“Me?” Slattery spit the gum into a trash can. “What about them?” She looked from one man to the other.
“What’d I do?” asked Mead.
“Everyone,” said Brown, “just cool it.”
They were all huddled over the death artist’s latest creation.
He had kept them waiting. But not for long.
“Okay, let’s just get through this, shall we?” Once more, Kate regarded the work in front of her—a painting of a man tethered to an ancient pillar, his body pierced with a dozen or more arrows, Kate’s face pasted right over the man’s.
“It’s Saint Sebastian,” said Kate. “By Andrea Mantegna. He’s a fifteenth-century Italian painter.”
“With your face,” said Slattery.
“It’s the photo of you from the New York Times,” said Brown. “From the gala.”
Kate took one of her yoga breaths. She’d been waiting for the death artist to get around to her. It was inevitable. She’d felt him getting closer and closer. And here it was. Finally. Just the two of them. “I complete the pie,” she said. “I’m the art writer.”
“Oh, you’re a lot more than that,” said Freeman. “You’re his prize.”
His prize. The words reverberated. Kate moved the magnifying glass over the image of the saint, trying to keep her hand from shaking. “No hidden drawings this time. Just my picture over the saint’s face, and the saint pasted over the other reproduction, which is Canaletto’s View of the Grand Canal.” She took another deep breath. “No mistaking the message. He’s telling us who and where: Me. In Venice.”
The death artist had sent her an invitation. Should she let him pull the strings again, let him lure her to Venice? She could picture him, thinking about it, about her. Planning. Yes, she had to do it. “I’ll go,” she said. “I have to.”
“Hold on,” said Mead. “It’s way too dangerous.”
“Mead is right,” said Freeman.
Kate thrust her shaking hands into her pockets. “He’s expecting me. I can’t disappoint him.” Her gut was twisting into a knot. But she wouldn’t show it.
“How am I supposed to protect you over there?” asked Mead.
“I didn’t know you cared, Randy.” Kate managed a wry smile. “But I have to go.”
Mead’s lips were tight, brow furrowed. “Let me talk to Tapell. See if she can set something up with Interpol and the Italian police.”
“The Bureau can handle that,” said Freeman. “We can deal directly with Interpol.”
“Let me go with McKinnon,” said Slattery.
Mead considered it a moment. “Maybe. I don’t know. Let me think.”
“Might not be a bad idea,” said Freeman.
“I could go, too,” said Brown.
“No way,” said Mead. “I can’t have all of you there. Someone’s got to stay here in case this is just a ruse to get McKinnon out of town.”
“No,” said Kate. “He doesn’t work that way.”
“His call to you, before the gala, was a ruse.” Mead sucked his teeth. “You forget that?”
“His call was just to yank my chain, to toy with me,” said Kate. “There was no art in it. No plan. Nothing he had to follow through on.” She tapped the image of the martyred saint. “But this is specific. Clear. He’ll see it through—or try to.” She ran her hands through her hair, then clasped them in her lap to keep them from shaking.
Freeman sat forward. “I think she’s right. She should go. I’m sure the Bureau could supply a team to protect her.”
Kate shook her head. “If I’m surrounded by a bunch of crew-cut American robots, it’ll be obvious they’re FBI. It’ll just scare him off.”
“I see your point,” said Freeman. “I’ll try to keep the robots at bay a while longer.”
“Thanks.” Kate glanced at the death artist’s collage—her face pasted over the martyred Saint Sebastian. She took a breath. “The opening events of the Venice Biennale are tomorrow. He’ll have to strike this weekend—and we have to be ready for him.”
Not her usual neat job of packing—tissue paper layered between blouses, each cosmetic and toiletry in its own plastic bag. Instead, Kate had her one evening outfit in a garment bag and everything else jumbled into a small carry-on.
“I would have been going with you if you hadn’t canceled the trip,” said Richard. “Now I’m totally overbooked with meetings and depositions.”
“I’m sorry,” said Kate. “I didn’t think I could possibly go, but then, well, I decided I really needed the break.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re going.” Richard sat on the edge of their bed, clipping his nails.
“Richard, please. I’ll be stepping on fingernail shards for days.”
“No, you won’t.” He stopped clipping, looked up. “You’ll be in Venice. And Lucille vacuums every day.”
He was right. Who cared where Richard cut his nails? She was tense, that’s all. And he’d made an effort, left work early to see her off.
“Willie will appreciate it. You being there, representing us both.” He went back to his nails. Clip. Clip.
“I hope so,” said Kate. She grabbed her smallest bottle of Bal à Versailles, shoved it into her bag. The absurdity of it struck her. Perfume? For a murderer?
“A few days away will do you good.”
“Uh-huh.” She hadn’t told him why she was now going. If he knew about the Saint Sebastian collage—that her life was clearly in danger—he’d never let her go. And maybe he’d be right. But she had to go. She was determined to beat the death artist at his game.
Richard was using the metal file now, dragging it across his thumbnail, squaring it off. A picture winked in her mind: Holding Elena’s hand at the coroner’s office, the girl’s nails, blunt-cut. Kate shook her head, tried to dislodge the image, but it wouldn’t let go. “Richard. Please. Stop doing that.”
“What?”
“Your nails. It’s . . . bothering me.”
Richard dropped the nail clipper onto the bed, frowned.
“I’m just a little tense.” She balled up a pair of panty hose, shoved them into her bag.
Richard got his arm around her shoulders. “You’ve got to relax, sweetheart.”
“I’m trying to.”
He massaged her neck with his fingers. “You sure you don’t want me to try and cancel everything, come with you?”
Kate touched his cheek. “No. You’d better not.” Would she like him to come? More than anything. But not since the death artist had contacted her. “I’ll bring back a stack of art catalogs for you to drool over.”
“Great.” He kissed her cheek. “And hurry back. I’ll miss you.”
41
Historically, Venice had been sinking at the rate of about three to five inches per century. That number had increased to ten inches in the twentieth century and continued to climb. Sidewalks and canal walls were being raised, telephone and power lines elevated, people were moving from first to second floors of their homes. At that rate, Venetians would soon be crowded into attics, and tourists would be viewing the fabled Jewel of the Adriatic from helicopters.
Still, to Maureen Slattery, the jewel glowed bright. As the vaporetto glided down the Grand Canal, she couldn’t get enough of the cerulean blue sky, the dark emerald waters, the gilded palazzos. If only the Italian polizia weren’t hovering over them.
Marcarini and Passatta. After much discussion between the various law enforcement agencies, it was decided that the two cops would be assigned to guard Kate on a twenty-four-hour basis, with bihourly check-ins to both the Italian police and Interpol. In Slattery’s mind, they were Macaroni and Pasta. Marcarini was in his late twenties, dark, cute; Passatta was maybe forty, handsome, unsmiling, chain-smoking, nervous. Both spoke English, occasionally haltingly.
The day was warm, moist, a slightly sweet-rotten smell in the air.
“Fucking beautiful,” said Slattery.
“Uh-huh,” said Kate, staring out at the palazzos that lin
ed the canal.
“Something bothering you, McKinnon? You haven’t said more than two words since we landed.”
“Yes. There’s plenty to bother me, Maureen.” Kate gave her a look.
“Oh, right. Sorry. I got overwhelmed by the place.”
“Forgiven,” said Kate, staring into the dark Venetian waters. She could feel the death artist’s presence everywhere she turned. Was she imagining it? She didn’t think so.
The vaporetto deposited them at San Marco.
Slattery took in the Basilica, the Doges’ Palace, the amazing square. “How the hell does this place stay afloat?”
“It has been here for centuries, signorina,” said Passatta, a scowl on his lips. “I think it will remain standing—at least until you are to leave,”
“Thanks, pal.” Slattery smiled.
Marcarini and Passatta escorted them to the Gritti Palace—one of the oldest, most luxurious hotels in Venice, and the site of Kate and Richard’s honeymoon—then set up camp just outside their door.
The porter laid Kate’s and Maureen’s bags onto waiting stands. Kate handed him a twenty-thousand-lire note.
Slattery surveyed the sumptuous room, the picture-perfect view through the open window: the Grand Canal, gondolas, churches. “Oh my God. I’ve fucking died and gone to heaven. It’d be like a dream, except for those meatball cops on our heels. Although they’re both good-looking, especially Macaroni.”
“Macaroni?” said Kate, smiling for the first time.
“Yeah,” said Slattery. “And the sourpuss is Pasta.”
Kate laughed, happy that Slattery was along, that she was not alone. “All Italian cops are handsome. It’s part of the job description.” She moved into the other rooms. “Maureen. Come in here.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” said Slattery, standing at the entrance to the marble-and-gilt bathroom. “It’s bigger than my entire apartment.”
“We have to check in with Mead.” Kate lifted the hotel phone. “Oh. Typical. The lines are out.”
“In a fancy place like this?”
“The phones in Italy work about half the time. In Venice, less.” She tried her cell phone. “Shit, I forgot to charge it.”
“Call him later,” said Slattery. “Hey, who gets the big bed?”
“All yours,” said Kate.
The facade of the Venice Police Headquarters was all sculpture and gilt, although more than half the gilding had worn off, with mold climbing up the bottom third of the building.
Inside, Kate and Slattery were treated to an endurance test called Italian time. Almost an hour’s wait. Then another hour with some sort of higher-up, though they couldn’t figure out who or what he was supposed to do, and he never told them, the three of them sitting around sipping espressos while he recounted a memorable visit to the Big Apple, years ago. Then another hour-long tour of the station.
Outside, finally, Marcarini and Passatta still glued to their sides, Kate attempted to shed some of her gloom as she and Slattery crossed over the Rialto Bridge, passing through an assortment of colorful markets and shops. But everywhere she looked, shadows won over light, alleys were ominous rather than charming.
Slattery didn’t seem to notice. She took it all in like a kid at Disneyland. “What’s this church?”
Kate looked up. “Oh. Saint Zachary’s. It’s a little Renaissance church. God. It feels like centuries ago that I came here to look at the Bellini.”
“The who?”
“Giovanni Bellini. One of the greatest Venetian painters ever, and one of my personal favorites.”
“Can we go in?”
Kate sighed. “We don’t have much time, Slattery. We’ve got to get over to the Biennale, and—”
“Come on, McKinnon. This may be my one and only trip to Venice.” She gave Kate a pleading look.
“All right,” said Kate. They were, after all, in one of the great art cities of the world.
“You call this little?” said Slattery, stepping through the doors, taking in the high vaulted ceiling, decorated pillars, patterned marble floors, carved pews, paintings everywhere.
“For Italy it is.” Kate shivered. Though ornate, the church was dark and damp.
Slattery kneeled, crossed herself. “Habit.”
Marcarini and Passatta lingered beside the front door as Kate led Slattery down the north aisle to the second altar.
“This is it? The Bellini?”
“Yes. But hold on.” Kate signaled the sacristan, who ambled slowly toward them, his robed form casting a long shadow.
Kate felt another chill. Was it only the dampness?
She folded several thousand lire into the sacristan’s hand. A moment later, he threw a switch. Giovanni Bellini’s masterpiece burst out of the dreary shadows, illuminated in all its splendor.
“Wow,” said Slattery. “It’s amazing. The way he’s painted his own pillars beside the real ones and the dome in there looks just like a miniversion of a real one, and all the figures sitting inside like that.”
“Hey, you have the makings of a real art historian, Maureen.”
“No shit?” Slattery slapped her hand over her mouth. “Oops.”
“Don’t worry. God’s not listening.” Kate wondered if he ever did.
Maureen moved closer to Bellini’s fictive church-within-a-church painting. “I don’t know how these guys did it. I mean, I can’t even draw a straight line.”
“Well, they were trained from a very young age, in work-shops, apprenticed to great artists where they learned everything from mixing the master’s colors for him to washing his brushes to painting minor parts of the background.”
“Art slaves, huh?”
“You got it. But in Giovanni Bellini’s case, his father, Jacopo, who was also a great painter, taught both him and his brother, Gentile.”
Passatta and Marcarini, straining to listen, had moved into the aisle beside Kate and Slattery.
“You teach the art, signorina?” asked Marcarini.
“Sort of,” said Kate.
“Not sort of,” said Slattery. “She’s famous.”
Passatta raised an eyebrow.
Slattery leaned on the rail, staring up at the Virgin. “She’s so beautiful, and it all looks so real. Like you could just walk right into it, and sit down on the Madonna’s lap.”
“That’s what Renaissance painting was all about,” said Kate. “Rounded form and deep, deep space. Inviting the viewer into rooms and through windows. Perspective had only recently been rediscovered.”
“Who lost it?”
“A lot of things were lost in the Dark Ages,” said Kate, peering into the shadows and recesses of Bellini’s painting. The Dark Ages. Exactly what it had felt like this past couple of weeks.
Marcarini and Passatta lagged behind as Kate led them back to St. Mark’s Square.
The Doges’ Palace was glittering gold in the afternoon light.
“I think jet lag is starting to set in,” said Slattery. “Can we sit a minute?”
Kate and Slattery settled onto a bench with a view of the square. Slattery ordered a cappuccino. Kate, a double espresso. Marcarini leaned against a pillar, a few feet away; Passatta was in the arcade, puffing on a cigarette; neither man took his eyes off of Kate. But Kate didn’t get a chance to relax. One after another, people were stopping by, New Yorkers mostly, here for the Biennale. Each time someone approached, she flinched. So did Marcarini and Passatta.
“Jeez, do you know everyone in the world, McKinnon?”
“Only in Venice. And only this week. They’re all collectors or artists or art writers.” She paid the check. “Come on. Before your jet lag totally gets hold of you. I’ve got to see the exhibition and Willie’s paintings.”
But that wasn’t all. Kate knew the death artist expected her to be there—and she did not want to disappoint him.
The International Venice Biennale was like a world’s fair, without the rides, without the kids, without the fun, held every other year in t
he Giardini—a large park away from the main tourist attractions of the city. A number of old buildings were turned into national pavilions, crammed with each country’s artists of the moment. Hordes of sophisticated Europeans and Americans could be seen racing around with shopping bags sagging under the weight of giveaway art catalogs as they scurried from one pavilion to the next, afraid they might be missing something or someone, worried they had not been invited to the right parties. The exhibition remained on view for months. But only the opening days counted. After that, well, anyone could go see the art.
Kate and Slattery had been moving with the crowd, Marcarini and Passatta glued to their sides, the odd quartet going from one pavilion to the next, attempting to take in the scope of this helter-skelter exhibition, most of it dark and depressing—large-scale photographs of genitalia and corpses, dismembered animals in formaldehyde, cluttered installations of indecipherable political content—all of it in direct contrast with the flat-out beauty of Venice. The creepiness of the show had added to Kate’s paranoia—everyone was a potential threat; friendly faces were filled with menace.
The American Pavilion, formally an Italian bank, was large but unimpressive, and so crammed with installations—artworks made up of found and created objects that scattered across floors and walls without much visible coherence—that it was almost impossible to figure out where one work ended and another began. Willie’s pieces stood out not only because they were good, but because they hung, like traditional paintings, on a wall. At the moment there were several people standing in front of them. Raphael Perez was holding court.
“WLK Hand is one of our most gifted young artists.”
Kate noticed Willie practically hiding behind a pillar, but Perez waved him over insistently.
Willie took a shy bow, mumbled, “Thanks.”
“That’s Willie Handley,” said Kate.
“He’s cute,” said Slattery.
“You never met him?”
“No. Wasn’t me who questioned him in relation to the Solana murder.”
For a split second it was all there in front of Kate’s eyes: Elena, dead on the floor, the bloody Picasso painting on her cheek, and the thought that the death artist was here, somewhere, waiting. She peered down the center aisle at people ducking in and out of booths like animals in search of prey, imagined him grabbing her from behind, slitting her throat. A breath; an inchoate, reflexive cry.
The Death Artist Page 33