“We tie a bow around it,” she repeated.
Roarke took one last disgusted look at the paintings. “I’m more than pleased to help fluff that ribbon.”
Peabody walked over. “Pine’s changing into his own clothes. He gave me the cash—he had it on him. It’s bagged. I gave him a receipt. I’ve called a cruiser to take him home.”
“We should be able to give the money back to him at some point. It was payment for services.”
“Got the drugs, Dallas.” Baxter held up two bottles “Prescription barbs, pill form. Two different kinds, two different doctors. Both stored here inside a locked drawer behind the bar. Neither one’s full. Got some uppers here, too. I’m guessing personal use. And a third doctor.”
Eve smiled. “I’m liking the shine on this ribbon. Flag for the lab. They’ll match it. Peabody, go ahead and contact the sweepers. There’s no rush, but we’ll want them to process when we’re done with the initial search.”
“It’s nice not to have to contact the morgue.”
“Yeah. Aaron.” Eve stepped to him when he came out of the dressing area. “We have your transportation downstairs.”
“Thanks. Really. It looks like you saved my life, so thanks.”
“You helped. Nice backfist.”
He smiled a little, rubbed his face where the spirit gum had stuck a little too well. “You shouldn’t work the stroll if you can’t defend yourself.”
“Good thinking. Detective, why don’t you escort him out? I’ll contact the sweepers.”
“Come on, Aaron, let’s get you home.”
As Eve pulled out her ’link, Roarke came back. “You may want to have a look. I found more costumes, wigs, props, in one of the bedrooms, stored in garment bags.”
“Can you ID the paintings?”
“I believe so, yes.”
“Baxter, Trueheart, carry on.”
She went with Roarke, started down to the second floor. “He won’t kill again. He won’t even start those paintings.”
“I’m over it,” he told her, and because he felt she’d tolerate it, just this once, brushed his lips over the top of her head. “I’m well satisfied to help tie this bow around him.”
She glanced at her wrist unit. “Right about now, if Mira’s right, he’s going to be demanding his call, and that’s going to be to his mother, because Mira doesn’t miss. His mother will call in a fucking battalion of lawyers.
“So.” She took a breath. “Let’s tie that bow real pretty.”
Chapter Twenty
In the end, Eve decided they needed a very, very long ribbon. Considering himself invulnerable in his glossy urban castle, Jonathan left behind a mountain range of evidence.
The paintings, of course, and the costumes—those worn and those waiting to be filled. The drugs he’d used to render his victims unconscious before killing them.
They found the wire, the glue, boards identical to what he’d used on the second victim. He’d painted the background for the third victim, which he’d decided not to use, and yet another—so much red—for Aaron Pine.
He’d taken photographs of his victims, in the costumes, in the pose he’d directed. He’d taken more of those victims, and the others he’d chosen, on the street. He’d labeled them with their location, and the painting he’d planned to create.
He hadn’t bothered to dispose of their clothes, instead storing them, in an orderly fashion, in the closet of another guest room.
Between them, Feeney and McNab found an ocean of digital evidence.Various files contained data on each painting—those begun, those planned—with contacts for the fabrics, the costumers, the tatters in Ireland, the dates of his travel and appointments. Each separate file contained his extensive research on the individual painting, the pigments employed, the techniques, the history of the artist, and anything known of the model.
He had files on the galleries, the managers, the owners that included his personal notes raging against them. And more damning, the name of the painting assigned to each.
He’d opened another for media reports of the murders.
