Murder as a Fine Art (27 page)

A Mountie and four firefighters, two of the latter holding crowbars, were talking to the operator of the machine. An ambulance, its lights flashing red and blue, was pulled off on a shoulder of the road behind the fire department's emergency response unit.

“Ain't no way you can lift that thing, man,” the bearded operator was saying as Karen and her fellow police officers walked up. “That mother weighs 45 tons empty and she's carrying 22 yards of earth. The only way to get her off that car is for me to put her in reverse. It won't make no difference to whoever's inside.” Seeing the stripes on Karen's sleeve, he broke off and said, “I didn't have a chance, officer. The guy drove right under my wheels. He went right past the flagman like she wasn't there.”

“The victim was involved in your homicide case, wasn't he, Karen?” asked the Mountie who had been first on the scene, eyeing her companions. They were in plainclothes, but he recognized brass when he saw it. Karen introduced them, and he immediately asked the inspector if he had any instructions.

“Doesn't your machine have built-in jacks or something like that for when it gets stuck?” Gratton asked the operator.

“Them mothers don't get stuck, man.”

“I see. Well, I guess there's nothing else for it.”

The operator climbed into the cab, the idling engines thundered to life and the monster machine began to move slowly in reverse. There was a shriek of metal from the Ford's twisted frame as it dug into the asphalt until the front tires of the scraper found a purchase and climbed over the crumpled heap of steel.

“It looks like it's been through an auto-wrecking yard,” muttered the inspector. A bulldozer roared up and pushed the wreck off to one side. The firefighters quickly arranged a canvas screen around it and then came the whoosh of an acetylene torch being lit.

“I think you should talk to the flag girl,” the Mountie said to Karen. “She's pretty shook up.” He beckoned to the young woman with the long blond ponytail. She wiped the sleeve of her jacket across her face and came over to join them.

“I tried to stop him,” she said earnestly. “I almost jumped out in front of the car, but he just kept on coming.”

“Maybe he didn't see you in the fog.”

The flag person shook her head. “The fog had gone by then. And he saw me all right. He was staring right at me.” She paused uncertainly. “I'll never forget the look in his eyes.”

“Is there anything else you can tell us?” asked Karen gently.

“It's just that as he approached the crossing, he slowed right down as if he was going to stop. Then as soon as I held out the stop sign, he speeded up again. It was almost as if...” she let the sentence trail off.

“Almost as if he wanted to be run over,” Karen finished the thought for her. “Anyway, you have nothing to blame yourself for. You did everything you could.”

“I seen him before, driving up and down this road. It was kinda like I knew him. He was real good-looking.”

Karen took the constable off to one side and instructed him to make sure the woman was taken to the hospital and treated for shock trauma. “She'll probably need counselling as well,” she added.

The acetylene torch was still hissing away behind the canvas screen. “I'm going up to the Upper Hot Springs to pick someone up,” she said to the constable. “But I don't want her to see them removing the body. Give me a 10-4 on the radio when they've finished cutting him out.”

“Scraping him out would be more like it. But, sure, I'll give you the all clear when it's done.”

Laura was having a hard time accepting that Richard was dead. The whole thing had happened so suddenly. Less than an hour ago he was trying to kill her, and now his own life had been snuffed out. But he hadn't killed her. He could have, but he didn't. Even though the fog had disappeared, no would-be bathers trudged up the road from the parking lot. All traffic was being held up at the accident scene. Absorbed in her own painful thoughts, Laura climbed the few steps to the viewing platform and stared down through the swirling steam to the pool where she had come so close to death.

What had brought Richard to this pass? She asked herself the question, but she already knew the answer. An obsession to be something he could not be. Accustomed to the power of money, it must have seemed totally logical to him to simply go out and buy the talent that would give him the recognition he craved. As a writer, he would have access to the world of press interviews, TV talk shows, lecture circuits, and bestseller lists — much more exciting than simply being known as a flipper of office buildings. How he must have panicked when he realized Erika was about to bring everything crashing down! To someone like Richard, nothing could be more humiliating than to be exposed as a cheat who had to pay someone else to write the books he passed off as his own.

Karen was alone in the cruiser. She lowered the window and called out to Laura who was still standing on the platform, wreathed in mist rising from the water. “Laura, over here. Are you all right?”

“I guess so,” Laura mumbled as she collapsed into the passenger seat. “Richard killed himself, didn't he?”

“Everything points in that direction. You don't seem surprised.”

“I don't think he had any other option. He said himself it was all over for him.”

“Suicide by automobile. It's more common than people realize. I don't believe those who take that way out have any idea of the damage it does to other people. They aim at something big and heavy, like a train, or one of those transcontinental rigs, and figure it's okay because no one else will get hurt. But they forget about the trauma it inflicts.” Karen had been going to say something about the flag girl being haunted by the look in Richard's eyes, but decided not to. Laura didn't need that.

The radio crackled into life, calling car 437. Karen acknowledged and got a 10-4. She put the cruiser in gear and drove slowly down the mountain. There was still a lot of activity at the accident site, but the ambulance had left. Mercifully, the canvas screen still hid the mangled remains of Richard's car. Further down the road, a Mountie moved a barrier to one side and waved the waiting cars through. As the cars streamed past them in the opposite direction, Karen called the detachment office and was informed that Jeremy had been arrested.

“He's one cool dude,” the arresting officer said. “I read him his rights, and when I got to the part about him having the right to retain and instruct counsel, he said that his L.A. attorneys would make sure he got the best criminal lawyer in Calgary.”

“I
t was a pact. An unholy pact,” Laura told her listeners. They were in the Centre's main board-room in the Donald Cameron Hall. Besides the police, the group included Alec Fraser and Kevin Lavoie. Kevin looked drawn and miserable. It must be devastating for him to realize how he had been used and that he had been seduced merely to provide Jeremy with an ironclad alibi for the night Montrose had been killed.

“It all started,” Laura continued, “when Jeremy told Richard about a play he was intending to write, involving two men who agreed to murder each other's wives. At some point, he confided in Richard how convenient it would be if Montrose were to die.”

“He knew about the law that you can't libel a dead person?” asked Inspector Gratton.

“Yes. I'm sure that Jeremy had made up his mind that, one way or another, Montrose would die before
his case ever got to trial. It was that which led to everything else.”

“It doesn't make sense that Madrin would tell him what Erika had found out,” Karen interjected.

“You're right. We know only too well the lengths Richard was prepared to go to protect that secret. But it would be easy to invent another reason. Erika was an investigative reporter, she could have come up with some information about Richard's business dealings that could ruin him, maybe send him to jail. That would be why it was necessary to burn her studio to the ground. To destroy everything stored in her computer, the discs, her files, everything.”

“That still leaves her room,” the detective sergeant remarked.

“Richard would have searched that. Erika spent most of her time in the studio, so there would have been plenty of opportunity.” She glanced at Karen. “You and I searched her room. There was no place to hide anything.”

Karen nodded agreement. “And everything was stored so neatly, it would be easy to replace things exactly as they were and leave no trace.”

“How did he get in?” asked the inspector. “Slip the lock with a credit card?”

“Possibly. But it was likely even easier than that.” Laura looked at Lavoie. “I don't know whether you're aware of this, Kevin, but every key seems to fit most of the doors on the sixth floor.”

“Trust you to know that, Laura. It's because the locks are getting old and worn out. And they were cheap to begin with. I'll make sure they're replaced.”

“It doesn't really matter how he got in, but you can be sure he did.” Laura paused to collect her thoughts, then continued. “They did their best to make the deaths
look like accidents but if the truth came out, they had their alibis to fall back on. Jeremy was visiting with Kevin when Montrose was killed, and Richard was up in Edmonton doing that television show with Henry when Erika's studio was burned. Even if their motives were discovered, they each would have a perfect alibi.”

“The arson was bound to be discovered,” the detective sergeant pointed out.

“Jeremy may not have realized that. He wasn't a professional arsonist. He wouldn't have known that a fire sometimes leaves tell-tale hot spots.”

“A lot of them don't,” another detective put in. “The arson squad says that from the way the wood — what little was left of it — was charred, he must have used solvent. The kind you can buy in gas stations. If he had used something less volatile, he might have gotten away with it.”

“I gather Switzer wouldn't have any trouble gaining access to Ms. Dekter's studio even in the early hours of the morning?” asked the inspector doubtfully.

“That's right. Erika would have let him in regardless of the hour. He was very gregarious and, unlike that rest of us who respect each other's privacy, he would drop in for a visit at any time of the day or night. She had no reason to suspect him of anything. He always came across as a fun-loving, easy going sort of guy.”

“She would find out otherwise as soon as she let him in.” The inspector's face was grim.

Laura's stomach tightened. The image of Jeremy, likeable, fun-loving Jeremy, cold-bloodedly killing Erika in her studio would remain with her for a long time. Probably forever.

“So Switzer torched the studio, and it was Madrin who pitched the professor down the stairs,” said the
inspector with the air of someone who wants to put things in order.

“Yes. He did the same thing when he tried to drown me in the pool. Grabbed me by the ankles.”

“But he didn't drown you,” Karen said softly.

“Thank God for that!” Alec Fraser breathed.

“Do you have any idea why he didn't?” asked the inspector.

“I think it was because,” Laura replied slowly, “he realized it was all over for him. Regardless of whether he killed me or not. In fact, he said as much. That's why he told me everything. He knew he would have to kill himself.”

“He certainly chose a dramatic way to do it,” Alec Fraser murmured.

“That must have been a spur of the moment decision,” said Laura, thinking of Richard's offer to drive her back to the Centre. “But one way or another, he would have committed suicide.”

“What bothers me a little,” said the inspector, “is how did Madrin persuade Montrose to come out of his room so late at night?”

“Easiest thing in the world,” Laura assured him. “Montrose fawned on Richard. Richard had money, lots of it, and Alan hoped to persuade him to finance his new play. If Richard had knocked on his door and said something about wanting to discuss a deal, Montrose would have joined him like a shot. The time of day or night wouldn't have mattered.”

“I assume it was Switzer who replaced the water in the container with kerosene,” said the inspector. “Or solvent, since that seems to be his accelerant of choice.”

“Almost certainly. I'm sure he buttered up Charlene and got taken on to help with the performance so he could find some way of stopping John
Smith before he came out with his revelation. Most likely he did it during the intermission. He was away from his seat the entire time.”

“And to think they were prepared to burn the theatre down and possibly kill God knows how many innocent people,” interjected the president.

“The stakes were pretty high,” replied Laura. “They thought John Smith intended to expose them as the murderers. But it wasn't that at all. He was going to reveal Richard's secret. Which, when you come to think about it, would have been even worse as far as Richard was concerned.”

“Well, there you have it, Sir,” the inspector said to Alec Fraser. “From here on it will be strictly police business, so you and Mr. Lavoie could be excused.”

“Of course.” The president immediately got to his feet. “Kevin and I very much appreciate the way in which we have been taken into your confidence. Is it safe to assume that this dreadful affair has finally come to an end?”

“It's over.” Gratton assured him.

“Then Kevin and I will start the rebuilding process. Beginning right now.”

When Inspector Gratton had politely but firmly invited the two men to leave, Laura wondered if she should leave with them. She glanced at Karen, who gestured that she should remain.

On the way out, the president paused at Laura's chair. Looking down at her, he murmured, “You've been through a frightful ordeal, Laura. We're very grateful for everything you've done. If there's anything we can do to help, counselling, anything at all, we're here for you.”