Art of Evil

by Bancroft, Blair

  Rohypnol?

  When Ken looked my way, I gave him a nod. He was with me in ten seconds flat. I almost felt as if I were officially back at work, where my opinion counted for something. “My guess is that you’ll find Rohypnol,” I told him.

  “Male date rape?” he threw back at me, eyebrows wiggling.

  “Lydia wasn’t a date rape. You told me yourself she hadn’t been touched.”

  “Guess I did,” he said with aw-shucks exaggeration.

  I heaved a sigh. “Okay, once again I’m guilty of telling the southern cop what he figured out the minute he saw the body.”

  “Maybe two minutes.” I squirmed a bit, made an effort to look suitably put down. I mean, I like the guy. More than a little. There are times when a girl has to compromise.

  And then I spoiled it. “There’s no sign of a struggle. Not a drop of blood outside the room. So once again, we have someone drugged, brought to a predetermined location, killed in a particularly grisly manner, with lots of blood, then artistically arranged in an unusual setting.”

  “You got it. And now, Ms. Travis, would you care to tell me why? And while you’re at it, I wouldn’t mind how.”

  I glared. He grinned. I grinned back, rather sheepishly. “Thanks for inviting me,” I said, once again reminding myself Detective Parrish’s invitation had been a major favor. “I’d appreciate a call later, when things finally simmer down.” I turned away, heading for the elevator.

  “Off to find Billie?” he challenged.

  I stood with my back turned, head bowed, and cursed all smart city cops. “If I run into him,” I said, “I’ll give him your regards.”

  “Rory?”

  “Don’t worry,” I grumbled, “I took an oath, remember? Being on leave doesn’t break the chain.”

  “Sorry.”

  I walked away. I didn’t look back. As I made my way to my car, tragedy threatened to shove the federal cop aside. I was feeling more and more like a jinx. First Eric. Now Lydia and Rob. I hadn’t known them the way I knew Eric, of course, but they were both people I had looked forward to knowing better. And in a particularly bizarre and bloody manner they had been wiped away. Obliterated. As an insane joke? Revenge on the museum? But for what? Revenge on Richard Bellman personally for some ancient transgression?

  It was all so elaborate, so stylized. Serial killers usually stick to one sex. All women or all men. And usually of one particular age. Yet Lydia was a twenty-something and female; Rob Varney, late-fifties and male. Nonsense. All nonsense. As were the two effigies and the shattered mannequin.

  And then there was faceless Tim Mundell—whose body I had never seen—whispering softly in unexpected moments. Are you sure, sure, sure I killed myself? How can you be, when you never checked it out?

  Billie lived in an apartment complex whose stucco walls, tile roof, and scraggly landscaping stopped just short of seedy and rundown. But, as he had once explained to me, it had an actual backyard with a picnic table shaded by two tall slash pines, and a sizeable live oak. There was also a hose for the easy washing of golf balls. And his three rooms on the first floor rear—whose walls were almost entirely composed of windows and doors—were less expensive as they were so easily accessible to passing strangers. A security guard from the museum—particularly a young, strong security guard—could get a good deal from the landlord. It was not an apartment any reasonably intelligent young woman would touch with a ten-foot pole.

  “He ain’t home,” declared a female voice with a Brooklyn twang as I knocked on Billie’s door.

  It had been a long time since I’d seen a woman in a wraparound housecoat and hair done up in rollers, ill-concealed by a kerchief. In fact, it was most likely I had only seen this particular look when watching old TV sitcoms. I wondered if this retiree from Up North had been looking like this every morning for the past fifty years or so.

  “Any idea where I can find him?” I asked. “It’s important.” She looked me over, the fat sausage curls of silver gray crowning her forehead practically quivering with speculation. I could actually feel the heat rising in my cheeks. “It’s business,” I snapped, and wished I was wearing my Bellman T-shirt and ID.

  “Thursday mornings he’s at school. The Bellman Art School, y’know.” Her eyes dropped, lingering on my cane.

  I bristled. Since Billie’s colorful jeep, a redecorated Postal Service breakdown, was not in the parking lot, I decided to accept her word. “Thanks.” Then, swinging my cane more like a gandy dancer than a sane and sober Special Agent in recovery, I walked back to my car. Everything would have been fine if I hadn’t been concentrating on head high, shoulders straight, pride flying like a flag. The toe of my weak leg encountered a live oak root thrusting up through the thin asphalt, and I went down hard on my hands and knees, the pain shooting through my left leg enough to make the world go away for a moment or two.

  Mrs. Hair Rollers was saying something. I forced myself to focus. Listen. Respond.

  “I’m all right,” I ground out. “Really. I should have been looking where I was going.” I levered myself up to rest on my knees, shook off her helping hand. After another minute or so of deep breathing, I nodded, and with Hair Rollers on one side and my cane on the other, I managed to scramble to my feet. Very carefully, I slunk to the Caddy, ignoring the shell fragments imbedded in my palms and the blood I could feel running down my legs from scraped knees. Damn, damn, and fucking damn!

  I let the blood drip. But by the time I arrived at the Bellman School of Art I was forced to mop up the evidence of damage with a whole slew of tissues. Unfortunately, my sneakers still tended to look as if they’d been at a murder scene (which, of course, they had, technically speaking), and, hopefully, I wouldn’t be shaking hands with any new acquaintances.

  My temper was distinctly unreliable. Among other things, on the short drive to the art school, I had remembered Josh Thomas’s promised offer of a job and realized I’d actually allowed myself to fantasize a time or two about getting back into the game, traveling from Europe to Florida to Peru, as Josh had done. Rory Travis, International Agent. Sure. Right. Agent Triple-O. Zero, Nada, Zilch—that was me. Rory Travis, Agent Sit-at-a-Computer-all day. That was the best I’d ever be able to do. Whatever had made me think, even for a few short weeks, that I’d ever be a field agent again?

  Josh Thomas. Ken Parrish. Billie Ball Hamlin. That was who.

  With the connivance of Martin Longstreet?

  Nice try, guys. But you’re wrong.

  And there it was again. The fear this was all a set-up. That Martin or Josh had paid Billie to throw a mystery in my face. Literally, in the case of the mannequin. And our murderer had simply taken advantage of the brouhaha?

  The effigies certainly made a convenient excuse to throw Ken Parrish in my way.

  Oh, shit!

  With fingers that itched to grab hold of someone I could blame for all this, I wadded up the bloody tissues and squeezed them into the car’s vinyl trash container. Time to find Billie. Who was not yet aware that at the moment my sympathies did not lie with any of the men involved in this case.

  Except, of course, Rob Varney. Was it possible he had been murdered simply because his general appearance was so similar to Richard Bellman?

  Murder as Art. Murder by a cold, calculating evil bastard, maybe insane, maybe not.

  As Lydia resembled the bronze Lygia. And had been the model, if all unknowing, for the Lygia effigy?

  I was winging it now. As I had the day I associated Martin and Josh’s father with the war in Vietnam and the CIA. I was running on instinct. Ken Parrish would laugh.

  Josh Thomas would offer me a job.

  Everything inside me was screaming, No! Wrong. Stop! Lydia and Rob weren’t killed because a madman decided to stage a one-man show titled “The Art of Evil.” There was a deeper reason for what was happening at the Bellman. Someone very clever, truly Machiavellian, was manipulating us all. Throwing up a grand smoke screen. Making us look as incompetent as I fel
t.

  It was there. I could almost taste it. A concept dangling just out of reach. A juicy, meaty motive I hadn’t found yet. One that might have nothing at all to do with Art.

  I took one last look at my blood-stained sneakers, at the still dripping scrape peeking out through a tear in the left knee of my navy slacks, at the white shell dust I’d been unable to completely brush away. I curved my fingers so my lacerated palms wouldn’t show. Gingerly, I opened the car door. Since there was no one nearby, I didn’t bother to suppress my wince as my left foot hit the ground.

  Billie was not sculpting. Billie was in Art History class. I sneaked into the back of the class, earning a glare from the professor that turned into a sharp once-over. For some reason my skin crawled. His was a type common to campuses everywhere. Fortyish, suavely good-looking, undoubtedly chalking up co-eds like they were the hottest sale item at the local discount store. Since this was an art school, he’d forsaken the professorial tweed jacket with leather patches in favor of the all-black look. Long-sleeved ribbed T, leather vest and black jeans. With a thick shock of wavy brown hair, wide brown eyes, and a tan almost as deep as Billie’s, I had to admit he caught the eye. I recalled Josh Thomas’s all black outfit the day he dropped out of nowhere into my tram. Josh Thomas in a tux. Josh Thomas as Zorro? My perception righted itself. Josh Thomas was a lot scarier than this small-time creep.

  Unfortunately for Billie, class was almost over, and my temper was still up when he turned and saw me sitting in the back. “Rory?” He charged up the aisle, evidently sensing something was wrong.

  “Where can we talk?”

  “Here’s fine. There’s no class now.” He searched my face. “Okay, Rory girl, what’s happened?”

  He looked so totally innocent. Grim, but clueless. I wanted to believe him, but things hadn’t exactly been going well so far this morning. I lost it. I popped to my feet, my mouth on a level with his shoulder. I poked him in the chest with my index finger. “If there’s something you haven’t told me, Billie, I need to know it now! You’re so close to a cell I can smell it. Did someone really pay you to make those effigies? If so, do you know who it was? Do you have any idea who killed Lydia? And why on earth would anyone kill Rob Varney?”

  Sometimes temper works. If Billie was faking the astonishment that suffused his face, his performance was worthy of an Oscar. As his frown deepened, I could even see him processing my questions. Finally, he looked at me very oddly, as if maybe I was the one ready for the psych ward, and asked, “Who’s Rob Whatsisname?”

  I knuckled my fist over my mouth and thought about it. Then, “Okay, Billie, I hope you were someplace with a lot of witnesses last night. All night.”

  Have you ever seen someone with a heavy tan go pale? Well, Billie Ball Hamlin managed it. He slumped down onto a chair and stared up at me. “I was out on a course,” he said, “from midnight to two. A half hour drive each—”

  “You were golf-ball diving after the police found out what you were doing!” I was close to screaming.

  “Hell, Rory, that’s the only place I can think. I’m at home on the courses at night. That’s my territory. I didn’t figure it mattered.”

  “Oh, Billie.” Shaking my head, I sat down beside him. “I suppose you were at home, alone, the rest of the night?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Billie,” I groaned, “couldn’t you have had a hot date with something besides an alligator?”

  “Sorry,” he muttered. “Am I screwed?”

  “Maybe.” Silence hung while I thought it over. “Rob Varney’s the new tram driver,” I offered, “the one who looks—looked—like Richard Bellman.”

  “Didn’t notice. Is he dead?” he ventured.

  “Very. Nicely arranged in Richard’s barber chair, shaving cream, strop razor and all.”

  Billie groaned. His head went down, his hands pulling at his hair.

  “Okay,” I said, “let’s go back to Lydia. Who was her current boyfriend? You said something about a teacher?”

  “Mel Corbin. Art History. You just saw him.”

  That made my day. There are certain types of people you just ache to take down. Mel Corbin was top of my list at the moment. But my surge of pleasure was short-lived. No matter how well acquainted he was with Lydia, I couldn’t imagine how a professor from the Bellman School of Art would know a new retiree, now a tram volunteer, at the museum. The institutions were two miles apart, connected solely by the name Bellman.

  “Did you tell me he was a consultant at the museum?”

  “Yeah. In Conservancy.”

  Other than an accidental meeting in the lunch room, which was just outside Conservancy, I still could see no possible connection between Mel Corbin and Rob Varney. “Is he . . . strange?” I asked. “Corbin. I mean, can you see him—”

  “Can’t stand the guy. But, other than an eye for the women, he’s as normal as you, me, or anyone else around here. ’Course that’s not—”

  “Point taken.”

  “I suppose I could say I spent the night at my mom’s,” Billie offered, raising his head and looking suddenly hopeful.

  “Better the truth than getting caught in a lie.”

  “Mom would never tell!”

  “Billie, do you really want your mother to perjure herself?”

  His head dropped back into his hands. “Rory, what’m I gonna do? They’re gonna come for me, aren’t they?”

  “They’ll certainly question you. Hard.” His shoulders drooped, while I felt more and more like Don Quixote. Expert in lost causes, that was Rory Travis. I fished in my purse and dug out my wallet badge. I dangled it in front of his nose. “Look Billie,” I said. “I don’t have official clout because I’m on disability leave, but I have enough credibility to get Detective Parrish to listen to me. I don’t believe they have enough evidence to arrest you, particularly if there’s no one who can connect you to Rob Varney. But you may be in for marathon questioning. If there’s anything, anything at all, you haven’t told me, now’s the time. I can’t help you if I’m going to come up with egg on my face.”

  “You’re FBI?” Billie was staring at my badge as if it were pecan pie with ice cream.

  “Was. I doubt I’ll be going back. But the badge does tend to get people’s attention.”

  Billie lifted his head. There were tears in his eyes. “Hell, Rory, I feel a thousand percent better already.”

  I wished I did.

  Chapter 15

  With Billie’s help, I cornered Mel Corbin in his office. Even Billie’s explanation that I was in law enforcement Up North and just trying to help a friend added only a slight edge of respect to what I presumed was his customary view of women—how would she look stark naked, and how would she rate in bed?

  I was, by the way, expecting a call from the local FBI office any day now about what the bleep-bleep did I think I was doing mucking around in a Florida case? A Sarasota City case? So far, it hadn’t happened. Maybe because, prior to today, only Ken Parrish had seen my badge, or maybe because I had friends with a surprising amount of influence. Meanwhile, I was almost beginning to enjoy myself. In spite of creeps like Professor Mel Corbin.

  After the obligatory buttering-up—“You have such an interesting face, Ms. Travis. You really should pose for the portrait class”—Mel Corbin folded his hands on his desk, fixed on a smarmy smile, and said, “Now tell me, my dear, how may I help you?”

  Having Billie flatten him would have helped my mood considerably. I unclenched my teeth and said, “I was hoping you might be able tell us something about Lydia Hewitt. Give us some idea of who might have wanted to harm her.”

  “Poor dear child.” Professor Corbin heaved an elaborate sigh. “So young, so lovely. But I’ve told the police all I know. She didn’t have an enemy in the world. And, I assure you, I didn’t do it. I was giving a lecture at a conference in Orlando that night. That’s been thoroughly checked. Iron-clad alibi, Ms. Travis. Absolutely iron-clad.”

  Unfortunately, I
believed him. Although I’d verify the alibi with Ken. My instincts are remarkably reliable, but no one’s right every time. Josh Thomas was a case in point. For all I was inclined to think him some kind of spook, he could be the orchestrator of this whole sick scenario.

  I pulled myself back to the problem at hand. Corbin was still wearing his unctuous smile. “There’s a suite of rooms on the fourth floor of the museum,” I said. “Did you ever go up there with Lydia?”

  His smile faded a bit. He bent his head, then peered up at me with what I can only describe by using that old expression “bedroom eyes.” Mel Corbin might not have killed Lydia, but it’s likely his effect on some women was almost as lethal. I wasn’t one of them. “Well, did you?” I persisted.

  He shrugged. “Sure. It was convenient. We both had security clearance. The view, the whole ambiance thing was great. And we got a real charge out of having the whole museum to ourselves after hours.”

  “And nobody knew?”

  Corbin waggled his hand back and forth. “I’m not sure. The aerie was not exactly a secret. I’m sure you understand people of our kind don’t pry.” He looked so self-righteous, my temper flared another notch.

  “Did you ever see anyone else when you were there after hours? Or did they see you?”

  He threw back his head and actually laughed out loud. Surprised, I could only stare at him. Laughter was too natural an emotion for someone like Mel Corbin.

  “Oh my, yes.” He leaned back in his chair, still chuckling. I could tell he was hoping to be able to disconcert the female cop who was attempting to be businesslike in spite of looking as if she’d just lost a battle with a pack of dogs. “In delicto and quite flagrante,” he said. “Them, not us,” he added hastily.

  Beside me, I heard Billie suck in his breath. The more people wandering around the Bellman after hours, the better for Billie Hamlin and his alibi, which consisted of nothing more than trespassing, theft, and a pile of golf balls.