Speak Ill of the Dead (10 page)

“Nice place,” I said, after introducing myself. “Isn’t it a bit out of the way for you?”

“I like it. It’s pretty much on my way home from work. I don’t have a lot of spare time, so if you can tell me what…”

“I know what you mean.” It wasn’t like I had all the time in the world. “Finish up. I’ll wait.”

She flicked the dryer back on, waving it around and fluffing her hair with her fingers, squinting with dissatisfaction. I thought her hair looked great. Deep auburn, little soft kinky waves, cut a bit asymmetrical. I figured her haircut cost more than my month’s groceries.

I waited.

When she finished, she flicked off the dryer and tucked it into a blue and violet gym bag. She stared at herself with narrowed eyes in the mirror. I didn’t think she liked what she saw. It was hard to figure why.

I saw a woman, close to six feet tall, with broad shoulders and tan skin dusted with light freckles. She must have been a star basketball or volleyball player back in high school, and she was still in shape.

I felt easier asking her questions once she’d put her underwear on. Ladies changing rooms rattle me. It’s a legacy from the nuns.

“Mitzi Brochu,” I said, as she pulled on a cream-coloured silk man-style shirt.

I didn’t miss the quick look she shot me.

“What about her?”

“She mentioned you in several articles.”

She’d turned away from me and slid herself into a pair of faded black jeans. But even from behind I could see those strong shoulders tense.

She turned back to me. “I noticed.”

“I’m not surprised. They were extraordinarily vitriolic. And deliberately cruel.”

“Tell me about it,” she said, snaking a tan woven leather belt into the belt loops of the jeans.

“Any idea why she picked you as a subject?”

“None. I came home one night and there was my subscription to
Femme Fatale
and there was I, paraded for all the world to see. Photographed in front of my dad’s barn down in Buckingham. The caption read ‘Which one is the barn?’ How would you like that?”

“I wouldn’t. No one would.”

“Right.” She tugged on a tweed blazer with tan, black, cream and hunter green in it and pulled the shoulders straight. “Mind telling me why you’re asking me these things?”

“Not at all. I’m a lawyer and my client is suspected by the police of putting Mitzi out of her misery. I’m trying to find out more about Mitzi and her relationships.”

“Can’t say I blame you. Did your client get the
Femme
Fatale
treatment too?”

“No. I don’t think she ever had anything to do with Mitzi.”

“Hmm,” she said, and I could tell she was thinking back. “Okay, she’s the little blonde lady who left the Harmony. You were with her, if I remember correctly. Robin Findlay.”

“Right.” I remembered that Jo Quinlan was a reporter first and had a good grasp of the background.

“Did it give you any satisfaction to know that the woman who’d made you miserable had one of her victims turn on her?”

Of course, this was quite out of line, but I asked it anyway. Jo picked up her black leather purse and her gym bag before she answered.

“Mitzi Brochu didn’t make me miserable. Sure, she tried and I’m certain that she would have tried again. But it didn’t work. I wasn’t miserable and I never would have been. Irritated, yes. Pissed off, yes. But not miserable.”

She met my eyes with her steady green ones. And I believed her.

“And since you asked me straight out instead of beating around the bush, yes, her death did give me a certain satisfaction. She was playing with fire. And maybe someone snapped. Possibly someone who was afraid to be the next victim. Whoever it was did the world a favour. But it wasn’t me. So I guess that doesn’t help your client much. Good luck elsewhere.”

I was thinking about her comments as she strode out of the changing room, leaving me surrounded by bodies I had no wish to see. I caught up to her as she was climbing into her Toyota Supra in the parking lot.

“Why did she single you out from among the media?”

“God damned if I know,” she said, settling herself in and fastening her seat belt. “I never figured that out. She did, and she sicked her photographer on me, and that’s all I know.”

“What about the photographer?”

“What about him?”

“What’s he like?”

If Jo had managed to keep a cool head during the chat about Mitzi, she had a bit more trouble talking about Sammy Dash. Her hands clenched around the wheel and the muscles on her neck stood out in ropes.

“He’s a shitty little weasel who stalks his victims with great enjoyment. You can see it in his beady eyes when he catches you. Maybe he’s just mad at the world because he can’t get it up.”

“Can’t he?”

“How the hell would I know?” She pressed the power button for the window and I yanked my hand out just in time.

I looked after her for a long time after she peeled out of the parking lot on two wheels. Maybe she hadn’t killed Mitzi Brochu, although she was strong enough and she had motivation enough. But Sammy Dash would have the fight of his life if he ever ran into her in a dark, lonely place.

And she’d given me a very interesting comment to chew on.

*   *   *

When I arrived at the Findlays’ around six, everyone had already eaten. The fragrance of roast chicken hung over the kitchen and the living room, where Mrs. F., surrounded by sewing gear, was concentrating on the television screen. A man and a woman (Clarissa and Jake) lay naked and alone (except for the camera crew) and not only that, they were about to say something of great importance.

“Hello, Mrs. Findlay,” I said.

“Shh. Not now, dear,” she said without taking her eyes off the screen.

Mr. F. grabbed my arm and hustled me into the kitchen, closing the door so we couldn’t break the spell with any idle chatter.

“Lemon meringue pie?” he whispered.

I almost explained that I was going out and shouldn’t eat dessert first, when I recognized the small-minded beliefs that lay behind such a statement.

“Love some.”

“Good girl. New recipe.”

“How’s Robin?”

“So-so. Here, we’ll take this upstairs and you can try to cheer her up.”

Together, we crept past Mrs. F. and up the stairs with a plate of pie and a pot of tea.

Robin was propped up in her bed talking to Brooke when we opened the door. Brooke broke off in mid-sentence. Both of them stared at us as if we were some new species of spider. Pushing her father aside, Brooke left the room without a word, but with a backward look at Robin that said lots. Mr. Findlay crept out after her. The scent of Brooke’s expensive fragrance hung around after she left, irritating me.

“You’re dressed up,” Robin said, leaning back on her pillow and closing her eyes.

“No, I’m not,” I said, pouring the tea.

“You are so.”

“Not. And anyway, how would you know? Your eyes are closed.”

“Look at your shoes.”

“People wear high heels all the time.”

“People, yes. You, no.”

“It’s no big deal.”

Robin sat up, and for the first time since the murder, looked a bit like her perceptive self.

“Don’t recall seeing you in a skirt after work hours. Ever. With your cashmere sweater yet.”

“I felt like a change.”

She leaned forward and squinted at me.

“I do believe you’re wearing make-up.”

Maybe I’d overdone it. My black pumps with the challis skirt and the good sweater. The lipstick was a bit much, I thought. I wasn’t that used to applying it.

“Tell me you’re in love.”

“I am not in love,” I snapped. “I am just making incredible personal sacrifices for you.”

“You must be. Lipstick. My God.” She fell back against her blue and white flowered pillowcase, laughing. Just like the old days.

After two minutes, I told her to shut up.

“I’d hate to think of what you’d do if you saw someone in an evening dress, for God’s sake. You’d have to be put down.”

“An evening dress,” she howled. “Camilla in an evening dress.”

Robin’s old self was reappearing, and what did it matter if my ego had to be sacrificed to make it happen?

“I’m doing it for you,” I said, with a small martyred smile.

All I got in response were snuffling, choking sounds.

“I’m busting my butt investigating other suspects in Mitzi’s murder in order to get the police off your back, and what do I get for it? Mockery and derision.”

The mockery and derision stopped as the words came out. The blood drained from Robin’s face, and she sank into the coverlet.

“Oh, don’t do that,” she whispered.

“Why not, for God’s sake?”

“You might…get hurt.”

“Don’t be silly. What could happen to me?”

“Look what happened to Mitzi.”

“That happened because Mitzi was Mitzi. Nothing like that is going to happen to me on the streets of Ottawa.”

“Please, don’t do it. Leave it to the police.”

“The police, may I remind you, are sniffing around you. They think all this collapsing in bed looking like a stale pudding is exactly the type of thing a remorseful crucifixionist would do. What the hell is wrong with you? What do you know about the murder? Who did you see? Stop lying to me, Robin.”

“I told you. I didn’t see anything. Nothing.”

When Mr. Findlay tiptoed through the bedroom door with Robin’s latest dose of medication, he found her lying with her eyes closed.

I, on the other hand, was sitting there steaming. Robin was making herself sick about this. And refusing the very type of activity that could help her. Bullshit, I said to myself, I just can’t stand this kind of bullshit. What really bugged me was that underneath the signs of weakness I could sense a steely stubbornness. Maybe she hadn’t seen anything, but she was damn well deflecting attention from someone. Who and why were the questions.

“It’s been very hard on us,” Mr. Findlay whispered in the hallway, “having her like that. Thank heaven Brooke’s here, or I think her mother’s heart would break. Thanks for coming. It usually cheers Robin.”

Right.

As I passed by the living room on my way out, Mrs. Findlay was on the phone to her friend.

“Honest to God, Marge,” she said, lighting a cigarette. “Clarissa told him about the baby. I couldn’t believe it.”

She gave me a little wave without breaking stride in her conversation as I left.

They told me later that Robin just lay upstairs, not speaking, until the next day, when the police came back.

*   *   *

Driving back downtown, I thought about Robin and whatever she was hiding. I’ve known her for twenty-seven years. She was holding back something, and knowing Robin, it couldn’t be for her own benefit. Therefore, it was for someone else. Since Mitzi’s murder had been brutal and vicious, even taking into consideration Mitzi’s nasty side, under normal circumstances Robin would not have tried to protect someone who would do such a thing. Not unless it was someone very special. Someone close.

I thought back to an episode when we were in seventh grade. Someone had broken Mrs. Findlay’s prize possession, a Royal Doulton figurine. Tensions had run high in the Findlay household, and Robin had taken the rap for it. Even though I’d been sitting next to her on her blue chenille bedspread when we heard the crash. Even though I’d told her parents that. Even though she’d been grounded for a month, and God only knows what emotional havoc was heaped on her by her loony mother. Even though.

Robin had kept a pale-faced silence throughout, never once protesting her innocence. Never once pointing her finger at the real culprit, a seven-year-old vision of blonde hair and blue eyes and sweet smiles.

And Brooke, of course, had never confessed.

By rights Robin should have been jealous of the much younger little brat who got all the attention, but she never was. Always supported, always defended. Since I was the little brat in my own family, there wasn’t a lot I could say about it to Robin. Brooke was another story.

“You’ve had your First Communion, Brooke,” I’d made a point of saying at the time. “So I guess you realize that you’ll burn in hell for this. This is a double mortal sin and your soul doesn’t have even one little tiny patch of white left on it.”

Deep down I’d suspected that Brooke wasn’t worried one bit about God and his helpers. She knew she could wrap them around her little finger.

“Leave her alone,” Robin had told me, her eyes still red-rimmed from her mother’s last verbal blast. “She’s just a little kid.”

“Old enough to fry.”

Brooke had started to cry at that point. She had an amazing trick of crying while still looking beautiful. No blotches, no red eyes. Just little rivulets of tears and a trembling pink lower lip.

“Better go home now,” Robin had told me, as she reached down to comfort her poor, trembling little sister. “See you tomorrow at school.”

“Sizzle, sizzle,” I mouthed at Brooke as I left, making sure that Robin didn’t see me.

The memory of that encounter was crisp and vivid, even though it was nearly twenty years old. And two things I knew: Brooke hadn’t changed a bit. And neither had Robin.

*   *   *

Even the soothing tones of the Harmony couldn’t quite dispel my miserable mood. The ambience in The Tranquillity Room should have been enough, given the string quartet and all. The poached Atlantic salmon helped a lot, and so did the chocolate pâté and raspberry coulis. Still, I was on edge. As we sipped our cappuccino, Richard Sandes leaned across the white linen tablecloth and gave my hand a squeeze. Warm and protective. Like a father.

“Maybe she’s right,” he said.

I gazed into his deep-brown eyes and said, “Don’t be silly.”

Ruining the mood.

He gave me one of his sad smiles, but I thought I saw a flicker of concern cross his face as he beckoned for the waiter.

The waiter practically vaulted over the serving table to get to us. He managed to maintain his dignity, although I couldn’t help noticing his toupee was a bit askew.

“Armagnac?” Richard asked.

“Better not. I’ve got my car.”

Naturally. I’m the only person I know who would take her own car on what was turning out to be a very romantic evening of investigation.