An Image in the Lake: A Joanne Kilbourn Mystery

by Gail Bowen

  Kam’s smile was guilty. “I had to spend an afternoon with Herr Doktor Google before I understood the Übermensch concept. There were three people in the room when the incident occurred, and I talked to each of them separately. All three not only corroborated Thalia’s story, but also they expressed surprise that Rosemary would have directed such a gratuitous insult at Patti’s daughter because Patti and Rosemary had always been close.”

  “That surprises me,” I said. “I don’t know either of them well, but Patti and Rosemary strike me as being very different women.”

  “They are, but Rosemary took Patti under her wing when she was signed to host Sunny Side Up, and Patti had always looked up to her. Whatever Rosemary’s motivation, the after-effects of the book incident were devastating. When I told Thalia it would be best for everyone if she simply let the matter drop, I was thinking of her as well as of Rosemary. Nicholas’s death is still a raw wound for Thalia. I thought revisiting the memories of what the book had meant to them both would be painful for her, but as the exit letter makes clear, the interns interpreted my advice as a warning. The next morning all four interns were carrying a copy of Thus Spake Zarathustra.”

  “In solidarity with Thalia,” I said.

  “That’s not how Rosemary saw it. She saw it as a declaration of war, and from that day on, the situation grew steadily worse. Everyone, including me, did their best to give the interns the guidance they needed, but Rosemary regarded any attempt to reach out to the interns as siding with the enemy.”

  I leaned forward. “Charlie said morale at MediaNation had reached rock bottom, but now that the interns are going back at school, the tensions should lessen.”

  Kam drained his cup. “No, the internships last two semesters. The students go back to the J school after Christmas. Our interns are all still in Saskatchewan. Two are in Saskatoon, and Thalia and Clay Fairbairn are still at MediaNation Regina.”

  “Nepotism?”

  “I’m sure nepotism was part of it, but despite all the hand-wringing in the exit letter, both Thalia and Clay did outstanding work while they were here. Thalia’s working on a promising feature for Charlie D in the Morning, and Clay is doing the editing. She and Clay could both end up being real assets to the company.”

  “Time will tell,” I said. “Kam, I’m glad we ran into each other. I was curious about the relationship among the interns, and now I have a clearer picture.”

  “Talking about the situation helped me too.” Kam pushed his chair back from the table. “Time to move along,” he said. “I should get back to work. After all, I have three cats to feed.” The words were light-hearted, but Kam’s voice was heavy.

  “How are Mary and Mr. Grant doing?”

  “Fine, I think. They’re eating; they’re active; they’ve made peace with Feng.”

  I smiled. “I’m assuming Feng is your cat.”

  As he whipped out his phone, Kam’s expression was boyish. “I just happen to have two or three hundred photos of her, but here’s one I took last night.”

  Feng was a strikingly regal looking cat with a distinctly reddish brown coat. “I’ve never seen a cat with that colouring,” I said. “Her coat is gorgeous.”

  “The colour of a maple leaf in autumn,” Kam said. “Hence the name ‘Feng’ which means ‘maple’ in Chinese. Here’s a photo of her with Mary and Mr. Grant. It’s not easy to get three cats in the same picture, but I thought if I heard from Ellen, she’d want to know that Mary and Mr. Grant are well taken care of.”

  I picked up our empty cups. “I’m worried. Do you believe you’ll hear from Ellen?”

  Kam met my eyes. “No, but as long as there’s no evidence to the contrary, there’s hope. Right?”

  “Right,” I said. “Kam, let’s stay in touch.”

  As soon as I returned home, I phoned Jill Oziowy. When I received her voice message, I left a message of my own. “No need to get back to me. Roseanne Roseannadanna was right. It’s always something. If this particular something turns out to be significant, I’ll call you.”

  Chapter Ten

  I didn’t talk to Jill until the day after Labour Day. By then Zack and I were back in the city with Taylor and Gracie. Our time at the lake with the young women had been restorative for us all. Zack and I had agreed to let Taylor choose the moment when she was ready to talk about Vale. Surprisingly, the subject of the break-up did not hang heavy in the air. The bonds between our family and the families of Zack’s law partners were strong, and Gracie’s presence made it easy for us to embrace the comfortable pattern of the summer weekends we had shared with the Falconers.

  Seven years earlier, my friend Kevin Hynd had invited my family to stay in his cottage at Lawyers Bay for the summer. It was a summer that changed my life and the lives of my children. I met Zack at the Falconer Shreve Canada Day party, and by the end of the summer we knew we belonged together. That Canada Day had proved fateful for Taylor too. She met Gracie Falconer and Isobel Wainberg, the daughters of two of Zack’s law partners. The five partners all had cottages on the horseshoe of land around Lawyers Bay, and from that summer on, our families were inextricably linked.

  Gracie and Isobel were a year older than Taylor but they attended the same schools, and the three girls quickly became inseparable. When our daughter called to tell us she’d left Vale, but that Gracie was with her at the lake, relief had washed over me. Big-boned, red-haired, freckled and blessed with a winning smile, a great free throw and a caring heart, Gracie was exactly the comforting presence Taylor needed.

  Gracie too was at a point of change in her life. Without drama or explanation, Gracie had completed her pre-med at Notre Dame and returned home to enrol in the College of Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan. It was the university where her father had met Zack and the other three young students who sardonically referred to themselves as the Winners’ Circle and who became law partners and remained close friends throughout their lives. Zack was the last living member of the Winners’ Circle, and he was taking immense pleasure in Gracie’s decision to attend their alma mater.

  That weekend the four of us fell into the easy rhythm of our accustomed pattern at the lake: swimming, canoeing and wandering with the dogs along the shore of Lawyers Bay. We watched all three of the Godfather movies and agreed that while The Godfather Part III was okay, it did not meet the standards of its predecessors. We played cutthroat games of Monopoly Deal, talked about politics, Notre Dame’s football prospects for the season ahead and perused Taylor’s photographs of the Haida carvings at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC, so Zack could choose the ones he wanted framed for his law office. It was all very low-key but there was one unsettling moment. It came when Gracie and Taylor were looking at photos of the twins and their new play structure on Zack’s tablet.

  Listening to the young women, heads together, laughing softly at the photos, evoked memories of the countless times Gracie, Isobel and Taylor, as close as triplets, sat planning, chatting and sharing the experiences of being girls on the path to womanhood. The memory was soothing, but suddenly Gracie shot to her feet, strode across the room and handed Zack his tablet. “Why do you have this picture of Farky Farquhar?” she asked.

  “Maisie sent it,” Zack said. “Do you know that guy?”

  Taylor joined us. “Farky is a nickname. His real name is Ronan Farquhar, and he was in Gracie and Isobel’s class at Luther, a year ahead of me. Gracie and Isobel told me to steer clear of him, and I did.”

  Gracie rolled her eyes. “That didn’t stop him from asking you to grad.”

  “I couldn’t believe he asked me,” Taylor said. “I’d never really talked to any of them.”

  “Any of whom?” Zack said.

  “Farky’s group — the University Park Road Gang, three boys, including him, and one girl. They all hung out together.”

  “They didn’t just ‘hang out’ together,” Gracie said. “They
were glued to each other. Clay Fairbairn referred to their group as a ‘cohort.’”

  Zack narrowed his eyes “As in the cohorts of warriors in the Roman army?”

  “I guess,” Gracie said, and her tone was withering. “Clay Fairbairn said they were a ‘band of warriors’ — kid stuff,” she said.

  I felt my nerves twang. “Clay Fairbairn is part of the cohort?”

  “He considers himself their leader,” Gracie said. “Farky, Clay, Austin and Thalia, the brains of the group. Taylor, remember that rumour the cohort started about you after you turned down Ronan Farquhar’s invitation to grad?”

  The look Taylor shot her friend would have curdled milk. “That’s ancient history,” she said. “Nobody cares about that.”

  “I care about it,” Zack said mildly. “How come we never heard about this before, and what was the rumour?”

  Taylor was clearly exasperated. “A member of the cohort told everybody that I was frigid, and that you and Jo had sent me to at least five psychiatrists, but none of them was able to cure me. End of story. Why did Maisie send you a picture of Ronan?”

  “Because your pal, Ronan, attempted to disrupt Alison Janvier’s presentation at a symposium.”

  Taylor rolled her eyes. “That’s exactly the kind of stupid thing Farky would do. I hope Maisie nailed him.”

  “She did,” Zack said.

  “Good,” Gracie said. “But tell Maisie to watch her back.”

  “Do you think Ronan might retaliate?”

  “I don’t know,” Gracie said. “But there was an aura around that group — a darkness. I’m not into that weird woo-woo stuff, but when the four of them were together, they emanated bad energy. You could feel it.”

  “Did you know that Thalia Morgan had a brother who committed suicide when she was sixteen?” I asked.

  “No.” Gracie paused. “I wonder if that’s why Thalia started Luther in February. It’s unusual for a student to start that late in the year, and we all wondered. By grade eleven, most of the cliques are firmly in place, and Thalia was so alone. I felt sorry for her, but she was unapproachable. Some kids are really into emo — they wear black slim fit jeans and black T-shirts, and that’s cool, but Thalia’s emo look was way off the charts: ankle-length black dress, black boots and she always wore this weird amulet necklace. We thought she was just a drama queen, but in retrospect, I guess she was in mourning for her dead brother.” Gracie was clearly exasperated with herself. “Why are we always so shitty to each other?”

  “That’s a question for the ages,” I said. “But Gracie, Thalia obviously moved on. The girl in the cohort that you and Taylor remember was not a girl to be pitied.”

  “No, she was not,” Gracie said. “Starting after the February break meant Thalia had missed over half the school year, but she didn’t fall behind. She did brilliantly. My grades were always good, but Thalia left me in the dust.”

  “And she continued to do well academically,” I said.

  “Oh yeah,” Gracie said. “She’s absolutely brilliant. And by the time we started grade eleven, Thalia was no longer a loner. She was a different girl. She’d hooked up with the University Park Road Gang.”

  “But she was fine with that?” Zack asked.

  “More than fine,” Gracie said. “She was definitely in control.”

  Zack winced, and I noticed his right leg had extended itself and started to spasm. For Zack, these involuntary muscle spasms were an annoying but harmless side effect of life in a wheelchair. Other paraplegics had far more serious problems with spasms, but despite their often inconvenient timing, Zack’s spasms brought a bonus by helping strengthen the muscle tone in his legs. Zack usually handled the spasms himself, but Taylor was quick off the mark. She placed both hands under her father’s knee and swung his foot back on the foot-plate of his chair. When his foot continued to bounce, Taylor pressed down on it, stretching his heel and tendon until the foot grew still.

  When the spasm was over, Zack gave Taylor a quick grateful smile and carried on talking to Gracie. “When you referred to the boys from University Park Road as a ‘gang,’” Zack said, “were you suggesting they were troublemakers?”

  “No, far from it,” Gracie said. “They were leftovers — nerds without friends. But after they formed the cohort, the University Park Road boys were nerds no more. They became super-confident, got great haircuts and started dressing like CEOs.”

  “Do you think Thalia was responsible for the transformation?” I said.

  “Probably,” Gracie said. “I know she got them all reading Thus Spake Zarathustra.”

  “Thalia had them reading Nietzsche in grade eleven?” I said. “That’s amazing. What’s even more amazing is that the members of Thalia’s group are entering their second year at the School of Journalism and Thus Spake Zarathustra still seems to be their bible.”

  Gracie’s eyes widened. “Now that is bizarre,” she said.

  “Anything else we should know?” Zack said.

  “I can’t think of anything,” Gracie said, “but I’ll let you know if I do.”

  “Thanks,” Zack said. “This has been really helpful. Gracie, I hope you know how happy we are that you and Taylor will be housemates.”

  “I’m happy too,” Gracie said. “And you know something else I’m happy about? The condo is universal design. Totally accessible for the guy who’s been like a father to me since my dad died.”

  “Gracie, I’ve known you since the day you were born, and you never disappoint.”

  “I’ll try to stay on track,” Gracie said. “Zack, I miss my dad so much.”

  “I miss him too,” Zack said. He swallowed hard. “Time to move along. Now who’s up for Monopoly Deal? I haven’t won a single game this weekend, and I deserve a chance to redeem myself.”

  * * *

  We didn’t talk about the end of Taylor and Vale’s relationship until after dinner on Sunday. Peter and Maisie had given Zack a rotisserie barbecue for his birthday, and it had supplanted the deep fryer as his treasured culinary toy. Before we left the city for the weekend, I had splurged and bought Taylor’s favourite, a rolled prime rib, so Zack spent a happy late afternoon reading Homicide Trinity, with Pantera at his side, both watching the prime rib turn, spitting fat on the coals and filling the air with the melt-in-your-mouth scent of succulent beef.

  Our Sunday dinner celebrated the glories of early September. That afternoon we’d driven over to Standing Buffalo where a farmer, who had known Gracie since she was knee-high to a grasshopper, let us pick corn and choose vegetables for a salad. After we’d eaten, we pulled our chaise longues into a space on the west side of the lawn, where the last sunlight of day was pooling.

  Our mood was mellow. Simply being together again was sublime, but the slight chill in the air was a reminder that change was on its way. “A week from now I’ll be walking into the College of Medicine in Saskatoon,” Gracie said. “Ever since I explained to my Notre Dame coach why I was coming back to Saskatchewan to finish my degree, I’ve wondered how I’d feel when it suddenly became real. I was still wondering when Taylor called and asked me to pick her up at the airport. Since then I’ve felt that every step I’m making is the right one.”

  Zack and I were silent. We knew this was Taylor’s moment to choose, and Zack wheeled his chair closer to mine.

  “As soon as the plane touched down and I saw that big prairie sky and Gracie waiting for me, I knew I was where I belonged,” Taylor said. “Maybe not forever, but for now.” Her dark eyes searched her father’s face and mine. “I really am all right. I hope you could see that this weekend.”

  “We did,” Zack said. “Jo says you’re sad but hopeful.”

  Gracie flashed me a victory sign. “Jo, the mood-reader, nails it again. ‘Sad but hopeful.’” She gave our daughter a wry smile. “That’s you, Taylor, but with the emphasis on the hopeful. Now, I’m
going to leave you three to talk this through.”

  Gracie bent to kiss Zack on the head. “Sleep well,” she said to us. “Taylor’s in good hands.”

  Taylor shifted on her chair to face us. For a minute or two she was silent, gathering her thoughts. Finally, she said, “Jo, do you remember telling me about that friend of yours who married her college sweetheart, and when the marriage ended, she travelled back to every place they’d lived to see if she could understand when their relationship had started to unravel?”

  “I do,” I said. “It seemed a strange journey to me, but she said she needed to hear the click of closure.”

  Taylor’s smile was rueful. “Vale telling me that she and Etienne Simard had an affair was definitely my click of closure. Figuring out when our relationship started to unravel isn’t easy. It happened so gradually that I think neither of us really noticed.

  “When we moved to Vancouver, the only apartment we could get was across the city from where Vale’s movie was being shot. She was working twelve-hour days, so it made sense for her just to stay where she was working. One day it struck me that Vale and I were leading separate lives. I guess I thought we’d deal with it when the movie was finished, but when that video went viral, it pretty well blew that plan out of the water.”

  “It was a painful way to find out,” Zack said.

  Taylor’s voice was weary. “Actually I’d seen the outtake months ago when there was a question about whether or not to use it. I was in favour of including it, because the insight it gave into Sally and Izaak’s relationship was the truth.”

  “Taylor, I’m still not getting this,” I said. “If you knew the video was just an outtake, why was it a problem?”

  “Because after the video went online, I had a text from a blocked number calling themselves ‘a concerned friend’ and suggesting I ask Vale when her affair with Etienne Simard began.”