MURDER AS A
FINE ART
For Alexis Grace and Lliam
MURDER AS A
FINE ART
John Ballem
A Castle Street Mystery
Copyright © John Ballem, 2002
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency.
Editor: Marc Côté
Copy-Editor: Natalie Barrington
Design: Bruna Brunelli
Printer: Webcom
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Ballem, John
Murder as a fine art
“A Castle Street M ystery.”
ISBN 1-55002-385-3
I. Title.
1 2 3 4 5 06 05 04 03 02
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credit in subsequent editions.
J. Kirk Howard, President
All the characters in this book are fictitious.
Any resemblance to actual people is purely coincidental.
Printed and bound in Canada.
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MURDER AS A
FINE ART
“… behold a pale horse, and its
rider’s name was Death …”
Revelation 6
prologue
High in the Canadian Rockies is a place like no other — eight rustic studios set in the midst of a dense forest of lodge pole pines. Artists, writers, painters, and composers from all over the world flock to this mountain retreat to work on their art in individual studios, free from the distractions of the outside world.
The resort town of Banff, slightly more than an hour’s drive from the city of Calgary, is located in the beautiful Bow River Valley at an altitude of 4,500 feet. Surrounded by the towering and jagged peaks of Mount Rundle, Sulphur Mountain, Cascade Mountain, and Mount Norquay, it is an irresistible lure for tourists, skiers, and mountaineers. Although the town itself is small, with a permanent population of only 7,000, it is by far the largest settlement in the Banff National Park, a 2,300 square mile nature preserve. The small number of permanent residents is dwarfed by the five million visitors who stream through the park gates every year.
Overlooking the town of Banff, and facing the massive rock ramparts of Mount Rundle, the Banff Centre of Fine Arts is one of Canada’s most important cultural institutions, providing instruction and training to aspiring artists in their various disciplines. Under the umbrella of the Banff Centre is the Leighton Artist Colony, which caters only to established artists with a proven track record, and offers no instruction, but rather an opportunity to work undisturbed in a setting of inspiring beauty.
As a writer, I have had the benefit of several stays in the colony, and know full well just how creative an environment it is. It is also a closed world, where you are thrown into the company, for weeks or months, of fellow artists from many different countries and cultures. Ideas flow freely at mealtimes and at get togethers in the lounge. In fact, this exchange of ideas and experiences is one of the great benefits of colony life. Nor, let it be said, do these exchanges always remain on the philosophical level. The artists come to the colony on their own, and find themselves in one of the world’s most romantic settings and in the company of attractive and creative companions. It is not surprising that relationships spring up, to flower and usually to die, when the lovers’ stay is over.
Add to this the fact that the artists are established, well known, and come to the colony with large reputations and, in many cases, even larger egos. It’s a heady mix—one that sets the stage for murder.
chapter one
Alan Montrose was sprawled headfirst on the concrete steps below the stairwell landing. A narrow trail of blood ran from his nostrils down his right cheek. Blocked by a dense, tangled eyebrow, it filled his eye socket and was spreading across his forehead. Blood seeped from his ears and dripped onto the concrete.
Laura Janeway’s hand flew to her mouth to hold back the gorge rising in her throat. She swallowed hard, the sound loud in the bare concrete stairwell. The sickening angle of his head told her that Montrose was beyond help. Nevertheless, she forced herself to feel for a pulse, pushing back the sleeve of his dressing gown to expose his wrist. His skin was still unpleasantly warm to the touch and she was aware of the rank stench of alcohol. Finding no sign of life, Laura sat back on her haunches and looked up at the top landing. The railing was dangerously low, coming barely above her knees. For some time she had been meaning to mention it to Kevin, but had never gotten around to it.
Kevin would have to be notified. Stepping carefully over Montrose’s lifeless body, she climbed the stairs to the landing and opened the door to the hallway of the sixth floor that housed the members of Leighton Artist Colony. Once in her room, she glanced at the clock on her bedside table. Twelve-thirty. Kevin would be in bed asleep, but that hardly mattered. The phone rang four times before Kevin Lavoie picked it up. “Jesus!” he swore softly after Laura told him about finding the body. “We don’t need that!” As the artist colony’s coordinator the burden of dealing with all the details surrounding the death of a member would fall on him. “I’ll get dressed and come right over,” he told Laura, asking her to make sure that nothing was disturbed.
Laura went into her bathroom and splashed cold water on her face. Squaring her shoulders, she went back to the stairwell. Taking a firm grip on the metal railing, she leaned over and stared down at the body sprawled on the steps below. Montrose had either been in bed or had been preparing for bed. His portly body was dressed in pyjamas and a paisley silk dressing gown. What in the world had brought him out here to meet his death? Some