A Killing Spring (10 page)

“She was an amazing artist,” Ed said.

“She was an amazing woman.” I said.

Taylor turned to me. “I dream about her, but I can’t remember her. Not really.”

“Go up and touch the painting,” Ed said.

“Jo says you’re not supposed to …,” Taylor said.

“Jo’s right,” Ed agreed. “But this is a special circumstance. I think your mother would want you to touch her painting. After all, she touched it all the time when she was making it.”

Taylor approached the painting slowly. For a few moments, she just looked up at it, taking it in. Finally, she reached out and traced the petals of an iris with her fingertips. When she turned back to Ed, there was a look on her face that I’d never seen before.

“Is it okay if I just stay here for a while?”

Ed bowed in her direction. “Of course,” he said. “I’ll bring your Shirley Temple.” He gave me a quick look. “Why don’t we grab our jackets and take our drinks outside. Taylor might enjoy some time alone, and it is a lovely night.”

When Ed suggested that Barry join us, he waved us off. He was brushing focaccia with rosemary oil, and he said he’d enjoy our company more when everybody had finished eating and he could relax. So it was just Ed and me on the deck. We moved our chairs so we could look out at the university, and the view was worth the effort. The air was heavy with moisture, and in the late afternoon light the campus shimmered, as pastoral and idyllic as its picture in the university calendar.

For a few minutes we were silent, absorbed by our separate thoughts. Finally, Ed said, “Would you rather I hadn’t suggested that Taylor look at her mother’s painting?”

I shook my head. “No, I’m glad you did. Sally gave me a painting not long before she died. It’s in my bedroom, but for the first year Taylor came to us, she refused to look at it. Lately, she’s been spending quite a bit of time there.”

“A way of being close to her mother.”

“So it seems.”

Ed nodded. “My father was killed in a car accident before I was born. He was a trumpet player. When I got old enough, I used to spend hours with his old trumpet. Holding something he had held was the only way I knew to bring him close.”

“I hope Taylor can feel that connection,” I said. “Her mother’s death came at the wrong time for her.”

Ed looked thoughtful. “Is there a right time to lose a parent?” he asked.

“I guess not,” I said. “But the timing in Taylor’s case was
particularly savage. I think when Sally died, she had just begun to realize how good it could be to have a daughter.”

“Motherhood didn’t come easily to her?”

“I don’t think Sally had a maternal bone in her body, but at the end, there was a bond.” I sipped my sangria. “It had a lot to do with art. Taylor has real talent. When she saw that, Sally was determined to give Taylor the best beginning an artist could have.”

“That sounds a little cold.”

I shook my head. “It wasn’t. It was the only way Sally had of loving. I guess love comes in all shapes and sizes.”

Ed smiled. “Tell me about it.”

“I don’t think I have to,” I said. “But it took Sally a long time to realize that there was room in her life for something besides her work. In a lot of ways, Taylor was her second chance.”

Ed’s face darkened, and he looked away. “That’s the merciless aspect of death, isn’t it? The taking away of all our second chances.” He paused, then he turned to face me. “Reed Gallagher called me the night he died. I wouldn’t talk to him.”

“That doesn’t sound like you.”

“Oh, I can be a real prima donna, and a real ass. Just ask Barry. Anyway, that night I was both.”

“What happened?”

“It was all so stupid. That morning Reed had come to my office with some terrific news. You know about our Co-op Internship Program, don’t you?”

“Sure,” I said. “The kids in the Politics and the Media class have been agonizing over where they’re going to be placed for months.”

Ed shrugged. “You can’t blame them. It’s a big step. They can’t graduate until they’ve done their internship, and it’s a
great chance for them to make some connections. We have support from some pretty impressive potential employers. But that week we’d scored a real coup. The
Globe and Mail
had agreed to take one of our students.”

“That was a coup,” I said. “The grande dame.”

“It was all Reed’s doing. Of course, we knew as soon as we heard that we’d have to rearrange all our placements.”

“You couldn’t just bump everybody up a notch?”

Ed shook his head. “No. There are always personal considerations: kids with family obligations, or just a gut feeling that intern A and placement C might be a bad mix. Reed suggested we meet at the Edgewater to hash it all out. He said we needed privacy and perspective, so it was better to meet off campus. We arranged to meet at three. When I got there, the hostess said Reed had left a message that he had a student to see, but he’d be there by quarter after. I waited till four-thirty, but he never showed.”

“So you were mad because he stood you up.”

Ed winced. “It sounds so childish when you put it that way, but that’s about it. My only excuse is that I’d had a lousy day, and by the time I got home, I was fuming. Reed called the house just before dinner, and I told Barry to tell him to go to hell. Of course, Barry just said I was unable to come to the phone.” Ed shook his head in disgust. “It was so petty. Anyway, that was it. The next night I heard he was dead.”

I walked over and stood beside him. Across the road, some students ran out of the classroom building and began to throw a ball around on the lawn. They were wearing shorts and T-shirts. They must have been cold, but they were Prairie kids and it had been a long winter. Exams were still three weeks away, and spring and hormones were working their magic. As I watched them, I felt a sharp pang of envy.

Ed Mariani seemed to read my mind. “Remember when the biggest problem in our lives was Geology?”

“It was Physics for me.” I touched his arm. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. It sounds to me as if Reed just wanted to apologize for not showing up at the Edgewater.”

“I hope you’re right, Joanne. I’d hate to think I’d failed him. He was always good to me.” Ed balanced his glass carefully on the rail. “The first day he was here, he sought me out. Of course, my ego was smarting, because he’d gotten the job I thought was going to be mine. Reed picked up on how wounded I was. He told me how much he admired my work, and how glad he was, for his own sake, that I’d withdrawn my name from consideration. Then you know what he did?” Ed smiled at the memory. “He said he thought it would be a good idea if we got drunk together.”

“And you did?”

Ed shuddered. “Did we ever. I felt like the inside of a goat the next day, but it was worth it.”

“That good, huh?”

“Yeah, it was fun, but it was useful too. There’d been some ugliness when I’d put my name into contention for the director’s job.”

“The kind of ugliness you could have taken to the Human Rights Commission?”

“No. I’m used to dealing with overt prejudice; this was more insidious, but from a couple of things Reed said that night, it was pretty apparent he hadn’t anything to do with it. That was such a relief. And, to be fair, Reed really was a better choice for the job. The school needed somebody who had significant connections and strong administrative skills, and that wasn’t me.”

“Sounds like your boys’ night out really cleared the air,” I said.

Ed’s expression was sombre. “It did. It was a good evening; unfortunately it wasn’t the last one.” He took a long swallow of his drink. “We spent some time together the Wednesday before Reed died. I must have replayed the evening a hundred times, wondering if there was something I could have said or done that might have changed what happened. But, at the time, it just seemed like an ordinary evening. We’d been working late on the budget for next year, and we went back to the Faculty Club for a drink. Reed was in a strange mood. He was always a serious drinker, but that night he was drinking to get drunk. I wouldn’t have cared, except that whatever the problem was, the liquor wasn’t helping. The more he drank, the more miserable he seemed to get. Finally, I asked Reed if he wanted to talk about whatever it was that was troubling him.”

“And he didn’t?”

“No … so, of course, I resorted to the usual bromides – told him that anytime he wanted to talk, I was there, and he could trust me not to betray his confidence.” Ed looked perplexed. “It was just one of those things people say when they don’t know what else to say, but Reed picked up on it. Joanne, he was so angry and so bitter. He said, ‘I’ll give you some advice: don’t ever tell people they can trust you, and don’t ever believe for a moment that you can trust them.’ ”

“I didn’t know Reed well,” I said, “but he never struck me as a cynic.”

“He wasn’t. Something had happened.”

“Do you have any idea what?”

“My guess is it was his marriage.”

“Did he say anything?”

“No. But he didn’t have to – all that business about trust. Doesn’t that sound as if there was a betrayal?”

I thought of Julie’s wedding cake and of the sugar doves
she’d made so that her new marriage would be blessed with years of happiness. She and Reed had only made it to a month and two days. What could have happened in so brief a time to turn hope to despair?

It was a question I didn’t want to dwell on, and I was relieved when Barry Levitt opened the deck door, stuck out his head, and invited us to join Taylor and him for dinner.

The table was beautifully set: cobalt-blue depression ware and a woven cloth as brightly coloured as the Italian flag. Barry had pulled the tables close to the window so we could watch the sunset. Taylor was uncharacteristically quiet, and when Ed asked her to light the candles, she performed the task without her usual brio. But she perked up when Barry brought in the paella dish and placed it in front of her.

“Did Jo tell you this is my favourite?” she asked.

“She didn’t have to,” Barry said. “Creative people love seafood. Everybody knows that.”

For the next hour we sipped sangria, sopped up paella with the focaccia, and talked about summer plans as Puccini soared in the background. By the time we’d moved to Act III of
Turandot
, the paella dish was empty, and Ed brought out chocolate gelato and cappuccino.

Taylor was a great fan of gelato, and Ed’s gelato was homemade. After she’d finished her dish, she turned to Barry. “This is really a nice party,” she said. “I’m glad I wore my good clothes.”

Barry raised his glass to her. “Whatever you choose to wear, you’re always welcome at this table.”

“Thank you,” said Taylor.

“I’m afraid that has to be the last word, T,” I said. “School tomorrow, and we’re already past your bedtime.”

As we stood at the doorway, saying our goodbyes, Taylor said, “Can I look at the painting one more time?”

“Sure,” said Barry. “I’ll come with you.”

I turned to Ed. “It really was a lovely evening. Thanks for asking us. I needed some fun tonight.”

“So did I,” he said. “And I needed to talk about Reed. Barry doesn’t want me to dwell on it, but I do. It was such a terrible ending to a good life. What’s even more terrible is the possibility that the way Reed died will eclipse everything he accomplished – especially here at the university. He was so committed to the School of Journalism. Even on the night he died. Look at this.” Ed reached into his inside jacket pocket, pulled out a single sheet of paper and handed it to me. “This was in the mailbox when I went out to get our paper Friday morning.”

I unfolded the paper. On it, handwritten, were sixteen names. I recognized them as the students who were just completing the term before their placement. Opposite each name, Reed had written in the name of the media organization where the student would intern.

“Can you imagine what he must have been going through that night? But he still made sure the kids were taken care of. He must have dropped the list off after Barry and I had gone to the symphony.” Ed swallowed hard. “Well, life goes on. I’ll set up interviews with the students tomorrow to tell them the news.”

“Would you like to use my office?” I said. “From the way yours looked yesterday morning, I think it’ll be a while before you can even find your desk.”

Ed frowned. “You should think carefully before you make an offer like that, Joanne. You know what Clare Boothe Luce said. ‘No good deed goes unpunished.’ ”

“I’m not worried,” I said. “I’ll get a key made for you tomorrow morning. Consider it settled. But, Ed, there’s one thing I don’t understand …”

I never got to finish my sentence. Taylor was back, toting
an armload of art books that Barry was lending her. As she showed her collection to Ed, I glanced again at Reed Gallagher’s placement list. The class Tom Kelsoe and I taught was mandatory for Journalism students in their final year, so I was familiar with the work of the people Reed was assigning as interns. Most of the students on Reed’s list were ranked just about where I would have placed them, but there was one surprise, and it was right at the top. The student Reed Gallagher had chosen for the plum internship with the
Globe and Mail
was Kellee Savage.

The clock in the hall began to chime. It was 9:00. I handed the list back to Ed. The mystery of Kellee Savage would have to wait.

“Okay, Taylor,” I said, “now it really is past your bedtime. Say goodnight, Gracie.”

“Goodnight, Gracie.” Taylor said and roared with laughter the way her mother would roar when she made a joke. It had been quite an evening: paella, Puccini, and a reprise of an old Burns and Allen routine. I’d hardly thought about Jill at all.

Taylor didn’t need a bedtime story. As she was telling me about how her mother swirled her brushstrokes, she fell asleep in mid-sentence. I tucked her in and started downstairs, but when I heard the ricochet of adolescent jokes and insults coming from the kitchen, I stopped and headed back up to my room. Angus and his buddies were in the kitchen, and his friend Camillo had just decided they should make nachos. Dinner with Ed and Barry had boosted my spirits but I knew my limits. I wasn’t ready for a kitchen full of teenagers and the aroma of processed cheese warming in the microwave. I needed peace and I needed time to think, and one of the things I needed to think about was Kellee Savage.