Double Homicide

“I’m sure I am,” Two Moons said. “Let’s hit it.”

Both detectives hurried toward the Crown Victoria.

All that anger.

The ex-wife.

11

The address matched a free-form, sculptural adobe on Artist off Bishop’s Lodge Road a couple of blocks to the east, just before Hyde Park. It was only fifteen miles from the ski basin, and the air already smelled thin and sweet.

The place was illuminated by low-wattage lighting that gave hints of eco-friendly landscaping-native grasses and shrubs, hewn rock, and a girdle of snow-covered piñons. The walkway was a path of Arizona flagstone, and the front door was fashioned from old gray teakwood, the hardware copper with a fine old patina. No one answered Two Moons’s knock. He tried the handle. Open.

Katz thought: Another one who didn’t lock her front door. Downright stupid, in this case. The woman had to suspect her lunatic ex in Olafson’s murder. He pulled out his gun from his hand-tooled holster.

Ditto for Two Moons. Holding his weapon with two hands, Darrel called out Michael Weems’s name.

Silence.

They walked through the entry hall to the living room. No people there, but all the lights were on. High ceilings with beautiful vigas and latillas. The requisite kiva fireplace. The place was done up in style-weathered heavy furniture that wore well in the dry climate, softened by a few Asian antiques. Nice leather couches. Worn but expensive-looking rugs.

Too damn quiet.

There were no paintings on the walls, just bare plaster-off-white tinged with pale blue. Odd, Two Moons thought. But what do they say? Shoemakers’ kids always go barefoot.

Speaking of which! Where were the kids?

Two Moons’s heartbeat quickened.

Maybe they were sleeping over at a friend’s house. Maybe that was very wishful thinking!

A pair of French doors at the rear led out to a shady portal. There was deck furniture and a barbecue on wheels, just like anyone’s house.

Back inside, the kitchen was cluttered, just like anyone’s house.

Photos of the kids on a stone mantel.

School photos. Merry and Max, smiling wholesomely.

Where the hell were the kids?

“Ms. Weems!” yelled Two Moons. His stomach started churning. He was thinking of his own children. He tried to push that thought away, but the harder he tried, the clearer their faces were. Like a goddamn Chinese puzzle.

Relax, Darrel.

His father’s voice talking to him.

Relax.

That helped a little. He eyed Katz, cocked his head to the left, toward an archway to a corridor.

There was no other way for them to go without turning around. Katz watched his partner’s back.

The first door to the right belonged to a little girl’s room. He dreaded going inside, but Two Moons had no choice. He pointed his gun to the floor, just in case the kid was sleeping in her bed and hadn’t heard them yelling. He didn’t want any accidents.

Empty.

Not as good as finding the girl asleep but far better than finding a body.

The room was pink and frilly and pretty, with the bed unmade. Plastic stick-on letters on the wall above the headboard: MERRY.

Max’s room was next door. Also empty. All boy, the place was a museum of Matchbox cars and action figures.

The last door was to an adult bedroom. Whitewashed walls, an iron bed, a single pine nightstand, and nothing else, including a body.

Where was she?

Where were the kids?

“Ms. Weems?” Katz yelled out. “Police.”

Nothing.

There was another set of French doors on the right that led to a second portal. Two Moons exhaled audibly. Katz followed his gaze through the glass.

Outside, a woman stood in the hot white beam of a spotlight, at a portable easel, painting. The handle of one brush in her mouth, another in a knit-gloved hand as she studied her canvas… appraising it, dissecting it. Behind her was a steep, snow-spotted hillside.

She let go with a series of dabs, then stopped for another quick assessment.

Katz and Two Moons faced the back of the easel. They were in full view of the artist, if she looked their way.

She didn’t.

Michael Weems looked to be in her late thirties-at least fifteen years younger than her ex. She had strong cheekbones and thin lips and a sharp, strong nose. Good posture and long, slender legs. She wore a quilted white ski jacket over leggings tucked into hiking boots. Yellow-gray hair was tied back and twisted into a long braid that hung over her left shoulder. A black, fringed scarf around her neck. No makeup on her face, but she did have spots of sunburn on cheeks and chin.

Another one doing the Georgia O’Keeffe bit, thought Katz.

Two Moons rapped on the glass door lightly, and finally, Michael Weems looked up from her painting.

A quick glance, but then she resumed dabbing.

The detectives stepped out.

“You’re policemen,” she said, removing the brush handle from her mouth and placing it on a side table. Nearby was a tin of turpentine, a big pile of rags, and a glass palette ringed with circles of pigment.

“Sounds like you’re expecting us, ma’am.”

Michael Weems smiled and painted.

“Where are the kids, Mrs. Weems?” Two Moons asked.

“Safe,” she answered.

Two Moons felt a weight lift off his shoulders.

“Safe?” Katz asked. “As in safe from your ex-husband?”

Michael smiled enigmatically.

“He’s in town, you know,” Katz said.

The artist didn’t respond.

“We found four of your paintings in his motel room.”

Michael Weems stopped painting. She placed her brush on the table, next to the pile of rags. Closed her eyes. “God bless you,” she said softly.

“Unfortunately, ma’am, they’re all destroyed.”

Weems’s eyes shot open. Dark eyes, dramatic against her pale hair. Hawklike and unforgiving.

“Unfortunately,” she said. Making it sound like mimicry. She stared past the detectives.

Katz said, “I’m sorry, Ms. Weems.”

“You are?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Katz said. “You put a lot of work into those-”

“He was a devil,” said Michael Weems.

“Who?”

She crooked a finger over her back and toward the hillside. A gentle downward slope of snowdrift, red rocks, piñon trees, juniper bushes, and cacti.

Michael Weems turned and walked to the edge of the portal and gazed down.

Scattered light allowed the detectives to see a shallow ditch ru

Just off center about twenty feet to the right was something larger.

A man’s body.

On his back, belly-up.

An enormous belly it was.

Myron Weems’s mouth gaped open in permanent surprise. One hand was splayed u

Even in the dark and at a distance, Katz and Two Moons could make out the hole in his forehead.

Michael Weems walked back to the side table and removed rags from the pile. Underneath was a revolver- what looked to be an old Smith & Wesson.

A cowboy gun.

“Cover me,” Two Moons whispered.

Katz nodded.

Slowly, Darrel walked over, keeping his eyes glued on Michael’s hands. She didn’t seem perturbed or anxious even when he picked up the gun and emptied the cylinder of five bullets.

Weems had returned her attention to her painting.

Katz and Two Moons were now in a position to see the subject.

Merry and Max standing at the edge of a portal, both of them naked. Staring, with a combination of horror and delight-the delicious discovery of a childhood nightmare’s falsity-at the corpse of their father.

Michael Weems aimed her brush at a circle of red on her palette, rosied up the hole in the brow.