“Yeah, a month ago,” Two Moons said. More like a century ago in winter hours.
“Where was I?” Reed asked.
“The portal,” Katz clued him in.
“Yes, right,” said Reed. “The portal. Larry was waiting for his dinner. Drinking wine. I’d cooked halibut in an olive sauce and penne with pistachios. After I brought the food to the table, Larry asked me to sit down and share with him. It had been a long day. Anastasia had some stomach problems. Larry said I deserved a break. So I sat and he poured me some wine and we chatted.” Reed sighed. “It was a really clear night, all those stars. Larry said he felt spiritual in a way he’d never experienced back East.” The young man’s lip quivered. “Now this. I can’t believe-”
“Closing up a gallery,” said Katz. “What would that have meant for the artists he represented?”
Reed tried to shrug. Being the filling in a detective sandwich checked his movement. “I guess they’d find new representation.”
“Except for the ones who couldn’t,” said Katz. “It’s like that in the art world, right? C students versus A students. Some would have found themselves with no representation.”
Reed stared at him. “I guess.”
“You an artist?”
“No, no way, can’t draw a straight line. I’m a cook. I trained to be a chef at the CIA-the Culinary Institute, up in the Hudson Valley -but mostly, I ended up being a cook. Actually, I ended up doing kitchen grunt work for minimum wage at Le Bernardin and places like that. So when Larry offered me a job in Santa Fe, I leaped at the opportunity.”
“How’d Mr. Olafson find you?”
“I was daylighting for a very high-end caterer, but I could tell you stories… Anyway, Larry threw a Sunday brunch at the gallery. I suppose I passed muster with the guests. The smoked pineapple and habanero-spiced prawns didn’t hurt, either.” Small smile. “He said he liked the way I handled myself.”
“How long have you worked for him?”
“Three months.”
“Enjoy it?”
“It’s been heaven.” Reed broke down and caught his breath long enough to plead for another tissue.
Another half hour of questioning proved unproductive. Reed denied a personal relationship with his boss, but he wasn’t convincing. Katz caught Two Moons’s knowing glance over the top of the houseboy’s head.
Run him through the system before we let him go.
But neither of them felt it would amount to much. When the houseboy’s preliminary arrest search came back clean, except for a speeding ticket two months ago on Highway 25 just outside of Albuquerque, no one was surprised. Reed was boy-sized, and the only way he could’ve smacked Olafson level across the head was if he’d stood on a ladder.
Not to mention wielding a heavy rounded instrument.
It was time to join the search for that.
Probably another dead end.
Katz and Two Moons stuck around for another hour and a half, supervising the boundaries of the cordon and the setting up of the night spots, working with three additional uniforms and two techs in the search of the property. A good chunk of Santa Fe PD’s force was here. It was the first homicide for all the uniforms, and no one wanted to screw up.
They forced open the lock on the guesthouse door. No body inside, just a messy one-room studio. Summer Riley’s personal effects, some weed and a bong in a night-stand drawer, an easel and a paint box in the kitchen, a bunch of really bad oils-crooked, ugly women rendered muddily-propped against the walls. On her bed was a pile of dirty clothes.
Two Moons found Summer Riley’s cell phone number in Olafson’s Palm Pilot, called her up, and got her voice mail. Sensitive guy that he was, he left a message for her to come home because the boss was dead.
It was Katz who found the murder weapon, lying under a creeping juniper, just off the pathway that led to the guesthouse.
No attempt to conceal. The thing had rolled to a low spot in the garden.
Big chrome ball-peen hammer, the size of a motorcycle engine, streaked lightly with pink stains-the faint adherence that Dr. Ruiz had predicted. Couple of brain fragments on the peen. Precisely the wide, round surface that Ruiz had described.
Three techs struggled to bag and tag the hammer. Huge and cumbersome, it had to weigh sixty, seventy pounds. Meaning a very strong bad guy, even factoring in the adrenaline rush.
“Killed by art,” said Darrel. “Wasn’t there some guy, some painter, who once said his goal was to create a painting where you’d look at it and drop dead?”
“Never heard of that,” said Katz.
“I learned it in class. The guy had a weird name-Man something.”
“Man Ray?”
“That’s the one.”
“You took art?” said Katz.
“Art history,” said Darrel. “In college. Because it was easy.”
“Learn anything?”
“That I liked seriously pretty stuff as much as anyone, but seriously studying it was ridiculous.”
“It’s like everything else,” said Katz. “God gives us good stuff and we make it complicated.”
Darrel glanced at him “You’re religious now?”
“I was talking… metaphorically.”
“Ah,” said Two Moons. “Well, the big metaphor tonight is ”dead as a doornail.“ Any ideas?”
“Check out his house,” said Katz. “Get hold of his phone records, find Summer Riley and see what she knows, talk to the ex-wife in New York, or wherever she is, learn more about Olafson’s business. That ForestHaven deal, too. Be interesting to see what the ranchers he sued have to say.”
“Sounds like a comprehensive plan, Steve.”
They headed for the car.
Darrel said, “Way I see it, we’ll be looking for enemies in all the right places. Something tells me we’re going to be real busy.”
Just as they were about to drive off, one of the uniforms said, “Look who’s here.”
Headlights flashed, then dimmed as a squad car drove up. Chief Shirley Bacon got out wearing a navy-blue knit pantsuit under a long black shearling coat, her dark hair piled and sprayed high, more makeup on her face than she ever wore at the station.
She was compact and open-faced, a forty-eight-year-old former teacher, daughter of a county sheriff and the sister of a state cop, another sheriff, and a probation officer. She’d started out playing the violin, ended up giving music lessons and working as a secretary at the opera while hoping for better. A broken hand at age thirty-five had sent her to the department as a secretary. One thing led to another and she joined SFPD.
She’d climbed fast by being smart and able, had made it to chief last year. She treated her officers with respect, got a sixty-mile vehicle take-home policy passed on their squad cars, and pushed through a salary raise in an era of budget-cutting. No one begrudged her a damn thing, no one thought about her gender.
She headed straight for them.
“Darrel, Steve.”
“Big night out, boss?” said Katz.
“Fund-raiser. The Indian Art Foundation, Dr. and Mrs. Haskell’s place, up on Circle Drive. What’s the story here?”
They told her as she grimaced. She said, “This could go in all sorts of directions. I’ll deal with the papers. Keep me posted.”
Within moments, the chief’s deputy, Lon Maguire, showed up in his off-duty truck, and soon after that, Lieutenant Almodovar joined the huddle.
No ideas from the bosses. But no anxiety or criticism, either. During Katz’s three years with the department, he’d been impressed by the lack of backbiting and barely suppressed anger. All that good stuff he’d dealt with in New York. Then again, NYPD dealt with more homicides weekly than he’d seen in three years here.
Chief Bacon gave them a simple wave, then turned to leave.
“Back to the party, boss?” asked Katz.