The Endless Knot

by Gail Bowen

  The court clerk read his lines: “How say you? Do you find the accused guilty or not guilty on the charge of attempted murder?”

  Zack and Glenda were stoic, but Sam, surprisingly, had lost his composure. As he stood to hear his fate, he looked grey and unwell. The jury foreperson looked neither to the left nor the right. “We find the accused not guilty,” she said.

  I found myself almost insanely relieved. Sam and Glenda Parker held each other for a moment, then both leaned over to embrace Zack in his chair. Zack grinned, turned to catch my eye, then moved towards Garth Severight’s table. The men exchanged a few words, then Zack headed for the exit with the Parkers. Charlie Dowhanuik and the Too Much Hope kids stood to follow them out of the courtroom. Krissy Treadgold was back. Looking more Alice-like than ever, she was dressed in a filmy blouse and her blonde hair was tied back in a large velvet bow. She was still wearing her hospital bracelet. Charlie turned towards me and raised his arms in a sign of victory.

  Suddenly exhausted, I threaded my way through the melee. By the time I got to the foyer, Zack had taken off his robe, and Sean, the ever-obliging associate, was at his side. He handed Zack and his clients their coats, then provided a wedge to get them through the crush towards the area on the courthouse steps for the inevitable media scrum.

  I put on my jacket, raised my eyes one last time to the mural of justice in the foyer, and left through the double doors. The whole sequence took less than five minutes. By the time I walked onto the portico, Sam and Glenda Parker were accepting congratulations and Zack was fielding questions from the press that had closed in on them. I crossed the courthouse steps and overheard Garth Severight trotting out a maxim that was both ancient and true: “The Crown never wins or loses. The Crown’s job is to see that justice is done.”

  The temperature was a chilly ten degrees, but the atmosphere was warmed by the giddy heat of victory. Against all odds, the defence had triumphed. When Sam Parker appeared to slip and fall into Zack’s chair, the moment seemed one more instance of the dizziness that affected us all. Grinning, Zack stretched to catch him, and there was laughter and an impromptu scattering of applause. Glenda reached over to help her father up. She was smiling, but as she saw his face, her smile froze.

  “Call 911,” she said. “And somebody help me get him inside.” A police officer who’d been detailed to prevent any incidents when the verdict was delivered stepped forward, took one look, made a call, and then moved Sam from the snowy steps. Zack pushed his way back into the building. There was a crush to get inside, but whether from respect or some sort of atavistic fear, we all kept our distance from the stricken man lying on a blanket spread on the marble floor of the foyer. Glenda knelt beside her father, holding his hand and murmuring reassurances. Finally, the EMS people arrived, strapped Sam Parker onto a stretcher, and carried him to the waiting ambulance. Above us, in his majestic red robes, the God of Laws held aloft the arms of the balance of right and wrong. I glanced at my watch. It was 11:15.

  CHAPTER

  11

  Sam Parker’s collapse set in motion a series of aftershocks that exposed fault lines in many lives, mine included. But in those first moments, all any of us could do was react to this sudden and devastating fracture in the order of things.

  Zack was hyper-alert. “Let’s get down to the hospital. Glenda shouldn’t be alone.”

  “Give me the keys,” I said. “I’ll bring the car around.” But as I started down the stairs in front of the courthouse, Randy, the cameraman from NationTV, grabbed my arm. “Give us five minutes, Joanne,” he said. “You were standing right next to Sam Parker. Rapti will want something.”

  Zack was close enough to overhear the exchange.

  “Do what you have to do,” he said.

  “I’ll be at the hospital as soon as I can,” I said.

  I walked over to my usual place on the courthouse steps, clipped on my lapel mike, and watched Randy set up. When he signalled me to go ahead, my hands were shaking. I jammed them in my jacket pockets and began to speak. My voice was reassuringly steady and by the time I’d finished my standup, I felt stronger, restored by the experience of doing an accustomed job. Randy offered me a lift in the NationTV van and I took it. He dropped me off at the main entrance to the hospital, and I made my way through the cluster of smokers shivering outside in their blue hospital robes, crossed the lobby, and headed for Emergency.

  Zack and Glenda were in the waiting room.

  “How’s Sam doing?” I asked.

  “They’re moving him to Intensive Care,” Glenda said, her voice small and strained.

  “Has anyone called your mother?” I asked.

  Zack moved his chair closer to Glenda. “You have enough to deal with,” he said. “I’ll make the call.”

  Glenda shook her head. “I should be the one to tell her.” She reached for her cell.

  “Probably best to use a land line here,” I said. “There’s a pay phone over there by the door.”

  Zack and I watched Glenda walk to the pay phone, then steel herself to call her mother. I didn’t need to hear Beverly’s side of the conversation to know that Glenda was getting a tongue-lashing. When she came back, Glenda was pale. “My mother says it’s all my fault.”

  Zack and I both started to offer reassurance. Glenda waved us off. “Don’t worry about it,” she said wearily. “My mother has been blaming me for everything since I told her I was a girl.”

  The physician who approached us was a tall, no-nonsense woman whose hospital badge identified her as Roses Stewart. Certain that the name must be Rose, I checked again, but that whimsical final s was no mistake. There was a romantic in Dr. Stewart’s past.

  “Are you Sam Parker’s family?” she asked.

  “I’m his daughter,” Glenda said.

  “It might be best if we sat down,” the doctor said.

  Television has taught us all to read the signals of tragedy. Glenda closed her eyes, shutting out the messenger. “He’s dead,” she said quietly.

  The sorrow on the doctor’s face was real. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We did everything that could have been done. It was simply too late.”

  Glenda nodded numbly. “Can I see him?”

  “Of course,” the doctor said. “But why not wait till we get some of the tubes and wires out of the way.”

  “No,” Glenda said, tilting her chin. “I want to see him now.”

  “All right,” Dr. Stewart said. “Come with me.”

  After they disappeared down the corridor, Zack uttered an expletive.

  I rubbed the back of his neck. “You should call Beverly,” I said. “It would be cruel to let her show up here thinking there’s still hope.”

  “You’re right,” Zack said. “Although I wish you weren’t.” He wheeled towards the nursing station. As he talked to Beverly, I could see him fighting anger. When he came back, he was coldly furious. “Grief has not softened Beverly’s heart,” he said. “She’ll be here in an hour, and she wants me to make certain that Glenda is nowhere around. To quote the lady, ‘I don’t want Sam’s death to turn into a freak show.’ ”

  “What did you say?”

  “My first impulse was to tell the widow to go fuck herself, but then I thought about Sam. His family life was complicated, but he loved his wife and he loved his daughter. Anyway, I told Beverly I’d get Glenda out of the way.”

  “Glenda won’t object,” I said. “When she comes back, she and I can get a cab and go back to my place.”

  Having deferred the meeting of the Parker women, Zack and I sat back to wait … and wait. When Zack checked his watch and realized Glenda had been gone half an hour, he narrowed his eyes. “Maybe somebody should get her out of there,” he said. “This is getting a little weird.”

  As if she’d read his mind, Dr. Roses Stewart strode through the doors from Intensive Care. She seemed surprised to see us in the waiting room. “Glenda left twenty minutes ago,” she said. “She only stayed with her father for a few min
utes. I apologize. Someone should have told you.”

  “It’s a crazy day,” Zack said simply. “But I could use your help. There will be media people downstairs wanting answers. Is there someone who can give them the facts and get them the hell out of here? Mrs. Parker is coming to the hospital straight from the airport. She shouldn’t have to deal with the press.”

  “I’ll talk to them,” Dr. Stewart said. The three of us were silent as we took the elevator to the main floor. But as the door opened, Dr. Stewart turned towards us.

  “I’d just heard the verdict when they brought Mr. Parker in,” she said. “All the time I was working on him, I kept thinking how relieved he must have been to know he was a free man.”

  The press had been shepherded into a boardroom on the main floor. Dr. Stewart’s announcement was brief. She gave the time and cause of death, and said there was no point asking questions because she had no answers. Then she walked out of the room. The press spotted Zack and when they redirected their energies to him, he followed the doctor’s lead and told everyone he had nothing to say, so they might as well go home. There was grumbling, but with no reason to stay, people left. When the boardroom had emptied, Zack rubbed his forehead. “Jesus, Jo. I’m going through the motions, but I really can’t believe any of this.”

  I could see the sorrow gathering. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s blow this pop stand. There’s a Robin’s Donuts down the hall. We can have a cup of coffee and be back in the waiting room at Intensive Care by the time Beverly arrives.”

  The hospital’s Robin’s was called The Heartbeat Café – a questionable choice for a place that pushed caffeine, sugar, carbs, and grease, but in every other way it was identical to its sister stores in the franchise: metal tables and chairs, perky servers in brown and orange uniforms. Zack peered gloomily at the displays that featured every conceivable permutation and combination of fried dough and glaze, then turned to me. “Why don’t they serve martinis here?”

  “No initiative,” I said.

  “They’re missing a bet. Life’s lousiest moments call for something more than coffee, and right now you and I are three for three: Sam’s dead, Glenda has vamoosed, and Beverly’s on her way.”

  I picked up our coffee and followed Zack to a table.

  “Do you want me to stay when Beverly comes?”

  Zack sipped his coffee. “No. You’d probably feel compelled to kill her, and I don’t think I can handle any more complexities today.”

  “Is she that bad?”

  “Worse. She talks about Jesus so much you think he’ll be dropping by for lunch, but Beverly’s Lord wouldn’t be a lot of yucks. He’s pretty heavily into abominations and transgressions.”

  “It’s hard to believe someone could change so much,” I said. “Last night when I heard that funny little twang in her voice, I remembered how much she and Sam meant to me. When I listened to them, I really believed we were the generation that could make a better world.”

  “Beverly made herself a better world,” Zack said. “Can’t blame her for the fact that the poor and downtrodden didn’t know how to pick their investment counsellors.”

  We finished our coffee and said our goodbyes. Zack went to the front door with me and waited till I got a taxi.

  When I got home, I went straight to our family room. The crib board and cards were still on the table. Sam had given the cards a double shuffle before he slid them back into their case. “Luck for the next player,” he explained. Despite everything I felt a rush of gratitude. Out of nowhere, an old Dr. Seuss line came into my mind: “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” I picked up the jacket of the LP on the turnstile. The album was called Skylarking and the photo on the cover was poignant: Sam and Bev, young, lithe, and exuberant, were frolicking on the rigging of a sloop. The sail of the sloop was billowing and the sky above was cloudless and impossibly blue. Nothing but good times ahead.

  Seconds later, the phone rang again. The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Luckily, she identified herself.

  “Joanne, it’s Kathryn Morrissey. I wondered if I could come by and talk to you for a few minutes. I need your help.”

  I was livid. “You really are a piece of work. Sam’s body is still at the hospital and you’re already lining up interviews.”

  There was a silence. “I didn’t know he died,” Kathryn said.

  “Well, he did – about an hour ago. He had a massive coronary, and it killed him. Find a radio. You can hear all about it.”

  “You sound as if you think that somehow Sam Parker’s death is my fault.”

  “Kathryn, do you have any idea of the impact Too Much Hope had on Sam’s life?”

  “Sam Parker died of a heart attack, Joanne. You said so yourself. A heart attack is nobody’s fault. It just happens.”

  “My God, Kathryn. What kind of human being are you?”

  “What kind of human being are you, Joanne? I told you I need help. Can’t we at least talk?”

  “No,” I said. “We can’t. Smarter people than me have fallen for your line, but I have the advantage of hindsight. I know what you do to people who trust you. I have nothing to say to you, Kathryn. Not now. Not ever. So, do us both a favour – delete my name from your address book.”

  As I always did after I’d lost my temper, I felt better for thirty seconds and then infinitely worse. But as depleted and ashamed as I felt, I wasn’t ready for a rematch with Kathryn. When the phone rang again, I checked call display before I answered. It was Jill Oziowy.

  “Quite a day for you, huh?”

  “Zack and I were with Glenda when the doctor told her Sam was dead.”

  “God, that must have been miserable.”

  “It was. And then to add to the misery, I just had a call from Kathryn Morrissey.”

  Suddenly Jill was all business. “What did she want?”

  “She wanted to talk. She said she needed my help.”

  “Perfect. We’re doing a piece on the life and death of Sam Parker on Canadian Morning. Call Kathryn back and ask her to meet you at the studio tonight. I’ll get Rafti to set it up. We can add your interview to the piece.”

  “Jill, Sam Parker died today. If you want to talk to Kathryn, call her yourself. I’m not playing any more, and I told her that.”

  “Mary, Mother of God, why would you do that?”

  “Because, in the words of the sage, ‘There is some shit I will not eat.’ ”

  Jill’s tone was cutting. “So while you stay lily pure, Kathryn is already on the phone with another network arranging her first live interview about the Sam Parker case. Christ, Jo, how dumb can you be?”

  “Apparently very dumb,” I said. “I thought you shared my opinion of Too Much Hope.”

  “That’s personal. This is professional. Your boyfriend would understand.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning you might to want to take a look at how Zack Shreve operates. He knows that when you’ve got a job to do, principles get in the way.”

  “Okay. Time to shut it down. You’re talking about the man I’m going to marry. No more slams. Got it?”

  “Yes, I’ve got it,” she said. “I assume you’ll still do the Canadian Morning spot.”

  “Have Rapti call with a time,” I said. “But, Jill, I really liked Sam. Don’t expect me to be impartial.”

  “I’m sure Kathryn Morrissey’s interview with the competition will balance things out,” Jill said acidly. Then she slammed down the phone. It seemed our friendship was about to become another casualty of Kathryn Morrissey’s ambition. I wanted to cry. Instead, I went into the kitchen and made a pitcher of martinis. Zack had taught me his recipe – Citadelle Gin, enough Noilly Prat to round out the sharpness of the gin, and ice. I put the pitcher and two glasses in the fridge, arranged cheese and crackers on a plate, filled a bowl with more olives, then made up the hide-a-bed in the family room. When Zack arrived, I handed him a martini at the door.

  He grinned. “Hey
, aren’t you supposed be naked and wrapped in Saran Wrap when you do that?”

  “I’m out of Saran Wrap.”

  “Naked would have been okay.” He sipped his martini. “Oh God, that’s good. Come here.” He kissed me. “You’re good, but the world is an awful place.”

  “I take it your encounter with Beverly didn’t go well.”

  He handed me his martini and pointed his chair towards the kitchen “All Mrs. P cared about was ‘maintaining dignity,’ which meant keeping Glenda away from the press, and the size of my bill – which, incidentally, grew every time she opened her yap.” Zack cut a piece of Oka and wolfed it. “This is just what I needed. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I’ll make it up to you. How are you doing?”

  “Not great,” I said. “But hanging in. I had a phone call from Kathryn Morrissey.”

  “Whoa. What was on her mind?”

  “She wanted to talk – said she needed my help.”

  “I’m guessing some publisher has offered her a bundle to write about the Sam Parker trial.”

  “That was my thought too,” I said.

  Zack popped an olive in his mouth. “So what did you tell her?”

  “I told her I had nothing to say and she could delete my name from her address book.”

  “That sounds final.”

  “I hope so. If I never see the woman again it will be too soon.”

  “Moi aussi. Hey, one piece of good news. Glenda got in touch. She left a message at the office, apologizing for running off. She said she just needed to be alone. I understand the impulse. I feel like someone’s peeled the skin off me.”

  “Is the martini helping?”

  “Yes. So is the food. So is being with you.”

  “I’ve got the daybed made up. When we’re finished our drink, I thought we could unplug the phone and take a nap.”

  Zack’s eyes widened. “That is the best idea. Let’s go.”