A Darkness More Than Night

minutes later on The Following Sea. McCaleb got out some Cokes and told Winston to sit on the stuffed chair at the end of the coffee table in the salon. In the parking lot he had told her to bring the plastic owl with her to the boat. He now used two paper towels to remove it from its box and place it on the table in front of her. Winston watched him, her lips tight with annoyance. McCaleb told her he understood her anger at being manipulated on her own case but added that she would be back in control of things as soon as he presented his findings.
    “All I can say, Terry, is that this better be fucking good.” He remembered that he had once noted on the inside file flap on the first case he ever worked with her that she was prone to using profanity when under stress. He had also noted that she was smart and intuitive. He hoped now that those characteristics had not changed.
    He stepped over to the counter where he had his presentation file waiting. He opened it and took the top sheet over to the coffee table. He pushed the Bird Barrier printout aside and put the sheet down at the base of the plastic owl.
    “What do you think, this our bird?”
    Winston leaned forward to study the color image he had put down. It was an enlarged detail from the Bosch painting The Garden of Earthly Delights showing the nude man embracing the dark owl with shining black eyes. He had cut it and other details from the Marijnissen book. He watched as Winston’s eyes moved back and forth between the plastic owl and the detail from the painting.
    “I’d say it’s a match,” she finally said. “Where’d you get this, the Getty? You should have told me about this yesterday, Terry. What the fuck is going on?”
    McCaleb raised his hands in a calming gesture.
    “I’ll explain everything. Just let me show you this stuff the way I want to. Then I’ll answer any question you ask.”
    She waved a hand, indicating he could go on. He went over to the counter and got the second sheet and brought it over. He put it down in front of her.
    “Same painter, different painting.”
    She looked. It was a detail from The Last Judgment depicting the sinner bound in the reverse fetal position, waiting to be delivered to hell.
    “Don’t do this to me. Who painted these?”
    “I’ll tell you in a minute.”
    He went back to the counter and the file.
    “Is this guy still alive?” she called after him.
    He walked the third sheet over and put it down on the table next to the other two.
    “He’s been dead about five hundred years.”
    “Jesus.”
    She picked up the third sheet and looked closely at it. It was the full copy of the Seven Deadly Sins tabletop.
    “That’s supposed to be God’s eye seeing all the sins of the world,” McCaleb explained. “You recognize the words in the center, running around the iris?”
    “Beware, beware…,” she whispered the translation. “Oh, God, we’ve got a real nut here. Who is this?”
    “One more. This one really falls into place now.”
    He went back to the file for the fourth time and came back with another reproduction of a painting from the Bosch book. He handed it to her.
    “It’s called The Stone Operation. In medieval times it was believed by some that an operation to remove a stone from the brain was a cure for stupidity and deceit. Note the location of the incision.”
    “I noted, I noted. Just like our guy. What’s all of this around here?”
    She traced the exterior of the circular painting with a finger. In the outer black margin were words that were once ornately painted in gold but which had deteriorated over time and were almost indecipherable.
    “The translation is ‘Master, cut out the stone. My name is Lubbert Das.’ The critical literature on the painter who created this piece notes that in his time the name Lubbert was a derisive name applied to those who were perverted or stupid.”
    Winston put the sheet down on top of the others and raised her hands, palms out.
    “All right, Terry, enough. Who was the painter and who is this suspect you say you’ve come up with?”
    McCaleb nodded. It was time.
    “The painter’s name was Jerome Van Aiken. He was Netherlandish, considered to be one of the greats of the Northern Renaissance. But his paintings were dark, full of monsters and phantasmic demons. Owls, too. Lots of owls. The literature suggests the owls found in his paintings symbolized everything from evil to doom to the fall of mankind.”
    He sorted through the sheets