by Gail Bowen
Zack’s glance was quick but assessing. “So you think Howard must know something?”
“Or thinks he knows something,” I said. “After the shooting, Howard kept a close eye on Kathryn Morrissey. If he was watching her place last night, it’s possible he saw Charlie.”
“Howard’s a drunk, Jo. It’s possible he sees a lot of things. The fact is there was no reason for Charlie to go to Kathryn’s house. The trial was over.”
“And justice had been served,” I said. “But Sam Parker was dead, and Charlie blamed Kathryn.”
“You talked to him?”
“No, Mieka and Peter did. Apparently Charlie was livid. He thought Kathryn should be punished for what she’d done. Pete couldn’t control him, so he called Mieka.”
“And Mieka was able get Charlie to cool it?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But we should probably find out before Howard gets himself in any deeper.”
I took out my cell and started hitting the speed dial. My daughter didn’t answer, neither did my son or Charlie. “No luck,” I said. “Would you mind dropping me at NationTV – I might be able to find out something there.”
“Your wish is my command,” Zack said. He patted my leg. “I’ve always wanted to say that to a woman, but it’s so cheesy.”
“And cheesy doesn’t matter with me?”
“No, because we’re committed. We spent four hours looking at paint chips so we could find a colour we could both live with for our bedroom. You’d never put yourself through that with another guy.” He executed a neat U-turn and we were back on Albert Street. Five minutes later we were at NationTV.
“If you need a ride home, give me a call,” Zack said.
“Where are you going to be?”
“Back at our house, working on the list for the retrofitting.”
“You’re the most focused human being I’ve ever known,” I said.
Zack shrugged. “The sooner those bedroom walls are painted Lavendre de Provence, the sooner we can move the bed in.”
I gave my name to the commissionaire at NationTV. He called Rapti and she buzzed me through the door that led to the newsroom. Rapti wasn’t in her cubicle. She was by the window, with a telephone cradled between her ear and shoulder, taking notes. When she saw me, she held up a finger indicating one minute. I took a chair and perused the latest photos of Rapti’s cat, Zuben. Rapti hated cats, but she loved Zuben, with whom she shared what she characterized as a complicated and deeply textured relationship.
I was trying to decide whether a photo of Zuben in a Santa hat was ironic or deeply textured when Rapti came over. “Where have you been?” she said. “Jill’s been hollering at me because she couldn’t find you.”
“I was watching the EMS team bring out Kathryn Morrissey’s body,” I said.
Rapti sat down on the edge of her desk. “You knew about that already? That must mean your boyfriend has been hired to defend somebody.”
“No. It just means I was at the wrong place at the wrong time. However, I am prepared to exchange information. What do you have?”
“Not much yet,” she said. “Kathryn Morrissey was killed with …” Rapti squinted at her notepad. “I can’t make out my own writing, but they were some sort of Chinese carved figures.”
“Baku,” I said. “She owned a pair of them. They’re supposed to capture bad dreams.”
“They weren’t on the job last night,” Rapti said tartly. She stared at me. “Trade you places. I need the computer.” We switched and Rapti, an effortless multi-tasker, began typing up her notes and filling me in. “From what we’ve heard,” she said, “Kathryn Morrissey’s death was horrific. Her murderer used the baku to bludgeon her to death.”
I swallowed hard. “Any idea who did it?”
“Not so far. Kathryn Morrissey’s son found her this morning.” Rapti checked her notes. “He’s thirteen years old.”
I shuddered. “Imagine finding your mother like that. He’ll never get over it.”
“I guess not,” Rapti said. “We’re trying to track him down, but he seems to have been invisible.”
“Try the neighbourhood schools,” I said. “If he is thirteen, he has to be enrolled somewhere.”
“Good thinking,” Rapti said. She tapped into the Regina school listings. “Boy, who knew there were this many schools in Regina?”
“You can eliminate most of them,” I said. “Given where Kathryn Morrissey lived, the logical possibilities are Pope Pius XII and Lakeview.”
“Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, I choose Pius XII,” Rapti said. She aimed a perfectly manicured nail at the keypad of her telephone and tapped in the number on the screen. When her call was answered, she gave me a thumbs-up sign. “This is Rapti Lustig from NationTV,” she said “Do you have a student there by the name of Ethan Morrissey. He’s thirteen. Thank you, I’ll hold.”
“Ethan,” I repeated, and my chest was heavy with the burden of information I didn’t want to carry. “And you say he’s thirteen?”
Rapti heard the apprehension in my voice. Her eyes darted from her computer screen to me. “Something you can contribute?” she asked.
“He’s not at Pius XII,” I said. “He’s at Lakeview. The surname isn’t Morrissey, it’s Thorpe.”
Rapti’s eyes blazed with interest. “Anything more?”
“He’s a friend of Taylor’s,” I said.
“Let me phone Lakeview,” Rapti said. I sat down while she made the inquiry.
Suddenly, it was too much, the covered body on the gurney, the baku, the fragile vulnerable boy finding his mother. “Rapti, I’ve got to get out of here. I’m feeling sick.”
“Hang on, Jo,” said Rapti. “The police have found him. They’re taking him to his dad’s.”
Somewhat relieved, I stood up and left while Rapti was thanking someone at Lakeview for their courtesy. I took a cab to the new house. Zack was in the living room hard at work on his notes.
He beamed when I came into the room. “Perfect timing. There are decisions to be made, and I don’t want to make them alone.”
I didn’t respond. Zack moved closer to me. “What’s wrong?”
“Everything,” I said.
For the next fifteen minutes, I sat on the floor, and Zack stroked my hair and offered comfort as I related what seemed increasingly to be a nightmare. “I don’t know what to do next,” I said finally.
“Sure you do,” he said. “Find out the truth. The only thing worse than knowing is not knowing.”
I pushed myself to my feet. “So I guess my move is to go to Charlie’s and tell him that, despite the fact that a woman he hated was murdered and he may or may not have been in the neighbourhood at the time, he has nothing to worry about.”
Zack raised his eyebrows. “That ought to start the ball rolling,” he said.
Charlie’s house was in the city’s core, nestled between a pawn shop and a building that had once been an adult video store but now sold discount bridal gowns. Only a bride who was a retail addict or suicidal would have ventured into that neighbourhood after dark, but the 1930s bungalow that Charlie tenderly restored for a woman he had loved and lost was an oasis of sweet innocence. With its Devonshire cream clapboard, dark green louvred shutters, and lace curtains, the house evoked a time when people left their doors unlocked and visited with neighbours on soft summer nights. It was a welcoming place, but that afternoon my only greeting was from Pantera, who was body-slamming the door in his eagerness to see who was on the other side.
I’d given up and started back down the walk by the time Charlie finally came to see what was going on. When he called my name, I turned and saw that he wasn’t alone. Peter and Mieka were standing behind him in the shadowy hall. Faced with a stranger at the gates, my children and Charlie had obviously decided to present a united front.
Pantera’s tail-wagging was manic, but nobody else seemed glad to see me. As the silence grew awkward, I waded in. “So what’s going on, Mieka,” I said. “I thought you were
going back to Saskatoon this morning.”
Pete, always the peacemaker, took over. “Mum, this isn’t a good time for you to be here.”
“It’s not a good time for you to be here either,” I said. “Shouldn’t you be at the clinic?”
His face flushed with embarrassment. Pete and I had always been close; shutting me out was hard for him. “We just have a couple of things to work out,” he said miserably.
I stood my ground. “I have something to work out too,” I said. “Charlie, this morning your dad called Zack because he needed a lawyer. We were at your father’s condo when the EMS workers took out Kathryn Morrissey’s body. It wasn’t a great way to start the day, and the situation isn’t going to get any better. I think we need to sit down and talk about what happened last night.”
No one offered me a chair; in fact, no one even budged. The signals were clear: any conversation we had would be brief and tense. For a few moments we faced one another in uneasy silence. “So is Zack Howard’s lawyer?” Mieka asked finally. Her hand had been resting on Charlie’s upper arm. Now it slid down until her fingers found his.
I tried to ignore the intimacy. “No,” I said. “Zack didn’t feel he was the best choice, but he did introduce Howard to someone else.”
Charlie’s voice was cold. “Why does my father need a lawyer?”
“I don’t know. But he did ask me to deliver a message to you. He said, ‘Tell Charlie that everything will be okay.’ ”
Mieka and Peter exchanged glances.
“Anybody care to fill me in?”
“Sometimes there are things it’s best not to know,” Pete said. “There was some confusion last night – can’t we let it go at that?”
“Pete, a woman was murdered.”
Charlie stepped closer. “We were together all night.”
“The three of you? Am I supposed to believe that Mieka left her kids on Halloween so she could stay up with you and her brother eating popcorn and watching horror movies?”
“It wasn’t the three of us, Mum,” Mieka said quietly. “Pete had an emergency at the clinic. It was just Charlie and me.”
“All night?”
“All night,” she said.
“But, Mieka, if you were asleep in a different room …”
“I wasn’t in a different room, Mum. I was with Charlie.” She looked away. “I’m sorry, Mum.”
“I’m not the one you need to apologize to,” I said. I peered into my purse, found Margot’s card, and handed it to Charlie. “This is the number of your father’s lawyer. Call her or don’t call her. Your choice.”
When I left, nobody waved goodbye.
Driving home, I made a conscious effort not to think about anything beyond the consolations of a hot shower, warm pyjamas, and a long nap. Half an hour later, clean and in my favourite flannelettes, I thought sleep would be possible, but I was wrong. The photographs of Mieka, Greg, and the girls on my nightstand were impossible to ignore, and I was still staring at the ceiling when I heard Taylor come home from school. I pulled on my jeans and sweater and went down to meet her.
She was sitting on the cobbler’s bench in the front hall. Her jacket and backpack were on the floor beside her. She was taking off her boots, and her face was pale.
“I wish I’d known she was Ethan’s mother,” Taylor said.
I remembered Kathryn’s phone call. It was possible she had just wanted to talk about the problem that was developing between our children. More coals heaped upon my head. “I wish I’d known too,” I said.
“It must have been hard for Ethan coming here,” Taylor said thoughtfully. “Remember how weird he was that day he found out Zack was your boyfriend?”
“Yes,” I said. “Sometimes people are a little taken aback when they meet Zack. I thought that’s all it was. And then when Ethan started going to the trial, I figured it was a case of hero worship.”
Taylor narrowed her eyes. “Why would anybody worship Zack?”
“Well, he’s pretty successful.”
“A lot of people are successful,” Taylor said. “That’s no big deal. Besides, Ethan said he was interested in justice.”
“Like Soul-fire,” I said.
Taylor’s face was suffused with sadness. “Do you suppose that’s why Ethan stopped wearing his pentangle – because he doesn’t believe in justice any more?”
“The timing makes sense,” I said. “The verdict came down Monday morning and you said Ethan wasn’t wearing his pentangle Monday night.”
Taylor picked up her coat and bookbag and hung them on the hall tree. “What will happen to Ethan now that his mum’s dead?”
“He’ll probably go to his dad’s.”
“But his dad’s new wife says Ethan doesn’t fit into their family.”
“I guess Ethan will have to find a way to fit in.”
“It’s not fair,” Taylor said.
I put my arm around her shoulder. “No,” I said. “It’s not fair, but that’s the way it is.”
At five o’clock, Zack, the Family Man, came by unannounced and asked what we wanted to do about supper. No one was hungry, but as he pointed out sensibly, we had to eat. We went to Earl’s, a restaurant we all liked, and the familiar ambience – the sounds of other people’s laughter, the taped music, the clink of cutlery against china – was balm to our raw nerve ends. So was the litre of Shiraz Zack and I split and the virgin Caesar with extra pepper that Taylor ordered.
As she sipped, my younger daughter was still deeply concerned about Ethan’s fate. Taylor was not a person who worried privately, so Ethan and his future dominated our conversation. It was a grim topic. By the time our entrees arrived, we were all in need of diversion. A large and noisy birthday party at the next table offered deliverance. Taylor’s eleventh birthday was less than two weeks away, and Zack made the connection.
“Looks like they’re having fun over there, Taylor,” he said. “What have you got planned for your birthday?”
Taylor’s brow furrowed in concentration. “No party,” she said. “We just had one. Besides, with Ethan and everything, it doesn’t seem right.”
Zack’s fork stopped in mid-air. “So November 11 will be just another day – no gifts, no cake, no nothing.”
“I didn’t say that,” Taylor said quickly. Then realizing she was being teased, her brown eyes shone. “I love presents, and Jo always makes a cake. Maybe we could just have the family and Gracie and Isobel.” She turned to me. “Would that be okay?”
“It’s your champagne birthday – you’re turning eleven on the eleventh day of the eleventh month. You get to do whatever you want – within reason of course.”
Taylor’s smile was mischievous. “And since it’s my champagne birthday, I’m the one who gets to decide what’s ‘within reason.’ ”
Given the circumstances, the evening was a success. When Zack dropped us off, Taylor ran ahead so she could go inside and call Gracie and Isobel. We watched as she unlocked the door and disappeared inside. “She’ll be okay,” Zack said.
“I think so,” I said. “She’s still upset about Ethan. So am I. Every time I think about what’s ahead for him, I want to cry. But to be honest, I’m grateful Taylor doesn’t have to deal with him any more. His feelings for her were just too intense. He confused her, and I think he frightened her.”
“Ethan frightens himself,” Zack said. “But kids survive some terrible things. Let’s hope Ethan’s one of the lucky ones who gets to cut his own direction in life.”
“Like you,” I said.
“And you,” he said. “One of the things I love about you is that you do what you want to do and to hell with what people think.”
“Do you really see me that way?” I said.
“Sure you wear that same black dress every time we go to something fancy, and you’re marrying me. I rest my case. Now come on, Ms. Kilbourn, we were having a pleasant evening, let’s keep the good vibe going.”
“Do you want to come in?”
; Zack shook his head. “Yes, but I have to go back to the office. Glenda called while you and Taylor were in the bathroom at the restaurant. She needs to talk. I’m meeting her at eight.” He glanced at his watch. “By my reckoning, that gives you and me time for a short session of romance.”
I moved closer. “It’s always all about you, isn’t it?”
“You bet. I paid for dinner, and that chocolate mud pie you ordered didn’t come cheap.”
It was too early to go to bed, I was too restless to read, and there was nothing I wanted to watch on TV. Inspiration about how I could spend the evening came when I looked out my bedroom window and saw a lone figure dart into the front yard of a house two doors down from me, emerge with a pumpkin in its hands, and spike it on the pavement. The village of jack-o’-lanterns we had created in front of our house was ripe for the picking. It was time to give our pumpkins an honourable burial in the compost bin. I started to call Taylor to help, but the prospect of spending time alone in the fresh cold air, stretching my muscles in a totally mindless task was seductive, so I tiptoed past her door.
I’d made one trip to the compost pile with the wheelbarrow and was on the front lawn loading up again when a voice called to me from the darkness. “Need a hand with that?”
I turned and saw Howard Dowhanuik. I was struck by two things: no matter the weather, Howard’s bald head was bare, but tonight he was wearing a toque; equally significantly, he was still sober. “Be my guest,” I said. We worked silently but comfortably, and when the last jack-o’-lantern was broken and stirred into the dead leaves, I suggested we go inside for tea. Howard didn’t ask for anything stronger, and I took that as a good sign.
We sat at the kitchen table. Howard made no effort to remove his toque. For the first time in a long time, he seemed at peace with himself, and the toque, scarlet with a whimsical Nordic pattern of elves at play, made him look reassuringly avuncular.
“So how did you make out with Margot?” I asked.