by Greg Iles
“That’s why you took time out to do this book you were doing?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve been wanting to do that for a long time?”
“Yes.” I look back at Kaiser, into the hazel eyes that appear to hold genuine curiosity. “But once I really started, I wasn’t sure it was going to give me what I wanted out of it.”
“What was that?”
“I’m not sure.”
Our omelets and juice arrive, but neither of us lifts a fork.
“May I ask you a personal question?” he says.
“You can ask.”
“You’ve never been married?”
“That’s right. Does that shock you?”
“It surprises me. Not many heterosexual women who look like you make it to forty without getting married at least once.”
“Is that a nice way of asking what’s wrong with me?”
Kaiser laughs. “It’s a nice way of being nosy.”
“You’d think I’d be a prize catch, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, I would.”
“A lot of guys think that. From a distance.”
“What’s wrong up close?”
“I’m not like most women.”
“How so?”
“Well, it goes like this. I meet a guy. Good-looking, successful, independent. Doctor, journalist, investment banker, A-list actor. Whatever. He can’t wait to go out with me. I’m a not-so-ugly woman in what a lot of people see as a glamour job. The first few dates, he shows me off to his friends. We like each other. We get intimate. Then, in a week or a month, I get a new assignment. Afghanistan. Brazil. Bosnia. Egypt. And not a fly-in-and-out Dan Rather junket. A month on the ground schlepping cameras. Maybe this particular guy is making international partner the next week and wants me at his celebration party. Maybe the Oscars are next week. But I take the assignment. I won’t even discuss turning it down. And by the time I get back, he’s decided maybe the relationship isn’t working out after all.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“Because most guys have the one-up gene.”
“The what?”
“The one-up gene. They have to be in the superior position. They love the idea of being with me. But the reality is far from what they envision. Some don’t like that I make more money than they do. The ones who make more money than I do don’t like it when their friends act like my job is more important than theirs. Some can’t take the fact that I have a higher priority than them in my life. I don’t mean to complain about it. I just want you to understand.”
“I make sixty-eight thousand dollars a year,” says Kaiser. “I know you make more than that.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw your tax return.”
“You what?”
“We had to rule you out as a suspect. That was part of it.”
“Great.”
“But I don’t think your job is any more important than mine.” He picks up a fork and takes a bite of his omelet. “Do you?”
“No.”
“And I know I’m not the highest priority in your life.”
“True.”
“And I’m perfectly okay with that.”
I watch him as he pours hot sauce on his omelet, but I can’t read anything in his eyes. “What are we talking about?”
“I think you know.”
“Well, at least we’re on the same page.”
He smiles, and this time his white teeth show and his eyes sparkle. “I didn’t really come here to say that, but I’m glad I did. I feel awkward because of your sister.”
“That has nothing to do with my sister. What happened to Jane only confirmed something I learned a long time ago. If you wait to do things you want to do or ought to do, you may be dead before you get the chance.”
“I learned that too. In Vietnam. But it’s easy to lose sight of it in the rush of everyday life. To get so caught up in what you’re doing, people depending on you, that you develop tunnel vision. You know that feeling?”
“For a long time, the only part of the world I saw was through a lens.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m drifting. Until I found the paintings, anyway. But beneath that, I’m not really tethered to anything.”
“Can you handle another personal question?”
“Might as well.”
“Lenz told me you weren’t close to your sister. Yet you’re doing far more than any relative involved in this case. You’ve made it your mission to find her, or to find the truth. How do you explain that?”
How do I explain that? “I didn’t tell Lenz everything. Jane and I had problems growing up, yes. Some of those problems lasted into adulthood. But about three years ago, I had a bad health scare. I’d gone to the emergency room for pain, and the next thing I knew, I was in the oncology ward. They thought I had ovarian cancer. I was lucky it happened in San Francisco, and not while I was on assignment somewhere. But my friends were on assignment. I was alone and scared to death.”
I pause and swallow, fighting the lump rising in my throat. “Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke up to find Jane standing beside my bed, holding my hand. I thought I was dreaming. She said she’d awakened from a dead sleep the night before. She felt a painful shock go through her, like a labor contraction, and her mind filled with an image of my face. She called my house and got my machine. Then she called my agency and found out I was in the hospital. She left the kids with Marc and flew straight out to be with me. She slept in that hospital room for four days. She wheeled me to the tests, handled the doctors and nurses, everything. She never left my side.”
“You hadn’t been close before that?”
“No. And I’m not saying the sins of the past were magically redeemed. But she told me some things. She said that as she got older, she’d begun to understand the sacrifices I’d made to take care of her when we were kids. That she knew I’d only wanted the best for her, even if I didn’t always know what that was. I told her I respected the life she’d made for herself, even though I’d belittled it before. It meant a lot to her.” I pick up my fork and draw imaginary circles on the countertop. “It’s easy to feel independent when you’re young, that you don’t need anybody. But as time passes, family starts to matter. And with our mother in the shape she’s in, Jane and I only had each other.”
“You’re speaking in the past tense.”
“I don’t know what I believe right now. All I know is that I have to find her. Dead, alive, whatever. She’s my blood, and I love her. It’s that simple. I have to find my sister.”
Kaiser reaches out and gently squeezes my wrist. “You will, Jordan.”
“Thanks.”
“Have you ever wanted your own family? To settle down, have kids, the whole thing?”
“Every woman I ever knew wanted that in some form or fashion.”
“And you?”
“I hear the clock ticking. I visited my nephew and niece last night, and my feelings for them overwhelmed me.”
He glances down the counter. “Wendy said there might have been some trouble over there. At your brother-in-law’s.”
“You know, I can take you guys in my life up to a point. But there’s a line you don’t cross.”
“She only told us because it’s her job to protect you.”
“I won’t give up all my privacy to be protected.” I take a long sip of my coffee and try to keep my temper in check. “Just what do you know about me, anyway? My medical records? Everything down to my bra size?”
“I don’t know your bra size.” His face is absolutely serious.
“Do you want to?”
“I think I’m up to investigating the question.”
“Given adequate time, you mean.”
“Naturally.” He takes a sip of juice and wipes his mouth with his napkin. “How much time do you think that would be?”
“At least four hours. Uninterrupted.”
“We won’t get four h
ours tomorrow.”
“And we don’t have it tonight.”
He looks again at Wendy, who’s making a point of not looking at us. “No, we don’t. The task force is meeting right now in the Emergency Operations Center. I have to get back, and I don’t know when I can get out of it.”
“Speaking of that, you told de Becque you’re having trouble matching the abstract faces in the paintings to victims, right?”
Kaiser nods. “Eleven victims, nineteen paintings. Two major problems. There must be victims we don’t know about. Murders or disappearances that don’t match the crime signature exactly. Maybe they were hookers or runaways rather than society women, and nobody reported them missing. Maybe we’ve actually found their bodies, but since they match the more abstract paintings, we can’t tell. But a Jefferson Parish detective and I have gone over every homicide and missing person in New Orleans for the past three years, and we only have a handful of possibles, none very likely.”
“How many paintings have you matched to known victims?”
“Six definitive matches out of eleven. Two strong probables. But the faces are so vague in some of the paintings, or so distorted, that we just can’t get anywhere with them.”
“Who do you have working on them?”
“The University of Arizona. They’ve done great work for us in the past. Digital photo enhancement.”
“But not this time?”
“Not so far.”
“I think that’s because what you want in this case isn’t really photo enhancement. The distortions you want to correct aren’t the result of blur or a lack of resolution that masks reality. They’re distortions created in the mind of a human being, perhaps an insane one. They may have little or no correspondence with reality.”
Kaiser watches me with an unblinking gaze. “What do you suggest?”
“I know some photographers who work exclusively in the digital domain. I don’t want to mention names, but I recall one of them talking about a system that was being developed for the government—the CIA or NSA or somebody—for satellite photo interpretation. Its purpose was to try to bring visual coherence out of chaos. He couldn’t say much about it, and I wasn’t that interested, but I remember that much.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Two or three years.”
“Did this system have a name?”
“At the time he called it Argus. You know, the mythical beast with a hundred eyes?”
“I’ll ask Baxter to talk to the other acronym agencies and see what he can find out.
“Okay. There’s my contribution. Is the Bureau buying this breakfast?”
“I think the Bureau can afford it.” Apropos of nothing, Kaiser reaches out and touches my hand, and the thrill that races up my arm sets an alarm bell ringing in my brain. “Look,” he says, with another glance at Wendy, “why don’t we—”
I pull back my hand. “Let’s don’t push it, okay? It’s there. We know it’s there. Let’s see what happens.”
He nods slowly. “Okay. It’s your call.”
We eat the remainder of our meal in silence, watching each other and the gentle comedy of late diners around us. I’m grateful that he doesn’t feel pressured to make small talk; it bodes well.
After he pays the check, he leads me over to Wendy and thanks her for the time she gave us. He speaks and moves with such professional detachment that Wendy seems to take heart. This is no reflection on her intelligence. All of us see what we want to see until we’re forced to see otherwise.
Outside, amid a throng of partying Tulane students, Kaiser bids us farewell and leaves for the field office. Wendy doesn’t talk much on the way back to her apartment, and I’m glad for it. As much as I like her, I think tomorrow would be a good day to find a hotel.
13
I’M SITTING IN a cramped FBI surveillance van on the campus of Tulane University, home of the Green Wave, a fitting name for teams whose campus has the verdant look of a garden, even in October. The oaks are still in leaf, the palms flourishing, and the lawns shine like freshly mown meadows in the sun. Twenty yards away from the van stands the Woldenberg Art Center, a stately old brick complex that houses the university’s art departments and the Newcomb Art Gallery.
Thirty seconds ago, John Kaiser and Arthur Lenz went through the doors of the gallery to meet Roger Wheaton, the artist-in-residence at the university. Dr. Lenz is wearing a concealed microphone and transmitter, which he tests repeatedly as he walks deeper into the building.
“Arthur has no faith in technology,” says Baxter, who is sitting beside me, wearing a headset mike. “By the way, I checked on that computer program you told John about. Argus. It does exist. The National Reconnaissance Office uses it for satellite photo interpretation. It’s been crunching on digital photos of the unidentifiable Sleeping Women for the past two hours.”
“Has it come up with anything?”
Baxter gives me a “keep your chin up” smile. “They tell me it’s been spitting out faces that look like Picasso drew them. But they’re going to keep running it.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“I also got you set up at a hotel. The Doubletree, just down the lakefront from the field office. They think you’re with a corporation, so don’t mention the Bureau.”
“No problem. I appreciate it.”
The interior of the van is uncomfortably warm, even at nine A.M. One reason is the outside temperature, another body heat, and compounding them convection from the electronic equipment lining the walls of the Econoline. There’s a battery-powered fan perched on a cooler filled with dry ice to provide relief, but its rattling blades barely cut the dense atmosphere.
“Before there were female agents,” says Baxter, “we stripped down to our shorts in these things.”
“Don’t hesitate on my account. I’ll strip myself if I have to stay in here much longer.”
Baxter laughs. At his request, I’m wearing a skirt suit and heels, so that I’ll look more feminine to the suspects when I go in. A female field agent was dispatched to Dil lard’s department store this morning with a list of my sizes. Getting the store to open early was apparently no trick for SAC Bowles, but trying on the various selections caused me to miss most of this morning’s strategy meeting.
“How much notice of this interview did Wheaton get?”
“An hour. The president of the university handled it. He’s deep into CYA mode. If a university employee turns out to be behind the disappearance or death of a student, the legal exposure would be considerable. He told Wheaton to cooperate with us, even though the idea that he could be involved in any crime was patently absurd. He didn’t mention the sable brushes or the Sleeping Women, only that we had evidence connecting the Tulane art department to a murder.”
“Wheaton had no problem with being questioned?”
“Not so long as we talked to him while he’s working. He’s apparently obsessive about his work schedule.”
“We’re going in,” says Lenz through a crackle of static.
Baxter checks the meters on an ADAT to make sure the psychiatrist’s words are being recorded.
A knocking sound reverberates from the small monitor speaker mounted on the console before us. Then the sound of a door opening.
“What the hell?” says Kaiser.
“It’s the painting,” says Lenz. “Keep going. There, to your right.”
Baxter says, “We want to get you in there pretty quickly, Jordan. Before Wheaton gets too comfortable.”
“Are you Roger Wheaton?” asks Kaiser.
There’s a pause, then a man with a deep, avuncular voice says, “Yes. Are you the gentlemen from the FBI?”
“I’m Special Agent Kaiser. This is Doctor Arthur Lenz. Doctor Lenz is a forensic psychiatrist.”
“How curious. Well, good day to you both. How can I help you?”
“We have some questions for you, Mr. Wheaton. They shouldn’t take too long.”
“Good. I like t
o get the paint on quickly.”
“This painting is . . . stupendous,” says Lenz, his voice filled with awe. “It’s your masterpiece.”
“I hope so,” Wheaton replies. “It’s my last.”
“The last Clearing, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a monument to your entire body of work.”
“Thank you.”
“But why stop now?”
There’s another pause, and when Wheaton answers, his voice is heavy with regret. “My health isn’t what it once was. It’s time for a new direction, I think. You have some questions, the president said? It all sounded very mysterious.”
“Mr. Wheaton,” says Kaiser, “over the past year, eleven women have disappeared from the New Orleans area without a trace. Are you aware of that?”
“How could I not be? There are safety-awareness meetings twice a week for the female students here. Flyers on every wall.”
“That’s good. We’re here about those disappearances. You see, several of the victims have turned up, in a manner of speaking.”
“I read that the woman taken from the grocery store was found. But the paper said the FBI doesn’t think she was taken by the same man.”
Kaiser’s voice takes on a tone of confidence. “The media has its uses. I’m sure you understand.”
After a pause, Wheaton says, “I see. Well. You said several of the victims have turned up. You’ve discovered more bodies?”
“Not exactly. We’ve discovered a series of paintings that depicts these women.”
“Paintings? Paintings of the missing women?”
“Correct. In these paintings, the women are nude, and posed in positions of sleep. Possibly in death.”
“My God. And you’ve come to ask me about this?”
“Yes.”
“Why? Were the paintings discovered nearby?”
“No. In a museum in Hong Kong.”
“Hong Kong? I don’t understand.”
I touch Baxter’s arm. “I thought Dr. Lenz was going to take the lead on the questions.”
“Arthur wanted it this way. He wants John to ask the questions that have to be asked. He’ll jump in when he’s ready. Arthur’s a subtle guy.”
