Rather than sit, Eve stood, looked around.
Mira had a couple of thriving plants—one bursting with purple blooms—some family photos, a few well-chosen dust catchers.
Disc files, of course, tidy paperwork, everything calm and organized.
As was the woman.
Today she’d chosen a pale blue dress paired with a deeper blue jacket. She wore neck chains with little stones of both blues interspersed with stones of pale and deep pink.
Eve took a personal bet that Mira wore skyscraper heels that somehow picked up all four colors.
“There!” Mira sat back in her chair. “There’s no real end to the reports and paperwork in our world, is there?”
“No, there is not. I was coming in early today to deal with paperwork. Then.”
“Yes, I read the file. Very odd and disturbing.”
Mira rose to walk to the AC, and Eve congratulated herself on winning the bet.
Long, fluid swirls of all four colors covered Mira’s tall, skinny heels. Eve caught the floral scent of the tea before Mira took out the pair of delicate cups.
She passed one to Eve, then sat in one of her blue scoop chairs. And crossed her excellent legs.
“You have an organized killer, one who prepared by obtaining the scarves, the jacket, and so on.”
“I’ve got searches going for where those could be obtained. There are a couple of costume shops in New York that have that sort of thing, and in Chicago, in the East Washington area, and so on. When I get Harvo’s input, I may be able to narrow that part down.”
“From what I could see, both the costume and the pose were very carefully replicated. He’s precise. I agree with your notes. The dump spot was also carefully chosen. Art gallery owners. None of this was random or impulsive. He’d certainly seen the victim before last night. She fit the general parameters. Her coloring, her youth, her eyes, and her size.”
Mira sipped some tea. “I believe his choice of an LC, street level, was also planned and precise.”
“Hire a professional model, she’s likely to have an appointment book, maybe tell someone. Hire some woman you spot otherwise—if you can talk her into coming to your studio—she’s also likely to tell someone. A street-level LC? It’s part of the job to go with a customer.
“He probably gave her half up front, maybe promised a bonus if she did a good job. He gave her wine, a vintage a street level doesn’t get. And if he took any time to find out about her, he’d have known she lives alone, isn’t especially friendly, has no close family. Perfect target.”
“I’ve no doubt he’d have done some basic research on her. Precise,” Mira repeated. “Organized. And certainly a risk taker, as he took the time to pose her in front of a residential door, the door of a well-secured home.”
“He’s going to have a connection to the Whittiers, to their gallery.”
“Yes. The Vermeer? He greatly admires it, and deeply despises it. It’s a bar of talent, achievement, and recognition he can’t reach. I’ve no doubt he believes he has scaled the bar of talent, but the recognition eludes him.He may have contemplated suicide, even attempted it. But as the idea of death for his art rooted, it twisted into causing the death of another.”
Eve held out her hands. “With his own hands. The intimacy of that.”
“Exactly.”
“You’re profiling him as an artist, a painter.”
“I am. Haven’t you?”
“It’s highest probability for me. But if it’s a hit directly at the Whittiers, that opens up other possibilities.”
“There will always be other possibilities, but. An artist creates what he sees. Whether with the eyes or the mind. The killer re-created, and with great care and precision, what he saw. Why bother with the costume, the pose? He used wire and glue on the victim because she wasn’t a person to him. She wasn’t a human being but a kind of mannequin to be turned and adjusted to represent his image.”
“We’re looking into people who restore art.”
“Yes.” Lips pursed, Mira nodded. “Yes. He may earn his living through that skill—because he can’t earn it with his own work. Restoring isn’t creating on a blank canvas. He’s duplicating, true, but that isn’t a restoration.”
“All right. I ask myself what he gains by doing this. I come up with two things. His own sick artistic satisfaction, and notoriety. We don’t know his name, but—”
