Vantage Point

by Scott Thornley

  A few minutes after Vertesi had bolted for the door, MacNeice grabbed his notebook. “I’m going over to Amelia Street. I won’t be long.”

  “Do you want company, Mac?” asked Aziz.

  “No.” He smiled. “I just need to clear my head. And I want to see that bedroom again. But, you can lend me your camera.”

  [20]

  Outside and heading for his car, MacNeice hesitated and retraced his steps, walking through Division and across the plaza to the street. As he started walking west on Main, he slipped his notebook into the pocket of his jacket. He turned south on Queen and increased his pace to a Rover Scout march: run for a block, walk for a block, and so on.

  As he ran, MacNeice’s spirits lifted and his head cleared. He began to notice things — a grey squirrel pausing on the trunk of a maple to look his way, a cat curled up on the steps of a porch, a toddler waddling happily towards the arms of its mother . . . and, of course, the birds. Mostly sparrows, but he saw two robins and a male cardinal. He heard the calls of crows banking high above, riding the thermals, looking for opportunities along the way. As he neared the police cruiser and the windowless forensics van, he caught sight of a Baltimore oriole touching down on a dogwood.

  When the uniform in the patrol car saw him coming, he quickly got out of the vehicle. “Sir —”

  “Give me an update, Constable.”

  “Just a small team in there now, sir. Forensics going for prints, fluids, hair samples.”

  “Thanks” — MacNeice looked down at his nameplate — “Officer Muti. Any relation to Riccardo Muti?”

  “The maestro from Napoli? Naw — don’t I wish.”

  “Time’s a circle, Muti. Somewhere along that circle, your families met.” He shook his hand and walked towards the house. “Keep an eye out.”

  “For who, sir?”

  “A Baltimore oriole. There’s one close by.”

  A younger cop approached with coffees. Handing one to Muti, he nodded towards the tall man going into the house. “Who’s that guy?”

  “That guy?” Muti shook his head. “Detective Superintendent MacNeice — the Homicide Gretzky. He speaks in tongues, talks to birds . . .” He took a sip of his coffee. “One guy told me he was in his unit up on Wentworth — same detail, securing the scene. It was pissin’ buckets, an Old Testament kinda rain. Outta nowhere, the DS walks by his cruiser all casual-like. He heads onto the road, cars screaming by, assholes calling him an asshole, the whole bit. He stands in the rain talkin’ to a crow. Guy swore it was true. I believe him.” As if for evidence, Muti added, “He just told me to watch out for a bird . . . shit, that baseball bird.”

  “The Blue Jays?”

  “Naw, the other one.”

  “Cardinals?”

  “Shit, no. Gimme another one.”

  “Orioles?”

  “That’s the one. Anyway, this is his crime scene.”

  The young constable looked up and down the street. “So where’s his car?”

  “Dunno. He musta walked here.”

  * * *

  There’s no sound hollower than the closing of a door when the bodies are gone. MacNeice thought that peculiar emptiness should be studied and given an official name. He could feel it now. Every room in the Terry house was lifeless. People often called it haunting, but it was simply and sadly the complete absence of life and spirit. The house knew what had happened and it wasn’t about to forget. It didn’t matter that there were three or four people from Forensics inside. The place was hollow. He was reminded that hollow was how Nancy Pretty had described Matthew Terry.

  MacNeice could see someone in haz-mat gear working in the kitchen. Whoever it was didn’t respond when he closed the heavy door behind him. The stench of death had lessened but it hadn’t disappeared. It had seeped into the carpets, wood, and wallpaper, the books and chairs. MacNeice slipped baggies over his shoes, pulled on his latex gloves, and walked slowly up the stairs, avoiding the patches of dried blood.

  The boot tracks had all been marked. There were flag markers on the landing next to two shell casings, and on the opposite side of the bedroom, two paper markers — “3” and “4” — taped near black holes in the wall where the bullets had lodged after tearing through Father Terry’s chest. The enormous stain where he had fallen was crisp and dry. Similarly, where Matthew had been placed was a large, dark stain, but this one had been scuffed, likely by the killer adjusting the body for effect. A strand of bloody wadding from the doll’s head was still on the carpet, stuck to a stain of the real thing. The overturned chair had been removed. So too the bedding and mattress; the bed’s wooden frame seemed to be waiting for something.

  MacNeice stood where the V had been. The little brass letter had been replaced by a cryptic square of pink paper marked “8.” He took Fiza’s point-and-shoot and squatted to frame the same image without the set and actors.

  Sitting on the windowsill, he studied the image. He put away the camera, stuck his hands in his jacket pockets, and waited.

  Ten minutes later, a figure wearing an orange haz-mat suit appeared in the doorway. “Sir, you okay?”

  “I am. Thank you.”

  “Sorry. We got a bit spooked when the floor up here stopped creaking.”

  “Just waiting for the room to speak to me. I won’t be long.”

  The man nodded and made his way downstairs. MacNeice could hear him telling his partner in the kitchen, after which there were some muffled giggles.

  When it was quiet again, he stood up and looked past Father Terry’s blood and urine stains to the doorway where his blood was splattered on the wall. He looked from there to the carpet stain and back again. Blood-red, almost black. He walked over to the pink 8 and squatted again, glancing at the mahogany headboard. Sunlight streamed onto the walls; it defined objects large and small.

  “It’s too sharp, too bright. This stage was supposed to be seen at night, just before dawn. The effect doesn’t work in daylight.” MacNeice jumped up so quickly he felt lightheaded, and had to reach for the windowsill to maintain his balance.

  He went downstairs and called out, “Thanks. I’m gone.” He slammed the door behind him and never heard the haz-mat man in the kitchen say, “Oh, you’re gone all right.”

  Outside, he tore off the baggies and gloves and shoved them into his jacket pockets. This time MacNeice didn’t consider the Rover Scout march. He hit the gravel running and didn’t slow down to wave when he passed Muti’s cruiser.

  [21]

  Well before he reached Main Street, MacNeice had slowed to a jog. A block farther, he was so out of breath that he felt as if his chest were going to explode. He stopped running altogether and walked normally the rest of way. His thighs were burning when he climbed the stairs to Division, and when he entered the cubicle, Aziz looked alarmed.

  “Everything okay, Mac?”

  The others swung around in their chairs. MacNeice’s face, already flushed from the run, grew redder with embarrassment. He smiled and took a deep breath. “I’m fine, thanks. I’ve been jogging — well, running and jogging.” He took his jacket off and threw it over the back of his chair, hoping that the casual gesture would distract them. Then he exhaled and settled his breathing. “I’ve got something. I still don’t know what it is” — he turned to the Amelia Street photo — “but I know this image. I mean the original. This scene is a copy.”

  No one said anything. They were waited for something to follow. “I’m not entirely sure, but I think the original’s a print or a photograph, maybe an illustration, but it’s very dark. I’ve definitely seen it before.”

  “You mean, like art?” Vertesi asked. “Like a painting?”

  “Maybe a painting. But yes, art.”

  “And donkey-head man?” Swetsky asked. Next to the crime scene photo was Vertesi’s headshot from the morgue.

  “No, I’ve never seen th
at before.” MacNeice turned to Ryan. “Can you make this photo look like he’s alive?”

  “Already on it, sir.”

  MacNeice turned back to his team. Williams had thrown his hands behind his head and sat rocking on his chair, a wide grin on his face. The right side of Swetsky’s mouth was tucked firmly into his cheek in disbelief. Vertesi was looking out the corridor window. Aziz smiled her da Vinci smile.

  “You ready to bank on that?” Swetsky had to express his disbelief. He lived in a Dundurn where killing and art were as separate as apples and spaceships.

  “Absolutely.”

  Vertesi shifted his gaze to the whiteboard. “How would we research that?”

  Ryan swivelled around. “I could do a search for ‘Art: four bodies shot dead in a bedroom.’” By the sound of his voice, he thought it was unlikely.

  “Hang on,” said Aziz. “A friend of mine from the gym is an associate curator at the DAG. She’s five minutes away.”

  “Call her. Better still, if she’s there, we’ll walk over together.” MacNeice took a marker and wrote below the photo Art! before glancing back to Swetsky with a smile.

  “Vertesi, send the cleaned-up photo of donkey-head man to the media and post it on the DPD site. Let’s see if someone knows him.”

  * * *

  It would be an hour before the Dundurn Art Gallery opened, but the dag café was serving coffee and tea, mostly to docents and security staff. A young family of four was seated in the corner, likely coming from the hotel across the street. The coffee was strong and smooth, but the real draw was the homemade muffins and cinnamon buns.

  A slender woman with short white-blonde hair, wearing a turquoise blouse with black collar and cuffs, slim-cut trousers, and black shoes, stood up as they came in the door.

  “Bonjour, Fiza,” she greeted Aziz, with air kisses to both cheeks, then offered her hand to MacNeice. “You and I have not met, Detective MacNeice, but I feel I know you. I am Nicole Clement.” She held his hand slightly longer than was necessary and said something in French to Aziz. “Please, sit down. What can I do for you?”

  They made small talk until the waiter came to take their orders: three coffees, and a cinnamon bun for Aziz. Then MacNeice put an envelope on the table. “Inside are photographs from two homicide scenes. If the thought of seeing them is too upsetting for you, please tell me now.”

  “No, endless evenings of American television have desensitized me, I think.”

  He laid the photographs from Amelia Street on the table and sat back. Nicole reached over to her bag and took out a pair of red-framed glasses. A minute went by before she pushed the glasses back into her hair and smiled at MacNeice. “It is quite horrible. C’est un hommage, non?” She looked at MacNeice. “The details are not quite right.”

  MacNeice and Aziz exchanged glances and sat forward.

  Nicole pointed to the photo. “The room, that furniture . . . of course, the doll and the mannequin — which are quite funny, no? It is, of course, Honoré Daumier’s lithograph Rue Transnonain, 15 April 1834.” She put the print down. “It depicts the slaughter of an innocent Parisian family. It’s very famous in France. It was incendiary, explosive, when it appeared in a newspaper. The government shut down the paper and confiscated the edition, but not all the copies.” Clement smiled ruefully. “Alors ” — she retrieved a cellphone from her bag and in a few seconds placed the phone next to the photo — “c’est ça.”

  And there it was, a broodingly dark and evocatively real black-and-white lithograph. And while MacNeice’s snapshot was lit by the light of day, there was no mistaking the similarity.

  “V for vantage point,” Aziz said under her breath.

  “Where could you see that print today?” asked MacNeice.

  “Ah, oui. I believe the Metropolitan in New York has one. And of course there’s one on display at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.”

  MacNeice felt the back of his neck shiver as the memory suddenly came back. Days after he’d met Kate, they had wandered through that vast former train station, looking at but not seeing the art. She had her arm in his and they spoke in whispers about many things, occasionally stopping to study something on the wall.

  He didn’t recall stopping at the Daumier, but now he remembered passing it by. Seeing only what he’d come to Paris to escape — homicide was something he preferred not to discuss with Kate — he had turned away. For her part, Kate had been intrigued by a sculpture and missed it entirely.

  Nicole pointed to the envelope. “Another test?”

  MacNeice smiled and took out the image. “This occurred at the Devil’s Punchbowl.”

  Nicole picked up the photo and slid her glasses back into place. Several times over the course of the next minute, she gazed over her spectacles at MacNeice to see if he was serious. “This one I don’t know. Perhaps it is the context, that muscular landscape.”

  The waiter arrived with the coffees. “I really don’t know this one. It is satire, no?” Nicole put two spoonfuls of sugar in her coffee before looking back to MacNeice. “I’m sorry, this is outside my area of interest — assuming that it makes a reference to art. I will introduce you to the DAG’s contemporary curator, Dr. Ridout.” She turned her eyes away from the photo. “Now, unless you have more photos, Detective, please let’s enjoy our coffee and watch Fiza eat her sugar bun.”

  * * *

  On the way back to Division, Aziz noticed the lift in MacNeice’s step. “He’s giving us the clues he wants us to find.” MacNeice crossed Main in long strides that had Aziz running to keep up. “We’ll take them, but I want the ones he doesn’t want us to have.”

  “Do you have any idea what those might be?”

  “Not precisely. But think this through: he goes to all this trouble so that we or the police photographer can take a picture?” He looked at her, shaking his head. “He wants to show us the images he’s taking — making. He’s proud of them.”

  “I can’t imagine what he could do with them.”

  “Neither can I.” MacNeice was troubled by the question. Why choose Daumier? He recalled the work depicted the state-authorized slaughter of its own citizens. Whether the family on rue Transnonain had been chosen by mistake or by design, their murders had sent a chilling message to anyone who might talk of rebellion. “It was ruthless. By design, like the original. I think our man is sending a message.”

  “Do you remember now where you saw that print?”

  “I do.”

  “When you were there with Kate.”

  He nodded. “She wanted to show me a part of Paris that wasn’t a jazz bar filled with smoke.”

  He opened the division door for Aziz and they made their way slowly across the lobby to the stairwell.

  “Mac, would you like me to join you on your visit to Kate’s grave?”

  He stopped short of the stairs and looked down at her. “You’d be willing to do that?”

  “A day in the country, a breather from this . . . Yes, I would.” That wasn’t the reason, but it would suffice. “But I’ll understand if you want to go up alone.”

  He smiled. Noticing a tiny fleck of pastry at the corner of her mouth, he took a tissue from his pocket and wiped it away. “No, I’d like that. I don’t know when we can go, now that we’re back in business, but yes, come with me. On the way back I’ll take you for a bite at my favourite truck stop.”

  “Mmm, yum. Trucker food.”

  “Race me up the stairs?” Before she could answer, MacNeice tore off, two stairs at a time, up to Homicide Division.

  [22]

  Within minutes, a printout of Daumier’s lithograph was mounted below MacNeice’s snapshot of the Amelia Street scene. Swetsky was staring at the two images. “Jesus H. Just when you think you’ve seen it all . . .” He slapped MacNeice on the back. “You know, I remember shit too, but it’s mostly basketball facts and stats. I’m im
pressed, Mac.”

  MacNeice studied Vertesi’s photograph of the man in the donkey head. Ryan’s retouching was deft; though the man’s eyes were closed, he looked peaceful rather than dead. You might think he was meditating.

  “It’s already up on the Standard’s website and ours. Local radio and television are driving people to their websites to see the image.” Vertesi added, “Everyone wants to know what happened to this guy. I tell them, ‘He’s a person of interest.’”

  “That’ll buy us a day or two, but sure as hell, word’ll leak out,” Swetsky said. “I’ll get that donkey-head pic off to costume rental houses here and in Toronto.”

  “Check with theatre companies too.” MacNeice didn’t want to overlook anything, but he doubted that the head had been rented, bought, or stolen. Like the nightgowns, which had no labels, he thought it was probably custom-made.

  “I’ll check the art supply shops to see if anyone has been buying large amounts of artist’s canvas or duck cloth,” Williams said. “Though the amount of canvas it would take to make four nightshirts probably isn’t a jaw-dropper, it’s worth a try.”

  “Mister V might not be done making nightshirts just yet,” Swetsky said in a grim whisper.

  * * *

  By 5:42 p.m., six costume rental shops from Buffalo to Toronto; four theatre companies, in Niagara, Stratford, and Toronto; and the ballet and opera companies had all failed to recognize the donkey head. Where the duck cloth was concerned, five artists’ supply shops claimed that sales of canvas hadn’t changed in any significant way. If anything, Williams was told, sales had been in a slow and steady decline for two or three decades.

  For his part, Vertesi spent the afternoon researching Matthew and Howard Terry. “Forensics said the Mercedes was undisturbed; the only fresh prints were the son’s. Matthew Terry had a few speeding tickets over the past three years that cost him some points. No drunk-driving charges, no interactions with the courts other than his divorce.” Vertesi turned over his notes. “But there were two investigations initiated by the Securities Commission concerning a sell-off of shares. Both cases were dropped before the hearings began; there’s no record of why.”