Double Homicide

2

Hands encased in buckskin gloves, Two Moons drove, gripping the wheel as the car coasted down Paseo de Peralta, the main street that horseshoed around the city center. Snowdrifts lay across the piñon branches and juniper brush, but the road was clear. It was three weeks before Christmas, and the farolitos with their muted sepia candlelight rested on rooftops all over the town. As usual, the trees in the Plaza had been strung with multicolored lights. Still plenty of time, Darrel figured, to head over to the outlets and buy presents for Kristin and the girls-if he could ever get some time off.

And now this.

Of all people.

Lawrence Leonard Olafson had hit Santa Fe ten years ago like one of those sudden summer storms that shatter the sky in midafternoon and turn the desert air electric.

Unlike a summer downpour, Olafson had stuck around.

The son of a teacher and a bookkeeper, he’d attended Princeton on scholarship, graduated with a BA in finance and a minor in art history, and surprised everyone by eschewing Wall Street. Instead, he’d taken an entry-level scut job at Sotheby’s-gofering for a haughty American Paintings specialist. Learning what sold and what didn’t, learning that art collecting could be a disease for some, a pathetic attempt to social-climb for others. Kissing butt and fetching coffee and making the right kind of friends and moving up quickly. Three years later, he was department head. A year after that, he negotiated a better deal at Christie’s and took a bevy of rich clients with him. Another eighteen months and he was managing a white-glove gallery on upper Madison, selling European as well as American. Cementing more connections.

By age thirty, he owned his own place in the Fuller Building on West 57th, a high-ceilinged, softly lit vault where he peddled Sargents and Hassams and Friesekes and Heades and third-rate Flemish florals to Old Money and Slightly Newer Money Pretending to Be Old Money.

Within three years, he’d opened his second venture: Olafson South, on 21st Street in Chelsea, heralded by a soiree covered in the Voice. Lou Reed music, sunken-eyed Euro-trash, prep school arrivistes, and neo-moneyed dotcommers vying for cutting-edge contemporary pictures.

Juggling both locations, Olafson made a fortune, married a corporate attorney, had a couple of kids, and bought a ten-room, park-view co-op on Fifth and 79th. Solidified yet more connections.

Despite a few rough patches.

Like the trio of Albert Bierstadt Yosemite paintings sold to a Munich banking heir that was most likely the work of a lesser painter-the experts’ best guess was Hermann Herzog. Or the unsigned Richard Miller garden scene unearthed at an Indianapolis estate sale and flipped overnight to a Chicago pharmaceuticals heir who displayed it in his Michigan Avenue penthouse with great hubris until the painting’s provenance was shown to reek.

There’d been a few more misadventures over the years, but each incident was tucked safely away from the media because the purchasers didn’t want to look stupid. Besides, Olafson had been quick to take the paintings back and make full restitution, offering sincere apologies and claiming honest error.

Everything was going swimmingly until middle age took root, a time when everyone who was anyone in New York went through some kind of life-enhancing, soul-altering major spiritual change. At forty-eight, Olafson found himself divorced, estranged from his children, restless, and ready to conquer new vistas. Something quieter, and though he’d never abandon New York, Olafson had begun to crave a clear contrast to the New York pace. The Hamptons didn’t cut it.

Like any serious art person, he’d spent time in Santa Fe, browsing and buying and dining at Geronimo. Picking up a few minor O’Keeffes and a Henning that he turned over within days. Enjoying the food and the ambience and the sunlight, but bemoaning the lack of a seriously good hotel.

It would be nice to have his own spread. Bargain real estate prices clinched the deal: For one-third of what he’d paid for his co-op ten years ago, he could get an estate.

He bought himself a six-thousand-square-foot heap of adobe on five acres in Los Caminitos, north of Tesuque, with low-maintenance landscape and a rooftop-deck view of Colorado. Decorating all thirteen rooms with finesse, he set about filling the diamond plaster walls with art: a few Taos masters and two O’Keeffe drawings brought from Connecticut to get the tongues wagging. Mostly, he went in a new direction: neophyte contemporary Southwest painters and sculptors who’d sell their souls for representation.

Strategic donations to the right charities combined with lavish parties at the mansion cemented his social position. Within a year, he was in.

His physical presence didn’t hurt, either. Olafson had known since high school that his size and his stentorian voice were God-given resources to be exploited. Six-three, lean, and broad-shouldered, he’d always been thought of as handsome. Even recently, with his hair gone but for a white fringe and a ponytail, he cut a fine figure. A cropped, snowy beard gave him the look of confidence. Opening night at the opera, he circulated among the rich in his black silk suit, collarless white silk shirt fastened at the neck by a turquoise stud, custom ostrich-leg clogs worn without socks, a young brunette on his arm, though the whispering class asserted this was pretense. For serious company, it was rumored, the art dealer preferred the lithe young men he hired as “groundskeepers.”

Santa Fe had always been a liberal town in a conservative state, and Olafson fit right in. He threw money at an assortment of causes, some popular, others less so. Recently, less so had dominated: Olafson had made the papers after joining the board of an environmental group named ForestHaven and spearheading a series of lawsuits against small ranchers grazing on federal land.

That particular cause had generated lots of acrimony; the papers ran a couple of mom-and-pop-struggling-to-make-ends-meet heart-tugging articles. When asked to comment, Olafson had come across arrogant and unsympathetic.

Steve Katz brought up the story as he and Two Moons drove to the scene.

“Yeah, I remember,” said Darrel. “I’d be pissed, too.”

Katz laughed. “No sympathy for the sanctity of the land, chief?”

Darrel motioned at the windshield. “The land looks just fine to me, rabbi. My sympathy is with regular folk working for a living.”

“You don’t think Olafson worked for a living?” said Katz.

“Doesn’t matter what I think or what you think,” Two Moons snorted. “Our job is to figure out who bashed his head in.”

Olafson Southwest sat atop a sloping lot on the upper end of Canyon, well past the gourmet aroma streaming from Geronimo and the U-pay outdoor parking lot run by the city to capitalize on tourists’ SUVs. The property was large and tree-shaded, with gravel paths and a fountain and a hand-fashioned copper gate. In back was an adobe guesthouse, but the building was dark and locked, and no one was able to tell Katz and Two Moons if anyone actually lived there.

The gallery was divided into four whitewashed wings and a large rear room filled with paintings and drawings in vertical racks-what looked to be hundreds of pieces of art. The detectives drifted back. All that pale plaster and the bleached floors and the halogen lights positioned between the hand-hewn vigas lining the ceiling created a weird pseudo-daylight. Katz felt his pupils constrict so hard his eyes hurt. No sense browsing. The main attraction was in room number two. The body was laid out where it had fallen, stretched across the bleached pine floor.

A big, nasty still life.

Larry Olafson lay on his stomach, right arm curled beneath him, the left splayed and open-fingered. Two rings on the hand, a diamond and a sapphire, and a gorgeous gold Breguet watch on the wrist. Olafson wore an oatmeal-colored woolen shirt, a calfskin vest the color of peanut butter, and black flannel slacks. Blood splotched all three garments and had trickled onto the floor. Buckskin demi-boots covered the feet.

A few feet away was a piece of sculpture: a huge chrome screw on a black wooden base. Katz inspected the label: Perseverance. An artist named Miles D’Angelo. Two other works by the same guy: a massive screwdriver and a bolt the size of a truck tire. Behind those, an empty pedestal: Force.

Katz’s ex-wife had figured herself for a sculptor, but it had been a while since he’d talked to Valerie or any of her new friends, and he’d never heard of D’Angelo.

He and Darrel got close to the body, and they both inspected what had once been the back of Larry Olafson’s head.

Tan, hairless skin had been turned to mush. Blood and brain tissue crusted the white fringe and the ponytail. Stiffening the hair, turning it deep red, a blood henna job. A few specks of blood, a light spray, had made it to a nearby wall, to Olafson’s right. Serious impact. The air was coppery.

All of Olafson’s untouched jewelry said robbery was doubtful.

Then Katz berated himself for limited thinking. Olafson trucked in high-end art. There were all kinds of robbery.

That empty pedestal…

The coroner, Dr. Ruiz, had stuck a thermometer in the liver. He looked at the detectives, then sheathed his instrument and inspected the wound. “Two, three hours tops.”

Two Moons turned to the uniform who’d greeted them at the scene. She was a rookie named Debbie San-tana, a former Los Alamos clerk on the job less than a year. This was her first d.b. and she looked okay. Maybe working with nuclear stuff was scarier. Darrel asked her who had called it in.

“Olafson’s houseboy,” Debbie replied. “He came by half an hour ago to pick up the boss. Apparently, Olafson was working late, meeting a client. He and the houseboy- Sammy Reed-were supposed to have dinner at ten, over at Osteria.”

“Client have a name?”

Debbie shook her head. “Reed says he doesn’t know. He’s pretty hysterical, can’t stop crying. He says he found the door locked, used his key, called out Olafson’s name. When no one answered, he walked in and found it. No signs of forced entry. I guess that fits his story.”

“Where’s Reed now?”

“In the cruiser. Randolph Loring’s watching him.”

Katz said, “So it went down between eight and ten.”

“Approximately,” said Dr. Ruiz. “Stretch it on the front end to seven-thirty.”

Two Moons left the room and returned a moment later. “The door says the gallery’s open till six. Olafson must’ve thought the client was serious to stay two hours late.”

“Or he got conned,” said Katz.

“Either way, if he thought there was serious money involved, he’d stay as late as it took.” Darrel bit hard on his lower lip. “That guy loved his money.”

The hostility in the remark was out of place. Santana and Ruiz stared at Two Moons. He ignored the scrutiny and began checking out the paintings on the wall. A series of blue-gray abstractions. “What do you think of these, Steve?”

“They’re okay,” said Katz. He was still kneeling by the body. A little surprised by the hostility but not shocked. For the last few days, Darrel had been grumpy. It would pass. It always did.

He asked Dr. Ruiz about the bloodstains.

Ruiz said, “I’m no spatter expert, but there’s no blood in any of the other rooms, so it’s pretty obvious he got hit right here. Cracked right across the occiput-back of his head-over to the right. Looks like one blow. I don’t see any signs of struggle. He got whacked and he crumpled.”

“He’s a tall guy,” said Katz. “Was it an upward or a downward blow?”

“More like straight across.”

“So we’re talking about another big man.”

“That seems logical,” said Ruiz, “but I can tell you more after I cut him open.”

“Any guesses about the weapon?” said Katz.

Ruiz thought a moment. “What I can say at this point is it was something big and heavy with rounded edges.” He got down next to Katz and pointed at the pulpy wound site. “Look over here. One furrow but it went extremely deep. The impact shattered bone. There are no small fragments on visual, like you’d get with a sharp-edged instrument. No cut marks, period. Whatever was used inflicted damage over a comparatively wide surface and pushed the fragments down into the brain. Serious heft.”

“Like a crowbar?”

“Larger. We’re talking tremendous force.”

“Lots of anger,” said Darrel.

Ruiz got up and stretched. Touched his knee and winced.

“Sore, Doc?”

“Middle age sucks.”

Katz smiled and cocked his head at the empty pedestal.

“I saw that,” said Ruiz. “Could be. If it’s like the others weightwise.”

Darrel said, “Carrying away something that heavy would be tough. And there’s no blood trail.”

“If it’s chrome,” said Ruiz, “the blood might not have adhered in any degree-might’ve dripped off soon after impact. Or your murderer wiped it and took it with him.”

“Souvenir?” said Darrel.

Ruiz smiled. “Maybe he’s an art lover.”

Katz smiled back. “Or he was hyped up, adrenalized, took it with him, and dropped it somewhere nearby.”

Darrel checked his watch. “Time to search.”

Katz said, “It’s pretty dark out there, and I didn’t see any outdoor lights near the guesthouse.”

“No problem,” Two Moons countered. “Let’s cordon the entire property, get some night spots, block off upper Canyon.”

Ruiz grinned. “You block off upper Canyon, you’d best finish early.”

Wiseass smile, Katz noticed, which could be Ruiz’s way when dealing with a body. A small, round, highly intelligent man, the Hispaniola-born son of a plasterer, David Ruiz had gone to UNM on scholarship, earned an MD from Johns Hopkins, served a forensic-path residency at New York Hospital. He’d spent a couple of years with Dr. Michael Baden in the New York ME ’s office. He and Katz had traded lots of New York war stories. The Santa Fe job had brought Ruiz back to his home state. He lived outside the city limits, on a ranchero near Galisteo, with horses and cows, dogs and cats, a couple of llamas. He had a wife who liked animals and a whole bunch of kids.

“Nine by the latest,” Ruiz continued. “That’s when the tourists start coming. Blocking off Canyon will turn you into civic impediments.”

Two Moons spoke in his laconic voice. “And here I was thinking I was a civil servant.”

“Consider this,” said Ruiz. “A few hours ago, Olafson was an important man. Now he’s an impediment.”

The detectives had the techs dust for prints all over the gallery and in Olafson’s rear office. Tons of latents showed up immediately, which was almost as bad as a blank screen. When everything had been photographed, they gloved up and checked out the art dealer’s desk. In a top drawer, Katz found Olafson’s Palm Pilot. Lots of names, a few he recognized. Including Valerie’s. That surprised him. As far as he knew, she’d given up her art dreams, had reached a medium level of contentment working at the Sarah Levy Gallery over in the Plaza, selling high-end Pueblo pottery.

“These are people with real talent, Steve,” she’d told him when he’d dropped by. “At least I’m smart enough to know the difference.”

Katz had thought he spied moisture in the corners of her eyes. But maybe he was wrong. When it came to Valerie, he’d been wrong a lot.

Checking his gloves for pinholes and wrinkles, he scrolled through more names on the Pilot.

Two Moons said, “Too much stuff. This is going to be one of those. Let’s tag and bag and we’ll go through it later. Meanwhile, how about the houseboy?”

Sammy Reed was twenty-four, delicate, black, and still weeping.

“I can’t believe it, I just can’t believe it.”

He asked to get out and stretch, and the detectives said sure. Reed wore a too big herringbone tweed overcoat with a black velvet collar that looked vintage. Black jeans, black Doc Martens, diamond chip in his right ear-lobe. As he flexed his arms and legs, they checked out his size.

Five-six in his Docs, maybe one twenty.

In the car once more, Two Moons and Katz flanked him in the backseat. The heater hummed intermittently, and the temperature hovered between chilly and passable. Reed sniffled and denied knowing whom “Larry” was staying late to meet. Olafson didn’t discuss business details with him. His houseboy duties consisted of keeping the mansion neat and clean, doing some light cooking, taking care of the pond and the pool and Larry’s borzoi.

“She’s going to be heartbroken,” he said. “Shattered.” As if to illustrate, Reed cried some more.

Darrel handed him a tissue. “The dog.”

“Anastasia. She’s six. Borzois don’t live that long. Now that Larry’s gone… I can’t believe I just said that. Gone. Ohmigod.”

“Can you think of anyone who’d do this?”

“No,” said Reed. “Absolutely not. Larry was beloved.”

“Popular, huh?”

“More than popular. Beloved.”

“Still,” said Katz, “sometimes you run into difficult people.”

“If Larry did, I don’t know about it.”

“He didn’t talk business with you?”

“No,” said Reed. “That wasn’t my role.”

“Who works at the gallery?”

“Just Larry and one assistant. Larry was trying to streamline.”

“Financial problems?”

“No, of course not.” Reed gulped. “At least none that I knew of, and Larry didn’t seem to be worried or anything like that. Just the opposite. He was talking about buying more land. So he must’ve been doing okay.”

“Land where?”

Reed shook his head.

Darrel said, “What’s the assistant’s name?”

“Summer Riley.”

Katz remembered the name from the Palm Pilot. “Where does she live?”

“In the guesthouse out back.”

The detectives said nothing, both of them wondering what lay behind the guesthouse door.

Darrel said, “Did Larry receive any threats you’re aware of?”

Reed shook his head.

“Hang-up calls, weird mail, anything like that?”

Three more headshakes.

“Nothing out of the ordinary?” said Katz. “Especially within the last few weeks?”

“Nothing,” Reed insisted. “Larry’s life was tranquil.”

“Tranquil,” said Two Moons.

“I’m talking compared to his New York days,” said Reed. “He adored Santa Fe. Once he told me his original plan had been to spend just a few months here, but he came to love it so much that he decided to make it his primary residence. He was even talking about closing up one of the New York galleries.”

“Which one?” said Katz.

“Pardon?”

“He had two, right?”

“Yes,” said Reed. “The one in Chelsea.”

“West 21st-contemporary art,” said Katz.

Reed’s eyes were wide with surprise. “You’ve been there?”

“I used to live in New York. So Mr. Olafson was thinking of downsizing.”

“I don’t know for sure, but he mentioned it.”

“When?”

“Hmm… a month ago maybe.”

“What was the context?” said Katz.

“The context?”

“He didn’t usually talk business with you.”

“Oh,” said Reed. “Well, this wasn’t business. It was more… Larry was in a good mood, kind of… talkative… reflective about life. We were out on the portal- nighttime. Back when we had that warm spell?”

“Yeah, a month ago,” Two Moons said. More like a century ago in winter hours.

“Where was I?” Reed asked.

“The portal,” Katz clued him in.

“Yes, right,” said Reed. “The portal. Larry was waiting for his dinner. Drinking wine. I’d cooked halibut in an olive sauce and penne with pistachios. After I brought the food to the table, Larry asked me to sit down and share with him. It had been a long day. Anastasia had some stomach problems. Larry said I deserved a break. So I sat and he poured me some wine and we chatted.” Reed sighed. “It was a really clear night, all those stars. Larry said he felt spiritual in a way he’d never experienced back East.” The young man’s lip quivered. “Now this. I can’t believe-”

“Closing up a gallery,” said Katz. “What would that have meant for the artists he represented?”

Reed tried to shrug. Being the filling in a detective sandwich checked his movement. “I guess they’d find new representation.”

“Except for the ones who couldn’t,” said Katz. “It’s like that in the art world, right? C students versus A students. Some would have found themselves with no representation.”

Reed stared at him. “I guess.”

“You an artist?”

“No, no way, can’t draw a straight line. I’m a cook. I trained to be a chef at the CIA-the Culinary Institute, up in the Hudson Valley -but mostly, I ended up being a cook. Actually, I ended up doing kitchen grunt work for minimum wage at Le Bernardin and places like that. So when Larry offered me a job in Santa Fe, I leaped at the opportunity.”

“How’d Mr. Olafson find you?”

“I was daylighting for a very high-end caterer, but I could tell you stories… Anyway, Larry threw a Sunday brunch at the gallery. I suppose I passed muster with the guests. The smoked pineapple and habanero-spiced prawns didn’t hurt, either.” Small smile. “He said he liked the way I handled myself.”

“How long have you worked for him?”

“Three months.”

“Enjoy it?”

“It’s been heaven.” Reed broke down and caught his breath long enough to plead for another tissue.

Another half hour of questioning proved unproductive. Reed denied a personal relationship with his boss, but he wasn’t convincing. Katz caught Two Moons’s knowing glance over the top of the houseboy’s head.

Run him through the system before we let him go.

But neither of them felt it would amount to much. When the houseboy’s preliminary arrest search came back clean, except for a speeding ticket two months ago on Highway 25 just outside of Albuquerque, no one was surprised. Reed was boy-sized, and the only way he could’ve smacked Olafson level across the head was if he’d stood on a ladder.

Not to mention wielding a heavy rounded instrument.

It was time to join the search for that.

Probably another dead end.

Katz and Two Moons stuck around for another hour and a half, supervising the boundaries of the cordon and the setting up of the night spots, working with three additional uniforms and two techs in the search of the property. A good chunk of Santa Fe PD’s force was here. It was the first homicide for all the uniforms, and no one wanted to screw up.

They forced open the lock on the guesthouse door. No body inside, just a messy one-room studio. Summer Riley’s personal effects, some weed and a bong in a night-stand drawer, an easel and a paint box in the kitchen, a bunch of really bad oils-crooked, ugly women rendered muddily-propped against the walls. On her bed was a pile of dirty clothes.

Two Moons found Summer Riley’s cell phone number in Olafson’s Palm Pilot, called her up, and got her voice mail. Sensitive guy that he was, he left a message for her to come home because the boss was dead.

It was Katz who found the murder weapon, lying under a creeping juniper, just off the pathway that led to the guesthouse.

No attempt to conceal. The thing had rolled to a low spot in the garden.

Big chrome ball-peen hammer, the size of a motorcycle engine, streaked lightly with pink stains-the faint adherence that Dr. Ruiz had predicted. Couple of brain fragments on the peen. Precisely the wide, round surface that Ruiz had described.

Three techs struggled to bag and tag the hammer. Huge and cumbersome, it had to weigh sixty, seventy pounds. Meaning a very strong bad guy, even factoring in the adrenaline rush.

“Killed by art,” said Darrel. “Wasn’t there some guy, some painter, who once said his goal was to create a painting where you’d look at it and drop dead?”

“Never heard of that,” said Katz.

“I learned it in class. The guy had a weird name-Man something.”

“Man Ray?”

“That’s the one.”

“You took art?” said Katz.

“Art history,” said Darrel. “In college. Because it was easy.”

“Learn anything?”

“That I liked seriously pretty stuff as much as anyone, but seriously studying it was ridiculous.”

“It’s like everything else,” said Katz. “God gives us good stuff and we make it complicated.”

Darrel glanced at him “You’re religious now?”

“I was talking… metaphorically.”

“Ah,” said Two Moons. “Well, the big metaphor tonight is ”dead as a doornail.“ Any ideas?”

“Check out his house,” said Katz. “Get hold of his phone records, find Summer Riley and see what she knows, talk to the ex-wife in New York, or wherever she is, learn more about Olafson’s business. That ForestHaven deal, too. Be interesting to see what the ranchers he sued have to say.”

“Sounds like a comprehensive plan, Steve.”

They headed for the car.

Darrel said, “Way I see it, we’ll be looking for enemies in all the right places. Something tells me we’re going to be real busy.”

Just as they were about to drive off, one of the uniforms said, “Look who’s here.”

Headlights flashed, then dimmed as a squad car drove up. Chief Shirley Bacon got out wearing a navy-blue knit pantsuit under a long black shearling coat, her dark hair piled and sprayed high, more makeup on her face than she ever wore at the station.

She was compact and open-faced, a forty-eight-year-old former teacher, daughter of a county sheriff and the sister of a state cop, another sheriff, and a probation officer. She’d started out playing the violin, ended up giving music lessons and working as a secretary at the opera while hoping for better. A broken hand at age thirty-five had sent her to the department as a secretary. One thing led to another and she joined SFPD.

She’d climbed fast by being smart and able, had made it to chief last year. She treated her officers with respect, got a sixty-mile vehicle take-home policy passed on their squad cars, and pushed through a salary raise in an era of budget-cutting. No one begrudged her a damn thing, no one thought about her gender.

She headed straight for them.

“Darrel, Steve.”

“Big night out, boss?” said Katz.

“Fund-raiser. The Indian Art Foundation, Dr. and Mrs. Haskell’s place, up on Circle Drive. What’s the story here?”

They told her as she grimaced. She said, “This could go in all sorts of directions. I’ll deal with the papers. Keep me posted.”

Within moments, the chief’s deputy, Lon Maguire, showed up in his off-duty truck, and soon after that, Lieutenant Almodovar joined the huddle.

No ideas from the bosses. But no anxiety or criticism, either. During Katz’s three years with the department, he’d been impressed by the lack of backbiting and barely suppressed anger. All that good stuff he’d dealt with in New York. Then again, NYPD dealt with more homicides weekly than he’d seen in three years here.

Chief Bacon gave them a simple wave, then turned to leave.

“Back to the party, boss?” asked Katz.

“Heck no, that was about as boring as it gets.” She shouted as she walked away, “But next time give me a simpler way to excuse myself!”

At 2:53, nearly an hour past shift’s end, just as they were about to leave for Olafson’s house, they spotted a good-looking young couple standing outside the cordon, at the far end, talking to Officer Randolph Loring.

They headed over and Loring said, “This is Ms. Riley. She lives out in back.”

Summer Riley was raven-haired and ivory-skinned with a curvy shape even her bulky ski jacket couldn’t conceal. Her big blue eyes were as scared as a cornered rabbit’s. Katz put her at late twenties.

The denim-clad guy with her was tall, dark, handsome in that Latin-lover type of way. Brown wavy hair that fell past his shoulder blades and a pale, strong-boned face. Equally freaked-out.

Katz thought: This could be a Calvin Klein ad. Even the fear. Especially the fear.

Summer Riley hadn’t picked up Two Moons’s message. She was just returning from a date. Darrel gave her the same straight-out story he’d told her machine, and she collapsed into the young guy’s arms. He held her, looking awkward. Stroked her hair with all the vitality of a robot.

His name was Kyle Morales, and he was a UNM dance major who worked part-time at the flamenco show over at the Radisson. He was on hiatus until spring of next year.

Katz had seen the show, sitting alone at the back of the room with the single Tanqueray and tonic he allowed himself. Slightly apart from the rest of the audience, whose mean age had been about sixty-five.

He’d been pleasantly surprised by the show: good dancers, good guitar work. He said so to Kyle Morales.

Morales said, “Thanks,” without any feeling.

When Katz said, “How about we talk to you guys separately?” Morales complied without fuss.

Darrel guided Summer Riley through the cordon, over to the guesthouse, while Katz stayed right there with Morales.

It was the second time Morales had gone out with Summer. He’d met her at a bar on San Francisco Street, thought she was “cool.” He had no idea who Lawrence Olafson was and knew less than nothing about art.

“Second date,” said Katz.

“The first was just drinks, kinda,” said Morales.

“What about tonight?”

“Tonight we saw a comedy over at the DeVargas Center.”

“Funny?” said Katz.

“Yeah,” said Morales, not even trying to fake it. A dancer, not an actor.

“Then what?”

“Then we got a pizza. Then we were headed back here.”

“First time at her place?”

“Supposed to be.” Uttered with regret.

Tough luck, thought Katz. All chance of getting laid blown to bits by the nasty business of murder.

He questioned Morales awhile longer, deciding the guy wasn’t very bright. Just another wrong place, wrong time situation.

“Okay, you’re free to go.”

Morales said, “I thought maybe once she was finished with you guys, we could still hang out.”

“You can take your chances and wait,” said Katz, thumbing the cordon tape, “but talking from experience, buddy, it’s gonna get real cold.”

In the end, Morales decided to pack it in. Katz joined Two Moons and Summer Riley in the single-room guesthouse. Added to the previous disarray was a layer of print powder. The girl was drying her tears. It was hard to say if that was because of the situation or Darrel’s sensitive approach-or both.

Darrel said, “Ms. Riley doesn’t know anyone who’d want to harm Mr. Olafson.”

“He was wonderful,” sniffled Summer.

Darrel didn’t respond and the girl said, “Like I said, you really need to check if any of the art’s missing.”

“Robbery,” said Darrel, using his flat voice.

“It’s possible,” said Summer. “Larry is the top dealer in Santa Fe, and he’s got some pretty expensive pictures in the gallery.”

“O’Keeffe?”

“No, not at this time,” said Summer defensively. “But we’ve sold several of them in the past.”

“What’s pricey now?”

“There’s a gorgeous Henry Sharp Indian and some Berninghauses and a Thomas Hill. Maybe that doesn’t mean anything to you, but they’re valuable pictures.”

“Sharp and Berninghaus were Taos masters,” said Katz. “I didn’t know Hill painted New Mexico.”

Summer’s head drew back as if his knowledge had assaulted her. “He didn’t. It’s a California scene.”

“Ah.”

“They’re pricey. Six figures each.”

“And he kept them in the gallery?” asked Katz.

“Except for what he takes home,” said Summer, staying in the present tense.

“For his personal use?”

“He circulates art in his house. He inherently loves the art and also to have around for visitors.”

“A sample,” said Katz.

The young woman looked at him as if he’d uttered a vulgarity.

Darrel said, “Where in the gallery are these masterpieces stored?”

“With all the other pictures,” said Summer. “In the storage room. It’s got a special lock and alarm, and only Larry has the combination.”

“Do you mean the back room?” asked Two Moons. “The one with all those vertical racks?”

Summer nodded.

The detectives had walked right in. The door had been left open. Katz realized he hadn’t even noticed the lock. “Where would we find an inventory list?”

“On Larry’s home computer,” said Summer. “Also, I keep a written log for backup. I’m real good at organizing. That’s why Larry likes me.”

The state of her room said otherwise, but who knew.

Then Katz thought: She hadn’t even bothered to clean up before bringing Kyle Morales back. Maybe her plans had been different from Morales’s.

He asked her about the dancer. Her story matched Morales’s.

Katz said, “So you and Kyle were headed back here.”

Summer said, “He was taking me home.” She tossed her hair and blushed. “That was it. I wasn’t going to see him again.”

“Bad date?”

“Boring. He’s not bright.”

Metallic edge to her voice. This one could be tough.

“The artist who made the hammer-Miles D’Angelo,” said Katz. “What can you tell us about him?”

“Miles? He’s eighty-three and lives in Tuscany.”

“Mr. Olafson have any conflict with him?”

“With Miles?” Summer smirked. “He’s the gentlest man alive. He loved Larry.”

Two Moons said, “We’ll need a look at your log.”

“Sure,” said Summer. “It’s back in the gallery. In Larry’s desk.”

The detectives hadn’t seen anything like that.

They returned to Olafson Southwest, where the girl pointed to the drawer. Darrel gloved up and slid it open.

Papers but no log.

“It’s not there,” said Summer Riley. “It’s supposed to be there.”