LITMIR.BIZ

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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. Peter mixed it for me at the bar before he poured his Campari.”

      And on and on. They couldn’t link her to the bottle of Campari or to the poison that had been put into it. And she had no motive. Her life was better with Peter alive. He encouraged her work and he sold her paintings. Why would she kill him?

      There had been no suspects, although clients and customers had been questioned. No one seemed to bear a grudge against Peter, and they could connect no one with the poison. The bottle of Campari apparently was not a gift, but there was no way to be sure. Peter was in the habit of buying Campari for himself. It was his favourite.

      Finally after four months, during which she could not paint, could not even think, Maris decided to go back to Canada to see if a change of scene would snap her out of the funk she was in. She knew she had been fond of Peter, but his death was more than the loss of a friend. She had lost her way, her bearings. Her focus was gone, and her eyes no longer saw things that spoke to the painter in her. She saw neither beauty nor ugliness. She saw only drabness and mechanics. She saw people walking with their heads down just to get somewhere, unsmiling and faceless; traffic rolling through the streets of Singapore in the same way every day; grass growing and being trimmed; and flowers being planted and opening and dying on schedule.

      I’m looking at the world through a Plexiglas shield, she thought. Like watching planes take off from an airport lounge without the sound, the smell, or the vibration of the powerful engines: an endless loop of cogs meeting wheels, engaging the gears of nature, society, life, in a stupefying rhythm. She found herself sleeping more than usual, taking naps in the afternoon, and sleeping a dreamless sleep.

      “You’re depressed,” said Dinah. “Maybe you should talk to someone.”

      “Take Prozac,” said Angela. “Everybody does.” They were in the storeroom behind the gallery, unpacking a shipment that had arrived from Chiang Mai in northern Thailand.

      “I’m not taking Prozac,” Maris said, “and I’m not depressed. I’m just sad and tired. And aimless.”

      “That’s depression,” said Angela. “We’re all sad and tired. But you don’t see me or Dinah sleeping in the afternoon. We have too much to do. We’re running the gallery without Peter and it’s hard work. You need something to do. You need to work.”

      “Maris is an artist,” said Dinah. “You can’t just tell

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