Drucker opened the zipper of the larger, thin leather case. Two paintings, signed Cloutier were all it contained.
“See if you can find this Cloutier on the Internet,” Barker suggested.
Anne searched for artists, first Canadian and then world–wide, but found no Giselle and no Marie-Ange Bertrand.
“You know,” she said, “when people get fake identity, sometimes they use old records. For example, a child who died young. How old was Giselle supposed to be? Where was she born?”
“Forty-seven and in North Bay.”
“So 1957, more or less.”
“1956”
“How are you going to find those records?”
“I’m going to look at tombstones.”
A Catholic cemetery in a small town just outside North Bay, held a solitary Cloutier, Giselle, infant daughter of Giles and Marie, born 1956, died, 1958.
“Here’s a possibility,” she said. “It could have been done.”
“Big deal. Now we know who she really was. So what? The only one who had any connection to her is you.” Barker was getting angry again.
“Well, I didn’t go down to that washroom,” Anne retorted. “And I had no connection to her. I only met the woman who might have been her sister once. The husband was stealing paintings and exporting them to the USA. His widow had nothing to do with it as far as I know. Maybe we should look at those paintings again.”
The paintings, as far as Anne could see were ordinary, amateurish works on new canvas. No frames. No over-painting. They were not even very good. Why was she carrying them around at all?
“What is in that envelope?” she asked Drucker.
“Sketches,” he answered briefly.
“Could we see them?”
“What for? They’re evidence.”
“Evidence of what? McDonald is dead. You won’t be able to charge him with anything. What harm can there be in showing us what was worth killing for.” Anne pleaded.
Reluctantly Drucker opened the manila folder and brought out one small sketch. It looked like the artist had been practicing: hands, noses, feet. Where had she seen this kind of lovely work?
"Of course. Da Vinci.”
“Da Vinci. You mean the guy on TV?” Barker asked.
“No, an artist, a very famous artist. I have seen sketches like these in books about him. Surely they can’t be real. They would be worth a fortune.”
“A fortune?” Barker repeated incredulously.
“Or maybe they’re forgeries. Or maybe I’m out to lunch.”
“Quite a motive for theft, but why did McDonald kill her?”
“We don’t know that he did,” Anne commented, “although it seems most likely.”
“Come on, Anne. What other explanation is there?”
“How did she die, Dr. McPhail?” interrupted the policeman.
”All I saw was a hole in her chest.”
“Burns around it?”
“No. I thought, likely a knife. Someone cleaned up. There was blood in the sink.”
“Then we’ll know by the blood on the hands.”
“That will be me,” Anne said. “I touched her.”
“You didn't leave your seat until after she was dead,” Parsons reminded her.
“It must have been McDonald or whatever his name was. Falling out among thieves.”
Anne had started to shake again. Why did this always happen to her?
“You folks try to get a little rest before White River,” Drucker said. “It’s going to be a long night.”
Anne opened her computer again. Barker worked for Natural Resources, he said. She went to the government site, looking for names. Drucker looked over her shoulder, watching her scroll through the sites. He had grunted with satisfaction when she found Barker. So at least a Barker worked for the MNR. What about Parsons? Guides weren’t likely listed on the Internet, unless at the site for the town itself. No luck there. Drucker moved back to his own seat, leaving her to her search.
What happened today, she asked herself. A woman had died: a courier, a thief stealing from other thieves, a girlfriend? Who or what was she?
A man had died - a thief. Was he a killer, too? He had surely seemed ready to kill them. Who left that ATV?
“Who rode that ATV to the mile post?” she asked aloud.
“What?” asked Drucker.
“Someone rode that ATV to the mile post. I didn’t see any other tracks and the ground was so soft with all that rain. Maybe there is someone else on board?”
“The ATV could have been there a long time,” Drucker reassured her, reaching for the call button for the conductor. When he appeared, Drucker told him to lock both ends of the car and give him the keys.
“Now relax, no one is getting in here.”
Anne sat and watched the North of Superior landscape slip by: long stretches of maple bushes, interrupted by stands of white spruce and pine with occasional accents of bright yellow tamarack. The bones showed through, too; outcroppings of granite, some many feet high, where the earth had been torn away by the receding glaciers. What had happened, she asked herself again. Two people were dead and a third man, a policeman, had a fortune, maybe, in his hands. Three of us, Parsons, Barker, me and the conductor and somewhere the other train staff, remain. How many… Anne drifted off to sleep with her incomplete thoughts filling her mind, to wake moments or hours later to the train slowing.
“White River,” Parsons told her. “We made it.”
As the train stopped at the station house, a lone policeman boarded, spoke to the conductor and to Drucker, then walked down the aisle to the little clutch of passengers.
“Staff-Sergeant Whitehead,” he introduced himself. “Would you people come with me, please? I will need statements from all of you.”
Anne stretched up to get her coat from the overhead bin. As she pulled it on, she said, “Staff-Sergeant, I don’t know about everyone else, but I am hungry, thirsty, tired and need a bathroom before I can give you any kind of coherent statement.” Murmurs of agreement came from the others.
“We’ll have all you need at the office.”
As Anne stepped down from the train, she noticed Drucker disappearing around the front of the station. He still carried the manila envelope with the drawing.
Three hours, a plain white bread ham sandwich and several strong cups of tea later, she signed her name to her statement. She had a question. “Staff Sergeant, why haven’t we seen anything of Drucker?”
“He had to get back to the city, right after he gave us his statement. He’ll be back.”
“Why did he take the drawing?”
“What drawing?”
“The one I told you about,” she said wearily.
“I am sure he left it in evidence. He told me that you were pretty excited about it, but it was a forgery.”
“Really.” Anne looked thoughtfully at the big policeman. What the hell, she thought, might as well ask him. “Are you sure he’s a policeman?”
“Why?”
“Just the way he behaved at the scene. I mean, he could have called you to come there. It seemed to me that a policeman wouldn’t leave a civilian with a body at a crime scene. Did he call you?”
“No, we learned about it when you arrived.”
“He told us he called you.”
The policeman closed his eyes briefly, his lips and jaw set, then left the room. Anne sat quietly, waiting. When he returned, it was to tell her that Drucker was a phony.
“Can you describe him, Dr. McPhail?”
“I can do better that that. I have a camera built into my computer. When he looked at some information, I took his picture. I took all their pictures.” Anne’s fingers played over the keyboard, bringing up Drucker’s handsome face. “I can make you a copy if you let me plug into your printer.”
Two days later, a long sleep and a successful visit to White River’s museum and its local historian saw Anne back at the station, ready to return to Sudbury. A beaming Staff-Sergeant Whitehead met her on the platform. “Dr. McPhail, I wanted to thank you. We got him, in Toronto, just as he was boarding a plane for London.”
“Congratulations.”
“Why did you suspect him?”
“Something about him. I have some friends in Vermont who are policemen. He shot McDonald and casually left his body by the tracks; the police officers I know wouldn’t have done that. And why did he have a rifle handy anyway. They don’t let you carry firearms on the train. He did save our lives. I hope that will count for something. Were they all in it together? McDonald and Drucker and the woman?”
“Yes, we think so, but Drucker isn’t saying much. We’re very grateful to you for your help in identifying him.”
“You’re welcome. Was the drawing real?”
“Yes it was.”
“Where did it come from?”
“Stolen from a private collection last year. It was on Interpol’s list. We don’t know yet how these people got it. Goodbye,” he said as the conductor handed her up the steps.
“Goodbye.”
Anne settled back into her seat and watched the town recede into the distance and blend into the bush. Her thoughts turned to the lovely sketch she had held in her hands. A Da Vinci drawing.
End
The End of the Day, a short story was published in Confabulation2, Wynterblue Publishing in May, 2009. Fire of Love, a short story, was published online by Wynterblue Publishing also in May, 2009.