“Tell me about the work that he copied,” Dietrich said.
“I’ve assembled some materials that will help tell the story,” she said. “Come around to this side of the table and I’ll show you.”
“The horses of Pech-Merle,” Diana said. “The Chevaux Ponctués. The cavern that contains them is near Cahors on the river Lot. Their age is still disputed, but they’re older than Lascaux by several thousand years. Seventeen or eighteen thousand years before Christ, fifteen thousand before Stonehenge. If Lascaux is the Sistine Chapel of prehistory, Pech-Merle is its Chartres. The horses are the focal point of a natural structure which, in itself, is breathtaking. Look at the height of the ceiling. Most of the rock shelters and caves of the Dordogne are narrow and confining. Low, curving overhangs and long, tight passageways. Endless head-bumping paths. This is different. Pech-Merle is a cathedral, with vast stalactites and stalagmites. The main hall is 140 meters by 25 and the horses are its centerpiece. The horses were designed to dominate the gallery. Each is nearly 160 centimeters in width.”
“Prehistoric cave paintings,” Dietrich said.
“Pre-Magdalenian cave paintings,” Diana answered. “Probably Solutrean, possibly even Gravettian. There are at least 68 animal figures at Pech-Merle, 28 human figures, and 595 signs and shapes. The Frise Noire which some call the Chapel of the Mammoths is also memorable, but the horses are the image which no one forgets.”
“They’re painted on a single slab of stone?” Tom asked.
“Yes, it originally fell from the ceiling of the cave. A whole set of slabs fell. This is the one they chose to paint, probably because of its position within the cave. This and the other slabs may have been used ceremonially. That’s pure speculation, of course; we don’t know anything for certain except that the horses are there; they survived. The slab is now connected with the body of the cave by a flat platform projecting above and beyond it. Some people want to see it as a prehistoric altar.”
“This is what your brother was working on,” Dietrich said. “It’s incredible.”
“Here,” she said, taking a second photograph from her file folder. It was a freestanding slab in an open room. “The basement of David’s Laguna studio,” she said.
Tom held both photographs, looking at each in turn and then looking at each again. “The horses are flawless,” he said, “even down to the density of the pigments. The lines and dots, the degree to which the pigments have faded, the patterns in the stone, the outline of the horse on the right where the stone is shaped like the horse’s nose . . . What are these red markings here?” He pointed at the second photograph.
“It’s a fish. Probably the first drawing on the stone. It’s usually identified as a pike. The original drawings and markings were done at different times, in some cases thousands of years apart. That’s right—thousands. This tableau is more than a series of integrated paintings. It is literally a history of the first stages of the human plastic arts.”
Tom stared at the photograph, trying to absorb it all.
“Throughout this part of France they’ve found jewelry and carved objects. Beads, bones, etched ivory. Very impressive, particularly for their time, but nothing like this. One man saw cave paintings in the Dordogne and said that he hadn’t known that Marc Chagall had painted on stone walls.”
“They just seem to float there,” Tom said. “You feel the movement but it’s like they’re in another dimension. There’s no background, no foreground, no setting, just two horses, turned away from us . . . they’re just . . .”
“Being horses,” she said.
He nodded at her, then moved his head slowly from side to side, as she continued. “When they found David’s body he had dust in his mouth. See the hand prints around the horses?”
“Yes.”
“They’re negatives. The artist held his hand against the surface and then blew dust over it, outlining it against the wall.”
“As a signature?”
“Perhaps. Some think the hand negatives were added later. In effect they say ‘I was here’. The creation of the negatives would be part of the ceremonies held in the cave. That’s the theory, at least.”
“How would they blow the dust, with a tube?”
“Yes, possibly a wooden tube or a hollowed piece of bone. What we don’t know is whether they put the dust in the tube and blew or put the dust in their mouths and then blew through the tube. David would have experimented with both methods. Nothing less than complete authenticity would have satisfied him. The hand negatives postdate the horses. So do the dots inside the horses and across their backs. He must have just been completing the project when he was killed. If you look more closely at the two photographs you’ll see that his work is not quite finished. He would have done the dots in stages. When he took the photograph he had two dots left to do, all of them red. See . . . right . . . here.”
“Maybe he was creating materials as he went along and had to stop to replenish his supply,” Dietrich said. “This wouldn’t be over-the-counter stuff.”
“The cave artists used a combination of things. They could have gotten black pigments from manganese dioxide, black iron oxide, or charcoal. Crushed calcite would have given them white powder. Yellow ochres and brown ochres could have been heated so that they would redden in the fire. The cave artists stirred the minerals with sand or clay, crushed them in a mortar, and bound the mixture with water. David would have struggled with it, laboring to get it right. He would be learning a technique that others had practiced for thousands of years. And it had to be perfect. The color is the most important thing after the line.”
“The similarity is uncanny,” Dietrich said.
“He finished it and then suddenly he was killed,” Tom said. “Why? To guarantee his silence or to guarantee the work’s uniqueness? Or both?”
Chapter Thirteen
Rancho California Road, Temecula
Tuesday, 8:10 p.m.
As Tom’s questions hung unanswered in the air there was a knock at the door that startled each of them. The door opened slowly. It was Mike Angioni.
“Excuse me,” he said. “I thought you might like something to eat. It’s just a tray of things from the tasting room . . . still fresh. Some cheese and crackers and fresh fruit. The wine is one of our specialties. It’s a Sangiovese that’s late-harvested. The sugar level is high; it’s a dessert wine. It should taste good with the food.”
“Thanks very much, Mike,” Diana said.
“No problem. Sorry for the interruption,” he said.
They stared at the beautiful food and felt the incongruity of its presence in a room where the most recent discussion had been of death.
“Don’t be shy,” Diana said. “We’re all going to need our strength.”
“We’ll need pictures,” Dietrich said. “For new documents. If these people can access credit card files and snoop on the office of the police chief (it was bugged, by the way, Tom) they’ll be able to check airline and customs files. Hold on a second . . .”
Dietrich went out to his car and brought in an aluminum briefcase. Among other things, it contained a Nikon camera. “We should use different backgrounds. I’ll take Tom in front of a white wall and Diana in front of one that is slightly off-white.”
They used a wall in the tasting room and one in a storage area. “I have a secure site in Washington where they will create the documents,” Chris said. “You’ll also need a local contact when you get to France. In the meantime,” he said, picking up his glass and taking a sip of the dessert wine, “you should be thinking about some aliases for your airline reservations, credit cards, and hotel check-ins.”
“I appreciate this, Chief,” Tom said.
“No problem. We can’t have one of the most prominent artists in the world killed in our town and not respond accordingly.”
“Question,” Tom said.
“Sure, what is it, Tom?”
“How do you think they bugged your office?”
“Probably using the cleaning crew as cover. New outfit. Hired since you went into the hospital. They come and go at night, sometimes together, sometimes singly. This time somebody left something behind besides footprints, one beneath my desk, one beneath the conference table. I’m leaving them there in the meantime.”
“Good idea,” Diana said. “They should continue to believe that we’re not making progress.”
“Right. Now what else do we need?” Dietrich asked.
“Besides prayers and luck? Just Diana’s call to the governor,” Tom said.
“Let’s hold off on that for awhile,” Dietrich said. “So long as I can promise his support if we need it, I think I can get some help from the feds based on what we have. The more people who are involved in the discussion the more vulnerabilities we create.”
Tom and Diana both nodded approvingly.
“They’ll be watching the local airports,” Dietrich said. “I think you should take a more circuitous route.”
“I agree,” Tom said. “Meanwhile, we’ll get some things together and wait for your call.”
“Thank you, Chief,” Diana said. “I won’t forget the help you’ve given us.”
“Good luck,” he answered.
“Why has there been no report?”
“They are being very clever. Do not worry; it is only a matter of time before we discover their location and their degree of progress.”
“Are you watching the detective’s house?”
“Yes, of course.”
“And the sister’s?”
“Yes. She has not returned. She has an uncle in New York. We are checking on him and on his house.”
“Is there a record of her taking a flight?”
“No, but she might have used an assumed name.”
“That is not easy to do without official help.”
“Perhaps someone fabricated identification papers for her, for a fee.”
“That is possible, but under the circumstances not very likely. I do not like this at all; I want to know where they are; I want to know what they are saying and what they are doing. We need to finish with this business and move on. Bennett’s work is finished. I do not want to have to deal with this again.”
“I understand. We have placed listening devices in the office of the police department Chief.”
“Good, good. But I take it that you have learned nothing from them.”
“True, but perhaps that is a good thing. We have learned nothing because they know nothing.”
“True. Stay in touch with me. And do not make me call you again for a report.”
“Yes, sir. I will call you every three hours.”
“Without fail.”
“Without fail, sir.”
Tom and Diana drove to a small hotel in Escondido. He badged the desk clerk, registered as William Denton, and took two adjoining rooms, prepaid in cash. “We’ll shop first thing in the morning,” he said. “I don’t want to go back to my house and I don’t want to tempt fate by continuing to use the boat as a base.”
“I agree,” Diana said. “We can get some clothes and a bag in Escondido and stay clear of Laguna until we hear from Chief Dietrich. I believe that we should travel as if we’re a couple. That would be most plausible.”
“Yes. Would you like me to think of a name?
“I already have one,” she said. “Justice.”
“Wayne and Katharine?”
“Done.”
II
THE GREEN DISEASE
Chapter Fourteen
The Newport Beach Marriott
Thursday 9:55 a.m.
He knew that they would tease him mercilously if they caught him with the candy a second time. They brought it out in the afternoon, during the first post-lunch break. In the morning it was the sweet rolls, the donuts and Danish. Sometimes the miniature bagels. Always the exact same size; how did Marriott get them that way? Were they stamped out of a machine like pieces of candy, carefully quality-controlled? Control always managed to trump quality, especially with the bagels. They were always a little too cold, a little too stale, the top and bottom parts joined a little too closely. Then you wrestled them into submission with the plastic knives and tried to make them palatable with the cheese that wasn’t always Philly cream.
By the afternoon they were gone, replaced by the bowls of hard candy—anything to provide the sugar rush that would help the conventioneers force their eyes open and continue to stare at the PowerPoint with feigned interest. The pads and pens were aligned with military rigor, as were the complimentary plastic folders with the Marriott logo. The only flaws were the widening concentric circles of coffee stains beneath the scuffed plastic tubs, the shutoff valves never quite sealing the taps. Or maybe that was part of the deal, the guaranteed stain. Still, they always chose the same chain. “The quality is not great,” one planner said, “but it’s at least consistent.”
This time the subject of the refresher course was “After Miranda,” a tour of the most recent legal challenges and precedent-setting decisions. Hector’s attendance had been required. A “command performance” was the LBPD’s duty roster notation.
Three months earlier the subject was “Welcoming Diversity” and four months before that, “Managing Change.” The only real recompense for a lost workday was the pocketful of hard candy he had taken from the meeting room table—a few from each bowl to divert attention from his action—and passed on to the kids in his neighborhood. Somehow the word got back to the station house, along with his new nickname, “The Candyman.” When a quartet of female officers crooned in harmony—“The Candyman makes/Everything he bakes/Satisfying and delicious/Talk about your childhood wishes/You can even eat the dishes,” he knew that any future actions would have to be decidedly more covert. Swearing the neighborhood kids to secrecy wouldn’t work; they didn’t do secrecy. Maybe he’d light-finger a pocketful of creamers and feed the feral cats in the park near his mother’s house. At least they wouldn’t talk. But would they accept the kind with the almond flavoring?
He turned these thoughts over in his head while the lawyer/consultant droned on and the clock hands seemed frozen in space and time. At the break he walked down the hall to the stairwell, scaling the stairs two at a time in an effort to get his blood pumping and his leg muscles loose. He felt a little better when he returned to the meeting floor, used the bathroom, and thought about the reward of a fresh hot cup of coffee. Dueling with the motion-sensor towel dispenser, he felt marginally refreshed and mentally prepared for another hour of tedium. Then he walked into the hallway and saw him.
He was staring at the notepad in one of the complimentary plastic folders. The speaker had called it pleather, an attempt at humor designed to clear heads and open eyes during a particularly dry discussion of a case that had tanked because of Miranda slipups. This time he was dressed differently than he had been outside the Ritz. It may have been his only suit but it was bland enough to help him pass as a coerced conventioneer rather than a Penney’s customer.
Hector walked to the drinking fountain, took a sip of water, checked his watch, and walked to the end of the hallway, out of earshot. He slipped out his cell phone and called the station. The desk sergeant bounced the call to the Chief’s cell phone, which he carried outside of his office.
“What have you got?” Dietrich asked.
“Uninvited guest at the meeting, Chief.”
“Someone we know?”
“Yes, a recent acquaintance.”
“From the Bennett case?”
“Yes, the man.”
“Following you?”
“Seems to be.”
“Perfect. Do you think you can tear yourself away from the meeting for awhile?”
“No problem, Chief.”
“I thought you might say that. Here’s what you do . . .”
Chapter Fifteen
Route 91, East
Thursday 10:50 a.m.
“Where are you?”
“I’m following the Mexican.”
“Where is he going?”
“I don’t know yet. He’s headed toward Corona. He was at a conference earlier this morning, some sort of mandatory course that the police are forced to take.”
“And he just left?”
“Yes.”
“That is interesting. His attendance was probably a diversion. He is headed toward the desert, perhaps to meet Bennett’s sister and the other detective.”
“That is my assumption. They have been hidden well, but perhaps not so well that we can’t find them.”
“I must know what they are doing and I must know how much they have learned.”
“I understand.”
“Where are you now?”
“On the 60, just beyond Riverside.”
“Is there any chance that he might have seen you?”
“No. After I followed him to the hotel this morning I put a tracking device on his car. I am able to follow him at a safe distance.”
“Good. Did he appear to be acting routinely?”
“At first, yes, but at the break he made a phone call in the hallway outside the meeting room. As soon as the call was completed he left.”
“He received new orders perhaps.”
“Yes.”
“Possibly from his superiors. They are at the coast, not in the desert. He is driving away from them; he is joining Bennett’s sister.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t like the fact that they have gone to such lengths to protect them. That means they are suspicious. I did not want them to be suspicious. I wanted them to close the case, forget about David Bennett, and move on.”
INTO THE DARK : A TOM DEATON NOVEL Page 8