Greg Iles - Dead Sleep

“Three days? ” says Kaiser. “I’d have been shocked at three weeks.”

“Couple of the victims’ families have a lot of stroke. And thank God for it.” Baxter glances at me as though wondering whether to reassure me that the FBI works every case with equal fervor, but he doesn’t. Everyone in this room knows that if the eleven missing women were crack whores, the evidence on those planes could languish in the lab for weeks.

“Before we decide where we’re going,” he says, “let’s take stock of where we are. Today’s interviews didn’t produce the result we’d hoped for. Why not?”

“Two possibilities,” says Lenz. “One, none of the four suspects is the UNSUB/painter. This theory is unanimously supported by our art experts, who say the Sleeping Women weren’t painted by any of the suspects. Two, one of the suspects did recognize Jordan, but fooled us by keeping his cool when she came in.”

“Or her cool,” Baxter reminds him.

“Nobody fooled us,” says Kaiser. “Except maybe Frank Smith. He was startled by Jordan’s face, but he explained it by saying he’d seen her at a party some time ago, a virtually uncheckable explanation.”

Baxter looks at Lenz. “What did you think about Smith?”

“Brilliant, gifted, sure of himself. Of the four, he’s the most capable of putting this thing together.”

“What about the first possibility? None of the four is our UNSUB?”

“The brush hairs brought us to these four,” says Kaiser. “I trust physical evidence more than I trust art experts.”

“The evidence brought us to those four and the fifty undergraduates who could get access to the special brushes,” Lenz points out. “How are we coming with them?”

“No student has been questioned directly,” Baxter replies. “Because of their age, and because so few could be talented enough to have painted the Sleeping Women, they’re a low-percentage shot. Also, the minute we start interrogating Tulane undergrads, the media’s going to blow this case wide open. We’ve been lucky so far.”

“Very lucky,” I say quietly. “I wonder why.”

“The New Orleans media’s not that aggressive,” says Bowles. “I don’t know why. They could push a lot harder than they do.”

“But once they get hold of it,” says Kaiser, “it’ll be a feeding frenzy. And with Roger Wheaton involved – not to mention rich, pissed-off parents and their lawyers – you’ll get national press.”

“Don’t forget Jordan,” says Bowles, with a nod in my direction. “She adds a little marquee value.”

“Forget the media for now,” says Baxter. “NOPD says none of the suspects seemed anxious about providing a DNA sample. If one of them had snatched the Dorignac’s woman, he wouldn’t have been cool about doing that.”

“If the painter just paints,” says Lenz, “and someone else does the snatches, the painter would have nothing to fear from a DNA test.”

“Even if the UNSUB only does the painting,” says Kaiser, “he should have been stunned by Jordan’s face.”

“True.”

Kaiser looks at Baxter. “What’s the new development you mentioned on the phone?”

I would have led with this question, but I guess these guys have their own rhythm.

“Even though the timing of Wingate’s murder and the Dorignac’s snatch were only two hours apart,” says Baxter, “I’ve had a half-dozen agents working around the clock, checking flight manifests and interviewing passengers who traveled between New York and New Orleans in surrounding hours. It finally paid off.”

“What do you have?”

“One hour after Wingate died, a lone man paid cash for a flight from JFK to Atlanta, then cash again for a flight to Baton Rouge on a different airline.”

“Who was he?” I ask.

Dr. Lenz crosses his legs and answers in a pedantic voice. “A false name, of course. It could be that the UNSUB who killed Wingate was already in New York when you upset the applecart in Hong Kong. He silenced Wingate, then flew straight – or almost straight – to New Orleans to warn his partner. If you study the timing, it could be that he arrived only six hours after the Dorignac’s woman was taken. The plan may have been to paint her, but the New York UNSUB made the prudent decision. Do her and dump her.”

Baxter gives the psychiatrist a sharp look. “That’s possible. But no matter who the New York UNSUB is, or what he did after the Dorignac’s victim was kidnapped, someone already in New Orleans had to kidnap her. Probably the painter.”

A few moments of silence pass as this sinks in.

“You have a description of the New York UNSUB?” asks Kaiser.

“Very general. Mid-thirties to mid-forties, muscular, hard-looking face. Casual dress clothes. He’s probably the guy who flipped Jordan the bird after the fire.”

“Sock cap?” I ask, half jokingly.

“There’s something else,” says Baxter. “Linda Knapp -Gaines’s girlfriend, the one who trashed his painting and left with you guys – turned back up at Gaines’s place thirty minutes ago. NOPD wouldn’t let her near Gaines, but she told them that whatever nights they needed alibis for, he was home with her, getting drunk or screwing her silly.”

I recall how angry and desperate to get away from Gaines the woman had looked. Now she’s back with him, protecting him from the police. This is a common mystery I’ve never understood and am not sure I want to.

“Has Knapp been with Gaines for the past eighteen months?”

“No,” says Baxter. “Gaines named another girlfriend as his alibi for the murders that predate his relationship with Knapp. We’re trying to locate her now. As far as the others’ alibis, here’s where we are. Based on credit-card activity, Roger Wheaton and Frank Smith were both in town for every murder. Leon Gaines and Thalia Laveau don’t even have credit cards. Initial questioning by NOPD hasn’t turned up any rock-solid alibis. It’s not surprising, really. Almost all the kidnappings happened during the week, between ten p.m. and six a.m.”

“What about Smith?” asks Lenz. “Surely he has some sleep-over lovers who could alibi him for at least one murder?”

“None he named today,” Baxter replies. “Maybe he’s protecting somebody.”

“Someone in the closet,” says SAC Bowles.

“What about Juan?” I ask. “The butler or whatever he was?”

“We didn’t know about him till today,” says Baxter. “NOPD’s talking to him now. He tried to slip out, but they got him. Looks like an illegal. Salvadoran.”

Now I realize why he looked familiar. I spent a good bit of time in El Salvador, seeing faces much like his.

“What else do we have?” asks Kaiser. “What about soldiers Wheaton served with? Convicts Gaines shared cells with?”

“I’ve got two lists,” says Baxter. “I thought you might want to talk to the Vietnam vets.”

As the men work out these details, a strange epiphany occurs at the dark center of my mind. The paradox of expert opinion versus physical evidence has been slowly working itself out there. “I’ve thought of a third possibility,” I say quietly.

Kaiser waves his hand to silence the others, and they turn to me.

“What is it?” he asks.

“What if one of the four suspects we saw today is doing the murders, but doesn’t know he’s doing them?”

No one responds. Baxter and Kaiser look stunned by the suggestion, but Dr. Lenz is sanguine.

“How did you come up with that?” asks the psychiatrist.

“The old Sherlock Holmes theory. After you exclude all impossibilities, whatever you have left is the solution, however improbable it may seem.”

“We haven’t excluded the other possibilities,” says Baxter. “Not by any means.”