Faye Kellerman - Double Homicide

“Never mind what I’m thinking,” Katz answered. “You’re thinking they’re kiddie porn.”

Darrel scratched the side of his nose. “Maybe you think they’re kiddie porn and you’re doing what the shrinks say… projecting it on me.”

“Thanks, Dr. Freud,” said Katz.

“Dr. Schadenfreude.”

Katz laughed. “Tell the truth, I don’t know how I feel about them. I saw the one hanging in Olafson’s house and I thought it was good-from an artistic point of view. You see four together, especially that one you were looking at…”

“The way the little girl’s sitting,” said Darrel. “Legs spread, that towel at her feet-we’ve seen it before.”

“Yeah,” said Katz. “Still, these are obviously kids Michael Weems knows. Maybe even her own kids. Artists have… muses. People they paint over and over.”

“Would you hang that stuff in your house?”

“No.”

“Olafson did,” said Darrel. “Meaning maybe he had more than a professional interest in Weems. Maybe he dug the subject matter.”

“Gay and straight and mean and twisted,” said Katz. “Anything’s possible.”

“Especially with this guy, Steve. He’s an onion. We keep peeling, he keeps smelling worse.”

“Whatever he did or didn’t do, someone wanted those paintings badly enough to kill for them. Which also fits with a nonpremeditated scenario. Our bad guy came for the pictures, not for Olafson. Either he tried a sneak-burgle, got caught in the act by Olafson, and there was a confrontation. Or he showed up and demanded them, and there was a confrontation.”

“Makes sense,” said Two Moons. “Either way, the two of them have words, Olafson’s his usual snotty, arrogant self. He turns his back on the guy and boom. ”

“Big-time boom,” said Katz. “Summer said Olafson sent out photos to anyone who expresses interest in an artist. Let’s see who was interested in Weems.”

Fifteen clients had received Weems mailings: four in Europe, two in Japan, seven on the East Coast, and two locals. They were Mrs. Alma Maarten and Dr. and Mrs. Nelson Evans Aldren, both with high-end addresses in Las Campanas-a gated golf-course and equestrian development that featured estates with spectacular views.

Katz asked Summer Riley if she knew Maarten and the Aldrens.

“Sure,” she said. “Alma Maarten’s a doll. She’s around eighty and wheelchair-bound. Apparently, in her younger days, she was quite the party giver. Larry kept her on the mailing list to make her feel like she was still part of the scene. The Aldrens are a bit younger but not much. Maybe early seventies. Joyce-Mrs. A.-she’s the one who’s into art.”

“What kind of doctor is the husband?”

“I think he was a cardiologist. He’s retired now. I’ve only seen him once.”

“Big fellow?”

Summer laughed. “Maybe five-four. Why are you asking all this? None of Larry’s clients killed him. I’m sure of that.”

“Why?” asked Two Moons.

“Because they all loved him. That’s part of being a great art dealer.”

“What is?”

“Relating personally. Knowing which artist fits with which client-it’s like matchmaking.”

“Larry was a good matchmaker,” said Katz.

“The best.” The young woman’s eyes misted.

“You miss him.”

“He had so much to teach me,” she said. “Said I was headed straight for the top.”

“As a dealer?”

Summer nodded emphatically. “Larry said I had what it took. He was planning to set me up in a satellite gallery, selling Indian pottery. I was going to be his partner. Now…” She threw up her hands. “Can I go now? I really need to rest.”

“The kids in the paintings,” said Darrel.

“Merry and Max. They’re Michael’s children. They’re really cute and she captures their essence brilliantly.”

The last few words sounded like art-catalog hype.

Katz said, “Where does Michael live?”

“Right here in Santa Fe. She’s got a house just north of the Plaza.”

“How about an address?”

Sighing theatrically, Summer thumbed through a Rolodex. She found the card and pointed to the street and address.

Michael Weems lived on Artist Road.

“Now can I go?” she said. In a lower voice, more to herself than the detectives: “Goddammit! Time to start over.”

She was crying as she left.

Before they set out to talk to the portrayer of Merry and Max, the detectives worked the computer.

No criminal hits on Michael Weems, though ascertaining that fact hadn’t come without confusion. A man with the same name was incarcerated for robbery in Marion, Illinois. Michael Horis Weems, black male, twenty-six years old.

Two Moons said, “Maybe she had a sex change operation.”

“Could be.” Katz raised his red mustache. “At this point, I’ll believe anything.”

Michael Andrea Weems merited fifty-four Google hits, most of them reviews of exhibitions, almost all of those stemming from shows at Olafson’s galleries in New York and Santa Fe.

Hit fifty-two, however, proved to be the exception that made both detectives stop breathing.

A small paragraph in the New York Daily News, and from the snippy phrasing, probably a gossip column rather than straight reportage.

Last year, a Michael Weems premiere heralding a dozen new Merry-Max paintings had been disrupted by the appearance of the artist’s estranged husband, a minister and self-described “spiritual counselor” named Myron Weems.

The irate Myron had stunned onlookers by berating them for patronizing a den of iniquity and for “gazing at filth.” Before gallery personnel could intervene, he’d dived at one of the paintings, yanked it off the wall, stomped the canvas, and destroyed the artwork beyond repair. When he tried to repeat the process with a second painting, onlookers and a security guard managed to subdue the ranting man.

The police had been called, and Myron Weems had been arrested.

Nothing more.

Katz said, “This feels like something.”

Two Moons said, “Let’s plug in Myron’s name.”

Five of the six hits were sermons given at Myron Weems’s church in Enid, Oklahoma. Lots of mentions of “sin” and “abomination.” A couple of direct references to “the filth that is pornography.” The sixth citation was the identical Daily News piece.

“No charges filed?” Katz said.

“Let’s check the legal databases,” Two Moons said. “See if any civil suits come up.”

Half an hour later, they’d found nothing to indicate that Myron Weems had been held accountable for his tantrum.

Two Moons stood up and stretched his big and tall frame. “He humiliates his wife, trashes her work, and she doesn’t press charges?”

“Estranged-husband situation,” said Katz. “That means they were in the process of divorce. The two of them could’ve had a complicated situation. Maybe the incident got bargained away for a better custody or financial arrangement. Or maybe Myron calmed down a bit. She’s still painting the kids.”

“I don’t know, Steve, a guy’s got deep convictions, something to do with his kids. I don’t see him bargaining.”

Katz thought, Welcome to the world of marital discord, partner. He said, “There’s something else to consider. Myron had a relationship with Olafson apart from the art world. He’d helped Olafson deal with booze.”

“All the more reason for him to be angry, Steve. He counsels the guy, and the guy showcases his ex-wife’s work, pushing what he considers dirty pictures. Makes me kinda wonder how tall Myron is.”

A call to Oklahoma Motor Vehicles answered that question. Myron Manning Weems was a male white, with a DOB that put him at fifty-five. More pertinently, he was listed at six-five, two hundred eighty. They requested a fax of Weems’s driver’s license.