by Cathy Ace
“You have to admit, Ellen,” Raj said in a more sympathetic tone than Serendipity’s, “Annette weren’t her usual self those last few weeks. She seemed very short-tempered with everyone, and she kept wandering off, missing meetings at the local vintners’ association, and, like Serendipity said, she pulled out of several events. People were depending on her. She were a big draw at tastings. I know for a fact that I didn’t value my wins as much because she wasn’t in the competitions. I mean, it’s grand to come first, of course, but not when you only win because you’re main competitor in’t there.”
“Raj is right. Poor Annette was acting irrationally in those last, tragic days. I tried to help her, but she wouldn’t talk to me. She wouldn’t connect. I failed her.”
The voice came from behind me. I jumped. Preacher-like intonation, Canadian accent, scent of lemon and sandalwood. I turned, and found myself eye to eye with the short, almost emaciated man wearing a Nehru jacket that Sammy Soul had referred to as “Grant.” From Ellen’s notes I knew him to be Grant Jackson, owner of the downtown Kelowna Faceting for Life store and restaurant, a devotee of the Sedona-originated dogma, and a man who, according to Ellen, was too pious for his own good.
His wire-rimmed spectacles, soul patch (oh dear!), shaved head, and burgundy, high-collared brocade jacket all told me he was keen to portray an image of spiritual studiousness. I wondered what the man himself was like.
“Oh, shut up, Grant,” retorted Ellen angrily. “You hardly knew Annette. She avoided you like the plague. All that Faceting stuff you’re always pushing, she couldn’t stand it, and neither can I.” Ellen was clearly determined that everyone should hear her, and she wasn’t pulling any punches. I was beginning to wonder just how much she’d had to drink. I also noticed that Bud was suddenly more alert, ready to employ his professional tension-defusing techniques at a moment’s notice.
Grant Jackson looked shocked. To be more accurate, he adopted the appearance of shock, because that’s how I read him. His expression was anything but natural.
“Hey, Ellen, let’s not talk shop, eh?” chuckled Bud, aiming to lighten the mood.
Grant chimed in with, “Come now, Ellen. You’re blocking me. Connect. Facet and Face It.” Catchy mantra.
“Now might not be the time, Grant.” Another voice entered the fray from behind me. Calming tones, patchouli oil.
“It’s always the time, Lizzie,” Grant replied firmly, “it’s always the place. Faceting is Life. Life is Faceting. It can help us when we’re up, or when we’re down. We should all seek to connect every day. Facet and Face It.”
As Bud and I managed a quick eye-roll in each other’s direction, he gave me a quick wink, which assured me he was on top of the whole situation. I mentally referenced Ellen’s notes: Lizzie Jackson, Grant’s second wife, five years his senior; a transplant from Phoenix, less pious than her husband, but a Faceting person too. She’s a hypnotherapist, waves crystals about the place when she says she’s “healing” people, and looks like she’s wearing clothes she’s patched for years. They met at some sort of Faceting camp about five years ago, in Sedona.
I looked at the woman Ellen had described. Taller, and with a good deal more meat on her bones than her husband to say she wasn’t wearing the best put-together outfit I’d ever seen, it was true (lots of royal blue crushed velvet, with a yellow scarf, and several crystal necklaces), but Ellen’s get-up wasn’t much to write home about either. Lizzie Jackson’s long white hair was trying to break free from some type of bun arrangement at the back of her head, and she stared at us all through heavily horn-rimmed, totally round spectacles that gave her the air of a constantly surprised owl. Very theatrical.
“Grant, Ellen’s clearly not well. I can sense it. Her chi is not flowing properly. Let her alone. Here, Ellen, take this, it’ll help you communicate more effectively.” She pushed a small, turquoise stone into Ellen’s hand.
“Oh, she’s communicating just fine,” slurred Suzie Soul as she tottered towards our growing group. “She let her sister fight all her battles for her when she was alive, and now she’s got her own cop to back her up, right Ellen?” All of Suzie’s earlier coquettishness had dissolved, and we were in the presence of a cat with her claws out. Partially for Bud, it seemed. “You’re a lush, Ellen Newman. Put your glass down and go home to your sorry, pathetic little life. And take your damned cop with you.” Suzie Soul ranted on.
Bud had stepped forward, ready to keep the peace and to stop the situation from getting more than testy when Raj Pinder surprisingly took matters into his own hands.
“I think we should all calm down,” he suggested firmly. “There’s nowt here to be getting hot under the collar about. Come on.” He was almost pleading. “We’re here to start a weekend of celebrating all that’s good about the area: its food, its wine—and its people. We’re all old friends here. If we can’t get along, who can?”
“And what would you know about us all being old friends, Raj?” spat Suzie. “Didn’t wanna be no friend of mine when you had the chance, didya!”
I sensed a slippery slope, with Suzie half way down. Bud looked alarmed, but clearly decided to give ground to the woman’s husband.
“Suzie, Babe, you gotta let it go.” Sammy Soul had followed his unsteady wife across the room.
It seemed as though everyone was drifting toward our immediate circle—which was handy for me, because it meant I could see them much better. Quite often, a hostile environment is a wonderful way to see people at their most honest. I was quite enjoying it all. From an academic point of view, of course.
“Let it go?” Suzie squawked toward her husband.
“Yes, Babe. Let it go. He didn’t wanna be your lover, and that’s that. I don’t get it, but that’s that.” He’d reached his wife’s side and put his arm around her shoulders.
Bud watched them intently. Could he sense a nasty domestic incident in the making? If so, he was ready.
The folks who’d started to move toward our group did so with more purpose: clearly it was where the action was. And what action. It was pretty obvious that Sammy’s comments had surprised and shocked everyone as much as Ellen’s had. I suspected that anyone with two brain cells had pegged Suzie as a man-eater, but it didn’t look as though they’d considered that Sammy knew as much as he did about her habits.
“Yeah . . . well . . .” Suzie’s anger seemed to be subsiding as Sammy rubbed her back, then, rallying, she shot back at Raj, “just as well your replacement’s up to the job, right, Vince?”
All eyes turned toward the man I quickly identified as Vince Chen, the new vintner at SoulVine Wines and, apparently, its owner’s lover. He looked horrified, as did most of the other people in the room. Except Sammy Soul.
“Come on now, Babe, don’t embarrass the poor guy. Let him be.”
I was beginning to get a clearer understanding of what Sammy had meant earlier on when he’d said he would forgive Suzie anything. It looked like he did mean literally anything.
The atmosphere was electric. In Raj Pinder’s home county, Yorkshire, they have a saying I like, and often quote: “There’s nowt so queer as folk.” It’s true. Nothing, absolutely nothing, is as strange or unpredictable as human behavior. As a psychologist, I’ve studied human beings for years, trying to understand why they do what they do. I’ve narrowed that field by focusing on why criminals do what they do. If I’ve learned one thing in all that time, it’s that we don’t really know why some people do some of the things that they do. I wondered what would happen next.
“Desserts and eau-de-vie!” The dramatic cry came from the far side of the room. Everyone turned. Two of the servers had pulled back velvet curtains which had been hiding a table laden with platters of sweet morsels. A barman was showily pouring clear liquid from a frosted bottle into the top of a long chute made of ice that was bedecked with glimmering lights. It was quite the moment, and it produced a gasp, which the barman assumed was for him. He beamed.
“Come on, Babe,
you’ve had enough, we’re going home,” muttered Sammy Soul as he directed Suzie toward the exit. She was playing with her hair and giggling as they left. Any tension between them had dissipated.
“Oh doesn’t it look wonderful!” exclaimed Ellen, surprising me with her reaction, and she dragged Raj Pinder toward the display.
It seemed that the evening’s dramas had passed. As everyone else headed to the table, I grabbed Bud’s sleeve. We hung back.
“It’s turning out to be quite an evening,” whispered Bud.
“You’re not kidding,” I replied quietly. “I could see you were on full alert.”
Bud smiled. “Yes, too many years of trying to de-escalate arguments before they turn into fights, I guess. Not that that’s a bad thing. But all my training wasn’t really needed tonight. I wasn’t the only sensible one in the place.”
I nodded, though I could spot a few folk I wouldn’t have labeled as “sensible” myself. “Lots of motives flying about,” I added.
“Okay, I’ll give you that,” smiled Bud. “We’ve also discovered that Annette was acting oddly for weeks before she died, which you might expect if she were to go on to kill herself. I’m not hearing anything that makes me more likely to think she was murdered, and I haven’t met anyone I can figure as a killer. However odd they might be.”
“Odd, yes, but acting within the normal parameters of their personalities, I’d say. No one seems to be under any particular strain.”
“What about Vince Chen? I’d say he’s pretty stressed,” Bud nodded and rolled his eyes in the direction of the subject of Suzie’s affections, who was hovering between the door and the dessert table looking more than a little awkward. “And what about those two?” He nodded in the direction of a couple to whom we hadn’t yet been introduced. “They both look pretty nervous. Angry, even. What’s up with them?”
“Let’s find out,” I said. I left Bud’s side and casually moved myself to within earshot of the couple who were quite literally hissing at each other. Words were pouring out of them angrily and rapidly.
“You said we were okay to stay until ten,” stage-whispered the man, clenching his martini glass a little too tightly.
“If you’d listened, you’d have known that I said I wanted to be home by nine,” the woman replied angrily, pushing a silk wrap roughly off her shoulder. “I don’t like him being in the house on his own at night.”
“For God’s sake, Sheri, he’s seventeen. He’s going to be leaving home to go to university next year. He’s just fine in the house on his own. I mean, it’s not like he’s going to throw a wild party or anything. He doesn’t even have any friends.”
“Don’t worry about that! It’s him not having a father that you should worry about! You need to visit more often, Rob. A boy needs his father. He never sees you. You haven’t been here since February, and even then you only managed a couple of days’ skiing with him.”
“Skiing? Skiing?” The man sounded incensed. “He didn’t ski, Sheri. He just sulked about the chalet playing those damned video games of his. The only skiing he does is on a flat-screen TV. He wouldn’t know a free-ride board from a free-style one if they were in front of him, and that’s not normal for a teenager in these parts, right on the doorstep of Big White. I blame you. Like tonight. You’re not letting him grow up, Sheri. You treat him as though he’s a child.”
“He is a child, Rob. My child. Ours. If you were here more often you’d know how vulnerable he is . . .” The woman stopped as she realized we were drawing close. She smiled, too brightly.
“Oh hello,” she beamed, and, with the confidence of an experienced mixer, she held out a small, perfectly manicured hand, damp with sweat. She was red in the face, and perspiration gleamed on her forehead. I suspected she was having “a moment or two of her own personal summer,” as my Mum used to say whenever she suffered a hot flash. “I’m Sheri, Sheri MacMillan, and this is Rob, my husband. Pleased to meet you. Lovely evening, eh?”
We all smiled and hands were shaken.
“Hi! I’m Bud and this is Cait. We’re Ellen’s weekend guests, from the Lower Mainland,” replied Bud with almost alarming good cheer. “It’s turned out to be quite the party,” he added, combining understatement and keen observation in one phrase.
“Um, yes, I suppose it has,” she replied hesitantly, nervously smoothing her too-tight cardinal red gown.
“Ha! Sure has,” was her husband’s blustering reaction. His expensive suit didn’t quite cover his spreading midriff. “For a small place, it’s all really going on here: murder, intrigue, illicit affairs, open marriages. We think we’ve got it made in a sprawling city like Calgary, but you’ve got to come to a place like this to realize it’s all happening right under your nose.”
“Oh Rob,” Sheri cooed, clearly using a tone reserved for company, “don’t say it like that, dear. I’m sure if you only got to know everyone, you’d see that it’s really a lovely place.” As an aside to Bud and myself, she added, “Rob has such a lot of responsibilities at his office in Calgary, he can’t be here as much as he’d like. Isn’t that right, Rob?”
“Sure,” replied her husband, taking a large swig from the glass he was clenching. It was quite clear to me, from his tone and body language, that not only did he not see himself spending more time in Kelowna, he wasn’t even too keen on being in the company of his wife at that very moment.
“It’s all about the life-work balance,” said Bud, which was about as un-Bud-like a sentiment as I’d ever heard him express. Bud was always your classic workaholic. I tried to keep my face rigid to hide my shock. My top lip stuck to my teeth, so I took a sip from my almost empty glass.
“Hey, can I get you another? I’m getting one for myself,” offered Rob, clearly pleased to have found an easy route.
His wife looked livid as she said, “I thought we were going to hit the road, Rob,” in fake-calm tones.
It was too late. Rob was merrily heading for the bar, and she was obviously going to have to wait.
Ever the master of managing the awkward moment, I asked, “Have you lived here long?”
It seemed an innocuous question, the sort that a visitor would ask of a resident, even though I happened to know the answer. Unfortunately, it had an effect on Sheri I hadn’t seen coming—she burst into tears and started scrabbling around in her purse, sobbing. In fact, it looked as though she were actually talking to her purse, not me, which might explain why she said what she did. “Oh please don’t. Don’t ask how long I’ve been here. I’ve been here too long, that’s how long. I want to leave, I want to move to Calgary with him. But I can’t because of Colin. He’s doing so well at school now, I don’t want to move him. It hasn’t been easy for him, you know, because he never seems to fit in with people very well. But now—oh, he’s finally getting good grades. I can’t do that to him, can I? It’s not fair. We’ve moved so many times before with Rob’s work. I can’t move him again. But, if I stay here, I’m going to lose Rob. And I do love him, you know . . .”
What an extraordinary evening, and what a weird bunch of people, I thought. Judging by Bud’s expression, he was thinking much the same sort of thing. What on earth had led this woman to speak to someone she’d met moments earlier in such an open and intimate manner? It was very odd. And trust me, being a criminal psychologist, I know odd when I see it.
Finally, she found the paper tissue she’d been hunting for and wiped her eyes and nose—just in time for her husband’s arrival with a much-needed fresh glass of wine for me, which I took and half dispatched with one gulp.
“There,” Sheri said, as she tucked the tissue back into her purse and looked around, seemingly refreshed, “Facet and Face It. Thank you for allowing me to connect with you as I polish my love for another—my son, for whom no sacrifice is too great.”
“Oh Jeez, not more of that gush!” Rob glared at his wife. “These poor folks have only been in town two minutes, and already you’re trying to shove that rubbish down their throats.
You’re weird. As is that idiot Jackson. And his ridiculous wife. Mind you, maybe they’re not as stupid as all that—at least they’re building a business on the back of it all. You’re just spending my money on it. Packets of tea, special water, goddam stupid crystals everywhere . . .” It sounded as though he could have gone on for some time about the ways in which Sheri was spending his money on her discipleship of Faceting.
It seemed equally clear that Sheri’s moment of connecting with Bud and me had passed, and that she and her husband were about to launch into another round of backbiting. The fight or flight instinct is well named: as the adrenalin increases with stress and pumps through our veins, we humans revert to base-animal status and apply all our decision-making abilities to making the best possible choice for survival—do I stay and fight it out, or do I run away and live to fight another day? It seemed that both Rob and Sheri were going to stay and fight—a decision I suspected they’d both made many, many times before, but one which Rob generally avoided having to make by not visiting Kelowna very often. In him the flight instinct was stronger, in her it was fight . . . largely, as she’d revealed, because she was fighting for both herself and her son.
I could sense that Bud’s instinct was to leave them to it. I was leaning in that direction myself, but I was wondering how we could make our escape politely, since it was difficult to get a word in edgeways.
“Come and try this plum eau-de-vie—it’s exceptionally good,” were the words that saved us. Ellen Newman had returned to rescue us, and not a moment too soon. “Hey, you two lovebirds, I’m taking my guests away.” I was glad to have an excuse to run. Rob and Sheri MacMillan had been stopped in their tracks by Ellen’s innocent, if inappropriate, comment which allowed us the chance to escape.
Completely oblivious to how far off the mark she’d been with her interpretation of why the husband and wife were just inches apart, Ellen steered Bud toward the ice sculpture that was the current center of attention. It was an impressive structure: a swooping funnel made of ice delivered the liquid, poured into its top by the flamboyant barman, to a large bowl at its base, where a female server was scooping the now chilled fluid into small glasses with a long-handled, silver ladle.