Wheaton shrugs. “Again, by today’s standards, yes. He hit us with a razor strop, birch rods, anything close to hand.”
“What about sexual abuse?”
The artist’s deep sigh conveys utter contempt for the psychiatrist. “Nothing of the kind.” Wheaton wipes his forehead with a gloved hand. “Now, I really must insist that you go.”
Lenz fires a last shot as he gets to his feet.
“Mr. Wheaton, would you simply tell us whether you’re homosexual or not? It would prevent a lot of further prying into your life, bothering of your friends, et cetera.”
Wheaton seems to sag under the weight of the question. “The answer is academic, I’m afraid. My disease rendered me impotent over two years ago.” He looks at Lenz. “Do you have your pound of flesh now?”
The artist glances at me, and the wounded pride in his face makes me look at the floor.
“Thank you for your time,” I say before Lenz can press him further. I back toward the hallway. “I appreciate your honesty about Gaines. It really might help find Thalia and my sister.”
Wheaton steps forward and takes my hand between his two white gloves. “I hope so. Is there really some hope that they’re still alive?”
“Not much. But some.”
He nods. “Maybe someday I’ll find a way to explain why I couldn’t answer the other question. So you’ll know I did all I could. I care a great deal for Thalia. She’s a wounded soul. You call me if you need to talk, or if you’d like to take more photographs. I’d like to paint you. We could do an exchange.”
“I thought you only painted landscapes.”
“I was quite a portraitist in the old days.” He laughs. “It kept me in pea soup and ramen noodles.”
“How is your painting coming? The final Clearing? It looked almost finished when I saw it.”
“I’m very close. A day, maybe two. The president had to close the gallery. Word has leaked out that I’m nearly done, and all manner of people are showing up to gawk. Reporters, students, collectors. Soon I’ll attach the final canvas panel to the circle, which means you’ll have to climb scaffolding and descend a ladder to get inside. It’ll be a relief to have it done.”
“I would like you to paint me sometime. I’d like to see how you see me.”
“Frank would do a more professional job, but I might see you more honestly than he.”
John and Lenz watch Wheaton as though each word and gesture are fragments of some code.
“Well, thanks.” I gently shake his hand.
“Thank you, my dear.” Wheaton moves from the door so that John and Lenz can get into the hall. “Goodbye, gentlemen.”
Dr. Lenz tries to shake the artist’s hand, but Wheaton takes a step backward and gives him a tight smile. Then the three of us are outside again, walking toward the FBI sedan parked on the street.
“He just told us to go to hell,” says John.
“Very smoothly,” Lenz agrees. “But he certainly pointed his finger at Gaines.”
“After saying nothing yesterday. I wonder why.”
“He told you why,” I say irritably. “He doesn’t like talking about anybody’s personal business. Even an asshole like Gaines. He knows the FBI will turn Gaines’s life into a living hell because of what he just told you.”
“Yes,” Lenz says thoughtfully. “He does.”
“What did you think about his answers about his mother?” asks John.
Lenz adopts his professorial tone. “He doesn’t know why she left, but he can’t let it be because she loved a paramour more than her children. As for childhood abuse… I don’t know. Denial is classic adaptive behavior. Without more time with him… I’ll have to think about that one.”
John opens the front door of the car, holds it for me, and looks into my eyes. “I hope you have better luck with Frank Smith.”
“I make my own luck.”
He smiles. “I believe you. They faulted Smith’s phones, both home and cell. No warning from Wheaton this time. You still want to go in alone?”
“Absolutely.”
“Let’s get to the Quarter, then.”
The medical tape holding the T-4 transmitter at the small of my back chafes as I climb the steps of the Creole cottage on Esplanade and knock at Frank Smith’s door. From the transmitter, a thin wire runs around my ribs and up to a microphone clipped to the V of my bra. This time the door isn’t answered by Juan but by the owner himself. Frank Smith smiles broadly, revealing the gleaming white teeth of an affluent childhood, and leans against the doorjamb with languid grace.
“Is this visit social? Or government business?”
“I wish I could say the former, but it’s not.”
Smith arches his perfectly plucked eyebrows. “Well, then. I don’t think I’m at home.”
His movie-star handsomeness is starting to irritate me. “Have you watched any TV this morning?”
“No.”
“Read the
“I took a long bath and had coffee in the garden. That’s the sum of my morning. Why?”
“May I come in?”
His sea-green eyes narrow. “Don’t tell me he’s taken another one.”
“Thalia Laveau.”
Smith looks confused. “What about Thalia?”
“He took Thalia. Last night.”
This is the first time I’ve seen Frank Smith lose his perfect control.
“May I please come in?”
He steps out of my way, and I walk inside. Instead of waiting for him to lead me to the salon, I walk through the house and make my way to the garden. The fountain that filled the courtyard with sound yesterday is switched off now, and a blackbird perches on the highest tier. There’s a small wrought-iron table under the gnarled wisteria, and I take a seat there. Smith sits across the table from me. In his fine trousers and royal blue polo shirt, he looks less like an artist than a model, but there’s no denying the quick intelligence in his eyes.
“How could Thalia be kidnapped when she was under surveillance?” he asks.
“Why do you think she was under surveillance?”
“Well,
“Working.”
“But they sent you here. To ask me something. Because I responded to you yesterday.”
“I asked to come alone.”
He mulls my answer. “So, I’m still a suspect. What is it you want to know?”
I quickly explain that the Bureau knows Roger Wheaton spent several evenings at this house, and also that he and Smith argued on some or all of those occasions.
“I wondered why Juan didn’t show up this morning,” Smith says. “I suppose they threatened to deport him?”
“I don’t know what they did, Frank. I’m sorry. And I don’t like butting into your personal business. But this is life or death. Thalia could still be alive, and we have to try to help her.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“That she could still be alive? Yes.”
“I’m glad. But what you’re asking has nothing to do with this case.”
“That’s what Wheaton said.”
Smith turns up his palms as if to say,
“Look, it seems to me there could only be a couple of innocent reasons for holding out. One, Wheaton is gay, and you guys have a relationship.”
“And two?”
