Killer Takes All

CHAPTER 25

Thursday, March 10, 2005

2:00 p.m.

They had a search warrant within the hour. Spencer handed it to the landlord, who in turn unlocked the artist’s apartment door. “Thanks,” Spencer told him. “Hang around, okay?”

“Sure.” The man shifted from one foot to the other. “What’d Walter get himself into?”

“Walter?”

“Walter Pogolapoulos. Everybody calls him Pogo.”

Weird. But it made sense.

“So what’d he do?”

“Sorry, we can’t discuss an ongoing investigation.”

“Of course. I understand.” He nodded his head vigorously. “I’ll be right here if you need anything.”

They entered the apartment. Tony grinned at him. “Ongoing investigation, indeed. Thought the guy was going to wet his pants at that.”

“Everybody’s got to have a hobby.”

“Good work, by the way,” Tony said.

“Haven’t you heard? He got away.”

“He’ll be back.”

He’d better be. They’d have him now, if he had been upstairs waiting for the artist when he arrived home, instead of out front playing games with Stacy, arguing like some damn rookie instead of doing his job correctly.

“Was that Killian I saw downstairs?”

“I don’t want to hear that name.”

Tony leaned toward him, “Killian,” he murmured three times, then laughed.

Spencer made a great show of flicking him off, then turned to the task at hand. Pogo’s was a typical, old New Orleans apartment. Sixteen-foot ceilings, windows with the original glass, cypress moldings that didn’t exist in new construction, even for the wealthy.

The apartment also sported cracked plaster walls and ceilings. Peeling paint, probably chockful of lead. Bathroom and kitchen fixtures from the fifties-no doubt the last time the place had been updated. The musty smell of damp walls; the sound of cockroaches scurrying inside those walls.

Pogo’s living room smelled of turpentine. And no wonder, art dominated every room. Drawings and paintings in every stage of completion were tacked or taped to walls, laid across tables and propped up in corners. Art supplies littered the apartment. Brushes and paint. Pencils, pens, pastels. Other tools as well, ones Spencer couldn’t name.

Interesting, Spencer thought, looking over the room again. No family photos or curios, no evidence of life outside himself and his art.

Damn lonely, he would think.

“Over here, Slick,” Tony called.

He crossed to where the other man stood, a drafting table in the corner. He followed the direction of the other man’s gaze.

Spread across the top of the table were a half-dozen “Alice” death scenes, in various stages of completion. The most complete depicted the playing card characters, the Five and Seven of Spades, torn in half. Another appeared to be the March Hare slumped over a table, blood leaking from his head and pooling on the table.

Spencer met Tony’s gaze. “Holy shit.”

“Looks like we hit the jackpot, my friend.”

Spencer grabbed a tissue, using it to keep from contaminating the evidence as he thumbed through them. The Queen of Hearts, impaled on a fork. The Cheshire Cat, its bloody head floating above its body. And finally, Alice, hanging by the neck, face a bloated distortion. At the bottom of a stack, some rough sketches for the cards Leo had already received.

“If this isn’t our guy,” Tony said, “he knows who is.”

And he should have had him. He’d blown it.

“I want to know everything about Walter Pogolapoulos, ASAP.” Spencer motioned to one of the uniforms. “Call in the techs,” he said. “I want a full search of the apartment. Access to the man’s bank and phone records. Cell, too. I want to know who he’s been talking to. Canvass the neighborhood. Let’s find out who his friends are and where he hangs out.”

“Want a broadcast?” Tony asked, referring to a bulletin put out on all police channel radios.

“You bet your ass I do. Mr. Pogo’s not going to slip through my fingers again.”