Murder as a Fine Art (11 page)

“What did she do? Fall asleep? She looked completely wiped the past few days.”

“The police think she might have been drugged.”

“You mean as in murder?”

“There seems to be no doubt that the fire was deliberately set, so it kind of follows, doesn't it?”

“I hear you spent the morning with her ex-boyfriend?” Jeremy Switzer's eyes were bright with curiosity as he leaned across the lunch table.

“Yes,” replied Laura. “He's a Wall Street lawyer. He was going to ask her to marry him.”

“His timing wasn't so hot, was it?” said Jeremy, then clapped his hand over his mouth as if realizing that his impulsive remark was too crass even for him.

Laura gave him a scathing look, then turned back to Richard. “I don't see Henry. Did he come back with you? Incidentally, I thought you were great.”

“Henry decided to spend the day in Edmonton. He said there were some bookstores he wanted to visit.”

“You sure showed him up,” grinned Jeremy. “That's why he didn't want to travel back with you.”

“If anything, Henry showed himself up,” rejoined Laura.

Richard was looking at Jeremy, but it was clear he meant to address the table as a whole. “I can assure you I had no intention of showing Henry up. I just answered the questions that were put to me.”

Jeremy shrugged and changed the subject. “Speaking of missing persons, has anyone seen our illustrious performance artist? The Mounties ...” Jeremy lingered on the word as if savouring its romantic flavour, “have been looking for him everywhere. Disappearing like that can raise some nasty suspicions.”

“There he is now,” remarked Richard casually.

John Smith stood at the top of the stairs, looking like something the grave had given up with considerable misgivings. He was wearing a black armband and his face was daubed with streaks of white and black makeup that made it look as if it were covered with ash. Oblivious of his fellow artists, he went to an
empty table where he immediately proceeded to gulp down three large glasses of orange juice.

Murmuring something about going to the wash-room, Laura slipped away and hurried up the stairs to Corporal Lindstrom's office where she found the police-woman at her desk munching on a toasted ham and cheese sandwich. Hastily swallowing the last bite, she sent a constable down to the dining room to collect the performance artist. “But wait until he's finished his lunch,” she added.

To the extent that a face daubed with macabre makeup could be said to be expressionless, John Smith's was. He showed neither resentment nor interest, but simply stared with flat, dead eyes at the corporal through round-rimmed glasses.

“Mr. Smith ...,” the corporal began.

“John Smith,” he interrupted. “Plain John Smith.”

“Very well, John Smith. I will need to have an account of your movements last night.”

“I didn't go to the bathroom once,” he replied.

“That's not what I meant and you know it,” Lindstrom snapped. “This is a serious business, John Smith. We know you were at the scene of the fire. It seems you are a video enthusiast.”

“Just like you.” The eyes behind the granny glasses suddenly gleamed with excitement. “I got some great footage. I'm going to use it in my project.”

“What project is that?”

“The performance I'm working on. It's almost finished. It'll be the highlight of the year around here. I'll see that you get an invitation.”

“That's very kind of you.” The Mountie cleared her throat as if to get the interview back on track. “Now, if I could have an account of your ... of where you were last night? I noticed you were fully dressed at the fire.”

“That's because I hadn't been to bed. John Smith does not sleep a third of his life away as other men do.”

“Where were you when the fire broke out?”

“In my room. Meditating on the project. Alone,” he added before she could ask the question.

“How did you feel about Ms. Dekter? Did you like her?”

“Yeah, I liked her. A lot. She didn't look down on my art the way most of the other characters around here do.”

“The word is that she was becoming annoyed with the way you were following her around.”

John Smith scowled, then quickly reverted to his usual deadpan expression. Holding out his hands, he asked in tones of mock terror, “Are you going to arrest me, officer? Put me in manacles? Shouldn't you read me my rights?”

“I'm not reading you your rights because I'm not going to arrest you, John Smith. Not now, anyway. But I do want you to make out a statement and sign it. Could you let me have it sometime this afternoon?”

John Smith paused at the door to look back at her. “I really did like Erika, you know. You'll realize how much when you see my performance.”

“A dreadful business,” said Alec Fraser. He and Kevin Lavoie were having a council-of-war over a sandwich lunch in the president's corner office with windows facing the Sundance Range. “And to have it happen now, of all times!”

“Have you talked to Harvey Benson?”

“At length. And I've also been on the phone with the minister. Not to mention the press. We're going to have to work up a press release.”

“Did you get any feel of how Benson is reacting? He's the one who really controls the Chinook Foundation.”

“Let me put it this way. If we were just starting to woo them, the events of the past few days would blow us out of the water. But we've been negotiating with the Foundation for months now, and they've made certain commitments. Not official or papered, unfortunately, but the understanding is there. On both sides. So Benson is still on board. But he made it clear that he's very concerned about the Centre's reputation with all this going on. If, God forbid, anything more happens, I expect he'll jump ship.”

“Then April second is still on?”

“Yes.” Fraser brightened. “Maybe this mess will have been cleared up by then, and we can put it behind us. Do you know if the police are making any progress?”

“It's early days yet. Two detectives from Calgary arrived this morning and are questioning people, including me. Anyway, I'll have a chat with Corporal Lindstrom.”

“Do that.”

Fraser's secretary came in to clear away the plates and cutlery as Kevin left. Alec Fraser walked down the hall to the washroom. Bending over the sink to wash his hands, he looked at himself in the mirror. You're nothing but a glorified fundraiser, he told himself. You're not running this great institution; your job is to suck up to donors and politicians, some of whom you can barely stand. That self-righteous prig, Harvey Benson, for instance.

Drying his hands on a paper towel, Fraser resolved to nail down the Chinook grant and then take some time to decide if his case of burnout was terminal.

When Karen asked for an appointment to talk about Montrose's death, she had made it very clear that she would like to meet in the studio so she could see the paintings again.

“I envy you, Laura,” she said, gazing at the paintings that were taking up more and more space in Laura's studio. “You're creating something that will live on after you. In a way, you will be immortal. On the other hand, all I do is sift through the debris of other people's lives.”

“What you do is every bit as important,” Laura replied, although in her heart she knew it wasn't true. Even in her darkest moments when inspiration failed her, seemingly never to return, she never doubted the importance of making art. “Society couldn't function without the police,” she went on as she poured the tea.
That
was true.

“I know police work is important and mostly I like what I do. But,” Karen gazed around the bright, airy studio, and eerily echoed Laura's thoughts, “I also know it doesn't begin to compare in importance with this.” Taking a sip of camomile tea, she said, “Speaking of police work, it looks as though you might be right about there being two murders in the colony.”

“What have you found out?”

“Well, for one thing, Montrose's blood-alcohol reading was 0.11. If he had been behind the wheel of a car, he would have been charged with impaired driving.”

“No surprises there.”

“I'll get to that in a moment. According to the autopsy, his liver was slightly enlarged and he was forty pounds overweight, but there was no life threatening condition. But with all that extra weight, he would have no chance of surviving a fall like that. Not that anyone would, when you think about it. He suffered a head
injury that ultimately would have proved fatal, but what killed him was a broken neck. It was what they call a ‘hangman's fracture'. It snapped the same four vertebras that a considerate hangman will try to break with his rope. That way, death is mercifully quick.”

“How interesting,” murmured Laura, not knowing how else to react to this gruesome bit of trivia.

“A broken neck is consistent with a fatal fall,” the Mountie continued. “If we only had the autopsy results to work with, I think we'd put it down as an accidental death. But before doing the autopsy the medical examiner sent Montrose's body to Edmonton for a laser scan and that came up with something interesting.”

“Which you are about to tell me.”

The policewoman smiled. “I guess I have been stringing out the suspense. The laser revealed signs of slight subcutaneous bruising just above both of Montrose's ankles.”

“Are you saying someone reached down, grabbed his legs and flipped him over the railing?” Laura paused, then added thoughtfully, “That would account for the way he landed. Head first, I mean.”

“We could use you on the Force,” murmured Karen. “Of course, there could be other explanations as to how he got those bruises, but it's enough to keep the file open. Especially since there's no doubt about Erika's death being a homicide. By the way, I expect the detectives from the Calgary detachment will want another statement from you about how you found Montrose's body.”

“No problem. Now that we're talking about two murders, I've been trying to think of some connection between Erika and Montrose. All I can think of is that they are both academics and writers who happened to be in the colony at the same time. So far as I know the
only person here at the colony who had any previous connection with Montrose was Jeremy Switzer.”

“I will be talking to Mr. Switzer. For him, push has come to shove.”

“About his alibi?”

“Yes. If he's got one, now is the time to prove it.”

“It's possible that Montrose's death may have nothing to do with the colony,” Laura mused. “The outside doors of Lloyd Hall are never locked so anyone in the whole wide world is free to wander in. A man like Alan Montrose was almost bound to have picked up some enemies in the course of his life. He liked to lord it over people when he had the upper hand. Like the way he was taunting Jeremy that night over the libel action.”

“We'll look into Montrose's background, of course. Starting with the university where he taught.” Unexpectedly, Corporal Lindstrom smiled. “If the university I attended is any example, we'll uncover any number of possible motives — jealousy, professional rivalry, disgruntled students, you name it.”

“Roy Hansen,” Laura said suddenly and when Karen looked at her blankly, she explained. “Your mentioning disgruntled students made me think of him. He's the one who put Jeremy up to writing that article about Montrose having plagiarized his play. Now he's being sued by Montrose, along with Jeremy. He can't have been too kindly disposed toward his former professor.”

Karen wrote his name in her notebook. “Now that we know the professor was murdered, we'll see if we can get a line on Mr. Hansen.” Closing the notebook, she gazed once more around the studio. “You can say what you like, but I'd rather be painting.”

The day was spring-like, a promise of what was to come. Laura paused for a moment outside her studio to breathe the air that soughed gently through the pines. A raven flew low overhead, rowing through the air with powerful strokes. Its wings made a whirring sound as if its feathers were made of metal. As her eye followed its flight, Laura saw that the men from the arson squad were still sifting through the remains of the boat studio, collecting samples, scooping up trowels of ash into plastic bags, and carefully labelling each bag. The area was still sealed off, so she took the service road, holding her nose against the blue miasma of diesel fumes as she hurried past idling tractors in the maintenance yard. More than once she had complained to Kevin about the tractors' engines being left running so close to the colony, but he had said he had no jurisdiction over the engineering department and there was nothing he could do.

“That smashing looking corporal was around again this afternoon asking questions about Montrose,” said Richard. He and Laura had been for a swim and now were sitting in the lounge, sharing a bottle of wine with Henry Norrington. While Norrington might be contemptuous of Richard's books, he was, Laura noticed, always happy to accept the drinks that Richard bought. Predictably, Richard didn't seem to care one way or the other.

Laura could have told them what the laser scan had turned up, but she had decided not to reveal any information she picked up through working with Karen without the police officer's permission. It was the safest way to avoid saying something that might jeopardize the investigation. “I don't think the police are entirely
satisfied with the circumstances of Alan's death,” she said noncommittally.

“It was an accident,” Norrington pronounced in a voice that brooked no argument. “Alan simply had too much to drink and fell over that criminally low railing.”

Not wanting to pursue the subject, Laura looked away. Over in a far corner, Isabelle Ross and Marek Dabrowski were sitting by themselves.

“It looks as though the affair is on again,” Richard remarked, following her glance.