The most important question—who had known whom and how—wasn’t one the computer could answer reliably, although I took a stab at the question through MySpace and Facebook. Olympia had a Facebook page, but you had to have her permission to see any details, such as her cyberfriends. Chad had a MySpace page, but none of the women were among his “friends.” I couldn’t find Karen Buckley on any of the social networks.
Fishing around to see where Karen’s and Nadia’s lives might have intersected, I checked to see if they had gone to art school together. I already had looked up Nadia’s details—her training at Columbia College in the south Loop, her job at a big design firm, followed by precarious freelancing after she was laid off—but I couldn’t find any information on Karen Buckley. A quick search revealed hundreds of Karen Buckleys—singers, quilters, doctors, lawyers—across the country, but only four dozen Karen Buckleys or K. Buckleys in our four-state area. About six of those seemed to match the Body Artist’s race and age. None of them had a findable history as an artist.
Unlike most artists, who are at pains to tell you where they’ve trained, where they’ve held shows, what museums own their work, Karen’s history wasn’t just sketchy, it was missing altogether. She didn’t list her education or her shows on the embodiedart.com website. She didn’t offer any personal information at all.
I needed her Social Security number, but I couldn’t find a home address for her, let alone a credit history that might yield information on her background. I went back to embodiedart.com. If you had to pay her for her work, she must have a bank account or a credit card somewhere, but she took payment only through PayPal, which meant she could be collecting the money under another name, maybe even in another state.
I sat back in my chair. Here was a woman who was aggressive in exposing herself before audiences and yet she’d left no trail in our hyper-documented age. I could imagine a fear of stalkers might require total anonymity in her life these days, but it was strange that someone so purposefully self-exposing left no public trace of her private life.
I transferred addresses for the handful of K. Buckleys who might be the Body Artist. I could do old-fashioned legwork, see if any of them had a home studio, but I wasn’t expecting to find her.
I was so lost in thought, and files, that I didn’t notice Mona Vishneski until she appeared at my table and hesitantly said my name.
“Ms. Vishneski!” I sprang to my feet.
She was a lost-looking woman around my age, her clothes hanging on her, as if worry over her son had made her lose a dress size overnight. Close up, I could see how rough her skin was; she didn’t seem to have washed her face or combed her hair since Chad’s arrest. She took off her gloves and then looked at them puzzled, trying to figure out what they were. She was carrying a scuffed leather handbag, big enough to hold a computer and a change of clothes. She finally stuck her gloves into one of its side pockets.
“John told me he hired you to clear Chad’s name. I used to work with detectives back when I was managing a building for Mercurio. We’d hire them to find out where people had skipped off to without paying their rent, but I don’t remember we ever hired you.”
I agreed that I’d never worked for Mercurio. Companies that size tend to use big agencies, not solo ops like me.
“But, Ms. Vishneski, your husband—ex-husband—hired me to find out what happened Friday night at Club Gouge. You both need to understand, however painful it is to think about, that the evidence points to your son having shot Nadia Guaman.”
“If you think he’s guilty, then I don’t think we should be working with you.” Her eyes were bright with emotion.
I kept my voice level. “I’m committed to approaching this situation with an open mind. But I can’t ignore evidence, and the evidence is that the murder weapon was found next to Chad. Another thing: I was present myself for two extremely angry encounters between your son and Nadia Guaman. I plan to look into their relationship, to see what lay behind his rage. But if you’d be more comfortable working with one of the detectives you used to know at Mercurio, I can respect that. If Mr. Vishneski agrees, then we’ll void the contract he signed yesterday and return his retainer. I would ask you to pay the fee my lawyer is charging for providing the court order we needed to move Chad from the prison hospital to Beth Israel.”
Mona Vishneski shifted her weight from foot to foot, uncomfortable at being put on the spot.
“Do you want to think about it overnight?” I suggested.