The Eye of the Beholder Page 27

  “I just tried to think of the next setting in town where you would be going to create your art installation, and remembered Accidental Beach.”

  She shrugged.

  “I’m impressed. You did it without a clue. Perhaps you should be the police officer in the family. Oh well, it doesn’t really matter now, does it?” She took a step back from the duffle bag and Steve and waved me over to them. “You are just in time to be of service. I was relieved to see he had arrived in jeans, but I need him dressed in a denim shirt and jacket. The shirt is almost on. Finish it.”

  I stumbled forward and reached out for Steve. Thank goodness, he was still warm, and I could feel his pulse faintly under his skin. She had stripped him of his thin cotton v-necked sweater, and managed to get one arm through a brand new denim shirt. I pulled him up into a sitting position and got the shirt around him, dusting the sand off his back as I did so.

  “Don’t worry about making him comfortable. It won’t matter soon enough.”

  I buttoned up his shirt and pulled a denim blazer out of the duffle bag. This went on easier than the shirt, and soon Steve was lying down on his back again. I wasn’t sure but I thought I heard him gasp a little as he settled into the sand. If only he would wake up.

  “Now you, get changed.” Alessandra waved at the duffle bag, in which I found a long green dress and a reddish orange pashmina. “Take off your shirt and jeans first.”

  I pulled off my jeans, kicking my running shoes off so that I could slip my feet out through the skinny legs. I tried to fold them so the items in my pockets didn’t fall out, and set them beside my shoes. Then I pulled my sweatshirt off and reached for the green dress.

  It didn’t fit as well as Steve’s clothes had fit him, which stood to reason if Alessandra hadn’t actually meant to dress a real person with this costume. I couldn’t get the zipper up all the way so I reached for the red scarf and draped it over my shoulders to hide the expanse of skin.

  There was a plastic baggie in the duffle containing a green necklace and a green hair bow on a comb. My fingers shook as I tried to get the necklace clasps to meet behind my neck. The hair comb was easy to dig into the bun I made of my ponytail.

  Alessandra motioned me to lie down next to Steve’s left side.

  “You really are too tall. Push your feet into the sand, and try to line up your knees with his ankles.”

  I sat up and tried to cover my legs with what was now rather cold sand. I shivered and couldn’t seem to stop. The terror of being about to die was getting more and more real with every step I took to become Frida on her wedding day.

  I too had worn a green dress on our wedding day. Had I subliminally been wanting to replicate this famous painting? I sure didn’t want to be replicating it now.

  Finally, Alessandra was satisfied with the height of my Frida, and I was allowed to set the little green shoes over top of where my legs began to be covered with sand. I was told to lie back and I did, reaching for Steve’s left hand to hold. I was grateful to Kahlo for having painted them holding hands. If I had to die, at least it would be holding hands with the love of my life.

  “You forgot the palette and brushes, you idiot.” Alessandra was past being threatening, she was now just bossy. “No, don’t move, you have to keep your legs covered. I’ll get them.”

  She moved toward the duffle to get the palette and brushes that Diego held in his right hand, even on his wedding day, and as she did, I distinctly felt Steve squeeze my hand three times, our silent signal to say “I love you.” He was alive, and what was more, he was aware of the situation.

  Now I only hoped he had the strength and ability to move when he’d need to. I knew that he wanted me to lie still, and pretend I was still in Alessandra’s thrall. I squeezed his hand back and tried not to smile and give it all away.

  40

  Alessandra grabbed my clothes and shoes, dropped them into the duffle, and pulled out the artist’s props and an expandable rake, the sort I had seen and coveted in Lee Valley the last time we’d been there shopping for fruit fly traps. Lee Valley was the sort of store that made you want to crave a big lawn to mow and rake, which was saying something.

  She pulled the duffle bag further away from us, her installation, and then moved around to Steve’s right side to position the palette in his hand. I realized that she was no longer carrying either the lantern, which she had grounded into the sand behind her to illuminate the area, or Steve’s gun. She had the palette in one hand and the rake in the other. She took some time to set the palette through Steve’s thumb, and as she did, I felt Steve release my own hand.

  Alessandra was just stepping back to stretch out the collapsible rake, probably to clear up the footprints all around, and maybe erase the traces of her on the beach entirely. She probably didn’t know what hit her, as Steve launched himself at her. I couldn’t believe it myself. He went from completely prone to upright and diving at her, his head aimed at her chest, knocking her back. I sprang up to find the gun, which had to be somewhere near the duffle bag behind her, while Steve wrestled with her for the rake, which she was wielding like a sword.

  In their scuffle, the lantern had been tipped over, and there was no light on the duffle. I scrambled out of my quarter grave of sand to where I thought it was, hauling the green dress up around my waist so as not to trip over the hem.

  I couldn’t find the gun. I reached around to pat the ground while Steve and Alessandra continued to battle. He was weak, I could tell, still fighting through what must have been a powerful tranquilizer, and though small and wiry, she was insane, so it was a fairly even match.

  My hand found some of the paintbrushes stuck through the palette that she had been placing in Steve’s hand. I grabbed them, figuring a pointed stick was better than nothing. Then my hand found the lantern, and I used it to sweep the ground around me. I still couldn’t spot the gun, which led me to the awful realization that Alessandra must still have it.

  I turned the lantern onto the fighting twosome. Steve was managing to hold her rake-wielding arm away from his face, but she was squirming out from under his pinning leg. She had madness and a clear blood stream on her side. Steve had training, adrenaline and a weight advantage. But somewhere in there, was a gun.

  I aimed the lantern in her face, to give Steve more of an edge and some illumination. I realized that I was screaming inarticulate noises, possibly to summon people to our aid, but more primal, motivated by sheer fear and fight instinct.

  I saw Alessandra’s non-rake hand move to her side, and a flash of metal caught the light of the lantern.

  “She’s got the gun!” I screamed to warn Steve, who was still wrestling the rake out of his eye and neck area. I saw him flinch in understanding my shout, but there was nothing he could do about it.

  But I could. I launched myself onto her side, holding the paint brush like a dagger, and aimed it straight into her arm pit, where it wouldn’t hit a rib or bone before it got to someplace really painful.

  As I struck, I felt Steve push toward her gun arm, as well. Two shots went off, and then I felt her collapse under Steve’s entire weight, and I wrestled the gun out of her hand before the searing pain in my right shoulder set in.

  I had seen it done a million times on television, but in reality it took me two whacks of the gun barrel to Alessandra Delahaya’s forehead before she lost consciousness. I added a couple more just to be sure.

  “Steve? Are you okay?”

  “I’ve been shot, but I think I’ll be okay. I’ve got my hand on the wound. How about you?”

  “My arm, she got me in the arm. I think she’s out cold, unless I killed her, which is okay by me, too.”

  Steve laughed shakily.

  “She’s alive. Randy, do you have your phone?”

  “Mine’s in my jeans, over in the duffle. Hang on. Are you okay to lie there?”

  “Yep, take t
he gun away, though. And put it into the duffle so you don’t set it off accidentally.”

  The Frida shawl I’d been wearing made do as a bandage around my upper arm, which I then flung over my neck and brought it around the front as a makeshift sling. That did nothing to ease the pain of the gunshot wound, but it did kept the pain from zinging up and down my arm with every movement.

  I tried to get up, but felt too dizzy, so I crawled on my knees toward the duffle, trying not to bump my bullet-ridden right arm in the process.

  I found the phone and dialed 9-1-1, and told them there was an officer down on Accidental Beach, that there had been shots fired, and that we’d need an ambulance as well as a police car for a murder suspect. The dispatcher wanted the address to Accidental Beach, which in my fuzzy state, I couldn’t quite manage, though I did manage to say something like “98th Avenue and the North Saskatchewan River” before hanging up and dialing Iain.

  I crawled back to Steve with my sweatshirt, which we used to staunch the wound in his left side, and took the rake from Alessandra’s left hand, just in case. I tapped Steve on the shoulder lightly, to make sure he was still conscious. I couldn’t have him passing out and her coming to.

  He stirred and I saw him smile.

  “We got our matching tattoos, after all.”

  “I guess we did.” We laughed, but I could hear it hurt Steve to do so.

  “Keller’s really going to lace into me this time,” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything else while watching my lovely husband wincing in pain from a bullet wound and the previous fight for his life.

  “I think he’ll tone down the censure this time, Randy. You know you saved my life.”

  “Yeah, well, that was the promise, right? For better or worse.”

  “Yep, and this qualifies as ‘worse’.”

  “I’ll say.”

  We lay there, conserving our energy, listening to the river and the torn breathing of an unconscious woman scorned. Somewhere a dog barked. It was turning back into an early summer night.

  Eventually, we heard sirens.

  Acknowledgments

  This book has been an elegiac exercise, because it feels much like Dorothy L. Sayers’ Busman’s Honeymoon, the last Peter Wimsey tale. Nick and Nora aside, murder doesn’t meld well with marriage on the whole. From the start, I had a feeling this might be Randy Craig’s swan song. That said, who knows?

  I would like to thank the people who helped me in this enterprise: Alex Hamilton helped with marriage in the pyramid details, Jana O’Connor filled me in on how to get down to Accidental Beach, my darling friend Marianne Copithorne gamely went on another “fact-finding” day with me—this time through the gallery district, and my own Randy Williams, who aside from being my ever-stalwart first reader, took several days out of his well-earned vacation to do murder walk research around town in Mexico. Carol Wright’s sister donated quite a bit of money to Northern Light Theatre to get Carol into this book.

  I would also like to thank all the lovely people of Puerto Vallarta who make us feel so welcome every time we visit. Please, people, don’t let a pesky fictional murder dissuade you from visiting this paradise of vacation cities.

  The artists mentioned in the book, aside from the suspicious ones, are all real and very worth seeking out. We own several works by John Wright, Maria Pace-Wynters, Veronica Rangel and Larry Reese, and think everyone else should, too. We can’t afford Sylvain Voyer, Ian Shelton, Harry Wolfarth or Margaret Mooney, but you should invest in them, too, if you are of a mind to. Edmonton is blessed with an actual Art Walk, the Works visual arts festival, and a glorious art gallery I contemplated sticking a body in, but at the final moment couldn’t bring myself to besmirch.

  I would also like to acknowledge all the people who have helped me out over the course of this series: Steve and Sharon Budnarchuk, Angie Abdou, Sharon Caseburg, Heather Dolman, Howard Rheingold, Jay Kuchinsky, Suzanne North, the late great Manuela Dias, and of course, my husband and true partner in crime, Randy Williams. What great fun it has been.

  Sticks & Stones

  by Janice MacDonald

  How dangerous can words be? The University of Alberta’s English Department is caught up in a maelstrom of poison-pen letters, graffiti and misogyny. Part-time sessional lecturer Miranda Craig seems to be both target and investigator, wreaking havoc on her new-found relationship with one of Edmonton’s Finest.

  One of Randy’s star students, a divorced mother of two, has her threatening letter published in the newspaper and is found soon after, victim of a brutal murder followed to the gory letter of the published note. Randy must delve into Gwen’s life and preserve her own to solve this mystery.

  Spellbinding …

  —W.P Kinsella

  ...intelligent, thought-provoking and entertaining.

  —Anna Babineau, The Lethbridge Herald

  This is one of those books that begs to be finished at 3 a.m. of the same day.”

  —Matthew Stepanic, editor of Glass Buffalo Magazine

  Sticks & Stones / $14.95

  ISBN: 9780888012562

  Ravenstone

  The Monitor

  by Janice MacDonald

  You’re being watched. Randy Craig is now working part-time at Edmonton’s Grant MacEwan College and struggling to make ends meet. That is, until she takes an evening job monitoring a chat room called Babel for an employer she knows only as Chatgod. Soon, Randy realizes that a killer is brokering hits through Babel and may be operating in Edmonton. Randy doesn’t know whom she can trust, but the killer is on to her, and now she must figure out where the psychopath is, all the while staying one IP address ahead of becoming the next victim.

  [Janice MacDonald] has managed to convey the inherent spookiness … that a social cyberspace can invoke.

  —Howard Rheingold

  The Monitor / $10.99

  ISBN: 9780888012845

  Ravenstone

  Hang Down Your Head

  by Janice MacDonald

  Some folks have a talent for finding trouble, no matter how good they try to be, especially Randy Craig. Maybe she shouldn’t date a cop. Maybe she should have turned down the job at the Folkways Collection library—a job that became a nightmare when a rich benefactor’s belligerent heir turned up dead.

  Randy tried to be good—honest!—but now she’s a prime suspect with a motive and no alibi in sight.

  The Edmonton Folk Music Festival, the city itself and the fascinating politics of funding research in the arts lend a rich texture to this engaging mystery with the twisty end. If you enjoy folk music, you’re in for an extra treat. Once again, Randy Craig is a down-to-earth, funny and realistic amateur sleuth: it’s good to reconnect with her.

  —Mary Jane Maffini, author of The Busy Woman’s Guide to Murder

  I have been a performer at the Edmonton Folk Festival for 20 years. I always knew there were a lot of characters there, but until reading Janice’s book, I never thought of the festival itself as a character, and a fine place for a murder mystery!

  —James Keelaghan

  Hang Down Your Head / $16.00

  ISBN: 9780888013866

  Ravenstone

  Condemned to Repeat

  by Janice MacDonald

  For anyone other than Randy Craig, a contract to do archival research and web development for Alberta’s famed Rutherford House should have been a quiet gig. But when she discovers an unsolved mystery linked to Rutherford House in the Alberta Archives and the bodies begin to pile up, Randy can’t help but wonder if her modern-day troubles are linked to the intrigues of the past.

  Condemned to Repeat is a compelling tale of secrets from the past colliding with the present, along with a heavy dose of history and travelogue. Plus a murder or two. Not to be missed!

  —Linda Wiken, Mystery Maven Canada blogger, au
thor, and former bookstore owner

  Does for historic sites what she did for music festivals: strews corpses and intrigues in trademark MacDonald style, with giggles and gusto.

  —Candas Jane Dorsey, author of A Paradigm of Earth

  Edmontonians in particular will enjoy following the genial Randy Craig through buildings and districts that are as familiar to them as their neighbours, and yet now imprinted with murder and mystery.

  —Tom Long, Public Interpretation Coordinator, Fort Edmonton Park

  Condemned to Repeat / $16.00

  ISBN: 9780888014153

  Ravenstone

  The Roar of the Crowd

  by Janice MacDonald

  Wherever Randy Craig goes, trouble seems to follow. With the help of her friend Denise, Randy has landed a summer job with a high school theatre program linked to the FreeWill Shakespeare Festival. But when a local actor shows up dead and Denise is the prime suspect, Randy has to find to a way to solve the mystery while surrounded with suspects who have no trouble lying to her face.

  The Roar of the Crowd is a terrific little mystery.

  —The Winnipeg Free Press

  The Randy Craig books are like tourist guides wrapped in wonderfully-written mystery stories. They’ll make you want to go to Edmonton and experience the vibrant cultural scene and explore the beautiful river valley.

  —Stuff and Nonsense

  The Roar of the Crowd / $16.95

  ISBN: 9780888014702

  Ravenstone

  Another Margaret

  by Janice MacDonald

  Anxiety is the watchword at most school reunions, with side-eye comparisons of greying hair and extra pounds. Not for Randy Craig. She’s more concerned with resolving a twenty-year-old CanLit scandal. While helping her best friend organize their reunion at the University of Alberta, Randy’s tumultuous past as a graduate student comes rushing into the present, as she faces off against old ghosts and imminent death.