Stroke of Death

by Dale Mayer

  “Jesus, that’s an awful lot of coincidences.”

  “Yeah. I don’t like any of this,” he said. “None of this is a coincidence. I’m not sure if it’s his plan, or if there’s a devious mind behind him, but something is going on, and it involves this Kenneth guy.”

  Frankie leaned forward and said, “But Kenneth isn’t anywhere around here,” he said. “I haven’t seen or even heard anything of him for years.”

  “And yet Derek told me that his current boyfriend saw him not too many days ago.”

  “Seriously?”

  He nodded. “But why would the boyfriend even tell Derek? That seems weird.”

  “Because that’s the relationship they have,” Frankie said. “Benjamin is insecure, so it was probably a poke at Derek to see if Benjamin could get a reaction. See if Derek still cared.”

  Richard nodded, spoke to Andy, still on the phone. “Did you get all that?”

  “Yeah,” Andy said. “We’re already looking for Kenneth too. I’ll be there soon.” And he hung up. Richard frowned at Frankie. “Are you going anywhere tonight?”

  “No way. Cayce relies on me,” he said, “and my girlfriend is one of the models.”

  Richard stopped, looked at him with a smile, and said, “Cayce did it, did she?”

  He gave a sheepish grin and shrugged. “Yeah. I know it’s only because I asked her to.”

  “No way,” Richard said. “I may not know her as well as you do, but I do know she would never allow herself to be pressured into doing that. She is true to her art, and your girlfriend either fit the project or she didn’t.”

  Frankie relaxed, nodded, and said, “Thank you for that.”

  “I want you to stay damn close to Cayce tonight,” he said, “and your girlfriend.”

  Immediately alarmed, the younger man’s face clouded. “Why?”

  “Because we have two dead models and a third who was in the industry, and I’ve always felt this was targeted at Cayce. Maybe her artwork. I don’t know. But don’t let them out of your sight.”

  But Frankie was already moving by the time Richard finished speaking, headed back toward Cayce. Richard walked up beside her too and whispered into her ear, saying, “I’ll be back later. Do not leave here, and stay surrounded by people you trust.”

  She nodded mutely. He leaned over, kissed her hard, and was gone. He had too many people he had to talk to, and he needed to find them fast. As he headed outside, his phone rang. “Tell me you found one of them.”

  “Derek is bringing in his partner,” Andy said.

  “I’ll meet you at the station,” he said. “Any word on Kenneth?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “Not yet.”

  Richard raced to the police station. As he pulled in and walked through, Andy hailed him.

  “Over here.”

  Richard walked into the small interrogation room and sat down. With a look over at Derek, he said, “Thanks for coming in.” He shook the boyfriend’s hand and said, “We need to know what you know about Kenneth.”

  At that, the other man’s lip curled.

  “The truth,” Richard said. “Not jealous suppositions.”

  Surprised, Benjamin looked quickly at Derek, then back at Richard. “Well, you don’t have to put it that way.”

  “Yes, I do,” he said. “Three models are dead,” he said, “and we need to find Kenneth to see if he’s involved.”

  At that, Benjamin gasped, covering his mouth with his hand.

  “No theatrics,” Richard demanded. “Just tell me what you know.”

  “Well, I don’t know anything,” he said.

  “You said that you saw him,” Derek said. “Either you did or you didn’t.”

  Benjamin flushed. “I just knew it would bug you.”

  “So, this is me asking, so you better tell the truth,” Richard said. “Did you or did you not see Kenneth?”

  He frowned and said, “Well, I thought it looked like Kenneth, but I can’t be sure.”

  “What does Kenneth look like?”

  “Oh, I took a picture,” he said, as he pulled out his latest model iPhone and hurriedly flicked through his photos. When he found the image he wanted, he held it up.

  Derek snatched it from his hands, looked at it with squinted eyes, and said, “That could be Kenneth.”

  Benjamin looked at him and said, “What the hell?”

  “What?” Derek asked.

  “How could you possibly recognize him from that?” Benjamin asked.

  “You did,” Derek said.

  “Yeah, but that was my fear talking.”

  Derek immediately squeezed the other man’s fingers and said, “And I keep telling you, you don’t need to worry.”

  “I know that,” Benjamin said. “And I need to give you the trust that you deserve, but it’s damn hard when that’s the reason my last relationship broke up.”

  “Which is even a better reason not to be dragging it forward.”

  Richard looked at them, grabbed Benjamin’s phone, and said, “Are you two done?”

  Derek flushed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We typically don’t air our dirty laundry.”

  “If it includes Kenneth,” Richard said, “I want to know every damn piece of it. So we’ll be sitting here until we drag out every bit you know.” He handed the phone over to Andy. “Email that to George, please.”

  With that done, Andy got up and left the room.

  “Where’s he going?” Derek asked.

  “To get that photo enhanced and to see if we can get something that we can go on, so we can talk to people.”

  “Well, if he’ll be anywhere, he’ll be at the big centers,” he said. “He’s all about art.”

  “Meaning, he’ll likely to be at Cayce’s big showing tonight?”

  Derek looked at him in surprise and said, “That’s exactly where he would be.”

  “Do you know how he feels about Cayce?”

  “A love-hate relationship.”

  “Why the hate?”

  “Cayce saved Elena, called out the abuse of Elena, so Cayce’s responsible for Kenneth’s stepfather going to trial, only he ran away, never to be found again, which then led to the breakdown of Kenneth’s stepmother.”

  “Didn’t the stepfather attack and sexually abuse Elena?”

  “Yes. He did, and Cayce made sure Elena got help in the hospital,” Derek said. “It was pretty ugly at the time. And, yes, the stepfather absolutely deserved to go to jail but disappeared somehow. But it caused Kenneth’s stepmom a lot of problems and some very conflicted emotions. Remember now, they were preteens or teenagers at the time, so definitely a love-hate relationship.”

  “And yet, how did Kenneth end up dating Naomi?”

  Derek nodded. “That’s way back when he was still going out with women,” he said. “After they broke up, he and I hooked up. But it was years later.”

  “And how long were you with him?”

  “Six to nine months probably,” he said. “I honestly can’t remember.”

  A sniffle came from the boyfriend.

  Richard glared at Benjamin. “Keep it together.”

  The boyfriend just nodded.

  As Richard continued to ask every question that he could—upside, downside, and every other angle—he wasn’t getting any new information. “Outside of tonight’s show, do you have any idea where else Kenneth might go, or where he would stay?”

  “No,” Benjamin said.

  “He owned an apartment at one time,” Derek said.

  Richard froze, picked up his pen and notebook, and asked, “Where?”

  Derek looked around the small windowless room, as if orienting himself. “I have no idea what the address is,” he said, “but it’s not very far from here.”

  “We did a local title search already, and he doesn’t own any Seattle property.”

  “No,” he said. “Not him. I think it’s in the stepfather’s name,” Derek said.

  “Okay. We’ll have to run that
up on him too,” Richard said.

  “I can tell you,” Derek spoke out, “that Kenneth will be too unstable to go to trial.”

  At that, Richard sat back and said, “Now that would make the most sense yet.”

  “How does that make any sense?” Benjamin asked, in a querulous voice.

  “Because whoever is killing these people is obviously mentally unstable,” he said. “With three already dead, we don’t want a fourth.” He stood, ending the interview. “You can leave, gentlemen. Please stay in town. I may have to get in touch with you with more questions.”

  Derek stood, and immediately the boyfriend did also.

  “Did we do okay?” Benjamin asked Derek.

  Derek nodded and said, “We did.” He stopped, turned, and looked at Richard. “Detective, do you think this has anything to do with Naomi going missing? I wasn’t too worried to begin with but now …”

  “I don’t know. But it’s very possible that, when we find Kenneth, we’ll find Naomi.”

  “She’s not a very nice person sometimes,” Derek said. His voice dropped to a quiet tone. “But she doesn’t deserve what happened to Elena.”

  “None of them deserved that,” Richard said, and he bolted from the interrogation room.

  *

  Look at all the people standing in line just to get inside. Look at the accolades she was getting. He sighed with joy and happiness. She was such a success. A success that should have been his and would be again.

  He almost had it perfected. He was doing so, so well. He smiled, accepted a glass of champagne—the servers doing their best to keep the patrons waiting outside a little mollified. Putting on airs, he gently walked around, speaking to others, as if he were the artist. Because, of course, he could do this. He’d done things like this many times. He was perfectly capable of it.

  He sighed a happy sigh, reached up, and gently patted his hair, making sure that it was as good as it could be.

  It was not the way he wanted to leave his apartment, but one had to make do. At the showing, he stood in awe at the turnout. Cayce had done phenomenally well for herself. He could hardly contain his excitement.

  When one of the guards walked over to him and asked if he was okay, he gave him a frightened look, realizing he’d shown too much eagerness. “Of course I’m fine,” he said. Then he took his flute of champagne and turned his back to the guard.

  He wasn’t sure what could possibly have attracted the guard’s attention, but he wanted to get closer to see the models and to see the large picture. He also wanted to take photos, and certainly a lot of photos were being taken. He stood in line and took several selfies, acting the same as everybody else.

  Then he went inside and hummed with joy. When he looked at the two models, he sighed happily. They were both perfect. Then he contemplated which one. Which one?

  Just then, Cayce walked over and talked to one of the models. He saw her, as silver slice against the ice, against the blue ice, and against the white, the light shining and playing across her perfect form, and he sighed as recognition hit him.

  He didn’t need to choose a model. It was Cayce’s turn. He was finally here. She was finally it. Cayce had her grand finale, and that’s exactly what this was, her finale. Now it would all be turned over to him. And he was more than happy to pick up the gauntlet.

  Chapter 24

  The warm, fuzzy feeling continued throughout the evening. Cayce was really, really proud of this. Proud that she was helping in some way to bring global awareness to help save the animals. She hadn’t told anyone she had donated all her time to this. Anita would have a fit. Cayce had told her assistant that she had donated all the materials but not her labor, but she had to do the work that brought her joy. Otherwise there was no point in doing this at all.

  So much ugliness was in her life right now that she wanted desperately to have something that made her feel good. It was hard to be upset when such a warm glow of love and acceptance was all around her. She took in the admiration, realizing that the glow would only last for tonight. At the same time, she was sad that Richard had gone. But apparently he had a good reason for it, since Frankie was staying at her side.

  “So, are you hanging around me because you want to,” she said in a low tone toward him, “or did Richard order you to?”

  Frankie looked immediately guilty.

  She nodded. “You need to remember it’s the models who were kidnapped.”

  He nodded. “And I’m terrified that something’ll happen to one or the other, and I want to bring them both over here and keep them beside you, but you all deserve whatever moments you have tonight.”

  She said, “We’ll be just fine. It’s a public place. Nothing’ll happen here.”

  He looked at her, scanned the area, and said, “Please don’t say that. That’s like poking the devil and daring him to try it.”

  She laughed.

  As the waiter went by, he held out a tray with a single flute. She immediately switched her old glass for the full one and thanked him. She turned to Frankie and said, “It’ll be fine. The show was perfect tonight, wasn’t it?”

  “It is great,” he said. “You are great.”

  “And you will get your painting mojo back,” she said to him.

  “I was wondering …” and he hesitated.

  “Wondering what?” she asked.

  “I started doing something very different. I wondered if you would take a look and let me know if it’s any good,” he said, his words came out in a rush.

  “Absolutely,” she said. “Is it different than your other stuff?”

  “Yes, very. Very different, but it’s kind of dark.”

  “Dark isn’t necessarily bad,” she said.

  He looked at her in surprise.

  “When I’ve hit some difficult rock-bottom times in my life,” she said, “it was painting the dark that got me back out of it to the light again.”

  “You know what? I was wondering about that too because lately I’ve been reaching for lighter colors.” He frowned and shook his head. “That never occurred to me.”

  She reached down, squeezed his wrist. “Be gentle on yourself. You had a brain injury. There can be all kinds of repercussions from that.”

  “Not the least of which is my painting,” he said in frustration.

  “And maybe it’s because you’re going back to something that can’t be had again. Maybe this new stuff is where you truly belong because it’s different and fresh.”

  “That’s a possibility. I like that idea,” he said. “I think, when I was doing the stuff from before, I always felt like I was competing with you.”

  She stared at him in shock. “Why would you feel that?” she asked. “And why would you want to do stuff like this? This is a nightmare.”

  He looked at her in surprise.

  She turned cross. “Do you know how much I have to work to get these massive paintings done? Look at the size of my canvas. Stay working on small ones. It’s so much easier on your stress level.”

  He laughed. And he couldn’t stop.

  She watched in amusement as he bent over, howling. She managed to get the champagne glass out of his hand. And another waiter came and took it away from her. She smiled.

  When Frankie calmed down, she said, “Well, I don’t know what I said that was so funny but—”

  He wiped the tears from his eyes. “You have no idea how much I needed to hear that.”

  She smiled at him. “We’re our own worst enemy sometimes. You know that, right?”

  He gave her a genuine smile, full of joy and buoyant laughter, and he nodded. “I think that’s exactly what I’ve been doing.” He turned to look at Bellamy, who was up against the mural wall, staring at the two of them. “And now I think my beloved girlfriend is wondering and worried about what’s going on.”

  “Go,” Cayce said. “I think she at least deserves to know that she’s getting the Frankie she knows and loves back again.”

  He leaned over,
kissed her gently on the cheek, and said, “You are divine.” And, just like that, he was gone.

  She chuckled. “I can’t say I’ve been called that before.”

  A gentleman at her side said, “That was a lovely compliment.”

  She nodded. “It absolutely was.” She took a sip of her champagne.

  “I can’t imagine the scope of the work that went into this,” he said, “but I don’t see a signature anywhere. Did you sign it?”

  “I absolutely did,” she said, “but the signature was never meant to be part of my design, so it’s up in the cloud.” She pointed at the top right corner.

  He gasped and said, “I never even thought of that. Most artists are proud to put their signature on a piece of work.”

  “And I am too,” she said with a bright smile. “But it’s never intended to detract from the art itself.” She turned and smiled up at him. Her gaze narrowed as she studied the man in front of her. “I’m sorry. Do I know you?” She held out her hand, even as she wondered at the flicker of recognition.

  He shook it and smiled. “Absolutely you do.” He tucked her hand a bit under his arm, moving her farther away from the crowd.

  She glanced around and said, “So who are you?”

  He laughed and said, “A friend from your past.”

  She stared at him. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember.”

  “It’s not a problem,” he said. “It’s not a problem at all.”

  When she ended up slightly away from where everybody else was, she stopped, looked around, and said, “I’m sorry. I need to rejoin the crowd and mingle with all the guests.”

  “Just a moment,” he said. “I don’t think we want everybody to hear the details.”

  She looked at him in surprise. “Details?”

  He said quietly, “Do you really not remember me?” And his voice turned sorrowful. “I was there at a time when you desperately needed us.”

  “Us?”

  He nodded. “Elena and I.”

  She stared at him in shock. “Kenneth?”