by Linda Moore
“Daniel, if you could call and ask her if she recalls anything about this boy your grandmother referred to, that would be helpful to us. I realize it may be a bit awkward.”
“I can figure out a way to ask her,” he said, “and keep the explanations minimal for the time being.” We got the bill; Daniel picked it up off the table and walked over to the cash. The art college students, both boys and girls, were checking him out with interest. He’s definitely got the good looks going for him, I thought as I watched him. How would he manage over the next while, I wondered. I stood and put my coat on.
“I appreciate your telling me about this. It’s extremely helpful.” I wanted to encourage him.
“Thanks for listening,” he said.
We walked out the door and onto Barrington Street.
“So you’ll let me know if you find out anything more from your mother’s cousin? And also you’ll work on engaging a lawyer for your mother. Would anyone in your father’s firm be able to send you in the right direction?”
“That’s a good idea, Roz—I’ll start there. I know my father would want her to have the best possible defence.”
We parted ways and I walked back to the office. His story had been so vivid—I couldn’t help picturing the two women in the mirror through the eyes of the seven-year-old boy.
When I got back, Melanie informed me that Arbuckle had gone and that Harvie had to attend a meeting out of the office. I called over to Peter’s firm and arranged to have the boxes of his files delivered the following morning. I was at a loss. I needed to get perspective on what was happening with the case. I dialed McBride.
“You just caught me,” he said. “I’m about to take Molly out onto the Commons for a run.”
“Can I join you? I want to ask you about something.”
“Do you miss me, Roz?”
“Every minute, McBride. Go on ahead—I’ll find you there.”
I walked up Spring Garden Road, past the School of Architecture, on past the beautifully dressed windows of Mills Brothers, the oldest family-run department store in Canada, and turned right on to South Park. I walked along beside the Public Gardens, closed for the winter. I looked in through the iron fence. The gardens were still in the midst of restoration from the damage done by the hurricane. I turned up Bell Road towards the open green space of the Commons. I had read that in the early days of Halifax, the Commons had been established so the whole community could pasture their livestock—hence the name. That made me think of Peter King and his philosophical position on water as part of the Commons. He was the heart of this case for me. Who would do his work now that he was gone, I wondered.
I looked across the snow-dusted grounds and my spirits lightened to see Molly bounding after an orange ball that McBride was throwing for her. It wasn’t quite four o’clock, but would soon be dark—still heading for the nadir.
Molly ran towards me with an enthusiastic greeting and dropped the ball at my feet. I tossed it into mid-field and watched her race for it. We walked around on the grounds and I caught McBride up on what little was happening so far, and Greta’s continuing silence, then told him the story of Daniel’s childhood memory.
“So, there’s a reason for Greta’s behaviour after all. She’s not just a run-of-the-mill nutbar. If this relationship goes all the way back to when she was fifteen or sixteen, it might explain why she stole the file and tried to eliminate Aziz. She’s torn between protecting Carl and running away from him.”
“So what’s the next step here do you think? How can we get her to open up and tell us what’s going on?”
“Wait and see if Daniel comes up with some information from the cousin. It might shed more light. My instinct would be to somehow provoke a reaction from her. Perhaps tell her that Carl is being charged with Peter’s murder, even if they’re not ready to really lay the charges. That might crack her open.”
“That sounds scary…should we let Daniel be present?”
“I think so. That’s why he told you about the memory, Roz. He needs to know what’s going on with his mother. He can’t be protected from that—and he shouldn’t be.”
We turned and started walking back towards North Park. Molly trotted along with the ball in her mouth.
“I better get back,” I said.
“Punching a clock eh, Roz.”
“You’re jealous, McBride. You wish you had a job.”
He laughed.
“Where are you off to now?” I asked.
“Molly and I are going to take a walk over to Sophie’s. She hasn’t been able to put her bed back together since they turned her place upside down. I’m going to help her out with that.”
“Regular handyman.”
“That’s me. And then we’re going to watch a movie.”
“Strangers on a Train?”
“That’s the one! Keep me posted.”
I headed back the way I had come and was standing at the light at South Park and Spring Garden when a woman’s voice from behind me said, “Hey, Rosalind. What happened to that lunch we were going to have?”
I turned. It was Eloise Radner from Ecology Counts.
“Hey! How are you? Good to see you.”
“Likewise,” she said.
“How about right now?” I said on impulse. “Have you got time for a drink?”
“I’d love a drink—it’s been one crazy day. Honestly, those Tories are going to put me in the loony bin.”
“Let’s go in right here, to the pub in the Lord Nelson.”
“Perfect,” she said. “I can feel a martini coming towards me.”
We got comfortable. I ordered a Keith’s and Eloise ordered a vodka martini straight up with extra olives. The pub was quite dark with little lamps and cozy booths.
The after-work crowd was starting to fill the place up.
“They’re two for one,” the waiter said. “Happy Hour.”
“Two would definitely be better than one,” Eloise said. “So…what’s the news? The last time I saw you, you were getting Peter King’s report on the Europa deal.”
“That’s right. A lot has happened, Eloise, a lot of ‘blood under the bridge’ as Albee says.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“Playwright. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Anyway, some happy developments as well. I’m working as a contract researcher for your old friend Harvie Greenblatt at the Public Prosecution office at the moment. Remember you gave me his card?”
“Good for you, Roz. It’s so fantastic that Harvie took that new job. He’ll be a welcome asset to the ever-fraught Prosecutor’s Office.”
“We’ve become really good friends through this Peter King case. Anyway, as I say, we’re working on it and you’ll be interested to know there’s a murder charge pending.”
She had picked up a few peanuts and was about to put them in her mouth, but she stopped short and looked at me, startled.
“Are you serious? Who killed him—his crazy wife?”
“Wow, Eloise. That didn’t come out of nowhere. Do you know Greta?”
The waiter set down our drinks. Eloise knocked back a good portion of one martini and dug for an olive.
“Look, Roz, Peter’s gone now, and I might as well come clean…I was involved with him for years. He loved his wife very much. He would never have left her, but she was…I don’t know…a cold fish. And she was basically miserable most of the time. He and I worked together often and we enjoyed each other. We laughed a lot, you know? So, this one time—Greta was away in Europe and we were working long hours developing some policy initiatives, and the next thing you know, we were sleeping together. The truth is I was crazy about him.”
I was kind of in shock. This was an aspect of Peter I hadn’t even considered. Could this have played into Greta’s actions somehow?
“When are you referring to, that she was in Europe?”
“Oh, seven years ago. Something like that. It was just after Peter had come back from his first trip to Bolivia in ’98
.”
So, I thought, before Spiegle came to Halifax. “What was she doing in Europe, do you know?”
“I had the impression it was a mental health vacation, went to visit friends or something.”
“Did she know about you?”
“I always think women know, don’t you? But if she did, Peter never mentioned it. I mean, he was clear about things right from the beginning. And I’m a grown-up. I valued his company too much to throw a scene. I knew he’d stay with her if push came to shove.”
She drained her first martini. “As I said to you that day you came to the office, I miss him terribly. If someone killed him, I hope they rot in jail for the rest of their lives. Good men like him are too few and far between. You’re not actually looking at Greta for it are you?”
“He was poisoned. She’s one of a couple of suspects. I would get into details Eloise, but it’s early days and anything is possible at this point. I shouldn’t be speculating out loud, but I know you’ll keep this to yourself.”
“My life is one long confidentiality clause. Not to worry. In fact, you’re the first person I’ve ever told about my relationship with Peter, and I don’t want that to get around either, so we’re even.” She held up her glass and we had a silent toast and drank. But she stopped as the glass got to her lips, looked at me and said, “Greta wouldn’t have poisoned him because she found out about me, I hope.”
“Crime of passion. Stranger things have happened. But I think she would have killed you, not him. Or at least killed you first,” I said, teasing her.
“Is she behind bars?”
“For the moment. But she’ll probably be out and about on bail soon, so lock your doors.”
“That’s not funny, Roz.”
“But listen,” I said, “during those last couple of weeks that Peter was alive, he was working on some international projects. Do you know anything about that? Were there any details about throwing roadblocks in the way of certain corporations or anything?”
“I can remember a couple of things he told me about. One was that he was able to force the same company that was originally contracted here—”
“Europa?” I said.
“That’s right. Through some obscure WTO regulation he managed to force them out of this big water privatization scheme in West Africa. They were just one part of a multinational conglomerate, and that was only the beginning for Peter. He was determined to get all those companies out of there. He was working on behalf of a people’s united action front. He was actually getting ready to go over there in the next few weeks, and was pulling in major support from water activists around the world.”
“Impressive work.”
“Oh yeah. And he had also gotten a temporary injunction to stop this German bottled water company from obtaining rights to Canadian bulk water. That was one of Peter’s big concerns. He said he felt like the boy with his thumb in the dyke. Once one international corporation gained access to Canadian bulk water, it would change the picture forever. Commodification. It’s a very frightening prospect, and Peter was on the front line like a ferocious guard dog.”
“Now that he’s gone, I guess it’s only a matter of time, eh? Bye, bye water.”
“There are other wonderful fighters, but he was hard to beat because he was such a brilliant lawyer.”
“To Peter,” I said, holding up my beer glass.
“And to all those brave people around the world trying to keep water off the market.”
We finished our drinks and parted with promises to stay in touch. I watched her walk down South Park towards Morris Street. I remembered she lived on the little tiny street behind Morris that backed onto a large cemetery. She had kept our conversation fairly light, and I knew she was tough, but I had felt the depth of her pain when she spoke about missing Peter. Seven years is a long time to be involved—and to think she never told a soul. So she would have gone through the funeral and the grieving entirely alone. I recalled seeing her name in the guest book. I thought about Peter King in this new light and realized I didn’t hold it against him. It kind of humanized him for me.
But the important things I had learned from Eloise were about Peter’s recent actions in West Africa and Germany. In both cases, preventing these companies from proceeding would have had a major impact on Carl Spiegle. He would have been set to see big profits from their endeavours, and may have lost initial investment money to boot. I would spend the next morning diving into those files that were being delivered from Peter’s office.
Chapter Twenty-seven
When I got home, I started making a little dinner for myself with some of the food I had bought with Harvie. That Saturday morning at the market now seemed like years ago. I had put some lamb chops into the freezer and managed to pull one out to defrost before I left for work that morning.
“What are you going to have?” I asked the cat. “Unfortunately I only thawed one chop.”
I picked her up. She wasn’t a lap cat by nature, but she must have missed me because she seemed willing to go for a little affectionate scratching and purring this evening. She put her head back and closed her eyes as I rubbed her chin. The phone rang and she leaped to the floor.
“So much for that,” I said, going to the phone.
It was Daniel King. I asked how he was.
“I spoke to my mother’s cousin Helga this afternoon.”
“Fast work, Daniel. How did you approach it?”
“I didn’t get into our circumstances here. I just said that I’d been having this memory about my grandmother and that my mother wouldn’t talk about it. I asked her if she knew who the boy was, and if it was true about my grandfather.”
“And?”
“She seemed hesitant at first, but I coaxed her along. She said she did remember the boy and confirmed that his name was Carl. Apparently, he was German. He’d been orphaned, and my grandfather—Heinrich Brunner—had known about him and wanted to help. He was fourteen or fifteen when he was brought into the house—around the same age as my mother.”
“How long was he there? Did she say?”
“She thought it was at least a year, maybe a year and a half, before everything went awry. She said he and my mother became really close—inseparable.”
“Did she confirm that your grandfather killed himself?”
“Yes. She said it was horrible for the family and that no one understood it. My mother was very upset and left almost immediately to go to school in France, and Carl left as well. She said my grandmother told him he couldn’t stay on. He went to some kind of state boarding school or something. Helga didn’t really know what happened to him after that.”
“What do you make of it, Daniel?”
“I don’t know what to think. I keep going back to the memory, to my grandmother saying that she knew my mother blamed herself. So my mother must have done something that she believed caused my grandfather to kill himself. What could that be? Say it was a pregnancy. It would have been shameful at the time perhaps, but surely it wouldn’t have led to suicide. My grandfather had gone through the war; he must have had a thick skin.”
“And his suicide would have taken place in the mid sixties?”
“That’s right—my mother was born in 1950.”
“Thank you for making that call. I need to sleep on all this. Let me know if you have any other thoughts or memories.”
Daniel surprised me then by saying he wanted to talk to his mother about the memory and see what she had to say. I was impressed with his desire to get to the bottom of the story, and I thought this might be the beginning of him finding the strength to really face her. I told him I thought that was an excellent idea and that I would pass it on to Arbuckle, and let him know when we could set up the session. We rang off.
I went back to my dinner preparations and realized I didn’t quite know what to do with a lamb chop. I called Harvie the chef to get his advice.
“No rehearsal tonight?”
“It’s Monday.”
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“Dark.”
“That’s right.”
“So a lamb chop, eh? Aren’t you lucky. They don’t need much cooking. You could wrap it up with a lot of garlic and pop it in the oven. Have it with a green salad and mushrooms.”
“What are you eating?”
“Leftovers. Why don’t you bring your lamb chop over here and have me do a demonstration for you?”
“But aren’t you—”
“What?”
“I don’t know…sick of me?”
“Oh boy, have you got the wrong end of the stick, Roz. There’s nothing I’d rather do. Besides, you have to catch me up on what happened with Daniel, right?”
“Right. See you in a minute.” I hung up. Harvie had once again succeeded in making me feel pretty good about myself. I was enjoying his company so much. But now that we were actually working together, I wanted to be careful about getting too close personally. Even though my work with him was likely temporary, I’d always been stringent about drawing the line between work and play. Or maybe I was using that as an excuse not to get intimately involved. I had no idea what I’d actually do if Harvie came on strong. His shyness kind of suited me, and I loved feeling such a warm regard for him.
I looked at the cat. “You can’t come with me but it’s your lucky night—I’ll open a can of your favourite.” She went and stood by her dish. She always had her priorities straight.
“Wine?” Harvie asked as I plunked the wrapped lamb chop on his counter.
“Not yet. I’ve already had a beer today. With Eloise. I bumped into her on the street and we had a drink. She had some very intriguing information about Peter’s intervention in a couple of those international water deals that Spiegle was involved with. Apparently, Peter had succeeded in getting an injunction to stop the bottled water company from proceeding.”
“Really. That’s exactly the kind of information we need.”
“I know, it was perfect timing to run into her. She’s thrilled about you having this new job, by the way.”
“She’s a smart cookie, that one.”
“She must be—she’s the one who gave me your number in the first place.”