“My study.”
“Of Angelica?”
Toffler laughed. “Angelica did not merit a study,” he said. “No, my portrait of human desire. That’s what I wanted to capture. Desire in men and women of all ages. Angelica inspired it in people.” He smiled slightly. “She could walk into a room and make everyone in it want her, more than anything they had ever wanted in their lives. That was her gift, that kind of beauty. They wanted to touch her, all of them.”
“How do you know that?” Frank asked.
“I could see it in their eyes,” Toffler said. He returned to the sculpture, carefully rubbing his thumb across the woman’s throat. “It wasn’t exactly subtle.”
“Where would you see these people?”
“Wherever I sent her,” Toffler said. “It was the same kind of reaction no matter where she was. It could be a poolroom or theater, it didn’t matter.”
“How about an art gallery?” Frank asked.
“Even more,” Toffler said. “Even more.”
“So you would take her to various places, is that it?” Frank asked.
“Yes.”
“And watch the way people reacted to her?”
“Watch their desire, watch the way they hid it,” Toffler said. His thumb dug into the clay. “She was made to be watched. That’s what I explained to her.” He drew his thumb from the clay, then tried to smooth over the wound. “And she understood it, at least for a while. She did it well. People yearned for her. It was more than lust. Angelica inspired a deep, deep longing. That’s what I wanted to capture.”
“And so you used her?” Frank asked.
“The way I might use a brush, yes,” Toffler said. “What’s wrong with that?” He looked at Frank evenly. “Nothing should ever come before one’s work.” He returned his attention to the sculpture. “Besides, she did it all quite willingly.”
“All of it?”
Toffler hesitated. “Well, at first.”
“But then she stopped?”
“She met this ridiculous old man, a painter.”
“Derek Linton?”
“Yes,” Toffler said. He didn’t seem surprised they knew. “She met him at a gallery. I saw them standing together in front of one of the galleries, so I know it was Linton who did it.”
“Did what?”
“Killed her.”
Frank took another step toward him. “Derek Linton killed Angelica?”
“Killed her reason for being,” Toffler said impatiently. “She was on assignment one day, at one of the galleries. That’s when she bumped into Linton. She looked at that mindless idiocy he paints, and was … seduced by it.” His voice grew thin. “Faded old romantic. Lost in the mists of Innisfree. Ridiculous.” He dug his thumbnail into the statue’s shoulder and peeled away a small bit of clay. “I saw them together. I knew what she was trying to do.”
“And what was that?” Caleb asked, as he edged away from the wall.
“To fuck him, I guess,” Toffler said. He turned toward Frank. “What happened to your face?”
“You dressed her up in various ways,” Frank said. “And then you set her up in a gallery or some place else, so that people would see her.”
“Yes.”
“And then you watched the people who watched her?”
Toffler nodded. “It was living art, fantastically successful, perhaps the best work I’ve ever done. “ He shook his head. “But then Angelica vulgarized it. She became a disgusting little tease in front of that old man.”
“I guess you guys went a few rounds over that, didn’t you?” Caleb asked.
Toffler’s eyes flashed toward him. “What?”
“You fought,” Frank said.
“I fought for my art,” Toffler said.
“But Angelica wouldn’t give in,” Frank said.
“I tried to make her understand,” Toffler said, “but she had lost it. Even then, I think I still could have been able to work with her, but then she ruined herself, ruined the whole project.”
“By getting pregnant,” Frank said.
Toffler nodded. “That was unbearable. She was going to be just another fat, flabby, pregnant teenager.” He stared at the portrait of Angelica. “What good would she be after that?”
Frank eased himself forward cautiously, his feet hardly leaving the floor. “And so you killed her,” he said.
“No,” Toffler said. “Of course not. That would have been ridiculous. In fact, she even had a change of heart. She came back to me. She said she’d gotten a lot of money by telling her guardian that she was pregnant and was going to keep the baby.”
“But she wasn’t going to do that?” Frank asked.
“Of course not,” Toffler said. “She was going to get rid of it. She was going to move to New York and then she was going to get rid of it. I told her that by then it would be too late, if she wanted an abortion, it had to be done now.”
“So what did she do?” Frank asked.
“I told her to get rid of the baby,” Toffler repeated. “It was as simple as that.”
“Did you tell her to use lye?”
“I told her nothing,” Toffler said vehemently.
Frank pointed to the small stool which rested at the back of the room. “Did you tell her to sit on that stool? Did you tell her to expose herself? Did you tell her that it wouldn’t hurt?”
“No!” Toffler nearly shouted. “That’s enough. I’ve told you everything I know, so will you please just get out!”
Frank braced himself as Caleb stepped over and took Toffler by the arm. “We’re not through yet, Mr. Toffler. I think you’ll have to come with us.”
Toffler glared furiously, as if he was going to resist. Instantly, Frank stepped toward him, and as he did so, Toffler seemed to regain control of himself. “All right,” he sighed.
Frank felt himself begin to breathe again. The air seemed to flow around him, warm and infinitely soothing. He heard the rain on the roof again, and he felt that it was over, that Angelica’s death would be avenged, that righteousness sometimes did flow down, as his father had always proclaimed, like a mighty, mighty stream.
Then suddenly his eyes flashed down and he saw Toffler’s hand as it grabbed the chisel, then flew up into the air and plummeted downward into Caleb’s back.
Caleb bolted forward, but the hand pursued him, slamming down again as Frank grabbed for it. He could feel himself stumbling forward, reaching for the hand, but it plunged through his grasp again and he saw it bury itself into Caleb’s throat.
“No,” Frank shouted, but his voice died in the low, gurgling moan that came from Caleb’s mouth as he slumped backward and the chisel fell through the air and slashed his face. Frank could see his own bloody fingers as they grasped desperately for the chisel, but it fell again, this time into Caleb’s one open, staring eye, and the groan rose to a high, animal wail, then died away in slow degrees while Frank wrapped his arm around Toffler’s neck and squeezed until his arm went numb. The only thing he could feel was Toffler’s life flowing out of his body, and he squeezed harder, squeezing it out and out, until someone pulled him backward, and he saw the badge on the patrolman’s coat, then the steel blue barrel of the pistol as he pressed it into Toffler’s bright, blonde hair, and he could feel his breath again, and hear the rain, but the only voice that came to him was Caleb’s, half a moan, half a whisper, You’re safe, Frank, his last words.
27
Caleb was buried on a bright, sun-drenched day. The heat settled into the small gray stones of the crowded municipal cemetery, and as Frank stood silently beside the open grave, he could feel the thick, stifling air like a pillow pushed down upon his face.
Karen stood beside him, her eyes on the plain brown coffin, her lips tightly sealed. She remained in that same motionless position until the police honor guard had fired its salute, and the last of the mourners had made their way out of the cemetery.
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am, Frank,” she said finally.
Frank looked at h
er. “He deserved better than this.”
“Yes.”
“When something this wrong happens, you ought to be able to appeal it somehow, take it to a higher court.”
Karen curled her hand around his and gently tugged him away from the grave.
“I’m leaving tonight,” she said.
“I thought so.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. A look.”
“I’ll come back for the trial,” Karen said. “I promise you that.”
Frank shook his head wearily. “That’s between you and the district attorney.”
Karen stopped cold and stared at him piercingly. “No, it’s between us.”
“You know how I feel about that.”
“I can’t stay here, Frank,” Karen told him. “There’s just no way I could endure it.”
“I know,” Frank said with a slight smile. “Believe me, I understand.” He started to drape his arm over her shoulder, but suddenly Toffler’s face rose in his mind, and for an instant he was back in the interrogation room, the two of them facing each other over a splintered brown table.
“Frank?”
“Do you know what Toffler said, Karen?” he asked her. “He said that if we found dirt in her mouth, it was because she was dirt.” He shook his head wonderingly. “He is alive to say a thing like that.”
Karen pulled herself under his arm. “Don’t, Frank. It’s over. Everything is over.”
But it seemed to Frank that just the opposite was true, that nothing was over. He could still see Toffler’s face in his mind, his long hair nearly white under the lamp, his translucent blue eyes, at times languid, at times blazing, but always open, terrible and sleepless, staring out forever.
“They’ll get him off on insanity,” Frank said, almost to himself. “He’ll end up in a state hospital. But he isn’t insane. He’s just rotten at the very core of himself.” He looked at Karen. “The air is always cold around him. He has no appetites. He doesn’t care about food or sex, or anything like that. He says he never touched Angelica, never wanted to. I believe him.”
“No more, Frank,” Karen said pleadingly. “Please, enough of this.”
Frank looked at her pointedly. “A person is lost, isn’t he, Karen, when he no longer cares about anything pleasurable?”
Karen stepped away from him. “I won’t talk about him anymore, Frank,” she said firmly. She walked quickly over to her car and got in. “I wanted you to take me to the airport tonight,” she said. “But now, I’m not so sure.
“ Frank tried to smile. “When’s your flight?”
“Two in the morning. Everything else was booked up.”
“I’ll pick you up at home,” Frank told her. “Be ready at midnight.”
But first he had some more questions to ask.
“You must be drawn to me,” Toffler said quietly, as he took his seat across the table.
Frank peered into his eyes. “Why do you say that?”
Toffler shrugged. “Second day in a row you’ve come to see me.” He folded his arms on the table and leaned forward. “What do you see when you look at me like that?”
“I don’t know.”
Toffler smiled confidently. “And you never will.”
Frank took out his notebook and flipped to the last pages. “It must have taken her a long time to die. Did you enjoy that?”
“I didn’t enjoy it. I wasn’t there to enjoy it. A thing lives. A thing dies. No one has to be there.”
“Thing? Angelica?”
“Whatever she was.”
“You never felt anything for her?” Frank asked.
“Felt?” He laughed. “You mean love?”
“I mean anything.”
Toffler sat back slightly, and the blue of his eyes suddenly deepened to the shade of the gray prison uniform he was wearing. “She could be used. That’s what a thing is for. “ He nodded toward Frank’s notebook. “Like that thing there, that little notebook, and that little yellow pencil. Used. Like that.” He shrugged. “I wasn’t jealous. She could have fucked that old queer until he died, and I wouldn’t have cared.” His eyes drew together into two small slits. “But she had lost her use. And when you can’t use something anymore, then you throw it away.”
“And so you just threw her away?” Frank asked.
Toffler shook his head despairingly. “This girl, she means everything to you.” He smiled. “She liked old men, though. Sick old men. He’s probably the only guy she ever fucked.”
“You mean Linton?”
“Him, yes.”
“They weren’t lovers,” Frank told him.
Toffler looked at him. “Of course they were.”
“You think Derek Linton was the father of Angelica’s baby?” Frank asked.
“Who else could it have been?”
“It was a boy she knew. We blood-typed the fetus.”
Toffler’s eyes drew in, and his lips parted slowly. “So she was wrong,” he murmured.
Frank leaned forward. “Angelica?”
Toffler’s face stiffened. Nothing Frank could do would get him to say another word.
For two hours after he left Toffler, Frank sat alone in one of the remote corners of Piedmont Park. Something was missing. He had missed something. He could see Toffler’s lips as they parted in surprise. So she was wrong.
Who? Who was wrong? Angelica was wrong about who the father was? But she’d called Doyle three times on May 15. No, she knew who’d gotten her pregnant. Then what?
He remembered what he’d always been told about a murder. Follow blood or follow money.
He saw the old man in the portrait which hung from the white walls of Karen’s foyer. Blood. There was so little left for the Devereauxs. Both parents gone, and after that, Angelica. Devereaux blood had been reduced to a single set of veins.
He set his mind adrift, let blood flow in a steady red stream. Arthur Cummings’ face swam into his mind. It was a calm, reasonable face. His voice was the same, stable, solid, matter-of-fact. Frank could hear it very clearly: She’s all alone now, Karen. Angelica’s money will go to her, of course.
Of course it would, Frank thought, for there was no other Devereaux. There was only Karen. Angelica was dead, along with her baby. But Karen? He could not see Karen having anything to do with Angelica’s death. He could not. There must be something else.
Desperately, he took out his notebook and went over the details of the case yet another time. There were hundreds of them, separate, isolated. Blood or money, he whispered to himself, as he turned one page after another.
Then suddenly he stopped, his eyes staring at a single note. It was blood, yes. And it was money. But they were both arranged in a different configuration. Money might be gained by murder, but it could also be spent for it. And though blood usually meant kinship, it might also mean passion—sudden, fiery, beyond explanation, and yet to all mankind still the one lost clue.
He was surprised that she answered the door herself.
“Good afternoon, Miss Castle,” Frank said.
“Edna has the afternoon off,” she explained.
She looked at him solemnly, then closed the door behind her.
“Let’s stay out here, if you don’t mind,” she said. “Did you have any more questions, Mr. Clemons?”
“Yes,” Frank said. He took out his notebook. “I suppose you read about the arrest.”
“And the man who murdered Angelica?” Miss Castle asked. “Yes, of course.”
“Did you know him?”
“What?”
“His name is Toffler. Vincent Toffler. Did you know him?”
Miss Castle sighed. “Yes, I know him. The Atlanta art world is small, Mr. Clemons, you can’t help running into such people. A disagreeable person, I always thought, and a bad artist.”
Frank glanced down at his notebook. “Yet I’ve done a little research tonight,” he said. “Toffler hung a lot of his paintings in one of the galleries on Hugo Street. It was the
only gallery that hung his works.”
Miss Castle looked at him steadily.
“You own that gallery, Miss Castle.”
Miss Castle said nothing.
Once again, Frank drew his eyes down to his notebook. “I was looking through all my notes,” he said. “All the interviews, that sort of thing. Something struck me.”
Miss Castle turned away slightly, resting her eyes on the distant stream.
“When we went for that walk, you said something about truth,” Frank said. He flipped a page of his notebook. “Right here it is. You said that you were feeling like you were ‘full of things.’ Then I asked you ‘what things?’ And you said, ‘Truths.’” He looked up at her. “Then you said that even difficult truths could be beautiful.”
“Yes,” Miss Castle said, without looking at him.
“Something else, too,” Frank said. He flipped to another page. “You said that Angelica was trying to inflame people, and that there was a danger in that. You said that a person might get engulfed by the flames.”
Miss Castle nodded quickly. “You are very thorough in your notes, Mr. Clemons.”
Frank closed the notebook and put it in his pocket. “You believed that they were lovers, Angelica and Derek Linton.”
Miss Castle’s eyes lowered slightly. “Yes.”
“You were close enough to Toffler to know that he knew Angelica,” Frank added.
Her eyes stayed closed.
“The gallery on Hugo Street,” Frank said. “The one you own. It hung all of Toffler’s paintings the morning after Angelica died.”
She looked at him now. “That was the greatest pain, I think, having to hang that dreadful man’s work on my walls.” She turned to Frank. “I have loved Derek Linton all my life. I could endure his lifestyle. I could endure that. His men did not betray me.”
“But when you thought it was another woman,” Frank said.
“That was unendurable, “ Miss Castle said. “And I knew that she would destroy him, rob him, in the end, of what little he had left. I couldn’t let that happen.” She stepped off the porch and walked a little way out toward the stream. For a moment she stopped, stood very still, then turned back toward Frank. “You don’t have to worry about my leaving,” she said quietly. “I’ll be there when you come for me. I’ve spent my whole life waiting.”
Sacrificial Ground fc-1 Page 26
