Murder as a Fine Art (4 page)

The Evamy Studio made extensive use of glass and Laura could see Richard Madrin sitting at his desk deep in thought. Like the boat studio, it was designated for writers, but it was much more spacious, a feature
Richard appreciated since it gave him room to pace back and forth as he plotted the scenes of his novel. As Laura walked past, he got up from his desk, walked over to the window and gave her a friendly wave. Laura smiled, waved back, and continued on.

It was dynamite. Pure dynamite! Dare she use it? Without it her project would be little more than a scholarly treatise, unknown outside academic circles. If it got published at all. With it the book could be a publishing sensation. It might even make the
New York Times
bestseller list. Erika pinched herself. Get real, she thought. But a shiver, whether of fear or excitement she couldn't tell, ran through her as she bent over the computer printouts spread out on her desk. She was sure she was right. But what if she was wrong?

She took off her glasses, rubbed her eyes, and got up from the chair. She would draft the section to see what it looked like. To see whether it would turn out to be as sensational as she thought. Writing a draft didn't mean she was committed to using it, but she wouldn't do it today. She'd let it simmer in her subconscious while she worked on another, completely innocuous chapter. She paused for a moment, knowing that the bit about the subconscious was just an excuse to postpone putting the actual words down on paper. Erika wondered why she was so reluctant to start. It was because the whole thing was so unbelievably incredible. Incredible but true, she added to herself.

Equally incredible was the way in which her excitement over her discovery and the fact that her book was nearing completion had distanced her from Geoff. Until she had come to this remote and magical place, she never would have believed that she could think of
Geoff Hamilton without breaking up inside. After three years of an on-again, off-again relationship, he had decided to remain in his loveless marriage with two teenage children. A few days ago, he had called from New York saying he realized that he had made a mistake and wanting to come to Banff. She had astonished herself by telling him that she didn't want to see him. Not until her stay at the Centre was over, at least. That shocked him, as she knew it would. She had been so devastated when he told her he was ending the affair that now he couldn't seem to accept the possibility that she might not want him back.

The sudden ringing of the phone startled Laura so much that she almost dropped her brush. As it was, a broad smear of yellow was added to her already splattered bib apron. Every studio was equipped with a phone, but it was for emergency use only. In all the time Laura had spent at the colony, her studio phone had never rung. Her thoughts flew to her parents, cruising somewhere in the Caribbean on board their ketch,
Star Chaser
. She took a deep breath and reached for the phone. It was Kevin Lavoie, apologizing profusely for the disturbance, saying that Corporal Lindstrom would like to see her. Laura hesitated, then told him to send the policewoman to her studio. Laura rarely invited visitors to her studio, but when she did make an exception it invariably resulted in a pleasant surprise. Only the week before she had agreed to let Carl Eckart pay her a call.

She had agreed to the visit because the gruff Eckart was a musician, a professor of musicology in the music department and a composer of sorts. Musicians seemed to have special insights into her paintings. At the time
of his visit Laura was playing a CD of some far-out jazz to energize her as she painted. Two days later he had presented her with a tape of the same music he had reproduced on his synthesizer. He had carried all the notes away from her studio in his head.

“Fascinating,” murmured the policewoman, several minutes later as she gazed around the high-ceilinged studio with its north-facing skylight. “I've never been in an artist's studio before.” Her eyes travelled along the paintings propped up against the walls. “I know I'm not qualified to give an opinion, but I like them. Especially that one.” She pointed to a large painting of a room with a piano and a balcony overlooking a turquoise sea. “It looks so serene and peaceful.”

“You have a good eye.” Laura waved her to a chair and looked at her enquiringly.

“I'm here to enlist your help, Ms. Janeway.”

“It's Laura.”

“Great. I'm Karen.”

Corporal Karen Lindstrom. How perfectly it suited her.

“I'm an artist,” Laura said, “not a detective.”

“That's precisely why I would like to have your help. All the players are artists and I'm not confident that I know what makes them tick. Especially after meeting Mr. Switzer.”

Laura smiled. “I see what you mean. What did Jeremy have to say for himself?”

“He passes off the lawsuit as a nuisance, but he's bluffing. He couldn't stop tugging at his beard. The man's worried sick.”

Laura nodded. “What did he say about last night?”

“He claims he has an alibi for the time of Montrose's death, but he won't tell me what it is. Doesn't want to ruin his lover's reputation, he says.”

“Can he get away with that?”

“For the moment, yes. But, if the autopsy turns up anything suspicious, I'll come down hard on Mr. Switzer.”

“It sounds as if you're not satisfied Alan's death was an accident?”

“No, I'm not. Partly because you're not. The autopsy could clear things up, one way or the other, but if we find that we have to carry on with the investigation, I would really appreciate your help. You could be my guide to the colony. What you told me about Switzer proved to be very helpful. While it was a frustrating interview, I felt I was able to meet him on his own terms.”

Laura frowned. “I don't care much for the idea of spying on my friends.”

“I'm not asking you to spy on anyone. It's more a matter of helping me understand the way these people think.” Karen got up from her chair, walked over to the door, and then turned back with a smile. “Well, I suppose it
is
a bit more than that. According to Kevin Lavoie you have terrific powers of observation and that could be a tremendous help if this turns out to be a homicide. The public may not be aware of it, but the police do use gifted amateurs to help them solve cases where the circumstances are, shall we say, out of the ordinary. It doesn't just happen in crime stories. It happens in real life, too.”

“I suppose we could give it a try and see how it works out,” Laura agreed slowly. “But if I begin to feel compromised, I'll have to back off.” She paused, then added, “Haven't you forgotten something? I could be a suspect myself. After all, I was the one who found the body.”

“I haven't forgotten,” Karen said as she closed the studio door behind her.

A little taken aback by the policewoman's parting remark, Laura glanced at her wristwatch, remembering that she was supposed to join Erika for a cup of tea. They alternated between their studios every Friday afternoon. Locking her studio door behind her, she walked down the path and knocked lightly on the boat studio's door and pushed it open. Erika was seated in front of her computer, deep in thought. Hesitating just inside the door, Laura said, “I don't want to interrupt if you're in the middle of something.”

Erika hastily assured her that she had reached a good place to take a break. “I feel like I'm on a bit of a roll. Everything seems to be coming together just the way I want it.”

“It's a natural high,” agreed Laura as Erika began to make the tea. “I get the same feeling when I finally see how I'm going to approach a painting.”

The two friends sat together on the narrow couch and companionably sipped herb tea. They were both in their mid-thirties, but there the similarity ended. Erika was small and quick, with short-cropped dark hair framing sharp, piquant features, while her brown-haired companion was built on a larger, more Junoesque scale. Erika's clear blue eyes sparkled with a bright, inquisitive sharpness, while Laura's brown ones glowed with sympathetic understanding.

The subject of Montrose was raised and quickly dropped as there wasn't much that could be said about it, and the conversation moved on to more congenial subjects. The easy flow of their talk was suddenly interrupted by a barrage of flashes outside the studio. Laura jumped to her feet and peered out one of the portholes. Unlike conventional portholes, these were large and square— more like windows. The colony was strictly off-limits to the public, but the polite “Please do not
trespass” signs failed to inhibit some of the more thoughtless sightseers. Laura swore under her breath as she saw a tour group gesticulating and aiming cameras at the curious sight of an old fishing boat plunked down in a forest hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean.

“It makes me furious,” she muttered. “It's one thing if somebody doesn't know any better, but that's a guided tour and they know damn well they shouldn't be here. I'm going to see them off.” She brushed past Erika and went out on deck to politely inform the guide he had no business being there.

Laura's impulsive action didn't surprise Erika who was familiar with her friend's protective attitude toward the colony. Laura had been coming to the Leighton Artist Colony for years. Her art had benefited greatly from her frequent stays in the creative atmosphere and she was fiercely resentful of anything that threatened to undermine its unique character. She had also become a sort of den mother to her fellow colonists, showing them how the colony worked and emphasizing that its sole purpose was to encourage their creative talents. Her helpful hints had eased Erika's entry into the colony and enabled her to settle down to work much more quickly than otherwise might have been the case. In the intervening five weeks, the two women had become fast friends.

“I suppose I shouldn't let myself get carried away like that.” Laura looked a little sheepish as she stepped back into the cabin. “But this place is important to me.”

“You did the right thing,” Erika assured her as they rinsed the cups and put them away. She glanced at her watch. “If we're going to be on time for dinner, we better go.”

It was another of the survival tricks she had learned from Laura — be at the Banquet Hall when it opened at five-thirty while the food was still hot,
and hadn't been ruined by sitting too long on a steam table.

As they scrunched along the path, Laura inhaled the thin, clean air that tasted cool somewhere deep in her lungs. Pointing at a clump of trees, she asked, “Do you see the deer?” Now that she knew where to look, Erika spotted the motionless grey shapes, which blended perfectly with the grey bark of the tree trunks. She had long since become accustomed to Laura's astonishing powers of observation; she was constantly pointing out things that had escaped everyone else's notice. She had once told Erika that it was because she was a visual artist, adding that visual artists are trained to see the normal, so that anything that fell outside the norm immediately attracted their attention. Unbidden, the thought of how much Geoff would enjoy going on nature walks with the observant Laura flickered through Erika's mind before she hastily banished it.

As usual, they would both return to work in their studios immediately after dinner.

Refreshed and relaxed after a late night swim and a session in the whirlpool that eased the strain of painting for hours with a tiny brush, Laura walked across the darkened parking lot and through the third floor side entrance of Lloyd Hall. The crime tape had been taken down from the stairwell, but she decided to use the elevator anyway.

She had just hung up her jacket when there was a knock on her door. “Who is it?” she called out.

“Marek Dabrowski. I know it's late, but could I talk to you for a few minutes?”

As expected, Dabrowski was distraught over the visit of Isabelle's husband. “He arrives in the morning. What should I do? I can't bear to see them together.”

“Go away for the weekend. Rent a car and drive up to Jasper, or take a real break and drive out to Vancouver,” she said, adding, “You should see some of the west while you're here anyway.”

The composer shook his head. “I can't drive,” he said in his accented English that added the final touch to his continental good looks.

“Then work. Lock yourself in your studio, take your meals there and sleep there. Create a masterpiece out of your emotion. I've found work to be the best panacea for a broken heart.”

Marek looked at her with sudden interest. “You? What does the unattainable Ms. Janeway know of a broken heart? I have always thought of you as the one who breaks hearts. Ah, I remember now. Someone said you had once been married.”

“It wasn't him.” Laura waved a dismissive hand. “Have you and Isabelle given any thought to making your relationship permanent?”

“We've talked about it. But it won't work. It's her daughter. Isabelle is determined that Jessica will not be the victim of a broken home. Isabelle grew up in a loving home and she wants the same for her daughter. I try to tell her that children are tougher than she thinks, but she remains ...,” Marek took a moment, as he sometimes did, to search for the precisely correct English word, then said with a faint air of triumph, “adamant.”

He turned to go. “I will take your advice and remain in my studio, working on my concerto.”

A
message flashed on the computer screen when the cashier took Richard Madrin's Centre Pass and punched in some numbers. The cashier, the chatty one with an earring and taped glasses, told him there was a package for him in the mailroom.

“It's probably my manuscript,” Richard said. The drama student who worked part-time as a cashier was gratifyingly impressed. “I'll pick it up after lunch.”

Kevin Lavoie with a potential donor to the artist colony in tow had joined some of the colonists for lunch. With a rueful shake of his head, he began to recount one of John Smith's recent exploits. The performance artist had dressed himself up as a magician and stationed himself in the foyer of the Eric Harvie Theatre to greet the guests arriving for the play. Pretending he was going to do a trick, he persuaded a number of them to hand over their credit cards.