“Okay, kids, you ready for some modern art?”

CHAPTER 16

Post Street, San Francisco

Fantasia Gallery

Since it was a Friday evening and warm, always an unexpected treat in San Francisco, both natives and tourists swarmed the streets. There weren’t as many panhandlers in Union Square anymore, Delion told them, as they made their way out of the underground garage. He missed Old Ducks, though, a Vietnam vet who used to play the harmonica over near Macy’s, always with three blankets around his shoulders, a watering can to collect change from the tourists passing by, and a nice word for everybody. They walked over to Post Street, home to a good dozen art galleries.

There were more locals than tourists in Fantasia tonight, because the showing was for a local artist. The gallery lights were bright, and the mood was light with laughter, maybe because the paintings in the spotlights were filled with such outrageous colors and shapes, they made you want to smile. Whether or not you’d want to look at a creature with two heads and two matching tails every day of your life on your living-room wall was another matter entirely, Lucy thought. The artist getting all the attention was Exeter Land, a stylishly tall and skinny man, wearing perfectly wrinkled loose linen pants and a matching linen jacket. He held a glass of champagne between his long, thin fingers, and stood chatting in the middle of a group of admirers, flushed and happy.

They walked around the gallery, looking mostly at the people there, and spotted about a dozen of Mrs. Lansford’s paintings, all hung on one wall and accented with the very best lighting. They were exuberant, Lucy thought, like Mr. Exeter Land’s—in fact, like all the artists she carried, as if they all cheered at the same fantasyland ballpark.

Delion walked toward a woman who stood at the far wall of the big open gallery floor, leaning against a small dark blue desk with white half-moons painted on it, a bottle of water in her hand. She was in her fifties, trim, with very long dark hair, not even a dash of gray, that she wore straight and pulled back with gold clips behind her ears. Coop could easily picture her younger—she had a bit of the look of Bundy’s onetime fiancée, as well as many of Bundy’s victims. But she was older now, and carried a look of confidence, he thought, in herself, and in the scene unfolding around her. She was watching the crowd carefully, her eyes roving over each of the people in her gallery. Assessing the possible buyers? Surely she had to be pleased at the turnout for her artist.

Delion nodded to Coop and Lucy. The three of them formed a loose half circle around Mrs. Lansford.

Delion pulled out his badge, introduced himself, then introduced Agent Lucy Carlyle and Agent Cooper McKnight of the FBI. “We’re here about the murder of five women in San Francisco, Chicago, and Cleveland, Mrs. Lansford.”

She looked at the three of them in turn, nothing changing on her face, not even a small tic or an eyebrow going up, nothing at all. Her very dark eyes remained calm, only politely interested. “You want to speak to me about some murders? Murders, did you say? How can I possibly help you, Inspector? Agents?”

Delion brought out the driver’s license photo of Kirsten Bolger, along with the police sketch and a photo of Ted Bundy. He spread them out on the desk behind her.

She took a quick look at the photos. Again, her expression did not change. “A moment, please. Let’s go to my office.” She said nothing to anyone, simply walked out of the main gallery, up a circular flight of steps, down a lovely rose carpeted hallway with more paintings for sale on the walls, and opened a door. She stepped back and waved them in.

Her office was a 3-D fantasy, Lucy thought, large and filled with color. The paintings, a sofa, four chairs, and a coffee table—everything was vivid, bold, and whimsical. There were large stuffed animals scattered about the room—a giraffe, a lion, a horse, and an anteater. The wall-to-wall carpeting was red, with big circles of white and yellow. You smiled, couldn’t help yourself.

“Sit down, won’t you?”

They didn’t sit. Delion once again spread the photos on the desktop, a shiny black affair with a black computer on top and a black phone.

“Would you please look at these photos again, Mrs. Lansford.”

She looked. “Yes?”

“You recognize your daughter, Kirsten?”

“Is that Kirsten? That looks like her driver’s license, and the sketch resembles her, to be sure. Why, yes, I do believe it is.”

“And you recognize your daughter’s father. Ted Bundy?”

Still, there was no expression at all on her face. She was silent a moment, studying each of the photos now, then she said quietly, “What in the world would make you think such a thing, Inspector?”