The Further Investigations of Joanne Kilbourn

by Gail Bowen

  “Did you phone Carolyn Atcheson and ask if you could come?” I said.

  Hilda shook her head. “It’s far too easy to say ‘no’ on the telephone.”

  “If she won’t see you, it’s a long drive for nothing,” I said.

  Hilda’s back was ramrod straight. “She’ll see me, Joanne. I’m not a person who permits a door to be barred against her.”

  “Aren’t you going to church?” Angus asked innocently.

  “Not today,” Hilda said.

  Angus looked at me hopefully. “Mum …?”

  “Okay,” I said. “We’ll all backslide today. But after today …”

  “I know, I know,” Angus said, but he was already on his way to the phone to arrange a game of shinny.

  I turned to Taylor. “It looks like it’s you and me against the world, kiddo,” I said. “How would you like to visit a pregnant lady?”

  Manda Traynor sounded excited at the prospect of company. “Jo, you haven’t seen our new house yet. Craig loves to show it off. And Taylor and I can play with Alex P. Kitten and Mallory.”

  “You have cats,” I said.

  “Two beautiful little Persians,” Manda said.

  “They have cats,” I said to Taylor as I hung up.

  She jumped up from the table and headed upstairs. “I’ll be ready fast,” she yelled over her shoulder.

  Craig and Manda’s new house was only about six blocks from us, so Taylor and I walked. It was a dreary November morning. The sky was overcast, and the only splashes of colour in the muted tones of the city streets came from orange Hallowe’en leaf bags leaking soddenly onto the snow.

  “I’ll be glad when people start putting up their Christmas decorations,” I said to Taylor.

  “Me too,” Taylor said. “I’m going to make Jack a Santa hat and put him back out on the front porch.”

  “Swell,” I said.

  Taylor smiled up at me. “It will be swell, won’t it?”

  When Craig opened his front door to us, Alex P. Kitten and Mallory were waiting. Taylor was ecstatic. “Look,” she said as she reached out to grab one of the ginger cats. “Their hair’s the same colour as Miss McCourt’s.”

  The cats didn’t stick around long enough for me to make a comparison. They high-tailed it down the hall with Taylor in hot pursuit.

  “Looks like it’s going to be a long morning for Alex P. Kitten and Mallory,” I said to Craig.

  “They like company, and so do we,” he said, and he savoured the word we as if it were newly coined.

  “How’s Manda doing?”

  “She’s terrific. The baby’s in position now. It should be any day.” He lowered his voice. “Jo, how are you doing? I’ve been working on the assumption that if you’d needed a lawyer, you’d have called.”

  “I would have,” I said. “But the fact that I’m standing here doesn’t mean I’m out of the woods. Craig, I need help.”

  “Why don’t you go in and say hi to Manda? Then we can talk.”

  Manda was in the kitchen taking cookies out of the oven, and she was wearing a bright red apron that had CHILDBIRTH, A LABOUR OF LOVE written on the bib. Her dark hair was tied back with a red ribbon and her face was shining. When she reached out to hug me, I could smell cloves and cinnamon.

  “Jo, I’m so happy you’re here.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  Somewhere in the house a cat screeched. I waited, but there was no answering howl from Taylor. “I guess Taylor’s learning that loving a cat isn’t easy,” I said.

  Manda looked serious. “Jo, loving a cat is very easy. All the same, maybe I should go and give Taylor a few tips about getting acquainted. That’ll give you two a chance to get caught up.”

  Craig turned to me. “Why don’t we go down to the family room? The chairs are more comfortable.”

  The family room had floor-to-ceiling windows on the wall that looked out onto the back yard. Against the window, a trestle table bloomed with plants: azalea, hydrangea, fuchsia, and a huge Christmas cactus.

  “This is beautiful,” I said.

  “Manda and I bought the house for this room,” Craig said. “We thought it would be a great place for the kids.”

  “Kids plural?” I asked.

  He grinned. “Why not?”

  “You’re really happy, aren’t you?” I said.

  He nodded. “Happy and very humble. Not many of us get a second chance, Jo. Come here, I have something to show you.”

  There was a small table in the corner. It was filled with pictures from a political life – not grip-and-grin photos, just pictures of friends. Craig picked one up and handed it to me. “Here’s one you’ll like,” he said. It was a photograph of me, as pregnant as Manda Evanson was now. I was slumped into an easy chair, asleep; propped against the wall beside the chair was a stack of VOTE KILBOURN lawn signs.

  “It was fun at the beginning, wasn’t it?” Craig said softly.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “It was fun.”

  “Ian was a terrific guy.”

  “He was,” I agreed.

  I picked up another picture. This one was of Gary, Ian, and Andy sitting around the kitchen table in our old house. As befitted men who were about to change the world, they looked very serious.

  “I took that picture,” Craig said. “We used to sit at the table for hours arguing about policy, remember?”

  “Sure,” I said. “In those days, I was the one who made the coffee.”

  I looked at the picture again. All that idealism and commitment. Now Ian and Andy were dead, and Gary Stephens didn’t care about anything above his belt.

  I turned to Craig. “What happened to Gary?” I said. “What changed him?”

  Craig’s eyes were sad. “I don’t think you can ever point to one thing when a person changes that much. But it started with Sylvie’s book.”

  “The Boy in the Lens’s Eye?” I asked, surprised.

  “No,” he said, “the first one, Prairiegirl. That book was the beginning of the end of his career in politics.”

  “Those girls were from Gary’s constituency, weren’t they?”

  “That didn’t bother Sylvie,” Craig said, and I was surprised at the asperity in his voice.

  “You don’t think she should have taken those pictures.”

  “Jo, I don’t give a damn about her taking pictures, but the world is full of young girls. Why Sylvie had to photograph those particular girls is beyond me. She was one who had everything. She had the money and the talent. She must have known what those pictures would do to Gary’s career. And she went right ahead. They used to love Gary out there. He grew up in those hills.”

  “And they stopped loving him after Sylvie’s book?”

  “Not everybody, but a lot of people felt betrayed. Especially the old ones. They were proud of Gary. They thought they knew him, and they thought he stood for what they believed in.”

  “God, the Family, and the Land,” I said.

  “Exactly. Have you seen the pictures, Jo? I don’t know anything about art, but I do know the law, and I could have argued a case that, taken out of context, those pictures were pornography. The parents of those girls agreed to let Sylvie photograph their daughters because she was Gary’s wife. For them, what she did was a breach of trust.”

  “And they blamed Gary because he should have kept his wife in line,” I said.

  Craig nodded agreement. “They’re good people, Jo. But the attitudes of a lifetime aren’t easily changed.”

  “I know that,” I said. “But Gary won the next election. They might have had to hold their noses when they voted, but those people gave him a majority, Craig. If Gary had toughed it out, they would have come around.”

  “He was toughing it out. Then there was some more trouble. The pictures had made Gary vulnerable, and he resigned his seat.”

  I looked again at the photograph in my hand. “Sometimes, it seems as if there’s a curse on all the Seven Dwarfs.”

  Craig shook his head.
“This wasn’t a curse. This was a problem of Gary’s own making.” In the yard, two chickadees were fighting at the bird feeder. Craig was silent as he watched them.

  “What did he do?” I asked.

  “One of his clients discovered Gary had been dipping into his funds.”

  “I never heard anything about this.”

  “It was the spring after Ian died, Jo. You were going through a pretty bad time of your own. Besides, Gary’s friends took care of it, or at least we tried to. We put some money together to cover the deficit, but the client was a farmer in Gary’s constituency, so, of course, word got around. Prairiegirl had pretty well undermined whatever loyalty Gary’s constituents felt they owed him. It was only a matter of time before the rumours finished him, so he resigned.”

  “Craig, this doesn’t make sense. Why would Gary have to steal? Sylvie’s got money.”

  Craig moved closer to the window. The chickadees were still at it. “I guess Gary thought the problem was his. It had to do with his land. Apparently, he’d borrowed pretty heavily from the Farm Credit Corporation, and he couldn’t make his payments.”

  “Same old story,” I said. “And Ian always said Gary couldn’t resist the path of least resistance.”

  “Well, he paid for it,” said Craig. “He resigned from a job that he loved, and he’s been a pretty sorry excuse for a human being ever since.”

  “He is that,” I said, and I felt weighed down by sadness.

  Craig dropped an arm around my shoulder. “Come on, let’s get some tea. You look like you could use a bracing cup of camomile.”

  “Manda’s into health food?” I said.

  “With a vengeance,” he said. “There are nights when I’d give five years of my life for the sight of organ meat.”

  The camomile tea was bracing and the cookies, molasses and whole wheat flour laced with wheat germ, were solid but tasty. Manda was as fascinated by babies and cats as Taylor was, so the table talk was lively.

  After Taylor and I had said our goodbyes and started off down the sidewalk, I turned to look back at Craig and Manda. She was standing in front of him, enclosed in the circle of his arms. On the front door behind them was the wreath of dried apple slices and berries Manda had made to celebrate fertility. As they waved, I was grateful that the curse of the Seven Dwarfs seemed to have passed them by.

  Taylor and I had lunch at McDonald’s. While she ate, she made up a list of the names she would call her kitten, if, that is, she ever was to have a kitten. I thought of her birthday three days away and wondered how much grief Sadie and Rose’s aging hearts could take.

  Taylor was still talking about kittens when I pulled up in our driveway. Angus was home. I could hear the rhythmic pounding of the CD upstairs in his bedroom, but Hilda wasn’t back yet. I took some chicken breasts from the freezer and made a sauce of yogurt, lime juice, and ginger to put on them after they were grilled. We could have couscous and a cucumber salad with the chicken. A nutritionally faultless meal from the woman who’d let her daughter eat two Big Macs, a large fries, and a cherry pie for lunch.

  It was close to 3:00 by the time Hilda got home, and she was buoyant.

  “I don’t need to ask how it went,” I said. “Obviously, Carolyn Atcheson didn’t bar the door against you.”

  “At first she almost did,” Hilda said, “but once she invited me in and began to talk about Maureen Gault, she was unstoppable. I think it was cathartic for her.”

  “Good,” I said. “Let’s go in where it’s comfortable and you can tell me about Carolyn’s catharsis.”

  Hilda settled back into her favourite chair in the family room. “To start with,” she said, “Maureen seems to have affected Carolyn’s life profoundly, but I have the sense that, until today, she hasn’t discussed the girl with anyone.”

  “Maureen Gault was just her student,” I said. “Why wouldn’t Carolyn talk about her?”

  Hilda shrugged. “For the same reason most of us avoid talking about a situation we’ve bungled.”

  “What did she think she’d bungled with Maureen?”

  Hilda’s voice was grim. “Just about everything. Joanne, Carolyn says Maureen Gault was pathological, and I trust her assessment. She’s a woman who uses language carefully.”

  “If she knew Maureen was pathological, she must have brought in a professional,” I said.

  “It wasn’t quite that simple. According to Carolyn, Maureen seemed normal enough when she started high school. In fact, she was quite a success socially. There was always a group of girls around anxious to do her bidding, and she thrived.”

  “What went wrong?”

  “Maureen overplayed her hand. According to Carolyn, she had to dominate every situation and manipulate every relationship. The more she could manipulate and humiliate her little group, the better Maureen seemed to feel about herself. Of course, it didn’t take long for the girls to grow weary of being props for Maureen’s sell-esteem. They tried to break away and that’s when the trouble began.”

  “Serious trouble?” I asked.

  “Serious enough. There were threats. A girl opened her locker one morning and found her schoolbooks smeared with human faeces. Another girl’s house was broken into, and her clothes were shredded. Another’s dog was killed.”

  “And the school let this go on?”

  “Carolyn went to Maureen’s mother with the name of a psychiatrist. Of course, Mrs. Gault was furious. She kept demanding proof.”

  “And there was none,” I said.

  Hilda shook her head. “Maureen Gault was too clever to carry out the revenge herself. She kept her distance and used a confederate.”

  “Kevin Tarpley,” I said.

  Hilda nodded. “Kevin Tarpley.”

  “And they were never caught,” I said.

  “No,” said Hilda. “They were never caught.”

  I leaned forward in my chair. “Hilda, did Carolyn Atcheson say anything about what Maureen and Kevin did to Ian?”

  Hilda looked away.

  “What did she say?” I asked.

  Hilda’s voice was low with anger. “She said she wasn’t surprised. She always knew it was just a matter of time before Maureen discovered murder.”

  That night, as Hilda and I were finishing our after-dinner coffee, the phone rang. It was Jane O’Keefe asking if we could get together. I arranged to meet her at her office at the Women’s Health Centre the next day, after classes. After I wrote the time of our meeting on my calendar, I decided I might as well fill up my dance card, and I called Tess Malone. She agreed to meet me in the Beating Heart offices at 2:00 that same day.

  When I hung up, I was satisfied. The work of Sister Mouse was going well.

  CHAPTER

  8

  The Regina Women’s Medical Centre was located between a Mr. Buns Bakery and a bicycle store in a strip mall on the north side of the city. Jane had told me they chose the space because the parking was free and the rent was cheap, but there had been no penny-pinching in the reception area. Jonquil walls blazed with Georgia O’Keeffe desert prints, a brass bowl of fat copper chrysanthemums glowed on the reception desk, and the crystal clarity of a Mozart horn concerto drifted from a CD player on the antique credenza in front of the window. The Women’s Medical Centre had been decorated co-operatively by a group of pro-choice women in the city, and despite what Tess Malone told the public, the Centre had ended up owing more to Better Homes and Gardens than to Sodom and Gomorrah.

  The receptionist had just finished announcing me, when Jane came out and motioned me to follow her down the hall. My gynecologist’s office was decorated with posters from pharmaceutical companies: a pictorial history of contraceptive devices, a cross section of the uterus – instructive, but not exactly trompe-l’oeil. Jane’s walls were filled with some serious female art: a Jane Freilicher amaryllis, so lush I wanted to touch it; an exuberant Miriam Schapiro abstract; an electric Faith Ringgold story quilt. On Jane’s desk in a chased silver frame was a photograph of
her with Sylvie. They looked to be in their middle teens. Tanned and grinning, they faced the camera. Life was ahead.

  Jane didn’t waste any time getting to the point. “Howard called,” she said.

  “I thought he might,” I said.

  “He said he told you about Gary and me.”

  I nodded.

  She looked at me levelly, “And …?”

  “And I don’t understand. You’re so close to Sylvie and you’re too … smart, I guess, is the word I’m looking for.”

  Jane raised her eyebrows and laughed. “Smart has nothing to do with it, Jo. This morning I had breakfast with a cardiologist who smokes two packs a day. Ask her about the relationship between what we know and what we do.”

  “I didn’t mean to sound judgemental,” I said. “I know this isn’t any of my business. But, Jane, you know, don’t you, that when I talked to Howard I wasn’t just digging for dirt.”

  Jane smiled. “You’ve never struck me as the logical successor to Julie Evanson. I can read, Jo. I’ve seen the papers. But can’t you leave the investigating to the police?”

  “No,” I said, “I can’t. Jane, I didn’t kill Maureen Gault and, in my more optimistic moments, I’m reasonably sure the police are going to find that out, too. But until they do, I’m in limbo. Every day, I just get up and go through the motions, and it’s getting to be a drag.”

  “I know. The sword-hanging-over-your-head syndrome. We see it all the time in patients dealing with serious illness. The conventional wisdom is that the best way to deal with a hanging sword is to grab hold of it, take control.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to do,” I said.

  “Fair enough,” she said. “What do you need to know?”

  “Could we start with the caucus office party the night before Ian died? There were all those undercurrents. Something was going on. Do you remember anything at all that might be significant?”

  Jane winced. “I hardly remember anything about that party except that it was one of the worst nights of my life. For starters, it was the end of my relationship with Gary. I guess we’d been heading in that direction since Jess was born, but I loved him, Jo. I even had this fantasy about Gary and Jess and me becoming a family. Crazy stuff, but when you let your loins do your thinking, you’re not always rational. Anyway, as soon as I saw Gary that night, I took him down to my office, threw my arms around him, and tried to rekindle the flame.”