Next of Kin

by James Tucker

  Neither man spoke.

  Buddy put the booties over his shoes and then pulled on latex gloves he’d taken from the side pocket of his suit coat. Two cops stood like sentries on either side of the elevator. Buddy glanced at them and then at Malone.

  Buddy said, “CSU?”

  “On their way. Vidas, too. So for a while you’ve got the place to yourself. I’ll wait here and give you some time.”

  Buddy nodded, pulled open the door to Carl’s condominium, and walked inside.

  A warm glow illuminated the living room where he stood. Everything appeared as it had when he’d been here before. The kitchen and great room, too. Nothing out of place. Two empty wineglasses on the counter by the sink, a few drops of red at the bottom of each.

  He checked the dining room. Nothing.

  Then he went along the hallway to the den where he’d interviewed the family. He flicked on the light switch. The room was exactly as it had been when he’d spoken with John and then with Carl and Rebecca and Ariel.

  Leaving the light on, he returned to the hallway. He stood there on the handsome maple floors and stopped.

  He didn’t think he could go any farther. He’d seen enough death. Any more and he’d be damaging himself.

  Fuck! he thought. I can’t do it.

  He squeezed his hands together, trying to make the blood move, trying to see if he could keep going. In response he felt his own strength. He breathed deeply, squared his shoulders. Took a step forward.

  He came to a doorway on the right. In this room the responding cops had switched on the light. He saw two figures on a large bed. The bed’s sheets and duvet had once been white but now were red. Carl lay collapsed over Rebecca. He’d been trying to protect her when one of his hands was cut off and his neck severed. He hadn’t lived to see his wife die. A hatchet blade had split her head in two uneven pieces. Her nose was gone. One eyeball clung weakly to one side of her skull. The other eye was missing, revealing a spongelike gash that stared at him.

  To avoid the blood on the floor, he didn’t go closer.

  Backing out into the hallway, he turned and walked to the next doorway. A bedroom illuminated by a black floor lamp. On the desk were John’s schoolbooks and his phone. The north wall had suffered a rose-colored indentation. Below the desk, against the baseboard, lay John’s body. The area between the shoulders had been hacked at, so chunks of the spine lay like oddly sized dice in the lake of blood on his back and also on what had been tan carpeting.

  Feeling dizzy, Buddy backed out of the room and into the hallway. He leaned against the wall and listened to his breath. It was coming too fast. Forcing the air in and out at a much slower pace, he felt the light-headedness begin to fade.

  He pushed off from the wall and approached the final bedroom door on the left side of the hallway. The responding cops had turned off this light. He stood in the doorway, reached along the wall for the switch, and flicked it up.

  Almost immediately he turned away. His eyes stared at the white doorframe. Something was caught in his throat, as if he might vomit or cry. Opening his mouth wide, he took in a mouthful, a gutful, of air, before letting it out in a rasping, nearly silent wail.

  Here was another girl he hadn’t saved.

  Forcing himself to straighten and to look once more, he saw the top of the armoire, crushed and with parts of a young girl’s body dangling through the splinters. He turned away. He couldn’t do it anymore. Not tonight.

  Rapidly he left the bedrooms and back hallway and emerged into the great room and kitchen. He stood at the sink and turned on the cold water and let it run for a long moment. Then he leaned over, angled his head, and drank. He drank as if he’d been in the desert for a year without water. And then he shut off the tap, turned, and wandered through the living room and into the picture gallery. All the lights had been switched on by the responding officers. The paintings shone under the lights as if alive.

  Hearing the wind rushing above, he looked up and noticed the circular hole cut in the skylight. Staring up through the missing disc of glass, he could see only darkness. No moon or stars were visible, but of course he was in the city, and so much of the universe was obscured by the ambient light. All at once he felt overwhelmed and exhausted.

  He sat down on one of the wooden benches in the middle of the gallery. He knew he wasn’t supposed to do it, that it would annoy CSU or worse, yet an unexpected faintness had come over him again. He bent over, lowering his head between his knees until his head began to clear. After a while he placed his latex-gloved hands on his knees and sat up.

  He’d thought, as he’d worked in Mei’s kitchen that night, that he was on to something—some clue that would guide him to an answer. Yet his confidence had been misplaced. He was as lost as ever, working feverishly in the wrong way, while not a mile from him another family was being murdered. As he recalled what had been done to Ariel as she’d hidden on top of the armoire, his hands began to shake and he closed his eyes. In his memory he saw what was left of her, and the image wouldn’t go away.

  Opening his eyes, he blinked at the gallery walls. He didn’t see the large painting of Napoleon astride a white horse, only recalled the horrifying image of Ariel.

  As if from a great distance, he heard the CSU detectives arrive and begin their examination of the scene. When Malone’s voice, issuing an order or two, boomed from the kitchen and great room, he made no move. He didn’t think he could. The gallery around him was bathed in the shine of the lights—they must have been specially made and located to exhibit the paintings—yet the room itself remained cold as the warm air rushed out through the hole in the skylight. The bracing cold kept him vaguely aware of his surroundings, of the room and the lights and the polished teak bench on which he was sitting. But he could do no more than stare straight ahead.

  Yet his mind hadn’t entirely closed down. It was like he was hearing a melody emerge from silence. First an illusion. Then a fragment. Finally, a more definite sound.

  He noticed something.

  Not what was in the room but what wasn’t.

  What the hell?

  He reached into the breast pocket of his suit coat and pulled out his phone. After unlocking it, he pressed the photos icon and saw stills of the videos he’d taken recently. The last video was of this very room, when Carl and Rebecca had shown him their paintings.

  He touched the video and began to watch.

  He turned off the volume so he could ignore the conversation he’d pretended to have, and focused on the images. The video played, all fifteen seconds of it. When it ended, he played it again.

  He was right.

  He stood and held up the phone so he could watch the video and also see the wall directly in front of him. He played the same video a third time and confirmed his observation. Tonight, on the wall in front of him hung the large painting of Napoleon leading his army. In the video taken only yesterday, the large painting of Napoleon hung just as it did now, but in the video there was a second painting, a small one about the size of a sheet of letter paper, hanging just to the right of the large painting.

  Buddy played the video again, this time pausing it for the two seconds it lingered on the wall opposite him. With thumb and forefinger he pulled apart the image to enlarge it. He squinted at the phone screen.

  He wasn’t sure of the small painting’s subject matter, but it looked to him as if it showed a bowl of fruit. Or was it a wreath of fruit on a boy’s head? The boy had pale skin, black hair, and resembled Ben.

  Buddy stared at the image. Then he shut off the phone, dropped it in his suit coat pocket, and approached the wall where the small painting had hung. The white paint was just a shade darker than the paint around it—the paint around it had been exposed to sunlight and artificial light. An imperceptible difference, unless you knew a painting had been there. He moved closer still and saw in the plaster a tiny pinprick where a picture hanger and nail had held the diminutive painting. The painting had had a narrow frame, and
the frame and canvas must have weighed very little, and so the nail and picture hanger used must also have been small.

  Had he not been working this case, the small painting wouldn’t have been noticed. Not by CSU. Not by anyone.

  He thought rapidly now. He asked himself, Did the killer make a mistake? Does the painting have any particular meaning to the killer, or did he take it because it was small and easy to conceal? His energy and resolve returned. He faced the room. Saw the priceless works of art. Suspected the paintings weren’t a sideshow to his investigation but the show.

  The killer had departed from his executions and perhaps on impulse taken something. That in itself meant something.

  Buddy would ask Mei about the missing painting. And then he’d work to determine who’d sold it to Carl’s grandfather in Nazi Germany. That information might tell him nothing, but on the other hand, it might tell him everything.

  Chapter Seventy

  When Buddy returned through Carl Brook’s living room to the kitchen and great room, he saw half a dozen men and women wearing CSU windbreakers. They were setting up their lights and cameras to document the state of the condominium.

  Malone paced back and forth in the kitchen, talking quietly with Vidas.

  Vidas had arrived and put on booties. He came up to Buddy, touched his shoulder, and said, “I’m sorry, boss.”

  Buddy nodded in silent thanks, then stood in the center of the great room. He had a view of the hallway to the bedrooms, but he wouldn’t enter that hallway again.

  He looked through the oversized windows at the dim outlines of the buildings on Central Park West. He checked his watch. It was so late—or so early. He couldn’t call Mei, as she and Ben would be asleep for another couple of hours. And what would he say? How could he tell Ben this news?

  His reverie ended as he heard calls from two detectives down on their knees in the hallway. Chief Malone stopped his pacing in the kitchen and hurried over to them, joined a moment later by Vidas.

  Buddy didn’t move.

  Vidas broke from the group and hurried over to Buddy. His face showed excitement. He held up an evidence baggie and said, “CSU found a contact lens. Just one, torn along one edge.”

  Buddy shrugged.

  “Boss, it’s still damp.”

  Buddy felt a hit of adrenaline. He knew a contact lens outside the body would remain moist for thirty minutes, maybe less.

  He took the baggie from Vidas, held it up to the kitchen light, saw the lens.

  DNA, he thought.

  Did it belong to one of the victims, or to the killer?

  He thought he might be lucky in this respect. During the killer’s brief struggle with John, the lens might have come out and fallen as he’d left the boy’s room—fallen onto the hallway floor.

  “Run it down,” Buddy told Vidas. “Did any family member wear contacts, and what were their prescriptions?”

  Vidas said, “There aren’t many family members left, just Dietrich Brook, Lydia Brook, and Hayley Brook.”

  “Check on those three, plus the four who died tonight.”

  “Sure, boss.”

  Vidas turned and hurried off to assist the CSU detectives.

  Buddy looked over at Malone, who was on his mobile phone and pacing back and forth by the kitchen island. He watched the chief’s heavy black shoes striking the maple floors. It was then he saw it.

  He walked into the kitchen, leaned down, and picked up a slender attaché case made of leather so black it shone under the lights. He laid it sideways on the marble countertop, unbuckled the flap, and opened it.

  Pens, eyeglasses, a calculator, and a sheaf of papers.

  With his latex gloves he withdrew the papers. They were held together by a metal binder clip and appeared to be legal documents of some kind.

  He set the papers on the counter and removed the binder clip. Then he leaned over and began to read.

  Before he’d gotten to the end of the second page, he realized that more had been going on among the four Brook brothers than he’d been told. For this wasn’t an agreement to sell the company to GE, it was an agreement among Alton, Bruno, and Carl—a majority of the company’s board of directors—to remove Dietrich Brook as vice president of European sales.

  The agreement referenced mismanagement, bad faith, and breach of fiduciary duty on the part of Dietrich Brook. Buddy didn’t know what “breach of fiduciary duty” meant, but he got the gist.

  He flipped to the signature pages. Two brothers had signed: Alton and Bruno. The signature line for Carl remained blank.

  Dietrich’s brothers had been about to cast him out of the family business, something that would cause him to lose his salary and position. Buddy wondered if Dietrich had fought back.

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Mei was running through shadows. Pale stone walls rose on either side of her. The stone overhead lowered and lowered the farther she ran. In front of her was only darkness. But she couldn’t turn around or go back. Not with the footsteps behind her, moving faster and faster, sounding louder and louder on the floor that was so dark it must be onyx.

  Now her head bumped the rock above. It was hard and hurt her. She had to crouch down to keep going. The walls angled inward, and as she stuck out her arms she could touch both of them. She shrank as she moved forward. She was afraid to turn back. She had to get down on her knees and scuttle. Now the walls brushed her shoulders.

  She could hear the footsteps behind her, the rustling of clothes.

  The shadows had become pitch black. She could see nothing, could sense nothing of her surroundings except the cold stone pressing against her on four sides.

  The ceiling grew lower still. She had to lie on her back and go headfirst into the ever-shrinking passageway. The stone around her smelled of moisture, dampness, minerals. The stone above touched her nose, her forehead. She could go no farther.

  She stopped her frantic motion.

  She lay still.

  Listened for the footsteps.

  But there weren’t any. She was alone. Yet she couldn’t move, couldn’t get out. She began to push at the stone, to pound at it with her fists. But it remained immovable, silent, vast.

  Almost without noticing, she realized the air had grown thin. She was breathing quickly, but her consciousness was fading. She fought it as long as she could. She pounded the stone, tried to turn and go back the way she’d come. But she couldn’t move or breathe.

  A tomb, she thought. My tomb.

  She punched the stone as hard as she could.

  And woke.

  In her bedroom she sat up. Saw that Buddy was gone when she most wished he were here. She looked around the quiet room, then rubbed her eyes.

  Sighing, she turned to sit on the edge of the bed and looked at the clock on her night table.

  Eight o’clock.

  Shaking off the dream, she padded into the kitchen where she saw Buddy’s note on the counter saying he’d left for work, and he was sorry.

  She hoped he was all right, but she didn’t look at the photocopies of the bills of sale spread across the kitchen counter. There wasn’t time.

  When she checked her phone, she saw that Anta Safar, Porter Gallery’s assistant director, had sent her an e-mail urging her to be at work promptly that morning. Anta Safar and Jessica would be at an all-day client meeting in East Hampton. Mei had to hurry, but she’d comply. She’d never been one of those rich women who couldn’t keep a job because they wouldn’t work hard.

  Knocking on Ben’s door, she woke him and asked him to shower and dress. He barely moved under the covers.

  “Come on, Ben. You’re really late for school.”

  He groaned. “I don’t want to go. Not today.”

  “But you shouldn’t miss class. You’ll fall behind.”

  “Just tell them I’m sick.”

  She was going to be late to the gallery. She didn’t have time to take him to school, and he’d be afraid of being accompanied by one of Ward’s bodygu
ards. Despite the precedent she might be setting, she said, “All right. But you have to go with me to the gallery.”

  “Fine.”

  “We have to go now, Ben.”

  Slowly, he sat up and pushed aside the covers. His hair was disheveled, his cheeks pink with the warmth of sleep.

  She thought he was the most adorable boy she’d ever seen.

  “Hurry,” she told him.

  In her bedroom she put on a black dress of heavy silk and a pearl necklace with matching earrings. She packed high heels in a tote bag, put on a pair of L. L. Bean boots, and walked out of her bedroom. As she met Ben in the foyer, where he was putting on his New Balance sneakers and navy-blue peacoat, she thought of the small revolver Ward had given her. She reached to press the button for the elevator—and then paused.

  Recalling the attacks here at her home and at Ward’s house, her chest tightened. Going outside, out into the streets, and walking or taking a taxi to her gallery filled her with anxiety.

  “Just a minute,” she told Ben, and hurried back down the hallway to her bedroom.

  After closing the door, she took the nylon case holding the revolver from the closet shelf, together with the box of bullets, and set them on the bed. Then she unzipped the case and took out the revolver. It took her a moment to remember how to work the cylinder, but eventually it popped open. She didn’t think she needed to fill the entire cylinder, so she took only three bullets from the box and inserted them into the revolver. Once she’d snapped it closed the way Ward had shown her, she thrust it into the bottom of her handbag and left the room, the nylon case and box of bullets remaining on the bed.

  At 8:25 a.m., the elevator door opened in the lobby, where they were met by one of Ward’s security guards.

  He didn’t smile.

  Mei turned to her left and saw the second security guard by the fire stair door. She said good morning to both guards.

  They nodded.

  The guard by the elevator said, “Where are you going?”

  “Work,” she told him. “Porter Gallery, on Fifty-Eighth just east of Fifth.”