“I think you’d better come with us,” Kaiser tells her.

“I got nowhere to go he can’t find me.”

“We can arrange a shelter. A protected place.”

“For real?”

“You try it, slut,” Gaines groans.

Kaiser looks over at Lenz. “You have any questions?”

The psychiatrist shakes his head.

“Maybe I will go with you,” the girl says to Kaiser.

When he nods, she runs into the back of the house, and after a crash and some scuffling sounds, returns with a purse and a grocery bag filled with clothes.

“You can forget what I said before,” she says. “I don’t know where he was three nights ago. He was supposed to come back after the NOMA opening, but he never did.”

Gaines stares up from the floor with murder in his eyes.

“Well, Leon,” says Kaiser. “I think you’ve got a problem. The NOPD will be in touch.”

“Just a second,” says the girl. She reaches down beside the sofa and comes up with half a glass of what looks like flat beer. She gives Gaines a vicious look, then splats the beer against the painting on the easel. “You got all you’re gettin‘ out of me, scumbag.”

Gaines roars in fury, and she darts through the front door. Lenz follows her, and I’m close on his heels, surprised by how badly I want out of this self-created hell.

“Hey, picture lady,” Gaines calls after me. “You know where to find me when you get an itch.”

I turn back in time to see Kaiser crouch beside Gaines, blocking my line of sight. At first I think he’s whispering something, but then Gaines screams like a woman, and the girl starts laughing on the porch. Lenz sticks his head back through the door and stares transfixed as Kaiser stands, face placid, and walks toward us.

“What the hell was that?” Lenz asks.

“I don’t have the patience I used to,” Kaiser mutters.

Once on the sidewalk, Kaiser signals to someone I can’t see. A man in plainclothes and a shoulder holster jogs up the street, confers with Kaiser, then leads Gaines’s girlfriend away. The three of us gather by the opened rear door of the van, and Baxter looks expectantly at his two emissaries.

“What do you think?”

“It’s not Gaines,” says Lenz.

Baxter looks at Kaiser. “John?”

“I don’t know.”

Lenz snorts. “We’ve already wasted too much time. Let’s go see Frank Smith.”

“He sure reacted to me,” I say softly.

“Like a hound to a bitch,” says Lenz. “That’s all that was. You didn’t spook him a bit. He’d never seen you before.”

Baxter is watching me. “What did you think about him?”

“I know he seems too obvious. But there was something in him that scared me. Like all that attitude was covering up something else, something that repelled me on a whole other level. Does that make sense?”

“Yes,” says Kaiser. “I felt it too.”

“The quality of his painting surprised me. He really sees into the women he paints.”

Baxter says, “He had a painting by Roger Wheaton on his wall?”

“He did,” Kaiser replies. “I’m surprised he hasn’t sold it for dope already.”

“We’d better check with Wheaton to make sure he didn’t steal it,” adds Lenz.

“Drop all that,” says Baxter. “NOPD’s ready to go in now and tear the place apart. Is that what we want?”

“They’re bound to find drugs or weapons,” says Kaiser. “We could put him in Angola and see if the kidnappings stop.”

“Do you really expect more kidnappings?” I ask. “Now that we’re this close?”

“We don’t know how close we are,” says Lenz. “Our interest might cause a more conventional serial offender to slow down, but whoever’s behind this has no reason to. For all we know, the painter is a replaceable element in the equation. If they want another woman, they’ll take one. They might even do it just to show they can.”

No one questions Lenz’s use of the plural pronoun.

“Don’t arrest Gaines,” Kaiser says. “If he’s involved, we’ll learn more by trailing him than jailing him.”

Baxter looks at Lenz, who nods.

Baxter presses a button on the console and speaks into his headset mike. “Ed? Roust Gaines, but if you can keep from arresting him, we’d like you to leave him in place… Same search, everything, just leave him home… Thanks. I’ll see you at the four o’clock meeting.”

Baxter takes off the headset and looks at me. “Ready for Frank Smith?”

“He’s got to be an improvement over Gaines.”

“Cleaner, anyway,” says Kaiser.

Baxter knocks on the front panel, and the van screeches onto Freret Street, headed for the more agreeable ambience of the French Quarter.

15

“Roger Wheaton called Smith and warned him we’re coming,” Baxter says, pulling off his headset. “Wiretap just picked it up.”

We’re parked across the street from a beautiful Creole cottage on the downriver side of Esplanade, the eastern border of the French Quarter. For the past two years it’s been the home of Frank Smith.

“Why wouldn’t Wheaton warn him?” asks Kaiser.

“We asked him not to,” says Lenz.

“And now they’re tearing his house apart and informing him he’s going to have to supply skin and blood for DNA testing to compare to the skin we took from under the Dorignac’s victim’s fingernails.”

“The call actually makes Wheaton look less suspicious,” Kaiser says. “He’s not stupid. He knows he’s a suspect, which probably means a wiretap, but he made the warning call anyway. That’s what somebody does when they’re innocent and pissed off.”

“Unless they do it to look innocent,” says Lenz.

“Why didn’t he warn Gaines?” I ask.

“Maybe he doesn’t like Gaines,” Kaiser says with a laugh. “That’s not hard to imagine.”

“Did he warn Thalia Laveau?” asks Lenz.

“Not yet,” Baxter replies. “Only Smith.”

“I’m very fond of Frank,”‘ says Kaiser. “Those were Wheaton’s words in the interview.”

“I wonder if there could be a homosexual link,” Lenz says.

“Wheaton has never married,” says Baxter. “Why didn’t you ask him if he’s gay? He’s never married.”

“He may be in the closet,” says Lenz. “I didn’t want to burn my bridges with him entirely. We can find that out elsewhere.”

Kaiser moves to the rear door. “Frank Smith is openly gay. Maybe he’ll tell us.” He looks at me. “See you in a few minutes.”

He and Lenz leave the van and slam the door.

Baxter presses his face to the van’s tinted porthole window. “The house doesn’t look as fancy as I pictured it.”

“You’re looking at the back,” I tell him. “Most of these houses face inward. Some onto courtyards, others onto fantastic gardens of tropical plants.”

“John told me about your natural light theory. This house does have a courtyard. Smith’s the only suspect who has one. Wheaton has an outdoor garden, but no walls. Hey, look at this.”

I put my cheek to his, and my eyes to the darkened porthole.

Frank Smith stands waiting for Kaiser and Lenz on his porch. He’s sleek and handsome, his dark tan set off by white tropical clothing, linen or silk. He has large vivid eyes and an ironic smile on his lips.

“Look at this guy,” says Kaiser over the monitor speaker. “A smart-ass, I can tell already.”

“I’ll be primary,” Lenz says.

Through the speakers, Frank Smith’s voice has the festive tone of a man greeting party guests. “Hello! Are you the gentlemen from the FBI? When do the storm troopers arrive?”

“Jesus,” mutters Kaiser. “There aren’t any storm troopers, Mr. Smith. Because of certain evidence, you’ve become a suspect in some very serious crimes. There’s no way to sugarcoat that. We’re here to ask you some questions.”

“You’re not here for a blood sample? Urine perhaps?”

“No. We’re here to talk.”

“Well, I don’t have an alibi for the night the woman was taken from Dorignac’s. I was here, alone, listening to music.” Through the window, I see Smith hold out his hands as if for handcuffs. “Let’s get it over with.”