CHAPTER 1: The Work
The floor of Karne's living room is surprisingly comfortable. The front edge of his rectilinear Modernist couch has some concealed padding on the sheer plane from the cushion to the dark wood legs, and the coarse-loomed knit on the throw pillows from the old armchairs is softer than it looks. The coffee table edge is a little too far away to be really useful—I've got to stretch for my coffee mug when I want it—but it's otherwise a good place to sit and enjoy a borrowed book.
And that's what I was doing. It was Saturday and I'd demanded the day off. My phone was not only turned off but back at my apartment in the top drawer of my desk. In a spirit of defiance, I'd taken only my wallet and keys with me to Karne's: no notebook paper, no pen, and certainly no evidence bags.
Karne had smirked a little after he gave me the usual once-over when he opened his door. He hadn't said anything about the hanging white strings from the hole in the side seam of my jeans or that my grey t-shirt was almost indecently threadbare in spots. I knew he noted the difference, but I knew he didn't really notice. At least, I was relatively sure he didn't. To Karne I was the LA forensics employee that would talk to him whenever he wanted. That was it.
This isn't self-pity. This isn't Amy Connell wishing for a date, either. I've worked with Karne for months, whenever he lets me, and I've become convinced he's a genius. That has everything to do with the tenor of our relationship. I'm here to watch, and to think about what he does. I won't flatter myself into thinking I'm here to learn to be as good as he is. I think I can't, and he's told me he certainly doesn't believe I have the potential. And that's okay, really. He's an ass, but he's my ass.
I nearly snorted when I let those words float past my awareness. I tried to cover by bending over my book, but I could feel the hairs on the top of my head prickle. Yes, I'd caught his attention.
I craned my neck up to look at Karne, who'd been sitting in his armchair staring into the middle distance and smoking a succession of strong cigarettes. For the first time since he'd opened the door that morning, his grey eyes focused on my face.
"Have you finally tired of that absurd volume, doctor?" He smirked at his own wit. I made a slight effort not to roll my eyes.
"Don't call me that, and no." I dropped my head to focus again on the sharp reproductions of three canvases in Barnett Newman's Stations of the Cross: Lema Sabachthani. Karne laughed quietly; the hisses of his exhalations crossed the room, and I tensed my shoulders trying not to start an argument.
The catalog had kept me busy on the floor through two cups of Karne's strong coffee. I'd seen Newman's canvases in the National Gallery, but it was years ago. The essays in the folio made me want to see them again and take more time with them.
"Really, Connell," he went on, his voice teasing. "An abstraction of the struggle of humankind against an all-powerful deity can't have held your attention so long. Your line of work must have made the 'struggle' commonplace."
"What are you talking about?" I gave up and folded the reproductions of the canvases back into the stout binding of the folio. "I look at bones all day; you know that."
"Nonsense," Karne waved his hand between us, sending a shower of ash to the floor. "You make observations all day. And you have chosen to continue on your vacation time."
"I'm not looking at them for that," I countered, installing myself in the armchair opposite his and tucking my feet up beside me to avoid his long legs stretched across the floor between us.
"Why, then? The trivia? Installed in 1966, monochromatic, fourteen canvases five by six and a half feet," he punctuated each point with a tap of his forefinger against the arm of his chair. "A contemporary of Rothko, of course." He ended his lecture with a slow smile that riled me.
"You know that's not why," I snapped. "I want to know where they've been, and who else wanted to look at them."
"Are you so lonely as that, Connell?" He smiled again. I stood up and strode over to the window. I could feel a tiny shake in the outer edge of my lip. It wasn't his right, not at all, but I didn't know what to say to stop him. I crossed my arms in front of me and heard him shift in his chair. "I've gone too far, Connell, I apologize."
"Just stop it," I said toward the window. I could hear him shift again. Good. He ought to be uncomfortable. But a second later I heard the grind of his lighter, and I tensed my jaw. Of course he'd just been reaching for another cigarette. Of course he had. "Haven't you?" I turned back toward him and waited.
"What?" He started the smile again, but it wilted before it was fixed. "Ah, loneliness still." He looked toward the glossy travertine fireplace, then turned back toward me. "Connell," he said impatiently, "I do keep opening my door to you."
"Course." I left my hands at my sides as I walked toward the opposite wall. As I tried to look anywhere but his face, I noticed a new addition to Karne's odd collections. On the drywall between the kitchen door and the small pass-through to the front room a long strip of cloth in dark purple sagged between two nails that would certainly leave a mark. As I stepped forward I could make out a tightly-packed pattern of intricate stitches wrought in copper twisted with dark silk. I leaned in and put my face close to the fabric.
A smell of sandalwood colored my first impressions. I squinted and shifted to let more sunlight hit the cloth. In the tangle of the pattern figures of elephants began to emerge. I put my forefinger to the upper edge of a large one's ear and traced the curves back to its head. As I started to draw my hand down the fine fabric and stitches toward the arc of the trunk, Karne cleared his throat.
I was hesitant to turn around. He didn't often drop an argument, and I didn't want to have the one we'd started. I kept my eyes on the fabric impaled on the mottled grey nails for a moment longer, then noticed a line of evenly spaced printed images. They'd been done at high resolution on photo paper, and I backed away a step to get out of the glare on the high-gloss finish. The dolorous faces of Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic saints gazed back at me. I turned to Karne, more interested in the choice of wall hangings than in the disagreement.
"What's the story here," I asked, gesturing toward the composition.
"You're wondering how I can have art on my wall and criticize you for wanting to look at art in a book." Karne continued to face away from me in his chair, but his voice carried easily.
"Not really. I know it's got to have something to do with a case."
"Impressive, Connell, impressive." He heaved himself out of the chair, and walked over next to me. I tried not to fidget. He peered down at me and I stepped back, trying to keep eye contact without putting a kink in my neck.
"It'd better be good for you to wreck this needlework." I sent him a quick glare that didn't faze him one shred.
"It is there for an investigation, Connell. The patterns of the center are the important thing." He tucked his thumbs into the lowest corners of his pockets.
"This is metallic thread wrapped with silk, though," I shook my head. "That's a lot of work just to drive a nail through it. Days. What were you thinking?"
"I was thinking of the case, of course." His voice had taken on the tone he often used with DuPret, and I knew I was about to lose the privilege of looking at his Newman folio. "I can't see why you're so protective of objects that don't bear on anything."
"Because someone's hands and creativity went into it, Karne," I tried again. "Beauty can be a function too. And you've punched holes in it, just to—only to hang it on the wall." Karne huffed. I tensed my shoulders in response and I could see his eyes cut over to me long enough to catch the change in my posture. "Of course you don't mind," I snipped, "since it doesn't 'bear on anything.'"
"In fact it does, Connell, as I told you." In a burst of motion he crossed to his desk and retrieved a file, which he pushed into my hands. He walked back to his armchair with his lips pressed tight together and his stride shortened and tense.
"It has to do with this?" I flipped open the cover of the file as I walked toward the armchair opposite Karne and sat to scan the first page. I started to read the evidence accession form before I consciously realized what it was; once I did, I stopped short and plucked the page from the file. The absence of the gummed strip at the top edge—the one that usually holds the official triplicate form together—reassured me some. That meant it wasn't an original. Karne still shouldn't have had access to the form at all, but at least he only had a copy. I settled into a comfortable niche in the chair and began to read.