Always Kiss the Corpse (16 page)

A second's silence; then, “In all Triple-I's cases, there is total confidentiality between ourselves and our clients. We'd never reveal their identities, that wouldn't be ethical. And while Sandro wasn't exactly our client, his identity in that sense now belongs to his mother. We discuss details of a case only with clients.”

“I have your word as to that?”

“You have my word. And my partner's. Our word is our bond.”

“Thank you, Ms. Rachel. And a note of warning. Make sure the seal is airtight. You understand me? You'll have my check in a few days.”

“Goodbye.” The line at the other end clicked.

Andrei poured himself a small Glenmorangie, no ice. He believed he could trust her. An irritant, but he'd smoothed it away. He sipped. He checked his watch. Time to head home. Only since the last couple of years did he actually look forward to going home. In the old days he'd be in the office till ten, eleven. Always a problem to solve, always a difficulty to overcome. He put on his scarf and coat, and headed for the elevator.

He had faced many difficulties with regard to the company—labor, technology, executive personalities. Relatively few crises in the family; because it was his practice to become aware early of small issues and keep them from growing larger. He should have been aware of Sandro's crisis. He should have put a stop to it sooner. Could it be, he thought, that I'm growing old? He smiled. Older, anyway. Like everybody else.

≈  ≈  ≈

You understand me? You understand me?
!!! The son of a bitch. She sighed, and banged her fist into her palm. She glared back at the receiver: pompous autocrat, good thing you didn't really hire us, you— No, back to the party. Shit, we shouldn't have even begun talking about the case. But we didn't really, did we. No identifiers. Bloody Bettina. With a glance out the window at the city lights, Kyra returned to the living room.

“—so she applied to counsel women at a feminist crisis center,” Sarah was saying, “but they turned her down, she'd grown up as a man and didn't have a woman's cultural awareness.”

“How you grow up is important, all those years of being a little girl or a little boy.”

Bettina still sharing her opinion. Maybe, Noel thought, it's her reason for being.

Mike asked, “How old was he when he switched?”

“Twenties, I guess.”

“So she had no experience of her first period.” Bettina looked around. “If you sex-change to a woman, do you menstruate?”

“Without a uterus?” God, Kyra thought, was this woman dumb or what.

Bettina turned to Noel, but said nothing. He spoke to Kyra. “How long are we waiting for Jerome?” This conversation was becoming too female.

“Ten more minutes?”

A touch of worry? “Good.” He smiled at her with sympathy. She grinned back.

The entry phone beeped and Kyra took it. “Hello?” Jerome. She buzzed him in.

Noel caught Bettina still staring at him. Dimwit.

The minimum time from the building's front door to suite 507 was three minutes. She took a sip, opened the door, waited. Jerome appeared down the hall. He looked frazzled. “What happened?” He carried two glass pots, and a bag over his shoulder. She took the pots.

“I'm sorry I'm so late. My son phoned.”

“I was getting worried.”

“Sorry.”

He took off his coat, dropped it on a chair, took the wine bottles from the bag and left it with his coat. They headed to the kitchen and deposited the pots. He hugged her lightly and kissed her cheek. “I'd have phoned you, but I had to get things out of the oven and get here.”

“Glad you did.” She smiled.

“Any room in the oven for these?” He gestured at the pots.

Kyra looked. “No. Microwavable?”

“Yes.”

In the living room, Kyra introduced him.

Noel handed him a glass of wine. Pleasant open face, small scar on right cheekbone, thinning chestnut hair. Slender, maybe six feet. Tan cashmere cardigan over a striped shirt, tailored fawn trousers.

“Good thing you arrived.” Bettina stated. “I wasn't sure we'd get dinner tonight.”

“Sorry.” Jerome raised his glass. “Cheers.”

“We've been talking about sex changes,” Margery told Jerome.

“Oh?” Kyra had said most of these people wouldn't have met before. Had one of them changed sex? An intimate topic for the unacquainted.

“What would it be like being the child of a transgendered person?” Mike puzzled.

“They'd need grief counseling.” Bettina elaborated: “They'd grieve for the lost parent.” A couple of frowns. She simplified: “The old one the new parent had killed.”

“Maybe it'd depend on how old the child was,” said Sarah.

“And,” Bettina declared, “if the child has two mothers or two fathers it's like gay parents. Those kids need grief counseling because they've never had the opposite-sex parent.”

“One doesn't grieve for what one doesn't know.” Noel spoke sharply.

Sarah said, “I know a number of gay couples with kids and they're all well-adjusted. Adjustment comes from love and honesty and trust.”

She sounded as acerbic as Noel felt. Lesbian? Time to eat. He left to help in the kitchen. Kyra raised an eyebrow his way. He raised both back.

They ferried food to the table. Jerome was talking, gamely, about a drug salesman who one month turned up looking as if his sister had replaced him. Except no, a transvestite. Well turned out, so hard to recognize. Not transgendered. Jerome was glad for that, any kind of surgery sent shivers up his spine.

“Yeah.” Noel nodded.

Bettina leapt in, “Oh you're so right. My theory is—”

Kyra cut her off. “Come, time to warm my new table. Hope you're all starved.”

The group stood, re-sorted itself and sat. Noel's Turkish lamb, apricots and couscous. Jerome's crab in a single pottery casserole, not in shells, and his oysters. Bettina's moussaka. Keep it from my lamb, Noel thought, fear of war between Turks and Greeks. He chuckled silently. Oops, slow down on the wine. Salads from Sarah and Margery. Mike's marinated clams.

They toasted Kyra's new condo. She thanked everyone for coming. They dug in with much Please pass the this, Some more of that, please. Noel kept his eye on the emptying bottles, slowed his consumption briefly, then thought, Hell, I'm not driving.

Sarah turned to him. “How did you and Kyra decide to go into business together?”

“Did she never tell you?”

“Only that she had an associate now.”

“Last fall she came up to Nanaimo just as someone asked me to investigate a situation on Gabriola Island, so I asked her to help. She'd been doing jobs for Margery's company, I'd been an investigative journalist. Things carried on from there.” He smiled at Kyra. She returned it, thinking, a good version for present company.

“What were you in jail for?” Bettina asked Mike.

“Bettina!” Margery snapped.

“What?”

Mike said, “Burglary. But remember, I was wrongly convicted.” He gave her an ironic smile.

“Did you appeal?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“Lousy lawyer.”

Wouldn't take him for a criminal, Noel thought. Hmm. He filed the stereotype,
criminal
, for later examination. First burglar I've met. That I know of.

Kyra could hear Bettina's wheels turning: a real burglar or a pawn in the correctional system? Deciding, she looked charmed. “Really! Were you a top-storey man? A cat burglar?”

“A wrongly convicted run-of-the-mill burglar,” Mike said.

“What was your biggest heist?”

“Your dinner's getting cold,” said Margery to Bettina.

Talk broke into smaller groups. Gradually they finished eating. Mike announced his specialty for dessert was Irish coffee, which they could have in the living room. Bettina thrust her package at Kyra even before they'd all sat down. “For your new apartment.”

“Oh,” said Kyra, “you shouldn't have.” And wished Bettina hadn't.

“Oh yes,” Bettina beamed. “I just know any of Margery's girlfriends will like it.”

Girlfriend. How quaint.

Noel, head buzzing, helped Mike pass tall thin blue-green pottery mugs. The coffee lay hidden beneath steam rising around a dollop of whipped cream. Both mugs and content were his gift. His last present to her had been her lock picks. When she “graduated” from his tutelage.

Kyra opened housewarming presents. A potted plant appeared, an aspidistra from Margery. “Houses need at least one plant.”

Bettina's present was a case of makeup samples, myriad little tubes: lipsticks, mascaras, blushers, rouge, eyeshadow, vanishing cream. “It's top-line,” Bettina announced, “and that's the advantage of being in aesthetics. These will really improve your looks.”

Kyra smiled a Mona Lisa. “Thank you,” she said kindly. As to a small child.

Bettina purred.

Sarah gave her a dream catcher. Noel brought the rocket-ship corkscrew from the buffet and handed it to Kyra. “If you don't like it,” he placed his hand on his heart, “I've fallen in love.”

“Oh, who with?” asked Bettina.

Noel looked at her. “The corkscrew, the corkscrew.”

“It looks great, thanks.” Kyra blew him a kiss. “Only a little used.”

Much chat and examining of presents. Jerome found his bag and returned with a wrapped package. Kyra opened it. A red object, maybe eight inches long, with what looked like handgrips. “Is this what I think it is?”

“Yep,” said Mike.

Kyra said, “A can of Mace.”

Several people shrank back. Jerome said, “Don't worry. There's a safety cap. You have to lift it before anything can happen.” And to Kyra, “Does it fit your hand okay?”

She squeezed it. Her index finger fell naturally into place on the grip dispenser.

“It's pretty powerful. Mace Triple Action, they call it. Pepper spray that makes the eyes slam shut, tear gas, and an ultraviolet marking dye. Light enough to carry in your purse. And you should, Kyra.”

Bettina said, “My theory, too.” Her words a touch blurred.

Kyra stood slowly. “Thank you, Jerome. Thank you, everyone.”

TEN

In the old days—say, two years ago—Andrei would have found the conversation with the protopresbyter comfortable, even easy. He and Father Leo had understood each other well, they'd worked together on countless projects. But Father Leo had driven himself too hard. And eaten and drunk too well. Philip's surgeon friend had been optimistic, quadruple bypass was commonplace these days, 90 percent successful. But the other 10 percent were real people too; one of them was Father Leo. Myocardial infarction on the table and he died at 59. Andrei's age, that year.

The new protopresbyter, Father Peter, had come from Sacramento. He was just half as old as Father Leo. The teenagers liked him, which was important, and he dampened some of their wilder ways. The young professionals got on well with him; he talked their language. Vasily and Father Peter played poker together. And many older members had come to trust him. Father Peter understood quickly enough, once everything was spelled out, but there was none of the instant rapport that Andrei and Father Leo had had.

Andrei pulled his Monte Carlo to the curb next to Saint Demetrius, and turned off the windshield wipers and engine. He glanced at the clock on the dashboard: 9:58. He got out, locked, shivered lightly in the drizzly air and pushed open the iron-slat gate leading to the church's courtyard. He walked through, drew open the church's door and stepped into the foyer. Ahead lay the hall, wooden pews, aisle to the grand altar with its gilt facade, the apostles staring down.

Father Peter waited in his office. Still working at 10:00
PM
, earliest he'd been available; even for Andrei. So different from Father Leo. A knock on the office door, a voice calling, “Come in.” He stepped into a small space, cluttered, papers in piles and books on the floor. Indecent how this office had been transformed. “Good evening,” said Andrei.

Father Peter, seated behind the messy desk, was a tall man, well-defined forehead, nose and cheeks, mustache and small beard around lips that tended to smile often. His plaid shirt lay open at the collar. “Andrei. Good to see you. Just toss your coat over there.” He pointed to three bare hooks on the wall. “I hope this isn't too late.”

“Not at all. Father Leo and I would often meet at this hour.” But at Father Leo's home, on a night like this in front of a warm fire, a glass of cognac or port.

“Have a seat.”

Andrei sat in the only chair free of files. “I won't take a lot of your time. It's about Sandro.”

“Yes, I visited Maria again yesterday. She was still hoping. So hard.”

“Today everything is clear. We're prepared to go ahead.”

They talked about announcements, flowers, timing. Andrei said, “I think I should give the eulogy.”

Father Peter nodded slowly. “Yes.”

But Andrei sensed doubt. “I'll make it short. I've known Sandro all his life, he worked for Cascade, I'm both his uncle and his ex-employer.”

“Of course.”

“There will be some talk. In the community, I mean. Have you heard any comments?”

“Comments?”

“About Sandro. How he died.”

“I've heard very little. Mostly from Maria. But until today she still doubted the dead man was Sandro, so—” he shrugged.

“You should know something else. We hope this won't become common knowledge.” The phrases Andrei had composed came with difficulty. “Sandro died of a complicated drug reaction.”

“An overdose?”

Andrei shrugged. “A reaction.”

“Is there any question of suicide?”

“No, no,” Andrei cut him off. “No question. A dreadful accident.”

“I'm sorry.”