The Murder Book (42 page)

“Oh, Nicholas’s wonderful.”

“He’s certainly not daunted by tradition,” I said. “Could you tell me more about his background — is it rigidly academic?”

“Well,” she said, “he did go to Yale. But we’ve always felt Nicholas transcends academic painting. There’s something about his sensibilities. And the way he uses light.”

“Yes. Quite. I like his sense of composition.”

“That, too. He’s simply first-rate. Unfortunately, we have no paintings by him in stock, at this time. If you could give me your name—”

“I always research an artist before I take the plunge. Would you happen to have some biographical information on Hansen that you could fax me?”

“Yes, of course,” she said. “I’ll get that right out to you. And about the academic aspect… Nicholas
is
well schooled, but please don’t hold that against him. Despite his meticulousness and his way with paint as matter, there’s a certain primal energy to his consciousness. You’d need to see the pictures in person to really appreciate that.”

“No doubt,” I said. “There’s nothing like in person.”

Five minutes later, my fax machine buzzed, disgorging Nicholas Hansen’s curriculum vitae. Education, awards, group and individual exhibitions, corporate collections, museum shows.

The man had accomplished plenty in two decades, and unlike his old pal Garvey Cossack he hadn’t recounted any of it in a pumped-up biography. No mention of high school at all; Nicholas Hansen’s account of his education began with college: Columbia University, where he’d received a B.A. in anthropology, summers filled with painting fellowships, a Masters of Fine Arts at Yale, and two years of postgraduate work at an atelier in Florence, Italy, learning classical painting technique. Among his museum shows were group spots at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Prominent names figured among those who collected his work.

An accomplished man. A polished man. Hard to fit that with Vance Coury’s garage or the Cossacks’ vulgar lifestyle. A gang-rape murder.

I went over the dates on Hansen’s résumé. Saw something else that didn’t fit.

Milo still wasn’t answering any of his phones, so I tried to dispel my restlessness with a beer, then another. I carried the bottle down to the pond, thought about kicking back, decided to net leaves instead. For the next hour or so I pruned, raked, busied myself with mindless chores. I was just about to allow myself a moment of repose when the phone rang up in the house.

Robin? I ran up the stairs, grabbed the kitchen extension, heard Dr. Bert Harris’s voice. “Alex?”

“Bert. What’s up?”

“It was nice to see you,” he said. “After all this time. Just checking to see how you’re doing.”

“Did I look that bad?”

“Oh, no, not bad, Alex. Perhaps a bit preoccupied. So…”

“Everything’s rolling along.”

“Rolling along.”

“No, that’s a lie, Bert. I screwed up with Robin.”

Silence.

I said, “I should’ve followed your advice. Instead, I brought up the past.”

More dead air. “I see…”

“She reacted just as you’d imagine. Maybe I wanted her to.”

“You’re saying…”

“I really don’t know what I’m saying, Bert. Listen, I appreciate your calling, but things are kind of… I don’t feel like talking about it.”

“Forgive me,” he said.

Apologizing again.

“Nothing to forgive,” I said. “You gave me good advice, I screwed up.”

“You made a mistake, son. Mistakes can be remedied.”

“Some.”

“Robin’s a flexible woman.”

He’d met Robin twice. I said, “Is that your natural optimism speaking?”

“No, it’s an old man’s intuition. Alex, I’ve made my share of mistakes, but after a few years one does get a sense for people. I’d hate to see you misled.”

“About Robin?”

“About anything,” he said. “Another reason I’m calling is that I’m planning to travel. Perhaps for a while. Cambodia, Vietnam, some places I’ve been to, others I haven’t.”

“Sounds great, Bert.”

“I didn’t want you to try to reach me and not find me here.”

“I appreciate that.” Had I come across
that
needy?

“That sounds presumptuous, doesn’t it?” he said. “To think you’d call. But… just in case.”

“I appreciate your telling me, Bert.”

“Yes… well, then, good luck.”

“When are you leaving?” I said.

“Soon. As soon as final arrangements are complete.”

“Bon voyage,” I said. “When you get back, give a call. I’d love to hear about the trip.”

“Yes… may I offer one bit of advice, son?”

Please don’t.
“Sure.”

“Try to season each day with a new perspective.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Bye, now, Alex.”

I placed the receiver back in its cradle. What had
that
been about? The more I thought about the conversation, the more it sounded like good-bye.

Bert going somewhere… he’d sounded sad. Those comments he’d made about senility. All the apologies.

Bert was a first-rate therapist, wise enough to know I hadn’t wanted advice. But he offered a parting shot, anyway.

Try to season each day with a fresh perspective.
Last words from an old friend facing deterioration? Taking a trip… a final journey?

There I was again, off on some worst-case tangent.

Keep it simple: The old man had always traveled, loved to travel. No reason to think his destination was anywhere but Southeast Asia…

The phone rang again. I switched it to speaker and Milo’s voice, distant and flecked with static, filled the kitchen. “Any new insights?”

“How about an actual fact?” I said. “Nicholas Hansen couldn’t have been involved in Janie’s murder. Early in June he was finishing up his last year at Columbia. After he graduated, he went to Amsterdam and spent the summer at a life-drawing course at the Rijksmuseum.”

“That assumes he didn’t come home for the weekend.”

“New York to L.A. for the weekend?”

“These were rich kids,” he said.

“Anything’s possible, but I just don’t see it. Hansen’s different from the other King’s Men. His life took a whole different turn, and unless you can uncover some present-day dealings with Coury and the Cossacks and Brad Larner, my bet is he distanced himself from the group and maintained that distance.”

“So he’s no use to us.”

“On the contrary.
He
might be able to provide insights.”

“We just drop in and say we want to chat about his old pals the sex-killers?”

“Any other promising leads at the moment?” I said.

He didn’t answer.

I said, “So what’d you do today?”

“Nosed around about Coury, Junior. His daddy was the nasty piece of work the papers made him out to be. Used gang-bangers to collect the rent. And looks like Junior’s continued the relationship. The dubious citizens working his parking lots have that homeboy thing going on.”

“Funny about that.” I told him about my visit to the garage.

“Chopping the Seville as a cover story?” he said. “Did it ever occur to you Coury didn’t want to do the job ’cause he wasn’t buying your story? Jesus, Alex—”

“Why wouldn’t he buy it?” I said.

“Because maybe someone in the enemy camp knows we’ve been snooping around the Ingalls case. You got the goddamned murder book in the first place because someone knew we worked together. Alex, that was goddamned stupid.”

“Coury wasn’t suspicious, just apathetic,” I said, with more confidence than I felt. “My take is that he doesn’t need the money.”

“Was he doing other chop jobs?”

“Yes,” I admitted.

“Meaning he works, but he just didn’t want to work with
you
. Alex, no more improvisation.”

“Fine,” I said. “Gang connections would have given Coury ready personnel for odd jobs. Like taking care of Luke Chapman, and possibly Willie Burns and Caroline Cossack. Maybe Lester Poulsenn, too. I located him — safely, all computer work — and guess what, he died less than two weeks after Caroline left Achievement House. Shot in the head in a house in Watts, then the house was burned down. He’d just been transferred from IA to Metro, meaning maybe he was working on Janie’s case, right?”

“Burned to death,” he said. His voice was tight. “What was he doing in Watts?”

“The paper didn’t say. Sacramento paper, by the way. A detective got murdered in L.A. but the L.A. papers didn’t print a word about it.”

“The article say where in Watts?”

I read off the address.

No answer.

“You still there?”

“Yeah… okay, meet me in Beverly Hills in an hour. Time for art appreciation.”

N
icholas Hansen’s green BMW sat in the cobbled driveway of the house on North Roxbury Drive. The street was lined with struggling elms. A few trees had given up, and their black branches cast ragged shadows on the sparkling sidewalks. The street was quiet but for a Beverly Hills symphony: teams of gardeners pampering the greenery of mansions up the block.

Milo was parked in a new rental car — a gray Oldsmobile sedan — six houses north of Hansen’s vanilla hacienda. By the time I’d switched off the engine he was at my window.

“New wheels,” I said.

“Variety’s the spice.” His face was pallid and sweaty.

“Something else happen to make you switch?”

“Contacting Hansen is a risk and maybe not a smart one. If he’s still in touch with the others, everything hits the fan. If he’s not, there may be no real payoff.”

“But you’re going ahead, anyway.”

He yanked out a handkerchief and sopped moisture from his brow. “The alternative is doing nothing. And who says I’m smart?”

When we reached Hansen’s property, he scowled and peered through a window of the BMW. “Clean. Meticulous.” As he stepped up to the door and stabbed the bell, he looked ready to tear something apart.

Nicholas Hansen answered wearing faded black sweats, white Nikes, and a distracted look. Brown and red paint stains on his fingers were the only clues to his occupation. He was tall and spare with an oddly fleshy face, looked closer to fifty than forty. Soft neck, basset eyes the color of river silt, grayish mouth stitched with wrinkles, a bald, blue-veined scalp ringed by a beige buzz. A middle-aged crisis stoop rounded his shoulders. I’d have guessed a burnt-out lawyer taking a day off.

Milo flashed the badge, and Hansen’s muddy eyes came alive. But his voice was low and mumbly. “Police? About what?”

I was standing behind Milo, but not so far that I couldn’t smell the alcohol breeze Hansen had let forth.

Milo said, “High school.” His voice was rough, and he didn’t use Hansen’s name, hadn’t even offered a cop’s patronizing “sir.”

“High school?” Hansen blinked, and the paint-stained fingers of one hand capped his bald head, as if he’d been afflicted by a sudden migraine.

“The King’s Men,” said Milo.

Hansen dropped the hand and rubbed his fingers together, dislodging a fleck of paint, inspecting his nails. “I really don’t understand — I’m working.”

Milo said, “This is important.” He’d kept the badge in Hansen’s face, and the artist took a step backward.

“The King’s Men?” said Hansen. “That was a very long time ago.”

Milo filled the space Hansen had vacated. “Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it, and all that.”

Hansen’s hand floundered some more, ended up on the doorjamb. He shook his head. “You’ve lost me, gentlemen.” His breath was ninety proof, and his nose was a relief map of busted capillaries.

“Be happy to clarify,” said Milo. He flicked his wrist, and sunlight bounced off the badge. “I assume you don’t want to talk out here in full view.”

Hansen shrank back some more. Milo was only an inch or so taller than Hansen, but he did something with his posture that increased the gap.

“I’m a painter, I’m in the middle of a painting,” Hansen insisted.

“I’m in the middle of a homicide investigation.”

Hansen’s mouth slackened, revealing uneven, yellowed teeth. He shut his mouth quickly, looked at his watch, then over his shoulder.

“I’m a big art fan,” said Milo. “Especially German Expressionism — all that anxiety.”

Hansen stared at him, stepped back farther. Milo remained in the dance, positioned himself inches from Hansen’s worried eyes.

Hansen said, “I hope this doesn’t take long.”

The house was cool and dim, saturated with the geriatric reek of camphor. The chipped terra-cotta tiles of the entry hall floor continued up the steps of a narrow, brass-railed staircase. Thirteen-foot ceilings were crossed by carved oak beams. The wood was wormholed and aged nearly black. The walls were hand-troweled plaster two shades deeper than the external vanilla and dotted with empty niches. Smallish leaded windows, some with stained-glass insets picturing New Testament scenes, constricted the light. The colored panes projected rainbow dust beams. The furniture was heavy and dark and clumsy. No art on the walls. The place felt like some ill-attended church.

Nicholas Hansen motioned us to a sagging, fringed sofa upholstered in a scratchy tapestry fabric, sat down facing us in a bruised leather chair, and folded his hands in his lap.

“I really can’t imagine what this could be about.”

“Let’s start with the King’s Men,” said Milo. “You do remember them.”

Hansen gave his watch another glance. Cheap digital thing with a black plastic band.

“Busy day?” said Milo.

Hansen said, “I may have to interrupt if my mother wakes up. She’s dying of colon cancer, and the day nurse took the afternoon off.”

“Sorry,” said Milo, with as little sympathy as I’d ever heard him offer.

“She’s eighty-seven,” said Hansen. “Had me when she was forty-five. I always wondered how long I’d have her.” He plucked at a cuff of his sweatshirt. “Yes, I remember the King’s Men. Why would you connect me to them after all these years?”

“Your name came up in the course of our investigation.”

Hansen showed yellow teeth again. His eyes creased in concentration. “My name came up in a murder investigation?”