Ninth Life

by Lauren Wright Douglas

  “Er, do you have,” he cleared his throat, “something for me to do? I meant it when I said that if you ever needed me to help you again, I would.” He looked a little embarrassed, and I smiled. Faithful Lester. I had almost gotten him killed, and he wanted to help. Well, I had something nice and safe for him to do.

  “As a matter of fact, I do need your help.” I pulled the two film containers out of my pocket. “Can I come by for these at one o’clock or so?”

  “No problem,” he assured me. “Will a proof sheet be all right?”

  “I think so. Oh, listen, Lester. Do them yourself, okay?”

  He swallowed, and pushed his glasses back up on his nose. “Okay. They’re . . . important, aren’t they?” he asked, smelling adventure.

  I saw no reason to lie. Lester was one of the few people who knew what I really did for a living. “I’m not sure yet. But for your own good, assume they are.”

  “I will,” he said seriously. “You can count on me. I’ll be here until two.”

  I patted him on the shoulder. “Thanks, Lester. See you then.”

  As I pulled into my driveway and hurried up the steps to my house, I realized rather grumpily that perhaps I wasn’t going to get the yard raked today. Nor the apples picked. It’s one of the least understood laws of physics that time spent enjoying oneself always passes faster than time spent in drudgery. I’m certain that an hour spent in pleasure has about forty-five minutes, while an hour spent in toil—working one’s taxes, or suffering in the dentist’s chair, or cleaning house—has seventy-five. Or more. Ah well, the leaves could wait for another day.

  I poked my head into the closet on my way to the bathroom.

  “What’s up?” I called to Repo. Darn it all, I missed his furry presence. “All right for you,” I told him. “It’s off to Dr. Neely when I get back. Remember how much you liked it last time? You got a big fat needle in the butt.”

  Still no answer. My attempt at terrifying the cat into cooperation had plainly fallen on deaf ears. I’ve noticed that about cats—they hear only what they want to hear. Repo has me convinced that his auditory nerve cannot pick up the word no, even when uttered very loudly, and sometimes next to his ear; however, that same nerve can pick up the sound of a can opener at one hundred paces. Curious, isn’t it?

  I trotted into the bathroom and turned on the shower. What was the matter with that cat? An obscure disease? A feline mid-life crisis? Ennui? Angst? I shook my head. Emma Neely would find out.

  Under the water, I hummed a few bars from “Sheep May Safely Graze” and thought about my upcoming meeting with the owner of the insistent telephone voice. I didn’t like it, and I was sure I wouldn’t like its owner. In fact there wasn’t much I did like about this case so far—the late night I had just spent freezing my hindquarters off on Saanich Highway, the cat I had had to rescue, the vet bill he was no doubt incurring, the garbage I had had to wade through. Damn it anyhow, this wasn’t why I had gone into business for myself. I could have had this much fun working in the Crown Prosecutor’s office.

  Well, maybe not quite.

  I shut off the water and, stepping out of the tub, wrapped myself in a fluffy towel. Wiping the steam off the mirror, I plugged in the hair dryer and waved it around a little. Growing quickly bored with all this primping, I shut off the dryer, brushed my half-dry hair vigorously, cleaned my teeth, and then glanced at myself in the mirror, grimacing. My glassy Doppelganger grimaced back—a middle-aged woman with eyes neither green nor gray, hair neither red nor brown, and a mouth that wanted to smile but found too little to smile about these days. Caitlin Reece, about to turn forty, self-employed, perennially broke, voice of the voiceless, defender of the weak, champion of lost causes, final hope for those whom the system had chewed up and spit out.

  I knew how those lost souls felt, for I, too, was a victim of the system. My seven years spent as an attorney in the Crown Prosecutor’s office had been too much for me. Muggers, pimps, rapists, murderers, wife-beaters, child molesters—they slipped through the grasp of the justice system with ridiculous ease. For every one we put behind bars, three walked away. And they walked away laughing at us. It was the Marc Bergeron trial—the man responsible for the disappearance, rape, and murder of six-year-old Annie Graves—that finally broke me. He copped an insanity plea and got life in a cushy institution up-island. Annie Graves got a funeral one rainy Sunday in April. And I got smart. I resigned from the CP’s office the day Bergeron’s lawyer pleaded him crazy. Because he was no crazier than you or I. He was evil, and that’s a whole different story. But I knew that if I had to sit across the table from many more Marc Bergerons, I would soon be genuinely, certifiably nuts. I was afraid I’d slip into a warm bath one night and open a vein. Or cuddle up to the open door of the gas oven. So I quit. And I’ve never regretted it. But what does trouble me from time to time is the nagging doubt that what I’m doing now may be just as fruitless. So I manage to help a few people—so what? What does that mean, anyhow, on a cosmic scale? Most of the time I feel like King Canute, standing on the beach, commanding the waves to stop. We all know what happened to him, right? Right. He ruined his best boots.

  I hurried into the bedroom, pulled on a pair of clean Levis, a pale yellow cotton turtleneck, and threaded a braided leather belt through the belt loops. From a shoebox in my closet, I took my .357 Magnum, checked the load, and clipped its holster to the back of my jeans. My Harris Tweed blazer draped quite nicely, I thought, checking myself out in the full-length mirror. The gun made nary a bulge. I laced on a pair of well broken-in Reeboks, batted my eyelashes girlishly at my reflection, and ran out of the house.

  Disagreeable Voice was late. I had already toured the art gallery’s sunken gardens twice, admiring the Japanese touches—the miniature Oriental stone temples, the bamboo bridge over the streamlet, the bonsai. I had sniffed the last roses and attempted again to distinguish the azaleas from the camellias with no luck. I admit it—I’m a horticultural idiot. I looked up at the sky which had become gray and overcast, ending the promise of a bright, sunny afternoon. So much for my yard-raking plans. A contingent of fat raindrops splatted down on the camellia (or azalea) leaves I was inspecting, and I retreated to the gallery’s open doors. Plunking myself down on one of the stone benches, I feigned interest in a nearby Australian tree fern.

  Actually, I was thinking of the photo proof sheet I had picked up from Lester. Most of the shots had been taken indoors, and showed a series of out-of-focus blobs that seemed to be animals. In some cases, one pair of hands was holding the animal, while other hands were busy doing something to it; in other cases, the animal was restrained, and only one pair of hands was in evidence. There were two shots, much clearer and crisper, of a man with a sybaritic face and a dark, neatly trimmed beard standing beside a car, talking to the driver. The car’s license plate was visible. It read CHOKE. What did it all mean? Apart from the fact that someone needed photography lessons, I had no idea.

  “Caitlin Reece?” a quiet voice said.

  I turned. In the gallery’s doorway stood a smallish, fair-haired woman in an oyster-colored raincoat, worn open over navy pants and a fisherman-knit sweater. I rose to my feet. The watery sun chose that moment to shine through the high gallery windows, and suddenly it seemed that all the light in the dreary afternoon was concentrated onto that small figure. Her fair hair seemed to glow—a lambent halo neither gold nor silver, but an intermediate shade all its own. And her light eyes—not the blue I had first thought, but a pale gray—seemed opalescent, the color of clouds scudding across winter seas. I knew I was staring, but I was unable to help myself. I felt as though I had been punched just under the heart. She held out her hand, and when I took it, I had a hard time remembering what I was supposed to do with it. I blinked, suspended for a moment in space and time, trying witlessly to function.

  “Yes,” I said finally, remembering her question. “I’m Caitlin Reece.” Speech helped. See—I had even remembered who I was. Wonderful progress wa
s being made. With difficulty, I managed to corral a few more of my wandering wits. “But you’re not the woman I talked to on the phone.” I was positive of that.

  “No,” she said, turning the corners of her mouth down in an embarrassed smile. “That was Judith. She’s a bit of a hothead, I’m afraid.” She looked up at me, gray eyes serious. “She’s also angry and filled with guilt. We all are. We let Mary go off into danger—some of us against our better judgment.” She looked into the distance, then quickly back at me. “Did you find out what you said you would?”

  “Oh, er, yes. I called my friend at the morgue. She confirmed it.”

  “Damn. Somehow, I hoped . . .”

  “I’m sorry,” I said automatically.

  She took a deep breath and looked at me. “We desperately need your help. I’m afraid we’re in way over our heads this time. Please don’t reject us because Judith antagonized you. Can we start over somehow?”

  “I don’t know,” I said honestly, trying hard not to look at those disturbing eyes. “I don’t know who you are. And I have no idea what your problem is. Shrew—sorry, Mary—hired me to take some packages. I did that. But I don’t know what else she, or you, had in mind. It’s possible that I might not be able to help. And—I’ll be honest with you—from what I’ve seen of this case, I’m not sure I want to.”

  She blinked quickly, and I saw that despite her facade of composure, she was anxious and frightened. “Thank you for your honesty. And of course, what you decide is up to you.” She smiled a little crookedly. “But you’re wrong about not being able to help us. I’m positive you can.”

  I raised an eyebrow. Such confidence was flattering, but I needed something a little more definite to go on. “Do you have a reason for all this optimism?”

  “Yes, of course.” She looked around apprehensively. “Could we . . . go somewhere. I really don’t feel comfortable talking here.”

  “Now listen,” I said, aware that my exasperation was evident. “This place was all right with your friend.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “But there’s a much better place to talk not far from here—that little restaurant catty-corner from the Executive House. Victoria Jane’s. It has the virtue of being dark and quiet. Do you know it?”

  I nodded.

  She looked at her watch. “It’s two-thirty. I have to stop and make a phone call. Let’s meet there about three.”

  I took another sip of my J & B, and from the sanctuary of my dark, quiet booth in Victoria Jane’s, looked at the doorway for about the twentieth time. It was now three-thirty and the lady with the gray eyes had still not appeared. Well, I’d give her until four, and then I intended to go home and take Repo to the vet.

  I thought about my meeting with her in the garden, and just for a moment I felt again the disorientation, the sense of wonder I had felt when I looked at her. The lyrics from “My Heart Stood Still” began to go through my head.

  I snorted. Quoting lyrics from love songs was a particularly bad sign, I told myself. It preceded things like sending flowers, writing bad poetry, and baying at the moon. So she had pretty gray eyes. So what? She probably snored, or liked Hockey Night in Canada, or couldn’t stand cats. Some fatal flaw. Get a grip, Reece.

  “Sorry.” Gray Eyes slipped onto the seat across the table from me. “It was a long phone call.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “The woman who called me didn’t want you to come here. She told you that you were wasting your time, and suggested other more direct methods of getting what you folks want from me. She even offered to try some.”

  She looked guilty and I knew I had been right.

  “I didn’t think it would work,” she said, looking at me appraisingly. “All right. We—” A waiter arrived, interrupting her, and she ordered a dry sherry. When he was out of earshot, she continued. “I’ll tell you what Mary would have told you. I assume she did say she’d be in touch with you?”

  I nodded.

  The sherry arrived, and she took a healthy swallow.

  “Before we get started, tell me who recommended me to Mary.”

  “Tonia Konig,” she said, putting her glass down carefully on the table.

  I sat back, surprised. Tonia was one-half of my last employer team. A professor of political philosophy, an outspoken feminist and advocate of non-violence, Tonia had reluctantly hired me to retrieve some incriminating letters which had been stolen from her home. Letters written to her by Val Frazier, Victoria’s most glamorous television news anchorwoman, and possibly its most closeted lesbian. And letters written by Tonia to Val. Tonia had disliked me on sight, but we eventually arrived at an uneasy accord. Retrieving the letters had cost me several broken ribs, a fair amount of blood, and almost lost me my life. For Tonia, the affair had meant a realignment of lifelong beliefs. I was touched and flattered that she had recommended me.

  “A good reference,” I said, taking a quick drink to cover old emotions.

  “Tonia told all three of us about you,” she said softly. “She told us the kinds of things you do, and a little about how you helped her. We agreed to hire you to be . . . backup for Mary. She was to get in touch with you if she ran into trouble at Living World. I only wish she hadn’t waited so long to make the contact.” She looked directly at me. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know. How do we . . . do this?”

  “Simple. Tell me what you need me to do, and I’ll tell you if I think I can do it.”

  “All right. My name is Alison Bell. The woman you spoke with—the woman who antagonized you so—is Judith Hadley. And Mary Shepard was the woman who hired you. Shrew. Along with two other people—Liz McLaren and Ian Burns—we form the local branch of an organization called Ninth Life.” She paused and looked at me.

  I shrugged. “Sorry. I’ve never heard of it.”

  “We’re animal rights advocates. Ninth Life is a national organization. Well, an international organization, really. But it’s called by different names in Britain and West Germany.” She paused again.

  Impressive. “I haven’t heard of your group, but I do know about animal rights organizations. I saw some television footage about the treatment of dogs in labs. Is it your group that lets lab animals loose and protests outside medical schools in gorilla suits—that sort of thing?”

  She grimaced. “Among other activities. Groups like ours haven’t received very good treatment at the hands of the media, I’m afraid. And we deserve a lot of the bad press we’ve gotten. But sometimes trespassing, breaking and entering, or theft are the only ways to get what we want.”

  Tell me about it. I understood her plight only too well. “So what exactly is it you want?”

  She bent forward, gray eyes intent. “Evidence, Miss Reece. Proof. Something we can use in court and something we can show to the media. Something that will get the public’s attention.”

  “Like the cat Shrew tossed into the dumpster? And the photos?”

  “Exactly, Miss Reece.”

  This Miss Reece stuff had to go. “Please call me Caitlin.”

  “Are you any more kindly disposed toward us . . . Caitlin?” she asked softly.

  I looked up from my Scotch. “Maybe. You’re certainly a good public relations person.”

  “Thank you,” she said, a small frown making parentheses between her pale eyebrows. “As I said, Ninth Life is in trouble. We need someone like you to help us.”

  Flattery will get you almost anywhere with me. I smiled in wry amusement. “Someone like me?” I wondered which of my sterling character traits Tonia had described to Alison—my cool-headedness under stress, my sangfroid in the face of danger, my awesome powers of deduction, my admirable physical prowess?

  “Someone clever,” she explained. “Someone discreet. Someone tough. Someone who isn’t afraid to take a few licks—or give them out.”

  Oh, that again. So Ninth Life, too, wanted a heavy. I felt an obscure disappointment—in Tonia, in Ninth Life, and in Alison. “A thug,” I said. “You want a thug.�
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  She moved her shoulders in what might have been agreement. “In a manner of speaking, I suppose. But above all we want someone . . . steadfast. Someone who won’t be frightened off.”

  Steadfast. I liked that. “What would this steadfast person do?”

  “Take Mary’s place. Get us the evidence we need. We were at our wits’ end with Living World.” Seeing my blank look, she explained. “That’s a cosmetics manufacturing company. We’ve been after them for a long time—they’ve operated the same kind of business in three other provinces, and just when we think we’ve got the goods on them, they pack up and move on. They’re a very slippery bunch. Mary talked us into letting her go undercover as a lab worker. She was to get photographs and video footage. And whatever other proof she could lay her hands on. She was supposed to call you if she needed help.”

  “But something went wrong.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “Something went very wrong.” She took a deep breath. “So will you help us?”

  “What is Living World doing that’s so bad?” I asked. “What did Mary need proof of?”

  “They’re testing their cosmetics on animals at their so-called New Product Development establishment in Saanich. Their manufacturing plant is on the mainland,” she explained. “Our beef with them is not that they’re testing—although we’re opposed to any testing on animals—but that they’re doing it and lying about it.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You mean they maintain that they’re not?”

  “Yes,” she said emphatically. “They’ve built their entire ad campaign around the fact that they’re benign. ‘Cruelty-free’ as the phrase goes. If we can expose them, their credibility will be zero. They’ll lose their customer base. It will be the end.”

  I toyed with my glass, postponing the moment of reply. If people at Living World really had run Mary off the road, then they were determined to keep their lie a secret. They played very rough indeed, and I had absolutely no desire to tangle with them. On the other hand, I might well be able to do what Alison wanted without having to go toe to toe with the Living World contingent. There were back doors, after all. “Let me get this straight. You want to expose Living World—get whatever you can on them to see them put out of business, right?”