“And killed him because of it? That’d be some problem.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Jeffers let out a sigh. “Let me go back over my notes. See if anything stands out.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t hold your breath.”
By the time Paul returned with the popcorn, a large bowl for the two of us and a smaller, unbuttered bowl for Moustache, I realized holding my breath was exactly what I was doing.
“You know he doesn’t like it plain,” I said.
“He’ll get enough butter from our fingers. Everything okay with Jeffers?”
“Fine,” I said, tossing a kernel at the dog, who caught it midair.
“So … you were saying?”
“I was?”
“One of the girls mentioned …?”
“Do you want some wine?” I asked, getting up.
“Bells, stop stalling,” he said, taking my hand and coaxing me back down onto the couch. “What is it?”
“It’s nothing. I’m just being silly.”
“It’s obviously not nothing. To you.”
I looked into his eyes. His face. He took my breath away. I was amazed that someone like him would ever look twice at someone like me. Natalie was right when she’d said he loved me. I knew that. And she was also right when she said I would drive myself crazy with worry if I didn’t come right out and ask him about Laura.
“That whole thing with Brimstone … One of the girls mentioned he had belonged to someone named Laura?”
He wiped his hands on a napkin, got up, and walked out of the room.
Chapter 15
He returned with a glass of red in one hand and a Jack Daniels in the other. He only drank Jack when he needed to unwind from something particularly difficult, so I knew which way the conversation was going to go.
He set the wine on the coffee table, threw some popcorn for the dog, and took a long haul from his glass before sitting down next to me.
“Laura was my fiancée,” he said.
I looked to the glass of wine but thought better of it.
He went on. “She died four years ago.”
“Paul, I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry. I should have told you. It’s hard for me to talk about.”
“I understand,” I said, taking his free hand. “We don’t have to do this.”
“No,” he said, “I want to.” He took another sip but remained silent.
“How did she die?” I asked, gently.
“She killed herself.” I went for the wine. “She’d tried to before. A couple of times. But someone always found her.”
“Paul, I …”
“She wasn’t a happy person. Laura. She was good at disguising it. Those who didn’t know her well thought she was happy enough, but.” he shook his head. “She’d been on medication her whole life. The first time she attempted suicide she was only twelve. Can you believe that?”
I remained silent, soaking it all in, waiting for him to continue. He didn’t.
“How long had you been together?” I asked.
“Seven years.” My heart fell into my stomach. “She’d only tried it once while we were dating. I found her in the bathtub with her wrists cut.”
“Paul, we really don’t need to talk about this if you—”
He grabbed my hand and held on tight.
“They never found her body,” he said. “She finally managed to do it without anyone finding her and stopping it.”
I flashed back to my conversation with Jeffers about the torso in the river and his words, “Happens more often than you’d think.”
“How do you know she—”
“There was a note.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “What that must have been like for you. What it must still be like.”
“What’s important is that she’s finally at peace. And so is her family.” He ran his hand through my hair and cradled my face. “And so am I.” He drained his glass and set it down on the table. “But poor Brimstone … I don’t think he’ll ever recover. Maine Coons are fiercely loyal to their humans and he was devoted to Laura. When she died, it’s like a switch was flipped. He turned from this lovable, playful, kittenlike cat to … well, the cat he is now. I think he feels like she abandoned him. And she did, I guess. She did all of us.”
“So you won’t abandon him.”
“Nope. Not for anything.”
***
I woke in the middle of the night to the sound of my phone vibrating. Paul’s arms were around me and his breath was warm on my neck. I untangled myself from his embrace as stealthily as possible, wrapped myself in a blanket, and took the phone into the hall.
“I think I may have something.” Jeffers said before I’d even had a chance to say “hello.”
“It better be life-threatening.”
“What? That’s not very nice.”
“It’s four in the morning!”
“Is it?”
I could hear the baby screaming in the background. The perfect child had finally discovered his lungs, it seemed.
“Sorry,” he said. “I couldn’t sleep and decided to get some work done. I had no idea how late it was. Or early, I guess. Anyway, now that I have you—”
“Can this really not wait?”
“No. And besides, you’re not going to be able to go back to sleep now. You’re going to be thinking about why I called. Forming all kinds of theories in your head. Driving yourself crazy with assumptions and wishing you had—”
“All right!” I said and stumbled downstairs to put the kettle on. “Is this about the staff? Did you look through your notes?”
“I did, but there’s nothing.”
“Hmmm.” I wasn’t entirely surprised, but I wasn’t ready to write it off yet. I said as much to Jeffers.
“Fine. But I’m not calling about that.”
“Okay?”
“Okay, so, Leduc and Macie were classmates at the University of Alberta. I managed to track down one of their teachers. Brian Dayleward. Still teaching if you can believe it! Seventy-five years old!”
“Go on,” I said through a yawn.
“Dayleward said the two of them were best friends until their final year. Then they barely spoke to one another. He couldn’t even get them to work together in class.”
“Does the teacher know what happened?”
“Thinks it had something to do with an accident that occurred during the summer. Leduc’s sister died. Said Vince was pretty despondent for much of the last year. Shut everyone out.”
“But Al in particular?”
“That’s what he said.”
The kettle started to whistle.
“How did she die?” I asked, setting my tea to steep.
“Drugs, evidently. I’ve got a call in to a buddy on the Edmonton force. Hopefully I’ll be able to learn a little bit more about the case. All I could find were a couple of old news reports that said very little. Just that a girl died at a house party of an apparent drug overdose.”
“Any suspicion of foul play or anything?”
“Nope. Just kids messing around and being stupid.”
“They were hardly kids. They must have been in their early twenties,” I said.
“Girl was eighteen.”
“Still old enough to know better.”
“Yep.”
“All right,” I said, taking my tea into the living room and curling up on the sofa, “so we know Vince’s sister died from an overdose at a party. We don’t know if Al Macie was at the party or was any way involved.”
“I think it’s safe to assume he was. On both counts. Otherwise, why would Leduc have ended the friendship?”
“Grief.”
“But if they were best friends, wouldn’t it make sense that he would turn to him for comfort?”
“There are no rules with grief, Jeffers. Everyone handles it in their own unique way,” I said, thinking of my own experience. Of Paul’s. Of Gl
ynn Radley’s and Armin Penner’s. Grief comes in all shapes and sizes and doesn’t discriminate. Like a snowflake, it’s never the same.
“No. If Leduc has been obsessed with Macie all these years, it’s got to stem from whatever happened that night. Hopefully, I’ll hear from my buddy soon.”
“Wait a minute. Glynn said Al and Vince had never been friends. Remember?”
There was an audible exhale from Jeffers. “So you think Al deliberately kept the incident and the truth about his relationship with Vince a secret?”
“Maybe.”
“Why? It doesn’t make any sense. We need to talk to Glynn.”
“What about Vince?”
“Him too. He just got a whole lot more interesting.”
A crash jolted me awake. For the second time in only a few hours my sleep was disturbed and I cursed the day ahead as I knew it was going to be a tough one to get through. I’d fallen asleep on the couch. Paul appeared in the kitchen doorway.
“Watch where you step.” Paul said. He was bent over, picking up pieces of broken glass from the kitchen floor. “I’m so sorry.” He held out the handle of what was once a juice pitcher. “It just slipped.”
“That’s okay. It was cheap. And I didn’t really like it.”
Orange juice pooled around his feet. Moustache had his nose pressed up against the window of the back door, looking in from outside and brimming with curiosity about what had fallen on the floor. And whether he could eat it.
“You all right to clean this up?” I asked. “I’ll run out and get us some more juice.”
Paul nodded, then called after me, “And something to put it in.”
While the Avondale boasted a one-stop shopping experience, its selection of pitchers was lacking. They were plastic, which in light of the current situation, seemed like a good thing. Of the two options I had, one was yellow with sunflowers and the other was green with frogs. As I played a mental game of eeny meeny miny moe, Leland Penner entered the store with a friend. I grabbed the jug closest to me, ducked my head, and moved quickly toward the cash.
“You’re that woman. From the school. You were talking to my sister,” he said, cutting me off at the pass.
“I’m sorry. I think you have me—”
“And you were at the house, too. With that detective.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but words failed me. I held on tightly to the frogs while my insides turned to jelly in the presence of this fifteen-year-old boy.
“You police?” he asked.
“I work with Detective Jeffers occasionally,” I stammered.
“You guys found who killed that teacher?”
“I’m afraid I can’t discuss—”
He snickered. Cockiness oozed out of every pore and made me wonder just what he thought he’d gotten away with.
“Got what he deserved, if you ask me,” he said, knocking my shoulder as he brushed by me. The frogs went tumbling to the floor.
“Why would you say that?” I asked.
He turned back to face me. “Karma’s a bitch. Isn’t that what they say?”
“I don’t see what karma has to do with anything in this case.”
“Don’t you? I bet my mother would beg to differ.”
“What does that mean?” Jeffers asked sleepily.
“I have no idea!”
“Well, when you figure it out, let me know. I’m going back to bed.”
“Oh, no you don’t! Not after last night. You’re going to talk to me whether you like it or not.”
I heard the rustling of blankets and the odd grunt before Jeffers’ begrudging, “Fine.”
“All this time, Jeffers, all this time we’ve been thinking Armin Penner killed Macie because of his involvement with Ellie—”
“Yes, and now we’re thinking Leduc killed Macie because he was somehow responsible for the death of his sister.”
“Let me finish,” I said, overlapping. “Wait a minute. What did you just say?”
“I said, the focus has shifted to Leduc because—”
“Oh my god!”
“What?”
“Do you still have Adele Penner’s hospital records?”
“Yeah.”
“I need to see them. I’m coming over. But first I have a stop to make.”
Chapter 16
I found Powell Avery tucked in the back of the rehearsal hall watching a scene from On the Rocks. He only had a small role in the play but was understudying one of the leads so he was there taking notes.
“Ah, I heard a rumour you were in this show,” he teased.
I had yet to enjoy the camaraderie of the rest of the company, as I’d only been called for rehearsals requiring myself and my illustrious scene partner, the poster boy for doom and gloom.
“How’s it going, by the way?” he asked, nodding his head slightly in the direction of Robert Cole, who was whining to the director about something.
I rolled my eyes, and Powell smiled empathetically.
“What are you doing here? Why aren’t you singing and dancing and taking off your clothes?”
“Very funny,” I said. “Oddly, I have the day off.”
“How did you manage that?”
“I think it’s probably an oversight, so I’m going to make a run for it before they figure it out. Before I do, though, do you have a minute?” I asked.
We retreated to the corridor.
“Do you remember, the other day, we were talking about Adele Penner’s death?” He nodded. “You mentioned there was a doctor named in the lawsuit and that you’d been dating her brother. It was Al Macie, wasn’t it?”
“I was going to say something when we were talking, but we got cut off. I still can’t believe he’s gone. When I heard about his death …” He shook his head, unable to put words to his thoughts. “I mean, we dated on and off for a while. I probably shouldn’t even use the word ‘date.’ It was really more like hooking up, but somehow that sounds so … cheap and cavalier and it wasn’t that.”
“Did you know Al was in a relationship?”
“Yeah. I think he and Glynn had some kind of understanding. I never really asked.”
“You mean an open relationship?”
“Not quite. That implies that a couple can pursue other intimate relationships outside of their primary relationship. I don’t think Al or Glynn was interested in that.”
“So, just sex then?”
Powell laughed and ran his fingers though his hair. “No, but … It’s hard to explain.”
“It’s okay. You don’t need to get into it. I get it. I think.” Powell looked relieved. “Did Glynn know?”
“I don’t know, to be honest. We’d usually meet if Glynn was working a weekend. Head out of town.”
“You mean it’s been going on all this time?”
“Occasionally. The odd weekend. Do you mind if I ask—?”
“What this is all about?” I finished for him.
I filled Powell in on my relationship with Jeffers and the Niagara Regional Police and my current involvement in Al Macie’s case.
“You think there might be a link between Adele Penner’s death and Al’s?”
“I really can’t say. And I would be very grateful if you kept this conversation between the two of us.”
“Of course,” he said. “Al didn’t talk much about the lawsuit. He’d mentioned it and spoke briefly about how it was tearing his sister apart but … They hadn’t been close for some time and I know he wanted to reach out to her. I don’t know if he ever did.” He moved toward the door of the rehearsal hall then stopped. “Al was … amazing,” he said. “If there’s anything I can do …”
“Thanks. This has been very helpful.” He turned to go. “Powell,” I said, “what was his sister’s name? Did he ever mention it?”
“Jayne Evans,” Jeffers said. We were standing in his kitchen with Adele’s medical records and the little Jeffers had been able to find pertaining to the lawsuit spread out on the counter and
small kitchen table. “There are a couple of other doctors named here too, but she fits the age. It’s got to be her. But, wait a minute, if Al was having an affair and Glynn found out, that’s a motive. We need to talk to Glynn again.”
“Powell said they had an understanding.”
“Powell said he thought they had an understanding. That’s what you said.”
“Okay, but—”
“Bella, if there was an understanding, and Glynn knew all about Al’s infidelity, then maybe there’s no issue. But if there wasn’t …”
“Then we’re destroying the very foundation his life was based on,” I said. “You’ve seen him, Jeffers. You know how much be loved Al. And, yeah, maybe Al was a cheating bastard, but to Glynn, he was the love of his life. I don’t want to take that away from him. He’s lost so much.”
Jeffers and I stared at one another from our opposing sides.
“He didn’t kill Al, Jeffers.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do. I know Morris is breathing down your neck for a resolution, but I think deep down you know it too.”
Jeffers sighed. “I’ll drop it. For now. But I am not letting it go.”
“Thank you. Now what else have we got on Al’s sister?”
“Armin Penner went after her hard,” Jeffers said.
I looked over Jeffers’ shoulder at the file. “Looks like he placed most of the blame for Adele’s death solely on her. No wonder it almost tore her apart.”
Jeffers put the file down and phoned in a request to someone at the police department for any information about Ms. Evans to be emailed to him as soon as possible.
“Says here Adele went into anaphylactic shock just minutes after being put under,” I said. “Must have been something in the anaesthesia.”
“Something to ask our doctor.”
“Do you really think Macie’s death was an act of vengeance? It just seems so … I don’t know. I mean, there was no premeditation.”
“The murder itself wasn’t premeditated. That doesn’t mean whatever confrontation led up to it wasn’t.”
“I guess.”
“What is it? You seem troubled.”
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