28. He Just Looks Crazy. He’s Okay. Mostly

Bracken maneuvered back out onto the road and once again stopped when he saw the mural and tentacles. This time, though, people just drove around him without the honking. Maybe locals were used to people slowing here. I really hoped the gallery didn't get a public safety citation.

He started driving again, went past the gallery, pulled to the side, and then backed onto the newly paved parking lot. His precision was impressive. The rig was less than a foot from the outer wall of the gallery and he was backed up to the water.

"Would you like a tour?" I unbuckled and moved into his living room.

"Very much."

We got out and he stopped to watch the waves a moment before stepping onto the new deck. His fingers trailed over the edge of one of Declan's curved benches. They'd been built to fit perfectly with the curve of the deck itself.

"Beautiful," he murmured.

"Declan built the deck and benches. That's how we met."

He nodded absently as he approached one of the tentacles rising up out of the water, seemingly poised to rip apart the gallery.

He reached out and then stopped himself. "May I touch?"

"Of course. They were pretty strong to begin with, but I added a spell to protect them. Once I open, people will be grabbing them and taking selfies, so I needed them close to indestructible."

"Extraordinary." His fingers ran over the tentacle and suckers. "It looks so real, I expected it to feel fleshy." He turned to me with wonder in his eyes. "Truly extraordinary."

"Thanks." I waved him forward. "Is it too much for you?"

He shook his head. "It doesn't seem to be. Perhaps because it's art." He gestured to the water. "The ocean is chaotic, but that doesn't bother me either. Nature has rules and forms that it adheres to in its own chaotic fashion. Art must be the same to my brain."

"Come see the rest then." When we got down to the studio door, I pointed to the railing. "Wait. I want to introduce you first."

I leaned over the railing, and he mirrored me. "Cecil! This is my Uncle Bracken." Cecil did more than just tap the surface this time. He rose up, right below the surface, and eyed Bracken.

"Charlie, Herbert, you're looking quite dapper today." The starfish were a gorgeous orange against the vibrant purple of the algae on the pilings they clung to.

A tennis ball rolled to a stop by my foot. "Hey, they all decided to say hi. Give me a sec." I opened the studio door and grabbed the whippy ball thrower, sending the tennis ball sailing over the water. With a bark, a seal went racing after it. "That's Wilbur. He's a selkie, but when he's in his seal skin, we play catch."

I put the ball thrower back inside the door and waved Bracken in. "This is my studio and apartment."

He smiled, studying it all. "You live where you work. Like me." He stopped in front of the corridor painting. "Ominous. I'm not sure what's going on behind that door, but it feels deadly."

I stood beside him. "Which door?"

He pointed to the last door on the right. "The angle of the door is a hair different from the other doors. That one is ajar."

I studied the door angles, and he was right. Pulling my phone from my pocket, I swiped through and called Detective Hernández.

"Arwyn, I was planning to stop by and see you today. Actually, Osso and I both were. Are you available?"

"Uh, yeah. We can do this in person. I should be around, sure." It was like the whole world was conspiring to make sure I couldn't work and open this gallery on time.

"Great. It probably won't be for a couple of hours. See you then."

I disconnected and pocketed it. Bracken was wandering around the studio, stopping to check out one piece of art and then another. When he gestured to the painting facing the wall, I nodded.

He turned it around and then stepped back, one hand out in front of him, warding it off. "Did she die?"

"How in the world did you know that?" I'd never sell the painting of Pearl's murder, but it honestly just looked like churned-up seawater and the possible silhouette of someone above the water.

"It has a feminine feel." He pointed to the silhouette. "And this is malevolent. Did he hold her under the water? Drown her?"

"Yes."

He turned the painting back to the wall.

"Are you sure you're not a little psychic?" I asked. His perception was uncanny.

He shook his head. "Just observant."

"The gallery is through here." I opened the adjoining door and stepped back. Construction was done. The display cases and pedestals were in place. Nothing sat atop them, though, because I was still painting.

He walked to the wall I'd been working on. "I see. The sea monster that's attacking the gallery is waiting here in the depths of this water."

"Yes. Exactly. This is the darkest wall, the deepest part of the ocean. The walls will get lighter as the eye travels around the room, closer to the surface. The windows are the light, the air."

"I believe," he said, quickly looking from the windows to the cross beams forty feet above us, "that I've had enough new experiences today." He turned his back to the window wall.

"These are the original cannery windows. Are they misaligned?"

He nodded. "Perhaps through time. As this was a cannery, it's also possible there hadn't been a strong concern for right angles. I would imagine they just needed the people chopping off fish heads and tails to be able to see what they were doing."

He patted his pockets, which I was beginning to think was a soothing tic. "I think I should retreat to my home now. I need familiar sameness to rest."

"Of course. Let me get you some muffins and tea to take with you, though. Okay?"

He nodded, and I went back to the studio. A few minutes later, I sent him off with two muffins and a thermos of tea.

I checked the time on my phone. Half the day gone. I ran upstairs to change into work clothes and then climbed the scaffold to paint.

A few hours later, the main wall complete, I was working on the far wall when I heard knocking on the front door. Odd. Most people knew to come around the back.

I climbed down and answered the door, finding Detectives Hernández and Osso. "Hey. How did you guys know I was in the gallery?"

"We didn't," Osso said. "Hernández wanted me to see the glass tentacle you have out here."

"He took a picture with it," she said, grinning.

"For my kids. They both love the glass octopuses you gave them," Detective Osso said.

There was something so surprisingly sweet about a giant of a man, who could shift into a bear, being delighted by a glass tentacle, but I kept that thought to myself. I didn't want to wreck his grumpy hardass reputation.

"Good. I'm glad they liked them." I waved them in.

"Aren't you concerned about idiots breaking that thing? It's glass," he said.

I led them into the studio, where we could sit down. "I know, but I have security cameras up and the tentacle is spelled. It's the best I can do to protect it." I went to the kitchen and looked in my refrigerator and then freezer. "Are you hungry?"

Osso said, "Yes," at the same time Hernández said, "That's okay."

I turned and stared at her.

"I mean, I wouldn't say no. I just didn't want you to go to any trouble," she said.

"It's not trouble," Osso said, glaring at Hernández, who was getting between him and food.

"I think that's supposed to be my line, but it's true enough." I washed my hands and then, given who one of my guests was, pulled a honey pound cake out of the freezer. After defrosting with a spell, I cut it into pieces, grabbed napkins, and brought them the plate. "Drinks?"

"Tea," Osso said, and Hernández nodded her agreement.

"You got it." I was walking back with three mugs of tea a couple minutes later to an empty plate. I passed the cups to the detectives, dropped mine off on the little side table by my chair, and then picked up the empty plate and defrosted three blueberry lemon muffins because I was hungry and that sounded good. I added a bit of toasty warmth to them. It wasn't as good as an oven, but it was far faster.

Osso had already eaten his muffin in one bite and was currently eyeing the second one as I sat down.

"Stand strong, Hernández. If you want it, it's yours." I split mine in half, taking a bite of the bottom, saving the top for last.

Mirroring me, she broke off the top, kept it and offered him the bottom, which Osso tossed in his mouth.

"So, what's up? Why are you both here?" I took a sip of tea.

Hernández swallowed a bite. "We've been talking. We're wondering if our cases are connected."

I shook my head. "Different killers."

"Right," Osso said, taking over, "but are they connected?"

I thought about it a moment. "Like Leopold and Loeb?"

"And Abel and Furlan," he said, "Lucas and Toole, Bianchi and Buono. There are too damn many to list."

I kicked off my shoes and pulled my legs up, crossing them. Was this why I'd originally thought the murders were done by the same killer? "I keep hearing whispering." I pointed at the corridor painting. "There's whispering behind that door. That was why I called earlier. The angles of the last door on the right are off. The door is ajar and I hear whispering, so…yes. It could be two killers working together."

Osso and Hernandez both stood to get a closer look at the painting.

"And it can't just be a mistake you made drawing the line?" Osso asked.

"It absolutely could, but look at all the other doors. It was my Uncle Bracken who saw it. His brain identifies patterns—or breaks in them—immediately. He asked what was going on behind that door because it felt evil."

Hernández nodded. "It does. This is like the yellow dress in the forest painting." She was the one who'd caught that. I'd been helping them with a child abduction case. I'd painted what I'd seen in a horrible nightmare, but I hadn't remembered painting the yellow sweep. Hernández noticed it under a tree in the painting. That bit of yellow was the dress Ana was wearing when she was killed.

"Can you contact the school? Find out who's lived in that room? I don't think they're current students. They feel older. Maybe the school could give you a list. I know one or both of them were in that room."

Osso was already shaking his head. "Fancy, private school like that? They don't give up information without a court order and multiple calls to judges and senators."

"You met the headmaster," Hernández said. "We don't have enough for a warrant and he's not the type to help us out, even if it is his dean at the bottom of the stairs." She turned to the back door and flinched. "Arwyn, are you aware there's a crazy-looking old guy on your deck?"