Flush

  “How’d you get access to her accounts?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  “Newspapers … but what about Todd? I need evidence for that murder, too. Lots of people have wasps.” He thought for a moment, absentmindedly picking a mushroom out of a container of chow mien and plopping it into his mouth. “Well, I guess I could get CCTV coverage to see if she was there and near his jacket. Maybe of his condo. And maybe the TTC cameras too.”

  I suddenly had an idea. “You could ask Alison Trent from our paper as well if she noticed her in the Starbucks. Alison was there when Todd and I were.” Ralph looked at me, eyes questioning. “Just coincidental,” I said firmly. “She might remember. She sort of recognized the picture of Melissa and if you jogged her memory a bit, giving her a context, maybe show her a six-pack, you might have an eye witness if Starbuck’s doesn’t have a hidden security camera.”

  Did I say six-pack? I was beginning to sound like I knew police procedure.

  Ralph pulled a notebook out from his back pocket. It was curved from the shape of his buttock. I controlled my impulse to touch it. “So, Alison Trent.” He wrote her name down and then looked up at me. “What was the name of the waiter at the restaurant on Church Street?”

  “Sam/Suzette,” I laughed. “His name is Sam, but Suzette is the name on his shirt. He’ll probably still be working tonight. Oh yeah, he calls Richard and Todd Robert and Tim. They used pseudonyms.”

  Ralph wrote this down as well. “Any other brilliant ideas? You’re skills are lost on the paper you know. You really work stuff out.”

  My cheeks reddened at the compliment. “Thanks Ralph. You might look for Todd’s EPI pen in Melissa’s house or her garbage. And a pill bottle with her fingerprints on it with wasp trace inside would sort of seal the deal,” I laughed.

  “I agree. It won’t be hard getting a warrant for her house now anyway, not after her attack on you.”

  Ralph stood up and carefully pushed his chair away from the table. “I think I’d better get going on this right now. Sorry about that; I would have preferred to stay. Are you okay to be left alone? I mean, I’m not worried about Melissa coming back. I think she’s either long gone or caught by my guys by now.”

  His phone dinged with a text. “Yup, she’s been caught. But are you physically feeling okay?”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “It isn’t that serious of an allergy. I mean, I do need the medication, but once I get it, I’m right as rain.” I walked him to the door.

  We stood awkwardly in my front foyer, hemming and hawing. Ralph then slowly leaned down and planted his soft lips on mine. He tasted sweet, like plum sauce, and I halfheartedly pulled away, leaving my hand lightly on his chest. I didn’t want to frighten him off. “Thanks for coming by and thanks for saving me from some serious distress.”

  “Just doing my job,” he said as he hastily tugged open the front door and raced into the night.

  He sure was skittish I thought as I watched his car zoom away. I shut the door behind him and leaned my head against it. My first real kiss in years. My heart felt like it was going to burst. I had a feeling I’d hear from this man again, despite what the issues were that were making him so jumpy.

  I gathered myself together and walked back into the kitchen, Lucky at my side. I scraped the leftovers into plastic containers and put them in the fridge, thinking they’d make good lunches for a few days. After washing up our two dishes and cutlery I cracked open another bottle of white and sank into my reading chair in the corner of the kitchen. Lucky curled up at my feet, settling down for the night. What a week.

  My mind drifted over all that had happened in the past seven days. I sifted through the chain of events, starting with my date with Todd and ending with Melissa trying to kill me. I ruminated over each incident as I mentally wrote the story in my mind. I knew it wasn’t quite finished because of the lack of evidence, but that would soon be rectified, I hoped, once Melissa’s huge house had been searched. The story would be over! Excitedly, I slapped my thigh with determination. Yes!

  I noticed that my acres of flab didn’t jiggle quite as much as a week ago. Had I lost weight? I put down my glass of wine and raced to the bathroom to check, Lucky chasing me up the stairs. Holy smokes. I was down to one hundred and fifty-five from one hundred and sixty-three. Was that seven pounds? No, eight. Eight pounds in eight days. Or was it seven pounds in seven days? Whatever. I’d lost weight!

  Back in my kitchen chair with a top up of wine in my glass and Lucky once again at my feet, I reviewed my five things: old, fat, alcoholic, all alone, failure. Okay, I was still old and there was nothing I could do about that. I wasn’t quite as fat, having lost a few pounds. I held my glass of wine up to the light and contemplated the prisms reflected in the condensation. Yes, still an alkie, but I had controlled myself at Sunday dinner with the kids. It felt better to be present. Maybe I’d cut back to a mere half a bottle a day. I thought I could do that. I’d try that tomorrow night. I made a note in my phone’s calendar to call Sally Josper for my next appointment.

  Was I still all alone? Well, yes, I had to admit to myself. I was certainly sitting alone in my kitchen, knocking back a bottle of wine, okay, close to two bottles. Sure, Ralph was a really nice man and I liked him a lot, but I wasn’t sure he was emotionally available. He had baggage. On the other hand, so did I. But less baggage than a few years ago when I was married to Trevor.

  Trevor. Oh God. I took another sip. It was time to put away my anger at Trevor, to tuck it into a drawer where I kept all my dusty memories. I patted Lucky with my toe. Trevor loved me, I know he did, but he had been resentful of me for some reason. Who knew what? Whatever the reason, I needed to forgive him so I could move on. I shut my eyes and concentrated on opening up my heart. This little action would have been impossible a week ago, but I did it and I deliberately tried to let go of my anger and do my very best to forgive him. I got as far as forgiving him for not being the husband I had hoped he would be. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a good start.

  I couldn’t wait to tell Cindy about what had happened. It hadn’t been easy working with her this week. She was such a strong personality and it took effort to speak my mind with her. Well, at least I was doing that. The gratitude exercises were calming me down enough that my true self could emerge. I was growing up!

  My phone pinged in the corner of the kitchen, where it had skittered after Melissa’s attack. I was amazed that it still worked! A text. I carefully, somewhat drunkenly, got up and held it up to my face. It was hard to read as the face of it had been shattered by Melissa’s foot. Speak of the devil. It was Cindy. Oh dear. She’d be furious that I hadn’t checked in with her. What a mother hen she was. I guess I should be grateful I had such a good friend. You okay? she asked.

  I texted back: Winding down. Melissa tried to kill me, but Ralph came. All is well. The story is almost over. Need evidence that she was the murderer.

  Cindy then texted me. Holy shit. You hurt?

  I replied, No, I’m fine.

  She texted, Okay, see you in the morning. I’m working on the Vipers tonight.

  I sent her some X’s and O’s to sign off before I tottered off to bed.

  The next morning I quickly went through my gratitude routine, had a shower, ate, and dashed out the door, a few minutes late. I was revved up to start working on my new crime story. I would plug in the evidence details as I got them. When I arrived I quickly entered the story that had formulated in my head last night. Cindy’s chair was empty. Maybe she was still out on the Vipers. God, what if she’d been shot? I sent her a text and went back to typing feverishly.

  Doug came in and looked over my shoulder for a minute, reading what I was doing. “Good work, Robin. Sorry about goading you the other day. I was in a funk. You have great hunches. And I see that you have a natural talent for crime reporting. Maybe Shirley will share you with me.”

  “Tha
nks, Doug. Apology accepted. Almost done with this story. I only need to wrap it up with some evidence details. Listen, have you heard from Cindy?”

  “Vipers,” he said walking away.

  Now I knew exactly how she felt when I hadn’t checked in with her: worried as all get out. My cell phone rang a few minutes later, just when I was getting back into my Everwave murder story. I looked at the cracked screen. Cindy? No, Ralph. My heart flipped onto its side and then righted itself.

  “Hello?”

  “Robin.”

  He said my name as if he were caressing my back.

  “Hi, Ralph.”

  He bounced from the soft lover to being a cop. “My team searched Melissa Mowbray’s house and found a few things. First of all, there was a pill bottle hidden in her beside table that had wasp feces in it.”

  “Really?”

  “Clearly a wasp had been inside the bottle. Also, the pill bottle had on it,” and here he paused for significance, “some gum with fibers stuck in it.”

  “Gum.”

  “Yes, gum that matched the brand in Todd’s pocket. He was a gum chewer and when he finished a piece he wadded it up and stuck it back into the packaging. So the pill bottle we found in Melissa’s recycling had some gum on it with his DNA and fibers that match his blazer.”

  Gum. Yes, he kept gum in his pocket. He’d told me at Starbucks. “Way better than wasp trace! So now you have your evidence?” I couldn’t believe it. She was going to go down.

  “That’s not all,” he crowed. “We also found in her glove compartment his EPI pen. They’re prescription, right, so his name was on it. She must have taken it out of his jacket before she dumped the wasp in.”

  “You can tie her to a wasp and him.” It was sinking in.

  “Not only that,” he paused for effect, “your researcher, Alison Trent, positively identified Melissa from Starbucks when you were there with Todd. Apparently Melissa was wearing sunglasses. She stood out because it was night.

  “Plus, it was so busy in there; Melissa could easily hide behind others. Todd would certainly recognize her if he saw her. That Alison doesn’t miss a trick.

  “No joy from the subway cameras, but the CCTV from his condo had you doing an interesting little jig in his hallway.”

  “Ha.” What else could I say as I remembered my key fob pantomime.

  “AND,” Ralph wasn’t finished, “we found the guy she paid off to shoot her husband like you said. He was a member of her gym.” Ralph blew out a fast breath, “That’s some place. Rough crowd.”

  “I thought you’d find him there,” I said. “So, it looks like you have enough evidence for both murders.”

  “We picked up Melissa from where she was hiding in the condiment aisle of the No Frills near you and put her in jail. After a night there, we confronted her with all this and she confessed to the two murders.

  “She confessed?” I was astounded. I didn’t think she was the type who would ever confess to anything.

  “Yup. About ten minutes ago. She was so proud of herself. Plus, I think she knew she was cooked anyway and probably wanted to spare her kids a long trial.”

  “Oh God, her kids. What’s going to happen to them?”

  “Melissa has absolutely no family and only one or two friends, so I don’t know what will happen. Social Services has them right now. We’ve informed Crystal Riker, Todd’s wife, that he hadn’t committed suicide, that he’d been murdered by Melissa, and that she’d be going to prison for a long time. With it being a hate crime, among other things, she’ll get years and years. I think Crystal’s going to make an application to adopt them.”

  “I hope that works out. She’d make a great mother.”

  “Did Melissa mention if she’d taken down Todd’s dating site?”

  “She certainly did. She was furious about it. Funny how the criminal mind works. She was jealous of Todd as her husband’s lover, but she was also jealous of Todd’s lovers. Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.”

  “She was one weird cookie, that’s for sure. How did she guess the password to his dating site?”

  “She said that was easy. Todd and her husband often joked about how they were supplying the city with a new source of nice clean water for their toilets and that it would make them very rich. Their gag line was the toilets would flush and they would be flush. She guessed his password was ‘flush.’”

  “I wonder if she knows that if she hadn’t taken down his site, I would never have pursued the wasp as a murder weapon. You might say she had a busted flush.”

  Jack England crossed my mind. I’d used the busted flush line on him, too. He was so off base about Radcliffe stealing water from the lake. What a great story I had.

  Ralph laughed at my joke. “I’d like to thank you personally, Robin. You really helped the police out on this one. We were so wrong about the international slant. You virtually solved the case. I was wondering if I could take you out for a proper dinner on Friday.”

  Wow. Maybe he’d kiss me again. Maybe not. He sure was one scaredy-cat.

  “Sure, I’d love to.”

  “That’s great. I gotta go. I got the whole Vipers gang in here and I have to interview every last one of them.”

  Vipers? He’d rounded them up? Maybe he knew where Cindy was.

  “Maybe I should come down and cover it for the paper.” I was so devious.

  “Too late. That red-headed Amazon is here already, tormenting us for statements.” He laughed again. “She sure is one feisty lady.”

  Oh good, she was safe. “Journalist. Not lady. Journalist.”

  I could hear him smiling as he said, “See you Friday. Sevenish. I’ll pick you up. Lady.” A guffaw. And then a click.

  I put my phone down on my desk thoughtfully. Shirley had come in at some point during the call from Ralph and was standing behind me, reading the first few paragraphs of my story about the Everwave murders. “This is good, Robin, really good. Front page for sure. I love your description of the guy’s house by the golf course.”

  “Thanks, Shirley. You trained me well.”

  She waltzed away, her skin-tight skirt creasing below her bum. “Nope, you have talent. You’re going to go far as an investigative reporter.”

  I felt my face blush and lowered my head, quickly inserting all the evidence details before I forgot them. What a week. I was still old and drinking like a fish, but not so fat, and not so alone.

  What was the fifth thing? Right: failure. Hell, I could cross that off my list!

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank the people at Inanna Publications for all their editorial and promotional support for this book, with a special thanks going to Editor-in-Chief Luciana Ricciutelli and Publicist/Marketing Manager Renée Knapp.

  I am indebted to Shawn Newton at First Unitarian in Toronto and the people at Soka Gakkai International for their ongoing education, inspiration, and encouragement.

  Many people love and support me in my life as a writer and I am deeply grateful to my family and friends for their constancy.

  Photo: Phil Brennen

  Sky Curtis divides her time between Northern Ontario, Nova Scotia, and Toronto. She has worked as an editor, author, software designer, magazine writer, scriptwriter, poet, teacher, and children’s writer. Sky has published over a dozen books and is passionate about social justice issues and the environment. Her poetry has appeared in several literary journals, including The Antigonish Review, Canadian Forum, and This Magazine. Sky is currently writing adult fiction and non-fiction.

 

 

 
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