Burying Ariel

CHAPTER
4

The next morning my clock radio blared to life at its regular wake-up time: 5:30. As he heard the synthesizer fanfare that announced the AccuWeather forecast, Willie leaped to attention at his place beside my bed. It might be taking him two years to grow a brain, but my Bouvier had been quick to master the sequence that led to his morning walk.

Climatologist Tara Lavallee was cheerily contrite as she announced that she had to do a complete 180 on her holiday-weekend forecast. A low-pressure zone had stalled over the southern third of the province, bringing with it…

I reached over and clicked off the radio. The sky outside my bedroom window was leaden, and rain was drumming monotonously on my window. I didn’t need Tara to tell me it was going to be a rotten day.

“Bad news,” I said to Willie.

He put his paws on the mattress, shivered with delight, and eyeballed me. I eyeballed him back.

I blinked first. “Okay,” I said. “We’ll go, but it’s going to be a short one.”

I dug out my rain pants, windbreaker, and a pair of ancient Reeboks, and Willie and I hit the street at top speed. By the time we reached the bandshell, Willie had absorbed the fact that no matter how hard he pulled at the leash I would still be on the other end, and the rain had grown lighter. There was no reason not to finish our usual run around the lake. There were distractions: for Willie, the new crop of goslings strutting their stuff across our path; for me, memories of the endless day before. I tried to shake them, give myself over to the moment, as Livia would say, but I wasn’t able to let go. Every step triggered a memory. By the time we lurched through our front door, my mood was as bleak as the day.

I filled Willie’s dish, plugged in the coffee, and stripped off my wet clothes. As I headed for the shower, I glanced at the caller ID on the telephone. Alex Kequahtooway had phoned. I looked at the clock. It would be 8:30 in Ottawa.

In the time it took to dial his cell number, I decided I wouldn’t bring up the subject of Ariel Warren. Unless he had talked to one of his colleagues on the Regina police force, it was unlikely Alex would have heard of her death. He had been excited about giving the course on minorities and the justice system to a class of senior civil servants. It was a chance for him to talk to people who could make a difference, and he didn’t need to be distracted by problems at home.

When I heard his voice, I almost weakened. “I miss you,” I said. “Willie and I just got back from our walk, and I’m standing here naked, wet, and cold. I wish you were here.”

“So do I.”

“How are you at phone sex?” I said. “Under the circumstances, I’m up for anything.”

“So am I,” he said evenly. “Unfortunately, I’m in class right now. We take a break in an hour. If you’ll leave me a number where you can be reached, I’ll get back to you and we can try that new procedure.”

The flush started at my toes and ended at my scalp. “Alex, are all those government people sitting there listening?”

“That’s right.”

“I must be pathological.”

“Not pathological,” he said. “Just healthy. Giving me some energy to rechannel. This is going to be the most inspired class I’ve taught since I got here.”

“Baudelaire said he wrote with his penis.”

“The French have some interesting systems,” he said mildly. “I’ll see what I can do about putting that one into place.”

When I stepped out of the shower, the phone was ringing. I picked it up. “Still naked,” I said, “but now clean, and with that hemp oil you gave me for Valentine’s Day at the ready.”

“I’m sorry, I must have the wrong number.” The voice of the woman on the other end of the line was familiar.

“You don’t have the wrong number, Livia. I should apologize. I was expecting someone else.”

“I’m glad you have love in your life,” she said.

Her tone was guileless, but I felt a pang. There was no love in Livia’s life, at least not the kind that involved hemp-oil massages. Late one night when we were walking to the parking lot together, Livia had confided that since her marriage ended she had been celibate and that celibacy brought her peace. I had scrambled unsuccessfully for a sensible response, but driving home I realized that if my husband had dumped me as publicly and as brutally as Kenneth Brook had dumped Livia, I might have considered celibacy, too. He had chosen his wife’s birthday party to do his dirty deed and, after three years, the memory of that evening still made me want to bury my head in the sand.

From the outset, the party had been out of control: the drinks were too strong, and the toasts too frequent; the meal was served so late that people simply rearranged the food on their plates, poured themselves another double, and lurched towards the next indiscretion. When Kenneth Brook tapped his glass, boomed that he wanted our attention, and draped an arm over Livia’s shoulder, the room fell silent. It seemed that, despite their tempestuous relationship, Kenneth was about to pay tribute to his wife. But Kenneth had other fish to fry. As he announced that he had managed to both inspire and impregnate one of his graduate students, he could barely keep the smile off his face. When he added that, as a man of honour, he had no alternative but to marry his child’s mother, I think he honestly expected we would burst into applause, but we weren’t that drunk. Stunned sober, people mumbled their goodbyes and left. Livia wandered off to another room. Kenneth disappeared out the front door, presumably in search of a more receptive audience. Alone with the carnage of the aborted party and none too sober myself, I decided to put the food away. Like many decisions that night, mine wasn’t wise.

When I opened the kitchen door, I saw that Livia had taken refuge there. She was leaning against the counter, singing “Happy Birthday” and trying to light the candles on her store-bought birthday cake. She was very drunk. As she swayed towards the forest of candles, match after match flared, then burned out between her fingers. She hadn’t managed to ignite a single candle, but the blue icing roses on her cake were almost buried beneath a mulch of charred matches.

“Let me help you with that,” I said.

When she turned to face me, I saw that she was crying. Her gaze had the watery despair of a drowning woman. “It’s my party,” she said, then she lit a fresh match and returned to her Sisyphean task.

I didn’t see Livia Brook again till the following September. Classes were over, and she spent spring and summer on the West Coast drifting through the misty regions of New Age thought. When the fall term began, Livia reappeared, tanned, thin, and carrying some sort of ritual bag adorned with bells and filled with gemstones guaranteed to heal the heart, ward off evil, and focus the mind. I had never been a proponent of enchanted bags, but Livia’s seemed to have power. For the first time since I had known her, she was sober, focused, and purposeful.

During her marriage to Kenneth Brook, Livia’s life had centred on her husband. Beyond teaching her classes and picking up her paycheque, she had shown little interest in the day-to-day business of the university, but suddenly she was inviting colleagues for tea and soliciting their opinions about where our department was headed. Invariably, these tete-a-tetes moved from the abstract to the personal. As they poured out their career ambitions and disappointments, Livia’s colleagues were warmed by what Ed Mariani referred to as her “rampant empathy.” There was talk that when Ben Jesse’s tenure was over, a woman as perceptive as Livia would make a fine department head.

When the Kevin Coyle case erupted, the rampant empathy that had caused Ed and me to raise our eyebrows saved our department. Ben Jesse asked Livia to meet regularly with the women who had accused Kevin until the charges against him were given a fair hearing. Ben’s confidence that open communication would contain the women’s anger proved ill-founded, but the women trusted Livia, and when Ben died we all knew that Livia was our best hope for achieving reconciliation. Every member of our department supported her proposal that we make a special effort to recruit female candidates to fill the two vacancies created by Ben’s death and an early retirement.

Landing Solange, who was brilliant, had been a coup for our small university; however, Livia had been forced to argue Ariel’s case vigorously. Ariel’s paper credentials were acceptable rather than extraordinary, and she had interviewed poorly. The hiring committee found her warm and likeable, but equivocal about academic life. Livia, who had met Ariel the summer before at a women’s retreat on Saltspring Island, maintained that Ariel was simply suffering from post-dissertation ennui, and that by the time September rolled around she would be itching to get into a classroom. And Livia had a clincher. Unlike Solange, Ariel was a prairie girl who loved her birthplace. Our university wouldn’t be a stepping stone for her; it would, Livia assured us, be “forever.”

Livia had been right about Ariel – at least in part. The students had loved her, and she had been a glowing presence in our department. That morning when I heard Livia’s voice I felt the debt of her gift, the weight of her loss.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“It’s about Ariel’s class,” she said. “There are still three weeks to go, and you’re the logical one to take over.”

“Livia…”

She cut me off. “I know you planned to do some writing this spring, but plans change. I’ve learned that.”

“So have I,” I said. “Ian’s death taught me that nothing is certain. But Livia, I’m not getting any younger, and I haven’t exactly got a dazzling list of publications.”

“You still have the summer,” Livia said quietly. “Ariel doesn’t. Jo, she was so committed to this class.”

I could feel my pendulum being drawn into Livia’s rhythm. “Okay,” I said. “As soon as we get back from the lake, I’ll come up to the university and grab a syllabus and a class list.”

“Come this morning,” Livia said. “Then you’ll have the weekend to get prepared. Rosalie will have everything ready for you.”

I did not accept the yoke gladly, but as I drove to the university, I knew I had no right to complain. As Livia had pointed out, I did have the summer; besides, Alex had called, and for a novice he gave great telephone.

Ariel’s picture was still on the counter in the Political Science office. In front of it was a bud vase holding a single, perfect ivory rose. When I called hello, Rosalie looked up from her computer. She had done something new to her salt-and-pepper hair. For as long as I could remember, she had worn it tightly curled in the style my daughter Mieka called a Kurly Kate do. Now, the curl was relaxed into soft waves, and the colour was a uniform and becoming silver. “Nice look,” I said.

Rosalie reached up eagerly to touch her freshly feathered bangs. “The bridal book says not to try a new style the day of the wedding, so I thought I’d practise.” Her voice was as tentative as that of a girl preparing for her first date.

I tried not to smile. Until she met Detective Robert Hallam, Rosalie had approached life with the flexibility of a sergeant major. She knew exactly how life should be lived, and she was not forgiving of those of us who didn’t measure up. Love had come late to Rosalie. She was in her late fifties, and Robert was her first romance. When they met, he had been as intransigent and judgemental as she, and their mutual transformation had been a joy to watch.

“If I were you, I’d stop practising,” I said. “You’re not going to improve on that look. Now, come on. Fill me in. How are the wedding plans coming along?”

Her brow furrowed. “Pretty well, I think, except Robert’s been assigned to Ariel’s case, so he’s going to be putting in some long hours. He warned me last night that I’m going to have to be making some decisions for both of us.” She reached forward to save the work on her machine. “Joanne, did you go to the vigil for Ariel last night?”

“Yes.”

“I should have,” Rosalie said. “But I was still so upset, and I know it sounds selfish, but I want to enjoy this time before my wedding.”

“That’s not selfish,” I said. “You were better off at home. The evening got pretty unpleasant towards the end.”

“Robert had reports from some of the officers there. They said the situation was explosive.”

“I didn’t notice any police,” I said.

“They were female detectives, in plainclothes,” she said. Her voice lacked spirit. It was obvious her mind was somewhere else. She adjusted the diamond solitaire on her left hand. “Joanne, do you have a minute to talk?”

“Of course.” I pulled up a chair, so we could talk face to face. “Is there something I can help with?”

She laughed nervously. “It’s this business of being engaged to a policeman. I thought, since you and Inspector Kequahtooway are a couple, you might be able to help.”

“If I can.”

“I never know how much I should ask Robert about his work. I don’t want him to think I’m nosy; on the other hand, I do want him to know I’m interested.”

“Maybe it’s best just to follow Robert’s lead. A lot of the time, police officers live in a grim world. If Alex is any indication, sometimes they need to talk about anything except the case; other times they seem to need to talk it through.”

Rosalie looked thoughtful. “Last night, Robert must have needed to talk it through. I’ve never seen him so upset. Ariel’s case is really getting under his skin.”

“I guess until they have a suspect…”

“But they do have a suspect… at least they’ve brought someone in for intense questioning.”

“Who is it?”

“His name is Kyle Morrissey. He’s the young man who found Ariel’s body. His company sent him to work on some problem with the air conditioning in the sub-basement. He says he just took a wrong turn and ended up in the archive room.” She glanced around quickly to make sure we were alone. “Joanne, the police have had dealings with him before. Apparently, he has a violent temper.”

“So, why is Robert uneasy?” I said.

Rosalie’s face registered her distress. “He’s not certain they have the right man.”

“Why?”

“Instinct. Robert says that crimes like these typically involve rape. This one didn’t.”

I could feel the pinprick stirrings of anxiety. “So there was no evidence of forced sex?”

“None. She was just… slumped onto a table facing the front door. She was stabbed in the back. Robert said death was instantaneous.” Initially, Rosalie’s words had been halting; now they began to tumble out. “Robert said Ariel died from a single wound, surgically clean – doesn’t that sound terrible? And she didn’t struggle. There was nothing to indicate that Kyle Morrissey had tried to force himself on her. In fact, he called for help as soon as he found the body.”

“How did he get in? I thought those rooms were always kept locked.”

“They are – at least the doors the public uses are. But there’s a back door that workmen use. It opens up from the crawl space that has all the heating equipment and plumbing for the building.”

I leaned towards her. “Rosalie, maybe you shouldn’t say anything about this to anyone else.”

She looked stricken. “You mean I might compromise the case?”

“I guess, until the case is solved, the fewer people who know about the details the better.”

“I haven’t told anyone but you,” she said.

“Good.” Her eyes still sought reassurance. I did my best. “Rosalie, it’s okay. When you told me, you knew it wouldn’t go any further.”

“Because you’re in a relationship with a police officer, too.”

“Right.”

The cloud lifted. “It’s like a sisterhood, isn’t it?” she said.

“That’s what it is,” I said, “a sisterhood, so if you want to talk about this to anyone, you can talk to me.”

“What can she talk to you about?” Neither of us had heard Livia come into the office. Her hands clutched the poppy-painted silk scarf draped around her shoulders, and the shadows under her deep-set eyes were so dark she looked as if she’d been beaten. I remembered her hopes for Ariel and felt a pang in case I had made things hard for her on the phone.

I turned to her. “We’re just ironing out the details about the class.”

Rosalie rose with a start. “I’ve made up a file with copies of the syllabus and the class list. Ariel kept her grades on our shared drive on the computer, so I’ve printed them out for Joanne.”

“Sounds like everything’s in order,” I said, standing.

“Not quite.” Rosalie frowned. “I called the bookstore. Ariel was using Political Perspectives as her text in that class, but the bookstore is out of it, and by the time they can get it in, the class will be over.” She took a key from her desk drawer. “Joanne, would you mind going to Ariel’s office and getting her copy of the text? I should have done it, but I just couldn’t bring myself to open that door.”

I took the key. “There’s no reason you should,” I said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

I tried to be matter-of-fact, but the truth was I dreaded going to Ariel’s office. I’d been in it only a handful of times, but it was as characteristic of her as her thumbprint. She had surrounded herself with a cheerful clutter of books and journals, and a gallery of soft-sculpture figures of family and friends that she’d made from scraps of odd and lovely material. She was a person who loved process. A few weeks earlier, she’d called me in to show me how she’d placed a low table in front of her window and begun to grow a flat of tomato plants from seeds.

The office had celebrated the many pleasures of her life, but when I turned the key in the lock, I walked into a room that was oddly impersonal. Ariel’s desk was clear; the books on her bookshelves were neatly arranged according to subject and author, but the folk art and the photographs were gone. So were the table she’d placed under the window and the tomato plants that sprouted to life on it. I checked the section of books devoted to introductory politics: Political Perspectives was not there. I glanced through the other texts: Political Perspectives was still among the missing.

I walked back to the main office. “Rosalie, did someone take away Ariel’s things?”

“Not that I know of. Is something missing?”

“Everything that was personal.”

Rosalie followed me down the hall and peeked around the corner. Her face became troubled. “It wasn’t like this last Monday. I had to take some photocopying in, and it looked the way it always did. The police were in here last night, but I can’t imagine they’d remove anything.”

“They wouldn’t,” I said. Then I closed the door, locked it, and handed Rosalie the key. “Maybe Livia will know something about it.”

But when we got back to the main office, there wasn’t a soul in sight.

I started for the stairs. Then, haunted by the absence of Ariel in that room that had once teemed with her life, I doubled back and rapped on a door that was seldom rapped on any more.

It had been two years since I’d been in Kevin Coyle’s office. His frequent assaults on mine made reciprocal visits unnecessary, but a quick glance around the room assured me that all was as it had always been. His floor-to-ceiling bookshelves were jammed with thick books made from cheap paper. Their covers were dense with Cyrillic lettering and maps splattered in blood. The politics of Eastern Europe had a painful history of exsanguination. The brown overstuffed reading chair was still in its place by the window, and the illegal hotplate upon which Kevin made coffee and toasted sandwiches was still in plain view. But that day, as always, the most prominent feature of Kevin’s office was the four games of Risk he had set up on the dining-room table with the sawed-off legs that dominated the room.

In the good days, students, mostly male but some female, would spend hours in Kevin’s office, playing Risk, talking politics, eating toasted sandwiches and drinking Kevin’s execrable coffee. It had been a long time since students had ventured through that door, but Kevin had left everything at the ready – waiting for the Restoration.

“You’re like Miss Havisham,” I said.

“You think I don’t know whom you’re talking about,” he grunted, “but I do. Miss Havisham was that loony old broad in Great Expectations who got jilted at the altar and kept everything just as it had been on the day of her wedding. You’ll note I’m not wearing a wedding gown and there’s no mouldering wedding cake in sight. You’ll also note that I’m not insane. On the contrary, I’m a sane man in an insane world. May I offer you a cup of coffee?”

“Did you make it within the last two days?”

“Within the hour,” he said. “I’m turning over a new leaf.”

“Then I’ll take a chance. Kevin, I need some help.”

He brought me the coffee in an orange and brown striped mug whose earth tones were as faded as the earth-friendly activism of the seventies. The coffee was surprisingly good, and I told him so.

“I’ve learned the secret,” he said mysteriously.

“Kevin, I’d love to sit here and talk coffee with you, but I need some information. As the one department member who’s here day and night, do you have any idea who cleared out Ariel’s office?”

He couldn’t suppress the triumph in his eyes. “She and I did.”

“When?”

“A week ago Tuesday. It was around eight-thirty at night. I was here, working on my appeal, and I heard noises coming from down the hall. I went over to investigate. I was listening at the door when I heard a crash. I didn’t wait to be invited in. Ariel was on the floor. She’d been standing on her chair getting down the books from the top shelf of her bookcase when she slipped. She was all right, just shaken up a bit. She told me she’d been packing up her things, which was a fairly obvious statement since there were boxes all over the place. I asked if she needed some help getting the boxes downstairs to her car. She said she did.” He lowered his voice. “I have a private dolly on loan from the library.”

“That’s obliging of them,” I said.

“It would be if they knew I had it,” he agreed. “At any rate, it took us two trips to get everything into her truck, but we made it. Of course, I was curious about what she was up to, so when we loaded the last box on, I asked her, in a jocular way, whether it was moving day. She said no, she was just simplifying because she didn’t know what lay ahead.”

“Did she seem frightened?”

“Not frightened, just tense and resolute. Before she got in her car, she kissed me.” Remembering, Kevin touched his cheek. “Then she said, ‘People were wrong about you. That’s the next battle, and I’m not looking forward to it.’ ” Kevin’s face darkened. “Until that moment, it was a wonderful evening, but I pushed it too far. That’s a flaw of mine. Have you noticed?” He glared at me, waiting for a response.

I let him glare. Finally, hating silence, he continued. “That’s when Ariel and I had the exchange that Ann Vogel and her friends are getting such mileage from.”

“What exactly was the exchange?”

“It was obvious Ariel had learned something, so I pressed her to tell what she knew. She said she couldn’t until she’d talked to someone else first. Of course, I was certain the person she had to speak to was a member of the odious group of women. So I said, ‘Stay away from those harpies or you’ll be sorry.’ All I meant was that she’d lose the ground she’d gained, but I must have shouted because apparently I was overheard. Unfortunately, no one overheard her response.”

“Which was…?”

“Which was, ‘I already am sorry.’ ”

“Did you tell the police this?”

“Of course. They wrote it down very carefully. I’m sure the report has already been consigned to the shredder. Isn’t that how the authorities process all statements from middle-class white men over fifty?”

“Can it, Kevin. Let’s keep the focus on Ariel. Did she tell you anything more about why she was clearing out her office?”

“Just that she was separating what she needed from what she didn’t need.”

“That was it?”

“That was it.”

I finished my coffee and stood up. “I’m glad you were there,” I said.

He shrugged. “I’m a human being, Joanne. That brings certain obligations.”

As I walked down the corridor to my office, I had to admit I was spooked. Why had Ariel cleaned out her office four weeks before her class was over, and what had she meant by “the next battle”? Something else was troubling. Despite his promise to call me, I hadn’t heard from Howard Dowhanuik. That mystery, at least, appeared to have a solution within my reach, but when I got back to my office and dialled Howard’s apartment, there was no answer. I checked my machine at home. There were two messages: the first was from Marie Cousin thanking me in advance for being a parent-helper the next week when Taylor’s class visited the Legislature; the second was from Howard telling me he was worried about Charlie, and he’d be in touch.

The day stretched ahead. I could do what a sensible woman would do: shop for groceries, pack, get ready for the long weekend; or I could see if Charlie would talk to me. Ed Mariani had told me once that the first lesson a journalist learns is that everyone wants to tell their story. Something in my bones told me that a man as obsessed as Charlie had been would want to tell his. Luckily, I had a credible excuse for paying him a visit. If I was going to teach Ariel’s class on Tuesday, I’d need her copy of the text. I went back to the main office and flipped through Rosalie’s Rolodex.

Ariel’s address was a surprise: 2778 Manitoba Street was downtown, in a neighbourhood in which, depending on your bent, you could get cured by a Chinese herbalist, saved at a Romanian Catholic Church, or beaten to a pulp if you chose to hang around after dark. The city’s core was an unlikely choice for two young people with good incomes and privileged backgrounds, and as I drove past businesses that promised to cash cheques, no questions asked, and second-hand furniture stores with year-round sidewalk sales, I began to wonder if I had ever known Ariel at all.

The house she and Charlie had shared was a thirties bungalow with a fresh coat of paint the colour of Devonshire cream, dark green louvred shutters, lace curtains, and wicker hanging baskets filled with scarlet double impatiens. Nestled between a pawnshop with barred windows and an adult video store, the perky innocence of number 2778 came as a sweet shock, like discovering Donna Reed in a Quentin Tarantino movie.

Charlie and Ariel had made two concessions to the realities of their neighbourhood. The front lawn was protected by a chain-link fence and, as I stepped onto the porch, the dog that began barking in the backyard sounded like it meant business. After five minutes, the dog was still barking, no one had come to the door, and my idea about ambushing Charlie into supplying some answers seemed hare-brained rather than inspired. As I headed back to my car, I tried to step carefully around the water pooling on the walk, but despite my efforts, my feet got wet. By the time I reached the car, my temper was frayed. It was a toss-up whom I was angrier at: myself for thinking I could play Nancy Drew, or Charlie for leaving his dog out in a downpour.

The penny dropped. It had been raining constantly since 5:30 that morning. I hadn’t been close to Charlie for years, but if the Jesuits are right about the boy being the father of the man, I couldn’t imagine the Charlie I knew growing into a man who would leave his dog out in the rain. I retraced my steps and walked by the side of the house and peered over the gate into the backyard. A man in a khaki slicker, whose hood hid his face from view, was trying to feed paper into a smouldering hibachi. The dog, a Rottweiler, was beside him.

“Why don’t you wait for the rain to stop, Charlie?” I said.

But when he turned, the man facing me wasn’t Charlie. With his strong features, wire-rimmed glasses, and slick, swept-back hair, he had the look of a man who was accustomed to dominating the situation: a lawyer or an actor. He didn’t greet me, and his silence seemed like a professional tool.

“I’m looking for Charlie Dowhanuik,” I said.

The man remained silent. His expression wasn’t hostile, but it wasn’t welcoming.

“I’m a friend of the family.”

He shrugged. “What’s Charlie’s mother’s name?”

“Marnie,” I said. “Marnie Sullivan Dowhanuik.”

“Where does she live?”

“Good Shepherd Villa, in Toronto.”

He walked towards me, and unlocked the gate. The Rottweiler stayed at his side. As I came through the gate, I held my hand out, palm up, to the dog. He sniffed it eagerly; then he let me scratch his head. The man watched with interest. “You passed the name test and you passed the Fritz test,” he said. “That’s good enough for me. My name is Liam Hill, and I’m sorry for being suspicious, but it’s been that kind of day.”

“Joanne Kilbourn,” I said. “Have you had to deal with a ghoul patrol?”

“The stream has been steady,” he agreed. “I guess it’s human nature, but when you know the people involved, it’s hard to see tragedy as a spectator sport.”

“So you’re a friend of Charlie’s.”

“And of Ariel’s,” he said. “Look, we’re getting soaked. Do you want to continue this inside the house?”

“Sure.” I gestured towards a sheet of yellow legal paper smoking wetly in the hibachi. There was handwriting on it. “That’s not going to work, you know.”

He stiffened. I saw immediately that he had given my words a significance I hadn’t intended. I didn’t want to alienate him. At the moment he was the only link I had. “It’s too wet now,” I said. “Why don’t you try later?”

I could see him relax. “Let’s go inside.”

Fritz loped happily ahead, and I followed. We walked across the deck into the kitchen, an attractive room with hardwood flooring, old fashioned glass-faced cupboards, an ancient slope-shouldered Admiral refrigerator, a huge gas stove, and a picture window that looked onto the garden. Flush against the window was a butcher-block table. On the table, Ariel’s tomato plants languished, dry and yellowing. Unexpectedly, my eyes filled.

Liam Hill didn’t notice. He had his back to me, hanging his slicker over the back of a chair. When he turned, I saw that he was wearing a navy sweatshirt with white lettering.

“St. Michael’s College,” I said. “I went to Vic, but my first serious boyfriend was at St. Mike’s. His name was Bob Birgeneau, and he told me that he knew I was a nice girl, but that other boys wouldn’t know I was a nice girl if I kept wearing slacks to class.” I smiled. “Sorry,” I said. “Too much information.”

“Not too much information,” Liam Hill said. “Just an interesting sociological nugget. Shall we sit down?” He pointed towards a built-in breakfast nook just off the kitchen. Like the refrigerator, it was a period piece, a restaurant-style booth with wine leatherette banquettes facing one another across a Formica-topped, chrome-edged table. “Incidentally, we’re a little more enlightened about dress codes at St. Mike’s now.”

I slid into my place, and Liam Hill slid into his across from me.

“I feel like I should be ordering a cherry Coke and fries.” I said.

He smiled. “Whatever happened to cherry Cokes?” Then he leaned towards me. “I probably should have said this off the top. I’m not going to talk about Charlie.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “Actually, I was hoping to talk to Charlie myself. I thought he might need a friend.”

“How well do you know him?” Liam Hill asked.

“Not well at all any more. He and my kids knew each other when they were growing up. My connection is really with his parents, which, of course, now pretty well means Howard.”

“You and Howard Dowhanuik are close.”

“He’s my oldest friend.”

“For Charlie’s friends, that’s not necessarily a recommendation.”

I could feel my temper rise. “There are two sides to every story, Mr. Hill.”

Actually, it’s Father Hill,” he said, “and you’re right. I do only know Charlie’s side of the story.”

“Charlie was never very charitable about his father,” I said.

“Perhaps his father hadn’t earned charity.”

“That’s an odd comment coming from you,” I said. “Has your order started charging for caritas, Father Hill?

He winced. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Kilbourn. This hasn’t been anyone’s finest hour.”

“Then don’t prolong it,” I said. “Tell me when Charlie will be back, and I’ll be on my way.”

Father Hill’s face gave away nothing, but the pulse in his neck fluttered as he weighed his decision. Finally, the scales tipped in my favour. “Charlie won’t be back for a while. He went to Toronto to see Marnie.”

I was incredulous. “To see Marnie? Is she better?”

“There’s been no change in her condition. Charlie just wanted to be with his mother. Your friend, Howard, went with him.”

Liam Hill’s words were innocent, but something in his tone got under my skin.

“Howard doesn’t need me to defend him,” I said, “but, for the record, you’re wrong about him. He’s a good man, and he made a real difference in the lives of a lot of people here.”

“And his wife and son paid the price,” Liam Hill said quietly.

“You knew Marnie before the accident?”

He shook his head. “No, she was already at Good Shepherd when I met her. But Charlie told me she was brilliant. He said there was nothing she couldn’t have been, if she hadn’t had to sacrifice everything -”

I cut him off. “Marnie Dowhanuik didn’t sacrifice everything.”

Father Hill shifted his gaze. “We all have our own perception of reality,” he said mildly.

“Don’t humour me,” I said. My voice was loud and angry. When I spoke again I tried to take the volume down a notch. “This isn’t a perception. This is the truth. For many years, Marnie and I were as close as sisters. Father Hill, she wasn’t a victim. She was smart and funny and… she was Marnie – driving stubborn voters to the polls, handing out placards at rallies, cooking turkeys for all those potluck suppers. And her cabbage rolls…” I smiled at the memory. “She could make a pan full of sensational cabbage rolls in the time it took me to find the recipe. I remember once we’d been at a constituency dinner in the basement of Little Flower Church. At the end of the evening, when she and I came out to the parking lot, she was carrying this big roasting pan filled with leftovers. Howard was surrounded by men hanging on his every word. Marnie waded through all those fawning guys and handed him the roaster. ‘Howie,’ she said, ‘I made these cabbage rolls, I delivered them to the church hall, I reheated them, I served them, I washed the plates they were eaten off, I paid the party ten bucks for the ones that were left; the least you can do is carry them back to the damn car.’ ”

Father Hill laughed softly. “Nice story,” he said.

“There’s more to it,” I said. “You can imagine how those men were gaping. After all, Howard was the premier, and Marnie was just the missus, but she had this great smile, and she gave those guys the full wattage. Then she delivered the coup de grace. ‘Another thing,’ she said. ‘That speech you’re all creaming your jeans about – I wrote it.’ ”

Liam Hill raised an eyebrow. “She sounds like quite a woman.”

“She was,” I said. “Maybe Charlie never realized that. Kids’ perceptions of their parents’ lives aren’t always accurate. Father Hill, I wouldn’t accept Charlie’s word as gospel on this. He had his own burdens, and they may have distorted his view. But don’t diminish Marnie. The fact that her bike was hit by a car was a tragedy, but her life wasn’t.” I slung my bag over my shoulder. “Now, I did have a purpose in coming here. I’m taking over the class Ariel was teaching, and I’m going to need her textbook. It’s called Political Perspectives . It’s a quality paperback with a blue and red cover. Could you check her desk for it?”

“No problem,” he said, but there was something halfhearted about his agreement, and I wasn’t surprised when he returned empty-handed.

“No problem, but also no luck,” he said.

“Thanks for trying,” I said.

I pulled up the zipper on my jacket, then glanced at the tomato plants on the table. “Ariel babied those plants from seeds,” I said. “I hate to see them dying. Would you mind if I found a place outside to put them so they could get some of this rain?”

“I’ll give you a hand,” he said.

We were silent as we carried the tiny peat pots outside. We found a place on the deck where they could get plenty of rain, but where, if the wind came up, they’d be protected. As we set the last one in place, Fritz, who was still inside, began barking.

“Sounds like you have company,” I said. “There’s no need for me to trail mud through the house. I can leave by the gate at the side.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’m glad you came, Mrs. Kilbourn. It’s always useful to have another perspective.” He offered me his hand. “It’s good you thought about the tomato plants.”

When the back door closed behind him, I sprinted to the hibachi. The fire had sputtered out. I grabbed the charred piece of legal paper, folded it once, and dropped it in my purse.

As I let myself through the side gate, I saw why Fritz had been barking. Two police cars had pulled up in front of the adult video shop next door. The cruisers were empty, so the officers had apparently already gone inside. I was gawking as I walked to my car and, before I slid into my seat, I took a final glance. In an uncurtained window at the front of the second storey, an old woman was watching me. When our eyes met, she lifted her arm very slowly and waved at me. I waved back.

As soon as I was in the car, I took the piece of charred paper from my bag. The acrid smell of smoke hit my nostrils. The handwriting was sprawling and fanciful, not Ariel’s small, neat script. Only one sentence was visible, but the words cut to the bone. “Nothing will ever separate us again.” Then there was a single initial: “C.”