Burying Ariel

by Gail Bowen

  I pointed the figures out to Taylor. “Us?” I asked.

  She nodded happily. “This is going to be so fun, Jo.”

  “You bet,” I said. Then I leaned across her and turned out the light.

  Eli’s door was closed, but when I knocked, he invited me in.

  “I just wanted to thank you for helping Charlie tonight.” I said.

  “I didn’t do anything special.”

  “You were there,” I said, “and that was what he needed.”

  Eli matched the fingertips of his hands and flexed them thoughtfully. “My uncle used to tell me this was a spider doing push-ups on a mirror,” he said.

  “Funny guy, your uncle.” I said.

  Eli smiled. “I wish he was here.”

  “Me, too,” I said. “But I’ll tell you one thing. Even your uncle couldn’t have done a better job than you did tonight.”

  For a moment, I stood outside Eli’s doorway thinking about all the things I should do: phone Ed Mariani and ask him if there had been any problems with the mid-term; take the dishes out of the dishwasher; mark some of the essays that seemed to breed in my briefcase; iron a blouse to wear to the Legislature the next morning. There was no shortage of worthy projects awaiting my attention. I rejected them all in favour of a hot shower and clean pyjamas.

  Fifteen minutes later, I was in bed. As a sop to my conscience, I took Political Perspectives with me. I was trying to make sense of the concept of sovereignty-association when the phone rang. A sixth sense told me the news would not be good, and the sixth sense was right.

  Kevin Coyle’s voice was a breathy rasp. “Trouble’s brewing,” he said.

  “Kevin, you’re starting to sound more and more like a character in a Sam Peckinpah movie.”

  “You think you’re insulting me – implying I’m marginal and obsessed with the dark side – but Peckinpah knew things about the human psyche that you and I would do well to remember.”

  “Such as …?”

  “Such as the fact that violence doesn’t just pop up like a mushroom. It’s character-driven. If you don’t believe that, check out what Ann Vogel and her wild bunch are doing on Ariel’s Web page. There’s a fresh list of atrocities and new plans for retribution. Incidentally, there’s a reference to you that’s less than favourable. Apparently, you’re guilty of a sin of omission or commission that’s moved you from the circle of the elect to the circle of the damned.”

  “Kevin, I’m so sick of this.”

  “There’s more,” he said, but his tone was both gentle and apologetic. “There was someone sniffing around your office earlier tonight. When she saw me she ran.”

  “Who was it?”

  “I was down the hall but, unless I’m very much mistaken, it was our friend, Solange.”

  “What was she doing?

  “Sliding something under your door.”

  “Swell,” I said.

  “I’m sure Solange draws the line at letter bombs,” Kevin said.

  Remembering the scene Charlie had described, I was silent.

  “That was supposed to cheer you up,” Kevin said. “A Sam Peckinpah joke.”

  “I think I’m beyond cheering,” I said.

  There was a pause. “This gives me no pleasure. I hope you know that, Joanne.”

  “I do. It’s hard for all of us. Now, I guess I’d better check out that Web site.”

  “You’ll need fortification.”

  I didn’t have to be told twice. I walked into Angus’s room with a glass containing two fingers of Crown Royal. When I saw the Web page I was glad I have broad fingers. Someone had managed to get the autopsy photographs of Ariel and had posted them on the site. Whether the thief had been bribed or had simply shared Ann Vogel’s monomania would be a question for the police to answer. All I knew was that the last private place in Ariel’s life had been invaded, and I was sick at heart.

  Oddly, except for the fact that she was lying on a metal autopsy table, the photographs of Ariel were not disturbing. She was, of course, very pale, but otherwise unmarked. I remembered Rosalie quoting her ever-quotable Robert on the fact that Ariel had died from a surgically precise wound in the back. She hadn’t been mutilated; in death she was as lovely as ever. With her trailing hair, her perfect profile, and her translucent skin, she looked like a Maxfield Parrish illustration of Sleeping Beauty, waiting for the kiss from her prince.

  But the additions the Friends of Red Riding Hood had made to Ariel’s Web page were not the stuff of fairy tales, and their statistics conjured up a world in which princes were in mighty short supply. One hundred women murdered each year in Canada by a male partner; 62 per cent of all women murdered, victims of domestic violence; a Canadian woman raped every seven minutes; 84 per cent of sexual assaults committed by someone known to the victims; almost half of all women with disabilities sexually abused as children; number of sexual assaults reported to Canadian police growing exponentially.

  Horrifying as they were, the statistics were simply prologue. The real focus of the Web page was a letter addressed “TO ALL WHO SEEK JUSTICE.” It began:

  Some of you will question our decision to post autopsy photographs of Ariel Warren on this page. You want to remember Ariel as the vital, evolving woman she was, not as a corpse with a toe-tag. You will find the pictures disturbing. You will resent us for forcing you to confront images so stark and so real that to contemplate them is to feel the knife in one’s own back. Events in the past week have made it necessary for us to act.

  In the days before her death, Ariel attempted many times to leave her Intimate Partner. He refused to let her go. Now she is dead; her ex-lover walks the streets; one of her colleagues joins forces with her killer’s father; the police shrug. The Friends of Red Riding Hood refuse to abandon Ariel to the vagaries of a patriarchal law system, a system created by men to protect their own. Charlie Dowhanuik (a.k.a. Charlie D of CVOX radio) must be brought to justice. Hunt him down the way Ariel was hunted down. Phone him. E-mail him. Fax him.

  A list of the numbers and addresses through which Charlie could be reached followed. The letter’s final paragraph was a call to arms.

  Jam the switchboard at his radio station with demands that he be fired. Phone him at home every hour on the hour. Make his life hell, the way he made her life hell. Join the Friends tomorrow night as we march to the house he shared with Ariel and demand answers to our questions. We will meet at 5:00 p.m. in front of the library where Ariel was murdered and march to the house on Manitoba Street that she tried so often to leave.

  I dialled Howard’s cellphone. “Trouble,” I said. “I just checked the Internet. There’s an open letter there you should see. Do you have access to Charlie’s computer?”

  “It wouldn’t do me any good. I don’t even know how to turn one on.”

  “Get Charlie to do it.”

  “He’s not here.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know. Just out.”

  “You’ve got to do better than that,” I said. “You have to stay with him.”

  “Jo, you sound a little hysterical.”

  “I am a little hysterical. Listen to this letter, Howard.” As I read, I tried to keep my tone flat, to defuse the words. It was impossible.

  When I finished. Howard uttered an expletive that even he should have been ashamed of using. Then he muttered, “Lynch-mob mentality.”

  “They’re grieving, and they believe they’ll never get justice. It’s a dangerous combination. I think Charlie should lie low for a while.”

  “Stay at my place?” Howard said.

  “You’re not exactly an unknown quantity yourself,” I said.

  “Where then?”

  I didn’t welcome the answer that presented itself. But Charlie was Marnie and Howard’s son and, whatever else he had done, I now believed he would have cut off his hand before he raised it against Ariel. “Charlie can stay with us,” I said. “There’s an extra bed in Eli’s room.”

  “I
’ll bring him over as soon as he gets back,” Howard said.

  “I’ll leave the key under the planter on the front porch,” I said. “You may be late, and I’ve had enough today.”

  “You and me both, kid,” Howard said. “I wonder if this is ever going to end.”

  I slept fitfully, waiting for the sound of the key in the lock or of Charlie’s footstep. Neither came. The next morning when the alarm went off, I padded down to Eli’s room; the twin bed next to his was empty. Charlie hadn’t spent the night. In the pit of my stomach, I felt the stirrings of anxiety. When I looked at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, I remembered Duke Ellington’s famous response to someone who had commented on the bags under his eyes. “Those aren’t bags,” said Duke. “Those are stored-up virtue.”

  It took a few passes with the concealer to mask my stored-up virtue, but by the time Taylor came in to show me her outfit, I wouldn’t have drawn attention in a crowd. Taylor, on the other hand, would have – for all the right reasons. On many days she was an eccentric dresser, but today she had obviously considered the solemnity of the occasion. She was wearing her Nova Scotia tartan kilt, matching cream turtleneck and tights, and the beaded barrettes Alex had bought her at last summer’s powwow at Standing Buffalo. The all-Canadian girl, and she was as excited as I could ever remember seeing her. I drove the two blocks to the Legislature with the Mouseland canvas, carefully wrapped and balanced against the back seat. Taylor and I carried it up the steps of the Legislature together.

  Bev Pilon and Livia Brook were waiting for us by the commissionaire’s desk in the first-floor lobby. Livia appeared less haggard than she had in a week. Her skin was faintly pink, as if she’d spent some time outdoors, and her mass of grey and chestnut curls was pushed neatly back with a tortoiseshell hairband. Mercifully, she had decided against wearing the poppy-spattered shawl that Ariel had made, and her outfit was both simple and attractive: tan cotton jumper, white T-shirt, and Birkenstocks, the uniform for female academics of a certain age.

  Bev Pilon’s look was corporate cool: a smart spring suit in apple green, honey hair artfully styled to look artless, makeup smoothly subtle. She beamed when she spotted Taylor, introduced herself, then took my daughter’s hand and headed for the stairs. Just as the ancient commissionaire noticed me struggling with the picture and came out of his booth, a cameraman from NationTV came through the front door. Kim took in the optics and waved off the commissionaire with a dazzling smile.

  “Thanks, but we can handle this,” she said. Then, as cooperatively as the citizens of Mouseland, Bev Pilon, Livia Brook, and I carried Taylor’s canvas towards the rotunda where Marie Cousin and the grade-two class from Lakeview School were waiting for the presentation.

  The ceremony didn’t take long. Livia presented Taylor with a plaque, then spoke gracefully of Ben Jesse’s commitment to making young people believe politics was an honourable profession. She quoted Ben’s comment that it was good for government when schools bring kids to see the Legislature in session, because when real children are present, our legislators are, occasionally, shamed into acting like adults. Bev accepted the jibe with a tinkling laugh and an impressive display of teeth. She gave Taylor a tiny Saskatchewan flag and a lapel pin, then summoned the cameraman from NationTV to get his interview. After my daughter had delivered her opinions on socialism, mice, and art, I went over to Marie Cousin.

  “That was terrific,” I said. “And your subterfuge was brilliant. Anyway, I signed up as a parent-helper, so what’s next?”

  Marie’s eyes were concerned. “You look a little weary,” she said. “Since the real purpose of your coming today was to see Taylor get her award, how about giving the tour a pass?”

  “To use a word that Taylor tells me you believe should be kept in reserve, that would be awesome.”

  The corners of Marie’s mouth turned up slightly. “Taylor told you about Cheops.”

  “She did,” I said, “but at the moment, the idea of having the next hour to myself beats the prospect of seeing the pyramids by a country mile.”

  We said our goodbyes, and then I joined Livia. She and I made our way back through the shadowy halls to the brilliant sunshine. After the chilly recycled air of the building, the warm outdoor air was seductively sweet. When Livia started towards her car, I was tempted to let her go, and head home to the lazy lounge on the deck, but the message of Ariel’s Web site was too urgent to ignore.

  I went after her. “Livia, do you have a few minutes to talk?”

  She shrugged. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “There’s a bench over there where we could have a little privacy,” I said, pointing to a green space between the Legislature and Albert Street.

  We strolled along a path flanked by flowerbeds. In high summer, the area was a riot of colours and scents, but that May morning the spectacular beauty was still to come. Only the first tender green shoots of perennials and bedding plants were visible in the fresh-turned earth. The bench and the simple bronze memorial to Woodrow Lloyd opposite it were less than a minute’s walk away.

  “I had no idea this place was even here,” Livia said. She moved closer so she could see the poem inscribed on the bronze. “ ‘The Road Not Taken,’ ” she said. “I haven’t thought of Robert Frost in a hundred years.”

  “Most of us leave him behind after freshman English,” I agreed, “but I still like him.”

  She came over and took a place at the other end of the bench, as far away as possible from me. “I assume you want to talk about the march tonight,” she said.

  “Among other things,” I said. “Livia, do you have any idea who wrote that open letter?”

  “ ‘To All Who Seek Justice’? I’ve come up with some possibilities. Nothing definite.”

  “I thought at first it might have been Ann Vogel,” I said, “but she was a student of mine. I’m familiar with her writing. Even with the spell-checker and grammar check, she couldn’t have managed this. The constructions are too sophisticated.”

  “I would have said Solange. She’s the one who travels in the really radical feminist circles. The women she knows wouldn’t stick at publishing an autopsy photo.” Livia ran a hand through her hair distractedly. “Why does it matter?”

  “Because that letter is an incitement to mob action, and mobs are unpredictable and dangerous. This march would be a lousy idea even if Charlie Dowhanuik were guilty, and I don’t believe that he is.”

  “Do you know something the rest of us don’t?”

  “Just that Ariel had another close relationship that was causing her concern.”

  Livia gnawed her lip. “Solange,” she said finally. “We should have been more careful.”

  “Who should have been more careful?”

  “Those of us on the committee that appointed her.” Livia’s face was etched with regret. “Her references were … questionable.”

  “The files for the short-listed candidates were circulated. I read them all. Solange’s letters of reference were glowing. Ariel’s letters were the ones that seemed doubtful. All her referees were positive, but, as I recall, at least two of them expressed reservations about her commitment to academic life. They picked up on the same ambivalence the committee sensed in her interview.”

  “There were other considerations,” Livia said crisply. “I phoned all the referees, pressed them to give me more detailed profiles than a letter would permit. The people with whom Ariel had studied spoke so eloquently about her potential that I knew we had to have her.”

  “Even if she wasn’t certain this was where she wanted to be,” I said.

  “This was where she wanted to be. Joanne, when I met Ariel at the women’s retreat at Saltspring, there was an immediate kinship. Despite the difference in our ages, we were at parallel stages in our lives. We were both at that point where … what was it Frost said?”

  “ ‘Two roads diverged,’ ” I said.

  “That’s it exactly, and because each of us knew how the other felt, we
were able to support one another. That was the mandate of the retreat: women empowering women.”

  “And you empowered Ariel to continue to her studies.”

  Livia’s eyes were shining. “Yes, and she empowered me to find my essential self.”

  “So that’s why you supported her candidacy when she applied here.”

  “It was a good decision. Solange wasn’t. As you say, on paper she was perfect. But when I spoke to her referees, all three of them alluded to psychiatric problems in her past.”

  “Livia, if universities went through their faculties and fired everyone who’d ever seen a shrink, post-secondary education would grind to a halt.”

  “Solange’s difficulties go well beyond trouble dealing with a stressful environment. She’s obsessive. She was obsessive about Ariel when Ariel was alive and she’s still obsessive about her. Wouldn’t you characterize as obsessive all the hours she’s spent riding that bike of hers? Even our students are concerned. A young man who was in one of Solange’s classes was at a loft party in the warehouse district a couple of nights ago. When he came out, he saw Solange riding her bike. It was two-thirty in the morning, Joanne. Our student offered to put the bike in his trunk and drive Solange home, but she just rode away. The student said Solange looked, and I’m quoting, ‘as if she needed professional help.’ ”

  “Grief isn’t guilt,” I said.

  “I’m not saying Solange is guilty of anything.” Livia’s voice was tight. “I’m just saying she’s unbalanced, and that means there’s no way of predicting what she is or is not capable of doing.”

  I thought of the girl at the Ice Capades, so determined to survive that, even as her body was being violated, she was able to find refuge in imagining that the cheap sequinned costume of a professional skater could be protective armour. Solange had spent a lifetime creating a persona that would make her impervious to assault. Not many of us had seen the woman beyond the persona, but Ariel had. Solange had allowed Ariel Warren into her private world. How had she reacted when Ariel announced that she no longer wanted to be a part of that world, that she wanted a different kind of life, one that didn’t include Solange? Charlie’s words echoed. “She’s done some terrible things.” How terrible was “terrible”?