Carol O’Connell - Killing Critics

He nodded. “That would make sense. If she heard someone calling for help, she would have gone running. She was at her physical peak, and she was fearless. You don’t know the chances she took as a dancer. Every leap might have been the injury to end a career. Yes, it could have happened that way.”

“She was in good shape. If she came on a murder in progress and she wasn’t taken by surprise, the bastard who killed her would have had to catch her first-if it happened that way. You’d have to figure it was someone large or in very good shape.”

“Yes, I never understood how Oren Watt could have done it, unless he came on her from behind. He was a junkie, wasn’t he? Maybe he had help.”

“So you had reservations about Watt? I had the idea that you were always convinced that he did it.”

“Oh, I’m sure he was there. He did confess. Jamie took the blame, you know. My poor brother-in-law thought someone had set him up and used Aubry for bait. Oren Watt was an artist. He would have fit with that idea.”

“Oren Watt didn’t become an artist until he made his confession. Before that, he was a junkie who delivered pizza and did occasional drug deals with the deliveries. I wonder if he even knew your brother-in-law was related to Aubry, or if he even knew Quinn was an art critic.”

It was dark, but she could follow the changes in his face as he digested this. This was news to him. Had he been lied to or sheltered? “How well did you know the gallery owner, Avril Koozeman?”

“We crossed paths at a few art functions. And once or twice we’ve bid against one another at auctions, usually charity affairs.”

“How well did Sabra know him?”

“They knew each other quite well in their younger days. They exhibited in the same gallery.”

“Koozeman was an artist?”

“Oh, yes, and a good one.”

“So he’s been a gallery owner, a critic and an artist?”

“It’s not so strange. People often float among related fields. A police officer might become a security expert or a criminal, or both, yes?”

“It’s been done,” said Mallory. “So you thought Koozeman was a good artist. And what did Sabra think of him?”

“She had a very high opinion of his work. She said there was a dark genius to it. But Koozeman wasn’t willing to pay the dues, so he applied his genius to promoting others. He tried to lure Sabra into his stable of artists, but by then she was established, a rising star. She was quite beyond him.”

“Did he hold a grudge?”

“No. I wouldn’t think so. He was always a driven man, too fixated on his own life. He’s made quite a success of his gallery over the past ten years or so.”

Mallory looked around the plaza. “It’s too bad your wife can’t be here to see this. You haven’t seen her in a long time, have you?”

“No. Sabra disappeared soon after Aubry died. I blame myself. I was so deep in grief, I didn’t see the changes in her, until she cut off her beautiful hair. She left me. She didn’t stop to pack a bag. I found all the cut strands of her hair lying on the floor of our bedroom. She didn’t even take that.”

“Did you try to find her?”

“Of course.”

“But you never saw her again?”

“No.”

She wondered if she believed everything this man told her. And what of Quinn? He behaved like a man with a reason to lie, to cover, but for what reason? Who was Quinn shielding? Not Gilette.

“You really have no idea where she is?”

“None. If I knew, I would be with her now. I’m still very much in love with my wife.”

And there was truth in this. His eyes were looking at a memory, and it was beloved. He turned to face her now, back in the present and curious. “Why are you so interested in Sabra? Do you think she might be able to tell you something about that night?”

“Maybe. I’ll never know. The police weren’t allowed to question her after Aubry died.”

“She could not have stood up to any stress.”

“Maybe she could stand it now. I’d like to talk to Sabra, but she’s sunk below my radar. She’s living under an alias, or she’s-”

“Dead? Yes, I’ve thought of that possibility, but she would never commit suicide. It’s against her religion. Would it help you to know that she was in an institution for a few years? It was a voluntary commitment.”

“What institution?”

“If I had known the name, I would have settled the bill. She never used our insurance policy. She had to be there under an assumed name. My detectives couldn’t find her.”

“So how did you find out she was hospitalized?”

“Word got back to me. I won’t say from whom. It was a private affair, and I am a great respecter of privacy.” He looked away, and then his face came back to her, smiling with a change of subject.

“The man you came with, Charles Butler? I can’t say I know him well. I only saw him at family gatherings, but I did watch him grow up from wedding to wedding, funeral to funeral. I’m sure I remember him far better than he remembers me. He was so remarkable in any company-and I’m not referring to that magnificent nose. I gather he’s not a close friend of yours?”

“He’s a very close friend.” He was her only friend. “Why did you say that?”

“Well, he must be devastated now. I don’t imagine he enjoyed losing you that way.”

“Charles? He understood why I had to leave.”

“You think he understood why he was left to look like a fool in front of all those people?” He put up one hand to silence her, to stop her from denying she had done that. “When Charles was a little boy, his freak intellect made him a thing apart from other children, a different species. The things the normal children did to him-just following their nature, never missing an opportunity to be cruel. But you’re not a child, and you say you’re his friend.”

“I am his friend.”

“I wonder, Mallory. Would he have left you behind?”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“Oh, but it was. I’ve seen it before, at every wedding and funeral. His mother would shoo him into a crowd of children. The little monsters would torture him for a while, and then they’d run off. He would just stand there, very quiet, with this stunned look in his eyes. I think the cruelty always baffled him. That’s what I saw in his face tonight as we were leaving the ball-he really didn’t understand.”

Gregor Gilette was searching her face, probing her with his eyes. He seemed surprised by what he had just found. “Mallory, you don’t comprehend any of this, do you?‘’ He brought his face closer to hers. ”No, I can see that you don’t.“

Mallory looked down at her watch. “I have to leave now-I’ve got work to do. I’d like to talk to you again. Can I call you?”

“Yes, of course.” He pulled a pen and a card from his pocket and scribbled a telephone number on the back. “I’ll look forward to it.”

Charles stirred in the night, rising to half-consciousness with the light pepper of pebbles on glass. With mild annoyance, he rolled over and pressed his face into the pillow. He came rudely awake to the sound of a breaking windowpane, and his eyes snapped open in time to see a dark object fly into the room and land on the carpet amid a sparkling shower of glass.

Well, now he was wide awake. He rushed to the window and threw up the sash, ready with a small store of words Riker had taught him to relieve the angst of just such a moment. He leaned out the window, prepared with an opening gambit to cast aspersions on the parenthood of the rock thrower.

In the street below was a beautiful woman in a shimmering green ball gown. She was standing in the soft rain and staring up at him. The drops pocked her gown with dots of a darker green. Her face was misted and shining, her white skin luminous. Her hair glistened with rain and lamplight. She blew him a kiss, and in the next moment, she was gone, hurrying up the narrow street toward the wide busy lanes and bright lights of Houston. He leaned far out the window and watched until the last bit of her gown had disappeared into a yellow taxi.