Speak Ill of the Dead (32 page)

What the hell, I thought, it’s a Sunday afternoon in a highrise apartment complex in peace-loving Ottawa. Someone must be going to call the police.

“But still,” I yelled, praying I had an audience somewhere, “it must not feel right. You don’t want to kill me.”

“You get used to it,” he said, just before I elbowed him in the eye.

I grabbed the curtains as we passed through the door and held tight. I felt the fabric tearing in my hands. None of me touched the balcony floor.

“Good-bye, Camilla.”

I looked over his shoulder and shrieked, “Get him.”

“You don’t think that will work again,” he said, too softly, as he lifted me higher. Over the edge.

I clung to the wrought iron railing of the balcony, screaming. My body dropped, and I could feel the skin on my palms shredding. I fought the thoughts of the sixteen-story fall as Richard pulled at my hands.

“Hang on, Camilla!”

I hung. Richard whipped his head around and slumped, half-stunned. Mrs. Parnell whacked him in the chest with the leg of her walker. He reached over to loosen my hands. I heard the sound of metal hitting bone as Mrs. Parnell loomed behind him.

I heaved and managed to climb back onto the right side of the balcony, my legs without bones.

Mrs. Parnell continued to slash the walker at him. He staggered and lurched towards her. He struck with both fists in her direction. Mrs. Parnell dropped her walker and tumbled forward.

I flung myself at him with enough force to throw him off-balance. I picked up the walker and hurled it at him, pushing him back to the edge of the balcony, striking the side of his head.

Mrs. Parnell crawled toward him. A woman who never gives up.

Richard lurched against the balcony rail and kicked Mrs.

Parnell. She slid and lay still on the balcony. He picked up the walker and dropped it over the side of the balcony.

I could hear my breath in harsh rasps as he turned toward me. I stepped back and leaned down. With every bit of failing energy mobilized, I picked up the cast-iron pot of geraniums and heaved.

The thonk of metal against skull reverberated in the fear-filled air.

Richard’s head snapped back. His arms flailed and he grabbed for the rail. Blood spurted from his forehead, washing into his eyes. He staggered, blinded, stumbling against the balcony rail. Crying and sweating and hardly believing he could still be conscious, I pressed myself against the wall.

He made a growling sound and surged forward, one final vicious lunge. Against the balcony rail, he reached and found only air.

I stared as Richard plunged tearing and grabbing through the sixteen story drop, his scream echoing back on the wind.

Mrs. Parnell’s shrivelled paws shook as much as mine did when we locked hands. She leaned against the wall and gasped for air as I collapsed on the chair.

“You’re pretty good with that walker, Mrs. Parnell,” I said, when I could talk again. “Thank God for those weights.”

“I never did trust that man.” She closed her eyes.

Twenty-Two

O
f course, I knew Camilla would never have that dog thing barking in her apartment with the mother cat and four kittens there. There had to be something terribly wrong,” Mrs. Parnell said with a coy glance at my father.

“So, in a way, you can thank me you’re still alive,” Stan smirked.

July 1. Canada Day and also Edwina’s birthday. My family and friends were jammed into my apartment swilling cheap Spanish champagne provided by me, gorging on an elaborate buffet prepared by my sisters and fussing over the Canada Day fireworks about to begin on Parliament Hill. From my balcony, you had one of the best views of the display in town.

This would be the first time I’d ventured out on the balcony since May, when Richard had tried to hurl me over the side. I had to get used to going out there again. My knees wobbled and my knuckles whitened just thinking about it. No one was paying any attention to Stan or to me bantering. My sisters were more absorbed by Mrs. Parnell’s habit of lighting up cigarettes between trips to the buffet. She was polishing off another plate of cold sliced rare roast beef with potato and bean salad and roasted red peppers in olive oil and garlic.

Conn McCracken gazed at Alexa like she was the winning combination for the Lotto 6/49. Whenever she glanced back at him, she glowed.

On the other hand, Robin and Ted were looking suspiciously solemn. The month of rest and the knowledge that Brooke hadn’t been directly involved in Mitzi’s death had been good for Robin. She was pink and white again, her blonde hair shining and from time to time, and when she wasn’t being solemn, she flashed a 12-volt smile at Ted, who would instantly turn flame-red.

Lucky for Merv he was out of town.

All that romance was making me queasy, and I was looking forward to the crimson, green, deep yellow and electric white flash of fireworks. The papers were promising a spectacular show with new fireworks called “Five Pointed Stars” and “Yellow Ribbons”.

“It’s almost ten. Let’s go out on the balcony, or we’ll miss the show,” I said.

No one paid any attention.

My father watched Mrs. Parnell through a cloud of smoke.

“So you’ve really had some adventures,” he said.

Mrs. Parnell stuck a fresh cigarette into her holder and smiled mysteriously at him.

“But I still don’t understand why this man felt so driven to kill these people,” said my father.

“It was his daughter’s death that sent him over the edge. A beautiful girl, she was a model in Toronto. His only child and the focus of his existence. Her death was brought on by anorexia, I believe they call it. Apparently she did a bit of drugs, too. The combination led to heart failure. She’d been a big fan of Mitzi Brochu as fashion guru. It drove Richard’s wife around the bend. He was out for revenge. He wanted to kill the kind of people who create the climate where young women starve themselves to be acceptable. He wanted the image distorters to suffer. He had a thing about drug dealers too. Mitzi and her gang were perfect.” Mrs. Parnell had the air of Nero Wolfe filling in the details of the nearly perfect crime.

“Yes, well,” I said, intending to fill in the key details myself. But nobody gave me a glance.

“Amazing the way it all got worked out,” said my father to Mrs. Parnell.

She shrugged, modestly.

“Well, I knew even Camilla would never permit a dog in the apartment with those kittens, so I had no choice but to go on over and see what the problem was.”

“Very brave.”

I looked at my father with irritation.

“Don’t forget I provided the geraniums,” Edwina said, tearing her eyes away from the saccharin spectacle of Alexa and Conn and turning her attention to Robin. “How is your sister doing, Robin? Is she getting over this?”

“Pretty much. She’s getting some treatment. It shook her up when Rudy Wendtz and Sammy got killed. And when she found out her name had been on the list they found in Richard Sandes apartment, she flipped. I suppose in a way it was good for her to be shocked into looking at what she was doing to herself.”

“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” said Edwina.

I doubted Brooke would ever be fine. Her selfishness cut too deep. But I wouldn’t have mentioned it to Robin. Ted’s eyes met mine when the comment was made. He felt the same way. Maybe between the two of us we could insulate Robin from whatever misery her sister would bring to her life next.

“It’s a good thing Alvin was available to do all that investigating. Otherwise, how would Camilla ever have explained the situation to the police?”

This time I gave Edwina a look. I would have glared at Alvin as well, but he was on his third round through the buffet table and he had his black leather back to me.

“Really,” said Alexa, “the police would have been much better off without Camilla meddling in the investigation.”

“Well,” said Conn, “we were distracted by all the calls we got about Camilla’s investigations. When you get complaints from Members of Parliament and television anchor people, you can’t ignore them.”

“But,” said Alexa, tapping his nose, “you were just about to crack the case anyway. If only Camilla hadn’t gotten in such hot water right then.”

Well, whoop-de-doo, I thought.

“Yes,” said my father to Mrs. Parnell, “we thank heaven you were there.”

No one said, oh good for you, Camilla, stirring everything up like that and bringing the situation to a head. But at least
I
knew what was what.

Alexa cleared her throat.

“Actually, we have something to announce.”

Everyone turned to look at her. Of course, it didn’t hurt that she banged the table to get their attention.

“Conn and I,” she paused to squeeze his hand, “have set a date. Valentine’s Day.”

What mushy drivel, I thought. But the rest of the gang seemed tickled by the news. Even I raised my glass to toast them.

“Violet,” I overheard my father saying to Mrs. Parnell, “what a lovely name. I don’t know how we can ever repay you. Violet.”

I chug-a-lugged my champagne. And inspiration came flooding in. The perfect repayments. The perfect thank-yous.

The perfect revenge.

I slipped into the bedroom. At five weeks, the kittens looked very presentable indeed. And lively. They had already shredded my new curtains. Both Ma Calico and I were thoroughly fed up. I picked them up, basket and all, and hotfooted it back to the party.

“Congratulations to both of you,” I said, fishing out a marmalade kitten and dropping it in Alexa’s lap.

“Happy birthday, dear,” I said to Edwina, handing over the second marmalade kitten before it ripped up my arm.

“An expression of my undying gratitude,” I said to Mrs. Parnell. I popped the baby calico into the pocket of her walker.

“This will go well with your floor, Alvin,” I said, attaching the inky black one to his leather jacket.

“Wicked,” Alvin said, with admiration.

“Oh, Camilla,” said everyone else.

“Myrtle,” Robin squeaked.

The little calico cat wound herself around my leg, purring, just as the fireworks started.

Mary Jane Maffini is a lapsed librarian, now co-owner and resident schmoozer of Ottawa’s tiny, perfect Prime Crime Mystery Bookstore. Her quirky characters pop up in the Canadian mystery anthologies
N
and
Over the Edge
, as well as in
Chatelaine, On-Spec
and
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
. She was the winner of the Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis Award for Best Short Story of 1995 and a finalist in the 1999 Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Choice Award. She is a double nominee for the Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis Awards for 1999: "Kicking the Habit" from the sizzling anthology
Menopause is Murder
for Best Short Story and
Speak Ill of the Dead
for Best First Novel.

She's hard at work on
The Icing on the Corpse
, the second Camilla MacPhee mystery, undeterred by her husband, birds, dog, children and grandchildren.