A Darkness More Than Night

by Michael Connelly

  “How so?”

  “Well, Monique’s getting us one so you can see, but essentially this one has been repainted a little bit and the screeching mechanism has been removed. Also, we have a proprietary label we attach here at the base and that’s gone.”

  He pointed to the rear of the base.

  “Let’s start with the painting,” Winston said. “What was done?”

  Before Riddell answered, there was a single knock on the door and a woman came in carrying another owl which was wrapped in plastic. Riddell told her to put it down on the desk and remove the plastic. McCaleb noticed that she made a face when she saw the painted black eyes of the owl Winston had brought. Riddell thanked her and she left the office.

  McCaleb studied the side-by-side owls. The evidence owl had been painted darker. The Bird Barrier owl had five colors on its feathers, including white and light blue, as well as plastic eyes with pupils rimmed in a reflective amber color. Also, the new owl was sitting atop a black plastic base.

  “As you can see, the owl you brought has been repainted,” Riddell said. “Especially the eyes. When you paint over them like that, you lose a lot of the effect. These are called foil-reflect eyes. The layer of foil in the plastic catches light and gives the eyes the appearance of movement.”

  “So the birds think it is real.”

  “Exactly. You lose that when you paint them like this.”

  “We don’t think the person that painted this was worried about birds. What else is different?”

  Riddell just shook his head.

  “Just that the plumage has been darkened quite a bit. You can see that.”

  “Yes. Now you said the mechanism has been removed. What mechanism?”

  “We get these from Ohio and then we paint them and attach one of two mechanisms. What you see here is our standard model.”

  Riddell picked the owl up and showed them the underside. The black plastic base swiveled as he turned it. It made a loud screeching sound.

  “Hear the screech?”

  “Yes, that’s enough, Mr. Riddell.”

  “Sorry. But you see, the owl sits on this base and reacts to the wind. As it turns, it emits the screech and sounds like a predator. Works well, as long as the wind is blowing. We also have a deluxe model with an electronic insert in the base. It contains a speaker that emits recorded sounds of predator birds like the hawk. No reliance on wind.”

  “Can you get one without either one of the inserts?”

  “Yes, you can purchase a replacement that fits over one of our proprietary bases. In case the owl is damaged or lost. With exposure, particularly in marine settings, the paint lasts two to three years and after that the owl might lose some of its effectiveness. You have to repaint or simply get a new owl. The reality is, the mold is the least expensive part of the ensemble.”

  Winston looked over at McCaleb. He had nothing to add or ask in the line of questioning she was pursuing. He simply nodded at her and she turned back to Riddell.

  “Okay, then, I think we want to see if there is a method of tracing this owl from this point to its eventual owner.”

  Riddell looked at the owl for a long moment as if it might be able to answer the question itself.

  “Well, that could be difficult. It’s a commodity item. We sell several thousand a year. We ship to retail outlets as well as sell through mail order catalogs and an Internet Web site.”

  He snapped his fingers.

  “There is one thing that will cut it down some, though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “They changed the mold last year. In China. They did some research and decided the horned owl was considered a higher threat to other birds than the round head. They changed to the horns.”

  “I’m not quite following you, Mr. Riddell.”

  He held up a finger as if to tell her wait a moment. He then opened a desk drawer and dug through some paperwork. He came out with a catalog and quickly started turning pages. McCaleb saw that Bird Barrier’s primary business was not plastic owls, but large-scale bird deterrent systems that encompassed netting and wire coils and spikes. Riddell found the page showing the plastic owls and turned the catalog so that Winston and McCaleb could view it.

  “This is last year’s catalog,” he said. “You see the owl has the round head. The manufacturer changed last June, about seven months ago. Now we have these guys.”

  He pointed to the two owls on the table.

  “The feathering turns up into the two points, or ears, on the top of the head. The sales rep said these are called horns and that these types of owls are sometimes called devil owls.”

  Winston glanced at McCaleb, who raised his eyebrows momentarily.

  “So you’re saying this owl we have was ordered or bought since June,” she said to Riddell.

  “More like since August or maybe September. They changed in June but we probably didn’t start receiving the new mold until late July. We also would have sold off our existing supplies of the round head first.”

  Winston then questioned Riddell about sales records and determined that information from mail order and Web site purchases was kept complete and current on the company’s computer files. But point-of-purchase sales from shipments to major hardware and home and marine products retailers would obviously not be recorded. He turned to the computer on his desk and typed in a few commands. He then pointed to the screen, though McCaleb and Winston were not at angles where they could see it.

  “All right, I asked for sales of those part numbers since August one,” he said.

  “Part numbers?”

  “Yes, for the standard and deluxe models and then the replacement molds. We show we self-shipped four hundred and fourteen total. We also shipped six hundred even to retailers.”

  “And what you’re telling us is that we can only trace, through you at least, the four hundred fourteen.”

  “Correct.”

  “You have the names of buyers and the addresses the owls were shipped to there?”

  “Yes, we do.”

  “And are you willing to share this information with us without need of a court order?”

  Riddell frowned as if the question was absurd.

  “You said you’re working on a murder, right?”

  “Right.”

  “We don’t require a court order. If we can help, we want to help.”

  “That’s very refreshing, Mr. Riddell.”

  • • •

  They sat in Winston’s car and reviewed the computer printouts Riddell had given them. The evidence box containing the owl was between them on the seat. There were three printouts, divided by orders for the deluxe, standard or replacement owls. McCaleb asked to see the replacement list because his instincts told him the owl in Edward Gunn’s apartment had been bought for the express purpose of playing a part in the murder scene and therefore no attachment mechanisms were needed. Additionally, the replacement owl was the least expensive.

  “We better find something here,” Winston said as her eyes scanned the list of purchasers of the standard owl model. “Because chasing down buyers through the Home Depots and other retailers is going to mean court orders and lawyers and — hey, the Getty’s on here. They ordered four.”

  McCaleb looked over at her and thought about that. Finally, he shook his shoulders and went back to his list. Winston moved on as well, continuing her listing of the difficulties they would face if they had to go to the retail outlets where the horned owl was sold. McCaleb tuned her out when he got to the third-to-the-last name on his list. He traced his finger from a name he recognized along a line on the printout detailing the address the owl was shipped to, method of payment, origin of purchase order and the name of the person receiving it if different from purchaser. His breath must have caught, because Winston picked up on his vibe.

  “What?”

  “I got something here.”

  He held the printout across the seat to her and pointed to the line.

  “
This buyer. Jerome Van Aiken. He had one shipped the day before Christmas to Gunn’s address and apartment number. The order was paid for by a money order.”

  She took the printout from him and started reading the information.

  “Shipped to the Sweetzer address but to a Lubbert Das care of Edward Gunn. Lubbert Das. Nobody named Lubbert Das came up in the investigation. I don’t remember that name on the residents list of that building, either. I’ll call Rohrshak to see if Gunn ever had a roommate with that name.”

  “Don’t bother. Lubbert Das never lived there.”

  She looked up from the pages and over at him.

  “You know who Lubbert Das is?”

  “Sort of.”

  Her brow creased deeply.

  “Sort of? Sort of? What about Jerome Van Aiken?”

  He nodded. Winston dropped the pages on the box between them. She looked at him with an expression that imparted both curiosity and annoyance.

  “Well, Terry, I think it’s about time you started telling me what you know.”

  McCaleb nodded again and put his hand on the door handle.

  “Why don’t we go over to my boat? We can talk there.”

  “Why don’t we talk right here, right fucking now?”

  McCaleb tried a small smile on her.

  “Because it’s what you’d call an audiovisual demonstration.”

  He opened the door and got out, then looked back in at her.

  “I’ll see you over there, okay?”

  She shook her head.

  “You better have one hell of a profile worked out for me.”

  Then he shook his head.

  “I don’t have a profile ready for you yet, Jaye.”

  “Then what do you have?”

  “A suspect.”

  He closed the door then and he could hear her muffled curses as he walked to his car. As he crossed the parking lot a shadow fell over him and everything else. He looked up to see the Goodyear blimp cross overhead, totally eclipsing the sun.

  17

  They reconvened fifteen minutes later on The Following Sea. McCaleb got out some Cokes and told Winston to sit on the stuffed chair at the end of the coffee table in the salon. In the parking lot he had told her to bring the plastic owl with her to the boat. He now used two paper towels to remove it from its box and place it on the table in front of her. Winston watched him, her lips tight with annoyance. McCaleb told her he understood her anger at being manipulated on her own case but added that she would be back in control of things as soon as he presented his findings.

  “All I can say, Terry, is that this better be fucking good.” He remembered that he had once noted on the inside file flap on the first case he ever worked with her that she was prone to using profanity when under stress. He had also noted that she was smart and intuitive. He hoped now that those characteristics had not changed.

  He stepped over to the counter where he had his presentation file waiting. He opened it and took the top sheet over to the coffee table. He pushed the Bird Barrier printout aside and put the sheet down at the base of the plastic owl.

  “What do you think, this our bird?”

  Winston leaned forward to study the color image he had put down. It was an enlarged detail from the Bosch painting The Garden of Earthly Delights showing the nude man embracing the dark owl with shining black eyes. He had cut it and other details from the Marijnissen book. He watched as Winston’s eyes moved back and forth between the plastic owl and the detail from the painting.

  “I’d say it’s a match,” she finally said. “Where’d you get this, the Getty? You should have told me about this yesterday, Terry. What the fuck is going on?”

  McCaleb raised his hands in a calming gesture.

  “I’ll explain everything. Just let me show you this stuff the way I want to. Then I’ll answer any question you ask.”

  She waved a hand, indicating he could go on. He went over to the counter and got the second sheet and brought it over. He put it down in front of her.

  “Same painter, different painting.”

  She looked. It was a detail from The Last Judgment depicting the sinner bound in the reverse fetal position, waiting to be delivered to hell.

  “Don’t do this to me. Who painted these?”

  “I’ll tell you in a minute.”

  He went back to the counter and the file.

  “Is this guy still alive?” she called after him.

  He walked the third sheet over and put it down on the table next to the other two.

  “He’s been dead about five hundred years.”

  “Jesus.”

  She picked up the third sheet and looked closely at it. It was the full copy of the Seven Deadly Sins tabletop.

  “That’s supposed to be God’s eye seeing all the sins of the world,” McCaleb explained. “You recognize the words in the center, running around the iris?”

  “Beware, beware . . . ,” she whispered the translation. “Oh, God, we’ve got a real nut here. Who is this?”

  “One more. This one really falls into place now.”

  He went back to the file for the fourth time and came back with another reproduction of a painting from the Bosch book. He handed it to her.

  “It’s called The Stone Operation. In medieval times it was believed by some that an operation to remove a stone from the brain was a cure for stupidity and deceit. Note the location of the incision.”

  “I noted, I noted. Just like our guy. What’s all of this around here?”

  She traced the exterior of the circular painting with a finger. In the outer black margin were words that were once ornately painted in gold but which had deteriorated over time and were almost indecipherable.

  “The translation is ‘Master, cut out the stone. My name is Lubbert Das.’ The critical literature on the painter who created this piece notes that in his time the name Lubbert was a derisive name applied to those who were perverted or stupid.”

  Winston put the sheet down on top of the others and raised her hands, palms out.

  “All right, Terry, enough. Who was the painter and who is this suspect you say you’ve come up with?”

  McCaleb nodded. It was time.

  “The painter’s name was Jerome Van Aiken. He was Netherlandish, considered to be one of the greats of the Northern Renaissance. But his paintings were dark, full of monsters and phantasmic demons. Owls, too. Lots of owls. The literature suggests the owls found in his paintings symbolized everything from evil to doom to the fall of mankind.”

  He sorted through the sheets on the coffee table and held up the detail of the man embracing the owl.

  “This kind of says it all about him. Man’s embracing of evil — the devil owl, to use Mr. Riddell’s description — leads to the inevitable destiny of hell. Here’s the whole painting.”

  He went back to the file and brought to her the full copy of The Garden of Earthly Delights. He watched her eyes as she studied the images. He saw repulsion as well as fascination. He pointed out the four owls he had found in the painting, including the detail he had already shown her.

  She suddenly pulled the sheet aside and looked at him.

  “Wait a minute. I know I’ve seen this before. In a book or maybe an art class I took at CSUN. But I never heard of this Van Aiken, I don’t think. He painted this?”

  McCaleb nodded.

  “The Garden of Earthly Delights. Van Aiken painted it but you never heard of him because he wasn’t known by his real name. He used the Latin version of Jerome and took the name of his hometown for a last name. He was known as Hieronymus Bosch.”

  She just looked at him for a long moment as it all clicked together, the images he had shown her, the names on the printout, her knowledge of the Edward Gunn case.

  “Bosch,” she said, almost as an expulsion of breath. “Is Hieronymus . . . ?”

  She didn’t finish. McCaleb nodded.

  “Yeah, that’s Harry’s real name.”

  • • •

/>   They were both pacing in the salon now, heads down but careful not to collide. Talking in sprints, a bad but fast-moving jazz in their blood.

  “This is too far out there, McCaleb. Do you know what you are saying?”

  “I know exactly what I’m saying. And don’t think that I didn’t think long and hard about it before I said it. I consider him to be a friend, Jaye. There was . . . I don’t know, at one time I thought we were a lot alike. But look at this stuff, look at the connections, the parallels. It fits. It all fits.”