As they stepped outside into the cold night air and began walking down the cinder path that led to the artist colony’s studios, Laura learned that her intuitive guess had been correct — he was a farm boy. Constable Peplinski had grown up on a farm a few miles north of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Banff was his first posting since graduating from the RCMP Depot in Regina, he informed Laura as they walked past the deserted music huts toward the little footbridge that separated the colony from the rest of the Centre.
The Banff Centre for the Arts was a large, university-type institution, which offered post-graduate courses and instruction in music, painting, writing, dance, and drama. The famous “campus in the clouds” was located on Tunnel Mountain in the Canadian Rockies, overlooking the resort town of Banff, and attracted students from all over the world. The Leighton Artist Colony was an exciting offshoot of the Centre. It consisted of eight individual studios deep in a pine forest on the eastern edge of the campus. It was designed to be a working retreat for professional artists with a proven track record — a chance for them to escape the demands of everyday life and concentrate on their art, whether it be writing, painting, or composing music. Each artist was assigned one of the studios for the duration of his or her stay, which could be up to three months. The artists lived in the Centre’s residence, and took their meals with the students and staff, but did not take courses or attend lectures. They were there to create.
“That’s the Hemingway Studio,” said Laura after they had crested the footbridge and approached the first building, a round hut with shingled sides.
“I’ve read some of Ernest Hemingway.”
Laura smiled in the shadows cast by the single light burning outside the round, shingled studio. “I know why you would think that. But it’s not the case here. The studios, there are eight of them out here in the woods, are named after the architects who designed them. Peter Hemingway was an Edmonton architect.”
Laura wasn’t surprised to see that the lights were on in the boat studio. Erika was putting in brutally long hours in her determination to finish her book before her time in the colony was up.
“That boat looks kinda out of place way up here in the mountains.”
“Parks Canada thought so too,” Laura replied. “They claimed it was out of keeping with the mountain setting and fought like mad to keep it out. But they were overruled. The Centre has a lot of clout in this town.”
“How did they get it in here with all the trees?”
“Lowered it in by helicopter.” Laura pointed out a wooden frame building at the edge of the path. It was barely visible in the darkness. “That’s my studio.”
“Were you there tonight?”
“Yes. I painted until eleven or so, then relaxed in the whirlpool and took a swim. And then... well, you know what happened after that.”
“Do you always use the stairs instead of the elevators?”
“Most of the time. I do it for the exercise.”
Jeremy’s studio, a round tepee-like structure, built of logs and designed by the celebrated Canadian architect Douglas Cardinal was at the far end of the cinder path that circled the colony. It was dark, as Laura expected it to be. It wasn’t Jeremy’s style to toil late into the night. However, there were times when he would sit in his studio at night, sipping wine and listening to classical music.
Now that they knew Switzer wasn’t in his studio, Peplinski was in a hurry to get back to the scene of the crime. He picked up the pace and they soon left the colony behind them. As they rounded the music huts and stepped onto the parking lot, they saw an ambulance parked by the side entrance of Lloyd Hall. Because of the slope in the ground, the parking lot was level with the third floor. Out of consideration for the sleeping residents, the ambulance’s lights were turned off.
Peplinski left Laura at the door of her room, thanked her for her help, and disappeared through the stairwell door. Laura stood for a moment looking up and down the hallway. All the doors on the floor remained shut. The fire door that led to the stairwell effectively sealed off all sound from that direction, and if any of the artists happened to hear footsteps in the hallway, they would have ignored them. They were experts at minding their own business.
Or they would have simply assumed it was Marek Dabrowski on his nightly treks to Isabelle Ross’s room.
chapter two
Laura’s sleep was interrupted by vivid and frightening dreams. She would wake up and then drift back to sleep again, only to fall into another mini-nightmare. In the morning the only one she could remember was a bulging eye spouting blood while its owner leered malevolently at her. In the bizarre way of dreams, the leering head was crowned with a top hat.
Soaping herself in the shower, Laura felt the incurve of her waist and smiled. Thanks to the Centre’s bland cuisine, she had lost five pounds since her arrival. She had weighed herself yesterday at the pool, and 135 pounds at five-foot-eight was just where she liked to be. Stepping out of the shower, she scrubbed herself vigorously as if trying to cleanse herself of last night’s gruesome discovery. Montrose had not endeared himself to her or to anyone else in the three weeks he had spent at the colony. She hated the way he had tormented Jeremy over the impending lawsuit, but in his own unpleasant way he had been enjoying life and didn’t deserve to have it snatched away. No one did. Life was too precious and fragile a gift.
After towelling herself dry, she slipped into a terrycloth bathrobe, picked up the hair dryer and walked over to the window that overlooked the woods where the studios were located against the background of a snow-clad Mount Rundle. Richard Madrin was returning from his morning run. In his early forties, Madrin was fit and very good-looking. His handsome features were saved from being too preppie by the quizzical gleam of intelligent good humour in his grey-green eyes. And, so far as Laura knew, he was unattached. The break-up of his long-term relationship with a famous female television newscaster had been widely written up in entertainment and television guide magazines a few months ago. Laura was attracted to him, there was no denying that. But she had no intention of letting another man control her life. Her ex-husband was also an attractive man, but he had turned into a control freak as soon as they came back from their Caribbean honeymoon. He insisted on managing the household finances himself, refused to let her have a bank account, let alone a credit card, discouraged her from driving a car, and alienated her friends. In retrospect, Laura wondered why she had put up with it for five frustrating years. But she had been young — only nineteen — and unsure of how to assert herself against his self-confident and domineering personality.
It had been art that finally freed her. Driven by an irresistible urge to paint, she had found the courage to defy him and enrol in an art college. When her paintings began to sell, she left him and later filed for divorce. Laura smiled at the memory of the scandalized look on the judge’s face when she said she wasn’t asking for any of the marital property or any financial support. All she wanted was to be free.
Although it was pretty clear that Richard Madrin was interested, he had not made any advances. He would have heard the rumour — a rumour she had planted herself — that she had a lover back home in the Denver. There was no such person, but being taken for a “monogamous single” left her gloriously free to pursue her art without the distraction of dealing with would-be lovers.
Turning away from the window, she began to dress, her firm resolve to remain unattached and independent somewhat shaken by the fact that Richard Madrin was an attractive and intelligent man who did-n’t come across as someone who was into control. On the contrary, he was easygoing and laid back. He could well afford to be laid back, since he had made himself independently wealthy by flipping office buildings. And his books, which he wrote as a sideline, were beginning to sell extremely well. Sideline or not, he took his writing seriously and was rumoured to have retained a public relations firm to keep his name and his books in the public eye. He couldn’t control the book reviewers though, and some of the “serious” critics took delight