The Murder Artist

by John Case

  “We want to know,” I say.

  “You still have to pay me,” she says, “even if the source remains anonymous. I spent three whole hours on this.”

  “That’s fine,” I tell her.

  “Here’s the deal. Wait a minute. Is this safe over the airwaves like this?”

  “You said you weren’t going to disclose the source.”

  “Right. So okay. Byron was a busy little bee while he was at Port Sulfur.” Her voice changes and it’s obvious that she’s reading from notes. “First thing, he earned his G.E.D. at eighteen – because he never did graduate, right. He dropped out. Six years later, he earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology – this is all by correspondence courses. Two years after that, he got his master’s. His thesis subject was ‘Prayer and the Placebo Effect.’ He led a Bible study class at Port Sulfur. Byron also had a lot of hobbies; the therapists are real big on that. One was origami. That’s folding up little critters and shapes out of paper, in case you’re not familiar. And he learned to be a magician – although Miz Ma – uh, my source – she said he already knew how to do lots of card tricks and stuff when he came in. Apparently, he just spent hours and hours practicing his tricks. And he had classes for the other patients. And they let him give shows and all. And at these performances, the staff came; they even invited guests – that’s how good he was. Professional level. My source told me everyone agreed that Byron was just about as good with a deck of cards as… let me see, I lost my place – oh, here we go… he was every bit as good as Ricky Jay.” A pause. “Who’s Ricky Jay? Never heard of him.”

  “He’s a magician,” I say. “Quite well known.”

  “Well, I guess that’s not part of my cultural matrix,” Jezebel replies. “Magicians, I mean. Anyway,” she continues, “Byron had lots of hobbies and he also read like a demon. And on account of he was enrolled in these university courses by correspondence, he could get books from libraries through the City University of New Orleans. They’d send them. My source, she couldn’t remember what all Byron read because it was soooo much, but he read lots about magic and history and religion. And psychology, of course, since that was his major.”

  “Right.”

  “He petitioned for release starting, like, the very first year he was in care, but he didn’t get anywhere until ninety-four. That’s the first time the release committee really considered his case, even though he was kind of a poster boy, getting those degrees and all. And according to my source, even though he did kill his own father, there were files and files and files about the abuse Byron’s supposed to have suffered at the hands of his daddy when he was a kid. They didn’t really believe that, but…”

  “With the man dead, they couldn’t entirely discount it, either,” Pinky puts in.

  “Right. So his case came up again the next year, ninety-five, but there was a holdout on the committee didn’t want to let him go. That person moved or something, or retired – my source couldn’t remember – so when it came up again in ninety-six, they decided Byron was sane, or sane enough anyway, and not a danger to himself or the community, that it was time to let him go.”

  “What changed their minds?”

  “Time,” Jezebel says. “More than anything else. It’d just been so long, for one thing. And there’s all that supposed abuse he’d suffered at Claude’s hands – this was still at a time when people were buying that as an explanation for all kinds of stuff. Plus he was a juvenile when he was committed, plus he’d done so well with his studies and all. They decided his act against his father was prompted by, let’s see, uh… ‘transitory conditions’ – and that he was not likely to commit similar acts.”

  “Did Byron have any friends inside? Any special friends?” I ask.

  “See, I knew you’d ask that,” Jezebel says.

  “And?”

  “Charley Vermillion, right? You want to know if he was a special friend of Byron? And the answer is that Byron did spend time with Charley. Charley was in Byron’s Bible study class, for one thing. And this was a real close group, according to my source. Byron was also some kind of nuthouse lawyer, mostly for the folks in his Bible group. Helped them file petitions and all. Helped them contact lawyers. I didn’t think to ask who all was in the group. You want to know?”

  “Yeah, I would,” I tell her, “if you can find out.”

  “You’re breaking up,” Jezebel says. “Whereabouts are you, anyway?”

  “Near Houma,” Pinky says.

  “I can’t hear you. I’m going to my friend Felicia’s now to watch TV. Call me tomorrow or something.” She hangs up.

  “Hmmmm,” Pinky says. “That young lady is dynamite.” He makes a right turn. There’s no road noise with the BMW. I find this a little strange, as if we’re gliding through space. “Between Max and his friend Sam, and Jez, we learned a lot today.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe that list of Bible study people will give us a lead.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Why are you so quiet? You’re not thinking of going out to that witch doctor’s tonight, are you? Don’t be foolish, pardner.”

  We roll past a gas station selling superrealistic framed artwork, paintings on glass so realistic they mimic photographs – except for the fact that every detail is in hyperfocus and the colors are unnaturally bright. Woodlands and birds and bright blue streams. The flag is a feature in many of them, along with the bald eagle. Each one has its own light source, and they glow brightly, attracting a mist of bugs. A couple of women contemplate one of the works while a man in shorts and a tank top sits on a folding chair, smoking a cigarette.

  We roll on in companionable silence for some time. Pinky flips on the sound system. Half a minute of Beausoleil, and he flicks it off again. “I mean it’s one thing to throw caution to the winds,” he says, “and go all out looking for your boys. But it’s another thing to head to a shack in the swamp to spend the night with some motherfucker ain’t got no lip. And the only thing you really know about him is he was the only friend old Byron had, and – I might add – the likely source of the poison killed Claude.”

  I don’t say anything.

  “I’m going with you then.”

  “I think it’s better if you don’t. That way, if I don’t come back, you can-”

  “Call the po-lice? Jesus, Alex.”

  “I just have a feeling Diment might have some idea where Byron is.”

  “And he’s gonna tell you?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. But I got the feeling he might help me.”

  “I didn’t get that feeling at all. Those folk coughin’ away in that other room? All those things tied up with string. That spooked me out good. And you’re supposed to go there at midnight? Put yourself in his trust. Whoa! Not this puppy. Explain to me why you would trust him? What about the man seems trustworthy, pardner? Huh?”

  “I know what you’re saying.”

  Pinky lets out a jet of air. “How you plannin’ to get out there? You even remember how to go?”

  “I was thinking… a cab. And maybe you could draw me a map.”

  “I’ll draw you a map. But forget the cab. I’ll give you my car.”

  “I can’t take your car. What about you?”

  “I’ll be asleep. I’ll have me some breakfast right at the Holiday Inn. Read the paper. You don’t call or show up by noon or so, I’ll sound the alarm. Anyway, call it an insurance policy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “First of all, it’s easy to track the car. OnStar has this GPS system. Second thing is that the po-lice around here might not jump into action if some guy from Washington, D.C., gets hisself lost in the swamp.” He glances over at me. “Some of our officers might not have the utmost respect for human life. But a sixty-thousand-dollar vehicle? Something like that goes missing, you see some action then, all right.”

  CHAPTER 38

  The car’s xenon lights tunnel into the night, illuminating unmarked roads that seem indistinguishable to me
. I get lost a couple of times, despite Pinky’s painstakingly drawn map. I left plenty of spare time, though, and even with the wrong turns I arrive at Diment’s place fifteen minutes before midnight.

  I step out of the car into the warm night. A sibilant insect hum rises up around me, followed by some kind of animal or bird, some jungly cry of distress that makes the hair on my neck stand up. The BMW’s lights stay on for a few moments, as if to light my way from my driveway to the door of my suburban manse. In reality, they illuminate with brutal clarity the concrete-block structure before me.

  It looks like a great place to get killed. Only a dim, flickering light is visible through the one small window. A candle? I wonder for a moment if the structure has electricity, but then I remember the string of Christmas lights on the altar. I think about the weird collection of objects displayed. It is impossible to assign significance to them. What could the comb mean? A baby bottle?

  On the scuffed ground in front of the door, a single tennis shoe rests on its side. It reminds me of Kevin’s Nike, the one I spotted by the gate outside the jousting arena. That creepy resonance jumpstarts an intense wave of paranoia, and it’s all I can do not to bolt.

  The car gives a little click and the lights fade. I step forward a few steps and rap on the siding next to the door. No sooner have I touched the house than the beads are pulled open with a clatter. It’s as if the two men were standing just inside, waiting. They smile at me.

  “Welcome, welcome,” one of them says. He’s a skinny man, with a fuzz of graying hair. He’s so thin he looks skeletal. He speaks in a high squeaky voice. “Come in.”

  “I’m here to see-”

  “The houngan not here,” the second man says. He’s a big man and so dark skinned the light glints off the broad planes of his face. He’s at least six-five, two-fifty, and while the skinny man scared me, I find this big man reassuring. “But first you have to get dressed,” he says in his booming baritone.

  “I am dressed,” I tell them.

  But, no. They tell me they have something special for me to wear. I follow the two of them, tiptoeing past the patients lying in a row against the wall. Someone moans. Another, off to the left, coughs – a terrible sound that concludes in a kind of gasping wheeze.

  “In here,” the big man says, opening a door. He pulls the string and I see what I’m being shown into: a john. “You change,” he says. “We’ll wait outside.”

  My new outfit is hanging on the back of the bathroom door: a white tuxedo with a red carnation in the lapel. Now I understand the reason for the question about my size. Still, it’s not reassuring. A white tuxedo…?

  I’m drenched in sweat; it’s coming off me in sheets. And suddenly, I have all kinds of questions:

  Why do I have to change clothes?

  Why the white tuxedo? Something Karl Kavanaugh said pops into my mind, something about white doves and blood.

  Just what is “an initiation ceremony”? Skip the details, just give me the general idea.

  And can you really just join a bizango, or was Diment putting me on?

  And how can I join something if I don’t know what I’m joining? Isn’t there… a catechism, or something?

  Diment said I had to enter into the evening with trust. How can I put my trust in Diment? I don’t even know him.

  And why midnight?

  Some not helpful portion of my brain chimes in: It’s the witching hour.

  None of these questions makes it past my lips. What I say instead, hesitating at the threshold of the bathroom before I close the door is: “Uh, I’m not sure about this.”

  “You change in there,” the skinny man says, as if I haven’t spoken at all. He gives me a gentle push.

  “I’m just-”

  “We’ll wait out here,” the big man says, with a reassuring pat on the arm. And then he nudges me a little farther inside and closes the door.

  It’s a cramped, utilitarian room: a toilet, a sink, a paper-towel dispenser, a pump bottle of liquid soap. A sheet of reflective metal hangs over the sink instead of a mirror. The door shudders and creaks and I realize the two men are leaning against it.

  I fight off a reflex surge of claustrophobia and try to calm down. Maybe they’re just leaning against it because… it’s just a place to lean.

  It’s hard to calm down. I’m breathing too fast, and a voice inside my head is screeching: What are you doing?

  The men outside the door mumble. The big man laughs, a hearty chuckle that seems absent of any note of malevolence. I take several deep breaths. You came to him, I tell myself. You sought out Diment, not the other way around. You asked for his help.

  I put on the tuxedo, fastening the suspenders and the crimson cummerbund. Not surprisingly, it’s a perfect fit. I put my clothes on the hangers and put my shoes back on. Then I step back and regard myself in the sheet of metal over the sink. There’s something so goofy about the white tuxedo, a Liberace kind of excess, that for a moment I feel giddy.

  I rap on the door.

  It’s pulled open. The skinny man cocks his head and contemplates me. “Awright,” he says, with a kind of cackle. “My man! You look good! Doesn’t he look good?”

  “Ummhmm,” the big man says, and then reaches into his pocket and pulls out a bottle of Deep Woods Off. “Close your eyes,” he says. Before I can protest, he’s spraying me head to toe with a perfumed mist that stinks of deet.

  Skinny turns off the light, and then we pick our way through the clinic again, single file, the big guy leading.

  The BMW gleams in the moonlight, my getaway car. I finger the keys in my pocket, but I’m not seriously tempted to pop the lock and drive away from this. I’ve crossed some invisible barrier. Whatever I’m into here, I’m committed.

  The big guy has a Maglite, but its batteries must be almost used up because the light it casts is a watery yellow disk that doesn’t do much to illuminate our way. The moonlight barely penetrates the thick canopy. We’re trudging along a narrow dirt path through a vine-tangled wood. The trees are spooky, shrouded with Spanish moss. The path is full of roots. The insect hum rises up around us, a rich vibrant tumult.

  “The hills are alive,” the skinny guy says, and then cackles with laughter.

  The big guy chuckles.

  “Where are we going?” I can hardly see the two men, but me? I practically glow in the dark.

  “To the place,” the big man says. “Don’t worry, we’ll be there soon.”

  I can’t see much, but I can tell we’re getting closer to water. The disk of light bounces off tangles of mangrove knees and occasionally I hear a frog splash. The air smells different, too, funky and dank.

  After a few more minutes, I smell wood smoke, and hear the murmur of voices. And then finally, we emerge from the dark woods into a clearing. Diment and a dozen others, men and women, sit around a fire. A couple of bottles of what looks like rum are going around the circle, and in fact, I can smell alcohol. Out in the darkness, when the fire throws up a flame, I can see the gleam of water.

  Seeing me, Diment gets to his feet. The rest of the bizango follows suit. Diment embraces me, then holds me at arm’s length. “Damn, you look fine.” He smiles, teeth gleaming. Everyone embraces me in turn, introducing themselves and offering a formal welcome. I feel at a remove from myself, as if I’m looking at this from above: a collection of happy people sitting around a fire, drinking, led by a man who lost his upper lip to a zombie. Then a man dressed in white comes out of the woods and joins them. It’s a scene of visual extravagance, like something you might see in the Corcoran or the National Gallery, some nineteenth-century painting of an exotic crowd scene: Initiation.

  My heart feels unsteady in my chest and over and over again, I hear that little voice saying: What are you doing?

  After all the hugs and bows, my legs feel shaky. I’m more than happy to sit down next to Diment, as I’m invited to do. The skinny man and the big man join the circle. The rum goes around in both directions. This time I dr
ink as much as I can when it’s my turn, and my thirst meets with enthusiastic approval. I realize, after a few minutes, that most of the bizango is drunk.

  Finally, Diment raises his hand, and everyone falls quiet. He turns to me and puts a hand on my arm. “Alex, are you ready?”

  I nod. What I’m thinking is: Let’s get this over with.

  “Bon!” The big man distributes torches – these constructed of thick bamboo, with some kind of cloth wrapped many times around their ends. The members of the bizango dip the torches into the fire, and then we’re on the move again, heading even deeper into the swamp. We have to duck under the limbs of trees and tread carefully over the rooty ground. The insects roar, and I’m grateful for the Off, which keeps them more or less at bay.

  “Ho!” says a voice from the front of our file. And then, a minute later, I follow Diment around a big tree and into a clearing. A crude wooden cross stands waist-high, stuck into the ground at an angle. A few feet away is a freshly dug grave, and next to that, a pine casket.

  It takes me a second to grasp what I’m seeing and when I do, I take a reflexive step backward. Everyone laughs.

  Diment faces me. His bizarre smile is anything but reassuring. “Have faith, my friend.”

  It’s a call-and-response thing, and the rest of the bizango chants its reply to Diment in unison.

  “Have faith!”

  “And trust in your brothers and sisters.”

  “Have trust!”

  “Without faith, there’s no resurrection.”

  “Without faith we are doomed.”

  “Without faith, we have nothing.”

  “Have faith!”

  It goes on like that for a while and then everybody falls silent. Diment claps me on the back. “Don’t worry, man! We dig you up quick!”

  “Quick!” I say. “You mean, like, right away, or-”

  Diment laughs, throwing his head back, exposing all of his teeth. “No,” the doctor says, barely able to speak over his laughter. “See, you spend the night, restin’ underground. We be up here, makin’ music. Moving with the loa. When the sun comes up, your brothers and sisters here get you out.”