Page 19 of Framed in Death (In Death #61)

The cat looked at Roarke; Roarke looked at the cat. Then he shrugged. “Well then, I don’t suppose there’s any harm in a bite or two of an omelet.”

As he caved and crumbled a slice of bacon over a portion of the eggs, Eve drove through the gates.

Not the gallery owners, this time, she thought, but a gallery. Midtown rather than downtown. That took location out of the mix, but left the art world at the center.

She’d hoped for another day, some data from the lab to work on before she stood over another body. But no cooling-off period for this one. She’d add impatient, likely driven, organized, precise, and in her opinion, batshit.

As she headed south, pockets of the city yawned itself awake. Light flicking on in windows, a handful of people taking the stairs down to the subway, the inevitable blat of a maxibus rolling to a stop for another handful to get off, yet another to drag themselves on.

She rounded the corner, noted the cruiser, saw the barricade already in place. Two uniforms stood with a man in red-and-black-checked pants, white T-shirt, and what looked like old house skids.

He had a fluffy, tail-swinging yellow dog on a leash.

She pulled in behind the cruiser, then held up her badge as she crossed to the police tape, then under.

And noted she wouldn’t literally stand over the body, initially at least, as the body itself stood in the recessed doorway of the gallery.

The dog bounded to her, dragged the guy on the other end of the leash along. With eyes crazed with love, the dog planted his paws on her legs.

“Sorry! Sorry! Hand to God, he’s harmless. Still a puppy, and real friendly. C’mon, Bouncer, get down!”

Bouncer got down, and immediately attacked the fake laces in Eve’s boots.

“Aw, jeez.” Instead of tugging, the man hauled the dog up in his arms, where it wiggled joyfully and lapped at his face.

“Six months old, that’s all. We got him for the kids, and you can see who’s walking him before the damn sun comes up.

I was walking him, and I see… I thought it was a display, you know?

And Bouncer’s headed over because he thinks it’s a person, and he’s never met a person he doesn’t love. ”

“Did either you or the dog touch the body, Mister…”

“Franks, Glenn Franks. No. I managed to hold him back, and I started to… I thought it was a display, until. Jeez, what a way to start the day.”

He paused a moment, shifted the puppy. “I called nine-one-one, and the officers, they got here real fast. I’m glad they got here fast. It’s, sorry, but it’s creepy. All dressed up like that, and standing there dead. It’s really fucking—sorry—creepy.”

“Did you see anyone else in the area, Mr. Franks?”

“I sure didn’t. We live just up on the next block. This one woke me up like every morning. Like ‘Man, I gotta go.’ But does he?”

“Do you usually walk this way at this time?”

“Time’s pretty regular. Sometimes we go the other way. Mix it up, you know? It can take a few blocks before he does what he got me out of bed to do. Usually don’t see anybody else walking around.”

Since Bouncer looked ready to leap out of the man’s arms and into hers, Eve shifted back a little, pulled out a card. “If I could have your contact information? This is mine if you think of anything else.”

“Sure, sure. I gave mine to the officers.” He repeated it for Eve, took her card. “I’m going to walk him back now.” He took another quick glance toward the doorway. “Man, you couldn’t pay me enough to do your job.”

“I’d add weird to creepy. Officer Cunningham, Lieutenant.

Mr. Franks and Bouncer’s nine-one-one relayed to us at zero-five-forty-two.

Officer Su and I arrived on scene at zero-five-forty-six.

We determined, visually, the individual who looks like he went to a costume party was dead.

We secured the scene and took Mr. Franks’s statement. ”

“Bouncer had plenty to say,” Su added. “But we didn’t have an interpreter. Nice pup. We had the alert about the body downtown, the weird outfit angle and all that, so informed Dispatch.”

Since the sun had yet to rise, Cunningham shined his flashlight on the body. “You can see the wires and the plank of something holding him up there. Looks like a kid, and that adds ugly to creepy and weird.”

“All right. Stand by.”

She didn’t recognize the pose or costume from her cheat sheet, but checked.

Nowhere did she find a portrait of a boy or young man wearing a fancy blue jacket with a lacy white color, matching pants that stopped at the knee, white stockings, shoes with blue bows on them.

He had a black hat with a white feather held down by his side in his right hand, and his left cocked on his hip.

He had curly brown hair past that lacy collar, with some swept over his forehead. He stared straight ahead, unsmiling.

To save time, Eve tagged Roarke.

“How can I help?”

“Tell me if there’s a painting like this.”

“ The Blue Boy ,” he said immediately. “Gainsborough. Thomas Gainsborough. The original is, ah—let me think—in the Huntington, in California.”

He paused a moment. “So it’s not a connection to Vermeer after all.”

“Were they pals, associates, competitors?”

“As the two paintings were done about a hundred years apart, that’s not an angle for you.”

“Okay. Thanks. I have to get to the body.”

She pocketed her ’link, opened her field kit, and sealed up.

“The victim is a Caucasian male, dressed in a blue costume, with white lacy collar and cuffs, white stockings to the knee with blue ribbons holding them up, and a kind of blue cape over the jacket. There’s some white detailing on the jacket from the armpit to about halfway to the elbow.

He’s holding a black hat with a white feather in his right hand. ”

She used her penlight. “The hat’s glued to the hand. The left is set on the left hip with glue. The body is posed in a standing position, wired to a board propped in the doorway.”

She lifted the material covering the left hand, managed to maneuver the pad to get a fingerprint.

“Victim is identified as Robert Ren, age twenty-three, residence 716 Seventh Avenue, number 4-D. Victim is a licensed companion, street level. Mother, Suzann Ren, Bronx; father deceased; one sibling, female, age twenty-one, Rachel Ren. Victim is single, no official cohabs.”

Shifting, she used a fingertip to ease the chin up, hit resistance immediately.

“The head’s glued in position. Visible indications of strangulation. Manual. Eyelids glued open, lips glued closed. It looks like some lip dye, some color added to the cheeks. Well, Christ, the hair on the forehead’s glued in place. It’s a wig, but glued in place.”

“Sick bastard,” Su commented from behind her.

Eve just grunted and got out her gauges. “Time of death, oh-three-ten.”

Behind her, she heard Peabody’s voice and Cunningham’s response.

“Shit,” Peabody said as she stepped closer. “It’s The Blue Boy .”

“So Roarke tells me. Robert Ren, another street level. Carted here on this board, glued and wired. He wanted this one standing.”

“It’s a full-length portrait. The original, I mean.”

“And it has to be exact, every detail exact.”

“Let me pull up the original.”

When she had, she held it out for Eve to see.

“The victim looks younger than twenty-three, but still a little older than the model in the portrait. But the build’s close, and I’d say the height.

And look, Dallas, the board’s painted to replicate the background of the painting.

See the colors—dark with some light around the shoulders, and right around the hat and the cocked elbow, some green that goes into brown.

“It doesn’t have the same… flair, I guess, for light, shadow,” Peabody added, “but it’s the same background.”

“Yeah, I see it. Exact, precise. This takes time, and still he kills two in two days. Pulls them in, dresses them up. Takes—at least took a couple hours with Culver. Facts not in evidence, but I’m saying he starts painting them, or takes photos.

He needed this one standing, so needed the board.

Can’t just have a board. It needs to represent the background in the original. ”

“He’d have had that ready.”

“Yeah. Still took time. Have the officers seal up. Let’s turn this board. We’ll get the back on record. And I want measurements on the record.”

When they’d turned it, Peabody measured.

“It’s seventy inches high, twenty-two-and-a-half inches wide. And I can tell you this board is man-made. Lightweight composite.”

“What’s the painting? Measurements.”

“Oh, good one.” Peabody did the search. “Seventy inches tall, forty-four-point-one wide. So he went for the full height, but cut the width in half.”

“Needed the height, not the full width. Harder to carry something that wide. And the background? Afterthought for him. It’s the portrait, the person. Let’s call for the morgue, tag for Morris, and get the sweepers.”

While Peabody did that, Eve looked up the owner of the gallery.

She found a trust in the name of Harriet Beecham, enacted four years prior at her death—at a hundred and eighteen.

“On their way,” Peabody told Eve.

“The gallery was the home of a Harriet Beecham, big patron of the arts. In her will, she decreed the town house be opened as a gallery. Her great-granddaughter operates the place, and she lives close enough. We’ll go inform her, then take the victim’s place.

“Officers, hold the scene.”

“Two days running,” Peabody said as they got into Eve’s car. “We deserve coffee.”

“The victim deserves wide-awake investigators, so coffee.”

“One of these days when I’m on the roll, I’m going to wake up and have breakfast with McNab in our mag kitchen. Or maybe on our sweet patio. But for now.”

She handed Eve coffee.

“You were probably up and dressed again.”

“I was.” And paperwork would, again, have to wait. “Nine-one-one caller was walking his dog.”

“Early for that. I’m guessing puppy or senior dog.”

“He said puppy. It’s the second time on this we got lucky with a witness and an early nine-one-one. Before oh-six hundred for both.”

“Tell me,” Peabody said, and yawned.

“But he got luckier placing the body earlier than that. Did you read the report from my interviews with Culver’s coworkers?”

“I scanned it on the subway. This victim wasn’t one of those.”

“No. We’ll find out what area he worked after we talk to the gallery operator. This widens the killer’s territory. He’s got his own transportation, and a vehicle big enough to carry a seventy-inch board.”

She found Iona Beecham’s address—half of a three-story duplex, a well-secured brownstone six spotless steps above street level. Flowerpots flanked the door painted in what Eve thought of now as Dreamy Peabody Blue.

Eve pressed the buzzer.

The computer-generated system answered promptly.

Barring emergency, the resident is currently unavailable to guests. Please leave your name, contact, and a brief summary of your business.

Eve held up her badge. “Lieutenant Dallas and Detective Peabody, NYPSD. Inform Ms. Beecham we need to speak with her.”

One moment while your identification is scanned and verified.

… Please wait while the resident is informed.

“Nice place.” Peabody glanced up. “A light just went on, second floor.”

“Yeah, I saw it.”

It took another couple minutes before the door opened.

“Who’s hurt? My family—”

“We’re not here about your family, Ms. Beecham. We’re here about an incident at your gallery.”

“Oh! Someone broke in!”

“No. I believe the building is secure. If we could come in and speak to you?”

“Oh, yeah, sure. Sorry. I was sound asleep.”

For a woman who’d just been roused, Iona Beecham managed to look stunning, with messy waves of black hair tumbled around a face with perfect skin that blended warm brown and rich cream. She had sleepy eyes of blue that edged toward lavender.

Slim and petite in a blue tee and white sleep baggies, she stepped back just as someone called down the stairs.

“Iona? Everything okay?”

She glanced back at the man who stood at the top of the steps wearing nothing but black pants, unfastened, over a build that dreams are made on.

“Yes. Just something about the gallery.”

“Do you want me to bring you some coffee?”

“Oh… Yes, actually. Thanks.”

“And your guests?”

“We’re good.”

Iona gestured to the living space.

“That’s Mikhail. Big date last night.” She eased out a breath. “Really big. Please sit down, tell me what happened.”