Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. Report to residence, 212 East Fifth Street. Possible Homicide. Officers on scene.
“Copy. Notify Peabody, Detective Delia. I’m on my way.”
“I’ll drive you.”
“What?” Eve swung on her jacket. “Why?”
“Because I have the time, and will, most likely, be able to identify the painting and artist. I’ll get myself to Midtown afterward. I have an early meeting in any case.”
“Fine. Let’s move.”
As she opened the door, the cat sat outside it. As she’d learned before, cats could definitely scowl.
“Don’t look at me. He did it.”
And Roarke closed the door behind them. “And he did it again, so take your complaints down to Summerset.”
“Don’t think he won’t. Unless he figures out how to open the door first.”
“Bloody hell. I wouldn’t put it beyond him.”
“Another costume,” she said as they jogged downstairs. “I’m thinking he may not, probably didn’t, have them all made at the same place. They have to have or order the specific fabrics, then… Maybe I’m wrong on the costume first. How and why would he choose the size, even more or less, unless he had specific models already picked out?”
“If you don’t accuse me of thinking like a cop, I’ll tell you what occurs to me. As a consultant.”
“Deal. What?”
“You’ve said he’s meticulous, and details matter very much to him. He could calculate the size—height, weight—at least a close approximation of the original models. Using the paintings for his guide. There are programs that would calculate that approximation.”
“I like that. I like that,” Eve repeated as he drove through the open gates. “It sounds exactly like something he’d do. He can’t use the original models, but he needs to get as close as possible. In the end, the people he uses, he kills, are just fillers for the costumes, the canvas.
“And that’s how we’ll get him. Through the costumes, the paints he uses—because they’re going to be what the original artist used, or as close as possible.”
“You may have his face later today, from Yancy.”
“Yeah, and I’m hoping we do. I was looking for mistakes, and I couldn’t really find any. But it was right there, all along. His need to make himself great, by copying the great. Down to shoe ribbons and pearl earrings. That’s the mistake.
“We’ll track it. We will. Three people are dead, and if we don’t track it in time, there’ll be another. But we’re going to track it, and track him.”
“At some point, the LCs on the street will start paying attention, will pass the word on what he’s doing and how.”
“Some will still fall for it because he flashes enough money. It’s not just LCs working for tricks. It’s people who have to pay the rent. You wouldn’t have fallen for it.” She shifted to him. “Back in Dublin. You’re too smart, too cagey to fall for it. But plenty would. We’ve already got three.”
She leaned back. “And he might not stick with LCs. He could pick out a sidewalk sleeper, a street thief, a grifter.”
“But you think he will, stick with LCs.”
One is one, she thought. Two is a repeat. But three?
Three was a pattern.
“Most street levels have a territory, and stay inside it. They’ve got routines, basic hours. And you pay for the service. So yeah, they’re the easiest to lure.”
The day had dawned with a sky so blue, so clear, the buildings looked etched on it. A painting of its own, Eve thought, alive, too, with people walking dogs, or jogging their mile. The street LCs would’ve called it a night. Some would grab some breakfast, others would go home to sleep.
Some at that level worked by day, maybe taking a shift in Times Square, or haunting dive bars.
The one on East Fifth hadn’t, she thought. They’d embraced the night as most did. The night paid better.
