The Museum of Desire

Chapter 56

There’d be no trial in the matter of what the bloggers, the rumormongers, the conspiracy theorists, and the media, playing catch-up, had labeled The Stretch-Limo Massacre.

No quick resolution out of the public eye, the department doing its best to control leaks.

Impossible task. Gratifying the bloggers, the rumormongers...

Luminol tests of the gallery building revealed oceans of blood from several human sources, most of it upstairs throughout the loft. But evidence of mop-up was also found in the rear anteroom leading to the staircase, and those samples traced to Marcella McGann and Stephen Vollmann.

The charnel house would take time to sort out, and the DOJ lab could’ve been convinced to prioritize. But Milo’s bosses had decided on a go-slow strategy, hoping the internet noise would die down and they could stop fielding annoying questions.

As Alicia had said, the Clearwater house revealed nothing but art storage. The same combination of cheap poster art and centuries-old paintings yet to be cataloged.

The paintings were transferred to a temperature-controlled vault at the crime lab. Milo suggested Suzanne Hirto be brought in. His bosses felt otherwise and hired an art history professor from the U. who arrived with a squadron of eager graduate students. When their expertise was found lacking, the prof brought in Suzanne Hirto.

It took a while but the team managed to divide the trove into two categories. Nearly three hundred paintings ranging from Renaissance to impressionist were believed to have been looted by the Nazis, fifty-nine of them labeled with the business card of Heinz Gurschoebel.

That leaked out quickly, eliciting a hailstorm of demand letters from the legal departments of museums around the world, organizations claiming virtue, and lawyers representing Holocaust survivors.

A smaller grouping — thirty-four oils on panel — had been set aside in the smallest Conrock bedroom. A collection of grotesque, pornographic, often sadistic genre scenes, not dissimilar to the two paintings displayed in the loft.

Those, Hirto was willing to certify, likely came from Hermann Göring’s collection of grotesquerie, a claim later supported by twenty-year-old correspondence unearthed in the Conrock house indicating that Stefan Sigmund Kierstead was a grand-nephew of Gurschoebel’s wife and she’d willed him the lot.

The Conrock house also gave up two exquisitely fashioned Fabbri shotguns from Italy, a more utilitarian Mossberg, an AK-47, eight handguns, and a collection of Japanese kitchen knives. Blood blowback on the Mossberg matched to Marcella McGann and Stephen Vollmann. Microscopic specks of blood on a cleaver, a boning knife, and a butcher knife matched to the four limo victims and Medina Okash. Okash’s blood was also found on a band saw in the Conrock garage.

Along with the saw and other tools, Milo found a box containing forty-four burner phones, most still in their wrappers but a few used sparingly.

One of those was the cell Candace Kierstead had employed to communicate with Richard Gurnsey. Their correspondence consisted of texts that grew increasingly explicit over the five months Candace and Gurnsey had cohabited. Some of their sessions had taken place in hotels and parks, others in Candace’s marital bed with Sig watching and masturbating appreciatively.

In a Conrock desk drawer, Alicia found papers documenting the transfer of ownership, a week prior to the murders, of two dogs from the high-kill animal shelter in Riverside. The recipient: S. Smith. The handwriting was a match to Candace’s.

A pair of pit bull mixes, one male, one female, estimated to be three and five years old, respectively.

Picked up as strays, they’d never been named.

No communication was found between Richard Gurnsey and Medina Okash, and Sean had found little of interest in the five-hundred-square-foot apartment. The exception was a dozen explicit videos downloaded from the internet and saved on a laptop Okash kept on a kitchen counter.

Erotica of a single theme: threesomes featuring two women and one man.

Sean told me about it in my office. Blushing, his freckles receding as the surrounding skin reddened. For all the things he’s seen, there’s always been an innocence about him.

He turned to religion years ago. That and the comfort he finds in family and clarity of values generally help him maintain a cheerful outlook. But even structure and support can fall short when you’ve come inches from dying terribly.

I waited awhile before suggesting he come by to talk. Prepared with an explanation but he said, “Sure, Doc,” and didn’t ask for clarification.

He arrived dressed for work, in a blue suit, white shirt, tie, and the usual Doc Martens. The tie, patterned with Fender Precision Basses.

He doesn’t drink coffee so I’d set out a bottle of water.

He said, “Thanks, Doc,” and drank. “So what’s up?”

I said, “You’d know better than me.”

He looked around the office. “I’m always impressed when I come here how quiet it is. Must be nice.”

“It is.”

“So,” he said.

“So,” I said.

“First can I tell you what I found in Okash’s place? The only thing really.”

You’re not a child. Then again, maybe part of you is, given what you’ve been through.

I said, “Of course.”

He finished the bottle. The blushing began. “It’s not going to be in the book, Loot says the brass don’t want it there, there’s enough going on without feeding the wolves.”

“Makes sense.”

“I guess... okay, let me tell you about her laptop.”

When he finished, I said, “Consistent theme.”

“Exactly, Doc. Maybe it isn’t evidence, but I’m thinking it’s still psychologically meaningful. Like once they found out about her... about what she liked, they could set her up. For what happened. At the party.”

“That makes sense, Sean.”

“Does it? Great.” He ran his fingers through the ginger thatch atop his head. “I always like when I get it right.”

I said, “You don’t need me to tell you.”

“I don’t?”

“You’re a skillful detective, Sean.”

“Am I?”

“Definitely.”

“Definitely... well, definitely is better than not.”

He looked away. A young man caught between the blessings of instinctual sincerity and positivity and the job he’d chosen.

“Sometimes I wonder, Doc. Is this what I should be doing forever. Then I think, What else is there, and I can’t come up with anything — Doc, tell me straight, am I having PTSD?”

“Are you experiencing flashbacks?”

“Nope.”

“Panic attacks?”

“Nope. But sometimes I just kind of... I find myself thinking about what happened. Not reliving it. More like... just remembering it. And then I feel kind of flu-ish for a few minutes — maybe even an hour. Then I’m basically okay.”

“What you went through,” I said, “isn’t something that can be just filed away and forgotten.”

“It’s normal?”

“It’s a normal reaction to an extreme situation.”

“That’s what my wife says.”

“She’s right.”

“She also said I need to talk to someone until I’m feeling myself again. The thing is, I don’t want any disability situation. The department thinking I’m defective.”

He sat forward. “I don’t want to be off the job for one second.”

“I’ve got a good referral for you. Someone with flexible hours.”

His face fell. “You couldn’t do it?”

“We work together, Sean.”

“Yeah... Becky said that, too.”

He looked at the floor. Forced his eyes upward. “Also, you saved my life.”

Tears filled his eyes. “I never really thanked you. And sometimes — I’m ashamed to say this, Doc, sometimes when I see you it makes me think of what happened and I don’t feel that great.”

“That’s to be expected.”

“But I don’t want us to — I don’t want it to be different. I know how Loot feels about you, you’ll always be on the tough ones. That’s what I want. To be on the tough ones. To work with you and not remember.”

“No reason that can’t happen.”

“You’re sure?”

“I am, Sean. The best thing you can do is take care of yourself and stop worrying. Things have a way of working themselves out.”

“With the Lord’s help.” Sheepish smile. “At least that’s how I see it.”

We need all the help we can get.

I said, “Use all your resources. You’ll be fine.”

He let out a long gust of air. “Doc, this is going to sound weird but can I get up and shake your hand?”

“Of course.”

We stood at the same time. Before his fingers reached mine, he pitched forward, threw his arms around me and squeezed.

Then he pulled away, as if stung.

“Sorry, Doc.”

I said, “Nothing to be sorry for.”

“I owe you my life, Doc.”

“Yours is a life worth saving, Sean.”

“It is? — no, scratch that. It is. I actually could use more water.”

Dr. Larry Daschoff called later that day, thanking me for the referral, saying he liked Sean, was feeling good about the situation.

The following morning, Robin and I flew to Hawaii.