Burying Ariel (28 page)

“Not for all the tea in China. Willie is already grinding me down, and if you think a caged Florence is a bummer, consider how you’d feel if Bruce and Benny decided to make her the blue plate special.”

Ed laughed grudgingly. “You’re sounding chipper.”

“I’m faking it,” I said. “It’s been one hell of a week, and it’s not showing signs of improvement.”

A shaft of sunlight hit the corner of Florence’s cage, and Ed adjusted a plum-blossom silkscreen to diffuse it. “I’ve been keeping up with the Web page,” he said. “Ann Vogel is pulling out all the stops. If she’s not careful, she’s going to find herself in court. That letter is libellous.”

“Livia doesn’t think Ann Vogel wrote it,” I said. “According to Livia, Solange is the one who travels in circles so ideologically pure they would have no compunction about making autopsy photos public if it served the cause. I tend to agree with Livia about Ann, but not for the same reason. When she was my student, even subject-verb agreements strained her thought processes, and that letter is elegantly written.”

“The phrasing may be elegant, but it reflects an ugly mind.”

“Or a troubled one,” I said. “This morning Livia told me that Solange has a history of psychiatric problems.”

Ed frowned. “And this just came to light?”

“Livia knew,” I said. “Apparently when Solange applied for the job here, Livia called her referees and encouraged them to open up.”

“The new and improved Livia is a thorough woman,” Ed said dryly. “I’ve always believed that needlepoint she hung in her office when she became department head was intended as a warning to us all. ‘No Surprises.’ ” He shuddered. “So what was Solange’s surprise?”

“Livia says clinical depression.”

Ed winced. “That’s a nasty one. More to the point,” he said thoughtfully, “it doesn’t fit.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I remember what it was like when the vulture was hovering. Thanks to Barry and Prozac, my bouts with depression are in the past, but when it was at its worst, I could barely manage to put on my socks in the morning. If she truly is suffering from depression, I don’t think Solange would be capable of organizing this latest campaign.”

I took a deep breath. “Would she be capable of committing murder?”

Ed’s eyes widened. “Are you serious?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Charlie told me last night that when Ariel told Solange she was moving on, there was a lot of anger.”

Ed’s face registered surprise. “Did Solange’s relationship with Ariel go beyond friendship?”

“I don’t know that either.” I threw up my hands in defeat. “Even if it did, it’s no one’s business unless …”

“Unless the breakup ended violently,” Ed finished for me. “It happens, you know.”

“I know,” I said. “I just hope it didn’t happen in this case.” I picked up the stack of mid-terms from the coffee table. “Thank God for marking,” I said. “It keeps the fingers busy and the mind semi-engaged. And I owe it all to you. I really appreciate your proctoring the exam, Ed. Promise me you’ll let me return the favour.”

He gave me a smart salute. “Scout’s honour.”

When I reached into my purse for the car keys, my fingers hit the small box I’d been carrying around since Wednesday. I pulled it out and handed it to Ed with a flourish. “And here’s your merit badge for hospitality. Our family had a sensational Victoria Day weekend at the lake.”

Ed took out the sparrow and held it to the light. “Lalique,” he said. “I won’t say you shouldn’t have done it because I love her already, but these don’t come in Frosted Flakes.”

“Luckily, they can be found at high-end garage sales.” I said. “Like Florence, your Lalique sparrow has already known another home. You seem destined to own second-hand birds.”

Ed ran his finger over a crystal wing. “Then perhaps Barry and I should accept our fate with grace,” he said. “I can almost hear Livia intoning that this is our way of acquiring good karma.”

The first thing I did when I got home was check Eli’s room. Charlie still hadn’t shown up. There were no messages on the voice mail. It was obvious there had been a change of plans; it was equally obvious that neither Howard nor his son had seen any point in telling me. Howard’s failures to communicate were legendary, and I was neither worried nor nettled.

The day was getting lovelier by the moment and, while I did have work to do, there was no reason I couldn’t do it outdoors. I made myself a pot of green tea and took the mid-terms out to the sunshine of the back deck; by lunchtime, I’d made a small but measurable dent in the pile. After I’d eaten, I took a swim. As I was changing out of my wet suit, my bed looked so inviting I put on my pyjamas and slid between the sheets.

I woke to the sound of Charlie Dowhanuik’s voice, but when I opened my eyes it wasn’t Charlie standing beside the bed, it was Eli. He was wearing khaki shorts and a T-shirt and holding a portable radio.

“I’m sorry to wake you up,” he said, “but I thought you should listen to this.”

Charlie was in full rhetorical flight. “The word ‘mob’ is a shortened form of the Latin
mobile vulgus
, ‘fickle common people,’ ” he said. “For the Romans, the mob was harmless enough, a bunch of boys and girls with a fondness for bread and circuses. Your basic
WWF
crowd. But mobs have changed. Today, right here in our city, there’s a mob forming. And the people in it aren’t just good old boys and good old girls. They’re sophisticated. They even have their own Web site. Their name may sound innocent but, make no mistake, the Friends of Red Riding Hood are not fairy-tale characters. They’re beasts who feed on the stupid, suck up the gullible, then move along, leaving nothing behind but a reeking spoor of self-righteousness. Fight them. Now … back to the Dave Matthews Band.”

Eli sat on the edge of my bed. “That’s the only music he’s playing. It’s his theme, ‘Ants Marching.’ ”

“I’ve heard it before,” I said. “It’s a good song, but I’m not sure how many repetitions I could take.”

Eli nodded. “Charlie D’s taking calls, too. Some of them are really scary. Threats. He doesn’t seem to care.
CVOX
has been running announcements all day saying they’re standing behind Charlie D. On the news just now, a guy said the Friends of Red Riding Hood are renting buses to take the Friends out to the station tonight so they can protest. Charlie D told them to come ahead.”

I looked at Eli. “I’m going to call Charlie’s dad,” I said.

I tried Howard’s apartment. There was no answer. I tried his cellphone. A female voice told me, in both official languages, that the customer I was calling was unavailable at the moment. The news was hardly surprising; in order to have been ‘available,’ Howard would have had to activate his phone, and that was something he seldom did.

“No luck,” I said to Eli.

“What are you going to do?” Eli asked.

“Get dressed and go up the university. Howard knew there’d be trouble, and he’s always believed in attacking trouble at its source. The march is scheduled to start from the library. Even if Howard isn’t there, I’ll be able to see firsthand what’s happening.” I glanced at the clock on my night-stand. “Incidentally,” I said, “it’s two-thirty. How come you’re home from school.”

“Half-day teacher in-service,” he said. “I told you about it last night.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m playing with an incomplete deck these days. Does Taylor have the afternoon off, too?”

“Nope, it’s only the high schools. Taylor’s class is on garbage patrol in her schoolyard, so she won’t be home till after four. She mentioned that, too,” he said gently.

“How would you like to move in permanently?” I asked. “We’ve never had a kid around here who actually
delivered
messages.”

“Cool,” he said. “Talk to Uncle Alex. I think we’re a matched set.”

I threw my pillow at him. “Get outta here,” I said.

He left with a grin, but the strains of ‘Ants Marching,’ Dave Matthews’s indictment of mindless conformity, lingered.

As I drove to the university, my nerves felt as if they were connected by piano wire. I couldn’t slap a label on what I feared, and so, nameless, the fear grew. It took an act of will to insert the key in the lock of my office. When I saw the envelope lying on the floor, my heart sank. Any message Solange had considered critical enough to slide under my door the night before wouldn’t be good news. The envelope I picked up was the kind our office used for business letters. Inside was a single sheet of university stationery. The note was handwritten, two lines long:

Joanne,

The heart has its reasons, and they’re not always immediately apparent to others. Forgive me,

Solange

The remorse was apparent, but the note’s ambiguity gnawed. The two lines could be read as either an apology for a temperamental outburst or an admission of complicity in something more sinister.

I walked down the hall and knocked on Solange’s door. There was no answer, and when I tried the knob, the door was locked. I had no better luck at the main office. It was 3:30 – Rosalie’s coffee time. Even Kevin Coyle wasn’t in.

I went back to my office and tried Solange’s home number. There was no answer. I pulled the mid-terms from my briefcase and began to read. Five minutes later, I gave up. I would not have wanted one of my kids to have their paper marked by an instructor whose concentration was as fragmented as mine. I reread Solange’s letter. It didn’t yield any answers. All I knew for certain was that there had been a radical shift in Solange’s feelings. The question was,
Why?

Luckily, the time frame during which the change took place was a narrow one. Fraser Jackson had been with Solange on the island and on the flights back. He had struck me as a man with keen powers of observation and a good ear for detecting variations in the emotional pitch of others. I packed up my mid-terms, locked my door, and walked to the elevator. I needed information, and Fraser seemed as good a place as any to start.

His door was open, but when I stuck my head around the corner, I saw that he was on the telephone. As soon as he saw me, he hung up. “Synchronicity,” he said with a grin. “I was just calling you. Molly told me on the way back that it was your idea to invite me. I’m grateful, Joanne. I found it very comforting to be part of the ceremony.” He gestured to the chair opposite his. “But you came to see me.…”

“I wanted to talk about yesterday, too,” I said, taking the chair he’d offered. “Fraser, I was hoping you could tell me about how Solange was after I left.”

He took a breath. “Well, at first she was very angry. Of course, you saw that.”

“It was pretty hard to miss,” I said. “But sometime last night she slid this under my office door.” I gave him Solange’s note.

As Fraser read the note, his face was sombre. “I can’t say that I’m surprised,” he said.

“Then something
did
happen.”

“No
single
thing,” he said slowly, and I could see my own concern reflected in his dark eyes. “Solange took me aside as soon as you left with Howard and his son. She was … distraught. She asked me about my relationship with Ariel. There didn’t seem to be any point in lying, so I told her the truth. She took the news calmly; in fact, she seemed almost indifferent. I’ve thought about it since, and I think I just had to establish my bona fides before she asked the one question that really mattered to her.”

“Which was?”

“Which was if Ariel had ever suggested, in any way, that she feared her.”

“Had she?” I asked.

“Never. She always spoke of Solange with the greatest affection and respect.”

I felt the piano-wire tension of my nerves lessen. “So Charlie was wrong.”

“One hundred per cent wrong.” Fraser was adamant. “Solange was a hero to Ariel. She believed Solange had given her some sort of key to living her life fully.”

“And you told Solange that.”

He shook his head in amazement. “She was so grateful, Joanne. She told me I couldn’t have given her a greater gift. Then the penny dropped.”

“What do you mean?”

“I wish I knew. All I know is that the light went out of her face, and she said, ‘If it wasn’t me, then who
was
Ariel afraid of?’ After that, she just withdrew. I made a point of sitting beside her on the flights home, but she didn’t say another word till we were about to land in Regina. Then she asked me something I’m still puzzling over. She wanted to know if I’d ever studied
Murder in the Cathedral.”

“T.S. Eliot,” I said. “I don’t get the connection.”

“Neither did I, but I wanted her to keep talking. I told her the summer before last I’d seen a terrific production of the play in London, and that I’d done some work on it and was considering doing a student production here. That’s when she asked me if I knew Thomas Becket’s line about the greatest treason.” Fraser leaned towards me. “Are you familiar with the play?”

“Very,” I said. “When my husband was in politics, that particular line came up a time or two. ‘The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason.’ ”

Fraser nodded approval. “It’s a provocative line for idealists,” he said. “I wasn’t surprised that Solange had been taken with it, but it seemed she was more interested in the inversion. ‘It’s treason the other way, too,’ she said. ‘If a person does the wrong deed for the right reason.’ ”

“And she didn’t elaborate?”

“Not another word on that subject or any other. The plane landed; we shared a cab from the airport. I got dropped off first, and I haven’t seen her since. I’ve been uneasy enough about her state of mind to try her office and her house a half-dozen times. No luck.”

“I’m sure she’s fine, just out riding her bike somewhere,” I said, with what I hoped sounded like conviction. “I’ll call if I manage to connect with her.”

“I hope one of us finds her soon,” he said. “Because all the bike-riding in the world doesn’t offset the fact that that note was written by a deeply troubled woman.”