Burying Ariel

CHAPTER
6

When I got back to my office, Kevin Coyle was sitting behind my desk, staring at my computer.

“You should lock your door,” he said. “Vermin are afoot.”

“So it would seem,” I said. I dropped my books on the top of the filing cabinet and sat down in the chair opposite him. It was the chair reserved for students, and a person of sensibility would have taken the hint. Kevin didn’t. He had replaced the missing lens in his Coke-bottle horn-rims. The Dali-esque look was gone, but his magnified gaze was still unsettling.

“There’s new madness,” he said. Then, spotting the pin on my blouse, he leaned across the desk and peered at it. As he absorbed the pin’s message, his face grew grim. “More trouble for me,” he muttered. “And I suppose you’ve heard those women have got themselves some kind of propaganda space on the machine.” He thumped my monitor to identify the source of his latest crisis, then handed me a slip of paper with a Web-site address. “Here’s where they are, but I need you to show me how to find them.”

“Kevin, have you ever even turned on a computer?”

“Why would I?” he barked.

I stared at him. “Because as of five years ago, all the members of this department were supposed to be computer literate; because Rosalie was handling stuff for you that you should have been handling for yourself years ago; because we all have to submit our grades electronically now; and if you win your appeal, you’re going to have to…”

He scowled at me. “All right,” he said. “I’m ready to learn. As the Buddhists say, ‘Leap and the net will appear.’ ”

“And I’m the net,” I said.

He nodded. “I’ll bring you coffee. You can find the propaganda while I’m gone.”

I moved to my own chair, turned on the computer, and waited.

When Kevin came back, he handed me the orange and brown striped mug and examined the screen. “The information isn’t there.”

“Kevin, if I bring up the Web site for you, there’s no leap.”

He dragged the student chair over so it was beside mine. “Okay,” he said. “Teach me.”

For someone who had spent years railing against computers as the handiwork of the devil, Kevin Coyle proved to be a surprisingly quick student.

He made a few false starts, but within minutes the Web site appeared. It was striking: a black screen with a yellow dot glowing in the lower left corner. As I watched, the dot etched a graceful sunflower. It was an image I had introduced myself, yet I felt a stab of anger at this fresh proof that my private memory had suddenly become public property. The sunflower vanished, and Ariel’s name flowed across the screen, followed by the dates of her birth and death. There were some photos and, in the guest book, a dozen e-mailed memories. All grew out of the nine brief months Ariel had taught at the university. Solange had not cast her net wide, and even a quick glance revealed that the Web site had the sweetly elegaic flavour of a high-school yearbook.

I turned to Kevin. “Perfectly innocuous,” I said. “Looks like you lost your status as the last of the Luddites for nothing.”

Kevin stabbed at the computer screen with his forefinger. “What are those?”

“Just links to other sites that may be of interest to people who cared about Ariel.”

“How’s that one connected to her?” he asked, pointing to a site with the address “redridinghood.”

“Easy enough to find out,” I said. I clicked on the word “redridinghood,” and swivelled my chair to face him. “Even a child can do it,” I said.

He was staring at the monitor, transfixed. “That’s not for children,” he said. I followed his gaze. The picture filling the screen was of a woman: her gender was the only fact a viewer could know for sure. Violence had obliterated her other distinguishing characteristics. The hair surrounding her face was a rusty mat of dried blood. It was impossible to tell if, in life, she had been a blonde, brunette, or redhead. Whether she had been pretty or plain was anyone’s guess. Someone had pounded her face into the livid pulpiness of a rotted eggplant. Her naked body had been hacked at, her breasts severed, her genitals slashed.

I scrolled down the page to see if there was explanatory text.

The quotation that appeared on my screen was evocative: “… the better to eat you with my dear” This site is devoted to all the Red Riding Hoods – to all the women who have been devoured by the wolves that walk among us.

I shuddered.

“Someone just walked over your grave,” Kevin said absently. He took the mouse and clicked on “NEXT.” There was page after page, each with a photo of the murdered woman; each had been taken from a different angle, but they were all equally blood-drenched and appalling. The worst picture was the last because, as the caption indicated, it had been taken just hours before the woman died. The photo recorded what must have been a pleasant moment for her: a good-looking young man wearing an Armani suit, a Santa Claus hat, and the punchy look of the slightly drunk was raising a glass to her.

Red Riding Hood #1 wasn’t looking at him; she was gazing at the camera with a steadiness that suggested a woman who wasn’t easily deflected by party tricks. Her short black hair had been brushed back sleekly from her heart-shaped face, and a silvery T-shirt glittered through the opening of her smart black jacket. The outfit was festive yet professional, exactly the kind of outfit Marie Claire or Cosmopolitan or Flare would suggest a successful woman should wear to a holiday gathering at the end of a business day. By anyone’s criteria, Red Riding Hood #1 was a success. A newly minted MBA from Queen’s University, her curriculum vitae was so impressive that, the caption said, she had created the job she wanted with a venerable Bay Street brokerage firm and had landed it after one interview. The photograph had been taken at her company’s traditional supper gathering on the last working day before the Christmas break. After the firm’s partners sang “God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen,” the carol which, for seven decades, had been the signal that the company Christmas party was at an end, the good-looking young man in the Santa cap followed Red Riding Hood #1 home to her shining new condo in the Annex, and raped and murdered her.

Another click took us to Red Riding Hood #2, a real-estate agent with a client who had said he was keen on finding a property that could be a real hideaway. Red Riding Hood #3 was a shift worker in a plant that made pasta; Red Riding Hood #4 was a kindergarten teacher; Red Riding Hood #5 had a husband who couldn’t live without her. In all, there were a dozen grim little folk tales, each with its own stomach-churning, mind-numbing illustration.

The last click took us to a familiar passage. It was the moral Charles Perrault had appended to his version of Little Red Riding Hood three hundred years earlier: From this story one learns that children,

Especially young girls,

Pretty, well-bred, and genteel,

Are wrong to listen to just anyone,

And it’s not at all strange,

If a wolf ends up eating them.

I say a wolf, but not all wolves

Are exactly the same.

Some are perfectly charming,

Not loud, brutal or angry,

But tame, pleasant, and gentle,

Following young ladies

Right into their homes, into their chambers,

But watch out if you haven’t learned that tame wolves

Are the most dangerous of all.

When I read our children the story, I’d always stopped before I came to Perrault’s moral. I hadn’t wanted my daughter to grow up believing that men were the enemy; I hadn’t wanted my sons to grow up seeing themselves as predators to be feared. I thought about my granddaughter, a girl whose smiles went everywhere, and wondered whether the world into which Madeleine had been born would allow for such a benign omission.

I braced myself for a blast of blowtorch rhetoric from Kevin, but it didn’t come. He was as shaken as I was. “Unspeakable,” he said. His hugely magnified eyes were anxious. “But this horror show is only going to make things worse. Not just for me,” he added quickly, “for all of us.”

I pushed my chair away from the desk and stood up.

“Are you bailing out on me?” Kevin asked.

“No,” I said. “We’ll sink or swim together on this one. I’m going to ask Solange to remove the link to ‘Red Riding Hood’ from her Web site.”

The door to Solange’s office was open. She had visitors: Livia Brook was there, her poppy shawl loosely knotted over a white turtleneck, and – bad luck for me – Ann Vogel was there, too. Six months earlier, Ann had claimed a new identity as Naama. Now it appeared she had metamorphosed again. As Naama, she had been a woman who flowed: shoulder-length hair that streamed behind her, diaphanous, ankle-length skirts and loosely cut, filmy blouses that floated as she walked through the halls. Now her hair was henna-burnished and buzzed into a Joan of Arc cut, and she was wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and Converse high-tops. The attempt to ape Solange was an act of such teenage hero worship, I was embarrassed for both women, but Ann was beyond shame.

When she spotted me, her irises became pinpoints of loathing. “This is a private meeting,” she said.

“Then I won’t intrude,” I said. I smiled at Livia and walked over to Solange. “When you’re free,” I said, “I’d like to talk to you about your Web site.”

Solange nodded assent, but Ann Vogel wasn’t about to give anyone a graceful compromise. “The women in our group have no secrets from one another,” she said tightly, “but, of course, you wouldn’t understand about sisterhood.”

“I’m all for sorority,” I said. “I’m just not a big fan of hate groups. Incidentally, Ann, if I were you, I’d let the buzz cut grow out. I’m not sure the paramilitary look works for you.”

“You really are a bitch, Joanne.” She enunciated each word separately, Bette Davis style.

Solange raised a finger to silence her. “Joanne is not our enemy,” she said. She turned towards me; the bruised-eye pain of her gaze made it difficult not to look away. “You have a concern about the Web site?” she said. The words seemed pulled from her, as if even articulating a sentence caused her anguish. I thought of the French phrase Elle vit a reculons. She lives reluctantly.

It would have been unconscionable to add to her grief. “What you’ve done is perfect, Solange,” I said. “The tributes to Ariel strike exactly the right note. It’s the hot link to the ‘Red Riding Hood’ site that troubles me.”

Ann was clearly furious. “Why should we listen to you? You’ve already sided against us once.”

I tried to isolate her. “I’ve never had a quarrel with anyone but you,” I said. “You used Kevin Coyle to forward your own agenda, and I don’t want to see you doing the same thing with Ariel’s death.”

Solange’s eyes grew wide. “Ariel’s death must not be used,” she said.

I could feel the momentum shifting to me, and I pressed ahead. “No,” I agreed, “it mustn’t. The night of the vigil, Molly Warren told me that what she feared more than anything was having Ariel’s death politicized. This tragedy is deeply personal for all of us.”

Ann’s eyes glinted. I had linked the words “political” and “personal”; for a fanatical feminist the bait was as irresistible as catnip to a Siamese.

I hurried on before she could pounce. “I know the catechism,” I said. “I know that the personal is political, but the whole purpose of the Web page is to let the people who cared about Ariel share their memories and their sense of loss. Later, we can think about larger implications, but the focus now should be on Ariel. Besides, linking her page to the ‘Red Riding Hood’ site is placing Ariel’s death in a political context that might not even be accurate. Kyle Morrissey hasn’t been charged with her murder. From what I’ve heard he may never be.”

“What do you mean?” Livia said.

“I mean the case is weak,” I said. “It’s possible that Ariel was killed by someone else. For all we know the murderer is a woman.”

Ann took a step towards me. Her fists were clenched, and she was shaking with rage. “Get out,” she said.

We were on the edge of real ugliness, but Livia stepped between us. She was pale, but in control. “Joanne, we’ll reconsider the ‘Red Riding Hood’ hot link. I’ll make certain that we give your suggestion a fair hearing.”

“But I can’t stick around to argue my own case.”

Livia took my arm and led me out into the hall. When she spoke her voice was low and intimate. “Given the history you share with some of the women who created the Web site, perhaps it would be best to let them discuss it privately. Joanne, you know this department is all I have now. Trust me to do the right thing.” She leaned forward and kissed my cheek.

Whether it was the poignant reference to our shared past, the familiar smell of Pears soap, or the brush of cool silk I felt when her poppy shawl touched my arm, I was drawn into her orbit. “All right,” I said, “I’ll trust you.”

Kevin was still hunched over my computer when I got back. When he heard my step, he started. “Well…?”

“They’re going to discuss it,” I said.

“What do you think our chances are?”

I cringed at being included in Kevin’s possessive pronoun, but I smiled at him. “Livia says we have to trust her. And I do.”

He scowled. “Well, I don’t. Why would I trust a woman who has wanted my head on a plate for two years?” He shrugged. “You’ve just given me all the justification I need for spending some of my dwindling savings on surveillance.”

“You’re going to hire somebody?”

“Good God, no. I’m going to buy a computer. I’ll find it easier to trust those handmaidens of the victim culture if I can keep an eye on them.” He started for the door, but when he came to the threshold he turned. “Thank you for being my net.”

“You didn’t need a net, just a push.”

He grinned, revealing more silver fillings than I’d seen in twenty years. A man with ancient dental work, a lens held on by masking tape, a limitless supply of white, short-sleeved polyester shirts, and an uncertain future. My heart went out to him.

“Be careful, Kevin.”

“In the computer store?”

“Everywhere,” I said.

Alone in my office, I was edgy. I picked up the phone and dialled.

When I heard Ed Mariani’s blithe greeting, I felt as if I’d re-established contact with the world as I knew it.

“Can I buy you lunch?” I asked.

“Only if you promise to bring along the latest photos of Madeleine at the lake.”

“I haven’t even taken the film in yet,” I said.

“And you call yourself a grandmother,” he said. “But I’ll still eat lunch with you. Does noon at the Faculty Club suit?”

“Noon is fine,” I said, “but let’s go off-campus. I’ve had enough of this place.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“It is. Ed, have you seen that Web page Solange has created for Ariel?”

“I didn’t even know it existed. I haven’t been at the university since last week.”

“Count your blessings,” I said. “But I’d be grateful if you’d check it out and another site it’s linked to: ‘Red Riding Hood.’ ”

“ ‘Red Riding Hood’ – that’s intriguing. You do know, don’t you, that both Luciano Pavarotti and Charles Dickens are on record as saying they identified strongly with that little girl. I’m past the age for tripping through the woods with a picnic basket, but if it pleases you, I’ll be more than happy to give the site a whirl. Now about lunch… have you got time for Druthers?”

“I do if you do,” I said.

“I have all the time in the world,” he said.

The comment was more than a pleasantry. The amount of time that elapsed between the placing of an order and the arrival of food at Druthers was legendary. So were the short fuses of the restaurant’s father-and-son chefs. More than one patron’s meal had ended abruptly when the father, hurling curses, exited through the restaurant’s front door, and the son, also hurling curses, exited through the back door. But the menu was inventive, the food invariably excellent, and the atmosphere, when father and son were in accord, sublime.

That spring afternoon, as I walked through the front door of the old converted house in the Cathedral district, it appeared that Ed and I were in luck. James and James Junior, father and son, greeted me with smiles and ushered me to the cool peace of the Button Room, my favourite of the restaurant’s three small dining rooms. The Button Room took its name from its walls, which were hung with framed shadow boxes filled with antique buttons of incredible variety: military buttons of shiny brass bearing the insignia of once-proud units; mourning buttons of jet or of hair taken from the head of the newly deceased and woven into stiff discs; tiny buttons of mother-of-pearl or satin that the fingers of eager bridegrooms had fumbled undone as they claimed their trembling brides. The linen at Druthers was always snowy, and the flowers, exotic. Today a single fuchsia orchid blazed in our bud vase.

Ed rose when he saw me. “I’ve ordered martinis,” he said. “After seeing that Web site, I thought that we needed more than a Shirley Temple.”

James Junior brought the martinis, ice blue with two olives apiece, handed us the menus and announced the specials: wild mushroom pate; grilled tomato gazpacho, sweetbreads Druthers, mixed greens; coffee chocolate-chunk cookies.

I didn’t even open the menu. First, the Rombauers and now Druthers. It was obvious that sweetbreads were in the air, and I never bucked synchronicity. Ed followed my lead.

After James Junior withdrew with our orders, Ed raised his glass. “To sanity,” he said. “Although it appears to be fast disappearing from our troubled world. That ‘Red Riding Hood’ site is heartbreaking, Jo. To think of Ariel being one of that long, sad line…”

For a moment, we were both silent. Wrapped in our private thoughts, we sipped our martinis. They were excellent but ineffectual. The liquor burned, but it didn’t wipe out the memory of that long, sad line of girls and women, and of Ariel among them.

Finally, Ed broke the silence.

“I have some news,” he said. “Kyle Morrissey wasn’t a stranger to Ariel. Val Massey called me this morning. He’s working for the Leader Post, and he’s been assigned to Ariel’s story.”

Val Massey was an old student of ours. “How’s he doing?” I asked.

Ed smiled. “Dazzlingly. Bob Woodward in the making. At any rate, when he found out Kyle Morrissey had lived next door to Ariel…”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “There’s nothing next door to Charlie and Ariel’s place but an X-rated video store.”

Ed nodded. “ EXXXOTICA. That’s where Kyle lives, or at least lived until December when he ran into a little trouble with the police.”

“The assault charge that went away,” I said.

Ed raised an eyebrow. “And who’s your source?”

“Rosalie’s betrothed,” I said. “And Detective Robert Hallam says this case doesn’t feel right to him.”

“That’s pretty much Val’s take, too,” Ed said. “He’s spent some time with Kyle’s aunt, Ronnie. Apparently, there’s something a little weird there, but Val says Ronnie is quite an advocate for her boy, and she’s managed to convince Val that Kyle’s only feelings towards Ariel were ones of gratitude.”

“Gratitude for what?”

“Until December, Kyle worked at EXXXOTICA. It’s the family business. Anyway, after Kyle’s narrow escape, his aunt Ronnie decided that the kind of clientele who came in to rent triple-X movies, might not be creating an ideal milieu for her nephew, and that it might be wise to get Kyle out of harm’s way.”

“Good decision,” I said.

“According to Val, it was,” Ed agreed. “Kyle liked the job he found with the air-conditioning company. Incidentally, he had listed Ariel as one of his references. Apparently, she helped him find the place he moved into too. It’s in those student apartments over on Kramer Boulevard.”

I took a deep breath. “Ed, did Val mention the possibility that Ariel’s interest in Kyle might have been more than that of a friend?”

Ed stiffened. “I take it you have a reason for asking that question.”

“I do,” I said. “Mieka and I had a heart-to-heart at the lake. Ariel was pregnant when she died, and the father of her baby wasn’t Charlie Dowhanuik.”

“You’re not suggesting that Kyle Morrissey…?”

“I’m not suggesting anything,” I said. “All I know is that Mieka believes that Ariel wasn’t romantically involved with the father of her baby.”

“An accident?” Ed said.

I shook my head. “A helping friend. And that opens the field to a number of possibilities. I wondered if Kyle Morrissey was one of them. I saw his photo in the paper. He’s a good-looking man.”

Ed gave me a small smile. “A bodybuilder, dark and beautiful, but not my type, and not Ariel’s. According to Val, when it came to brains Kyle Morrissey was paddling in the shallow end of the gene pool.”

“Not swift?”

“Not swift,” Ed said. “And not ‘helping friend’ material. Ariel was a compassionate woman. If she thought Kyle Morrissey had been roughed up by the system, she would have done what she could to help him start over. That might have included helping him find a job and an apartment; it would not have included asking him to father her child.” Ed ran his finger over the frilled edge of the catelaya bloom. “I’m no expert on these matters, but what I don’t understand is why Ariel had to seek out anybody. She had it all: beauty, brains, grace. If she wanted to have a baby, why didn’t she just wait for the right man and get one the old-fashioned way?”

“I think she felt she was running out of time,” I said.

Ed frowned. “She was twenty-seven. You can’t be talking about biological time.”

“No,” I said. “I think Ariel felt she might be running out of time to live the life she wanted.”

“And Charlie Dowhanuik wasn’t part of that life?”

“Apparently not.”

At that moment, James Junior arrived with the wild mushroom pate, and out of deference to the wizardry in the kitchen, Ed and I moved to lighter topics: the weekend at the lake, a wood sculpture Ed and Barry were having installed on their deck, Madeleine’s perfection. But despite our banter, the martinis, a half-litre of Pinot Noir, and sweetbreads so succulent even the Rombauers couldn’t have improved upon them, Ed’s question hung in the air between us, a shadow at the feast.

When we left Druthers, Ed looked up at the high blue sky. “Given the morning we’ve put in, I suggest we both take an afternoon off,” he said. “I’m going to make myself a pot of camomile, stretch out in the hammock, and get back to A la recherche du temps perdu.”

“Do you know I’ve never managed to get past the first chapter of that book?”

“I’ve never made it past page three,” Ed said cheerfully, “but on the first truly sweet day of May, I always try. It’s my summer ritual. And how are you going to extract the joy from this glorious day?”

“Checking out someone else’s remembrance of things past,” I said. “I’m going to try to get Kyle Morrissey’s aunt to talk to me.”

The only parking space I could find was in front of the used-furniture mart. There was a special on inflatable furniture – just in time for summer. I passed it up and continued down the street towards the video store.

The old lady was at her perch at the open window upstairs, and as soon as she saw me, she called out. “Nobody’s home at the dead girl’s house,” she said, “but I know things you’ll want to hear.”

“What kinds of things?”

“Come up and find out,” she said.

“I’ll be right there,” I said.

Not an errant weed or faded bloom marred the perky, girl-next-door charm of Ariel and Charlie’s bungalow on Manitoba Street. As a house-minder, Father Hill’s price was obviously beyond rubies. The lawn in front of EXXXOTICA could have used his ministrations. The dusty shoots that made their way through its hard-packed dirt were ready for extreme unction, but the woman down on her knees in front of the porn video store wasn’t praying. She had a razor blade between her fingers and she was scraping at her front window. Someone had papered it with photocopies of the image I had seen on Ariel’s Web page: the black background, the stylized sunflower, and the words “Never Forget.”

The woman craned her neck to give me the once over. She was my age, with a mane of waist-length sun-streaked hair, a narrow face, close-set green eyes, the leathery tan of a rodeo rider, and an unusually large Adam’s apple. She was wearing jeans, a very brief white halter top, and a look of abject disgust. She tapped at the glass with the razor blade. “As if I ever could forget,” she said in a voice that could have been either an alto or a baritone. “Look at the mess they made of my window.”

I thought the words had been rhetorical, but she was being literal. She waved the razor blade in a gesture of frustration. “I said, look at my window. My grandmother recognized you. She watches your show every Saturday night. Look at my window, so you can tell your audience what you saw.”

“Ms…”

“It’s Ronnie. Ronnie Morrissey. My grandmother’s name is Bebe, and she’s a big fan of your show.”

“Then she knows we don’t do investigative journalism. We just talk about politics. I’m not even a reporter. I teach at the university.”

“But you’re on TV.” She paused to let the words sink in. In the real world, the distinction I had made was irrelevant. “You know people who can help us get the truth out. My nephew didn’t kill anybody. He couldn’t kill anybody.” She made a fist with one hand and punched the palm of the other. Her nails were nicely shaped and painted a shimmering mauve, but not even her careful manicure could disguise the fact that Ronnie Morrissey’s hands were meathooks. “Do you have kids?” she asked.

“Four,” I said.

“I was never blessed,” she said, “but I raised Kyle like he was my own. I know what he’s capable of doing, good or bad. If the cops called me and said Kyle got into a fight with someone who called him a dirty name or if they said he’d knocked back a half-dozen beers and relieved himself in the middle of Albert Street, I wouldn’t be happy, but I’d believe them. I don’t believe this, not for a single, solitary minute.” She knitted her brow. “Any of your kids boys?”

“Two,” I said. “One of them’s twenty-four; the other’s seventeen.”

“Then you know how it is,” she said huskily. “Now do me a favour and check out what they did to my window.”

Ronnie hadn’t made much headway with her cleanup. The area she had cleared was the size of a TV screen in a motel room, and there were still bits of black paper clinging to the glass, but I leaned forward obediently. Inside was a display of XXX movies with titles like Extreme Cat Fights, Operation Penetration, and Come Gargling Sluts. Framed by the sombre black of Ariel’s poster with its by-now familiar plea, the movie titles had a certain film noir eloquence.

“Quite the mess, eh?” Ronnie looked at her razor blade thoughtfully. “And they’ve done this to his apartment and to the locker at the place where he works. Where he worked,” she corrected herself. “They put him on unpaid leave. An innocent man, but that doesn’t mean a darn thing any more. The police are still hassling him, too. Kyle doesn’t react well to pressure, so last night we packed up his stuff and moved him back here. It’s a darn shame – he was so proud of being independent. Look, Ms. Kilbourn, I’d better get back to my scraping. Bebe will fill you in, but you get it straight.” She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted up at the old woman in the window. “I’m sending her up, Bebe.”

“I’m ready for her,” Bebe shouted back.

As Ronnie led me down the three steps that took us into EXXXOTICA , I wondered whether I was ready for Bebe. Convex security mirrors had been installed in the area around the cash register, and as Ronnie and I passed them, I caught sight of our reflections: two distorted funhouse women entering a distorted funhouse world. I’d been in some desolate places in my life, but my shoulders slumped under the weight of the store’s dingy misery. The room was long and narrow, and the light that made it past the handbills the Friends of Ariel had pasted on the front window was murky.

To reach the door that led to the living quarters, we had to navigate our way through racks of videos which offered the voyeur a smorgasbord of sexual delights: man with woman, man with several women, women together, men together, men with young girls, men with young boys. For the adventurer, there were dominatrixes with whips and dungeons, animals who were more than men’s best friends, and opportunities galore to revel in the joys of leather, chains, masks, uniforms, adult-sized baby clothes, and golden cascades.

Ronnie paid the videos no heed, but I did, and the fact that the people who rented them lived in my city, shovelled snow from their sidewalks, walked past me in the park, and stood beside me in the checkout counter at the grocery store gave me pause. It was bizarro mondo out there, which might have explained the complex system of locks that had been installed on the door that separated the store from the house’s living quarters. Magician-like, Ronnie pulled a ring of keys from inside her halter top and opened the locks. The world on the other side of the door was reassuringly normal: a small entranceway with a floor of terra cotta Mexican tiles, a telephone table, and wallpaper with a vaguely Navajo pattern in sand, mango, and turquoise.

“Up the stairs and straight ahead, you can’t miss it,” Ronnie said, then she abandoned me.

Later, I came to realize that the walls of Bebe’s room were painted a soft dove grey, but my first impression was of retina-searing pink. Bebe, as it turned out, was not simply a watchful neighbour. She was an entrepreneur, and her business was reclaiming and refurbishing Barbie dolls. It was impossible to calculate at a glance the number of Barbies in her sunny front room, but it must have been in the hundreds. Hair braided into perky cornrows, teased into airy beehives, swept into chic chignons, or twirled into ringlets, Bebe’s battalions of Barbies were marshalled on every flat surface, poised to tackle the many roles of women at the beginning of the new millennium. But whether they were headed for the bike path, the ball, the board meeting, or the birthing room, all of Bebe’s Barbies were sallying forth in outfits crocheted from the same durable nylon yarn in the same eye-popping shade of bubble-gum pink.

Bebe was pretty sassy herself. She was wearing sequinned tennis shoes, white slacks, and a white sweatshirt with the legend “I Drove the Alaska Highway.” Her hair was dandelion fluff, she had a dab of cerise rouge on the wizened apple of each cheek, and her eyes were the blue of a distant sky. She was very, very old.

“I’m ninety-five,” she said. “Might as well get the question marks out of the way so you can pay attention to what I’m saying.”

“Good policy,” I said, wishing Ronnie shared her grandmother’s candour.

Bebe indicated the chair opposite her. “Take a load off your feet,” she said. “Though it’s not as much of a load as I’d have thought seeing you on TV. I’ve heard it said the camera adds ten pounds. That must be true.”

As she watched me take the seat she had assigned me, her eyes never left my face, but the crochet hook in her hands kept flying. “I recognized you the other day. That’s why I waved. I wanted you to go on TV and tell the country that Kyle is innocent, but you didn’t come in. You should have. That show you did Saturday night was as soft as boiled turnips. ‘What Would Queen Victoria Think of Today’s Canada?’ Queen Victoria wouldn’t give a damn, and neither did you. I was watching your face, Joanne Kilbourn. You knew that show was mush.”

“We pretaped it, so we could get away for the holiday weekend,” I said meekly.

Her crochet hook sped on, leaving behind it the gently undulating flares of the skirt for an evening gown. “I told Ronnie that’s what you done,” she said. “So can we expect more of the same on this week’s show?”

“There is no show this week,” I said. “We’re through for the season.”

“Then how can you tell the country that Kyle is innocent?”

“Is he?” I asked.

Her old chin jutted out defiantly. “As innocent as you are.”

I leaned towards her. “Then tell me what I need to know,” I said.

“Kyle didn’t kill Ariel Warren,” she said. “They were friends. He brought her up here to meet me. It took me five seconds to cipher out the relationship.” She lowered her voice. “Kyle’s not much in the brains department, but he’s got enough brains to know that Ariel Warren was out of his league.”

“He could have found that frustrating,” I said.

“Coulda, woulda, shoulda,” she snapped. “Useless words.” The crochet hook flashed angrily. “The point is he didn’t. Didn’t find it frustrating. Didn’t kill her. Case closed.”

It was time to try another tack. I leaned forward and peered out Bebe’s window. “You have a good view of the street up here,” I said.

“I see everything,” she said flatly. “And I’ve got the scrapbooks to prove it. Look at this.” She pulled a scrapbook from a pile beside her and handed it to me. “Open it for a surprise,” she said.

The book was filled with newspaper clippings of people who would have considered themselves movers and shakers in our small city. Beside each picture was a list of XXX movie titles.

“I read the Leader Post, cover to cover, every day.” Bebe explained. “When I spot a photo of one of our customers, I cut it out. Then at night I get out the rental book and I write down what they rented. You never know when something like that might come in handy.”

I closed the scrapbook and looked at her steadily.

She read my gaze. “But we’re not here to talk about that, are we? Today is about Kyle. As usual the cops have got their blinders on. There’s a lot likelier possibilities than our boy but, of course, nobody’s ever accused the cops of being able to take in the big picture.” Her mouth snapped shut, defying me to disagree.

“I need more than your opinion, Bebe,” I said.

“I’ve got more than my opinion. I could see every move she made. And the one she lived with, too,” she added triumphantly.

“Charlie.”

The hook stopped, and the old blue eyes looked at me with real interest. “Charlie,” she repeated. “So that’s his name. I never did know it. He kept to himself – not that you’d blame him with that face. The only time he went out was in the afternoons – I guess that’s when he worked.”

I took a deep breath. It was time to ask the question that had been nagging at me from the moment I saw the dying tomato plants on the kitchen table of the house next door. “Bebe, when was the last time you saw Ariel?”

She didn’t hesitate. “Two weeks ago Tuesday,” she said, rosy with the excitement of a person who had a humdinger of a story to tell. “About this time of day. Usually, you can set your clock by that guy with the face, but that day he came home early. He went inside. He wasn’t there long, then she came out, and Charlie was chasing after her. He was kind of crying and yelling at the same time.”

“Could you hear what he said?”

Her old head bobbed vigorously. “I had to lean out the window to pick it up clearly, but I heard every word, and I wished I hadn’t. I don’t like to see a man act like a whiny kid, and that’s how he acted.” She raised her voice in a falsetto. “ ‘Don’t leave me. I’ll do anything. I’ll be anything. Just stay.’ ” Bebe made a moue of disgust, and resumed her normal tone. “You would have thought he’d have more pride,” she said, “especially with another man there, listening to every word.”

I was baffled. “Where did the other man come from?”

“He was in the house with Ariel when that Charlie came home early.” She stopped crocheting, pursed her lips thoughtfully, and raised the little party dress in the air. “Needs another flounce, don’t you think?”

“A dress can’t have too many flounces,” I said.

Bebe narrowed her eyes at me. “You think I don’t know you’re making fun, but I do.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“No, you’re not. You’re worried if you get my dander up, I won’t finish my story, but I will. It’s too good a story not to finish. Now,” she said, “what I surmise is this – Charlie walked in and caught Ariel and her new boyfriend doing what comes naturally.”

“Having sex,” I said.

She rolled her eyes and tweaked her thumb and forefinger over her lips in a buttoning gesture.

“All right,” I said. “You don’t have to be explicit. Had you ever seen the man before?”

“Just that once, but I’ll never forget him.” Her eyes sparked with lust. “A magnificent-looking man – like an African prince.”

“He was black?”

“As the ace of spades,” she said. “And if the police had any brains at all, they’d be out looking for him and for that one with the birthmark and they’d be leaving Kyle alone.” She jerked her crochet hook free of the brilliantly pink yarn. The little dress was complete, and the interview was over. I picked up my purse and stood up.

Bebe waggled her finger at me. “Make sure you pass along what I told you to someone who can get it on the air.”

“I appreciate your seeing me,” I said.

Her expression grew shrewd. “Do you want to show your appreciation?”

I opened my bag. “I don’t have much cash with me. Could I write you a cheque?”

“I don’t want your money. I want Barbies.” She pointed to a large wicker basket beside her chair. It was half filled with dolls, naked but with hair newly washed and fingers tipped with fresh pink nail polish. “You get these from garage sales. Of course, they’re not like this when I get them. They’re a mess, but I clean them up, and make their little outfits. I’ll pay you two bucks a doll – no more, or my profits get eaten up. Be sure to check their feet. That’s where the puppies chew, and I can’t sell a doll if the toes are chewed off.

“I’m not very good at garage sales. I never seem to find the bargains.”

“Even a blind pig gets an acorn once in a while,” she said. “Give it a try.”

“All right,” I said. “I’ll give it a try.”

She picked up a fresh skein of yarn. “Now tell me again what you’re going to do.”

“I’m going to hit the garage sales and look for Barbies. I won’t pay more than two bucks apiece, and I’ll check their feet to make sure they’re not chewed.”

Bebe Morrissey stared at me in disbelief. “Jesus Christ and all the saints of heaven,” she said. “How did you ever get a job teaching at a university? What you’re going to do, Joanne Kilbourn, is go to your friends at NationTV and tell them to start sniffing around the African prince and the guy with the birthmark. And you’re going to tell them to leave our Kyle alone.”