Flight of Aquavit (43 page)

here, a few thousand there. Pretty lucrative game

if you think about it,” I said, warming to my theo-

ry. “Jared is away so much of the time on model-

ling assignments, it’d be easy enough for him to

pull it off without his lover knowing. God, Errall,

it could be Anthony, it really could.” I’d obviously

been considering this scenario, somewhere deep

within my psyche. And now, I’d revealed it out

loud. I was pathetic. Anthony was my dear, dear

friend, the love of my dead uncle’s life, my hero,

and here I was, suspecting him of blackmail.

How could I? I felt ashamed. The shroud of dark-

ness overcoming the room seemed ever so appro-

priate for our ugly words of betrayal.

“Russell.” Her voice came from right behind

my ear. She had come up behind me. “You’re only

doing your job. And you’ll be happy to know that

when it comes to Anthony being the blackmailer,

you have no proof of that either. Either of these

men might be Loverboy. And you have to consid-

er both of them as serious possibilities. It’s your

job.”

342 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t

I twisted around so I could look her in the eyes.

“How can I do that? How can I investigate my

own friend?”

“Don’t think of it as proving him guilty. Think

of it as proving him innocent.”

Our eyes hugged for what seemed like a long

time. Finally she backed away and disappeared. I

turned back towards the window. Still no snow.

I waited until six o’clock. I called my mother to

excuse myself from the evening meal—which,

actually she seemed to be okay with—and then

headed for DGR&R. On the way I slipped by the

drive-through McDonald’s window for a low-fat

salad thingy, low-fat muffin and a Diet Coke (my

mother’s cooking and NYC dining extravaganzas

were turning me into…well, into me at fourteen).

I chowed down on my meal parked about a

half-block down from Daniel’s office building. I

had a good spot. I could see the parking lot and

most of the office windows on two sides. I was

willing to wager that this being two days before

Christmas, there wouldn’t be too many slowpokes

out of the office. And I was right. By just after six-

thirty the last vehicle pulled out of the lot and the

only light visible was a night light through the

first floor reception-area window.

I took the last slurps of my drink and manoeu-

vred my car behind the building, up close to the

back door where most street traffic wouldn’t catch

sight of me. I hopped out and raced to the door and,

fingers crossed, typed in the security code I saw

Anthony Bidulka — 343

Daniel use the morning we’d met at this same spot.

Opening the door I was greeted by the welcoming

arms of silence. So far so good. And then, like a thief

in the night (as opposed to an intruder at dusk, like

me) I stole up the rear stairs, down a hall into the

atrium and into Daniel’s unlocked office.

It wasn’t just a need to do something, anything,

that had led me there. It was a number of things.

Loverboy was still out there; I could feel him. With

Daniel’s decision to bait him with a $10,000 payoff

letter, the chances of our blackmailer responding

quickly and negatively were high. Our main sus-

pect was dead. The others were…doubtful. My

client was not cooperating in helping to identify

alternatives. But, most of all, there was one thing

that was driving me to do this, to break into my

own client’s office—an action which I’m sure is

frowned upon in the
Being a Private Eye for

Dummies
handbook. That one thing was Beverly.

In her own incorruptible, honourable, scrupulous

way, she had been trying to tell me something the

day before—without really telling me. There was

something about Daniel I did not know. And

needed to.

The search of his office was slow, particularly

since I, to be careful, was performing it by flash-

light and really had no idea what I was looking

for. Being an accountant, Daniel had an abun-

dance of paper in his life—but to be fair, it was

meticulously organized paper—tabbed, labelled,

colour-coded, filed and bindered. And, it was in

paper where I eventually found something. I was

searching a file cabinet drawer, unlocked, in a file

344 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t

labelled Royal Bank Statements. What alerted me

that this was somehow different from the several

other banking-related files I’d riffled through was

that the account was in his name only, whereas the

others were office-related accounts or joint

accounts with his wife. Nothing libellous about

that, but worth a look.

At first the bank statements seemed innocuous

enough, revealing not much other than a series of

modest deposits, withdrawals and Interac

charges. That is until a pattern emerged, a pattern

that began twelve months earlier and stopped

sometime in July. In that six-month period there

were regular Interac charges for the Riviera Motor

Inn. Sometimes five or six times a month. The

amount was always the same. About the cost of a

hotel room.

Cheryl Guest was right. Her husband
was
hav-

ing an affair—long before his assignations with

Anthony Gatt or James Kraft.

The problem was this: How to get my client to tell

me who he was meeting in the Riviera Motor Inn

Motel without letting him know I’d broken into

his office and gone through his personal records?

As I drove home from DGR&R I resisted a temp-

tation to simply call him at home and confront

him with it. We didn’t have time to fool around

and I didn’t have time for a client who was keep-

ing things from me. I chastised myself for not

being warier of this possibility. It wasn’t the first

time Daniel Guest had withheld information he

Anthony Bidulka — 345

thought I didn’t need. In the end though, I had

promised not to call him at home so as not to

arouse his wife’s suspicions even further, and it

was still in the best interests of the case to keep

that promise. And with all that was going on, I

wanted to go home to check on Mom.

By 8 p.m. I was comfortably laid out on a loveseat

in my living room, alternating my lazy gaze from

the crackling fire my mother had set in the hearth

and the clacking crochet needles she was manipu-

lating into creating another in a lifelong series of,

as far as I could tell, identical doilies.

Never looking up from her toil, my mother

said, “I tink about leaving da farm.”

Just when you think it’s safe to go home.

I was astounded. When my father died, every-

one—the kids, friends, neighbours, relatives—

expected Mom to move away from the farm—per-

haps into a small house in Howell, or even a

condo in Saskatoon, or maybe to move in with

Joanne or Bill with his house full of ready-to-be-

spoiled children. Instead, she stayed where she

was and, with the exception of renting out the

farm land, continued on as if nothing had

changed. She grows a garden that could feed

Prince Edward Island, keeps chickens, a few pigs,

a milk cow, a dog and some cats and still tireless-

ly maintains a house and yard meant for a family

of five even though it had dwindled down to one.

She never complains, never asks for help and

accepts visits from her children with surprise

346 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t

rather than expectation. Her health is good and it

seems, in her early sixties, she’ll be able to go on in

that same fashion for many years.

Still, my siblings and I worry about her being

alone in a somewhat remote location. But we also

realize that everyone makes choices in life. Some

not as obvious or as safe as others, but still valid.

That was what Mom had done. She’d sooner risk

being scared or sick or lonely than be holed up in

some apartment in a city far away from the familiar

surroundings she loves so much. So to hear her

suggest a change was a shock.

I sat up on the loveseat and stared at her and

her busily crocheting hands. “What are you talk-

ing about?” I asked. “You’ve never talked about

leaving the farm before. Did something happen?

Are you feeling okay?”

“No, no, no, all goot,” she answered as if she

were discussing nothing more serious than a

recipe. “But I tink about tings. Tings change. I’m

old lady already.”

“That’s not true. You’re only in you’re early

sixties. You just need to slow down. You don’t

need to put in such a big garden. Buy your veg-

gies. Get rid of that damn cow. Milk is cheap.”

“But de cream, Sonsyou, noting like goot,

fresh, farm cream.”

“Welllllll…you shouldn’t be using so much

cream in everything anyway. It’s not good for

you.” Where was this going? “Don’t you like it on

the farm anymore?”

“I do, ya, uh-huh,” she said. “But I could leeve

for tventy more years.”

Anthony Bidulka — 347

I nodded. She could be right; my grandmother

had lived into her nineties. “Exactly, so why give

up now?” I challenged her. “You have a lot of

good years left on the farm. You don’t have to give

it up.”

She finally laid down her handiwork on her

aproned lap and took off her glasses to clean them

with the partially completed doily. Aha, so that

was what they were for! “But mebbe dat’s not

vhat I vant to do vit tventy more years.”

This was as surprising to me if she’d told me I

had wings. But, come to think of it, she used to call

me her angel.

“When Dad died, Eva Demchuk tell me…you

remember Eva? She bury two husbands, poor Eva.

She tell me, don’t change anyting for one year.

After den you decide. So dat’s vhy I deedn’t leave

de farm. For years. And I vas happy. But I vonder

vhedder time for change has come.”

“You’re going to sell the farm?” I asked, still

shell-shocked.

“No, no, no,” she said. “Are you hungry,

Sonsyou?”

I frowned.

“I sell notting. The farm is for you kids,” she

said.

“Mom,” I said, “you know none of us are inter-

ested in becoming a farmer. You don’t have to

save it for us.”

“Your dziadzio came to dis country to claim

land for de family name. Not for sale, de farm.”

Barbra came up alongside Mom’s chair, seeking

one of the head pats she tends to solicit sporadi-

348 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t

cally throughout any given evening. Mom com-

plied then resumed crocheting. “To sell…vell…I

leave dat up to you kids—if dat’s vhat you vant.”

My mother: fiendishly clever buck-passer and

guilt-monger.

I wasn’t about to get into an argument about

how the world had changed since Grandpa had

come to Canada. Instead I stayed with current-day

reality. “You have no other income, Mom, you

need the land for yourself. If you’re serious about

moving away from the farm, the money from sell-

ing the land would help you buy a new house or

condo somewhere and nicely supplement your

pension income.”

“No house.”

What? What’s this? Then where would she go?

She couldn’t realistically be thinking of a retire-

ment home at her age. Bill’s? Joanne’s? There was

a third choice. A choice I had soundly ignored.

Why? Because I thought she’d be more comfort-

able with Bill or Joanne? Or maybe…I thought
I’d

be more comfortable too. But why? It didn’t have

to be that way. Was I being a homophobe about

this? Had I automatically downgraded my abili-

ty and appeal as a provider and companion for

my mother just because I’m gay? There
was
a

damn fine third choice. THE ROOM ABOVE THE

GARAGE. She wasn’t saying the words, but I was

hearing them loud and clear in my head. I had

ever since the day I’d found her up there. And then,

even louder words were telling me what I had to

do, should do…wanted to do?

“Well, you’ll just move here then. The room

Anthony Bidulka — 349

over the garage, we can fix it up, it’ll be perfect.”

“Ya, uh-huh,” she murmured, heavily concen-

trating on her work. “You hungry, Sonsyou?”

I smiled and lay back down on the loveseat, let-