by Gail Bowen
I felt my throat start to close. “Stephen Orchard knew she couldn’t eat almonds,” I said weakly.
“Stephen Orchard didn’t put them there, Joanne. The police found a little plastic bag in the pocket of the jacket Izaak Levin was wearing when he died. It had been emptied, but there were traces of something that the police, with their flair for language, are at the moment calling ‘potential almond residue.’ ”
I picked up my coffee cup, but my hands were shaking so badly I could barely get it to my lips.
“There’s more,” Hugh said. “They found Sally’s purse with the epinephrine kit. It was in the gallery cloakroom. Jo, the purse was in the pocket of Izaak Levin’s overcoat.”
“So he killed her,” I said.
“It looks that way,” said Hugh. “Either that or, after all his rude comments about my lifestyle, old Izaak’s turned out to be a cross-dresser.”
Despite everything, I laughed.
Mieka brought over two plates of French toast. “I’ll leave you two alone now. Shout if you need me.”
“Thanks,” I said. “For everything.” I took a bite of French toast. “Good,” I said. “It really is. You were right about eating, Hugh.”
He smiled and put maple syrup on his French toast. “So what do you think?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know if I even care. All those questions last night about the Guerrilla Girls. I guess they’re off the hook now.”
“I don’t think they’re off the hook at all,” Hugh said. “I’m a visual arts editor, not a crime reporter, but I had the distinct impression last night that the police aren’t fond of coincidence. You know, Jo, the Guerrilla Girls did turn out the lights, and they were running around that room. Who knows what they did in the dark. They could have been working with Izaak Levin.”
“Yes,” I agreed, “they could have been working with him, or it could have been the other way round.”
Hugh went over, picked up the coffeepot and filled our cups. “You’ve lost me,” he said.
“I guess it’s possible,” I said, “that the Guerrilla Girls could have set Izaak Levin up. You know, Hugh, in all the confusion after the lights went out it wouldn’t have been hard to slip something as small as an empty plastic baggie into a jacket pocket. The Guerrilla Girl who came to our table was standing right between Izaak and Nina. I remember that clearly. And it certainly would have been easy for her to grab Sally’s purse. It was slung over the back of her chair all evening. You must have noticed it – one of those antique evening bags with a chain so you can carry it over your shoulder.”
Suddenly I was so weary I could barely move. “Why are we doing this?” I asked. “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change anything. We can sit here till doomsday and nothing we figure out is going to change the past twenty-four hours.”
Hugh looked as weary as I felt. He stood up. “I think it’s time to go,” he said.
He called a cab, and when it came, I walked him to the front door.
“Take care of yourself,” he said. “Thank your daughter for the breakfast.”
“Come back again,” I said.
“Every time I’m in Saskatoon.” Then he smiled. “Be sure to wear that shirt next time. It’s a little Dolly Parton but very cute. I’ll bet your kids got it for you.”
I didn’t remember what I was wearing. I looked down: bubble-gum pink with sequins saying I LOVE JO. I leaned forward and kissed his cheek.
“You lose your bet,” I said. “It wasn’t from my kids. It was a present from a friend.”
It didn’t take me long to decide to go to Nina’s. I was exhausted, but I couldn’t get clear of what she had said to me the night before. “You’re all the daughter I have now.” It was my duty to tell her about Izaak Levin. As strained as her relationship with Sally had been, this would be a shock. I had to be there to help her deal with it.
I went up and changed into my best black skirt and sweater and called a cab. All the way to Spadina Crescent, the cab driver kept up a running commentary on Sally’s murder. I couldn’t seem to work up the energy to tell him to stop. Traffic near the gallery was heavy. The prospect of seeing the building where four shocking deaths had occurred really brought out the citizens. Apparently, Stuart Lachlan’s address was still secret because the only cars in front of number seventeen were Stu’s matched Mercedes. The family of snow people had been revised a little by thaws and storms but they were still perky. A banner, white with big red letters and a border of hearts, stretched from the father to the daughter. HAPPY VALENTINE’S FROM TAYLOR LOVE LACHLAN, it said.
I took a deep breath before I lifted the brass door knocker. Nina answered the door. She was wearing a white cashmere dress that I didn’t remember, very chic, very flattering. An antique gold locket gleamed at her neck, and in her ears were tiny hoops of chased gold. She took both my hands in hers and pulled me gently inside.
“I’m so glad it’s you, Jo,” she said in her low breathy voice. “I need help and I was debating with myself about whether it was too early to call you.”
“It could never be too early, Ni,” I said.
She helped me off with my coat and then, hand in hand, we walked into the living room.
I don’t know what I expected. Neither Nina nor Stuart Lachlan was the keening or rending garments type, but everything was so serene, so life as usual. Mozart was on the CD player; there were bowls of shaggy white chrysanthemums on the mantel and coffee table, and the air smelled of coffee and fresh baking.
I turned to Nina. “You know I’d do anything for you, Ni, but it certainly looks as if everything’s in hand.”
“Looks can be deceiving,” she said. She made a sweeping gesture toward the Chinese Chippendale desk. “Really, I’ve just begun.”
I looked over at the desk. There was an open telephone book on it and a notepad with notations in Nina’s neat backhand.
“I’m just trying to think of everything that needs to be done and match up the chore list with the names of the local people. I don’t know this city well enough to make an informed decision myself, but I thought I could make some preliminary lists for Stuart to choose from. This is going to be a trying day for him.”
“For all of us,” I said.
“Of course,” she agreed. “We’re all the walking wounded today.”
“Ni, I have more news. Could we sit down?”
She drew me over to the couch. “I’m sorry, Jo. You’ll have to forgive me. It’s just that there’s so much …”
“I’m afraid I’m going to add to it, dear. The police have completed some of their investigation, and they have some ideas about what might have happened last night.” I moved closer to her and told her about Izaak and the almonds and the epinephrine. She listened with her back ramrod straight and her hands cupping one another loosely, like a woman waiting to have her photograph taken. Her calm unnerved me.
“Nina, did you understand what I said? The police think Izaak was the one.”
“Yes,” she said, “I heard you.”
In the kitchen there was the treble pinging sound of an oven timer. Nina stood up and gave me a shaky smile.
“Currant scones,” she said, “Stuart’s favourite. I’m going to fix a tray for him and take it upstairs. I’ll bring us something, too, Jo. Please, just be patient and make yourself comfortable.”
It was a tall order. I walked over to Nina’s desk. The telephone book was open to funeral homes. I shuddered and walked through the dining room to the bay window that overlooked the backyard. Nina’s evening dress, tulip red, and Stu’s tuxedo were out there, hanging side by side on the clothesline. Even before smoking had become the great social sin, Nina had hated the lingering smell of cigarettes. She always hung her clothes out to air after she had been somewhere where people smoked. There had been smoking last night. And there had been murder.
For a while, my mind drifted. White think. Then I felt someone beside me. I looked down and Taylor Love Lachlan was there. He
r blond hair was smoothed back behind an Alice in Wonderland black velvet bow, and she was wearing a Black Watch tartan skirt and a white blouse. She was silent, intent on what she saw through the window.
“Look,” she said finally, “when the wind blows, Nina’s dress and Daddy’s suit look like they’re dancing on the clothesline.”
I smiled and gave her shoulder a squeeze.
“Sally died, you know,” she said conversationally. “I was asleep, but when I woke up, Daddy told me Sally had gone to heaven.”
I didn’t know what to say. I stood there, numb, looking into the yard, my hand resting on Taylor’s shoulder. The wind had picked up, and Taylor was right. Nina’s dress and Stu’s tuxedo looked as if they were dancing. Inexplicably, I felt a clutch of panic.
But suddenly behind me there was Nina’s voice, warm, reassuring. “Come and eat something, you two.” And I felt safe again. She was sitting at the dining-room table in a pose I’d seen a thousand times: a tray set with the thinnest cups, a teapot, plates, linen napkins, something still warm from the oven for tea.
Izaak Levin was not mentioned again that morning. As Nina talked quietly about the kinds of birds that would come to their bird feeder when the great migrations north began, I saw that she was trying to protect Taylor and Stuart by enclosing them in a world of familiar pleasures. There was no place for Sally’s murderer at that table, and so we talked of birds and gardens and Stuart’s summer home at Stay Away Lake, a hundred miles north of the city. Stuart wanted to go there after everything was settled, Nina said in her soft voice. He loved the house at Stay Away Lake. His family had owned it since before he was born, and everything was exactly as it had been half a century ago.
“He needs that now,” said Nina. “So much has changed.”
“So much has changed.” I repeated those words to myself as I started the long walk to Osler Street. I didn’t even make it to the bridge before the tears started. I didn’t care. I stood and looked down at the river and cried. When I was finished, I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders and started to walk again. The sky was overcast but the air was fresh, and when I turned up the back alley toward our house, I was feeling in control. My neighbour was out in her backyard taking sheets off the line. The sheets were frozen, and she had to wrestle with them to get them folded and in her laundry hamper. I thought of Nina’s evening dress and Stuart’s tuxedo dancing against the grey February sky. And then out of nowhere, a poem, something we used to write in autograph books when I was in grade school:
I love you. I love you. I love you almighty.
I wish your pyjamas were next to my nightie.
Now don’t get excited.
Now don’t lose your head.
I mean on the clothesline and not in the bed.
When I walked across our backyard, I couldn’t tell if I was laughing or crying.
Angus was sitting in the den watching a kids’ show that he’d outgrown years ago. He was wearing a T-shirt he’d bought himself at the joke shop in the mall. On the front a cartoon rooster with a huge beak and a macho leer was strutting on a beach filled with hens; underneath it said, “Chicks Dig Big Peckers.”
I gestured toward the TV. “Anything new in Mr. Dressup’s world?”
“Nope, everything’s just the same.” Then he looked up at me. I could see he’d been crying, but he tried a smile. “Nothing ever changes on Mr. Dressup. You know that, Mum. That’s why I’m watching.”
At three o’clock I went over and gave my senior class a reading assignment. There was a message on my desk to call Izaak Levin. I shuddered when I noticed the message was dated the day before.
When I got home, Angus met me at the door. “I’m going down to the Y to shoot baskets with James if it’s okay.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Supper’s at five-thirty.”
“What are we having?”
“Takeout, your choice.”
“Fish and chips?”
“Sounds good to me,” I said. “I could use a load of grease right now.”
He smiled. “Right. Oh, I almost forgot, Sally’s mother came over with some flowers,” he said. “They’re in the living room.”
On the coffee table was the Japanese porcelain bowl with the painted swimming fish. Serene. Beautiful. Nina had filled it with white anemone, and there was a note card with a line written in her neat backhand propped up against it. “Remembering and cherishing, N.”
I sighed and went to the phone. She answered on the first ring, and when she heard my voice, her relief was evident.
“Jo, thank heavens it’s you. I’m feeling very alone right now. Stuart’s been drinking all day. He’s so withdrawn I can’t reach him. And I think the reality of her mother’s death is starting to hit Taylor. She’s just clinging to me. I haven’t been able to get anything done. You said this morning that if there was anything you could do, I should ask. Well, I’m asking.”
“I’m here,” I said.
“Someone needs to go to the funeral home and make some decisions. And a curious thing. A priest came to the house this afternoon. He said Sally was a parishioner of his. That’s a surprise, at least to me. At any rate, he’ll do the funeral, but he needs to talk to someone from the family.” Her voice broke. “Jo, there is no one from the family. I’m all alone.”
“I’ll go, Nina,” I said. “Just give me the names and addresses.”
“Thank you, Jo. I knew I could count on you.”
When I hung up the phone, I felt about as wretched as I could remember. I put my face in my hands and leaned against the telephone table. After a while, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked up. Peter was standing there.
“I have to go and pick out the coffin,” I said.
“You’ll need a ride,” he said simply.
I was glad I had him with me. The people at the funeral home were kind and helpful, but making funeral arrangements was a lousy job. After we finished, Pete dropped me off at St. Thomas More Chapel.
I had called Father Gary Ariano before dinner and told him I’d meet him at eight o’clock. The college bells were chiming when I walked in the front door, and Father Ariano was waiting for me. He was a dark-haired, athletic man in early middle age, very intense. He was wearing blue jeans and a sweatshirt from Loyola University. He held out his hand in greeting, and I followed him up two flights of stairs through a door marked “Private” into the priests’ common room. It was a comfortable room, with an outsize aquarium, a wall of windows that looked out onto the campus and a generously stocked bar.
“What’ll it be?” asked Father Ariano.
“Bourbon, please, and ice.”
Father Ariano opened a Blue for himself and poured a generous splash of Old Grand-Dad over ice for me. We sat down on a couch in front of the windows. It was a foggy night, and below us the lights of the campus glowed, otherworldly.
I didn’t know where to begin but after we’d had a few minutes to grow easy with one another, Father Ariano began for me.
“Sally told me once that the only good things about the Catholic church were its art collection and its funerals.”
“And yet she was a regular communicant?” I asked.
“She was,” he said. “She came most often on weekdays. There’s a mass around five, and sometimes we’d go out for a sandwich after or she’d come up here and we’d talk.”
“It’s hard to think of Sally as devout,” I said.
“I think Sally would have called herself interested rather than devout. The nature of faith and the faithful interested her. She was a very bright woman.”
“Not just a holy innocent the great god of art dripped paint through,” I said.
He smiled. “That sounds like a direct quote from our friend Sally. People always underestimated her. Stuart Lachlan certainly did. He put her in a terrible position when he wrote that book. It was an incredible breach of trust.”
“Not the first in her life,” I said.
He looked at me oddly. “No,” h
e said, “not the first and not the only. But don’t get me started on that. Look, I guess we’d better discuss the details for the funeral.”
“Right,” I said.
Father Ariano was, as they say, a godsend: factual, presenting options, suggesting choices. When we’d finished, I stood up.
“Thanks,” I said. “I guess that’s it.”
Father Ariano looked at me. “Except for one thing.”
I waited.
He squeezed his right hand together, crushing his beer can. “Except,” he said, “that this is the shits. It really is the shits.”
“That’s what my son said, too.”
“Smart kid,” he said, standing. “Come on, follow me, I’ll show you the chapel.”
We went down the stairs to the main floor, but instead of going toward the front doors, we turned down a wide and brightly lit hall. On one side were pictures of the priests who had been heads of the order. On the other were clothing racks, the kind you see in department stores. Arranged on each rack, seemingly by ecclesiastical season and size, were dozens of clerical vestments.
“This is where we robe,” Father Ariano said casually, “and here,” he said, as we walked through some double doors, “is where we go to work.”
The air in the chapel was cool and smelled of candle wax, furniture polish and, lingeringly, of wet wool. The chapel was uncluttered and attractive: white painted walls and plain blond pews arranged in a semicircle to face the gleaming wooden cross suspended from the ceiling above the altar. It looked like any of a dozen chapels I’d seen that were designed for the university community at worship. But on the north wall was a mural, and it was to the mural that Gary Ariano directed my attention when we came through the doors.
“There’s our prize,” he said.
From a distance the mural was conventionally pretty: a prairie field on a summer’s day with Christ at the centre performing the miracle of the loaves and fishes. I wasn’t much interested.