Robert Walker - Absolute Instinct

Petersaul had gone from the museum gallery people to locate the mysterious other artist, Gahran. They failed to locate Gahran, who had left Milwaukee in what appeared a sudden flurry of activity. This they had learned from his landlady who'd been surprised when he paid up all his back rent.

“Did he say where he was going?” asked Petersaul, mulling over this news.

“He only said he would soon be a household name. I took it to mean due to his art, nothing like being wanted by the FBI.”

“We only want to question him, ma'am,” Cates had said.

“You ought've been here last night then when the fire department was called out and they traced an odor in the vents to the man's apartment.”

“Fire department?”

“A whole truckload of firemen tearing around the building in gas masks, yes. We all thought it was some sorta terrorist thing, you know.”

The agents telephoned the nearest firehouse and asked if anyone there had cited Giles Gahran for causing undue alarm at his apartment building.

A Captain Edward Lee was pat on. “Damn,” he muttered when he learned who they were and who they were interested in. “Stay put. I'll come to you!”

Lee was soon filling their ears with information and his regrets at not having looked closer at their guy, Giles Gahran. Cates and Petersaul learned that the fire marshal, Captain Lee, had left Gahran without giving him a citation for causing the choking odors that had permeated the building.

“Ah-ha, odors of decay and death?” asked Cates.

“Filthy odors like purification?” Petersaul eagerly added.

Fire Marshal Ed Lee shook his head while chanting “No.” “It was really just the opposite, cleaning fluids… lots of cleaning fluids, including muriatic acid, enough to burn out the lining of your nostrils and throat, but this guy seemed oblivious to the odors escaping the place and working into the vents.”

“Muriatic acid,” repeated Cates.

“Did he offer up any explanations as to why he was so bent on cleaning house?” Petersaul asked.

Ed Lee gritted his teeth hard, obviously angry with himself. Petersaul thought Lee looked like an even wilder wild-eyed version of the actor Billy Bob Thornton.

The Billy Bob look-a-like, thin and angular of face, rubbed his day-old stubble and said, “Something to do with a final pa… pa… patina? I think it was something he'd had to put over his sculptures. Keep 'em from breaking in transit. The guy talked like nonstop.”

“Sculptures? Transit?”

“Yeah, he was crating up, preparing to leave. Back of my head, I thought just for a couple seconds of calling in the cops. Cops get real interested in this kinda quick exit, don't they? But everything seemed to check out. Crates were carrying his stone sculptures. Soapstone I think it was, but don't quote me.”

“Crates? He was crating up stuff…” Petersaul shared an astonished look with Jared Cates.

“Yeah, but it was just his artwork. He even pried open one of the boxes to give me a look inside. Not my type art, but it was you know, different.”

Petersaul replied rapid-fire fashion. “Different? Just how different? Give me some detail here, Captain.”

“Weird shit, you know. A lady holding out her hand, a bird sitting on her finger. Couldn't see much else, you know, looking downward from overhead and the statue was lying on its side, stuffing all round it like exploded bedding.”

“But why do you say it was weird?” pressed Petersaul, while Cates rolled his eyes.

“No eyes.”

“No eyes?” she repeated.

“You know, only blank indications of eyes, and no features really, just like a blank face, like it wasn't yet finished is how I took it to be. Or like it was 'spose to represent all mankind, some shit like that you know, so it had to be kinda blank to be… whataya call it… representational, symbolic?”

“I see… blank features.”

Captain Lee muttered, “Certainly not my cup of tea. I mean I wouldn't go outta my way to see it. Like something my wife would drag me to.”

“And what kind of art do you like, Captain?” asked Cates.

“Oh, I ain't much for any art, but if I gotta have it, give me dogs 'round a poker table or pool table and I'm happy. The wife, she likes canopy trees over a road leading to a light in the distance, but not me.”

“You only looked into the one crate then?” Petersaul tried to get the conversation back on track.

But Lee was off track and seemed only too happy to remain that way. “I saw that unbelievable damn Picasso they got in Chicago once. Not my cup a tea neither. I says to the wife on our way to the Sears Tower-observation deck, you know-I says to Maddy, 'And they paid big freakin' dollars for that pile of rusting metal shit to sit out here on the plaza!' Hadda-be the fix was in, the politicians getting their cut, you know?”

“So, where did Gahran say he was moving his crates to?”

“He didn't say.”

“And you didn't ask?”

“I didn't ask. Saw no point in it.”

“You confiscate anything from the apartment when you wrote up the citation?”

“Sure.”

“What?”

“Old rags he was using. *. for the patina, he said.”

“Where are they now?”

“Dumpster behind the station house. Smelled to high heaven. We confiscated his fuckin' acid mop, too-stuff they use for cleaning pools.”

“Anything else?”

“Nah, just the rags and the acid. Left him his bleach and Tide. Damn fool had mixed 'em all together. Amazing he didn't faint dead away, but he just seemed oblivious to everything going on.”

“And you saw no sign of any bones?” asked Cates.

“Bones? Oh, wait a minute. Has this got to do with what they found at that UPS place in Chicago? Holy shit! Is he the guy… that Orion guy?”

“It could have something to do with the Chicago business, yes, but Gahran and Orion, we believe, are two separate people.”

“Did you see any evidence of bones about the place?”

“No… no bones.”

“Anything else? Anything you want to add to your statement?” asked Petersaul who'd jotted down notes on a pad.

“Yeah… come to think of it. He had this strange box.”

“Box?”

“A beautiful leather-bound thing tied with velvety sash and all.”

“That seem even a little weird to you, Captain?”

“Seemed a lot weird, but in my line you see it all, so I shrugged it off, you know. But he also had this huge, long shoulder bag. Figured it was an easel bag for carrying his easel, but I noticed that even though the elongated bag appeared stuffed full, bulging, an easel stood in the corner. Didn't really pay it much mind. Figured it was a second, old easel he meant to leave behind. Now… I don't know.”

Petersaul handed Lee her card, saying, “Anything else comes to mind-anything at all about this guy-you call, understood, Captain?”

They said good-bye to the fleeing fire marshal who seemed now to want to put distance between himself and the FBI agents. Lee was muttering angrily to himself the entire way out of the building, paying no heed to the landlady's calling after him in search of some answers to questions of her own. Petersaul returned to combing through the immaculately cleaned apartment. It appeared absolutely empty, save for the silent furniture left behind in the furnished one-bedroom, oversized living room, bath and kitchenette.

“We need blue lights and Luminol spray on every inch of this place,” she said. “All I smell is blood here.”

“No way you can smell it over the cleaning odors.”

“I feel it then. Will you make the call?”

“Sure.” Cates got on his cell phone and dialed Sands's office.

“I'm going to check out the kitchen cabinets and the bathroom cabinet, see if he left any prescription bottles or anything useful behind.”