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.A giant jar of makeup remover and a bag of cotton balls stood on a glass shelf over the sink, but I didn't see a toothbrush or a comb.She had left a tube of shampoo and a bottle of liquid soap in the shower, but no body lotion or moisturizer.I began to look around, for any evidence that pointed to who Karen or Frannie knew, people she trusted enough that she might flee to them.It was the barest dwelling I'd seen in a long time.The kitchen held a table and a chair, a coffeemaker and two cups and plates.I looked in the cupboards and found a few odds and ends, plastic salt and pepper shakers, a freezer-to-microwave dish, but no food except a half-empty box of cereal.The room with the exercise balls didn't hold anything else, no furniture or boxes, not even a philodendron on the windowsill.In the front room, which faced the street, the windows were so heavily curtained that no outside light came in.When I'd groped my way to a light switch, I found myself face-to-face with dark-haired woman in a navy coat.Petra gasped.I reached for my gun--and realized I was about to shoot my own reflection.The walls were lined with mirrors."Vic, this is totally creepy! What does she do in here?"I waited for my heartbeat to steady before I answered."I guess it's the studio where she practices her art.See--she's got a set of paints, a set of stencils.This looks like part of Nadia's memorial."I held up a piece of the angel's wing, which had instructions on the colors she wanted to use."She must carry her cameras to the club and back," Petra said."She doesn't have a computer here, either."Paints, photographs, palette knives, and several slitter blades were tidily arranged on a plastic cart.A black drop cloth in the middle of the floor had dried paint on it, but the rest of the room was clean.Besides the cart, the only thing in the room that might be considered as a kind of furnishing was a DVD player, with a handful of discs scattered around it.When I knelt to inspect them, Petra wandered into the bedroom.A minute or so later, she called out to me, "Oh my God, Vic, this is so amazing!"I scooped the discs into my bag and went in to join her.Like the rest of the apartment, the bedroom was almost unfurnished: a futon, with the covers tidily arranged, a narrow chest with three drawers, and a bedside stand holding a clock and a book, which was what had grabbed my cousin's attention.Called (Re)Making the Female Body, the cover showed a naked anorectic woman with multiple piercings and even, as I saw when I looked closer, stabbings.The material inside was just as disturbing, ranging from Hannah Wilke's efforts to use her body as a canvas for responding to her cancer, to Lucia Balinoff, who slashed herself onstage.Along the way were women who used plastic surgery to add animal features to their faces or bodies, women who pierced their lips and hung fetishes from them."What kind of person would watch a woman cut herself open onstage?" Petra asked."No one I know, I hope! Maybe the same person who'd go to a dog-fight or bear-baiting." I handed the book back to her."I have to confess, it makes me queasy.""The slashing, for sure," Petra said."But the animal surgery--it's, like, being free to decide about your own body.How it looks, I mean.And how you want people to react.Do you know what it's like to be me? Guys always saying, 'How's the air up there,' and then they laugh like they've made the funniest joke anyone ever heard.And being blond--""It's a burden, but you carry it well," I suggested."See? That's just it! Even you, mega-feminist, you're laughing at me because I'm young and blond.If I put one of these horns on my head, people would think twice before they treated me like I have the brain of a two-year-old." She flipped through the pages to a picture of a woman who'd had something resembling a rhino horn grafted onto her forehead.I squeezed her shoulder."Petra, I apologize, you're right.If I promise to take you seriously, will you promise not to mutilate your face?""It'd be worth it just to see Uncle Sal's expression, you know.Or when Daddy is on trial, it could freak out the jury, confuse them into acquitting him." She bit her lip and looked determinedly through the book."I don't see anything about Karen in here, but you know, her stuff looks pretty tame compared to this."Petra was right.It made me wonder about the slitter blades in the living room.Had Karen decided she had to up the stakes in her act so she could grab more attention? A woman with a hidden identity and a thirst for attention.Strange combo.Unstable combo."She's gone, don't you think?" I said to my cousin."No toothbrush, and although she's obsessionally tidy, the drawers are open in here--she snatched socks and underwear, and whatever else she needed, on the fly.I'm guessing she took the discs she wanted and left the others thrown every which way.And there isn't a piece of paper in the place.If she owns a bank card or any document with a name or a picture on it, she's taken them with her.""To where?" Petra asked."I'm hoping she'll go to her father.I'm going to drive up to Roehampton after we get back to the office and see if I can find him.""All that blood, you don't think she got shot, do you?""I think it was from coming through the window.She didn't have her jeans on when she left the club--maybe she was too rattled to put them on before diving into the kitchen.But we'll check with hospitals, see if she might have gone in for an expert patch-up." I grinned at Petra."I'm so glad to have my high-rise assistant to off-load these tasks to.You're going to have a fun afternoon on the phone."We walked back to the L stop.The snow wasn't heavy, but we could see the traffic on the Kennedy going about ten miles an hour.Petra wasn't the only one with a fun afternoon in front of her: I was going to have a great time on the Kennedy myself."I don't get it," Petra said as we got on the train."If Frannie Pindero knew Anton Kystarnik, why didn't she say something last night when those guys were beating her up?""Hard to say without talking to her.The other big question is, if Kystarnik isn't blocking her website, who is? You any use as a hacker?" I asked my cousin."Sheesh, Vic, I'm not a geek!""You can be a fashionista and still know how to hack," I objected."What about your friends or lovers? Did you completely waste your time in college?"She pulled a face."You're the crime expert.Don't you know anyone?""Tim Radke," I finally said."He told me he was a systems something in the Army but hasn't been able to find civilian work using his training--right now, he's installing consumer electronics."I called his cell phone and asked if he'd be interested in a freelance systems job, something that might help prove Chad's innocence.He was out in the western suburbs again today, but he said he could make it to my office by eight-thirty or so.31Searching for an ArtistAt my office, I left Petra with a list of five or six hundred Chicago-area hospitals and picked up my car for the drive to Roehampton.It was after five p.m.when I got to the little coffee bar I'd visited the previous week.The couple behind the counter were cleaning their machines while a trio of women sat slumped at a table, drinking coffee.Their clothes and general fatigue suggested they were maids warming themselves before their long bus ride home.The two baristas were exhausted, too, but tried to pretend pleasure at seeing a customer."I don't need anything," I said, "and I won't keep you from locking up.I was up here last week, and a guy named Clive was talking about Steve Pindero and his daughter, Frannie.I need to find Steve Pindero.If you don't know him, maybe you can tell me how to reach Clive."The baristas looked at each other and slowly shook their heads."I remember you," the male barista said."You were asking about Melanie Kystarnik.We can't share information about our customers with you [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]