The Emily Taylor Mystery Bundle

by Catherine Astolfo

"Where is my husband now?" she asked, deliberately using the possessive label.

  Wendy looked into Emily's eyes, mascara blatantly mashed against her cheeks, highlighting her grief.

  An art form within itself, Emily thought, ensuring everyone would know just how upset Ms. Collins was.

  "The police officer took him over to the studio."

  "Okay, thanks, Wendy."

  "Are you going over there too? Will you make sure you come back and let me know if something has happened to Linda? I just know something horrible has happened. I'm the one who called her parents when she didn't come home last night."

  Tears rolled down Wendy's cheeks.

  Emily instantly felt guilty again. The girl was probably truly distraught over her friend. Emily also realized no one else knew there was a body in Will's studio—a body that was very likely Linda Courtnell's.

  "I'll come back, I promise," she told Wendy, as kindly as she could manage. "If I know anything, I'll tell you."

  Wendy smiled, a smile that wiped away any empathy Emily had felt for the girl. She looked as though she had just won a prize.

  "Thank you so much, Mrs. Thompson."

  The girl fairly danced back to her desk, probably relishing the gossip she would soon have to share with everyone else. Savoring, enjoying the drama.

  With the sun high overhead, the birds slicing through the sky and squawking above the waterway, Emily walked rapidly toward the building that housed Bill's studio.

  All around her, life surged and flourished in the unusually clear, warm air. Emily felt as though she alone could see the fog—the mist of uncertainty, the terrible intuition that something was horribly, mockingly, out of kilter.

  When she saw the yellow tape and the burly, familiar police officer stationed outside the building, she began to run.

  Constable Haynes actually smiled at her as she arrived, out of breath, in front of him. The smile transformed his face from attractive to very handsome and made him look like an old friend. His startling blue eyes were suffused with concern.

  "Mrs. Thompson," he greeted her. "I guess you were worried about your husband."

  Emily could only nod, feeling suddenly dizzy and nauseous. A blockage had lodged in her stomach and throat. Fear and distress clogged her mind.

  "He's in the studio with our Homicide Detective. Just has to see if anything has been stolen."

  He seemed to notice her pale countenance and pointed to a huge, flat piece of concrete bathed in the gentle sunlight.

  "Why don't you sit here, Mrs. Thompson? I'm sure they'll be out soon. It's still a crime scene, you know, so I can't let you go up there."

  Easy, friendly, as though they were discussing something as ordinary as weather.

  Emily, gratefully seated on the flat base, simply nodded again. Haynes pulled something from a pack stashed behind a pole. He handed her a bottle of water, which Emily took and drank with great relish.

  When she was finished, she was able to speak once more, but the question that came out astonished her.

  "Are you married?"

  The policeman smiled again.

  "Yes, I am. Joan and I have been married a long time. How about you and the Professor?"

  "We've been married for five years. Do you have any children?"

  "Yes, we have two daughters. Grown up now, I'm afraid. How about you?"

  His tone was kind, inviting.

  For the second time that day, Emily found herself revealing private thoughts. This man was a complete stranger, yet her befuddled, emotional state unlocked her tongue in a way that was not normal for her.

  "I'm pregnant," she told him. "We're going to have our baby in April. Well, around April anyway. I haven't been given the exact date yet. The doctor said she'll be able to tell me more next month."

  "Congratulations," he said at once.

  Emily noticed the spark in his eyes had deepened, making the colour a very dark blue.

  "I'll bet the Professor is so happy!"

  "He wasn't at first," Emily admitted. "But he is now. It's just that we're really starting out and we didn't actually plan this pregnancy…"

  He was alert now, like a cat sensing movement in the grass.

  Emily could almost smell his eagerness. She immediately stopped speaking, the sun on her head like a warm hat, a surreal feeling surging through her.

  She suddenly imagined a dead body in Will's studio. Beaten? Bloodied? Raped? She couldn't stop herself. She leaned over and vomited on the ground, the smell and taste filling her with disgust and shame.

  Constable Haynes helped her to her feet when she had finished, moving her smoothly onto a concrete slab in the shade. Then as if he had been expecting this event, he once again reached into his sack. Handing her a small packet of tissue, he kicked dirt over the vomit.

  An awkward, stifled silence fell between them. Tears flowed silently down Emily's cheeks. She didn't bother to try and staunch them.

  Charlie stood with his back to her, respecting her privacy, staring out into the sun.

  Just as Emily thought she couldn't stand the wait any longer, the sound of feet on the stairs rang out through the empty building. Emily jumped up as Will's tall, lanky figure appeared at the bottom of the steps. She ignored the other man, another male of huge proportions, and ran straight into her husband's arms.

  Will was obviously startled to see her, even recoiling a little as she embraced him.

  Emily, in her distraught state, barely registered the reaction. Constable Haynes, however, took careful note.

  "Emily, what are you doing here?" Bill asked quietly, his body stiff and almost embarrassed.

  "When Constable Haynes told us what happened, Dennis let me go home. Since I had the car this morning, I came to get you."

  It was a vacuous comment. Will always took the city bus and the Aqua Bus to work and back. Emily always took their old car.

  Her husband nodded as though she'd said something informative, although his demeanour continued to be stiff and distant.

  Emily drew back a little and looked at the other policeman.

  He was also quite tall, though he didn't quite reach the six foot two that Will did. With his stringy red hair and very long nose, he had a comical appearance, though his beady eyes were not at all filled with humour.

  Tom held out his hand.

  "Mrs. Thompson, I'm Detective Tom Fairburn."

  As they shook, he directed his gaze straight into hers, warmth and support emanating from his look.

  "I'm sorry you had to be dragged into this terrible tragedy."

  Emily was shaken once again. She slipped her arm through Will's.

  "What happened? Is it Linda Courtnell?"

  Tom tilted his head, surprised.

  "Why do you ask that?"

  He glanced suspiciously at Charlie.

  "Wendy Collins mentioned Linda has been missing since last night and when Constable Haynes told me a body had been found in Will's studio, I just assumed…"

  "Well, I'm afraid you are correct, Mrs. Thompson. Linda Courtnell was found murdered in your husband's studio."

  Tom pronounced each syllable slowly, as though for effect, or else to cushion the shock. Emily wasn't sure which.

  "Of course we had to get your husband to check if anything was missing."

  "But nothing is," Will inserted quickly, shock and bewilderment tingeing his voice.

  "I don't understand it," Emily said. "How could this have happened? You were here earlier yesterday, Bill. And Linda wasn't around then. How did she get in?"

  The silence should have told Emily her chatter was not only naive, but was being scrutinized, evaluated.

  Looking back years later, the older, wiser woman she became could barely recognize the immature, inexperienced girl she had been. Innocence can mimic stupidity, like a person who can barely speak the same language may falsely appear simple.

  "Actually, she was here yesterday, Em," Bill said quietly, reluctantly. "As I told the Detective, Linda d
ropped by while I was working last evening. I was doing the painting of our island in Langford. Linda saw the light, I guess, and came in for a chat. She was out in one of the restaurants with some friends. She didn't stay very long."

  A chill ran through Emily. Will hadn't mentioned Linda being in the studio. But then, they had barely spoken.

  She thought about lying, saying oh yes of course I'd forgotten you mentioned her, but the puzzlement had already crossed her face—and she knew that both officers had noticed.

  "But how did she get back in after you left?" Emily asked.

  In the silence, she wished she could have bitten back the words.

  Constable Haynes answered in a cool, patient tone.

  "That's something we're investigating, Mrs. Thompson. The door could have been left unlocked, or perhaps Linda stole a spare key. We'll find out."

  Emily took comfort in his last sentence. She thought of it as a promise the truth would be discovered quickly.

  "Can I leave now?" Bill asked.

  His submissive tone startled his wife.

  Detective Fairburn patted him heartily on the back.

  "Of course, Professor. I know this has been a shock to you. We've got your address should anything come up. I will have to get you to sign a statement that the studio wasn't robbed, and that you were home last night, but we can do that tomorrow if you like."

  Bill hesitated. "Tomorrow…could I come down this afternoon instead?"

  The policeman smiled, as though he were pleased at an ingenious suggestion.

  "Absolutely! I'm sure you don't want to miss any more classes."

  "That's what I was thinking," Bill answered.

  He turned to Emily. "Do you want me to take you home first, honey?"

  "I'm on my way home right now," Constable Haynes offered. "I'll drop your wife off, then you'll have your own car. Plus, if you don't mind, we do have a couple of questions for you, too, Mrs. Thompson."

  Hesitating, her heart skipping in her chest and echoing in her ears, Emily looked to Bill for direction. He gave her a slight nod, his eyes pleading, and she thought she understood.

  She allowed Constable Haynes to fold her into his vehicle, thinking incongruously that she had never had a ride in a police car.

  "Mrs. Thompson," the man said quietly, as he expertly guided the car over the bridge, the cool sun sparkling on the creek below them.

  "We have to ask these questions, you understand. I mean, the murder did take place in your husband's studio, so unfortunately you are both drawn into the tragedy. It happens sometimes to the best of people."

  Although bad things happen to good people, Emily was having trouble adjusting to the enormity of this event. A murder among her husband's tranquil, colour-filled artistry. She said nothing, simply watched the buildings flip past, thinking how odd everything looked completely normal.

  "You told me your husband was home with you last night. But just now, you mentioned he was at the studio earlier in the day. What time did your husband get home?"

  Emily remembered the heat of their lovemaking in the middle of the cool, dark night. Words had not seemed important. Details such as time had not been important. Now the lack of specifics appeared to be a huge chasm, something vital she had missed.

  She tried to concentrate, to remember the steps she'd taken when she got up in the darkness of their little apartment. Had she looked at the bedside clock?

  "It was around ten o'clock," she answered finally. "I looked at our alarm clock, because I'd fallen asleep and I was wondering why it was so dark."

  "I see. Well, thanks for that, I'm sure the information will be helpful to our investigation."

  He gave her one of his expansive smiles, eyes crinkling with sympathy, and insisted on walking her to the door.

  Emily collapsed on the couch, shocked and weepy. Had she actually looked at the clock last night? Where had ten o'clock come from? Her actual memory or a time she thought would somehow fit? Would her story and Bill's match? She had a hollow, sickening feeling she had just made a terrible mistake.

  When Will still had not returned home hours after the affable Charlie Haynes escorted Emily to the apartment, his kindness and consideration looked more like manipulation.

  For most of that long afternoon, Emily slept fitfully, exhausted and physically ill. Her usual energy, the determination and gusto for which she was known, had completely deserted her.

  Several calls to the police station resulted in assurances that her husband was continuing to "co-operate with the investigation".

  Emily was frozen, completely lost, unable to consider a next move. It was the early news on the local television station that finally caused her to leap to her feet, every fibre of her being taut and alive with tension. She was like a cat that had caught the scent of danger, her hair, muscles, brain, all rushed with adrenaline to face the fight.

  "Earlier today, the daughter of well-known, highly respected businessman Randall Courtnell and his wife Paula was found brutally murdered in an artist's studio," intoned the porcelain-skinned reporter.

  "No official confirmation has been made of the artist's name, but a student claims the studio belongs to a Professor William Thompson. We go live to the scene with Mariko Toyama."

  The impossibly beautiful Japanese Canadian reporter stood in the waning sunshine outside Three Arts next to Wendy Collins.

  Wendy's tear-stained face gave her an innocent, grief-stricken visage that was endearing and sympathetic.

  "Tell us what you experienced earlier today, Miss Collins," Mariko coaxed the girl gently.

  "Linda never showed up this morning at home or in class," Wendy simpered. "She's my best friend and roommate and she never stays away like that without telling me. So I called her parents and they called the police. When the police checked Professor Thompson's studio, they found her…"

  Wendy burst into tears.

  Mariko put her arm around the girl's shoulders and turned to the camera, empathetic and professional at the same time.

  "We have confirmed that Professor Thompson is now at police headquarters. We have been told he is cooperating with the investigation."

  Same words Emily had heard, spoken with a tinge of sarcasm that provided a wealth of suspicion and doubt to the listening audience.

  At that moment the door opened and her husband literally fell into the apartment. His shoulders hunched, he collapsed in a spasm of weeping, his heart broken by the obliteration of a young life, by the horrific hurt of even being suspected of the kind of madness that could engineer such destruction.

  Emily curled herself around him while he sobbed prostrate on their little sofa. They had somehow, contrary to their own volition, turned a corner that led to a very dark place.

  A condition, a situation, they could not control nor predict, where they had no map to follow, no light to guide their movements.

  Chapter 7

  September 1980

  As Charlie and Tom worded it for Ted at the pub that Friday evening, they were never so royally pissed off.

  "The bastard just sat there like a huge truck with its engine running. We were completely off our game. Couldn't interview that son of a bitch at all."

  Charlie took a huge gulp of his beer, his face red with alcohol and embarrassment.

  The "bastard" was Chief Webster, who had sat in on the questioning of William Thompson on Monday. It was an experience that had never before been Tom or Charlie's to endure.

  Whenever the two friends had had the opportunity to interview together in the past, their duo had been highly successful. A natural rapport, an uncanny ability to practically know what the other was thinking, a smooth good-cop bad-cop repertoire, all very often led to a suspect's inevitable confession.

  Their descriptions of the moment when the Mountain Moved had the pathologist wide-eyed in astonishment.

  Charlie told the story as though he were a raconteur at a fireside presentation. "Most of the time, the Professor sat with his head in his h
ands, propped on his legs, almost doubled over. Sweat dripped from his nose onto the floor. It was disgusting. He constantly tried to clear his throat."

  "I have to admit, the air was constrictive, dry and hot, especially with elephant in the room, and I mean that literally," Tom added.

  The men chuckled at the reference, unaware that Chief Webster had gone from friend to an object of derision as their boss stumbled emotionally through his own personal trauma.

  Charlie continued. "'I am not the person you are looking for,' Thompson kept telling us over and over. 'I would never have murdered someone. I could not have hurt Linda. She was a great kid, really talented and energetic. I can't imagine anyone wanting to hurt her. She had a great future in front of her.'"

  Once again, Charlie had taken over, his storytelling voice almost a whisper, ensuring that the other two men had to lean forward and pay close attention. He mimicked the monotone quality his own voice had adopted during the interview.

  "'Were you jealous of her, Professor?' I asked. 'Do you think of yourself as the Artist? Was this upstart little girl going to surpass you?' I kept telling him, 'Bill, you found out your wife was pregnant.'"

  He paused, sipped his beer, and they all sat back again, as though savouring a particularly delicious morsel.

  "With Webster staring at us the whole time, I just repeated the same stuff and I know I sounded bored with it, because I was."

  "Me, I was worse," Tom interrupted. "I could barely utter a sentence. Just sat there in shock."

  "We could do nothing creative. Nothing we usually try. I hammered over and over, 'You had to get rid of your girlfriend. She wouldn't let go, so you killed her. Maybe you didn't mean to choke her to death. Or maybe you raped her when she wouldn't consent to some break-up sex, then you figured you had to kill her. But once she was dead, you thought you'd stage the scene as though she'd been raped and crucified by a madman. Or maybe you killed her because you are the Artist and she was taking your spot in the limelight.'"

  "Smart," Ted said. "How did he react to that?"

  Charlie sat forward again and dramatized, his voice unnaturally high as he spoke the Professor's words, his tone deeper and more threatening to paraphrase his own parts. "He said, 'She wasn't my girlfriend. I keep telling you that.' I said, 'Perhaps she was a spoiled little brat who was going to show up her teacher with her brilliance, eh?' He replied, 'Of course not. Every artist is different. There can be lots of different kinds of success.'"