The Eye of the Beholder Read online

  I didn’t particularly want to think about inner city gangs as a way to lull myself to sleep, so I tried to think soothing thoughts about some of the paintings I’d been studying earlier.

  28

  Maybe it was my mind still hooked on my art and picture framing thoughts from the day before, but I decided to make toad-in-the-hole for breakfast, rather than just egg on toast, as I usually did.

  I cut a circle out of four pieces of bread, buttered them and set them into the big frying pan, and then carefully cracked an egg into each hole I’d made. The perfect circles were certainly tidier than the art card version they’d found in Kristin’s beach bag, but there was something connecting the more British recipe to the image in my mind, and I was going with this.

  It had been my grandmother who had made toad-in-the-hole for us on vacation mornings with her. My mother had stuck to poached eggs in their little aluminum cups, or soft-boiled eggs in egg cups with toast soldiers for dipping. I knew there was another recipe with the same name, using sausages and a cheese bake, but to my mind, toad-in-the-hole involved an egg and a piece of toast.

  Steve appeared, all clean-shaven and showered and ready for work. He kissed the back of my neck just as I was pouring him a cup of coffee, which could have caused a rather awkward explanation at the Emergency if I hadn’t been quick enough to shift the carafe away. I shooed him to the other side of the kitchen island and set his nursery food in front of him, along with coffee and half a grapefruit.

  “What’s this?”

  “My grandmother’s version of toad-in-the-hole, which is what has been somehow on my mind since seeing those art cards in your evidence list. I really do think there is a message in those cards. Maybe Kristin’s beach hat was supposed to replicate the egg message, too. It’s just that I’m not certain what it is supposed to tell us.”

  “Well, it’s tasty, if a bit regimented.”

  “I know. When I was little, I really appreciated how defined the egg became, cooked in the middle of the toast. Now, I am not so sure why it was so essential to rein it in.”

  “Tidy is good.”

  “Spoken like a true detective,” I laughed, and handed him over more conventional toast, without an egg in the middle. He reached for the peanut butter I’d put on the counter along with the butter and the hot sauce we’d brought back from Mexico.

  “That hat could have been the first hat the murderer had on hand. It could be absolute coincidence that it looks like your toad-in-the-hole.”

  “You hate coincidences.”

  “That doesn’t mean they don’t happen.”

  “I guess, but given the rest of the visual aspects to this, I wouldn’t discount anything as coincidence.”

  “But neither can we discount coincidence.”

  “Your job is really complicated.”

  “Thank you for noticing.” Steve jammed the rest of his toast into his mouth and chewed with satisfaction for not nearly the requisite number of times before swallowing and smacking his lips. “I have to get to work now, but that was a wonderful breakfast.”

  “I wish you didn’t have to work Sundays.”

  “You know it’s not every Sunday, just once a month. I have to say I’ve been more grateful these days that we do rotate, to give all us family guys a chance of getting the most full weekends with our peeps.”

  “Look at you, Steve Browning, family guy.”

  He pushed away from the island and slipped off his stool to come around and hug me, pulling me almost off the ground as he did so.

  “It’s nearly our four month-a-versary, and it still makes me melt a little to think about it.”

  “I suppose it will eventually get old, but I’m glad it’s not. I waited long enough for you, Husband.”

  “I hear you, Wife.” Another squeeze and he set me back to rights.

  “So, what are your plans for the day?”

  “I’m getting my week together. I teach tomorrow and Wednesday, but lucky for me I have nothing to mark on Tuesday. I’m not sure how I managed that, but it’s a tiny miracle gift I gave myself when cobbling together the two syllabi. I am thinking of heading off to the library to do some research.”

  “Research for me or for you?”

  “For you. I’m still wondering about the milagros, and the whole symbolic form of painting, and hidden messages in paintings. Nancy Gibson gave me some ideas of where to look for research on the topic, but I still haven’t heard back from that direction, so I’ll have to start looking for myself.”

  “Thanks for this, Randy. Who knows; Keller may even be more gracious about things if it comes in a report from you rather than delivered firsthand, too. As a police expert, I mean.”

  “You can use the material without my name on it if it makes things easier. I just feel as if I’m in this, and appreciate the chance to do my bit. I can still see her lying there, all alone. Even though I know she was already dead by then, it pains me to think we just walked on by.”

  Steve grimaced, as he salted his wallet, badge, and keys about his person, readying himself to head out.

  “Well, if we can put this case to rest, maybe we can get you past that image, too. And that would be worth it in my books.”

  After he left, I cleaned the kitchen and went off to sort out the bedroom. Steve had already made the bed, but I picked up laundry items and started a load going before heading into the closet to ponder my outfits for the following week. Being nearly summer, it didn’t take too long, and I soon had three outfits organized: a blue and red sundress with a red cotton blazer to wear over it on Monday; a white blouse with black and white peg pants for Tuesday at the library; and since the temperature was predicted to soar this week, the way it often does in Edmonton in late May and early June, my peach capris and striped peach and cream mega-tee from our honeymoon. I didn’t bother sorting out past Wednesday, because I didn’t have to appear in public the rest of the week, and that to me meant I could laze about in my stretchy yoga pants with elephants on them and one of Steve’s plaid flannel shirts until someone pried me out of the aerie.

  I checked on the laundry, transferring some of it to the dryer, and shaking out and hanging three of Steve’s dress shirts that purported to be no-iron magical shirts. I had another load of washing, this time including towels, the bath mat and a tablecloth.

  I pulled the balcony window open to let in the warm air. It had rained overnight, and everything seemed to sparkle as if it had just been through a car wash. On a day like this, it seemed impossible to think that there was anyone in this world that could inflict pain or suffering on another. I knew better, of course, but the fresh-washed blue of the sky and the quivering of the aspen leaves in the river valley below me all seemed to indicate the promise of a world that now knew better. I could hear bird song: sparrows chittering, and robins setting their nesting boundaries with piercing cries.

  The condo seemed a bit dim after having been out on the balcony, so I decided to go for a bike ride. I grabbed my small backpack for my keys, wallet, and glasses case and put on my bike helmet with the help of the hall mirror. I remembered to leave a note for Steve, just in case he looped back for lunch, but I was pretty sure I would be crumpling it up before he ever got home.

  I decided to head east for my jaunt this time, rather than west. I wound my way down past the Old Timers’ Cabin and across the mishmash of roads winding to one bridge or another, till I was down by the riverboat dock. The Edmonton Queen, which had gone up and down the river as a tourist ride and party boat, had been docked for a couple of years, finally sold and now was sailing the North Saskatchewan in her new incarnation. I had taken my parents on her once when they had visited and we had enjoyed ourselves; and Denise and one of her boyfriends had been on an evening dance cruise that she had raved about for days. I stopped by the pier, straddling my bike, wondering how much it cost to ride her now. It was wonderful t
o know she wasn’t going to disappear, especially just as the City was really exploring ways to make the river valley more than just a nature preserve.

  They had built up the multipurpose walkway under Louise McKinney Park across the river to be very nice indeed, and while we were all waiting to see what the new LRT bridge would be like, we had to make do with not being able to connect to there without a long detour. I biked back up along the pathways toward the pyramids where we had got married four snowy months ago, only to realize the pedestrian pathway across the main road had also been removed for the LRT construction. I got to the corner, and became a vehicle proper, waiting for the light to change.

  Although it seemed silly to go indoors to see plants on a sunny summer day, there were very few cars in the parking lot and it struck me that it would be nice to wander the Muttart Conservatory pyramids without a crowd of people to navigate around. I locked my bike up at the nearest stand, and clipped my helmet to my backpack, letting it bounce lightly on my butt as I went.

  The four pyramids were linked together by a central area, filled with tables and chairs. At one point, there had been a small concession in there, but now there was a full gourmet restaurant at the front of the pyramids, so this area had become part art gallery and part school field trip hands-on area.

  After wandering through the tropical pavilion, I took a look at the art on the walls. One side was photos of Edmonton outdoor art from interesting angles, like from underneath the big blue legs of the structure in Borden Park or up close and self-reflected in all the chrome balls piled up near Fort Edmonton. There were a couple of murals included in the shoot, and I wondered idly if either of them were Diego Rivers’ work.

  Tallied up and photographed, it became obvious that there was a whole lot more public art in Edmonton than I’d realized. I wondered if we had as many statues down Jasper Avenue as Puerto Vallarta had on the Malecon. That might be an interesting project to undertake. All it would take would be an afternoon of my time, to walk the length of Jasper Avenue from 97th Street to 124th Street. I already knew that I could count the DREAM statues on the side of the Convention Centre, commemorating the site of the old Dreamland Theatre for old-time Edmontonians.

  So, that is where I started, after biking home and making myself a liverwurst sandwich. I caught the bus downtown and started at the Convention Centre, photographing and documenting every bit of art I could find.

  There was an inukshuk just past the convention centre to the east, and a statue of Robbie Burns in front of the Macdonald Hotel on 100th Street. A twisted set of what looked like huge vacuum cleaner hoses sat in the wee park by the ATB building. There were chrome birds flying along a wall of a parkade, visible through the park on the corner of 102nd Street. The inscribed benches between 100th and 101st Street told the story of Canada geese in the centre of the city. Meanwhile, a running poem by Cadence Weapon, a former poet laureate of the city, appeared on banners hung from every lamppost from 100th to 109th Street, the length of Jasper Avenue that was considered downtown proper. An aluminum sculpture of straight and curved lines stood on the corner of 103rd Street. On 105th Street, in the Beaver Hills House Park, there was Lynn Malin’s interactive statue of bicycle seats and wheels, which looked like fun, but I never had caught people on it. More birds flew along a wall between that park, along with the name in Cree, and the tiny Michael Phair Park, honouring tiny Michael Phair, former city counselor. On 108th, they had recently put up a tribute to David Thompson, the map maker and explorer, that looked like three aluminum canoes on their ends, joining in the middle, with a sextant on top. There was engraving all over the canoe hulls, with pictures, maps, and segments from his diaries.

  Waiting to cross 109th Street, I recalled that there used to be a wind statue with pipes that played according to the weather, but it had apparently been moved somewhere else. On 112th, there was a bronze statue of a cow or possibly a bull. I wasn’t sure if that was City art, or if it belonged to the restaurant beside it.

  Continuing down Jasper Avenue into the more residential end, there was a representational horse statue in front of a different restaurant and a more abstract metal horse nearby. I wasn’t sure why the horses were such a theme, and there was no one to ask.

  I went a bit further, seeing corners painted to denote how the city was going to add in resting stops, but the art seemed to peter out before Jasper Avenue turned into the arty 124th Street, aside from the mosaic on one of the older apartment buildings. So, counting the birds further back, that made only three or four murals downtown. I knew there were a few more in Old Strathcona, the trendy neighbourhood across the river where the Fringe Festival took place in late August. Murals had started as, and had somehow become, a small town concept in BC and the prairie provinces, not the art of a metropolis. On the other hand, I had heard that Winnipeg had something like 600 murals, part of the city’s attempt to curb graffiti. So maybe the further east you headed, the more cosmopolitan murals were considered.

  I bused back from 124th Street down Jasper Avenue, getting off at 109th Street. I had a vague notion of walking south to the High Level Bridge, and then home along Saskatchewan Drive. Just as I made the turn south, my phone buzzed with a text from Steve, asking where I was and did I want to meet up for dinner somewhere.

  Relieved, because frankly I had walked enough for one day, I texted back the suggestion of The Common, a great restaurant that had the added cachet of being only one block from where I stood. Steve agreed to meet me there within fifteen minutes, so I walked into the cool interior and asked for a table for two. The smiling hostess ushered me into their second room, which was pretty empty at this time of the day. The lunch rush of government workers didn’t happen on Sundays, and the dinner and happy hour crew wasn’t yet on board. I opted for one of the booths in the window, and asked for an order of their truffle popcorn while I waited for my husband.

  Steve was good to his word, and arrived only ten minutes later, so he was also able to taste a few handfuls of their decadent popcorn appetizer.

  I had been examining the menu while I waited and opted for the steak salad, and Steve ordered the lobster pot with fries. Once the waiter was gone with our order, we could catch up.

  “You look like you got some sun,” Steve remarked. I touched my nose, which always gets red when I wear my sunglasses.

  “Well, I’ve been art-trekking.” I explained my quest of the afternoon, and listed my finds, showing him the photos of all the art on my phone at the same time.

  Steve looked impressed, if a bit mystified.

  “And you decided to do this why?”

  “I was thinking about public art, a category which murals fall into, and wondering how much public art Edmonton maintains. I know of other installations, in parks and plazas, and elsewhere around the city, but I thought I would check our main drag, to see how we would look to a visitor.”

  “And that’s important why?”

  “There are two threads that keep pulling at me about this case of yours: tourism and cryptic art. Did the murder have to happen in a tourist mecca? Does the murder layout have an art connection at all besides the victim being an art student? With those postcards and art book in her bag, was it somehow part of the message the killer was sending? And if it was about sending a message, who was the recipient of the message supposed to be?”

  Steve looked at me with admiration. “That’s a very good point. If you remove the possibility that the killer is toying with the police, trying to prove his or her cleverness, then there’s a second audience. And if we can figure out who the audience is meant to be, that may offer us a clearer link to the killer.”

  I tried to look appropriately clever, but Steve had taken those limber leaps all on his own. It made a great deal of sense, though. Find out who the message is meant for, and you’re far likelier to find out who sent the message. Now if only we knew what the message meant.

  Our food came
, and we were soon tucking in to delicious flavours, in plentiful but not overly laden portions. I demurred when asked if we wanted to see the dessert menu, and we were back on the street and moving toward Steve’s car just as the first push of drinkers was headed in.

  On the way home, along Saskatchewan Drive, I noted very little in the way of public art, but there were several benches and lookouts onto the beautiful river valley, so perhaps nature trumped art in this situation and the city forebearers knew it.

  29

  The next day was a Monday and one of my teaching days.

  We were just diving into Much Ado About Nothing, a play I loved to teach because there was enough humour to jolly students along into really wrestling with some of the more problematic issues like whether or not we want a doofus like Claudio, who believes everything he hears, marrying Hero after all. I also liked the idea that a girl could be named Hero, even though I was much more of a Beatrice fan.

  After I was done teaching, I took the train across the river to the University of Alberta’s Rutherford Library. I had planned on going Tuesday, but just couldn’t wait. I wanted to look up some more things about secret messages in art and maybe find something by the fellow Nancy had mentioned. The LRT fed into HUB Mall through a spacious walkway, and I clattered down the much-less-busy-than-usual mall to the next walkway, which attached HUB to the dark brick building which was Rutherford Library, North and South. The walkway was an upper balcony of a covered breezeway or atrium linking the original building to the new addendum. To my mind, it was one of the best architectural points on campus. Occasional art displays happened in the atrium and it meshed the limestone of the older building’s façade to the darker brick of the new building with a ceramic tiled floor, which was broken into a series of stairs and ramps to conform to the levels of each building. While I had a certain history with Rutherford South, and still loved the grand staircase and study hall, it was Rutherford North I needed today. The main entrance was on the second floor, at the end of the walkway I was on from HUB, and I went through the turnstile and past the check out counter. Lucky for me, summer means fewer people hogging the computer terminals, so I was able to get to one immediately.