Doris told the admissions clerk someone would be contacting them about arrangements for Sam Waverley’s body, then we went out to the parking lot.
“Christ,” Chrissy said when she saw the Liberty. The rain had washed most of the mud off, revealing numerous dents and gouges in the side panels, doors, fenders, and rocker panels. Not a square centimetre of the bodywork seemed unscathed. Branches were caught in the grill, one tail light was broken, and the passenger side rear-view mirror dangled on the internal control cables. But all four wheels were still round and pointed more or less in the same direction and the engine started without a problem. When we were underway I noticed a few unusual rattles and odd noises, but it ran and handled normally. For some reason, the radio no longer worked. Fortunately, the windshield wipers still did.
Doris sat in back. “Poor Sam,” she said after ten minutes of silence.
Beside me, Chrissy grunted softly.
“He did love her, you know,” Doris said, adding, “Anna,” in case we didn’t know whom she was talking about. “With his other women it was just — well, I was going to say it was just sex, but it wasn’t, was it? He lost interest in sex quickly, didn’t he?”
I recognized the question as rhetorical, but Chrissy said, “He wasn’t very good at it, either.”
“I suppose that depends on one’s expectation,” Doris replied. “I’m surprised he had an affair with you. Or that he even hired you in the first place.”
Chrissy turned in her seat at glared at Doris. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re so attractive,” Doris said. “All his other affairs were with women who were more like me, homely and awkward, grateful for the attention of any man. He didn’t like women who were more intelligent than him, either. Don’t take offence, Christine, but most of Sam’s lovers, me included, weren’t particularly bright.”
I thought she was selling herself short, both physically and intellectually. “Do you know who Anna Waverley’s lover was?” I asked her.
I watched the rear-view mirror as she shook her head. “No,” she replied.
“Did he?”
“Yes, I’m sure he did,” she said. “I don’t understand why he was so reluctant to tell you his name.”
A reasonable possibility occurred to me. If Anna’s lover had indeed killed her to prevent her from talking to me about Bobbi’s attack, Waverley could very well have been afraid for himself, less concerned about seeing his wife’s killer brought to justice than for his own skin. If Anna’s lover was the man I called Joel Cairo, I could hardly blame him. I couldn’t imagine Anna Waverley being in love with either a coward or a psychopath, but that likely said more about my lack of imagination than her choice in men.
From the back seat, Doris said, “Christine —”
“Chrissy.”
“Sorry. Chrissy. You don’t really believe Sam hired someone to kill Anna, do you?”
“I guess not,” Chrissy said. “I was just trying to, well, shake him up so he’d tell us who Anna’s lover was. I guess I came on a little strong.”
The rain beat down and the wiper blades batted back and forth. “What did he mean when he said Anna had been right about you?” I asked her.
“Got me,” Chrissy said, with a shrug so theatrically nonchalant it was hard to believe she was a successful con artist.
“Shall I answer, then?” Doris said. I looked at her in the mirror, but her face was masked in shadow.
“Oh, here we go,” Chrissy said.
“If you’d rather … No? Well, when Christine — Chrissy — was Sam’s assistant she began forging provenance documents and passing off worthless junk to some of Sam’s clients behind his back. Anna found out about it —”
“I told her about it,” Chrissy interrupted. “I didn’t think she’d care. Stupid.”
“Anna told Chrissy to stop or she’d tell Sam,” Doris went on, ignoring Chrissy. “When she didn’t, Anna told Sam what Chrissy was up to. Sam wasn’t above taking advantage of his more gullible or less-informed clients — he had nerve calling you a thief.”
“And a whore,” Chrissy added.
“Yes, well. What does that make me, eh? In any event, Sam was a strong believer in ‘buyer beware.’ If a client was well informed and did his homework, Sam was scrupulously honest. However, if the opportunity presented, Sam wasn’t completely immune to temptation himself. Some collectors can be incredibly easy, um, what’s the word …?”
“The word you’re looking for is marks,” Chrissy said.
“Yes. Marks. The problem was, Chrissy wasn’t as cautious as Sam and Sam was afraid it would eventually come back to him.”
I looked at Chrissy. “That’s the real reason you fell out with Anna, then. Not because she wouldn’t leave her husband, but because she ratted you out to him.”
Chrissy shrugged. “What can I tell you?”
Doris lived in New Westminster. The most efficient way to get there from the North Shore was to stay on the Upper Levels Highway and take the Second Narrows Bridge into Burnaby. However, as we approached the Taylor Way exit for the Lions Gate Bridge, Chrissy said, “Could you drop me off first?”
“Where?” I asked.
“Granville Island,” she said. “The marina.”
“It’s all right,” Doris said. “I can take the Sky Train home.”
“No,” I said. “I said I’d take you home and that’s what I’m going to do.” Besides, I wanted a chance to speak to her without Chrissy around.
I detoured across the Lions Gate Bridge and dropped Chrissy off at the Broker’s Bay Marina. Then Doris Greenwood and I continued east on Broadway toward Kingsway, which would take us to New Westminster, the former capital of what was to become the Province of British Columbia. Doris had moved into the front seat. With her unruly hair, long, sad countenance, bulky coat, and wellingtons, she reminded me somewhat of the woman who’d used to sit for hours on the bench in the little park at the eastern tip of Granville Island, feeding gulls, pigeons, and squirrels from a huge bag of popcorn. I hadn’t seen her in a year or so and I wondered what had become of her.
“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Doris said.
“I know,” I said. “A promise is a promise.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. But I have an ulterior motive.”
“Oh?”
“Just how bent was Sam Waverley?” I asked.
“Bent?”
“Crooked. How big a crook was he?”
“Not very.”
“Define ‘not very,’” I said.
“Let’s put it this way,” she said. “He wasn’t anywhere near as ‘bent,’ as you put it, as Christine.”
“Ah.”
“It depended on the client. In fact, if it weren’t for the fact that some of his clients were ‘bent’ themselves, I doubt Sam himself would have been. He was a basically honest person who succumbed to temptation.”
“Like most of us.”
“Yes. I consider myself honest as well, but I looked the other way when Sam ‘adjusted’ a work’s provenance. More than once, I’m afraid.”
The rained had stopped, but the fog had moved in again. “What would happen if it became public knowledge that he was doctoring documentation or selling fakes?”
“He’d be ruined,” Doris said. “And charged with art fraud, of course. But I’m sure you know that. What’s the point of your question?”
“How much did Anna know about his business?”
“Everything there was to know, I suppose. She helped him research provenance from time to time. She was extremely knowledgeable. Perhaps even more so than Sam.”
“So she knew about his shady deals.”
“Of course. All his assistants did. It could hardly be otherwise.”
“Would she have told anyone?”
“I doubt it. Ah. You’re thinking she might have told her lover. Whoever that may be.”
“Could he have been one of the clients
Sam ripped off?”
“It’s possible,” Doris said. “I couldn’t really say.”
“Was one of Sam’s clients a slim, swarthy character with slicked-back oily black hair, too much cologne, and a nasty disposition?”
“I don’t recall anyone like that,” Doris said. “But I haven’t met all of Sam’s clients.”
“Was there one client in particular who Sam fleeced especially badly?”
“Sam had no respect for any collector who didn’t know what they were doing, but there was one he was particularly contemptuous of. He’d been selling him junk for years. I don’t know his name — Sam tended to play things close to the vest — but I got the impression from Sam that he was easy to fool because he was too arrogant and egotistical to think he could be fooled.”
“Do you know anything at all that would help identify him?”
“Only that he liked breasts.”
“Beg pardon?”
“Sam told me that if an eighteenth-, nineteenth-, or early twentieth-century work had a bare female breast or two in it, he would buy it, no questions asked.”
Oh, hell.
Built on the hills overlooking the Fraser River, New Westminster was the oldest incorporated city in Canada west of Winnipeg. Doris lived in a townhouse from which the broad brown ribbon of the river would have been just barely visible between intervening structures if it hadn’t been for the fog. I parked on the street and walked her to her door in her wellies and long coat. She shook my hand and thanked me for my trouble. I handed her a business card.
“What’s this for?” she asked.
“If you need anything,” I said.
She smiled, thanked me again, and went inside. I got in my car for the long drive back home.
It was almost seven by the time I pulled into the lot in front of Sea Village. I had to park in one of the spaces reserved for students and employees of the Emily Carr Institute because all the spaces reserved for Sea Village residents were occupied. I recognized all but two of the vehicles as belonging to my neighbours. I was in a lousy mood, so I jotted down the plate numbers of the unfamiliar cars, then went down to my house to check on Bobbi. But Bobbi wasn’t there. Perhaps she was still visiting with her father, I thought. I checked the spare room, but didn’t find any evidence that she’d moved in yet, no clothing or personal items. Bobbi travelled light, but not that light.
The message light on the phone in the kitchen was blinking. When I retrieved my messages, there was only one. “What did you say to Walter Moffat?” Mary-Alice’s voice demanded. “His secretary called and told me they wouldn’t be needing our services after all. She was very cold, almost rude. What happened? I thought everything had been settled. Was I wrong? Call me.”
I deleted the message, put on my jacket, and left the house, taking a roll of duct tape to mend the Liberty’s broken side mirror. The fog was so thick I could barely see the door of Daniel’s house on the other side of the dock. It was cool and clammy on the skin of my face and hands and it gobbled the light from the lamps along the floating docks and in the parking lot, not to mention the headlights of the Liberty. Once I got off Granville Island, the traffic inched along at a speed that made a snail’s pace feel breakneck, but it moved steadily; Vancouver drivers were accustomed to fog, but usually only in winter. Which is not to say that a few of them didn’t play bumper cars with one another. However, I managed to get across the Lions Gate Bridge without adding to the damage the Liberty had already sustained that day. The fog thinned at higher elevations and the traffic moved almost normally on the Upper Levels Highway, until it dropped back down to sea level at Horseshoe Bay and the fog closed in again. It took me three passes to find the turnoff to the Bridgwater Foundation estate.
chapter twenty-five
The Liberty’s abused suspension groaned alarmingly as the wheels jounced through the potholes in the winding driveway, which seemed even narrower in the fog. There were no lights along the drive, nor in the parking area in front of the house, which was empty but for the foundation’s Dodge Caravan. I parked by the front steps and turned off the engine. When I turned off the headlights, the darkness was almost claustrophobic. The only light came from a pair of coach lamps that glowed feebly on either side of door, fitted with low-wattage compact fluorescent bulbs. The rest of the house was dark, hunched in the misty gloom like something out of a bad horror movie. I opened the car door and the interior lights went on, but I was plunged into semi-darkness again when I closed the door.
I pressed the rusty doorbell button beside the massive wood doors and waited. After thirty seconds or so, I pressed it again and waited some more. Still no one answered. I pressed it again, holding the button, wiggling it. Then I tried knocking, rapping my knuckles on the door. The dark, ancient wood was like rock. I closed my fist and hammered.
“Hello,” I called, voice seeming very loud in the stillness. “Anybody home?” I hammered again, and was about to hammer a third time when I heard the rattle of the lock. I stepped back.
The door creaked open a few inches, a narrow band of dull, yellow light spilling onto the stone steps, and the lovely dark-eyed Maria peered through the gap.
“Is Mr. Moffat here?” I asked her.
“It is late,” she replied in her sweet, syrupy voice, regarding me without expression.
It was just a few minutes past nine. I said, “Yes, I’m sorry, but I need to speak to him.”
“It is late,” she said again and started to close the door.
I put my hand out and held it. “Please,” I said. “I need to speak with him. It’s important. Tell him — tell him I’ve spoken to Samuel Waverley.” She stared at me as though she didn’t understand a word I was saying. Perhaps she didn’t really speak English at all, but just knew a few well-rehearsed phrases by rote. Then she nodded and opened the door.
I stepped into the gloomy foyer and she closed the door behind me. Her thick, dark hair was tangled and she was wearing baggy, shapeless sweats that looked sizes too large for her. Early to be in bed, I thought.
Maria escorted me into the entrance hall. “Wait,” she said, pointing to a worn spot on the old Oriental carpet. She ran up the wide stairs, fleet as a deer.
I waited, staring at the worn spot on the carpet. There wasn’t much else to look at. The hall contained not a stick of furniture and the wood-panelled walls were completely bare but for a few sconces that also contained compact fluorescent bulbs, none of which were lit, except one at the bottom of the staircase and another at the top.
A figure appeared at the top of the stairs and began to descend. It was Mrs. Moffat.
“Can I help you?” she asked, as she stopped at the third step from the bottom of the stairs. She looked down at me. She was wearing slacks, a prim blouse buttoned to her throat, and a shapeless cardigan sweater with sagging pockets.
“I’m sorry to intrude like this, Mrs. Moffat, but I need to speak to your husband.”
“I’m afraid my husband isn’t accepting visitors, Mr. McCall.”
“He’s here, though?”
“Yes, he is. But, as I said, he doesn’t wish to be disturbed.”
“Can you give him a message?”
Her expression tightened. “What sort of message?” she asked.
“Tell him I’ve spoken to Samuel Waverley.”
“And why would he be interested in that fact?” she asked.
“Just give him the message. Tell him I need to talk to him about — well, I need to talk to him.”
“No, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
“Mrs. Moffat. I don’t want to be impolite, but I need to talk to your husband.”
“You can insist all you like, Mr. McCall, and be as impolite as you think necessary. It won’t make any difference.”
Now what? I wondered. How certain was I about Moffat? Not very. What if I was wrong? I’d be making a complete fool of myself, although it wouldn’t be the first time, or likely the last. On the other hand, what difference would i
t make? To hell with it, I thought.
“Excuse me,” I said to Mrs. Moffat, brushing past her and starting up the stairs. As I passed her, she took something out of the pocket of her cardigan. I hoped it wasn’t a gun. It wasn’t. It was a phone. It beeped quietly.
“Walter,” I heard her say as she followed me up the stairs. “I’m sorry to bother you, dear, but Mr. McCall is on his way up to see you … Yes, I told him you did not wish to be disturbed. Shall I call …?” She paused, then said, “Very well.” The phone beeped again, and she turned and retreated down the stairs.
The long upstairs hall was even more dimly lit than the entrance hall. I walked to the door at the end of the hall and knocked. A few seconds later, it opened and Walter Moffat stood silhouetted against the light. He was wearing a dressing gown cinched tight across his trim middle and leather slippers with tassels. His breath smelled of Scotch when he asked me to come in, but he didn’t appear to be drunk.
I went in. He closed the door behind me. The room looked exactly as it had the first time I’d seen it, still like something out of a 1960s television family drama. I don’t know why I expected it to have changed, but I did. Something about the atmosphere of the whole house seemed different somehow.
“I assume that you have come to talk to me about why I have changed my mind about engaging you to catalogue my collection,” he said, still talking as though he were paid by the word. At least that hadn’t changed. “I regret to inform you that a situation has arisen that renders the entire exercise moot. There is no longer a collection to catalogue.”
“What do you mean?”
“Last night thieves broke into the gallery and stole the entire collection.”
“You’re kidding,” I said.
“I am not, sir,” he said stiffly. “Would that I were. It is gone. Every last piece of it.” I thought he was going to burst into tears at any moment.
“Why on Earth would anyone want to steal a collection —” I managed to stop myself before I put my foot in it. I had been going to say, a collection of worthless junk. “Um, I mean, it’s very difficult to sell stolen art, isn’t it?” I said instead.
Depth of Field Page 25
