Rebecca Temple Mysteries 3-Book Bundle

by Warsh, Sylvia Maultash

  Rebecca tried to smile. “Maybe you need to walk around the block with me.”

  “Maybe you need to eat more.” She observed her friend across the table. “You seem distracted.”

  Rebecca glanced from Iris’ upswept blonde hair to an old Chinese woman walking past the window. “I’m wondering what happened to Mrs. Kochinsky.”

  Iris jabbed her fork into the air. “If we worried every time a patient missed an appointment.... You need to take care of yourself. You’ve been looking pale lately. And you’re not eating....”

  “I’m alright,” she cut her off.

  Iris’ grey eyes turned away quickly.

  Rebecca leaned forward and softened her voice. “I appreciate your concern, Iris, but I’m alright. Really. It’s just going to take time.”

  She lifted her finger in the air to attract the attention of the waitress. “Cheque, please.”

  Rebecca threaded her sports car in and out of rush hour traffic like an agitated teenager. She usually avoided Bathurst Street if she could but it was the fastest way to Mrs. Kochinsky’s house. A truck honked as she cut in front. The little red Jaguar XJS had belonged to David; he had been the one with a sense of panache. She never cared one way or another which car she drove as long as it got her there. Hers had been one of those beige Oldsmobiles that faded into the traffic, but when he died she had surprised herself by selling hers and keeping his.

  Her father liked GM cars. He had driven a long line of Chevys till he could finally afford to buy himself an Olds. His pharmacy had thrived because he never lost his sense of humour and customers enjoyed dealing with him. Rebecca’s mother took care of the buying and kept the books. All in the family. Now that they had sold the business and retired, Mitch and Flo Temple had become snowbirds, migrating to California for the winter. They were finally wending their way home next week, thank God. Rebecca missed her father’s bad jokes, her mother’s strength and common sense. None of them felt in any condition to cook for Passover this year. David’s death had sapped everyone’s spirit and energy. So Rebecca had ordered a kosher dinner from a reliable caterer, mostly in deference to Susan and her Orthodox husband who were driving in from Montreal with the kids. Rebecca wished she were closer to her sister. She could’ve used a friend these past months. Not that Susan didn’t try. She had offered herself as a shoulder to lean on, a phone number at night if Rebecca wanted to talk. But Susan had plenty on her plate already — three kids weren’t enough to take care of? At least her husband wasn’t too traditional to help out. Just traditional enough to require paper plates for the Seder since Rebecca’s kitchen wasn’t kosher. That was all right, they all liked him. But Rebecca knew she wasn’t going to call Susan when she needed to cry at night.

  Rebecca pulled into the driveway beside Mrs. Kochinsky’s duplex. Daylight clung to the street in that long moment before dusk turns it blue. The building, like all the others along that stretch of Bathurst Street, looked quite respectable for forty or fifty years old, the exterior in good repair. She sat in the car a moment, restrained by the thought of the surprised Greta Garbo face when she opened the door.

  “Is it really Wednesday already?” Mrs. Kochinsky might say. “I lost track of time.”

  Maybe she was out on the town with her cousin from the States. Had he been the one who’d sent the photo Mrs. Kochinsky had flashed before Rebecca’s face? Apparently she’d only met him once, when he was a boy in Poland. They had exchanged some letters when she lived in Argentina but they had lost touch. Then the sudden phone call. Maybe he’d arrived, and in all the excitement of catching up, she’d forgotten what day it was. It happened. If that was the case Rebecca would admonish her gently and go away relieved. But she had to check and make sure her patient was all right.

  Carrying her black medical bag, she climbed the steps to the wooden front door. She lifted the brass lion’s head knocker and clanged it twice. There was no sound of stirring from inside, no one preparing to open the door. She turned the knob and was surprised to find it moved easily. As soon as she opened the door, her heart reeled. Inside the small vestibule, the door to Mrs. Kochinsky’s apartment stood ajar. The glass panel, still covered by a sheer curtain, had been smashed, leaving a jagged hole. She pushed the door open and called out, “Mrs. Kochinsky?”

  The place had been ransacked. She ought to leave to call the police rather than risk meeting the intruder face to face. She stood very still on the threshold, listening. The silence hung in the air. Only the desultory hum of tires on Bathurst Street and her own ragged breath interrupted the quiet. How could she leave without checking her patient?

  “Mrs. Kochinsky? It’s Dr. Temple.” Nothing.

  From the dimness of the entrance hall she could see coffee tables on their sides, ornamental cushions, vases, framed photos scattered on the floor. The kitchen lay straight ahead at the end of the hall; to the left, the living- and dining-room. Stepping over the shards on the floor, she moved forward, then stopped.

  The muscles in her neck suddenly tightened. Adrenaline leaped through her chest. Mrs. Kochinsky lay crumpled, near the fireplace, like a pile of cast-off clothes.

  Rebecca ran around an upturned chair to reach her, called out her name for a response. There was none. She kneeled down, her heart pounded against her ribcage. The woman’s face had turned a dark congested purple. Her eyes bulged. A line had been burned across her neck, tell-tale contusions and abrasions left by a ligature. A rope, a cord, something solid wielded by someone strong. Rebecca placed her fingers flat against the woman’s carotid artery. The neck and jaw were slack, the skin clammy. She shuddered at the unnatural angle of the lifeless head. The bastard had pulled so tight he had broken her neck. Crushed her like a bird. Rebecca closed her eyes and suddenly there was Mrs. Kochinsky, terrified in her office yesterday. Yesterday. A quiet panic took hold of Rebecca. The woman had run to her for help. Mrs. Kochinsky had trusted her. Rebecca could almost hear her: I know you care, that’s why I keep coming, I put myself in your hands. She looked down at her hands. She was responsible. And what had she done? Soothed her with words. Bathed her with platitudes while blinded by her own diagnosis of paranoia. No. Mrs. Kochinsky was paranoid. Wasn’t she? All those times men had chased her across her nightmares, all those times Rebecca thought her patient was viewing things through her own distorted lens, perhaps it had been Rebecca misinterpreting, denying. Perhaps Mrs. Kochinsky had seen exactly what was there. Rebecca could hardly fathom it. She had been convinced of her patient’s paranoia. And yet the woman was lying dead at Rebecca’s feet.

  She stood up wavering, numb with an old pain. Her last memory of David’s face flashed by, white against the white sheet, his mouth loosened at the jaw, foreign, his body empty of him, the emptiness taking her over. She felt it wring her heart the same way, the old squeezing inside her chest. Surprising how much she cared for the old woman. How the bond between them had grown stronger when David died, each understanding the grief of the other. And she needed Rebecca so much; she said Rebecca helped her stay alive one week to the next. Then why was she dead? Why was she lying there in her pyjamas, fallen awkwardly on her side, arm beneath her back? Stay calm, thought Rebecca. Look carefully. Piece it together. There must have been a struggle. Rigor mortis still clamped part of the body tight but had released the small muscles. Mrs. Kochinsky had been dead all day, maybe all night. She seemed much smaller now than when she was alive.

  A pale light filtered through the brocade curtains of the front window, creating murky twilight an hour early. Rebecca realized the chandelier in the diningroom was on. Last night. He’d come last night. But who? She glanced around the littered apartment. Could she be sure it wasn’t exactly what it appeared? Why couldn’t it have been a burglar? Maybe instead of the Argentine death squad Mrs. Kochinsky anticipated every day of her life, it had been a thief caught in the act who had played out her worst nightmare. Was it impossible that she had fled persecution on two continents only to find meaningless death on the third? Y
et would a thief come here? The woman was not rich. If they were looking for saleable goods, any of the houses on the winding, genteel streets off Bathurst would have yielded more.

  Hovering at the edge of the living-room, Rebecca realized the side door to the apartment was open. It led to a short hall and the back staircases, one upper, one leading to the basement, then the door to the outside. This must have been the way the killer got out. He would have ended up in the laneway at the side of the house. No problem escaping unseen.

  On her way to the phone in the kitchen, Rebecca passed the bedroom: everything Mrs. Kochinksy owned lay scattered on the bed and floor — cosmetics, clothes, shoes. On the dresser her leather purse resembled a dead animal, its insides pulled out. The wallet sat open, presumably empty. A robbery? A good imitation?

  Rebecca stood on the threshold of the kitchen, looking for the phone. The receiver hung from the wall. Mrs. Kochinsky must have run in here, trying to call for help. The killer had torn the cord out of the wall. Then he chased her into the living-room. Trying to piece it together was giving Rebecca the creeps. He may have been gone, but the aura of his presence was strong; an evil cloud filled the apartment, it smelled of him.

  Rebecca didn’t want to disturb any evidence. Turning left, she stepped through the dining-room and continued into the den. Through the windows, the small backyard and garage were fading into the dim evening. The room itself seemed untouched. She found a desk in the corner. On it a phone sat beside a chocolate box filled with bills and receipts. Some papers lay to one side. The detritus of daily life. Garbage now that the inhabitant was dead. How much correspondence with art supply houses and galleries had she thrown out when David had died. All his notebooks. Wipe the slate clean. Start afresh. The clichés sounded right, but they didn’t work. Envelopes for David Adler still arrived with regularity at the house. Each time she dropped one in the garbage she saw his face white against the sheet.

  Using a tissue from her pocket, she draped the receiver before lifting it and dialed 911. This line had not been disconnected. The dispatcher said that police and ambulance were on their way. Rebecca wondered how quickly they would arrive, considering there was no medical emergency. While she was relaying the information, her eyes fell on the papers near the phone. On top was a card printed in Spanish outlined with a black border. She used her high school Spanish to decipher the announcement of the death of Carlos Velasco, son of Isabella, to be buried in Tablada Cemetery, Buenos Aires, in February 1977. What was this doing in a pile of current mail?

  The past few years had not been good to Mrs. Kochinsky. First her husband died, then during the vulnerability of her widowhood, the regime pursued her into the torture chamber in order to catch the son who produced plodding but graphic song lyrics about bloodthirsty generals and death squads in uniform. The death of Carlos Velasco may have been history, but the card had just been received. Why else was it keeping company with Mrs. Kochinsky’s latest hydro bill? It was like a voice from the past. The expression stopped Rebecca cold. A voice from the past. Rebecca remembered the cousin and the photo of the duck. Suddenly she wished she’d gotten a better look at the picture when Mrs. Kochinsky had waved it around in the office. It hadn’t been among the papers near the phone in the den. The purse. Mrs. Kochinsky had brought it out of her purse.

  Rebecca tiptoed toward the bedroom as if her steps would disturb someone. She could see everything from the doorstep of the small room. All the drawers from the white dresser stood open, the clothes from inside dumped in heaps on the peach broadloom. On the nightstand, strangely untouched, lay a grey doll in a striped dress, a crude shabby thing for someone as elegant as Mrs. Kochinsky. The police would be there any minute. She took wary steps toward the emptied purse on the dresser. She touched nothing but scrutinized the papers lying nearby. A few things had fallen to the floor. A chequebook, a recipe, some store receipts, a shopping list. The picture wasn’t there. Crouching in a clear area at the foot of the bed, she gingerly lifted the bedskirt. There was nothing underneath. She didn’t want to disturb evidence but she had to know. She poked her foot into the clothes on the floor. She inspected the piles of shoes in the closet. Nothing. It was as clear as day to her now: whoever had killed Mrs. Kochinsky had taken the picture. The inexplicable photocopy of the duck was missing.

  chapter eight

  Wednesday, April 4, 1979

  Nesha smiled inwardly at the discomfort of the welldressed woman seated next to him on the plane. He found, since growing his hair and beard to an unruly length, that people sitting beside him in moving vehicles were less likely to engage him in conversation. He kept himself clean but untidy, no longer able to take seriously the usual daily precepts of personal grooming. He reminded himself of Howard Hughes. Yet there had been a time, many times, before he had turned eccentric, that he had found himself on a plane beside a middleaged woman who wanted to talk.

  He had married a woman who was attracted to his melancholy. She said she wanted to help him forget, not realizing she was aiming to eliminate the trait that had attracted her in the first place. They had a son and Nesha had once considered himself satisfied with life. The son, Josh, was a good student, would be the scholar Nesha would have been — had he been given the chance. Josh had fine dark hair, like his father, that lay in loose waves around his head. Nesha feared for his son because he knew how easily the world could fall apart. Josh would tire of his father’s paranoia and say, “Don’t worry so much Dad, this is America.”

  Over the years Margie learned she would never be able to make Nesha forget. She knew his obsession would always take precedence over her and resentment became disaffection, then finally indifference. When Josh was twenty and had been away at school for a year, Margie decided there was no longer any reason to stay. She had had a stomachful of her husband’s rage and melancholy and was ready for lighter fare. The ironic thing was that when she left, Nesha lost interest in everything, including all thoughts of vengeance.

  It was still daylight when they flew over Lake Michigan and Lake Erie. For vast miles they gleamed beneath him in a kind of flat blue he had never seen on the ocean, a clear mirror of the sky, an almost blinding light in the eyes. He had looked up the Great Lakes on a map before he left and found to his relief that Toronto sat comfortably on the north end of Lake Ontario, a port city. What would he do without his precious water?

  At the front desk of the hotel they eyed him suspiciously with his ragged hair and beard, but his money was as good as everyone else’s. One link with his former life he had held onto was his American Express card. It reminded him he could afford to do anything he wanted, only he chose to do nothing. Until now.

  From the days when he used to travel, Nesha knew which hotels had good pools. Margie had never failed to complain about the rooms but he didn’t care about where he slept, as long as the pool was deep and long. Well, he didn’t have to worry about Margie anymore; let a new husband have the pleasure.

  On such short notice he couldn’t call around for information and had to settle for whatever there was. Late that evening, long before he would be able to sleep, he visited the indoor pool in the bowels of the hotel. The place was candy-coloured, pastel green and yellow and pink, perhaps to make one forget it was a basement. And the pool wasn’t what he was used to — he took in the trendy, impractical curve — but it would do. He needed his swim the way some people needed drugs or TV — to obliterate the world, to blank out a mind that ran the same murderous pictures over and over.

  Unwilling to let the old newsreel begin, he let the water take him over. He luxuriated in the kiss of the water as he plied an easy graceful breast-stroke down the middle of an empty pool. His mother wept soundlessly, her long hair unravelling from the bun. Dust whorled into the air, hid the sky. But Nesha turned away. He let the green-yellow-pink of the pool take him somewhere simpler, somewhere on a different page of history in a different millennium. This must have been the very first stroke, he thought, when hyphenated creatures sli
d through the primeval oceans before memory, troutlizards and carp-toads and semi-dinosaurs, this stroke where the arms pulled the body forward by pushing the water down and away, laying open a channel as welcoming as a lover. This stroke could be sweet and soothing under an ancient sun, a movement so natural you could almost sleep in it. Suddenly the dust sifted down, down, the sun blazed a path through the dust until it became a cloud of smoke, a plume of fire in the little wooden synagogue of his nightmare. Nesha shook his head. He needed something faster.

  He lowered his head and shifted his arms up into the butterfly, once a knockoff of the breast-stroke, but years ago now, promoted to its own competitive category. And what a category! If this didn’t kill him, nothing would. His hands traced a fast strenuous S back to his hips, then out again, back and out again at a pace that created a corridor of foam. The once voluptuous water was now violently forced open as both his legs kicked together behind him as one, like a primitive tail. He gulped and expelled air in the trough behind the bow-wave, keeping his head low and his body flat to offer the least possible resistance to the water. He didn’t care what he looked like in his goggles and his long hair tied back in a ponytail.

  When he had learned to swim, the breast-stroke was strictly for sissies. He had spent more time in the water than on his grades. Even then, young as he was, he recognized the water’s allure: it made him forget. Like the River Lethe crossing into Hades, he learned at school; all would be forgotten on the other side. And what could be more natural. It was, after all, California. It was more like heaven than any place he could have imagined: the brightly painted, columned houses, the high sweeping vistas of the sea, the purple and turquoise and gun-metal of the water, sometimes separate, sometimes all at once, that reminded him he was at land’s end, the farthest point on the continent and a million miles away from the village that haunted his dreams.