by Mark Lisac
One way or another, Turlock had been enraged by something involving the Parson. Manchester either didn’t know why or wouldn’t say or had slipped too far into a land created by his own imagining. That left Angela Apson. She looked sincere when she said she knew little about what happened. But she looked like a woman who would not watch her husband rummaging through other people’s secrets without learning something about what he was doing. She also looked attractive.
Asher drove into Barnsdale and down Railway Avenue. The snow had smoothed out the track crossing, He passed Devereaux’s office on the way to the Finley house and saw three men scraping the road and sidewalk in front of it with flat-bladed shovels, flinging something into a truck.
When he got to the house, Angela Apson took her time answering the door. She had gone to the trouble of arranging her hair and putting on another sweater with a trim waist. He watched her hips flaring away from the waist, and the length of her legs as she walked in front of him into the living room.
She offered a coffee and he waited while she poured two cups in the kitchen and brought them out. They sat facing each other across the coffee table. She asked if he had noticed any excitement in town.
“Not excitement. Some unusual stuff going on in front of Devereaux’s office. Looked like a cleanup.”
“Someone dumped a load of manure there last night. Or more like about three or four this morning, considering it was a Friday night.”
“Someone doesn’t like him.”
“I wonder. It could be that someone doesn’t like his politics. The people who didn’t vote for him wouldn’t usually go in for that kind of tactic, though. I think it’s more like a warning.”
“A warning? Did they leave a note?”
“The load of cowshit was plain enough. First they make a mess of your office, then they make a mess of you.”
“You sound like you’ve seen this sort of thing before.”
“There were signs with John. Not on this scale. But enough that the meaning should have been plain.”
“Is that part of why you left him? You were scared even if he wasn’t?”
“Part of why. What are you really looking for here? John is dead. Turlock is in jail. The only person in trouble here now is Orion Devereaux.”
“Not you?”
She hesitated. “Yes, maybe me. Turlock was angry about something John had been investigating. He’s in jail but I don’t know who else may have been interested. I don’t know who has theories about what John may have shared with me.”
“Or about whether you may have shared information with someone else.”
“What do you mean? My brother’s not the sort to get involved in anything like that. If he did, he wouldn’t let it sit. He would do something with it. There’s no one else I would take it to, whatever they think John dug up and told me about.”
“No one? There’s one person in town who seems to have stirred up some dislike.”
“Orion Devereaux? I left the politics to John.”
“You didn’t know him before? An old friend?”
Her eyes widened. She picked up her coffee cup, took a sip, kept the cup to her lips, and set it down, looking all the while straight at Asher.
“I suppose I should have expected that,” she said. “Gossip always seeps out. It’s like a leaking garbage bag. Yes, I knew Orion in university. I went out with him for several weeks. He had thick, dark hair and a knowing way about him. He was older than the rest of the gang I hung around with. He was charming and he had big ideas about the future. He was also very private about some things and he told stories about his past that weren’t entirely consistent. Perhaps not even plausible. That was acceptable. But not his willingness to rely on his charm for everything. He was too used to getting his way with a smile and a joke. All right, I might have accepted even that for a while. Not after I found out he was dating someone else at the same time.”
“Sounds like a likely candidate for a career in politics.”
“He talked about running for the legislature even at the time. I don’t know whether he had a plan or whether he had only a general aim in mind and took opportunities as they came along.”
She stopped. Asher had to prod her to keep going. He said, “Then he showed up here. But he came from somewhere down south.”
“As soon as Turlock got into trouble, it was clear there was going to be a by-election,” she said. “The Wildcat Party was already gaining support here and building an organization. They needed a candidate who would look good on television if he got elected. He needed a springboard. It was a natural fit.”
“How did your husband see that?”
“He was treasurer for Turlock’s constituency association. He wasn’t on good terms with Turlock but he still believed in the government. He accepted that Orion being active here was a risk. He wasn’t as worried about his ideas as some others were. He would not have wanted to see him elected, though.”
“No, I mean how did your husband see Devereaux personally?”
“I thought we were discussing business. When did this become personal?”
“Murder is as personal as things get. Seeing a woman afraid is personal.”
She stood up and walked toward the kitchen, then turned around and stared at him, her arms crossed and hands clinging to her sides.
“Don’t give me the Galahad act, Mr. Asher. You didn’t come to Barnsdale to protect me. You came to protect Jimmy Karamanlis’ interests.”
He crossed the living room halfway. and said, “That’s right. You have no reason to trust me. I can’t work for two people at once. I’ve seen things go sideways in too many cases to say I’ll offer you protection. All I can do is tell you that I don’t want to see you hurt. And that it is personal. I don’t want to see you get hurt. You, for yourself.”
“Do I look that vulnerable?”
“You’re worried. You were vulnerable when you got tangled up with Devereaux — you just told me as much. You were vulnerable when you married a local accountant rather than stay in a city. You were vulnerable when he started wading into trouble and didn’t know how deep the water was getting. That’s what I know about you. What did your husband think about Orion Devereaux?”
She slumped against the frame of the kitchen doorway and looked at the floor. “He didn’t seem to pay attention at first. Then it became clear that he had heard something about our being involved in the past. I don’t know if he knew that all along or if someone told him something after Orion arrived here. He may have been jealous. Probably not. He may have been. He was certainly suspicious. I couldn’t persuade him that I had nothing to do with Orion anymore.”
“Did you leave him or did he push you out?”
“I guess you would call it a mutually agreed resolution. He would probably have left me, or told me to leave if I had wanted to stay. I would probably have left on my own even if there hadn’t been that friction between us. He was absorbed in trying to unearth something. It was clearly getting dangerous and it was like an obsession. The tension was becoming unbearable.”
“You weren’t seeing Devereaux during this time.”
“Certainly not.”
“That should have been plain enough to your husband. It’s a small town. Your coming and going from the house wouldn’t have changed. Then why was he upset about Devereaux? If you weren’t seeing him, then maybe your husband was worried that you might pass some information to him.”
She looked up at him. “Information that Jimmy Karamanlis would want to know about? Still protecting your client?”
“He’s my fr
iend. Not my closest friend, just one of the oldest. I can have more than one friend at a time.”
“And women friends? You don’t look like the lifelong bachelor type, but you’re not wearing a ring.”
“The ring is in the night table beside my bed. My wife got tired of me. I still see her now and then. I see more of our ten-year-old daughter.”
“Building trust by being open about yourself. Very good. How far are you prepared to take that? Would you see your wife more often if you could?”
“Former wife. Yes, I would.”
“I wonder how that feels. I’ve missed men. I miss poor John. He brought stability to my life. But I don’t miss him as much as I should.”
Asher moved closer to her. “I didn’t come here to discuss marriages. Did you know anything that your husband might have been afraid you’d tell Devereaux?”
“No. No more than I would tell you. You’re a little like Orion. Too much charm, too used to getting your way. Too easy to like — even more than Orion. Maybe it’s because underneath all that you seem vulnerable.”
“All right,” he said, stepping closer to her. “Then we have something in common.”
He kissed her and put his arms around her. She kissed him back. They pulled back and looked at each other. Then they kissed each other more urgently. They each kept one arm around the other and found each other’s hand with their other arm as they kissed with less urgency and more tenderness.
After a long time they pulled apart. He kept his hands at her waist and she kept hers on his shoulders.
He said, “Is your brother going to be back soon?”
“No, he’s out of town. He helps the coach of the junior hockey team when he can — the Barnsdale Bulldogs. They’re playing up north this weekend. We shouldn’t stay here. People will see your car. They probably saw you walk in.”
“Would you like to go to that coffee shop?”
“It’s too quiet. Someone would hear us talking. It’s Saturday night. If we go to a bar, it will be loud and people will be paying attention to whomever else they’re with. We shouldn’t stay in town, though. They’d notice the teacher out drinking at night with a strange man. There’s a decent bar in Granville with decent food. We can find out if you dance. Then if we’re tired, they have a decent motel where we can stay the night. We’d have to take our own cars. I don’t want anyone to see me leaving with you or you bringing me back. I can leave mine parked by the church in Granville. It’s a United Church, on Main Street. There will be plenty of parking available on a Saturday night.”
* * *
On the way to Granville, he wondered which appealed to him more, Angela Apson’s intelligence or her apparent need for company and support. She had an ability to control situations — maybe teachers either learn that or leave their jobs, he thought — but her face had a frazzled look. Her eyes were often wide and shifting. Even the way she did her hair suggested uncertainty. Wisps and modest curls stood out around her ears and neck.
He thought about his own uncertainty. Why was he allowing a personal relationship to start in the middle of serious business? He was attracted to her and didn’t see why anything should stand in the way. The real question was why he thought he could get away with it, not run into trouble. He thought he knew the answer to that, too: he had gotten away with things before, things that seemed worth far less.
He picked her up at the church. They transferred her overnight bag to his car and drove the three blocks to the Crescent Moon Bar and Grill. Inside, it was as she had described it, loud and busy. The crowd was a curious mix of old-timers out for their weekly beer and young couples trying to find something to celebrate in their lives.
One couple did not even have that. A woman looking to be in her twenties, with short dark hair framing her face and wearing a dark blue ski jacket, was yelling through the doorway at a blank-faced man about her age: “You can’t do that for me? You want to spend the whole night drinking with your friends again? Fuck you. Don’t come home. Fuck you.” She stalked off down the sidewalk. The man watched her leave, then looked down at his beer glass with an uncomprehending expression, as if he had just seen a coyote or a porcupine staring at him through the door. One of the two young men with him said, “Harsh.”
The rest of the crowd kept talking and laughing. Even the people at the tables near the outburst looked up only for a moment to see whether anything else would follow. Saturday night was their escape from a world of snow, work, and payments on their option-loaded trucks.
Asher and Angela settled into chairs at a table that was still empty because it had room for only two. She ordered a Johnnie Walker Black Label before dinner. For old times’ sake, she said. A token to tell herself she was still young. She didn’t add that she had ordered Black Label rather than Red because she had not had a special occasion to enjoy for a long time.
“Do you like my brother?” she asked.
“I think so. He seems to have his feet on the ground, talks straight. It’s a point in his favour that he helps with the local hockey team.”
“You look like you could have been a player yourself.”
He noted that she was making allowance for his stiff left arm and assuming that he would not still play. “A long time ago,” he said. “In university. I had thoughts of the NHL, even though it was clear by then that I’d be a lower-tier player. Law took over.”
“Are you sorry you never tried?”
“No. No point in being sorry about things. Law is often a competitive game anyway.”
“But here you are poking around for information in small towns and having ribs and beer instead of drinking wine in a penthouse filled with art.”
“I don’t plan to drink too much beer,” he said, looking at her, drinking in the way she looked instead. “What about you? You went away, you had enough education to stay away, then you came back.”
“More or less the usual story,” she said. “My mother was ill. I was feeling lonely. I thought about all those young people growing up in Barnsdale and needing exposure to someone who had seen more of the world.”
“You don’t look like someone who had to be lonely. Or was the outside world a disappointment?”
“No more than the town was. If you’re looking for heaven, you don’t usually find it here on earth. You have to look up in the sky.”
“Pragmatic. I would have guessed an English teacher would have her head full of ideas and dreams.”
“I handle sex-ed classes on the side,” she said. “With the kids around here that’s a lot more practical than teaching Keats and Shakespeare.”
It was the first time he had seen real humour crinkling around the edges of her light brown eyes. He was noticing them more today because she wasn’t wearing her glasses. He liked the lines around the corners of her eyes. They promised that she had seen some of the world, as he had, and was not apologizing for it.
After dinner they stayed for the opening set of that weekend’s band. The loud voices and bursts of laughter around them drowned out the insistent scratch of worries they had left in Barnsdale. The band played some two-steps and Asher was glad to have something easy to dance to. He was even gladder to have a chance to hold Angela close and feel her breathing.
They left for the motel. Lights shone on the white wooden siding along its front. It looked like a refuge from the surrounding darkness. They laughed when they walked into their room. It was decorated with a western music theme. Old shellac-finished 78s hung on the walls along with a beat-up little guitar missing its fourth string. The bedcover was chenille but it looked newish. They wondered where the owners had found it.
Angela told him he wo
uld have to endure the sight of her in a flannel nightie. She said she was practical enough to concede to the cold. He looked into her almond-coloured eyes and was surprised to see a brim of liquid.
“Are you having second thoughts about this?” he asked.
“No. No second thoughts. I don’t want to have any thoughts. I’m scared. Too much is happening. I’m afraid. Scared of making mistakes. Scared of people I don’t know. Afraid of dying.”
“It can’t be as bad as that,” he said. “Turlock was a looney tune.”
“I’m afraid of dying,” she said. “But not tonight.”
They pressed together, feeling their bodies warm and supple through their clothes. She lost herself in his arms. He lost himself in the brush of her hair across his face and in her vanilla scent.
11
LATE NEXT MORNING, SHE RETURNED TO HER BROTHER’S house. Shortly after noon, she found the broken glass in the back screen door. Someone had shattered it to reach through and flip the lock. A credit card or a thin metal bar must have opened the simple lock on the main door. She saw the dried trace of footprints just inside the door.
There was no obvious damage aside from the broken glass. A few things had been moved just enough to make it plain that someone had been searching inside the house. There were faint marks on surfaces she had not had time to dust the day before. Someone had been through every room — not with enough bad intent to wreck anything inside, but with enough casual boldness not to care that the intrusion would be noticed.
She telephoned Asher, who answered on the hands-free connection in his car. She told him what had happened and said she did not want to call the police.
“When will your brother be back?” he asked.
“Not until late this evening.”
“Will you feel safe until then?”