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“But a terrible artist,” Lucien shot back. “She used her power in the community to put forward the most awful works while shooting down better things. Do you know she reviewed one of my pieces. She called it trite.Trite!”
He was prepared to admit to knowing two of the victims. Paige had to try the third.
“What about Aiden Martlet? I believe he’s produced some artistic works.”
“Not that I know of,” Lucien replied. “Him, I don’t know.”
Was he being honest, or had he realized how dangerous it was to admit to knowing all three victims?
Paige knew that she had to press him on that. “Hope Jackson, Allison Hartley, and Aiden Martlet are the people in the pictures I showed you, Lucien. They were all victims of a killer. Didyouhave anything to do with that?”
“Did I kill them?” Lucien wondered aloud. “Such a thing would have been an amazing piece of performance art, but didIdo it? I don’tthinkI did, but who can know whether a mere thought is the truth, or if we must seek greater truths beneath? The way this artist makes us look past the center points of his pieces to the lines and swirls beyond.”
Christopher gestured to Paige, obviously wanting to talk to her outside the car. Paige nodded and stepped out of the car, leaving Lucien behind.
“What do you think?” Christopher asked as soon as they were both clear of the car. “He’s obviously delusional, he’s admitted to knowing two of the victims, he has a history of violence . . .”
“You think it’s him, then?” Paige said.
She saw Christopher nod.
“He’s exactly the kind of nutjob artist we’re looking for, and he’s the only one out from prison or hospital who’s still in the area.”
“Unless there’s someone who hasn’t been caught yet,” Paige pointed out. That was possible, but it was a terrifying thought, because it meant that a profile wouldn’t be enough to lead straight to the killer.
“No, it’s him, it has to be,” Christopher said. “He fits too well.”
“I’m not sure,” Paige said. “He feels more like a narcissist who’s just playing games with us for the attention, not caring about the trouble it gets him in. He was prepared to seduce one of his bosses in the bathroom of the restaurant where he works. I don’t think he has any idea of consequences.”
“Which is exactly what the killer would think!” Christopher insisted.
“Or just a fantasist.”
“What? It was your profile thatledus to him.”
“I’m not saying it isn’t him,” Paige said.
“But?”
“But there’s something he said, something about the paint swirls . . .” Paige shook her head. “I need to think. Can you wait here?”
“For a while,” Christopher said. “But we need to get Lucien here back to the local precinct to process him.”
“I just want to work something through first,” Paige said. She set off along the boardwalk. There was something that she needed to think through, something that she needed to make sense of.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
He was back on the edge of the crowd as the banjo player and the singer finished their set. He watched them collect up the money people had tossed into a hat. The man, the banjo player, counted it and tucked it away in a wallet. It seemed like a decent amount, far more than the two of them deserved for their lack of real creativity.
He followed them, even though he knew the route they would take, habit leading them along the same steps each time they’d finished their performance out on the boardwalk.
They headed into the alley that he’d prepared for them, laughing as they went, close to one another. A couple as well as just a duet. That was good. It added to the connection that would be there in the work, another layer to add to the finished piece.
They were getting closer to the spot he’d picked out now. They wouldn’t quite go into the perfect place of their own volition; theycertainlywouldn’t string themselves up in the postures he required for his work.
The inspiration for his current performance was going to be Magritte’sThe Lovers: two figures, heads covered in hoods, pressed together tightly. He already had the hoods ready, and of course, the ropes that would bind the two of them together in a parody of a kiss.
He still had to get them into those postures, though. These weren’t models who would simply do as he asked for payment. Even if they would, there would be something inauthentic about that, something that missed the vital power of what he was trying to achieve. It certainly wouldn’t evoke the same feelings in him as he painted tomorrow, capturing the scene his own way, in his own now inimitable style.
