Page 11 of Framed in Death (In Death #61)

It smelled like someone’s three-day-old sweet-and-sour shrimp with a side of fresh puke.

“What an odor,” Peabody commented as they started the climb.

“And another one without any kind of decent soundproofing. Why do babies always sound like someone’s carving off their fingers with a dull knife?”

“Ew, but anyway. That’s not an I’m-hurt cry. It’s an I’m-hungry cry.”

Frowning, Eve looked at her partner. “How can you tell?”

“It just sounds hungry, not like there goes my pinkie. You know if Mom had boobies—sorry, tits—like Neon Girl, she could fill that tank for a couple days with one feeding.”

As they climbed, the stairwell echoed with the sounds of an electric keyboard, the wild, celebratory shrieks of the Game Show Channel, the boom and blast of some action flick, and someone shouting for someone to shut the fuck up.

Eve mostly agreed with the last.

When they rounded to four, she heard the bass-heavy, hard-edged shout and stomp of thrash metal at top volume.

“If you weren’t already in a pissed-off mood,” she commented, “listening to that would get you there.”

It got louder as they got to the fifth floor, then threatened the eardrums when she opened the fire door and stepped into the hallway.

“Anybody who plays whatever the hell that is at that volume in an apartment is an asshole. What do you bet it’s ‘I Really Am a Pecker’?”

“Pretty sure you’re correct. He’s right there, 501, and I think I can see the door shuddering. He’s got three locks on it, but I can see it shaking.”

Eve pounded on the door with the side of her fist. “Should’ve brought the battering ram,” she muttered, and pounded again.

“Allyn Orion! This is the police! Turn off that damn music and open the door.”

“Fuck the fucking police!”

“Open the door, or I will arrest you for disturbing the peace.”

“Try it!” She heard a riot bar thump, locks click, then the rattle of a chain as Orion opened the door a crack. “I’m in my own apartment in the middle of the day!”

Eve held up her badge. “Turn it off, open the door. We can have this conversation here or we can have it at Central.”

“Fucking police.” But he muttered it as he dragged off the chain. “What the hell do you want? I’m working! I need the noise, the anger, the rage of the music to create.”

“Turn it off.”

A man of about five-eight with a slender build in black lounge pants and a black muscle shirt—both paint splattered—turned to stride away to a small entertainment box.

He had white-blond hair swirled with bright blue that rained past his shoulders. The black goatee served as contrast on a face of deep gold skin with tawny eyes lined heavily with black.

After slapping the music off, he turned to snarl at her. “Happy now? Is it my fault the pathetic peasants in this building can’t respect art and the creator of it?”

“I’d say it’s your fault for not respecting your neighbors or the city’s noise pollution codes.”

“You could try headphones,” Peabody suggested.

“No! I need it to fill , to burn the very air, to surround me. For Fury .”

He gestured, dramatically, toward a canvas about six feet long, four feet high. Some of the paint still glistened. Black paint, harsh red, angry yellow fought some sort of bitter war over the field. In the morass of thick strokes, hard angles, Eve thought she—maybe—saw a human face.

“It’s one of my series on unbridled emotions. And we have Grief !”

He gestured, again a dramatic sweep of the arm, across the room to another canvas. Blacks, reds, dark blues, dead spiderweb grays, and yeah, as if smothered by those strokes of color, a human face—the artist’s face—covered with tears.

“I will have Agony , Desire , Fear .”

She didn’t like them, but had to admit to a weirdly compelling vision.

“Okay. You also have a couple choices. You can soundproof your apartment.”

“Do you know what that costs? I’m reduced to working like a slave every night to support my art.”

“Uh-huh. You can wear headphones and fry your own eardrums. Or keep the music at a reasonable volume.”

He held out his hands, palms lifted. “You’re asking me to slit my own wrists.”

“No, I’m telling you to knock it off. You’ve already done time inside. Want more?”

Now he threw up his hands, circled the room. Other than a single dumpy couch, he used the entire space as a studio, with canvases stacked or hung, with paints and tools littering a table.

Eve figured he’d go a few rounds with the landlord at some point, as he didn’t bother to tarp the floor.

“Art transcends man-made laws.”

“Yeah? Is that why you killed Leesa Culver?”

“I don’t know who that is.” He said it absently as he continued to circle, to gesture. “I need stimulation to create art. Music, movement, sex. How can I bring Fury to life without the stimuli?”

“Headphones,” Eve repeated. “Get some. Where were you last night between midnight and four A.M .?”

“Don’t you understand…” He paused, frowned. “What?”

“Midnight to four last night. Your whereabouts?”

“Didn’t I already say I’m forced to work like a slave? But still, there is stimulation, and there is on occasion inspiration. I was doing the menial work I’m forced to do until my art is recognized. Serving others their drinks and food at Saucy. In the next block.”

“From midnight to four?”

“From nine to two. Then, exhausted, I returned home, too depleted for my art, too restless to sleep. I took a sleep aid and slept. One day the pain will be too much, and I won’t wake again.”

Eve pulled up Leesa’s ID on her ’link, turned the screen toward him. “How do you know her?”

He frowned, shook his head, then tossed back his hair. “I don’t. If she modeled for me, and I put her on canvas, she would always live in me.”

He pressed a hand to his heart.

“If she complained about my need for stimulation—”

“She’s dead.”

He frowned again, then just shrugged. “Death comes to all of us.”

“Death comes sooner than it should when someone’s murdered.”

“Murdered.” He looked more intrigued than shocked. “Well, I certainly didn’t murder her.”

“You shoved a man into the street in front of moving vehicles.”

“That was a moment of madness, an accident, really. Blind passion. I’ve moved on. Now, I have only a few precious hours for my work. I need to go back to Fury .”

Eve put the Vermeer on the screen. “Do you know this painting?”

He looked, sneered. “Boring. Ordinary.”

“Right. If you turn the music up to that volume, or close to it, again, you’ll find a couple of cops at your door with an arrest warrant.” Eve started for the door. “You won’t get anywhere with Fury in lockup. Remember that.”

When they went out, Eve waited. The music came back on, but not at door-shuddering volume.

“What a dick” was Peabody’s opinion. “He really shouldn’t have bothered changing his last name.”

“He’s a dick, and we’ll check out his alibi, see how close we can pinpoint when Leesa left the stroll. But he didn’t kill her.”

“Way too busy swimming in self-pity and self-indulgence to plan out a murder. Plus, none of his stuff is in the same universe as the portrait. He’d never have used something like that.”

“What universe is his stuff in?” Eve asked as they started down.

“The Shit Universe. Some would go for it, sure, because it has a creepy kind of gut punch, and I absolutely believe all art has value. However, well, shit has value. But otherwise, it’s abstract, conceptional, and reeks of that self-indulgence.

He’s just using it as an excuse to suffer, or claim he’s suffering. ”

“I agree with all that. We’ll check the timing anyway. Who’s next?”

Peabody checked, noted Reineke’s list came through. “Standish, and he should be at his day job. Café Urbane, and that’s just a block past where we parked, across the street, and another block.”

“We can walk it.”

When they reached street level, the storm that had blown in had blown out again.

Once she’d hiked back to the car, Eve opened the trunk. “Toss it in.”

She shut the trunk on a pair of wet umbrellas.

“The Martin Martin’s in Tribeca, and Kyle Drew’s the East Village.”

“Still walking this one, then that only leaves two to find parking.”

“Café Urbane has salads and sandwiches, as well as pockets, muffins, and cookies.”

“Fine.”

“It also closes at ten on Sunday night. So, he wouldn’t have been working during the timeline.”

Eve spotted the trench coat coming in her direction, and the way he eyed the bag of a woman chatting on her ’link as she clipped along.

Then his gaze shifted to Eve. She met it, angled her head. Barely lifted her eyebrows.

The way he turned around, strolled in the opposite direction reminded her of Galahad when caught bellying toward bacon.

She almost thought it a shame. She could’ve used a quick run.

But when she crossed the street with the river of others, trench coat kept going.

“Okay, Simon Standish, age twenty-eight, white guy, father’s from London.

Single, no cohabs. Does the barista thing for his day job, and lasts from like six months to a year.

Looks like he’s had one show at a coffee shop–slash–art gallery, and he fills in as an art teacher—substitute art teacher, high school level. ”

Peabody put away her PPC. “He’s the one who punched another artist at the other artist’s show.”

“I remember.”

She gave a wide berth to two women who burst out of a shoe store loaded with bags and laughing like hyenas. What was it about footwear that drove some women mad?

Through the doors of Café Urbane the lights glowed bright and the air was filled with the smell of reasonably decent coffee and chatter.

“Get your salad.”

“What do you want?”

“I don’t know. Ah…” Eve scanned the menu board and tried to shift her brain to food. “Just a grilled cheese.”

She pulled cash out of her pocket and realized, damn it, she’d need to stop at a machine and get more.

“What kind of bread, what kind of cheese?”

“Whatever. Pick something. Go with Pepsi. I’m going to give Standish a tap.”

She handed Peabody the cash, then moved to the coffee station.