Murder Is Uncooperative (27 page)

When the ambulance arrived and I'd directed them to Cara, I suggested to my father that he go to the hospital to be checked over. He refused.

“No. I'm really fine. I'll just clean these scrapes off and put some ointment on them. I'm mainly mad. There was a time when I would've been able to fight back, not just topple over. Or at least get up once I was down. I might have been able to see who it was. I guess I'll need to talk to the police. But I don't really have anything to tell them.”

As we got into the elevator, I smelled a faint hint of perfume. It was the lavender and rose perfume Gwen wore all the time.

I had been suspicious of Gwen before. There was the food she brought to the office on the day Ruth died, the receipt for the clothing store she shopped at that I'd found in my apartment on the day Maui was let outside, and now the smell of her perfume near where Cara was shot.

“Dad,” I asked. “Can you smell that perfume?”

“That's it. I knew there was something I should remember. I smelled it just before I got knocked over. I remember she was wearing it before.”

I helped him wheel his chair through the door of our apartment.

“Yes, Gwen was, when she came to dinner at Thanksgiving. She wears it all the time.”

“No, I mean maybe she was wearing perfume then. But at Thanksgiving all I could smell was the food. No, I mean Mariana. Last night when I had dinner at her place. I remember she'd put on a lot, and it was really strong. I guess she thought it was sexy, but it just made me want to sneeze. That's what I remember.”

“Mariana? Well, she's been copying the way Gwen dresses, so why not her perfume? I'm going to make you a cup of tea. Then I think we need to call Sergeant D'Onofrio.”

I settled Dad's chair near the table in the living room and was just heading to the kitchen when I heard a key in the lock. Before I could reach for the phone, the door opened.

Mariana walked in. She was pointing a gun directly at me.

I focused on the dark hole at the end of the gun barrel. I had to force my attention away from it to listen to what Mariana was saying.

“I guess you haven't lived here long enough to realize you can hear everything from next door,” was what she was saying. “Especially if the windows are open a bit. I guess you've been lucky your neighbors are so quiet.”

I could feel my vision getting darker, narrower, just like that dark hole in the gun. I couldn't faint. I needed to do something. I realized I'd been holding my breath and forced myself to breathe.

“Mariana, was it you who got in before?” I'd said the first thing that came into my head “You let Maui out?”

“Yeah, well, I was just trying to get you to stop digging things up. Didn't work though, did it?” She looked at my father. “I'm sorry about this, Angus. I liked you.”

“Mariana, what's going on?” Dad asked, shaking his head. “Why are you here?”

As if we both didn't know.

Mariana held up a silver key. “The former neighbors asked me to water their plants sometimes when they were away. I don't seem to have given it back. Les should have had the locks rekeyed before you moved in, shouldn't he? He really wasn't a very good manager. It doesn't really matter though. I took the master key after I killed him.”

I came close to fainting then. She sounded so matter of fact about killing someone. “You killed Les?” I said. Mariana just shrugged. The look in her dark eyes told me she didn't see it as a big deal.

I had to do something.

“Look, Mariana, Ben doesn't have to hear all this. Let me send him to another room. Come on, you're a mother.”

She shrugged again in agreement. I bent down to look Ben in the eyes. “Honey, I want you to go to Mommy's room.”

He protested a little. “I want to stay with you, Mommy. I want the lady to go away.”

“I know, honey, but I want you to play the game you were playing the day Grandpa fell.” He looked puzzled. “Remember in our old house when Grandpa fell down the stairs. I want you to go to Mommy's room and do exactly what you did that day. Okay?” I thought he understood. “And close the door,” I told him. I gave him a kiss. “Mommy loves you,” I called out as he ran down the hall. I hoped he would realize what I was asking him to do. But even if he did, there was no guarantee I would see him again. Mariana had killed two people, possibly three, if Cara died. She would have no qualms about shooting my father and me. And I didn't really think she'd let Ben live as a witness.

I looked at Mariana. “Thanks,” I said. “There's no need for him to hear this.”

If Ben did understand that I wanted him to call 911, I needed to keep Mariana talking until the police could get here.

“So you killed Les,” I said again, trying to sound like it was a surprise.

“I didn't really mean to.” She sounded quite reasonable, as if she regretted it but it had to be done. “At the time, I mean, although it probably would have come to it, eventually. That one
was an accident. I just got so darn mad. He'd been asking me and asking me when my son was going to be moving in. How am I supposed to know? He keeps applying for parole, and they keep turning him down.”

She looked at me. “You do know he's in prison, don't you? Not working back east.”

She could tell from my face that I did know. “I suspected that Cara told you. I saw you going into her place. I guess she told you about the complaint her family made about my boy. She should have been glad he was interested in her. But, no. Well, we won't have to worry about her anymore.”

I noticed she lowered the gun a bit when she got distracted. Maybe, if I could keep her talking, I could find a way to get it away from her. “It wasn't like Eddie just had a crush on her,” I interrupted. “Cara said he tried to rape her.”

She shrugged. “She was just trying to cause trouble. She was a skinny little thing back then. Hadn't had her boob job. There was no reason for Eddie to be interested in her.

She paused as if trying to regain a train of thought. “Anyway, Les kept telling me I'd have to move to a smaller place soon if I couldn't give him a firm date pretty soon. But
then
he said he'd been looking into that old complaint, and he was going to recommend to the board that they refuse to let Eddie move in.”

Tears gathered in her eyes. “He's all the family I have. Why can't I live with my family like everyone else?”

I almost felt sorry for her. It would be hard to live surrounded by families when you were all alone.

But then she frowned and went on. “I was furious. I just hit him with that stupid plaque he left lying around. It was his own fault, really. He should have kept the place tidier. I thought pushing the boxes on top of him would make it look like an accident.”

I could feel my body start to tremble. I tried to still it, but there was nothing I could do to stop the shaking.

I had to keep her talking, keep her from shooting us both right away.

“But then you killed Ruth too.” I tried to stop my voice from trembling but it sounded high and tense. “Why Ruth?”

“Ruthie was another accident,” she said. She sounded like she regretted that one. “After Les died, I went through the office, trying to find the old complaint. I took some boxes I thought were from the right year. But it wasn't in there. It was impossible to find anything in that stupid office. The co-op should have hired more competent staff.”

I looked at her in horror. She looked so normal, apart from the gun. Just another co-op member complaining about the staff in the co-op. Except she'd just admitted to killing them both.

“I knew Ruth was poking around in the files, trying to find the file Les had been worried about. I didn't really intend to kill her. People don't usually die from bad mushrooms. I did some research. And I tested it on a rat. I guess he did die eventually but not right away. I just thought she'd get so sick she wouldn't be able to work for a while. That'd give me time to find that stupid file and get rid of the copy of the complaint. Who knew the silly thing had a bad heart.”

My father had been staring at Mariana in speechless shock. Now he shifted, looking like he was going to intervene. Mariana seemed to be fond of him, so maybe he could persuade her not to shoot us. Or maybe he'd set her off. I didn't think we could risk it. I held my palm up where only he could see it, and went on.

“And then you shot Cara?”

“Yes, now her I meant to kill. And I've found that guns work pretty well.”

Mariana seemed lost in thought now. Maybe Ben hadn't understood what I wanted. Maybe the police weren't on their way to save us.

I wondered if I could jump her and grab the gun before she shot me. I was younger and stronger than she was. The adrenalin in my body was supposed to help me fight or flee any danger. Instead, my shaking legs could barely support me.

I tried to calm down, get ready to make a move.

“But how did you get a handgun?” I asked. “They're not exactly easy to come by in Canada.”

“Oh, one of Eddie's friends. He has good connections, you know.” She waved her left hand, the one not holding the gun, airily. “They were willing to help.”

“And you did all of this so Eddie could come and live with you?”

“I just want him to have someplace familiar to come home to,” Mariana said. “Is that too much to ask? When he gets out, to have a nice home to come to. And maybe he can get custody of my grandson. You know that bitch Eddie lived with won't even let him see his boy while he's in prison? She doesn't even want me to see him. His own grandmother!”

She lowered her voice again. “Family's so important, isn't it?”

“I think so,” I said to the woman planning to kill mine.

I took a small step closer to her, hoping she wouldn't notice.

“I gather you were raised in foster care,” I said.

“You have no idea what it's like,” she shouted. I thought I had asked the wrong question. Then her voice grew quiet. “Moving from house to house. Trying to find out what each new family's like and trying to fit in with them. Trying to be what they want you to be and never quite succeeding. Never belonging.”

For a moment I could see the sad little girl she must have been. I almost wanted to hug her and try to make it better. I could see where Mariana had developed her habit of copying people she admired. But she had more to say.

“And the abuse. Some of the so-called fathers want to have sex with you. So you go along with it. Because you want them to love you. But they don't. Do you know Eddie's father was the foster father in my last placement? We had an affair that lasted several years after I was out of care. But he left me too, once he found out I was pregnant. Didn't want to ruin his marriage, he said, or his reputation.”

I knew she was a murderer but I was feeling more and more sympathy for her.

I took a step closer to her. I could almost reach the hand that held the gun.

“But surely there are nice foster families who care about the children. Couldn't you have complained and been sent to a different family?”

“I guess,” she said. “I didn't really know what the rules were. They said my mom and dad were unfit, and they took me away. Maybe they didn't treat me right, but they were my family, you know. I tried to find them when I was older, but I never saw them again. I had a baby sister too. When they took us into care, all I really wanted was to stay with her. But they couldn't even keep us together. The family that took her was nice, I think, and they adopted her later on. It's easier with babies, I guess. People want them. We reconnected years later, and she stayed with me for a while. But we couldn't get along. Too different, I guess. We weren't really sisters anymore.”

It was a very sad story. I felt tears in the corners of my eyes, but I couldn't tell if they were for her or my own family.

We'd both been so wrapped up in what she was saying we hadn't heard the door open. But I suddenly noticed D'Onofrio in the hall. There were several other officers with him, all holding guns.

Mariana didn't seem to have noticed them. I raised my voice a bit to cover any sounds as I watched the police officers creep closer to us.

“So, Les and Ruth both died by accident. And Cara deserved it. But what happened to Jessie Anderson. She's kind of where all of this started.”

“Oh, Jessie was an accident too,” she reassured me. “That was never meant to happen.”

That was when my father chose the very worst moment to try to intervene.

“Well, Mariana, if it was all an accident, why bother to shoot us.” He's been sitting quietly. At first he'd been as stunned as I was. Maybe more, if he had thought he might have a relationship with her. And then he'd followed my hand signal to stay quiet. But now he obviously thought it was time to see if he could do something to save us.

I realized that, while I could see the police from where I was standing, Dad didn't know they were there.

Now he moved his wheelchair in front of her. “Come on,” he said. “Put down the gun, and we can have a drink and talk this over.

She swivelled the gun she had been pointing at me and held it to my father's head. I felt all the breath rush out of my body.

“Angus, don't even try that,” she yelled. “You pretended to like me but you didn't. You're just like everyone else.”

I could see her finger tightening on the trigger.

“Oh, forget about him,” I said, my voice sounding remarkably calm. “Men just lie. I know all about it. But tell me about Jessie. I don't quite understand what happened”

Amazingly, she complied, pulling the gun a little distance from Dad's head and letting it sink a bit towards the floor. I let myself breathe for a moment.

Then she pointed the gun at me again.

“She was working on her science project in Amy's room,” she said. “And I saw Eddie go in there. She should have liked him. He was a handsome boy. But I guess she screamed when he started to touch her. So he had to shut her up.”