Back in the darkroom she rolled up the sleeves of her bathrobe, set up three plastic trays, poured chemicals into each, and savoured for a moment the vinegary smell that wafted throughout the room. She always felt a tingle of excitement at this point. There was something magical about photography, fixing fleeting moments on film and then forcing that film to render up its images. She was always impatient to have the finished work in her hands and often wished she didn’t have to first make a contact sheet. Not that she had to. But having a sheet of negative-sized prints was a great aid in determining which pictures to enlarge, or crop, or manipulate in some way.
She switched off the main light and switched on a safe low-wattage bulb. A dull amber glow suffused the room. Sharp shadow faded into ambiguous lines and shapes as Stevie adjusted her eyes. She took the dried negatives and placed them carefully on the glass top of the contact printer. Over that she placed light-sensitive printing paper. When she closed the top and pressed a switch, a light bulb inside the box blasted the images of the negative onto the paper. With a pair of tongs she lifted the paper from the printer and slipped it into the first of the three trays. Dabbing gently with the tongs, she ensured that the paper remained immersed in the elixir. She watched as the images began slowly to separate into fields of black and white.
Twenty minutes later she had a contact sheet, damp and shiny. She switched the main light back on, reached for a magnifying glass and began to examine each of the twenty-four tiny negative-sized prints. They had been shot at intervals over the week. Whenever she had gone out she had taken her camera with her in case something presented itself as subject matter. Unfortunately her excursions had been few; most of the pictures were of the backyard, the river embankment, and assorted flora and fauna. Not exactly award-winning, she had to admit. The best ones were the final ones on the roll, those taken on Tuesday’s walk down the Crescent. The setting sun had cast the trees and mansion into long shadow. Even in black and white, there was an autumnal sense—a patterning of grey shades indicating leaves changing colour, treetops dark against a hazy sky.
She pulled her magnifying glass over the contact sheet one more time, evaluating those pictures she thought might be worth enlarging. One of her mother caught in a sunhat trying to avoid the camera was good—the brim of the hat was a white ellipse with formal abstract qualities, nicely subverted however by her mother’s expression of annoyance. A couple of river shots weren’t too bad—glistening water, exposed tree roots, rowers with paddles erect. She looked again at the ones of the mock-Georgian mansion in deepening shadow. A detail caught her eye. She brought the contact sheet closer to the light and stared at it. She was reminded of something. Was it merely a coincidence? Probably, she thought, dismissing it from her mind. But she felt her pulse quicken, nevertheless. It was too intriguing.
There’s only one way to make sure, she muttered to herself as she reached for the enlarger. A blow-up.
17
Jeopardy
Paul Richter watched the two figures retreat down the gravel drive to the black Caprice parked beside the bank of trees he had had planted years earlier as a snow barrier. The lining of the trenchcoat worn by the shorter of the officers, he noted with thin contempt, drooped below the hem at the back like an afterthought. The other one, the taller one, had been dressed impeccably, tailored blue suit, crisp white shirt, striped tie. But it had been the shorter one, Detective Frank Nickel, in rumpled corduroy, who had done all the talking, had asked all the questions, who had compelled his attention.
The men turned, each to open a car door, glancing back at him as they did so. Richter allowed a smile to cross his face, the sort of smile he used when it was absolutely necessary to importune one of the more tiresome but reiche alte Weiber, the old biddies, on the Friends of the WSO committee. He thought about waving, sending them off with a gesture casual and friendly; his arm even jerked in response, but he cautioned himself not to seem too nonchalant, too untroubled. I must appear to take seriously this, this murder of Michael Rossiter, dieser Eindringling, this interloper—this busybody. The word formed on his lips, he almost spat it out.
And it was serious. But not in the way Nickel and his partner thought. They were such predictable idiots. He really had nothing to fear from them. Not yet, anyway.
He watched the car disappear around the side of the house, down the drive toward Henderson Highway, well behind another bank of trees. His gaze shifted past Else’s little greenhouse, across the lawn—kept immaculate by his excellent gardener and only now speckled with yellow leaves—toward the Red River running cold and grey, its waters headed for an Arctic shore. He shivered momentarily and turned indoors.
He ignored Siegfried and Kriemhild, the two Shitzu scrapping near his feet. High-strung, they had become particularly neurotic in the last few days, no doubt picking up on the certain tension that had seeped into the atmosphere. His eyes ran critically along the white walls that reached high to a cathedral ceiling, at his collection of paintings and drawings arranged in clusters like notes on a score. The Henk Chabot he had purchased for pennies at the end of the war; the August Macke and Franz Marc had been more recent acquisitions. There were one or two that had found their way into his collection through less than immaculate sources—he would have trouble accounting to any authority for their presence—but Nickel and his partner barely glanced at the contents of the room. Most people were undiscerning. Only occasionally, when he and Else sensed a prospective guest might be more than a little perceptive, did he violate the symmetry of his arrangements and remove a painting or sketch to a more private part of the home.
He thought of his home as a work of art. He and Else had conceived it together, planned it, sketched it, and only then brought in an architect to properly render it and bring it to life. It was to be their bastion, their retreat, their last and best home, its isolation from the city part of the charm, and they had succeeded in creating a modernist vision of glass, random stone and smooth white render. He regarded the Bösendorfer glowing richly in the sun before the window, the well-worn but still luxurious leather Confort chairs and couch, the built-in cupboards along one wall with the recesses for objets—antique musical instruments, Japanese masks, African figures, photographs, sundry local pieces. He looked down the few steps that led to what some vulgarian had once called a conversation “pit,” toward the coffee table. He frowned. The detritus of their encounter with the two detectives irritated him: the tray with its trail of sugar granules, the biscuit crumbs on a serving plate, the cups left half-filled, coffee cooling in a scum of cream, the dark stain along the tray’s linen cover where Else had spilled while pouring—so unlike her. But Nickel’s questions to them seemed to follow no logical sequence, and it was during one of his inquisitorial shifts that he asked her to describe her movements late Tuesday afternoon. And she did: she had left the house in East St. Paul just after 5:30 and had driven to their condo facing Central Park, arriving about 6:00 or a little before. She and Paul had had a glass of wine and talked while he finished dressing; they left the condo about 6:40 and were at the Kingdons’ by the appointed time of 7:00.
“Did anyone see you leave your house here in East St. Paul at that time?”
“No, I don’t believe so,” Else had replied, picking up the coffee carafe to refresh their cups. “As you can see, we’re rather isolated out here.”
“And no one saw you arrive at the condo.”
“No. Not that I know of.”
“And you left shortly around 6:40—the two of you?”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Bulaong was out at the back when we came out, wasn’t he darling?” She had glanced at him as she tilted the carafe.
“He’s the condo superintendent,” he explained to Nickel. “He was taking out garbage. That television show he’s devoted to—”
“Jeopardy,” she supplied.
“—must have finished.”
“You spoke?”
“We waved,” Else had said.
“Yes.”
“Interesting,” Nickel had continued, “because the Dorchester Square florist says a woman of your description, Mrs. Richter, came in to buy flowers at 6:30, just as the store was closing.
Else’s hand jerked suddenly; the coffee missed the cup, spurting in a high arc over onto the tray cloth. “Oh,” she cried.
“No damage done, darling,” he’d soothed his wife.
“Did you buy flowers at Stems?” Nickel had continued. He had been studying them both.
“I brought orchids for Bunny, but they were from our own greenhouse,” she explained, bringing the spout of the coffee pot closer to the cup, filling it. “I rarely need to buy flowers.”
“I see.”
Else had continued, smiling: “Orchids are my hobby.”
“I’m sure there are other women who meet my wife’s description.”
Nickel coolly assessed Else. Watching his eyes travel down his wife’s body, Richter had had to quell an urge to strike the officer. Then Nickel, to his surprise, shrugged and said: “Well, whoever it was paid cash anyway.”
But he wasn’t fooled by Nickel’s dismissal. He had wanted to ask him what Bunny said about the flowers—presuming she had been asked—but didn’t dare, didn’t want to press the point lest he rekindle suspicion.
The inquiry had gone on. Nickel had learned of Rossiter’s resignation. He was prepared for the inevitable questions. Yes, the resignation had come as a surprise. Yes, it had been rather abrupt.
“But, detective, I think you’re rather confused. Michael tendered his resignation to the board president, Spencer Elliott. Not to me. Board changes aren’t the business of the music director.”
“I know. But I understand he paid you a visit the day he dropped off the letter.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“Did he tell you why he was resigning? He had two more years of his term, I understand.”
“Actually, detective, I wasn’t aware he had resigned when he visited me. I didn’t get a copy of the letter until a few days later.”
“Kind of odd, him not telling you.”
He had shrugged. “I’m sorry. I can’t explain it. Perhaps he thought it was Spencer’s business, and not mine. He came to tell me about the violin he had bought—a Guarneri del Gesu—that he was donating to the orchestra.”
Yes, he recalled now, looking about the living room, noting an Eva Stubbs sculpture out of place, it had been a perfectly civil conversation in that awful windowless basement office in the Centennial Concert Hall. It had nothing to do with the Guarneri. That he had learned about later, like everyone else, by reading Liz’s piece in the Saturday Citizen. Michael’s resignation from the board—which, of course, had arisen—had been a mere preface to the text of their discussion. He had mastered his shock and dismay; in fact, he had lived for years in anticipation of such a nightmare scenario, and he had been prepared. He’d proffered no explanations to Michael, no excuses. He had only enquired about Michael’s plans. What did he intend to do with the information? It was something, Michael told him evenly, that he was wrestling with.
It had seemed like a threat of blackmail. Only Michael didn’t appear to want anything. He certainly didn’t need anything, not in the conventional sense—not money, which is what he would have expected from a blackmailer. Oh, there had been an aside about this Caitlin Clark woman, late of the Atlantic Symphony—his lover, presumably—about granting her an audition should a position in the violins arise, but this hardly seemed the price of silence. A week had gone by. The waiting began to fray the nerves. Michael had said he would get back to them. And, ironically, he had—Tuesday night, after they had returned home from Bunny’s dinner party, they found a message on their answering machine. He had called, the machine intoned, at 5:20, some time after Else’s true departure time.
He walked over to readjust the Stubbs sculpture, then looked about the room from the new angle, as if for the last time, letting his eye travel down the travertine flooring through a square arch to the dining room where he could glimpse the panelled glass sculpture Warren Carther had done for him that somehow managed to freeze the syncopations of music. It would have to stay with the house—it was too large and too fragile. The other art works could be sent on, if necessary. He absently plucked the string of an antique shamisen, which dominated his small collection of non-Western instruments. Nickel had been inordinately interested in the instruments, to the exclusion of his paintings and sculpture. He had had to equivocate, of course—there had been less than immaculate sources for some of these, too.
The austere twang of the shamisen had roused the dogs, who began yipping. Tiresome creatures, but Else loved them. What would they do with them? Leave them with someone. There was a handful of people in the community who were utterly utterly trustful.
But two people outside the exclusive circle knew. One was dead. And the other…
There was a whisper of silk as Else re-entered the room, breaking his reverie. She shushed the dogs, then smiled at him. “Have they gone?”
He nodded as she bent to collect the coffee cups and place them on the tray. “I wonder if we can depend on Bulaong?” she asked.
“I think we need have no fear in that quarter,” he replied. Though what pressures the caretaker might ultimately succumb to, he didn’t know. And soon it might not matter. “What a good thing Bunny presumed the flowers were from your greenhouse.”
“I nearly corrected her, but—” She lifted the tray and looked intensely at him. “I think we must put our plans in order, Paul,” she said, her voice assured, her eyes glittering.
“Don’t worry, my dear.” He kissed her cheek. “Everything is well in hand.”
18
Déjà Vu
Called in sick, the woman at the Zit switchboard said briskly.
Stevie lowered the phone. Sick? Or “sick” the way he’d been in the summer when he’d whisked her off to Grand Beach in the middle of his work week? She felt a tiny stab of guilt and worry. Perhaps that’s why he hadn’t called. It wasn’t the baby thing after all. She lifted the phone again and dialled his home number. The answering machine clicked in after four rings, Leo’s voice, backed by the banjo-picking from The Beverly Hillbillies, telling her in a fake Ozark tone that he was back out at the cement pond and couldn’t come to the phone. Hilarious the first time, annoying the umpteenth. “Leo, pick up,” she snapped after the beep, but there was only silence as the tape spooled on to a finishing beep.
Very sick? Or just out somewhere?
She tapped her nails along the kitchen counter and glanced at the microwave display. 2:12. Both parents gone. Both cars gone. Another of the joys of living at home. Why, she thought, am I worried? He’s genuinely sick. That’s all.
He can’t pick up a phone?
Calling his neighbour Les would be a bad idea; she might provoke an anxiety attack. Worse—probably—would be calling either his mother or his sister (whom she’d met once at Polo Park shopping on a Saturday afternoon with Leo. She wasn’t sure it was a coincidence). She glanced out the kitchen window. Oh, hell, she thought, and went upstairs and changed into a pair of not-completely-flattering sweatpants. She rolled up the blow-up of the photo, secured it with an elastic band and squeezed it into a fanny pack before setting off into the autumn air with her Walkman playing Tom Waits through her earphones.
Less than half an hour later she was on Leo’s street, reflecting that if the month had been January, she could have merely walked across the frozen Assiniboine River from her parents’ house and been at Leo’s in under ten minutes. The house, sailing on a bed of fallen golden leaves, showed no sign of life. No light shone. No TV projected a shadowy dance across the window. At the front door, removing her earphones, she strained to hear perhaps the sound of one of Leo’s Springsteen tapes playing. Nothing. She rang the doorbell. Nothing. The doorbell, another piece of unfinished renovation, didn’t work. Sighing, she rapped her kn
uckles against the wood and was greeted by the sound of Alvarez’s muffled bark. She waited. And waited. She tried the door. It was locked. Alvy fell silent.
She turned and walked back down the front steps, feeling strangely apprehensive, at the same time arguing with herself that apprehension was utterly unreasonable. He was out, for god’s sake. And yet…
She studied the street up and down. But for a passing motorist, the street appeared without life. Stevie paused a moment, then stepped over the browning remnants of some flowering plants in the small garden that bordered the front of the house and pressed herself between a shrub and the bottom ledge of the picture window. The ledge was high. She grasped it, some of the flaking brown paint coming off on her hands, and stood on tiptoe, trying to peer into the living room. The room was in shadow and she had to shift her weight onto one foot to bring one hand up to shield her eyes from the reflected glare of the street. Slowly her eyes adjusted to the gloom. She could see the couch and the cluttered coffee table and then Alvy, on his haunches, looking at her, his head cocked to one side, his tongue hanging like a liver sausage. The dog lifted himself and padded to the window. As he moved forward, Stevie was alerted to a lumpy mass on the rug. Her heart crashed against her chest, her mind vented a silent scream.
It was Leo. She saw in a flash a white torso and a head, Leo’s head, like a loose doll’s, lolled forward toward her, empty of expression. She recoiled, slumping against the bush, which held her in prickly tentacles. “Oh god,” she whispered, clutching her hand to her mouth, tears suddenly springing to her eyes. “Please, no!” Gasping for air, trying to steady herself, the vision of Michael’s corpse crashing about her in waves, she edged onto the walkway, pushed through the side gate, and staggered to the tree where the key lay.
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