Extensions

by Myrna Dey

  Unplanned pregnancies today entailed fewer secrets.

  Or did they?

  The oil was soaking through my sweater. I pulled it off and got a facecloth from the bathroom. My last Greek salad had been in a hotel room with Selena Kubik just after the brutal death of her baby. I was so hungry I had eaten her garlic bread as well as my own. I wiped the oil from my skin.

  Suddenly cold, I got into the fleece pyjamas I had brought to this frigid province. I picked up the letter and read once more: Our baby has been my secret alone, and now yours. Tragically, he stopped breathing within hours of his birth. Was he meant to be a sacrifice for the sins of his mother? Suspicions of his origins were buried with his ruddy complexion, and with him a piece of my heart.

  I set the tray with my food on the dresser, the chicken wrap untouched. My head fell back against the headboard. I lay perfectly still, barely breathing. Had my great-grandmother’s letter solved another murder?

  THE WEEKEND PASSED in slow motion. From the time I got off the plane Saturday until I arrived at work Monday morning, my mind was at once in a daze and clearly focused. Words and scenes circled over and over, dislodging more words and scenes. Even my dreams, when I was lucky enough to sleep, trapped me in one of those banked cement velodromes for sprint cycling.

  I made a few attempts at distraction, like going for a run/walk along False Creek. A pathetic teenage ploy: put yourself coyly in the neighbourhood of the guy you like in the hope you will/will not see him. Of course, I didn’t. I wasn’t up to the grown-up gesture of a phone call yet. My future was on an hour-to-hour basis.

  I also called Dad to recount my visit with Mona Mingus and read the two letters over the phone. He suggested supper at Wendy’s or at the house, but I declined. With my thoughts in such turmoil, I was in no mood for conversation, even with my number-one fan. Perhaps that was part of my problem. Mona and Laura were perfect examples of where excessive parental attachments could lead. Dad would never knowingly abet my arrested development; it was up to me to keep the bonds loose enough for someone else to enter.

  In my present state, I also decided Gail and Monty could wait for the update. Especially since there might be another shocker to add.

  On Monday morning, I was first to the office, having slept little the night before. In the past four days and three nights I might have logged eight hours total. Dex arrived a few minutes later, then Sukhi, then Wayne, and once we were all set with coffee in hand I put the DVD of Robin Basa’s interview into the machine. When it was over, Wayne put his arm around my shoulder.

  “Good work, Dryvynsydes. This should go a long way in nailing the bugger.”

  “You can thank Robin Basa. She could have held out.”

  “Not against our Bella’s persuasive powers.” Sukhi gave me a fist bump. Dex was already occupied in printing off fresh weekend e-mail Fwds and nodded. I looked at my watch. Eight-thirty. Jan Kubik would have left for work by now. I cleared my throat. “Who wants to make a house call with me?”

  Hands shaking on my coffee cup, I put forth the theory that had been consuming me for three days. Wayne’s and Sukhi’s eyes widened; even Dex stopped his printouts. “It’s still guesswork,” I said, “but who’s in?”

  “I’ll go with you,” said Sukhi.

  Since most of my meetings with the Kubiks had been solo, my dread hit full force as I pulled up to the house on Colleen Street in an unmarked car with Sukhi. At the door Selena’s dark eyes darted back and forth between the two of us, then fixed on me. Her thick black hair hung lank and greasy. I introduced Constable Ahluwalia.

  She offered us a seat, but we remained standing in the foyer. In the living room I noted the sun catching the sheen on the raku bowl — this time with no effect. Sukhi looked at me, waiting.

  “We believe we have new information. I’d like to talk to you some more about Anton at the police station. About your part in what happened the day he died. We can take you there now, or you can use your own car.”

  Selena opened her mouth as if to catch her breath, then said quietly, “I will go with you.”

  “I can help you change.”

  This was the point in movies — and often on actual calls — where someone under suspicion makes a swift move and produces a gun or knife. That’s why we go in twos. I had no fear in Selena’s case, her spirit having been replaced with embalming fluid. I walked behind her, as she clutched the banister mounting the stairs.

  The master bedroom was done in the same minimalist style as the lower floor: mud-coloured walls, sleek leather king-size bed with a soft lime-green duvet cover and lime-green and grey striped shams. I turned my head as she slipped out of her lounge suit and into a turtleneck and pair of jeans. If my hunch was right, she would soon have no privacy at all; it seemed proper to extend this courtesy to her, like a last meal. She folded the outfit, put it into a perforated stainless steel laundry hamper, and pulled her unwashed hair back at the neck with an ivory barrette. She held up a cosmetic bag and asked: “Will I be coming back soon?”

  Naïve questions like this brought back the hotel room when I was there for her comfort. I couldn’t shake that feeling even now.

  I shrugged. “Hard to say. But you won’t need anything.”

  Back in the foyer, she put on her leather car coat, then made a quick detour to the living room for her cigarettes. Sukhi was at the car and guided her into the back seat. No one spoke on the way. The face I watched in the rear-view mirror displayed no emotion, but it had aged a decade since I first looked at it from this angle six weeks ago.

  Just as I was thankful then at the hospital, there was no one around when we pulled up to the back entrance of the detachment. Inside, Sukhi went next door to the interview room we would use to set up equipment. I informed Selena that she might like to call her lawyer because she was now a person of interest in this case, and anything she said could be used against her. I showed her a phone where she could make the call; she asked if I could look up Tomas Svoboda in the phone book because she had trouble seeing fine print. As I stepped away to give her privacy, I could not avoid hearing her low businesslike tone in Czech, as if she needed the lawyer to sign a real estate deed. When she finished, I asked her if she was satisfied with her phone call to counsel. I could be called upon in court to testify as to the occurrence and length of this call.

  She nodded, and walked ahead of me into the interview room where an ashtray, a tape recorder, and two bottles of water awaited us on a table. I sat down across from her.

  “You’ve been going through a lot, Selena.”

  “My lawyer says I should not speak to anyone.”

  “And that’s good advice, but I know you and care about you. I think it might help to talk.”

  “That’s what you said in the hotel room, Constable.”

  “And would it not have been easier then to spare yourself the past six weeks of torment you’ve been living with?”

  She lit a smoke. I pressed RECORD.

  “Here’s how I see the situation, Selena. You’ll have to correct me if I’m wrong.” I took a deep breath. “There never was an abductor, was there?”

  I didn’t expect an answer and continued. “And Anton was Greg McGimpsey’s baby.”

  Her forehead jerked visibly into her scalp. “What proof do you have for such a statement?”

  “A soother was picked up next to the pond. Do you think its DNA will match Greg McGimpsey’s?”

  Pink blotches were forming on her cheeks, but she said nothing. Each drag of her cigarette was as deep and vital as a respirator inhalation.

  “Let’s go through it together. Greg was the perfect lover for you — artistic, spontaneous, passionate — though you knew he would not be the perfect husband. Jan was that, despite being too possessive and inflexible. Greg never asked for more; in fact, the thrill of the affair probably suited him. He believed you were taking precautions with him, so the baby had to be Jan’s. You let him think that way. And only you will ever know whether it was a
n accident or staged. How am I doing so far?”

  Selena’s continual puffs created a veil of smoke like a beekeeper’s netting over her face. She listened without a word.

  “The pregnancy changed the equation for you, didn’t it? You were still in love with Greg, but you had to cut him loose. The prospect of a baby brought you back to Jan — your history, shared dreams, and so on. Still inflamed over the forbidden love, Greg kept calling. You thought the loyalty of both men would last. And you’re not alone; we all think that of our men.

  “At the theatre production last fall, you noted Greg’s interest in the new cast member. His calls became less frequent, but by now Anton was in the picture and you were engrossed with him. Neither you nor your husband was prepared for the delight the baby would bring. But here’s the catch: although you and Jan had renewed your bond, Greg was more than ever a part of your life because he was the father of this child you loved so much.”

  Selena sat as rigid as a wire sculpture, her eyes red and liquid.

  “You’re skilled at living on several levels, Selena. From hiding your true feelings under a dictatorship to nurturing fantasy in a stifling marriage. After a long and lonely Christmas holiday with Jan away, you indulged in the fantasy of you, Greg, and Anton together someday. Please stop me if I get too far off track.”

  Her anguished face had become almost unbearable to watch. I had to finish.

  “Then who should appear in your daydream but Greg McGimpsey himself? When you saw the car, you believed he was here to say he couldn’t go on without you. But when he came to the door on January 2nd, it was to tell you he was getting married. Did he taunt you with the news or did he do it kindly?” I paused. “This was too much for you. You had a chance to tell him Anton was his, but you didn’t. Instead you imploded. He had destroyed your dream and you destroyed the only part of him you had left. His baby.”

  A howl like that of a snared wolf filled the small interview room.

  “It was an accident,” Selena cried. “When I dropped him in the pond, it was an accident.”

  Her face was a mess of wet, smoky streaks. I dug for tissues in my bag, handed a wad to her, and used some to wipe my own eyes, my nose, and my clammy hands. When I could speak again, I murmured, “How I hope that’s true.”

  She was still wailing, at first muttering in Czech, then between convulsive breaths: “I have wiped us all out — my baby, my husband, and myself.”

  Her cigarette fell from her limp fingers to the floor, and I got up quickly to retrieve it for the ashtray. With her face contorted in wretchedness and her body heaving, I put my hands on her bony shoulders. When she had settled down to intermittent snuffles, I walked back to my side of the table. Before I sat down, I said, “Selena, I’m placing you under arrest for the second-degree murder of your son, Anton Kubik. You have the right to call your lawyer again to inform him of this charge.”

  She shook her head, waved her hand, and did not move. Her voice, thick from tears, was a croak. “It is already too late for more advice. He will find out soon enough. What I want to know is how you did it, Constable.”

  “I heard of another love child whose paternity was never known. It died too. Of natural causes. But that spark brought to light the other clues that weren’t giving us anything on their own.”

  “Like?”

  “You asking me in the hotel room if I’d ever been betrayed, for one. Your tone was too raw to be thinking of a stranger. How you clammed up when I asked if it was the man in the Porsche. And the way you and Greg spoke so nonchalantly of each other. Too cool by a mile. Things kept coming together. Like the expensive Keith Holmes painting in Greg’s hippie pad filled with posters and masks — did you buy it for him?”

  Her eyes said yes.

  “But I still have a couple of gaps. How did Greg McGimpsey end up at the Van Dusen Gardens when it was a private memorial?”

  “I do not know. He left a message of sympathy on our machine. His concern was sincere. I did not return any of his calls. Jan spoke to him — he knows him from the theatre. He might have mentioned a closed gathering at Van Dusen to be polite. Jan is more polite than I am.”

  “And how did you come up with a Kosovar?”

  “That country was in my head and he had to be a foreigner. In case Greg was implicated.”

  “You thought fast.”

  “I did not think. If I had, I would not be sitting here. I only reacted.

  Like a wounded animal.”

  I knew Selena would withdraw again soon. Maybe forever. “It’s your turn now.”

  “It is unspeakable.”

  “I’m preparing you for the questions you can expect.”

  She groaned. “I am already a carcass. The vultures will pick my bones. I no longer care about myself, but I fear for Jan. He will disintegrate. And Greg will — how do you say — detonate? — when he hears the truth. I am not without a heart, Constable.”

  “I’ve never believed you were. Passion can take over all our organs. But the pond, Selena. What happened at the pond?”

  Bending and speaking slowly, she lit another cigarette. “Greg’s news hit like a lightning clap — or is it a thunderbolt? I did not say much to him, but slammed the door and began to pace around the house with Anton in my arms. My distress frightened him and he began to scream. I tried my best to console him, but he would not stop. I walked around the house, bouncing him, stroking him, showing him his toys, all with no results. When I gave him his soother, there were a few moments of peace, so I took him outside to distract him — he liked watching birds in the yard. But soon he spat it out and screamed even harder. He turned blue trying to catch his breath — ” She paused. “And then I do not remember anything beyond a helpless feeling without a bottom. My arms went limp. He slipped from them into the pond.”

  I thought of the cigarette falling just now and imagined the baby. She began crying again.

  “I do not know how long I stood. My brain went blank. I do not believe I was punishing myself and Greg by discarding what I loved most, as you suggest, Constable. I do not know what to believe.” She put her face in her hands, the cigarette bobbing unsteadily between her fingers.

  I let her cry. After a few moments, she raised her head. Her nose was dripping, but she continued.

  “When my mind cleared, I saw my precious baby in the pool, as if for the first time. I became hysterical and dialled 911. You know the rest.”

  I handed her more tissues from my bag and stood up. “I’ll let you collect yourself for a moment. You’re doing well, Selena, under such circumstances.”

  I left the room and went next door. Sukhi was shaking his head in disbelief. Mine too felt dizzy, and I let out a big sigh. “Anything you want to add?”

  He gave me two questions which I took back to Selena. “How did Greg know Jan was away that morning?”

  Her head was again in her hands and her words barely audible. “I do not know. Jan travelled often for work and sometimes Greg phoned the office anonymously to make sure.”

  “And wouldn’t Greg wonder about an abductor so soon after he was here? The time and details were all over the media, although we kept the Porsche out of it. Didn’t he see your fury?”

  She mumbled. “He saw my shock but he did not see my fury. I do not know what he thought because I did not return his calls. He probably wanted to ask me about the abductor. But he would never reveal to anyone else that he had been here, for his own protection as much as mine.”

  I stood up and offered my hand to help her out of the chair. I signalled Sukhi through the one-way glass that I would meet him upstairs. “Thank you, Selena, that’s enough. I have to book you into cells until your appearance in court tomorrow. Until then you will not be allowed access to anyone other than your lawyer.”

  On the way out, I asked her if she would like me to speak to Jan. Their lawyer would have informed him where she was.

  “Would you please, Constable? I cannot face him yet. He did nothing to deserve th
is but love me.”

  “And Greg will be a witness.”

  “You will need a padded cell for that encounter. He is very emotional.”

  At the door leading to the cell block, she turned to me. “What if I deny everything in court?”

  “You won’t. It’s eating you up too much.”

  The clank of the heavy door behind us caused her to flinch without changing expression. I led her down the women’s corridor. Loud snoring came from one cell we passed; empty trays sat on the floor outside three others. At the end of the passageway the matron sat behind a large desk playing computer solitaire, a room with monitors of all the cells nearby. Today almost all of them were filled with women who had seen better times — or was that the case with all prisoners? The matron took Selena’s name and listed her offence on a book-in sheet. A big woman from Trinidad, she was both practised and unruffled enough not to react even to a murder charge. She did not look up until she nodded to me that Selena was ready for the strip search. I did it quickly in the private room designed for it. I had more or less watched her change, after all, and anything illegal would have created an obvious bulge on someone as scrawny as she was. Neither of us looked at the other during the procedure, even when I was obliged to take her bra to prevent her from doing herself harm. It would go into a basket under the counter with her jacket.

  After the matron took her picture, I suggested she call her lawyer again in a small room for that purpose. She seemed even more aloof after this conversation. The matron escorted her to the cell, unlocking the steel door with her cantaloupe-sized hand. “Your B&B for the night, honey.”

  Selena paused briefly at the threshold of the cement cubicle, which contained only a mattress on a built-out ledge and a stainless steel toilet with a drinking fountain attached to the back. When the matron locked the door, I thought I saw more colour in Selena’s face, but maybe it was just the blotchy patches blending. If confession wasn’t good for the soul, at least it could not have been any worse than what she’d been holding in. And I too, through my nausea and fatigue, felt a welcome freedom, though little triumph.