cry.
After Angela left, Maris said to Dinah, “Are you back?”
Dinah nodded. “I just needed to zone out for a minute,” she said. “I was actually thinking about killing her.” Maris smiled. Dinah was probably the most gentle, least violent person she knew. The fact that she was small — maybe five feet tall — and slender — maybe ninety pounds — had nothing to do with it. Dinah was like a jasmine blossom. You walked by them every day without a second look. They were tiny and white and plain. But one day you might walk by when the wind was blowing a certain way and something would catch your attention. A subtle fragrance or a shiny leaf might get caught by the sun and you’d stop and take a second look. And you’d notice how beautiful it was, how essential. Because if all the jasmine disappeared from Asia, it would be a different place, bereft, less welcoming. And you’d be glad you stopped and took notice.
“So now what?” said Maris.
Dinah sighed. “I guess we try and pretend it’s business as usual.”
“I’m not keen on Angela being in charge.”
“Neither am I. But that’s the way it is. For now.” Dinah ran her fingers through her straight black hair. “I, for one, intend to….”
“What?” said Maris.
“I don’t know,” said Dinah. “I suddenly lost my train of thought.”
“Ah,” said Maris.
They had the funeral five days later. The police had released the body but said the case was still open. There were no clues other than the poisoned Campari and that wasn’t really a clue. It was just a fact. It didn’t lead anywhere. It would take a month to canvass all the pharmacies to find out who had purchased chloral hydrate in the past — what? Two weeks? Two months? — then it would take several weeks to track down and interview them all. The investigation was going to be long and slow. It would be about legwork rather than luck. Without any sworn enemies to step forward and confess, there wasn’t much to go on. A disgruntled client? They would check out the possibility, even though Dinah and Angela both denied such a person existed. But who knew? If they were dealing with a psychopath, it could be someone who was charming on the outside and seething with thoughts of revenge on the inside. Like Ted Bundy. And Peter’s clients were scattered all over the world. You didn’t have to live in Singapore to buy your art from Peter Stone Antiquities: You could go to Peter’s website and do your shopping online. It would be like trying to find a pedophile in cyberspace — a forty-year-old man masquerading as a teenager. It was just too easy to be invisible online.
They tried to keep the funeral simple and elegant, the way Peter would have wanted it, but a lot of people showed up because of the publicity and because of their morbid fascination with the way Peter had died. People who barely knew him tried to pretend they’d lost a dear friend. The ones who had lost a dear friend were offended and upset by the curiosity seekers, who thought that to be at the funeral of a victim of murder had some kind of status attached to it. Something they could dine out on for months. “It was a closed casket,” they’d say. “He must have been hideous,” they could tell an enthralled audience. “All purple and bloated. He was poisoned, after all. So dreadful. And he was such a lovely man. So smart and sensitive. I feel as if I’ve lost my best friend. I miss him terribly.” Cut to a series of faces with downcast eyes, nodding sadly and sympathetically. Murmurings of “You poor thing,” “I know, I know,” and “I feel the same way.”
Maris tried hard not to let anger interfere with her grief. Peter had been good to her, and had supported her and her art when she believed she had nothing to offer. She had come to Singapore when a gallery owner in Vancouver noticed that local Chinese people were buying her art. He recommended she contact Peter Stone in Singapore because he might be interested in carrying her work. She had emailed him some photographs of her paintings and he’d said, “Send me something. I’m interested.” She was thirty-five, single, with no real prospects in Canada. So she bought a plane ticket, packed a few of her paintings and a bunch of her drawings, and flew into her future.
She and Peter had become friends, even though they were as different as coffee and coconuts. Peter was meticulous, discerning, careful, and successful. She was impulsive, intuitive, messy, and success was not even in her vocabulary. She was an artist. He was a businessman. But he knew art when he saw it, and she aspired to create art. Their relationship was symbiotic. Peter began showing her paintings in his gallery, and people started buying them. In a way, she owed him everything. It wasn’t just the money she was able to make that allowed her to continue painting; it was the fact that Peter believed in her. He told her she was an artist and so she started to believe in herself.
Now what will I do? she thought. She knew what she wanted to do, but crawling into a hole and shutting out the world wouldn’t solve anything. Besides, it wasn’t fair to Dinah, who had lost much more than she had. Dinah had lost a brother — at least a half-brother — and her best friend. Maris felt as if she were starting all over again, only this time without Peter to pick her up when she fell down. She couldn’t imagine painting again. When she looked around, she felt tired rather than energized. Nothing inspired her. It’s temporary, she told herself. This is what grief can do. It fools you into thinking the world has ended, when it’s really just holding its breath for a while. Soon it will be time to exhale and start again.
Chapter Four
Maris hefted the old leather trunk onto the airport conveyer belt along with the suitcase that held her clothes, a few books, and some mementoes of her four years in Singapore. Her carry-on bag contained her brushes and sketch pad, the only things she would be upset about losing. The rest would follow in a month or two on the first available ship from Singapore to Vancouver.
I’m going home, she thought. But it didn’t feel like going home. It felt like taking a giant step back into a life of failure and defeat. She hadn’t been able to paint a thing in the months following Peter’s death. Instead of the vivid colours she was used to seeing, Maris now saw things only in shades of grey. Not really, but it seemed like everything was grey. It was like looking at wet concrete through a misty rain.
There had been no progress in the case of Peter’s murder. She had been the only witness, and the police had questioned her several times, asking the same questions and hearing the same answers.
“What time did you arrive at Mr. Stone’s apartment?”
“Just after six o’clock.”
“Was the bottle of Campari open when you arrived?”
“No. Peter uncorked it and poured himself a glass in front of me.”
“Was it a new bottle?”
“Yes. I noticed that it was full when he opened it.”
“What made you notice?”
“I don’t know. I guess it just registered. I probably would have noticed if it was half-full or almost empty, too. I just noticed.”
“Was Mr. Stone in the habit of drinking Campari?”
“Yes. He liked a glass before dinner.”
“Why didn’t you drink the Campari?”
“I don’t like it.”
“What did you have to drink?”
“A gin and tonic.
