The Postcard Killers (24 page)

His contact, Nicky Everett, was waiting for him outside room 140, on the first floor of the building. The young man was wearing chinos, a golfing shirt, boat shoes, and frameless glasses. Jacob had never met anyone studying for a PhD in conceptual art, but he’d been expecting something more bearded and absentminded.

“Thanks for taking the time to see me,” Jacob said.

“I believe in art that communicates,” Nicky Everett said seriously, looking at him through the sparkling clean lenses.

“Er.…,” Jacob said, “you knew Malcolm and Sylvia Rudolph?”

“I wouldn’t use the past tense,” Everett said. “Even if we no longer have a physical relationship, there are other forms of contact, correct?”

Jacob nodded. Okay.

“Could we sit down outside perhaps?” he said, gesturing toward some benches just outside the main entrance.

They went out and sat in the shade of a few spindly trees.

“If I’ve understood this right, you studied here at the same time as the Rudolph twins — until they left — correct?”

“Absolutely,” Everett said. “Sylvia and Mac were leaders in their field.”

“Which was?”

“Let me quote Sol LeWitt: ‘In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.’”

Jacob made an effort to understand, and also to keep his emotions in check. “So an event, or a series of events, can be a work of art?” he asked.

“Of course. Both Mac and Sylvia were determined to take their work to its ultimate limits.”

Jacob remembered Dessie’s stories of the art student who faked a psychotic attack for her examination piece, and the guy who smashed up a car on the subway and called his artwork
Territorial Pissing.
He described these cases to Everett.

“Could the Rudolphs ever do anything like that?”

Nicky Everett pressed his glasses firmly onto his nose. “The Rudolphs were more meticulous in their expression. That all sounds rather superficial. ‘
Territorial Pissing
’?”

Jacob ran his fingers through his hair. “So,” he said, “explain it to me: how can that be
art?
I want to hear this and understand it as best I can.”

The student looked at him with complete indifference in his face.

“You think a work of art should be hung on a wall and sold on the commercial market?”

Jacob realized the futility of going any further down this road and changed the subject. “They started an art group, the Society of Limitless Art…”

“It was more of a web project. I don’t think anything ever came of it.”

“What was their social life like otherwise? Family, friends, boyfriends, girlfriends.”

Nicky Everett seemed not to understand, as though the very idea that he might possess such insignificant facts was completely ridiculous.

“Do you know if they were upset when their guardian died here in L.A.?”

“Their
what?
”

Jacob gave up.

“Okay, I think we’re good,” he said, standing up. “It’s a shame the Rudolphs couldn’t afford to stay on here. Imagine all the incredible art they could have created…”

He turned to go back to his car.

Nicky Everett had also stood up, and for the first time, a genuine expression showed on his face. “‘Couldn’t afford to stay on here’? Sylvia and Mac were exceptional talents. They both had scholarships. There was no problem with fees.”

Jacob stopped short.

“No problem? So why did they leave, then?”

Everett blinked a few times, a sure sign that he was agitated.

“They created the work
Taboo
and were expelled. They showed up the bourgeois limitations and the hypocrisy of our society, and of this institution, of course.”

Jacob stared at the student.

“What did they do? What was
Taboo
? What was it that got them expelled?”

Nicky Everett’s mouth curved into a smile.

“They committed an act that was entirely relevant within the frame of their art. They had intercourse in a case in the exhibition hall.”

Chapter 109

JACOB SAT IN THE car with the GPS switched off and his duffel bag beside him on the passenger seat. The more he found out about the Rudolphs’ background, the weirder they became.
Taboo
went way beyond
Territorial Pissing
.

If he started with this latest piece of information, the signals he had picked up on from the recording at the Museum of Modern Art had been correct. The siblings had an erotic relationship. It was possible that people had different preferences within the world of conceptual art, but in Jacob’s reality, you didn’t have intercourse with your twin in public, not unless you had a whole toolbox full of loose screws.

The long trail of slashed throats they had left behind them couldn’t be a coincidence either. The question was, What came first, the chicken or the egg?

Had Sylvia discovered her murdered parents and been traumatized for life? Was she trying to get over the experience by repeating it, again and again, in the form of macabre works of art? Or was she the one who had killed her mother and father at the age of thirteen? Was that even physically possible? Would she have had the strength to do it? The neck was tough. It was full of muscles, sinews, and ligaments. But above all, why would she have killed her parents?

He took it for granted that the twins had murdered the guardian who had embezzled the whole of their inheritance.

And who was Sandra Schulman, the friend mentioned by the gardener? He would have to track her down, too. And the boyfriend, William Hamilton.

For some reason he suddenly saw Dessie Larsson before him, her long hair and graceful profile, her slender fingers, her vigilant green eyes.

Had the mob of journalists finally given up waiting outside Dessie’s door? Had she gone back to her old routine?

Was she thinking of him? Was she all right?

Irritated, he shrugged off the thought. He had more work to do in L.A.

Chapter 110

WILLIAM HAMILTON, OR BILLY as his friends called him, opened the door with his long, dirty blond hair standing on end and wearing nothing but a pink bath towel.

“What?” he said abruptly, blinking in the dim light from the stairwell. “What now?”

“Police,” Jacob Kanon said, holding up his badge, obscuring the NYPD. “Can I come in? Of course I can.”

“Shit,” Billy said, frowning, but letting the door swing open.

Jacob took that as a yes and stepped into the apartment.

It wasn’t bad, the apartment. It was on Barrington Avenue, just a few miles from Westwood Village and the UCLA campus. It was at the top of the building, with a large terrace overlooking the pool and a garden.

There was a fashionable kitchen/bar and an open gas fire.

“What the hell’s the matter this time? What do you people want now?”

Billy sank into a white corner sofa facing the artificial fire. The towel slid open, revealing well-muscled, suntanned thighs.

“Honey, who is it?” a woman’s voice called from one of the bedrooms.

“Mind your own business,” he muttered under his breath.

“I’m here about Sylvia and Malcolm Rudolph,” Jacob said, sitting down on the sofa without being asked. Billy let out a low groan.

“What the fuck? I’ve already answered a load of dumb questions! When am I supposed to have found the time to slum around Europe? I
still
don’t have a passport. I’ve got a job here.”

“Doing what?” Jacob asked, fighting an instinctive dislike of the guy on the sofa.

Billy straightened his shoulders. “Actor,” he said.

“Wow,” Jacob said. “What have you been in?”

Billy’s shoulders sank a bit. He wiped his nose. “I’m a musician, too. And I’m working on a script for television.”

Jacob tried to look impressed. He wasn’t, not in the least. He thought that a baboon could probably write a script for television.

“You met Sylvia when you were studying performance drama at UCLA…”

Hamilton spread his arms.

“Okay, this is how it is: I tried to save Sylvia from her crazy brother. Their relationship got seriously fucked up when Sandy disappeared. Malcolm was totally obsessed with her. You following me, taking notes?”

Jacob interrupted him.

“Disappeared? Who disappeared? Sandra Schulman?”

Irritated, Billy Hamilton got up and walked up and down in front of the fire.

“They were going up to the Mansion to get the last of their stuff, but I had an audition and couldn’t go. They waited for her, but Sandy never showed up for the car trip. No one knows what happened to her. Mac took it real bad. We all did.”

Jacob sat there without moving, trying to fit the information together in his head.

“Malcolm Rudolph and Sandra Schulman were a couple?”

“Well,
yeah
. Ever since high school. She came from Montecito. They were neighbors.”

“Darling, who are you talking to?” called the woman in the bedroom. “I’m lying here waiting for you.”

“Shut the fuck up!” Billy shouted. “I’m busy!”

He sniffed and wiped his nose again. “I don’t know what else to tell you, dude.”

Jacob took that as a signal to move on and started toward the door.

“Where was Sandra Schulman living when she disappeared?” he asked.

“Same place as Sylvia and Mac. Apartment on Wilshire and Veteran. Ask me, they might have been a threesome. Except that Sylvia was jealous of Sandy.
Very
.… Hey, are you going?
Already?
What a shame.”

“What was the number? The apartment on Wilshire?”

Hamilton looked scornfully at him.

“What do I look like, fucking Google?”

Chapter 111

JACOB WENT BACK TO his car and made a phone call.

Carlos Rodríguez answered with the same crackling
sí
as he had at the gate of the Rudolphs’ mansion in Montecito.

“Jacob Kanon here,” Jacob said. “NYPD? We spoke yesterday.”

“Sí, señor. ¿Qué pasa?
How can I help you, Detective?”

“Just one more question. It’s about Sandra Schulman. You said she was with them at the Mansion that last weekend before the auction? Is that correct?”

“
Sí.
Why?”

“You’re quite sure?”

“Sandra used to play here since she was a little
chiquitita
. Of course I recognized her. She and Malcolm were boyfriend and girlfriend.”

“How did Sylvia feel about her?”

“Oh, I don’t know. She liked having Malcolm to herself. They were very close, brother and sister.”

“Did you speak to Sandra that evening at the house?”

“
Sí, claro!
She kissed me on the cheek.”

Jacob pushed the hair from his forehead.

“You said the twins left in the middle of the night. Did you see them drive away?”

“
Pero claro que sí
. They woke me up. The gate can only be opened manually, from inside the lodge.”

“Did you notice if Sandra Schulman was in the car?”

There was silence at the other end.

“It was late at night,” he said. “You couldn’t see anything inside the car.”

“But you spoke to the Rudolphs?”

“With the
señorita
. She was driving.”

“But you didn’t actually see Sandra Schulman leave the property?”

There was a moment’s silence.

“She must have gone with them, because they didn’t leave her behind.”

Jacob covered his eyes with his hand.

“Thanks,” he said. “That’s all I needed to know.”

He ended the call and quickly made another.

Chapter 112

LYNDON CREBBS ANSWERED AFTER the first ring.

“How’s it going, you amateur? Are you getting anywhere?” Lyndon asked.

“Can you check on a Sandra Schulman? Last known address Wilshire Avenue, corner of Veteran Avenue.”

“Anything special about her?”

“She may have disappeared, permanently. Take this as a tip from an anonymous source: she could be buried in the hills above Montecito. Sylvia was jealous of her. Enough said.”

Jacob could hear the FBI agent’s pen scratch.

“What about William Hamilton?” Lyndon Crebbs asked as he wrote. “Is he still alive, I hope?”

“If the LAPD takes a look there, they’ll find a heap of snow in the bedroom. He’s alive. But he’s an obnoxious little prick.”

Lyndon chuckled.

“By the way,” he said, “I was reading the report on the search of the Rudolphs’ hotel room in Stockholm. What did that key belong to?”

“What key?” Jacob said.

“The little key that’s mentioned at the bottom of page three.”

“How the hell could you read that, Lyndon?
It’s in Swedish
.”

“Haven’t you ever used the site
www.tyda.se
?” Lyndon Crebbs said. “Just an old man wondering.”

The police in Stockholm must have checked it out, Jacob thought. “Christ, this is mad,” he said. “Do you know why the twins were thrown out of UCLA? They had sex with each other in public.”

“Ah, today’s youth,” the FBI agent said. “Something else occurred to me: what if there are other killers? What if the Rudolphs have inspired copycats?”

“The thought has occurred to me, too,” Jacob said. “But it doesn’t fit. The content of the postcards has never been made public, for instance. If there are more killers, they have to be working together.”

“Sicker things have been known to happen,” Lyndon Crebbs said. “When do you think you’ll be back at Citrus Avenue?”

Jacob grew serious. “I won’t be back this visit,” he said. “I’m heading off now.”

Lyndon Crebbs was silent, a silence that only grew. Jacob was treading water. He couldn’t bring himself to ask the only relevant question: exactly how bad was the prostate cancer?

Jacob spoke again. “Just one more thing. Could you pull a few strings and see if you can find out anything about Lucy? My ex? I should tell her about Kimmy.”