A Nose for Death

by Glynis Whiting

  Gabe watched her fold her manicured hands on her lap. He hadn’t known Daphne well when they were in school. Her parents were strict about her associating with boys. She still had a shy, girlish quality about her.

  “This morning I saw Ray at the gas station and I recognized him from Friday. I suppose you’ll have to tell Marlena. She’ll be devastated. Really, really choked.”

  Gabe responded that it wouldn’t be necessary, at least not at the moment.

  “You’re sure?”

  He nodded.

  “You’re a very nice man, listening to me like this,” she said, as she dried the last of her tears.

  “What about Roger, do you remember anything about your relationship with him?”

  As far as Daphne was concerned, Friday night was the first time in her life that she’d seen Roger.

  Gabe watched her walk to the house. He could swear that she’d been almost disappointed that Marlena wouldn’t hear about her fling with Ray. His job, however, was not to enforce the moral code of Madden.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  HAZEL AND LILA OCCUPIED A SUITE on the top floor of the Twin Pines Hotel. The six-story tower, added to the original motel in recent years, made it a skyscraper in local terms. When Joan called up to the room, Hazel asked if she would mind coming up. They could have coffee in the room.

  Joan gasped when Lila answered the door. Standing almost six-feet tall, with a mane of wavy auburn hair over her shoulders, she wore slim fitting blue jeans and a cashmere sweater that hugged her fit but ample torso.

  “I have waited so long to meet Hazel’s best friend from childhood,” Lila gushed in a lush southern accent, then hugged her.

  Joan did a double take at the heady fragrance of angelica and fern fixed with the violet tones of orris root. She couldn’t place the perfume; it might have been a custom blend, but she would’ve expected a delicate magnolia or some other floral scent. In all her musings, she hadn’t imagined Hazel’s partner to be so striking or so young.

  Hazel was working on her sermon for the following Sunday. She explained that her church was part of an inter-denominational rally for peace and it was quite a big deal. She stacked papers and books on the small table by the window. “How could our lives have become so busy that we haven’t reconnected until now?”

  Joan wondered if it had to do with Lila. Did she keep Hazel on a short leash? Did Lila’s jealousy extend beyond Roger? Just as likely, though, that Hazel’s prominent work kept her frenzied.

  “I can’t believe Marlena accused you of stabbing Roger to death,” exclaimed Lila. Hazel and Joan grimaced at one another. It didn’t surprise either of them.

  “What worries me,” said Joan, “is that Staff Sergeant Smartt is on my tail. He seems to think that Marlena is credible. Peggy was the one person who could have cleared me.”

  “How’s that?” asked Hazel.

  “The cops have the impression that I crashed the reunion. I didn’t even want to come, and I don’t want this mess to bite me in the butt when I get back to Vancouver. I have to clear my name.”

  Hazel handed her a coffee. “So, what can we do, Joannie?”

  “I need to know more about Roger.” She looked into her friend’s grey eyes. “Haze, how did you reconnect with him? It’s the last thing I would have expected.”

  “When I first joined the First Metropolitan Church I was an associate minister. My duties included going out onto the streets to help those in need. Boy, I was young.” She shook her head at the memory. “And naive.”

  “From Madden to San Francisco. Must’ve been huge culture shock,” said Joan.

  Hazel nodded. “One day, nearly twenty years ago, I was at a San Francisco hospital doing rounds, listening to lonely lost souls and finding out what I could do to help. Usually it meant hooking them up with social service agencies that deal with housing, mental-health care or addiction treatment. I was on the psych ward. Some patients were in such bad shape that they had to be strapped to their beds to keep them from ripping out their IV tubes or trashing the room. That’s when I saw him.”

  “Roger?” she asked.

  Hazel nodded. “It was the hair that caught my attention. The bond curls. They’d lost their luster but those ringlets still made him stand out, especially in a crowd of drug addicts. There he was, sitting on a hospital bed, hooked up to an IV, chatting up a cute little Asian nurse. He didn’t look so bad then. All I could think about was that stupid basketball photograph. Oh, Joannie, I knew that I should’ve been able to look beyond that, to have mercy, but...” Hazel shrugged.

  “What happened?” asked Joan.

  “I couldn’t bring myself to approach him.” She bent her head and stared at her lap. “I turned around and walked out of the room before he saw me.” She paused. “Anyway, months passed and I forgot about it.”

  Lila sniffed impatiently and moved away. “We have a soup kitchen at the church. One afternoon, after we’d finished serving lunch, I went out to deliver a meal to an AIDS patient a few blocks from the church. On the way there I heard all this screaming. There was a crowd gathering on the street around a man lying on the sidewalk. There was a syringe hanging from his arm. It was Roger. He was a skeleton.”

  “He became her hobby,” said Lila. “Like some people collect pretty pieces of glass. They might cut you but they’re mesmerizing.” There was a savage tone in her voice.

  Hazel ignored her. “I resuscitated him, called 911. Then I got him into a rehab program.”

  “It wouldn’t be the last time,” Lila said.

  “I always believed that if I’d talked to him that day in the hospital I could have kept him safe.”

  “You gave him a chance,” insisted Joan.

  “Roger made me understand my mission in life,” said Hazel. “He taught me the most important lesson I’d ever learn. Forgiveness. We came here to visit his parents. They became a surrogate family for me. I quit hating this town.” She gazed out the window overlooking the rooftops of Madden. “Sometimes we get the most from where we least expect it.”

  At that moment there was a knock at the door.

  Lila opened it.

  “Gabe!” said Hazel.

  “Well, it looks as though this has become reunion central.” Lila’s voice was thick with sarcasm.

  His wool-and-coffee smell sent Joan back to the previous evening. She gave him a weak smile.

  “Ms. Parker,” he said.

  She felt herself blush and hoped that neither woman noticed. Lila had distanced herself from the door and Gabe. She had greeted Joan so warmly. Maybe she just didn’t take well to men.

  “I’ll be in the restaurant reading the newspaper,” said Lila, grabbing her wallet.

  Hazel didn’t try to stop her. Now, finally, they were together again, just the three of them. Though Gabe had come on business, he dropped his formal demeanor immediately. Flopping down on one of the double beds, he stretched out completely.

  Hazel laughed. “Hey, Theissen, the shoes!”

  It reminded Joan of the hours they had spent in one another’s bedrooms as teenagers. Those had been the only places they could be guaranteed privacy in houses full of siblings and parents. They’d crank up their record players or radios full blast so that their conversations wouldn’t be overheard. Discussions about hot crushes, parties, and where to get the next bag of grass were their world. Joan couldn’t get enough of looking at her two friends.

  Gabe rolled onto his side and looked directly at her. “I’m supposed to keep an eye on you.”

  “Who says?” she asked, mockingly defensive.

  “My boss on this case.” He sat up and became serious. “Marlena’s not backing off from her story. She’s conceded that she didn’t actually see Roger come out of your room but is convinced that the two of you were making out in the hallway on Friday night.”

  “What about hard evidence — fingerprints, blood splatter, all of that stuff? Is my DNA in Roger’s room?”

  He sighed and explained
that all that television detective stuff burned his ass. Everyone expected answers by the next commercial. That kind of analysis could take weeks, some of it months. “Smartt still thinks that you invited yourself to the reunion.”

  “So what if I had?” argued Joan.

  “Did you?” asked Hazel.

  “No!” Gabe and Joan replied in unison.

  He continued. “The fact that you deny it is what bugs him. Now that Peg’s dead there doesn’t seem to be any way to prove that she approached you.”

  “Candy was working closely with Peg planning the reunion,” said Hazel. “Has anybody asked her?”

  “I met with her but I didn’t ask her about the list. I will. I need a statement from you too, Hazel,” said Gabe.

  “Should I leave?” asked Joan.

  Gabe hesitated, then shook his head. Joan knew she shouldn’t be there during official questioning but was glad to learn from watching a pro.

  “We stopped before reaching Madden on Friday and spent the night at a motel,” said Hazel.

  “Did either of you leave the room?”

  “No. Lila will back me up, if she’s in the mood.”

  He scribbled on his pad. “What time did you arrive in Madden?”

  “Sometime mid-morning, I’d say . . . ”

  Before she could finish, Gabe stood abruptly and went to the dresser. He lifted a sheet of paper and examined it closely.

  “What is it?” Joan asked.

  “A photocopy of a grad photograph.” Gabe held it up. There was a jagged line where the original had been torn and taped back together. “Where’d this come from, Hazel?”

  “Roger had the original pinned to his wall,” said Hazel. “I asked for a copy.”

  “Do you know why he ripped it?” asked Gabe.

  “He didn’t. Said it was like that when he got it.”

  “From who?”

  Hazel shrugged. “I asked but he wouldn’t say. My guess is that some girl was pretty mad at him. I doubt it was his wife.”

  Gabe and Joan again spoke in unison. “Why?”

  “Will you two quit doing that? It’s cute, but it’s beginning to bug me.”

  Joan and Gabe stole a glance at each other.

  “Crystal couldn’t have gotten her hands on a grad photo. As far as I know she never came up to Canada.”

  “Did you ever meet her?” asked Joan.

  “Yeah, they were together for a heartbeat, but it’s been over a long time. Was really over before it began. Crystal was a junkie for years, scrawny little thing. Her arms and legs looked like a map for Via Rail. She did straighten out. She was in San Francisco a couple of months ago and looking better than I’d ever seen her. Even if she’d had the photo, she never struck me as the jealous type. When I saw her she didn’t even want Roger to know she was alive, let alone in town.”

  “When did you get this copy?” Gabe waved it at Hazel.

  “Roger gave it to me in San Francisco. He said he’d carried it around for years. That photo was the only thing he’d kept from Madden.

  “Mind if I hold onto this?”

  “Sure. I don’t know if he still had the original,” said Hazel.

  “He did.” Gabe placed the copy between the pages of his notebook.

  When Joan rode down the elevator with Gabe, he put his arm across her shoulder. She looked up at him and he gave her a squeeze. ”Just following orders, keeping an eye on you,” he reported.

  As they stepped from the elevator into the main lobby, it was to the unexpected bustle of activity. Joan had forgotten that the reunion weekend was scheduled to conclude with an afternoon wine-and-cheese farewell. Even with a double tragedy over the past couple of days, the activities continued although with a more subdued tone. Here in Madden their generation still practised the tradition of filling people with liquor before sending them onto the highway.

  “I have to get word out about Peggy,” said Gabe. “Ask very nicely for folks to stick around for a while longer.”

  Joan spotted the familiar blonde shag-styled head bobbing through the crowd. “There’s Candy,” she said. “Could you ask her about the invitation list? Peg was her best friend. She won’t be in the mood to hang around here for long.”

  As Gabe crossed the room he was swarmed. Everyone wanted to know about the investigation.

  Joan decided to duck over to her cabin to freshen up and make a phone call.

  “Mom, it’s me,” she said when she got Vi on the line.

  She told her mother that she’d seen Ed Fowler. Vi played her cards close to her chest, obviously not wanting to betray Fowler’s trust about his crush on her, even after all these years.

  It was only when Joan said that he’d told her everything that her mother let out a sigh and exclaimed, “Oh dear. It was so sad. I wouldn’t have said anything to him but he asked me directly and I couldn’t lie.”

  Joan thought her mother was confused. “Asked you what, Mom?”

  “Suzy Fowler and Dan Prychenko.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, now I’ve done it, haven’t I? You know how I hate gossip.”

  “Mrs. Fowler and Marlena’s dad had an affair?”

  “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “That was thirty years ago, Mom. They’re both dead. It hardly matters anymore.”

  “There’s no expiration date on gossip,” said Vi. “I’m sure it’s as painful to Ed now as it was the day he found out. A person couldn’t work at Twin Pines and ignore the dirty laundry in Madden. You have to understand, Joannie, I tried to turn a blind eye. They weren’t bad people, not Suzy, not Dan, not the others. Maybe they did bad things, but they always had their reasons.” As Vi spoke, the pieces started falling into place.

  “Was that when Mr. Fowler asked you to marry him?” asked Joan.

  There was silence on the other end of the line, then a long, purposeful sigh. “He was reacting to Suzy and Dan. You know that two wrongs . . . ”

  Joan interrupted. “Don’t make a right. Yes, Mom, I know.”

  Vi had brought her kids up on clichéd platitudes. The Lord helps those who help themselves. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Count the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves. People who live in glass houses . . . Joan’s moral code had been shaped by proverbs and nursery rhymes. All her life she’d defined her mother by her failings. This visit to Madden, to a past that they shared, was shifting her perspective in so many ways.

  “Don’t say anything, dear.”

  “Of course not. Mom, something else has happened.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Do you remember Roger Rimmer?”

  “Dr. Rimmer’s little boy. Yes. Sweet little guy, all that blond hair, full of beans.”

  “He’s dead. Somebody killed him.”

  “On purpose?” asked Vi.

  “Yes. He was murdered.”

  “Oh dear. Oh no. Nobody deserves that, do they honey?”

  Joan knew that, in Roger’s case, more than one person may have thought otherwise. She decided not to mention Peggy’s death. Despite the animosity between Joan and Peggy thirty years ago, Mrs. Wong had kept their family in casseroles for a month after Leo had passed away. She didn’t want to deliver more bad news over the phone.

  Candy Dirkson nibbled on a cracker when what she really wanted was to inhale the entire tray of imported cheeses. She was normally able to turn the worst situation into a laugh, but the reality of finding Peg was sinking in hard. It was the worst thing that had ever happened to her: worse than the end of her marriage, worse than the gut ache she had every time she thought about the downhill slide that her life had taken. Peg had been the light in her life.

  Despite what she had told Gabe about her lack of interest in Roger, she had hoped that his return to Madden would turn things around. Roger had kept telling her that large women were hot and he openly flirted with her. She’d trusted him. When he’d asked to borrow a few dollars, she hadn’t hesitated. Then
it was another hundred, then a thousand. Everyone wondered why he kept coming back. She had a pretty good idea why, and it was reflected in her bank balance. She should have expected what would happen next. Once their former classmates started rolling into town, he hadn’t given her another glance. She hated her life of dead-end jobs and one-night stands. She had thought Roger was a ragged second coming. He turned out to be recycled trash.

  Peg, too, had started to ignore her. She got so busy with this reunion. With Daphne in town, Peg hadn’t bothered dropping into the Co-op for coffee, hadn’t even picked up the phone to say, “hi there.”

  Candy glanced around the room. Coming to the wine-and-cheese reception was supposed to cheer her up. Maryanne had gone to a softball tournament and she hadn’t wanted to be alone, but now she regretted that she’d come.

  When she saw Gabe approaching, she forced a smile. “Hey, cowboy.” There was little enthusiasm in her voice.

  “Hi Candy. Are you doing okay?”

  “Sure, Gabe. Sure I am.”

  “There’s a loose end that’s turning into a snag. I think maybe you can help. Peg invited two people whose names weren’t on the invitation list. I know it’s probably nothing.”

  “Joan and Daphne? Oh no, Gabe. It was a problem.”

  Gabe raised an eyebrow. “In what way?” he asked.

  “The committee agreed that only people who had actually graduated with the class of ’79 should be invited. Otherwise, where do you draw the line? There were another dozen people who would have been on the list: drop-outs, people who failed and had to return for another year. Peg was firm about it, absolutely hardline.”

  “So what happened?”

  Candy shook her head slowly. “Dunno. When we got together to stuff envelopes, there were invitations for Joan and Daphne. Peg wouldn’t budge. She’d handwritten the envelopes. I had the feeling that someone had pressured her to add those two.” Then she added, “The invitation committee was very upset.”

  Gabe asked, “Who was on the invite committee?”