by Susan Calder
They continued through St. Andrew’s Heights. While house hunting, Paula had considered a bungalow here. Its location near the hospital might have been useful for her old age, but the house hadn’t grabbed her. Anne punched her cell phone keys. To Paula’s surprise, this time Dimitri’s assistant picked up.
“He did?” Anne spoke into cell. “Why? . . . When? . . . If he contacts you, tell him I’d like to talk to him tonight . . .” Anne closed her cell. “Dimitri is flying home for the weekend. His plane arrives around four thirty.”
“He just left for Ottawa on Monday.”
“He told the assistant he had to see his father.”
“Sam?”
“Doug, in hospital.” Anne’s lips narrowed. “That’s an excuse. Dimitri and I specifically agreed he didn’t need to be here.”
They reached the ledge overlooking the Bow River. Across the river, evergreens rose up to homes sparkling white in the afternoon sun.
“Do you think the police contacted him?” Paula said.
“Or someone did.”
“Sam—”
“Dimitri’s assistant overheard him call the woman who takes care of his condo while he’s away. He asked her to air the place out for his arrival.” Anne opened her cell. “I’ll try him again.”
“Won’t he be on the plane?”
“Something’s happened. I know it. I’d go meet him at the house if it weren’t for Doug . . . and the maintenance man. I don’t trust him to fix those machines.”
“That can wait until tomorrow.”
“I can’t let my customers down. They’ve been complaining about the elliptical.”
“Phone him when the plane gets in.”
“He won’t answer.” Anne shook her head. “If this were a normal visit, he’d go to Sam’s house. When Dimitri’s deeply in trouble, he retreats. It isn’t healthy for him to brood.”
“You could ask Sam to go see him.”
“No.” Anne’s eyes slit. “He’s caused enough problems already.”
“I could go.” Where had that come from?
Anne’s face brightened. “Would you?”
“I’ve cleared my workload for the rest of the day,” Paula said. “I don’t know what I can do.”
“You’d ease my mind that he’s all right.”
“Where is his condo?”
“Over there.” Anne motioned across the river. “I really appreciate this, Paula. You’re a good friend.”
Or a curious one.
Since it wasn’t much past two o’clock, Paula could walk back to the fitness center, pick up her car, drive home, then go see Dimitri. But her former home wasn’t far from here. She decided to kill the remaining afternoon hours by hopping a bus to check out the damage Erin’s tenants had caused to the bedroom.
The bus dropped her off on familiar streets shaded by poplars and willows. When she and Gary moved to Calgary, they had chosen a renovated bungalow over the larger, newer homes farther from the city center. The girls’ bedrooms and TV space were in the basement. She and Gary had a master suite on the main floor. The house had served them well, but, while there, had she ever been content? She had spent the first few years settling in and the rest dealing with Gary’s betrayal. He was the last man she would have picked to have an affair. Maybe not the very last, but he was fundamentally decent. He couldn’t pass a street person without tossing him a dollar and treated some of them regularly to coffee and lunch. Who would have thought a scheming bitch would take advantage of his kindness, sucking him in with feigned helplessness?
She crunched over dry, fallen leaves. The bitch part was true, but the woman couldn’t have schemed her way into a vital relationship. After his confession, in the midst of Paula’s rants Gary had lobbed his share of barbs. “You know, Paula,” he said, “you left the marriage first.” And she had, involving herself in work, children, friends, extended family responsibilities to the point where all she talked about with him was work, kids, friends, family. Never them, as a couple. Could she and Gary have worked through the affair and possibly made the marriage stronger? Callie had urged her to give it a try. Anne agreed with Paula to boot Gary out. Gary said, “I knew we’d be finished the minute you found out. You don’t cut people slack.” Callie didn’t understand why that barb had hurt. “Paula, you admit, yourself, you’re judgmental.” Well, shouldn’t there be standards? Most important was she happy now with the end result? Before Hayden, there had been lonely nights when she’d wished she’d cut Gary slack, worked through their problems. But, even then, what she’d missed was companionship, not Gary in particular. Gary was right; she had left the marriage first.
Finding herself on her porch, she pressed the doorbell. No answer. She rang it again. Erin and her renters must be off at university. Paula let herself into the usual jumble of shoes piled in the entranceway and closet jammed with jackets, more shoes, and soccer balls. A smell of rotten eggs made her nose twitch. Newspapers and clothes littered the living room coffee table and sofa. Dirty dishes covered the kitchen counter. More of them filled the sink, where they were rinsed by a dripping faucet that could easily be fixed if one of them bothered to buy a washer.
She followed the odor to the small bedroom in the front. Whew. Why hadn’t they thought to open the window? The room was empty, the couple having taken their furnishings. They had bashed in the wall next to the closet with what might have been a baseball bat. Felt marker sketches covered the walls. Some were cartoons. Superman flew above the window. The Road Runner chased Bugs Bunny to the light switch. Other drawings looked like illustrations from the Kama Sutra. One showed a couple doing it doggy-style. She cocked her head, unable to determine either participant’s gender. The artwork was actually pretty good. It was almost a shame to paint over it. She and Hayden could easily patch the bashed hole this weekend. The illustrations might inspire them. The truth was she would rather go to Kananaskis with Sam, and that would be pushing Hayden too far. She and Hayden were compatible. It was a little boring, but why break off a reasonably satisfying six-month relationship for a man who preferred drama to commitment? Callie would ask, “Is ‘reasonably satisfying’ enough? Why are you staying with Hayden?”
Because he can’t hurt me, not to the core as Gary had. So could Sam, if I let him.
Dimitri squinted at her. Even after Paula introduced herself, it took him a few seconds to remember who she was. “Did Sam send you?”
He looked angry enough to slam the door in her face. Instead, he motioned her into the condo with his bottle of beer. An L-shaped counter separated the kitchen from the dining area and living room, which was at the back. No lights were on. Closed blinds made the main floor even darker. Folk music wafted from the CD player. Dimitri’s feet were bare. His black muscle shirt clung to his arms and pecs; blue jeans hugged his hips. His tousled hair framed a handsome young face, with Sam’s strong bones. Paula could see his appeal to Callie.
His breath reeked of beer. Spidery red veins crawled through the whites of his hazel eyes. Four empty Corona bottles sat on the countertop. She accepted his offer of a beer. He led her into the living room, flicked off the CD and settled on the white love seat facing the fireplace. She took the matching one that lined the back wall. A Bible lay on the glass coffee table. A bookmark stuck out of it, near the beginning of the book.
“What passage are you reading?” she said.
“Nothing particular.” He yanked the bookmark out. Both sipped their beer. Behind her, the wind clacked the vertical blinds against the screen.
He stared at the unlit fireplace. “I guess everyone knows. Or they will in a couple of days.” He raised his bottle, as though making a toast, “Who the fuck cares? It’s over.”
She adjusted her position on the hard cushion. “Did the police visit you in Ottawa? Is that why you flew home?”
“I was getting ready to go to the airport when they showed up. I told them if they want to talk, okay, but it would be in the taxi or nowhere. Not a smart move on my part.” He swigged more beer
.
“Why were you coming home, even before—?”
“Why are you asking all these questions?” He kept staring straight ahead.
A gust of wind banged the blinds out toward her head. If the Ottawa cops had solid evidence, wouldn’t they have taken him into custody? Later, she would think about why he had assumed Sam had sent her.
“What’s the next step?” she said.
“For me?”
“The cops.”
“I expect the Calgary ones will grill me. When you rang the door, I assumed it was them. Sam left a message, saying they’d been to see him. My mother has left, like forty messages, on all my phones. I don’t feel like talking to anyone. I don’t feel like talking to you either, if that’s okay.”
Despite his protests, he had invited her in, offered her a beer and had said a fair bit so far. Clack, clack, clack went the blinds.
“Do you mind if I open the blinds to let in more air?” she asked.
“I prefer it dark.”
“Can I ask you a few questions about Callie?”
“I’d rather you didn’t. The cops asked me enough.” He scratched his thinning hair.
“Did you—”
“It’s bad enough she was shot to death.” His voice wavered. “To be dragged in as a suspect. You don’t know what that’s like. I’d never kill her, no matter what she did.”
“What did she do?”
“It was my fault. Why didn’t I do what she wanted? My career’s shot now, anyway. I could have lost it as easily with her alive.” He stared at her, his eyes wild and red. “Have you ever looked at your life and watched it get sucked down the toilet and there’s not one fucking thing you can do about it?” He slumped back on the love seat. It was hard to picture him as the affable politician who had spoken to her at the funeral.
The clack behind her was starting to drive her nuts. “Did you see much of Callie after she broke up with you last spring?”
“We met a couple of times.”
“I heard you stalked her at the folk festival.”
Anger flashed through his eyes. “Who said that? Isabelle? I didn’t stalk her. It was a public place. I bought my ticket. So she happened to be there.” He leapt up. “Do you want another beer?” Without waiting for her reply, he strode to the kitchen.
If the cops came by later tonight, what would they think of him in this drunken state? He got a Corona from the fridge and plunked it on the counter.
Paula set her beer on the coffee table next to the Bible. “What did you and Callie talk about those last two or three times you met?”
He popped off the beer bottle cap. “The usual stuff. Music, the house, her studies, that is, what she’d do now that she was finished her BFA.” He sounded surprisingly sober.
“Did she apply to an Ottawa university MFA program and then withdraw after the breakup, not wanting to move there without you?”
“I felt shitty about that. I told her to try teaching for awhile and apply to the University of Calgary next year. Or chuck the university thing and form a band, get some gigs. Who cares if they don’t pay very much? She wasn’t doing this for the money.” He remained behind the counter. “Who would kill her? That’s what I want to know. She didn’t have problems with anyone except—well, I’m not accusing him. Her husband was still hung up on her, was always calling with some kind of excuse and working on her guilt about leaving him. I told her she shouldn’t go back to him on account of that.”
“Was she considering it?” Paula reached for her beer bottle.
“She said it wasn’t about him. The guilt was something else.”
“Guilt about something besides leaving Kenneth?”
“She refused to tell me.” He dumped the remaining quarter bottle of beer into the sink and got a fresh one from the fridge, opened it, and returned to the love seat.
Clearly, he did want to talk. He struck her as the extroverted type, inclined to turn to people when troubled rather than retreat, as Anne had said. Maybe he retreated when sober; reached out when drunk.
“Let me get this straight,” she said. “This conversation about the something other than Kenneth, did she bring it up repeatedly or just one time?”
He closed his eyes and swayed his head, as if he were listening to imagined music. “It started around last April, before she dumped me, and got worse.”
“What do you mean by worse?”
He leaned his head back and tapped his toes on the coffee table. “More nervous about it, or hyper, like it was getting hold of her. I said if she couldn’t tell me, she should talk to her minister or someone. If you don’t get it off your chest, sin eats away at you.”
She glanced at the Bible. “Did you tell the police any of this?”
“Not yet.” His eyes shot open.
“When was the last time you and Callie discussed it?”
“A couple of weeks before she died. I really think it was the Kenneth thing, but she insisted it wasn’t so I wouldn’t feel guilty about it.”
“Did you?”
“I should have, but didn’t, somehow.” He looked at the Bible.
“You and she met three or four times since spring.”
He took a sip of beer. “So what if we did? It was talk, not sex.”
“Did she call you or you her?”
“I don’t remember. It doesn’t matter who did. We both wanted to be together.”
“Really?”
He stared ahead, not answering.
“Were you hoping to patch things up?” she said.
“Maybe, but I was playing it, cautious-like. Fuck.” He banged the bottle on the table, spilling drops on the book. “None of this matters any more. Don’t you get it? She’s dead. People say I’ll get over her. Sure, I will. It isn’t that.”
She sipped her beer. Let him spill his thoughts out.
“I don’t care that much about fucking politics. I can find legal work. I’ve got great connections. Politics gets you that.” He picked up his bottle. “I’m not even worried about a criminal charge. I’ll get off. I’m fucking friends with the best defense lawyer in town.”
She squinted at him. “What is it you care about?”
“Nothing.”
“So, why consume, like, forty bottles of beer in one night?”
He swished the beer around his bottle. “She was on her way to talk to you, wasn’t she, the day she died?”
“It looks that way.”
“I told her to confide in someone. She picked you.”
The guilt needled Paula. “Do you feel guilty about sending her on the trail that morning?”
“Fuck, no. I couldn’t predict that would happen. No one could.” He jumped up, walked to the counter and turned. “I didn’t invite you here. Why did you turn up? Maybe she sent you.”
“Anne, your mother?”
“The soul lives on. I can’t escape, couldn’t escape her in Ottawa.”
Did he mean Callie? He thought Callie had sent Paula?
He rubbed his head. His thin hairs stuck up as though electrically shocked. “I’m the one who told her to confess. I should do the same: get it out, before it eats me to death.” His words were beginning to slur.
She held her breath. Would he confess to the murder? Did he think she wouldn’t report it to the cops, or was he past caring? What if he stabbed her once it was off his chest? The knife block was awfully close to his hand. If the patio door was unlocked, she could make a quick dash.
Dimitri leaned against the kitchen counter, crossing one leg over the other. “My mother will stand by me to the end. She thinks I shit gold bricks.”
His voice had regained the calmness that interspersed his outbursts. It was hard to adapt to the swings. She relaxed, tentatively.
“My dad is almost as bad,” he said. “They’ll both believe I’m innocent until they see me behind bars and even then they’ll call it justice miscarried.”
She stared straight up at him. “You’re lucky to have their s
upport. By your dad, you mean—”
“Sam thinks I did it.”
“He’s worried you did.”
“He knows I did. He has no doubt of it. He says he believes me. I know he doesn’t. It’s all over his eyes and face: it’s in his words. There’s not one fucking thing I can do to convince him.”
“Of your innocence?”
“Fuck yes. What else?”
She felt a mix of relief, disappointment, and confusion. “What is it you want to confess to me?”
“That was it.”
“What?”
“Confess, confide, what’s the fucking difference?” He paced to the love seat and back, with the swift, jerky movements of a teenager. “Like I said, I’m going to be okay. You can’t have everything you want. Monday, I’ll meet with the party leader and resign my seat. One way or another, the affair shit will hit the public fan. They’ll turn on me, throw me out. I deserve it. I shouldn’t have done what I did. If I could take it back . . .” He halted, eyes red, hair wild. His face suddenly eased into an ironic smile that reminded her of Sam’s. “So much for my political image.”
She stood and faced him. “Sometimes the public likes things real. People might find the affair romantic and appreciate your vulnerable, human side.”
He grinned. “That’s what she always said.”
“You mean Callie?”
“Who else?”
“And what bothers you most is Sam’s lack of faith in you.”
“What bothers me most is her fucking murder.”
“You didn’t kill her?”
“Sam’s convinced you I did.”
“No, he didn’t.”
Faint hope lit his hazel eyes. “You believe I’m innocent?”
“I . . . I don’t know.”
“That’s why she sent you.”
“Callie?”
“You’re open to the possibilities.”
“You think her spirit is acting on this?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. Didn’t I say that already a million times? Would you all leave me alone?”
Paula rode the elevator to Hayden’s office floor. He was waiting. As she exited, he kissed her.