“Could one man paint two radically different styles and an expert not be able to tell he did both?” asks Baxter.
“If he did it to prove a point, probably.”
“What about to avoid detection?” says Baxter.
“Probably. But over the course of a body of work, certain idiosyncrasies reveal themselves. We’ve got hold of several portraits Wheaton painted years ago, to compare his execution of skin, eyes, hair, et cetera with that of the Sleeping Women artist. It’s all very technical, but the final answer is no. He couldn’t hide himself that way. Of course, we’ll analyze the paints, canvases, and all other materials to be sure.”
“Have you found these Kolinsky sable brush hairs in Wheaton’s paintings?”
“Yes. We’ve also found them in the paintings of Smith, Games, and Laveau.”
“Dating how far back?”
“Two years. When they came to Tulane.”
“Wheaton just started using these special brushes?”
“Apparently so. We’ll have to ask him why. Let’s move on. I could talk for an hour about Wheaton alone, but we have a much more viable suspect in this bunch.” Baxter says to the speakerphone, “Put up Gaines, Tom.”
The photo of Wheaton is replaced by a mug shot of the convict. This guy I would walk across a busy interstate to avoid. Crazed eyes, pasty skin, tangled black hair, a stubbled face, and a broken nose. The only paintbrush I can see him holding would be six inches wide.
“Leon Isaac Gaines,” says Baxter. “If I had to lay odds right now, this is our man in New Orleans. His father and mother were both drunks. The father did a stretch in Sing Sing for carnal knowledge of a juvenile, paving the way for junior, I guess.”
“Male or female juvenile?” asks Kaiser.
“Female.”
“Age?”
“Fourteen. Leon was arrested repeatedly as a juvenile. Burglary, assault, peeping, you name it. He did juvy time for starting fires, and was in and out of reformatories until he was twenty.”
Kaiser grunts, and I know why. Childhood arson is one leg of the “homicidal triangle” of indicators for serial killers as children. Bed-wetting, arson, and cruelty to animals: I remember them all from my reading last year.
“He rings the chimes on animals, too,” says Baxter. “When he was twelve, he buried a neighbor’s cat up to its neck in a sandpile and rolled over it with a lawn mower.”
“Enuresis?” asks Kaiser.
“No record of it. Both parents are deceased, but they weren’t the kind to have sought medical care for that. Still, we’re trying to track down physicians working in the area at the time.” More shuffling paper in the semidark. “Gaines is a two-time loser, once for aggravated battery, once for attempted rape.”
“Jesus,” mutters Bowles.
“No gang affiliations while incarcerated, but he was part of a bad riot at Sing Sing. We’re tracking down his cellmates and sending agents to interview them. Gaines never picked up a paintbrush in his life until his first term in Sing Sing -1975. He showed so much promise that the warden showed his stuff to some New York dealers. They apparently kept an eye on him, because during his second hitch, they made some sales for him. He attracted the attention of the New York art community, much as Jack Henry Abbott attracted the attention of Norman Mailer and those other chumps with his ‘Belly of the Beast’ nonsense.”
“Is that when Wheaton first heard about Gaines?” asks Kaiser.
“Wheaton isn’t mentioned by anyone at that time in connection with Gaines. Wheaton’s always been a recluse, associates with no other artists. Since his diagnosis, he’s broken off all contact with everyone but his dealer and his students. Local patrons of the arts in New Orleans have invited him for parties, dinner, like that, but he always declines. The president isn’t happy about that.”
“What does Gaines paint?” asks Kaiser.
“He started with prison scenes. Now he paints nothing but his girlfriend. Whatever girlfriend he has at the time. As far as we can tell, he’s regularly abused every woman he’s ever been with. He paints that, as well, by the way. Reviews of his stuff call it ‘violent,’ and that’s a quote.”
“How many applicants did Wheaton have to choose from when he picked this guy?”
“More than six hundred.”
“Jesus. Why did he pick Gaines?”
“You can ask him that tomorrow.”
Kaiser tenses beside me. “I’m doing the interview?”
“We’ll get to that after we cover these bios,” Baxter says quickly.
The rivalry between Kaiser and Lenz will surely come to a head over this.
“So Gaines is essentially painting a series, as well?” I ask. “The same subject again and again? Just like Wheaton and the UNSUB?”
“The others are too, in their ways,” says Lenz. “Wheaton apparently used this as a criterion in his selection. He’s on record as saying that only deep study of a particular subject can produce new understanding, deeper levels of truth.”
“That and fifty cents’ll buy you a cup of coffee,” cracks Bowles.
“I’m inclined to agree,” says Baxter. “But they pay Wheaton very big bucks.”
“How much?” asks Kaiser.
“His last painting went for four hundred thousand dollars.”
“That’s not even close to the Sleeping Women prices.”
“True. But Wheaton’s a lot more prolific than our UNSUB. You should note that NOPD has been called to Leon Gaines’s duplex several times by neighbors, but the girlfriend has yet to swear out a complaint. Gaines is usually drunk when they get there.”
“I think we’ve got the picture on Gaines,” says Kaiser.
“Not quite. He owns a Dodge utility van with tinted windows all around.”
The room goes silent.
“Anybody else have that kind of transport?” asks Kaiser in a soft voice.
“No,” says Lenz.
“We’ve got to get inside that van. If we find biological trace, we can compare it to samples from our victims’ DNA bank.”
“Where did you get DNA from the victims?” I ask. “You have no bodies.”
“For four victims, we have locks of hair saved from childhood,” says Kaiser. “Two victims were breast cancer survivors, and have bone marrow stem cells stocked at hospitals for future transplant. Two victims have eggs stored at fertility clinics. And two stocked umbilical cord blood when their youngest children were delivered. That’s not a direct match to the mother, but it could be helpful.”
“I’m impressed.”
“John put that together,” Baxter says proudly. “All grist to the mill.”
“As an identical twin,” says Kaiser, “you could add to the bank for your sister. I meant to ask you before.”
“Anytime.”
“As soon you conclude Gaines’s interview tomorrow,” says Baxter, “NOPD will confiscate the van.”
“What’s the deal with the utility van? Good way to move a body?”
Kaiser turns to me, his face a shadow with glinting eyes. “Rapists and serial killers favor this type of vehicle by a huge margin. It’s the most important part of their equipment, a means to quickly get the victim out of sight, even in a public place. Later, it often becomes the scene of the final crime.”
I try in vain to shut out images of Jane being raped and cut up inside a dark and stinking van.
“My money’s on Leon Gaines,” says Baxter. “But we need to cover everybody. Let’s have Frank Smith, Tom.”
Gaines’s face is replaced by the almost angelic visage I saw earlier in the composite.
“This one’s a riddle,” says Baxter. “Frank Smith was born into a wealthy family in Westchester County in 1965. He focused on art from an early age, and took an MFA degree from Columbia. Smith is openly gay, and he’s painted homosexual themes – usually nude men – from his college days.”
