Greg Iles - Dead Sleep

“Thank you.”

He looks up, his eyes narrowed behind the bifocals. “Have you always worked for the FBI?”

“No. I was a photojournalist before.” This is not exactly a lie.

He studies me a bit longer, then smiles again. “Please stop by and tell me about it sometime. Photography interests me. I rarely have visitors anymore, mostly due to self-imposed restrictions, I’m afraid.”

“I’ll try to do that.”

“Mr. Wheaton,” says Kaiser, “I want you to know how much we appreciate your help. The New Orleans police will probably want to talk to you as well. My advice is to cooperate as fully as you can, despite whatever inconvenience they cause. That will end the ordeal sooner than anything else.”

Wheaton sighs as though he has some inkling of what is to come.

Dr. Lenz says, “We must also ask you to refrain from contacting your graduate students about this, or speaking of it in the next few days. I’m sure you understand.”

The artist looks as if he understands all too well.

“Good day, gentlemen,” he says, and then he turns to me. “Good day, my dear.”

Kaiser turns to go, but Lenz hangs back. “There’s one question I forgot to ask. Is the clearing a real place? Somewhere near your childhood home in Vermont, perhaps? Or is it a place in Vietnam?”

Wheaton hesitates, as though deciding whether to answer at all. At length, he says, “I’ve known several places like this in my life. They seemed a sort of nexus to me. A place where the power of nature is focused. The forest or jungle is there but held in abeyance, so that you can see sun and sky. There’s water, but not an overpowering amount of it. And then there’s the earth.”

“You make it sound peaceful,” says Lenz. “But your paintings aren’t peaceful.”

“Some are,” says Wheaton. “Others not. Nature isn’t a kindly force. She has many faces, and none cares a thing for us or our needs.”

“True enough,” Lenz says. “Oh, one thing more, if you don’t mind.”

I want to slap him for his stupid Columbo tactics.

“Leon Gaines paints women exclusively. Sometimes nude, sometimes not. Frank Smith paints nude men. Have you ever known him to paint nude women?”

Wheaton shakes his head. “Frank adores women, but only with their clothes on.”

Kaiser looks ready to drag the psychiatrist out of the room. At last Lenz offers Wheaton his hand, but the artist merely inclines his head in acknowledgment and goes back to his ladder, causing me to smile.

We are nearly to the door when Wheaton calls: “Thalia Laveau paints women. Is that important?”

Kaiser and Lenz are back to him in seconds. “What do you mean?” asks Kaiser. “Women working in their homes? Like that?”

“No. Her documentary paintings actually surprised me. Because the audition paintings she submitted were nude studies.”

“Of women?” Lenz almost whispers.

“Exclusively.”

Lenz looks at Kaiser, who asks, “Do you have any of those paintings?”

“No. But I’m sure she does. Are you going to talk to her?”

Kaiser and Lenz are staring at each other like hunters who have walked into a thicket after a lion and found a unicorn.

“Come on!” Baxter shouts from the open door of the surveillance van. “Get in!”

Kaiser and Lenz are lost in thoughts of Thalia Laveau and her nudes, but something in Baxter’s voice brings them out of it. We scrunch into the cramped van and squat in the heat, our faces inches apart.

“Ten minutes ago,” says Baxter, “a finance company repossessed Leon Gaines’s van.”

“Damn it,” snaps Kaiser. “Murphy’s Law.”

“The repo guy had apparently tried to get it before, and Gaines ran him off. Today he just walked up to the house, popped the lock, and drove off before the NOPD surveillance team could do anything.”

“Where’s the van now?”

“Jefferson Parish deputies stopped it on Veterans Highway. They’re going to take it to their impound lot and seal it for our evidence team.”

“Does Gaines know the van is gone?” Lenz asks.

“Oh, yeah. He’s fighting with his girlfriend right now. They can hear him yelling out in the street, and parabolics have picked up the sound of slaps and blows.”

Lenz shakes his head. “Do we know if he has a gun in there?”

“This is Louisiana,” says Kaiser. “Assume he does. What do we know about the girlfriend?”

“Name’s Linda Knapp,” Baxter replies. “She’s twenty-nine, a barmaid. He’s been with her on and off for a little over a year. So. Do we talk to him now or do we wait?”

“Now,” says Kaiser. “While he’s pissed. Go in hard, settle him down, then bring Jordan in.”

Baxter turns to me, and when he speaks I smell coffee on his breath. “This isn’t like talking to Roger Wheaton. Gaines is a violent felon.”

“I signed your release this morning. Kaiser’s armed, and there’ll be cops outside. I’m ready.”

Baxter hesitates a moment longer, then slaps the panel separating us from the van’s driver. The motor roars, and we lurch backward, then forward. As we roll off of the campus, Kaiser catches my eye and gives me a nod of gratitude.

Leon Gaines lives in a shotgun house on Freret Street, beyond the terminus of St. Charles and Carrollton, very near the river. It’s a mostly black neighborhood behind an old shopping center, where people mind their own business and a prison record carries no stigma. Old people sit on screened porches, some drinking from paper bags, others rocking slowly and watching the cars go past. Kids too young for school play in tiny yards or the street, and knots of school-age kids stand on the corners. Our driver circles the block once for us to get a look, then stops a couple of driveways up from Gaines’s place.

Baxter opens the door. “Remember what’s at stake, John. This is our only clean shot at him.”

Kaiser nods, then gets out and starts up the cracked sidewalk, Dr. Lenz working hard to keep pace with him. After a few seconds, Kaiser’s voice comes from the speakers.

“Don’t react to anything I do. Act like you expect it, even if you’re shocked.”

“What are you going to do?” Lenz asks.

“Whatever feels right. And don’t let me forget to ask if he knows Marcel de Becque. We forgot to ask Wheaton.”

“You’re right,” huffs Lenz.

Beside me, Baxter says, “You missed most of the meeting this morning. We confirmed that there was bad blood between de Becque and Christopher Wingate. Most of the art community knew about it. When Wingate sold those paintings he’d promised de Becque, de Becque retaliated by spiking some big investment deal Wingate was involved in. We don’t have the details yet.”

“I can hear Gaines yelling from here,” says Lenz, sounding nervous.

“Here we go,” says Kaiser.

Their shoes bang on plank steps; then a screen door slaps against its frame and a hard knocking echoes through the van.

“Leon Gaines!” shouts Kaiser. “Open up! FBI!”

There’s a pause, then a muffled shout of challenge.

Baxter says, “This is going to be tricky.”

The unmistakable sound of a door being jerked open comes from the speakers. Then a New York accent laced with alcohol booms, “Who the fuck are you? Pencil-dicks from the finance company? If you are, I got something for you.”

“I’m Special Agent John Kaiser, FBI. And I’ve got something for you, Leon. A search warrant. Step back from the door.”

“FBI?” A puzzled silence. “Search warrant? For what?”

“Step back from the door, Leon.”

“What is this, man? This is my house.”

A faint female voice says something unintelligible.