Page 20 of Framed in Death (In Death #61)

The walls of the living area hit a color a few shades lighter than Iona’s skin and held art. Like Peabody, she’d chosen with a variety of streetscapes here, all full of movement and color.

She’d gone quieter in the furniture, with a long white couch, another white two-seater, and a pair of chairs in the same blue as the door.

The fireplace held about a dozen white candles. The mantel above it held a sculpture of an elongated metal woman and a dark, deeply carved wooden box.

“Is there any damage?” she asked as she sat on the two-seater. “I should wake up my brother. He and his family have the other half of this building.”

“There’s no damage. A body was found in the gallery’s doorway.”

“A body? A—a person? A dead person!” The color fluctuated in her cheeks as her eyes rounded in shock. “Someone died trying to break in?”

“No. There’s no sign of an attempted break-in. Someone placed the body there early this morning.”

“Oh God, this is horrible.” Now she clutched at her throat as if to push the words out. “Is it someone I know?”

Eve pulled up Ren’s ID photo, offered it.

“No. I shouldn’t be relieved, but I am. I don’t know him. What happened? Oh, Mikha, thanks. Someone died in front of the gallery.”

“I’m so sorry. Can I sit with her, or…”

“No problem,” Eve told him.

When he did, he took Iona’s free hand.

“Ms. Beecham, do you know this painting?”

Eve brought up The Blue Boy .

“Of course. Gainsborough. I cut my teeth on art, sometimes literally. My great-grandmother founded the trust that supports the gallery. My grandfather and father are both artists. So’s my sister. She’s living in Italy right now. I don’t understand.”

“Yesterday,” Mikhail murmured, “there was a woman killed and posed like Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring .”

“I’d forgotten. I need this coffee. My mind is… Is this like that?”

“We believe so. Do you know the Whittiers?”

“Not personally, no. Grandy—my great-grandmother—knew everyone in the New York art world. And beyond. My father may. I know art, I value art, but Grandy asked me to run the gallery because while I didn’t inherit my father’s talent, I did my mother’s. And that’s for business.”

“This isn’t art. I’m sorry,” Mikhail said quickly. “It’s not for me to say.”

“Why isn’t it art?”

He shifted toward Eve. “This? Beyond the meanness of murder? A cheap gimmick, a cheap fake, and an excuse to hurt others. Whoever is doing this uses the genius of others, their talent, their history, and bastardizes their art.”

He lifted those broad, naked shoulders in a kind of apologetic shrug. “I feel strongly.”

“Mikhail’s an artist.”

“Not Gainsborough or Vermeer, but Barvynov. Myself. This person, this killer, he’s not an artist. He’s a pretender.”

“Because he copies to kill. Or,” Eve considers, “kills because he can only copy?”

“Either way, he’s a fake. That’s how I see it, and I should be quiet.”

“Let’s get this out of the way. The two of you were together last night?”

“We went to dinner,” Iona said. “About eight? Then a club. Then…” The faintest flush rose to that beautiful face, but Eve didn’t see it as embarrassment. More as fondly remembered pleasure.

“Then here. I guess we got back here about one?”

Mikhail just smiled at her. “I didn’t notice the time. It had already stopped.” Then he looked at Eve. “Iona has security. You can check and see that once we got here, we haven’t been out again.”

“If we could, it would tie that off.”

“Of course.” Iona rose. “I’ll show you.”

“Peabody.”

“We appreciate it, Ms. Beecham.” Peabody got to her feet. “I admire your collection of art,” she continued as she walked out with Iona.

“You have an interesting perspective on the killer.”

Mikhail lifted his shoulders again. “It’s how it strikes me, and I’m upset, angry that Iona’s gallery was used. But what do I know?”

“You’re an artist. You have that perspective. He must see himself as an artist, and obviously he has his.”

“Seeing himself as one doesn’t make him one. An artist, whether successful or struggling, has to own their art first. In here.”

He thumped a fist on that bare and muscular chest. “Whether you’re a hobbyist, a professional, whether you create to live or live to create, what you create has to be yours, you see. Or you’re nothing. You have to own it, or you create nothing.”

He edged forward. “Two people look at a work of art. One thinks: I don’t get it, or that’s crap. The other sees something that lifts them, that inspires or engages or simply speaks to them. Both are true, and the artist owns both.”

“How do you feel when someone looks at your work and thinks it’s crap?”

“Pain, anger, sorrow. Then I use all of that in the next work. You can’t create for either of the two people who see two different things, but only for yourself. So you own your art.”

“What if I said the killer’s art is the kill?”

He blinked at her. “Oh, I see. I’d say I hope you find him quickly because… wouldn’t he need to create another work?”

“All clear, Lieutenant.” Peabody came back with Iona. “The security feed shows both of them coming in just after one A.M . No one in or out after until our arrival.”

“All right. Ms. Beecham, if we could ask you for a list of featured artists, rejected artists, employees, former employees.”

“Sure. We actually don’t use the term rejected . Just unsuitable for our needs at this time .”

“I’m one of the featured artists. I’m happy to give you whatever information you need.”

“Appreciate it. Peabody.” Eve turned back to Iona. “Do any of the unsuitables stick in your mind? Someone who caused a scene, or threatened you or anyone else in any way?”

“Some are certainly disappointed, some are even angry if we feel unable to take on their work. We’re fairly small, and we select with care. If I could think about it? I could discuss it with our manager and staff.”

“That works.” Eve handed her a card. “We’re sorry to have disturbed you so early, and appreciate your time and cooperation.”

“Whatever I can do to help. Art and artists are an essential part of my life, and always have been. And the gallery? A woman I loved and admired so much entrusted it to me. He can’t get away with using that for his sickness.”

As they walked back to the car, Peabody smiled. “They’re either already crazy in love or heading there fast.”

“Yeah, that’s the important thing I got out of that conversation.”

“It’s a nice thing. Who can’t use a nice thing when they start off the day with Dead Blue Boy? And holy shitfire, that guy was ripped. Cut. Built. An Adonis.”

“And you know what else he was? Insightful. Let’s go see how Dead Blue Boy lived.”

He had a flop on the edge of Times Square above a shawarma joint and a game parlor. Eve parked in a loading zone, engaged her On Duty light. With Peabody, she wound her way through the endless party that swarmed the streets, the twenty-four-hour shops, the parade of LCs taking the early shift.

She smelled Zoner and cheap brew, whatever passed for meat on cart grills.

About half the party was drunk or stoned or on the prowl, the other half came to gawk, and half of those would end up having their pockets picked.

Either by nimble fingers or laying out cash at a pop-up for a designer wrist unit on the cheap that would stop working before they got back to Milwaukee.

She felt the brush and bump, pivoted and grabbed the hand trying to lift her ’link out of her pocket.

“Are you serious?”

“Hey! Get off me, bitch!”

The woman, maybe twenty, with a rainbow fright wig and fake face tattoos, took a swing. Eve dodged it, and with a solid grip on the captured wrist, gave the woman a solid bump in the gut with her field kit.

That brought on a shriek that could have shattered glass.

“Help! Help!”

Eve countered with, “Cop, cop.”

Peabody held up her badge, and more than one someone in the crowd started recording.

“I was just walking here.”

“With your hand in my pocket? What else you got?”

Eve handed her field kit to Peabody, then gave the thief’s trench coat a little shake. She heard rattles and clunks.

“Sounds like you had a pretty good night.” Eve added a smile. “Up till now.”

“Give me a break. I was just walking.” She turned to appeal to bystanders. “Police brutality!”

She stomped on Eve’s foot, tried another swing, easily blocked with a forearm.

“That’s called assaulting an officer. Peabody, pull in a couple of uniforms. You’re under arrest.”

The woman struggled, wiggled, bounced, elbow jabbed as Eve turned her to snap on restraints.

A couple of wallets, a wrist unit, and a ’link spilled out of the overfilled inner pockets of the trench.

“Anyone who tries to snag what just fell on the ground’s going to end up like her,” Eve warned.

Now the woman tried tears. “I was starving! I’ve got no place to sleep.”

“Hey, I smell bullshit. But anyway, now you’ll get three hots and a cot, problem solved.”

Peabody juggled the field kits, got out an evidence bag for the loot on the sidewalk. She managed to seal and label as two uniforms jogged up.

Once they made the transfer, Eve took back her field kit.

“Nothing more to see here.” Peabody put on her stern face, waved a hand. “Move along. I really wanted to say that,” Peabody muttered to Eve as they continued down the street. “She actually tried to pick your pocket.”

“Sloppy with it. She should’ve quit while she was ahead.”

“How’s your foot?”

“Fine. Good boots.”

“Mag-looking, too. Love the laces.”

“Of course you do.”

Eve turned to the residential door of Ren’s building. On its chipped red paint someone had painted an enormous penis at full alert.

Inside, the stairway loomed straight ahead. Eve didn’t consider the single elevator. Even if she had, the OUT OF ORDER sign overscored with a Fuck You Simon in red marker would have sealed the deal.

“Fourth floor,” Peabody said. “Now I earn the schmear on the bagel I inhaled this morning. McNab made it for me,” she continued as they started the climb.