruptions. But Daniel Baxter doesn’t hesitate to cut him off.

“Roger Wheaton,” Baxter says in the tone of a man reading from a cue card. “Born 1943, in rural Vermont. Youngest of three brothers. His brothers joined the service upon graduating high school – one army, one navy. Wheaton had no formal training as a child, but in interviews – of which he’s done damned few – he says his mother was a great lover of classical art. She bought him supplies and encouraged him to imitate the old masters, copying color plates from a book she bought him. He showed phenomenal talent, and at seventeen he left home for New York. We don’t have a lot of information on this period of his life, but in interviews he’s said he supported himself doing odd jobs and painting portraits on the street. He was unsuccessful as an artist, and in 1966 he joined the Marine Corps. He did two tours in Vietnam, earning a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart…”

I glance at Kaiser, who steps on my foot beneath the table.

“Wheaton also instituted a disciplinary action against two members of his platoon for raping a twelve-year-old Vietnamese girl. He pushed it to a court-martial, and the men did time in Leavenworth. Any thoughts, John?”

Kaiser nods in the half-dark. “That would have made Wheaton about as popular as trench foot in his platoon. It tells us something about him, but what, I’m not sure. Either what he saw was really bad, and he felt morally compelled to push it, or the guy has some kind of hero compulsion.”

This remark rankles me. “What rape wouldn’t be really bad to see?” I ask, trying to keep my voice under control. “Why couldn’t Wheaton simply have been doing the right thing by pushing it?”

Baxter answers for Kaiser. “I served in Vietnam myself, Ms. Glass. Most soldiers coming upon the situation I’ve described would have been offended and outraged, but they would have looked the other way. A few would have participated. But very few would have bucked the chain of command and forced disciplinary action. It’s not pretty in hindsight, but at that time, no one was inclined to discipline our own troops for anything short of a massacre. Wheaton transferred out of his unit after that, and it’s not hard to guess why. Still, he had a spotless record, with several commendations from his commanders.”

“We should track down the names of men he served with,” says Kaiser. “Not just his officers.”

“We’re on it,” Baxter replies. “You should also note that Wheaton lost one brother in Vietnam. Killed in a Saigon bar by a terrorist bomb. The other died in 1974, from a stroke.”

Baxter shuffles some papers. “After Vietnam, Wheaton returned to New York, enrolled in the art program at NYU, and slowly made a name for himself painting portraits. He supported himself this way for years, while he worked on his private obsession, which is landscapes. For the past twenty years, he’s painted the same subject over and over again. It’s a forest clearing, and every painting in the series is called The Clearing. He began in a very realistic style, but over the years he’s gone more abstract. The paintings are still called The Clearing, but they’re not recognizable as such. The early, more realistic ones showed a Vermont-style forest clearing, but also jungle foliage typical of Vietnam – and sometimes the two mixed – so there’s no telling about the real origin of the image, or its significance. When asked about it in interviews, Wheaton says the paintings speak for themselves.”

“A progression from realistic to abstract,” says Kaiser. “The exact opposite of the Sleeping Women.”

“Wheaton’s progression is much more marked,” says Lenz. “His style is so defined now that it’s spawned a genre or school in the worldwide art community. They call it ‘Dark Impressionism.’ Not because the paintings themselves are necessarily dark – though most of his recent work is – but because of their content. He uses Impressionist techniques, but the original Impressionists tended to paint what you might call happy subjects. Pastoral, tranquil themes. Think of Manet, Renoir, Monet, Pissarro. Wheaton’s work is very different.”

“De Becque said the Sleeping Women artist uses Impressionist techniques,” I tell Lenz. “In the way he lays down color, anyway.”

“That’s true,” says Lenz. “But he abandoned the pure style very quickly. Many beginning artists emulate the Impressionists, just as young composers imitate the popular composers of the past. But Impressionism in the pure sense is passe. Wheaton succeeds because he’s brought something new to the style. As for him painting the Sleeping Women, though, two connoisseurs have already told us that the Sleeping Women share no similarities whatever with the paintings of Roger Wheaton.”

“Could one man paint two radically different styles and an expert not be able to tell he did both?” asks Baxter.

“If he did it to prove a point, probably.”

“What about to avoid detection?” says Baxter.

“Probably. But over the course of a body of work, certain idiosyncrasies reveal themselves. We’ve got hold of several portraits Wheaton painted years ago, to compare his execution of skin, eyes, hair, et cetera with that of the Sleeping Women artist. It’s all very technical, but the final answer is no. He couldn’t hide himself that way. Of course, we’ll analyze the paints, canvases, and all other materials to be sure.”

“Have you found these Kolinsky sable brush hairs in Wheaton’s paintings?”

“Yes. We’ve also found them in the paintings of Smith, Games, and Laveau.”

“Dating how far back?”

“Two years. When they came to Tulane.”

“Wheaton just started using these special brushes?”

“Apparently so. We’ll have to ask him why. Let’s move on. I could talk for an hour about Wheaton alone, but we have a much more viable suspect in this bunch.” Baxter says to the speakerphone, “Put up Gaines, Tom.”

The photo of Wheaton is replaced by a mug shot of the convict. This guy I would walk across a busy interstate to avoid. Crazed eyes, pasty skin, tangled black hair, a stubbled face, and a broken nose. The only paintbrush I can see him holding would be six inches wide.

“Leon Isaac Gaines,” says Baxter. “If I had to lay odds right now, this is our man in New Orleans. His father and mother were both drunks. The father did a stretch in Sing Sing for carnal knowledge of a juvenile, paving the way for junior, I guess.”

“Male or female juvenile?” asks Kaiser.

“Female.”

“Age?”

“Fourteen. Leon was arrested repeatedly as a juvenile. Burglary, assault, peeping, you name it. He did juvy time for starting fires, and was in and out of reformatories until he was twenty.”

Kaiser grunts, and I know why. Childhood arson is one leg of the “homicidal triangle” of indicators for serial killers as children. Bed-wetting, arson, and cruelty to animals: I remember them all from my reading last year.

“He rings the chimes on animals, too,” says Baxter. “When he was twelve, he buried a neighbor’s cat up to its neck in a sandpile and rolled over it with a lawn mower.”

“Enuresis?” asks Kaiser.

“No record of it. Both parents are deceased, but they weren’t the kind to have sought medical care for that. Still, we’re trying to track down physicians working in the area at the time.” More shuffling paper in the semidark. “Gaines is a two-time loser, once for aggravated battery, once for attempted rape.”

“Jesus,” mutters Bowles.

“No gang affiliations while incarcerated, but he was part of a bad riot at Sing Sing. We’re tracking down his cellmates and sending agents to interview them. Gaines never picked up a paintbrush in his life until his first term in Sing Sing -1975. He showed so much promise that the warden showed his stuff to some New York dealers. They apparently kept an eye on him, because during his second hitch, they made some sales for him. He attracted the attention of the New York art community, much as Jack Henry Abbott attracted the attention of Norman Mailer and those other chumps with his ‘Belly of the Beast’ nonsense.”

“Is that when Wheaton first heard about Gaines?” asks Kaiser.

“Wheaton isn’t mentioned by anyone at that time in connection with Gaines. Wheaton’s always been a recluse, associates with no other artists. Since his diagnosis, he’s broken off all contact with everyone but his dealer and his students. Local patrons of the arts in New Orleans have invited him for parties, dinner, like that, but he always declines. The president isn’t happy about that.”

“What does Gaines paint?” asks Kaiser.

“He started with prison scenes. Now he paints nothing but his girlfriend. Whatever girlfriend he has at the time. As far as we can tell, he’s regularly abused every woman he’s ever been with. He paints that, as well, by the way. Reviews of his stuff call it ‘violent,’ and that’s a quote.”

“How many applicants did Wheaton have to choose from when he picked this guy?”

“More than six hundred.”

“Jesus. Why did he pick Gaines?”

“You can ask him that tomorrow.”

Kaiser tenses beside me. “I’m doing the interview?”

“We’ll get to that after we cover these bios,” Baxter says quickly.

The rivalry between Kaiser and Lenz will surely come to a head over this.

“So Gaines is essentially painting a series, as well?” I ask. “The same subject again and again? Just like Wheaton and the UNSUB?”

“The others are too, in their ways,” says Lenz. “Wheaton apparently used this as a criterion in his selection. He’s on record as saying that only deep study of a particular subject can produce new understanding, deeper levels of truth.”

“That and fifty cents’ll buy you a cup of coffee,” cracks Bowles.

“I’m inclined to agree,” says Baxter. “But they pay Wheaton very big bucks.”

“How much?” asks Kaiser.

“His last painting went for four hundred thousand dollars.”

“That’s not even close to the Sleeping Women prices.”

“True. But Wheaton’s a lot more prolific than our UNSUB. You should note that NOPD has been called to Leon Gaines’s duplex several times by neighbors, but the girlfriend has yet to swear out a complaint. Gaines is usually drunk when they get there.”

“I think we’ve got the picture on Gaines,” says Kaiser.

“Not quite. He owns a Dodge utility van with tinted windows all around.”

The room goes silent.

“Anybody else have that kind of transport?” asks Kaiser in a soft voice.

“No,” says Lenz.

“We’ve got to get inside that van. If we find biological trace, we can compare it to samples from our victims’ DNA bank.”

“Where did you get DNA from the victims?” I ask. “You have no bodies.”

“For four victims, we have locks of hair saved from childhood,” says Kaiser. “Two victims were breast cancer survivors, and have bone marrow stem cells stocked at hospitals for future transplant. Two victims have eggs stored at fertility clinics. And two stocked umbilical cord blood when their youngest children were delivered. That’s not a direct match to the mother, but it could be helpful.”

“I’m impressed.”

“John put that together,” Baxter says proudly. “All grist to the mill.”

“As an identical twin,” says Kaiser, “you could add to the bank for your sister. I meant to ask you before.”

“Anytime.”

“As soon you conclude Gaines’s interview tomorrow,” says Baxter, “NOPD will confiscate the van.”

“What’s the deal with the utility van? Good way to move a body?”

Kaiser turns to me, his face a shadow with glinting eyes. “Rapists and serial killers favor this type of vehicle by a huge margin. It’s the most important part of their equipment, a means to quickly get the victim out of sight, even in a public place. Later, it often becomes the scene of the final crime.”

I try in vain to shut out images of Jane being raped and cut up inside a dark and stinking van.

“My money’s on Leon Gaines,” says Baxter. “But we need to cover everybody. Let’s have Frank Smith, Tom.”

Gaines’s face is replaced by the almost angelic visage I saw earlier in the composite.

“This one’s a riddle,” says Baxter. “Frank Smith was born into a wealthy family in Westchester County in 1965. He focused on art from an early age, and took an MFA degree from Columbia. Smith is openly gay, and he’s painted homosexual themes – usually nude men – from his college days.”

“Not nude sleeping men?” asks Kaiser.

“If only,” says Baxter. “By all reports, Smith is enormously talented, and paints in the style of the old masters. His paintings look like Rembrandt to me. Really unbelievable.”

“More like Titian, actually,” says Lenz, earning a snort from the SAC. “Frank Smith stretches his own canvases and mixes his own pigments. The mystery is what he’s doing in Wheaton’s program at all. He’s already famous in his own right. Wheaton has far more stature, of course, but I’m not sure what Smith could learn from him.”

“I’ll ask Smith tomorrow,” says Kaiser.

Lenz sighs and looks at Baxter, who gazes pointedly at the table. The blue light of the projector beam highlights the fatigue lines in the ISU chief’s face.

“Smith’s paintings now sell for upwards of thirty thousand dollars,” Lenz adds.

“Oh, I forgot,” says Baxter. “Wheaton’s currently working on a painting that takes up a whole room over at the Woldenberg Art Center at Tulane.”

“You mean a whole wall?” asks Kaiser.

“No, a whole room. Multiple canvases stretched over curved frames to form a perfect circle. He’s painted on curved canvases for years, to create a feeling that you’re walking into this clearing he’s painting. Monet tried this as well. But this new thing is a complete circle. Huge. Takes up half of a thirty-five-hundred-square-foot gallery.”

I know photographers who’ve tried this for exhibitions. It usually comes off as cheap and contrived, like some clunky diorama exhibit.

“Does Smith have a jacket?” asks Kaiser.

“He got popped a couple of times for unnatural acts in his twenties, during park sweeps. Nothing major. His parents made the sodomy charges disappear, but he’s mentioned the arrests in interviews. He seems proud of them. I got the old arrest records from New York to verify them.”

“What about alibis for these people?” I ask. “For all the disappearances? Is anybody checking that?”

“About two hundred cops,” growls Bowles. “Plus us. That’s something the police know how to do. But until they actually interrogate the suspects, they can only do so much. It’s all paper trails. Credit card charges, like that. So far, all the suspects appear to have been in the city during the kidnappings. After your interviews tomorrow, the gloves come off. These people will go under the hot lights. Then they’ll hire lawyers, and the whole thing will become a media nightmare.”

“What about the girl?” says Kaiser. “What’s her story?”

“Waste of time,” Lenz says. “There’s no precedent for a woman committing this type of murder.”

“We don’t know they are murders,” Kaiser says with restrained anger. “Until we find some bodies – even one definite – we don’t know what we’re dealing with. I’m not ruling out anybody based on standard profiling techniques. Look at Roger Wheaton. The guy is well over our age limit, but based on what I’ve heard, I have questions.”

“Thalia Laveau,” says Baxter, trying to tamp down the flaring tempers. “Born on Bayou Terrebonne in 1961. Father a trapper, mother a housewife.”

“What did he trap?” asks Kaiser.

“Anything that didn’t trap him first,” I answer.

Bowles belly-laughs again.

“You know about these people?” Baxter asks.

“We did a couple of stories down there when I was on the Times-Picayune. Troubles in the shrimp industry. It’s another world down there. The whole place smells like drying shrimp. You never forget it.”

“Chime in with anything relevant.” Baxter squints down at a file. “Racially, Laveau is part French, part African-American, and part Native American.”

“A redbone?” asks Bowles.

“No, that’s different,” I tell him.

“What’s a redbone?” asks Kaiser. “Like Leon Redbone?”

“Redbones are part black, part Indian,” I reply. “They’re settled all over western Louisiana and East Texas. Thalia Laveau is what’s called a Sabine.”

“That’s not right,” says Baxter, misunderstanding my pronunciation.

“Yes, it is. In Lafourche and Terrebonne Parishes they say ‘Sob-een,’ not Say-been or Say-bine, like the ones you learned about in Roman history. I have no idea why, that’s just the way it is.”

“That girl didn’t look black to me,” says Bowles.

“Or Indian,” says Kaiser, who grew up in the West. “Put her picture back up.”

“Let’s have Laveau, Tom,” says Baxter.

In the next photo – this one color – Thalia Laveau is not merely attractive but beautiful. Her eyes and hair are so black and shiny they seem to float off the screen, while her skin has the look of buttermilk.

“You’re the expert,” Baxter says to me. “Tell us about these people.”

“The Sabines are trappers and fishermen,” I answer, thinking back. “Shrimpers. They live in shacks along bayous that lead to the Gulf of Mexico. They’re not Cajuns, but at her age she would have grown up speaking French. They used to have to be taught English at school. They’re Catholic, but they have strange superstitions. There’s some voodoo in there, I think. Inbreeding, too. They range from white-skinned like this woman to very dark. They can have kinky hair, or straight like hers. They’re tough people, but they love to dance and play music. They’re clannish. Not likely to go to the authorities over trouble. In the eighties they had problems with Vietnamese refugees coming into their shrimping grounds to compete. There were shootings and boat-rammings. It was big news.”

“That’s more than I have here,” says Baxter. “As far as we know, Thalia Laveau had no formal training as an artist. She just started drawing one day and showed a knack for it. Eventually she moved on to painting, mostly watercolors of the bayous and the Gulf. She quit school in the tenth grade and at seventeen went to New York.”

“Just like Wheaton,” I say quietly.

“Yes. And like Wheaton, she had no early success. She supported herself in various ways, from waitressing to working in art galleries. A female art professor thought she heard Laveau say something about stripping for money in New York, but later decided she’d misunderstood. Laveau has worked as a model for a graduate painting class at Tulane, and some of that is nude work. The most significant thing we’ve heard so far is that she’s a lesbian.”

“Is that rumor or fact?” I ask.

“Unconfirmed. We didn’t want to question students at this point. We’d like these people to be totally unprepared at their interviews tomorrow.”

“What does Laveau paint?” asks Kaiser. “Nude women?”

“No. She goes into the homes of strangers, lives there for a while, then starts painting their lives.”

“Like the documentary photographers of the sixties,” I think aloud. “Gordon Parks.”

“All her paintings are finished at one sitting,” Baxter goes on. “She’s attracted a lot of print media attention, but her work doesn’t sell for much. Not remotely in the class of Wheaton or Frank Smith.”

“How much?” asks Kaiser. “A thousand bucks apiece?”

“Ahh… Seven hundred is the highest sum paid to date.”

“Do Leon Gaines’s pictures sell?” I ask.

“Somebody paid five thousand for one. He could make a living at it, if he wasn’t so deep in debt. He’s borrowed to the hilt on student loans, and he owes bookies as well. One former cellmate said he picked up a serious heroin habit in prison.”

“I get the feeling Laveau and Gaines live pretty close to the bone,” says Kaiser. “So where are the millions earned from the Sleeping Women?”

“Good question.”

Dr. Lenz says, “Right now I like Wheaton or Frank Smith. They’re already wealthy, so they would have the knowledge to hide the money, or know people with that knowledge. Gaines is a violent, self-absorbed punk. The attempted rape is an indicator, but he’s too obvious. Too coarse for the crimes we’re dealing with. And Laveau… is a woman.”

“I’m not excluding anybody,” says Kaiser. “After visiting Cayman, I’m convinced Marcel de Becque could be behind it all. He could easily be commissioning someone to paint the pictures and paying them peanuts compared to the overall take. That includes Thalia Laveau or a skell like Gaines.”

“If de Becque is behind this,” Lenz counters, “why draw attention to himself by demanding that we send Glass to see him in exchange for photos of his paintings?”

“He’s a ballsy guy. He’s not scared of us.”

“Not one bit,” I confirm. “But what about Thalia Laveau? What would be her motive? Do you really think a woman’s going to paint dead women for money?”

“I haven’t talked to her yet,” says Kaiser. “So I don’t know. But the kind of people you described – Sabines – they tend to stay where they grow up, right?”

“Yes.”

“So why did she leave? Was she a brilliant kid with ambition? Or was she running from something?” Kaiser looks at Baxter without waiting for an answer. “How are we going to handle the approach? Who’s going in?”

Baxter walks to the wall and switches on the overhead lights. Lenz blinks against the brightness, but he looks set for battle.

“John,” says Baxter, “I know you’ve been point man on this thing for a long time, and against your own wishes, which counts for a lot in my-”

“Damn it,” Kaiser mutters.

Baxter implores Kaiser with his hands. “Listen, John. Because of Wheaton’s artistic stature, and because of his medical condition, I’m inclined to let Arthur take the lead on this one. He has a broad knowledge of art, and he’ll be able to question Wheaton intelligently on his disease, gauge his mental state related to it, and…”

Kaiser sits in silence as Baxter drones on. The decision has been made, and the medical angle makes argument pointless.

“Normally, I would be going in as well,” Baxter concludes. “But because I think you should be there, John, I’m going to send you in in my place. If you feel that some path is being left unexplored, you can go down it. You’ll be there. Okay? It’s just that Arthur will take the lead on the questions.”

“Where will you be?” Kaiser asks in a taut voice.

“Surveillance van outside. Arthur’s going to wear a wire.”

Kaiser’s mouth falls open.

“It’s a major break with Bureau policy,” says Baxter, “but the Director has personally approved it. The police insisted on live transmission and tapes as a condition of letting us handle the interviews alone.”

“And Glass?” Kaiser says without looking at me.

“She’ll be in the van with me until Arthur cues her. The code phrase is, ‘I’m sorry, our photographer was supposed to be here ten minutes ago.’ That’s the story for the suspects: we’re not confiscating their paintings, just photographing them. Once we’ve finished, though, NOPD will be confiscating everything in sight. These suspects are going to be totally alienated after that, and there’s nothing we can do about it. We’ve got one shot at each of them. Wheaton we treat with kid gloves. Gaines is second, and we go in hard. John, you’ll take the lead with Gaines, because you have more experience with convicts. Smith and Laveau we play by ear. But in every case, when Ms. Glass comes in-”

“Please just call me Jordan,” I cut in. ‘“Ms. Glass’ is getting old.”

Baxter nods gratefully. “When Jordan comes in, she won’t look directly at the suspect. This will make someone who’s shocked by her appearance have to work harder to confirm what his eyes are telling him. The innocent people won’t look at her twice – though I’m sure Gaines will ogle her a little – but the guilty one should look like he’s seen a ghost. Which, in a sense, he will have.”

“Or she,” says Kaiser.

“Or she,” Baxter concedes.

“Gaines will ogle me a little?” I echo. “He looks like he’d walk up, lick my face, and dare me to slap him.”

“If he does,” says Bill Granger, the violent crimes supervisor, “kick him in the balls.”

Baxter frowns. “If Gaines does do something like that, don’t overreact. We have no idea what could happen when you walk into these situations. The painter could be the killer – if the women are being killed – and he could decide the game is up the moment he sees you. He could do something totally crazy. For this reason, John will be armed going in.” Baxter looks hard at his former protege. “Use your best judgment about force.”

This part of the plan clearly makes Lenz nervous. Even I see a mental image of Kaiser leaping over a metal prison table and trying to strangle the death-row inmate he told me about. But Baxter is showing clear support for Kaiser, and Lenz doesn’t question it. Not in front of him, anyway.

“If either of you comes out and says somebody’s dirty,” says Baxter, “we bring them in for interrogation before the police get in on the act.” He looks around the table. “Okay. We’ll have another strategy meeting tomorrow morning, here, seven a.m. From eight o’clock on, we’ll have police observers with us. Everybody good to go?”

Lenz sniffs and gives Baxter an ironic smile. I try to catch Kaiser’s eye, but he gives me nothing.

“I need a bite to eat and some sleep,” I tell them, rising from my chair.

“Take Agent Travis with you,” Baxter says, meaning Wendy.

“I will.”

“The Camellia Grill is still open,” Kaiser says in an offhand voice. “You know it?”

“I probably ate there a hundred times in my younger days.”

“What do you keep in that waist pack?” asks Lenz.

“It’s my genie’s lamp. I rub it, and whatever I need comes out.”

“It must weigh a lot,” SAC Bowles says dryly.

“It does. But aren’t you glad I had a camera in there during the gallery fire?”

“Yes, we are,” says Baxter. “Get some sleep, Jordan. Tomorrow’s a very big day.”

“I’ll see you here at seven.”

Kaiser gives me a wave as I depart, but Dr. Lenz only watches, his wise eyes missing nothing.