Part 7 (1/2)
”Picky. Picky. Picky. You want to get technical, I can give it to you in medicalese.”
”I'm just trying to establish whether he saw it coming.”
”I'd say no. No defense wounds. Beyond the fatal wound, not a scratch on him. He did have a hickey.”
”I haven't heard of anyone dying of those lately.”
Cutler laughed. ”You could think of it as a hesitation mark for suicide by AIDS.”
”You're an optimist.”
”Comes with the territory.” He pointed with his scalpel. ”Look at the bruising around the wound. The knife went in far enough and hard enough to do that. I'd say it was someone really strong or really angry.”
”Too bad you can't say which.”
”Whichever suspect is one or the other. That's probably your doer.”
Thinnes shook his head. ”I've got one that's strong and at least a half-dozen that were p.i.s.sed. Any chance he could have gotten out the name of who did him?”
”Nah. Well. Anything's possible, but probably not. But I understand you have witnesses. Why not ask them?”
”I will. But I always like corroboration.”
Twenty.
”Thinnes!” Rossi growled. ”The museum just called. They want to know why we haven't released the crime scene. They'd like to open up sometime soon. I'd like to know, too.”
”I wanted to get another look at it-maybe go over it with someone who knows something about art.”
”Well, make it fast. It's bad enough we haven't got the suspect. No use stepping on well-connected toes, too.”
”Yeah,” Thinnes said. ”You never know if they're connected to an a.s.s you might have to kiss.” He was pretty sure Rossi couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic. Good. He picked up the phone.
”Who're you calling?”
”An art expert,” Thinnes said, mildly. He held the phone in the air and looked expectantly at Rossi.
Rossi snorted and walked away.
Thinnes cradled the phone between his ear and shoulder while he punched in Jack Caleb's number. It was probably stretching things to call Caleb an art expert, but he knew a h.e.l.l of a lot more about it than Thinnes.
At the next table Swann, who'd been listening, said, ”You be dissin' the lieu?”
”You know what loo means in England, Swann?”
Swann showed all his teeth as he grinned. ”No, but I'll bet it's fulla s.h.i.+t, too.”
When Thinnes pulled over to the curb on Michigan, Caleb was waiting with two large Starbuck's cups. He got into the Caprice and handed one to Thinnes, who signaled a right and headed west. They were south of the museum, but it was easier to go around the block and make a left back onto northbound Michigan at a light than to try a U-turn in Loop traffic. Thinnes took a sip of the coffee, then wedged the cup on the dash. Caleb had noticed or guessed how Thinnes liked his coffee-two sugars, no cream. Little things like that made the doctor more likable but scary. It quickly developed, though, that the coffee was a kind of bribe.
”There's something I didn't tell you last night,” Caleb said. Thinnes looked at him sideways. If he was nervous or repentant, it didn't show.
”Yeah?”
”David Bisti was a patient of mine-Briefly-Years ago.”
Thinnes was suddenly furious, but he hid it. Caleb wouldn't reveal privileged information even to help the police. They'd had the argument before and had agreed to disagree, but he couldn't resist asking, ”Whose side did you say you were on?”
Caleb refused to be needled. He handed Thinnes a videotape Thinnes hadn't noticed he was carrying and said, ”For your eyes only.”
”What's this?”
”The tape of a therapy session I had with him. At the time David asked for help, my partner and I were experimenting with videotape as a means of picking up on more of the nonverbal content of therapy sessions. I got David's permission to tape our conversation. I think he may have thought I meant on audiotape, though-our video camera is hidden. You never met David. The tape might give you some idea of what he was like.”
”Why the sudden ethical reversal?”
”In a perfect world, we could choose between wrong and right. But in our imperfect world, we're stuck with choosing between more wrong and less wrong. And it's not as if you'll sell tickets.”
Thinnes nodded. ”Thanks.” He slid the tape under the files lying on the seat between Caleb and himself, where it wouldn't be seen by anyone looking in the windows. ”What was your impression of him?”
”He was very talented, but narcissistic and manipulative. A pa.s.sive-aggressive personality.”
Pa.s.sive-aggressive. That explained the nothing-happened-and-besides-I-don't-want-to-talk-about-him reaction they'd gotten out of so many who'd known the man.
”And there was something else.” Thinnes waited. ”I've heard writers say that what sets them apart from nonwriters is a sense of isolation, and a feeling of being different from others, of always standing apart, observing.”
”So?”
”It's also true of fine artists. David was a fine artist. And he felt alienated. But I think he gave up therapy, in the end, because he couldn't bare his soul-not just to a white man, as he claimed-but to anyone. It was more an individual thing than racial. He never asked me for a referral to a Native American therapist. At our last session, he told me he'd joined a commune, and what its members had in common was that they were all artists who had enough Indian blood to make them outsiders to the mainstream culture.”
The security guard who let them in told them the two men in blue overalls, sitting on carpet rolls in the lobby, were waiting on Thinnes's okay to replace the ruined carpet in the upper gallery.
Thinnes told the guard they'd be as quick as they could, then led the way up to the lower north gallery. He waited without showing impatience while Caleb looked around, and let him set the pace into the next gallery, the one below the mezzanine. Earlier, he'd gone over the room himself. Now, while he waited for Caleb's verdict, he studied one of the pieces.
Thinnes didn't get it. The price list Caleb had given him said, ”Bids start at $15,000.” Thinnes wouldn't have given two bucks for the thing-it looked like something some kid made before he was old enough to draw. The t.i.tle was Man Dying. Thinnes would have liked to replace it with blowups of Bisti with the hole in his chest and his blood leaking out. That was a man dying.
Caleb came up behind him, and Thinnes said, ”Fifteen grand, huhn?” He turned to see the doctor smile.
”Probably not a bad investment.”
”You're serious!”
Caleb shrugged. ”Scarcity usually drives up the price.”