The Death Collectors

by J. A. Kerley

  I watched her walk my way, then stop. She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. When her eyes opened, the game face was back. She moved our way, fumbling in her purse. She looked up, grinned, shot a thumbs-up, her face alight with mischief. I waved back, admiring the strength it took to keep kicking when you were drained almost dry.

  “Detective Ryder?” Zipinski repeated, and I realized I’d zoned out on DeeDee Danbury. “How could a crazy guy make something like that?”

  I’d been wondering that myself. “Maybe the genius was fighting the sociopath, Zipinski. Some days the genius won out.”

  Zipinski shook his head, put his cap back on his sun-reddening pate, and continued packing equipment. Danbury walked up.

  “You’re not going to keep anything from me, are you? We’re the Three Musketeers, remember? Pogie, Nautie and DeeDee.”

  Danbury climbed in the van, wind puffing at her skirt. She let it fly, unconcerned. Her legs were long and smooth and her panties were a flash of scarlet. The door closed and she winked. “Hey, stop by later you get a chance. Maybe I’ll have some results on that research. It’s your turn to buy the wine. Hint: Don’t buy anything with cartoons on the label.”

  They drove away, Danbury waving with her fingers, Zipinski at the wheel. I joined Harry in the car, trying hard to recall the rich and magical colors in the painting from Coyle’s desk, but all I could see were flashes of scarlet.

  We headed back to the department with fresh wind in our sails. We’d pulled covers from a guy who appeared to be a major player in the Hexcamp drama. I’m not sure how much progress it marked, but at least I didn’t feel I was practicing astronomy by jamming my head into the dirt and asking when the stars came out.

  “Think we should fill Willow in on Coyle’s private gallery?” Harry said.

  Keeping Willow in the loop sounded like the right thing to do. We made it a conference call, sitting in the small meeting room off the detectives’ room and talking at a device in the middle of the table. It looked like a spaceship from a fifties movie.

  “We found another stash of memorabilia,” Harry yelled at the spaceship.

  “No need to scream,” Willow said. “I hear you fine. Where?”

  “Our missing lawyer boy, Rubin Coyle. He’s a collector, got a house full of nightmares. I thought he was a nobody at first. Now he’s looking like the belle of the ball. Naturally, he’s got the usual credentials - fine upstanding citizen, blah, blah, a credit to his community, blah, blah…the standard shitwarble. He’s also an expert in negotiations. And guess what? It looks like something big’s coming to market, and needs someone to negotiate the sale or whatever.”

  “The collection,” Willow said. “It has to be.”

  “We’re pretty sure Coyle knows who has it,” I said. “But it tells us nothing about why we have two dead women and a third who’s been threatened.”

  “All this sicko lawyer boy does is negotiate?” Willow asked.

  “He’s the hard-dealing hotshot of Hamerle, Melbine and Raus.”

  Willow’s end seemed to go dead. I looked at the spacecraft; the connection light was lit. “Mr Willow?” I said.

  “The law firm. You never told me that before.”

  “About Coyle, the lost lawyer?” Harry said. “Sure we did. Left a print at the Cozy Cabins five days before Marie Gilbeaux was found, one of a hundred thousand other prints.”

  “You never mentioned Coyle worked for Warren Hamerle.”

  “What’s Hamerle to you?” I asked.

  Willow laughed, dry and humorless. “It’s who he was, Detective Ryder. The last time I saw Warren Hamerle he was a scared, skinny little court-appointed attorney…”

  I dropped my head forward until it bumped the table. “Don’t tell me,” I said. “He was representing Marsden Hexcamp. Am I right here?”

  Chapter 31

  “I received nothing from Marsden Hexcamp. And I know nothing about Rubin’s art proclivities.”

  This time Hamerle hadn’t offered coffee, instead directing us to chairs nearest the door. Not a subtle man.

  “He didn’t want to compensate you for your fine defense?” I said.

  Hamerle paced in front of us, a glass of scotch in his hand; he didn’t offer us any of that, either.

  “I was young, had never tried a capital case. That’s why I was selected. The political types wanted a fast trial, not some sharpie wasting the state’s money filing motions, parading experts. They wanted a slam-dunk.”

  “They got it,” I said.

  “Hexcamp wanted it, too. He contributed nothing to his defense. I’d ask him about times, dates, possible alibis. You know what he talked about? Art history. ‘Who do you think history will treat most fondly, Warren?’ he’d say to me, smiling that fucking lunatic smile, ‘Monet or Cezanne?’ Shit, half the time I didn’t know who the hell he was talking about.”

  “Tight race,” I said, “but my money’s on Monet.”

  Hamerle grunted. “He liked to give speeches, too. Big dramatic pronouncements, like he’d just come up with them. I once heard him quote Blackstone as if the words were his own. A reverend in the courtroom that final day recognized Hexcamp’s tabletop rant as a paraphrase from Jonathan Edwards, an eighteenth-century Puritan minister.”

  “Fits the mindset,” I said. “He wouldn’t have seen it as plagiarizing, but as using words and ideas someone had simply thought of before he did; he understood them, therefore they were as much his as the originator’s. That make sense?”

  “No,” Harry said. “Which is why it probably fits.”

  Hamerle scowled, shook his white-maned head. “Once or twice a year, I get calls asking if I know anything about Hexcamp’s art. From different people. They’re always cagey, always talking around the subject.”

  “Explain,” Harry said.

  “‘Do you know if Mr Hexcamp left anything of interest, Mr Hamerle?’ ‘Are you sitting on anything that might make you a lot of money, Mr Hamerle?’ They’re creepy, oily. I hang up the phone and wash my hands. They’re mostly men. Two or three times it was women - they were the worst.”

  I said, “You were Hexcamp’s lawyer. Yet one of your top partners collects souvenirs from serial killers - including a piece that looks a lot like it was done by Hexcamp - and you know nothing about it. That’s your story?”

  Hamerle’s jaw clenched. “It’s the truth. I had no idea Rubin was…of that mindset.”

  We stood to leave. Hamerle followed us to the door. I stopped just outside, looked him in his cold blue eyes. “What if Coyle walked through this door right now, Mr Hamerle? What would you say to him?”

  Hamerle took a big suck of his drink, thought a second.

  “You’re two weeks behind on billing, Rubin. Where are your time sheets?”

  The door closed.

  It was twilight when we left Hamerle’s. Harry cut over to Cottage Hill Road, a section where live oaks canopied the street. An elderly black man pushed a three-wheeled shopping buggy down the sidewalk. The buggy held a solitary lamp, its shade askew. The man looked deliriously happy with his life. I waved at the guy as we went by. He shot a manic toothless grin, and pointed excitedly into the buggy like he was pushing God’s lamp. Harry said, “If someone’s written the definitive catalog of the Hexcamp collection, maybe the same person who’s going to verify the authenticity…”

  I nodded. “Whatever’s going down must be coming up.”

  “You think Coyle’s even alive?”

  “If we’re right, he’s got to be alive. He’s the contact man, the auction impresario or whatever. I’m seeing three participants so far: Coyle, the authenticator, and the owner of the collection.”

  Harry’s finger tapped rhythm on the steering wheel. “If the painting in Coyle’s desk is a Hexcamp, it’s worth tens of thousands of dollars. At least by Willow’s estimate. Why’d Coyle leave the Hexcamp in his desk?”

  “He didn’t expect we’d be inside, thought it was safe. Maybe he expected to be back soone
r. Maybe authenticating this crap has him traveling. Maybe he’s already sold the collection.”

  “A lot of maybes, Carson. Like maybe Marie Gilbeaux’s motel scene was an on-the-run job.”

  “Seems right. Everything about this case has been mirrors and maybes.”

  Harry decided the stop sign in front of us wasn’t going to disappear, so he jammed on the brakes. I steadied myself with a hand on the dash. “At least we know Coyle’s a collector. That’s his tie to Hexcamp. Now we got to figure out how Coyle connects to Marie Gilbeaux and Heidi Wicky.”

  Harry yawned. It sounded like a foghorn. “That’s tomorrow’s gig, Cars. Right now my head feels like it’s filled with wet sand.”

  He punched the accelerator and off we flew toward downtown. I checked my watch and noted the date. Ava had bailed out eight days ago. It seemed like a month. Harry hadn’t once mentioned her departure, save for fast and indirect references, the You doing all right, Carson? and How you holding up? type of thing.

  Over the six years of our friendship, we’d evolved a methodology for personal information: neither walked into the other’s head without an invitation. I’m not sure how we got to this protocol, it just seemed to be on the table when we arrived.

  “Harry?”

  He stifled a yawn. “What?”

  “What do you think about Ava leaving?”

  Nothing from Harry for three blocks. On the fourth, he wheeled to the curb and parked under a tree. It was turning into night and passing headlights filled our car with shadows. Harry squeezed the wheel for a few seconds, turned to me.

  “Carson, I think Ava’s one of the sweetest women I ever met. One of the prettiest. Maybe one of the smartest too. That’s what I think.”

  “There’s a but in there, Harry.”

  He turned away and watched the traffic sizzle past.

  “Harry? But what?”

  “I also think she’s one of the troubled-est. Is that a word? It doesn’t matter. She’s been through a helluva lot of nastiness. Most came from outside, bad forces. But she’s got things to find out about herself. It’s kind of like what you went through a few years back, Cars. You finally stood still and let your past run up and bump you in the ass. Then you turned around and dealt with it. I think Ava will come through in the end, but right now she’s…” His words trailed off. His fingers drummed the steering wheel.

  “Harry?” I prompted.

  “She’s on a journey, maybe it’s hers alone right now. What I think is, she’s got to do a bunch of traveling before she knows what home really means.”

  He put the car back in gear, aimed for the department. I started to ask what he meant, but it was a Harry-ism. Harry-isms were similar to Zen: if I had to ask his meaning, I wouldn’t understand his answer.

  We hit the station, spent fifteen minutes on paperwork, then took off. A day trapped in air conditioning made me feel disconnected from honest air, so I rolled down the windows and aimed the headlights for home. It had rained recently, in this stretch at least, and the air was thick with the scent of wet grass. I recalled that Danbury lived nearby and wondered if rain had come to her yard, if it was suffused with heat and the perfume of drenched grass.

  There was a liquor store down the block and I stopped. Wine has never been a study of mine, but the proprietor assured me the California chardonnay earned every penny of the fifteen-buck price tag. It didn’t have a cartoon on the label, so I said sure, put a bag around it.

  The porch light was off at Danbury’s, but there were lights in the downstairs windows. I parked and walked to the door, but for some reason stopped short and sat on the porch. The wine felt heavy in my hand and I set it beside me. Rain had fallen and the air was steamy. The flowers in her yard smelled bright, the scent pouring colors into my mind, purple, lavender, pink, scarlet. The colors made me lightheaded and I lay back on the wood slats of the porch and flung my arms to my sides, like holding on. I closed my eyes and breathed the floral colors from the air, amazed as the air turned to water, blue and shimmering…

  Hold on…

  To the blue water

  And kick breathe kick

  Something clicked far away. A door latch. It must have clicked underwater; I was swimming, wasn’t I?

  “Pogie?”

  Exploding through surface sparkles…

  I opened my eyes. Danbury was backlit by a globe of light on the ceiling of the porch. I sat up abruptly, my arm sending the wine bottle clinking down the steps. I stumbled after it.

  She said, “You’ve been asleep on my porch?”

  My mind was still in water somewhere. I tried to make it swim toward my tongue. “Oh, I was just…I mean I thought…”

  She laughed. “How long have you been out here?’

  “I, uh -” I squinted at my watch. “A halfhour or so. I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry for what?”

  My senses started lining up again. “I’m not sure.”

  “Come in. Or I’ll come out. You’re obviously comfortable here.”

  I handed her the chardonnay. “I’ve got to be going. I just came by to deliver a bottle of wine. Payback.”

  “It only counts as payback if you have some with me.”

  “I have to go. It’s getting…”

  “It’s just us. Carla’s upstairs reading. Or asleep. She keeps country hours.” Danbury reached out, took my sleeve, pulled gently. “Come on.”

  I stood motionless. Light poured from her open front door. It seemed inviting. I said, “I really can’t.”

  Her face was in shadow. The scent of the wet flowers was overwhelming. She opened my hand and returned the wine. “Bring it back when you have more time. I’ll polish up a couple glasses, keep them out and waiting, right?”

  She leaned to me, stood on tiptoe, kissed my forehead.

  And then I was alone in her front yard.

  Chapter 32

  I got a call from Danbury at five-forty-nine a.m.

  “Good morning, merry sunshine,” she said. “I put a pillow and a couple blankets on my porch last night in case you came back, maybe you were in some sort of nesting phase.”

  “Do you know what time it is?” I said.

  “Here or there?”

  “What?”

  “It’s noon in Français. I’ve been on the phone for three hours. You and the Nautster should come over to the house and pow-wow with moi.”

  I unwrapped the sheet from my legs. If I slept without covers, I felt strangely vulnerable; with them, I tried to mummify myself.

  “Is this pow-wow necessary?”

  “I have an update on the amazing Mr Hexcamp. Or maybe not so amazing. It depends on your point of view.”

  “An hour,” I said. “Or less.”

  I hung up and called Harry, said I’d grab him at the station, head to Danbury’s. He made unhappy noises, but relented. I nuked some leftover cheese grits, rolled them up in a flour tortilla, and took my invention, the grittito, out to the deck with a high-performance cup of chicory coffee. The water was almost still, sixinch waves washing the shoreline. I looked east. The Blovines had been in full throat when I’d come home last night, but the place was now quiet. The house to the west was the same. The car had moved a bit, and the back porch now boasted a beach ball, but the occupants were nowhere to be seen. I wondered if they only came out at night.

  We got to Danbury’s at seven. She led us to the kitchen, large and high-ceilinged, a fan whisking slowly above our heads. Copper pots hung above a restaurant-quality range. Morning sun tinted the windows orange. Carla Hutchins sat at the table having coffee.

  “You all right, Miz Hutchins?” Harry said.

  She lifted her mug in salute. “I feel safe here. But I feel like I’m taking advantage of DeeDee by -”

  Danbury cut in. “Crapola. Carla’s cleaned the place from top to bottom. It had gotten bad; I was using one of the cobwebs as a hammock.”

  “You’re going to talk about…him?” Carla asked. Danbury nodded. Carla took her
coffee and retreated upstairs. Harry and I sat at a kitchen table made of maple, a bowl of fruit in the center. Danbury poured coffees, set down some sugar and cream.

  “You gents eat yet? I’ve got some granola, yogurt, bananas, apples…How about you, Harry? You look like a guy eats a big breakfast. Want me to open a canned ham or something?”

  Harry growled; he was big enough to carry a lot of weight, but was storing about twenty surplus pounds at the beltline and didn’t like being reminded of it. “How about we get on with this?” he said. “Jeez, what time you get up this morning?”

  Danbury said, “Three.”

  “When did you go to bed, eight?”

  “Eleven on the nose. I was going to stay up and have a glass of wine, but it left early.”

  She shot me a wink. Harry caught it and narrowed an eye in my direction; I studied a napkin rack, fascinated by the many wonders of plastic. Harry gave me another eyeball shot, then fixed it on Danbury.

  “You had something to tell us?”

  She leaned against the counter, a sheaf of notes at her elbow.

  “I’ve been researching Monsieur Hexcamp the past couple nights. I finished up this morning about four.”

  “And?”

  She held up a blank piece of paper.

  “This is the page I’d planned for Hexcamp’s French transgressions. He’s clean. Never arrested for beating someone to death with a baguette or parking his Citroën on a tourist.”

  Danbury set the page down, picked up another blank sheet, held it above her head, grinned.

  Harry rolled his eyes at the theatrics. “And what the hell’s that?”

  She gave it three beats of dramatic pause. “Little Marsden’s attendance record at L’Institut des Beaux-Arts.”

  Harry’s eyes went wide. “What?”

  “He arrived in France in July of ’66, departed in May of ’70. Never during that time did he attend a class there.”

  I said, “He’s a fake?”

  Danbury set several pages on the table, all filled with precise writing broken up with lines and arrows and question marks. “Not completely. He went to another school - l’Académie d’Art Graphique, no longer in business. It wasn’t world-class, but not gumball tech either. Fairly small, maybe three hundred students back then, just starting up. The joint was run by Henri Badentier, an eccentric but well-regarded prof trying to jump-start the school’s reputation in the art world.”