Never Sleep With a Suspect on Gabriola Island (31 page)

“From Europe, from wherever.”

“How much did each of the present ones go for?”

He smiled. “That's between my client and Eaglenest.”

She named each picture, each figure a small percentage under the upper-limit prices her father had projected. “Is that about right?”

How did she know? Only he and Tam had the names of each painting. And Rabinovich. And only Rab and he knew the prices. Had Rab already announced his purchases? On his website? He stood, his head shaking. “I have to get back to work.”

“It's possible my client could outbid your client.”

“I'll consider it.”

“He'd also like to know, how do you find so many?”

“The usual way. Now if you don't mind—”

“Where will the pictures hang ultimately?”

“I really have to go.”

“Are they in the Gallery now and may I see them?”

“I'm sorry. Please go.” He walked toward the door.

“Thank you for your time.” She followed him to the foyer and out the door he held open.

He watched her car drive away. Outbid? Rab would be furious. He sat still for a minute. His eyes felt tired. For a moment he thought: a larger budget for the Foundation. He went to the kitchen, poured a glass of water, drank it. Not sell to Rabinovich? Impossible. He'd have to tell Rosie everything the woman had said. But— Rose had insisted they shouldn't sell to Rab anymore. Then, possibly, if the woman's client were really interested—

• • •

Home, at the computer, Noel tapped the suspend button and stared at the screen. Basic menu, light blue background. No Brendan. Put Brendan back on?

Why did he come home and turn on the computer first thing? Because he was on a job. But he didn't have to work, Brendan's legacy had left him comfortable. So why had he taken on Eaglenest? But he was enjoying himself, right? Except stay out of greenhouses. Other kinds of fieldwork he could handle. Maybe.

He clicked his bookmark. Pigments, testing age. He clicked to Sources, found an index of books and scholarly papers. Carbon-14 testing, dendrochronology, light-microscopic photon testing— What was dendrochronology? He clicked. Ah, a process that figures the age of objects like antiques, sculptures, wooden musical instruments. Incredible, by measuring a wood's growth ring curve! He scrolled down. Dendrochronology worked for oak, pine, spruce and others; dating not possible for poplar and linden. So no way to prove the age of a fake linden viola.

Articles on the role of carbon-14 dating in conjunction with either dendrochronology or microscopy: limited to pigments made from recently organic materials, recent meaning the last couple of millennia. So mineral oil bases were exempt. And an intriguing book abstracted a dozen case histories that argued it was relatively easy to prove that any one painting was a forgery but much more difficult to prove that another was in fact authentic. Dating, more an art than a science. Perhaps this uncertainty explained why the painting Marchand donated had passed as authentic for so many years.

But what had a black chrysanthemum to do with paintings? And what else was Rose Gill doing in her inner sanctum?

He sat back. Lyle and Jerry. A strange pairing. Suddenly it made no sense, he couldn't see it, Sempken painting a naked Jerry. Suddenly Jerry's explanation seemed closer to reality: do some clearing. Clearing for what? Did Lyle have land? Did Lyle grow his superior marijuana on his land, did he want to grow more so needed to clear more? Time to check out Lyle's lot.

• • •

By bad artists does Marchand mean, simply, bad painters, bad sculptors? If an artist is an artist, can she be bad? If an artist produces a work which isn't good, is he an artist?

Kyra had over three hours before meeting Tam. She changed from boots to sneakers. Whoops, this was Canada, runners. Grab a bite at the pub by the ferry? Sure.

What had she learned? Some fear in Marchand? Fear of not selling his paintings to The Hermitage? Maybe Tam would reveal something.

The chowder proved too floury, and the garlic bread was toasted only on one side. Order a hamburger instead? No, she'd have to loosen her waistband.

Waiting to pay she noted a stand with Gabriola propaganda: an island map put out by a local realtor, island artists and craftspeople, a magazine advertising Gabriola merchants, Gabriola Summer Festival of the Arts from July 30 to August 2. Too late for that. And a Gabriola Food and Farm Guide. Take in a little bad island art? Either that or free-range chickens.

She chose Taylor Bay Road. By 2:30 she'd visited three artists' studios: Simsha, home to objects fashioned from driftwood, seashells and feathers, as well as oil paintings of human faces partially hidden behind growths of barnacles on chins, cheeks, noses (oh dear); Sunday's Harbor, naturalistic watercolors of island birds (well, okay); and The Studio on the Hill, high quality fabric art. As well, she'd heard praise for two island artists, one living and one six years dead. The latter, a sculptor who'd produced her stuff under the tour-de-force name Victoria Vulcana, forged steel and stone into harmonic shapes, gaining adoration and scorn. The former, Os Thiebold, now in residence at the University of New Mexico, married abstract expressionism to island images, mixing sand, sandstone and ground-up shell into his acrylics, the canvases suggesting beaches and cliffs worn down by a relentless sea. Neither Vulcana's nor Thiebold's work was being shown at this time.

She drove past a bed and breakfast place, by the little mall, by the road Dempster's sister lived on. She stopped, U-turned, headed down Malaspina to visit Charlotte Plotnikoff. To see another Marchandspurned artist.

No studio sign up. If you don't name it, do you get to write it off as an expense? She found Charlotte in the garden kneeling by a plot of frilly blue and purple flowers, a bucketful of pruning and weeds at her side. “Hi! Kyra Rachel.” No response. “How does your garden grow?”

Charlotte looked up. “Okay.”

“Got a minute?”

Charlotte turned, pushed her legs forward, sat flat on grass. “Find out who killed Roy?”

“No, but—”

“Didn't think so. Nobody ever will.”

“The Mounties are still on the case and they—”

“They never look in the obvious places.”

“Where's obvious?”

“Where they found Roy. The Gallery.”

“And what should they be looking for?”

“At. Artemus Marchand.”

“You think he killed Roy?”

“Oh I don't know.” Tears again in her eyes. “He's such a terrible man.”

“It's a long way from not representing local artists to killing someone, Ms. Plotnikoff.”

“He'd like to kill all the artists on this island.” A thin nasty laugh. “There was just one on the whole island he wanted to represent. But she didn't want him. And she's dead.”

“Dead? Who?”

“A wonderful woman. Victoria Vulcana.”

“Why didn't she want him to represent her?”

“She had galleries in Vancouver and Toronto, why give him a cut? And no, he didn't kill her unless he can bring on breast cancer. She got famous without him.”

“Why'd he want to represent her?”

“Same reason he does everything, to be bigger than the island. Wants to be a great man.” Now the tears came more from anger than sadness. “Roy wasn't a great man, just a good man.” She shook her head. “A good man.”

• • •

Three-twenty. Forty minutes till Tam. Kyra stopped the car at the end of Berry Point Road, surf pounding the logs on the sandstone beach. She got out and read a small plaque, which noted that at this site a scuba diver had drowned—he'd gone down and never come up. A half mile to sea was a long skinny island, home of several quaint red and white buildings, and a lighthouse. A couple of people in a small boat, trolling. Seagulls contesting something edible. What would it be like to live in a lighthouse?

Maybe Tam was back early. She turned the rear-view mirror. Saw a professional face. A professional uses her private life in her work. Her body was private. Her mind investigated. She saw Tam finding her naked in his bed. If she parked where Noel had yesterday, Tam wouldn't see her car. She'd hang her clothes in his closet. Hide her shoes and bag under the bed. When he comes in she says to his surprised face, Your condom or mine? Warmth expanded her middle and she became aware of the demand of her breasts. Afterwards they'd talk about this and that. His paintings. Artemus' paintings. Pillow chatter. Did Rose manufacture pigments for him? Show me how they make your painting unique.

Fantasy, what a turn-on. Sex as a tool of the trade. James Bond would be proud of her. She accelerated, and shivered a little. Scared? It'd been a little scary to sleep with him the first time. Second time? Playing with fire. You've done your share of first times, Kyra. And second times. She felt a sudden low-down twinge. Period coming on? James Bond would not approve.

She drove toward Eaglenest. At the little beach she saw the ferry humming toward Nanaimo. Isn't that wrong? Shouldn't the ferry be coming this way now?

She drove on, turned into the neighbors' drive and parked. She pulled out her notebook and made notes to jog her memory later, short mnemonics: A.M. shaken, C.P. mad, sad. She hunched her shoulders, pulling her breasts in, then filled her lungs, which made her nipples brush along her bra. Her lips parted slightly. Oh, stop it.

She changed back to city boots, not great on unpaved pathways, fine for Tam. To the Gallery land, down the trail. She stared at the high deck. Storage beneath? She checked it out. No doors so not a crawl space. Up at Tam's entry she knocked. No answer. She paced along his deck. Leave? No, wait. She stood up straight. Her lower back ached. Period, hold off. Please.

A door. Between her and inside. The door has a lock. Something interesting behind the door? In her purse, picks to satisfy her curiosity. Locked doors keep out casual burglars, easy-going vandals, exspouses. Not investigators with lock picks. To learn valuable lessons, essential to enter. She'd touch nothing she didn't have to. A nineteen and an eleven did it fast.

She pushed the door closed, looked around, sensed his energy in the air. Shoes lined up on a rubber mat by the door. Wooden floors buffed and shiny. Out the front window, trees like all around the house. They blocked the view of the water and Mount Benson but they were cozy, protective. Just about four o'clock. What if Tam walked in right now? She'd hedge: The door was unlocked. He'd say, I locked it. She'd say, you must have forgotten. He'd say—

She took off her boots as some people did on this island. The diptych seemed unchanged. Over there a sofa, chair and hassock in front of a mid-size TV, VCR and DVD under, CD player and a pile of CDs to the side. In the rest of the room many paintings, on the walls and stacked underneath. A table she hadn't noticed before was given over to tubes and other painterly things. The bathroom. Small, a shower stall, sink, toilet. Ah, the medicine cabinet. She opened it. Shaving cream, razor blades. Toothpaste and brush. Nail scissors, file, clippers, Band-Aids, Aspirin, vitamin C. Rethink her theory about medicine cabinets?

She picked up her boots and found herself tiptoeing to the bedroom. She made her stockinged heels touch the floor. She thought: I was invited. Well, sort of. She tried to close the bedroom door fully but it scraped on the floor and stuck, just ajar. The room seemed smaller than it had the other day. The bed big as she remembered, duvet cover in muted blues, purples, greens neatly smoothed. He would come through the doorway and there she'd be, arrayed. A gift, beautifully laid out in his bed, waiting to be laid beautifully. A little giggle escaped.

She took the room in. Chest of drawers covered with papers, flashlight, ring of keys, loose change, scissors. Sliding glass door to the large deck matched the door off the living room. Same shiny wooden floor.

She noted another door and opened it. The closet. Carpeted floor inside. She fingered a tweed sports jacket hanging over beige flannels next to a dark blue suit, pushed to the right. To the left, half a dozen shirts. She realized what she'd seen and looked down again. Odd, a carpet in the closet when all the other floors were bare wood. To keep shoes from scratching it? Not that Tam had any shoes here, in fact nothing lay on the floor. She'd never met a closet without things on its floor, wasn't that the purpose of a closet? Rotted wood under the carpet? She set her purse and shoes down, bent, pried a corner up.

A crack in the floor. The wood splitting? She pulled the carpet back. A trap door.

ROSE EVALUATED HER seven black chrysanthemums, each sustaining well. So all was fine. Except— Somehow the lab felt off. But she couldn't figure why.

The second-largest chrysanthemum pleased her most, the necessary shade under perfect to reach its quintessence—sheen, size, shape—by sunrise Saturday. She added fifteen millilitres of distilled nutrient complex #6. Her phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket. “Hello?”

Tam. “Look, the ferry's about a half hour late, there was an ambulance run and I've got Kyra the detective coming.”

“I don't want that woman on this property.”

“Go over and stick a note on my door. Please. Tell her to wait. I'll be along.”

Rose clicked her tongue. “You're playing with fire.”

“I hope so.”

“Don't actively misunderstand me, brother dear. When's she due?”

“Oh, PDQ. Ten or fifteen minutes. The note?”

“When she's gone, we talk.”

“Thanks, BSR.”

Rose scribbled the note, spelling Kyra
Keera
, found a push pin, wheeled out of her sanctum, and locked the door. Up the aisle, out, angrier, angrier. Wheel, mutter, steam. Wheel.

• • •

Kyra stared at the trap door, its handle recessed. She tugged. Locked. A central keyhole. A Weiser. A locked space in a locked house. Maybe she'd ask Tam to show her his basement. Maybe she wouldn't. Terrible to be so curious about what lurked behind locked doors. She found her picks, chose the pattern most likely. Third try, bingo. She pulled at the handle. The door, hinged under the surface, rose toward the wall. Below, steep stairs. A string looped over a nail in the joist. She pulled. Light came on. She knelt and stared down. Holy shit and schmidt as well, a hidden room. She dropped her picks into her purse, got out her camera and the two rolls of film, set her bag on the floor, and climbed down the stairs.