The Eye of the Beholder Read online

  “I’d like to know a bit more about what I’m talking about first.” Steve rolled over onto his side to kiss my nose. “I don’t want you to let this get in the way of your work, though. Let me know if your time is too tight if I ask these things of you, right?”

  “You know me, research is my chocolate!”

  “I love you, Randy.”

  “Mutual, I’m sure.”

  22

  After Steve left for work the next morning, I tidied up the kitchen and put another pot of coffee on, only decaf this time. I took a shower and got dressed in yoga pants and a flannel shirt, my home wear, then hauled all the towels and our bedding to the laundry corner to get a load running. The sunny weather had me feeling spritely, so I pulled cotton sheets out of the linen cupboard and remade the bed. With the likelihood of cold weather still well into mid-May, I added a light blanket to the end of the bed, though Steve ran hot and our duvet was usually enough to keep me toasty.

  A quick spray and swipe in both bathrooms, running a duster across all the hardwood floors and the vacuum on the living room area rugs, and I was done the weekly housework I allotted myself. Now I could feel all right about jumping back into the work I had promised Steve.

  He wanted more information on milagros. I pulled together what I’d found on the Internet the day before, and collected a few pictures. I also took a shot of our milagro-laden wooden heart to add to the dossier. It wasn’t enough, and I’d likely need to head over to Rutherford Library in the afternoon to check out more about folk symbols of Central America or even Spain. Perhaps the milagros had come over with the conquistadors. Just to be safe, I sifted through my collection of pamphlets and papers from our trip and found the handout about Huichol peyote symbols, like the ones embedded in the Malecon in Puerto Vallarta.

  I poured myself another cup of decaf and thought over what I’d been working at the day before. Were we supposed to be reading this as art or as happenstance? I stared at the picture I’d drawn of Kristin Perry’s murder scene, and flashed back in my mind to seeing her lying there on her lonely beach blanket. It seemed too specific to be random, but I wasn’t certain I wasn’t layering that on with all my reading about symbols.

  I wasn’t equipped to view this picture, but I bet I knew who would be. My knees crackled as I rose to find my old address book. This sort of symbolism called for an anthropological specialty and if anyone would know to whom I should talk, it was likely going to be Nancy Gibson.

  Nancy, whom I’d befriended through various literary events we’d both attended over the years, had done her PhD research in Africa, comparing local and indigenous medicine to western procedures. I recalled her meeting with several witch doctors during her research, and I wondered if she had pursued any of that further while she was writing up.

  I checked the clock on the wall before I called her number. No one wants to be called on the lunch hour, even if they’re retired or work freelance. It had only just turned ten o’clock, which surprised me. I had been more efficient than I’d thought in my putzfrau-ing. I pressed her numbers on the keypad of my phone, realizing I had never actually phoned her before. Normally, we had met at the university by happy happenstance. I only had her mailing address and phone number from a stint of marking I’d done for her when she’d been saddled with a massive intro course and not given a TA. We’d worked out a quiet deal which had involved me receiving a farm share of vegetables all that fall from her husband’s hobby farm. It had been a good trade-off.

  “Nancy Gibson!” Her cheery voice rang down the line at me.

  “Hi Nancy, this is Randy Craig calling…”

  “Randy! How great to hear from you, it’s been ages! I heard through the grapevine that you and your lovely fellow got hitched. How is married life treating you?”

  We discussed the wedding, my feelings about whether marriage was adhering to the patriarchal system or whether keeping my own surname struck a blow for a new dynamic, all the sort of interesting blather you get into when talking with a cultural anthropologist.

  I then asked her how retirement was and we went off on another fascinating tangent. She sounded busier than she’d ever been working in the department, with her boards and reports and interviews she was doing in the far north for a project she’d been working on for years, sort of like Michael Apted and the 7-Up films.

  “But you didn’t call just to catch up, did you?”

  I smiled into the phone. Nancy was so shrewd, she probably knew the minute she picked up the phone that I had an agenda. After all, why would I call her up out of the blue?

  “I do have a question for you. I have been looking into various symbol systems in Mexican art and customs, starting with the milagros…”

  “Those little metal charms they nail everywhere?”

  “Yes! Do you know anyone who works on that sort of thing?”

  Nancy paused for a moment.

  “I heard someone give a talk on them, not that far in the distant past. Now I just have to think who it was. I was wearing my green suede skirt, because I could remember brushing it up and down on my leg to shift the pattern while I listened, so that must have been the year that CASCA was in Laval…” She broke off her mental reverie. “Do you do that, too? Recall by visual stimulus? It’s not quite the same as Marilu Henner, but I find I seem to take mental photographs of my world and then work backward from that.”

  “I’m not sure I’m quite at that level, but I do tend to recall where on a page material is that I’ve read, you know, upper left page, or middle right page. It makes going back for footnotes a lot easier.”

  “Yes, I know that feeling. I wonder what makes some people connect with their environment in that fashion while others have no spatial connection whatsoever.”

  While it was an interesting point to consider, I had to bring Nancy back to the topic at hand.

  “So, the paper you heard in Laval?” I asked, cringing at how bluntly I was commandeering the conversation.

  “Right, right,” Nancy laughed. “This is how academics retire, not with a conclusion so much as a trail of endnotes. Back to the point, I was in Laval at CASCA listening to someone speak on the collision of religious symbolism, with an emphasis on the Virgin of Guadalupe, and he mentioned those milagros as evidence that European influence had shaped what had been a pre-Christian symbol system which was pretty basic: small clay foot equals praying for a healed foot, clay ear equals bringing back a person’s hearing. They turned them into metal, and here’s where it got cloudy. I think the idea was that it was a nefarious plot to determine the sorts of mining possible in the areas, but on the whole I recall the strength of the paper being in twinning an indigenous folk story with the Virgin Mary.”

  “So, I’d find milagros in Spain?”

  “You know, they almost seem more likely to come from the sub-continent. The Parsee, as I recall, have some sort of prayer offering of wax body parts to pray for the relief of suffering of their loved ones in their fire temples. But of course, there is a Brazilian practice of bringing wax bits to church, which end up hanging from the ceiling in their ex-voto rooms. Maybe the milagros do come from a South American influence originally?”

  “It would be nice if we could blame them on Marco Polo, wouldn’t it?” I laughed.

  Nancy laughed, too.

  “Yes, what can’t we blame on him and his wandering ways?”

  We went on to talk about what she and her husband John were doing these days, and she wouldn’t let me off the phone without a thorough description of our wedding ceremony. In her case, I felt as if I was being interviewed for a future article on 21st century rituals, rather than just curiosity about the day.

  We said our goodbyes with her promising to call before she and John popped back into the city next, so we could get together.

  I looked at the doodles I’d scribbled on the notepad in front of me. In the middle of a
lot of small hands and feet was the name of the conference Nancy had been at when she’d listened to the milagro researcher.

  I looked up the website for the Canadian Anthropology Society to see if I could find anything that would lead me to the paper. Nancy had warned me that their periodical, Cultural Anthropology, was notoriously slow about getting to press, with reviewers being tardy to respond, so the chance of something she’d heard two years ago being published already was remote. It was worth a try, though.

  I trolled through a variety of sites, looking for milagros, and anything else that hinted at cultural blending and appropriation in Mexico and Central America. It was slim pickings unless you wanted to read about the Virgin of Guadalupe and the overlay of Spanish Christianity on indigenous Mexicans. According to the novelist Octavio Paz, Mexicans believed in only two things: the Virgin of Guadalupe and the National Lottery.

  I sent off an email to the Society, to find out if a paper along the lines I was vaguely defining was in the works. While I wasn’t sure I was any further ahead than before, I wrote up what I had discovered about milagros to date, and tied in as much of the Frida Kahlo symbology as I’d unearthed, as well. If Steve wanted more, he’d have to wait till the anthropologists deigned to respond.

  All of a sudden, I was ravenous, never a good thing in my experience for ending up with a well-balanced meal. I opened the pantry door and then the fridge, looking for immediate sustenance. In minutes, I was sitting down to a pathetic looking plate of rice cakes slathered in liverwurst, with some sweet gherkins and grape tomatoes alongside for vegetables. I read a couple of chapters of the new Nino Ricci novel, marveling yet again on the wild distinctions of what it meant to be a Canadian, based on location and ancestry. His Niagara peninsula Italian-Canadian experience was so remote from the stories of W. O. Mitchell here in Alberta or Alistair MacLeod’s Maritime stories, or Eden Robinson’s Monkey Beach out on the West Coast, which I’d happened to be rereading the week before in order to teach it next on my spring syllabus. It was extraordinary that we could articulate a Canadian identity at all. Not that we’d succeeded at that very well. The only way in which we managed to identify ourselves as Canadians was in relation to our neighbours to the south. We were gentler, more polite, and we had health care. And we all still mourned the passing of Stuart MacLean.

  I recalled the joke from tour guides when we were in Mexico that we were Northern Mexicans, somehow conferring an honourary status of fellow sufferers on us.

  That thought brought me right back to Steve’s conundrum over the Kristin Perry case. Was this a Canadian crime committed while on vacation, or a tourist who had stumbled into a Mexican crime scene by hapless accident? Steve was right; the only way we’d discover the killer would be if it had been a targeted crime. It was like solving for “x” in some convoluted algebraic equation. We had Kristin Perry, so if she was a meaningful integer, we could uncover “x”. If she was an arbitrary marker, we had fewer known elements, making the equation that much more difficult.

  Thoughts of math were hurting my brain, so I rinsed my dishes and popped them in the dishwasher, and tidied up the kitchen island. Then, on a whim, I changed into a sweatshirt and exercise leggings and headed down to the bike room to get out my bicycle. A pedal through the river valley would clear my head and rid me of the need to do a cardio workout.

  I was glad I’d pulled my windtunnel band over my head before clipping on my helmet, because the mild breeze from the balcony became a bit brisker as I rode along. The band covered my ears, and I tried to pick up the pace to warm up. Soon, I was feeling a bit of sweat sliding down the middle of my back. I made it to the outer ring of Hawrelak Park within twenty minutes, and decided to turn back the same way I had come rather than crossing over the footbridge to the dog park on the other side.

  It was a fair slog uphill once I got past the new Walterdale Bridge, but the bike path was graded to be manageable, and I came up out of Skunk Hollow winded but triumphant not to have had to get off and push. I swear, they ought to have medals for the little triumphs of the world, like the Brownie badges of old, that you could pick up whenever you conquered a tiny, homely challenge.

  By the time I was showered and dressed again, Steve was home. Since I had been out enjoying the mild spring weather instead of thinking ahead to dinner, nothing was planned. Steve suggested we go out for something to eat. My feelings on our budget were that we should try to rein in our eating out, but my self-control was pretty low, so I agreed to something simple.

  We drove down 99th Street to Huma, a Mexican restaurant on a busy corner that was even busier since the popular restaurant had opened. After all my research that morning, I was tickled to see a votive candle to the Virgin of Guadalupe behind the till, and several milagros nailed to a picture frame which held a photo of a rustic farm scene.

  “Where is that?” I asked our waiter, who looked to be about fifteen.

  “That is the family home of the owner,” he smiled.

  The menu, while not as replete with seafood as we’d been used to in Puerto Vallarta, had an authenticity to it that spoke of recent immigration on the parts of the owners. The fact that we could overhear Spanish being spoken at other tables added to that authenticity. Steve ordered the platter, and I settled for tortilla soup and tamales.

  Over dinner, I told Steve about my conversation with Nancy and her suggestions about where to look for milagro research. I promised that if and when the anthropology journal got back to me, I would flip it immediately to him. Steve was complimentary in my detection skills, and I basked in the glow of his inflating the little I had done to help. It was very likely a mechanism for not telling me anything more than he needed to about the case, but we take it where we can get it.

  When the sopapillas came for dessert, I closed my eyes and brought back the vision of the lovely city of our honeymoon with the first bite.

  Steve smiled.

  “You’re thinking about that little restaurant by the bridge, aren’t you? Where the old musician played the electric keyboard?”

  “Ten points for Gryffindor. That’s exactly what I was thinking about.”

  “It was a magical week.”

  “Most of it.”

  “Yeah, I guess I’ve been compartmentalizing, trying to sheer those last three days off into their own memory bank.”

  “What would have happened if we hadn’t been there? Would you have been just as tied into this case?”

  “Probably not. In most cases, the family back here would be hiring a private firm to check into what had occurred, but relying on the consulate and the Mexican authorities for any information and updates.”

  “So it was lucky that we were there, for Kristin Perry’s family.”

  “I guess.”

  “You don’t suppose the killer factored in the whole Reading Week element into things, do you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, the probability of there being more than one person from the University of Alberta down there that week was exponentially higher than either the week before or after.”

  “Go on.”

  “So, if the statement the killer was trying to make, with the symbolic layout of the scene, was meant for someone at the University of Alberta, then that would be the week to do it.”

  “So, this wasn’t a case of targeting Kristin Perry herself, but Kristin Perry, U of A student, as some sort of messenger pigeon?”

  “Maybe. I’m just spit-balling, going on the line that if there is a symbolic message being delivered, it must be anticipating someone to whom it is delivered.”

  Steve looked at me, with alarm.

  “What did I say?”

  “Well, if you’re right, what happens when a message goes undelivered, or the sender doesn’t receive a reply?”

  I suddenly saw why Steve looked concerned.

  “They reach out and try ag
ain.”

  23

  Steve was up and out early the next morning, so I didn’t have time to make him a lunch and put some gooey love note into it for him to find and read. Not that I would have done that. I got up with my alarm, which likely went off ten minutes after he was out of the parkade. By the time I had showered, dressed and poured a cup of coffee from the machine which Steve had set the night before, my husband was likely already in the precinct. I knew, though, exactly what he was going to be doing, because we’d discussed it the night before.

  Steve’s plan was to go over every name associated with the Fine Arts Department that had showed up on the airline lists they had collected from flights in and around the past Reading Week. Even the cancellations would be of interest because he was looking not just for a killer but also for witnesses. While they’d already tried to find connections to Kristin Perry, he was now looking for a broader context.

  Patrons, I thought. That’s what an artist would call those he or she wished to appreciate and admire the art created. What if this was supposed to be an instillation, rather than a murder? That was almost more gruesome to contemplate than a murder itself. To be a victim of hatred or envy or rage would be a terrible thing for Kristin Perry, but to be a random piece of material for a piece of art would be even worse. Then your entire identity would be erased. Instead of being the Mona Lisa, you’d be Semi-nude #17.

  I was trying not to get wrapped up again in the sad thoughts of the night before and to put myself into the game of discussing the Eden Robinson novel my students were expected to have read by this morning. I made an executive decision to walk to the LRT station at the university, which took me past the High Level Diner, where I could buy a cinnamon bun, thereby making all my walking a zero sum game.

  The campus was nearly deserted, with only professors and spring term students about. This was always such a magical time on campus and hardly anyone saw it. I regretfully dropped out of the green and shiny morning into the stairways to the chilly deep, where the LRT would whisk me downtown to the MacEwan campus.