The Glass Coffin

by Gail Bowen

  “Absolutely.”

  “Okay. Here’s something current. We have two witnesses who were at the airport today when the EMT people picked up Tracy Lowell. Both our witnesses heard Tracy tell her niece, ‘I did it for you.’ Do you know what she was talking about?”

  “I have a pretty good idea. For starters, Bryn is Tracy’s daughter, not her niece. I’m surprised that didn’t come out when you interviewed her at the hospital.”

  Alex blew on his coffee. “She wouldn’t talk to us. Clammed up absolutely, but that is interesting – and significant. So you think Tracy was telling her daughter she killed for her.”

  “Obviously I can’t be certain,” I said. “But my instincts tell me Tracy didn’t kill anybody. I think she was just making sure Bryn knew that she was the cause of her suicide attempt.”

  “Nice parting gift for your kid,” Alex said. “Your turn now.”

  I took a breath. “How tight are people’s alibis for the night of the rehearsal dinner.”

  “Not tight at all,” Alex said. “And I have no problem giving you this information because if you can add anything to the equation, we might finally get a break on the Leventhal case.”

  “There’s no doubt in your mind that Gabe was murdered,” I said.

  “None,” Alex said. “Pathology is still waiting for some tests results, but they have enough to state that Mr. Leventhal did not die of natural causes.”

  “The night I identified the body, you said there was blood under Gabe’s fingernails. Was it Evan MacLeish’s?”

  “I can’t tell you that,” Alex said. He leaned across the table and looked into my eyes. “Maybe this would go more smoothly if I suggested a line of questioning that would help us both. Jo, everyone is covering up for everyone else in this case. Claudia says she was with Tracy, except of course when she went out for a few minutes with Bryn, but luckily Felix happened along at just that moment, so he and Tracy were together. Then Felix went back to his room and Claudia spent an hour with him there. We have some corroborative evidence for that particular encounter. Felix and Claudia were making so much noise that the guest in the next room had to knock on their door and ask them to keep it down.”

  “They were quarrelling.”

  “Actually, the guest thought they were indulging in a little overly athletic lovemaking. When Felix answered the door, the guest was surprised to see that he was fully dressed.” Alex rubbed his eyes. “Bryn, of course, was never alone – not for a second. After Claudia left, Tracy and Bryn spent some quality time together. It’s seamless. The weird thing is, I don’t think these people even understand why they’ve dropped into this mutual protection mode. But they’ve obviously had a lot of practice cooperating with one another, because we can’t break their stories.”

  “So if I could supply an inconsistency, you’d have a wedge.”

  Alex wiped a small ring of coffee from the table. “Yes, and a wedge is exactly what we need if we’re ever going to crack this open. There’s another area where we could use a break. After he left the wedding, Jill’s partner, Felix Schiff, apparently disappeared off the face of the earth for a period of at least sixteen hours.”

  “I saw Felix the morning after the wedding,” I said. “He looked like hell. He told me he’d been doing the club scene.”

  “That’s what he told us too,” Alex said. “The problem is nobody remembers seeing him. Of course, nobody remembers not seeing him, but we’re dealing with a population whose powers of observation grow dim when a cop walks into the room. Even Mr. Schiff claims to have zero recollection of what happened.”

  “Do you believe him?” I said.

  “Not much you can do when a man says he had a blackout.”

  “It’s so out of character,” I said. “I worked with Felix on ‘Canada Tonight’ for four years. He was the executive producer in Toronto and I was just a political panellist out here, but we talked every week about stories. We weren’t close, but I thought I knew him. He always called himself ein prakiter Mensch – a practical man.”

  “Not the kind of man to go out and get blind drunk after his business partner’s wedding.”

  “No,” I said. “Especially when that business partner is a friend.”

  Alex’s cellphone rang. He half-turned from me, mumbled a few words, then looked at me apologetically. “I have to get back to work,” he said.

  I stood up. “I invited you. I’ll pay.”

  “I’ll get it next time,” he said. He touched my arm. “Jo, I would like there to be a next time. For what it’s worth, I never meant to hurt you.”

  “I know,” I said. “That didn’t make the hurt any less.”

  When I went to pay, Marv himself was at the cash register. He scratched his belly and gave me his best smile. “Come again,” he said. “And sit in a window booth like you did tonight. I’m working on strategies to bring in a more genteel clientele.” He scratched his belly again, then rasped confidentially, “You know, people like yourself and me.”

  Angus’s car was parked halfway down the block from our house. The windows were fogged. I slowed, waited, and finally hit the horn. After a few too many beats, Angus rolled down the window. On the seat beside him, Leah was adjusting her clothing and smoothing her newly blonde choppy bob. When she recognized me, she waved. “Sorry, Mrs. Kilbourn. It’s been a while since we were together. We’re hungry puppies.”

  I smiled at her. “Enjoy the moment,” I said.

  “I am,” she said.

  Angus leaned out of the window. “So you’re okay with this?”

  “I’m great with this,” I said. “But keep the action away from the house for a while. Bryn is going through some tough times.”

  “Do you think I’m a lowlife for bailing on her?” Angus asked.

  “You’re not bailing on her. Be her friend, and save the rest for Leah.”

  When she heard the door, Jill came downstairs. She moved slowly, as if even the act of putting one foot in front of the other demanded an act of will. Being bludgeoned by crises was taking its toll on us all.

  We gravitated towards the kitchen and sat at the table. Outside, a squirrel cleaned out the bird feeder. “How did Bryn handle the news about Tracy?” I asked.

  Jill hugged herself as if she were cold. “Pragmatically,” she said. “She wanted to know if Tracy could stop us from moving to New York. I called Kevin. He says it’s a dicey situation, but the best thing to do would be to sit down and talk it out, just the three of us – no lawyers, no outsiders to put steel in Tracy’s spine. He also told me that since Tracy’s lost her job on that kids’ show, she’d probably be open to discussion of financial compensation. So I guess Bryn’s for sale.”

  “Pay what you have to,” I said. “And be generous about visitation rights. Give Tracy something to hang on to. Bryn doesn’t need to go through life believing she destroyed another human being.”

  Jill looked away. “Do you ever have thoughts that are so ugly, they make you wonder what kind of human being you are?”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “You wish Tracy had finished the job before they found her today,” I said.

  “God forgive me, I do.” Jill’s voice caught. “Jo, I don’t know how much more of this any of us can take.”

  “Then stop beating yourself up, and let’s get it over with,” I said. “I saw Alex tonight. The police are getting nowhere with this investigation. Alex feels that all their prime suspects are lying for one another.”

  “Because their own stories are shaky?”

  “Exactly. The private detective in Toronto has opened some useful veins of information, but he needs to keep digging. Possibilities aren’t enough. We need facts. Kevin’s hiring someone local to find out what everybody here’s been up to. Given his efficiency, I imagine Shania Moon is already on the job.”

  Jill rolled her eyes. “My fate is in the eyes of a woman named Shania Moon?”

  “It is,” I said. “And she’s going to need all the help we can give he
r. Time for you do your homework. Alex tells me that the night Gabe died, Felix and Claudia spent an hour together in Felix’s hotel room. Is it possible you were wrong about them – that there really is something going on there?”

  “I guess anything’s possible,” Jill said. “They’ve known each other forever. Felix came here from Germany when he was twenty-five, and he linked up with the MacLeish family right away. Claudia would have been in her early twenties then. Something could have sparked.” She frowned. “Logical, except I still don’t believe it. From what I’ve seen, Claudia and Felix’s relationship is more like one of those brother-sister rivalries where there’s always a subterranean war going on.”

  “They know how to push each other’s buttons,” I said.

  Jill looked thoughtful. “All four of them do – or did. Evan and Claudia might have been the only blood siblings in the group, but Tracy and Felix had the rivalry thing down pat too.”

  “Whose love was the prize?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?” Jill said.

  “It’s been a while since I took Psych 100, but isn’t sibling rivalry driven by the need for the parent’s love?”

  “If that’s what they were after, they had a tough row to hoe with Carolyn. She doesn’t give her love easily. She and Evan were alike in that.”

  “The night of your wedding rehearsal Evan told me his mother called him ‘the snowman’ because he was detached from humanity, unable to love.”

  Jill winced. “Poor Evan. Poor all of them. Imagine what it would be like to want your mother’s love so much that even as an adult you couldn’t leave her house.”

  “Do you think that’s what kept them all there?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” Jill said. “But it makes sense, doesn’t it? Caroline has a crippling illness, yet by the simple device of withholding love she manages to keep everyone around her in her thrall.”

  “Thrall is a dramatic word.”

  “She’s a dramatic woman,” Jill shook herself. “What am I talking about? I’m making Caroline sound like a monster, and she’s not. She’s never been anything other than cordial to me. I’ll have to admit, she isn’t exactly warm. She didn’t haul out Evan’s baby pictures or ask me to call her Mum, but Evan and I were hardly starry-eyed youngsters.”

  “What were you?” I asked.

  Jill arched an eyebrow. “We were adults making a deal,” she said. “Not an answer to inspire a love song, but the truth. I was a good career move for Evan. His films are brilliant, but they’re indies – no matter how provocative and smart they were, the number of people who would see them would be numbered in the thousands. The deal Felix and I were putting together with the network would have given Evan access to an audience of millions. That was what he wanted. He didn’t need money. He didn’t need love. He needed people to see his movies.”

  “And what did you need?” I asked.

  Jill didn’t hesitate. “Bryn,” she said. “From the moment I met her, I knew I could make a difference in her life. At the beginning, I guess I saw our relationship pretty much in Movie of the Week terms: the lonely woman of a certain age rescues the damaged girl, and they both learn to trust and love.” Jill smiled ruefully. “I am now well aware that Bryn’s problems aren’t going to be solved in ninety minutes, but as far as I’m concerned that’s just all the more reason to stick around.”

  “I’m glad you’re realistic about her,” I said.

  Jill’s eyes were searching. “Is there something else I should know?”

  I took a deep breath. “I found Evan’s binder.”

  “Where was it?”

  “In Bryn’s Birkin Bag.”

  Jill tensed. “Why were you going through her things?”

  “Angus’s old girlfriend gave Bryn a gift to pass along to Angus. He never got it. Bryn hid it in her bag and stuffed the bag under some camping equipment in the back of the closet.”

  Jill was clearly shaken. “Why would she do that?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But for the moment, let’s just deal with the fact that I found the binder. I only had a chance to give it a quick glance, but almost all the notes refer to a project called The Glass Coffin.”

  Jill looked genuinely baffled. “I’ve never heard of it, but Felix must have suggested the title. He grew up in a town called Marburg – same place that spawned the Brothers Grimm. They were as obsessed by the beautiful Saint Elisabeth in her glass coffin as Felix was.”

  “And who is the beautiful Saint Elisabeth?” I asked.

  Jill rolled her eyes. “The Church may have seared my soul, but at least it gave me a good education. St. Elisabeth of Thuringia was the princess who married her prince at fourteen, died at twenty-four, and spent her short happy life giving alms to the wretched.”

  “Will there be a quiz on this?”

  “Maybe on Judgement Day. Think how grateful you’ll be to me then.”

  “I’m already grateful,” I said. “You and I may have had our problems, but at least we didn’t have to find our prince by the time we were fourteen.”

  “True,” Jill said. “But we also missed out on the age of miracles. I doubt if either of us will ever have the bread we’re carrying to the poor transformed into roses.”

  I felt a rush. “Now that’s interesting,” I said. “There was a note in Bryn’s bag. It said, ‘For Felix, who turned my bread into roses.’ ”

  “Who was it from?”

  “Someone who signed herself C.”

  “Claudia?” Jill said.

  “Perhaps,” I said. “But there is another possibility.”

  “Caroline,” Jill said. “The woman who’s spent the past forty years in her own glass coffin. Evan never mentioned that he’d been filming his mother. But if his shot book was filled with notes about The Glass Coffin, that has to be the piece he submitted to the network.”

  “And he submitted it without telling you and Felix. More secrets.”

  Jill frowned. “I wonder why Evan couldn’t let us see it?”

  “Maybe because there’s something in it you and Felix wouldn’t like,” I said. “Only one way to find out for sure,” I said. I checked my watch. “Why don’t I give Dan a call? If he’s still up, we could have a private showing of The Glass Coffin.”

  “Best offer I’ve had all day,” Jill said. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER

  12

  As it always did, Bryn’s entrance changed the energy in the room. Whatever plans Jill and I had for checking out The Glass Coffin receded into the background as Jill helped her stepdaughter off with her coat.

  “You look a little pale for someone who just had a walk,” Jill said, touching Bryn’s cheek.

  “I changed my mind about the walk,” Bryn said. She stepped in front of the hall mirror, removed her red cashmere beret, and smoothed her hair.

  Jill tried a laugh. “At the risk of sounding like a mother hen, where were you?”

  “Taking care of business,” Bryn said. She frowned at her reflection, leaned forwards, and removed a speck of mascara from the corner of her eye. “We don’t have to worry about Tracy any more,” she said. “She’s out of the picture.”

  Jill hung up Bryn’s coat. “Care to explain?” she asked.

  “There’s nothing to explain,” Bryn said. “Dan says I should start taking responsibility for my own life. Tracy was a problem, and I took care of her. I’m supposed to keep a journal too, and I found the perfect one in the gift shop at the hospital.” She opened her purse and removed a notebook splattered with Van Gogh sunflowers. Bryn grazed Jill’s cheek with her lips. “Okay if I get into bed and start writing?”

  “Absolutely,” Jill said, but after Bryn left, she looked bemused. “I seem to have become redundant,” she said.

  “No more redundant than the parent of any other seventeen-year-old,” I said. I peered more closely at her. “Bryn isn’t the only one who looks a little pale,” I said. “Why don’t we make an early night of it too? The movie
will still be there tomorrow, and you can have first dibs on the stack of books I got for Christmas.”

  “All right,” Jill said, “but I get the one with the biggest print and the prettiest pictures.”

  I was soldiering through the pivotal chapter of a novel about coming of age in London, Ontario, when the doorbell rang. I kept reading, hoping that someone else would get the door. No one did. Guessing the identity of the person pressing the button wasn’t a stretch. As I pulled on my slippers, I cursed young love and a son so addled by passion that he’d forgotten his keys. But when I opened the door I wasn’t faced with a post-tumescent Angus. My caller was Claudia, and she was steaming mad.

  She didn’t wait to be invited in. “Where’s Jill?”

  “In bed,” I said.

  “Get her down here,” Claudia said, and her tone made me understand why she could make Willie quake.

  “She’s sleeping,” I said.

  “That’s more than any of the rest of us will do tonight. Wake her up.” Claudia pulled off her boots, threw her coat on top of them, and strode into the living room. Willie, recognizing his mentor, lumbered in and sidled up. When I went to get Jill, she was already at the top of the stairs.

  “You’ve been summoned,” I said.

  Jill drew her robe around her and tied it. “What’s going on?”

  “You’ll have to ask Claudia,” I said.

  Claudia didn’t wait to be asked. The moment she spied Jill, she attacked. “We kept the facts about Bryn’s birth secret for all these years,” she sputtered. “What in God’s name made you think you could just spring it on her today?”

  “I thought she was old enough to handle the truth,” Jill said gently.

  “Do you know what she did with ‘the truth’?” Claudia asked. “She came down to the hospital tonight and told Tracy and me she was starting a new life and there was no place for us in it. You can imagine what that attack did to Tracy. She was so distraught she had to be sedated.”

  Jill was coldly furious. “Poor Tracy – having to be sedated. What about all the days and nights when Bryn was distraught? Where was your compassion then, Claudia? More to the point, where were you and your sister-in-law?”