Valley of Shadows

by Steven Cooper

  First they meet with Dina Hallandale, a Scottsdale woman who runs a dating service. “I’m in those fancy magazines too, I assure you. A lot, in fact. But I also have a business to run.”

  Mills just nods.

  “I’m not one of those ladies who just sits around all day planning benefits,” she continues. “That’s not meant as a dig toward Viveca. She was lovely. Truly lovely.”

  “So you’ve said on Facebook and Twitter,” Preston reminds her. “Were you close friends?”

  “Oh no,” she says without hesitation, almost swatting the question away as if it were a fly. “Our social circles overlapped. We might have worked on a few functions together, but most people of our echelon make a big deal about our endless cadre of friends, when really we have lots superficially, and only a few that are very close.”

  “Wow. That’s some explanation,” Mills tells her.

  She smiles and bats her eyes. She’s probably Viveca’s age, maybe late fifties at the youngest. Her hair has that frosted kind of blondeness befitting her profession, and facial muscles that defy movement. Mills has seen this before. A recent case had him searching for the killer of a plastic surgeon, so he’s come across his fair share of Botox. “When your charity work intersected, Ms. Hallandale, do you ever remember Viveca discussing any kind of problem or trouble she was facing?”

  The woman, sitting behind an ornate desk, one of those old French ones that’s supposed to be in a palace or something, searches the room with narrow eyes and pursed lips. So dramatic. Mills wants to laugh but he doesn’t. “Gosh, no,” Dina says. “I mean, of course, she faced her share of problems when her husband passed. I mean, who wouldn’t? But I don’t remember her talking about anything, you know, suspicious. You should talk to Liz Livingston. She really was Viveca’s closest confidante.”

  Livingston is on Mills’s list. He had made contact with her earlier in the morning. They thank Dina Hallandale for her time. And now she rises and follows them to the door. “Are either of you single?” she asks.

  Mills says no. Preston says, “I’m widowed. But I have a special someone now.”

  “Lovely,” she says. “But if either of you ever find yourself single, absolutely call me. I’m the best in the business. My clients are normally high earners, but I’d certainly make an exception for you boys!”

  Mills turns around before the woman can see the expression on his face. Preston just laughs out loud.

  “Not terribly upset by Viveca Canning’s death,” Preston says as they get in the car.

  “Like she said, superficial friends,” Mills reminds him. “And clearly that woman specializes in the superficial.”

  From the office of Dina Hallandale, they drive to the home of Liz Livingston. She lives in Paradise Valley, off McDonald. Camelback looms large behind the house, a home that blends into the mountain like so many do with their humble shades of beige and brown, a home, like so many, that even in its expanse is dwarfed by the mountain, taking some of the show out of the picture. Liz Livingston answers the door in a tight black bodysuit, as if they’ve interrupted her warrior pose, something Mills suspects only because Kelly has taken up yoga and moved her practice mats into the third bedroom where the treadmill and stationary bike are collecting cobwebs. Ms. Livingston’s hair is as black as her bodysuit and it falls to her shoulders. Her skin is creamy white, her lips ruby red, and her smile placid. “I’m glad you called ahead,” she tells them. “I wouldn’t have answered the door otherwise.”

  “Because?”

  And then, as if on cue, the woman sobs. She covers her face with her hands, weeps modestly, turns her back, and Mills can see her shake with each spasm of grief. He wants to reach out to her, gently touch her shoulder, her arm, anything, but not these days. What would have been an innocent gesture a few years ago could become an impeachable offense today. He thinks he understands the whole sexual harassment thing (at least he’s mastered the training about harassment in the workplace), but he knows he has a lot to learn. Kelly is patient. She tells him it’s wider spread than he can possibly imagine. She’s right. He can’t quite imagine. Finally, Ms. Livingston turns to them, wiping her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “Not a great introduction. I’m Liz. I can’t shake your hands because they’re soaked.”

  “We understand,” Mills says. “I’m Detective Alex Mills. This is my colleague, Detective Ken Preston.”

  She leads them through a foyer of fine art and sculpture to a room that borrows, if not steals, from the designs of Frank Lloyd Wright. Glass and beams. Wood and windows. And leather seats. They sit opposite her. A giant glass slab in the middle hosts a battlefield of Kachina warriors. The woman catches Mills admiring the dolls. “They’re real,” she tells him. “Bought them directly from the artist. I collect.” “They’re great specimens,” Preston gives her.

  “So, according to some sources, you’re Viveca Canning’s closest friend,” Mills says.

  “What sources?”

  “That’s how Dina Hallandale describes you,” Mills tells her.

  The woman laughs bitterly. “Oh, Dina. Of course. The social secretary of the valley. She’ll never chair a ball, of course, but she’ll help out on the sidelines, just close enough to hear the gossip.” Livingston reaches toward a side table for a tissue and dabs her eyes. “But yes, I would consider Viveca and I the closest of friends.”

  Mills watches the woman’s chin quiver. “What can you tell us about her?”

  The woman hides her face again and begins to weep. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she says between gulps of tears. “This is why I wouldn’t have answered the door. I’ve been in my bed all morning curled up in a ball. I can’t. I just can’t . . .”

  “Maybe we should come back,” Mills suggests.

  “No,” she says. “I want to do whatever I can to help you. I owe it to her.”

  “Do you need a minute?” Preston asks.

  “No.” She dabs again at her eyes, soaking through a tissue. With a sniffle she says, “I’m fine.” She says she met Viveca Canning about fifteen years ago while working on a benefit for the Arizona Heart Center. Viveca had recruited her through friends at the hospital where Liz’s husband is chief surgeon. “Ever since then we’ve been like two peas in a fundraising pod.”

  “But your friendship extended beyond fundraising, no?” Mills asks.

  “Absolutely.” She recounts vacations together, with and without the husbands. Golf outings, tennis outings, theater, museums. She tells a strange tale about a girls-only trip to Italy and an incident there when Viveca had come out of a museum, she thinks it was someplace called the Galleria dell’ Accademia, in tears. When Liz asked her why she was crying, Viveca would only say she wished she could live life as a statue.

  “What did that mean?” Mills asks.

  “I have no idea,” Liz says. “And then her husband died. And that was hard on her.”

  “What about her relationship with her kids?” Mills asks.

  The woman smiles. “She loved her kids, treasured them. But, at the same time, she could only take so much of them. I mean, I can relate, you know, because my kids are about the same age. Adults who don’t want to fully own their adulthood.”

  “Bennett Canning. A man who hasn’t quite decided to grow up?” Mills asks.

  “Oh Bennett! You’ve met Bennett?”

  “Yes. At the house yesterday,” Mills replies.

  “Of course. And, yes, you nailed him. Not quite ready for the big world, as they say. But a sweet boy, nonetheless. And full of charisma!” “What about the daughter?”

  “Oh, Jillian is fine too. She’s had her disagreements with her parents, but she’s a fine young woman. More of an adult than her brother. Moved away for the sake of all of them.”

  “What does that mean?” Mills asks.

  “They clashed a lot, that’s all,” the woman says, a veil coming down, like a shadow covering her face. She looks away.

  “Were you a member of the same
church?”

  The woman looks back, horrified. “Oh, God no!”

  “Stated like a true atheist,” Preston says.

  “My husband’s an atheist. I’m just a lapsed Catholic. No church for me.”

  “Was Viveca’s church a Catholic church?”

  “I don’t think so,” Liz says. “I’m not sure. We didn’t talk religion. That’s the only thing she was very private about. But I do know she was very, very devoted to her church.”

  Mills leans as far forward as he can without prompting a Kachina uprising and says, “I need you to think about this very carefully and very thoroughly. Is there anyone, anyone whatsoever who’d want to hurt Viveca Canning? She confided in you. Think about anything she said that might have indicated her concern, her fear even. Were there any run-ins with adversaries? Jealousy, gossip. Anything related to her late husband. Her children?”

  He lets the weight and complexity of his question settle. He understands how the layers of these questions can suffocate a person; he imposes these layers on himself all the time. And so he waits and he watches as the woman scrambles her brain, almost visibly, as her eyes search the room like eyes always do, how she begins to speak, but hesitates, rethinks a thought, begins again, but sighs. It’s all there. The whole ritual. Down to the tissue crumpling in her hands right before she sighs again and says, “That’s the whole thing. I’ve been racking my brain all morning trying to think why anyone would want to hurt her. I mean, I’ve tried to think about all the unpleasant people in our lives, and even they aren’t unpleasant enough to kill someone. She never mentioned feeling threatened or abused or anything like that. She never mentioned being scared that I can remember. I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t suppose you can provide us a list of all those unpleasant people in your lives,” Preston says.

  She narrows her eyes. “Are you kidding? I was speaking rhetorically, Detective. When I say unpleasant, I really mean annoying.”

  “What about jealousies?” Mills asks.

  She shrugs. “Everybody’s jealous of something. But this isn’t the Real Housewives of Phoenix, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Mills gets up. Preston follows. “Okay. I think we’ve taken enough of your time today. I’ll give you my card. Please call if you think of anything.”

  Liz takes the card from Mills and walks them toward the door, back through the foyer of fine art.

  “Oh, one more thing,” Mills says, stopping just short of the front door. “I notice you’re quite the art lover. So was Viveca Canning.”

  “I know that. Of course,” Liz says. “It was one of the many things we have, had, in common.”

  She begins to fight back tears again, but Mills has to probe further. “Were you familiar with her art collection?”

  “Uh, yes. As a matter of fact I was. Mostly,” she says. “I mean, I lose track of my own, so I wouldn’t be able to account for all of Viveca’s.” “Of course not,” Mills concedes. “But I need to ask you about one particular work of art that appears to be missing. Her son says it’s a Dali.”

  The woman makes a sudden gasp. For a moment it’s as if she can’t talk, alarm in her eyes.

  “Ma’am?” Mills asks.

  Finally she exhales with a gust and says, “Oh my! I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m shocked. That’s her beloved Dali. Of course I know it. I was there when she pulled it from the vault to go back on display. It’s g-g-gone?”

  Mills nods.

  Liz sobs. She sniffles, and sobs, and wipes at her tears. “I’m sorry. But it’s like two deaths now. A double murder. Oh lord, what has happened?”

  “Ma’am, are you okay?” Preston asks her.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know,” she replies. “But I do know this. If that painting is not back in her vault, I know where it is.”

  “Where?”

  “Phoebe has it. Her sister-in-law. That bitch!”

  “Ma’am, I thought you said she had no adversaries . . .” Mills reminds her.

  “I know. I’m sorry. I mean, Phoebe’s a nemesis, but I don’t think she’d murder Viveca.”

  “Not even to get the Dali?” Mills asks.

  “She doesn’t need the money.”

  “Not even to make a point?”

  “Maybe to make a point,” the woman says.

  “What can you tell us about the painting?” Mills asks.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “The name of it. The value. The subject matter, I guess.”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s untitled. But I know for sure it’s an original, so it’s worth a lot of money. It’s surrealist, of course.”

  “Of course,” Mills says, if for no other reason than to sound informed.

  “Something like dancers in a dream,” she adds. “Hallucinatory.”

  Hallucinatory? I’m sure as shit not going down that rabbit hole. “Guess we better go talk to Phoebe,” he says.

  “I’d check with the gallery first,” she tells them. “Do you have the address?”

  Mills assures her they do. Then the men shake her hand and thank her for her time.

  The Carmichael and Finn Gallery on Scottsdale Road is a seven-minute drive away.

  “You need a cup of coffee first?” Mills asks.

  “No. Let’s not break the rhythm,” Preston says.

  Mills laughs. “Amazing that someone your age still has any rhythm at all.”

  “Well, you can go fuck yourself,” Preston says with a smile. “This old man has no plans to retire. They’d have to shoot me first.”

  “You know I’m messing with you,” Mills tells him. “Still it surprises me that you don’t want a life of leisure. You know, travel, hobbies, family.”

  “Overrated, overrated, see ’em on weekends.”

  Mills laughs again, then the car goes quiet until they reach the gallery.

  An assistant fetches the gallery owner who enters from a back room with a beauty pageant strut, her arms and hands extended just so, kind of teapot-like, her hips making curves with every step. She introduces herself as Jacqueline Carmichael and offers a wide-eyed, blood red smile as if she’s waiting to be enlightened.

  “I’m Detective Alex Mills with the Phoenix Police Department. This is my partner Detective Ken Preston. We’re investigating the death of Viveca Canning,” Mills tells her.

  “I see,” the woman says. “A tragedy. I hardly slept last night.”

  There is not a sign of fatigue on the woman’s face. A bun of hair sits on her head buttressed by a ring of two thick braids. She wears a flowing thing, a caftan, Mills has heard these things called. She looks like the famous Italian actress, what’s her name.

  “Were you a close friend of Viveca’s?” Preston asks.

  “No, but she’s been a client here for almost twenty years,” the woman replies. “We didn’t socialize, so to speak, but we were more than acquaintances.”

  “Did she ever talk about family with you? Business? Her charity work?”

  The woman looks to the floor, clasps her hands. “I think we should continue this in my office.”

  Mills and Preston follow her and her gyrating hips to an office in the back of the building. It’s an L-shaped room, with modern art paintings (the splotch and splatter type that Mills doesn’t understand) leaning on the walls as if they’re auditioning for the gallery. She sits behind a large chunk of glass that rests on two marble pillars. Her assistant corrals two chairs for the men. Again, her smile. Her ogling eyes. Mills is tempted to ogle back. Instead, he reminds her why they’re there. “Whatever you can tell us about Ms. Canning would be very helpful.”

  “I can tell you mostly about her art. Like I said, we weren’t social. She talked about her charity work every so often, and I actually attended some of those events over the years. But not because of her, necessarily. My gallery has sponsored some fundraisers that she was associated with.”

  “That’s fine,” Mills tells her. “We’re here to talk about her art. Can y
ou show us her collection?”

  The woman raises an eyebrow. Actually her whole face seems affronted by Mills. “Her collection is in the vault, gentlemen.”

  “Would it be a hardship to have us look around?” Preston asks her.

  “Normally, I’d need consent from the owner,” the woman says. “But I’m afraid since Viveca’s . . . gone . . . that leaves me in a quandary.”

  “But we’re officers of the law, ma’am, investigating the owner’s murder,” Mills reminds her.

  “I understand,” she says. “But at very least I’d need to call security to accompany—”

  Then she stops suddenly and lets out a howl of laugher. Her whole body seems to jiggle. “Why would I need security, when the two of you are the police? How silly of me.”

  She leads them down a dimly lit hallway and around a corner. A heavy perfume, as cloying as a room deodorizer, swirls in the woman’s wake. It could be coming from a deodorizer plugged in somewhere, but Mills thinks it’s her. She presses a code into a keypad and, after a series of beeps, she enters another code. The door makes a hydraulic kind of sucking sound, reminiscent of the doors that open to a cell-block and, thud, they’re in. Carmichael leads them down another dim hallway past a series of doors. At the second from the last door the woman enters a key and turns the knob. She flips a switch and the room goes from black to reddish to yellow gold. Spotlights from the ceiling land on various canvases.

  “Did Ms. Canning normally lend her art out to museums or galleries?” Mills asks the woman.

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “To individuals?”

  “No,” she replies. “Actually, I can’t recall.”

  “Had she discussed the Dali with you lately?” Mills asks.

  “Which one?”

  “Which one? I don’t know the name. Was there more than one?”

  Jacqueline Carmichael narrows her eyes, puts a finger to her lips, thinking. “As a matter of fact, there are three,” she whispers, as if this vault, this chamber, deserves some kind of reverence. “I believe she only kept one in her home. The others are on loan, I think. She treasured them all. But of course, who wouldn’t?”