The Art of Murder (A Hank Reed Mystery, Book 1) Read online

  At some point the public might feast its eyes on Hunter’s artwork, minus the one I’m after. I can’t risk destroying all of the paintings. It’s my own moral dilemma.

  Inside Hunter’s upstairs studio, I aim my flashlight on the easel and keep it there for a few uncomfortable moments before bouncing the light wildly around the room.

  “Where the hell is it?” I hear myself shouting as I drop to the floor and start crawling around on my hands and knees, knocking over a few copulating couples. Who knew about this room? “Who?” I demand, upset with myself for not being able to destroy the painting earlier.

  Then, as though Hunter’s spirit had been set free, I hear the sound of rapid movement coming from downstairs. Within seconds the back screen door slams against the house.

  I spring for the ladder and charge downstairs, listening for a car engine to turn over, but the only sound is coming from my breathing. I race out the back door waving my flashlight at the trees, but it’s too dense to see anything.

  The metal sound of a car door echoes through the trees, followed by a roaring engine. I sprint for my patrol car and grit my teeth. The keys are missing!

  I pop open the hood and retrieve a spare key, then peel out, spitting up dirt.

  Arriving home I block the driveway and dash inside, stopping at the kitchen table to catch my breath. I casually enter the living room, where I find my wife, Susan, sitting comfortably on the sofa reading a Patricia Cornwell paperback. She glances up and smiles faintly.

  I give her a quick hi and ask, “Been reading long?”

  “Ah-huh. Almost finished. I know who did it.”

  I’m wondering if she’s referring to the painting. “The butler?”

  She smiles. “Not in Cornwell’s books.”

  Our eyes stay on each other for a few moments before Susan returns to her reading. I gaze at my wife of fifteen years, who is as beautiful as the day we met, her black silky hair draping over her shoulders, not bound in her usual ponytail. Susan’s soft, pallid skin shows few signs of aging. When my eyes stop at her lightly painted crimson lips, the knot in my stomach returns and I trudge off to the kitchen.

  “Your stomach again?” Susan asks.

  I don’t turn, but sense her standing at the door. I nod and pop a few antacids into my mouth, chewing with a vengeance.

  Susan approaches quietly, her warm breath hitting my neck. The scent from her favorite Zinfandel fills my nostrils. It’s a little too close, but I can’t move. She gives my rear a quick squeeze. “Not bad for an old guy, Hank.”

  I turn abruptly. “Like John Hunter?”

  She recoils, throws me a confused look. “Hunter?”

  “Yeah, him. Only he’s dead.”

  “How?” she asks, her voice lacking emotion.

  “Overdose. Evidently, he swallowed too many pills with his booze,” I say straightforwardly.

  “What a horrible way to go,” she says, shaking her head.

  I search my wife’s face for signs of infidelity or guilt, but Susan is good. She can be cold and withholding, especially when it comes to sex, which is one of the issues that has been dragging our marriage down for the past few years.

  “Did he leave a note?” she asks, suddenly interested in my dead friend.

  “Yes, why do you ask?”

  She shrugs. “Just curious. What did it say?”

  I’m debating whether to tell her, but since the suicide is cut and dry, I say, “Only that he couldn’t live with himself anymore.”

  Susan remains deadpan, so if she’s relieved that the note didn’t mention her, she doesn’t let on.

  “Guess he was in a rush to go,” I add sarcastically.

  Susan scowls. “That’s not funny, Hank. The poor guy was obviously in a lot of pain.”

  I finally drew some emotion out of my wife.

  “Ironic, don’t you think?”

  “What?”

  “John was an advice columnist—”

  “John?” I interrupt.

  “That was his name, wasn’t it?”

  “He went by Hunter.”

  “Whatever.” Susan’s eyes gaze past me. “A shame he couldn’t help himself,” she says thoughtfully, then sighs. “Oh, well, I guess I’ll get back to my book. I was just getting into a love scene when you walked in.” She smiles wistfully.

  “I gotta go out for a while,” I say before Susan has an opportunity to invite me to join her and her book. Outside, I lean against Susan’s black Honda Civic, contemplating my next move. I now realize how Hunter’s suicide and betrayal has clouded my instincts. Something so simple, so elementary. I touch the hood of Susan’s car.

  It’s warm.

  Three

  I’ve been staring into darkness for hours when my cell phone vibrates through my pants pocket. I dig inside and flip open the cell phone and am greeted by a woman whose hurried voice conveys a sense of urgency. The matter in question has to do with John Hunter, and she needs to see me now.

  “Oh, and Hank, sorry for the late night call.”

  Right. The apologetic woman is Gloria Wollinsky, a single, thirty-five-year-old, chain-smoking pathologist who works for the Suffolk County Medical Examiner’s Office in Hauppauge. I’ve known Gloria since she was a skinny kid. Her eyes were the bluest in the neighborhood, and she had brown hair that always needed combing. Back then when most girls her age enjoyed dressing Barbie dolls, Gloria already knew her calling. She twisted and removed Barbie and Ken’s body parts, then analyzed them. Maybe it had something to do with her father’s business. Marshall Wollinsky is Eastpoint’s only undertaker. Gloria worked for him, but she got bored for lack of business and eventually went to work for Suffolk County.

  Though Eastpoint is part of the county, it’s an incorporated village, meaning jurisdiction on running the community stays with us. But when it comes to unusual occurrences like murders and suicides, I call on the county folks for assistance.

  I arrive at the ME’s parking lot forty minutes later and find Gloria standing outside the building dressed in jeans, a white blouse, and sensible navy shoes. She has a cigarette dangling from her mouth and a Styrofoam coffee cup glued to her hand, and when she sees me, she smiles and waves with exuberance, obviously juiced up on caffeine. Then, with precision, she flicks her cigarette into a butt receptacle and gives me a quick hug.

  Gloria apologizes again for the wakeup call, then removes an official-looking document from her jeans back pocket and waves it at me. “Guess what?”

  I glance at her, then the paper, then shrug. “Kind of late to be playing twenty questions, Gloria.”

  She takes note of my drawn face and stops waving. “Sorry, Hank. I forgot you’re a late morning person. How about we talk in my office?”

  I follow Gloria through the double glass doors, past a young night receptionist whose flaming red hair belies the dark, dreary environment. She manages a weak smile as I pass. We enter Gloria’s office, which is devoid of windows: a small firetrap with piles of folders scattered throughout her workplace. Her walls are adorned with at least a half-dozen calendars of dogs, cats, and other domestic animals.

  I tiptoe over a few files and collapse into a hard wooden chair across from Gloria’s desk, then push aside an ashtray filled with dead butts and rest my elbows on her desk. “Talk to me.”

  Gloria takes a seat, then shifts a wall of paper aside to see me better.

  “Hank,” she says, her tone neutral. “I wouldn’t have gotten you out of bed at this hour, but I need a positive ID on Hunter.” She pauses, offers a thin smile, then says, “and since I couldn’t find a next of kin, I figured you wouldn’t mind. For the record.”

  I drop back in my chair and frown. “Christ, Gloria, this couldn’t have waited till morning? I mean, what’s the big deal?”

  She checks the inside of her coffee cup, swigs down the contents, and tosses the cup into an already full wastepaper basket. “Let’s take a walk.”

  I lift my girth out of the chair with great effort an
d follow her to the refrigeration room, where John Hunter and a few other johns are laid out. The chill envelops us like a meat locker and I button my collar, watching Gloria open Hunter’s slab. “Don’t mind the mess.”

  I gather Gloria is referring to Hunter’s body, which has been slit down the middle and filleted. My eyes narrow with anger as I view his remains, and it’s not because he left without saying goodbye. I turn to Gloria and nod. “That’s him.”

  “Good.” She pushes Hunter back into the vault, his body disappearing before us. “You okay, Hank?” she says, nudging me out of the room.

  “He was a friend,” I force out.

  “I know. That was one of the reasons I asked you to stop by. Like I said, I couldn’t find a next of kin.”

  I nod. “Hunter’s parents died years ago, and he didn’t have any siblings. Or a wife.” I stop; meet Gloria’s eyes. “What do you mean it was one of the reasons you called me down here? What’s going on?”

  Gloria remains silent until we reach her office. “Look, Hank, I wouldn’t have called you at this ungodly hour just for an ID.” She motions to the chair.

  I slouch back and glance up at the wall, my eyes setting on Ms. October, a Vietnamese potbellied pig standing on its hind legs.

  “When things change, time is an element.”

  My eyes leave Miss Piggy and meet Gloria’s. “An element? Things change. For Chrissake, Gloria, what could have changed with John Hunter?”

  Gloria’s blue eyes stay on me. “Hank, we have a pretty good group of investigators. These guys can sniff out stuff that others would have overlooked. But even they wouldn’t have realized it out at the crime scene.”

  I throw my hands up. “Realize what? Get to the point!”

  “John Hunter was murdered.”

  My face must have drained its color like Hunter’s inside. I remain silent, watching Gloria light up a cigarette, take a hard drag, and blow the smoke toward the ceiling.

  I blink hard. “I thought smoking was off-limits in public places.”

  “Christ, Hank, do you see anyone around? It’s a perk for working the night shift, for chrissake.” She winks. “You’re not gonna turn me in, are you?”

  My eyes follow the trail of smoke. “It’s just that I gave it up six months ago and it’s distracting.”

  “Damn convert!” she complains, then takes one more pull and kills it.

  I watch the smoke dissipate and turn to Gloria. “You sure someone killed him?”

  She nods. “Oh, yeah.”

  “But your people didn’t find anything suspicious at the crime scene,” I protest.

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. The investigators wouldn’t have known. We just assumed it was suicide because of the note and the sleeping pills. He apparently OD’d on pills, so we opened him up and checked his stomach. That’s when I noticed it.”

  “It?”

  “An odor. More than what you’d expect from alcohol, which we also found. I think they said he was drinking bourbon at the time. What we found was more bitter, like quinine. So we took a few tests.”

  I shift in my seat.

  “That’s when we discovered traces of strychnine in his bloodstream.”

  “Rat poison?”

  “It doesn’t take much to kill a person, and Hunter had enough in his system to kill him more than once.” She stops. “The guys found an empty vial of Halcion at the crime scene. At least we suspect Halcion. Someone wrote the name on one of those white address labels. I assume it was Hunter.”

  “No store label?”

  Gloria shakes her head. “He must have been taking it for insomnia. We don’t know how many tranquilizers he consumed before he died and didn’t find any traces of it in his stomach, only in his blood stream, so I figured whatever he took, it had to be laced with the poison.” Gloria pauses, her eyes searching mine. When I don’t reply, she says, “You with me so far, Hank?”

  “I get the picture.” I nod.

  “But then I’m thinking,” she continues. “Maybe we ought to check the bourbon.” Gloria stops. “Technically, Jack Daniel’s isn’t bourbon. It’s Tennessee whiskey, but everyone calls it bourbon.”

  I roll my eyes.

  So we tested the contents,” she continues. “And guess what?”

  “It was laced with the poison,” I volunteer.

  “Bingo. Whoever spiked Hunter’s bourbon obviously knew what he was doing, because the combination cuts the poison’s bitterness. Pretty smart, don’t you think? I mean, if we hadn’t done an autopsy…” Gloria stops. “We always do autopsies in suicide cases.” She reaches for another cigarette, then stops and mumbles something unintelligible.

  “But Hunter could have taken the poison himself, right?” I ask, not happy about where this is leading.

  Gloria squeezes her eyes. “Gee, Hank, anything’s possible. Sure, he could have killed himself. But then all he needed were the sedatives. Why would he spike the bourbon with strychnine, no less?”

  I can’t offer an explanation.

  Gloria smiles as though she’s about to hit me with an epiphany. “I had the crime boys probe further for trace evidence and guess what they found?”

  “Gloria, it’s almost two o’clock in the morning!”

  “Don’t get so grouchy, Hank,” she says, gesturing me with her hands to relax. “I’m just trying to make the story more dramatic. You and Susan have a fight or something?”

  That settles me down. “Go ahead.”

  “They found rug fibers in his chin.”

  “Fibers?”

  “As in living room carpet. They also discovered small bruises under Hunter’s armpits, as though someone had dragged him around like a fucking untrained dog after he convulsed from the poison. His face wasn’t bruised, so whoever did it broke Hunter’s fall, then dragged him over to the sofa where you guys found him neatly packaged.”

  I’m about to suggest that Hunter might have broken his own fall, but realize how absurd it would sound. I settle for, “Damn.”

  “In case you didn’t know, convulsions from strychnine are generally violent. Each one can last up to several minutes, but between each attack, the victim can breathe and appears relaxed. Hunter probably died within an hour of swallowing the stuff.” Gloria gives me a moment to absorb her theory. “The murderer watched, of course. Probably enjoyed the show while Hunter fought for his life. Great entertainment, huh, Hank?”

  I press my temples. “I’m sure.”

  “You like my scenario so far?”

  My head bobs about like I’m giving it some thought. “Gee, Gloria, it sounds plausible,” I finally admit, then throw in, “You’re positive about this?” hoping Gloria has a less-menacing theory.

  “Well, not completely. I wasn’t there.” She offers an impish smile, displaying stained teeth. “Know anyone who was?”

  I return a thin smile and wish I hadn’t given up smoking. “It’s just that we never had a murder in Eastpoint before,” I say, ignoring her question.

  “Sorry, Hank. There’s always a first time. I’ll admit that strychnine is difficult to administer as a homicidal agent, but weighing the mixture with bourbon to mask the bitterness and the newly discovered fibers and bruises, I’d be looking for Hunter’s killer.”

  “Killer,” I repeat almost to myself.

  Her eyes weigh on mine. “Look Hank, I’m not telling you how to run your shop, but I think you ought to take our team back out to the crime scene and sniff around one more time.”

  The crime scene! For sure, Hunter’s paintings will find their way to the public. Maybe even on social media! Except for the one of Hunter and my wife, and I can only guess who lifted it. I just pray it finds its way out of Eastpoint and gets buried somewhere. “Sounds like a plan, Gloria.”

  Gloria escorts me outside the building, she lighting up another smoke and me trudging back to my car. It’s one thing if my wife slept with Hunter. It’s another if she killed him.

  Four

 
“What are you up to this evening, Wayne?” I ask my deputy entering the stationhouse. His head snaps to attention.

  “Hank, you’re up late tonight!”

  He’s obviously up to no good. Wayne Andrews is my second in command, which sounds impressive but when you consider that Eastpoint has only six deputies and Wayne has been around longer than anyone else, including me, second doesn’t have the same ring to it.

  Evidently overcoming boredom from the night shift, and not a man of literature, Wayne attempts to slide Hustler under his desk blotter.

  “I’ve seen them before,” I say, offering a weary smile.

  He pulls the magazine back out, then tosses it casually into his outbox.

  I frown. “Kate might not appreciate you leaving that smut in there. Not that she’s a prude.”

  “Right.” He retrieves the magazine, steals a quick peek inside, then drops it in his desk drawer.

  “Anything come in on Hunter?” I ask.

  Wayne points toward my office. “Inside on your desk. It’s from the ME’s office.”

  I nod.

  “I didn’t open it, Hank.”

  I nose the drawer. “It’s no wonder.”

  “It was addressed to you, anyway.”

  “Just kidding.”

  “I didn’t think it was pressing enough to get you out of bed, considering how he died.”

  Unlike Gloria’s discovery. “I appreciate it.”

  Then he asks, “Hank, if you don’t mind me asking, what are you doing here at this hour? It’s almost three o’clock in the morning.”

  My eyes rise to the wall clock. “Couldn’t sleep.”

  “’Cause of Hunter?”

  I ponder his question, then nod.