The Glass Coffin

CHAPTER
11

Ken Dryden once said that the goalie’s job is to know what’s coming next and insert himself like a stick into the spokes of a bike and stop the action. When I saw Inspector Alex Kequahtooway get out of the elevator and head towards the psychiatric ward, I knew the time had come to be a stick in the spokes. Tracy had passed the point of meltdown. Alex wouldn’t need his considerable skills as an interrogator to unearth the fact that Tracy was Bryn’s birth mother. The seventeen-year-old girl beside me had already endured a lifetime of assaults. I didn’t have the power to deflect the next blow coming her way, but I could defer it.

I turned to Bryn. “Let’s go home,” I said.

She looked puzzled. “What about Jill? She’s still outside finishing her cigarette.”

“We’ll find her.” I went over to the nursing station and left a message for Claudia. Then I punched the elevator button. When Bryn and I stepped out on the main floor, Jill was there.

“I was just coming up,” she said.

“Change of plans,” I said. I slid my hand under her elbow and steered her towards the door.

During the taxi ride, Bryn talked about how the smell of hospital in her hair and on her clothes was making her sick. As soon as we were through the door, she ran upstairs to shower and change.

After Bryn left, Jill slumped against the wall. “I can’t remember ever feeling this tired,” she said.

“In need of your java-enabler?” I said.

“Make it strong and keep it coming,” Jill said.

I made a pot of Jill’s favourite Kona, and we took it into the living room. The coffee seemed to restore her. After a few sips, she sat forward in her chair. “Okay,” she said. “I’m fortified. Now tell me why we had to beat such a hasty retreat from the hospital.”

My account of Tracy’s true relationship with Bryn observed four of the five W’s of journalism. I told Jill everything I knew about Who, What, When, and Where, but I didn’t venture any guesses about why Bryn’s family had hidden the truth from her after Annie died; nor did I speculate about why Gabe Leventhal had died within hours of discovering what I’d discovered.

Like any smart journalist, Jill was a good listener. When I finished my account, she asked, “Is there more?”

I shook my head. “Your turn now. Any questions?”

“Have we heard from that private detective in Toronto?”

“Not that I know of. I’ll call Kevin and get him to stir things up a bit.”

“Good.” She leaned towards me. “Jo, we need to know what the police have found out.”

I met her gaze. “Alex doesn’t trust me any more. I’ve made it pretty clear I’m on the other side.”

“Just do your best, okay?”

“Okay,” I said. “More coffee?”

“Thanks, but I should talk to Bryn. No point in delaying the inevitable.” Jill stood and smoothed her leather pants. “Jo, she has so few resources. How do I break this to her?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Just take it slow, and see how she reacts. If she’s having a hard time, stop and let her decide where to go next. Bryn trusts Dan Kasperski. I’ll call him, so he’ll be ready if you need him.”

After Jill left, I dialled Dan’s number and left a message on his machine. Then I sat back and waited for word of trouble upstairs. When there was none, I picked up the phone and called Kevin Hynd.

“Synchronicity,” he said. “I was just about to call you.”

“If you tell me you have news from the detective in Toronto, I’m going to believe God is Alive and Magic is Afoot.”

Kevin chuckled. “He is, and It is. Our man, whose name is Richard Shanks, called tonight. He struck paydirt.”

“So soon?”

“It’s all in knowing where to dig,” Kevin said. “Richard talked to the MacLeish housekeeper. She was a temporary, but she filled him in on her predecessor. The lady’s name is Isobel Carruthers. She’d been with the MacLeish family for fifty years, but she was only too willing to talk.”

“Fifty years of service and suddenly she’s spilling the beans? What happened? Did they fire her?”

“Apparently, she left of her own volition when she heard that Evan was dead.”

“She was that attached to him?”

“No. According to Richard, Mrs. Carruthers believes that whoever killed Evan did the world a favour.”

“So what was her problem?”

“Moral outrage. Hang on to your toque, Joanne. Mrs. Carruthers told Richard she quit because she couldn’t spend another night in a house that had nurtured a murderer.”

“Did she name her suspect?”

“Nope, but she did give Richard some interesting nuggets to ponder. She said that Bryn’s relationship with her father was unnatural.”

“No surprise there.”

“Then try this. According to Mrs. Carruthers, Bryn was not the innocent victim. In Mrs. C’s words, it was ‘tit for tat.’ ”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that Bryn threatened to withhold favours if she didn’t get her way.”

I felt a coldness in the pit of my stomach. “What kind of favours?”

“Not sexual. For lack of a better word – professional. Remember that bizarre thing Bryn did with the camera – speaking to it directly about what Evan was doing to her?”

“Yes.”

“The housekeeper says Bryn used the camera to barter. She’d tell the camera what she wanted, and if Evan didn’t come across, she’d screw up the film.”

“And our pillar of rectitude, Mrs. Carruthers, did nothing.”

“She didn’t believe it was her place to interfere. She felt that was up to Bryn’s flesh and blood.”

“Who, as we know, did nothing.”

“And that’s the part I don’t get,” Kevin said. “I’m not exactly a cock-eyed optimist when it comes to my fellow beings, but you would have thought someone in that house would have stopped Evan.”

“Maybe everyone just had too much to lose,” I said. “Evan was Bryn’s father. If someone confronted him, he could have simply taken her and moved away. Claudia devoted years of her life to that girl. She might have convinced herself that as long as she and Bryn were under the same roof, she could exercise some control.”

“And Tracy just needed a roof over her head,” Kevin said. “Incidentally, Mrs. Carruthers says that particular need has become more pressing. Tracy lost her job on that kids’ show.”

“No more Broken Wand Fairy?”

Kevin laughed softly. “Hey, losing her wand might not be the worst thing that ever happened to Tracy. Her ‘Magictown’ gig looked like a dead-ender to me. And they do say that freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”

“So is ‘desperation,’ ” I said. “Tracy tried to commit suicide this afternoon.”

Kevin groaned. “Oh shit.”

“My sentiments exactly,” I said. “And it gets worse. Tracy is Bryn’s birth mother.”

“Whoa,” Kevin said. “Now that is heavy.”

“But it explains a lot,” I said. “We saw how close the sisters were. I’m assuming Annie’s epilepsy made pregnancy too much of a risk, and Tracy volunteered.”

“Does Bryn know?”

“Jill’s telling her as we speak. And Kevin, I’m certain Gabe Leventhal had put the pieces together the night he died.”

“So Tracy had motives for killing both Gabe and Evan.”

“For Gabe, yes, but I don’t understand what she’d gain by killing Evan after he and Jill were married. The moment Evan slipped the ring on Jill’s finger, she was Bryn’s stepmother.”

“Maybe the laws are different in ‘Magictown,’ ” Kevin said. “Or maybe something about the wedding just ticked Tracy off. In my experience, the motivation for most murders is pretty mundane.”

“I guess it doesn’t much matter what was going on in Tracy’s head,” I said. “She had an alibi, remember?”

“Right,” Kevin said. “She was with Claudia. Which, of course, means that Claudia also has an alibi.”

“You think it’s possible they’re both lying.”

“I think we’d be smart not to rule anything out,” he said. “Mrs. Carruthers is no fan of Claudia’s. I gather the Rottweilers may have something to do with her distaste, but, apparently, Mrs. Carruthers is of the opinion that an able-bodied woman like Claudia should be able to make her own way in the world and not sponge off her mother.”

“I take it that’s a direct quote.”

“A close paraphrase,” Kevin said. “Mrs. C did add one interesting stroke to our portrait of Claudia. Apparently, she’d been having some pretty ugly quarrels with the man in her life lately.”

I thought of the heavy vellum card in Bryn’s treasure trove of potentially useful memorabilia. “Any chance the boyfriend had a slight German accent?” I asked.

“Was there something going on between Claudia and Felix Schiff?”

“Enough that they had a shoving match in the hotel lobby the morning after Evan died.”

“Never a dull moment,” Kevin said. “If they’re this rambunctious when they’re on the road, they must be a real treat when they’re back at the old homestead.”

“Speaking of,” I said. “Did you find out anything about Caroline MacLeish?”

“No, Mrs. Carruthers was very protective of the matriarch.”

“And yet she quit when Caroline MacLeish needed her most,” I said. “Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

“Face it,” Kevin said. “They’re an odd bunch. I’ll tell Richard to keep digging – see what else the MacLeish clan has buried in the backyard.”

I winced at the metaphor, but it did prod a question. “Kevin, do you know anyone here in town who could do some digging?”

“Sure. There’s a woman here who’s a whiz. What do you want her to look for?”

“Anything that will get us out of the maze.”

Kevin laughed. “Hey, Shania’s a whiz, not a miracle worker.”

“Shania?”

“Shania Moon,” Kevin said. “You’d be amazed at how many people can’t resist opening up to a woman with a provocative name.”

“See if Ms. Moon can get someone to open up about what went on at Gabe’s hotel the night he died.”

“You’ve got it,” Kevin said.

It took me a few minutes to screw up the courage to call Alex’s office. He picked up on the first ring.

“Kequahtooway.”

“Alex, it’s Joanne. I wondered if we could get together for a few minutes.”

There was a pause. “Business or pleasure.”

“Business,” I said.

“I have a few things to finish up here. I’ll meet you in half an hour at Brenners.”

“Thanks,” I said, but he’d already rung off.

Every failed love affair has its own subtext. It wasn’t difficult for me to read volumes into the fact that Alex had chosen Brenners for our meeting. If the owner of Brenners had been an art lover, it would have been tempting to believe he had modelled his cafe after Edward Hopper’s painting Nighthawks. But Marv Brenner’s decision to illuminate his cafe with the harsh, unsparing voltage of a police interrogation room had nothing to do with giving the lonely and dispossessed a sanctuary in which to spend the small hours. Marv was famously misanthropic. The archives of the Leader Post were full of letters bearing his signature; the ones the paper chose to print revealed a man who believed the world was divided into four categories: pissants, punks, perverts, and people like Marv. The harsh lighting and floor-to-ceiling uncurtained windows were designed to protect people like Marv from the others. Not surprisingly, the pissants, punks, and perverts flocked to Brenners like moths to a porchlight. Everybody likes a clean, well-lit place.

I was five minutes early, so I found a booth by a window that looked onto Broad Street. I ordered coffee and waited for the silver Audi to appear. Alex was right on time. When he slid into the place across the table from me, I tried not to show that I was shaken by his appearance. His complexion was grey, and the skin under his eyes was pouched and dark. Without being summoned, the waitress brought him a coffee with two creams and a sugar. Obviously in the weeks since we’d broken up, Alex had become a Brenners regular.

He opened the cream containers and the sugar package and dumped everything into his cup. “How was Christmas?”

“I’ve had better,” I said. “And yours?”

“I’ve had better too.” He stirred his coffee. “You said this was about business, Jo. What’s up?”

My plan was to be brisk, objective, and matter-of-fact. But seated across from this man with whom I had shared every possible intimacy for three years, the words tumbled out. “I’m scared,” I said. “Scared and exhausted and confused. I’ve got a ton of information. I don’t know what any of it means. I keep banging into walls and stumbling into dead ends.”

Alex gave me the smallest of smiles. “Sounds like we’re working the same case,” he said.

“Then let’s help each other. My concern is Jill. Yours is the truth. There’s no conflict of interest here, Alex.”

His gaze was assessing. “You’re suggesting we share information.”

“Not everything,” I said quickly. “I know this is irregular, but I thought we could just ask each other a few questions. No obligation to answer unless we wanted to.”

I could see him deciding. “So who gets to go first?” he asked.

“You can,” I said.

“Okay,” he said. “The Toronto police went to Evan MacLeish’s office to see who he’d been in contact with before his death. The place had been picked clean. Do you know anything about that?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to fill me in?”

“No.”

Alex shook his head. “Off to a great start. Do I get to go again?”

“Absolutely.”

“Okay. Here’s something current. We have two witnesses who were at the airport today when the EMT people picked up Tracy Lowell. Both our witnesses heard Tracy tell her niece, ‘I did it for you.’ Do you know what she was talking about?”

“I have a pretty good idea. For starters, Bryn is Tracy’s daughter, not her niece. I’m surprised that didn’t come out when you interviewed her at the hospital.”

Alex blew on his coffee. “She wouldn’t talk to us. Clammed up absolutely, but that is interesting – and significant. So you think Tracy was telling her daughter she killed for her.”

“Obviously I can’t be certain,” I said. “But my instincts tell me Tracy didn’t kill anybody. I think she was just making sure Bryn knew that she was the cause of her suicide attempt.”

“Nice parting gift for your kid,” Alex said. “Your turn now.”

I took a breath. “How tight are people’s alibis for the night of the rehearsal dinner.”

“Not tight at all,” Alex said. “And I have no problem giving you this information because if you can add anything to the equation, we might finally get a break on the Leventhal case.”

“There’s no doubt in your mind that Gabe was murdered,” I said.

“None,” Alex said. “Pathology is still waiting for some tests results, but they have enough to state that Mr. Leventhal did not die of natural causes.”

“The night I identified the body, you said there was blood under Gabe’s fingernails. Was it Evan MacLeish’s?”

“I can’t tell you that,” Alex said. He leaned across the table and looked into my eyes. “Maybe this would go more smoothly if I suggested a line of questioning that would help us both. Jo, everyone is covering up for everyone else in this case. Claudia says she was with Tracy, except of course when she went out for a few minutes with Bryn, but luckily Felix happened along at just that moment, so he and Tracy were together. Then Felix went back to his room and Claudia spent an hour with him there. We have some corroborative evidence for that particular encounter. Felix and Claudia were making so much noise that the guest in the next room had to knock on their door and ask them to keep it down.”

“They were quarrelling.”

“Actually, the guest thought they were indulging in a little overly athletic lovemaking. When Felix answered the door, the guest was surprised to see that he was fully dressed.” Alex rubbed his eyes. “Bryn, of course, was never alone – not for a second. After Claudia left, Tracy and Bryn spent some quality time together. It’s seamless. The weird thing is, I don’t think these people even understand why they’ve dropped into this mutual protection mode. But they’ve obviously had a lot of practice cooperating with one another, because we can’t break their stories.”

“So if I could supply an inconsistency, you’d have a wedge.”

Alex wiped a small ring of coffee from the table. “Yes, and a wedge is exactly what we need if we’re ever going to crack this open. There’s another area where we could use a break. After he left the wedding, Jill’s partner, Felix Schiff, apparently disappeared off the face of the earth for a period of at least sixteen hours.”

“I saw Felix the morning after the wedding,” I said. “He looked like hell. He told me he’d been doing the club scene.”

“That’s what he told us too,” Alex said. “The problem is nobody remembers seeing him. Of course, nobody remembers not seeing him, but we’re dealing with a population whose powers of observation grow dim when a cop walks into the room. Even Mr. Schiff claims to have zero recollection of what happened.”

“Do you believe him?” I said.

“Not much you can do when a man says he had a blackout.”

“It’s so out of character,” I said. “I worked with Felix on ‘Canada Tonight’ for four years. He was the executive producer in Toronto and I was just a political panellist out here, but we talked every week about stories. We weren’t close, but I thought I knew him. He always called himself ein prakiter Mensch – a practical man.”

“Not the kind of man to go out and get blind drunk after his business partner’s wedding.”

“No,” I said. “Especially when that business partner is a friend.”

Alex’s cellphone rang. He half-turned from me, mumbled a few words, then looked at me apologetically. “I have to get back to work,” he said.

I stood up. “I invited you. I’ll pay.”

“I’ll get it next time,” he said. He touched my arm. “Jo, I would like there to be a next time. For what it’s worth, I never meant to hurt you.”

“I know,” I said. “That didn’t make the hurt any less.”

When I went to pay, Marv himself was at the cash register. He scratched his belly and gave me his best smile. “Come again,” he said. “And sit in a window booth like you did tonight. I’m working on strategies to bring in a more genteel clientele.” He scratched his belly again, then rasped confidentially, “You know, people like yourself and me.”

Angus’s car was parked halfway down the block from our house. The windows were fogged. I slowed, waited, and finally hit the horn. After a few too many beats, Angus rolled down the window. On the seat beside him, Leah was adjusting her clothing and smoothing her newly blonde choppy bob. When she recognized me, she waved. “Sorry, Mrs. Kilbourn. It’s been a while since we were together. We’re hungry puppies.”

I smiled at her. “Enjoy the moment,” I said.

“I am,” she said.

Angus leaned out of the window. “So you’re okay with this?”

“I’m great with this,” I said. “But keep the action away from the house for a while. Bryn is going through some tough times.”

“Do you think I’m a lowlife for bailing on her?” Angus asked.

“You’re not bailing on her. Be her friend, and save the rest for Leah.”

When she heard the door, Jill came downstairs. She moved slowly, as if even the act of putting one foot in front of the other demanded an act of will. Being bludgeoned by crises was taking its toll on us all.

We gravitated towards the kitchen and sat at the table. Outside, a squirrel cleaned out the bird feeder. “How did Bryn handle the news about Tracy?” I asked.

Jill hugged herself as if she were cold. “Pragmatically,” she said. “She wanted to know if Tracy could stop us from moving to New York. I called Kevin. He says it’s a dicey situation, but the best thing to do would be to sit down and talk it out, just the three of us – no lawyers, no outsiders to put steel in Tracy’s spine. He also told me that since Tracy’s lost her job on that kids’ show, she’d probably be open to discussion of financial compensation. So I guess Bryn’s for sale.”

“Pay what you have to,” I said. “And be generous about visitation rights. Give Tracy something to hang on to. Bryn doesn’t need to go through life believing she destroyed another human being.”

Jill looked away. “Do you ever have thoughts that are so ugly, they make you wonder what kind of human being you are?”

“Let me guess,” I said. “You wish Tracy had finished the job before they found her today,” I said.

“God forgive me, I do.” Jill’s voice caught. “Jo, I don’t know how much more of this any of us can take.”

“Then stop beating yourself up, and let’s get it over with,” I said. “I saw Alex tonight. The police are getting nowhere with this investigation. Alex feels that all their prime suspects are lying for one another.”

“Because their own stories are shaky?”

“Exactly. The private detective in Toronto has opened some useful veins of information, but he needs to keep digging. Possibilities aren’t enough. We need facts. Kevin’s hiring someone local to find out what everybody here’s been up to. Given his efficiency, I imagine Shania Moon is already on the job.”

Jill rolled her eyes. “My fate is in the eyes of a woman named Shania Moon?”

“It is,” I said. “And she’s going to need all the help we can give her. Time for you do your homework. Alex tells me that the night Gabe died, Felix and Claudia spent an hour together in Felix’s hotel room. Is it possible you were wrong about them – that there really is something going on there?”

“I guess anything’s possible,” Jill said. “They’ve known each other forever. Felix came here from Germany when he was twenty-five, and he linked up with the MacLeish family right away. Claudia would have been in her early twenties then. Something could have sparked.” She frowned. “Logical, except I still don’t believe it. From what I’ve seen, Claudia and Felix’s relationship is more like one of those brother-sister rivalries where there’s always a subterranean war going on.”

“They know how to push each other’s buttons,” I said.

Jill looked thoughtful. “All four of them do – or did. Evan and Claudia might have been the only blood siblings in the group, but Tracy and Felix had the rivalry thing down pat too.”

“Whose love was the prize?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” Jill said.

“It’s been a while since I took Psych 100, but isn’t sibling rivalry driven by the need for the parent’s love?”

“If that’s what they were after, they had a tough row to hoe with Carolyn. She doesn’t give her love easily. She and Evan were alike in that.”

“The night of your wedding rehearsal Evan told me his mother called him ‘the snowman’ because he was detached from humanity, unable to love.”

Jill winced. “Poor Evan. Poor all of them. Imagine what it would be like to want your mother’s love so much that even as an adult you couldn’t leave her house.”

“Do you think that’s what kept them all there?” I said.

“I don’t know,” Jill said. “But it makes sense, doesn’t it? Caroline has a crippling illness, yet by the simple device of withholding love she manages to keep everyone around her in her thrall.”

“Thrall is a dramatic word.”

“She’s a dramatic woman,” Jill shook herself. “What am I talking about? I’m making Caroline sound like a monster, and she’s not. She’s never been anything other than cordial to me. I’ll have to admit, she isn’t exactly warm. She didn’t haul out Evan’s baby pictures or ask me to call her Mum, but Evan and I were hardly starry-eyed youngsters.”

“What were you?” I asked.

Jill arched an eyebrow. “We were adults making a deal,” she said. “Not an answer to inspire a love song, but the truth. I was a good career move for Evan. His films are brilliant, but they’re indies – no matter how provocative and smart they were, the number of people who would see them would be numbered in the thousands. The deal Felix and I were putting together with the network would have given Evan access to an audience of millions. That was what he wanted. He didn’t need money. He didn’t need love. He needed people to see his movies.”

“And what did you need?” I asked.

Jill didn’t hesitate. “Bryn,” she said. “From the moment I met her, I knew I could make a difference in her life. At the beginning, I guess I saw our relationship pretty much in Movie of the Week terms: the lonely woman of a certain age rescues the damaged girl, and they both learn to trust and love.” Jill smiled ruefully. “I am now well aware that Bryn’s problems aren’t going to be solved in ninety minutes, but as far as I’m concerned that’s just all the more reason to stick around.”

“I’m glad you’re realistic about her,” I said.

Jill’s eyes were searching. “Is there something else I should know?”

I took a deep breath. “I found Evan’s binder.”

“Where was it?”

“In Bryn’s Birkin Bag.”

Jill tensed. “Why were you going through her things?”

“Angus’s old girlfriend gave Bryn a gift to pass along to Angus. He never got it. Bryn hid it in her bag and stuffed the bag under some camping equipment in the back of the closet.”

Jill was clearly shaken. “Why would she do that?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But for the moment, let’s just deal with the fact that I found the binder. I only had a chance to give it a quick glance, but almost all the notes refer to a project called The Glass Coffin.”

Jill looked genuinely baffled. “I’ve never heard of it, but Felix must have suggested the title. He grew up in a town called Marburg – same place that spawned the Brothers Grimm. They were as obsessed by the beautiful Saint Elisabeth in her glass coffin as Felix was.”

“And who is the beautiful Saint Elisabeth?” I asked.

Jill rolled her eyes. “The Church may have seared my soul, but at least it gave me a good education. St. Elisabeth of Thuringia was the princess who married her prince at fourteen, died at twenty-four, and spent her short happy life giving alms to the wretched.”

“Will there be a quiz on this?”

“Maybe on Judgement Day. Think how grateful you’ll be to me then.”

“I’m already grateful,” I said. “You and I may have had our problems, but at least we didn’t have to find our prince by the time we were fourteen.”

“True,” Jill said. “But we also missed out on the age of miracles. I doubt if either of us will ever have the bread we’re carrying to the poor transformed into roses.”

I felt a rush. “Now that’s interesting,” I said. “There was a note in Bryn’s bag. It said, ‘For Felix, who turned my bread into roses.’ ”

“Who was it from?”

“Someone who signed herself C.”

“Claudia?” Jill said.

“Perhaps,” I said. “But there is another possibility.”

“Caroline,” Jill said. “The woman who’s spent the past forty years in her own glass coffin. Evan never mentioned that he’d been filming his mother. But if his shot book was filled with notes about The Glass Coffin, that has to be the piece he submitted to the network.”

“And he submitted it without telling you and Felix. More secrets.”

Jill frowned. “I wonder why Evan couldn’t let us see it?”

“Maybe because there’s something in it you and Felix wouldn’t like,” I said. “Only one way to find out for sure,” I said. I checked my watch. “Why don’t I give Dan a call? If he’s still up, we could have a private showing of The Glass Coffin.”

“Best offer I’ve had all day,” Jill said. “Let’s go.”