Never Sleep With a Suspect on Gabriola Island

by Sandy Frances Duncan

  Her pictures of flowers. Rose Gill’s greenhouse, but not full of plants. A tray of crocuses. Crocuses in October? Crazy. And the carnations. Boy, did he miss Brendan. Miss, that was sensible. No agony, Brendan wasn’t around, somebody to miss from time to time, time to— Shit.

  He searched the bookcases for the flower books. Aha, bottom shelf. Why were flower books so big? He set them on the table and refilled his drink.

  Much flipping of pages and he had five groups identified: blue Siberian Iris, red Valerian, Michaelmas daisies, the crocuses and carnations. Normal. Flowers grow in greenhouses.

  He poured a third drink and studied the pictures of the inner room. Little round bulby things, plastic bags with a tarry substance. Not pretty but interesting. Track down what they were via the Internet? Where the hell was Kyra?

  • • •

  Tam left Artemus in the living room with Rab. What did those two have in common, other than a love for schools-of paintings? He found Rosie in the guest bathroom putting towels out for Rab. Her face seemed pale. “You all right?”

  “No.” Her eyes met his. “Come here.” She closed the toilet lid.

  “Sit down.”

  He did. “What?”

  She whispered, “Your female detective is locked in your cellar.”

  Tam closed his eyes. A sigh came from his gut. “Shit.”

  “Correct,” said Rose.

  “How?”

  “She was down there. I locked her in.” She shook her head. “Why’d you leave the house with the door unlocked? And the trap open?”

  “I didn’t. Honest. She must have broken in.”

  “How did she know where to look?” Likely spotted something when Tam screwed her.

  “I don’t know.” He pounded his right fist into his left palm. “God.”

  “What can we do?”

  “I don’t know.” A small sound, almost a hum, came from his throat.

  Rose put her hand on his shoulder. “Are you all right?”

  He nodded, saying nothing.

  She waited, and said finally, “I have to get back to the living room.”

  He took her forearm. “Just a minute.”

  “Tell me.”

  “We have two choices. Or three. First, she agrees to say nothing and we can let her go.”

  “But how can we be sure she’ll keep her word?”

  “I don’t know. Yet.”

  “She won’t agree to anything.”

  Tam gave a small shrug. “I don’t know very much. Except that we have three choices.”

  “Okay. The other two?”

  “We leave her down there. For a very long time. I would go away.”

  “Someone would come looking. Her partner. The police. What else?”

  “We make sure she never again talks to anyone about anything.”

  “No. I draw the line right there.”

  “I don’t mean kill her. But an unavoidable accident—”

  “No.”

  He smiled brightly. “And there is a fourth possibility.”

  “What?”

  “We let her out, she goes to the Mounties, we get arrested, sent to jail.” His smile grew ironic. “I do hear the women’s prisons aren’t so bad. But I don’t know about wheelchair access.”

  “My god—”

  He stood. “Should I go talk to her?”

  She shivered. “You think it’d do any good?”

  “You never know.” Though he figured he did.

  She nodded, still shivery. “If by a miracle we get out of this, no more sales to Rab. Of anything.”

  “Even those we find?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know.”

  “But what do we tell Rab? And Artemus?”

  “You’ll invent something.”

  Tam laughed thinly. “That my sources are drying up?”

  “Very good.”

  • • •

  Kyra’s only constructive thought was to pick the lock. She wandered the room. Palette knives too wide. Paintbrush ends too wooden—

  She went to the toilet. Don’t flush after every pee on water-scarce islands but damned if I’m saving these guys’ water. She banged the handle. Fuck you, she said to the satisfying gurgle. An oubliette, I’m in an oubliette. On her trip through Europe she’d seen oubliettes in old castles, holes in floors where anybody who disagreed with the duke or bishop could be dropped, the stone cover slid in place, the prisoner left to die among the bones of those who’d died before. She started to tremble. She scrambled up the stairs, banged on the closed overhead door; banged, banged. “Let me out!” She turned around on the step, put her head on her arms. A couple of panicky sobs escaped before she could cut them off.

  Her fist throbbed. She moved down, sat to her full height and rubbed her hand.

  • • •

  With every stride up the path Tam had gotten madder and madder. Now he was furious. What to do about her? Why the hell was she in his house? Had she called to find out when he wouldn’t be home? How’d she get a key? Oh shit! The key in the coveralls, if she finds that it’s all over. And Rab here, what the hell? Most important, don’t let Rab know, he’d go ballistic. What would a ballistic Rab do? So deal with Kyra. How? He’d figure something. Wait till Rab is gone. Keep her in place down there.

  He opened the door and looked around. The anvil. He set the flowers aside. In the closet he set the anvil over the keyhole. If she found the key and pushed on the trap door, the anvil would wedge against the wall and keep the door from opening.

  All he could do right now. He spun around, took a step down the walk— Spun again. Wrong. One more thing. Serve her fuckin’ right.

  • • •

  Okay Kyra, you’re locked in. This is Not Nice. Sit in their oubliette till you die. Or get creative. How? Can’t put a knife in the crack and push up with your back, the deadbolt is a thick steel sheath. So attack the tumblers, get the bolt to slide. She wiped her face. Any sharp objects here? Penny nails? She headed over to the shelves. Just paint supplies. She glanced around. The empty frames, suspended from nails! No, from spikes, hanging by wires. She crossed the room. Each wire was looped over a spike in the joist. She lifted a frame to reduce the tension. Not all that heavy. She unwound one side of the wire and lowered the frame to the ground, then slid her fingers along the facade, its relief of flowers and curlicues. On the back of it, curious, a hollowing out on the right and left frame-sides. Deep, maybe an inch. She leaned the frame against the wall and reached for the wire—

  The light went out. “Hey!” she stood still, waiting for her eyes to adjust. Do not panic. You’re allowed one panic per case, girl, and you just had it. The fluorescent tubes, burned out? Both? Someone had flipped the breaker, left her in the darkest dark she’d ever felt, she could wait forever for her eyes to adjust. Damn, piss and fuck! The flashlight too was in her bag.

  She turned her head to where the trap door should be but no comforting light leaked around it. Okay, don’t charge off in nine directions. Figure a plan.

  • • •

  Rab mixed Rose a strong vodka tonic, as requested, and took an iced vodka with peppercorns for himself. He sat next to her wheelchair. “Your face is full of worries. Tell me.”

  She patted his hand. An hour ago this would have been fine, this friend at her side, listening to her telling him anything in the world. Just not about the detective in Tam’s basement. If Rab knew about the basement, at the very least she’d no longer be his friend. Except his response might be way more painful than that. A violent response.

  After dinner would have been better for serious matters, but her nerves were so on edge she had to parade a real problem before him now. “Rab, I’ll be completely straightforward—”

  “As you always are.”

  “Yes. I think it’s best if Eaglenest makes no further shipments to The Hermitage.”

  “Of anything?”

  “Not of my speciality, at any rate. And Tam tells me his sources are far reduced.” />
  “And what does Artemus say about this?”

  “He understands.” A small lie.

  He stood slowly, his eyes not leaving her. His fingers interwound. “Hmm,” he breathed. “You sound fearful.”

  “Mostly, I’m careful. With these wars going on, our two countries have changed.”

  He sat again on the arm of the couch. “I would miss our regular contact.”

  “We’ll still talk, and even visit you. And you can come here any time, you know that.”

  He nodded, though not, she thought, in agreement. “I’ll consider what you are saying.”

  Her eyes suddenly teared. “Have I upset you?”

  Artemus came around the corner. “Oh. I thought Tam was here too.”

  • • •

  With the light dead, Kyra didn’t move for what felt like a long time. Now she reached out. Her fingers touched the frame resting where her well-lit mind remembered it. And the wire, fairly heavy, it felt the thickness of a number two pick. What picks had she used on the trap door? She unwound the wire from the other side of the frame. Wire in one hand, waving the other hand in front of her, she advanced by small steps.

  Sudden thought: If no light leaks in, how is the air replenished? Would she suffocate in her own carbon dioxide? Stop. Get the trap door open. Her hand touched a wall—damn what’s a wall doing here? Styrofoam or wood? She knocked on it, wood, the bathroom, she’d turned too far. Correcting to what she hoped was a straight line, she started off again holding the wire out to warn her. She imagined reaching the stairwell, bashing her shin and falling up the stairs. Stop. She tried to visualize the room. Only a few steps from the bathroom to the stairs, right? Only a few steps anywhere. She moved her hand. The wire touched something. She reached out, knocked it over, a shuffle and a crash. She knelt. The painting and the easel. “Oh shit.” She was completely turned around.

  She contemplated the layout again. Follow the walls, Kyra. The easel had been at the end on the stair side of the table, the table about two feet from the wall with the bookcase behind. Can’t be many more steps to that wall. She brushed by the clothes hanging on the rack, reached beyond it—ah, Styrofoam. She turned right. With one hand on the wall and the wire fishing around in front she came to a corner, turned right again, shuffled a dozen steps and bumped her head. “Ow, damn.” She rubbed the bump, and reached out. The stair edge. She stepped back, out from under the upper risers. The wire, then her hand, contacted the right-angled lower stairs.

  She crawled up on all fours. No banister here. Her hand brushed against something, it slid away, crashed to the floor. What? Her camera! Oh, god. She backed down the stairs, on the floor on hands and knees, groping. She found it. Oh no! The casing had sprung open. She clicked it closed. It stayed in place. And for a moment she appreciated the dark room.

  Up the stairs again, camera in hand. Her head bumped the trap door. She turned and felt for the underside of the lock. Lock-pick Mike had drummed it into her: it’s all in the fingertips, reading a lock is like reading Braille. Her fingers stroked the lock. Edge, keyhole, shape. These locks had a small tumbler not reached till two bigger ones were out of the way. Maybe one strand of wire single, one doubled over. She slid down a step and set to work shaping her tools.

  TWENTY

  WHATEVER ELSE PYOTR Rabinovich could import to Las Vegas, an ocean was impossible. He had suggested a walk over the sandstone of the Malaspina Galleries, where Rose’s wheelchair needed only a little help. About ending their commercial arrangement they would speak later. Was she truly afraid of international commerce? Or was there something else? He had never seen her afraid. Now he sipped his drink and smiled at his hosts. “Which shall I see first, my paintings or the wondrous flower?” How tense they all are, he thought. Their collaboration with him? Or stress relating to their upcoming shows? But what anxiety could be born from providing the pleasure of five paintings and a new flower? Despite what Herm 3 had found, surely not some mini-spanner thrown by two rustic detectives? Rab could wait till Rosie or Artemus told him more. And tell him they would. Eventually, people did.

  Rab usually managed to beguile Rosie just as he usually managed to get under Artemus’ skin. Important to keep the man a little off balance. Or else he could take control, hold on to it with absolute belief in his own infallibility, and bring about some small unpleasantness. In Rab’s experience of claiming and maintaining dominance over the powerful or charismatic men he’d known in the last years—high- or low-minded sabras, B’nai Brith moguls, renegade rabbis, Israeli mafia; or oil-and-pride-rich sheikhs from the Arab states; or apparatchniks from the former soviets; or well-groomed grandsons of dons from the old Vegas families that he now dealt with—only Ivy League Protestants eluded him. Men like Artemus Marchand who could stick their bare feet into leather loafers with panache, even apparent comfort. They possessed such a sense of remote natural superiority that the multi-dimensioned webs spun by Pyotr Rabinovich’s spiders of machinations melted into air with the lightness of a slivered lemon peel dropped into a Marchand-like martini. Superiority, untouchability, certainty. In the eye of these WASPs Rab became again, and he could hear the whisper, “The little Jew from—where was it?” So he kept Artemus, whom he had in fact learned to like, a bit nettled. “Hmm, Artemus? Since I will soon possess the paintings, why not see them?”

  Rose said, “Go ahead. I’ll set the table.” She gave Rab a smile twice as bright as the moment required and turned to Artemus. “Would you grill your famous lamb chops for us? I’ll defrost them while you’re in the Gallery.”

  Artemus gave her a private hard-done-by look, but sighed and said, “Come on,” to Rab.

  • • •

  “Inconsiderate, Kyra, just plain inconsiderate,” Noel said aloud. Had she suggested she wouldn’t be back for dinner? You go off in the morning, seven hours later you’re not back, at least make a phone call. Screwing Gill again, is that it? Had she promised to call after talking to Marchand? He couldn’t remember. He tried her cellphone. “Hello. You have almost reached Kyra Rachel. Please leave me a message.”

  “Kyra! Where the hell are you? Call me as soon as you get this.”

  • • •

  Rose relaxed as the Gallery door closed, then tensed again. What was taking Tam so long? He’d refused the beach walk in favor of biking around the island—he needed the speed, he’d said. Across her lap she clipped a tray to the chair arms, wheeled to the kitchen, got out plates and cutlery, salt and pepper cellars. Was Tam so panicked he’d skip dinner? She set four places. Then a sudden image brought a smile. Why not? She wheeled down the hall and out to the greenhouse. She collected two of her lesser chrysanthemums, clipped the pots to the tray, wheeled back slowly and placed them on a mirror in the center of the table. She played with the chandelier dimmer switch until the light brought out the richest gleam from the purple-black petals. Then she took two bottles of Rab’s present, Pessac-Léognon, and stood them on the sideboard.

  • • •

  It had been Artemus who, years ago, first induced Peter Rabinovich to visit Eaglenest Gallery. Or rather, Rab had allowed himself to be tempted by Artemus Marchand, a man who had gained eminence by becoming a world-renowned expert in locating lost or forgotten fine European paintings. For Rab had conceived a grand idea: if the original Hermitage in St. Petersburg needed Great Works of Art, a disciple Hermitage needed the Best Works Available. Like those produced by the students of the great masters. A shame if it were all to stop now.

  Outside the Gallery door he put his hand on Artemus’ arm. “Do you concur with Rose that we have to limit our business relationship?”

  Artemus frowned. “She’s talked to you about that?”

  “She mentioned it.” Rab waited for Artemus to respond but the man’s face had taken on that mask of remote infallibility. “But neither the States nor Canada wants the border to create business difficulties.”

  “No, but in the short term, security concerns slow things down.”

 
We are stating the obvious, Rab thought.

  “After the Thanksgiving show, we can talk. But you know Rosie,” Artemus laughed dryly, “when she’s made up her mind, nothing can move her.” He unlocked the Gallery door.

  Years back Rab had chosen Herm 5, Deacon Thywold, to search out potential suppliers. Herm 5 had rounded up possibilities from Copenhagen to Santiago, Chicago to Capetown. And on the island of Gabriola in British Columbia’s Strait of Georgia.

  In the wilderness? Unlikely. One of the few times Rab doubted Herm 5, despite his Oxford doctorate in European painting, seven major monographs and so many scholarly articles no university could afford him. Rab had bought him. Art on an obscure Canadian island?

  Herm 5 had shown the boss dozens of slides of paintings and of characteristic details. And read him records, produced copies of authentication documents, photocopies of bills of sale. Eaglenest Gallery was legit. And Pyotr Rabinovich needed legit.

  So he flew his Learjet to Nanaimo, rented a car, and ferried to the island. A pleasant ease took him as he approached Eaglenest Gallery, a comfort found him the moment he saw the wealth of flowers, the handsome house, the sea and mountains behind. Meeting Rose was a happy shock, suddenly a delightful and distant romance, safe and proper. His Caspian Rose. They talked till four in the morning, Artemus long in bed. Rosie and Rab, as he very soon asked her to call him, became twin spirits of the mind. Partly because, they discovered, they shared a sensate yearning for mastery, always had, often hidden but now, privately, kindled again. They agreed: such quintessence, their version of it, could come only from common geographic and, likely, ethnic sources as well, western Asia, Tadzhik, Srinagar, their ancestors near neighbors.