Murder as a Fine Art (15 page)

Richard looked around as if expecting the daughter to suddenly materialize before them, while Laura realized with a mild sense of shock that it had never occurred to
her to wonder about Karen's home life. Somehow one didn't associate public functionaries like the police and firefighters with such ordinary impediments as spouses, children, and all the domestic concerns that go with them. Karen stirred her coffee as if unsure of what to say next. Richard, sensing that it was Laura she wanted to talk to, piled his dishes on the tray and excused himself.

“I talked to the telephone operators as you suggested,” Karen said.

“And?”

“In all the time she was here, Erika received only one phone call. It was a man. The operator remembers that he had a sexy voice.”

“That could be Geoff.”

“It was. I called him in New York. He admitted making the call.”

“Did he tell you what it was about?”

“He wasn't all that forthcoming. He said they talked about her book and their possible future together. He said it was after that phone call that he decided to come here.”

“Sounds pretty close to what we talked about. She could have turned him down.”

“True.” Karen didn't seem to want to pursue the matter any further. It was obvious she had something else on her mind.

Changing the subject, Laura said, “I didn't know you had a daughter.”

The policewoman seemed uncharacteristically unsure of herself. She took a deep breath before saying, “She's the reason I'm here. Knowing how busy you are, and how precious your time is, I would never ask this favour on behalf of anyone else. I've told Ingrid, that's my daughter's name, all about you and she is dying to meet you. She's only seven but she's taking art lessons
at school and they tell me she has real talent. From the drawings that she brings home, I think so too. I know she loves it. She's never met an honest-to-God artist and talking to you would be a real inspiration. So I was wondering if you could possibly take the time to come to my apartment and have lunch with us. I know it's an imposition, but....”

This was precisely the sort of intrusion that Laura resented. But she had become fond of Karen and, as a professional artist, she had some obligation to encourage a gifted child. Besides if she painted as vigorously as she planned to this morning, she would probably be powered-out by noon anyway. “I have a better idea,” she said. “Why don't you bring the lunch, and you and Ingrid meet me at my studio around noon? That way she can see the paintings and also get an idea of what an artist's studio looks like.”

“That's more than I dared hope for. Are you sure you don't mind?”

“If I minded, I wouldn't do it.” Laura smiled, then went on, “I'm a little surprised you haven't mentioned your daughter before. Especially since she's interested in art.”

“I've wanted to. But police personnel try to keep work and family life as separate as possible. I'm sure you can understand why. But I like to think you and I have become pretty good friends. Maybe this being my day off had something to do with it as well. Makes me feel more like a civilian, I guess.”

“I understand.” Laura gave a tentative cough before going on. “Please excuse my curiosity, but I've always thought how perfectly your name suited you. It's so classically Nordic. But now I guess Lindstrom may not have been your maiden name? I know it's none of my business...”

“You're right about Lindstrom not being my maiden name. But it was something equally Nordic. It was Finnsdtter, no less. Pure Icelandic. My ancestors came over from Iceland and settled in Gimli, Manitoba, way back in 1875.” She paused for a moment, and then added, “While we're on the subject of me and since you'll be meeting Ingrid, you should know that her father is dead.”

“I'm so sorry. How long ago did he die?”

“Two years next month. Larry was a policeman, too. He was a member of Calgary's Tac-Team and he was killed in the line of duty. He and his partner went into the basement suite of a house where a suspected killer was living. The neighbours told the Tac-Team that there were two young children sleeping in the basement. The police wanted to get them out before they stormed the house so the killer couldn't use them as hostages.”

“What an incredibly daring thing to do.”

“They almost made it. But the three-year old boy Larry was to bring out woke up and started to yell before Larry could put his hand over his mouth. The killer ran to the top of the stairs and shot him just as he reached the window. Larry was wearing a flak jacket, but the guy was a handgun expert and shot him at the base of the skull where he had no protection. But he managed to push the kid out the window to his partner before he went down.”

Laura reached out and squeezed Karen's hand. There was nothing to say.

“I sometimes used to wonder if the reason I'm so enthused about Ingrid's artistic bent is that it means she won't become a cop. It does run in families, you know. Larry's father was one.” It was as if Karen was thinking aloud. “But then I realized it wasn't that at all. If Ingrid
really does have a talent, then I want her to have the opportunity to take it as far as she can.”

“I'm looking forward to meeting her,” Laura said with a smile. “Why don't you have her bring along some of her drawings?”

Ingrid was a paler version of her mother. Tall for her age, she had Karen's wide shoulders and narrow hips. Her flaxen hair was parted in the middle and braided in a long ponytail. Her pale blue eyes seemed to have no depth, until she smiled. Then they came alive with a cool, composed intelligence. She was, thought Laura as she welcomed the child, the obverse side of the mirror to little Jessica, Isabelle's dark-eyed daughter.

Ingrid, holding a leather portfolio in front of her, stood silently in the middle of the floor, raptly gazing at the paintings that were stacked and hung everywhere. Laura had turned the big painting she was working on face to the wall. It was becoming steadily more macabre as it progressed and it would be deeply disturbing to a sensitive child. Ingrid breathed deeply, inhaling the mixture of paint and cleaner as if to draw the essence of the studio inside herself.

“I've never seen anything like these before,” she murmured finally. “I don't know what to say.”

“Don't say anything,” replied Laura. “Just look. We'll talk later.”

Without taking her eyes off the paintings, Ingrid placed her portfolio beside some art books lying open on the coffee table and walked over for a closer look at the individual pieces.

“The colours! Everything is so full of colour!” she exclaimed after working her way along the south wall.

Laura raised an impressed eyebrow at Karen and said, “Colour is colour, but colour value is something else. Let me show you something.” She led Ingrid over to where a still life stood on an easel. Pointing to the petals of a rose, she said, “For instance, this yellow is too bright. It stands out more than it should. Can you see that?”

Cocking her head to one side, Ingrid nodded agreement.

Picking up a brush, Laura lightly daubed the offending flower with orange paint. It was as if the rose had taken a step backward into the painting. “I haven't changed the colour,” Laura explained. “It's still yellow. I've just changed its value. Colour values range from black at the bottom with a zero, to white with a value of ten.”

Guiding Ingrid over to another painting, Laura said, “Let me show you something else about colour. What do you see?”

“Red. Red everywhere. The table, the walls, the carpet. Except for the flowers. They're white. And some blue accents.”

“Do you see anything else?”

Puzzled, the young girl peered closer. “There's a black line that tells you where the table stops and the wall begins.”

“Perfect! That shows you how even a little touch of colour can create depth. You have an eye, Ingrid.”

Ears straining to hear every word, Karen laid out the salad, sandwiches, and fruit she had brought. Before they sat down, she glanced meaningfully at Ingrid's portfolio. “Maybe you should show Ms. Janeway your drawings now, dear.” Laura smiled to herself. Scratch a policewoman and you find a doting mother.

Smiling encouragingly at Ingrid, Laura braced herself. Ingrid had a good eye, but so did lots of people.
That's what made collectors. The question was, did she have the talent? Unaware that she had been holding her breath, Laura let out an audible sigh when the drawings began to appear. It was all right. The child could draw. In fact, she could do more than draw. The first drawings were faithful renderings of the object — a box, a sunflower, a bowl of oranges — but in the more recent ones, Ingrid had begun to simplify, to suggest rather than to meticulously record.

“You're a colourist, Ingrid,” Laura said at last.

Karen stared blankly at the drawings. They were all done in thick pencil strokes or charcoal. There wasn't a hint of colour anywhere. Ingrid looked expectantly at Laura who said, “The great master colourist, Matisse, once wrote, ‘A colourist makes his presence known even in a simple charcoal drawing.' I see a colourist in these drawings.”

With Ingrid's talent so happily authenticated, the lunch turned into a celebratory feast. Karen had brought a bottle of wine, but since she was going to assign herself back on duty that afternoon, declined to have any herself. Laura put the unopened bottle away for future use, and made iced tea. As they munched and talked, Ingrid's eyes returned again and again to the paintings.

“You know, Ms. Janeway,” she said with a mischievous smile, “if Mrs. Green, our art teacher, were to mark your paintings, I don't think you'd pass.”

“Because of perspective you mean?”

Ingrid nodded, and Laura laughed. “Perspective is something you learn and then use or not use as you see fit.”

“I've wondered about that,” admitted Karen. “In some of the paintings, it looks as if the dishes will slide off the table. But the colour is so wonderful you forget about it.”

“That's just what you're supposed to do. Perspective is just a matter of making distant objects look smaller, but in these paintings I give equal value to all the objects. The viewer's imagination can provide the perspective.”

Laura crossed over to where some books were stacked on a shelf. She took down one titled
Art of The Twentieth Century
and knelt beside Ingrid's chair. “This is for you. All the great artists are in there. It tells you something about their lives and shows you what their paintings look like.”

Eyes shining, Ingrid held the book as if it were the key to the future. Impulsively, she flung her arms around Laura and kissed her on the cheek.

While they were engrossed in the book, Ingrid turning the pages with little exclamations of delight, a scratching sound made her look up and glance toward the balcony.

“That's my pet squirrel,” said Laura. “A substitute for my dog while I'm here. Would you like to feed him?”

Ingrid nodded eagerly and Laura handed her a biscuit and opened the sliding glass door onto the balcony. She closed it behind Ingrid to keep the squirrel from coming into the studio.

“Knowing you as I think I do,” said Karen, as she began to gather up the plastic bags in which she had brought the food, “you would never have been so encouraging towards Ingrid unless you genuinely felt she has talent. Am I right?”

“In my view, she has the capability to become a visual artist. How that talent develops remains to be seen, of course.”

“That's what I wanted to ask you about. What should I be doing to help her?”

“For the moment, very little. She should continue with her art lessons, of course. At this stage Mrs. Green
can't do her any harm. You might suggest to Mrs. Green that she tape a charcoal to the end of a three-foot stick and have her students draw with that. That will teach them to draw freely and not worry about tiny little strokes of the pencil. However, Ingrid will soon outgrow Mrs. Green. Then we'll have to find her a teacher who can take her to the next plateau. As long as you're stationed in Banff, that won't be a problem; there are some outstanding instructors right here in the Centre. If you like, I'll make some enquiries.”

“That would be wonderful. I should be here for another couple of years at least. Of course, you never know. I could be posted to Moose Jaw or Tuktoyaktuk tomorrow.” It was obvious that Karen was worried about how the demands of her own career might clash with what was best for her daughter.

“You should be able to work around that. What they can do today with computers and correspondence courses is incredible,” Laura assured her. Laura could still feel the spot on her cheek where Ingrid had kissed her. She was aware that her own biological clock was fast winding down and that if she were ever going to have a child it would have to be soon. As she always did when this mood struck her, she looked around at her paintings.
They
were her children.

“With Larry gone, Ingrid and I are completely on our own.” Karen's thoughts were still on her daughter's future. “If anything happened to me, I don't know what would become of her.”

Laura realized it would be useless to say that nothing could happen to her. They both knew better.

“When you're out on patrol and spot some guy driving a stolen vehicle and pull him over late at night, you haven't a clue what you're going to be faced with when you walk up to that car. You could be met with a
blast from a sawed-off shotgun, or cut in two with an automatic rifle. It's crazy out there.”

That kind of thinking could affect a person's ability to respond in an emergency. As if reading Laura's mind, Karen sat up straighter and said, “We're trained to block everything out except how we're going to handle the situation without people getting hurt. After Larry was killed, they made me take a refresher course. It works.”