Stroke of Death

by Dale Mayer

  “Do you think anybody would have wanted to kill her over a relationship like that?”

  “Everybody wanted more from her,” he said instantly. “And that was the thing about her. She was light itself. The kind of light you can never hold on to. It slipped right through your fingers. You want it, but you can’t hold on to it. So, anybody who thought that they could touch her and keep her was heading into any relationship with Elena in the wrong way.”

  “Does anybody come to mind who may have wanted to do something like that?”

  “She’s had trouble with two men in the last year,” he said instantly. “The guys were best friends. She went out with the one, who then told his friend about what a great time he’d had, so the second friend worked it, and Elena decided to give him a run. After that, the two friends hated each other and constantly vied for her attention.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a good dating system,” he said.

  “No, not at all,” Joe said with a chuckle. “The thing is, in her case, I don’t think she did it for anything but fun, but it ended up ruining a long-term friendship, and both of the men never quite let it go.”

  “Okay, and who were these guys?” Richard asked.

  “One is Eric Cross and the other …” His voice trailed off. “Hang on. I’ll think of it. Um, … it’s … Gerard. Yeah, Gerard, but I don’t know his last name. Oh maybe Bagota.”

  “That’s good enough,” he said. “I’m sure we can get it from Eric.”

  “I probably have Eric’s phone number too.”

  “And how do you know him?”

  “We used to be buds.”

  “Until?”

  “Until he slept with Elena and wanted to use me to get to her.”

  “Sounds like she spawned some really deep emotions.”

  “Absolutely,” Joe said. “And that’s not necessarily a good thing.”

  “Got it,” Richard said. “I need you to think about the friends, the circumstances, anybody in Elena’s life over the last year who might have a reason to kill her or who might have wanted to take her out in revenge.”

  “It’s a competitive business,” Joe said. “It’s one of the reasons I left it.”

  “In what way?”

  “People like Cayce, they can put your name on the map. So Elena was considered one of the best because she was Cayce’s personal model of choice.”

  “So anybody else who worked for her, then what?”

  “Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? Anybody else who works for Cayce now has an opportunity to move up.”

  “What about a model named Naomi?”

  “She’s okay, but she aggressively wants to climb the ladder.”

  “I met her. She was working with Cayce.”

  “Yeah. She’s been doing a little more, trying to get higher up.”

  “But does that not give her the same cachet?”

  “Not necessarily, no,” he said. “It depends on how often Cayce uses her. Whoever Cayce chooses to replace Elena with now will determine the repositioning within the modeling world.”

  “What if Cayce chooses somebody completely different?”

  “If she’s smart, she will,” Joe said. “Like pluck up a brand-new talent, make all those old ones go away.”

  “Why would that be the smart thing?”

  “Because they will all fight now, and, if Cayce didn’t use them before, she won’t want to use them now.”

  “That makes some sense.” After ascertaining that Joe was with people the night Elena went missing, and the following morning, having slept over with a partner himself, getting names and contact information for them, Richard said, “But, like I said, if you think of anything else or anybody else, anybody who might want to do this or who held some sort of grudge or ill will, please contact me.”

  “Will do. Oh hang on, here’s the other number. I just found it.”

  After he hung up, Richard looked over to see Andy sitting at his desk beside him, pondering cell phone records. “Anything there?” he asked his partner, as he wrote down the two men’s phone numbers on his calendar to call as soon as possible. Then dialed the first one as he listened to Andy.

  “A lot of hang-ups,” Andy said.

  “Meaning, they called, and Elena didn’t answer?”

  “In the beginning, she answered. We’ve got calls lasting ten seconds, fifteen seconds, and then she didn’t bother answering.”

  “How many calls after that?”

  “Another five, ten, fifteen,” he said, counting off the sheet.

  “Those are fairly determined hang-ups,” Richard said.

  “Absolutely, but I’m not getting any trace on the phone number.”

  “It’ll be a burner phone,” Richard said. Just then a man answered the number he was calling. “Eric Cross?”

  “Yeah, who’s calling?”

  “Detective Richard Henderson.”

  “Damn, this is about Elena, isn’t it?”

  “Sure is.” Richard then proceeded to ask him similar questions to the ones he’d asked Joe.

  “I haven’t seen her in forever. I wish I had, but I had one night with her, and that was it,” Eric said wistfully. “I’d have done anything for her.”

  “Including kill her?”

  The shocked silence was followed by a blast of “Noooo. Never. I loved her.” And, with that, he burst into tears and hung up.

  Richard groaned. It was always rough dealing with those left behind to suffer through the aftermath of death. And murder made it that much harder on everyone. He looked at Andy, even as Richard dialed the second number. “Have they cleared her apartment yet?”

  “Yes. You want to head over there?”

  “Yeah, I do. I was there once, but they were already working on it.”

  “That’s because George got there ahead of you.”

  Richard stifled the words threatening to jump from his mouth. George was part of the team but liked to think he was the lead on all cases.

  “And don’t forget. George had just come off a couple heavy cases. He charged in the same as you and I would, if we had been there.”

  “I know,” Richard said in exasperation. “I just wanted to be first on scene.” He lifted his phone as a voice answered. He identified himself and explained the call. The response was almost identical to Eric’s, just without the tears.

  “You have to understand, Detective,” Gerard said in a whisper. “Everyone wanted to be with her. I can’t imagine killing someone like that. The world is a much darker place today.”

  As soon as he hung up from the call, Richard said to Andy, “Let’s go. Getting out for a bit will help clear my head.”

  The two men hopped up, grabbed their phones and keys. Andy smiled. “I’ll drive.”

  The two of them joked and laughed as they headed to Andy’s small pickup truck. As Richard climbed into the front seat, he looked around. “Why do you even keep this thing? It’s not much bigger than a can opener.”

  “That’s not the point,” Andy said cheerfully. “It’s my rig. And I like it.”

  “Only because you’re not as tall as I am,” Richard retorted, as he shifted so his head didn’t bang the ceiling.

  They drove the short distance to Elena’s apartment and got out to find she had one of the converted artist lofts down in the commercial district.

  “Wow,” Andy said, as he stood outside. “I’ve always wanted to go into one of these.”

  “Exactly. This is our chance.”

  Laughing, the two of them headed in. Using the manager, they got into her apartment, closing the door nicely in his face. Richard turned to look around and whistled. The loft had a soaring double-height ceiling, with a loft section off to the right, long lights hanging down low, big exposed rafters in the ceiling. “I wonder what it’s like to heat this place.”

  “I doubt it’s that bad,” Andy said, “because every one of these places are sold as soon as they become available.”

  “And t
hat just brings up another question,” Richard said. “We’ve seen murders done for less, but what are the chances that somebody wanted this loft?”

  Andy looked at him, pulled a notebook from his pocket, and said, “You know what? Unfortunately that’s just all too possible. These things are expensive, and it’s quite a bit more to get them in the first place. But they turn over instantly as soon as anybody has one free.”

  “Well, guess what?” Richard said. “One is about to come free.”

  “And, if it doesn’t, we need to find out who stands to inherit.”

  “Yeah, if it isn’t a lover who gets to gain.” As he stood and looked around at the beautiful white and silver high-end loft, Richard realized that this model wasn’t just a model but she was also wealthy. “Do you think these body models make this kind of money?”

  “I was just thinking that,” Andy said. “This has got to be worth what, a million?”

  “But it’s also decked out to be worth like a million and a half,” he said. “You don’t see anything quite like this everywhere. I thought these were working people.”

  “But then it goes along with what Joe Johnson told you, about how working for the high-end artists could put these models on the map. In this case, apparently that artist is Cayce.”

  “So what would somebody do in order to make sure they got to work with Cayce? And they can’t work until there’s a spot?”

  “Which brings us back to that whole point of this maybe being all about competition.”

  “Let’s take a look.”

  They headed to her bedroom. If there was ever a place to find out what really went on in a person’s life, it was in the bedroom.

  Chapter 4

  Cayce had been working three hours already. She had this massive, expansive wall—twenty by sixty feet. It wasn’t that she particularly liked this size, but it was something she was certainly capable of doing. She put the roller back down and relaxed her shoulders, rotating them and her neck to ease up the tension. She had a base color on the back wall, and she had the sky with the clouds working in. She was doing the foreground in this one, and that was tougher—a fantasy forest winter design.

  “That’s quite a job,” a man said behind her.

  Cayce stiffened, then turned to look at Detective Richard Henderson. “Are you back to bug me some more?”

  “Do I bug you?”

  She narrowed her gaze at him. “What do you want?”

  “I have a few more questions,” he said. He looked at the many trays of paint all around her. “Good Lord,” he said. “Are you really doing this whole wall?”

  She shrugged her shoulders several times, again feeling her muscles cramp. “Yes, and I have to do the background first, before I start doing any of the fine detail.”

  “And how long does something like this stay up?”

  “Weeks, months sometimes,” she said. She walked to where she’d placed her coffee, realizing it was lukewarm at best right now. She took a big slug, nearly spitting it out. “Back to the questions, Detective,” she said pointedly.

  She was caught by the way the light played along his cheekbones. Just the way he stood there. She moved a little to the left, so she could take a look at him from a different angle. Her mind immediately filled in all the details of this man and realized he had unforgettable features. But, of course, that sent her mind spinning, only to wonder what the rest of him looked like. Just from a model’s perspective, she assured herself.

  He frowned at her. “What are you looking at?”

  “Your cheekbones,” she said bluntly. His eyebrows shot up, and she grinned. “I am an artist.”

  He shrugged uncomfortably and said, “Well, I won’t be part of your installations anytime soon.”

  She nodded, smiled, and said, “That’s fine too, considering you weren’t invited anyway. So, questions?”

  He glared at her. “Joe Johnson.”

  “Good model,” she said instantly. “I really like him.”

  “Personally?”

  “No,” she said. “Not personally. But he’s a very good model. He could hold the position and stand for a long time, but he wasn’t cut out for the actual cutthroat part of the business.”

  “Isn’t that a little hard to believe?”

  “Every business is cutthroat, if somebody stands to gain a ton of money,” she said. “There are always markers that define success, fame, or wealth. But knowing that your face will be on every magazine is a thrill for a lot of people.”

  “True,” he said, “and Joe wasn’t cut out for it?”

  “No, not at all,” she said. “But that didn’t stop him from being damn good at what he did.”

  “Would you use him again, if you had a chance?”

  “I don’t body-paint men very often,” she said, “but, yes, I would.”

  “And did Elena have anything to do with him?”

  “You’d have to ask him,” she said. Cayce hated talking about her friends, particularly the ones who were no longer here to answer any questions.

  “We have to pry into Elena’s life,” he said gently. “Somebody took it from her. No way I’ll let that happen to anybody else.”

  Her eyes widened as she thought about that. She took several steps forward, her voice dropping as she whispered, “Do you think other models are in danger?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “You tell me. Was this dedicated just to her, or is there something about her that somebody wanted?”

  “It depends if they were trying to kill her for revenge,” she said, “or if it was because of the masterpiece.”

  “Why do you keep calling it a masterpiece?”

  “Not because I’m an egotist,” she snapped, “but because it was a copy of a masterpiece that she was in.”

  He stopped, stared, and said, “Really?”

  She nodded. “A van Gogh.”

  “Oh, God,” he said. “That adds a whole new layer of shit to the case.”

  She nodded slowly.

  “We have to get to the bottom of this and fast. Do you have any other masterpieces coming up?”

  She stared at him in horror; then she nodded slowly. “Tomorrow night,” she said. “I’m doing one tomorrow night.”

  He waved at the wall behind her. “This one?”

  She shook her head immediately. “No. I’m doing one at the big art museum,” she said. “It’s different. We’re bringing in the canvases that will be the backdrop, and then the models in the front. So, I’m doing them in pieces.”

  “Not that I even begin to understand that,” he said, “but I’ll have some added security on the place.”

  “You can do that,” she said, “but will you look after my model too? I don’t want her to turn out to be a second masterpiece for some creep collector who’s found something new to collect.”

  *

  Richard had interviewed as many people as he could and had spoken to many others from his share of the list of attendees at Elena’s last installation, yet he had a whole lot of nothing. Names, dates, figures, and absolutely none of them were artists themselves, and that concerned him. A lot of them were collectors, but it took an especially unstable mind to want to collect a masterpiece painted onto a woman’s body. But he also knew that it gave him insight into the mind of the collector.

  He picked up the phone and called a friend of his. “What was the name of that doctor you went to?”

  Sarah, on the other end, laughed. “Well, I’m not exactly sure what doctor you’re talking about,” she said, “because I just had a pap smear done by Dr. Watkins.”

  “No, no, no,” he said hurriedly, and then realized she was laughing at him. He groaned. “You’re right. I deserved that,” he said. “That doctor dealing with children’s issues.”

  “You’re talking about a child psychologist?” she said curiously. “You do remember that I don’t have any kids, right?”

  “I’m not explaining myself really well,” he said, frowning as he stare
d down at the list. “And maybe that’s who I should be talking to—a psychologist. Maybe then I might come to understand this. But it’s really weird stuff.”

  “It depends what you mean by weird stuff,” she said. “I know you’re a cop, and sometimes you have to deal with really strange cases.”

  “This is quickly becoming the weirdest of all,” he said.

  “Well, I’m a nurse, but I don’t think I have anything to offer you.”

  “Actually, you do,” he said, thrumming his fingers on his desk for a moment. “How hard is it to skin somebody?”

  An instant of silence passed on the other end; then she gasped softly. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “Partially,” he said. “Only the skin off the torso was taken.”

  “But not dismembered?”

  “No, just that portion of her body was skinned.”

  “Well, it isn’t technically all that difficult,” she said. “But to keep it, to preserve it somehow, would be very difficult.”

  “And, if they were to use something to preserve it, presumably it would damage anything on the surface of it.”

  “If you’re thinking fingerprints, I would assume so, yes.” She spoke slowly, as if trying to feel her way through his meaning. “What did you think this psychologist could do for you?”

  “I don’t know,” he said in frustration. “I’ve done all the legwork I know to do at this point, and I need some insight into who and why somebody would want to do this.”

  “Sure, but I think I know who you’re talking about. She doesn’t deal with normal issues.”

  “This isn’t a normal issue,” he said drily. “And it’s not me who has the problem. It’s one of my cases.”

  “Well, you must have a specialist who you can talk to on staff.”

  “And I have an appointment with him this afternoon, yes,” he said. “Anyway, forget about it. I’ll rethink my ideas.” And he quickly hung up on her because one of the things that he had wanted to speak to that specialist about went beyond the norm and into what he called the woo-woo factor. He just couldn’t remember what her name was.

  His phone buzzed. He looked to see a text from Sarah.