The Glass Coffin

by Gail Bowen

  “I’ll let it go,” I said. “But only for the time being.”

  “Fair enough,” Felix said. “The time being is all we have.”

  Angus had already taken Taylor to the room where the wedding was being held, but Jill had waited, and we took the elevator to the second floor together. When the doors opened, Evan, like some apparition from a Gothic novel, was facing us.

  I could hear Jill’s intake of breath. “So much for the idea that it’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding,” she said.

  “Like all superstitions, that one is nonsense,” Evan said. “You look beautiful, Jill.” He nodded to me. “Your dress is lovely too, Joanne.”

  Jill and I are both on the tall side of average, but Evan dwarfed us. It wasn’t just his height; he exerted a powerful undertow that seemed to draw those around him into his sphere. In his cutaway, striped trousers, pearl grey waistcoat, and grey-and-black-striped four-in-hand, he had the larger than life quality of a stage actor, but there were two jarring notes. Ms. Manners would have approved of his gloves, but every man I knew would have stuffed the gloves in a pocket until the last minute, and Evan was wearing his. He was also wearing makeup of the heavy-duty concealer type about which Jill and I had joked earlier.

  When he caught me eyeing his face, Evan’s response was a preemptive strike. “Bridegroom’s jitters,” he said. “Surely even you can’t see anything Machiavellian in the fact that I nicked myself shaving, Joanne.”

  “Of course not,” I said, but I kept looking. His jaw was slightly swollen and even beneath the makeup I could see discolouration.

  Jill stepped closer to examine the bruising. “That must be painful,” she said.

  Evan raised his hand to cover the area. “It’s nothing,” he said.

  “How does the other guy look?” I asked.

  Evan’s eyes widened. Clearly, I’d shaken him. “There was no other guy,” he said. “I told you I cut myself shaving.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “You did.” I touched Jill’s arm. “We should go in now. It’s almost time.”

  Once, during the early years of my marriage, I saw a production of Richard III in London. The designer had created a stage world as bloodless as a chess game: the actors were costumed in sculptured robes of white or black and the set was a series of harshly geometric metal backdrops. Until Clarence was beheaded, we were in the stark, greyscale universe of absolutes, but the beheading introduced a new element. The trough that caught Clarence’s head filled quickly with blood, and the bleeding never stopped. As Richard’s brutal march to power continued, the blood poured unabated. By the time the final curtain fell, the stage dripped red.

  The memory of that production washed over me as we walked down the aisle towards the place where Jill’s husband-to-be and his best man stood waiting. The wedding guests, shimmering in their bright outfits, fell silent as they took in our austere monochromatic gowns. It was a dramatic moment, made even more dramatic by the setting. Jill and Evan would be exchanging their vows in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows that comprised the west wall of the gallery. Jill had hoped for a pretty snowfall or for the soft glow of a late-winter afternoon, but the light that seeped through the glass had the dull sheen of pewter. The only splash of colour in the area came from the cranberry miniskirt of the replacement judge, Rexella Sweeney. Rexella’s words would set the action in motion. Like the characters in that long-ago production of Richard III, the members of Jill and Evan’s wedding party seemed to be chess pieces moving inexorably towards an endgame of sacrifice and checkmate.

  Rexella, a sixtyish blonde with a whisky rasp, dagger acrylic nails, and legs that wouldn’t quit, was an unlikely catalyst for tragedy. Earlier, when she introduced herself to Jill and me, she sensed Jill’s tension and wheezed, “Relax. This won’t hurt half as much as a Brazilian bikini wax.”

  The moment came for Evan and Jill to exchange rings, and I knew that, worldly as Rexella was, she was wrong about the Brazilian bikini wax. When she pronounced that Evan and Jill were now husband and wife, tears stung my eyes. Watching my friend enter into a disastrous marriage was more painful by far than anything a cosmetician at The Sweet Hairafter had ever done to me.

  Felix and I walked back down the aisle arm in arm, each of us grateful for the other’s presence. “Keep smiling,” Felix said through gritted teeth, “it’s almost over.”

  But there was still the reception. While the caterers set up the tables for the buffet, we gathered in the crush area outside the gallery. Servers with trays of champagne circulated, fostering cheer. Felix handed me a glass. “Flawless performance,” he said. “Did you know that bridesmaids were originally intended as decoys to lure evil spirits away from the bride?”

  “Finally, an explanation for all those hideous dresses,” I said.

  We exchanged smiles and raised our glasses. The Cuvee Paradis Brut was everything champagne that cost eighty-five dollars a bottle U.S. should be – light, crisp, and astonishingly good, but only a magic elixir could have lifted me above the sticky mud of anxiety and trepidation that had been dragging me down all day. As I looked at my fluted glass, I knew I had two options: keep the champagne coming until I had blotted out the memory of a shambling man with a taste for strong tea and morality or find out what had happened to him. The decision was easy. No other man had ever compared me to Sam Waterston.

  I surveyed the room to check on the kids. Taylor was chatting happily with Rapti Lustig’s son, a ten-year-old named Sam who was too kind and too suave to ever compare a young woman to a Chia Pet. Angus and Bryn were silhouetted against the window, holding hands, watching the storm that had begun to rage outside with a force almost as powerful as the hormones of the young. Safe as churches.

  There was a pay telephone in the lobby. I took the elevator down, found a quarter in the mad-money pocket of my evening bag, and dialled home.

  For the first time that day, there was a new message, but the voice on the other end was not one I wanted to hear. Alex Kequahtooway had been my lover for three years, and to paraphrase the nursery rhyme: when our relationship had been good it was very, very good, but when it went bad, it was horrid.

  Alex had always distrusted words, and his telephone message was succinct: he had to talk to me, and I knew his number. I did know his number. I also had no intention of calling it.

  Then, as if I needed further proof that when man makes decisions, God laughs, Alex himself walked through the front door of the Mackenzie Gallery. As he stood in the foyer, stamping the snow off his boots, surveying the scene, my mind raced through the kaleidoscope of possibilities that might have brought him out in a blizzard. None of them was good. When his eyes found me, they betrayed nothing, and as he walked towards me, my heart began to pound. “Has something happened to one of the kids?” I asked.

  Alex’s obsidian eyes were warm. “No. Your family’s fine, Jo. This is about another matter.” He gestured to a stone bench in the lobby. “Let’s sit down.”

  The gallery had a number of benches upon which the weary could share space with a sculptured figure that, reflecting our politically sensitive times, represented the full spectrum of our citizens: male, female, young, old, aboriginal, non-aboriginal, executive, worker. Alex had pointed to my favourite, a pregnant woman in a sundress and sandals, reading a book. He knew that particular bench reminded me of a good time in my own life, but his first words made it clear that chance not memory had determined his choice.

  “About an hour ago, we had a call,” he said. “Someone trying to deliver a meat order to the Hotel Saskatchewan ran over a man’s body. In the blizzard, the driver didn’t recognize what he saw as human – he thought it was just a snowbank.”

  My nerves tightened. “What’s the connection with me?”

  “The deceased had the numbers for both your home and your cell in his pocket, Jo. They were the only local tie-in, so it seemed logical to start with you.”

  A flash. Gabe smiling. Wouldn’t it be ironic if thi
s wedding was the start of a real love affair? I covered my face with my hands.

  Alex swallowed hard. “So you do know the man.”

  “His name is Gabriel Leventhal. He was supposed to be the best man at Jill’s wedding today. He told the groom he was going back to New York City.”

  “He didn’t make it,” Alex said stiffly.

  “How did he die?”

  “They don’t know. The blizzard will make determining the time of death a little tricky, and, of course, the truck driving over him wasn’t exactly a lucky break.”

  “For you,” I said furiously. “Not great for him either, but that’s not your concern, is it?”

  Alex ignored my outburst. “Were you intimate?’

  “Yes,” I said, “but not in any way you’d understand.” I regretted the words immediately, not just because they were intended to wound, but because they were untrue. When I began to weep, Alex rubbed the back of my neck in a gesture of intimacy that evoked times when his touch was all I needed to restore me. More coals heaped upon my head.

  CHAPTER

  4

  When I stopped crying, Alex waited for a moment, then offered me a tissue. Beside me, the stone pregnant woman with her secret knowing smile read on, tranquil and impervious. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just – this is such a shock. Last night Gabe was so alive, full of plans.” I met his eyes. “How many times have you heard someone say that?”

  “It doesn’t make it any less true.” Alex held my gaze. “We don’t know what’s ahead, Jo. That’s how we manage to get up in the morning.” He ran his hand through his hair to comb out the melting snow. “Let’s stick to business. The next of kin need to be notified. Does Mr. Leventhal have any relatives in Regina?”

  I shook my head. “No,” I said. “He’s an American – from New York City.”

  “Then I’m going to have to ask you to make the ID.” Alex eyed my gown. “Your neighbour told me you were here for a wedding. How long do you think you’ll be?”

  “The formal part of the reception doesn’t take long: just a few toasts and the cake cutting. I can be out of here in half an hour.” My response sounded confident, but my body felt boneless. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe deeply, but the image of me walking into the morgue and seeing Gabe’s body was too much. “I can’t do it, Alex,” I said. “I’m not even the logical person to ask. I just met Gabe last night at the rehearsal dinner; Evan’s known him for years.”

  Alex’s eyes grew hard. “But you said you and Mr. Leventhal were intimate.”

  “I just meant we clicked. We enjoyed one another’s company; we planned to get together today, but I really don’t know that much about him. I don’t think there are next of kin. Evan will know.”

  “Fair enough,” Alex said. “But asking a groom to identify the body of his best man on his wedding day seems a bit harsh.”

  “Evan’s very controlled.”

  “Good,” Alex said. “Given the condition of his friend, he’ll need to be.”

  Alex and I walked into a party mellowed by hot jazz, great food, smart talk, and servers who had been instructed to allow no glass to remain empty for longer than ten seconds. The room couldn’t have been more welcoming, but I felt Alex grow tense beside me. He could have faced a firing squad without flinching, but social situations were agony for him. Out of habit, I squeezed his arm; then, suddenly feeling awkward, I withdrew my hand and, anxious for a purpose, searched the crowd until I found Evan. He and Jill were making the rounds, accepting congratulations.

  For the first time that day, Jill seemed genuinely happy, her face flushed with the pleasure of being with friends again. When she spotted Alex, she gave me an impish smile. After my relationship with him had come to an end, Jill had called from Toronto every night for a month. She was the only one who knew how deeply Alex’s brief affair with another woman had wounded me, and that night she couldn’t hide her pleasure at seeing us together again.

  As soon as she and Evan came over, she held out her arms to Alex. “It’s so good to see you,” she said. “I don’t need to hear the details. I’m just glad you’re here.” Jill turned to her new husband, “Evan, this is Alex Kequahtooway – Inspector Alex Kequahtooway of the Regina Police Force. Alex, Evan MacLeish.”

  Alex offered his hand. “Congratulations,” he said.

  “Thanks.” Evan was tight-jawed as he took Alex’s measure. “Am I wrong in assuming there’s more on your mind than wishing us well?”

  Alex didn’t falter. “No, I’m here on police business.” His eyes met Jill’s. “I’m sorry, Jill. I really was hoping I could talk to Mr. MacLeish alone.”

  “We seemed to have closed that option,” Evan said.

  “I guess we have,” Alex replied. “So here’s the situation. A man’s body was found behind the Hotel Saskatchewan this afternoon. We have reason to believe the deceased is Gabriel Leventhal.”

  Jill’s face grew dangerously pale. “Was it his heart?” she asked.

  Alex took out his notepad. “Did Mr. Leventhal have a history of heart problems?”

  Evan answered for her. “He had a history of hypochondria. Last night he thought he had an angina attack. He said it was mild, but it was obvious he was shaken.”

  “When did this happen?” Alex had his pencil poised.

  Evan looked away. “I don’t know. Sometime in the night. Gabe’s room at the hotel was across from mine. I was asleep. I heard a knock at my door, and it was Gabe. He said he was experiencing some pain in his shoulder and he thought he should go back to New York and consult his doctor.”

  “Did you suggest he see a doctor here?” Alex asked.

  “Why would I? He was a hypochondriac. A hundred doctors could have told him his heart was sound and it wouldn’t have changed anything.” Evan’s tone was flat, the way his daughter’s had been when Jill asked Bryn if she’d been disturbed by seeing her aunt wear Annie Lowell’s wedding dress.

  Evan’s lack of emotion goaded me. “What happened to ‘Be kind. Everyone you meet is fighting a great battle’? You knew what kind of battle Gabe was fighting, why didn’t you check to see if he was all right?”

  “Jo, I’m attempting to get some answers here.” Alex’s warning was clear, but I ignored it.

  “So am I,” I said. “I want to know why a man I cared about froze to death in the snow and was run over like an animal.”

  “Then let me do my job,” Alex said. He turned back to Evan. “You were saying that it was midnight when you last saw Mr. Leventhal alive.”

  “I can help with the time,” Jill said. She looked stunned, but she knew how to follow a story. “I was staying at Joanne’s, and Gabe phoned me there – it was around one-thirty when he called. He said he needed to see me. I had some problems getting downtown, so by the time I arrived, he’d already gone to bed. The man on the graveyard shift at the front desk called Gabe’s room for me, but he didn’t answer. You can check with the desk clerk about the exact time.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” Alex said. He turned back to Evan. “Mr. MacLeish, why didn’t you call your fiancée last night to tell her that your best man was withdrawing.”

  For the first time, there was a note of asperity in Evan’s voice. “Because there was no point in disturbing her. It was late. I couldn’t justify waking Jill up the night before our wedding because the best man was having a panic attack and wanted his doctor.”

  “It appears Mr. Leventhal suffered something more medically threatening than a panic attack,” Alex said coolly.

  “I had no way of knowing that,” Evan said. “All I knew was that Jill and I were getting married the next day, and I wanted our wedding to be a happy occasion.”

  “I still want that,” Jill said quietly. “We all do.” She was not a woman who asked favours, but she was asking for one now. “Alex, can’t this wait? I feel sick about Gabe – I really do, but this is supposed to be a celebration. My stepdaughter has looked forward to this day for so long. Give us a chance to s
tart our life together with some good memories.”

  “My wife has a point,” Evan said. “No one here has done anything wrong. And once the reception’s over, I’m at your disposal. We can meet back at the hotel. I can change and check my notebook. I’m almost certain Gabe left me a couple of contact numbers in New York when we were making our plans to come out here.”

  Alex darted a quick glance at Jill. Something in her face seemed to decide the matter for him. “You have two hours,” he said finally. “Where are you staying?”

  “The Hotel Saskatchewan,” Evan said. “The Bridal Suite.”

  “Very romantic,” Alex said. “So when’s the honeymoon?”

  “We’re flying to New York tomorrow,” Jill said.

  Alex glanced at the swirling vortex of snow outside the window. “Hope you make it,” he said.

  Jill’s laugh was shaky. “So do I,” she said.

  Traditionally, the first toast at a wedding is to the health of the bride and groom and comes from the bride’s father. Since Jill’s last memory of her father was of him drunkenly picking up the tablecloth at her fourth birthday party and throwing everything – presents, plates, glasses, and cake – into the garbage can in the back alley, I’d been rung in as his replacement. Proposing a drink to the health of the bride and groom seemed such a no-brainer that I hadn’t bothered to check out any of the Web sites Angus recommended. That afternoon, as I stood dry-mouthed and blank-brained before the wedding guests, I longed for the wisdom of heartfelt.com that promised words to live by and tips on body language and humour guaranteed to bring down the house.

  I didn’t bring down the house, but I did manage to stumble out a few coherent sentences. When Jill stood up to respond, she flashed me an understanding smile and thanked me for being her pilot light of optimism through more dark times than she cared to count.

  It was a touching moment, and when Felix pushed back his chair and stood, his eyes were misty. He wasn’t scheduled to speak until later, so I assumed Jill’s words had stirred something in him. It turned out they had.