Free If It Bleeds by Linda L. Richards Page A

into quite the little interrogation.”
    I indicated the party still going on around us. “Just doing my job. But now that you mention it, you did seem awful eager to talk to me. What was that about?”
    He reached out then. Slid one smooth hand down my bare arm. Looked straight into my eyes.
    â€œYou have to ask?”
    We didn’t talk anymore about work or dead cousins after that.

EIGHTEEN
    T here was flirting. Digits exchanged. Arrangements made for an unspecified dinner at some future point. I took some photos and left.
    There were three more stops. By the time I was done and got to 1000 Parker, it was 11:30. I told myself I was just driving by on my way home. It was too late to be bugging people. But there were lights on all over the place, and I figured if I peeked right then, it would save me a few steps in the morning. The thought of Hartigan closing in was never far from my mind.
    In Vancouver art circles, 1000 Parker is well known. A huge old beast of a building in a crappy part of town. Outside it looks like a warehouse. Inside it’s worse. Until you get behind the doors in the maze, to where the magic is made.
    I’d been to events at 1000 Parker. Every fall the Eastside Culture Crawl brought thousands of people through the building. But most of the time, it was just as it was tonight. Lots of studios where artists worked behind battered doors and windowed entries.
    I looked for a directory but didn’t see one. When a bearded man with multiple piercings came out of a studio and looked at me curiously, I returned the look, then asked if he knew where I could find Steve Marsh’s studio.
    â€œThe dead guy, right?”
    I nodded.
    â€œI think he was up on the third floor.” He directed me up a couple of stairways, across an elevated walkway and up another stairway to the top floor.
    As I made my way through the building, I heard more signs of life than I saw. Bare wood floors, blank gray doors. I tried not to think about rats when I heard scuttling in corners.
    When I reached my destination the studio was dark and the lights off. The lock looked serious. Not high security, but beyond my nonexistent B-and-E skills. There was a pane of glass on either side of the door. It wasn’t flimsy. But neither was it security grade.
    It was late. There was no one in sight. And it didn’t seem like the kind of place that would have an alarm. That, and the very real possibility I’d find something Brent didn’t have, spurred me one. Before I could stop myself, I took off my shoe, pointed the heel at the glass closest to the doorknob and gave the pane a resounding thwack . It didn’t shatter right away. It took a second tap. And then a third. But when it shattered, it did so completely. I didn’t have to push any glass out of my way before I reached around and opened the door from the inside.
    I found the lights and looked around. A desk and computer were pushed against one wall with a couple of filing cabinets. Stacks of painted canvases leaned against both side walls, and at the end of the room, in a window I imagined would be filled with light during the day, sat two large easels.
    One of the easels held a painting. The work in progress was different than what I’d already seen of Marsh’s work. The subject matter was starkly different. A man on a boat. A different era, but something familiar in his face. The boat was long and low and wood. Fleetwood in script text on her stern. It looked like it was on a river. I didn’t know what I was looking at. I was sure of that. But I knew it was something to see.
    I looked around some more. Nothing unexpected on the desk. The computer was password protected. The bookcases held books. The filing cabinets, files. I kept poking, losing hope as I did so until I came across a letter. It was neatly folded in an addressed envelope that had clearly not been sent. Dated three days earlier, it was from Steve to Sam at the