The Further Investigations of Joanne Kilbourn

by Gail Bowen

  I was in luck. The café was less than a kilometre down the road, and Veronica made it right to the tanks before she coughed her last. Chubby himself filled her up. When he’d finished, I gave him my credit card and showed him my map.

  “I have to get down there tonight,” I said. “Do you know of a shortcut I could take?”

  He took the map between his thumb and forefinger and walked inside where there was light. I thought I had never seen a human being move so slowly. When he came back, he handed me my credit card and the map.

  “No shortcut, not in this weather,” he said. “Just stay on the highway till you see the sodium sulphate plant.” He gave me my credit card. “Jeez, just a minute, I forgot something,” he said, then he turned and lumbered heavily towards the bright lights of the café. When he came out, he reached through the window. “Merry Christmas,” he said, and he handed me a candy cane.

  “Same to you,” I said. I finished the candy cane just as I came to the turnoff for the Vermilion Hills. As soon as I hit the grid road, I knew I was in trouble. The car started to fishtail on the wet gravel, and by the time I straightened it, I could feel the sweat running down my back.

  There was no consolation when I looked up into the hills. In the spring, the Vermilion Hills are as beautiful as their name. In the summer, they’re alive with wildflowers. But in the winter, stripped of the softness of grass and flower, they are primordial and terrifying. That night, as I followed the hairpin curves of the dark road that took me into their heart, I was engulfed by a fear that seemed as atavistic as it was intense. Then, out of nowhere, a deer leapt across the road ahead of me, and I felt the fear lift. I wasn’t alone.

  I held the map up to the light on the dashboard. I was almost there. A kilometre farther, I saw the yard-light of the cabin glowing dimly in the dark and the mist. I pulled onto the shoulder of the road, and began to walk. I wasn’t sure who was in the cabin, but there didn’t seem to be much point in announcing myself.

  The rain was cool on my face, and the air was fresh. I took some deep breaths. “I’m coming, Jenny,” I said, and I felt strong and clear-headed. I stood for a moment, getting my bearings. The cabin was set back about a hundred metres from the road. It was isolated. The last lights I’d seen had been fifteen kilometres back. This was short-grass country, and there weren’t many trees around, but there was a windbreak of what looked like caraganas on the north side of the cabin. It would be a place to run if I needed one.

  I could feel the adrenalin rush as I started for the cabin. The curtains were pulled tight, but as I moved closer I could hear music inside; it sounded like a radio or a TV. I told myself it was Lolita Temple’s choir and that, if they were singing, nothing bad could happen to me.

  I went to the front door and knocked. For a moment, the only sound was the music, then I heard someone coming towards me. When the door opened, I was facing Tess Malone.

  “I knew you’d come for Jenny,” she said.

  “Where is she?” I asked.

  “Dead,” Tess said, and she turned away from me.

  “But the phone call …”

  Tess looked ghastly. Her hair, always so carefully sprayed in place, had come loose. In fact, it seemed as if everything about her had come loose. Behind the thick lenses of her glasses, Tess’s blue eyes always seemed perceptive, but this night she wasn’t wearing her glasses, and her eyes looked unfocussed. Even her body looked slack and shapeless.

  “What happened to Jenny?” I said.

  “She changed her mind,” Tess said.

  On the television, a child began to sing “The Little Drummer Boy.” I glanced towards the set, hoping to see the familiar images of the Nationtv Christmas party, but the picture on the screen of the old black and white TV was so fuzzy, all I could make out was the shape of the singing child. It was a slender reed to cling to.

  Tess went over and turned the sound down, then she started back towards the couch. She moved slowly. There was an open fireplace, with a roaring fire, and the room was stiflingly hot, but she pulled an afghan around herself.

  “Tess, you’ve got to tell me what’s going on here.”

  She lowered herself onto the couch. Beside it, there was a metal TV table. On it were the leftovers from a frozen dinner, an overflowing ashtray, and two packs of du Mauriers. Tess reached for a cigarette and lit it. I took the ashtray to the fireplace and dumped it, and came back to her.

  “There’s a bottle of rye over there,” Tess said.

  “Forget the rye,” I said. “We have to get out of here.”

  She dragged deeply on her cigarette. “I’m in more danger out there than I am here. Get the rye, Jo. I’m tired of secrets. I want to talk.”

  “Tess, we have to go to the police. I don’t think you understand everything that’s happened.”

  When I told her about Julie’s dark reference to a skeleton and the initials opposite the sixth Commandment on Kevin’s list, Tess sagged, and when she spoke, her voice was small. “It isn’t the way you think it is,” she murmured.

  “Then it’s true.”

  “Yes, but … Jo, please let me tell you what happened.”

  “Tess, are we safe here?”

  She laughed. It wasn’t a nice laugh. “As safe as anyone is anywhere.” She gestured towards the whisky. “Please, Jo.”

  I picked up the rye. There were no clean glasses. I took a dipper of water from the corner, rinsed two of the cleaner glasses, and poured rye into them.

  I took a sip of my whisky. The warmth helped. “Okay,” I said, “start talking.”

  Tess pulled her afghan tight around her. “How does Julie find out these things?”

  I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that Julie’s information was right. What happened to Jenny Rybchuk, Tess?”

  “She died. It was six years ago, Jo, and it wasn’t a murder – at least not the part we were involved in. It was an accident. A terrible, terrible accident.”

  “What are you talking about, ‘the part we were involved in’?”

  Tess went on as if she hadn’t heard me. “It should never have happened,” she said. “Everything was going so well. Jess was a perfect baby. Gary and Sylvie were there when he was born, did you know that?”

  I shook my head.

  “They were the most beautiful family. Jane and I went out to the airport when they brought the baby home. They were so happy. We thought Jenny was happy, too. It seemed as if everything had just fallen into place. Jenny had been writing to her father all summer. He hated having her away from him, but the plant had laid him off because of his drinking. He was having serious money problems, and he was relieved Jenny was paying her own way. Jess was born the first week in September, so Jenny was able to visit her father in Chaplin before she started university in Saskatoon. Everything went off like clockwork …” Her voice trailed off, and her eyes were remote.

  “Except …,” I prompted.

  Tess’s voice was filled with pain. “Except Jenny couldn’t forget her son. She started phoning Sylvie and Gary. At first, they didn’t mind; in fact, I think they were pleased that she cared so deeply about his welfare. They told her about how much weight Jess was gaining and what he was doing, but no matter how much they told her, it was never enough. She hungered for her child, Joanne. It was that simple. Nothing could satisfy her but having him back. When the calls got truly desperate, Sylvie asked me to go to Saskatoon and talk to Jenny.”

  “And you went?” I asked.

  “Of course I went, Jo. I was responsible.” She spit out the last word with loathing.

  “You tried to do the right thing,” I said weakly.

  “That doesn’t exempt me from responsibility,” she said, and, for the first time that evening, there was something of the old Tess in her voice. “Intention doesn’t count, Jo. Just results. And the results of what I had done to Jenny Rybchuk were devastating. She wasn’t the same girl I’d seen in Regina. She was thin and ill and driven. She said she ha
d made a terrible mistake, and I had to help her get Jess back.”

  Tess lit a fresh cigarette off the stub of her first one. She dragged deeply and coughed till the tears came.

  “Jo, I was so cruel to her. I told her she’d made an agreement, that life was about choices, and that Sylvie and Gary could give Jess a far better life than she could dream of. I said it was time for her to face facts, and walk away from the past.

  “Until I die, I’ll never forget the look of betrayal in that girl’s eyes. Do you know what she said to me?” Tess’s voice broke. “She said, ‘You’re the one who told me a baby isn’t just a collection of cells a woman can walk away from.’ After that, there was nothing more I could say except goodbye. I turned my back on her, Jo. It was a terrible abnegation of responsibility, and a fatal one.”

  I could hardly bring myself to say the words. “Tess, Jenny didn’t commit suicide, did she?”

  Tess’s laugh was bitter. “No, she didn’t commit suicide. God forgive me, maybe it would have been better if she had.”

  “What happened?”

  “She went to the baby’s father, and asked him to help her.” Tess looked toward the fire. Finally, she said, “The father was Kevin Tarpley.”

  “Kevin Tarpley,” I repeated stupidly. “I don’t understand.”

  “There’s nothing to understand. It was just one of those sad, stupid things. Maureen and her mother were visiting relatives for Christmas. Kevin was supposed to keep an eye on their house. You know, make sure the furnace was on and the pipes didn’t burst. Apparently, one night during the holidays, Henry Rybchuk got drunk and started in on Jenny. She ran next door, and Kevin just happened to be there.”

  “But when Jenny found out she was pregnant, she didn’t tell Kevin.”

  “No. She didn’t tell him until I turned her away. That was at the end of November. A week later, Gary called. Someone had taken Jess from his carriage on the porch of their house. Sylvie was in Toronto making arrangements for a show. Gary said they put Jess in the same spot every afternoon because it was protected, and he thrived on all the fresh air and sunshine. That day he’d only been out for a few minutes. Gary was pretty sure Jenny must have been watching the house. She’d left a note, saying she knew that legally she still had time to change her mind, and she had. She wrote that she was sorry and she would be in touch.

  “We didn’t hear a word about Jess till the next day at noon. I wanted to call the police, but Gary was sure Jenny would come to her senses. We knew the baby was safe. There was that at least, but the wait was still terrible. Sylvie and Gary had wanted a child for so long. Gary and I sat in the living room and talked about Jess and all the plans they’d had for him … It was like a death … There was that sense of loss, and the feeling that nothing would ever be the same again.

  “And then at noon, the phone rang …”

  “Jenny kept her word,” I said.

  Tess picked up the bottle of rye and half filled her glass. “No,” she said, “it wasn’t Jenny. It was Maureen Gault.”

  CHAPTER

  13

  “I thought we’d been delivered from hell,” Tess said. “Maureen Gault introduced herself as Jenny’s best friend, and she said Jenny was ready to talk. You can imagine how desperate Gary was to get Jess back before Sylvie came home. From the time Sylvie and Gary realized it was unlikely they’d ever have a child, their marriage had pretty much been a disaster.”

  “Gary’s promiscuity didn’t help,” I said, and I found it hard even to say his name.

  “Sylvie wasn’t blameless, Jo. She was so angry at Gary for failing her. People do strange things when they’re hurting. But she was crazy about Jess, and Gary was counting on him to give them a new start.”

  “That’s a pretty heavy burden for a baby.”

  Tess nodded her head in agreement. “It is, but Jess seemed to make everything right just by existing. Gary asked me to go with him when he met Jenny. I think he was afraid of dealing with her by himself. You know how Gary’s always been about confrontation. I dreaded going, but I’d failed Jenny so badly in our last meeting that I felt I owed her some support. And, Jo, you have to believe me. When we drove out here, I was certain everything was going to work out.”

  “You came here?” I asked.

  “Maureen said Jenny needed a private place to say goodbye to her son. Gary suggested his cabin. Hunting season had just opened, and Gary had been out to the cabin the week before. And since they’d be coming from Chaplin …”

  “Why would they be coming from Chaplin?”

  Tess sighed. “Because, according to Maureen, Jenny wanted to show Henry Rybchuk his grandson before she gave him up forever.”

  “But he didn’t know Jenny had a baby.”

  Tess’s voice was sharp with exasperation. “I know the story is full of holes, but don’t forget, all this happened before we knew Maureen Gault. When she said Jenny had told her father about the baby, we had no reason to doubt her. The truth is we wanted to believe her. Anyway, the plan was that, after they’d seen old Mr. Rybchuk, Maureen and Jenny would drive back from Chaplin and meet us at the cabin.”

  I stood up to take off my jacket. The room was oppressively hot, and I could feel my shirt sticking to my back. “Tess, could I open a window? I’m dying in here.”

  She shivered, but she nodded. “I’ve had this flu.”

  I looked at her. Her skin had an unhealthy sheen, and her lips looked dry and cracked.

  “I think I should drive you into Chaplin to the doctor,” I said.

  Her eyes grew wide with fear. “No doctors. No police, I told you.”

  “All right,” I said, “but I’m going to stay here with you tonight. Just let me call and tell my family I’m okay.”

  I went to the phone and dialled our number. As the phone was ringing, I looked around the cabin. I’d asked Ian once what it was like. He’d laughed and said, “I think you have to have a certain testosterone level to appreciate its charms.” The cabin was shabby, in fact, but comfortable looking. One end of the large main room was obviously used as the living area. In front of the old sectional couch where Tess huddled, shivering beneath an incongruously cheerful afghan, there was a coffee table scarred by cigarette burns and rings from a score of drink glasses. The couch was on one side of a big stone fireplace, and a couple of over-stuffed easy chairs were on the other. The far end of the room was an eating area with a small refrigerator, a stove, and a painted wooden table and chairs. On the same side as the kitchen, there was a door to what must have been a bedroom. The main room was panelled in some dark wood. There were pictures of hunting dogs on one wall, and a number of hunting rifles mounted in racks on the wall by the door. I recognized one of them, a small 30-30 bush gun. Peter had militated unsuccessfully for a rifle like that the Christmas he was fifteen. I was remembering all the ads from hunting magazines that had littered our house that year, when Pete answered the phone. He sounded drowsy.

  “It’s me,” I said. “Peter, did I wake you up?”

  “It’s okay, Mum. I was watching Barbarella. I must have nodded off after Jane Fonda melted the cables on Duran Duran’s sex machine.” He yawned. “What’s going on? Inspector Kequahtooway was here looking for you. He seemed pretty worked up when I said you’d gone out.”

  “If he comes back, tell him I had to go out to the Vermilion Hills.”

  “The Vermilion Hills. What’s out there?”

  “An old friend in trouble,” I said. “Look. I’ll explain when I get home. Get the kids off to church tomorrow morning, would you?”

  “Does that mean I have to go with them?”

  “Of course,” I said. “How else would they get there? Goodnight, Pete, and thanks. I’m glad you’re home.”

  I found a towel, poured some water from the dipper onto it, sat beside Tess, and wiped her face. “Do you have aspirin or anything here? You’re burning up, Tess.”

  She shook her head. “I’m all right. Just let me finish. I can’t hold on
to this any more.”

  I opened the window on the other side of the room a crack, and took a breath. “Okay, Tess,” I said. “I’m listening.”

  She pulled the afghan closer. “Maureen Gault had lied to everyone. Jenny had no intention of giving up that baby. She’d brought Jess to the cabin so Sylvie and Gary could say goodbye to him. She really was a very sweet girl.”

  “Was,” I repeated numbly. It was hard to think of Jenny Rybchuk in the past tense. My chest tightened. I didn’t want to hear the end of the story.

  Oblivious, Tess went on. “That was the first time I met Maureen Gault. She was terrifying. She’d created all this confusion and misery, and she didn’t care. Jo, it was as if the pain charged her up, filled her with energy. She couldn’t sit still. She kept moving around the room with this little smile on her face. Gary and Jenny were over where you are, by the window, and I was sitting on a chair close to the fireplace. It was December; the cabin was chilly, and I’d moved the chair so the baby would be warm.”

  Tess covered her mouth with her hand as if she wanted physically to block the words she was about to say.

  “It happened so fast. When he realized Jenny planned to keep Jess, Gary said something ugly to her. She looked so hurt. I remember thinking she looked like a child who’d been punished for no reason. Then she came towards me to get the baby. Gary pushed her. Jo, I know he didn’t mean to hurt her. He was just trying to get to Jess, but Jenny lost her balance. There was a sheepskin rug on the hearth. She slipped on it and fell against the fireplace.”

  Tess pointed towards a long piece of fieldstone at the edge of the mantel. “That caught her in the temple. Gary went to help her up. I was furious with him. I said something like ‘Now look you what you’ve done,’ but, Jo, I thought she’d just fallen. Then Gary turned her over, and I saw her eyes.” Tess’s own eyes were dark with horror.

  “The sheepskin underneath her head was soaked with blood. I couldn’t move. Gary looked as if he was paralyzed, too. I guess we were both in shock. But Maureen Gault wasn’t. She walked over to the fireplace and picked up a poker that was leaning against the hearth. Then she said, ‘You shouldn’t have fucked my guy, Jenny,’ and she raised the poker and smashed it down on Jenny’s head.”