Murder Actually

by Stephanie McCarthy

  “You’re becoming OC when it comes to this fitness crap. Have you thought about clipping your chocolate intake instead?”

  “I’m not obsessive-compulsive. Besides, the jog wasn’t a guilt workout.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Brenda.

  “I was in serious need of some stress relief after yesterday’s turn of events.”

  “Do you think bringing Treasures of the Maya to the Museum is out of your league?”

  “Uh, yes.”

  “I think you’re right,” said Brenda.

  I deflated like a balloon that had been pin-holed.

  “Let’s be realistic. It’s a huge job.”

  “I know. I know,” I said.

  “And I can’t help out. The Lisbon project’s fucking draining me.” Brenda checked her watch. “Shit. I have to meet with the resident astronomer before someone realizes we closed down our planetarium five years ago, and we no longer need an astronomer on staff.”

  Brenda darted off with the verve of a sprightly young hare while I trundled into the office like an octogenarian on Valium making it to my desk just in time to pick up an incoming phone call.

  “Museum Consulting Services,” I said.

  “Good morning, Kalena.”

  “Stewart?” I was a little puzzled as the phone’s display indicated the call was coming from the Museum’s front desk.”

  “I’m at the main entrance with Carson and the contingent from Hong Kong. They’re a day early, and I’m booked with the Museum’s lawyer, and Carson can’t stay either…I’m counting on you to give them a tour.”

  “Uh, okay.”

  “If you could meet them in the main Rotunda in about ten, Carson will be eternally grateful.”

  “Sure thing,” I said.

  “Most excellent. You can let me know how it goes later. Good luck.”

  I hung up and whimpered as I took another step. How on Earth was I going to navigate the Museum without looking as though I had just had both hips replaced? Some chocolate might diminish the pain, I reasoned most illogically. I ransacked my desk and hit upon the foil package of Thornton’s. There was one last stone-sized piece of the chocolate-covered toffee remaining, and I tossed it into my mouth. As soon as I bit into it, every tooth became embedded in the sugary mass, and my mandibles locked tighter than a shark’s grip on a freshly caught seal. Oh, lord, this candy had better melt before I rendezvoused with the Director.

  I doddered through a long atrium that took me into our Earth Gallery. Tucked beside a colossal reproduction of a volcano, I clocked two silhouettes resembling a giant ruler and an over-sized pear on legs – Veronique and Richard. With a few minutes to spare, I thought I might ask them for further details on the exhibit. But as I shuffled closer and became mindful that my jaws were still clamped shut, I reconsidered and decided to save the conversation for a time when I could actually communicate. Instead of forging towards the pair, I detoured behind the volcano, back around the deep folds of the artfully painted pyramid of light-weight concrete and metal mesh.

  “Peut-être it will be better with Kalena on the project.”

  My ears radared in on Veronique’s voice like a bat that had caught the scrambling of a mouse.

  “You always said she had a tête de linotte,” continued Veronique.

  “How could I ‘always say that’ if I don’t even know what that means?” barked Richard.

  “Sorry, I thought you knew that expression – bird brain. You always said she was a bird brain.”

  “She is. But she’ll be watching me like a hawk, looking for any irregularities. And the whole Museum is already on high alert because that imbecile construction worker decided to decorate his living room with one of our Chinese artifacts. Things are going to be tighter around here than after the last major theft at the Museum.”

  “That was long before you started working here,” said Veronique. “How do you know how things were then?

  “Trust me. I know.”

  I felt as though the breath had been vacuum-sucked from my lungs. Were they talking about the opal theft? Unexpectedly one of my thighs cramped, and I inadvertently slid my foot forward, stubbing the point of my shoe on a section of the artificial lava flow.

  “What was that?” said Richard in a hushed tone.

  “Je ne sais pas.”

  “Welcome to the Canadian National Museum’s Dynamic Earth Gallery…” suddenly boomed a familiar voice from the mini-theatre located within the volcano.”

  “Damn that ridiculous auto-timer,” said Richard. “I thought it was reset to begin after the Museum opens.”

  “The beginnings of the planet date back millions of years…” resumed the video.

  “Let’s get out of here,” said Richard. “And contact the AV technicians immediately and have them correct that timer. It’s a complete waste of energy.”

  “Oui, oui, oui.”

  Relief flooded my body. Who knew that one day I would be saved by Christopher Plummer? He still made me weak-kneed every time I watched The Sound of Music. The voice-over narrative from the volcano’s theatre continued to chronicle the formation of the planet and when the sound of Richard’s and Veronique’s footsteps waned in the distance, I boogied down the narrow atrium. Up ahead I spotted Carson surrounded by a small contingent of people.

  “We have more than ten million objects in our collections,” I could hear Carson say as I approached the guests from Hong Kong. He noticed me and motioned to me to move closer. “Isn’t that right, Kalena?”

  “Mm-huh,” I mumbled. Are you kidding me? The toffee had still not softened enough for me to speak. Carson introduced me to the director of the Hong Kong Museum of Natural History and, in turn, to the rest of his courteous associates.

  “Our colleagues from Hong Kong are very interested in our science collections and, in particular, the gem rooms.” Carson articulated every word very slowly.

  “O–” I said. The toffee was finally liquefying, and I succeeded in making a small round shape with my mouth.

  “After you’ve toured the gem rooms, please escort the group to Mineralogy. I can meet them there, and we’ll proceed to lunch.”

  “Shertainly, shir. Leave it with me.” Carson was a tad hard of hearing and too vain to wear an aid, so I prayed he hadn’t detected the toffee slur.

  Like a well-trained Border Collie, Carson herded the group into the main hall. As they stood mesmerized by the monumental cases filled with some of the Museum’s most magnificent treasures, Carson took me aside and murmured, “They’re considering hiring us to consult on their new gem gallery. So, impress, impress.”

  “I’ll do my best to dazzle, sir.” The toffee garble had dissipated just in time.

  “Good, good…You know, I’d never noticed you walked with such a pronounced turnout. You must have studied ballet in your youth.”

  “Uh, yes, sir.” Hip hop and rock jazz were more like it, but that was in recent years, and I was not about to confess that my penguin stance was the consequence of overly zealous exercise.

  “Well, you and Richard have something in common then,” Carson said.

  “Richard Pritchard?”

  “He’s still very active in promoting the National Ballet.”

  “Richard Pritchard?” An image of the butterball in spandex and on point gave me the heebee jeebees.

  “I’ll catch up with you later.” Carson bowed his head and departed. His salt-and-peppered hair and grey worsted suit dissolved into the stone of the Museum’s walls and floors.

  I wobbled in front of the group and guided them towards our acclaimed gem rooms which, although a fraction of the size of the Smithsonian, were still quite magnificent.

  As we slowly journeyed in the direction of the rooms designed to simulate vaults, the director of the Hong Kong Museum inched towards me and spoke with a muzzled tone,
“We are most grateful, Mrs. Kalena, especially considering the history between our museums.”

  “History?” What the hell was he talking about?

  “I assure you our museum’s purchase of your opals occurred only after authorities cleared all matters. Everything was, as you say here, on the up-and-up.”

  “I’m sure it was.” ‘Clueless’ was branded on my forehead.

  “But let us forget about these unfortunate events and move forward.”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “We’re very enthusiastic about working with your museum and moving forward.”

  Chapter Three

  Had anyone seen me descend into the chair as though a crane were docking a crate of volatile explosives, one would have surmised I was suffering from a debilitating case of hemorrhoids. Fact was that my quadriceps were still flaming. But once seated, relief was achieved, and I began to flip through the binder of newspaper clippings.

  Tucked away in a quiet recess of the Museum’s library I scrutinized the one and only article I had found concerning the opal theft. I would have thought this material would long have been digitized or at least microfiched. Unfortunately, I was stuck with a jaundiced piece of newspaper upon which someone must have spilled a cup of coffee. Whole sections of the copy were illegible and only a few discernible words remained of the photo caption beneath the snap of a spectacled man-boy sporting a tie secured so tightly, his neck looked like an upside down muffin top. The caption read “…the Museum’s chief administrator holds uncut opal left by thief… were stolen from show case at…”

  I had seen the face in the picture somewhere before. Was this person still employed by the Museum? I needed one of those computer graphic programs that could age a person and predict what they might look like thirty years later.

  From the amount of decipherable text in the story, I was able to establish the theft had occurred sometime between late January 7 and early January 8, 1981. A large number of the staff had been preoccupied mounting an exhibition on Italian maiolica, brightly coloured tin-glazed pottery dating from the Renaissance. At the same time, the Museum had recently laid off some of its security staff. The case that held the gems had been disarmed by the thief, and because the area was being patrolled only every two hours, the disappearance went unnoticed for several hours. The investigators were most puzzled at the thief’s choice to abscond solely with the opals and to leave behind gems of significantly greater value. “Presumably, he took only his personal preferences,” read the article.

  Over seventy opals were stolen from a collection that was acquired in the late 1940s. Oh, now this was interesting – “The Museum stood to recoup a substantial amount of money if the opals weren’t recovered.” I scanned further down the page – no reference to an inside job. Surely, they must have considered…wait, what was this? The police found some kind of mark. I squinted as though doing so would help me see through the darkest part of the coffee stain. Some kind of mark that might have been the brand of…what? Damn, I couldn’t make out this section of the article.

  “Excuse me.”

  My heart felt as though it had been ripped out of my body by an organ snatcher who had failed to anesthetize his victim. “Walter! For crying out loud, you scared me out of my skin.”

  The clichéd meek librarian had apologies written all over his face. “I was trying to be unobtrusive.”

  “Good job.” With my heart still pounding as if being beaten by a Japanese Kodo drummer, I slunk back into my chair copping a glimpse of Walter’s soft-soled Wallabees. Gag. ‘Ugliest shoes in the world…as if stitched together by elves,’ I remembered once having read in a fashion blog ranting about the revival of hideous footwear including Crocs and Chung Shi sandals.

  Walter dipped his gaze to the open binder on my desk, and I thwacked the cover shut with a hypersonic force.

  “I see you’re doing some kind of research.” Walter removed his pop-bottle-bottomed glasses and cleaned them with his jacket lining.

  I was blindsided by the Superman features lurking behind the Clark Kent façade. “I’m…I’m looking at press on some recent blockbuster exhibitions.”

  “But those binders contain articles from the eighties. There are more recent clippings–”

  “It’s okay. I have to get back to the office.” I started to shuffle the papers on the desk, but stared with the intensity of a cobra at Walter. He had returned his magnifiers back to his face. “Have you considered contacts or laser surgery?” I said.

  Walter suddenly looked as though he had been told to put his dog down. “I’m in that infinitesimal percentile that is unable to wear ocular corrective lenses or undergo surgery to the cornea.”

  “Oh, sorry. I was just curious. Anyway, according to GQ, geek chic is in again.” I forced a dippy smile.

  “What are you implying?” Walter slipped his glasses off again and inspected them.

  “Nothing. They’re very… attractive.” The optician who recommended those glasses must have been sight-challenged himself.

  “I purchased them at Honest Ed’s.”

  “I see.”

  “I sense you are not impressed.”

  “Oh, but I am.” Who buys glasses from the city’s lamest bargain warehouse store?

  “Your charming colleague had a parallel reaction to yours.”

  “Stewart?” I said.

  “Brenda.”

  Brenda, charming? She did have an uncanny ability to turn off the trailer-trash mouth and substitute it with Havergal College polish in an instant. Still, charming wasn’t an adjective any other staff would use to characterize Brenda.

  “And she can be quite a spitfire.”

  Too much information. “I really do have to go.”

  “Oh, by the way, thank you for returning The Art Paper, but it’s a bit redundant now. The new issue has arrived.” Walter pulled out a small, vellum-like parcel from his jacket pocket.

  “Shut up!” I screamed. Walter looked petrified. “It’s an expression, you know, like ‘holy cow’.”

  “Unusual. I must check the origin of the phrase.”

  “May I take the new issue?”

  “I’m afraid that is not possible. I peruse it on the Director’s behalf before it goes on the shelf – in case the Museum has been mentioned.” Walter eyeballed his watch. “Perhaps…I could allow you to browse the issue until closing.”

  “I’ll put these clippings back on the shelf for now.” I picked up the binder exposing a gargantuan Toblerone chocolate bar underneath. Walter transfixed his gaze on a sign attached to a nearby pillar – ‘No food or drink permitted in the library.’ I pitched the mega-chocolate bar into my handbag, pulled out a packet of wet wipes, gave my fingers a dab and flung an irreverent smile at Walter.

  The librarian handed The Art Paper to me like a relay runner reluctant to pass on the baton and then evanesced into the shadows of the library without even a nod. What a fruitcake. Thank heaven I had not accepted that library science scholarship when I was choosing my career path; otherwise, I might be wearing Wallabies and lurking in library stacks, desperately seeking human contact. The horror! The horror!

  * * * * *

  As soon as Walter was out of range, I whipped out the Toblerone. It was a box of One by One, containing five different flavours of chocolate, each individually wrapped in colour-coded metallic foil. I decided to sample the ‘White One.’ Although white chocolate contains no cocoa mass and technically is not chocolate there was nothing as delectable as a confection made with twenty percent cocoa butter. The white mountain-peak-shaped chocolate tickled my taste buds to the max.

  I turned my attention to The Art Paper. It always transported me into the glitzy world of jet-setting art lovers and aficionados. With a general lean towards the sensational, this issue was no exception. ‘Museums Beware: Il Gattopardo is on the Hunt Again,’ the front-page headline read.
Exhilaration surged through my body, but I wasn’t sure whether the white chocolate or the juicy story was the source of my buzz. I read on as if soaking up a piece on the latest celebrity breakup.

  ‘One of Europe’s most infamous art thieves is on the prowl again, claims a confidential source.

  Though Interpol has failed to capture one of the most successful criminals of the later twentieth century, evidence suggests that Il Gattopardo has come out of hiding.

  Key pieces from several major private collections in Paris have gone missing and the only clue left behind in each robbery was Il Gattopardo’s classic signature, a set of leopard-like scratches on a nearby wall.

  Police in France, Germany and Italy have been fumbling, à la Inspector Clouseau, in search of this elusive real-life Pink Panther. Our source suggests that Il Gattopardo may be heading to North America to mark new territory.’

  It was hard to believe such characters existed in reality. My only exposure to such smooth operators was to the likes of Cary Grant’s cunning character in Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief. Cary Grant – yum. There were no real modern-day equivalents in Hollywood these days. I continued skimming through the remainder of The Art Paper and got side-tracked by the pieces on high society balls and fundraisers and the photos of socialites wearing McQueen and Galliano.

  As I neared the end of the periodical, a small headline caught my attention – ‘Treasures of the Maya Lands in Canada.’ Shocked, I continued reading.

  ‘The San Francisco Museum of Art and Science need look no further for a new venue for its spectacular traveling exhibit. Following on the heels of Cincinnati’s sudden withdrawal from the tour, Toronto’s Canadian National Museum has stepped in as the new home for the blockbuster show…’

  Considering The Art Paper’s lead time must be weeks ahead of its distribution date, Richard was the only person who could have disclosed the story to the rag. He had clearly been scheming on bringing the exhibit to Toronto for some time. But this kind of media leak before the board had even approved accepting the blockbuster could get Richard into deep water. Why would he risk it?