Stroke of Death

by Dale Mayer

  Through his phone he heard his mother yell out.

  “You were supposed to bring me milk for my tea,” she said in that querulous voice.

  “I did bring you milk, Mom,” he said ever patiently. “I brought it to you yesterday, and I brought it to you again today.”

  “Well, I’m out,” she said, in that sad voice, denying the evidence in front of them, which was that she couldn’t remember anything.

  “Open the fridge, and you’ll see the milk in the left-hand door.”

  He heard her shuffling across the room, heading to the fridge, and the small click that said she had opened it.

  “Oh, you’re such a good boy,” she said. “The milk is here. I just didn’t realize you came and went without stopping to visit.”

  He closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose. “Mom, I came and had lunch with you.”

  “Are you coming today?”

  He looked over at the clock and frowned. “If I do, it’ll be late.”

  “That’s okay,” she said in delight. Her words were followed by the click of the phone.

  It made him really sad to think of the bright fresh mind of his mother, now reduced to an old lady who couldn’t even remember if he’d brought in the milk. He knew he wasn’t alone in this scenario, and he knew that maybe a good son would have brought his mother in to live with him. But no way he could. No way she’d understand the obsession with his artwork.

  He stepped back from the piece he’d been working on, moved the canvas under the lights, nodded, and set up his own easel. People had been capturing and imitating the great artists of the world since time began. He was determined to do the same with the work of Cayce Matlock. The woman was a genius. If he could just figure out how to capture that very essence that made her paintings so special.

  He picked up the paintbrush and made his first stroke.

  Chapter 2

  Cayce sat on the bench in the police station. She kept checking her watch because, damn it, her appointment was twenty-five minutes ago. She understood that they considered themselves busy, and this was important, but she was the one who just had to wait. In her world, she had things to do too, and twenty-five minutes late was unacceptable. She shuffled once again on the hard bench seat. She looked up for the tenth or thirtieth time and searched around her. She swore she was being watched, but she couldn’t see anyone. Finally she pulled out her phone again and checked the time yet once more, groaned, and sat back. She’d already told her assistant she would be late. She just hadn’t realized how late.

  “Cayce Matlock?”

  She looked up to see the detective, Richard Henderson, staring at her. She bounced to her feet and frowned at him. “How long will this take? I’m already late.”

  He gave her a slight tilt of his head, his gaze hard and assessing. He motioned for her to follow him. She was okay to do that but wished she knew what this was all about. She was led into a small interview room.

  He motioned at a chair on the opposite side of the table and said, “Please, take a seat.”

  She sat down, dropped her oversize purse on the floor beside her with a thunk, put her folded hands on the table, and said, “I hope this won’t take long, Detective. I’m really late.”

  “It’ll take as long as it takes,” he said in a mild tone of voice, as he opened up a file folder in front of her.

  The flash of a photograph before her had her breath catching in the back of her throat as she stared at it. She snatched the headless picture, just a torso shot, her other hand covering her mouth in shock. “Oh, my God,” she whispered. “Is this Elena? Is this what he did to her? He ruthlessly hacked away at her body like that?”

  He looked at her, then down at the picture, and she shook her head wordlessly. Tears flowed down her cheeks. He grabbed a tissue box she hadn’t seen and switched out the photograph for the box. She quickly plucked several from the package and covered her eyes with them, as the tears flowed in an incessant stream.

  When she finally regained her voice, she asked bitterly, “Did you do that purely for shock value?” She closed her eyes again, more tears flowing, trying to stop them with tissues again. “She was my best friend, you know?” When she had dabbed her eyes enough, she looked up, catching just a hint of regret on his face as he stared down at the photograph.

  She sniffled, wiping her nose, still taking short, halting breaths. “Did he mutilate her back too?”

  Richard frowned.

  “The painting continues on her back.”

  Richard shook his head. “How did you identify her?” he asked quietly.

  She swallowed hard, clenched her fist around the tissues, then reached for the photograph again. “See this portion here? He didn’t take all of it. At the collarbone it’s much harder to paint. I have to take a lot of extra care when we get close to the surface of the bone because the light hits it differently as she moves.” She pointed out the deep purple color still along the top.

  “I know it’s probably an impossible thing to ask, but is there any way to know if that color was changed or altered in any way?”

  “You mean, other than the fact that it’s been brutally and haphazardly cut off?” She stared at him suspiciously.

  He nodded. “We need to know anything that might help make sense of this.”

  “My best friend was skinned by some crazed hack,” she said softly. “There is no making sense of this.”

  “No,” he said, “but there’s a reason. It made sense to somebody.”

  “A psycho,” she said immediately.

  “That’s because, in your mind, you can’t see any real value to skinning somebody, I presume.”

  “I’m sure there are cultures where it’s done for either reasons of tradition or revenge,” she said, “but no.”

  “We do it to animals all the time,” he said mildly.

  She raised her head in shock, looked at him, saw the note in his gaze, but couldn’t pin a description to it. Then she glared at him. “Is that some kind of a joke?”

  “It’s not,” he said, “but, of course, we have to consider cases in the past where people have tanned the hides of people. Turning them into atrocities, like little purses and things.”

  She could feel the bile rising up in the back of her throat at his words, her right hand instinctively going there. It was hard to consider.

  “Don’t pass out on me,” he snapped at her.

  She swallowed, blinked rapidly, pushed back her chair, and dropped her head into her hands. Just the thought of somebody doing something like that to such a beautiful and vibrant woman like Elena made Cayce want to scream and rail at the world.

  “Why do you paint?”

  Stunned at the question, she turned to look at him and asked, “Pardon?”

  “I asked, why you paint?”

  “Because I’m an artist,” she snapped. “Is that really the question you wanted to ask me?”

  A ghost of a smile appeared as he shook his head, picked up a pad of paper, and said, “No, you’re right. We do have specific questions. So tell me. When did you last see her?”

  “At the installation. I already told you that.”

  “And how long was she there with you?”

  “We’d been working all day,” she said. “The show opened at seven o’clock in the evening.”

  “So she was there from seven until when?”

  Cayce had to stop, took several deep breaths, corralled her brain cells that were already firing off in a million different directions, most of them in horror. “I think she was there until ten. And then I’m not so sure. At ten she walked around, separated herself from the installation, and became a moving art piece.”

  “What does that mean?”

  She groaned. “One of the things that I do a little differently at times,” she said, “is I paint the installation behind her, then I paint her, but this time I carried the image all around to the back, so, when she walks, she’s covered.”

  He stared at
her. “Covered?” he asked delicately.

  She glared at him. “It’s a very intimate process. It’s a very intimate job. Elena felt naked if she wasn’t 100 percent painted, especially if she was expected to walk around and to visit with people.”

  “Being covered by paint is hardly being covered,” he said.

  “It’s covered enough,” she said with a sigh and sat back. “Look. Each model feels a very different way about being painted. For Elena, as long as it wasn’t her bare skin, she wasn’t nude. So, when I knew that she would be walking around, and not just going home afterward, I made sure that her back was fully covered as well.”

  “And is that normal?”

  She shook her head. “No, not at all. A lot of artists don’t want to use any more paint than they have to, and, to a lot of the models, the special artistic ones, it’s like that two-sided part of their personality, as in, the front is covered, and the back is not. It shows the two sides to who they are.”

  “So, they’re exhibitionists?”

  “That’s a judgment call, Detective,” she said tiredly, as she pressed her fingers through her long strands of blond hair. “Elena was not an exhibitionist.”

  “She appeared nude in all kinds of art pieces for you,” he said. “How is that not being an exhibitionist?”

  “She’s an artist.”

  “You’re the artist,” he corrected.

  She shook her head. “I am the artist, but to say that the model isn’t also an artist would be to minimize what their role is.”

  “I don’t get it,” he said, shoving back his own chair slightly. “What does the model do except be still?”

  “Sure, being still is one thing,” she said, “but consider the fact that she has to be still for hours, that she has to maintain the exact same position, and that she has to find that same position again, no matter what. She has to hold it. She has to know which muscles to engage, which facial expressions she was in, in order to regain that exact same look.”

  “And can they hold it for hours?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Every hour, or every couple hours, we give them a break, but we definitely keep it going.”

  “And you have to paint the models for hours too?”

  “Depends on how complex the installation, yes, but what I’ll often do is I’ll paint, say, her legs, and then I’ll do something else, so she can walk around and take a break. Or I’ll paint her torso and carry on. I do the last layer when she’s in place, in position, and I tune her right into the background painting itself.”

  “So, she’s a part of the bigger masterpiece, is that it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Isn’t this about hiding? Isn’t this about not seeing what we’re seeing?”

  She stared at him thoughtfully. “You mean, body-painting?”

  He nodded slowly. “I’m trying to understand the mind of the killer.”

  She winced at that, her gaze darting to the photo and back again. “I so wish we didn’t have to,” she said sadly.

  “But that’s not helpful,” he said. “This person has taken the life of somebody you care about. But the why of it is what I need to know.”

  “I have no idea,” she said.

  Then realizing she hadn’t answered his other question, she took a deep breath and said, “I don’t think this body-painting artwork is about hiding anything. I think it’s about making you look deeper.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, then slowly nodded. “Do you think maybe somebody looked deeper and found something they liked?”

  “Obviously.” The tears choked her again. “Why don’t we get off those kinds of questions before I start bawling again?” she asked. “Can you ask the rest of your questions, so that I can leave?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I have some information that I need to confirm.”

  They went through some of the basics in her world. Quickly they ran through Elena’s address, phone number, and circle of friends, which was so vast that she shook her head at that one. “Elena was a butterfly. She had a lot of social connections. A lot of people wanted to be in with a model, especially Elena. She had a lot of surface relationships, but I’m not sure that she had very many intense, deep ones.”

  “Other than you?” He hesitated before continuing, “Just how deep was your relationship?’

  She stared at him for a long moment. “If you’re asking if we were lovers, the answer is no. But did I love her? Yes. I loved her like a sister. I loved her like an inspiration.” She hesitated, not quite sure how to make him understand. “The thing is, an artist has something inside them that helps to keep them inspired. Elena was that person for me.”

  “And was your love maybe a little more than just platonic?”

  “Absolutely not.” She smiled. “Elena loved men. But again, she was that social butterfly. She would have a relationship, and she would leave. She would slide into somebody’s life and leave. Unfortunately she left a trail of broken hearts.” She understood he didn’t like hearing that. “She was light,” she said, trying to explain it. “She was a good soul.”

  At that wording, he froze, slowly raised his gaze, and looked at her. “Interesting wording.”

  “No, she came from the heart. Everything Elena did was to help bring light and laughter to the world,” she said sadly. “And, if you can’t understand that, I’m sorry.”

  “I understand very well,” he said. “Unfortunately.”

  *

  Richard walked out of the hallway door and into the lobby, watching Cayce as she strode away, her tall, lean frame moving rapidly, as if she couldn’t get away fast enough. He understood that, for it was a reaction he saw again and again with suspects. Though she wasn’t really high on his suspect list, except that, in her own words, she had loved the victim. Who knew exactly what had been behind that love?

  He’d asked her about a few of her own relationships, but there hadn’t been anything major or recent, according to her. Now, if only he had somebody else to confirm that. That just meant losing Elena was all the more heartbreaking, if she’d been the main friendship in Cayce’s world, but it didn’t answer the question of whether Cayce had had a hand in Elena’s murder. Being within a masterpiece, maybe Elena had done something to ruin it. Maybe she’d upset the artist somehow, or maybe she had done something with somebody else, gone to another artist?

  More questions to ask Cayce.

  She had disappeared from sight now, but he pulled out his phone and quickly called her. “Did Elena model for anybody else?”

  “Yes,” Cayce said, on the other end. “Several people.”

  “Email me that list,” he said in an urgent tone. “I need to contact them as soon as possible.”

  “As soon as I get back to the office,” she said in a resigned tone, “I’ll send it to you.”

  “And, if you think of anything else, of anybody who might have had something to do with this, let me know.”

  “That’s your job, Detective,” she said. “I’m a busy person too.”

  “Unless, of course, there is some reason why you don’t want to help the police,” he said, his voice hard. He walked outside the police station, his gaze quickly scanning the crowds, moving rapidly up and down the streets.

  She groaned. “If I don’t cooperate, I’ll look suspicious, and, if I do cooperate, I have to keep reliving everything to do with my friend’s death.”

  “Yep, that’s about the way it works,” he said. “Deal with it or don’t. But I’m not going away until I solve this.”

  “Nobody wants you to solve this more than I do, Detective,” she said.

  “Then prove it,” he snapped. He hung up the phone, walked across the street to a food vendor, and checked out the huge pretzels they had. He smiled, reached for one, and said, “How much are these?”

  “Two bucks.”

  He quickly paid him. It was wrapped up with a paper napkin because it was still quite warm, and Richard stood here, studying the gray morning. Seat
tle was many things, but it typically wasn’t exactly a bright blue sunny day. It was gray, cloudy, and threatening to rain. Just like yesterday.

  This new case was bothersome. Something about it was wrong on so many levels. And not just about the skinning.

  When his phone buzzed, he looked down to see a text from one of his team, saying they were pulling the next meeting ahead twenty minutes and asked if he could be there.

  He messaged back, saying he was on his way. With half a sigh at the crazy dark world around him, he headed back inside. He needed to find answers, and he needed to find them soon. They’d already missed the crucial twenty-four-hour window. Hell, he had already missed the forty-eight-hour window as well.

  Chapter 3

  Cayce returned to her gallery, deeper within, toward her small dingy office that she deliberately kept cramped and crowded, in order to force herself in and out as quickly as possible, so that she could go paint again.

  As she walked in, her assistant looked up with her eyes full of tears. She got up from her desk and came racing over, throwing her arms around her. Cayce wasn’t terribly demonstrative, but, if she understood one thing, it was grief. She hadn’t allowed herself to feel the pain of losing her friend yet, and it hurt her already to know how many other people would be affected.

  “I can’t believe what they’re saying. Please tell me that it’s wrong.”

  “It’s not wrong,” she said sadly. “Elena is dead.”

  “But not just dead.” Anita stepped back, tears pulling the mascara all the way down her cheeks, like streaks of rain on a windshield. “But murdered, skinned apparently,” she snapped.

  “Where did you hear that?” she asked.

  “The news.”

  She frowned at Anita. “The news shouldn’t have had those details.”