by Gail Bowen
I followed her out to the hall. There were police everywhere. “Debbie, you may also want to speak with a man named Esau Pilger. He lives on the Standing Buffalo reserve and he also had a copy of that picture,” I said.
Debbie paused to jot down the name. “How did Esau Pilger come to have a photograph of Zack and his friends?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know if he would do a thing like that…” My head began to spin as the reality of the deaths once again set in. “Debbie, I don’t know if we can handle this.”
“You can, and you will.” She reached out and touched my arm. “You have my private number,” she said. “Use it, and, Jo, keep me posted on Zack’s health.”
“I will.”
—
Henry Chan listened without comment as I told him everything that had happened in the last hour. When I’d finished, he said, “I’ll be right over.”
“I don’t think the police will let you in, Henry. They believe the person who did this may be waiting to finish the job by killing Zack.”
“I can’t let that happen,” Henry said. “Zack’s the only guy I can consistently beat at poker. Tell the cops this is a medical emergency, and if they don’t let me through, I’ll be taking names.”
CHAPTER
15
In the first terrible moments after I learned that Blake, Delia, and Kevin were dead, my mind swam. Whenever I tried to focus, my thoughts, like minnows, finned out in a dozen directions. Debbie said that I was in the middle of a tsunami and all I could do was hang on. I tried, but I had responsibilities, and as their number grew, my brain stubbornly refused to function. Fearing that I’d let something essential float away, I became a compulsive note-taker. Each of my tasks had a list: Zack’s care; Taylor’s schedule; Delia’s funeral; Blake’s funeral; Kevin’s funeral; questions about Falconer Shreve for Margot and Brock, who immediately and magnanimously agreed to manage the firm; questions for Norine about City Hall; calls to Gracie, Noah, and Isobel to check in. The lists helped, but I was still swimming for the surface.
One night, unable to sleep, I’d gone online, keyed in the word tsunami, and hit Search. I learned that tsunamis were like sloping mountains of water filled with debris, and it was impossible to predict either how many surges there would be or how much time would elapse between waves after they hit – the perfect metaphor for grief. Early the following morning, I had called the funeral home and made arrangements for Kevin’s cremation. As I picked up his funeral list and put a check mark beside “cremation,” I was heartsick, but ticking off tasks was proof that I hadn’t drowned, so I carried on.
All morning the rain had been steady. When the officer who had been answering our door for the last five days called out to tell me that Debbie Haczkewicz had arrived with news, I went to the living-room window to watch for her. The gloom outside matched my mood. The only bright spots on the street were the yellow Gore-Tex rain jackets of the police officers guarding us. The speed of Debbie’s dash between her car and our open front door was impressive. I took her coat. “I see the desk job hasn’t slowed you down,” I said.
Her smile was wry. “After fifty, you have to keep proving yourself.”
“Tell me about it,” I said.
Zack’s nurse, Kym with a Y, was coming out of our bedroom when Debbie and I started down the hall. On the afternoon of the murders, Henry Chan had come to our house, assessed Zack’s condition and mine and called Nightingale, a private nursing company. Kym had cared for my husband the previous time he’d been seriously ill, and he fit in well with our household. Zack was a big man, and Kym was a bodybuilder who had no problem giving Zack the help he needed to move his body. Kym was also a dog-loving Broncos fan with a gentle, oddball sense of humour that lifted our spirits.
He greeted us both. “Zack’s expecting you, Chief Haczkewicz. He’s all slicked up and out of bed, Jo. If you need me, holler.”
Zack’s robe and the linen on his bed were fresh, and he was bathed, shaven, and in his chair. I’d always believed that when people said someone had aged overnight, they were speaking figuratively, but since his partners died, my husband had grown visibly older. The lines that bracketed his mouth like parentheses had deepened; the shadows beneath his eyes had grown darker; and the vitality that made him dominate every room he walked into had been sapped.
In the five days since the murders, facts had emerged. Lorne Callow had been reluctant to reveal details about Delia Wainberg’s private life, but the police can be persuasive and Lorne had seen the wisdom of being helpful. When she had left the family home earlier in the week, Delia had asked Callow to pick up her things and take them to the Hotel Saskatchewan. After the gathering at the Wainberg house on Halloween, Delia hadn’t returned to her suite at the hotel. When she’d dressed for the meeting with the new equity partners Sunday morning, she realized she didn’t have her watch with her, but she was running late. It wasn’t expensive but it had sentimental value, and she’d called Lorne, asking him to stop by the hotel, check the suite, and bring the watch to her at the office. Callow’s phone had been turned off when she called, but when he turned it back on a few hours later, he saw the messages from Delia.
He went straight to the hotel, found the watch, took it to the executive offices of Falconer Shreve, and walked into a nightmare. In addition to the horror of finding the bloodied bodies of three people he liked and respected, Lorne discovered that the murderer had smashed a ceramic sculpture that was Delia’s most treasured possession. To celebrate the founding partners’ twenty-five years together, Delia had commissioned Joe Fafard to create a ceramic of the five of them on the day they graduated from the College of Law. Fafard worked from photographs, and he’d managed to capture their sureness and their youthful impatience to get on with their lives. They were wearing their academic robes: the day had been windy, and the robes of the young graduates swirled. The wind was at their backs. From the day the artist delivered it, the ceramic had enjoyed pride of place on the teak credenza in Delia’s office. Now it was rubble.
The field of suspects, never large, had narrowed to one man. The search for Emmett Keating intensified, and now Debbie had news.
She went over to Zack. “How are you feeling?” she said.
“Like homemade shit,” he said.
“It must be going around,” Debbie said. “That’s how I feel too. But down to business.” She pulled a chair over so she was facing Zack. “This morning, acting on an anonymous tip, the RCMP found Emmett Keating’s body in a cabin on Long Lake. He was slumped over the kitchen table apparently dead of a single shot through the temple. A Glock 22 was on the floor beside him. Ballistics will compare the bullets, but we’re pursuing the possibility that Keating killed himself with the same semi-automatic pistol that killed Delia Wainberg, Blake Falconer, and Kevin Hynd. A letter confessing to the murders was on the table. The letter appears to have been typed on Keating’s laptop and printed on the printer at the cabin. There was no signature.”
“Oh God,” I said. “How long had he been there?”
“The definitive answer will take time,” Debbie said. “But the officers who found the body said it had been there awhile.”
“Who did the cabin belong to?” Zack said.
Debbie took a deep breath and exhaled before she answered. “Darryl Colby.”
Zack leaned forward. “What the hell?”
“That was pretty much Mr. Colby’s response,” Debbie said. “At first he was flabbergasted. He said Keating must have broken in. But when we told him Keating had keys to the cabin, Colby came up with a theory we’re checking out. Apparently, before Keating came to Falconer Shreve, he worked for Darryl Colby.” Debbie leaned towards Zack. “Did you know that?”
“Not until very recently,” Zack said, “but, yes, I knew.”
“Colby said he’d let his employees use the cabin occasionally. He couldn’t remember if Keating had used it, but it was certainly possible that he had and that Keating simply hadn�
�t returned the key, or had a copy made. When he killed your partners, Keating might have panicked, remembered the cabin, and fled there.” Grey with exhaustion, Debbie rubbed her eyes. “Look, there are still a lot of I’s to dot and T’s to cross in this investigation, but I think we can safely consider this case solved.”
The silence hung heavily in the air. Finally, Zack said, “There’s an Italian proverb: ‘At the end of the game, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.’ ” Zack had a beautiful mouth, full-lipped and sensual, but anger had twisted his lips into a snarl. “No matter who we are or what we accomplish, we all end up in the grave,” he said. “So, Emmett Keating has finally joined The Winners’ Circle.”
“He realized his dream,” Debbie said.
“And we all paid the price.” Zack was pale and his breathing was laboured. He shifted his weight in his chair and grimaced. “Deb, I should be there when you tell the Wainbergs and Gracie about Keating. Would you excuse us while Joanne helps me get ready?”
Henry Chan’s warning about Zack’s blood pressure was never far from my mind. “You’re staying put,” I said. “I know Deb’s news is a body slam, but I’m not about to let you become Emmett’s fourth victim. Next Wednesday is Taylor’s seventeenth birthday. She’s counting on you being here. So are all the other people who love you. I’ll go with Debbie when she talks to the Wainbergs and Gracie.” I bent and gave him a serious kiss. “Let me do this, please.”
—
The squad cars that had lined the street in front of our house since November 1 had already disappeared. It seemed we were no longer in danger. Debbie and I drove to the Wainbergs separately. Debbie was on police business, and I wanted to be free to stay if I was needed. The shootings had brought a temporary reconfiguration in the Falconer Shreve families. Despite our around-the-clock police protection, Zack and I had been concerned about Taylor, not just about her safety but also about her inability to lead anything resembling her everyday life. The north wall of Taylor’s studio was a three-metre-high window that faced our street’s back alley, and the police were quick to declare it off limits.
Taylor’s art had always been her refuge. The studio she’d used on Halifax Street was still empty, and Margot’s building had a reliable security system, so I’d asked Margot if Taylor could stay with her until our situation changed. The arrangement meant I was able to pick up Taylor after school and be beside her until I delivered her to Margot’s front door. The police wanted all of us to stay close to home, and for Taylor that meant a life confined to school and Margot’s condo. Zack and Taylor texted and skyped. It wasn’t a great solution, but it was the best we could manage.
The Wainberg household, too, had reconfigured. In the hours after Delia’s death, Noah, the man to whom we all turned to solve our problems, fell apart. Isobel, dealing with the death of her mother with whom she’d been reconciled for less than twelve hours, was numb; Ryan, Jacob’s part-time caregiver, had booked the week off to study for his mid-terms. He offered to stay on, but Noah insisted that Ryan stick with his original plan.
Rose Lavallee had driven in from Standing Buffalo as soon as she heard of Blake’s death. Gracie, dazed with grief, couldn’t face the prospect of spending the night of her father’s death in a house filled with reminders of his absence. That night she and Rose slept at the Wainbergs. When Rose broached the subject of returning to the house on Leopold Crescent, Gracie refused to consider the possibility, and Rose suggested a solution that she felt would work for both families. Until Gracie was ready to return home, she and Rose would stay at the Falconers, and Rose would care for Jacob.
It was close to noon when Debbie and I arrived at the Wainbergs. When Gracie answered the door, I was shocked at the physical toll her father’s death had taken on her. Her normally rosy face was so pale her freckles looked painted on, like a doll’s, and when I reached out to embrace her, she clung to me. As was frequently the case in those terrible days, words failed me, so I just held Gracie, stroking her hair and hoping that the words that would connect us to the old familiar life would come. When the unmistakable fragrance of Rose’s hamburger stew drifted from the kitchen, I had an opening. “Rose is making lunch?” I said.
“Jacob loves her hamburger stew,” Gracie said. Her gaze took in both Debbie and me. “There’s plenty if you’d like to join us.”
“Thank you,” Debbie said. “But I’m here on police business. I need to talk to you and the Wainbergs.”
Gracie held out her hand to me. “Jo, you’ll stay, won’t you?”
“As long as you want,” I said.
“I’ll get Noah and Izzie.” Gracie gestured to the living room. “Please make yourselves comfortable.”
On a fine day, the sun pouring in through the vast expanses of glass in the Wainbergs’ open-concept main floor was glorious, but that afternoon the sheets of rain streaming across the glass threw the room into a watery half-light. Debbie and I sat side by side on a couch facing the windows. “A dark day for dark news,” she said in a voice so muted it seemed she was speaking to herself. As Noah, Isobel, and Gracie joined us in the living room, I was struck by their air of bewilderment. They were all strong and capable people, but none of us was prepared for the roles we were playing.
Noah accepted the news about Emmett Keating’s written confession to the murders and his suicide with poignant resignation. “Well, that’s it,” he said, and he stood and held his hand out to Debbie. “Thanks for coming.”
“You don’t have any questions?”
Noah shook his head. “None that you could answer.”
“I’m so very sorry,” she said. “We’ll be releasing the bodies tomorrow. You can begin arrangements when you’re ready.” Debbie turned to Isobel and Gracie. “Do either of you have questions?”
Isobel shook her head, and Gracie whispered, “No.”
“Please call if I can help in any way,” Debbie said.
—
During the next hour, Jacob was our salvation. As soon as Debbie left, he came running out to meet me. From the moment Zack laid eyes on Jacob, he’d been struck by the little boy’s resemblance to Isobel and Delia. Like his aunt and his grandmother, Jacob had an explosion of curly black hair, an alabaster complexion, and brilliantly blue eyes. That morning he was wearing red corduroy overalls and carrying his new kitten, a tiny brown male.
Jacob cocked his head when he saw me. “Can you guess this cat’s name?”
“I’ll try, but I think I’ll need a hint.”
Jacob nodded solemnly. “Think of things that are brown.”
“Fudge,” I said. “Mud. Brown socks. Wood. Leaves in the fall. Cocoa.”
Jacob’s small face managed to express both pity and exasperation. “Toast,” he said. “Toast is brown. My cat’s name is Toast.”
I reached over and stroked between the kitten’s ears. “Hi, Toast.”
We were all smiling when we went to the kitchen for lunch. Rose had set a place for me at the table. We were quiet as we ate. When he’d finished his soup, Jacob looked up at me. “Delia died,” he said. “Did you know that?”
“Yes,” I said. “I knew.”
“That’s why everybody’s sad,” he said.
“I’m sad too.”
Jacob scooped up Toast and placed him on my knee. “You can hold Toast for a while,” he said.
—
After we’d cleaned up the kitchen, Rose, Jacob, and Toast went upstairs for stories and a nap. Gracie smiled as she watched them. “The Three Amigos,” she said. “Rose, Jacob, and Toast. They get us through the day.” She returned her focus to me. “Esau Pilger hasn’t come back to the reserve yet,” she said. “It’s been almost a week. I’m glad Inspector Haczkewicz came by. At least now we know that Esau wasn’t involved in…”
“Did you think he might have been?” I said.
Gracie shrugged. “I try not to think about it at all,” she said. “I know that sounds childish.”
I put my arms around her. “Not
childish. Just human.”
Gracie drew me closer. “I miss being hugged by my dad,” she said.
“I haven’t been a very good friend to you in the past few days.”
“You’ve had a lot to deal with too,” she said. “How’s Zack doing?”
“About the same,” I said. “The nurse we had last time has signed on for the duration. Kym can pick up on the smallest change in Zack’s condition without ever seeming to hover – an art I have yet to master.”
“We’re all glad you’re there, Jo,” Noah said. “We couldn’t take losing Zack too.” His words hit us all with the force of a blow. For a beat we stood together, frozen with the awareness that these moments of feeling the magnitude of what we had lost would assault us for the rest of our lives. The doorbell rang, breaking the spell, and the four of us moved into the hall.
When Noah opened the door, Lorne Callow was standing on the doorstep shaking the rain off his umbrella. He was dressed for the weather. Rubber overshoes shielded his leather oxfords, and a tailored navy blue trench coat protected him. “I hope I’m not intruding,” he said. He closed his umbrella, stepped into the hall, and shut the door behind him. After greeting us all, he turned to Noah. “I know you were planning to sort through Delia’s personal papers today,” he said, “and I wondered if you needed a hand.”
Noah swallowed hard. “Thanks, but something’s come up. I think I need more time before I tackle Dee’s private correspondence.”
“I understand,” Lorne said. “You have my number. Call if you need me.”
“I will. Lorne, ever since this nightmare started, you’ve been going the extra mile. I may not always show it, but I appreciate the effort.”
“I do what I can,” Lorne said. He turned to me. “Ready to brave the elements, Joanne?”
“No use putting it off,” I said. Lorne opened the door, stepped outside, and put up his umbrella. Noah bent and kissed my cheek. “Thanks for coming, Jo. Having you with us today helped.”
As Lorne and I walked past the bears that Noah had created as his family’s totems, a wave of sadness hit me. Noah was as strong and fearless as the bear he had carved to represent himself, but he hadn’t been able to protect the wife he loved so deeply. Remembering the warmth that had existed between Lorne Callow and me on the sunny day when he helped me carry out our marigolds, I touched his arm. “It’s good to see you,” I said. “Today’s been especially difficult for everybody.”