The Weeping Buddha

by Heather Dune Macadam

  “Do you think it’s too late to change Brea’s mind?”

  “I’ll talk to her, Ruth. Don’t worry,” he assured her. “Maybe we can take her out to Boulder together and encourage her to look around at other schools. We’ll let her make her own decisions and hope she stays close to home.”

  “You’re a good father, Loch.” He was speechless; she had never said that to him before.

  “I gotta go, Ruth.” He clicked off the call and tried not to think about all that had been said; even his desire to run license plates had faded.

  Devon could see nothing but red streaks dancing in the dark under the exit sign which she knew, from the hair rising on the back of her neck, was not where she wanted to go. She knew she couldn’t trust the color red—of all the colors in the spectrum, red moved the most, any art student who’d taken the Physics of Color knew that. And the exit sign was no different; it wiggled and shifted in the dark like an angry serpent.

  She listened for something more definitive, the sound of breathing, a footfall. There was nothing. She had to evaluate what her advantage was against this unknown intruder, and she had to figure it out quickly. She knew she had the advantage of darkness and familiarity with the area she had just walked, and she decided to wait for the other person to make the first move. If the intruder shot blindly at her, she’d know exactly where the bullet was coming from and drop him.

  She also knew there was another exit at the far end of the studio—she’d seen Gabe open the door when he was working with toxic fumes and in need of cross-ventilation. So, she wasn’t trapped. The dark befuddled her mind, though, and she began to fancy that the wind had shut the door and she had imagined the cocking of a gun.She kept her eyes peeled to the spot just under the exit sign where she thought she’d seen the first hint of movement, but she was going to have to trust her ears more than her eyes, and she steadied her breathing to a deeper, slower rhythm.

  There was a scuffing sound against the cement at the top of the loading dock, like someone dragging his feet. The sound stopped and moved toward her again—this time more quietly. She took a spontaneous step backward and reached for the plaster bust of Beka, placed it on the floor directly in front of her, and backed up slowly and quietly. She made a mental map of the studio based on her last visual recollection before the lights went off, and knew she had distance on her side. But if the person stalking her in the dark knew the studio better …

  She began to count her steps backward. At step ten she reached out for something to place in her path again. Her hands floated through the darkness, careful not to knock anything over. She found a stool; it wasn’t an ideal choice, but she couldn’t reach anything else. She heard the quiet crunching of dust and dirt on the steps as someone came down the steps to ground level. Aware that her own shoes carried dirt on them as well, she quickly slipped them off her feet. Then she picked up the stool and placed it on the floor, cringing as the metal legs grated against the concrete. She knelt quickly to the floor in case the intruder decided to use that noise to aim and shoot.The sounds of someone moving toward her stopped.

  She reached through the darkness with her mind and body, using her eyes and ears to keep her balance. Shoes in hand, she was able to roll her feet silently from toe to heel, softly padding across the concrete floor more quickly now. Devon kept moving backwards, counting her paces, just as Hans had taught her when they did walking meditation. Her breathing slowed and she performed what was almost reverse kinhin—as her awareness heightened, she felt the floor and room around her. The footsteps in front of her started again, then stopped; Devon did not falter. She heard a few more hesitant steps, and knew she’d confused whoever it was by her silent movement.At forty-five steps away from Beka’s bust she felt the brick wall behind her back and, gun in hand, stretched her arms out as far as she could on either side. The door was not there.

  She did not panic. Instead, she quietly took a deep breath to steady her nerves and moved to the left a few feet, felt nothing with her right hand, then moved a few more feet to the left. Nothing. She did not give up; she knew the door was on one side or the other.

  Where had she seen the broken plaster in the studio? By the Tyvek suits. She moved a few more feet to the left and felt the corner of the room—dead end.

  There was a crunch of plaster.

  She whipped around in the dark in order to face her opponent and moved quickly back along the wall, keeping her gun aimed into the darkness. Just as she felt the cold metal of the doorframe under her fingertips, the plaster bust of Beka toppled to the floor with a thud.

  The intruder was forty-five paces away from her.

  Devon reached for the knob. It was cold in her hand and turned easily, but the door did not open. Of course, it was bolted. Her hands flew directly above and below the chain handles that doublebolted the door. She was going to have to coordinate her movements quickly and, as much as she didn’t want to, turn her back on the stalker.She holstered her gun, grabbed the bolts’ chains in both hands, and pulled simultaneously up and down. The sound of the metal scraping against metal was deafening.

  The bottom one gave. The top one did not.

  The stool crashed to the floor behind her. Thirty-five paces away.

  Tugging on the top bolt one more time to no avail, she grabbed the chain with both hands for one more good hard yank. It popped and the door swung open. Devon dashed outside, spun around, and hit the alley wall with her back, ready to face her stalker—gun drawn, cocked, and ready to fire.

  The door banged against the outside wall. She backed up carefully, making sure she had plenty of maneuvering room. Nothing happened. She began to count one-one thousand, two-one thousand, three-one thousand.

  Her gun arm wavered. Why would someone tracking her through the dark not face her in an alleyway, unless that person knew she too had a gun. And how would her stalker know that unless he knew her? She kept her arm steady and tried to think. If she ran around to the front of the building the intruder could escape through the back door the same way she had. But to go back inside through the alley door was unthinkably stupid—she’d be back-lit and an easy target.Her stocking feet were damp and cold. She steadied her gun arm and listened carefully for any noise coming from inside the studio, but it was silent. The door slammed shut. Her finger trembled on the trigger. It was just the fickle wind playing tricks on her—no one burst through the now-closed door.

  Across the alleyway was a garbage can; Devon picked it up and quickly wedged it under the doorknob. She saw the knob turn and waited to see if the door would hold. It did.

  “Gotcha,” she hissed under her breath, and started up the alley, racing around the block to the front of the building.

  She punched the power button on her cellphone hoping for a little juice, but heard the sickly beep of the dead battery. Without a partner to help her seal off the building or a phone to call for backup, she knew she was in a high-risk situation. She couldn’t believe her battery was dead. Free of the alley she hooked a right on Broome Street and finally made it to Mercer—there was no one on the street.The front door, which she had locked when she entered the building, was now swinging in the wind, and footprints thick with plaster dust led away from the scene. Gun raised, she scanned the surrounding area again. Nothing moved.

  Inside, Devon turned on the stairwell light and found the studio door open and more dusty footwear impressions. With just the ball of the feet to mark the trail, Devon figured the person had left at a dead run as soon as she secured the garbage can under the door knob. She went back to the doorway and stared up and down Mercer and then up Howard—there was no one on the sidewalk and the streets seemed oddly quiet. She looked at the lock to see if it had been picked, but there were no scrapes around the keyhole.She didn’t want to go all the way back into the studio without backup and decided to call Loch from the upstairs phone, but there was no way to secure the premises from someone who had a key.She locked the door to the studio from the outside, wishing ther
e were an inside bolt for the front door. She’d just have to be on her guard.

  Her heart was still pounding, and for good reason. Whoever had come into the studio when she was here had a key to the building.But who? She hadn’t told anyone at dim sum that she was coming here. Could one of the gang have followed her? Or had her presence foiled someone’s plan to rob the place? A random robber with a key? Not bloody likely, as Godwyn would have said.

  Devon headed upstairs slowly, her gun now uncocked but still drawn. She scanned the second floor. It looked undisturbed, which made sense considering the person who had entered the building must have come from the street and directly into the art studio. She would have heard someone on the stairs—or would she? It was a solidly built warehouse—the thing Gabe had loved about it was that Beka could dance on the fourth floor and he wasn’t bothered on the third. But what if the intruder had been on the fourth floor? That was the only floor she hadn’t checked. There hadn’t been much point since she knew it had been unused for several years, ever since Beka retired. She locked the second-floor door from the outside—she wasn’t having any more surprises tonight—took a deep breath, and headed up to the third floor.

  The lights were still on, just as she’d left them. She moved quickly to the phone and dialed Loch’s cellphone. The line was busy—he was probably trying to reach her. “Loch, it’s me. I’m at Gabe’s building.I hope you can get over here if you’re headed this way; if you are, please hurry.”

  She thought for a second about her next move, locked the thirdfloor door, and started up to the fourth. The only thing she could think was that someone had been up there when she came in, and had waited until she was in the studio.

  As she started up the stairs she could hear the faint sound of dripping water. She pulled her gun again and turned the doorknob.The tumblers shifted, slipped, and shifted again. She jiggled the knob and pulled on the door; it seemed stuck. She pressed against it with her body weight, pulled back, and almost fell over as an invisible force rushed out at her and sent her reeling.

  Her hand flew to her nose, but it was too late. The smell ensconced her and the entire fourth story. She knew what she was going to see even before she turned on the light—it was who she was going to see that she wasn’t sure of.

  The sweetness of decaying flesh permeated the air until she could feel the heaviness of its scent clinging to her own skin, as if the smell itself could make her own body begin to decompose.Putrefaction was the only word that sprang to mind, that and gas mask, the one thing that would have made the scene bearable. The room was almost completely empty, but Devon could have shut her eyes and followed the smell.

  On the Cadillac, a piece of Pilates equipment that Beka had sworn she could not live without, rested the shadow of something hanging as if strung up on a trapeze. The room was dimly illuminated by the street lights outside, and, still on full alert, Devon pulled a pair of gloves from her back pocket. With the flick of the switch the room was swiftly illuminated and she could see how Pilates springs had been tightened around his neck, and bound his arms and legs together. The head was tilted back and away from her, but as she got closer she began to make out the features. It was Edilio Ferraro, and from the stench she guessed he’d been dead for about a week.

  She opened the window, leaned her head into the alleyway so the fresh winter wind could slap her face, and breathed deeply.Sometimes all there was to be grateful for was fresh air.

  She went back to the body. There was nothing she could put over her nose now that wouldn’t smell like the corpse, so she didn’t even try and mask the smell. She had more important things to do. The torso was carved over the heart, just as Gabe’s had been, with deep lines that were now soft and fraying around the edges from decay.Although the spring had been tightened around his neck the face was not blue, as it would have been from suffocation. She knelt closer to the chest wounds—no blood, they were made postmortem.

  A door banged shut down below and she could hear heavy footsteps, like those of someone wearing boots, coming up the stairs. She grabbed her gun out of its holster, ran into the hall in her stocking feet, and positioned herself around the corner of the stairwell. She had the advantage of surprise and not being winded; of course, whoever was coming up those stairs would know what floor she was on by the light she had just turned on.

  Cocking her gun for the second time that night, she waited calmly.She could tackle a 240-lb. felon and had—she was not worried.The sound of heavy breathing ascended the last flight of stairs. The intruder did not slow down until the last three steps, then stopped.Whoever was there seemed now to be listening as well.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “Devon, is that you?”

  She peered around the corner, just as Loch was holstering his gun. “What would you have done if I’d been someone else?” she asked.

  “I know the sound of your breathing.”

  “I have a surprise for you.”

  His hand was already at his nose. “I can smell it. Did you know that Edilio and Beka were having an affair?”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “At the Pilates studio.”

  “Your sources are almost right.” She led him into the room. “Edilio was queer as a three-dollar bill, but I don’t think he’s having an affair with anyone right now.” She pointed to the Cadillac and stepped back to give Loch a view of the body.

  He looked at the once-handsome face of Edilio Ferraro. “Well, that blows that theory.”

  “And according to Godwyn Kamani, Gabe and Edilio were spanking the monkey more than Beka and Gabe.” They opened up a few more windows for cross-ventilation.

  The open-relationship theory had seemed implausible, but this new theory had possibilities. Loch could see Beka ending her business partnership with Edilio now, and the anger escalating into violence against her husband—as the aftermath at the crime scene had illustrated. Even the suicide became more logical. How could she live with such betrayal? She might have felt she’d failed as a woman, or maybe she just couldn’t continue the charade anymore. He began to whistle; even the spousal abuse made sense. If Gabe was in the closet and repressing his natural tendencies, it could have come out as inappropriate behavior. Loch had seen it before. Hell, he’d seen everything before.

  He stepped over to the elaborate-looking bed with springs and leather straps on either end—it was exactly like the one he had seen in the Sag Harbor studio, only this time it looked like it had been used for its original intention, torture.

  “Something else happened tonight, Loch,” Devon interrupted his thoughts. “I had a run-in downstairs.”

  “Well, you certainly didn’t walk into a murder.”

  “No, but I’m thinking somebody may have been checking up on their work.”

  “So, what happened?” The fresh air was not helping him breathe any easier.

  She gave him a brief rundown of events and waited for his response. “The question is, how can we work this scene and still turn it over to the NYPD?”

  He winced and nodded, looking miserable at the thought of letting another Homicide team come in on what he felt should be their case even if it wasn’t their jurisdiction. “We simply have to make sure we get all the information we need before we turn it over to another Crime Scene and Homicide unit.” He paused to think about the quickest and easiest way they could accomplish this. “I’ll get the camera.You can’t dust before they do, or they’ll know. But we can certainly get our own set of film before they get here.”

  “We have two scenes here, too. What if I don’t make a report on the break-in?”

  “If it relates to the murder, we’ve suppressed evidence,” he reasoned.“Okay, we start up here. Then I call it in, while you process the studio downstairs. We let them do their thing, and I feel out the lead on their team. When you’ve had enough time downstairs on your own, I’ll let them know what we’ve got down there and make sure you’re in on the processing. I don’t think we’ll have any t
rouble proving there’s a link between Edilio and the other two. I’ll call Houck in a minute and make sure he’s ready to back us up.”

  “Sounds like we have a plan!”

  She was looking uncommonly chipper, and he felt it was his duty to bring her back to reality. “This doesn’t prove anything. This is way over the top, but she was still alive when he died. No way you get this kind of stink from a day-old body.”

  He headed downstairs to grab her camera, leaving her alone to think about the events of the past two days. If Loch could schmooze the lead detective while linking their investigation into Beka and Gabe’s deaths to Edilio’s, they would be allowed to view the autopsy and Devon could get Edilio’s prints more quickly. She felt pretty certain the city would work with them since it was going to be highprofile all the way around. The only real problem would be that Loch’s schmoozing techniques were more than a little lacking.

  He was back in a few minutes, camera in hand.

  “I can always dust after they leave,” Devon said, as she focused on the body. The bulb flashed. It was the first time in two days the flash of a camera did not send her reeling into recollections of the past.“When they’re gone, I can pull the same prints they find.”

  “Yeah, that shouldn’t bother them too much.”

  “Can you finish shooting the surrounding area while I run downstairs and get some paper and a pencil?”

  “What for?”

  “I want to sketch the marks on his chest. All day I’ve regretted that I didn’t sketch those marks on Gabe and I’m still waiting for the photo lab to open.”

  He took the camera and started shooting the scene, something he hadn’t done in years. She ran down to the third floor, unlocked the door, grabbed what she needed from Gabe’s desk, then ran back up the stairs, her heart pounding with excitement. She started sketching quickly and deftly as Loch finished one roll of the film and inserted another.