“Roger Wheaton,” Baxter says in the tone of a man reading from a cue card. “Born 1943, in rural Vermont. Youngest of three brothers. His brothers joined the service upon graduating high school – one army, one navy. Wheaton had no formal training as a child, but in interviews – of which he’s done damned few – he says his mother was a great lover of classical art. She bought him supplies and encouraged him to imitate the old masters, copying color plates from a book she bought him. He showed phenomenal talent, and at seventeen he left home for New York. We don’t have a lot of information on this period of his life, but in interviews he’s said he supported himself doing odd jobs and painting portraits on the street. He was unsuccessful as an artist, and in 1966 he joined the Marine Corps. He did two tours in Vietnam, earning a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart…”
I glance at Kaiser, who steps on my foot beneath the table.
“Wheaton also instituted a disciplinary action against two members of his platoon for raping a twelve-year-old Vietnamese girl. He pushed it to a court-martial, and the men did time in Leavenworth. Any thoughts, John?”
Kaiser nods in the half-dark. “That would have made Wheaton about as popular as trench foot in his platoon. It tells us something about him, but what, I’m not sure. Either what he saw was really bad, and he felt morally compelled to push it, or the guy has some kind of hero compulsion.”
This remark rankles me. “What rape wouldn’t be really bad to see?” I ask, trying to keep my voice under control. “Why couldn’t Wheaton simply have been doing the right thing by pushing it?”
Baxter answers for Kaiser. “I served in Vietnam myself, Ms. Glass. Most soldiers coming upon the situation I’ve described would have been offended and outraged, but they would have looked the other way. A few would have participated. But very few would have bucked the chain of command and forced disciplinary action. It’s not pretty in hindsight, but at that time, no one was inclined to discipline our own troops for anything short of a massacre. Wheaton transferred out of his unit after that, and it’s not hard to guess why. Still, he had a spotless record, with several commendations from his commanders.”
“We should track down the names of men he served with,” says Kaiser. “Not just his officers.”
“We’re on it,” Baxter replies. “You should also note that Wheaton lost one brother in Vietnam. Killed in a Saigon bar by a terrorist bomb. The other died in 1974, from a stroke.”
Baxter shuffles some papers. “After Vietnam, Wheaton returned to New York, enrolled in the art program at NYU, and slowly made a name for himself painting portraits. He supported himself this way for years, while he worked on his private obsession, which is landscapes. For the past twenty years, he’s painted the same subject over and over again. It’s a forest clearing, and every painting in the series is called The Clearing. He began in a very realistic style, but over the years he’s gone more abstract. The paintings are still called The Clearing, but they’re not recognizable as such. The early, more realistic ones showed a Vermont-style forest clearing, but also jungle foliage typical of Vietnam – and sometimes the two mixed – so there’s no telling about the real origin of the image, or its significance. When asked about it in interviews, Wheaton says the paintings speak for themselves.”
“A progression from realistic to abstract,” says Kaiser. “The exact opposite of the Sleeping Women.”
“Wheaton’s progression is much more marked,” says Lenz. “His style is so defined now that it’s spawned a genre or school in the worldwide art community. They call it ‘Dark Impressionism.’ Not because the paintings themselves are necessarily dark – though most of his recent work is – but because of their content. He uses Impressionist techniques, but the original Impressionists tended to paint what you might call happy subjects. Pastoral, tranquil themes. Think of Manet, Renoir, Monet, Pissarro. Wheaton’s work is very different.”
“De Becque said the Sleeping Women artist uses Impressionist techniques,” I tell Lenz. “In the way he lays down color, anyway.”
“That’s true,” says Lenz. “But he abandoned the pure style very quickly. Many beginning artists emulate the Impressionists, just as young composers imitate the popular composers of the past. But Impressionism in the pure sense is passe. Wheaton succeeds because he’s brought something new to the style. As for him painting the Sleeping Women, though, two connoisseurs have already told us that the Sleeping Women share no similarities whatever with the paintings of Roger Wheaton.”
“Could one man paint two radically different styles and an expert not be able to tell he did both?” asks Baxter.
“If he did it to prove a point, probably.”
“What about to avoid detection?” says Baxter.
“Probably. But over the course of a body of work, certain idiosyncrasies reveal themselves. We’ve got hold of several portraits Wheaton painted years ago, to compare his execution of skin, eyes, hair, et cetera with that of the Sleeping Women artist. It’s all very technical, but the final answer is no. He couldn’t hide himself that way. Of course, we’ll analyze the paints, canvases, and all other materials to be sure.”
“Have you found these Kolinsky sable brush hairs in Wheaton’s paintings?”
“Yes. We’ve also found them in the paintings of Smith, Games, and Laveau.”
“Dating how far back?”
“Two years. When they came to Tulane.”
“Wheaton just started using these special brushes?”
“Apparently so. We’ll have to ask him why. Let’s move on. I could talk for an hour about Wheaton alone, but we have a much more viable suspect in this bunch.” Baxter says to the speakerphone, “Put up Gaines, Tom.”
The photo of Wheaton is replaced by a mug shot of the convict. This guy I would walk across a busy interstate to avoid. Crazed eyes, pasty skin, tangled black hair, a stubbled face, and a broken nose. The only paintbrush I can see him holding would be six inches wide.
“Leon Isaac Gaines,” says Baxter. “If I had to lay odds right now, this is our man in New Orleans. His father and mother were both drunks. The father did a stretch in Sing Sing for carnal knowledge of a juvenile, paving the way for junior, I guess.”
“Male or female juvenile?” asks Kaiser.
“Female.”
“Age?”
“Fourteen. Leon was arrested repeatedly as a juvenile. Burglary, assault, peeping, you name it. He did juvy time for starting fires, and was in and out of reformatories until he was twenty.”
Kaiser grunts, and I know why. Childhood arson is one leg of the “homicidal triangle” of indicators for serial killers as children. Bed-wetting, arson, and cruelty to animals: I remember them all from my reading last year.
“He rings the chimes on animals, too,” says Baxter. “When he was twelve, he buried a neighbor’s cat up to its neck in a sandpile and rolled over it with a lawn mower.”
“Enuresis?” asks Kaiser.
“No record of it. Both parents are deceased, but they weren’t the kind to have sought medical care for that. Still, we’re trying to track down physicians working in the area at the time.” More shuffling paper in the semidark. “Gaines is a two-time loser, once for aggravated battery, once for attempted rape.”
“Jesus,” mutters Bowles.
“No gang affiliations while incarcerated, but he was part of a bad riot at Sing Sing. We’re tracking down his cellmates and sending agents to interview them. Gaines never picked up a paintbrush in his life until his first term in Sing Sing -1975. He showed so much promise that the warden showed his stuff to some New York dealers. They apparently kept an eye on him, because during his second hitch, they made some sales for him. He attracted the attention of the New York art community, much as Jack Henry Abbott attracted the attention of Norman Mailer and those other chumps with his ‘Belly of the Beast’ nonsense.”