Portrait in Death (21 page)

"Did you work with anyone on the Juilliard shoot?"

"Yeah. I don't know who. Some idiot or other."

"The same idiot or other who was with you when you did the wedding in January, the shots of Rachel Howard?"

"Not likely. They don't stick that long." He managed a thin smile. "I'm temperamental."

"You don't say? Who has access to your disc files?"

"Nobody. Nobody should, but I guess anybody who comes through and knows what they're doing." He moved his shoulders. "I don't pay attention. I never had to pay attention."

He shoved the photos back at Eve. "I didn't call a lawyer."

"So noted. Why is that, Hastings?"

"Because this pisses me off. Plus, I hate lawyers."

"You hate everybody."

"Yeah, that's true." He rubbed his hands over his face, then dropped them on the table. "I didn't kill those kids. That girl with the magic smile, this boy with the magic eyes. I'd never put those lights out." He leaned forward. "Just from an artistic standpoint-what would that smile be like in five years, or those eyes in ten. I'd want to know, to see, to capture. And personally, I don't get murder. Why kill people when you can just ignore them?"

Mirroring his move, she leaned toward him. "What about those lights? Wouldn't you want them for your own? Take them while they're young, innocent. Brilliant. Pull them in, through the lens, into yourself. Then they're always yours."

He stared, blinked twice. "You gotta be fucking kidding me. Where do you get that kind of woo-woo crap?"

Despite the horror of the situation, she let out a laugh. "I like you, Hastings. I'm not sure what that says about me. We're going through your records again, to see if we find the shots you took of Kenby Sulu."

"Why don't you just move in, bring the freaking family? Your pet dog."

"I've got a cat. I've got you scheduled for Truth Testing in about twenty minutes. I'll have an officer escort you to a waiting area."

"That's it?"

"For now, that's it. Do you have any questions or statements you wish to make at this time, on record."

"Yeah, I got a question. I got a prize-winning question for you, Dallas. Am I going to have to wonder who's next? Am I going to have to ask myself whose picture I took who's going to end up dead?"

"I don't have the answer to that. Interview end."

***

"You believe him." Peabody slid into the car beside Eve. "Even without the Truth Test."

"I believe him. He's connected, but not involved. And he'll know the face of the next target. He'll recognize it." And it would cost him, Eve thought. She'd seen what it was already costing him on that ugly face of his.

"The killer is someone he knows, or at least someone who knows him and his work. Someone who admires it, or envies it... or thinks their own is superior."

She toyed with that angle as she pulled out of the garage. "Somebody who hasn't been able to achieve the same sort of commercial or critical success."

"A competitor."

"Maybe. Or maybe someone who's too artistic, too above commercialism. He wants acknowledgment, otherwise, he'd be keeping the images for himself. But he sends them to the media."

She played back pieces of the text the killer sent to Nadine.

Such light! Such strong light. It coats me. It feeds me. He was brilliant, this clever young man with the dancer's build and the artist's soul. Now he is me. What he was lives forever in me.

Light again, Eve mused, then shadows.

There will be no shadows in them now. No shadows to smother the light. This is my gift to them. Theirs to me. And when it's done, when it's complete, our gift to humanity.

"He wants the world to know what he's doing. Artistically," Eve continued. "Hastings, or at least Hastings's work, is one of his springboards. We question everyone who's worked with or for Hastings over the last year."

Peabody pulled out her pad, keyed in, scrolled down the list. "That's going to take awhile. The guy's not kidding about going through assistants like toilet paper. Then you add in the staff, and turnover in the retail end, the models and stylists, and so on. You want to start at the top?"

"For now. But we start back at the data club. The transmission to Nadine was sent from there, both times. It's a link."

***

There was a lively lunch crowd jammed at tables and booths, heavy on the students, Eve decided. Lots of them gathered in groups or going solo over data and sandwiches.

She spotted Steve Audrey at the bar, working two-handed to fill orders on trendy iced drinks and coffee. He acknowledged her with a little head bob.

"Summer session has them pouring in midday." He slid something frothy and blue into waiting hands, then wiped his own on the bar rag tucked in his waistband. "Getcha something cold?"

"I wouldn't mind a Blue Meanie." Peabody spoke fast, knowing her lieutenant.

"Coming up." He pumped at levers. "What can I do for you, Lieutenant?"

"Take a break."

"I just came on an hour ago. I'm not due for a break until-"

"Take one now."

He flipped the slush machine, grabbed a glass. "Hold on. Mitz, need you to take over for five. Can't take more than five," he told Eve as he poured the blue slush into a tall, skinny glass for Peabody. "I'll get iced otherwise."

"Five'll do. Is there anyplace in here that's quiet?"

"Not this time of day." He scanned the crowd, used his chin to point. "Grab that privacy booth in the back, to the right. Give me a minute to fill these other orders."

Eve wound through, Peabody, slurping Blue Meanie, in her wake. Students, she noted, treated the club like a safari and came in loaded with bags and satchels.

There was no bag or satchel in Kenby's locker at Lincoln Center.

She stepped over, stepped around, shoved aside, and reached the booth at the same time a pair of college boys in track shirts leaped into the chairs.

They looked up at her and grinned. "You lose. We're younger and faster."

"I'm older and I've got a badge." She flipped it out and grinned back. "Maybe I should have a look through your backpacks, then brighten everyone's day with a quick cavity search."

They scrambled up and away.

"They are fast," Peabody noted.

"Yeah, but I don't need some pussy drink to be mean."

Peabody slurped again. "It's very refreshing, and contrary to its name puts me in a very amenable mood. Or maybe that has something to do with the cavity search McNab and I performed on each other last night."

Eve slapped at the cheek muscle that twitched. "Thank God I haven't had any lunch. I'd have lost it."

"I think it's nice we're both having regular sex. It keeps us in rhythm."

"Shut up, shut up."

"Can't help it. I'm happy."

"I can fix that."

With another frosty drink in his hand, Steve dropped down next to Peabody. He sucked through the straw stuck in the pale green foam. "Okay, we got five." He hit the button that closed the clear bubble around the booth. "Ah." He smiled into the silence as he drew on the straw. "Excellent."

"What do you know about the transmission sent from here this morning?"

His eyes popped open. "Huh? Again?"

"EDD's been here. They impounded the unit, talked to the day manager."

"I just came on an hour ago and had to dive right into the pool. I didn't hear about this. Is somebody else dead?"

Eve took out the photo of Kenby. "Recognize him?"

"Man. I don't know. Man. I think so, maybe. I'm not sure. Should I?"

"Take a breath, Steve."

"Yeah, right. This is brutal." After wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he looked at the image again. "I think maybe he's been in. Is he like an actor or something?"

"Or something."

"You should ask Shirllee. She goes for the theater and artist types."

"She here?"

"Yeah, she's on. Give me a sec."

He opened the bubble. Noise poured back over them as he slid out and hurried away.

"They got curly fries," Peabody announced, and punched in an order on the menu before Eve could speak. "My blood sugar's dropping."

"That'll be the day."

Steve came back with a tall, skinny brunette. Her hair was done in multiple and equally skinny braids that fell to her waist and were joined at the tips by a black ribbon. She wore a quartet of silver spikes in her right earlobe and a trio of silver studs dripping below her left eye like sparkly tears.

She sat next to Eve and clasped her hands together so the forest of rings on her fingers clanged and clinked. "Stevie said you're a cop."

"Stevie wins a point." Eve hit the privacy button, then nudged the photo in front of Shirllee. "You know him?"

"Hey, that's Twinkletoes. I call him that 'cause he's a dancer. Sure, he comes in a couple times a week. Lunch break usually, or early dinner. But he's been here for the music a few times, weekends. He can really move. What he do?"

"He come in with anybody special?"

"Travels with a theater pack mostly. Picked one out of the herd a couple of times, but he never hung with one girl. He's straight though, 'cause I never saw him moving on another guy."

"Anybody move on him?"

"Not especially. He mostly hangs with people he knows. He tips, too." She shot a knowing look at Steve. "College kids stiff you, but Twinkles here, he always tipped. Brought up right, you ask me. Don't see him getting in trouble. He never made any trouble in here."

"When's the last time he came in?"

"That I saw him?" She pursed lips dyed dead white. "Friday night, I think. Last Friday. We had a totally mag holo-band in. Hard Crash. They're completely juiced. Twinks was in here with a bunch of Juilliards on Friday. You remember, Stevie? He's a fucking dancing machine once he's revved. You were mixing him non-A Sorcerers all night."

"Yeah. Yeah, that's right." Steve looked down at the photo, ran his fingertip around the border. "Sorcerers, no punch. I remember now."

"I gotta get back on." Shirllee reached over, opened the bubble.

"Me, too." Steve looked up from the picture, met Eve's gaze. "Did that help any?"

"Maybe. Appreciate it. Let's go, Peabody."

"But my curly fries just came through."

"Life's full of hard knocks."

As Eve headed out, Peabody scooped the fries into a napkin.

She comforted herself that food eaten on the run had no calories.

When they stepped out, Eve reached over and snatched a fry. "No salt?" The first bite had her wrinkling her nose. "How can you eat these without salt?"

"I didn't have the chance for salt. Life's full of hard knocks," Peabody added in sober tones.

***

They started at the top of the Portography list. As Eve interviewed potentials she gained an image of Hastings. He was a maniac, he was a genius, he was impossible, he was insane yet compelling-depending on who she spoke with.

She caught one of his former assistants on a location shoot in Greenpeace Park.

The models-one man, one woman-were hyping what Eve was told was active sportswear. To her, they looked as if they were preparing to take a long hike through the desert in the buff-colored skinny tops and shorts, the clunky boots and long-billed caps.

Elsa Ramerez, a tiny woman with short, curly dark hair, tanned limbs, scooted around handing things to the photographer, signalling the rest of the crew, grabbing up bottled water or whatever other task was snapped out at her.

Seeing her day going from too long to endless, Eve stepped forward, laid a hand on the photographer's shoulder.

The thickly built blonde was no Hastings, but she delivered an impressive snarl.

"Take a break," Eve advised and held up her badge.

"We've got all the proper permits. Elsa!"

"Good for you. I'm not here about your permits. Take a break, grab some shade. Otherwise, I can hang you up for twice as long in pretty red tape while I have my trusty aide verify all the permits. Elsa?" Eve crooked a finger. "With me."

"We've only got the location for another hour." Elsa jogged over and was already dragging paperwork out of a satchel. "I've got everything right here."

"Save it. Tell me about Dirk Hastings."

Elsa's sweaty face went stony. "I'm not paying for that window. He threw the bottle at me. Crazy son of a bitch. He can sue me, you can lock me up, but I'm not paying for the broken window."

"You worked for him in February. From..." Eve perused her notes. "... February fourth to February eighteenth."

"Yeah, and I should put in for combat pay." She took a bottle out of the holster she wore on her hip, glugged. "I don't mind hard work-hell, I like it. I don't mind temperament, got one of my own. But life's too short to deal with crazy people."

"Do you recognize this person?" She held out the image of Sulu.

"No. Terrific face. Nice shot. Very nice. What's this about?"

"Did you have access to Hastings's disc files and records when you worked as his assistant?"

"Sure. Part of the gig was filing the shots, or locating one he wanted to finesse. What is this? Is he saying I took something of his? Took his work? That's just crap. Hell, I knew he was crazy, but he wasn't vindictive."

"No, he's not saying you took anything of his. I'm asking if you did."

"I don't take anything that's not mine. And I sure as hell don't put my name on somebody else's work. Shit, even if I was some sleazy bitch, I'd never get away with it. He's got a look. Hastings has a style, the bastard, and anybody with an eye would know."

"Is this his work?"

Elsa glanced at the photo again. "No. It's good, real good, but it's not over the edge into great. This one?" Elsa tapped a finger on her shoulder to indicate the photographer behind her. "She's good. Very competent. Gets the shot, produces the look the client's after. Straight commercial stuff. Hastings can do this blindfolded. But she'd never be able to do his artwork. Maybe you have to be crazy to cross that line. He qualifies."

"He attacked you."

She sighed, shuffled her feet. "Okay, not exactly. I didn't move fast enough when he was in the zone. Didn't anticipate, and yeah, anticipation's part of my job. He yelled, I yelled back. I got a temper, too. He threw the bottle, and okay, so he didn't actually throw it at me. He just winged it through the window. Then he says how I'm paying for it, and starts hurling insults. I walked out, didn't go back. Lucia sent me my pay, in full. She keeps things sane around there. As much as possible."