by Susan Calder
“I try to curb my instinct to baby her,” Paula told Leah after her mother left. “I try with you, too. I’m not critical of your business idea. I think it’s great you’ve got that ambition. It’s just this claimant I talked to this morning told me about her father who gambled on businesses and caused their family a lot of hardship when she was growing up.”
“I know it’s not your thing, Mom, but lots of people make a go of small businesses. Gran’s brother. Your boss, Nils.”
“Nils started out with a partner who balanced him in weaknesses and strengths.”
“I suggested to Jarrett that we go into the bar business together.”
Paula jerked back. “What did he say?”
“Jarrett opposes the capitalist structure. He wants to stay pure and immerse himself in research and people’s minds.”
Paula stifled a smile. Had Leah spoken sarcastically? Impossible. Leah had always accepted Jarrett’s pretentiousness as a sign of his superior being.
The server arrived with Leah’s cheesecake. “Tea for three coming next.”
“What’s keeping Gran?” Paula asked. “You work on your cake while I go look, at the risk of her biting off my head.”
She found her mother by the bar, talking with a young man and woman wearing matching brown cowboy hats.
“They’re from Montreal, too,” her mother said. “I heard them speaking French and have been telling them to rent a car to see the Rockies and the Badlands.”
“Despite appearances, we aren’t only about the Stampede,” Paula told them.
A whoop went up at the bar, followed by laughter. Paula guided her mother to the washroom at the rear and texted Leah so she wouldn’t wonder if they both were lost.
Loving the sunshine, Leah texted back. Hate my job inside. A bar owner would put in longer hours indoors than her staff, if Nils was any example.
Paula and her mother returned to the patio. A young man occupied Paula’s chair. He leaned into Leah, the two seemingly engrossed in conversation. Was he a server? Someone Leah knew through work? He had dark, curly hair and wore a blue western shirt. Leah said something to him. The man got up.
“Paula Savard?” He extended his hand. “Brendan Becker.” He shook her hand firmly.
“You’re an hour early.”
“I didn’t know how long the pancake breakfast would take, so I said two o’clock, to be on the safe side.” Brendan’s gaze strayed to Paula’s mother. “You must be Leah’s grandmother.”
“Do you and Leah know each other?” Paula asked.
Brendan stood about six feet tall, much taller than Johnny. Brendan’s eyes were brown and his nose hooked, not turned up like his half siblings’. “A server brought me to your table. You and I forgot to work out a system for recognizing each other.”
Paula had intended, after her mother and Leah left, to tell the bartender she was waiting for a man in his late twenties named Brendan. “How did the server know me?”
“The policeman who talked to me last night described you.”
Was that Mike or one of his colleagues? Most of the homicide team knew her, at least on sight, from her work with them on the previous suspicious death cases.
“The server still hasn’t brought our tea,” Leah said. “I’ll find out what’s happened to it.” She pointed across the table at the fourth chair. “Brendan can talk with you and Gran.”
“Let me check it out,” Brendan said. “I’m friends with the management. I just came out to let you know I was here and don’t want to disrupt your family lunch. I’ll wait inside until you’re finished.”
“What a polite young man,” Paula’s mother said as the three of them sat down.
“What did you and Brendan talk about?” Paula asked Leah.
“Mainly he asked about my work. I told him Bandanas sucked and I was looking for a new job. Brendan said he’d sniff around. He’s pretty well connected.”
“According to my reports he’s only been in Calgary for a couple of weeks.”
“He lived here his whole life until lately and did his undergraduate here. He knows people from school who’ve done well.”
The server arrived with a tray of teacups and pots. He apologized for making them wait. “These are on the house.”
Paula’s mother brightened. She loved a bargain. “How fine of Brendan to arrange that.”
“We don’t know that he did,” Paula said, but he probably had.
They discussed the plan for Paula’s mother to spend tonight with Paula’s younger daughter, Erin. Leah would drive her grandmother to her sister’s house and return there with Jarrett tomorrow for brunch.
“It’s great that you both can spend all that time with Gran,” Paula said.
“And give you the night alone with Sam,” Leah teased.
Paula glanced at her mother, who didn’t appear to have caught Leah’s innuendo. Hearing loss had its upside. When they finished their tea, Paula hugged them both goodbye. Leah said she’d let Brendan know that Paula was available. Paula seized the break to stand and stretch. A group at the next table burst into a chorus of ‘Home on the Range.’ Their off-tune notes whined to a close as Brendan entered the patio, a glass of beer in his hand. He claimed the chair with its back to the sun. Paula was glad he didn’t put on sunglasses so she’d be able to read his eyes.
The server approached. “What can I bring you, bro?”
Brendan held up his almost drained glass and asked for another of his ‘usual.’ Paula ordered a draft of Grasshopper ale.
“How was the breakfast?” the server asked Brendan.
“Nonstop flippin’,” Brendan said. “You wouldn’t know Calgary was in a slump.”
“Not from our fuckin’ bar business either.” The server glanced at Paula. “Pardon my French.”
She refrained from telling him her father had been French-Canadian. “You’ve become a regular at this bar rather quickly,” she told Brendan.
“The owner’s a buddy from high school,” Brendan said. “We joke that this is my office.”
“What work do you do?”
“I’m still feeling the city out.”
She got out her tablet. The patio was too noisy for phone recording. “Did you finish your business degree at Queen’s this spring?”
“Master of entrepreneurship and innovation,” he said. “I dabbled with a business, and then had this thought: why not start in Calgary when it’s bottomed out, rise with the city to its next boom? I won’t have to worry about rent since I’ve got a place to live. So I bought an old van, rigged up a platform for an air mattress, stowed the basics under the platform and headed west from Ontario. Have you ever done the trans-Canada drive?”
“Not since I was younger than you are.”
“It gave me a feel for the size of the country. After seven days on the road—I stopped to visit a friend from Queen’s—I arrive at my apartment. It was late enough to be getting dark.”
“What date was that?” Paula raised her hand to type.
Brendan started. “I forgot this wasn’t friendly conversation. I mean, the cops interviewed me last night.”
“That’s routine when anyone dies in unusual circumstances.”
The server brought their beers. “We’ve got an awesome band in tonight,” he told Brendan. “Are you sticking around?”
“Sure thing.”
Paula wondered what the detectives had asked Brendan, whom she judged more physically attractive than his half siblings. Around fifteen years younger than they were, he lacked Johnny’s beadiness and Cynthia’s perpetual frown lines.
“After two years away did you have a key to your apartment?” Paula asked.
“Surprisingly, I kept it and even knew where to find it among my Ontario stuff. So in the near darkness I put the key in the lock. I swear to you—this isn’t exaggerating—I could barely open the door for all the stuff inside, never mind make it to my bedroom, where I discovered my bed sagging from the junk piled on top. I was too tired
to drag it off, and where would I put it all anyway?” He caught Paula’s glance. “You’ve seen the place?”
“Not your apartment, but I can imagine.”
“I’m not saying it was completely clear when I left. Dad and I were easy on Uncle Caspar and let him dump things in closets and corners and under our beds. After Dad died, Caspar filled up Dad’s bedroom, and somehow the junk expanded into other spaces. But during my two years away it got out of control. And the stench. I think a rat family moved in and expired.”
“They claim there are no rats in Alberta.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard about the rat patrols at the borders. Maybe it was a squirrel. Whatever. I was too exhausted from the drive to deal with it and spent the night in my van in the driveway.”
“Did you see Johnny or Florence?”
“The lights in their apartment weren’t on. They didn’t answer my knocks.”
“What date was that?”
His face tensed, either in reflection or his recalling again she was investigating a suspicious death. “Thursday, a week before the fire, whatever that was.”
Paula made a note of the date. “You didn’t see Johnny or Florence that whole week before the fire?”
“I only stayed in the apartment, that is, the driveway, one night.”
“Did you talk to your uncle?”
“The next morning, Friday, I went down to his place and said I’d been counting on living here. He suggested I move in with him while we got my apartment cleaned up. I mean, where would I sleep in his place, and it smelled as bad as mine did, in its way. Uncle Caspar offered to help me clean up after his breakfast. In my apartment I started by trying to follow the smell to its source, which made me gag. So I hauled out old junk, like obsolete ski boots and skis. My uncle caught me on my way down the stairs. ‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH THOSE?’ he yelled.”
Paula smiled at Brendan’s booming imitation. The group at the next table looked over.
“I explained I was turfing them out,” Brendan continued. “Uncle Caspar said he planned to sell them, which was nuts. Finally, I said ‘Okay, you pick out what can go. I kept pointing at things, saying, ‘This is rotted or that is useless.’ He’d run his hands over it and say, ‘Not this.’ I got fed up and sick from the smell. I grabbed a stack of musty books that looked chewed by rats and bolted out the door, with my uncle tearing after me shouting, ‘THOSE ARE FIRST EDITIONS.’ I shouted back ‘Okay, pick something else.’ And on and on and on and on it went until I gave up and yelled, ‘Keep all this shit.’ I got into my van and drove off.”
Brendan paused for a drink, having described what was, clearly, the argument the neighbour had witnessed between Caspar and an upstairs resident. Although hadn’t the neighbour placed the argument only a few days before the fire, not a week?
“That was the last time I talked with Uncle Caspar.” Brendan’s expression turned wistful. “I feel bad about that, but I’d come all the way to Calgary and hit this stumbling-block right off the bat. Now I had to find somewhere to live.”
“What is your address?”
“From Caspar’s I found myself driving to Cynthia’s. Other than Johnny, who wasn’t home, she’s my only relative in Calgary.”
“You didn’t have a key to Johnny’s apartment?”
“Why would I?”
“What about to your uncle’s?
“If I had one, it’s buried among his junk at my place.”
“Did your uncle keep a key in his garage or mailbox or under a rock in case he locked himself out?”
“How would that have helped me?”
“I’ve been wondering how separately you all lived. There’s an interior staircase connecting the three apartments. Did you keep your inside doors locked?”
Brendan ran a finger around the rim of his glass. “Generally not, being family. The understanding was that you knocked and didn’t barge in, to respect people’s privacy. Mostly it worked.” His finger paused. “Is this relevant to the insurance claim?”
“Indirectly. What happened when you got to Cynthia’s?”
“Have you been to her place?”
“This morning.”
“Then you’ll know what a madhouse it is,” he said. “Cynthia’s always in a frenzy, nagging her kids and driving them to lessons and complaining about how busy she is. She told me I could stay with her, but said in a way that implied I’d be another burden. It would have driven me nuts anyway. I drove to a friend’s and spent the night in his basement. He lives in a small inner-city house with his wife and a new baby, who cried the whole time. I split.”
He guzzled his beer, perhaps thirsty from all his talking. Was he lonely, despite his acquaintanceships with servers and other connections, and jumping at the chance to pour out his experiences to a willing ear? She asked where he went after the friend’s house.
“Nowhere and everywhere.” He raised his hand to draw the server’s attention. “Do you want another one?”
Her draft was half finished. “I’m good.”
The server took Brendan’s order for a third ‘usual.’
“Where did you wind up living?” she asked.
“In my van.”
She looked up from her typing.
“I got used to it on the trans-Canada, and it’s more comfortable and cheaper than my other options these days. I park it on different streets every night, all over the city, so the cops and people don’t get suspicious. They can’t see into the back through the tinted windows and will figure it’s someone visiting a neighbour for Stampede.”
“Why didn’t you park it in your driveway?”
“I joined a health club for a place to shower and wash and dress and shave in the mornings. The club works for exercise, too, and networking. I’m not a deadbeat. I’m seriously looking for work.”
“In what field?”
“One that grabs me. I haven’t found it yet.” Brendan thanked the server for his beer. He smiled at Paula ruefully. “I once said I’d be a millionaire by the time I was thirty. That’s not going to happen. I’ll be thirty next year and not even close.”
His uncle’s death had brought him much closer to his goal. “Your father was an entrepreneur,” she noted.
“And look where he landed. Broke, at the end.”
Brendan’s account of life in his van had taken their talk conveniently away from the scene of the fire. She repeated the question he had evaded. “Why didn’t you park your van overnight in your own driveway?”
“The place frustrates me too much, and I like the excuse to check out the lay of the city.”
Brendan stared at her directly. His fishy answer was consistent with his dream to take Calgary by entrepreneurial storm.
“Your daughter Leah,” he said. “She was telling me about her idea for a wine and tapas bar.”
Their conversation had got as far as that? Even Paula hadn’t heard about the wine and tapas part. Brendan was a suspect. She didn’t want him pursuing the topic of Leah.
“Has Leah done research into similar bars in Calgary?” he asked.
Paula leaned away from him. “About the property insurance, I’ll arrange an appraisal—”
“After that, she’d have to consider location.” Brendan glanced around the patio that was still packed mid-afternoon. “There’s a hot bar scene here on 17th, but she might go for a downtown venue to target office workers.”
“Cynthia wants to be present for the appraisal. Shall I contact you as well when it’s scheduled?”
“Yes. Yes.” Brendan wrapped his hands around his beer glass. “We don’t want Cynthia taking charge of this. Trust me. The claim will be a mess and never get settled. How soon do you think the appraisal will be done?”
He was into insurance mode, away from Leah’s business plan. Paula wanted to keep him there. Brendan seemed an affable and open young man. Too affable and open? He was linked to a suspicious death in which he had a significant financial interest. He’d offered to help Leah find a job thr
ough his extensive Calgary connections. How connected could he be when he’d been out of the Calgary loop for two years and so isolated that he had to live in a van? Trust me. Paula didn’t trust Brendan Becker one bit. No way did she want him close to her daughter.
Chapter Seven
Garner Weir’s wife answered the door of their bungalow, a few streets north of the Becker house. Short and round like Garner, she told Paula her husband was in his garage workshop and must have lost track of the time.
“He does that when he’s engrossed in a project.” She laughed and offered to get him.
“Don’t bother,” Paula said. “I noticed a path by your house to the lane.”
On the way Paula thought of her father’s workshop garage, his refuge from her mother’s domestic order. Tools and blocks of wood were strewn all over; sawdust and cigarette smoke permeated the air. If he hadn’t had a heart attack, he’d have died of lung cancer. Twelve years dead, and there were still moments when she wanted to tell him about a funny event or ask his advice. He took life as it happened, easily, with humour. For sure, he’d tell her to relax about Leah and Brendan. Her mother would reinforce her worries. Good reason to not bring them up.
Paula stopped at Garner’s garage, its double doors open. A pickup truck and Nissan Pathfinder were parked in front. Inside, Garner sat on a stool, wearing a face shield and coveralls. Sparks leaped from his welding machine. He looked up from fixing the tricycle wheel spoke and turned off the torch.
“Oh, right, the insurance adjuster.” He took off his glove to shake her hand. “Sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.”
“Paula Savard. Don’t let me interrupt—”
“I’ll finish this later.”
Garner set the torch on a workbench, removed his face shield and adjusted his glasses. Sweat matted the eyebrows on his rosy face. The rear of the garage was piled with furniture and small appliances. To the sides were bicycles, tennis rackets, toys, barbecues. A Caspar Becker décor on a considerably smaller level.
“Are these your garage sale pickings?” Paula asked.
Garner nodded at the pink tricycle he’d been working on. “This is for my granddaughter. A few mended spokes and ribbons, and it will be good as new.” He beamed at some fraying cane chairs on a dolly. “They’re this morning’s finds. All they need is recaning to go with the table I fixed up for my daughter last year. The wood’s a near perfect match.” He steered by a set of golf clubs. “These I don’t repair, but they were priced too low to resist. I’ll resell them at my fall garage sale with whatever else is left in here.”