“I should tell you something—”
“But why the break-in at the patisserie? He owned the building. Maybe to cover his tracks. No pun intended. Marissa said there were footprints on the floor.”
“Kay—”
“He had to leave early that Friday night. He's physically fit. Phil, I didn't tell you about the graduate students that were killed. One student was an expert rock climber. He's talked to me about his rock climbing. Phil, I think it's Ted.”
“Graduate students? Kay—” He placed his hand on my arm and looked at me. I looked at him. His eyes indicated some sort of urgency.
“What, Phil?”
“Remember when I was at Jazz Camp and I saw Al having dinner with someone, talking about John Stewart and Margaret MacAlister, but didn't see who it was? I lied about that.”
“Phil, lying is starting to become a habit with you. Why?”
“To protect you. I didn't think you needed to know. I saw the person Al was with.”
I thought back to Deirdre telling me of overhearing Phil say when I worked the free clinic, “Don't tell Kay anything about the dinner. She doesn't need to know. It could only hurt her.” I felt some relief about that but looked quizzically at Phil. How would knowing this have protected me? It didn't make sense. “Who was it?”
Phil moved his face closer to mine. “You were right.”
Chapter Eighteen
Sunday, November 13
I was expecting Sunday to be a nice relaxing day. Andrew left for home after breakfast, and Will went back to school with his cleaned laundry. When they drove away, I put in a quick call to Thom. We discussed our suspicion about the sixth person involved in the ginseng conspiracy. Thom asked that Phil and I not tell anyone about Ted. “We don't want to alert him,” he said.
As soon as I hung up the telephone, I meant to tell Phil about my conversation with Thom. But my thoughts took a different turn when Phil surprised me with two tickets he had purchased for the Camille Pissarro exhibit at the St. Paul Art Institute scheduled for later in the afternoon. It was the opening weekend, and he knew Pissarro was one of my favorite Impressionist artists.
“What a thoughtful surprise!”
“Kay, I want to apologize for not being here for you. I’ve been so immersed in my classes. I promise things will change.”
I gave him a hug.
* * * *
We drove to St. Paul and parked four blocks away from the museum, lucky to get a spot that close. The parking lot was full for the new exhibit. I was relieved to leave the darkness and conundrums of Sudbury Falls behind, at least for a little while.
On our way, we walked through the park adjacent to the museum. Our scheduled time to view the exhibit wasn't for another hour. On this gorgeous autumn day, many people were out enjoying the park. Most of the leaves had fallen. The warm, forceful, wind twirled them around us as we strolled down the mall. I loved seeing the trees unmasked, their boughs and spidery branches finally without their foliage. As I kicked up the leaves with my feet, making crunching noises, I relived the experience of yesterday, kicking up leaves while we searched for Sherman's recorder. I shuddered for a brief moment. I didn't want to think about that. Our purpose for this outing was to take our minds off all the happenings at Sudbury Falls. Stay in the moment, Kay.
We made our way further into the park and saw an amateur acting troupe giving an impromptu performance over at the Pavilion. They were putting on the classic tale of greed and murder, Macbeth. A shiver ran down my spine as we watched for a few minutes. I had my own tale of greed and murder to not think about.
The park held a beautiful public garden. A large pond with a fountain in the center was its soul. In the summer, spirited children played in the water. In the winter, it served as an ice skating rink. After we passed a charming bronze sculpture of a young boy playing his flute looking out over the pond, we wandered into a maze of yew tree hedges. I reached out for Phil's hand.
“This was such a great idea to come here today. It’s just what I needed to take my mind off of things. Thank you.”
We laughed as we tried to find our way through the maze, our arms entwined, debating which pathway we should take next, ending up most times in dead ends. After a while, still disoriented in the maze and lost in the maze of my own thoughts, I thought of Deirdre. She would have loved exploring the labyrinth of all these “mystical trees.”
After traversing its passages numerous times, we exited the maze and passed another beautiful sculpture of a young dancer putting on her ballet slippers. It reminded me of days of innocence gone by. As a young girl, when your main concern was how to do the next pirouette, dreaming of someday performing the perfect Grande jeté, the last thing on your mind would be murder.
We stood placidly for a few minutes and watched an old fashioned carousel spin laughing children around.
“I’d like to go to the funeral with you tomorrow, Kay. I'm going to take the morning off from class. I know how much Margaret meant to you.”
I gave Phil a quick hug. “That's so sweet of you. Elizabeth and Deirdre are coming along also. I’m happy we can all go together.”
Phil smiled.
“There have been so many funerals in such a short time,” I continued. Dark thoughts swept across my mind, angry thoughts about Sherman, Alicia, and now Margaret. Stay in the moment, Kay.
Phil must have sensed my brooding demeanor and put his arm around my shoulder, pulling me close to him as we walked. His touch always made me feel better. We reached the end of the park, passed a street musician making soulful sounds with his saxophone, and came up to the corner across the street from the Art Institute. Phil put his arm down. Many people were standing waiting for the lights to change as the traffic zoomed by.
I looked up at the gorgeous Beaux-Arts style museum, waiting for the walk light to come on when I felt a firm hand between my shoulder blades. Phil's warm, loving touch. I smiled. We had a completeness in each other. I started to turn toward Phil, but a sharp push threw me off balance toward the street. My arms reflexively went up to grab at the people on either side, but I failed to get a good grasp and fell a short distance from the curb into the street. Cars honked. Brakes screeched. A car swerved. A man standing nearby grabbed me from behind, pulling me back onto the curb.
My arms, legs, and back hurt. My body trembled, my breath was slow to return. I gasped for air.
“She could have been killed!” I heard a woman say.
“Are you all right?” the man who grabbed me asked.
“Kay. Are you okay?” Phil asked. “Did you lose your footing?”
Everyone was looking at me. I straightened up and faced the man. “I'm fine. Just shaken up a bit. Thank you for helping me.”
“All right. Glad to hear it,” he said as he left Phil and me standing at the curb. He and the other people walked across the street toward the museum.
I looked at everyone who passed by, and then looked behind to see if I could recognize anyone—anyone at all—going back into the park. Without thinking, I asked, “Phil, did you see who it was?”
“Who was what?” Phil asked with concern.
“Did you see who pushed me? Did you recognize anyone from Sudbury Falls in the crowd?”
“I didn't see anyone push you. I thought you missed a step and fell.”
“Phil, someone push me off the curb.”
“Are you sure? I was right next to you.”
“You were right next to me,” I said, quietly repeating his words. I should have been looking over my shoulders with everyone these past few days telling me to be careful. But I thought I was safe here away from the madness of Sudbury Falls.
“Do you want to...should we go home?” Phil asked.
“No, let's just sit down in the park a minute. I need to sit down,” I repeated in a softer voice. “I still want to see the Pissarro exhibit. I'm fine. Just a little sore.” My back was killing me, and I had abrasions on the palms of my hands.
“Sho
uld we go somewhere so you can clean up?”
“Thanks. I'll use the restroom in the museum.”
We walked back into the park and sat down on a nearby bench for a few minutes. I rested my head on my arms that were over my knees. I wondered if there would have been a dark car like the one in the alley at Sonnie's flying down the street in front of the museum, ready to hit me if I'd been out in the street further. The thought made my blood run cold.
Things were spinning out of control, and I couldn't stop them. An ominous feeling overcame me and along with it, a flood of uncertainties. The man who came to my rescue...did he look familiar? The woman...had I heard her voice before? Phil...no! Had I recognized that coat on the man who hastened back toward the park? And the saxophone player. He kind of looked like John Stewart with a beard. Had he looked at us a bit too long when we passed him? Phil put his arm around my shoulders. I snapped out of it. “I'm sorry, Kay,” he said as he started to massage my neck. He bent down and kissed the top of my head. I looked up at his ashen face, his concerned eyes fixed on mine.
I glanced past him over to the bronzed ballerina, the age of innocence. Murder, the last thing on one's mind.
We walked back to the corner across from the museum. This time, I stood a couple of feet from the curb until the traffic lights changed. As a calming meditation, I counted the fifty-five steps while I shakily walked up them to the museum entrance, being careful not to trip and hurl backward.
We had just managed to make it in for our allotted time. After using the restroom to wash up, we started at the Pissarro exhibit. The show this afternoon was an aesthetic, as well as a popular, success. The gallery was filled with admirers and art aficionados. As I walked around, I looked not only at his paintings but also at the people viewing them to see if I recognized anyone.
My favorite paintings of Pissarro's were of his peasants and laborers. I was pleased to see a few of those among this collection. A while back I attended a Pissarro exhibit in Milwaukee where they had been conspicuously absent. I remembered from art history that Pissarro, a fervent anarchist, empathized with the laborers and portrayed these people with a sense of respect and dignity. My mind wandered from these peasant paintings, which had a complete absence of any pretense, to the deceit and deception of the charade in Sudbury Falls to wondering who deliberately pushed me off the curb into the oncoming traffic. Stay in the moment, Kay.
Upon finishing the Pissarro exhibit, I wandered into the next room featuring other Impressionist artists, pleased there was less of a crowd to push through. I had no idea where Phil was. My mind started to wander to what Marissa had reported overhearing at the patisserie: What should we do with Kay Driscoll? Was the push between my shoulder blades what Al Stewart, Bill Murphy, and Dr. Anders' had decided on for a solution to their problem? I moved on to an alluring Georges Seurat painting, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, at the far end of the room, borrowed from the Art Institute of Chicago. My entrancement with the piece was broken by loud voices from the next room.
“Look at the beautiful colors in this Water Lilies painting, the interesting optical effects. I love the concept of his capturing a split second on canvas.”
“Particularly the unusual display of light reflecting off water. He didn't think of the objects he painted as a foliage or the rippling water but tried to capture the shapes in front of him and the colors, a blue oblong, a streak of green.”
“That's why you must allow your eye to view the painting as a whole rather than to look at each item in the painting. Feel the overall mood.”
I took my eyes from the Seurat painting to the two older women, one tall and one short, studying Monet’s Water Lilies, trying to outdo each other in their superlatives of his genius and their knowledge of Impressionism. Was I being unfairly cynical? I knew Monet could paint the sound of the water, as I'm sure they did, also, but did they need to tell everyone in attendance?
They moved on to the next painting while my attention went back to admiring the Seurat, thinking about an art class I took in college when I chose to study his technique of painting, using tiny dots to emphasize that light was a vibrant mixture of pure colors. Now I was starting to sound like those women. Like Seurat, Pissarro had also used pointillism.
“Look, the entire surface of this painting glows with sunlight,” said the taller woman.
“It penetrates everywhere, even the shadows,” the shorter woman added.
“The air circulates, the light embraces, caresses, and illuminates forms.” The taller woman's voice went up an octave.
Good thing the taller woman ran out of verbs. Who knows how shrill her voice would have gotten. I shook my head, not believing how intolerant my thoughts had just been, my nerves so frazzled by the events of the past two weeks, the recent threat on my life. Stress was the only explanation I could give.
Someone put their hands on my back. Startled, I nearly jumped out of my skin. My heart started pounding hard. What was the worst that could happen to me here? Be pushed into the painting and have the alarm go off. After thinking about that, I realized the museum probably was the safest place to be. I could move into the restricted area surrounding a painting in a second and have a team of gallery attendants by my side the next.
“Kay, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you.” Phil said in an apprehensive voice. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine. A little jittery.” I looked past him. “Did you enjoy the exhibit? Did you notice anyone from Sudbury Falls?”
Before Phil could answer, an elegant-looking older gentleman with a well-heeled, beautiful young blond on his arm walked by us and said none too quiet, “Pissarro never let his work be defined, my dear.”
“Camille Pissarro established his importance by being engaged with a particular set of visual ideas. He was strongly defined by a set of intellectual positions invoking ideas and philosophical questions in a visual form,” she responded.
My philosophical questions—How could such things go on in a place like Sudbury Falls? How could so many people be involved?—had resulted in visual clues important to solving the case: the toxicology report, the sunglasses, the recorder, the persons Phil saw in the restaurant talking about the murder, and more. Like in a painting, the clues had come together in different shapes and hues to present a whole. A pointillistic answer to a murder!
I looked up at Phil, lifted my eyebrows, my signal that it was time to move on. We wandered through the rest of the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art and decided to leave. The closing time was approaching.
We exited the museum and walked down the fifty-five steps. This time I didn't count them. A storm was brewing. The wind had picked up and turned cold. The sun had gone down below the tops of the buildings. We crossed the street into the park, which had lost its enchantment for me. Glowing street lamps cast shadows on the deserted, curving paths. The aura of dusk would have made the impressionists envious of such fine subject matter. Danger seemed to lurk at every turn. Spooky gnarled trees with tangled branches twisted upward, their projections silhouetting the sky. I saw something move over by a group of trees. Who was in the shadows? A jogger came up from behind us and startled me. My throat constricted. Pure fear overtook me. It crept in my body and coursed through my veins.
I shook it off. I wasn't going to be a victim to fear. I refused to be a victim. I needed to take control of my fear as I had when I confronted Dr. Anders on the Vermilion Pathway a few days ago. I smiled at Phil and put my arm through his. An impenetrable calm came over me, something that even the bleakest of thoughts couldn't shatter.
* * * *
Later in the evening, I sat in the living room reading a cozy mystery. Not James'—I had given up on that. I realized I hadn’t told Phil yet about my conversation with Thom, but then, I heard the music of Santana come on. I felt its beat. I looked up and smiled. Phil knew there was one song in particular I loved and couldn't resist and, as Phil would say, drove me to desire. He would pronounce the word “
desire” with a slow faux accent which had turned into a little quip. He offered me a glass of wine. Behind the offer I could almost sense his lips looking for that faux accent. No need to utter the word. I put my book down and took a sip, looking up at him. He smiled. He took my glass, put it down on the coffee table, and extended his hand out to me. I accepted his hand, and he pulled me up to him.
With an invitation to leave my mood behind, I joined him in a rhythm of romance. We started dancing, doing a salsa. I surrendered to the raw beat and began swaying. I began to think about how everything had started to heat up with the Ball, with Phil being late and my walking there alone. How my life would have been different if he had come home on time that evening and we would have gone to the Halloween Ball together. I made a few missteps, and then Phil did. We laughed. When the music ended, Phil picked up our wine glasses as I turned off the living room light. Santana’s music had done it again. Desire took over my need to tell Phil about my conversation with Thom.
Chapter Nineteen
Monday, November 14
That morning, Deirdre arrived on my front doorstep looking fabulous in an eggplant stretch knit dress with cap sleeves and a straight, fitted skirt. Eggplant was one of those few colors that looked great on everyone. She accented her richly-hued look with black pumps and small hoop gold earrings. Deirdre had obviously chosen new shopping grounds for this outfit. After Phil came downstairs ten minutes later, we all got into his Volkswagen and drove over to Elizabeth's house.
I started to get out of the car to go up to Elizabeth's porch when her front door opened. Elizabeth walked out wearing a tight, black dress and showing more cleavage than would be expected for such an occasion, a big contrast to Deirdre's high scoop neckline. She had on a black, wide brimmed hat with a bit of a veil coming down over her face. Fluffy, black, chandelle feathers adorned the crown. My first thought was that Elizabeth and her hat would never fit in the back seat of Phil's Eos. My second: was Elizabeth really going to wear that into church? Elizabeth looked at me, at Phil's car, and back at me.
The Ginseng Conspiracy (A Kay Driscoll Mystery) Page 23