The Death Collectors

by J. A. Kerley

  I considered Hexcamp’s ruse. “The deception makes sense. Typical self-aggrandizement of an egocentric sociopath. He couldn’t stand attending any school other than the best, adding a scholarship for dressing.”

  Harry studied the pages of notes. “How’d you dig all this up, Danbury?”

  She took a two-handed sip of coffee from a mug with Channel 14’s logo on it. “Talking to people. Asking about travel records, visas, foreign-student stipends. Plus France has an excellent bureaucracy, and you know how bureaucrats like to save stuff. I picture the basement of France as being filled with boxes of index cards.”

  Harry said, “This Baw-dent-yay…he’s dead, right?”

  “Badentier. I talked to his sister. An unhappy woman, nasty. I told Madame I was researching influential persons in zee art-academy world. The French pride themselves on being artistic, and I used it shamelessly, lots of ooh-ing and ah-ing and ooh-la-la-ing. It finally broke her ice. Well, chipped it for a few minutes.”

  “Whatever works,” Harry grunted, trying to hide being impressed; given nothing more than a phone and her instincts, Danbury had returned with loaves and fishes.

  “Anything else?” he said.

  “One thing did catch my attention. When I talked to Madame, I heard Badentier himself in the background. When I made up a story about a native Alabaman who’d made a name in the art world, a Marsden Hexcamp, I heard her relay this information to her brother.”

  “And?” I asked.

  “He started laughing.”

  “That’s it?”

  Danbury said, “It wasn’t that he laughed, it was how he laughed. You should have heard him. It’s like the old boy was going to hack up a lung.”

  “Why didn’t you talk to him?” Harry said, caught himself. “Oh, he didn’t speak English.”

  “He could have spoken thirty languages, but he wouldn’t have come to the phone.”

  “How so?”

  “His sister volunteered the information that Monsieur Badentier considered only two forms of communication valid: via handwritten letter or face to face over a glass of red wine.”

  “Why would she tell you that?”

  “I think it was her way of signaling my contact with the great man was fini; especially when she alluded to screening his mail. Like I said, not an upbeat woman.”

  “Nice job of digging up Hexcamp’s past, Danbury,” Harry conceded. “But it doesn’t exactly put us anywhere new.”

  “It’s a fresh starting point,” she said. “Admit it, Harry.”

  “He died three decades ago and we’ve got two women dead in the last two weeks.”

  “The more we know about his past the more we can…”

  Danbury and Harry devolved into argumentation. I stared out the window and sipped at my coffee. Sunlight reflected from the leaves of a sycamore. Birds flitted to Danbury’s feeders, pecked at seeds, flicked away again. A gray squirrel ran the top of a fence.

  “What the hell was Badentier laughing so hard about?” I wondered aloud.

  Chapter 33

  I pondered Badentier’s response for several minutes, Harry and Danbury pecking at one another in the background. My cell rang and I saw the caller was from the Alabama Forensics Bureau.

  “Carson,” Wayne Hembree said, “I need to see you and Harry.”

  “On Saturday, Bree?”

  Harry set aside his coffee mug and looked at me curiously. Hembree said, “Now’d be good. Five minutes ago would be better.”

  “We’re about ten minutes away. See you.”

  I dropped the phone in my pocket and looked at Harry. “Bree’s got something hot in his skinny little paws.”

  “I’ll grab my bag,” Danbury said. “And tell Carla to lock tight.”

  “Whoa,” Harry said. “Case you didn’t notice, Miz Danbury, that call wasn’t to you.”

  She picked up her car keys from the counter, dropped them in her purse. “We’re on the same team, Nautilus. Who just spent most of the night digging?”

  “If it’s something important about the Hexcamp stuff, we’ll let you know in a few…”

  Danbury pulled a cellphone from her purse, dialed furiously.

  “Who you calling? Harry said.

  “Chief Plackett. I need a second opinion on being cut out of the loop. Think he’s out of bed yet?”

  Hembree nodded when he saw Harry and me. His eyes were huge behind the black frames, excited. Danbury shuffled in behind us.

  “Uh, is that…?” Bree angled his head at Danbury.

  “Treat it like a mirage,” Harry said. “What you got?”

  Hembree led us to the meeting room, long table, outsized TV monitor, corkboard walls for pinning up photos and notes. He spun a wheeled chair from beneath the table, pushed it my way.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “It’s a chair. Sit.”

  I grabbed the chair and spun it beneath my butt. Harry and Danbury took their own seats. “Bree?” I asked. “What’s happening?”

  Hembree ignored me, flicked off the overhead lights. He touched another switch and a viewing screen whirred from the ceiling. Hembree took a deep breath, let it out slowly.

  “I’ve got preliminary results on the art from the Sister’s room. I pulled some strings, got it jumped ahead in line. I want to stress it’s preliminary, first-glance kind of thing. The FBI shot slides in several ASA ratings and film types, assuring the full range of definition and color density, not to mention…”

  “Bree,” Harry cautioned.

  Hembree stopped talking. He thumbed a button and the screen filled with a close-up of the art mailed to Marie Gilbeaux.

  “This is what we all saw, the surface coat of paint - a glaze, actually - over a thicker underlayment of pigment…”

  Hembree shifted to another view, an extreme close-up of the edge. The paint had been applied in an impasto, thick and textured.

  “Analysis of paint layers and the dating of the canvas indicates an older composition, between twenty-five and forty years old.”

  “Hexcamp’s time,” Danbury said.

  Hembree nodded. “Strangely enough, the Bureau discovered this piece of artwork had a second image on it. Invisible. Something perhaps sketched on, then erased. A ghost image.”

  Harry’s head spun to Hembree. “Say again?”

  “An image in the canvas that may have come from a drawing done on the canvas. When hasn’t been determined. The image appeared in the more esoteric tests, when spectrographic data was augmented via…”

  Harry said, “What’s our bottom line here?”

  “I’ve racked a photo of the isolated image, the ghost image.”

  “Pop it up, Bree,” I said. “I haven’t seen a ghost in a while.”

  Hembree shot me a strange glance, then flicked the control button. A photo appeared, blurred. Then slipped into focus. A line drawing appeared on the screen.

  “Jesus,” Harry said.

  “Unreal,” Danbury whispered.

  I couldn’t say a word because I couldn’t breathe. It was a picture of me. A drawing; nothing more than a few dark lines. Simple, direct, fluid. I stood, drawn to the projection as if by gravity. My finger traced my eyes, my hair. Lines radiating from my illustrated shoulder indicated a tree. At my waist seemed to be a fence, deft embellishments indicating scrollwork, like an iron fence. There was another image in the background. My fingers traced its sparse lines, a structure in the sky behind my shoulder.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Harry whispered.

  “Oui,” Danbury replied. “It’s the Eiffel Tower.”

  Chapter 34

  Chief Plackett sighed. He glanced toward his office window, as if hoping he might escape out it. Or toss me through it into the Mondaymorning traffic.

  “You want to go to France, Ryder? Is that what I’m getting? Because of a homicidal artist who died thirty-odd years ago?”

  “There are contacts Hexcamp may have made in France. Or murders committed there.
We opened doors, but can’t step through them from here. Add to that -”

  “I know. I saw the picture,” Plackett said. “I stopped by Forensics an hour ago. Freakish stuff.”

  He looked at me as if I was supposed to explain it. I shrugged. “It’s a total enigma. There’s no way it could be me, not if it was created years ago. The face is mine today, or at least recently.”

  “It sure looked like you. Even as simple as it was.”

  The drawing was simple, but so skillfully executed that the economy of line added to the resemblance, my face and stance reduced to an essence, every line mine alone. Plackett walked to his window, hands clasped behind his back. The sky was darkening, thunder tumbling nearer. It was getting ready to rain on my parade.

  “We’re operating on bare bones now,” the chief said, his pat speech whenever a department tried for a few extra bucks. “Cutbacks in equipment, community programs, vehicle maintenance. There’s absolutely no way I can send you gallivanting off to Paris when I can’t even -”

  “Us to Paris,” I said. “Harry and me.”

  “We can’t possibly find the funds necessary to -”

  “Excuse me, Chief,” Gloria Besherle, the chief’s administrative assistant, said from outside the door. “I couldn’t help hearing. May I come in?”

  Plackett nodded. Gloria was a large woman and seemed to be wearing a tent decorated by Jackson Pollock. She winked as she brushed by me, pulled a spiral-bound folder from the shelf beside Plackett’s desk, and flipped through it. “This trip you’re considering, Carson. Will you talk to any French law-enforcement types while you’re there?”

  “Why’s that, Gloria?” the chief asked.

  She tapped a page with a two-inch red fingernail. “There’s a special grant, Federal monies earmarked for continuing international education in law-enforcement. Mobile’s a world port, and the grant supposes we might need continuing education on international legal issues with shipping and smuggling and whatnot, such as extra-departmental interfacing with Interpol.”

  “Interpol?” I said. Our usual extra-departmental interface was with the county mounties.

  Gloria looked up. “It’s worded vaguely enough that contact with French law-enforcement administration would just about satisfy the grant requirements.”

  “We could stop by a cop house over there,” I said. “Ask what wine goes best with handcuffs.”

  Plackett took the book from Gloria, moved his finger across the passages in time with his lips. “It’s not much of a grant, under three grand. I guess I could squeak Ryder or Nautilus into Paris for a couple days, but one’s the limit. Detective Nautilus, you’re the senior man. The trip is yours to refuse.”

  Harry wanted to take a two-day tour of France as much as I wanted to fly-fish the Gobi Desert.

  “Much as I’d love the opportunity to interface with our French counterparts, it’s not my face on the art. I think Detective Ryder is the right choice, Chief.” Harry looked at me and winked. “Bon voyage, Carson.”

  “If you’re going, Ryder, I’m going,” Danbury said. “It’s part of the story and part of the deal.”

  I paced her porch. Thunder rumbled in the distance, purple clouds skirting the western skyline. “You’ve got to watch Hutchins. You volunteered, she’s yours.”

  “I told you, my house is like Fort Knox. I sneeze too loud and cops come.” She tried the bright-smile gambit. “Harry’ll keep an eye on Hutchins, won’t you, Harry? Maybe fill my birdfeeders so Carla stays inside? I’ll leave instructions.”

  “Harry can’t do that,” I announced. “He’s putting the full-court press to finding Coyle, right, bro?”

  Harry leaned against a porch column with his arms crossed. He looked dispassionately at me, then at Danbury. It was an unsettling look; he appeared to be measuring something, like a carny trying to guess a person’s weight.

  “I guess pouring some seeds down a tube ain’t too difficult. How many these feeders you got, Danbury?”

  Danbury clapped her hands. “Atta boy, Nautilus.”

  I gawked at Harry. What the hell was he doing?

  “You can’t go,” I repeated to Danbury. “One person moves faster than two.”

  She jammed her hands against her hips. “Answer me three questions, pogobo. One: Who made the contacts? Two: Who already has a working relationship with Madame la sister? And three: What will you say if someone asks you the meaning of life?”

  I shook my head; talking to Danbury was like talking in a blender. “I don’t expect I’ll be asked -”

  “Je ne comprends pas le sens actuel de la vie,” she said, “mais asseyez-vous et servez-vous du fromage et du vin et nous nous en disputerons pendant six heures.”

  I stared at her. I think my mouth was open.

  She winked, gave me a gotcha grin. “Translation: ‘I don’t know the current meaning of life, but sit and have some cheese and wine and we’ll argue about it for six hours.’ It’s a Frenchie-type answer.”

  I continued to stare.

  “I grew up speaking Français with my maternal grandmother; it’s all she spoke. I ever tell you what DeeDee stands for? Danielle Desiree.” She put her chin on her uplifted index finger, batted her eyelids. “You like zee pretty name, no?”

  “I ‘spect that clinches things,” Harry said, not hiding the smile at all.

  Chapter 35

  “Back in a few, pogie. Don’t try to change seats. I’ll find you.”

  Danbury excused her way to the aisle, walked toward the head. The coastline had disappeared hours back. I felt the jet shudder through a pocket, wings quivering outside the window. Miles ahead I saw a blinking light approaching at what appeared to be our altitude. Another jet, perhaps launched from Orly at the same moment we departed Atlanta, mirror planes trading places in the sky. I hoped our pilot or some form of instrumentation - radar? - noted the approaching aircraft.

  What if our radar was broken?

  The other plane’s radar would surely handle things; that’s the way it worked.

  What if the radar was broken on both planes?

  My palms started sweating and I recalled the James Dickey poem titled “Falling”, about a stewardess tumbling from the heart of the sky. Beautiful and horrifying, the poem mythologizes the sometimes plunging, sometimes flying woman until she unites mystically with the earth. I rarely think of that poem until I’m trapped inside a plane, when the myth and metaphor strip away and all I see is a woman spinning from a broken plane to the ground, “Oh God” her last words before she becomes red mush.

  Danbury returned, settled into her seat, gave me a quizzical look. “Don’t look so anxious, Ryder. They’ll break out the peanuts soon enough.”

  Another shudder; a creaking sound from somewhere in the guts of the plane. The wingtip fluttered. Did they always flex like that? What if they didn’t?

  Oh God.

  She glanced down, saw my fingers clutching my knee. “How can you be afraid of flying? You drive around with Nautilus.”

  “Small aircraft don’t bother me,” I confessed. “Cessnas, Beeches. With a pilot I know.” The plane quivered through turbulence. My stomach followed.

  Danbury nodded toward the cockpit. “But now you’re at the mercy of a pilot you hope isn’t having a suicidal meltdown and a crew of mechanics you hope haven’t been on a cocaine binge for eight days running. I’m not even going to mention terrorists.”

  “Thanks for the encouragement.”

  “I hear that even with all the factors thrown in, it’s safer than crossing the street.”

  “The difference is, crossing the street I choose where and when to cross. Or if.”

  She smiled. “It’s control. Up here you have to rely on people you don’t know.”

  I grunted a non-response. Her eyes scanned my face. She said, “You don’t trust many people, do you, Ryder?”

  “Sure I do. Lots.”

  “Who?”

  “Harry Nautilus.”

  “That’s one. Care
to try for two?”

  The lights of the approaching plane crossed by, miles away; we weren’t going to crash, at least not yet. I hid my exhalation of relief and turned to watch an infant squirming in its mother’s arms three rows up.

  “Ryder?”

  I signaled for a headset. “I’m going to watch the movie, maybe get some sleep. Talk to you later.”

  The weariness from days of racing down blind alleys overcame my tension and I fell into a rich and soothing sleep, awakening over green French fields. Perhaps it was the sleep or simply knowing there was land beneath me - even if miles down - but I felt solid and refreshed. Danbury had herself succumbed to sleep and was snoring lightly. The attendant walked past.

  “We’re beginning the approach, sir. Perhaps you wish to awaken your companion.”

  “I would, but she specifically asked to sleep until the very last possible moment.”

  “I heard that, Ryder,” Danbury muttered, pushing up from dreamland. She scrabbled through her purse for a breath mint and popped it in her mouth, then finger-combed strands of hair from her face. “I’d kill for a cup of coffee.”

  “They’re not serving anymore.”

  “My head’s numb. I need coffee.”

  “Maybe when we set down.”

  The attendant passed by again, solicitous eyes

  over the passengers. Danbury grabbed at her throat, made a dry coughing sound. The attendant turned.

  “Are you all right, miss?”

  Danbury’s chest heaved. She made a raspy sound. “Just a dry throat, a tickle. Can’t breathe.”

  The attendant patted Danbury’s shoulder. “I’ll get you a bottle of water.”

  “Coffee…would be…even better,” she hacked.