Faye Kellerman: Double Homicide

Another one doing the Georgia O’Keeffe bit, thought Katz.

Two Moons rapped on the glass door lightly, and finally, Michael Weems looked up from her painting.

A quick glance, but then she resumed dabbing.

The detectives stepped out.

“You’re policemen,” she said, removing the brush handle from her mouth and placing it on a side table. Nearby was a tin of turpentine, a big pile of rags, and a glass palette ringed with circles of pigment.

“Sounds like you’re expecting us, ma’am.”

Michael Weems smiled and painted.

“Where are the kids, Mrs. Weems?” Two Moons asked.

“Safe,” she answered.

Two Moons felt a weight lift off his shoulders.

“Safe?” Katz asked. “As in safe from your ex-husband?”

Michael smiled enigmatically.

“He’s in town, you know,” Katz said.

The artist didn’t respond.

“We found four of your paintings in his motel room.”

Michael Weems stopped painting. She placed her brush on the table, next to the pile of rags. Closed her eyes. “God bless you,” she said softly.

“Unfortunately, ma’am, they’re all destroyed.”

Weems’s eyes shot open. Dark eyes, dramatic against her pale hair. Hawklike and unforgiving.

“Unfortunately,” she said. Making it sound like mimicry. She stared past the detectives.

Katz said, “I’m sorry, Ms. Weems.”

“You are?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Katz said. “You put a lot of work into those-”

“He was a devil,” said Michael Weems.

“Who?”

She crooked a finger over her back and toward the hillside. A gentle downward slope of snowdrift, red rocks, piñon trees, juniper bushes, and cacti.

Michael Weems turned and walked to the edge of the portal and gazed down.

Scattered light allowed the detectives to see a shallow ditch running parallel with her property. Too small to be officially called an arroyo, it was more like a rut in the ground interspersed with gravel and weeds and rocks.

Just off center about twenty feet to the right was something larger.

A man’s body.

On his back, belly-up.

An enormous belly it was.

Myron Weems’s mouth gaped open in permanent surprise. One hand was splayed unnaturally, the other lay next to his tree-trunk thigh.

Even in the dark and at a distance, Katz and Two Moons could make out the hole in his forehead.

Michael Weems walked back to the side table and removed rags from the pile. Underneath was a revolver- what looked to be an old Smith & Wesson.

A cowboy gun.

“Cover me,” Two Moons whispered.

Katz nodded.

Slowly, Darrel walked over, keeping his eyes glued on Michael’s hands. She didn’t seem perturbed or anxious even when he picked up the gun and emptied the cylinder of five bullets.

Weems had returned her attention to her painting.

Katz and Two Moons were now in a position to see the subject.

Merry and Max standing at the edge of a portal, both of them naked. Staring, with a combination of horror and delight-the delicious discovery of a childhood nightmare’s falsity-at the corpse of their father.

Michael Weems aimed her brush at a circle of red on her palette, rosied up the hole in the brow.

Doing it from memory, without looking back at the real thing.

The rendering was perfect. The woman had talent.

JONATHAN KELLERMAN has brought his expertise as a clinical psychologist to numerous New York Times bestselling tales of suspense, including the Alex Delaware novels. His most recent novel, Gone, was a #1 New York Times bestseller. He has won the Goldwyn, Edgar, and Anthony Awards, and has been nominated for a Shamus Award.

FAYE KELLERMAN is the New Tork Times bestselling author of the Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus novels, as well as the historical thrillers The Quality of Mercy and Straight Into Darkness and the short story anthology The Garden of Eden. She has won the Macavity Award and has been nominated for a Shamus Award.