The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

i wpw i pio tribune september 18 1991 c the miracle painting by kent wideman ttl xperience has w mj taught me that bj there are at least jlji three situations in life which have the capacity to escalate above and beyond any normal level of accept able risk an angry woman a misguided politician and cor nered animal blake conners was a cor nered animal born into an extremely wealthy family with the added blessings of a six foot frame good looks and a treasured job that could hardly be referred to as demanding blake had thoroughly enjoyed his 31 years of life on easy street and he was not taking kindly to news that the ride may soon be ending alone in his dimly lit study blake rose from his arm chair crushed one cigarette lit another and began to pace while cursing silently to him self his actions seemed mechan ical reflecting hours of repe tition the words of his father continued to reverberate in his mind lazy slothful lifestyle totally unaccept able wasting your life no more warnings change immediately or else the confrontation was nei ther new or surprising but the finality of the ultimatum shocked blake and without his monthly allowance life as he knew it was simply impos sible s repeatedly he surveyed his options but no easy solution emerged and so he continued to pace searching for the answer which would keep the ride going before the sun came up he had reached his decision one born from desperation and destined to irrevocably change the life of his employ er lewis nathaniel vallan court not a bad beginning i announced triumphantly ris ing in the direction of my cof fee machine and ignoring the fact that talking to oneself is riot normally considered to be a sing of high intelligence as a journalist for the equinox gazette i was attempting to write a feature article on the sensational and yet tragic vallancourtcon- ners affair incredibly the true facts regarding the matter were only how coming to light fol lowing along and highly secretive police investigation stretching my arms upward in a motion that triggered a yawn in response i realized that much work still lay ahead nevertheless i was confi- v dent that my latest and eighty attempt at an opening finally captured the proper balance with which to unfold this saga giving the reader a sense of expectation and at the same time laying the groundwork for the development of the key character blake conners blakes reputation as a gold en boy was well earned his career for lack of a better term involved managing the schedule and press contacts for the renowned artist lewis vallancourt ssts given the fact that vallan court had a strong dislike for appearing in public and paint ed only when greatly inspired conners responsibilities were often noexistent which allowed him to make better use of his valuable time at the club the racetrack or sharing his charm with some lonely damsel those few individuals who knew vallancourt personally were aware that the famous artist was not in great health and was generally lacking in most of the basic positive human emotions facts which no doubt eased blakes con science as he began to devel op his scheme while lazy in most respects it appears that blake spared no effort in his new project from the two libraries he frequented i learned that he had signed out virtually every agatha christie and ellery queen novel in existence dur ing early 1990 as well as a number of medical journals which had feature articles on poisons suicide and post mor- tum observations in essence his plan was a trade off he would give up his cushy job for one huge payoff a vallancourt original including print potential this collectible would com mand a market value of close to 1 million even before val- lancourts death and withthat kind of money his fathers actions need no longer con cern blake given associations which blake had built in recent years selling a vallancourt painting quietly and anony mously would not be difficult assuming that the paintings authenticity could be verified the latter would have been relatively easy as vallancourt had a highly distinctive style which was virtually impossi ble to duplicate and in the picasso tradition he also both signed and dated all of his paintings blakes plan finally sprang into action in june of 1990 as 1 99 1 he somehowconvinced val lancourt to spend a week painting at a small rented cot tage in an almost uninhabited section of northern ontario it goes without saying that blake conners was the only person who was aware of the cottages location as vallancourt toiled at his painting blakes scheme con tinued to unfold the next step occurred at about 8 pm on saturday june 20 while blake was attending what one would politely refer to as a loud and boisterous gathering finding a secluded room away from the noise of the party he phoned one of val lancourts oldest friends and original financiers the latter still swears it was vallancourt speaking but recent events show that it must have been blake imitating vallancourts voice blake commenced to thank his companion jfor the friendship he had shown through their time together but added that life vas no longer worth living and was therefore beingended before his shocked friend could repay a sojund like a gun shot echoed across the phone line which immediate ly went dead blake rejoined the party without ever being missed the police were contacted without delay but steps to track down vallancourt were of course futile and conners had kept the party he was attending a closely guarded- secret it has occurred to me that conners would have had an easier time of performing the murder first and then making the phone call i believe he chose the more difficult route so that he could be certain that his voice imita tion would be accepted before he completed the remainder of his plan given blakes air tight alibi on june 30 credit card usage and other factors since learned we know that the actual murder must have occurred on sunday july l i envision that the actual murder must have occurred on sunday july l i envision that blake went to the cottage found that the painting was finished and completed vallancourts sui cide on schedule blake had access to vallan courts own gun and was meticulously careful in ensur ing that the phone the gun and fingerprints were all left so as to indicate suicide in place of the complete painting blake left several half finished works which vallancourt had put aside at various times in recent month blake then bolted the only door from the inside and left via one of the windows the police were unable to contact blake until his return on tuesday july the second it was crucial that vallancourt was not found quickly so that the actual time of death would be virtually impossible to establish accurately had the latter occurred the timing of the phone call would not have matched the actual time of death and the suicide theory would have been destroyed as detailed in the following statement by sergeant reed the police were completely fooled conners plan was simple but brilliant there was not one single fact that in any way suggested that we were not dealing with a suicide the cottage was found bolt ed form the inside and when we gained entrance we found that vallancourts body had been shot at close range with his own gun there was nothing but val lancourts body had been shot at close range with his own gun there wasnothing about vallancourts character that made suicide out of the ques tion in fact his artistic nature health problems and a melancholy personality actu ally made him a high risk can didate facts from ballistics the autopsy and our own investi gation also gave no evidence to refute the located the tim ing of the phone call on june 30 fit well within the broad time range during which death could have occurred above all there was simply no motive i vallancourts estate settle ment was surprisingly small and was willed totally to dis- tant relatives in europe who were not even aware that they were related to thefamous recluse with the paintings found at the scene we had no indica tion whatsoever that anything had been stolen in retrospect perhaps we should have questioned the fact that vallancourt phoned in his epithet rather than leav ing a written note but remem ber we were dealing with an eccentric old artist here it appears that it was not until mid august that blake ventured to return to claim the painting from its hiding place the location of which we will likely never know and return to his study where he now deemed if safe to finally admire his treasure and savor the culmination of his plan sssm at least briefly he must have been ecstatic even to a casual observer vallancourts final painting was clearly exceptional experts have since argued that it was his best effort ever and since his death market prices for his works had already reaffirmed that val lancourt was an artist with lasting appeal as expected blake had been removed from his fathers allowance by this time but bank accounts have proven that he had ample funds to carry him through the next year or so during which time he had undoubtedly planned to carefully market the paint ing- however at some point on that august night in his study blake came to the realization that his apparently unblem ished plan was fatally flawed the latest draft for the con clusion of my equinox gazette article is as follows they found blake very still and very cold sitting upright in his arm chair and facing his treasured painting it was evi dent that his research on poi sons hadnt been a total waste of time after all we will never fully know the process in blakes mind as he made his final and irrevocable deci sion but it was unquestion ably a terrible struggle undoubtedly hour after hour passed as he desperately searched for options that were never found because in reali ty there were only two alter natives and despite the shocking nature of the first it appears that blake was not willing to choose his second option and destroy thepaint- ing which would also have meant ending the ride if you want to view the famous painting it remainson display at a gallery just out side of toronto most days of the week youll see a crowd around it some of which may be refer ring to it as the tragic painting or the painting of death i prefer to call it the mira cle painting if you look closely at the bottom right hand corner you can see the miracle for your self with the easily legible signaturelewis vallancourt july l 1990 after all how many paint ings do you know of that were completed by the artist the day after they died si 3 it i i is5 i l v w