Art of Evil

by Bancroft, Blair

  An hour or so later, I saw Josh leaning against a banyan trunk down by the Casa. He gave me one of those barely-a-flip waves and that was it. Obviously, he could see it would be hours before there would be an opportunity for that talk he’d promised. The next time I passed that spot, he was gone.

  As I’ve said, I’m thirty or forty years younger than most of the tram drivers, but by closing time I was exhausted. The crowd had turned out to be the biggest one-day attendance in the Bellman’s history. Every last volunteer and security guard was on the ropes before we shooed the final visitors out the front gate at closer to six than the scheduled five-thirty. Since the other drivers go home at five, I had done the last forty-five minutes on my own, scrambling back and forth between the Art Museum, the Circus Museum, and the Casa until my poor little Tram 3 was bucking and jumping, and I was afraid its batteries were so low my last passengers were going to have to get out and push.

  After I sat and quivered for a moment or two, watching the last batch head up the sidewalk to the front gate, I headed for the Tram Barn. And promptly dropped into another world. The sun had just set, and shadows were everywhere. Even the old live oak that sheltered my car from the sun reminded me of one of those claw-like tree creatures in the more ghoulish fairy tales. And the banyans? I took one glance at those looming twisted shapes and concentrated on parking, shifting into neutral, removing the key, and plugging in my baby for its much-needed overnight fix of electricity. I threw my empty water bottle into the trash and took a last look around. It was always quiet back here behind the museum after closing time, but tonight, as Florida’s short dusk settled into darkness, I felt . . . more than abandoned. I felt the touch of Evil.

  And, as on that night when Eric and I had plunged off the fire escape, my spark of intuition came too late. I was caught, dumb and flatfooted, when a shadow stepped out of the doorway of the building where I’d just parked my tram.

  “You’re so easy, Travis,” a voice said from out of the darkness behind Tram 3. “Did you think the law of averages favored you? Just because you’d been smashed up once, no one was going to go after you again?”

  The oddest thing was, I was swept, not by fear but by relief. And triumph. The voice wasn’t Josh’s. It was the smarmy baritone of Parker St. Clair.

  I didn’t make a run for the car, grab for my cell phone, or reach for the solid bulk of what rested inside the left front of my jacket. I waited. This man was mine.

  He came out from behind Tram 3, the gun in his hand almost invisible against his three-piece navy pinstripe suit. Interesting. He was dressed for the boardroom. Or a funeral. He came in real close, so we could see each other in the gloom.

  “You fucking bitch,” he said, quite conversationally, “why couldn’t you have stayed out of it? That dumb city cop would have locked Hamlin up and thrown away the key.”

  “No, he wouldn’t,” I declared, loyal to Ken, even though St. Clair might well be right.

  “I suppose you’re carrying,” St. Clair sighed, moving his solid bulk another step closer, so close I could smell his designer cologne and feel his hatred. “Two fingers, girl. Take it out and drop it.”

  So much for my vow to shoot next time instead of try to wrestle the perp into handcuffs. I did as I was told. While acknowledging to myself that Parker St. Clair outweighed me by a hundred pounds.

  Josh, damn you, did you go home?

  “Why?” I begged. “Just tell me why—”

  He waved his gun toward the path through the rose garden. “Move. We’re going to the House.”

  As I walked very carefully across the humped and broken pavement behind the museum, I remembered that I had one weapon left. The sassafras cane I was using to keep from falling flat on my face in the treacherous gloom. I also had brains and a lot of training in hand-to-hand combat. Oddly enough, I wasn’t even worried. I should have been, but I was so damn glad to know the Bellman serial killer was Parker St. Clair that little else seemed to matter.

  As we moved onto the relatively smooth path through the rose garden, I asked, “So why Lydia Hewitt? What had she ever done to you?”

  “Besides catching me in the buff?”

  “Big deal,” I scoffed. “What’s the matter—your equipment doesn’t match the rest of you?”

  The gun barrel bit into my back. “And here I thought you were a lady,” St. Clair breathed down my neck. He gave me a vicious shove forward. “Lydia was convenient,” he added.

  Ah-h. I’d suspected he would want to brag about it. A man doesn’t go to all the trouble to arrange so many artful murders and not want to take credit for it.

  “I wanted it to look like a deranged serial killer,” he said. “So with Lydia I was killing two birds with one stone—setting up Billie and getting rid of a nasty little peek.”

  I maneuvered around the columns in the center of the rose garden. The light was nearly gone. “And Rob?” I asked.

  “Varney worked for me. And retired a bit too suddenly a few months back. A definite risk if a watchdog committee started asking questions.”

  “So Varney was another double-header. Scratch one witness and put another nail in Billie’s coffin. Clever.” And I meant it. Whatever Parker St. Clair was, he was good at his job. “And Tim Mundell?”

  “Stupid little fuck. Guess his mama never told him about curiosity killing the cat. All those brains and he didn’t know shit about reality. Blackmail. That half-pint nerd tried to blackmail me. Me! Can you believe it?”

  Yeah, I could believe it. High intelligence frequently does not go hand in hand with common sense.

  “Had me meet him here, right over there at the picnic table under the banyan. An easy walk along the seawall for both of us. When I arranged a second meet, told him I was anteing up, the little idiot thought he had me.” By some silent agreement St. Clair and I stopped walking as we looked toward the dark twisted mass of banyan limbs where Tim Mundell had lost his life. “But I’d come equipped with more than the wad of cash I dangled under his stupid nose. I had scotch laced with Roofies and a plain white bedsheet. Unidentifiable. We had quite a party. Kid never had a chance.”

  There was nothing I could say to that, although my determination to get this arrogant son of a bitch spiked even higher.

  As we moved forward once again, we passed the banyan tree I’d been sheltering under the afternoon Josh Thomas made his sudden appearance in my tram. The day The Sleeping Satyr disappeared. Had it really gone to Tallahassee?

  Josh, where the hell are you? Sulking again? Tucked up in your villa, surfing databases?

  “And what about your wife?” I asked.

  Ignoring my question, St. Clair prodded me toward a narrow set of stairs leading down to the Casa’s cellar. At the bottom of the steps he backed me against the stucco wall and, with his left hand, put the gun to my chest. With his right, he punched a series of numbers into a key pad. So much for expecting the wail of a klaxon. Blast, but the man was slick. He’d probably been the consultant when the alarm system was installed.

  Back at the Art Museum, far up on the top floor at Main Security, there wouldn’t be so much as a blip on the computer screen or the first squeal of an alarm going off at the Casa Bellissima.

  St. Clair produced a pencil flash, and we made our way through the maze of the basement with its segmented compartments to prevent flooding. Then up the stairs to the kitchen, a room with western windows where, thankfully, there was some last lingering light.. “Your wife,” I asked, “was she your real goal?”

  “Poor Linnie,” he mused. “She wanted a divorce. After all we’d been through together, she wanted out. She even had a pre-nup that would let her take all that lovely money with her. “Oh, yeah,” Parker added softly, “she slit her own throat, believe me. She was dead long before she decided to talk to your city cop.”

  For that Ken would be eternally grateful. “The set-up was very clever,” I said.

  He grabbed me by the arm, turning me to face him, a great hulking menace bac
ked by all the dainty and luxurious gifts sold at the Casa Bellissima. He preened, I swear he did. The giant peacock, spreading his tailfeathers to impress the drab little peahen.

  “It was, wasn’t it?” Parker said. “Even before the kid tried to blackmail me, I figured I needed several deaths prior to Linnie’s to make it look like a serial killer, but I never dreamed they’d be so . . . satisfactory. So double-edged.”

  “The Viking funeral was a great touch,” I said, trying to keep him talking. Stalling for time.

  He waved me down the hallway. “I liked her, you know. Classy woman. And she tolerated my wandering ways.” St. Clair came to a halt in front of the elevator, producing a key with his now-expected efficiency. “But you sicced that city cop on her, and damned if she wasn’t charmed. I could tell she was going to spill it all. Couldn’t give her another moment.”

  “You really are a cold-blooded son of a bitch,” I breathed.

  “Oh, yeah, believe it, Ms. Travis. I surely am.” He punched the button, slid open the gate; the elevator door opened. Transferring his gun to his left hand, he hauled open the old-fashioned metal gate.

  I knew where we were going now. I’d known it ever since we reached the elevator. This was a man who was as creatively intelligent as he was lethally dangerous.

  We were going to the tower. Sixty feet up. Twice the distance Eric and I had fallen. The tower, which was guaranteed to turn me into a slathering, mindless wreck. Parker St. Clair could do any damn thing he pleased, and I wouldn’t be able to stop him. Not all the shrinks in the world could have prepared me for this moment. I was done for.

  Failed again. Only this time my suffering would be over. Permanently.

  Chapter 21

  As the elevator rose, I leaned on my walking stick and shut my eyes.

  Josh! Anthony! Friend.

  I tried to tell myself to stand on my own two feet and take care of the bastard, as I had planned so blithely such a short time ago, but my knees had turned to jelly, and my heart rate was powered up to launch speed. The same nausea I’d felt when kneeling amidst the splintered pieces of the satin-clad mannequin nearly took me to the floor.

  The elevator stopped. Parker shoved me out. I was in such bad shape he gave me only a scornful glance before he took out yet another key and opened the door to the outside staircase that led up to the tower. When the door swung open, letting in a rush of cool sea breeze and a faint glow of light from the security spotlights surrounding the Casa, he turned and gave me a wonderfully smug little smile.

  “What a shame you never recovered from your loss, Ms. Travis. Your lover dead, your career as messed up as your body. Everyone tried, but you shoved them all away. Cut yourself off. Just couldn’t get your act together. No wonder you lost it, scattering bodies about so little Miss Feeb could step right up, show she still had what it takes to solve a crime. But you were too far gone, poor girl. Yet not too mad to realize the end was near. So what better way to end it than a leap from the Casa tower? So dramatic. Romantic even. Dashing yourself to the pavement to be with your lover forever.”

  The sea breeze helped, penetrating my near total funk. I was Special Agent Rory Travis. Josh Thomas—or whoever he was—respected me enough to offer me a job.

  I looked straight into the depths of St. Clair’s all-too-sharp blue eyes. “No one will believe you.”

  “Oh, my dear girl, of course they will. I typed your farewell myself. It’s quite poignant, I assure you. After all, it isn’t as if it’s my first. You’d be surprised how many suicides have had my assistance. And no one the wiser. Not a one.”

  Like Tim Mundell’s.

  It didn’t look good. I tried to remember what that outside staircase was like. While doing the docent tour, I’d stood well back and watched while the others climbed. The staircase was steep and curved, swirling in a graceful one-eighty to the square Renaissance-style tower above. To the right, at the bottom of the stairs, it was only a one-story leap to the red-tiled roof of the bulk of the house. The slanted red tile roof. Could I do it?

  Deliberately go over a railing? No way.

  Not even to save my life?

  I shouldn’t have told that shrink what he could do with his damned psychobabble.

  Josh!

  Once again, Parker grabbed my arm and pushed me toward the stairs. I sagged, my back sliding down the wall. He slugged me, hard enough to snap my head around, but not hard enough to make me lose consciousness. “Move! Or I’ll knock you out and splatter you all over the pavement before you’ve had a chance to fight back.”

  He smiled at me, and I wondered how I could ever have thought Josh the face of Evil. It was Parker St. Clair who was the reincarnation of my missing satyr.

  “And you don’t want that, do you, Travis? Scared as you are, you hate my guts. You want me so bad, you’re willing to climb those stairs just to see what’ll happen. Poor little wimp, you want to find out if you’ve still got it. Even with your teeth chattering and your panties wet, you’ll follow me to the end, won’t you? And then I’ll make you look down . . . and like that guy in Philly, while you’re frozen in fear, I’ll just tip you over.” He leered, thrusting his face within an inch of my mouth. “Too bad your pet spook isn’t here, or your city cop. We could have restaged the whole thing.” His lips brushed against mine, breathing the fires of hell into my mouth. “Except this time it would be a clean sweep. You and the boyfriend. Sixty feet, Travis. You’ll be as broken as if you’d been dropped from a plane.”

  Some things are worse than a fall from a great height. I bolted up the stairs, with St. Clair pounding behind. Surely, surely, there had to be something up there I could use for a weapon. Maybe Zorro’s escape rope was still there . . .

  But the tower was empty. Nothing but a space at least twenty by twenty, with a waist-high terra cotta balustrade. Above our heads the sky was obscured by a red-tiled roof. If we weren’t sixty feet up, the structure might have been considered a rather elaborate gazebo. I looked for signs of deteriorated stucco or concrete, a chunk I might break off for a weapon. But, of course, the Casa Bellissima’s renovations had included every last little detail. Even in near darkness, I could see the place was in perfect shape.

  Parker St. Clair had stopped at the top of the staircase. He was simply watching, enjoying my frantic dash around the tower, looking for a weapon. The rope, of course, was long gone. He waved a hand toward the east railing. “Take a look,” he invited. “Sixty feet straight down to the driveway.”

  “No thanks.” I planted my feet in the center of the floor and waited for him to come at me. When he did, he sauntered. He was so enjoying my torture.

  He took a piece of paper out of his inside jacket pocket and waved it in my face. “Your suicide note,” he said. “It’s beautiful. Want to read it?”

  I stared at it, considering. With my left hand I reached for it. With my right I brought up my walking stick and jabbed it straight into his eye. He screamed and grabbed his face. I ran for the stairs. But he was not only big, he was tough. And at the moment I was numero uno on his hate list. Just as I reached the top step, he tackled me, and we both went down hard. I threw myself aside as I fell, saving my head from the balustrade at the same time I tried to fall on top of Parker’s head, driving him into the hard Italian tile floor. I heard the breath whoosh out of him, but his swearing scarcely paused. So far, not so good. But I had time to roll off and retrieve my stick. He staggered to his feet, and we circled each other. A ridiculously uneven match. Holding my twisted sassafras in both hands, I felt like a Medieval Little John catapulted into a future with guns and—

  Guns. Gun. Parker had lost his gun. Although it hadn’t registered at the time, I’d heard it slither away after I struck him in the eye. Where? If I could find it, the odds would take an abrupt turn in my favor. Yet if I looked away for so much as a second . . .

  I backed up, sliding my right leg in an arc, hoping to hit something solid. All I was doing was getting closer to the railing. The east raili
ng. No wonder Parker’s smile was inching back, even though blood was running down his face.

  Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw a shadow behind Parker, something tall and black in the north corner on the staircase side of the tower. Something far too big for a gun. But no time to think about that shadow now. With my sassafras stick horizontal in front of me, I circled slowly, watching Parker, who moved with me, his lips now twisting in a feral grimace as he savored the thought of the final rush that would send me flying over the long drop on the east side of the tower.

  My foot hit something. What if it wasn’t Parker’s gun? But it had to be, for as I stopped, he glanced down, his eyes went wide. Could I do it? Could I move with Josh’s lightning speed? Or would I fall flat on my face? Would St. Clair get to me before I could pull the trigger?

  I toed the gun. Solid metal scraped against the slick tile. Now or never, Rory. This is it.

  I went down on one knee, grabbed the gun and shot him, catching him in mid-leap, not more than eighteen inches from my chest. He slammed me into the floor. And lay still.

  A moment later, when his body moved, only my absolute certainty that I had killed him kept me from despair. For, truthfully, I’d reached my limit. The invalid still had a ways to go.

  “You okay?” Josh drawled as he heaved Parker St. Clair aside.

  “Oh, sure,” I said. “I kill men in three-piece suits in tall towers every day before supper just for the hell of it.”

  Josh picked me up, putting his hands in a few interesting places, ostensibly while dusting me off.

  “Did you have to just stand there?” I fumed as I let him hold me.

  He rested his chin on the top of the my head. “Well, now . . . I figured you wanted to do it yourself. I had your back, Rory. You know that, don’t you?”

  Yes, I knew it. Now . . . when it was almost too late.