“I’m sure my lawyer will figure that out.”
“We have documentation for your travel to France, the Netherlands, Italy, England.”
“I enjoy traveling.” He stared up at the ceiling as if bored. “It inspires my art.”
“Where you purchased the fabrics and engaged costumers to create the costumes you had your victims wear—as well as costumes you planned for others.”
“Prove it!”
“For Christ’s sake,” Eve exploded. “We found several in your residence.Woman with a Parasol—Monet.Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat—Van Gogh.The Crystal Ball—Waterhouse.The Desperate Man—Courbet.”
“You know some art,” Jonathan interrupted. “How surprising, considering. I often provide costumes for my models.”
“We have your own words,” Peabody continued, “your autobiography in process, your own documentation of the victims, when and where you selected them. Where you decided to leave the bodies and why.”
“I’m an artist,” he said again. “I’ve been toying with adding fictionwriting to my scope. Writing about an artist. And I often walk around the city, looking for inspiration. All of this is clearly circumstantial.”
“Now he’s a lawyer, too.” Eve sat back. “We have your paintings, Jonathan. Paintings of the three victims dressed and posed in the costumes they died and were dumped in.Girl with a Pearl Earring, Leesa Culver,” Eve said as Peabody laid down photos of the paintings. “The Blue Boy, Bobby Ren.Self-Portrait in a Straw Hat—Janette Whithers.”
“Painted purely from my own imagination.”
“That won’t fly, Jonathan. I mean, look at them. Sure, the photos don’t show the real light, the exceptional detail. If you hope to go that route, you shouldn’t have painted them with such skill. I’ve seen the portraits, and the fact is, I’m fortunate enough to have married into an amazing art collection. I do know art.”
He didn’t look bored now, Eve thought. But riveted. She kept pushing the buttons.
“I can recognize great art when I see it. You have far too many details of your models to claim you just”—she flicked her fingers—“made them up. Those paintings are alive, so maybe I get, to some extent, what you decided to prove to the critics. I get why you needed to prove you could not only match the masters but exceed them.”
“They are extraordinary.” With a fingertip, he pulled Leesa Culver’s portrait closer. “Of course, they’re not finished. But this one, this is nearly. You can see the brilliance. I put my heart and soul into this work.”
He looked at Eve now, with those eyes that weren’t quite right. “As an art collector, you have some sense of the sacrifice the artist makes to create. But unless you’re the creator, you only have a glimmer.”
“Years of study,” Eve said, “of practice, of dedication, the pain of rejection, the insult of criticism by those who won’t ever understand, won’t ever suffer, won’t ever create. You needed to show them, and you have. You did. You can’t betray yourself now by refuting your work, the brilliance ofit. How you planned out every detail, down to the smallest point to create masterpieces. To make these people immortal.”
“Yes!” Tears of joy sprang to his eyes. “Yes, yes, you see! At last. They were nothing, common whores. I made them icons who’ll live forever. With my own hands, I took their light, their life, and with my own hands I poured that into my work. I had a duty to my art. I had a vision that couldn’t be denied. I was entitled to take what I needed, and to give it to the world.”
“And you have. Tell us how. The world needs to know every detail of how you went from concept to execution.”
So he told them. Every detail.
When they had it all, Eve took the next step.
“Why did you deny all of this? Why did you hide your process?”
“To avoid all this. To keep some law that cares nothing about art from stopping me, punishing me. I refuse to go to prison because some judge, some jury puts the lives of nobodies above me and my art.”
“So you ran.”
“I knew my mother would take care of it all. She always does. And she will. She’ll take care of all of this nonsense.”
“Of course. If you’d made it to Caracas, what then? Obviously, you’d continue to paint. Would you continue to kill? To create the immortal?”
“Genius does what it must. It’s above common laws and mores. I won’t be restricted in what I need to create. My mother understands this, supports this as no one ever has until now, with you.”
Eve took an extra beat for the unexpected gift. “You explained all this to your mother?”
“Yes, I felt I must. I’d always intended to tell her when I’d completed the series of eight so that she could arrange things.”
“What things?”
