“I hope you’re not implying that we’re thieves?” Chris pulled his briar pipe and a can of tobacco out of his pocket, filled the bowl, tamped it, and then struck a match before continuing. “My art and my private life are quite enough for me.”
“I see that Adele isn’t here today.” Maggie nodded to the potter’s wheel the woman had been using on their last visit, which stood empty.
“She got all huffy and left us,” Tricia answered. “Just as well. She didn’t fit in.”
Saul looked uncomfortable. “She really joined the group because she was a close friend of Jonathan’s,” he explained. “I think she’s planning to organize a group of her own.”
“Do you have her address?” Nat asked.
Saul nodded. “Here, I’ll write it out for you.”
“Just one other thing,” Nat turned to face all of them. “Have any of you lost a key.”
“What kind of key?” Ian asked.
Once again Nat pulled it from his pocket and showed it to him.
“Looks like an ordinary door key.”
“Didn’t you say that you’d lost your front door key, Tricia?” Chris asked.
“It was just misplaced,” she answered tersely, and then turning to Nat asked, “Where did you find this one?”
“In Alex Donitz’s apartment,” he replied.
“What in heaven’s name would any one of us be doing in that man’s sleazy apartment?” Tricia asked.
“How do you know it’s sleazy?” Maggie asked quickly.
“What else could he have afforded?” Chris answered for her. “You told us he was a young Polish emigrant with no money.” He turned back to his potting wheel.
• • •
“SO WHAT DO you think of that charming little group?” Nat asked before pulling away from the curb.
“That Tricia is really something, and I think she’s only playing dumb. She knows much more than she lets on.”
“What makes you say that?”
“She said she knew nothing about the theft of the paintings, but then she said there were three of them. I have a strong feeling that artsy little group is mixed up in all this.”
“And she knew what kind of apartment Donitz lived in,” Nat mused.
“And the key?”
“Perhaps she was lying and she’s the one who grabbed the paintings from Gloria,” Nat answered. “It doesn’t fit the potting studio, I tried it on the way out.”
“But we’ve no way of proving it was her.” Maggie was thoughtful for a moment. “Gloria did say the person smelt faintly of flowers—it could have been talc powder.”
“I can’t see her as a thug.” Nat laughed. “She’d be worried that she would break one of her fingernails.”
“It is hard to imagine,” Maggie agreed with a grin. “Okay, where to now?”
Nat handed her the slip of paper with Adele’s address on it. “Let’s go potting.”
• • •
THE HOUSE ON Maple was a small one-storied stucco, and both house and scrubby front yard were in urgent need of care. When Adele finally opened the door, Maggie wasn’t sure whether the look on her face was fear or astonishment.
“What do you want?” She peered myopically at them before fumbling for the glasses that were hanging around her neck. “Oh! It’s you.” She looked up and down the street and then opened the door wider. “I suppose you’d better come in.”
“Is anything the matter?” Maggie and Nat followed Adele into what should have been her living room but which had been converted into a studio. It was a typical potter’s studio—two wheels, bags of clay, shelves with pots, jugs, mugs, odd-looking teapots drying or waiting to be fired, and glass jam jars full of shaping implements. Mounds of clay sat under a damp towel on a low table at one end of the room, waiting to be readied for the wheel. Adele pushed the piles of books on pottery, pencil sketches, and other bits of paper off a couple of stools and indicated they should sit down. Maggie resisted the urge to take a handkerchief out of her pocket and dust the stool first.
“Why should there be anything the matter?” Adele sat on the seat of the nearest wheel where a lump of clay had been centred. She peered at Maggie.
“You left the other studio and Tricia said you were . . . a bit huffy.”
“She would, the bitch. I needed to move back into my own space.”
“Why did you work there, anyway?” Nat asked. “You’ve got everything you need right here.”
“You mean why did I lower myself to use the Quebec Street studio? I did it to be near my dear Jonathan.” Adele answered in such a defiant manner that Maggie turned to see if Nat was as startled as she was. “Sorry, didn’t mean to sound off like that.” And to their astonishment the woman suddenly burst into tears.
Maggie moved over to Adele and put her arm around her shoulder. Brusquely pushing her away, the woman fished into her clay-smeared apron pocket, pulled out a crumpled handkerchief, and buried her face in it. Feeling very uncomfortable, Maggie and Nat waited for the sobs to subside.
Giving her eyes a final wipe, Adele stood up, staggered over to the sink, washed her face under the running tap, and dried her face on a towel. “I’m sorry about that,” she hiccupped as she returned to her seat. “It’s just I miss him so damned much.”
While Nat was still trying to think who she missed, Maggie said quietly, “You loved him dearly.”
Adele nodded. “I suppose you think I’m a silly old fool. He was at least ten years younger than me, but he was such a gentle soul. How could anyone have killed him like that?” Dabbing her eyes, she looked straight at Maggie. “That bunch of morons have no feelings, just carried on as if nothing had happened, even . . . even laughed at me.”
Nat, who had suddenly caught on that Adele was talking about Jonathan, decided to let Maggie carry the ball.
“What could they find to laugh at?” Maggie asked.
“I tried to hide my feelings but that bitch—and I’m sorry, but she is a bitch—realized I was in love with him. And even after he was gone, there were the nasty little digs. I just couldn’t stand it anymore.”
“Did Jonathan know?”
“I don’t think so. I sort of hoped when his first wife died . . . but then he met Alice, which to my mind was another mistake. He really wasn’t a good judge of women, you know.”
“So I gathered,” Nat cut in dryly.
“But he trusted me,” she said proudly. “He told me about the girl he’d loved years before. Did you know he had a daughter?”
“You know about Judith and Jenny?” Nat asked in astonishment. “Why didn’t you say so when we showed you their photographs?”
“Jonathan didn’t want anyone at the studio to know about them. But,” she added proudly, “he took me into his confidence.” She twisted the sodden towel between her hands before carrying on. “He needed someone to talk to. He was terrified that Alice would find out about them.”
“Did she?” Maggie asked.
“She knew there was someone, especially after Jonathan asked for a divorce. She absolutely refused to give him one.”
“I can’t understand why Jonathan was so terrified she’d find out.” Nat gazed across the room for a moment. “After all, what could she have done about it?”
“Made life miserable for the poor man. She threatened she’d take him to the cleaners if he left her.” She paused and gazed out of the window. “I often wonder about her first husband’s death . . . After all, no one saw him fall down the basement steps.”
“Is that how he died?”
“You didn’t know? Alice is a black widow spider where husbands are concerned.”
• • •
“SORRY TO CALL you so late,” Maggie said after Jane Weatherby lifted the receiver. “Hope you weren’t watching anything exciting on TV?”
“Maggie! How nice to hear your voice. No, only a show about a talking horse. Actually,” she gave an apologetic laugh, “it’s quite funny.”
“You mean Mr.
Ed, the talking horse, and his pal, Wilbur Post? Oh, I enjoy that program, too.”
“Don’t let on to Alice, will you? She only watches intellectual programs.”
Maggie laughed. “Your secret is safe with me. Actually, I’m calling about Alice’s first husband.”
“First husband? Do you mean Hugo or her very first one? Hugo was actually her second.”
“Second! Do you mean she’s been married three times?” Maggie asked incredulously.
“Well, the first one hardly counted, as it only lasted a year.” There was a pause on the line before Jane continued. “She’s been very unlucky in her choice of partners. It makes me glad I chose the single life.”
Maggie was speechless for a moment. “So what happened to the first one?”
“It was one of those teenage romances, and they soon realized it was a mistake. I did hear that he’d remarried. Can’t even remember his name . . . Charlie something . . . Bracken . . . that’s right . . . Charlie Bracken.”
“And the second one, Hugo?”
“Alice worked at a firm that did picture restoration, reframing, silk-screening—all kinds of things to do with art. Hugo was a recent widower, and he brought some pictures in to be cleaned. They dated and a few months later they were married. Between you and me, Maggie, I’m sure he was looking for an unpaid housekeeper with all the frills.”
“How long were they married?”
“About five years and then he had that tragic accident.”
“He fell down some stairs?”
“Yes. He seems to have tripped over their pet dog. It was terrible for my sister because she’d been the one to leave the door open. She went down to get a jar of canned fruit for our dinner and forgot to close the door. It’s still hard for her to talk about it.”
“I can imagine. Was he . . . was he . . . dead when she got to him?”
“He’d fallen head first onto the concrete floor. She was in shock for days.”
“You said our dinner. Were you there at the time?”
Jane sighed audibly. “Not when he fell. I was attending a two-day conference at UBC—I always stayed with my sister and her husband when I was in Vancouver—and the session had run overtime so the ambulance had come and gone by the time I got to their place.”
“Alice mentioned that he left her pretty badly off—financially.”
“The bugger left all his money to his two daughters from his previous marriage. Alice just got the house.”
“I guess that was something.”
“It was mortgaged up to the hilt,” Jane said dryly.
“And then she lost Jonathan,” Maggie said softly.
“She thought things were at last going right for her. She loved that man.”
“Alice is very lucky to have a sister who is so protective.”
“Our parents died when she was ten—so I practically brought her up.”
“It must’ve been very hard for you to stand by and see her last two marriages end in tragedy,” Maggie said sympathetically.
“And not be able to do a damn thing about them,” Jane answered tersely. There was something of a deeper meaning here, but Maggie couldn’t quite put her finger on it. After she got off the phone, she sat for quite a while pondering the conversation she’d just had with Jane, and wondered why she had this feeling of disquiet.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The next morning Maggie peered into Nat’s office and announced, “Alice has been married three times. One year to number one and five years to Hugo Smyth. He apparently tripped over his dog and fell down the basement stairs and was pronounced DOA when he arrived at Emergency.”
“Where did you get all that info so early in the morning? Come in here and explain yourself, woman.”
Maggie laughed and looked over to where their girl Friday was sitting at her desk with her mouth open. “Do you think I should demean myself, Henny?”
“Mr. Nat is only yoking,” Being Dutch, Henny sometimes had a hard time with the letter J. “You want me to take notes?”
“You’re busy. I’ll fill you in later.”
• • •
“SO SHE DIVORCED number one, and number two only left her a mortgaged house. At least she did better with Jonathan.”
“M-m-m. But did she do all that well?” Nat said. “Granted, she got the apartment in English Bay, though she says that was already hers. But the gallery sells on consignment and the artists have to be really well known for her to make money on them. There is Jonathan’s work, of course.”
“As far as I could see there’s only the Silver Unicorn and a few of his figurines left,” Maggie mused. “And I can’t see her selling the unicorn, can you?”
“No. It’s the gallery’s logo.”
“And he only left $5,000 to his son,” Maggie added. “I wonder if he left anything to Judith and Jenny?”
“And how do we find out?”
“Let’s ask Judith.” Maggie arose from her chair and headed for the door. “There’s no time like the present.”
“You’re going to ask her on the telephone?”
“No. I’m not that insensitive. I’ll call and ask when it would be convenient for her to see me.”
As it happened Judith only had morning office hours on Fridays and she would—rather reluctantly—see Maggie at noon.
• • •
“SO WHAT’S SO urgent?” Judith led Maggie into her office and indicated the chair that faced her across a very tidy desk.
“A rather delicate question.”
“Okay . . .” Judith said carefully. “What do you want to know?”
“Jonathan’s estate. Did he leave you or Jenny anything in his will?”
“Why are you asking that?” Then a look of consternation crossed her face. “My God, this isn’t coming from Alice, is it?”
“No.” Maggie looked sharply at the woman across the desk. “Are you sure she doesn’t know about you and Jenny?”
Judith buried her face in her hands. “I honestly don’t know.”
Maggie waited a few moments before pressing her for an answer. “About the will. Did he leave you anything in it?”
“No.” She sat looking through the window at her garden. “But you know, it was as if he knew something was going to happen to him.”
“Why?”
“It was about three months before . . . before he died. He took me to see his lawyer . . . Humphrey Crumbie . . .” She gave a rare smile before continuing. “Such a funny name. Anyway, he told me if ever I found myself in any kind of difficulty, I was to call Mr. Crumbie.”
“So Jonathan was helping you financially?”
“Not me . . . Jenny. He insisted on paying for her school fees. She’s a pupil at York House, you see.”
“Great school,” Maggie said. “I wish my two girls could have gone there, but the fees were beyond us at the time.”
“To be perfectly blunt, Maggie, I couldn’t have afforded it either without his help.”
“So it’s a trust fund? And there’s no way Alice could have found out about it?”
Judith shook her head again. “It was just between us and the lawyer—and there’s no way Mr. Crumbie would tell anybody.”
Maggie smiled. “You’re right there. I know him very well.”
“You do?”
“He’s one of my husband’s law partners. And although I’ve left Harry, I can say in all sincerity that you can put all your trust in that firm.” She got up to leave. “Just one other thing, Judith . . . You haven’t noticed anyone following you or received strange phone calls?”
“No phone calls, but sometimes I’m sure I’m being followed.” She laughed lightly. “But maybe I’m just paranoid.”
• • •
AFTER LEAVING JUDITH’S house, Maggie sat in her car for a few minutes to gather her thoughts. Then glancing at her watch, she realized that there was no point in going back to the office. After all, it was a Friday and she was meeting Nat around seven-thirty at Mo
nty’s Seafood restaurant on West Hastings—she could fill him in on her conversation with Judith over dinner.
After parking the car in her garage, she walked slowly up through her mix-and-matched garden and thought it was time she did some urgent weeding and pruning. The dandelions’ fluffy white heads were ready and waiting to send their glorious parachutes of seeds to all her neighbours’ gardens. As she entered the house, she heard the phone ringing. Emily, crouching by the back door waiting to escape outside, was almost trampled as Maggie lunged for the instrument.
“It’s me, Adele Rousseau. Oh, dear. You sound out of breath. I do hope I didn’t interrupt you getting supper . . . or anything.”
“No, it’s okay.” Maggie laughed. “I just missed squashing my cat, that’s all.”
“You have a cat? How nice.”
“What can I do for you, Adele?”
“You did leave your card, and you did say if I thought of anything . . .”
“Yes,” Maggie said encouragingly.
“It was before Jonathan . . . died. I knew he was worried about something.”
“It was something he said?”
“No, not really. It was something he hid.”
“Hid? What?”
“He didn’t tell me what it was. Only the location . . . in case something happened . . . to him. I was so unhappy that I forgot all about it.”
“What did he say to you exactly?”
Adele was quiet for a few moments. “He said—‘If anything should happen to me, old girl’—that’s what he used to call me,” she added with a little giggle, “‘you’ll find something,’ I think he said a note, hidden in the studio.”
“And he didn’t tell you what it was?”
“No. He said if he was dead, I’d know what to do.”
“Did he mean his studio at the gallery?”
“I took it to be the one where we all worked—on Quebec Street.”
“And you’ve only just remembered this?”
“I told you I completely forgot.”
“But he died over four months ago . . .”
“You sound just like that lot at the studio,” she snapped. “You think I’m past it and eccentric. But I’m not making this up.”
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