12 Rose Street

by Gail Bowen

  Debbie touched my hand. “So would I,” she said.

  Zack came back for lunch. After I filled him in on the morning’s activities, he frowned. “You didn’t get much rest this morning. This afternoon will be different. I’m staying here to make certain you follow your doctor’s orders.”

  I slept until four o’clock when Taylor came home, followed shortly by Mieka and the girls bringing chicken soup, the universal panacea, and my favourite, crème brûlée. The procession continued. Jill arrived with a gloriously soft, pale green cashmere robe nestled in a pretty box. The florist brought a half-dozen arrangements. Peter and Maisie came by with an armload of glossy magazines. Angus called. He was buried in Cronus’s papers, but if I needed his help, all I had to do was whistle.

  As we were about to sit down for dinner, Margot and Lexi arrived with a vase of Chinese lanterns. Mother and daughter were both wearing pullovers the colour of a ripe pumpkin. Just looking at them cheered me. When she heard Margot’s voice, Taylor rushed in, eager for news of Declan’s adjustment to university. She and Declan texted regularly and skyped daily, so it was unlikely Margot would have anything to report that Taylor didn’t already know, but that didn’t dampen our daughter’s enthusiasm.

  Zack and Taylor were cleaning up after supper when Brock came to take the dogs for their run. I was curled up on the couch again with Lady Antonia and Harold, and Brock squatted beside me. “Just checking on you,” he said.

  “Good because that gives me a chance to check on you too. I wish we could all just stay in this building till whoever’s behind this gets caught. Cassandra’s words were prophetic. We’re all suffering.”

  Brock picked up on the resignation in my voice. “Jo, we’re going to get through this.”

  “I know,” I said. “But until we do, be careful.”

  By Thursday the pain in my shoulder was subsiding. I still flinched when I caught a reflection of the purplish-blue bruising covering the right side of my body, and I was still on anti-inflammatory pills, but I was off the painkillers, and my energy was returning. It was time to get back in the game.

  When Angus arrived that evening with his report on Cronus’s holdings, I was ready. Cronus’s records may have been old school, but, according to Angus, they were meticulous. Each of Cronus’s twenty-six properties had its own file – legal papers, tenant grievances, reports from Public Health Officials and the fire department; receipts for repairs; the names of every tenant and the dates of their tenancy. Complete histories, except that none of the files had a record of an offer of purchase from the city.

  Stapled to the cover of each file was a small, handwritten note listing the amount Cronus had originally paid for the house and the current market value of the property. The average price Cronus had paid for his houses in the 1980s was $60,000. With the exception of one house, each of the properties Cronus owned could now be purchased for around $200,000. The exception was 12 Rose Street. In 1984, Cronus had paid $62,000 for the now mustard yellow house. In the space where the current market value of the property was listed, Cronus had printed “NOT FOR SALE AT ANY PRICE.”

  Cronus’s memorial service was held at Speers Funeral Chapel at 5:00 p.m., on Friday, September 19. Zack had suggested postponing the ceremony until I felt better, but we’d included information about the time and place of the service in the obituary and I opted for proceeding as planned. Working on the files had piqued Angus’s interest in Cronus so he was joining us.

  In addition to our family, there were three mourners in the chapel. Zack whispered that the plainclothes officer in the back pew was there because the police are always interested in the guest list at the funeral of a murder victim. The presence of the other two attendees was less easily explained. Slater Doyle was there. So was the Bible-quoting woman who lived at Number 12. Neither Zack nor I had a clue about why either of them had come.

  The polished mahogany table on the altar held three items: a large silver-framed photo of Cronus in his white Gatsby suit, a spray of crimson orchids, and the metal urn that Zack had chosen. The Urn and Casket Guide Zack had consulted identified the urn’s colour as “Inferno Red.” Zack was certain Cronus would have approved.

  Delivering a eulogy about a slumlord who was into rough sex and had no truck with “religious crap” would have daunted most men. Zack had waded in and worked on several drafts of the speech. None satisfied him, and he finally decided he would simply read Paul Anka’s lyrics to “My Way,” then we would listen to the Sinatra recording.

  When Zack rehearsed the lyrics at home, we both cringed at the line about how the speaker took his blows and did it his way. But Zack had an actor’s voice and an actor’s ability to get inside the words. That late afternoon in a generic funeral chapel empty except for six people and the Inferno Red urn that contained all that was left of Cronus, the opening lines of the song touched a chord in me.

  I remembered the small smile that played on Cronus’s lips when he reached his decision about using the silver bullet. “We only live once,” he’d said. “Might as well make it count.”

  At the end, Cronus had made his life count. I’d read through the ALS pamphlets that he’d collected. He could have lived another five years. They would not have been easy years, but he would have been alive to all the quotidian joys that life offers. Instead, he had chosen the hero’s option. He traded his life for something larger than himself, and he had faced the end with defiance and pride. When Zack finished and Sinatra’s distinctive baritone filled the chapel, I was in tears. Zack and I listened hand in hand until the song was over. Despite Cronus’s directive, I said a prayer. By the time I looked up again, Slater Doyle, the undercover officer, and the old woman were gone.

  “Time to go,” Zack said. Angus picked up the orchids and the photograph. Zack put the urn on his lap and led the way out of the chapel.

  When we stepped outside into the sun, Zack took a hard look at my face. “Why don’t we put off dinner at the Sahara Club until you’re feeling better,” he said.

  “Good plan,” I said. “I’m not quite ready to take on a slab of meat. Would you mind waiting, Angus?”

  “Nope. Okay, if I come back to the condo and talk about a couple of things with Zack?”

  “Fine with me,” I said. “You guys and Taylor can decide what to order in. I’m going to bed. You can bring me a plate.”

  “You hate eating in bed,” Zack said.

  “I do, but a week from today is my birthday. It’s also our first citywide rally, and I plan to be in fighting trim.”

  CHAPTER

  7

  The intervening week was without incident, which, given our campaign’s recent history, was reason enough to celebrate. My fifty-eighth birthday started out the way the best birthdays should. Zack and I made love, and because we no longer had to follow the porcupine rule of having sex very carefully, we were adventurous. Afterwards, Zack gave me my first gift of the day, a pedicure using a deep red nail polish in a shade called “Throb.” When Brock and I got back from our first mercifully foreshortened post-accident walk with the dogs, he asked me to wait on the third floor while he dashed into his condo and came out with a gift box. Inside was a gift certificate for Crocus and Ivy, my favourite everything-I-don’t-need-but-long-to-have shop, and a T-shirt with the message “Keep Calm and Carry On.”

  “Perfect,” I said. “Can I order these T-shirts by the gross?”

  “I’ll look into it,” Brock said. “Happy Birthday, Jo.”

  There were surprises waiting at my place at the breakfast table. Taylor and I always exchanged wacky socks on birthdays. Over the years we’d been fiercely competitive about who could find the craziest pair. That morning as I opened the box Taylor watched my face carefully. The socks inside weren’t our usual machine wash–tumble dry horrors; they were gorgeous – obviously hand-knit of brilliantly coloured wool in striking patterns.

  “Taylor, these are amazing,” I said. “Where did you get them?”

  “I made them
,” she said. “I went online and found the pattern – it’s Icelandic. I’d never seen anything like that combination of colours and patterns before, so I went down to Knit-Wit and bought the wool. Do you really like them?”

  “I love them,” I said.

  Taylor sighed with relief. “Good, but just in case, I have a backup present.” She handed me a gift pack of Chanel bath products.

  “Perfect,” I said. “I can’t think of anything I would enjoy more. Now, I’m starving. Let’s eat.”

  “Not so fast,” Zack said. He wheeled into the living room and came back with a ceramic sculpture that was unmistakably Joe Fafard’s work. The sculpture was of my old friend, the artist Ernest Lindner. The piece was relatively small – perhaps a foot tall. Ernest sat in his easy chair, wearing his usual overalls and blue slippers, smoking his pipe and looking, as he always did, fiercely interested. I had admired the piece from the first time I saw it, in Ernie’s house decades before.

  When Ernest died, I was a single parent with three children. A piece of Joe Fafard art was wildly out of my price range, but I’d always remembered this piece, and now here it was.

  Zack, looking like the proverbial cat that swallowed the canary, pushed his chair close. “You’re pleased with your present?”

  “I’m ecstatic,” I said. “How did you find it?”

  “I had Darrell Bell track it down,” Zack said. “A guy in Calgary owned it, and now you own it.”

  I examined the piece. “It’s perfect,” I said. “And Joe got Ernie’s expression just right – he was fascinated by the human comedy. Ernie was ninety-one when he died, but he never seemed old to me. He used to say there’s always something new to discover.”

  “Not a bad thought for a birthday,” Zack said.

  Jill called early to say “Happy Birthday” and apologize because she’d ordered her present online and it hadn’t been delivered yet. She sounded tense, but when I asked if there was something wrong, she said she’d been burning the candle at both ends and the lack of sleep had caught up with her. I knew the feeling.

  I spent the rest of the morning doing exactly what I wanted to do. During my recuperation, long, hot baths in Epsom salts had been part of my regimen. That morning I filled the tub, left the Epsom salts in the medicine cabinet, and opened the Chanel No. 5 soap and bath gel set. After my bath, I dressed and went over to Margot’s to play with Lexi and check out the colours Margot had chosen for Lexi’s brother’s nursery and the outfits she’d already bought him. Not surprisingly, Brock had already contributed everything the well-dressed newborn needed to prove he was a Saskatchewan Roughriders fan.

  Margot and I took our tea into the family room, where we watched Lexi carefully place different sizes of brightly striped balls into bowls, then dump the bowls and start again. “She loves balls,” Margot said. “Look what Brock’s taught her to do.” Margot sat on the floor and then opened her legs in a V. Lexi crawled across the room, ball in hand, bumped down into a sitting position, imitated the V of her mother’s legs, then rolled the ball to Margot, who rolled it back, and so it went until Lexi crawled over to me and handed me the ball. “Your turn,” Margot said. And so Lexi and I rolled the ball back and forth in Margot’s sunny family room. “I can’t think of a better way to spend my birthday than this,” I said.

  “You deserve a good birthday,” Margot said. “You’ve had a harrowing month, but you’re through it. You look great, Jo.”

  “I had a very nice beginning to my day.”

  Margot had one of the all-time great dirty laughs. “I knew it. I could tell when you walked in the door. You and Zack are like teenagers.”

  “We started late. Now, I’d better get a move on. There are a few dozen details about the rally I should check on.” I crawled over and scooped up Lexi, who rewarded me with a lovely gummy smile. I hugged her close. “That smile is my second best present so far,” I said. Margot slipped into the family room and came back with a pastel envelope.

  “It’s for a year of spa days for you and friends of your choosing. Of course, I’m hoping that Lexi and I will always be on the list. It’s a very selfish gift.”

  “That’s not a selfish gift,” I said. “In Milo’s words, it’s fucking inspired.” We both laughed, but when Lexi joined in the laughter, Margot and I grimaced.

  After the Racette-Hunter complex was completed, the R-H staff moved out of the old converted Noodle House that had served as their temporary offices into the new building. That left the space on Cornwall Street vacant, and Zack and Brock’s campaigns rented it for their headquarters. The old Noodle House was bright and airy but small for the number of workers involved in two campaigns. People worked cheek by jowl, many sitting on exercise balls, listening to classic rock, using each other’s desks and office supplies, overhearing one another’s conversations and fuelling themselves on bad coffee and greasy doughnuts. But spirits were high, and whenever I swung by, it appeared that everybody was having fun getting things done.

  The rally had been my idea. Our suppertime neighbourhood hot-dog barbecues had worked well, and I wanted to build on our success. We’d rented the Pile O’ Bones Club, a facility that was strategically located near the city’s centre. The name of the club was an allusion to Regina’s past. Before the arrival of settlers in the 1880S, First Nations hunters stacked the bones of the buffalo they killed in a pile, believing that buffalo herds would return to the area to visit the ancestral bones. The hunters named the area Oskana-Ka-asateki, or “the place where bones are piled.” The explorers, fur traders, surveyors, and settlers who moved through the area, needing a name that was less Cree and more catchy, took to calling the settlement “Pile O’ Bones,” but Princess Louise, wife of the Governor General, decided that the new settlement deserved a more regal identity, so Pile O’ Bones became Regina.

  Despite a name that was a romantic allusion to our city’s past, the Pile O’ Bones Club was without charm. However it was also large, fully accessible, and surrounded by a patchy lawn where we could set up barbecues. We’d hired a couple of local bands, invested heavily in wieners, buns, condiments, and juice, and crossed our fingers about the weather and the turnout. The plan was for people to pick up a hot dog and a drink, enjoy the sunshine and music, then come inside, listen to Brock introduce the men and women who were running as progressives for city council, and hear Zack reiterate what was at stake in the election.

  Because it was my birthday, after Zack finished firing up the troops, our kids, grandkids, and I would join him and a giant cake would be rolled out on stage. Everybody would sing “Happy Birthday.” Taylor and our granddaughters would help me blow out the candles, then we’d all hit the streets and go full out to elect a new mayor.

  When I dropped by Shreve–Poitras headquarters to pick up the cheques for the hall rental and the bands, the place was deserted. Our workers were already at the Pile O’ Bones. I was just about to lock up and leave when Slater Doyle came through the front door.

  “If you came to buy a T-shirt, you’re out of luck,” I said. “Looks like our volunteers have already taken them all to the rally.”

  Slater’s expression was grave. “Is there some place we can talk privately?”

  I gestured to the empty room. “Choose a chair.”

  “We should be somewhere where no one can walk in on us.”

  There was a small office at the rear of the building that was used for storage. I led Slater to it. When he closed the door behind him and leaned against it, I felt a twinge of panic.

  “This won’t take long,” he said. “We need to talk about how you want to deal with an affair your husband had.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” I said. “Zack has always been open about his past. I’m not crazy about the number of women he was involved with, but I’ve accepted it.”

  “This isn’t about Zack,” he said. “It’s about your first husband, Ian Kilbourn.”

  The walls of the tiny, cluttered office seemed to close in on me. I t
ook a deep breath. “Go on,” I said.

  “Do you remember a woman named Valerie Smythe?” Slater asked.

  “Of course,” I said. “She was Ian’s secretary.” The image of Valerie – tall, spare, severe, and watchful – flashed through my mind. Valerie’s job was taking care of Ian, and her job was her life. She was, in the phrase of the time, “the office wife.”

  “Ian would not have been romantically involved with Valerie Smythe,” I said.

  “You’re right,” Slater said.

  “Slater, what’s this all about?” I said. “Ian’s been dead almost fifteen years. If there was an affair, making it public now won’t affect the outcome of the election.”

  “Depending on what you decide today, it could,” Slater said evenly.

  Slater was still blocking my access to the door that led out of the room. My panic was rising. I tried to keep my tone rational. “I don’t understand any of this,” I said. “What could Valerie Smythe have to do with this election? After Ian died, she was just another name on my Christmas card list.”

  “Apparently, after you and Zack married, Valerie found your Christmas cards offensive. She felt you were rubbing it in.”

  “Rubbing what in?” I said

  “Her fall from grace,” Slater said. “Valerie Smythe was Roger Bouchard’s executive assistant.”

  The penny dropped. “And Bouchard was the CEO who embezzled funds from his investment firm,” I said. “Valerie was a witness for the Crown, and when Bouchard came to trial, Zack was his lawyer.”

  “And Zack tore Valerie to shreds on the witness stand,” Slater said. “She had a breakdown afterwards. She hasn’t been able to get a decent job since, and she blames Zack for ruining her reputation.”

  “So Valerie comes to you with some trumped-up story about Ian,” I said. “Slater, I’m still not getting this.”

  Slater removed his tinted glasses. Unprotected, his pale grey eyes blinked against the light, but it was clear he wanted me to see his eyes as he told me. “The story isn’t trumped up, Joanne. Valerie Smythe tape-recorded your husband’s exploits. But why talk when we can listen?” Slater took an old compact cassette player from his jacket pocket and held it out to me. My limbs felt heavy and strange. When Slater saw that I was rooted to the spot, his tone was matey. “I know this has been a shock, Joanne. Let me help. I’ll get the tape started – full volume so you don’t miss anything. I’ll set the scene for you. Your husband is getting a great blowjob and he’s just about to ejaculate.”