Cut to the Quick

by Joan Boswell

  “I won’t forget. I’ll fill the bowls—you won’t starve,” she assured him.

  She decanted kibble and asked herself the all important question. Had the killer failed for a second time?

  * * *

  “I spoke to the fire marshal,” Zee Zee said.

  “And?”

  “They still have more tests to run, but it looks like turpentine was the accelerant.”

  “It was arson, but was it attempted murder?” Rhona asked.

  “Frank told us to proceed as if it was. We’ll work with the fire department. We’ll investigate as if it’s tied to Ivan Hartman’s murder.”

  “Turpentine. That’s unusual—most people don’t have it hanging around. Varsol or other petroleum distillates have more or less replaced it.”

  “Not for all artists—oil painters specifically. Now they even have odourless brands.” Zee Zee tapped her nails on the desk’s edge.

  In other circumstances, the repetitive action could drive you crazy, but Rhona didn’t mind if it helped Zee Zee think.

  Zee Zee stopped. “Could it be a red herring?”

  “How’s that?’

  “We’re thinking artist, aren’t we? Did the perp want us to conclude an artist set the fire? The perp may have nothing to do with art but used turpentine to divert us—make sure we concentrate on artists.”

  “Let’s head out. Find out who was home and who wasn’t. Who uses turpentine and who doesn’t? This time we won’t phone—we’ll just appear.”

  Arthur White topped the list. Maybe surprising him had been a bad idea—he wasn’t home.

  Lena Kalma was next.

  “I must see if she’s changed the dioramas,” Rhona said as they arrived at the shop front.

  “My God,” she jumped away from the window. “It can’t be. This is too much of a coincidence.” She moved back for a second look and saw a three dimensional tableau picturing people falling into the flames of hell. Surely if Lena had set the fire, she wouldn’t have constructed this horrible miniature. Or was she thumbing her nose—challenging them to catch her, to prove she’d done it.

  Zee Zee peered in, drew back and raised her eyebrows. “This interview could be interesting.”

  Lena wore white coveralls splashed with red and black. On the work table, piles of photographs jumbled in boxes left space for black construction paper and pots of vermillion paint.

  “Did you look?” Lena asked.

  “Very dramatic,” Rhona said noncommittally. “What motivated you?”

  Lena’s eyes glittered. Her lips twisted. “I keep thinking of the bastard—how he was responsible for my son’s death. I hope he burns in hell.”

  Too good to be true. Time to tell her and see her reaction.

  “Your ex-husband’s studio burned last night.” There was no mistaking her shock. Her reaction was genuine, unless she doubled as an Academy Award winning actress.

  “Was he…” She didn’t finish the sentence. Instead, her eyes widened. She clamped her hand over her mouth.

  “He wasn’t there. Two others were—they’re okay. Where were you last night?”

  Lena’s hand came down. “Right here.” She pointed toward the front of the building. “I construct things when I’m so angry I feel like exploding.”

  “Do you use turpentine?”

  “Turpentine. What a strange question. I haven’t used it for years.” Her chin jutted forward. “Search my studio if you don’t believe me. Help yourselves—I have nothing to hide. It’s a solvent for thinning or cleaning up oil paints. I use acrylics. Oils make me sick. You clean up after acrylics with soap and water—it’s much easier.”

  “Was anyone else here?”

  “Tomas must have come in after I went to bed—I didn’t hear him.”

  Not an acceptable alibi. Lena would remain on the list.

  They set off for the Ciccios’, where Zee Zee would pose the questions.

  Anna let them in. “You again. I suppose you’re here about the Hartman fire.” She opened the door wider. “We don’t need to entertain the neighbours.”

  This woman cared what the neighbours thought. Maybe that partly explained why she hated Manon. No woman likes to think others know someone is playing her for a fool.

  “Olivero, the police are here again,” she shouted and led Rhona and Zee Zee to the kitchen. “Help yourselves,” she said, indicating stools pulled up under the marble-topped counter. She planted herself in mid-room with her arms tightly crossed.

  If Rhona sat there, her legs wouldn’t reach the floor. She wouldn’t opt for such an undignified position. She leaned against the counter and pulled out her notebook and tape recorder. They waited in a silence that grew exponentially as the minutes passed.

  Finally Olivero, barefoot in jeans and a T -shirt, padded into the kitchen. His face was unshaven and his eyes bleary. “Sorry, I was sound asleep.” He yawned. “Want coffee? I’m having some. I don’t function well without an espresso shot.”

  “Or with it,” Anna muttered.

  He spooned coffee into the machine and spoke over his shoulder. “I stayed up until four working on a sculpture—once I start, I keep at it until I fall over. What can I do for you?”

  “We’re here to ask a few questions,” Zee Zee responded and turned to Anna. “Where were you last night?” she asked.

  “Me?” Anna’s voice rose and her eyes narrowed.

  Zee Zee nodded.

  Anna glared at her. “What time?”

  “Let’s say from six last evening until six this morning.”

  Anna considered her balefully. “Since my husband is such good company, a friend and I shopped then took in a movie at nine. I came in about midnight and went to bed.”

  “I’d like your friend’s name. Did you see your husband when you returned?”

  Anna looked like she’d like to get Olivero in trouble and say no. She sighed. “He’d asked me to buy granola bars at the 7-11. When he’s working, they keep him going. I took them in to him. He didn’t stop.” She shoved an errant strand of hair behind her ear. “He never does. He was there then. By his appearance now, I’d say he was there all night.”

  Zee Zee directed her next remark to Olivero, who was pouring coffee into white china mugs. “Do you paint with oils and use turpentine?”

  “Of course,” he said over his shoulder.

  “We’d like to test your turpentine.”

  Olivero swung around, coffee pot in hand. His brows drew together. “What’s this about? Surely it’s not about Ivan?”

  Clearly he didn’t play the radio while he worked.

  “There was a fire in Curt Hartman’s studio last night.”

  “And you think it was arson, and I used turpentine to start it.” Olivero nodded. “Help yourself to my turpentine. I have nothing to hide. I’ll buy more today. Gelo and I’ll walk to the hardware store. Was anyone...hurt?”

  “He means, ‘Is darling Manon okay’,” Anna said nastily.

  Olivero ignored her.

  “No one except the dog, and he sprained his leg.”

  “Poor MacTee.” He closed his eyes.

  “Isn’t that something—he knows the dog’s name,” Anna sneered.

  Twenty-One

  Friday at noon, noise from the usually quiet back lane woke Hollis and drew her to the window. Below, three towtrucks, lights flashing, congregated outside the studio. One hooked Curt’s car and hoisted it in the air. Water streamed from the interior. Modern electronic systems react badly to water—the repairs would be costly or impossible. The car and truck disappeared down the lane. The second truck backed into place, ready to remove her vehicle.

  Impossible to meditate. Her room reeked. The smoky smell drifted in from outside and rose from the clothes she’d worn the night before. Hollis threw on clean jeans and a T -shirt, bundled the stinking clothes and carried them downstairs.

  Curt and Manon sat at the kitchen the table. Curt nodded at her. Manon, flipping through the yellow pages, looked u
p.

  “I’m ordering rental cars—do you want one?”

  A businesslike, efficient woman had replaced the desperately worried anxious person she’d been since Ivan’s death.

  Manon must have read the amazement on Hollis’s face. “You’re surprised I’m positive.” She grinned and shook her head. “Why would you be surprised? It’s what you’ve told me to do. And I’m doing it—moving on.” Her lips tightened. “You will never realize how grateful I am to you and MacTee,” she said thickly before she shook her head and smiled. “Darling dog—I pray he’s okay.”

  “I’m phoning to see how he is after I dump this stuff in the garbage.”

  The vet had diagnosed a sprain and treated MacTee with anti-inflammatories. He would be released later in the day.

  Curt and Manon shared her relief. Hollis kept peeking at Manon, expecting her to return to her previous anxious depressed state. It didn’t happen. Hollis listened while Manon phoned her mother and told her matter-of-factly about the fire. Then she discussed the details of the visit she and Etienne would make to Quebec later in the summer. What had brought about this dramatic change? Maybe when the long-awaited and dreaded attack on Etienne had actually occurred, it had jolted Manon. The worst had happened, and they’d survived.

  They collected their rental cars in time for Hollis and Curt to make it to class. Hollis settled in her seat and marvelled at Curt’s resilience. Immaculately dressed and perfectly groomed, no one would have guessed Curt was a man with a bad heart who’d spent half the night watching his studio burn and thanking God his son had survived.

  “You may or may not have heard about the fire in my studio last night.”

  Neither Kate nor Patel were radio or TV junkies. Their expressions reflected their surprise.

  Curt shook his head and frowned. Long-faced—his eyes, lips, the wrinkles bracketing his mouth, his ears, everything sagged. He told them what had happened. His lips quivered. He clamped them together, walked to the supplies table and gripped the table’s edge.

  Everyone stopped breathing, waiting to see what he’d do next.

  His shoulders rose, he exhaled, straightened, threw his shoulders back and pivoted to face them.

  “Today we’ll create paint from raw materials. Next week we’ll make brushes. Painters in Rembrandt’s time had to do both. They did have guidelines. In 1437, Il Libro dell’Arte by Cennino d’Andrea Cennini appeared and became the guideline for artists for centuries.” His eyebrows rose. “Today art forgers rely on the book.” He resumed his lecture. “Paint has not always come in tidy tubes and jars. In Rembrandt’s day, a young artist prepared his own. Once he achieved success, he hired an apprentice to make paint.” He distributed colour information handouts. “We won’t make some paints. We’d risk our health if we dropped vinegar on lead and collected horse manure, if we could find it, to generate the heat to produce the reaction that would ultimately give us lead white, a highly toxic paint.”

  Had the Old Masters lived long lives or been like the hatters who used chemicals that drove them insane and led to the term “mad hatters”? Rubens had lived to old age. Perhaps his early success had enabled him to hire assistants who risked their health mixing up lethal concoctions.

  “And we won’t make verdigris—a lovely intense green. We’d have to use the scrapings from wine barrels.” He looked up. “Possibly if we lived in Newfoundland, we could use screech. The leavings would then have to contact copper. The resulting fumes would make us sick, but eventually we’d have a lovely green. Let’s see what we can do.” He picked up a mortar and pestle. “We can grind the earth tones—ochres— and see what happens when we mix them with the different oils—linseed, walnut or poppy.”

  Hollis noticed that Lefevbre was absent. Why wasn’t he in class? Had he been in the group when she’d said Etienne would be stargazing? She replayed the conversation but couldn’t remember whether he’d been there or not. She was pretty sure he hadn’t been. And she would have noticed if he’d joined them at break, because he usually remained in the studio. Nevertheless, she’d heard Lefevbre vow to attend every class.

  Why wasn’t he here?

  Despite Hollis’s fatigue, the heady smell of raw materials grabbed her attention. She zeroed in on the colours—the rich creamy whites, yellow as intense as the yolks of free range eggs, blues as deep as the North Atlantic on a sunny day. Her fingers twitched, anticipating adding, adjusting, stirring, readjusting and, finally, applying these luscious paints.

  “I can see you’re anxious to start. Consult the instruction sheets and prepare two colours. Then bring your palettes, load the paint and work over yesterday’s under-painting.”

  The students stampeded to transform dry powders into enchanting viscous colour. Hollis longed to plunge her hands into the paint and smear thick layers on the canvas; to stroke, pull, overlay, wallow in tactile sensations. She envied kindergarten students and understood their unfettered joy when let loose with finger paints.

  “Time for a break,” Curt eventually announced.

  Hollis didn’t believe it. The others’ expressions mirrored her incredulity. How could time have passed so quickly? Downstairs, the others crowded around her.

  “It must have been damn fucking scary,” Kate said.

  “Not until afterwards. While it was happening, I only thought about getting us out.”

  “Did you crawl to the stairs like they say you should?” Bert asked.

  “The stairs were burning.”

  “How did you…”

  Kate interrupted Bert. “What about Curt’s paintings?”

  “How many did he have in the studio?” Tessa asked.

  “Three, one finished and two that he’s working on.”

  “He paints huge works. How does he get them out?” Tessa asked.

  “Through second storey double doors they used years ago to load hay for horses. There’s a block and tackle permanently installed, thank goodness. I lowered Etienne and my dog with it.”

  “Having been rudely interrupted,” Bert said, glaring at Kate, “What about you? How did you escape?”

  “I was afraid I wasn’t going to.” She related her story.

  “What time was the fire?” Kate asked.

  “After two.”

  “I’m surprised you or Curt came today,” Patel said.

  “I nearly didn’t. But Curt insisted he had to come. I couldn’t stay away—couldn’t miss the course.”

  Hollis knew her face had lit up. She felt her lips curve. “Isn’t making paint from scratch wonderful? Too timeconsuming to do it on a regular basis, we’d need assistants like they had in the Renaissance. But it doesn’t compare to squeezing paint from a tube.”

  Heads nodded in agreement.

  “I suppose Curt’s insurance company will pay to clean up and rebuild,” Kate said.

  “You won’t believe it, but he doesn’t have any—not a single cent.”

  “You have to be kidding. Everybody has insurance.”

  “Maybe you do, but lots of people don’t. I don’t,” David said. Whatever Kate said annoyed David. Hollis had first seen it in the funeral home, but he’d picked at her often. Now Kate had irritated him again.

  “But how could his wife live in peace if they didn’t have any?” Kate persisted.

  “Manon, that’s his wife, is a cautious banker. She did insure their vehicles along with the house and its contents the moment they moved in.” Hollis didn’t know if she should be telling them all this, but she hated for anyone to think Manon was a slacker. “At that point, the studio hadn’t been renovated. Curt said he’d contact the insurance company when it was, and he knew how much to insure it for. I can’t imagine why Manon relied on him to do it. She should have known better.”

  “Why? Isn’t he good at things like that?” Kate said. She shook her head. “He isn’t the only one. I know guys who don’t pay their taxes because they don’t get around to it. I can’t imagine living like that.”

  “You can�
��t imagine much that doesn’t fit into your narrow little world,” David said. Kate glared daggers at him.

  Hollis didn’t want this to escalate. “Did anyone read the book about him that came out last year?”

  “I did. It was okay, but…” David paused as if he didn’t want to continue.

  “But what?” Kate said.

  “It was too laudatory. It didn’t discuss his dark side and the influences in his early years.”

  “True, but the reason I brought it up was that the writer did deal with his document phobia. He has a thing about filling out forms. According to the author, he doesn’t even have a will.” Hollis wondered if she should have added this piece of gratuitous information. But it had appeared in print. Besides, he’d probably written a will since the book came out.

  “He’s not alone. I hate bureaucracy.” David’s brows drew together, and he scowled ferociously.

  Hollis was glad she wasn’t a bureaucrat. Run-ins with David would be unpleasant.

  “Curt will have to arrange for demolition and repairs and cough up money to pay for them.” Kate said. “That will be very expensive.”

  David shook his head. “Does he have fans running?”

  “Fans?” Hollis said.

  “Yes. You said water soaked everything. Industrial fans dry stuff and make it salvageable. Not having insurance, he’ll want to save everything he can. On the other hand, he should keep his books and papers wet until he arranges for a fire salvage company to collect and freeze dry them.”

  “He has a library of valuable art books. Freeze dry?” She echoed.

  “They stash the material in a big chamber and freeze it. Somehow it removes the moisture and leaves the documents in good shape.”

  “I’m sure he hasn’t thought about fans or freeze drying.”

  “I could arrange to get fans for him.”

  “Do you want to offer, or do you want me to do it?” Hollis said.

  “You know him better than I do. But the sooner they’re installed, the better.”

  “I think we should do more than that,” Kate said. She looked from one to the other. “We have a lot of skills. I think we should help.”