The Art of Dying: A Ray Hanley Crime Thriller

by Derik Cavignano

  “Yes, but I swear I didn’t do it.”

  “Then who did?” Billy asked.

  “You guys saw the lab results. They say I took a bunch of sleeping pills. Now, why would I do that? I was so wasted my buddy Ryan practically had to carry me upstairs. You don’t need sleeping pills when you’re half in the bag.”

  “Maybe you killed her and then tried to kill yourself,” Billy said. “Alcohol and sleeping pills can be a lethal combination. Just ask any number of dead rock stars.”

  “I don’t remember taking them and we don’t keep sleeping pills in the house. Someone drugged me, someone set me up.”

  “It seems a little far-fetched,” Billy said. “Especially since you never provided a single lead as to who might’ve set you up.”

  “I didn’t do it. That’s all I know.”

  “You’d better come up with a lot more specifics than that,” Billy said.

  “He’s right,” Ray said. “You may think you got away with murder, but this is just the beginning. We’ll find your wife’s body eventually, and I’ve got a funny feeling that all the evidence will point back to you. So enjoy this little taste of freedom while you can, because if you weren’t fond of the city jail, just wait until you spend a night in the state penitentiary.”

  “It’s a scary place,” Billy said. “Especially for a pretty boy like you.”

  Coleman’s face flushed. “Do you have any idea how this feels? My wife is missing and is probably dead. And as horrible as that is, I’m being treated like a criminal on top of it. I’m telling you, I was set up. I didn’t do it.”

  Ray studied Coleman’s face, trying to get a reading on his bullshit meter. “If you seriously believe someone framed you, then you’d better start thinking of people who might have done it.” He handed Coleman a business card and stood up. “Call us if you think of someone we should check out, or if you suddenly feel the urge to confess.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  The gallery was eerily quiet in the predawn gloom, with only the restless moaning of the dying art permeating the semi-darkness. The Artist made his rounds among the three exhibits, slipping into the service area behind the display wall and replacing IV fluids, administering antibiotics, and cleaning the plastic chutes he’d rigged to catch waste.

  An arrangement of scaffolding supported the exhibits from behind the wall, and holes cut into the sheetrock allowed the Artist to select which body parts to make visible from the gallery. Except for the display wall, everything in the gallery was constructed of concrete, and the twenty-by-twenty bunker itself was built directly into the bedrock.

  When the Artist finished his rounds, he poked a finger into Finkleton’s doughy belly. Finkleton flinched, exposing a raw wound at the top of his throat. “There’s my Itsy Bitsy Spider. I’d better not catch you climbing up any waterspouts.”

  Finkleton’s lips moved soundlessly in response.

  The Artist chuckled. “Are you forgetting I severed your vocal chords? I’m afraid you’ll have to snuffle from now on, Bitsy. In any case, it seems you’ve critiqued your last artist. Wouldn’t you agree, Mrs. C?”

  The Artist turned to where Mrs. C protruded from the wall like a statue of Aphrodite, her sandy blond hair wound up around a golden tiara. Twin lengths of chain secured her arms to an iron ringlet above her head, and a cushioned support beam kept her back inclined at a seventy-five-degree angle. Her legs were bent at the waist, her feet resting on a narrow shelf jutting from the wall. A liquid diet had melted away a few pounds and her twenty-eight-year-old body was now perfectly contoured, her milky-white breasts remarkably perky in the face of gravity.

  The Artist stepped between her knees and stroked her baby-smooth inner thighs. She’d become much more submissive in the last few days, much more accepting of her place in the world. Even their lovemaking had become less adversarial.

  The Artist offered her a sliver of meat from a ceramic bowl and she devoured it like a starving dog. He fed her another morsel, noticing how the hollow of her throat quivered when she swallowed, a line of drool dribbling from her chin. Traditional art forms lacked such intricate details, such nuanced expression, but his vision captured it all.

  “You can thank Mr. Finkleton for donating the thigh meat.”

  Mrs. C chewed vigorously and nodded, but Mr. Finkleton just hung from the wall and pouted.

  “Come on, Mr. Finkleton, don’t be such a grouch. It’s not like you have any use for your legs anymore. The least you can do is share them with your new friends.” He gestured to Mrs. C. “What do you think, is he delicious or what?”

  Mrs. C nodded.

  “Well there you have it, Mr. Finkleton. What more could you ask for? Time to hold your egg sac high and embrace your inner spider.” The Artist clucked his tongue. “I feel like we ought to dispense of the formalities, don’t you? After all, Mrs. C is dining on your flesh.”

  He poked Finkleton in the ribs. “Doesn’t get more personal than that, does it, Barry? Now, where are my manners? I never offered you a taste of your own meat. I believe that’s considered the ultimate dining faux pas. What do you say, Barry? Snuffle once for wing and twice for thigh.”

  But Barry just clung to the wall like a smug little spider.

  “Not hungry? Let’s give it a few days, shall we? For your sake, I hope Mrs. C—I mean, Suzie—doesn’t gobble up every last morsel first.”

  “What about me?” his third exhibit croaked. “I’m starving.”

  The Artist turned toward the muscular form of Greg Cassidy, whose surgically-implanted bull’s horns cast an imposing shadow on the gallery floor. Dressed in nothing but a loincloth, Greg had a red bull’s-eye tattooed on his chest, a chain around his neck, and a golden ring through his nose. The piercing was horribly infected—that’s what happens when you do it with a rusty nail—and everything he said came out in a nasally drone.

  The Artist shook his head at his resident Minotaur. “I don’t think you’ve earned a meal, Greg. You’ve done nothing but complain since you arrived.”

  Greg clamped his mouth shut, but his muscles tensed like springs.

  “Don’t you understand? You deserve to be here. You all deserve to be here. And the time to atone for your sins is now. Your deaths will usher in a revolutionary new artform, and the singular beauty of your suffering will capture the hearts and minds of the world and bring about your redemption. So, raise your eyes to the camera, bare your souls to the art, and become one with your destiny as the greatest exhibition of all time.”

  Greg thrashed against his chains. “Let me go!”

  The Artist grabbed the chain dangling from Greg’s neck and choked the insolent Minotaur into submission. “Say mercy and I’ll let you crawl out of here like a dog.”

  Greg’s face progressed through a spectrum of reds and purples before the Artist released the chain, leaving him gasping and wheezing.

  “Wasn’t that your catch phrase in elementary school, Greg? When you’d work me into a headlock in the boys’ bathroom? You thought you were so strong, didn’t you? Taking pleasure in torturing a kid half your size? Instead of sniveling about how I’m mistreating you, perhaps you should consider that I’m simply giving you a taste of your own medicine.”

  Greg made a gurgling sound, but his eyes were open very wide. “You?”

  “Yes, me. The little boy you liked to kick in the balls during recess. Have you ever felt that agony, Greg? Ever cried at the sight of peeing out blood? A nine-year-old, peeing out blood. For no other reason than it gave a bully some sick sense of satisfaction. But the thing is, Greg, this is my playground now. And these are my rules. So, if you’ve never been on the receiving end of a bully’s attention, then you’re in for quite a treat. Because I’ve got years and years of payback planned. And, my oh my, won’t it be a bitch.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “On the ground,” Ray barked. “Hands over your head.”

  He groped behind him for the powder and the wipes, but Petey rolled onto his stomach an
d wriggled away, an Elmo diaper strapped to his backside and bursting at the seams.

  Ray lunged across the hardwood and caught hold of a chubby ankle, but Petey thrashed his body like an alligator tucking into a death roll.

  “Stop squirming.”

  “Lemme go!”

  “You can’t sit in a poopy diaper all day.”

  “I sit in my poop forever!”

  Ray turned at the sound of giggling and saw Jacob and his wife, Megan, standing in the foyer.

  “How is it that you can take down an armed suspect,” Jacob asked, “but you can’t hold on to Petey long enough to wipe his butt?”

  Ray grunted. “Next time I’ll use my Taser.”

  “I hear the people in child welfare services are real sticklers about that stuff,” Megan said. “It might not be worth the red tape.” She winked at him before heading into the kitchen with Jacob in tow, a bottle of wine hugged to her chest.

  Ray called after them. “Not so fast, little brother. You and I have work to do.”

  Jacob pointed to Petey’s bulging diaper. “I’m not going anywhere near that thing.”

  “Get over here and hold him down. Be a man for once in your life.”

  Jacob knelt beside Petey and pinned his shoulders against the floor. “I’m not sure I see the correlation, but—oh my God, what are you feeding him?”

  Ray unfolded the diaper and Jacob gagged into his hand. “The horror.”

  After soiling a dozen baby wipes, Ray strapped a clean diaper onto Petey and released him back into the wild. “Go on now,” he said in his best Steve Irwin voice. “In a few minutes, you won’t remember a thing.”

  Petey crawled to where Allie sat on the living room floor wrestling a tennis ball from Sparky’s jaws. Jason lounged on the couch behind her, his eyes glued to Michelle’s iPad and whatever mind-numbing game he was addicted to this week.

  Ray dangled the soiled diaper in front of Jacob’s face. “What do you say, little brother, are you ready for parenthood?”

  “I don’t know, do they come with instruction manuals?”

  “No, and the return policy is shit.” He glanced over his shoulder to make sure the kids hadn’t heard. “You guys still trying?”

  “Yeah, but I’m not sure if I’m ready for what comes after.”

  Ray brayed laughter. “Trust me, little bro, no one ever is.”

  ***

  After stuffing the kids full of pizza and tucking them into an early bedtime, the adults tiptoed up to the roof deck for dinner and drinks. Megan gazed over Jacob’s shoulder at the city skyline, the lights of the financial district glittering against a violet sky. “It’s so beautiful up here. Have you used it much this season?”

  “We came up here just the other night, didn’t we?” Ray said, winking at Michelle. “Got some great use out of it.”

  Michelle kicked him under the table, catching him square in the shin—a move she’d perfected over eight years of marriage.

  “Would you guys ever move back to the city?” Michelle asked, shooting Ray a dirty look.

  “I don’t know,” Megan said. “It took me a few months to warm up to suburban life, but now it feels like home.”

  “I’m excited to start a family there,” Jacob said, reaching for Megan’s hand.

  Ray shook his head. “You poor bastards have no idea how your lives are about to change.”

  “It makes you want to slap them, doesn’t it?” Michelle asked, sipping her wine.

  “Yeah,” Ray said, “except I’m always in the mood to slap Jacob.”

  “Don’t listen to them,” Megan said, planting a kiss on Jacob’s cheek. “They’re just jealous.”

  “Let’s see how cute you guys are when you’re surviving on three hours of sleep,” Michelle said.

  “Yeah,” Ray said, “or when you drag yourself out of bed at two in the morning, thinking it’s just a routine diaper change and then—bam! Projectile diarrhea all over you.”

  “It’s true,” Michelle said. “I can show you the spot where Allie made a perfect profile of Ray on the wall.”

  “I was so tired I didn’t even care.”

  “I don’t know what you were doing,” Megan said, “but I’m pretty sure you were doing it wrong.”

  “Speaking of doing it wrong,” Ray said, “did Jacob ever tell you that when he was a kid he thought you could get a girl pregnant by squeezing her boobs?”

  Megan raised an eyebrow. “That explains a lot.”

  ***

  After the wine ran out, Ray and Jacob made a run to the liquor store for another bottle of sauvignon blanc. They walked through Charlestown’s Gaslamp District, where the streets buzzed with the typical Friday night restaurant crowd and wannabe socialites spilled out of flashy cars dressed in designer clothes. A few blocks farther along, the crowds thinned out and the glitz receded into the night, leading them into a neighborhood where shards of glass glittered against the cracked pavement and junked-up cars lined the street.

  They passed groups of Townies hanging out on their stoops talking trash and busting balls the way only Townies could. Farther down the block, Ray spotted Sheila Morrison and her drug dealer boyfriend loitering outside of the local pizza joint. She wore ripped jeans and a turquoise tank top that showed enough cleavage to make a hooker blush. Darren stood behind her with his tattooed arms looped around her body, his hands clasped underneath her breasts.

  Sheila greeted Ray as he walked by, but Darren squinted at him like he was itching for a fight, his scraggly blond hair half obscuring his face.

  Yeah, I’m touching her boobs, that look said. What are you gonna do about it?

  “Hey, Sheila,” Ray said, directing a menacing glare at Darren. “You kids behaving yourselves?”

  She smiled and nodded, for a moment reminding him of the little girl who once played hopscotch in front of his house. That girl was still in there somewhere, but if she kept hanging out with Darren, she’d wind up just another Townie lost to the streets.

  “Who was that?” Jacob asked once they were out of earshot.

  “Girl next door.”

  “Her boyfriend seems like a loser.”

  “You think?”

  Jacob shrugged, his face turning serious. “I’ve been waiting for the right time to tell you something.”

  “Let me guess, you’re not sure how to make a baby.”

  “Come on, Ray. This is serious.”

  Ray stopped in front of the liquor store and folded his arms. “Alright, what is it?”

  “A client I was supposed to meet this morning never showed. I called his office and the woman who manages his gallery said he’s been missing since Wednesday night. It happened in the city, so I figured you might know something.”

  Ray thought back to the morning roll call. “His name Finkleton?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why are you just telling me this now?”

  “I didn’t want to ruin dinner.”

  “How well do you know this guy?”

  “Enough to know his finances and business dealings, things like that.”

  “It’s not my case,” Ray said, “but I can have Detective Ridley call you tomorrow, ask you a few questions.”

  Jacob held open the door to the liquor store. “Okay, sure.”

  The interior of Monument Liquors resembled a hoarder’s apartment, with cases of beer and wine stacked haphazardly on the floor creating a maze of columns that forced customers to weave around the store like rats hunting for cheese. Since the place first opened, Sam Martinez had made due without a storeroom, though he still struggled with inventory management.

  As Jacob negotiated his way to the coolers in the back, Ray lifted a hand to the stocky Latino man behind the counter, who was busy checking out a customer. “How you doing, Sam?”

  Instead of his trademark response—Living the dream, Ray, living the dream—Sam flicked his eyes toward Ray without a word, tension evident in the set of his shoulders.

  Ray
reached instinctively for his gun, forgetting for a moment that he wasn’t carrying. From his angle, he could only see the customer from behind, the man’s right arm bent as if clutching a weapon, a Red Sox cap tipped forward on his head.

  The register drawer rolled opened and Sam slid out stacks of bills one compartment at a time, the drawer’s spring clips snapping onto bare plastic and echoing loudly. Somewhere in the back of the store, Jacob rummaged through the cooler, bottles clanking together as he searched for the brand of sauvignon blanc Michelle had requested.

  Ray groped for a dusty bottle of champagne from a nearby rack, gripping it by the neck like a club.

  The man glanced over his shoulder and pointed a .38 at Ray. “Put it down.”

  Ray returned the champagne to the rack and held out his hands, palms upturned like a priest giving a blessing.

  “Get over here,” the man barked, motioning with the gun. “Behind the counter where I can see you both.” He glanced at Sam, his arm trembling. “Put the money in a bag.”

  Ray crept toward the counter, keeping his eyes on the gunman and hoping Jacob had done the smart thing and ducked behind a pile of boxes.

  Sam fumbled open a plastic bag and dropped in what looked like a few thousand dollars. Ray stared at the gunman from behind the counter, observing the sweat glistening beneath the brim of his hat. “You seem nervous,” Ray said. “This your first time?”

  “Shut up,” the man said, his eyes wild with panic. “Give me the bag.”

  Ray took the bag from Sam and slid it over the counter so that half of the bills tumbled onto the floor. When the man glanced down, Ray grabbed the gun with one hand and broke the man’s grip with the other, using the technique he’d learned in the academy. Then he flipped the gun around and leveled it at the man’s chest. “Boston Police, you’re under arrest.”

  The man staggered back and collided with the rack of champagne, sending an avalanche of bottles crashing to the floor and exploding in a geyser of foam. He slipped in a fizzing puddle, arms pinwheeling for balance, but regained his footing and lumbered toward the exit with his head ducked, as if expecting a bullet in the back.