Murder at the Mendel

by Gail Bowen

  The banners for Sally’s show were still up at the gallery. A solitary picket was out front. The others had drifted away during the holidays, but this one was vigilant. Sally called him the Righteous Protester, and every day he had a new sign. Today’s said, “Whatsoever a Man Soweth That Shall He Also Reap.”

  I waved to him as I ran up the steps to the gallery, but he didn’t wave back. I waited five minutes in the cold before anyone came in answer to the security buzzer. The guard who finally opened the door was young enough to be my son. On the breast pocket of his uniform, his name was embroidered: Kyle. He seemed surprised to see me. Clea Poole, he said, had not left a message that I was to be admitted; if I insisted on coming in and looking for her, he would have to accompany me.

  As we walked down the cool, quiet corridor toward the education gallery, I was furious. In all likelihood, Clea was safe at home in bed. To make matters worse, Kyle was dogging me in a way that suggested that if he left me alone, I would do unspeakable damage.

  Outside the education gallery, he suddenly became human. As he pulled open the door, he grinned and made a sweeping gesture of presentation.

  “Here we are. Hang on to your hat.”

  The room we were in was large and, except for one corner, dimly lit. In the area of full light, a naked woman lay on an operating table. Clea Poole was standing over her, drawing a scalpel carefully along the lower part of the woman’s stomach. When Kyle called her name, Clea looked up.

  “You can go,” she said to Kyle. “Joanne is here to talk to me.”

  “Go ahead and look,” Kyle said. “She won’t bite.”

  The figure on the operating table seemed to be made of some sort of soft plastic. She was lifelike, but if she had had a life, it had been a hard one. She was covered with neatly stitched surgical incisions. There wasn’t much of her that hadn’t been cut open and sewn up: her eyelids, the hairline between her ear and her temple, her nose, her jawline, her breasts, the sides of her thighs.

  “Good Lord,” I said, “what’s it supposed to be?”

  “She’s a scalpel junkie,” Clea said. “An emblem of how society obsesses women with body image.”

  A half-moon line on the figure’s lower stomach gaped open, and Clea removed a piece of foam and stuck it absent-mindedly in the back pocket of her jeans.

  “She’s part of a triptych,” Clea said, although I hadn’t asked. “It’s an installation by an artist Izaak Levin is interested in. I’m just doing menial work, carrying out the artist’s plans.” She laughed. “No one better qualified than me for that. The junkie will be suspended from the ceiling. That,” she said, pointing to a double bed in the corner, “will be brought over and put underneath her.”

  Half the bed was traditionally bridal, soft-looking, inviting, covered with a satiny white duvet. At the head of that part of the bed was a pillow embroidered “His.” The other half of the bed was bare, just a frame covered with the kind of barbed wire used in electric fences to keep cattle confined. In the half light of the gallery, the wire hummed and sparked blue. The pillow on that side of the bed said “Hers.”

  “The camera will be moved over, too,” Clea said, pointing to the ceiling where, unheeded, a video camera whirred. “They’re going to tape people’s reactions to the junkie. The third part of the concept is a coffin. They’re delivering it at the end of the week.”

  Clea’s voice was curiously detached, the voice of a person who’d lost interest in her own life. Across the room the red light of the emergency exit glowed invitingly.

  “ ‘Skin-deep,’ that’s the name of the installation,” she said, walking back to the operating table. She picked up a darning needle and threaded it expertly with catgut. “They tell us all we’re good for is being caretakers of our surfaces. We’ve lost all the ground we gained in the seventies, you know. We’ve been battered, ghettoized by the sexual hierarchy.”

  She began stitching the incision on the woman’s stomach. She sewed mechanically and well, and as she sewed she talked listlessly about women and art and Sally.

  “History is repeating itself,” she said. “We have to reclaim our own terrain. It’s important that she’s with other women now. Not women like you. She’s a catalyst. She used to know what the male power machine did to women. She knew we had to get past male critics and dealers and collectors and create a nonjudgemental environment where women could show their work. She was wearing a T-shirt the first time I saw her. She was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen. The womanswork gallery was her idea. China painting, performance art, soft sculpture, murals, needlework, body art – we did it all. It was the best time of my life. The only time of my life. I thought it meant the same thing to her, but it didn’t. ‘Time to move along,’ that’s what she says. It’s my life, but it’s just a blip on the screen for her, like neo-expressionism or post mod. Time to move along. Time to let go.” When she stopped sewing and looked at me, her eyes were filled with tears. “She knows I can’t let go. Letting go is for people who know they won’t fall.”

  “Clea, how can I help?” I asked. “What do you expect me to do?”

  “What do I expect you to do?” she repeated. “I expect you to stop turning her against me. I’ve thought about this, Joanne. It’s no coincidence that Sally decided to sell our gallery shortly after you came back on the scene. You’re one of those women who’s been co-opted by the system. You don’t care about other women.”

  I tried to keep the anger out of my voice. “Clea,” I said, “that is so untrue and so unfair. I’ve never tried to undermine your relationship with Sally.”

  She finished sewing the incision, knotted the thread and snipped the catgut with her scalpel.

  “I don’t believe you,” she said flatly. “If I were you, I’d get out of here now, Joanne. You’re making things worse. Cut your losses. Isn’t that what people like you do when you’re in a no-win situation?” The tears were streaming down her face, but she didn’t seem to notice them. “Is loss-cutting a skill you’re born with?” she asked, her voice thick with pain. “I need to know this, Joanne. Is it too late for me to learn how to cut my losses? Have I missed the deadline?”

  I stepped toward her, but she raised her hand as if to ward off a blow.

  There was nothing I could do. “Good-bye, Clea,” I said. “Get some help. Please, for all our sakes, get some help.”

  At the door, I turned and looked. Clea was standing behind her operating table watching me with dead eyes. In her hand, the scalpel glinted lethal and bright.

  It was good to step outside into the sunshine of an ordinary day. It was even a relief to see the Righteous Protester making his lonely rounds. Bizarre as he was, he at least seemed connected to a recognizable world.

  As I stood looking at the deserted street in front of the gallery, I started to shake. The encounter with Clea had disturbed me more than I realized. I didn’t make a conscious decision to cross Spadina Crescent and walk up the block to Stuart Lachlan’s house. Reflexively, I did what I had done a thousand times when life overwhelmed me. I went to Nina.

  She came to the door herself. As always, she was immaculate. Her dark hair was brushed into a smooth page boy, her makeup was fresh, and she was wearing a black knit skirt, a white silk blouse and an elegant cardigan, black with a pattern of stylized Siamese cats worked in white.

  When she saw me, her face was radiant. “Oh, Jo, come in out of the cold and visit. This is the best surprise, especially because I have a surprise for you, too. Let me take your coat and then we’ll go and see an old friend.”

  I followed her into the living room. “Now, look,” she said. “How’s this for bringing back the memories?”

  In front of her was the drop-leaf desk she’d had in the sitting room of her Toronto house. She was right. It did bring back memories.

  They weren’t all pleasant. The desk was Chinese Chippendale, lacquered black with gilt trim. Nina used to keep a lacquerware water jar on it. Painted fish swam on that jar – perfect
, serene in their ordered, watery world. When my mother was at her worst, I would come to Nina and she would tell me to sit at that desk and try to close out everything but the smooth passage of the bright fish as they swam around and around the jar. It always worked. That desk had been my refuge, and Nina had been my rock. None of my mother’s dark hints about Nina’s character or my blindness to her faults could erode that.

  Behind me, Nina, her voice vibrant and affectionate, said, “We’ve weathered a lot of storms at this desk, haven’t we, Jo? I’m leaving it to you in my will.”

  I felt a chill. I put my arm around her shoulders and breathed in the familiar fragrance of her perfume.

  “Well, when you leave, I’m going, too. My world would be a desolate place without you.”

  She laughed. “Don’t break out the crepe, yet. I’m not planning to leave the party for a long time.”

  We brought coffee and some still-warm banana bread into the living room and sat at a small table near the front window. There was a bouquet of white tulips on the table, and the sun bathed them in wintery light. This bright and civilized room seemed light-years removed from Clea Poole’s dark and pain-filled world, but it was of Clea we talked as the good smells of coffee and fresh baking surrounded us and the crystal purity of one of the Brandenburg Concertos floated in from another room.

  I told Nina everything, and as I talked I realized how much Clea had scared me. “She’s in the middle of a terrible breakdown,” I said, “and she’s unreachable. I think all the things she does – phoning Sally fifty times a night, stalking us with her camera, working on that extraordinary exhibition – I think all those things seem logical to her, and what terrifies me is that I don’t know what might seem logical to her next. I think she’s reached the point where she’s capable of anything. She’s even made some oblique threats to me.”

  Nina frowned. “Jo, I’ll give you the same advice someone should give Sally. Stay away from Clea Poole. Stuart’s had some dealings with her in the past, and he thinks she could be violent. If she sees you as a rival, God knows what she’ll do. Sally’s used to dealing with people like that, but you’re not. Be careful, Jo. Please, be careful.”

  “Nina’s right,” said a man’s voice behind us. “I can attest to the fact that Clea Poole is a nasty enemy.” I looked up and there was Stuart Lachlan. I wondered how long he’d been standing there. I had expected the prospect of Taylor’s leaving to devastate him, but he looked fine. He was wearing a black and white pullover that was obviously the masculine version of the cardigan Nina was wearing, and as he bent to embrace me, I thought I smelled the kind of lemony fragrance she liked on him. She was having an influence.

  He sat down beside her on the love seat and looked at me earnestly. “I’m serious, Jo. When Sally and I were first married, Clea did some amazing things.”

  “Sally told me about the hair incident.”

  He winced. “You know, then. Clea’s been better for so long, I guess we all thought that breakdown was an isolated thing. In fact, I arranged for her to do that work on the installation at the gallery. Usually a student would do that, but Clea seemed desperate for diversion.”

  “Stu, I just came from the Mendel, and Clea didn’t look diverted to me. She looked like somebody who shouldn’t be spending her days and nights working with surgical instruments.”

  Nina shuddered. “I’m sure Stuart will look in first thing tomorrow, Jo. Now could we please talk about something pleasant? I don’t think we’ve even said Happy New Year to one another.”

  I smiled. “Happy New Year – I hope it’s a wonderful year for you both. You deserve it. Stu, that was such a generous arrangement about Taylor that you worked out with Sally. And, Nina, you deserve praise, too. I know how much being with Taylor day to day means to you. Not many people could have been so selfless.”

  They looked at one another quickly, then Nina reached across the table and patted my hand. “Jo, if it were anyone but you, we’d take the praise and run, but you deserve the truth. Sally will never take Taylor. Stuart and I feel the idea of being a mother and mentor is just a flirtation for her. She’s between partners, and for Sally that always means a drop in creative energy. As soon as there’s a new relationship, she’ll be back painting fifteen hours a day, and she’ll forget all about her daughter.” Nina leaned forward and touched the petals of the flowers in front of her. “Mark my words, when the tulips bloom in the flower beds out front, Taylor will still be in this house.”

  In the background the Brandenburg soared. Stu and Nina sat side by side, quietly waiting for me to say something. I hadn’t noticed until that moment how much they were alike physically: the same dark hair, the same fine features, the same intensity as they waited for reassurance.

  I couldn’t give it to them. “There’s nothing in the world I wouldn’t do for you, Nina. And, Stu, you know I want you to be happy, but I think you’re wrong about this. Sally is very serious about having Taylor live with her. She told me last night she’s been looking for a house in Vancouver – something near a good school for Taylor. As painful as it is, I think you have to be realistic. Sally plans to take her daughter with her in February.”

  They looked quickly at each other, but neither said anything. When I stood up to leave, they both followed me to the hall. It wasn’t until Stuart was helping me on with my parka that he finally spoke.

  “She may not have that chance, you know. Events sometimes intervene.”

  I kissed Nina on the cheek and grasped Stu’s hand. “Don’t count on it, Stu, just please don’t count on it.”

  CHAPTER

  6

  I slept for a couple of hours when I got home, and by the time I finished lunch, I felt ready to start the new year. I spent the afternoon curled up by the fireplace reading an exposé of our current prime minister by his ex-chef. When I was finished, I was glad I did my own cooking. Around four, Mieka and Greg arrived with the news that there was a blizzard on the way, and the RCMP were telling everybody to stay off the roads. By the time Peter brought Christy over, the snow had started, the wind had picked up, and I sent Angus down to wash another load of sheets in case everyone stayed the night.

  Dinner was an easy, happy meal, and afterwards it was good to sit in the candlelight, finishing off the Beaujolais and watching the storm gathering power outside. Safe. We were safe at home. We had finished cleaning up and the kids had gone downstairs to watch the last of the Bowl games when the phone rang.

  At first I didn’t recognize the voice.

  “Jo, I’m in trouble. Big trouble. I just got to the gallery and …”

  I could hear sirens. They were so faint I couldn’t tell, at first, if they were coming from the TV downstairs or the phone. The doubt didn’t linger.

  “Oh, God, the cops are here,” she said. “I’m just going to stick where I am, Jo, at the Mendel. I already said that, didn’t I? Jo, she’s dead. Clea’s dead.”

  “Do you have a lawyer, Sally? Someone I can call?” On the other end of the line there was silence and then a click as the receiver was replaced.

  My parka and boots were by the kitchen door. I started down to the family room to tell the kids where I was going, then changed my mind. I didn’t have time for explanations. I left a note on the table, picked up my car keys and headed for the garage. As I walked through the breezeway, I heard the crowd in Pasadena roar. It sounded like a touchdown.

  When I pulled the Volvo out of the driveway, I leaned forward automatically to turn on the radio. Pete had left it tuned to a soft rock station, and a woman named Brie, who sounded too young to be out after dark, was saying her station was going to get us through the blizzard by playing the songs of summer. As I pulled onto Clarence Avenue, the snow had become a dense and dizzying vortex that looked capable of sucking me through the windshield, and Eddie Cochran was singing that there ain’t no cure for the summertime blues.

  There was also no visibility. I inched along using the streetlights as reference points until I ca
me to the intersection of Clarence and College, just before the University Bridge. As I pulled onto the bridge, Brie said the Lovin’ Spoonful were going to do their classic “Summer in the City”; a hundred feet beneath me was the South Saskatchewan River, killingly cold but frozen only in parts because of the runoff from the power station. To my right, the guardrails that kept me from plunging over the top were an incandescent fuzz, but I couldn’t see in front of me – in fact, I didn’t know where in front of me was. Suddenly, I became convinced that I’d drifted out of my lane. I turned off the radio and rolled down my window so I could hear any car that might be about to drive head-on into mine. I could hear the wind keening along the river, but there were no sounds of cars. “I’m the only car on the bridge,” I said aloud. That should have made me feel better, but it didn’t.

  When I turned off the bridge onto Spadina Crescent I could see the Mendel’s orange security lights. The word security had never seemed sweeter or more ironic. The front of the gallery was brightly lit. Sally’s Porsche was there. So was a police car, and two more were just pulling up. I could see an officer sealing off the entrance to the gallery with tape. It didn’t seem likely he was going to invite me in.

  Frustrated, I rested my forehead against the steering wheel. I thought of Sally surrounded by police in that room with the scalpel junkie and the electric bed. And then I thought of the red glow of the exit sign over the emergency door in the education gallery. They might not have blocked that door off yet. It was certainly worth a shot. I drove past the gallery and parked on the side street north of the grounds. I covered my face with a scarf and started off across the lawn to the gallery. It was slow going. My legs ached from the effort of plodding through the heavy snow, but I held an image of Sally in my mind and kept trudging. Finally I could see the outline of the door to the education gallery, and I began to run toward it.