by Susan Calder
“Is my dad with Sam?” Isabelle asked and departed for the kitchen.
Felix turned to Paula. “I remember seeing you in the church. Who are you again?”
“I grew up with Callie in Montreal.”
“You came all this way.” His voice choked over her dedicated friendship.
She didn’t bother to set him straight. “Do you think Sam will stay alone in the house?”
“He’ll be gone by Christmas, after the reno’s finished.”
“It’s a shame he has to move the minute the work is done. He must feel sad about that.”
“Sam never liked this place.” Felix’s blush suggested this had been a slip. He drained his Scotch and held up the empty glass. “I need a refill.”
Rather than join the ladies in the nook, she followed Felix to the kitchen. No sign of Isabelle or Tony or Sam. It was an odd architect who bought a house he disliked.
They replenished their glasses at the table bar. Felix drifted to the living room. Through the patio doors, Paula spotted Tony on the deck. She slid the glass open.
Tony turned at the sound. “You caught me.” His grin revealed a gold eye tooth.
“Sam doesn’t let you smoke inside?”
“I figure it’s polite in a non-smoking house.” He drew on his cigarette.
The house shaded the deck and yard, a jungle of poplar and birch still holding onto their leaves. Through the yellows and greens the Elbow River was barely visible. Tony, like Felix and Sam, had taken his jacket off. He wore a short-sleeved dress shirt. On his upper arm, a tattooed snake coiled around a sword.
He pointed his cigarette at the house. “I didn’t know architects made this much bread. I figured the name-brand ones were rich, but Sam only designs offices.”
“He’s pretty successful at it.”
“Kenneth, her first husband, is even richer. His house isn’t a mansion, like this, but I get the impression there’s a lot stashed in investments. Callie did well for herself.”
“Until she got killed.”
Tony flicked ash over the railing. “Skye says Callie got a hefty divorce settlement and sank most of it into this place. Sam gets it all after one year of marriage.”
“Are you suspicious of him?”
He stared at the trees, dragging on his cigarette.
Paula finished her wine. “At the church, Ginette said you’d talked with Callie a lot these past few months, after your daughter moved in with her. Did she say anything that would lead you to think someone might kill her?”
“Most of our talk was joking or about Isabelle, like how late was she staying out and what job was she quitting now.”
“You’re sure there wasn’t something?”
“Nothing.” He dropped the cigarette butt into the yard. “What difference would it make now? The dead are dead. Sending a man to jail won’t bring her back.”
“It might prevent him from murdering someone else.”
Tony took out another cigarette. “Exactly.”
“What do you mean by that?”
He turned away and rested his arms on the railing.
She returned to the kitchen and placed her wine glass by the sink. Beyond the arch, Felix expounded to Ginette. His hands flailed so wildly no Scotch could possibly remain in his glass. Rather than cut between them, Paula took the hall route to the living room and passed a door that might lead to a pantry. Muffled sounds flowed through the second closed door. She stopped. Through mahogany arched panels, she heard a man’s low tones, a girl’s high pitched ones.
Isabelle’s voice rose. “We had a deal.”
“Ssshhhhhh.”
“You . . .” Isabelle’s voice trailed.
The den door opened. Paula stepped back. Sam froze, his hand on the knob. He stared at her, his eyes wide, his mouth open, and slammed the door in her face.
She slunk down the hall to the dining room and collapsed on a chair.
We had a deal. The dead are dead. Prevent him from murdering someone else. Sam wasn’t upset about the cops preparing to pounce. His plan was unraveling.
Sam entered the dining room and halted. “I didn’t know you were here.”
Isabelle brushed past him on her way to the table. She loaded a dessert plate with pastries and fruit kabobs. “This stuff is really good. Sam, try the dip.”
“It’s time I checked out the food.” Sam grabbed a dinner plate.
He and Isabelle circled the table, not too close to each other and not deliberately far. Sam said he would ask the caterers to make up take-out boxes for Paula and the other guests, since there was too much food for them to use up. Somehow, Sam had smoothed things over with Isabelle. Their deal, whatever it was, was back in place. They were co-conspirators again.
Sam asked Paula which of the sandwiches she liked. She couldn’t stand it anymore and strode across the hall to say good-bye to Dorothy.
“So soon?” Dorothy looked disappointed. “We haven’t had a chance to catch up.”
Paula bussed cheeks, inhaling old lady perfume. The fake fireplace crackled between the funeral wreaths. Sam entered with his plate. Dorothy told him Paula had to leave. He set his plate on the coffee table and walked Paula to the door, playing the proper host. She thanked him for having her. They stopped in front of the door.
“We talked about getting together for lunch,” he said. “Why not tomorrow, if you’re free?” His tone was casual, as Callie’s had been in the answering machine message when she suggested meeting Paula for lunch. Paula had failed to answer that message. Sam wanted to know what Paula had overheard and what Callie had confided to her closest friend. Paula bet he was already formulating an explanation for his argument with Isabelle. That was easy. She could formulate one herself. “I told Isabelle she couldn’t stay and she got melodramatic.” If they met for lunch, Paula would assure him she understood and make it clear Callie had told her nothing, all in the guise of friendly conversation. Sam would be on guard, but, perhaps, less guarded than he would be with a cop. There was a chance he would slip. Sam was waiting for her reply. His face said, “Yes, no, either way, I don’t care” while his hand opened and closed into a fist, opened and closed against his shaking leg. He was hanging on her answer. Saying “no” would close the door. After talking with Vincelli, she could cancel.
“I can do lunch tomorrow,” she said. “Where? What time?”
“Your choice.”
She thought of a nearby restaurant. “Do you know Lily’s Café?”
“I’ve heard of it.”
“Noon. I’ll give you directions.”
Chapter Ten
As Paula slit the film cover of a frozen butter chicken dinner, the door bell rang. It couldn’t be Hayden, who was working tonight. Leah was at Skye’s memorial service and Erin had a class. She hurried to the living room and pulled down some shutter slats. A sedan was parked by the curb between her car and Walter’s pickup. From this angle, she couldn’t see who was on the porch. The bell rang again. Vincelli had warned her about letting in strangers. How could she live like this, being constantly afraid? She looked through the opaque glass. Detective Vincelli. So far, he was the only stranger who kept turning up. She cinched her bathrobe sash.
“I saw you this morning at the funeral,” she said. “You left the service early.”
“They didn’t need to know I was there.”
“They? You mean the suspects?”
“I mean the family. They deserved the break from the investigation. You called me about something?”
Cool evening air flowed into the house. She was hardly dressed for visitors, but stepped back so he could enter.
“You didn’t have to stop by,” she said as they walked to the kitchen, which seemed to have become their established meeting place at her house.
“It’s on my way home from the station,” he said.
“Whereabouts do you live?”
“Am I interrupting your dinner?” His nose twitched at the South Asian aroma.
&
nbsp; “It’s just a microwave meal I can reheat.”
Was it significant that he hadn’t simply phoned in reply to her message that she wanted to talk to him about some things that had happened at the funeral reception? He was either particularly curious about her observations or seizing the chance to check her out. Surely, he had eliminated her from his suspect list. Sam still had to be on it, but how close was he to the top? Dimitri said the cops seemed to be easing up on him. She offered to make coffee. Vincelli said water would be fine and claimed his chair next to the kitchen side door. She got out a water jug and two glasses and took her place opposite him.
His hands went flat on the table. “What did you want to tell me about the funeral reception?”
“I was the first to show up at Sam’s house,” she said. “He was there alone. He seemed edgy. I got the feeling he was worried Callie might have told me things.”
“What things?”
“Whatever he’s hiding. You do think there’s something?”
His expression remained the same. He hadn’t taken out his notebook.
She rubbed the top of her robe to make sure it wasn’t open at the chest. He must think she lived in this outfit when she was home alone. “Sam didn’t know Callie had been accepted into the MFA program. He didn’t even know she’d applied. You obviously know that. Have you checked the university records yet?”
He paused. Was he considering how much he should share?
“She didn’t apply,” he said.
“That’s odd,” Paula said. “Isabelle arrived in May. Did that have something to do with Callie changing her mind about the MFA? What do you think about Isabelle and Sam?”
He sipped water, clearly as an excuse to avoid her questions.
“I overheard an argument between Sam and Isabelle,” she said. “They were in the den. Isabelle said angrily to him, ‘We had a deal.’”
“About what?”
“That’s all I heard. My guess is she agreed to withhold something from you in exchange for his letting her stay in Calgary. Tony, her father, seems in on it, too.” When Vincelli didn’t respond, she continued. “I’ve been thinking: why would Tony go along? He wants Isabelle out of that house. He made a remark about preventing someone from murdering again. Maybe Isabelle refused to go home, so he made an opposite deal with Sam. He would stay quiet if Sam could convince Isabelle to leave. That put the squeeze on Sam. Isabelle would tell what she knows if Sam kicks her out; Tony would tell if Isabelle stays. No wonder Sam was edgy.”
She refreshed her dry throat with water. There was no point asking Vincelli if he agreed with her theory. He didn’t disagree, so must think her speculations were worth his time.
“After the fight in the den, Isabelle came out all sweetness and light. At the door, Sam asked me out for lunch. He was visibly upset by my earlier questions. I think he wants to know what I learned from Callie and how much I overheard between him and Isabelle. That’s why I contacted you. Should I have lunch with Sam, or not?” She leaned back on her chair.
“That’s your decision.”
“You warned me that someone might probe to find out how much I knew. Sam probed at the reception. This lunch is more probing. Would I be safe going out with him?”
“Do you want to?”
With the darkness outside and the room’s sole light shining down from the ceiling, this felt like an interrogation room. Yes, she wanted to go. She honestly thought Sam might reveal things to her he wouldn’t to a cop. She couldn’t shake the image of Sam’s stunned stare when he came out of the den. Bewilderment and guilt were all over his face, although she couldn’t say if it was guilt for murder. If it was, for Callie’s sake, she should do what she could to get him thrown in jail. If it wasn’t, whatever his flaws, he had been Callie’s husband. Callie would want him out of this mess. Probably. Paula hadn’t been there for Callie when she was alive, but she could do this small thing for her. Vincelli wasn’t warning her of the risk. Did this mean he didn’t think Sam was the killer?
“To answer your question,” he said. “It’s up to you whom you meet for lunch.”
If Sam wasn’t the prime suspect, who was? “Would you warn me off anyone in Sam’s circle?”
Vincelli averted his eyes for a second, just enough to suggest he would. Who? Someone she had met at the funeral? Her meeting with Sam would give her access to his circle, which could be useful for the homicide unit. This could be Vincelli’s first major murder case. He must be eager to solve it.
“Another thing I thought of,” she said. “This is similar to what I do for work. At lunch, I could turn the tables on Sam and probe.”
“No. That is our job,” he said. “For which they pay us the big bucks.”
“My job involves probing whiplash claimants suspected of faking or exaggerating injury.”
“Stiff necks are a long way from murder.”
That hurt. It was also true. Her job might involve similar skills, but it dealt with matters less vital, and less dangerous.
Vincelli’s lips narrowed. “If you’re going in order to probe, stay home.” He finished his water, savoring it to the last drop. “If it’s a social visit with the husband of your late friend, I can’t object to that.”
She was probably going for both reasons, and he hadn’t argued strongly enough against the first one.
Lily’s Café bustled with lunch patrons. Paula walked past tables ringed with senior citizens and a long-haired artsy-looking group to a vacant two-person table at the back. Altadore, like her Ramsay neighborhood, was aging-turning-trendy, although more upscale and further along in the process.
She removed her jacket and waited for Sam, surrounded by green. A few years ago, when she discovered the café with her daughter, it was called Lily’s Pad. Paintings of emerald lakes still graced olive walls; fake ivy wove along a ceiling border; green candles sat on chartreuse tablecloths. It had probably been a mistake to wear her green sweater.
It was twelve fifteen. They had agreed to meet at noon. Was Sam, like Callie, the type who was habitually late? Paula drummed her fingers on the avocado placemat. She hadn’t seen that shade since her 1970s apartment fridge that froze her lettuce and thawed her ice. She left the table to check out the crafts for sale on the shelves. Ceramic frogs. Lime candles. Kiwi incense.
The café door chimed. Two young mothers maneuvered in baby strollers. Had Sam forgotten about their lunch? She should have given him her cell phone number so he could call if something came up. At last, something non-green in the place: a candle in the shape of a monkey seated lotus-style. He wore a sailor shirt and looked up at her with an open mouth and wide eyes that reminded her of Sam’s deer-in-the-headlights stare before he slammed the door in her face. The monkey’s cauliflower ears weren’t small and neat like Sam’s. The door chimed. Sam burst in and scanned the room. She held up the monkey to catch his attention.
He strode over. “Sorry I’m late,” he said between breaths. “I got tied up this morning. The detectives came by, and my father.” Raindrops rested on his gray-black hair. He dug his hand in his bomber jacket pocket and jangled the car keys. “I have to leave in half an hour. Let’s grab some food. Looks like you order at the counter.”
She studied the chalkboard menu and chose a chicken wrap and chai latte. Without looking at the board, Sam asked for the same. She realized she was still holding the candle and told the counter clerk she would return it to the shelf.
“I’ve already rung it up,” the clerk said. “I’ll have to redo the bill.”
The monkey’s wide eyes pleaded; so much for her vow not to clutter her new home with knickknacks. She told the clerk she would take it. Sam insisted on paying for lunch to make up for being late.
At the table, she placed the monkey candle beside the centerpiece. “Is your father sick? I didn’t notice him at the funeral.”
“He’s only sick in the head.” Sam took the seat across from her. Not removing his jacket, he tilted his chair back. “The cops came
by to tell me they traced the murder weapon to its owner. This was news to me. Last I’d heard the gun hadn’t been found.”
This was still the official word, according to this morning’s newspapers, although she had guessed it had been located with the cell phone. “So, it was a registered gun?”
“Unregistered.” Sam rocked the chair. “That’s why they can’t be sure he’s the owner.”
“Who’s ‘he’?”
Sam tilted the chair back so far she thought he would topple to the floor. He jerked it forward. The chair legs landed with a clunk.
“My father,” he said.
She glanced at the monkey face and pictured a feeble man nurturing his vegetable garden, which had been Callie’s description of her father-in-law.
Sam scraped the chair toward the table. “I thought—hoped—he had gotten rid of the thing. The cops turned up at his house early this morning. They dragged him out of bed, checked the shed and discovered it gone.”
“Your father kept a loaded gun in his shed?”
“I don’t know if it was loaded; neither does he.”
“The cops aren’t sure the gun they found was his?”
“I told him years ago he should register it. Did he listen?”
Paula struggled to connect the dots. Callie had told her Sam’s father lived in Bridgeland, which was directly across the Bow River from Ramsay and the murder site. A stranger stealing the gun and killing his daughter-in-law would be an unlikely coincidence.
Sam absently reached for the candle monkey. “The cops are checking taxi records and asking bus drivers on the routes near his house if a little old man got on and rode to the Elbow pathway the morning Callie died.”
“Could buses have gotten him to the pathway early enough? What time in the morning do they start?”
“I don’t think the cops had checked into it yet.”
“Do they seriously think he did it?” The detectives might be bluffing or exaggerating the depth of their investigation into bus routes and trips to put pressure on Sam and his dad.