“That’s right,” Nell said, as if having an epiphany. “Last Friday night, Elena got another call while she was on the phone with me. She clicked over, and it turned out to be Narziss.”
Sandy smiled, revealing yellow teeth. “I’d have worked for free, had I known Todd Narziss would be in here. God, he’s hot.” She cackled, snorted, fanned herself, and glanced at Nell. “Am I right?”
Nell raised her brows, tilted her head, and cringed.
The teenager in line exhaled his disgust at the delay.
Casey scribbled Sandy’s quote in his notepad. “May I quote you on that?”
“Huh?”
“I’m a reporter with Sports Scene magazine. I’m writing about Narziss.”
“Lucky!” Sandy placed the backs of her wrists on her hips and pouted.
“So I can quote you?”
Sandy shrugged. “Go ahead. It’s true. And I’m single.” She laughed heartily.
“Do you remember Elena?”
“Yes, she bought an Arizona iced tea. I remember because I told her that was my favorite and she agreed.” Sandy scanned the teenager’s Mountain Dew and Funyuns. The teen wore a gray hoodie and had piercings in his tongue, lips, and nose.
Casey and Nell glanced at each other. “After she bought the tea, do you know where she went?” Nell said.
The teenager paid and left.
“That’s none of our business,” Sandy said. Beep. Beep.
“Look,” Casey said. “I’ve interviewed Narziss many times. He wouldn’t come here unless he wanted something from you.”
She guffawed. “He can use me all he wants.”
Casey couldn’t take any more. “Listen, Sandy, we happen to know our friend had something going on with Narziss, who is married with two kids.”
Sandy paused and looked at Casey. “Going on going on?”
All the customers in the gas station turned and stared as if Casey were a pink alien.
He swallowed. “He might know more about her disappearance than he has let on. Please. What did you see?”
Sandy scanned a case of Miller Lite and lowered her voice. “Okay. I already told Todd this, so what the hell. She called a cab.”
Casey felt deflated. That was her big secret?
“A yellow cab?” Nell said.
Sandy nodded. “Your friend walked here on foot from the stadium. The driver pulled up near Pump 4, didn’t buy anything, just got out of the cab and went over to her. A few seconds later, they got into his cab.”
“Got surveillance?” Nell said.
“I’m not allowed to give that to anyone but the police, and only if they have one of those …whatcha-jiggers.”
“A warrant?” Nell said.
“Yeah, a warrant.” She shrugged and protruded her lips. “Sorry.”
An old man dressed in Hail gear handed Sandy whiskey, peanuts, and Tums. Sandy continued. “The cabbie was white, had a bad comb-over. It wasn’t Frugal Taxi…” She tapped the scanner with her long, pink fingernail. “Maybe Northwoods Taxi?”
“You mean NorthStar Taxi,” said the oldtimer in a hoarse voice.
“That’s it!” Sandy exclaimed. “Knew there was a ‘North’ in there.”
“Remember which way the taxi went?” Casey said. Now they were getting somewhere.
“Down to Mancinni Ave.,” Sandy said. The street was named for the team’s famous coach. “He turned left. That’s all I know, Mister…”
“Frog,” Casey said.
Sandy stared at him without expression. “What’s your first name, Mr. Frog?”
“Kermit. Thanks for everything.” He headed for the door.
Nell leaned toward Sandy. “Don’t mind him.” She pointed a finger at her own head and made circles with her hand. “He’s a little…”
Sandy rose to her toes and called after Casey. “Hey! You ain’t gonna buy nuthin’? Not even a Miss Piggy Pez dispenser?” Casey turned just enough to see that she actually held one.
Casey shook his head. Nell followed him.
Sandy shrugged and ate a Pez.
5
TUESDAY, JANUARY 18
How could one improve on a classic? The answer, to Hailangelo, was to begin with the right materials. The moment he had seen Tess walking on the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay campus, he knew she was the perfect choice. Yes, she had the requisite slender frame, long hair, and angular bone structure. More than that, it was her body carriage, the confidence and intelligence she exuded. He knew full well, though, that he couldn’t just take her. No human hunter simply chased down an elk, tackled it, and mounted it on his wall. Acquiring material required patience to learn the prey’s habits, dupe it closer with a ruse, select the right moment to attack, and remain calm during capture. The last measure carried particular importance, given the danger of the target fleeing or, worse, bruising and breaking in a way that even he couldn’t repair with putty or disguise with paint.
In art school he had studied the great hyperrealist sculptors George Segal, John De Andrea and, most closely, his idol Duane Hanson. He realized he owed them a great debt, and vowed not to let their brilliance be wasted. Like the masters, Hailangelo had learned to use plaster and polyvinyl to make statues from scratch appear impeccably real.
While Hailangelo’s most famous statues depicted Hail football players, he preferred his other polyvinyl statues—those depicting the common person in everyday settings. But fame amongst the team’s fans led to lucrative orders that paid for his lifestyle. Praise from football fans and New York art critics doused his brain with dopamine, but eventually those spikes waned. Besides, polyvinyl could be toxic and might have caused the cancerous death of Hanson. Hailangelo preferred to live. His new technique involved taking his statues to an entirely new level of hyperrealism. All life came to an end eventually, even his, but he could fix this phenomenon for a chosen few. He’d made it his life’s work to capture the most beautiful women he could find and immortalize them forever through a blend of taxidermy and sculpture. Thanks to a machine that sped up the taxidermy process, his dream could become reality in a matter of hours, rather than weeks.
Now he sniffed the paint on Tess’s cheek and could tell it was dry. Her ambivalence beckoned him, so he slid onto the oak box, held her, and kissed her. She still felt cold from refrigeration. He hated having to do that but, without it, rigor mortis would set in much faster and malleability of the skin would have been lost. Hailangelo couldn’t allow this, as the pose meant everything to him. After all, he knew his artistic limits. He was no Sargent, no Jean-Léon Gérôme, no Michelangelo. But if he adapted their talents and gave them new life, ah, now this would be a way to take the most beautiful women and improve them for all time.
Jealous peers had criticized Hailangelo for “selling out” to America’s most popular sport, for not truly creating anything new with his polyvinyl “avatars,” for aping Hanson and selling it to the masses. How wrong they were. Yes, he enjoyed commercial popularity and had amassed resources. But he had given back to the community—by leaving his new, human art creations on college campuses in Colorado Springs, Colorado; Galesburg, Illinois; and Ames, Iowa. For these sculptures he’d sought no buyers, no critics, no fame, and no credit. He’d just covered them with a gray tarp in his studio, removed the seats from his minivan, and carefully loaded each statue face-up. Hailangelo had then driven to a place he felt would accentuate the statue, waited for the right moment when nobody would witness the unveiling, and left the sculpture for all to see.
What could be more selfless? Hailangelo knew most geniuses were underappreciated by their peers. It had taken weeks for observers to realize that the statues were made from human material. Even the FBI had scoffed at a young woman named Tess Miller, who brought to their attention the resemblance of the statue in Colorado Springs to a photo she had seen on a missing-persons website. The local TV news stations lined up to interview the photogenic Tess. They wanted to know: How did it feel to out-fox the FBI? She had shrugged it
off and said the FBI was busy, and that she’d gotten lucky. Hailangelo had wanted to shake that young woman’s hand—among other things. He knew he could because, based on the newsclips, he could tell that her personality defaulted to please and submit.
His good deeds had not gone unpunished, as he’d had to suffer through public speculation about who could have created the human statues. As if any hack taxidermist could pull it off! Please. Journalists speculated whether the statue in Ames was the work of a copycat or the same person.
It wasn’t that he wanted credit. It was the disregard for his talent that bothered him. This was one of many reasons why it pained him to set free his beloved doves, despite the media attention they eventually garnered, and the high he got from the attention. He kept their hearts close to him—in pickle jars on a shelf in his studio. Perhaps he’d leave one more statue, Madame X, as a parting gift to the public.
He felt melancholy to think that this statue could be the last made from a real person that he’d ever leave in public. He knew he had to stop. After all, Hailangelo was a student of history: the BTK Strangler, alias Dennis Lynn Rader, had taken ten victims, ceased his work, and blended into society as a deacon, father, and scout leader. Rader had known how to count the proverbial cards and leave the casino while he was still ahead. He had lived undetected for years, and may never have been caught had he not foolishly taunted the police, who’d eventually used a floppy disk he’d sent them to track him down. Hailangelo would not make that mistake, as doing so would take him away from his Madame X and prevent him from ever bringing the Pygmalion and Galatea to life.
Regardless, he had to make this final public exhibition count. To him, placing the statues was like playing hide and seek. It titillated him to the point of euphoria that passersby would get “warmer” and “warmer” and not even realize his statue had been hiding in plain sight.
It was 3:30 a.m. on the Tuesday he left Green Bay, driving his minivan nine hours to Columbridge University in Columbia, Missouri. Fortunately, despite winter temperatures, the highways were mostly free of snow and ice, and had been thoroughly plowed and salted. In Columbia, he turned left on South 97th Street, and then hung a right on Columbridge Way. He swiveled his head around, searching the campus for the proper location. He had scouted for ideas online, but always kept an open mind in case inspiration struck. When he spotted the ten Ionic columns that stood vanguard in front of Jamesville Hall, he instantly knew he had found the perfect place. He illegally turned off the road and drove the minivan over walkways and lawn, moving toward the columns. He wouldn’t have dared to try this with his old Caravan but his new model had better shocks. He knew that the Ionic columns had survived the fire at Columbridge Hall in 1873. The school board had planned to tear down the pillars, but students, faculty, alumni, and citizens had rallied to prove the columns were safe, historic, and deserving of protection. In cases like these, Hailangelo adored the proletariat.
He hoped his statues would last as long as the columns, which formed the centerpiece of a roundabout in front of the stately Jamesville Hall, with red bricks and Roman columns of its own. With nobody in sight, Hailangelo parked and unloaded his Madame X statue. He used a dolly to wheel her between the center columns. Hailangelo glanced around again to be sure no insomniacs, college drunks, or third-shift employees watched him. Like a magician, he tore off the tarp in one swoop, folded it crisply and set it in the back of the minivan.
She looked radiant. He blew Madame X one last kiss and climbed into the minivan. He flashed back to the moment he had plunged the syringe into Tess’s neck and become aroused. He grinned and thought, hydrocyanic acid works every time. With that, he drew in a deep breath, catching one final waft of her perfume, and drove home. As he left campus and pulled onto the highway, the emotional high began to wane ever so slightly, melancholy cradling him. This triggered the plans for his next creation.
He would definitely recreate the Pygmalion and Galatea. He already had the perfect material in mind, and he would keep her all for himself.
6
MONDAY, JANUARY 17
As they left the gas station, an alarm sounded on Casey’s phone. “Crap, I have an interview with Narziss in five minutes. It’s for Sports Scene magazine.”
“Oh sure, you get a woman in your car, have your fun, then just leave her behind,” Nell teased.
“I don’t have time to cuddle.”
“That’s all right. I have work to do, anyway.”
“I’ll call you,” Casey said, and jogged through the parking lot to the stadium atrium entrance, past Hailangelo’s polyvinyl replica statues of tight end Todd Narziss and quarterback Johnny Oakley. The statues included details like arm hair, sweat, grass stains on the uniforms and real Hail helmets, which were navy blue with the team logo. Fans often mistook them for the real players, and parents would become angry when the statues ignored their kids’ autograph requests. The expansive atrium had been built with exposed steel rods—painted navy blue, of course—to reinforce the unfinished ceilings, giving it a look similar to a restaurant converted from an old warehouse. Casey took the glass elevator to the third floor and approached the PR reception desk, a curved wood-and-steel concoction. On the walls hung life-sized, black-and-white framed photo prints of Hail stars: Oakley held the football cocked behind his head in perfect form; linebacker Billy Kronski hulked over a crumpled defender he’d just flattened. In the image, Kronski flashed the sinister smile and wide eyes of a psychopath pleased with his work.
“Hi, Delores,” Casey said.
Delores Tyme’s business cards read Public Relations Receptionist but should have said Inside Dirt Queen. “Casey Thread,” Delores replied with a smile, radishes for cheeks. Poor Delores still wore too much blush. “What brings you back?”
“I’m writing a Sports Scene article on Todd Narziss.”
Delores looked at her computer. “Oh, yes. A one o’clock.” She spoke in a tone overly sweet and appropriate, like a kindergarten teacher. “Bruce will be right out to show you to the interview room.”
Casey nodded and placed his hands in his jeans pockets. “Thanks.”
Delores poked her tongue out of one corner of her mouth and slowly turned her head from the computer screen—a telltale sign she had dirt to dish. “Did you hear about Elena?”
“Yes. You know her well?”
She touched her fingertips to her cheek. “Of course. She works at the Hail Pro Shop.”
“What can you tell me about her?”
Delores tilted her head. “Casey, why should I share such details with a magazine writer?”
He turned away, toward the Kronski poster. “Just making conversation…”
“Well, I guess I could share a little.” She chortled. “Yes, of course I know Elena well. Sweet little thing. She belongs to our book club.”
“Book club?” He hadn’t realized Elena was well-read.
Delores refocused. “Why yes, we read romance novels.” She adjusted her snug, polka-dotted dress over her plump frame. “The group includes the ladies around the office. We have coffee and talk about the hunks in the books. I can’t believe Elena’s missing, the poor thing. Hope the baby’s okay.”
Casey froze. “Baby? Whose baby?”
Delores turned in her chair to face Casey and made an innocent face like a kid on a 1950s sitcom. “Elena is pregnant, you know.”
Casey coughed, almost choked. They didn’t call Delores “Prime Time” for nothing. “Pregnant?” he said. “That’s…great.” He swallowed. “How far along?”
“Aren’t we nosey?”
He covered. “I’m just concerned on account of her disappearing.”
Delores dipped her head slightly and peered up at him. In a rather loud voice she said, “I heard you two had a little…float on passion’s waves.” She twiddled her fingers.
Casey squinted. “We met. She’s…nice.” It couldn’t be his baby, right? He’d fallen asleep before they had consummated the relationship.
> Delores continued. “It was last Thursday night, at Skeeto’s party over at the White House.” She rested her chin on the backs of her hands. “You two found a bedroom upstairs and had a good time. Until you took a nappy.”
Casey wondered how the hell she knew that. Narcolepsy or not, he still couldn’t believe he had had an attack while kissing Elena. Although he did have an excuse: Elena’s skin had felt so soft and warm that his heart began pounding—triggering his disorder. Most people yearn to sleep more often. Casey felt drowsy nearly all day; his peers had no idea. It was almost enough to make him wish he could give up sleep entirely. “Who told you that?”
Delores giggled. “Oh, I have my sources.”
“The baby…can’t be mine.”
“Of course not, dear.”
After an awkward silence, he said, “Can I quote you on the pregnancy tip?”
“Only if you refer to me as a ‘league source.’”
“Done,” he said. Perhaps something positive could come out of his humiliation.
“I’m not sure how far along Elena is. She barely showed.” Delores inspected her nails. “Of course, Elena’s skinny. She could afford to gain weight. I look at a brownie and put on ten pounds.”
Casey’s attention drifted to wondering who had fathered Elena’s baby. Suddenly, the narcoleptic attack that had truncated his romantic night with her seemed less embarrassing and more serendipitous. He had always thought he’d be a good dad when the time came—after all, he had great role models in his father and grandfather—but he certainly didn’t feel prepared for that responsibility now. He could barely stay awake long enough to take out the garbage. What would happen if he had an attack while changing a diaper? Perish the thought.
Bruce Waters from the PR staff appeared in the hallway. “Casey, Todd’s ready for your interview. Right this way.”
“Thanks, Delores,” Casey said.
“Anytime.” She flashed a sly grin.
Bruce led Casey down the hallway. “How’s life on the Bay?” Bruce said, referring to Casey’s apartment on the shoreline of Green Bay.
Sleep When You're Dead Page 3
