Page 17 of Framed in Death (In Death #61)

“I have no idea, unless it’s that some of them sleep in there through the winter, or wake up there in the spring. And I am not going to visualize tomatoes having an orgy with the green peppers and the squash.”

“Bet you did. Anyway, how many of those raised things are you doing?”

Because she’d won the bet, he shoved a hand through his hair.

“We’ll select the right spot and decide on that. Or he will, as it’s in his wheelhouse and far out of mine.”

“Part of this idea is to give him a distraction, a positive one. He lost a friend, and he and his Urban Wars spy pals went through a lot. And a lot of that brought back memories of losing his wife. I get it.”

“He’s grieving still. It’s quiet and it’s internal, but it’s there. So dinner with the happy family, as they surely are, insults by you, which is a step into normality. And garden beds.”

“Whatever our issues with each other, I understand loss. And how sudden, violent loss twists up those left behind.”

“And he knows you do.”

“Okay, now that all goes in a box.”

Roarke studied her emerging board. “Did this girl with the pearl earring leave someone twisted up behind?”

“No. Pissy-Ass they called her, and that seems accurate from what I know. And she came by it natural enough. Neither parent had any interest in seeing her body, claiming it. I tracked down an aunt who didn’t even know about her who had more compassion than anyone else in her family.

“Let me ask you this,” she said as she continued to work. “Is there anything in the history or lore about this painting that’s weird or any kind of trigger? I couldn’t find anything that popped out.”

“They never identified the model, but Vermeer often used people at their work for his paintings. This one’s a bit unusual because she’s not at work, but aware of the onlooker. Hardly a trigger for murder. He had a family, worked at his art, certainly didn’t die wealthy or particularly famous.”

“Family. Maybe the killer’s a descendant, or thinks he is. Or sees himself as a reincarnated Vermeer guy. A replica,” she murmured. “As he used a replica for the portrait.”

She stopped and decided taking a few hours might have opened something.

“He did others—Vermeer? Other portraits?”

“He did, of course.”

Low odds he’d repeat the same portrait, but not low he could choose another from the same artist.

“Can you get me those—names, images—while I update the book?”

“Easily enough.”

“He left her body—and he used wire and glue to fix her in the pose—at the door of the basement level of a brownstone. Owned by people who own an art gallery.”

“That earns an ‘ah.’”

“Yeah. I’m looking for an artist, and I bet a pissy-ass one, who’s—we theorize—decided he’s underappreciated. Wants to make a splash anyway.”

“With murder.”

Eve rolled her shoulders. “You never know what people will kill for or over. Maybe he has a grudge against the Whittiers—the gallery owners. We interviewed a few today, but nobody clicked right in.

“Now I’m adding he either has money or spends it like he does. Probably the first because he has to have a private enough space to do what he’s done, most likely his own vehicle. Could have rented one, and that’s already a dead end because we don’t have a description of the vehicle.”

She circled the board.

“He could’ve taken her anywhere, but he had to see her first, plan all this. So he either scouted that area or lives close enough to have spotted her.”

She circled the board again. “He’s organized, precise. He sealed up before he strangled her. Used his hands when a cord’s easier, quicker.”

“But not as intimate.”

Eyes on the board, she pointed a finger at Roarke.

“That’s just right. If he is an artist, he at least started the portrait. Maybe a photographer, but then why not replicate a famous photograph?”

“An artist, or one who aspires to be,” Roarke agreed. “Someone who knows the Vermeer, or studied it enough to duplicate the costume—down to the way the scarves are tied.”

“Yeah, right down to that. I may catch a break tomorrow when Harvo does her magic with the fabrics. Until then, I’ve got this.”

“I’ll get you the other portraits.”

“Thanks.”

When he went into his office, Eve sat down at her command center.

“Open operations,” she ordered, and got to work.

By the time she’d updated her book, added to her notes, Roarke came back.

“That was fast.”

“It’s a simple search. A considerable number of paintings, but a simple search. I sent you thumbnails. You can expand them individually.”

“Great.” After opening the file, she sat back. “Shit, that is considerable.”

“You have a separate file on portraits of multiple people.”

“We’ll stick with this for now. Did he do anything besides paint? Like eat, sleep?”

“Says the woman at her command center long after the workday is done.”

Since she didn’t have a comeback for that one, she ignored the comment.

“He’s got old, young, male, female. A lot of detail. This one here? Study of a Young Woman ? It’s similar to the other. The way the head’s turned, a head scarf thing. Different model. Younger. Jesus.”

Now she scrubbed her hands over her face. “I don’t want to think about him going after a kid.”

As he felt the same, Roarke stepped behind her, rubbed at the tension in her shoulders.

“If he hits again before we find him, and if he sticks with this artist, I’ll have the cheat sheet. I’ll recognize the replication, for what that’s worth.”

She leaned back into his hands. “If he kills again, and sticks this way, there’s a connection to this artist. Vermeer. Maybe he’s delusional and thinks he’s Vermeer reborn. Or just obsessively admires the portraits. And maybe… he teaches or studies this art and artist. I can work with that.”

She looked over her shoulder. “Are any of these in New York?”

He reached over, hit expand on several. “These, at the Met, the Frick.”

“I don’t know what’s weirder, that I knew you’d know that or that you know that. But I can check there, see if anyone’s shown them unusual interest, or claimed ownership, something like that.”

Now she swiveled in the chair to face him. “Did you ever steal one of his?”

“Well, you could say I reacquired one.”

“You’ve got one here?” Reaching up, she pulled at her hair. “One of these?”

“I don’t, no. I might have, but at that time money trumped art collecting for me.” Amused, he smoothed down her hair. “It was stolen before I was born, from a museum in Boston. I happened to, as I said, reacquire it from a private collection in Dublin.”

“You stole it from the thief?”

“I reacquired it from a descendant of the thief, as this was roughly a half century after the original theft.” Nudging her over a bit, he called up the painting in question.

“ The Concert . Back in 1990, a group of thieves, disguised as coppers, bagged thirteen paintings from the museum in Boston—where the patron had acquired this particular work for only five thousand at a Paris auction.”

“So it wasn’t worth much.”

“Darling Eve, by the time I reacquired it, The Concert was valued at nearly four hundred million, and considered one of the most valuable unrecovered works.”

“For that?”

“It’s fascinating—the light, shadows, details. The details in the two paintings on the wall in the scene, the landscape painted on the lid of the harpsichord.”

He paused, and she imagined him imagining holding the painting in his hands, studying that light, those shadows, those details.

“In any case,” he continued, “I arranged for its discovery and return, for a tidy finder’s fee.”

“What’s tidy in your world?”

“As I recall, we negotiated and finalized at thirty-five million.”

“That’s pretty fucking tidy, Ace.”

Bending down, he kissed the top of her head. “It helped build this house. So, in a serendipitous way, it’s why we’re both here.”

“So we’re both here because a bunch of guys pretending to be cops stole a bunch of paintings in Boston last century?”

“And see how well that worked out? And since it did, and we are…” He pulled her up out of the chair. “Save data, close operations.”

“Hey!”

He cut off her protest with a long, hungry kiss even as he tugged off her jacket.