The Nesting Dolls

CHAPTER 6

The Hotel Saskatchewan is one of the grand hotels built by the nation-building Canadian Pacific Railway in the early part of the twentieth century. At the peak of construction, a thousand men were working shifts twenty-four hours a day, so that the young blades of Regina would have vaulted ceilings under which to waltz their belles and marble thresholds over which to carry them. The clientele today tends to be corporate, more interested in mergers than romance, and there are places in town where the food is cheaper and better. That said, for an evening of mid-winter enchantment, the Hotel Saskatchewan is the place to be, especially if you are six years old and four years old, as Madeleine and Lena were, respectively, on that starry December night.

From the moment the girls looked up at the towering wooden soldiers flanking the entrance and spied themselves in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors, they were captivated. The lobby held more charms: the frothy extravagances of the tree decorations were a reminder, if we needed one, that Christmas is the season when too much is not enough, and the chandeliers glittering in the dining rooms promised further delights. Best of all, there was the hotel’s gingerbread display. This year’s theme was an Alpine village with a real train that ran on a figure-eight track past candy-covered houses. Transcendent.

There had been secrecy about what Lena would be wearing that evening. New holiday dresses, along with dinner and The Nutcracker, were our present to the girls. When I had taken them shopping, Madeleine found a dress she liked within the first half-hour. It was classic: a simple, scoop-necked, long-sleeved black velvet bodice, with a pretty dark green shot taffeta skirt. Standing in front of the triple mirrors in her undershirt and panties, she handed the dress to me with a sigh of relief. “Now I don’t have to try on any more,” she said. Lena had proved harder to satisfy, and when finally we gave up and went for hot chocolate we weren’t even close. In the end, Mieka had taken Lena dress shopping while Madeleine and I stayed at Mieka’s and read. Lena was wrestling with a large box when they returned. She refused all offers of help and all requests for a preview, saying only that she wanted the dress to be a surprise. As I was leaving, I asked Mieka about the dress, but she just rolled her eyes and changed the subject.

When Lena took off her coat at the hotel, I understood Mieka’s eye-roll. Lena’s dress was a poufy explosion of satin, tulle, ribbons, and pearls, all the colour of grape Kool-Aid. Zack and I were both speechless. Maddy, who was always quick to pick up on nuance and was a loyal sister, gave us our cue. “Lena really looks nice, doesn’t she?” she said, and there was an edge in her voice that suggested she would not brook contradiction.

“Unforgettable,” Zack said.

“Absolutely,” I said, and with that, the four of us swanned into dinner.

We decided on the buffet – mostly because of the dessert table – so our only order was for drinks. The girls ordered Shirley Temples, but when the server handed Zack the wine list, Madeleine frowned. “Wine is kind of plain for a party. Why don’t you and Mimi get Shirley Temples too? They come with cherries on a crazy straw.”

Zack looked at me. “I don’t know about you, but that cherries-on-a-crazy-straw sounds tempting.”

“I’m tempted, too,” I said.

Zack handed the wine list back to the server. “Shirley Temples all around,” he said, “and please don’t stint on the cherries.”

When the drinks came, Lena took her napkin and tucked it into her collar. “I don’t want to spill on my dress,” she said.

“Very prudent,” Zack said. His gaze swept the faces at our table. “I’d like to propose a toast.”

“I’ll bet it’s to us,” Lena said.

“Only indirectly,” Zack said. He raised his glass. “To Mimi’s toothbrush, because without your grandmother’s toothbrush, none of us would be here tonight.”

Madeleine narrowed her eyes. “Is this one of your funny stories?”

“No, this is one of my true stories, but before I tell it, we have to drink a toast to Mimi’s toothbrush.”

Giggling, the girls raised their glasses. “To Mimi’s toothbrush,” they chorused.

“Now you have to tell the story,” Madeleine said.

“It starts the morning after Mimi and I had our first date,” he said.

I shot my husband a warning glance. Madeleine and Lena didn’t need to know that their grandparents’ first evening together had lasted all night.

“Did you have fun?” Lena asked.

“Yes,” Zack said. “And that was the problem.”

“How could fun be a problem?” Madeleine asked.

Zack’s eyes met mine over our Shirley Temples. “Because I’d always been on my own – I’d always been able to do what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. I never had to think about anybody other than myself.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Maddy said judiciously.

“It wasn’t,” Zack said. “In fact, it was pretty good, but when I met your grandmother, I knew that if I stayed with her, everything would be different, so I was scared.”

Lena furrowed her brow in disbelief. “You’re not scared of anything.”

“Everybody’s scared of something. Anyway, we were at the lake, but I had business in Regina, so when I was ready to go, I asked your Mimi if I could bring her anything and she said she’d like a toothbrush.”

“Where was her toothbrush?” Madeleine asked.

“She must have lost it,” Lena said.

“She didn’t have it with her at the time,” Zack said. “So she asked me to bring her one. And this is the scary part. This is the part where things almost didn’t work out – where if I’d done one thing instead of another we wouldn’t be sitting here tonight drinking Shirley Temples.”

Struck by the solemnity of the possibility, the girls put down their drinks.

“As you well know, it’s a long drive from the lake into Regina.”

“Forty-five minutes,” Madeleine said.

Zack nodded. “By the time I got to the city, I decided that I didn’t want to change my life, and I wasn’t going to see your Mimi any more.”

Madeleine’s eyes were anxious. “You were going to dump her?”

“I was going to send flowers and a note first. I called the florist, and when I started telling her what to write on the card, I thought of your grandmother… ”

“Waiting for her toothbrush… ” Lena said, and her voice was tragic.

“Waiting for her toothbrush,” Zack agreed. “So I tore up the note, cancelled the flowers, bought the best toothbrush I could find, and drove back to the lake -”

Zack’s cell rang. His eyes met mine. “Sorry,” he said.

“I’ll take the girls to the buffet,” I said.

Zack was still on the phone when we got back with our food. When he rang off, he did not look happy. “I’ll tell you later,” he said.

“Better get something to eat,” I said.

When we had finished our meal, the girls and I went into the ladies’ room to freshen up. It was an elegant space with two chaise longues and many mirrors. Tearing Lena away from a space that offered endless reflections of herself was not easy, but the ballet beckoned. Zack was waiting for us at the gingerbread village. When the girls gravitated towards a chalet overlooking a surprisingly realistic waterfall, Zack motioned me to join him.

“What’s up?” I said.

“I was going to save this particular sugarplum till later, but Debbie called this afternoon. The medical examiner’s team have done a preliminary examination of Abby Michaels’s body – just observing and gathering samples – no autopsy yet. In their opinion, Abby died of traumatic asphyxia caused by neck compression.”

“She was strangled,” I said.

Zack nodded. “There was seminal fluid in the vagina and on the perineum and inner thighs. There were no contusions in the genital area, so apparently the penetration was not forced.”

“The sex was consensual?” I said.

Zack took a deep breath and exhaled. “No. The theory is that Abby was already dead when penetration took place.”

For a moment I felt light-headed. I gripped the edge of the table that held the idyllic gingerbread village.

“You okay?” Zack said.

“Yes,” I said. “Just overwhelmed.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

“No. You know what they say: a burden shared is a burden halved.”

“That works for me,” Zack said, “because this particular burden isn’t getting any lighter.”

A hotel employee approached the girls, spoke to them for a moment, and Lena came running. “That man says we can work the controls for the train if it’s okay with you. He says we can even make the train go backwards.”

“Can’t pass up an opportunity like that,” Zack said.

“We’ll watch from here,” I said.

Lena ran back to the other side of the display. Zack nodded assent to the man from the hotel, and the man handed the controls to the girls and began explaining how to work them.

I turned to Zack. “You were saying…?”

“That I’m glad you’re around.” He took my hand. “But that’s old news. Today’s news is not cheering. The M.E. thinks Abby was probably attacked somewhere else and then dragged to her car and driven to the parking lot. Apparently the contusion on the back of her head and body were consistent with some pretty rough treatment.”

“When did she die?”

“The old dogs, which is what old cops call themselves, would say that Abby died at some point between the time we saw her walking out of the gym at Luther and the time the shovellers from the mission found her body in the parking lot.”

“Old dog humour?” I said.

“Yeah, but right on the money. Despite what TV would have us believe, it’s pretty difficult to pinpoint the time of a death. That’s why the police spend a lot of time trying to find the second-last person who saw the victim alive.”

Madeleine, who paid attention to instructions, had just navigated the train safely through the mountains with their icing snow peaks, past the village houses with their jelly fruit shingles, and back safely to the chalet. Zack and I both gave her the thumbs-up. Now it was Lena’s turn, but for once, Zack and I weren’t focused on our younger granddaughter’s performance. Neither of us doubted that Lena would snarl the train somewhere on the tracks, but we both knew that her charm and her poufy grape Kool-Aid dress would win the day.

“Debbie’s big push right now is finding someone who saw Abby after she left Luther,” Zack said. “But so far, nada. The cameras downtown weren’t working because of the power failure and people were too busy dealing with the blizzard to notice what their fellow citizens were up to.”

“How much of this did you tell Delia?”

Zack’s laugh was short and humourless. “As little as possible, but Dee isn’t stupid. She knows what’s happening, and it’s driving her crazy. Which brings us to the second sugarplum. That was Dee on the phone just now. Nadine Perrault called to invite her to a memorial service Friday morning in the chapel at Trinity College School. Abby was a graduate and her father taught there all his life.”

“But the police won’t have released the body by then, will they?” I asked.

“It’ll be weeks before that happens,” Zack said. “When a woman is the victim of a seemingly random rape and murder, people get scared. The police don’t want this to be a catch-and-release case; neither does the Crown. Everybody wants a conviction, and that means hanging onto the body until they’re sure the forensic work, especially all the lab tests, are properly done.”

“Why doesn’t Nadine wait and have the service after the body’s been cremated?”

“That would be logical, wouldn’t it?” Zack said. “But grief isn’t logical. And a violent death like Abby’s brings its own horrors. It’s not easy to live with the knowledge that the body of someone you loved is lying on a slab somewhere while pathologists run their tests. Apparently, Nadine is convinced the memorial service will help Abby’s friends and colleagues get through the holidays.”

“That makes sense,” I said. “So did Delia accept Nadine’s invitation?”

“Not to the memorial service,” Zack said. “Delia’s in court that morning. I could, of course, have asked for an adjournment of the hearing, but Delia doesn’t want that. The time she spent with Abby’s body in the parking lot has hit her hard. She says she’s not ready to sit in a roomful of strangers and hear them talk about the daughter she never knew.”

“But she is going to go to Port Hope?”

“Yes, she’s taking the noon flight on Friday. She wants to meet Nadine and see where Abby grew up.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” I said. “Delia needs to know what Abby was like – not just for herself, but for Jacob. He’ll have questions about his mother, and Delia will have to be able to answer them.”

Zack nodded. “And one good thing. I was able to convince Delia not to take Jacob – no use overloading the emotional circuits.”

“I agree,” I said. “So, is Noah staying here with the baby?”

“Yep, and that’s where I come in. Dee may not be at the top of her game, but she still knows she should have her lawyer with her when she meets Nadine Perrault.”

I felt a flicker of worry. Zack was a healthy man, but keeping a paraplegic’s body in shape demanded attention and routine; both would be in short supply on a trip like this one.

“Isn’t there anybody else who can go?” I said.

“No, Jo. I’m it.” His voice was uncharacteristically weary.

We both watched as Lena slowed the little train for the curve and speeded it up again for its round of figure eights. Incredibly, the train stayed on the tracks.

“I’ll come with you,” I said.

Zack looked up at me. “Joanne, the flight from here to Toronto is over three hours. You go through hell if we have to fly to Saskatoon, and that’s fifty minutes.”

“I’ll figure something out,” I said. “Besides, you’ll be there, and I’m always better when you’re around.”

“That works both ways, Jo. I appreciate this.”

I bent down to kiss him. “Whither thou goest.”

The Nutcracker was The Nutcracker. Madeleine was rapt; Lena was semi-rapt.

When the Mouse King appeared, Lena leapt out of her seat, clambered up onto Zack’s lap, and buried her head in his chest. “Tell me when this part’s over,” she said.

I knew the feeling.

The next morning while Zack was dressing, I poured Taylor a glass of juice and went to her room. The door was closed. I knocked and waited until she invited me in. She was standing in front of her full-length mirror in her bra and panties, examining an aubergine turtleneck. She took the juice, thanked me, and drained the glass. Then she held the sweater against her body and gazed critically at her reflection. “What do you think?” she said.

“I think we’ll send you to a convent,” I said.

She gave me the Sally smile. “I’d sneak out.”

“We’d hunt you down.” I sat on the corner of her bed. “Taylor, something’s come up. Zack and I have to go away this weekend. Pete and his girlfriend are coming over to take care of the dogs. Are you okay spending the weekend with them?”

“Sure. What’s up?”

“Nothing fun. Delia wants to meet Abby’s partner and see the house where Abby grew up. Noah’s staying here with Jacob, so Zack and I are going with Delia.”

Taylor’s face clouded. “Every time I think of Izzy’s sister I get this sick feeling in my stomach.”

“We all do,” I said. “That’s why I’m going. It’s going to be hard for Delia and that means it’s going to be hard for Zack. I’m hoping I can make it easier.”

Taylor turned to the mirror. “So where did Abby grow up?”

“In Port Hope. It’s sixty miles east of Toronto.”

My daughter whirled around to face me. “You’ll have to fly there.”

“That’s the plan.”

“But you hate everything about planes.”

“Just boarding them and being in them,” I said. “I’m fine with the idea of getting off.”

Taylor’s face was serious. “I’ll make a deal with you. If you do this, I won’t cry the next time I get a needle.”

“Six hours of agony versus a split second of pain? That’s not much of a deal, Taylor.”

“It’s the best one I can think of.” She held out her hand. “Deal?”

I took her hand. “Deal,” I said.

Taylor walked over to her sock drawer and began rummaging and pitching rejects onto her bed. “Why don’t I stay with the Wainbergs while you’re away? It’ll be fun to help take care of Jacob, and Izzy could probably use some company.”

“How’s she doing?”

“Not great. You know Izzy. She’s a control freak. She needs to know exactly how everything is going to be, and she needs to know it’s going to be perfect.”

“And none of this has been either predictable or perfect.”

The pile of socks on the bed was growing. “Well, just think about it,” Taylor said. “Izzy discovers that she has a sister, and before she even has a chance to get to know her, the sister is killed. Then, all of a sudden, there’s a baby in the house. Isobel’s crazy about Jacob but… ”

“It is a lot to adjust to.”

The sock drawer was empty. Taylor turned to me. “Do you know where those fuzzy purple socks are?”

“In my sock drawer,” I said. “Do you want to borrow them?”

“Do you mind?”

“No,” I said. “Do you mind if I extricate some of my socks from this pile on your bed?”

Taylor’s face grew thoughtful. “Don’t socks just kind of belong to everybody?”

“You mean like air?” I said.

“Good one,” she said. Then she raced out of the room, returned with the fuzzy purple socks in hand, pulled them on, padded over to her cupboard, and emerged with a pair of grey slacks. She slipped them on, and then gave herself an assessing glance in the mirror. “I think the hardest part for Izzy is knowing that her mother’s not perfect. It means she has to rethink everything.”

“How so?” I asked.

Taylor smoothed her sweater and turned to face me. “Izzy’s always thought she has to be as amazing as her mother, and now… ”

“And now she’s discovered that her mother is human,” I said. “Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.”

Taylor raised an eyebrow. “Because now she can stop obsessing about measuring up?”

“That’s a thought,” I said.

“And this message is aimed at who?”

“At whomever finds it helpful,” I said.

“You are so not subtle,” my daughter said. She picked up her backpack. “Do we have any crumpets? I’m dying for a crumpet slathered in butter with a ton of brown sugar on top.”

I looked at her body – not an ounce where it shouldn’t be. Taylor had not only inherited her mother’s talent, she’d inherited her metabolism. “Fridge door,” I said. “Go for it.”

Zack joined us in the kitchen, and while we ate, we chatted about the kinds of things families chat about two weeks before Christmas. Angus had called the night before. He was always a happy guy, but when I’d talked to him he’d been over the moon. He was pretty certain he’d aced his law school exams. His ex-girlfriend, Leah, had broken up with her boyfriend and she’d invited Angus to take the ex’s place on a post-exam ski trip. Angus had accepted. That would leave Zack with an extra ticket for the Junior A game the following week. Zack said that the Regina Pats were looking good, so if Taylor wanted to take in a hockey game, she was in luck. Taylor said that she was washing her hair that night – whatever night it was – but that Declan was crazy about hockey, and that speaking of Declan, if we hadn’t bought her a Christmas gift yet, we might consider giving her shopping money for a cool new dress for New Year’s Eve. Zack suggested that Taylor ask Lena where she’d bought her grape Kool-Aid dress because it was beyond cool.

The exchange of information was as lazily pleasant as it was unremarkable, but Zack had noticed a persistent strand in the conversation. After Taylor left, he popped a crumpet in the toaster for himself. “Was it my imagination, or did Declan’s name come up with some frequency?”

“It wasn’t your imagination,” I said.

“So what do we do?”

“Taylor’s fourteen years old. She wants to be with Declan; we don’t want her to be alone with Declan; so, I guess you and I prepare ourselves for plenty of double dates over the holidays.”

Zack groaned.

“So what are you up to today?” I said.

“Getting the adoption underway, and there’s some background stuff I’d like to check out.”

“What kind of ‘stuff’?”

Zack shrugged. “Just stuff.” He wheeled off – his invariable move when he wanted to cut short the discussion.

After Zack left for work, I made myself a pot of tea and attacked my tower of first-year essays again. My plan was to mark till ten-thirty and reward myself with a mid-morning phone call to Alwyn Henry, but she beat me to it.

“There are five blue jays at my bird feeder,” she said. “I put peanuts out on the feeding shelf after breakfast and the jays just swooped in. They make a racket and they make a mess, but they’re fun.”

“I’ll bet they look spectacular against the snow,” I said.

“When there’s snow, they do, but no snow for us this year. The weatherman predicts a green Christmas.”

I gazed out my window at the thigh-high drifts. “This weekend, I’ll be able to see for myself. Zack and I are coming to Port Hope.”

Alwyn whooped with joy. “This is the best news. How long has it been since you and I last saw one another?”

“Too long,” I said.

“And I finally get to meet the new husband.”

“And he finally gets to meet you,” I said.

There was a pause. When Alwyn spoke again, her tone was tentative. “Jo, how are you getting here?”

“The way normal people do – we’re flying, but Al, I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t even want to think about it.”

“Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof?”

“Something like that,” I said.

“All right,” she said, briskly. “Let’s discuss a problem we can solve. Accommodation. My house is out because the bedrooms and bathroom are on the second floor, but tell me what you need, and I promise that by Friday night I will either find it or build it.”

“No heroic measures necessary,” I said. “All we need is something accessible with a double bed and enough space for Zack’s chair to move around.”

“The Lantern Inn would be perfect. It’s on Mill Street, overlooking the river. They have a good dining room, an elevator, and very romantic suites – fireplaces and canopies over the beds.”

“I can’t imagine Zack sleeping under a canopy,” I said.

“He’s a manly man?” Alwyn said.

“In his law office, he has a picture of Mohammed Ali knocking out Sonny Liston, and you should see our house. It’s sleek and functional.”

“That doesn’t sound like you.”

“It’s like me now. I like the simplicity. Zack is complication enough.”

“I’ll call and reserve a suite at the Lantern Inn for you.”

“Thanks, and Alwyn, we’ll need one for Delia Wainberg, too.”

Alwyn’s voice sagged. “That’s right, this isn’t just a Christmas visit, is it?”

“No,” I said. “It isn’t. Delia doesn’t feel she can get through the memorial service on Friday morning, but she thinks seeing where Abby grew up and meeting the woman Abby loved might help both Nadine and her.”

“Very praiseworthy,” Alwyn said tightly, “except that Ms. Wainberg isn’t playing by the rules. Nadine Perrault just called. Someone is going around town asking questions about her relationship with Abby.”

I remembered Zack’s overly casual dismissal of the ‘background stuff’ he needed to check out. “You think the man’s a private investigator?” I said.

“The word is he’s from a big agency in Toronto,” Alwyn said.

I thought of Zack’s first rule of practising law: prepare, prepare, prepare.

Before he’d even filed the papers, Zack had hired somebody to dig the dirt that would undermine any claims Nadine had to Jacob. “What kind of questions is this detective asking?”

“Nadine says he’s focusing on whether Abby’s relationship with her was stable.”

“Was it?”

“Abby and Nadine didn’t draw others into their private lives, but this morning she told me that when Abby became pregnant, there were problems.”

“What kind of problems?”

Alwyn’s voice was heavy. “Nadine was opposed to the idea of bringing a child into their relationship.”

“And Abby still went through with it?”

“According to Nadine, she was determined.”

“She also must have been persuasive,” I said. “From what I’ve heard, donor insemination programs have a rigid screening process. Having a partner who was opposed to the pregnancy must have been an impediment.”

Alwyn sighed. “It would have been, but Abby didn’t go the donor insemination route. She got pregnant the old-fashioned way.”

“So there is a biological father in the picture?”

“Well, the father’s role certainly went beyond his contribution of a specimen in a test tube, but according to Nadine, he understood from the outset that he was simply accommodating a friend. She says Abby didn’t communicate with the man during the pregnancy or when Jacob was born.”

“That seems unlikely, doesn’t it?” I said. “If the man and Abby were friends, surely she’d at least let him know that she’d given birth to a healthy child.”

“One would think,” Alwyn said, “but Nadine says not. She also says that when she finally accepted Abby’s pregnancy, she and Abby were happier than they’d ever been.”

“And yet two weeks before her death, Abby changed her will to give Delia custody of Jacob,” I said. “There are still far too many blanks in this story.”

“I guess that’s why God gave us private detectives,” Alwyn said. She didn’t sound grateful.

I was making lunch when Noah arrived with Jacob. They were both pink-cheeked from the cold. “We walked over,” Noah said. “Check out Jacob’s new vehicle.” I stepped past him and spied a bright yellow-and-red sled on our porch.

“Very slick.” I lifted the sled into the front hall. “Also very tempting to sled thieves. This must be the deluxe model.”

Noah’s smile was boyish. “Nothing but the best,” he said. “Ergonomically designed, and that shield protects Jacob from the wind.”

I took Jacob in my arms. “What did you think, big guy?”

His dark eyes took my measure and then he gave me a gummy grin. “The sled’s a keeper,” I said. “And so are you. Now, let’s get you out of that snowsuit.” I unzipped him, and carried him into the kitchen. After Noah took off his boots and jacket, he followed. “I was just about to have lunch,” I said. “Can I interest you in a tuna-fish sandwich?”

“Me, definitely,” Noah said. “But Jacob brought his own lunch.”

“What’s on the menu?”

“Rice cereal mixed with formula. In the envelope Abby left with him, there was a list of suggested foods and of foods that were prohibited until he was older.” Noah went to the sink, washed his hands, and prepared the cereal. Jacob was on my knee, but he strained to keep Noah in sight.

“Every time I think about Abby sitting down and making that list… ” Noah’s voice was tight, but when he turned to us, he managed a smile. “Lunch is served,” he said. “Jo, there’s a bib in his diaper bag. Would you mind…? I’m a little out of practice with this.”

I handed him the bib. “You’re doing brilliantly,” I said.

Noah’s hands seemed huge against the baby’s small body. “Open up, Jacob,” he said. “There’s no meat-lovers’ option.”

I brought our plate of sandwiches and two glasses of juice to the kitchen table. Noah played a game where he took a bite of his sandwich, then gave Jacob some cereal. The baby was an enthusiastic eater, but he never took his eyes off the man at the other end of the spoon. “You two seem to have a mutual admiration society,” I said.

“So much depends on him,” Noah said softly. The words invited explication, but none was forthcoming. Noah took a washcloth from the diaper bag, secured the baby in the crook of his arm, then wet the cloth at the sink and cleaned Jacob’s face and hands. He was as gentle as he was efficient. “Now for the big job,” he said, and still holding Jacob close, Noah dropped to his knees, rolled out a change pad, and put a fresh diaper and sleeper on the baby, all the while giving Jacob a running account of exactly what was going on. Jacob rewarded him by gurgling, snorting, and finally erupting in a real belly laugh. When Noah picked him up, he quickly fell asleep. It had been an exciting morning.

Noah shifted position so that he could see the baby’s face. “Zack says you have an old university friend in Port Hope who knows Abby Michaels’s partner.”

“I do,” I said. “Her name is Alwyn Henry. I was talking to her this morning.”

Noah met my eyes. “And…?”

“Nadine Perrault is convinced Abby wanted her to raise Jacob.”

Noah’s expression hardened. “Nothing Abby Michaels did in the last two weeks of her life supports that claim,” he said. “Abby wanted Jacob to be with Delia and me. We’re prepared to do whatever’s necessary to make that happen.”

“I understand you have a private detective looking into Nadine Perrault’s background.”

Noah’s gaze was level. “I don’t like it any more than you do, Joanne, but that’s the way it’s done.” He drew the baby closer. “I imagine it’s simply a matter of time before Nadine Perrault returns the favour and hires someone to start digging up the dirt on us.”

“Is there dirt?”

“Everybody has dirt, and Ms. Perrault’s investigators will do what our investigators are doing. They’ll keep digging until they unearth something that will stick and do real damage.”

“Is there anything in Delia’s background that will stick?”

Noah’s answer was careful. “Not in Delia’s,” he said.

For minutes, we sat in the quiet kitchen, listening to the tick of the grandmother clock in the hall and the baby’s fizzy snore. I knew that Noah had reached what Zack called ‘the confessional moment’ – the moment when the need to reveal trumps the need to conceal.

When the phone shrilled, I lurched to grab it before it woke the baby. Zack was on the other end.

“Start your engines. I’m on my way.”

“Noah and Jacob are here.”

“Hmm. Well, that’s good – there are a couple of things we should talk about. I’ll be there in ten minutes. And, Ms. Shreve, I am home for the day.”

“Hallelujah.”

I hung up and turned to Noah. “That was Zack,” I said. “He’ll be in home in ten minutes, and he’d like you to stick around if you can.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Noah said, and there was steel in his voice. In the time he and I had been sitting together, listening to the sounds of a quiet house and a baby sleeping, Noah had obviously made a decision. He had always struck me as a gentle giant, but as I looked at him again, I was reminded of his sheer physical power. Like the male bear he had carved as a totem for his lawn, Noah was heavily muscled, clear-eyed, and prepared to defend what was his. Jacob stirred in his arms and Noah’s face softened. Abashed, he smiled and became himself again. “Sorry if I sounded like Neanderthal man,” he said softly. “It’s just that I have a family and my job is to take care of them.”

Zack changes the energy in any room he enters. Once I had tried to explain the phenomenon to him, but since by the very act of entering the room he changes the energy, it was a hard sell. By the time Zack got home that day, Jacob had awakened and was lying on his stomach on a blanket in the living room, pushing himself up, rocking, rolling, and craning his neck to see what was happening. Noah and I were sitting at one end of the blanket offering him toys and interpreting his babble. The atmosphere in the room was calm and domestic but when Zack rolled in the air began to crackle.

He was amazed at Jacob’s prowess. “Look at those shoulders,” he said. “There’s a football scholarship in that boy’s future.”

“So where do you think he should go?” I said. “One of the Big Ten or Notre Dame?”

“Notre Dame,” Zack said. “Better academics.” He raised an eyebrow. “You’re mocking me, but you know I’m right.”

I went over to his chair and began massaging the spot between the top of Zack’s spine and his shoulders. “Have you had lunch?”

“I had cake. It was somebody’s birthday.”

“Why don’t I get you an apple and a glass of milk?” I said.

“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll have something later. Right now, could you please just keep rubbing?”

“With pleasure,” I said. I could feel the tension in his body, and I dug my fingers in more deeply.

Zack groaned. “You have no idea how good that feels,” he said. “But I’ve earned it. I spoke to Nadine Perrault’s lawyer in Port Hope.”

“And…?” Noah said.

“And it may be smart to use somebody other than me to represent you.”

Noah shook his head. “You and Dee have already discussed this. She won’t even consider it.”

“Okay,” Zack said. “But forewarned is forearmed. When I introduced myself, Llewellyn Llewellyn-Smith said he knows me only by reputation, and what he’s heard he doesn’t like. He’s got this high whiny little voice, so when he tries to be menacing he sounds like Elmer Fudd. He told me he’s prepared to ‘take me to the mat’ on this one.” Zack laughed. “Jesus, can you imagine anyone dumb enough to threaten a cripple with taking him to the mat?

“Anyway, apart from a few yuks, I didn’t get much from him. My talk with our private investigator was more fruitful. He says the relationship between Abby and Nadine Perrault was not idyllic. A year and a half ago, Ms. Perrault moved out of the house she and Abby Michaels shared. They lived apart for five months. A colleague at the school where Nadine teaches described her as ‘quixotic,’ which the colleague defined for our guy as meaning impulsive, rash, and unpredictable. Apparently, Ms. Perrault also has a voice that carries. This colleague was able to describe in some detail Ms. Perrault’s anguished and angry phone calls to Abby when they were estranged. Also, although they were together in the months before Abby left for Regina, there were tensions.”

Noah rattled some bright plastic keys in front of Jacob. When Jacob reached for the keys and grasped them, he squealed with delight, and Noah’s face creased with pleasure. “Did the colleague know why Abby and Nadine were having problems?” he asked.

“No, she just said that, given Ms. Perrault’s rage and sense of betrayal, it was a surprise when she and Abby Michaels reconciled.”

I gave Zack’s neck a last squeeze and moved back to my place on the rug. “I know what caused the problem,” I said. “Nadine Perrault didn’t want a baby, but Abby did. She found a man who was willing to father her child and they had intercourse.”

“Whoa,” Zack said. “How did you find that out?”

“Nadine told Alwyn.”

Noah winced. “So now we have a father to deal with.”

“Not if Nadine’s story is accurate. She says there was no contact between him and Abby after she conceived the child.”

“And you don’t believe her,” Zack said.

“No,” I said. “But that’s just me thinking like me.”

“Nothing wrong with your thought processes,” Zack said.

“I agree,” Noah said. “But whatever the relationship was between Abby and this man, we need to find him and get him on our side. That’s not going to be easy. I’m sure Nadine Perrault has already pulled out all the stops.”

“I don’t think Nadine knows who he is,” I said. “Abby had nothing to gain by telling her. Knowing the identity of the man who fathered Jacob would have made Nadine even more insecure about her relationship with Abby than she was, and it would have made the father vulnerable. Whoever he is, Abby trusted the father to honour their agreement; I think she would have protected his identity.”

Zack nodded. “Let’s hope you’re right. I don’t like the idea of Nadine having a head start. I guess our move now is to get our investigator to look into the identity of dear old dad. And I’d better call Deb and fill her in on what we’ve learned. It’s always wise to spread the quid pro quo around.”

“Jacob was born June 16,” I said. “That means he was conceived a year ago last September.”

“This can work for us,” Zack said. “Asking people in Port Hope where Abby was a year ago last September is a nice straightforward question. It’ll get the conversational ball rolling, and give us a chance to spread the word that we’re looking for the father of Abby’s baby.”

I squeezed a fuzzy duck that was out of Jacob’s range on the blanket. The duck emitted an oddly tortured sound, and Jacob clouded up. “That’s the worst quack I’ve ever heard,” I said. “Let’s put that duck away.” I dropped it in the diaper bag and looked up at Zack. “Isn’t a private investigator supposed to operate under the radar?”

“Sometimes it’s good to let people know you’re out there, digging away,” Zack said. “We have to keep Ms. Perrault off-base, make sure she knows the ground beneath her feet is shifting.”

I felt a sting of anger. “Zack, for God’s sake, Nadine Perrault has just lost her partner and the baby she thought they were going to raise together. The ground beneath her feet has already shifted.”

I’d raised my voice, and Jacob craned his head and looked at me with solemn eyes. Noah moved quickly. He scooped the baby into his arms, protecting him – against me.

I was taken aback. “Noah, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten Jacob, but I think you and Zack have lost perspective here. We don’t know Nadine Perrault. She may not be an enemy.”

Zack’s voice was almost a whisper – a courtroom trick he used to calm overly excited witnesses. “We can’t take that chance, Jo,” he said. “The stakes are too high.”

“I hate this,” I said.

Zack shot me a weary look. “Jesus, Jo, do you think I like it? But the days of King Solomon are long past. Today people are prepared to rip the baby in two rather than give an inch.”

After that, there wasn’t much to say. I picked up Jacob’s toys and rolled up the blanket. Playtime was over. I brought Jacob’s snowsuit to Noah.

He slid the baby into the suit. “Thanks for the sandwich, Joanne. We’ll get through this.”

After Jacob was dressed, the three of us went into the front hall, and I held the baby while Noah pulled on his own boots and jacket. When the doorbell rang, Zack opened the door.

A cab driver stood there, holding a box. Beside him was Mr. Justice Theodore Brokaw.