or child support to
pay for. And he’s not receiving Alice’s life insurance upon her death and all. Not
to mention that generally, contract killers don’t take eyeballs out of the
targets. Catches too much attention.”
“I see.” Archangel
nodded as he cast a glance at a red pumpkin sculpture covered with black eyeballish
polka-dot patterns, a piece by Yayoi Kusama. “Considering he gave this up
without a fight, I guess he wasn’t so passionate about patterns that incur
images of eyeballs.”
“I suppose I got
your point,” said Henderson. “According to her divorce attorney, the husband
was more than happy to give every pieces of art to her. The hubbie paid for
those pieces but it was Alice who took initiative to obtain them. Giving them up
to the ex-wife saved him much cash.”
“Some people don’t
care for art, even when the work they detest scores big bucks.” Archangel
commented. “By the way, was she engaged in some kind of religious or spiritual group
that worship the eyeballs?”
“Not that I know
of.”
“You want to check
it out.” Archangel said matter-of-factly. “Look, just about every piece of her collection
features multiple round shapes, it might be just that she had peculiar attraction
to round shapes, but at the same time, eyeballs are round.”
“Will do.”
Henderson nodded.
There were large
bay windows that offered stunning views of Rock Creek Park. I pictured her
enjoying afternoon tea, taking in all this stunning vista, comfortably sitting
at the Italian leather sofa set with a low glass top table.
“Do you see anything
in common between her and other victims so far?” Asked Henderson, rather
desperately.
“Other than all of
them are women of average built with dark hair and relatively big, dark eyes,
ages around 30, and having their eyeballs poked out alive?” said Archangel.
“Yes. Other
things.”
“That’s hard to
tell.” Archangel frowned.
“So, the killer’s
picking up victims who share his type of physical profiles randomly?”
“It seems random
to us, but the killer should have his or her own reason and/or method to pick
up the victims, poking the eyeballs out of them alive. It’s not yet clear what
this killer does to the eyeballs, though. Anyway, there should be something
that links all three women which we haven’t recognized yet.”
“Alright.
Personally, I have no fucking idea what those women had in common.” Henderson
cursed, shaking his head. “Leonie Ganong was a single sexy dancer lived in
Maryland. Working hard, always seeing multiple men for cash. Julia Stewart was
a doctor and a pregnant housewife in suburban Virginia, and Alice Sinclair was a
DC based rich divorcee with a glamorous job.”
“Yeah. It’s
certain that they had something in common,” said Archangel. “The problem is
we’re not aware of this special something.”
Chapter 12
After some more surveillance of the
place, we left while Henderson stayed in with forensic photographers and the
officers, and walked out of the room #1313 door.
Just outside the
door, a very young girl—age around eight, dark blonde in a ponytail, a little
on the chubby side, and big hazel eyes that sparkled with brightness and
curiosity—stood. She was leaning on the wall with crossed legs, like a
mini-teenager waiting for someone while pretending not to be waiting for
anyone.
“I like your
shoes.” She commented.
“Thank you.” I
replied, smiling. We were the only ones walking down the corridor and I was
the only woman, so I assumed she complimented my footwear. It’s a girl thing.
Usually, a girl compliments other girl’s footwear, right?
“Not yours,” she
shook her head and addressing to Archangel’s shoes with the palm of her hand. “I
was talking about his shoes.”
“Oh…” I took a
glance at Archangel’s footwear. They were red platform shoes with shiny studs
embedded on the back of the heels while mine consisted of a boring pair of black
chunky-heeled pumps
G.B. Lindsey
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