The Brutal Heart (13 page)

Ginny treated her daughters as peers. “Nice game,” she said. “A couple of plays that I imagine you’d like to reassess but, on the whole, great job.”

Chloe gazed at the crowd. “Is Dad here?”

“I don’t think so,” Ginny said.

Em narrowed her eyes at her sister. “Get used to it. The case is over.” Then she turned to her mother. “You can come back to the locker room if you want. A couple of the girls said they’d like to meet you.”

Ginny stood up. “My pleasure.” She turned to me. “See you at the breakfast?”

“I’ll be there,” I said. “Em and Chloe, it was a thrill watching you tonight.”

“Thank you. It was nice of you to come,” they said in unison.

Gracie, a girl as generous as she was gregarious, finally broke from her teammates and came running over to us. Damp with perspiration, she was still making connections. “Taylor, there are some girls you absolutely have to meet. I know you’ll absolutely love them, and they’ll absolutely love you.”

Taylor looked at me beseechingly. “Is it okay?”

“Absolutely,” I said.

Gracie rolled her eyes. “I overuse that word, don’t I?”

“Maybe,” I said. “But you’re so absolutely great, nobody cares. Now, I think your father and I should get out of here. This room is a steam bath. We’ll meet you outside.”

Gracie groaned and threw her arms around her father. “Dad, I didn’t even say hello to you. I am such a loser.”

Blake buried his face in his daughter’s crinkly red hair. “You’re not a loser,” he said. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”

The sorrow in Blake’s voice was palpable. Gracie stepped back and gave her father a searching look. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” he said. “Joanne and I will meet you out front. It really is a steam bath in here.”

Reluctant to have the evening end, students from both Sheldon and Luther were lingering in the halls, and progress was slow. When Blake and I finally made it out of the brightly lit school into the gentle half-light of gloaming, I took a deep breath. “Feel that coolness,” I said. “I’ve always loved this time of day.”

“For a lot of years now, I’ve hated it,” Blake said. “When the sun goes down, there are no more distractions – it’s time to face reality.”

“Is reality that bad?” I said.

“Tomorrow’s Cristal’s funeral,” he said. “It doesn’t get any worse than that.”

The sprinklers had been turned off, and as we walked the ground was cool and spongy beneath our feet.

“Did she mean that much to you?” I asked.

“She saved me,” he said flatly. “And if I hadn’t been such a coward I could have saved her.”

The relationship among the partners and families of Falconer Shreve was particularly intimate. We lived within blocks of one another in the city, we all owned cottages on the same bay at the lake, and the daughters of three of us were close friends.

In the year in which they articled, the members of the Winners’ Circle went their separate ways. Delia Wainberg went to the Supreme Court; Blake, Kevin, and Chris Altieri were scooped up by big-name law firms outside the province; Zack went to a small firm in Regina where he got tons of court time, very little supervision, and wasn’t the token guy in the wheelchair. All five of them had lucrative employment offers when their articling year was over. The money was tempting, but none of the members of the Winners’ Circle gave a moment’s consideration to anything other than practising law together.

There had been discussion about the order in which their names would appear on the office door and letterhead. Sensibly they headed off the problem of wounded egos by consigning the decision to fate. Delia Wainberg was a runner, so the members of the Winners’ Circle threw their names into one of her cross-trainers and the boy who delivered the pizza did the honours. No one complained. They moved into an office above a company that made dentures, painted the name Falconer Shreve Altieri Wainberg and Hynd on the door, and looked forward to a glowing future.

After twenty-five years, the glow had dimmed. Zack and Delia Wainberg were still true believers, dedicated to the law as it was practised by Falconer Shreve. Chris Altieri was dead, and after two years, his suicide was still a raw wound in the hearts of those who loved him. Kevin Hynd, having found the practice of law soul-scouring, left the firm for five years while he searched for answers; Chris’s death brought Kevin back to the firm, but he was a changed man whose New Age beliefs did not always sit well with his old partners. And Blake Falconer, the lucky guy whose name had been picked first from Delia Wainberg’s cross-trainer, had turned out to be grimly fated for tragedy.

I met Blake Falconer at the beginning of the last summer of his marriage. Despite the fact that even he had lost count of the number of times his wife had been unfaithful in their fifteen years together, Blake’s passion for Lily was still painfully intense. During the two months when the Falconer marriage ran out its last dark moments, I saw Blake almost every day, and I was struck by the gulf between his public and private lives. Professionally, he was a successful lawyer with a golden touch for real estate and development; privately, he was a driven man trying desperately to hold on to a woman determined to destroy herself. Ultimately, the demons that had driven Lily throughout her life claimed her. Until that night on the tranquil campus of Luther College, I hadn’t realized they had almost claimed Blake as well.

After we found a bench where we could sit while we waited for our daughters, Blake fell silent. I was relieved. I’d heard enough about Cristal to last me for a long while, but it turned out Blake was just gathering his thoughts. Very quickly, he made it clear he needed to talk.

“If it hadn’t been for Cristal, I think I might have killed Lily,” he said. “The first time I went to Cristal’s condo, I was so filled with rage that I could barely function. I’d never been with a prostitute, but I was crazy. Lily had taken off with somebody else – again. This time I saw her actually get into the truck with the man. He was the guy who delivered bottled water to our firm. Of course, Lily, as office manager, had chosen the company. It was called Pure.

“The man’s name was Steve and he was nineteen years old – a bodybuilder and a real smartass. Before that day, when Lily wandered, I’d always been able to force myself into some sort of perspective. I’d think about Gracie and my partners and my friends and my career. But when I saw Lily get into the truck with that cretin … something snapped. I knew I couldn’t take it any more: the humiliation, the rage, the wreckage of everything we were supposed to be to each other. I had never been unfaithful to Lily – not once – but when I thought of her spreading those beautiful legs of hers for that animal …” He swallowed hard. “I wanted her to know how it felt.”

“So you went to a prostitute.”

Blake nodded. “Cristal came highly recommended. She was safe, and she was discreet. She also turned to be my salvation. Everybody knew about Lily, of course, but I never talked to anyone about our marriage – not even Zack, and he’s the one I’m closest to. But from the moment I met Cristal, I knew I could tell her everything, and she would understand.” As he talked, Blake had kept his head down; now he turned and looked into my face. “Cristal made me understand why Lily was so determined to destroy our life together.”

“And what Cristal told you made sense?”

“Given Lily’s past, it did. Cristal said she understood women like Lily because she was like that herself. She said Lily didn’t believe she was worthy of a good life, and so she did everything she could to make sure that she got the kind of life she deserved.”

I remembered how often and how harshly I’d judged Lily. My throat tightened. “Blake, I’m so sorry.”

“You couldn’t have done anything. Lily was determined to destroy us, and she did. At least now I understand why she did it.”

I looked across the lawn. Gracie and Taylor, in their matching Luther hoodies, were running towards us. “Here come the girls.”

“Time to shape up.” He squared his shoulders and tried a smile. “Convincing?”

“You’re in luck,” I said. “It’s dark.”

He gave me a quick glance. “Jo, Zack should know this. I don’t want him thinking Cristal was just another whore.”

“I’ll tell him,” I said.

Gracie barrelled into her father. “Everybody says if it weren’t for the Miraculous Brodnitz Twins, I could have been the game all-star.”

Blake held his daughter’s shoulders. “Life is full of Brodnitz twins,” he said. “But there are rewards for the rest of us too. How about we go to the Milky Way and get some ice cream?” He glanced at me. “Joanne?”

“Why not?” I said. “But I’ll buy. We’ll have to take something for Zack, and he is not a cheap date.”

When we got home, there were two empty liquor bottles by the kitchen door, destined for the recycle, and Zack was putting drink glasses into the dishwasher.

“Looks like you had yourself quite a party,” I said.

“Nobody had any fun,” he said. He spotted the sundae Taylor was carrying. “Is that for me?”

Taylor handed it to him. “Yes, because you missed the game, but the ice cream’s melting, so you’d better eat it fast.”

“That will be no problem at all,” he said. “Thank you, ladies.”

“I’m going to have a shower,” Taylor said. “It was super hot in the gym, but it was a great game, wasn’t it, Jo?”

“It was,” I said. “Why don’t you tell Zack about it?”

Taylor grinned. “Like I know a single thing about basketball. Luther won, and I had a blast. That’s it!” She kissed us goodnight and vanished.

“Hard to believe that’s the girl who made me understand the significance of Monet’s windows,” Zack said, spooning ice cream and butterscotch sauce.

“How did the meeting go?” I asked.

“If the intent was to figure out what the hell’s going on, it was a waste of good Scotch. But you’ll be relieved to hear that our Glenfiddich smoothed the way to some serious male bonding. My group of seven has decided to stick together.”

“Like the seven dwarfs,” I said.

Zack dug into the chocolate ripple. “Are you pissed off?”

“No. Just bemused.”

“If it’s any consolation, these guys are sweating bullets. They’re all guilty as hell when it comes to fidelity to their marriage vows, but they all swear they had nothing to do with Cristal’s death. That said, they’re savvy enough to know that sooner or later the police investigation will turn up their names.”

“You’re all lawyers,” I said. “Someone must have floated the idea of going to the police before the police came to you.”

“Actually, everybody here tonight was a defence lawyer and that means they know how to play the odds. Somebody sent them
DVDS
of their private activities, which is weird but also legal because there was no threat and no attempt to extort. In short, there is no crime. So the consensus was that the potential loss outweighed the potential gain.”

“So everyone was cool.”

“No. They’re going through hell, waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“And the other shoe would be …?”

“Blackmail – like Cristal tried with Ned.”

“But Cristal’s dead.”

“And the
DVDS
still arrived in our mailboxes. That’s why people are so scared. With blackmail, it’s always a plus to know the blackmailer. That’s how you reach some mutually acceptable accord. Obviously, these men knew Cristal intimately. But because she’s dead, we don’t know who’s calling the shots. I never thought I’d say this, but in a way Ned Osler was lucky. He knew exactly who and what he was dealing with.”

“Did he? Zack, did it never strike you as curious that, out of all of her clients, Cristal chose to blackmail the one who treated her well – the one who brought her books and believed she was, like Henry James’s character Isabel Archer, too good for this world?”

He nodded. “It crossed my mind, but then Cristal was dead, and there were all these other problems, so I guess I just shoved that one aside. Jo, the truth is, there’s a lot I can’t figure out about this. I listened to those guys tonight, and usually when I hear the stories, I get a feel for what’s happening, but not with this one. I’m flummoxed, Ms. Shreve.” He picked up one of Taylor’s black and gold pom-poms and twirled it. “But at least Luther won.”

“And while Luther was winning, Blake was disintegrating,” I said. “After the game, Gracie took Taylor around to introduce her to some of her friends, and Blake and I talked. He’s in terrible shape, Zack. He blames himself for not saving Cristal.”

Zack smacked the pom-pom against his hand. “Shit. Talk about a train wreck you can see coming. Cristal was Lily all over again, you know.”

“I know,” I said. “Blake knows too, but that’s not making the loss any easier. He says Cristal was the only one he could really talk to about Lily.”

“Jesus, Jo, how dumb can he be? Doesn’t he understand that Cristal’s schtick was being whatever the man wanted her to be? That’s why she was able to charge $500 an hour. Remember me telling you that when I saw the tape of Cristal with Ned, I couldn’t believe it was the same woman I’d been with? Well, that was true right across the board. Every guy here tonight talked about what Cristal had been like with him. You wouldn’t have known they were talking about the same woman. She changed her act for every customer. The first night I was with her, she poured me a drink and asked me in that little girl voice of hers what my fantasy was.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I said my fantasy was to be able to get it up. She said, ‘So you’re not paying for games, just expertise.’ I agreed, and I got what I paid for. Just the way every guy here tonight got what he paid for. These were commercial transactions – nothing more.”

“Blake doesn’t see it that way. I think he loved her, Zack.”

Zack drew his hand across his eyes. “You know I don’t think I can deal with that tonight. I’m exhausted, Ms. Shreve.”

“Me too,” I said. “Boy, it wouldn’t take many days like this one to make a dozen, would it?”

Zack put his arm around me. “Nope, but at least you and I are headed for the same bed.”

“And it’s going to stay that way,” I said.