The Early Investigations of Joanne Kilbourn

by Gail Bowen

  “Consciousness. Energy,” she says under her breath.

  Finally, Mickey Tilley turns and Eve and I follow him and the coffin up the centre aisle of the church. As we walk, there is a soft babbling and a swishing sound behind me. Mark Evanson is pushing Carey Boychuk behind us. A surprise, at least to me. About halfway up the aisle Carey begins to cry. When I turn, I see Mark calmly stopping to give Carey a hug of reassurance. Eve marches, head high.

  The Mass of Resurrection drags on – the confession, the prayers. Beside me, Eve drums her strong fingers on the prayer book. Legs crossed, she swings the toe of her black pump against the kneeler. It makes a small pucking sound. Every so often, she takes a deep breath and sighs audibly. Behind us Carey babbles, and Mark Evanson’s low voice whispers reassurances.

  There are three readings from the Bible. The camera pulls in for a tight shot of the readers. Dave Micklejohn, solemn and suddenly old, reads from the Book of Joel (“Your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions”); a student lector from the Catholic college, her voice breaking, reads the Epistle; and Father Mickey Tilley reads, well and movingly, the Gospel (“No one who is alive and has faith in me shall ever die”).

  When Howard Dowhanuik steps to the lectern to deliver the eulogy, he stands, head bowed, for a heart-stoppingly long time. Finally he lifts his head and looks at the congregation. In the half light of the cathedral, his impassive hawk’s face with its hooded eyes looks almost Oriental. Later, when he embraces me, there is, beneath the light, citrusy smell of his expensive cologne, the smell of Scotch. Up close his eyes are red with weeping or liquor or both. But on television none of this is apparent, and his voice, when he speaks, is deep and assured – the voice of a man accustomed to being listened to, a man worth listening to.

  Howard’s memories of Andy are warm and personal – stories of law school, of campaigning in forty-below weather, of flying through thunderstorms in tiny private planes and finding six people at the meeting.

  Andy is so alive in Howard’s stories that the people seem to forget where they are and the cathedral is filled with laughter. When he is finished, his place is taken by an old man from Sweetgrass Reserve, in Andy’s constituency. The man wears a baseball cap, a plaid shirt and work pants. He looks like Jimmy Durante. He takes off his glasses, coughs, closes his eyes and begins to sing the honour song in Cree. His voice is strong and pure – a young man’s voice. For the first time, Eve seems to connect with what’s going on around her. She leans forward in her pew, and when the man is finished and goes to his seat, Eve turns with frank curiosity to watch him.

  After he goes, Eve stares straight ahead, and I can almost feel her breaking. The TV camera shows none of this, of course. Her bearing is regal, and when she turns to embrace her son during the kiss of peace, she looks contained and engaged. She is neither. As the bread and wine are brought forward, Eve lapses into lethargy. When the altar and casket are incensed, she smiles a private smile. She takes no part in the communion, and as Mickey Tilley goes through the post-communion prayer (“O Almighty God, may this sacrifice purify the soul of your servant, Andrue”), she drums her fingers and taps her foot. When Father Tilley says, “Grant that once delivered from his sins, Andrue may receive forgiveness and eternal rest,” Eve leans forward, head reverently touching the gloved hands that grip the wooden rail ahead of us. When I lean forward, I can hear her desperately repeating her own prayer. “Consciousness. Energy. Consciousness. Energy.”

  Finally it is over. “May the angels lead you into paradise.” Our little party of mourners follows Andy’s casket down the centre aisle of Little Flower Cathedral and into the vestibule. This is where our role in the television version ends. The camera pulls away from us and focuses on the faces of the people in the church.

  The cameras missed the best part. At first, everything went smoothly. The pallbearers carried the casket smartly toward the door and waited. Roma Boychuk and her cousin took their place near the casket. Mark Evanson pushed Carey’s wheelchair beside Roma and stood with his sweet Christian smile, waiting for whatever the Lord directed. Eve and I stood off to the right by a rack of pamphlets from Serena and the Knights of Columbus, waiting, I thought, to thank Father Tilley. I turned my head for a second, and Eve was gone.

  It was simple enough. She had pushed past her husband’s coffin, her son and her mother-in-law and slipped out the door. Mark and I followed her, but by the time we got out the door, Eve was headed for the street. The rain had stopped pelting down. It was falling in a soft mist – a gentle rain – and Eve was standing in it in the middle of the cathedral stairs, taking her shoes off. Ten minutes before, hair swept into an elegant French braid, face carved with pain, Eve had been the prototype of graceful suffering.

  Not any more. She had ripped off her mantilla, and the French braid had come undone. She had tried to stuff the mantilla into her purse, but the bag wouldn’t close and the lacy edges of the mantilla hung over its edges. She stood in her stocking feet, arms outstretched, a fashionable leather pump hooked onto the forefinger of each hand. She yelled something to Mark.

  “Mark, I just can’t … Sorry. Take Carey to Wolf River, and I’ll meet you at the cemetery.” She turned and ran down the steps and along Thirteenth Street. I looked to see if there were any media people there to witness her performance. For once, we were lucky. They were still inside packing up, getting quotes, making head counts. But Mark and I weren’t alone.

  Three doors open on the cathedral staircase, and the stairs are broad – I would judge about fifty feet across. Mark and I had come out the west door, and we were standing by the railing on the west side of the top step when a woman came out of the east door.

  At the picnic she’d worn a dress that was the colour of cornflowers. She wasn’t in blue today. She was in full mourning – expensive black from head to toe. But there was no mistaking the still, perfect profile or the dark auburn hair. She was the woman who had walked with us as we carried Andy’s stretcher to the ambulance, who had tried to comfort Roma and who had run when Roma spat in her face. She stood and looked around uncertainly in the soft, misty rain. Then she was joined by a man. He put his arm protectively around her shoulder, and together they walked down the stairs and disappeared around the corner. Beside me, Mark watched with the frank curiosity of a child.

  “Who was that lady?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said, “but she was at the picnic when Andy – when Mr. Boychuk died. Her picture was in all the papers, but I don’t know who she is. I do know the man, though. That was Dave Micklejohn. Your mum and dad know him from politics. Dave Micklejohn was one of Mr. Boychuk’s best friends.”

  While Mark and I stood and watched Dave Micklejohn and the mystery lady disappear into the parking lot, the camera crews and the news people came out of the church. I knew most of the local news people, and they waved or smiled or said they were sorry. They were a nice enough bunch, but they were young, and Andy’s funeral was just one of the day’s stories for them. It was time to move to the convention centre to interview delegates from the CLC, or to the teacher’s club for a feature about how teachers felt about school beginning on Tuesday. The press thought the show was over. But they were wrong. Act Two was just about to begin.

  CHAPTER

  7

  Because it serves the sprawling inner-city parish of the cathedral, Little Flower Hall is bigger than most. Apart from that, it looks like all church halls. A room as big as a gymnasium and about as warm, lined with stacking chairs and heavy tables with collapsible legs, the kind of tables that can be easily set up for banquets or potlucks. At one end of the hall is a stage; at the other is a large kitchen with a long counter open diner-style to the hall, a cloakroom, and off it the bathrooms. The hall was a place for modest wedding dances and parish fiftieth-wedding anniversaries and occasions like this, except I don’t think there had ever been an occasion like this.

  The ladies of St. Basil’s Ukrainian Catholic Church had,
they explained, “gone in with” the ladies of Little Flower to put on the funeral lunch. They had planned for five hundred people to come and go. There were three times that many, and the people came but they did not go. They stayed and stayed and stayed. The ladies did their best. Weaving their way through the crowd, they carried black enamel roasting pans filled with cabbage rolls or perogies or turkeys or hams already sliced in the kitchen, and casseroles of scalloped potatoes and chili and macaroni and cheese. But as soon as the women put down the food, it was gone; and at the end, I noticed platters loaded with an unmistakable brand of fried chicken.

  I was standing at the end of a line waiting for a cup of tea when Howard Dowhanuik came up behind me.

  “I’d give the next two hours of my life for a drink,” he said.

  I leaned close and whispered, “I’d give the next two hours of your life for a drink, too.”

  “Jo, you have a cruel tongue,” he said but he smiled.

  “Hey, this will cheer you up,” I said. “The pie eater is here.” I pointed to the corner where a man in a red open-necked shirt and too-big pants held up by suspenders was working away at a dinner plate piled high with pie. “The ladies have already been at me about him. They say he has eaten three whole pies in less than half an hour. That must be his fourth.”

  Howard turned to look at him. “What did you tell the ladies?”

  “I told them their pies must be better than St. John’s Norway because the pie eater only ate two there, and he left quite a bit of the second one.”

  “A very political answer. You sure you won’t run for Ian’s old seat?”

  “Positive. You know, Howard, I’m kind of glad he’s here. The pie eater, I mean. He came to all Andy’s stuff. Do you think he votes for us?”

  “Of course, he votes for us. All the slightly bent ones do, and when we’re government, they’re all there demanding jobs and justice. Speaking of justice, did you notice all the guys in grey windbreakers trying to look inconspicuous? My God, there were cops all over the place. I talked to the police chief on the way over. They had two cops in every pew during the funeral, and cops in the choir loft filming. That must explain some of the low notes the girls from the abbey hit during the hymns. And there’s an unmarked van out front filming the comings and –”

  He never finished the sentence. A Cabinet minister who had lost his seat in the last election came up and greeted him. Howard sent the man to the dessert table and told him he’d be with him in two minutes. Then he turned to me.

  “Jo, I hoped I’d find a quiet minute to tell you this, but no such luck. I’m off to Toronto tonight for a few days. Something’s come up. I won’t be back till Wednesday – the late flight.”

  “I’ll miss you. Howard, look, why don’t you let me pick you up at the airport Wednesday night and bring you back for supper? I can make a pot of chowder, and we can open a bottle of Riesling and catch up on the news. Except it’ll have to be an early night. I’m taking Mieka up to Saskatoon on Thursday to get her settled in for school.”

  Howard turned away for a minute to say hello to an expensively dressed man who looked out of place in the old church hall. “My dentist,” said Howard. “Andy’s, too, come to think of it. Nice enough guy but a bit of a dandy. Look at that suit. I’ll bet it cost him five hundred bucks. Anyway, here’s an idea about next week. I have to go up to Saskatoon and do a bit of politicking sometime soon, anyway, and I’ve got the van. Why don’t I drive you and Mieka up? We can get her settled and go somewhere for steaks. I’ll buy. Then you can take me down to the river bank and have your way with me in the moonlight.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said, “especially the part before the moonlight.”

  He grinned, gave me an awkward hug and walked off to find the Cabinet minister.

  I was still smiling when someone came up and touched my elbow. I turned, and Soren Eames was standing in front of me. He was all in black, too, but in his turtleneck and beautifully cut cotton slacks, he looked more like an actor than a mourner. I hadn’t noticed before what a handsome man he was. But as everybody’s grandmother says, “handsome is as handsome does,” and, at that moment, “handsome” wasn’t doing much for Soren Eames. He looked ill and harried.

  “Mrs. Kilbourn, I need your help. Mark Evanson and I were in the cloakroom getting Carey Boychuk into his coat when Mark’s mother came in. She wants Mark to go home with them. She says it’s important for everyone here to see they’re a family. Forgive me, but I think her concern is less personal than political.” I could see the pulse beating in his throat. He took a breath and continued. “Anyway, whatever her reasoning, Mark doesn’t want to go with her, but, of course, she won’t listen to him. There’s no way I can get through to her. She’s very negative about me. When I saw you, I thought perhaps she might listen to you because you’re –”

  “A woman?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, “I thought she might listen to you because now that Andy’s gone, Craig Evanson will run for leader again, and your good opinion of him would carry a lot of weight.”

  “For someone not involved in politics, you know a lot, Mr. Eames.”

  “I had a good teacher,” he said softly.

  He looked about as miserable as I felt.

  “All right,” I said, “I’ll give it a try.”

  Julie had her back to the door, so she didn’t see me come into the cloakroom. She was so intent on her son that I don’t think it would have mattered if she had. As always, Julie looked impeccable in a dress that she had, no doubt, sewn herself. It was black with a pattern of pale green leaves and white roses. As she pleaded with her son, the roses on her dress shook as if in a summer storm. But the platinum cap of her hair remained perfect – it always did.

  Her voice was low. She was trying not to make a scene, but it was an effort. “Mark, please, let me run through it one more time. Slowly. There are some people coming to the house for drinks, and it would help Daddy if you were there. It’s just for a couple of hours, but it’s important for you to come. People say things if families aren’t together at a time like this.”

  Mark listened quietly, his hands resting on the handles of Carey’s wheelchair. He looked perplexed, as if he were trying to work through the possibilities in his mind.

  Finally he said, “I’d like to help Daddy, but I have a job. I have to make sure that Carey is okay. He’s my responsibility.”

  When she was at her cruellest, her most cutting, Julie Evanson had a little trick. She would laugh. I was never sure whether her laughter was intended to lessen the sting of her words or to suggest her disdain. At that moment, when she laughed at her son, there was no doubt. She was laughing to show her contempt for him and his life. It was an ugly sound.

  “Mark, you don’t have a job. You’re just a babysitter.” She looked quickly at Carey. “You’re a babysitter for a half-wit. Do you know how humiliated I was when you walked up the centre aisle of that church today with your little charge? Everybody we know was there. Can’t you at least try to make it up to me? Damn it, we’re your family. You owe us something, don’t you?”

  Mark listened quietly, then he said, “No, Mama, I’m sorry. I’m a family man myself, and I have responsibilities. I’m sorry I disappointed you,” and he bent forward and gently did up the zipper on Carey Boychuk’s raincoat.

  “Can I help you with anything, Mark?” I said. Even to my ears, my voice sounded stilted.

  Julie wheeled around and looked at me. Then without a word, she walked past me into the hall, and I knew I’d just moved up another notch on Julie Evanson’s enemies list.

  But when I looked at Julie’s son standing quietly and expectantly, I knew there was no time to worry. I took a deep breath, pasted on a smile and said brightly, “So, Mark, do you need some help?”

  His face lit up with its sweet born-again smile. “No, we’re just fine, Mrs. Kilbourn, thank you.” He thought for a moment. “Well, actually, you could help us with one thing.” He leaned forw
ard and whispered confidingly, “You can help us find Soren so we can go home.”

  I found Soren, then, in one of those small moments that seem significant in retrospect, I saw Rick Spenser.

  He was standing with his back to the stage and he was being spoken to by an old woman with savagely cut red hair and lipstick that was a bright fuchsia streak across her face. It was Hilda McCourt, Andy’s high-school English teacher. Andy had introduced me to her at the picnic. During the tribute-to-Andy part of the program, she’d given a little talk. It hadn’t been the usual “I knew he was marked for greatness” stuff. She’d given a good, dry and professional account of Andy’s strengths and weaknesses as a student, and I had liked her.

  I joined them. “Miss McCourt, I don’t know if you remember me, but –”

  She cut me short. “My memory is excellent, Mrs. Kilbourn, as I was trying to explain to Mr. Spenser here. I was telling him that some time in the past I met him; he insists I’m wrong.”

  “You know, Miss McCourt, media people are in our living rooms so often that they do seem like acquaintances.” From her look, I knew I’d taken the wrong tack, but I blundered on. “A couple of times I’ve gone up to someone and felt so certain I knew her. Then she’s turned out to be someone I’d seen on television.”

  Hilda McCourt’s brown eyes were bright with anger. “Mrs. Kilbourn, if your thought processes are muddled, you have my sympathy. Mine are not. In future, you’d do well not to ascribe your shortcomings to others. I hope you and Mr. Spenser will excuse me if I find more congenial company.” And off she clipped on her perilously high heels, leaving Rick Spenser and me face to face.