“It’s tough to be connected to a case, because I am never totally sure what it would be all right to discuss with you and what really should be off-limits.” Steve looked pained, which was the last thing I wanted to do to him. Just as I was about to tell him to forget I’d said anything at all, he spoke.
“We have a forensic archivist in, going over the collection along with the folks doing the inventory. The vaults were locked prior to the assault but there was still enough material on the hold shelves for us to wonder if something had been taken. She is doing spot checks for materials that should be in the collection, in terms of statistical averages. We’re working on an inventory of their lists and catalogues, but we figured, what if the thief knew to remove the cataloguing trail, along with whatever he or she took? So many of the things in the Archives are listed as ‘box of papers’ that it’s almost impossible to guarantee we’ll even know for certain if anything was removed and if so, what it was.” He smiled. “But we’re doing our best.”
“I’ll bet it’s not Keller’s priority, though.”
“Well, no, he is mostly concerned with being able to get a murderer off the streets. It doesn’t do much for a city’s morale to have an unsolved killing, particularly one with no ties to drugs or gangs. It’s one thing to read about crime that will never affect you if you stay away from certain neighbourhoods or lifestyles. It’s quite another to have someone killed in the lobby of a public building, where anyone with a question about genealogy might pass through. No, Keller doesn’t like it at all.”
My phone trilled its little three-note tune declaring I had a text message.
It was from Marni and read: “J was from Eureka. Must be near Ponoka, because she attended Ponoka High School and Mecca Glen School before that. Does that help?”
I texted back a quick thanks and closed my phone. I hate people looking at their phones when there is food on the table. Steve had popped another piece of French toast on my plate and was now sitting next to me, enjoying his own.
“Jossie was from south of here, near Ponoka somewhere.”
“Farm girl?”
“I guess. Not sure what else is out that way, once you’re past the car lots in Wetaskiwin.”
“Well, it doesn’t really rule anything out, because once they can drive, most rural kids find their way into town for concerts and dance parties on the weekends through high school. That close to Edmonton, she’d have likely known her way around pretty well.”
“Still, it places her geographically in a location where she could have known something about Stephen Dafoe that most folks here in the city wouldn’t have been privy to. That is, if Dafoe came from that neck of the woods, too.”
Steve pushed his plate away, sated. “So if that is indeed where the magician comes from, too, we possibly have two people who might conceivably have known each other from near Ponoka. What about other folks at the House? There is only a danger of information leaking out about you if there is someone to leak it to, someone that you don’t want knowing it. After all, Jossie told you she knew Dafoe, so if it was you he was hoping the information wouldn’t get to, he wouldn’t have solved anything by killing her. If it was someone else, though, then stopping Jossie from talking was still worthwhile.”
“Or maybe Jossie knew something about another person in the House, and we’re just focusing on the magician because she actually talked to me about him. If she could make a statement like that about Dafoe, who knows what she could say about someone else? And if that other person didn’t want, say, the magician knowing there was a connection between them, maybe that explains why Jossie had to die.”
“That is getting almost too confusing for me to follow,” Steve laughed. “And I have to get to work pretty soon. What are you doing today?”
“The last thing Marni said to me last night was not to come in today, and I’m taking her at her word. I have an article about Cecil Rutherford to read, and then I was thinking about seeing if Denise was free for an early dinner. What about you?”
“I’m on call for the next three days, but I could meet you after work as long as I keep my Blackberry on. Keep in touch and I’ll track you down later, ’kay?”
“Okay. Hey, you get going and don’t mind the dishes. It’s the very least I can do, and lord knows I’m all about doing the very least I can!”
Steve kissed me and grabbed his keys from the brass bowl under the wall phone. I spent the next half hour putzing about the kitchen, cleaning and polishing. It was a nice-sized kitchen for a condo, but I wasn’t all that certain I wanted to move my trusty potato peeler into the drawer alongside Steve’s shiny knives and cheese graters. I still hadn’t determined whether or not I could handle living in my violated apartment, let alone whether I was ready to start cohabiting. Too many decisions, right in the middle of all this flux; I determined to put off thinking about Steve’s generous offer.
I poured myself the last of the coffee and swirled warm clear water into the glass pot to rinse it out. Wandering back into the living area, I pulled the drapes open wide, as the sun was starting to make a dent on the early morning darkness. This winter encroachment of darkness really depresses newcomers to the north, but those of us who have lived here most of our lives figure that on the whole, it’s a fair trade-off for the long, warm summer days we get at the other end of the year. Besides, who wants to be outside in the early morning chill of November? Even without a first snowfall, temperatures had been dropping significantly. When the sun had warmed things up enough, around two or three in the afternoon, we’d be unbuttoning our jackets and wishing we hadn’t decided to layer quite so much that morning. Then, by about six, we’d be bundled up with scarves wrapped round our necks and gloves on once more. And we’d all be congratulating ourselves on not having to wear boots quite yet.
At least the rain seemed to have stopped for the season. I recalled all the umbrellas coming into Rutherford House the night Jossie had been killed. She’d even had to run up to the attic to find another umbrella stand.
Had I told anyone that tidbit? I don’t know that I had even recalled it myself till just now. What if Jossie had stumbled across something she shouldn’t have seen while she was on her way up to the attic or back down?
What would she have seen, though? The attic door was located close to Marni’s office door, so she’d have been nowhere near the maid’s quarters where the magician and I had eaten our meals later on. She might have seen one of the actors figuring out where their plot-line would take them. She might have overheard Marni talking to someone in her office or on the phone. She might have seen someone in Marni’s office who shouldn’t have been there.
I went to my laptop to send Steve and Detective Howard a quick email, before I forgot. I didn’t want to presume that I was handing them the clue that would unlock everything, but I figured they ought to know that Jossie had indeed been up in the attic and around the upper level of the House before the event had begun.
After I sent it, I checked my incoming mail. Emmanuel, bless him, must have been in to work early, because his work email was in the “From” box.
FROM: [email protected]
TO: [email protected]
SUBJECT: Magic, Alberta
Randy! It is wonderful to hear from you; it has been far too long since we have connected. I trust you are well and prospering.
Your question about magic school is intriguing and makes me wonder if you have decided to become a wizard in your spare time. While I cannot help you with trade names of businesses (you may want to look into the City of Edmonton records for the registering of such), I do have a Magic School for you. It is no longer in existence, but at one time, there was a town called Magic in Alberta, not far from Edmonton. It was along a line of towns that melded into one district, that was then renamed as an acronym of the towns that had been absorbed, in geographical order (this is something so dear to my heart, in that I spent an entire summer researching towns named sequentially along railroad lines).<
br />
The towns, beginning with Magic, then Eureka, then Calumet, Climax, Concord and Asker, became “Mecca Glen.” I presume they determined three Cs in a row were untenable. Mecca Glen is near Ponoka, almost an hour’s drive southeast of Edmonton.
Until 1949, there was a Magic School in existence. I believe the building is still there, though it is no longer a school proper.
I hope this helps you in some way. Are you still working for the Folkways music people, or have you moved on to yet more exciting endeavours? I look forward to catching up with you eventually. Hot toddies near a fire, soon.
Yours,
Emmanuel
Emmanuel, for all his English-as-a-fourth-language furbelows, was a treasure. I made a mental note to buy him a hot toddy soon, and fired off a quick thank-you email to that effect.
Magic. Eureka. Mecca Glen.
Eureka, indeed.
39
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I sent Steve another email, cutting and pasting most of Emmanuel’s information into it, then went to brush my teeth and make the bed. I called Denise to set up a time for me to take her to dinner to pay her back for her help with the living-room furniture. Generously, she offered to first drive me out to pick up the daybed and mattress I’d decided on.
“Then we can walk over to the High Level Diner and you can treat me to a bowl of their black bean chili.”
“It’s a date.”
I had a couple of hours to kill, so I decided to walk up to Whyte Avenue from Steve’s condo and window-shop my way down the strip. So many shops were changing as the tenor of the avenue evolved. A fire a few years back had destroyed an entire corner, which had grown back as a modern approximation of a vintage building, containing interesting hat shops and small companies. Several more bars and nightclubs had also newly come to Whyte, making it a less salubrious place to wander in the evening than it had been in the past.
While the best time to be on Whyte Avenue was a summer Saturday, there was enough of a small-town feel to the eccentric and mom-and-pop shops at the eastern end to make it interesting. I looked at amber displays in a jewellery store window, and duvet and pillow posters in the next window. Cupcake shops warred with each other for what I had presumed would be a pretty small demographic, but with enough icing-laden cupcakes their customers could get a whole lot larger. Boutiques were squeezing out some of the older shops, but the Army and Navy, a funky cut-rate department store, still held its own, resilient to change. I ducked in to browse the women’s side of the upper floor before heading downstairs to check the housewares.
I had spotted some lovely duvets and pillow sets at IKEA, but I figured I could do a lot better price-wise somewhere like the Army and Navy. They were fully stocked on mattress pads and covers, and the variety and colours of towels were overwhelming for a store this size. I found the sheets aisle and spent twenty minutes deciding between stripes and flowers. I finally went with the flowers, since I figured they would complement the high white ends of the daybed I’d decided to buy, making it look even more like it came out of a German fairy tale. I also noted a couple of duvet covers that might work, but that purchase could wait. I got two sets of the sheets, as the daybed used two twin mattresses and a spring device to bring one mattress up from under the other like a drawer. I also picked up a set of king-sized pillow cases and pillows. So much for not loading myself down for the rest of the walk down Whyte Avenue.
The cashier bagged my merchandise and I continued my journey west on Whyte Avenue. I was across the street from some cute gift boutiques and card shops, but laden with purchases as I was, I resisted the urge to cross the street. I wouldn’t even fit down their aisles.
I managed to stride along on the south side of the road quite easily, not getting in the way of too many people. I popped into the bank just before 109th Street, to check my balance and withdraw a bit of cash with which to treat Denise. My paycheque from the House had gone through to top up the insurance payout, so even with the drain of IKEA and Apple purchases from the day before, my account looked quite healthy.
I wondered if I would ever get to a point in my life when I would see a regular paycheque with benefits and a pension plan. Marni’s intimations that the Rutherford House gig might become a permanent one held a great deal of promise, but only if it would pay enough to make it worthwhile. If I had to add on other contracts to make up the difference, I’d be juggling timelines and requisite hours for the rest of my life, which didn’t sound like fun. This gypsy life of contract-to-contract existence was a young person’s game, and something in me was made for more security. I might have to knuckle under and find a civil service job one of these days, before I became a cat food–eating statistic. While you couldn’t actually starve to death in the social service safety net that was Canada, being poor and old was not a fun thing anywhere on the planet.
I was standing at the bus stop on 109th Street, just past the drugstore on the corner where Denise had told me she would pick me up. There were fewer buses roaring in to a stop here since the LRT had started to carry a lot of the southern load, but there were enough that I wondered if her little cream Bug would be accordioned between them. I needn’t have worried. She sailed in easily when no buses were in sight and laughed as I shoved my assortment of puffy bags into the back seat.
“You’ve already bought the pillows, so I guess we really have to get you a bed!” she declared, and took off as soon as she heard my door thud closed. I was still strapping into my seat belt, it seemed, when she was already curving off 109th to get to the thoroughfare that took us once more to the big blue store.
“How are things going? Was Hallowe’en terribly spooky after everything that happened there?” Denise was the best listener, and she prompted with interested little grunts as she drove expertly through the traffic. I filled her in on the party and on my insights into the connection between Jossie and Stephen Dafoe, the magician.
“The Magic School, not the magic school?” echoed Denise, effectively enunciating the capitalization. “Of course, that makes sense. So you think the magician may have murdered her because he realized she could reveal something about him? Or another person murdered her because they realized there was this possible connection between her and the magician—and whoever it was didn’t want that connection to happen?”
“Right, I guess.” The truth was I hadn’t managed to think my way through everything that clearly. I was still basking in the glow of realization that there had indeed been a Magic School at all.
Denise sat up even straighter. “Randy, you don’t need a bed. What you need is a road trip!”
And with that, she drove right past the overpass exit to IKEA, and down the highway toward Ponoka.
40
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I contemplated texting Steve to let him know where we were headed, but instead I just promised myself not to be too obvious about anything or get into any trouble, and then slid my phone into my satchel. Denise was asking me to get out a map from her glove compartment, where three tidy maps sat under a pair of stylish leather driving gloves the colour of the Bug. She was the only person I knew who actually used a glove compartment appropriately. There were times when I just wanted to be Denise.
The road to Mecca Glen lay just east of Ponoka proper, and it looked as if we’d be best taking the first exit to Ponoka and carrying on along that route once we were off the Queen Elizabeth II Highway. I was a little nervous, since I’d never been east of the highway except to go to the Tyrell Museum in Drumheller.
From Denise’s map, I could see that most of the towns between Edmonton and Red Deer were located on the older Highway 2A, which ran relatively parallel to the QEII and which, until the Queen’s last visit to Alberta, had been called Highway 2. While it consisted of four lanes of zippy transit between Edmonton, Red Deer, and Calgary, it wasn’t much of a scenic route—unless you liked cows and canola.
“So, let’s try to work this out,” Denise demanded, her eyes never leaving the road and her driv
ing mirrors. “How do we know this place is the hub of all things nefarious?”
I laughed. “We don’t, and I’m not even certain there is a nefarious web of intrigue happening. It could be just a perfect storm of tragic coincidences.”
“But you don’t believe that.”
“No. No, I don’t.” I took a breath and folded the map so that Ponoka and Highway 53 were in the uppermost section. “Jossie, the murdered girl, came from Eureka, the town next to where we are going. I think she had seen the magician before. She told me so, although I wasn’t clear on what she meant at the time. I thought she must have meant she had caught his act at a club, or something like that. But it can’t be a coincidence that a small town called Magic is right down the road from one called Eureka, can it?”
“It’s worth looking into,” Denise agreed. Well, she had already agreed wholeheartedly by devising this semi-crazy plan to drive off to who-knows-where to play girl detectives. We were making good time, passing the sign to Wetaskiwin and chugging southward. I was keeping my eyes peeled for a sign to Ponoka.
“I am figuring that either Dafoe killed her to keep anyone else from knowing his connection to Magic, the town, or that someone else killed her to keep her from saying something that Dafoe would immediately understand because he came from the same area. The only thing is, I cannot imagine what on earth anyone could say that would be worth killing that person to keep quiet about.”
“That’s because you and I are on the moral side of the fence,” Denise snorted. “Lawbreakers, sociopaths, psychopaths all have an entirely different fix on what or what not can be said or shared. They’re on a different wavelength, so the energy you are expending trying to understand ‘why’ is energy wasted. The only way to clear up the situation is to find a logical course of events. Attempting to justify any of them might be crazy-making. After all, can you imagine killing someone?”
Denise had a point.
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