I wondered suddenly if my self-image as a goer-against-the-norm was entirely healthy. Splashing around in a sea of confusion, I downed my beer and waved at Nick to bring us another round.
“Polly, Mark Becker may be a nice guy, but he sleeps around, or at least he used to,” Yolanda said. “After he got divorced, he went through about half a dozen women in less than a year.”
“I’m not exactly a saint myself, you know,” I said. Actually, I was rather more of a saint than were most of my single contemporaries, and Yolanda knew it. She quirked an eyebrow at me.
“He’s just looking for someone to look after that kid of his,” she said. “Everybody knows that his ex is involved with Duke Pitblado. Duke’s got enough kids as it is. He won’t want another one.”
“What?”
“You don’t gossip nearly enough, Polly. Duke’s wife moved to Toronto a couple of months ago, but their five kids are staying in Laingford with him. He’s got a housekeeper and a nanny, but Catherine Becker is on the bench, just panting to play,” Yolanda said. “She may be next in line for the Pitblado millions. Little Bryan Becker is the wild card. The grapevine says that Detective Mark Becker would get custody whether he wanted it or not.”
“How the hell do you know this?”
“The grapevine, Polly. You’re completely out of the loop. We need to see each other more often.” I wasn’t so sure about that.
On the way home, I thought about Yolandas unkind suggestion that Becker was just looking for a live-in babysitter. I was hardly the ideal candidate, if it came to that. Becker had already made it clear that my “lifestyle” as Yolanda called it, (which was code for being a dope-smoking, alcohol-sodden bohemian back-to-the-lander) was not something he was eager to let Bryan share. Hadn’t he double-checked that I didn’t have any dope lying around before he’d let the kid come home with me? He was hardly expecting me to transform myself into Martha Stewart in the twinkling of an eye. Or was he? I pictured my pro and con list and added another con. “Item #14”, I wrote on my mental notepad, “Concessions. Is Becker willing to make concessions about his own lifestyle, or does he want me to play Eliza Dolittle to his Henry Higgins?” As I parked George’s battered Ford pickup in the farm driveway, I found that I still wanted to give the photos to Becker, not Morrison. I’d use them as a bargaining chip in the “discussing our future” game. Not very laudable, but then I was stressed. I also found that Yolanda’s advice was at work within me, percolating in reverse, like one of those cheap metal espresso pots. I wasn’t ready to tell Becker I wouldn’t marry him. In fact, I was searching for ways to make it a possibility. I am such an idiot.
There were several cars in George’s driveway, Stan Herman’s yellow Camry with the plastic camera on the roof, Emma Tempest’s purple, posy-splashed mini van and a big old vintage van I didn’t recognize. I came in the back door of the farm house with some supplies Susan had asked me to pick up while I was in town. Archie Watson, Emma and Stan were in the kitchen with Susan, sitting around the big pine harvest table with coffee and donuts in front of them, obviously having a League of Social Justice meeting. There was no sign of George, and they clammed up as soon as I walked in.
“Don’t let me interrupt anything,” I said. “Just go on as if I’m not here.” I headed for the fridge to deposit the eggs and the beer. Archie took me at my word.
“That bastard’ll be at the funeral,” he said. “I know he’ll be there—he already sent us a big bunch of flowers and a card and he’ll be there, all right, pretending Vic was his best friend, although we all know otherwise.” Oh, right. I’d forgotten that Vic was Archie’s brother. Although Vic’s remarks on Saturday had suggested that the brothers weren’t exactly close, losing a sibling was a horrible thing. I went over to clasp his hand.
“I’m really sorry to hear about Vic, Archie,” I said. “My condolences to your family.” Archie’s eyes misted up as he nodded his thanks and I wondered why, the day after a death in the family, he was sitting in George’s kitchen having a political meeting.
“It was a shock, all right,” Archie said. “He was a healthy fellow. Nothing wrong with his heart, far as I knew.” He gave me a challenging look as if daring me to tell him otherwise. I did, kind of.
“Well, he did fall in the river on Saturday,” I said with as much sensitivity as I could. “He nearly drowned. I expect that weakened him a good deal.”
“He was pushed,” Archie said. “I know it and you know it. Everybody knows it, and everybody knows who did it. What I can’t figure out is why David Kane is still walking around a free man.”
“Why do you think David Kane pushed him in?” I said.
“I heard it from one of the camera club members,” Archie said. “Kane was mad that Vic voted against the Kountry Pantree project and wanted to get him back.”
“What good would it do to kill a council member after the project has been approved?” I said.
Archie laid one finger beside his nose, nodded and winked at me. I’ve never actually seen anybody do that in real life before, and I’ve always wondered what it meant. “There’s a detail or two you don’t know about, Miss Deacon,” Archie said. Oh. The international symbol for “I’ve got a secret”, I guess. Susan put a restraining hand on Archie’s arm.
“Archie, that’s enough. It’s best if Polly doesn’t know about our plans,” she said.
“I wasn’t going to tell,” Archie said, sounding like a wounded child.
“Susan, I frankly couldn’t give a damn what the League of Social Justice is planning,” I said with some heat. I’ve always hated being left out. “But if you’re looking to stop the project, you’re leaving it kind of late. The grand opening is slated for the first of September, and they’re already hiring staff.”
“We know that,” Susan said.
“If you want to find out more, come to the town council meeting tomorrow night,” Archie said, as if he were giving me a stock tip. “Should be quite interesting.” He pronounced it “innerestin” and did the nose/finger thing again.
“Maybe I will,” I said. “If only to be there when you guys get arrested for disturbing the peace, and I have to bail you out.”
“Oh, what we have planned is quite legal,” Susan said. “Anyway, Polly, you’re hardly in a financial position to bail us out of jail, are you?”
“Speaking of which, you owe me twenty-three bucks for the beer and eggs,” I said. She paid up.
I left the Social Justicers to their coup planning and slipped into George’s living room to make a phone call.
Becker picked up the phone before it rang at his end. It was one of those weird Ma Bell moments you can’t explain.
“Becker?”
“Polly? How bizarre. I was just calling you.”
“We have a psychic link, eh?” We blithered about how strange that was for a while, then got to the point.
“I’ve signed Bryan up to spend a couple of days at Camp Goomis,” Becker said. “He’s driving me crazy.”
“I thought you guys were supposed to be having some quality time together,” I said without thinking. “Isn’t eight a little young to be doing overnights at camp?” Rule Number One in relationships where there’s a kid who is not yours: Don’t criticize the parenting. Ever.
“You don’t know Bryan,” Becker said through suddenly clenched teeth. “He wants to go. He’s not a baby.”
I backtracked. “Of course not. When’s he going?”
“I just dropped him off. You want to get together?”
“Sure. Actually, I have something I want to run by you. Have you talked to Morrison today?”
“Nope. He’s not returning my calls. He’s treating me like a civilian, dammit.”
“Well, I guess it’s because you’re off duty, eh?”
“That’s no excuse. Anyway, I’m back on as of Thursday.”
“What about Bryan?”
“If he likes the camp, he’ll be staying there until Sunday night, when my ex gets back.”
Poor little guy, I thought, but I didn’t say it out loud. If his Mom was truly planning to hand him over to Becker so that she could join Duke Pitblado’s family unencumbered, Bryan and his Dad were in for some rough times. Especially if they couldn’t last four days together without fighting.
“I see. So if you go back to work on Thursday, does that mean you’ll be taking over the investigation of Vic’s death?”
“I hope so. Before Morrison messes it up too bad.”
“You don’t have a lot of faith in your partner, do you?”
“Look, Polly, I know he’s your friend and all, and he’s a good guy in his way, but he’s not the most brilliant police officer in the world. Why do you think he’s still a constable?”
Earlie Morrison had once told me that he had been passed over for promotion so many times he hardly thought about it any more. Detective Constable Becker had been parachuted in from Toronto about four years previously, and had, according to Morrison, been stealing the limelight ever since. Morrison said he didn’t care, but I suspected that he did.
“Maybe it’s because Morrison isn’t very glamorous,” I said.
“Maybe it’s because he’s fat and kinda slow,” Becker said. “He’s muscle, Polly. That’s why we make a good team—he’s the brawn, I’m the brains. By himself, or with that fluff-ball Lefevbre, it’s just meat without the heat.”
How unkind, I thought. Catchy, but mean. Becker said he would pick me up at the farm at around seven and take me out for a night on the town.
“There’s one of those chick flicks playing at the Laingford Odeon,” he said, “and I’ve already made reservations at the Mooseview Inn, if that’s okay with you.” The Mooseview meant candlelight and wine, big time. And a “Chick Flick” to boot. Gosh. My suitor was pulling out all the romantic stops, no question.
The scene that played across my mind wasn’t Cinderella and Prince Charming, though. What I saw was a live trap, baited with honey, with me in the role of skunk, scent glands fully-armed, waddling in with my eyes wide open.
Sixteen
Our closed circuit camera is watching you!
—A sign at the entrance to the Kountry Pantree superstore
I spent the rest of the afternoon with Kountry Kow, wrestling with bits of foam rubber and wire as I constructed the cow’s head. The framework was basically an inverted wire basket (try putting a large lampshade on your head and you’ll get the idea), over which I laid canvas pieces, then contact-cemented foam rubber to create the proper cow-like contours. Because the costume was supposed to be more or less waterproof (damn David Kane and his wretched Bath Tub Bash) I had to abandon my usual liberal application of hot glue and use a needle and thread instead. This put me in a rotten mood. I’m not a bad seamstress—I made my share of Annie Hall outfits (with matching bow ties, God help me) in the seventies, but working with light cotton and a nice little Butterick pattern was easier than sewing bits of heavy canvas and fun-fur to a wire frame. The inside of the cow’s head was dotted with charming little splodges of Polly-blood by the time the frame was complete.
At around four, the dogs alerted me to an approaching visitor. Luggy gave his “There’s someone coming and I don’t know who it is” growl, a sort of deep rumble that sounds like thunder a long way off. Rosie, who was too young to have learned how to growl yet, let her hackles rise (which on a Lab puppy isn’t threatening, it just made her look like a sheepskin ottoman), and yipped once or twice. I was trying on the cow head at that moment, and I went to the door still wearing it.
“Gracious,” said Emma Tempest’s voice, as I opened the door, holding onto Luggy’s collar in case he decided the visitor wasn’t friendly. “How ceremonial,” she said.
Through the eye-holes of the cow head, I could see Emma’s soft, pink cheeks, her pearl earrings and part of her neck, which had a loose, wrinkled look like crushed velvet. I realized that if the mascot costume were to be worn by someone who was expected to steer a motorized bath tub around a watery obstacle course, I would have to enlarge its field of vision.
“Come on in, Emma,” I said, my voice echoing in its foam-rubber chamber. “Let me get this thing off.” Luggy and Rosie bombed her with love as I struggled to doff Kountry Kow.
“I take it that’s the project you’re working on for the Superstore,” Emma said. I nodded. “I do understand why you’re reluctant to have anything to do with our protest, even if the rest of the group doesn’t,” she said.
“Thanks,” I said, and offered her some tea.
“No thank you, dear. I just came up to give you something that belongs to you, something that I should have given back to you years and years ago, but then you moved away and I forgot all about it until I saw you again at Susan’s the other night.”
“Oh, yes. Susan mentioned you had something you wanted to give me.” I couldn’t think what it could be. Something of my mother’s, probably, some memento that Emma thought I would appreciate. How could she know that I had deliberately discarded all such reminders of my parents, all knick-knacks, mementoes and gee-gaws that might whip me back to a quarter century ago when my parents were alive and I was desperately trying to get them to notice me?
Emma reached into the enormous purse she carried and extracted a dusty manila envelope, which she handed over.
“You left these, I think, tucked away in a gap in the back wall of my shop,” she said. “I came across them sometime in the eighties, when I was doing renovations. One of them has your name on the inside, dear, and I’m afraid I read a bit of it, because I just couldn’t help myself. I guess you were looking for a good hiding place, hmm? It was, you know. I could easily have missed them.”
I knew at once what “they” were, although I hadn’t given them a thought since hiding them, and my stomach did a little back flip.
“You read them?” I said.
“Well, you wouldn’t believe me if I said I hadn’t, now, would you?” Emma said, which was perfectly true. I was crimson with shame, and I think she was as embarrassed as I was.
“Did you show them to Susan?” I said. I was nine years old again, hot all over, and my knees were trembling.
“Of course not, Polly. They are obviously very private. I kept a diary myself when I was a girl. I would have been aghast if my mother had seen it.”
“These are hardly diaries,” I said.
“Well, perhaps not, but they are your business, nonetheless. And they were important enough to you to want to hide them somewhere, weren’t they? Why did you hide them? In my shop, I mean?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” I said, which was true. “It was a long time ago.” I hadn’t opened the envelope, which was wrapped in a rubber band. What was the reason for having hidden the envelope in Emma’s shop? I could see myself doing it, but the why of it was buried somewhere in my brain.
“Well, anyway, dear, that’s all I came about. I’m sure it’s just a silly, trivial thing to you now, and I could easily have burned them, I suppose, but I thought that you might like to dispose of them yourself.” She was looking very sharply at me, and I returned her gaze with as much honesty as I could muster.
“I assure you it’s not silly or trivial, Emma. At least, it wasn’t then, and it doesn’t feel like it now. Thank you for returning them to me.”
“My pleasure. And Polly, your secret is safe with me,” she said and slipped quietly out the door. She wasn’t talking to the adult Polly, I realized, as I walked a little unsteadily to the kitchen table. She was talking to nine-year-old Polly Deacon, the little “flower girl” who had accompanied her mother the “Glad Lady” on her flower delivery rounds twenty-five years ago.
Lug-nut nudged my hand as I sat down, and I patted him absently on the head as I touched the envelope with the tip of one finger. It wasn’t as if it could bite me. For heaven’s sakes, it wasn’t evidence that would send me to jail or to hell or anything. In fact, it was laughable. Why wasn’t I laughing?
I made a cup of tea, f
irst. I could, I suppose, have lit a fire in the woodstove and burned the envelope, contents and all, but now I was curiously eager, as if I were about to open a Christmas present. I removed the elastic and reached inside, pulling out two small, spiral-ringed notebooks, about three by four inches square. They were very dusty, and wrapped round with a thin cord of white crocheted Phentex, a kind of cheap, polyester yarn that was all the rage in the early seventies. One book had a picture of flowers on it, the other a dog.
On the inside cover of the first, in careful printing that was not mine, were the words “Gabrielle and Polly, 5C, partners since Nov. 6, 1975.” I flipped open the second, and the same words were printed in my book, in my childish hand, on the inside front cover. On the facing pages we had inscribed “Polly’s and Gabrielle’s S.S.C. for two.” S.S.C. stood for “Secret Stealing Club”, and Gaby and I were its only members.
In my mind’s eye, I could see Gaby as if she were sitting next to me. She was pale and small, a nervous child who was bullied at school for her home-made clothes and her infuriating meekness. She was the principal’s daughter, but her golden-haired, adored younger brother was a star whose ascendency she couldn’t hope to compete with. Gaby was brought up to know her place, to behave like a lady, to serve her brother at the dinner table and to obey authority. In Gaby’s world, authority came to mean every single person she met, including me. I knew, sitting there with our Secret Stealing Club notebooks open on the table in front of me, that the idea had been mine, not hers. I had probably coerced her into it, offered her a rare friendship in exchange for conspiracy, although my memory of the details was cloudy.
“Our first assignment,” my wretched little notebook said, “was on the date of November 6, 1975, when we went on a spree at Knight’s. We ‘got’ these notebooks, at 39 cents each.” The pages that followed listed our plunder. It began with little items pilfered from the drugstore and the stationery store, the price-stickers peeled off and re-stuck onto the lined pages like trophies. Further in, the items became more costly, the risks greater. A $1.49 china squirrel from the high-end gift shop on Main Street, a $4 box of bath beads from the Five and Dime. We never used the word “steal” in our club. The “S.S.C.” was the only tacit admission of our guilt. Gaby’s book said “On our next mission, I missionaried a beatiful pair of earings (peirsed).” I preferred the euphemism “I got.”
Polly Deacon Mysteries 4-Book Bundle Page 62