Equally incredible was the way in which her excitement over her discovery and the fact that her book was nearing completion had distanced her from Geoff. Until she had come to this remote and magical place, she never would have believed that she could think of Geoff Hamilton without breaking up inside. After three years of an on-again, off-again relationship, he had decided to remain in his loveless marriage with two teenage children. A few days ago, he had called from New York saying he realized that he had made a mistake and wanting to come to Banff. She had astonished herself by telling him that she didn’t want to see him. Not until her stay at the Centre was over, at least. That shocked him, as she knew it would. She had been so devastated when he told her he was ending the affair that now he couldn’t seem to accept the possibility that she might not want him back.
The sudden ringing of the phone startled Laura so much that she almost dropped her brush. As it was, a broad smear of yellow was added to her already splattered bib apron. Every studio was equipped with a phone, but it was for emergency use only. In all the time Laura had spent at the colony, her studio phone had never rung. Her thoughts flew to her parents, cruising somewhere in the Caribbean on board their ketch, Star Chaser. She took a deep breath and reached for the phone. It was Kevin Lavoie, apologizing profusely for the disturbance, saying that Corporal Lindstrom would like to see her. Laura hesitated, then told him to send the policewoman to her studio. Laura rarely invited visitors to her studio, but when she did make an exception it invariably resulted in a pleasant surprise. Only the week before she had agreed to let Carl Eckart pay her a call.
She had agreed to the visit because the gruff Eckart was a musician, a professor of musicology in the music department and a composer of sorts. Musicians seemed to have special insights into her paintings. At the time of his visit Laura was playing a CD of some far-out jazz to energize her as she painted. Two days later he had presented her with a tape of the same music he had reproduced on his synthesizer. He had carried all the notes away from her studio in his head.
“Fascinating,” murmured the policewoman, several minutes later as she gazed around the high-ceilinged studio with its north-facing skylight. “I’ve never been in an artist’s studio before.” Her eyes travelled along the paintings propped up against the walls. “I know I’m not qualified to give an opinion, but I like them. Especially that one.” She pointed to a large painting of a room with a piano and a balcony overlooking a turquoise sea. “It looks so serene and peaceful.”
“You have a good eye.” Laura waved her to a chair and looked at her enquiringly.
“I’m here to enlist your help, Ms. Janeway.”
“It’s Laura.”
“Great. I’m Karen.”
Corporal Karen Lindstrom. How perfectly it suited her.
“I’m an artist,” Laura said, “not a detective.”
“That’s precisely why I would like to have your help. All the players are artists and I’m not confident that I know what makes them tick. Especially after meeting Mr. Switzer.”
Laura smiled. “I see what you mean. What did Jeremy have to say for himself?”
“He passes off the lawsuit as a nuisance, but he’s bluffing. He couldn’t stop tugging at his beard. The man’s worried sick.”
Laura nodded. “What did he say about last night?”
“He claims he has an alibi for the time of Montrose’s death, but he won’t tell me what it is. Doesn’t want to ruin his lover’s reputation, he says.”
“Can he get away with that?”
“For the moment, yes. But, if the autopsy turns up anything suspicious, I’ll come down hard on Mr. Switzer.”
“It sounds as if you’re not satisfied Alan’s death was an accident?”
“No, I’m not. Partly because you’re not. The autopsy could clear things up, one way or the other, but if we find that we have to carry on with the investigation, I would really appreciate your help. You could be my guide to the colony. What you told me about Switzer proved to be very helpful. While it was a frustrating interview, I felt I was able to meet him on his own terms.”
Laura frowned. “I don’t care much for the idea of spying on my friends.”
“I’m not asking you to spy on anyone. It’s more a matter of helping me understand the way these people think.” Karen got up from her chair, walked over to the door, and then turned back with a smile. “Well, I suppose it is a bit more than that. According to Kevin Lavoie you have terrific powers of observation and that could be a tremendous help if this turns out to be a homicide. The public may not be aware of it, but the police do use gifted amateurs to help them solve cases where the circumstances are, shall we say, out of the ordinary. It doesn’t just happen in crime stories. It happens in real life, too.”
“I suppose we could give it a try and see how it works out,” Laura agreed slowly. “But if I begin to feel compromised, I’ll have to back off.” She paused, then added, “Haven’t you forgotten something? I could be a suspect myself. After all, I was the one who found the body.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” Karen said as she closed the studio door behind her.
A little taken aback by the policewoman’s parting remark, Laura glanced at her wristwatch, remembering that she was supposed to join Erika for a cup of tea. They alternated between their studios every Friday afternoon. Locking her studio door behind her, she walked down the path and knocked lightly on the boat studio’s door and pushed it open. Erika was seated in front of her computer, deep in thought. Hesitating just inside the door, Laura said, “I don’t want to interrupt if you’re in the middle of something.”
Erika hastily assured her that she had reached a good place to take a break. “I feel like I’m on a bit of a roll. Everything seems to be coming together just the way I want it.”
“It’s a natural high,” agreed Laura as Erika began to make the tea. “I get the same feeling when I finally see how I’m going to approach a painting.”
The two friends sat together on the narrow couch and companionably sipped herb tea. They were both in their mid-thirties, but there the similarity ended. Erika was small and quick, with short-cropped dark hair framing sharp, piquant features, while her brown-haired companion was built on a larger, more Junoesque scale. Erika’s clear blue eyes sparkled with a bright, inquisitive sharpness, while Laura’s brown ones glowed with sympathetic understanding.
The subject of Montrose was raised and quickly dropped as there wasn’t much that could be said about it, and the conversation moved on to more congenial subjects. The easy flow of their talk was suddenly interrupted by a barrage of flashes outside the studio. Laura jumped to her feet and peered out one of the portholes. Unlike conventional portholes, these were large and square— more like windows. The colony was strictly off-limits to the public, but the polite “Please do not trespass” signs failed to inhibit some of the more thoughtless sightseers. Laura swore under her breath as she saw a tour group gesticulating and aiming cameras at the curious sight of an old fishing boat plunked down in a forest hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean.
“It makes me furious,” she muttered. “It’s one thing if somebody doesn’t know any better, but that’s a guided tour and they know damn well they shouldn’t be here. I’m going to see them off.” She brushed past Erika and went out on deck to politely inform the guide he had no business being there.
Laura’s impulsive action didn’t surprise Erika who was familiar with her friend’s protective attitude