The Endless Knot

by Gail Bowen

  “Zack, don’t say anything else.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “Too much shop talk?”

  “No. It’s not that.” I pulled up in front of my house. “I was going to wait till lunch to talk about this, but Jill Oziowy called this morning. She wants me to do a nightly commentary on the Sam Parker trial for NationTV.”

  “Whoa,” Zack said. “Do you want to do it?”

  “Yes, I think I do. I’m stalled on that book I’m supposed to be writing, and covering Sam Parker might give me the boost I need.” I took his hand. “Besides, I’d get to see you every day.”

  Zack fixed his eyes on me. “That might not be a good idea.”

  “Too much proximity?”

  “No, I could spend every hour of the day with you and it still wouldn’t be enough.” He raised my hand to his lips. “Selfishly, I wanted you to keep thinking I was a nice guy.”

  “You are a nice guy.”

  “Not when I’m in court,” he said. “But that’s my problem. You want the NationTV job, and that’s good enough for me.” He squeezed my hand. “Come on. Let’s eat outside. This day is too perfect to waste.”

  The swimming pool in my backyard was an albatross – a ’60s knockoff of art deco with ornamental tiles in peculiar shapes that were impossible to replace and an ancient and cranky circulation system. From May till October, it whined for attention, and siphoned money from my bank account. Every year, I threatened to get it filled in; every year, I gave in to my youngest daughter’s plea to extend the pool’s life for one last year. That afternoon, as Zack and I came around the side path to the backyard, I was glad I had capitulated.

  Under the cloudless cerulean sky, the pool was restored to its former glory. Shafts of sunlight pierced the surface of the water, bathing the chipped turquoise paint in a forgiving glow, transforming my elderly pool into a jewel shimmering with promise. Zack wheeled himself to a grassy spot near the pool, then breathed deeply, as if he could gulp the beauty of the moment into his lungs.

  “I could stay here forever,” he said.

  “Me too,” I said. “But we don’t have forever.”

  Zack’s brow furrowed into a mock scowl. “Sure we do,” he said. “Today we’re just a little short of time.”

  I went inside and arranged our lunch on a tray; then, on impulse, I added the vase of marigolds I’d picked that morning.

  When I came back out and placed the tray on the table beside Zack’s chair, he was appreciative. “Nice,” he said. “All of it, but especially the marigolds.”

  “You gave me an orchid,” I said.

  “The first time we made love,” he said. “Definitely an orchid occasion.”

  I handed him his sandwich. “I love orchids,” I said. “But I like marigolds too. They endure.”

  “I’ll remember that,” Zack said. For the next half-hour we sat with the sun on our faces, eating seed rolls filled with slices of Gouda and Granny Smith apples, drinking iced tea, sketching plans for the weekend ahead, and trading the latest about friends and family.

  Zack sighed when he heard Angus had elected to go to the opera instead of the lake. “Angus is the only guy I can consistently beat at poker. Besides, I was looking forward to his tales of life at law school.”

  “I can help you out there,” I said. “According to my son, law school is kick-ass.”

  Zack beamed. “Good for Angus. The law is a kick-ass profession.” His smile grew rueful. “Well, most of the time. Anything else I should know?”

  “A boy came calling for Taylor this morning.”

  “She won’t be eleven till next month.”

  “I’m hoping this is just a friend who happens to be a boy. He was wearing a pentangle – like Gawain.”

  “Should I know who Gawain is?”

  “As a matter of fact, you should. Gawain was one of King Arthur’s knights. The boy with the pentangle told me that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the most important book in his life.”

  Zack chuckled. “Well, if Taylor has to have a boyfriend, I guess we’re lucky he’s into chivalry.”

  “We’re lucky people,” I said.

  “We are,” Zack agreed. He glanced at his watch. “I should be getting back. So what are you going to do this afternoon?”

  “Pack up the car and visit Howard Dowhanuik.”

  “What’s Howard like anyway?”

  “Let’s see. He still calls me ‘babe.’ Does that tell you anything?”

  “Just that he’s a braver man than I am.”

  “He is brave – brave and smart and funny – at least that’s the way he used to be. You would have liked him.”

  “But I wouldn’t like him now.”

  “At this point, not even Howard likes Howard.”

  “What went wrong there? I mean, one day he’s the ex-premier, a respected elder statesman, and the next day he’s a lush.”

  “The meltdown wasn’t that quick,” I said. “Howard’s ego’s been taking a beating for a while now. He gave his life to the party, but the party seems to have forgotten his name, his telephone number, and his principles. His daughters e-mail when they think of him – which isn’t often – and since Kathryn Morrissey’s book, his son won’t speak to him.”

  “You can hardly blame Charlie for that,” Zack said.

  “Charlie? You’re on a first-name basis with Howard’s son?”

  “Sure. I don’t like surprises. Our firm has talked to everybody we think may be important to this case, and that includes Charlie. I know that he’s had a tough row to hoe. That birthmark on his face must have been a terrible thing for a kid to deal with, and according to Charlie, his father was never there.”

  “Except during election time,” I said. “During campaigns we always trotted Charlie out so there wouldn’t be an awkward gap in the family picture.”

  “So you’re loyal to Howard because you feel guilty?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m loyal to Howard because he’s always been there when the kids and I needed him. Now it’s my turn.”

  “And you can just blow off the fact that he told Kathryn Morrissey the most intimate details about his son’s private life. Jo, Charlie’s spent years building his career. People across Canada tune into his radio show because they want to hear Charlie D, the cool, smart guy with the insights – the guy who can make them laugh and show them a way out of their problems. So Howard tells Kathryn Morrissey that Charlie D is a fake – that the real Charlie grew up seeing shrinks every week, that he loved his mother obsessively, and that when Charlie was eight years old he met a little girl named Ariel and for the next twenty years he loved her with such a consuming passion that he made her life hell until she died. What kind of man would reveal secrets like that about his son? What was Howard thinking?”

  “He wasn’t thinking. He was trying to make amends for all the years he ignored Charlie. Howard believed that when people read about how deeply Charlie had been wounded by his absence, they’d realize they should be part of their children’s lives.”

  Zack’s raised an eyebrow. “And he wanted to jump Kathryn’s bones.”

  “I’m sure he did,” I said. “But Howard loves Charlie and this is killing him.” I moved closer. “Try not to lose sight of that when you have him in the witness box.”

  Zack brushed my cheek with the back of his hand. “Try not to lose sight of the fact that my first obligation is to my client.”

  I took his hand in mine. “Two fathers. Two sons. Give Kathryn her due – the title she chose for her book deserves full marks.”

  Zack’s gaze was steady. “I didn’t know the title had any particular significance.”

  “Well, it does,” I said. “It’s from a poem called ‘On My First Son’ that Ben Jonson wrote when his seven-year-old died. The poem’s almost four hundred years old, but it still breaks my heart – ‘Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy; / My sin was too much hope of thee, lov’d boy.’ ”

  Zack winced. “Jesus,” he said. “Th
is case just goes from bad to worse.”

  CHAPTER

  2

  For as long as I could remember, I’d given Howard Dowhanuik a bottle of Crown Royal for Thanksgiving. He said he liked his bountiful harvest distilled, and until now I’d been happy to comply. This year I was taking him an apple pie – a wholesome if patronizing choice. Substituting pie for rye had seemed like a good idea, but as I stood, with the pie in the crook of one arm, hammering at the front door of Howard’s condo with my fist, I cursed my stupidity in coming and I cursed Howard for not answering. I knew he was there. The drapes were drawn, the TV was blaring, and his 1988 Buick was leaking oil onto the driveway.

  The condo was in a quiet cul-de-sac five blocks from my house. When Howard had retired, I’d helped him find it. At the time, the location seemed ideal: distant enough from the house of his son, Charlie, to keep Charlie from feeling smothered; close enough to the legislature for Howard to offer our hapless new premier advice as his cabinet ministers, one by one, got caught with their peckers in the pickle barrel.

  Perfect – but nothing worked out.

  Once elected, the premier threw up a firewall of M.B.A.s and toadies to protect him from the unpalatable political home truths Howard might have offered. Ignored, Howard sulked and fumed. And along came Kathryn Morrissey.

  I glanced across at her house. Pricey as they were, Kathryn’s and Howard’s condos were pretty much cheek by jowl. It was late afternoon when Kathryn was shot, and Howard had been drinking heavily. It was possible that he was mistaken about what he thought he saw and heard. One thing was certain. He would have been truthful. Howard’s politics might have been radically different from Sam Parker’s, but Howard had never held people’s politics against them.

  The broad strokes of Kathryn Morrissey’s story and Sam Parker’s were remarkably similar. Both agreed that on the afternoon in question, Sam entered Kathryn’s yard through her side gate, pleaded with her to postpone publication of her book, and, when she refused, fired a pistol. Kathryn and Sam differed on only one particular, but it was critical. Kathryn stated that Sam had threatened her – aiming the pistol carefully and saying, “How does it feel to know that this might be the last day of your life?” Sam said that to emphasize his desperation he held the pistol out to Kathryn and asked, “Can you imagine how it feels to see your child holding this and knowing it might be the last day of her life?” According to Sam, when Kathryn saw the pistol, she panicked, grabbed for it, and in the scuffle the gun went off.

  Howard had corroborated Kathryn’s account, and on the strength of his confirmation, the Crown charged Sam Parker with attempted murder. Howard was the Crown’s fair-haired boy. He was suffering for that too.

  But Howard’s misery was not paramount in my mind as I banged at his door. When finally he appeared, unshaven and in need of a shower, I was mad enough to spit. He was wearing the kind of plaid flannel shirt his campaign manager had tried, without success, to get him to wear when he ran against a candidate who radiated a down-home charm that was as ersatz as it was potent.

  There was no down-home charm in Howard’s greeting. “You never give up, do you, Jo? Does the fact that I didn’t answer the doorbell suggest anything to you?”

  I thrust the pie into his hands. “I brought you something for Thanksgiving.”

  He sniffed. “What happened to the Crown Royal?”

  “I’m being innovative.”

  He gazed at me through a rheumy eye. “Thank you for the innovative pie,” he said. Then he stepped back and attempted to kick the door shut with a slippered foot.

  I stopped it with my elbow. “I’m coming in for a visit,” I said.

  “Suit yourself,” he said. Then, pie in hand, he turned and padded down the hall towards the kitchen. Left to my own devices, I wandered into the living room. The gloom was sepulchral. Heavy drapes banished the light of the outside world, but not its concerns. Three televisions tuned to three separate cable channels brayed news of the latest public incidents of malice, malfeasance, and misfortune. The vinyl La-Z-Boy the caucus office bought Howard when he’d retired eleven years earlier was at the ready. A crocheted afghan lay crumpled on its seat and a glass of amber liquid rested in the indented beverage holder in the recliner’s arm. I didn’t need to sniff the liquid in the glass. The smell of its predecessors lingered in the air. The coffee table was littered with half-filled takeout cartons from Bamboo Garden, leaking plastic sleeves of soy and plum sauce and soiled and balled-up paper napkins. Home, sweet home.

  I turned off the televisions and began picking up garbage and carting it out to the kitchen. Howard watched wordlessly as I dropped the detritus of his meal into the trash, but when I washed my hands and returned to the living room, he followed me. I ignored him. I was a woman on a mission. I opened the curtains and sunshine filled the room.

  Howard narrowed his eyes and growled like an aged and pissed-off lion. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Improving the feng shui,” I said. “Your environment is working against you.”

  He shook his head. “Jeez, I knew it must be something.”

  “Say the word and I’m out of here. It’s a holiday weekend. I have errands to run.”

  He glared at his slippers. “Stay,” he said.

  “My pleasure,” I said. I grabbed the afghan to give it a shake and a copy of Too Much Hope fell from its folds. The book bristled with Post-it notes. The thought of Howard sitting in this darkened living room poring over Kathryn’s book by the flickering light of his three televisions infuriated me.

  “Why do you keep this thing around?” I asked, pitching the book at the La-Z-Boy.

  His drink threatened, Howard sprang into action. He retrieved his glass from the beverage holder and drained it. “To remind me,” he said.

  “Of what?”

  “Christ, Jo, why do you always have to force the issue? To remind me of how stupid I am. To remind me of what I buggered up.”

  He poured himself a refill.

  “Good move,” I said. “How come none of the self-help books suggest liquor and wallowing as tools for recovery?”

  Howard’s voice was gravel. “Because the bozos who write them lack imagination. Come down to my office.” He wandered out of the kitchen and I followed. I didn’t need directions. When Howard had moved into the condo, I’d helped him convert his guest room into an office suitable for an éminence grise. It was a pleasant space, with photographs of the old days discreetly placed to remind people that Howard was a person of consequence, and a new notebook computer and printer to suggest he was moving with the times.

  I glanced around. “So what did you want to show me? Everything’s the same.”

  Howard’s gaze was shrewd. “You always were observant,” he said. “That’s exactly what I wanted you to see. Nothing’s going on. There’s not a goddamn thing in my life except a bunch of pictures to remind me of a time when I was useful.”

  “You’re still alive,” I said. “You have options. You enjoyed teaching. Call our department head. He’d be thrilled to have you teach a class next semester.”

  “How much respect do you think I’d get from students after what I did?”

  “Howard, students don’t care about our private lives. We’re a means to an end for them. By the time the winter semester starts, Kathryn Morrissey will be old news.”

  “Not for me,” Howard said. “Kathryn Morrissey will be an anchor around my neck forever.”

  “Well, you put her there,” I said. “You knew what Kathryn did for a living when you moved in next door to her. I’ve heard you warn dozens of people against blabbing to journalists. What made you open up to her?”

  “Marnie’s death,” Howard said simply.

  “Not good enough,” I said. “Marnie would have killed you for spilling the family secrets to a reporter.”

  “You’re still angry at me for what happened to Marnie, aren’t you?” Howard said.

  “I was never angry at you,�
�� I said. “I was angry at God. There’s a difference.”

  Howard’s lip curled. “Thanks for reminding me.”

  “You’re welcome. Anyway, it’s a moot point. Marnie’s dead, and she died believing she was going to a better place.”

  “But you don’t believe that.”

  “I just wish she’d had a chance to spend more time here.”

  “So do I,” Howard said.

  “Her death was unacceptable,” I said, as in fact it had been.

  After devoting her life to raising a family, writing speeches, making cabbage rolls, and shaking hands, Marnie Dowhanuik told Howard it was her turn, said goodbye, and enrolled at the Centre for Medieval Studies in Toronto. Challenged and for the first time praised for her brilliance, Marnie had flourished. She read far into the night, argued over coffee with the other students, and rode across campus on her new Schwinn. One soft spring day, when Marnie was on her way to class, her bike was hit by a car carrying a provincial cabinet minister to a meeting in Queen’s Park. The class she was headed for was on the literature of the Antichrist.

  Marnie had a penchant for black humour. The fact that, in the end, the Antichrist had used a politician to kill her would have called forth her wonderful dirty, raucous laugh. But the punchline of Marnie’s story was a long time coming. She didn’t die on that day when the air was sweet with the smell of fresh-turned earth and crocuses. Instead, she was picked up by an ambulance and carried to a hospital where good and caring doctors had to face the fact that, try as they might, they couldn’t put Marnie together again. Her body healed, but Marnie herself was irrecoverable. She was sent to a nursing home where the nuns did their best: curling her hair, putting blush on her cheeks, and dressing her in velour track suits in the pastel colours that Marnie despised. Finally, her body was assaulted by an aggressive cancer that carried her away in less than six months. Many thought it was a blessing.

  At the memory of Marnie, Howard’s eyes lost their focus. “I was there when she died, you know. They kept her doped up, but just before she died she came out of the haze. She knew me. She gave me that wicked smile. Then she said, ‘Babe, I’d like to stay, but I have a meeting.’ ” His face crumpled. “The excuse I’d given her a thousand times.”