The Further Investigations of Joanne Kilbourn

by Gail Bowen

  “You’re telling me,” I said, and I walked down the hall towards room 517.

  It surprised me that Val was in his bed. At first, I thought he must be sleeping, but when I called his name, he turned. Then, reminding me of just how young twenty-one really is, he dived under the pillow.

  I pulled a chair up and sat by the side of the bed. “We have to talk, Val,” I said, “but I can wait till you’re ready.”

  Waiting for Val to decide when to face the inevitable gave me far more time than I needed to check out his room. It was small and relentlessly functional; the only non-institutional touch was a soothing landscape of a pastel boat in which no one would ever sit, drifting serenely on a pastel lake which no ripple would ever disturb. Prozac art.

  I’d just begun to wonder if I’d erred in letting Val take the initiative when he sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and faced me. He was wearing a blue-striped hospital gown that seemed designed to strip the wearer of dignity, but Val managed to give even that shapeless garment a certain style.

  “It’s my fault she’s dead,” he said, and there was an edge of hysteria in his voice that frightened me. “I didn’t mean for any of it to happen, but she’s still dead, isn’t she?” His face crumpled, and he buried it in his hands.

  I reached out and touched his shoulder. “Yes,” I said, “Kellee’s dead. But, Val, if you can tell me what really happened between you and her, I think we can get at the truth.”

  “And the truth will set me free,” he said bitterly.

  “No,” I said, “you’ll never be free of this. But the truth might help you put what you did into perspective. Start at the beginning.”

  “You know the beginning,” he said. “She was telling lies about …”

  “About Tom Kelsoe,” I said.

  Val sighed with relief. “I’m so glad he finally decided to talk to somebody about it. Tom always puts other people first. Even when Kellee was trying to destroy him, he protected her. The night he called and told me that she was accusing him of sexual harassment, I said he should go to Professor Gallagher. But you know Tom. All he thinks about is his students. He said that Professor Gallagher would have to expel Kellee, and he didn’t want that.” Val’s voice was filled with the fervour of the acolyte. “But Tom said that for Kellee’s own good she had to learn that a journalist’s reputation for truth must be beyond reproach.”

  “So he got you to put Kellee in a position where everyone would believe she was lying.”

  Val leapt up from the bed and began pacing. “She was lying about him. Can you imagine anybody lying about a man like Tom Kelsoe? You were at his book launch. You heard what he wrote about Karen Keewatin and her sons. That’s the kind of journalist he is. He sees the dignity in every one, and Kellee was going to destroy him.” Val’s voice broke with emotion. “All I was trying to do was protect the finest man I’ve ever known, but everything went wrong.”

  He was close to the edge, but I had to keep pushing. “Val, what happened at the Owl that night?”

  He came back and sat on the bed. “It all happened so fast. I’d been over at Tom’s office, so I was late getting to the Owl. When she saw me, Kellee went crazy. Somehow she’d figured out why I’d been … bothering her. She was very drunk and very hostile. She said she couldn’t trust anybody at the university, so she was going to the media. She started hitting me, and then somebody – I think it was Meaghan Andrechuk – said Kellee had her tape-recorder going. By that time a lot of people had had too much to drink and there was a kind of scene. Then we heard that they’d just announced on TV that Reed Gallagher was dead. Kellee was standing in front of me. It was awful. All the blood just went out of her face. At first, I thought she was going to pass out, but she just grabbed her bag and left.”

  “Did she take any beer with her?”

  Val looked at me curiously. “Beer? No. Why? Did somebody say she had?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m sorry. Go on.”

  “There’s not much more to tell. I went after Kellee. She was over the edge. I was afraid she really was going to go to the media. When I got outside, I saw that she was walking in the direction of the J school, so I followed her.” Val shook his head. “I watched until she went inside. Believe it or not, I thought the worst was over. I figured she’d just go into the cafeteria and drink coffee until she’d sobered up.”

  “And that was the last you saw of her.”

  “Yes, I was pretty much out of the party mood by then, so I just drove home.”

  “And people saw you there?”

  “Friday’s my Father’s poker night. All the real men in town were sitting in his living room drinking rye and smoking Player’s. I sat in the game until three in the morning.”

  “But you didn’t go to bed after that, did you? You went back to the campus to make sure there was nothing on Reed Gallagher’s computer that would incriminate Tom Kelsoe.”

  “Tom phoned me at home. He laid the situation out for me. No one knew what Kellee Savage had told Professor Gallagher. And now that he was dead, there was no way we could explain the truth to him. Tom said the last thing Professor Gallagher would have wanted to leave behind was a legacy of lies.” Val raked his hands through his hair. “Dr. Kilbourn, I know it’s hard to understand the vandalism, but Tom said that this was a case of doing the wrong deed for the right reason.”

  “And that made sense to you?”

  “Yes,” he said. “It did. I really screwed up, didn’t I?”

  “I guess the important thing right now is that you don’t compound the error. Val, you do know that what you tried to do Thursday night didn’t make anything better. You’re not going to try that particular exit again, are you?”

  He blushed. “No, that was stupid.”

  “Good, because you’ve got a great life ahead of you.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  I took his hand. “I am right, Val. Check it out. After I go, why don’t you ask the nurse if you can take a little walk around the hospital. Try to find one person in this whole place who has as much going for him as you do.”

  I opened my purse, took out the paper with the C.P. Snow quote, and handed it to him. “Your father asked me to bring this for him,” I said. “You can read it if you like.”

  He unfolded the paper. “ ‘The love between parent and child is the only love that must grow towards separation.’ ” Val looked at me uncomprehendingly. “Why would my father want this?”

  I squeezed his hand. “Maybe because he knows you’re not the only one who screwed things up.”

  Jill’s plane wasn’t coming in till 4:30, so after lunch I took Taylor and her friend Jess over to the Marina for ice cream. It was a bright, windy day, and on the lawn in front of the museum, people were flying kites. After the kids and I got our ice cream, we took it back to the museum lawn, found a bench in the sunshine, and gave ourselves over to the pleasures of banana splits and watching a sky splashed with diamonds as brilliantly hued as the colours in Taylor’s first paint box. All in all, it was a four-star afternoon, and by the time I dropped the kids off at Jess’s house I knew that, as difficult as it was going to be to tell Jill what I’d learned in the last forty-eight hours, I was ready to talk.

  The problem was that Jill wasn’t there to listen. My nerves were taut as I watched the passengers from the Toronto flight file into the reception area at the airport. A lot of travellers got off the plane, but I didn’t spot Jill. My first thought was that, because she wasn’t expecting me to pick her up, I’d simply missed her. I went over to the luggage carousel and watched as passengers grabbed their bags and headed for home. When the last bag was taken, I watched the carousel make its final revolution, then I went to the bank of phones by the doorway, dialled Nationtv, and asked for Rapti Lustig.

  Rapti sounded tense, too, but it was only an hour and a half to airtime, so I wasn’t surprised.

  “I know you’ve got a million things to do,” I said, “so I won’t keep you, but I’m a
t the airport. I thought you said Jill was coming in from Toronto this afternoon. Did I get my wires crossed?”

  There was a three-beat pause, then Rapti said, “Somebody’s got their wires crossed. Jill called this morning to tell me I’d have to produce the show tonight because she was delayed. We talked for ages, trying to cover all the bases. As soon as I hung up, I realized I’d forgotten to ask her what she wanted to go with as a lead-in. I tried the hotel we all use when we’re in Toronto, but she wasn’t registered. Then I called our Toronto office. They didn’t know anything about it, Jo. As far as they knew, Jill hadn’t been in the city at all this week.”

  “Then where is she?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  As I hung up, I felt the first stirrings of panic. I tried to tell myself I was overreacting. Rapti had talked to Jill that morning, and she’d been all right then. Obviously, there’d just been some sort of misunderstanding. Nonetheless, as I left the terminal, I was uneasy.

  I was so preoccupied that I walked right by Ed Mariani. He called after me, and when I turned, I saw that he was carrying an overnight bag and was dressed for travel. I also saw that I’d hurt him.

  “If you’d rather just keep on going, you can forget you saw me,” he said. “But I did want you to know how pleased I was to hear your voice on the message-minder last night. I’m glad you liked our gift.”

  “I don’t want to forget I saw you, Ed,” I said. “It’s just that I have a lot on my mind.”

  He put down his bag and came over to me. “Is something wrong?”

  “I hope not,” I said. “But there are some things I’d like to talk to you about. Do you have time for a drink before your plane?”

  Ed shook his head. “As usual, I’ve left arriving at the airport till almost the last moment. But if it’s an emergency, I can change my plans.”

  His generosity brought tears to my eyes. “Ed, I’m sorry if I’ve been cool to you lately.”

  I could see the relief on his face. “Don’t give it a second thought. I know I can be a bit overwhelming in close quarters.”

  “It wasn’t that. It had to do with Tom Kelsoe.”

  Ed’s eyes were wary. “What about him?”

  “I saw you with him in the Faculty Club on Tuesday. It was just after I’d told you that I suspected him of abusing Jill.”

  “And you thought I was warning him about your suspicions.”

  “Ed, what were you talking to him about?”

  Ed picked up his bag. “I don’t want to lie to you,” he said.

  “Then tell me the truth. I’m going around in circles here. First Reed, then Kellee, now Jill …”

  He took a step towards me. “Jill! Nothing’s happened to her, has it?”

  “No, she’s fine. It’s just that Tom Kelsoe is the man in her life, and suddenly everything about Tom scares me.”

  “It should,” Ed said quietly. “Tom Kelsoe is a violent man. That’s what I was talking to him about at the Faculty Club when you saw us. After what you’d told me, I had to make certain that Jill really had been mugged.”

  At first, the implication of what he’d said didn’t hit me. When it did, my knees turned to water. “What did Tom say?”

  “He was very forthcoming. He gave me all the details of the mugging. Then he told me to call Jill and ask her myself.”

  “And you did?”

  Ed nodded. “She gave me the same account, thanked me for my concern, and told me, very politely, to mind my own business.”

  “And that was the end of it?”

  “Yes.” Ed looked at his watch. “Joanne, I really do have to get in there. My flight is boarding.”

  I stepped in front of him. “Ed, what made you think Tom Kelsoe was capable of violence?”

  I could see he wanted to bolt, but he stayed his ground. Then, unexpectedly, he smiled. “I guess the confessional moment has come. As it inevitably does.” He took a deep breath. “Okay, here it is. Last year, Barry and I were having troubles: my mid-life crisis, I guess. I started cruising again, looking for younger men.” Ed looked straight into my eyes. “I’m deeply ashamed of what I did, Joanne. It was stupid and dangerous and a terrible betrayal of Barry. Of course, this being Regina, my sin did not go undetected. Nationtv was doing an investigation of male prostitution in the downtown area, and I, apparently, stumbled into camera range. When Jill saw the tape, she killed it; she also phoned me and told me …” He winced at the memory. “She told me that I had a good career at the university, and a great relationship with Barry, and I ‘should smarten the fuck up.’ ”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No, I didn’t. I don’t know if you’ve ever been close to someone who’s decided to self-destruct, but our instincts to be obtuse are quite breathtaking.”

  “So you kept on.”

  “Yes, I kept on, and this time it was Tom Kelsoe who saw me on Rose Street, cruising.” Ed chewed his lower lip. “Tom didn’t have Jill’s scruples about protecting me from myself.”

  “And that’s why you withdrew your name from the competition for head of the J school.”

  “And why I shook that bastard’s hand the night of his book launch. I couldn’t risk him telling Barry.”

  I was confused. “Ed, I’m missing something here. What’s the connection between Tom blackmailing you and what you said about him being violent. Did he threaten you physically?”

  Ed shook his head. “No. That’s not where he gets his pleasure. Jo, during my walk on the wild side last year, I heard a few things, too. Tom Kelsoe is pretty well known to the prostitutes downtown.”

  “Male prostitutes?”

  Ed smiled sadly. “No, at least we’ve been spared Tom Kelsoe. As they say on ‘Seinfeld,’ he doesn’t play for our team. Tom’s a red-blooded heterosexual, but I don’t think that gives women much to celebrate. Rumour has it that he’s into some pretty brutal sex.”

  My mind was racing, but I had to acknowledge Ed’s trust. “Thanks for telling me,” I said. “I know it wasn’t easy.”

  “You were the easy one, Jo. In two hours, Barry’s going to meet me at the Minneapolis airport. We’ve got tickets for Turandot. It’s an anniversary celebration. We’ve been together eight years today. I hope after I tell him, we’ll still have something to celebrate.”

  I leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “You will,” I said.

  I watched as Ed Mariani plodded heavily towards the terminal. When he reached the door, he turned back. “I’ll call you from Minneapolis,” he said. “In the meantime, tell Jill to be careful.”

  “I will,” I said.

  Fifteen minutes later, I pulled up in front of Jill’s apartment on Robinson Street. There was a moving van parked outside, and as I ran up the front steps I almost collided with a burly young man who was carrying out a love seat. “Hope you get there,” he yelled after me as I pushed past him and entered the building.

  By the time I got to Jill’s apartment on the third floor, the adrenaline was pumping. I was prepared, if necessary, to smash the door in, but Jill surprised me by answering after my first knock. She was wearing a jacket and dark glasses, and she’d tied a scarf around her head. She’d covered as much of herself as she could, but I could still see the bruises. Without a word, I reached over and lifted her dark glasses. One of her eyes was almost swollen shut, and the bruise under the other one was fresh. But there were other marks too: bruises that had faded and cuts that were healing.

  “How long has Tom been beating you up, Jill?” I said.

  Her voice was surprisingly strong. “Too long,” she said. “But it’s over. You’ll notice that I’m dressed and on my way out.”

  “Are you going to the police?”

  “Eventually,” she said. “But first, I’ve got a television program to produce.” She looked at her watch. “Twenty minutes to air.”

  I put my arm around her shoulder. “You’ll make it,” I said. “You always do.”

  CHAPTER

  14r />
  Tom Kelsoe had taken Jill’s car, so we drove over to Nationtv in the Volvo. When I saw the pain on Jill’s face as she climbed into the passenger seat, I was filled with rage. But anger had to wait. During the ten-minute drive to the studio, I told Jill everything. She listened in silence, but near the end of my account, when we stopped for a light, she pulled the cellular phone out of her briefcase and made a call.

  “Rapti,” she said. “It’s me. I’m fine. Yes, Jo did find me. We haven’t got much time, so you’re going to have to take this one on faith. I want you to tell Sam and Glayne that we’re changing the lead story tonight to a discussion of journalistic ethics. They’re both pretty quick on the uptake, so they’ll be okay with the change.”

  Jill paused. Rapti had asked her the obvious question. When she answered, Jill’s voice was steely. “No,” she said, “Tom isn’t to know anything about this till we’re on the air. You’ll have to fill Toronto in on the change of focus, and you’ll have to fax Cam a new intro: something about how journalists who use composite characters in their stories are violating the audience’s trust. You’d better define what we mean by ‘composite characters.’ Nothing too technical – just something like ‘composite characters are what you get when some journalist who doesn’t know his dick from a dildo rolls three or four people together and presents the new creation as a living, breathing human being.’ Throw in the Janet Cooke case. You remember that one from J school, don’t you?”

  As soon as Jill mentioned Janet Cooke’s name, another piece in the puzzle fell into place. An article about the Janet Cooke case had been on Kellee Savage’s bookshelf in Indian Head. Cooke was a young journalist who had worked for the Washington Post in 1981. She won a Pulitzer for a story about child heroin addiction, but had to give the prize back when her paper learned that Jimmy, the eight-year-old addict Cooke had written about with such passion, didn’t exist. The story must have had a particular resonance for Kellee after she discovered that Karen Keewatin, the heartbreakingly determined hooker and mother in Getting Even, didn’t exist, and that, like Janet Cooke, Tom Kelsoe had used the lives and stories of a handful of people to create a character who would tear at the reader’s heartstrings and advance his journalistic career.