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Fan favourite delivers a winter mystery to Second Saturday Stories

His family could talk about nothing else but the robbery at dinner, the news had spread around town like in a multi-directional game of telephone. He didn’t correct the errors he heard but just sat back and listened.
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This week marks the first installment of local author-inspired work in Second Saturday Stories.

Column regular William Krueger has taken up the challenge sent to BayToday.ca readers to craft work on a winter mystery. He delivers a work called 'Your Love,' which in the author's own words is 'the story of a shockingly high society crime happening in a small northern Ontario town in the 1990s and the local police investigation into it." The inspiration was recently spending more time in the Capitol Centre and WKP Kennedy gallery.

For fans of fictionalized local lore, you aren't going to want to miss it. Read below for the first installment and come back this afternoon at 3:30  pm for the riveting conclusion. 

Your Love

He stared up at the sign above him, The Arts Centre, still looking freshly painted and brand new. The other signs around it looked drab by contrast. He opened the door and walked in, the gallery was on his immediate left and he turned to find the curator waiting for him, her long skirt trailing her body as she heard him and turned. Her eyes were wild, she moved quickly in his direction. The officers who had taken her original statement were standing on the far side of her, looking stunned.

“Thanks for coming so quickly, detective,” her voice was slight, cut off at the stem.

“No problem,” he nodded at the officers, “thanks for taking the statement, can you guys file it when you get back? I can take it from here.”

“Yeah,” they answered in unison, with one turning back as they left, “do you need one of us to stay? Jones is out this morning right?”

“It's alright, I got it,” he looked back at the curator, she forced a weak smile, he reached his hand out toward her, “Harry’s the name, I know you already told it, but can you tell me what happened?”

“Lauren,” she answered as she shook his hand gently, “sure, I arrived this morning at 9 am like normal, and nothing seemed off. Everything was normal in the gallery. I was here for a few minutes getting organized, then I went to the basement to pick up a pair of works that we were going to rotate into the gallery today.”

She stopped and shook her head softly.

“Is something wrong?”

“No, sorry, it's just you happen to look a lot like the person in the painting beside you. It's one of the two I was bringing up this morning!”

He looked next to him to see if he agreed, salt and pepper hair, goatee, and a large nose, he shrugged, “yeah I can see it.”

She laughed, “Anyway, I went downstairs to get the pieces but there was a painting missing.”

“How do you know? Do you have an alarm?” he broke in, then found himself staring out the window onto the main street, the bright blue sign of Ben’s Supermarket shining back at him. A list starting to repeat in his mind, milk, cream, coffee, cereal. Milk, cream coffee, cereal. His eyes blurred, the snow on the ground was reflecting the sun and the yellow lettering seemed to be catching fire and radiating off its sky-blue backing. Lauren’s voice snapped him back to reality.

“We do, but it only catches movement in the stairs, and they didn’t use them.”

“They didn’t use the stairs?”

“They did not,” she answered slowly, spreading her voice out as she went, “maybe it's easier if I show you.”

She gestured to the door of the gallery and he followed her out and through the lobby. The box office was silent, the sun slid its way between the bars pulled down and locked there. Completely untouched.

“Nothing else was taken?”

“No, nothing.”

“Everything has been checked?” he thought out loud.

“Well, I guess not yet, not everybody came in today,” she shrugged.

“Can we call everyone and get them in to check?”

“Yes, for sure.”

They reached the stairwell and walked down, deeper into the bowels of the building. The foundation sighed with every step they took. The unseasonably warm December had caused meltwater to seep into the cracks in the foundation. Lauren led the way, he walked slowly behind her, clinging to the railing, the stairs seemed to be narrowing as they descended. 

They reached the bottom of the stairs and the roughly cut hole in the wall gaped at them. The basement of the Algiers furniture building stretched into the distance, rows of recliners in various states of repair stood calmly waiting for their turn to be taken up to the showroom. Like nothing had even happened, oblivious.

“Jesus and Mary,” he crossed himself instinctively.

The hole had water seeping out of it, coming from the sediment between the basement walls of each building. He walked up and lifted a piece of rubble from the ground. 

“What were they after?” He wiped his hand on his pants. The dust that was settling everywhere found a spot on the black of his uniform to stick and form a grey splotch, “this is a lot of effort for a single painting.”

“Well, there is something I need to tell you,” she nervously thumbed through the paintings in the rack beside her. He peered closely at her as she did. She seemed to be fraying, he watched landscape after landscape slip under her fingers. Fir trees, rocky shores, water that was alternating between calm and tumultuous. Mostly tumultuous.

“What is that?”

“There was a painting here, one that shouldn’t have been.”

His heart sped up from three-quarter time to four on the floor. 

“Shouldn’t have been?” he curved an eyebrow.

“Well, not shouldn’t have been, but nobody else knew it was here.”

“Okay,” he spoke slowly, trying to not spook her, “why did you have it?”

“So you know how Tom Thomson died on Canoe Lake right?

“Sure yeah,” he answered.

“Well, there was a last painting he had made that wasn’t in with the rest of his work from 1917 and it ended up coming into the possession of a family near Eau Claire, on the way down to Kiosk.” She adjusted her glasses, getting dust on the thick black rim, “there was some familial infighting and one of them had asked me to hide it here.”

“And you have no record of it at all?”

“Well no, I wanted to be sure I knew where it was so I renamed it and put it into the storage list.”

“Can you show me?”

They walked back up to the main floor to her office. In front of them the box office was now coming to life, people were filtering in to purchase tickets to the show that evening. They reached the office and Lauren flipped quickly through the card catalogue she used to track the paintings in storage.  He watched as the words changed on them like a stream-of-consciousness flip comic. She reached the Y’s and stopped.

He looked down at the tag, “Your Love?”

“Figured nobody would think that might be a Tom Thomson landscape,” she frowned, “Probably nobody would have thought to look for one here in the first place.”

“Probably?” he chuckled. She did too.

“So, who aside from you and the family knew that it was here?”

“Just me, and it was only one member of the family that knew it was here,” she bit her lip and paused.

“Who?” he turned his head just slightly to look at her face while she answered. The card still in his hand. The lights of the office radiated down on them, heavy and bright, coating her large oak desk in an almost metallic sheen.

“My father,” it just squeaked out from her tightly closed lips, “Just him. But I was with him last night, we were at home after he got back from work at Uniroc.”

“I’ll need to talk to him,” he stated.

“Okay,” she twitched as he said it, “I’m sure it wasn’t him, he wouldn’t do that to me.”

“Is he at the plant now?”

“No, he’s at home, he has the day off.”

“I’ll give him a call later, but first, who is the family member that gave you the painting? I’d like to talk to them first.”

“Yes, his name was Bill Woodward, I only have an address though, no phone number.”

“I’ll take it.”

***

The car made the corner toward Kiosk and carried on south. Snow started to fall. It was still warm and the instantly melting snowfall had turned the road to brown mush thanks to the yards and yards of sand that had been spread across it the previous night. His car would be brown already. He drove absentmindedly for half an hour before realizing he had missed the corner he needed. He pulled over to the side of the road and stared blankly at the map. Why had the owner decided to stash it in the gallery in North Bay of all places? Who could have found out about it?

The map gave up its secrets eventually and after a quick U-turn, he was back driving. He reached his corner; the snow grew thicker as he turned onto the sideroad. The snow settled delicately, directly on the road in front. The tires spun as he pressed the gas harder, the treads collecting the fresh snow and condensing it instantly underneath him. He released the gas and let the tires catch the pavement and start to pull the car forward. After another forty-five minutes, he reached the end of the driveway and pulled up to the fence in front of the house. The wood was scarred, reclaimed from some barn

nearby, he was sure. The house was small, a cottage fitted for year-round use. The snow had collected on top of a large tarp that covered a neatly stacked pile of wood sitting snugly by the edge of the steps ready for quick access when the temperature inevitably dropped in the new year. He rang the doorbell while he stared at the wood and daydreamed of sitting by the fire at his grandparents outside Cochrane when he was young.

His reverie was broken by the door opening.

“Can I help you?” The man looked at him through narrow eyes. Skeptical already, great. The man had a long sweeping grey beard with a deep green camo hat covering what hair was left on his head.

“Yes, I’m detective Harry Patterson and I was hoping I could ask you a couple of questions.”

“Do I have to? Am I under arrest?” 

“No, not at all,” he tried to speak in his most soothing voice but it just came out condescending, like he was talking to a dog, and had the opposite effect to what he wanted.

“Then leave,” the man slammed the screen door and grabbed the heavy inside door to do the same.

“It's about the painting.”

The man paused, something flashing in his complexion, rage, fear, sadness, it was too hard to say, “what painting?”

He started again, gently this time, but he knew he already had him, “I’m from North Bay, there was a break-in at the WKP Kennedy gallery storage room last night.”

He let the words dangle in the air and waited for the man to reach for them. He didn’t.

“Are you Bill Woodward?”

“I am, yes.”

“A painting was stolen, just one, but the curator told us it was yours, that she had it in storage, hidden per your instructions.”

“I see,” Bill’s face softened, “well, come in I guess.”

He stepped inside and found the cottage as efficiently organized in the interior as it was outside.

“Do you want a coffee?” he pointed stiffly at an old drip coffee machine in the corner by the stove.

“Sure.”

Bill limped over to the coffee pot and poured out a cup, “do you mind if it's black? I didn’t make it into town today.”

“No problem.”

Bill made his way slowly over to the table, he looked to be in his mid-seventies but aside from his limp, he looked rugged and healthy. He had to be to live out here on his own. He could almost hear Working Man playing as he moved.

“Sorry, old war injury slows me down these days.”

“No problem at all,” Harry stared down at the handmade table below him, it was bowed slightly and the

cup didn’t sit flat on it.

Bill noticed and spoke up, “sorry, softwood you know, I just threw it together a few years back but its time is up.”

“That’s okay,” he looked once more around the room, pictures on the walls but no paintings, at least not here in the main area, “so this painting?”

“I know who took it, or at least I know who was involved.”

“What?”

“My sister,” he answered, “I’m sure of it.”

“How are you sure?”

“Trust me, it was her,” he sucked in a breath, angry but not betraying it yet, “she was the only other person who knew of it. Somehow, she must have found where I hid it.”

“So, can we start at the beginning?” his mind had unspooled and he tried to reel it back in.

“Okay,” Bill looked at him suspiciously.

“How did you come to acquire this painting? And how do you know it was by Tom Thomson?”

Bill again let the questions hang in the air then sucked the air in and spoke it back out, “the painting was my grandfather's, then my father's after, he passed it on to my sister and me back in the early eighties but neither of us have any kids to leave it to.”

“How did your grandfather acquire a painting of Tom Thomson’s that was unknown to everyone else?”

“Well, you know the story of his death I am sure, but my grandfather was a guide on Canoe Lake back in 1917 and he found the painting near Mowat Lodge, just strewn on the ground near the trash. Thomson had rejected it for some reason but I never found anything in it that seemed off and I stared at it for years.”

He took a moment to let his story sink in, then continued, “anyway, my grandfather knew nothing about art he just figured nobody wanted it and that he liked it so he kept it. It wasn’t ‘til my father learned about Thomson when he was in school and they realized the painting was his that they thought it might actually be worth something. But then they were worried about telling anyone for fear they might get accused of stealing it.”

Harry rolled this information over in his mind, “but didn’t Thomson do all his canvas painting in Toronto in the wintertime?”

“Yes, yes he did,” Bill perked up briefly, “my father thought for a long time it couldn’t be his because of that, but what I think was that he had finally decided to do a larger canvas piece en plein air and was unsatisfied with the result and had come to the lodge to discard it.”

“So, what happened with your sister to cause you to hide it?” he tried to move the conversation along without spooking him. The snow still fell peacefully outside, he could see it through the window facing the lake, he felt serene and couldn’t see how anyone could feel anything else right in that moment.

“Well, she wanted to sell the painting and I just couldn’t do that to my family. I didn’t want them posthumously decried as thieves,” he sighed, “she didn’t think anyone would say anything but that the world needed to know about it. It really was beautiful. A marsh with trees spread across it, half of them dying, half coming to life.”

The room opened up and Harry could feel the warm summer air blow in, incorrectly, it was very much winter outside. He hated to break the spell, but his brain kept working, “where is your sister now?”

“We haven’t spoken in three years,” he sighed, “since I hid the painting.”

“Do you know where she might be?”

“I can give you the address I have, but no idea if she is still there,” he stood and collected the address book from his desk in the corner.

“And Lauren had told me she didn’t have a phone number for you, just an address, could I get your number just in case?”

“No, I have no phone, people can come to talk to me directly if they need me,” he said, his gruffness reoccurring.

“Okay.”

Harry left, his thoughts as clouded as ever, but the sky outside was clearing. He swung past the station to update the chief on everything. He collected his partner Sam Jones and left to interview Lauren’s father.

***

“What a day to take a morning off!” Sam laughed, slipping into the passenger seat, “the most exciting crime in the city in ages!”

“I’m not really sure it's in good taste to call a crime exciting Sam,” he tut-tutted. Sam was young and excitable, too much so at times.

“It's true though, get the stick outta your butt!”

They headed for Lauren and her father's house in Pinewood, stopping for coffee en route. They found the house on Cedargrove Drive, the driveway plowed to the pavement, ready for their arrival. As they pulled in they saw Lauren wave from the front step and her father emerge from the garage, wiping the grease off his hands.

“Hello detective, my name is John Beckert,” he smiled and stuck out his now, fairly, clean hand.

“Thanks for talking with us today John, I’m Harry, and this is my partner Sam Jones.”

Sam and John exchanged nods, almost simultaneously.

“Lauren, well, she’s there,” he pointed up to the doorway, “my brother David is inside, he’s been staying with us since his wife kicked him out. Oh, Lauren’s kids are with us this week but their Dad will be picking them up soon.”

“Okay,” they moved inside and he introduced Sam to Lauren. In the house, David was sipping a coffee and offered them some.

“It's okay, we brought our own,” Sam said waving his empty cup “it’s the perfect subterfuge!” Sam muttered as they moved to the living room. “subterfuge is a bit strong for the oldest trick in the book!” Harry replied.

“If it’s the oldest trick in the book why didn’t you teach it to me, some mentor!”

“I told you not to call me that!”

John placed himself in the armchair by the desk in the corner, Sam and Dave sat on the loveseat and Lauren sat on the couch. Suddenly on the precipice of the conversation, all of the air was sucked out of the room. Harry sat down on the couch beside Lauren, the cushions exhaled as he did. The plants sitting in the sun by the big bay window photosynthesized and refilled the room with oxygen. He breathed in and felt the tension begin to decay. The room was dark, all wood panelling not updated since the '70s. It made the conversation seem more ominous than the sun outside had suggested it would be.

“Has David heard by now?” he started out.

“Yes,” Lauren was quick to answer, “he knows all of what has happened.”

David nodded when Harry looked at him.

“Well, then we don’t need to recap that. Let's start by asking you John, when did you hear about the painting?”

“Just after it arrived, two, maybe three years ago now?” he looked at Lauren as he spoke and she held up three fingers, “three years ago.”

“But to be honest I haven’t really thought about it much since then,” he chuckled briefly, Lauren snorted “I’m proud of my girl for being so artistic but I don’t know anything about it. I knew the name Tom Thomson but I couldn’t tell you anything about him except that he was a famous painter.”

“Forgive my brother,” David suddenly jumped in, “he’s good with machines but not much else! Not sure what he’ll do next.”

“Hey!” John shot his brother a look.

“Next?” Harry's eyebrow arched.

“Oh, the Uniroc plant is shutting down, I am being laid off but I have a few small jobs lined up for the new year til I can find something permanent.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize it was shutting down,” Harry made a note.

“It's not out in the news yet, they wanted to wait ‘til after Christmas to announce it.”

Harry signalled for Sam to take over the questioning and he watched the family closely as he did. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, someone must have got wind of the painting in the art world, and nobody here would have known its value. 

Harry and Sam thanked them for the time and headed back to wrap up for the night.

His family could talk about nothing else but the robbery at dinner, the news had spread around town like in a multi-directional game of telephone. He didn’t correct the errors he heard but just sat back and listened.

Continued today at 3 pm