Stroke of Death

by Dale Mayer

  “Well, you know what the news is like,” she said. “It’s a cutthroat business.”

  “That may be, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t pass on rumors.”

  At that, Anita gasped, stepping back. “Do you think they’re wrong then?”

  “No,” she said. “They’re not wrong at all. But we don’t want to keep spreading that information for shock’s sake.”

  Anita nodded and smiled. “We need to do something to memorialize her.”

  That thought alone caught Cayce in the back of her throat, because, of all the things, that was the hardest about Elena’s death, the fact that somebody had taken her skin, and they’d already planned to memorialize her in a way nobody else would understand. “If you want to come up with some ideas,” she said, “I’m in.” She reached up and rubbed her face.

  “Oh, my God, did you get any sleep last night?”

  She shook her head. “No, it was a pretty rough night.”

  “I heard Naomi was pretty blasé about the whole thing.”

  In defense of the replacement model, Cayce shrugged and said, “We were at an installation, and she was doing a job when we found out. She was definitely calmer than I was.”

  “I am surprised she wasn’t cheering at the news,” Anita said with a waspish tone. “That would be more in character.”

  Naomi was a very different kettle of fish in terms of personality. Where Elena had been lightness, sunshine, and butterflies, Naomi was darkness, storms, and shadows. She had a graspy greediness to her. But she’d never been a top model, and she was trying to gain in rank. With Elena’s position now open, it gave Naomi another spot to climb into. And that made Cayce frown. Was that a motive for murder?

  Cayce made her way back to her small crowded office in her gallery, wondering if that attitude put Naomi on the detective’s watchlist. Or if Cayce should add Naomi to his list if it hadn’t. Somehow that felt completely wrong too. As if she were betraying the other model. She shook her head and decided that it was definitely not a road she needed to go down.

  As soon as she sat down at her desk, her phone rang. She groaned as she realized business intruded into her day once again. The problem with being an artist was the fact that she didn’t get to be an artist all the time. The business aspect remained there always; people who wanted things from her, that she didn’t always want to give. But, since they provided the avenue for her to make a living with her artwork, she was forced to deal with them. It sucked big-time.

  She lifted her head a little while later and wasn’t at all surprised to find that two hours had passed.

  Just then Anita popped her head around the corner. “Hey, how you doing?”

  She shrugged. “Doing. Whatever that means,” she said, “but everything is going ahead for next week’s installation.”

  Anita’s face broke out into a smile. “They finally went through with it?”

  She nodded and returned the smile. “Yeah, they just returned the signed contract.”

  “Yeah, right at the last minute of course,” she snapped, shaking her head. “Good God.”

  “I know, but, hey, … it’s work, right?”

  “The trouble is,” Anita said, “that’s really tight. Do we have enough paint?”

  “That’s what I’m about to find out,” she said. “Plus that installation design was done with Elena in mind.”

  Anita’s eyes immediately filled with tears. “Wow,” she said. “She will really be missed.”

  “In many ways,” she said. “I don’t even know how to express what her absence will mean.”

  “But we can do this.”

  “We can,” she said with a smile, “but I’m not sure I want Naomi in this one.”

  “Who are you thinking then?”

  Cayce sat back and thought about the models that she’d used recently. “Why don’t we see if Candy is available? But I’ll want the hair gone right off.”

  “Skullcap?”

  “I can’t paint that either,” she said, frowning. She tapped her pen on the desk. “Unless we can find a way to make her hair fly out off to the side.”

  “Part of the wind, you mean?”

  “Something like that. Leave it with me while I figure it out.”

  “That’s fine,” Anita said, “but you have a whole twenty minutes to figure it out.”

  She glared at her, then snapped, “You’re wasting my twenty minutes.”

  Anita chuckled and left.

  “And put on some damn coffee,” Cayce yelled behind her.

  “Will do,” she said.

  With that, Cayce went back to looking at the diagram for next week’s installation, wondering which model she needed. She could try somebody new. It would certainly be a way to go forward after Elena. Cayce had seen an interesting model a few days ago.

  She quickly went through a portfolio that she kept on various models. This one. Her name was Hartley, which was unusual in itself, but her looks were even more unusual, with a very angular jawbone, angular cheekbones. Somewhat masculine, but not quite. Determined maybe. Cayce didn’t have any problem with determination. That was a requirement of life.

  *

  “The bitch is gone,” the woman cried out, dancing and laughing through her apartment. “A spot opened above me,” she said with a chuckle. “Who knew?” She stopped, looking at herself in the mirror, then smiled, reached a hand through her long luxurious black locks, and said, “I’ll make it to the top! Yeah!”

  Behind her, her best friend and coconspirator, even though he had no clue, Derek called out, “You know what happens to people at the top?” he asked.

  “They fall,” she said, “but that’s got nothing to do with me.”

  “You keep saying that,” he said, “but it really is something you need to keep an eye on.”

  “Well, I didn’t kill her,” she snapped.

  “Of course not. That would be too easy.”

  She turned and glared at him.

  “You’re just happy she’s gone.”

  “Well, of course I am,” she said. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Well, you could be a little more conservative in your joy.”

  “Yeah, that’s not happening,” she said with a laugh.

  He sighed. “I’m heading out with Benjamin soon. Are you coming with us for breakfast?”

  She looked over at her friend, then smiled and said, “Sweetie, you go eat. I’m eating on the fruits of my emotions right now.”

  “Those are the emotions,” he said, “that will choke you.”

  “They can try,” she said, “but, honest to God, I’m just too happy to be worried about it right now.”

  He frowned, nodded, and said, “Yeah, and that’s a little disturbing too.”

  “You know exactly who and what I am,” she said with a smile.

  He nodded. “I know that,” he said. “You’ve never been anything but what you’ve appeared to be.”

  “So stop being so glum about it.”

  “I’m not.” He straightened his tall slim frame, dressed in a beautiful three-piece gray suit.

  He always looked elegant, never a hair out of place. She was a little more on the rough-and-tumble side and had to work out to look like he did, but his look was effortless. He was that role model ahead of her on her path, who made her just want to be him, only in female form.

  He gave her a gentle hug and said, “Stop for a moment and just enjoy living instead of always conniving for your next step.”

  She smiled, kissed him gently on the cheek, and said, “You go meet Benjamin for breakfast and enjoy.”

  He nodded, and, as he headed to the front door, he turned and looked at her. “Don’t let other people know how you feel, right?”

  “Of course not,” she said. “I’m not that stupid.”

  He nodded, and, though he was obviously a little worried, he headed out the front door.

  She could hear his footsteps as his long, lean legs ate up the yards. Something abo
ut Derek almost set her teeth on edge. They’d known each other since they’d been little kids, and he’d been warning her about her scheming ever since.

  She’d often asked him, “Why are you even friends with me?” His response had shocked her the first time, and now she feared it was just a joke because he kept saying it was his job to keep her on the straight and narrow.

  She often told him how he was failing terribly on the job. He would nod and say he was, indeed. But he was working on it. She didn’t understand half of what he said, and Benjamin appeared to be just the same. But Benjamin couldn’t stand her, and she couldn’t stand him, which just added to their animosity. The fact was, her longtime friend had somebody in his life who was the polar opposite of her. Again it made her wonder why she and Derek were even friends.

  Benjamin was another one of those well-dressed, smooth, clean, always perfect-looking guys, but the difference between the two men was obvious. She couldn’t stand the one. Now Derek had often told her that she had a serious case of jealousy and that he would be her friend no matter what. But she’d already seen a change in his attitude, a change in his affection, and a change in the amount of time he spent with her and his willingness to talk with her.

  She knew Derek was tired of listening to them fight, but it didn’t matter to her because anything she could do to keep that asshole away from Derek would be good for her. Yet she already knew that she couldn’t do it directly; otherwise Derek would turn on her. Hence her wanting to send him off to have breakfast with his lover.

  Why the two of them didn’t live together, she had no idea. But that only helped her out, as she was the one who had crashed at Derek’s place last night. She needed an alibi, and she needed what he could give her—that little bit of stability. Which was often.

  She needed her wits about her for what was happening next. She somehow had to maneuver herself into a position to take over the modeling world.

  She had no intention of being a body model for long, but, for now, it provided an excellent opportunity for everybody to check out her personal assets and to make sure they were in prime condition for whatever was needed next.

  One of the clothing designers she’d really admired had told Naomi that she was too heavily endowed. She’d been horrified, but he had refused to let her wear any of his creations on the runway. Heartbroken, she had seriously considered getting her breasts reduced, but Derek had stopped her, saying she’d been given that beautiful body, and it just wasn’t the right market for her to show her wares.

  She had agreed, then promptly did her best to disrespect the designer. She carefully started rumors that caused the designer to break up with his current lover in a most unbecoming public display causing the designer to be removed from the current fashion show, and she realized just how much power she had. Since then he had bounced back, but she didn’t care. She had made her point. And, just in case he hadn’t understood that she had done it, she’d sent him a little note saying, Thanks for nothing, from Well-Endowed.

  She didn’t know if he would recognize that as being her because he saw so many models all the time. But it had given her that sense of satisfaction nonetheless. Still, she didn’t want to go too far. Not only did she not want Derek to know what she was up to, but she also didn’t want anybody else to know either because that would impact her ability to model. And that would never happen, if she could help it.

  She reached for her bottled water and her morning meds.

  “Pretty soon,” she said to the empty room, as she popped two of the pills that she needed. “Pretty damn soon.”

  *

  “How is the case going?” Andy asked, standing beside Richard. “Any new leads?”

  “No,” he snapped. “You?”

  Andy shook his head. “No, I’ve just come back from setting up witness interviews for everybody who was there at the end of the evening. Unfortunately, well over two hundred attended. So that’s a lot of phone calls. I can’t get hold of about sixty of them, and we don’t have names for a bunch of them.”

  “There was a guest list,” he said, looking at Andy in surprise.

  “And apparently a lot of the guests brought guests,” he said.

  “Are they talking?”

  “No, and they’re not only not talking but, in many cases, they’re saying stuff like, ‘You know? It was just a friend of a friend.’”

  “Great,” he said. “That’s not helpful.”

  “No, it’s not. What did you find out?”

  “Only that Elena was there as part of the installation, and, when she stepped away, the guests were all shocked to realize that the painting continued on her backside. She had been painted all the way around. But those who knew Cayce’s work said it was fairly common in some cases. I don’t think any of them realized it was only common in Elena’s case.”

  “Was Elena with anybody?” Andy asked.

  “She had several glasses of wine and enjoyed mingling and talking with various people,” he said, “but she didn’t appear to be with anyone.”

  “Did she leave alone?”

  “She called a cab and stepped out as soon as the cab pulled up.”

  “Anybody see her get in the cab?”

  “Apparently somebody pulled up, who she must have known, and offered her a ride instead.”

  “So, we don’t have an actual cab that delivered her anywhere?”

  “No, but I did track down the cabbie,” Richard noted. “He said that he had been called for the fare, but then she gave him a twenty and told him that she had another ride.”

  “Shit,” Andy said. “So we still don’t know who she left with. No video cameras?”

  “Tons of them,” Richard said. “Steven is running through them right now.” He groaned and sat back. “I’m about to reach out to some of her other friends again.”

  “Nobody answering?”

  “Either not home, not at work, or not answering.”

  “Are they ghosting you?”

  “It’s possible,” Richard said, “but deliberate? I don’t know.” Just then his phone rang. He picked it up and said, “Detective Richard Henderson here.”

  “You’ve left several messages on my phone,” a tired male voice said. “I’m Mr. Johnson. What can I do for you, Detective?”

  “Have you heard about Elena?”

  After an awkward silence at the other end, Mr. Johnson spoke, his voice hoarse from tears. “Yes, that’s why I haven’t been taking calls. I was very good friends with her.”

  At that, Richard launched into his list of questions.

  “No, I didn’t see her that night at the installation.”

  “Why not? Wasn’t it a big deal for your friend?”

  “Of course, and I was delighted for her, but I’ve been to many, many of them, and that night I wasn’t feeling well.”

  “When did you hear from her last?”

  “Just before the installation. I sent her a good luck text.”

  “When did you hear the news?”

  “Through the news media yesterday,” Mr. Johnson said, and then he broke off to clear his throat. “There’s no good way to hear it, but a personal message would have been better. A lot better. Hearing it like that was … horrible.”

  “It’s taken us some time to track down who she was close to in her world, and we still haven’t found any family members. Does that sound right?”

  “She didn’t have any family that she was close to,” Mr. Johnson replied.

  “Well, I’m sorry you had to hear it that way. It shouldn’t have gone to the media until the family was notified, or at least not until the next day anyway,” he said.

  “I think her father lives in Switzerland,” he said sadly. “They didn’t have anything to do with each other.”

  “Siblings?”

  “No.”

  “Mother?”

  “She took off when Elena was just a child.”

  “Do you know her name?”

  “No. I don’t thin
k I’ve ever heard it mentioned.”

  He provided the father’s name. No location other than Switzerland, but it was a start. “What about other friends?”

  “Well, there’s her artist friend, Cayce, of course, and Elena had several other modeling friends.” He provided those names as well. “And one of them was a male.”

  Richard studied that male name and circled it. “Do all these people do the same kind of modeling, the body modeling?”

  “They all do all kinds of modeling,” the man said. “I used to do body modeling myself.”

  “Under your current name of Johnson?”

  “Yes. I used to model as Joe Johnson. And, yes, that’s my number you called,” Joe said drily.

  Richard made a mental note, jotting that down. “Was there ever anything creepy about this body modeling?”

  “Any time you take your clothes off for art,” he said, “it depends on how the artist presents it. Cayce is always very, very clear about a celebration of the human body, looking within, looking deep within to her art, in order to see what it was. It isn’t just a gimmick for her.”

  “A gimmick?”

  “Yeah. Her art involves almost like a trick of the eyes, you know? A trick with the lighting or an optical illusion somehow. That kind of stuff. But she’s done installations where she had multiple models, and nobody knew until they moved.”

  “That takes some talent.”

  “Cayce is extremely talented,” Joe said.

  “Is there any reason to think she might have had something to do with Elena’s death?”

  A gasp of shock came, then silence at the other end. “No. I can’t imagine that there would be. No.”

  “A falling-out among friends, a business relationship gone bad?”

  “No, not at all,” Joe said, his voice much stronger. “You’re barking up the wrong tree there.”

  “Do you know of anyone Elena was afraid of, ex-boyfriends or anything?”

  “She’s had a lot of boyfriends,” Joe said. “But it’s not—I can’t even call them boyfriends really. She was somebody who made friends easily. She loved and lost just as fast.”

  “Cayce called her a butterfly.”

  “That describes Elena exactly,” Joe said sadly. “She flitted through life, adding a little bit of light and love everywhere, every time.”