The Death Artist (48 page)

Kate’s mind had gone absolutely blank. All she could think of was the man standing in front of her, how she had known him–and never known him–for all those years. Schuyler Mills, senior curator at the Contemporary Museum.
My God. The man’s had dinner in my house
!

“Come on,”
he said.

“Okay. Okay. Give me a minute.”

“That’s reasonable.” He looked at his watch. “One minute.
Go
.”

Kate’s mind started clicking. “It’s a Renaissance painting, right?”

“Very good. But not what I asked for. I want the artist’s
name
and the painting
title
.” He regarded his watch again. “Forty seconds.”

“Caravaggio.”

“Wrong. Thirty-three seconds.”

Oh, God. Think. Think.
“Titian.”

“Wrong again. Twenty-eight seconds.”

Oh my God.
“Wait. Please.”

“One hint. But I don’t know why I should help you. It’s a woman painter.”

“Artemisia Gentileschi!”

“Damn, you’re good. Okay now. Title?”

“David Slaying Goliath.”

“Oh, come, now, Ms. Kent can’t be playing those
boys
.”

“Right. Right.” Kate’s blood was pumping in her ears.
“Judith Beheading the Assyrian!”

“Bingo!” He smiled broadly. “I knew you were worth the trouble.” He swung the Glock back toward her, training it on her heart. “You really do play the game well, Kate.”

“Thank you,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “So do you, Sky.” She was still half in shock. Schuyler Mills, all these years.

“It’s a shame it has to end.”

“Couldn’t we just . . . go on playing?”

“Don’t patronize me, Kate. I’m not a stupid man.”

Kate took another step closer.

“Stay there,” he said, the Glock trained on her heart again. “Now, what were we talking about?”

“Our game.”

“Right. You missed one.”

“I did. Really? What was that?”

“A long time ago. The teenager. A hitchhiker. Back in Queens.”

“No, I didn’t,” said Kate, inching toward him in slow motion. “It was an early work. I didn’t think you’d want me to make much of it, that’s all. An angel, right? A sort of putto figure.”

A huge smile broke across his face. “I can’t believe it. You
knew
?”

“Well, to be perfectly honest . . .” She took another small step closer. “I only figured it out recently.”

He nodded. “It showed promise, don’t you think?”

“Oh, yes. Absolutely.”

His face turned steely. “So why’d you fuck with it? Pull her pants up like that?” He swiveled the gun back toward Willie’s head. Willie blinked.

“I, well, at the time, I–I didn’t know it was
your
work. As I said, I only recently . . .” Kate was trying to remain calm, to think, but it was almost impossible.

“It’s uncanny, isn’t it? I mean, the way our lives have paralleled, Kate. There you were, the young cop, so tough, so beautiful, at the beginning of the birth. My birth. As an artist. Oh, sure, there were others, but they hardly mattered. And then, years pass–and there you are again. Your art book, and the TV series. And then you showed up at the museum. I could not believe it.
My
museum. On the board, no less. I took it as an omen.”

Kate was watching him closely, as his eyes glazed slightly, his concentration not what it should be.
Soon. Soon.

“And then, that night, as I watched her, your protégée, it came to me, a way to finally get your attention, for us to be together. I wasn’t sure; I mean, it was still just an idea, something inchoate, not quite a
concept
.” His lids fluttered.

Should she chance it?
Not yet
. But soon.

“But then, when I was in her apartment, I thought better of it. You see, it had been years. I thought I was over it. And then . . . she laughed at me.” He frowned, then checked his watch. “The others will be coming soon, won’t they?”

“Who?”

“Oh, please, Kate. You figured it out and told them. They’ll be here. I know we haven’t got much time left.”

Behind him, Kate saw the small revolver on the floor, only inches from Willie’s hand.

“I guess we were destined to be together, Kate. Me, the artist. You, the woman who would canonize my work.”

“But how will I do that if I’m dead?”

“I have a plan.” He looked down at Bill Pruitt’s altarpiece. “You and me, Kate, Madonna and Child. What do you think?”

“Really? Who’s playing who?”

His shrill laugh echoed into the space. The pigeons batted their wings overhead. “Very funny. I can always depend on you for irony, Kate.” He aimed the Glock. “But I’m afraid I will have to kill you.”

“Wait a minute.”
Keep him talking.
“I don’t quite get it. The Madonna and Child? You and me? Explain it to me. Be clear. I want to picture it perfectly.”

“It’s very simple. First, I kill you. Then, I arrange your body, just like the Madonna in the painting. Then I strip off my clothes, and curl in your arms. I’ll be taking pills.” He sighed, seemed to smile at the thought. “By the time they find us, I’ll be dead, too.”

“What about Willie?” Kate asked, her mind racing. “He’s not part of this. Why not let him go? He can tell the world how you designed it, how beautifully it was conceived. Otherwise, they might not get it.”

“Oh, Kate. They’ll get it–with the actual altarpiece right beside us. Anyway, Willie has to star in his own piece, the Basquiat.” He rotated the Glock toward Willie.

“Wait!”
Kate had to stop him. “I want to ask you something.”

“Yes?”

“Uh . . .” Kate searched her mind for something, anything, to stall. “Tell me about your work. Why you chose Bill Pruitt, for example?”

He sighed again. “Okay. But then we really must get down to work, okay?”

Kate nodded, watching him, waiting.

“Well, first of all, it was a matter of convenience. Pruitt wasn’t going to choose me as director of the museum. I couldn’t stand for that. Believe me, I did not enjoy working with him, touching his flaccid, fleshy body. But I made him a lot better in death than he ever was in life.”

“That’s true.” Kate’s eyes flickered at Willie, then at the revolver on the floor beside his hand. Willie blinked. His fingertips twitched slightly.

“I did the same for that boring painter, Ethan Stein.”

Kate took a step. She was close enough to grab the gun.

“Stop!” He rammed the Glock into her gut.

Kate stared into his eyes. Were those tears?

“How odd life is, don’t you think? I mean, I hadn’t meant to start up again. Really, I had it under control. But I had to prove it to him.”

“To
who
?”

“Him!”
His eyes darted left, then right.

Kate was about to grab the gun, but he pushed it, hard, against her ribs.

“You can see that, can’t you?”

She nodded, but had no idea what he was talking about. What she saw was madness, but she saw the pain, too, even identified with it. How strange. When all she’d thought about, dreamed of, was killing him–this man who had stolen lives from her, torn her heart beyond repair. “Let me help you,” she said. “I can deliver your message, your work, to the world.”

Mills smiled at her tenderly. “I wanted to stop, really I did.”

Then the voices:
No, you didn’t! You’re a liar
!

“I’m not!” He jammed his free hand against his temple. His eyelids fluttered.

Willie managed to stretch out his fingers, to touch the revolver’s barrel, but he only knocked it farther away.

Mills spun toward Willie.

This was it, her opportunity. Kate lunged, knocked the Glock from Schuyler’s hands.

But he was fast, going for it, Kate right behind him, but off-balance. She tripped, landed on her back, looking up at him, and the Glock’s barrel pointed directly at her forehead.

He cocked the trigger.

Kate kicked out at him.

He stumbled back.

She faked to the left just as he fired and missed. He was off-balance, but the Glock was still in his hands, shaking.

Kate rolled to her right, reached out, grabbed hold of his leg.

The Glock exploded again. This time, bullets sprayed the ceiling.

The pigeons scattered, beat their wings wildly.

It took all of three seconds for Kate to tear the .38 from her ankle and empty all six chambers.

Schuyler Mills clutched his chest. Beneath his fingers, his white shirt was a clean canvas for the dark red fanning out like a piece of cheap spin art. He looked surprised, then down at all the blood, at the assortment of holes in his shirt, then up at the black ceiling where the pigeons swooped and dived frantically. For a moment, he imagined himself with them, flying above all the pain. Then he slumped forward and crashed to the floor.

The gun was still smoking in Kate’s hand.

She quick-turned to Brown. “You okay?”

He could just barely move his head, managed to croak, “Fine.”

Kate tested for a pulse in the curator’s wrist. “He’s gone,” she said, then turned back to Brown.

There were sirens in the distance.

“Here.” Kate thrust the .38 into Brown’s limp hands. “Take it before the cavalry gets here.”

Brown’s words came out a hoarse, cracked whisper. “They . . . won’t believe . . . it. I’m . . . paralyzed.”

“Sure they will,” said Kate, wrapping his fingers around the barrel. “He shot that tranquilizer into you just as you fired at him, right?”

Brown’s eyes searched Kate’s. “But . . . why?”

“Because I’m just a civilian, remember, Floyd? But you might as well go down as the cop who killed the death artist.”

Patrol cars crowded the street.

Flashing lights streaked amber across the old docking house.

Sirens filled the night air with electricity.

“It was Brown who shot him,” Kate said to Mead and Tapell.

Brown was just able to wiggle his fingers. Kate watched a couple of medics hooking him up to an IV.

Willie was being loaded into the back of an ambulance. Kate touched his cheek lightly, stroked his forehead, fought back tears. “Take it easy, okay?”

A medic tore open Willie’s pant leg, swabbed yellow disinfectant onto his slashed thigh, then started wrapping it tightly with gauze. A second medic was wrapping Willie’s cut hand.

“You’ll be fine,” Kate whispered.

“Sure I will,” Willie croaked. “It’s only my . . . left hand. I paint . . . with my right.”

The death artist had indeed achieved fame.

ArtNews
ran a six-page story deconstructing the man’s murders, matching crime scene photos with the art upon which they were based. No one at the police department seemed to know how the magazine had gotten their hands on the photo- graphs. Ethan Stein’s family was suing
ArtNews
and the NYPD. They were also suing the Ward Wasserman Gallery, where Stein’s memorial exhibition had completely sold out, without the family’s receiving a single penny.

The estate of Amanda Lowe was demanding both printed and financial credit for the use of her death photos or mention of her name under the new licensing franchise they had established. It was rumored that they were already owed approximately half a million dollars, but were having trouble collecting.

Willie’s cuts and bruises were mending. He was back in the studio, working. A necessity. Virtually every painting he had made had been spoken for or sold. Collectors were jock-eying for positions on the waiting list for future pieces. He joked to Kate that if he had died, the demand would have been even higher. Kate did not laugh. She thanked God every day that she was able to save him.

For Kate, there remained a nagging lack of completion, coupled with melancholy. She was filling her time with charitable works–putting new seventh-grade classes together with the right people of means to adopt them through Let There Be a Future, establishing a scholarship in Maureen Slattery’s name at the foundation, even donating a hefty sum to the NYPD, also in the young policewoman’s name.

And she and Richard were drawing closer, managing to get past the anger, suspicions, and resentment built up over the past couple of weeks, and were working hard–if a bit too self-consciously–at considering each other’s needs and feelings. Kate bought Richard a new pair of cuff links engraved with one word: SORRY. Richard had taken to leaving little gifts–a thin gold bracelet, a hand-painted scarf–on her pillow each morning before taking off for work, always with the same note:
I love you.

But questions about Elena continued to nag her. Why had the girl taken up with the likes of Damien Trip? Kate still couldn’t figure it out–and now there was no way she would ever know. Perhaps Richard was right, that you never really, fully knew anyone. But that thought only filled her with grief. The bigger question–why Elena had made those movies, why did she need money?–was something Kate needed to find out.

At first, when he saw Kate, Mendoza’s features hardened, but only for a second. He didn’t appear to have the strength to stay angry.