I see Brent at the Jason Rains opening, and Evie plucking a champagne bottle from his hands. She drank a sip, then threw it away almost full. I remember the heavy clunk it made in the trash. I remember thinking she was protecting a colleague from embarrassing himself, but now the gesture seems so proprietary. Almost wifely.
I see the crew’s rooftop party on the night of the Gala. I see Evie watching Brent ranting to the sky about how Kim was the best artist he’d ever seen. The crew looked mostly surprised and alarmed to see Brent’s outburst. Only Evie looked betrayed.
“I wonder how long it took her to die,” Evie said when she handed me back the Still Lives photographs of Judy Ann Dull, bound and gagged in the Melrose apartment. That day I’d chalked Evie’s question up to a certain professional detachment—museum registrars are always interested in the effects of time—but when I said, “Not long, I hope,” she looked at me curiously, as if she didn’t understand what I meant.
Evie, who was strong. Evie at the gym, pedaling faster than anyone.
Evie, who lived alone and had no close friends.
Evie, who’d reminded me so much of Nikki Bolio when we’d first met, with her self-conscious air and the yearnings she so thinly hid to live a bigger, more interesting life.
Evie would have hated Brent’s closeness with Kim Lord: Kim photographing his wife, Kim changing clothes in his office. Their secrecy might have driven Evie mad with jealousy. And yet—mad enough to murder? I still don’t get the motive, quite. It’s the facts that point to Evie. She had access to all the means of the act: the saws to cover the noise, the hammer or mallet to strike the blow, the sodium thiopental, the crate. She had the same body size as Kim Lord, to wear her clothes and hurry away from the museum. She possessed the insider knowledge to text Greg and Lynne, to make them think the artist was still alive. She knew about Greg and me. It wouldn’t be hard to frame us, one at a time. Which means she’d have to hate me, too.
If this is the truth, I want to be wrong this time. And I am probably too late anyway. Just in case, I hitch my purse higher on my shoulder and slip a hand in to find my recorder, the first button on the right. Press it down.
I recite a line from Daisy in Gatsby, rewind the tape, and play it back. A voice emerges, tinny and not my own.
Beautiful little fool.
“You coming on the grand adventure after all?” Dee says. She’s leaning on a big crate with Yegina in the loading dock. She looks jittery, and she’s freshened her face with uncharacteristic lipstick and blush.
Lipstick and blush. Wait. Her girlfriend works for Janis Rocque?
I look to Yegina for some confirmation, but she folds her arms and stares at her feet. A frilly sleeveless shirt hugs her tight around the neck.
“How’s Don?” I say cautiously. Yegina is so private, I don’t know if she’s told Dee anything.
“He’s doing fine,” Yegina says with a meaningful emphasis. “I thought you were out sick.”
“Officially I am. But I wanted to see you.” I try to keep my voice steady. “Where’s Evie?”
“Getting her car,” says Dee. “She’s probably going to have to drop us off.”
“Why?” Fear slices through me. I feel Yegina’s eyes flick to my face.
Dee shrugs. “She has to fly to Amsterdam tonight.”
I’ll bet she does. And I bet she’s not coming back.
The sight of the crates sickens me. Blond plywood boxes, the small ones stacked on the wall twenty feet high, the big ones the size of doghouses and garden sheds, parked alone on dollies. All bear their stenciled arrows and warnings. The crates have always reminded me of giant birthday presents, each one full of mystery and splendor, carrying paintings from a Venice studio, or sculptures from a museum in Queens—or objects with a luxury provenance, shipped from a famous actress’s second home, or taken down from a wall in a castle in Italy, where they were owned by a real count. But now the boxes look like instruments of torture, and their wooden scent tastes false in my mouth, like air freshener covering the smell of rot.
Yegina is still staring at her feet. I need her. She’ll never believe me.
“I’m really sorry. I lost my phone,” I say again, hoping Yegina is in a forgiving mood.
She sniffs. In the half-light of the open loading-dock door, she appears aged, an older sister to the self that she’s always been. Her hair is darker and heavier, her mouth harder. Her arms are crossed so tightly, her fingers are pressing circles into her biceps. With a chill, I remember the straps tightening on my arms in the lethal injection chair in Executed, the capped syringes nearby loaded with the drugs that might have helped to kill Kim Lord.
“How long ago did Evie leave?” I ask, impatient.
“Just a minute ago.” Dee looks at her watch. “Don’t worry. We should be right on time. Janis might even show us around personally.”
The possessive way she says Janis, the lipstick and blush—Yegina darts another glance at me and I finally meet her gaze (old habit, this way we have of registering news together)—J. Ro and Dee: a couple? Normally we’d fight back delighted grins, but this time Yegina’s gray-brown eyes wince and she knits her lips. I’m sorry about Don, I want to shout at her. And I don’t care what you did with Bas.
Instead, I chat politely with Dee about the sculptures we’re going to see, a Richard Serra and a Mark di Suvero, some arte povera pieces from Italy, and a giant lifelike horse made of driftwood that’s actually brass.
“And there’s a real surprise for you,” Dee adds, jutting her chin at me. “Or maybe it’s not surprising. With Janis’s tastes being so eclectic, it’s possible she owns something by every contemporary artist who’s ever been worth collecting.”
The supercollector. My old suspect. I’ve been wrong before. I need more proof now. Was the scene of the crime Brent’s office? If it was, it looks clean; besides, I’m no forensics team. I excuse myself to use the restroom and sneak into Evie’s dark alcove instead.
I flip a switch. White light stains the walls and shelves. Evie hasn’t left an item out of place—huge blue binders lined up straight, pens standing erect in a cup, keyboard and mouse at exact angles to the computer—and yet there’s nothing here to soften all the hard lines. No photographs or stained mugs. She makes Juanita look like a slob. And human. Still, a murderer? Shy, quiet Evie?
Flipping through neat files of yellow carbon invoices, I find three outgoing deliveries last Wednesday, two to the airport and one to our off-site collection facility. Maybe I am staring at the ticket for the crate that held Kim Lord’s body, but why would a killer keep a record?
Evie is cleverer than that. She wouldn’t send the crate to the facility the Rocque usually used. What about that second one in Van Nuys that she was checking out?
I peek out the doorway, spot Dee and Yegina still waiting by the crates, and flip through another binder. There’s a delivery of a sculpture a few weeks ago in the Ds: Diamond Storage, Van Nuys, California. She had already set up a contract with them. I grab Evie’s black office phone and dial.
When the receptionist picks up, I introduce myself as Evie. “I was calling to inquire about an item we had delivered last Wednesday,” I say. “I’m sorry, but I lost the tracking number and we actually need to bring it back to the museum for restoration.”
“Please hold,” the receptionist says in an annoyed tone. I pull the phone as far as I can to check on Evie’s arrival. Yegina is tapping her foot. She glances back and I duck out of sight. How much time do I have? I open another line on the phone and dig in my bag for Hendricks’s card. And dig. Past the recorder, the wallet, the receipts, the lipstick. The card is gone. I must have dropped it at Grand Central Market. I have no way to reach him.
The storage facility line starts playing Vivaldi. I put the soaring strings on speaker and search Evie’s windowless office.