SAC Bowles gets up and kills the lights, and a large screen hanging from the ceiling at the end of the room comes alive with white light.
“I want you to see all four first,” Baxter says. “See if any look familiar. Then we’ll break them down. These images are being relayed from our Emergency Operations Center, which is also on this floor.” Baxter leans forward and addresses the speakerphone on the desk. “Give us the composite, Tom.”
Four photos appear simultaneously on the screen. None looks familiar, or even like what I expected, but why would they? My mental picture of artists comes from books and films, mostly images from other centuries. When I hear the word “students,” I think of people in their twenties. The oldest here – Roger Wheaton, I presume – is wearing bifocal glasses and reminds me of Max von Sydow, the actor. Severe and Scandinavian-looking, with shoulder-length gray hair. Beside his photo is a fortyish guy who looks like an ex-convict: hollow-eyed, unshaven, tough. Then I realize he’s actually wearing prison garb.
“Is that guy a convict?”
“He’s done two stretches in Sing Sing,” says Baxter. “We’ll get to that. We’ve got a real grab-bag of weirdos, here, I kid you not.”
“Is that a scientific description?” asks Kaiser.
Bowles belly-laughs.
“These faces ring any bells?” asks Baxter, cutting his eyes at me.
“Not so far.”
The other man in the composite is stunningly handsome, and my sixth sense tells me he’s gay. I generally make this judgment based on physical appearance, speech, and behavior. All I have here is a photograph, but I’ve spent most of my life studying photographs, and this guy I feel certain about. The woman is also attractive, with long black hair, light skin, and black eyes. But despite her skin tone, something about her features suggests African blood.
“The older man is Roger Wheaton,” says Baxter. “The convict is Leon Isaac Gaines, age forty-two. Raised in Queens, New York. The third man is Frank Smith. He’s thirty-five, and also a New York native. The woman is Thalia Laveau, thirty-nine, a native of Terrebonne Parish here in Louisiana.”
Now I’ve got it. Thalia Laveau is a Sabine, a racial group the FBI has probably never even heard of.
“All four suspects lived in New York for a time,” says Baxter, “so all could have ties to whoever killed Wingate.” He leans toward the speakerphone. “Put up Wheaton alone.”
The composite vanishes, replaced by a candid shot of Roger Wheaton. The artist has deep-set eyes behind his bifocals, and a long, strong face. He looks more like a craftsman than a painter, a genius with metal or wood.
“Before we do his bio,” says Baxter, “let’s deal with why Wheaton came to New Orleans. Three years ago, this reclusive artist of international reputation was diagnosed with scleroderma, a potentially fatal disease.” Baxter turns to Dr. Lenz. “Arthur?”
Lenz sniffs and inclines his head toward me as he speaks. “Scleroderma is commonly thought of as a woman’s disease, but it does affect men, and usually with more severity. The external symptoms, such as hardening of the facial skin, et cetera, are not always obvious or even present in men, but the internal damage is accelerated. Scleroderma is vascular in nature, and causes scarring and eventual failure of the internal organs, including the lungs. One particularly important symptom in Wheaton’s case is called Raynaud’s phenomenon. This is a spasm and constriction of the blood vessels of the extremities – usually the fingers, but sometimes the nose or the penis – which is caused by contact with cold temperature, usually air or water. These attacks completely cut off circulation to the digits, sometimes for long enough to cause irreversible tissue damage. Amputations aren’t uncommon. Sufferers frequently wear gloves for most of the day.”
“Wheaton moved south to avoid this?” I ask.
“Apparently, though that kind of move isn’t advised by physicians. It’s pointless, in a way. There’s more air- conditioning in the South, and even opening a refrigerator can bring on an attack. But the university has taken great pains to accommodate Wheaton’s special needs. The artist Paul Klee suffered from scleroderma later in life. It greatly affected his work. His paintings became very dark in content, and the damage to his fingers forced him to change his painting style completely. He-”
Baxter has raised his hand. “We need to stay macro here, Arthur. There’s a lot to cover.”
Lenz likes to hear himself talk, and does not take kindly to interruptions. But Daniel Baxter doesn’t hesitate to cut him off.
“Roger Wheaton,” Baxter says in the tone of a man reading from a cue card. “Born 1943, in rural Vermont. Youngest of three brothers. His brothers joined the service upon graduating high school – one army, one navy. Wheaton had no formal training as a child, but in interviews – of which he’s done damned few – he says his mother was a great lover of classical art. She bought him supplies and encouraged him to imitate the old masters, copying color plates from a book she bought him. He showed phenomenal talent, and at seventeen he left home for New York. We don’t have a lot of information on this period of his life, but in interviews he’s said he supported himself doing odd jobs and painting portraits on the street. He was unsuccessful as an artist, and in 1966 he joined the Marine Corps. He did two tours in Vietnam, earning a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart…”
I glance at Kaiser, who steps on my foot beneath the table.
“Wheaton also instituted a disciplinary action against two members of his platoon for raping a twelve-year-old Vietnamese girl. He pushed it to a court-martial, and the men did time in Leavenworth. Any thoughts, John?”
Kaiser nods in the half-dark. “That would have made Wheaton about as popular as trench foot in his platoon. It tells us something about him, but what, I’m not sure. Either what he saw was really bad, and he felt morally compelled to push it, or the guy has some kind of hero compulsion.”
This remark rankles me. “What rape wouldn’t be really bad to see?” I ask, trying to keep my voice under control. “Why couldn’t Wheaton simply have been doing the right thing by pushing it?”
Baxter answers for Kaiser. “I served in Vietnam myself, Ms. Glass. Most soldiers coming upon the situation I’ve described would have been offended and outraged, but they would have looked the other way. A few would have participated. But very few would have bucked the chain of command and forced disciplinary action. It’s not pretty in hindsight, but at that time, no one was inclined to discipline our own troops for anything short of a massacre. Wheaton transferred out of his unit after that, and it’s not hard to guess why. Still, he had a spotless record, with several commendations from his commanders.”
“We should track down the names of men he served with,” says Kaiser. “Not just his officers.”
“We’re on it,” Baxter replies. “You should also note that Wheaton lost one brother in Vietnam. Killed in a Saigon bar by a terrorist bomb. The other died in 1974, from a stroke.”
Baxter shuffles some papers. “After Vietnam, Wheaton returned to New York, enrolled in the art program at NYU, and slowly made a name for himself painting portraits. He supported himself this way for years, while he worked on his private obsession, which is landscapes. For the past twenty years, he’s painted the same subject over and over again. It’s a forest clearing, and every painting in the series is called The Clearing. He began in a very realistic style, but over the years he’s gone more abstract. The paintings are still called The Clearing, but they’re not recognizable as such. The early, more realistic ones showed a Vermont-style forest clearing, but also jungle foliage typical of Vietnam – and sometimes the two mixed – so there’s no telling about the real origin of the image, or its significance. When asked about it in interviews, Wheaton says the paintings speak for themselves.”
“A progression from realistic to abstract,” says Kaiser. “The exact opposite of the Sleeping Women.”
“Wheaton’s progression is much more marked,” says Lenz. “His style is so defined now that it’s spawned a genre or school in the worldwide art community. They call it ‘Dark Impressionism.’ Not because the paintings themselves are necessarily dark – though most of his recent work is – but because of their content. He uses Impressionist techniques, but the original Impressionists tended to paint what you might call happy subjects. Pastoral, tranquil themes. Think of Manet, Renoir, Monet, Pissarro. Wheaton’s work is very different.”
“De Becque said the Sleeping Women artist uses Impressionist techniques,” I tell Lenz. “In the way he lays down color, anyway.”
“That’s true,” says Lenz. “But he abandoned the pure style very quickly. Many beginning artists emulate the Impressionists, just as young composers imitate the popular composers of the past. But Impressionism in the pure sense is passe. Wheaton succeeds because he’s brought something new to the style. As for him painting the Sleeping Women, though, two connoisseurs have already told us that the Sleeping Women share no similarities whatever with the paintings of Roger Wheaton.”
