“Grace is your nanny?” Kennedy halted his note-scribbling.
“Nanny?” Casey smiled. “No. Grace is my personal assistant. We don’t have a nanny. I have sitters who come when I need them. Grace has been my dearest friend since elementary school.”
“Where is your studio?” Kennedy asked.
“On Magazine Street.”
“I saw some of your snapshots at the Contemporary Arts Center one time,” he added.
“Formal portraits,” LePointe corrected.
“It’s like a hobby for you?” Kennedy persisted. “Taking pictures. Or are you a professional?”
“The photography keeps me occupied,” Casey said, “but I don’t think I’m a professional, because I don’t make money at it.”
LePointe said, “Casey’s portrait work is in every museum collection worth mentioning. We’re extremely proud of Casey’s artistic accomplishments-her body of work. Can we please get back on point?”
“I meant no offense,” Kennedy said.
“Portrait series?” Alexa said. “Would that be similar to Richard Avedon’s portraits? Subjects with some common association?”
Casey nodded, her eyes springing to life. “I’m hardly in Avedon’s class. I work in color. Longshoremen, homeless people, veterans, racists, midwives, artists, evangelists, carpenters…”
“Senators, cabinet members, ex-presidents and their wives,” LePointe added.
Alexa was fascinated by LePointe’s incessant need to elevate his niece’s importance.
Casey’s face flushed. Alexa wondered if Dr. LePointe’s friends accommodated his niece as a favor to him. Perhaps he used his influence to make sure her work made the right private and museum collections, and the right galleries. Unless she really was that good, and Alexa had seen nothing to indicate she was, his patronage could certainly account for her success. Wouldn’t it be something, Alexa thought, if a woman as attractive, wealthy, seemingly intelligent had real artistic talent as well?
“So R amp;O’s at lunch was the last time you saw your husband? Or spoke to him?” Kennedy asked.
Casey nodded. “And nobody’s seen him. I’ve called everybody I could think of. Sometimes he gets with friends and loses track of the time.”
“How much did he have to drink at lunch?”
Dr. LePointe looked down at his hands, twisted his heavy gold signet ring.
“One beer,” Casey said.
“And before you met him at the restaurant?” Kennedy asked.
“Gary never drinks before five.”
“Except at lunch,” Kennedy said.
“On Fridays. It’s part of the tradition.”
“Do you have a recent picture of him?” Kennedy asked. “A physical description?”
“I have hundreds of recent pictures. Gary’s five-ten. He weighs one fifty. Blond hair in a ponytail. A patch of hair beneath his lower lip. I have a picture I took a week ago.”
“What do you think happened to your husband?” Alexa asked Casey.
“I don’t know,” she said, looking up. “Maybe he’s in a hospital with amnesia.”
“Have you called the hospitals?” Kyler Kennedy asked.
“Grace and I called all of them before I contacted the police. We found no one matching his description,” Casey said, her eyes showing pain. “Please, you have to find him. He’d come home or call if he could, I know he would.”
LePointe reached over and put his hand on Casey’s shoulder.
“Mrs. West,” Kennedy started, “I know this may be a bad time to ask this, but do you know if your husband may have been seeing anyone?”
“What?” Casey snapped immediately. “You mean another woman? Of course not! We love each other.”
“You can forget that line of questioning,” Dr. LePointe said. “It’s inappropriate.”
“Sorry, it’s just that sometimes men-” Kennedy started.
“Gary isn’t like most men,” Casey said.
“I believe that’s more than enough information to get you started,” Dr. LePointe interrupted.
“There are more questions that need to be asked,” Kennedy said.
“Perhaps later when Casey is stronger. It’s very late and she’s upset and tired. I don’t think you’ll learn anything else of value here tonight.”
“I’m fine, Unko,” Casey protested.
Alexa caught Dr. LePointe’s reaction to his niece’s use of Unko, which had to be a pet name he didn’t care for.
“Ask whatever you like,” Casey said. “We have nothing to hide. If my husband were seeing anybody, I’d know. He is usually right here with Deana and me. He doesn’t spend enough time away from us for that sort of thing. And he’s incapable of subterfuge or deceit.”
LePointe said, “It’s likely Gary will come in or call any moment.”
Kyler Kennedy closed his notebook and stood abruptly. “Of course,” he said. “More than enough to get started. Thanks for your time, Mrs. LePointe.”
“West,” Casey corrected.
“We need the make and model of the car he was driving and the license number,” Alexa said.
Casey handed Alexa a sheet of paper she’d made up with that information on it, as well as Gary’s description.
“We’ll show ourselves to the door,” Kennedy said. “If you think of anything…” He placed his card on the table. “Twenty-four hours a day.”
“I want to go on, if you need more information,” Casey said.
“The picture,” Kennedy said as he stood.
“I’ll send it in the morning,” LePointe said. “Now, my niece needs to get some rest.”
“But-” Casey protested.
“It’s settled,” LePointe said authoritatively. “I’m the doctor. I’ll have the picture dropped off at your office, Detective. If that’s acceptable?”
“Certainly, sir,” Kennedy said.
“Will you be working on finding Gary, Agent Keen?” Casey asked.
“I’m due to leave in the morning,” Alexa said. “Actually, I should get back to the Marriott.”
Casey crossed the room, took a framed picture from the shelves, slipped it out of the frame, and handed Kennedy the picture, at an angle that precluded Alexa from seeing it.
“You are in good hands, Mrs. West,” Alexa said, and left Casey, LePointe, and Kennedy in the kitchen. As she strode up the hallway toward the front door, her footsteps muted by the Oriental runners, she looked at the art on the walls for the first time. She loved art and had taken an advanced art appreciation class in college, so she knew that the paintings she saw were very valuable. Out of the ten paintings she saw on her way out, she recognized a Joan Miro oil she had seen in a book of his work, and a Marc Chagall. There was a large Rothko oil in the dining room. In a den she saw several framed Avedon photographs, including an incredibly large picture of Andy Warhol’s wounded torso. The mantel in that room held dozens of framed pictures, most of which included Gary West. He was a strikingly handsome man.
When Alexa exited the house, Manseur was walking back from the street. The superintendent and the other detectives had left or were driving away.
“So, what you think?” he asked her.
“I think I need to go back to the hotel.”
“So, you think there’s anything to this?” he asked her as they walked toward the gate. “Do you think he could have been abducted?”
“I think you have a D11 on your hands.”
“That FBI jargon for something?”
“It’s a model of a bulldozer,” Alexa said. “I’m referring to Dr. LePointe. I suspect he’s right that Gary West will come home. If not, maybe Dr. LePointe will allow your Detective Kennedy to start some sort of investigation. Two things I can tell you for certain.”
“What’s that?”
“Casey West worships her husband, and Dr. LePointe is accustomed to calling the tunes.”
7
Elliot Parnell, as a Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries enforcement officer, was keeping his eye on the hurricane because it could affect his beat adversely. If there was a mandatory evacuation, he would have to run all over the lakes and channels making residents leave. Most of the people who lived in his district were dumb as snakes, and he’d have his work cut out for him. He hoped the storm turned: he had a lot more important job to do than shooing cow-brained swampers from their hovels.