by Gerald Lynch
While the technicians were retrieving another batch of equipment, she tried him again: “Detective Beldon, you really should test your cot, so we can exchange it now if need be.”
He spoke to the window: “For the last time, if you don’t call me Kevin, I’m going to call you Sergeant Brigid Ertelle. Why two cots?”
“Would it be okay if I bounced on it for you, uh, Kevin?”
Now he turned with a bad smile. “That could be a joke set-up, Brigid.” And thought: Big mistake, she isn’t Frank, you idiot!
She didn’t like that leer, his flushed face, or his hurried turning away again. He can’t be such an ass. Otto Parizeau cannot be right about her…yes, her hero. Try again, and again and again if you have to. Try for the kind of banter he has with Chief Thu.
“Do two cots create sexual tension between us, Kevin? Because if they do, I want into a better vid.” Big mistake!
For a long moment he was confused. Then he twigged. “Brigid, for me these days sexual tension is deciding whether to stand or sit on my third nightly trip to the toilet.”
She laughed lightly. “Otto Parizeau said you could never work wid da chick dick.”
He turned to face her. “If you were a person of colour or a Jew, by now Big Ot would have discharged his service revolver into you by accident.”
She smiled.
“You have an absolutely lovely smile, Brigid. Or is that too sexually tense for you?”
She beamed it down. “Mike, my husband, has been lying to me the same way for years.”
“I know you’re married, Brigid. He’s a lucky man. If we ever meet, I’ll do the alpha-male thing and head-butt him with intent.”
“I’m some prize!” She laughed into the back of her hand in that hiccupping way she absolutely loathed.
“What a laugh, thank you,” he said, laughing himself as he said it. And Kevin suspected he could fall in love, if in a non-sexually-tense way.
She smirked. “Parizeau hates your guts.”
“My guts are hateful to me too, Brigid.” He smiled self-pityingly and turned back to the window. Old fool.
Then she couldn’t move about even awkwardly. To free herself she needed to say what had been shaping in her thoughts since Chief Thu first broached the idea of her assisting. But it sounded all wrong now as she spoke:
“I cannot express how sorry I was to hear of your wife’s death, Kevin.” Wife, at least she’d got that right.
He didn’t turn, but put his left forefinger to his lips as if cautioning silence to the world and restraint to his ghostly self.
“My condolences. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. Wittgenstein.” What. A. Silly twit.
“Thank you, Brigid. That translation must have come from MYCROFT. Surely there’s a better way to say it.”
Her head was shaking like tremens. “Excuse me? What? Say what?”
“That Wittgenstein cliché. He was hot stuff for a while even in criminology. But it still makes no sense to me, talking about keeping silent. It’s like the Macro criticizing the media’s attention to violent crime as an incentive to future serialists.”
She snickered in the way that made her hate herself. “You don’t talk much yourself.”
Finally he turned again. “You’ll come to know me different, partner, I hope. How about: If you can’t talk decently, eejit, shut your ould clab? My old Irish Mammy-stein.”
“If I followed that rule, I’d be taking a vow of silence, which doesn’t suit me either, I hope you’ll discover. Is clab mouth, uh, partner?” She smiled again, her very best: partner.
“It is.”
She continued, “Are we going to solve this murder, Kevin?”
He went to the big cot, sat, bounced slightly, looked up at her. “Or die trying. That, I can promise you, Brigid.”
He swung his legs up and, knitting his hands behind his head, stretched out so that his feet reached past the end.
“Wake me when the techies are gone. And in case you’re wondering, I’d ask Chief Thu to do the same. Frank tried to feng shui my bare apartment once, believe it or not. A month’s pile of underwear defeated him. Uh-oh, sexual tension again.”
She laughed naturally, went and stood at the window where he’d stood. It was evening already. Thank God he’d said no more that needed answering. Because it was as if she’d been surprised by the gift she’d thought she’d never get. Mike telling her he loved her for the first time. The news of her pregnancy. And when she miscarried, Mike telling her he loved her more than ever for what she’d gone through for them, and for insisting through mutual tears and snot that they continue trying. This felt that important, because in her mind and soul she hated crime and criminals. Because she was ambitious to make detective inspector, yes. But now, how would she ever keep faith with Chief Thu?… For Kevin Beldon’s own sake, that’s how. That was her story and she must stick to it.
Kevin closed his eyes, didn’t plan to sleep. But the quiet clatter of the considerate techies was lulling. Brigid reminded him of Kelly. She was not nearly as pretty as Kelly. But her build, and her cool, already with the partner-parrying. If Kelly could smile like…Brigid she’d be…queen…of the…world…
She said to her pale reflection in the window, “Kevin, ever notice that no cop ever says partner for husband or wife?… Kevin?”
For answer a good snore.
Chapter 8
No one was present when he woke from what he’d thought was a pretend nap for thinking’s sake. Well rested for the first time in a long time. The evening light was still about the same, if somehow…brighter? He checked his watch — Monday morning!
He swung up and sat on the edge of the cot. Smiling at his scythe of a big-toe nail sticking through a sock hole, he puzzled: had he kicked off his shoes…and set them tidily beside the bed? Then he remembered: in the night he’d woken from the nightmare and gone to the bathroom…in his stocking feet. Yes, and he’d done that thing on the computer with only a few pixels of Bill, played their old vid game, Something from Nothing, the one he’d made up for the kids way back when. It was only afterwards that he’d enjoyed the rare sound sleep.
His first call on the operations room communicator was to Psychiatric Wellness sixteen floors below. Dr. Ewan Randome’s receptionist was firm: Detective Beldon can not re-book his appointment, especially at this time, doctor’s orders. “Yes, Detective Beldon, those were Dr. Randome’s very first words when he called this morning after hearing the news — actually his reason for calling. He said he’d spoken with you briefly yesterday and feared now that you would try to cancel. He’s just returned yesterday from an exhausting week-long conference in Florida. I’m sure he’d have liked the morning off as well. In fact, he cancelled today’s other bookings. But he’s expecting you at his Sandy Hill residence.”
Kevin remained standing at MYCROFT’s console with a frowning smile on his features, tapping absently with his forefinger and giving conniptions to who knew what programs where.
The monitor flashed slowly the message: stop and think.
He made a dismissive face: the secretary had it wrong, or her days mixed up; Dr. Randome would likely have learned of DeLint’s murder about the same time as he’d heard from Frank at lunch with Kelly yesterday. The whole world had seemed to know by the time he reached Omphalos.
He showered in the luxuriant water of the mobile unit, amused that the psychiatrist knew him so well, yet irritated that he had to keep the appointment. It was bad timing that no one had known of DeLint’s murder when he and Ewan had spoken yesterday morning. Well, almost no one.
Dr. Randome’s private practice was only a couple of blocks away, but Kevin Beldon never walked anywhere. In the cooking Crown Vic, it suddenly felt strange that none of this felt strange at all. That feeling alerted him to the weird turn his life had taken. Yesterday morning he’d been arsing about hi
s echoing apartment like the old loser he’d become, bemoaning the injustice of things, obsessing over the Widower and Omphalos. And here he was — living at Omphalos and secretly back on the Widower case!… Arsing about: Mammy.
Dr. Randome’s home was a red-brick semi-detached on King Edward Street, set far back from the sidewalk where a black iron fence ran the length of eight such attached houses. The block was some two hundred years old, so maintained to Canadian Heritage specifications. Kevin was buzzed past the gate. The roof hung white gingerbreading under cream-coloured eaves, and beneath the high-gabled front a white-railed, grey wooden porch, and an old-fashioned front screen door before the steel door. Dr. Randome never locked up during office hours. Let yourself in was his risky rule.
The softly lighted front room accommodated their sessions. All comfy dark wood: the floor a wide-board renovation, the walls thickly oak-panelled, the big bay window also trimmed in oak, and the modest desk a dark mahogany (much like Kevin’s own desk back in the old study at Lundy’s Lane). It was always just a touch too cool, with an unpleasant tincture of refrigerant and mould. The room contained some greenery, rarely spotted anywhere in the city. He thought again that if he cared about such things, he’d decorate his own empty apartment like this, Frank’s retro feng shui be damned.
Water trickled somewhere (also illegally), and music was always unobtrusively playing, exclusively Beatles music so far… “Strawberry Fields,” yes, the instrumental album Randome had played for him over the communicator, jazzy, but with a steel guitar, so imaginary Lennon with a country twang. He could cry when he remembered how Mammy too had loved the “ould Beatles” (Baytels). Had he told Ewan about that?… But this was not a good start at all. He roused his resolve.
Dr. Randome was turned away from him, bowed over watering one of the many cactus plants near the front bay window. Bent like that, wearing one of the loose white caftans he favoured, he appeared something of an indeterminate presence. He straightened but still didn’t turn, stood staring out and pinging the plastic watering can with a thumbnail. The billowing caftan gave him substance, for he was small and bald as a baby, if with a narrow head.
He turned carefully. The face was thin too, the cheekbones prominent, so that his jaw tapered pointedly even from such a narrow head. But the dominant facial feature was steel-framed, mauve-tinted glasses. They were not pretension but to protect his eyes, even when inside. He wore the indulgent small smile that said he’d already heard every conceivable confession of understandable human weakness, so no call to feel anxious about yours. He removed the glasses and touched the end of one of its arms to his lips, blinked his weak eyes a few times against the dim light. It was his typical greeting, a gesture of vulnerability.
“Kevin.” His compassion was palpable. “Everybody assumes cacti need no water, but of course they do if they’re to thrive.”
That was probably some psychology parable, Kevin thought. Perhaps he, Kevin, was the cactus, and therapy sessions the water. Dr. Randome often spoke like a poem.
Kevin didn’t advance into the room. “I wouldn’t know about that, Ewan. Why did you insist I keep this appointment? You know what’s up, what it means to me. I have to get back right away.”
Dr. Randome indicated with the held glasses: “But you didn’t bring The Near Future! Tch-tch.”
“I slept at Omphalos last night.”
Randome smiled and replaced the glasses. “You did?” he said, turning away. He moved across to a boxed desertlike setup of rocks and sand and more cacti, didn’t speak again till he had his back to Kevin and was watering:
“Kevin, you’re too worked up to sit in the recliner, I understand. But you do need to talk about this. You can continue standing in the doorway, if you prefer. I do know what’s happened, of course. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you when you got the news, as I worry about what this development must have excited in your psyche. Now, again, you do need to talk, whether you want to or not. Doctor’s orders.”
“I’m fine, Doctor, haven’t felt better in a year. The DeLint case is just what I need to be doing.” He relented some: “I thought you especially would understand that, Ewan.”
“You thought I would understand that, Kevin.”
“Aren’t we past echoing, Dr. Randome?”
Dr. Randome spoke simultaneously with him on the last four words: “…past echoing, Dr. Randome?”
Kevin laughed and clapped once.
“It does my heart good to hear you laugh, Kevin. You should be billing me.”
Randome moved to his wine-coloured desk, took a plant’s leaf in his fingers, bowed to it and inhaled deeply. “A hardy bluebell from the Buren of County Clare. Your mother was Irish, wasn’t she, Kevin? You said she practised unlicensed counselling for friends. Mammy, you called her, if I remember rightly?”
“Ewan, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I really can’t be here with you right now.”
Randome turned, removed his glasses again — twice, a rarity — and looked directly at Kevin. His eyes briefly closed as the brows rode up: “What I’m trying to do, Kevin? I’m only hoping to do for you what Mammy did for her friends, and for you. Kevin, I don’t want you wading into this emotional bog without your first talking it through with me. You’re not as strong yet as the adrenaline-endorphin rush of this development has made you think you are, nor as young anymore either, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
Kevin snorted lightly. “To be honest, Ewan, I do mind your saying that.”
Dr. Randome filled his lungs, kept watching Kevin’s face. “I’ve always appreciated your honesty, Kevin. But please, if not for your own sake, then for mine.” He smiled weakly and appeared less insistent. “Only last session you were again telling me about your father, Irish too, I believe, if a Jew, which I say with admiration. But I thought we’d made some real progress towards forgiveness. We cannot revert to avoidance now if we’re ever to reach the goal of your forgiving yourself, Kevin. I know you think a lot of that is psychobabble. But it’s God’s own truth: Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Not that I’ve gone all Christian or anything. But Christ’s teachings in charity contain timeless psychological truths. To wit: Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; whose sins you shall retain, they are retained. John twenty, verse twenty-three. Retained, Kevin. By whom, do you think?”
Kevin stood his ground…though he’d not mind parking himself in the comfy chair and chatting about Mammy and Daddy. He never left this chilled room and Dr. Randome but he felt better about himself. He watched Ewan’s mouth turn down as it struggled to maintain a smile. And again he was drawn to those uncovered eyes: not by their compassion, though Ewan was abundantly sympathetic, but by their stores of wisdom and humanity, by their unspoken promise to make right the things Kevin had concluded could never be made right. Yes: by their promise of forgiveness. Until Kelly had hooked him up with Dr. Randome, Kevin had been prepared to bear the guilt of his sins to his grave, and the sooner that event the better. But Ewan had been guiding him towards a dream of forgiveness all-round.
So he found himself leaning further into the room, and surprising himself with what he said next: “He drank too much, it’s a common failing among Beldons. And nothing good ever came of Beldons drinking.”
Randome came halfway across the floor, his loose-sleeved left arm coming up like a welcome to the reluctant to cross over. “Ke-vin, you didn’t cause Cynthia’s alcoholism. You didn’t commit her suicide. It was this sick world of crime did that, which she supported you unconditionally in fighting. It was the Widower, Kevin.”
His wife’s and the Widower’s names instantly drained him, his face numbing. “I know that.”
An oboe was doing simple justice to the maudlin “Imagine.” Dr. Randome, still with his left arm out, flipped the fingers once towards himself. “You must always remember, Kevin, how lucky you are to
have been loved by such a woman as Cynthia. You are loved still, Kevin, and you still have the love of your and Cynthia’s children, Kelly and Bill. And of course the love that Cyn nurtured inside you, which we must continue accessing together. That’s the real life-after-death, Kevin, our loving memories of our loved ones. Come now, come in and sit down, we’ll just talk for a spell, that’s all, about whatever’s on your mind. Then you’ll be free to return to your life’s true mission.”
He felt the slight heaviness in his head that occurred when he faced Randome and locked eyes and listened to him talk. And the great need to unload. He would indeed prefer the recliner and staring at the dry sky out the bay window to this teetering near the doorway. It took all his resolve to keep from stumbling forward, inward, even from nodding off where he stood. He had to try twice before he could speak.
“Bill is a roaring alcoholic. How he did so well in graduate school remains a mystery. But ultimately he failed there too. And I have to take some blame for that, whatever you say, Doctor. Not all my fault, I’m not an egomaniac. But some of the blame.”
Randome’s eyes went glassy. “Kevin, please, for God’s sake, come in and sit down. For Cyn’s sake. It pains me no end to hear you talk the blame-game at this crux. It’s just as I feared.” His left hand was now continuously flapping the welcome. “Don’t indulge yourself so unforgivably in guilt — I forbid it! Guilt is the true evil, remember? Guilt wants to punish you for actions and thoughts in which you had no choice. Guilt wants to keep you deceived about the limited choice-options you entertained at the time. Guilt wants you to be guilty! For you, Kevin, this amounts to alarming backsliding. How can you say you’ve never felt better?”