The Brutal Heart (26 page)

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Somebody should have let you know. Ginny and the twins are at our cottage. She and the girls were running on empty, so Zack suggested they take off for the weekend.”

“Smart move. Normally, Ginny has amazing equanimity. She says it’s just a question of reading the situation and responding, but this has her reeling.”

“With cause,” I said. “She’s taken a lot of hits lately.”

“And the knockout punch is on its way,” Keith said.

“Have you heard something?”

Keith didn’t answer. Finally he said, “Look, is there any possibility you could get away for lunch? I could use an hour staring at a human being who isn’t about to burst into flames.”

I laughed. “Why don’t you come over here? I have a bottle of Glenfiddich. It’s a proven flame-retardant, and by the time you arrive, the sun will be over the yard arm somewhere.”

“Consider me an emergency case,” Keith said. “Your address please.”

Twenty minutes later, Keith was at the front door. He was freshly shaved, but he had an unhealthy pallor, and as he removed his jacket, he sighed as if even that small effort tired him.

“Why don’t you come into the kitchen with me while I get the Glenfiddich,” I said.

“I’ll gladly sit in your kitchen,” he said, “but I’ll just have a glass of soda. Single malt is on my forbidden list.”

“An old friend of Zack’s used to say that at the end we all lose everything. It’s up to us to decide the order in which we lose things.”

The spark came back into Keith’s eyes. “In that case, I’ll have three fingers of Glenfiddich – might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.”

“I didn’t mean to be the bad angel,” I said.

“You weren’t,” Keith said. “I just realized that one of the last things I want to lose is the chance to have a drink with you.”

Keith sat on the loveseat that looked out on the bird feeder as I poured the drinks. “I’ve always been partial to kitchens,” he said. “Mine’s all chrome – it’s about as welcoming as a surgical unit – doesn’t matter since I don’t spend any time there. The couch is a nice touch.”

“It was Maddy and Lena’s idea. When I’m cooking, they like to curl up there and give me a blow-by-blow account of what’s happening in the world of birds and bugs.”

I handed Keith his glass and sat down beside him. A soggy robin flew towards the crabapple tree where it was building its nest. “So how’s the campaign going?”

“Federally, we’ll probably squeak through with a minority. But Ginny’s going to lose Palliser.”

“Are you sure?”

Keith swirled the Scotch in his glass. “Not a doubt. You can overcome a lot in a campaign, but not the suspicion that your candidate is a murderer. The people campaigning for Ginny are getting doors slammed in their faces – and they’re the lucky ones. The unlucky ones get to listen to a litany of Ginny’s sins.”

“I’m sorry, Keith. I know you thought Ginny was the one who could bring your party back to its roots.”

“She was. She still is. She’s smart, she’s progressive, and she’s pragmatic. She’s got that roaming ambition politicians have to have, and she’s cool. She has a way of suggesting to voters that they need her more than she needs them – just the right mix for an electorate that’s long on irony and short on information.” Keith sipped his Scotch. “The perfect candidate, but it’s not going to happen.” He sighed. “God, it’s good to talk. Everyone around Ginny’s campaign is so despondent, I find myself in the role of cheerleader.”

I smiled. “Not a good fit for a man with your disposition. Where’s Crispy Crunch boy in all this?”

“Trying to put the genie back in the bottle. Milo is a true believer, and as you know in politics, true believers always get their hearts broken. Looking on the bright side, Milo’s lucky it happened sooner in his career than later.”

“Do you regret what you’ve done with your life?”

Keith sipped his drink. “Too late now for regrets, and I’ve had a lot of fun, especially in the last couple of weeks.”

“Fun for me too,” I said.

“Think you might get back into politics?”

I took his glass to the sink. “No, I like my life the way it is. I’ve had enough glimpses of the dark side of politics to remind me of why I left.” I filled two bowls with gazpacho, pulled a baguette out of the oven, and fetched a plate of cheeses from the counter.

Keith’s eyes widened. “I just called twenty minutes ago. How did you manage to conjure this up?”

“I rerouted some of the gazpacho that’s headed for the lake. River Heights bakery is two minutes away by car, and Peter’s new girlfriend, Dacia, works in a cheese shop.”

Keith smeared some Gorgonzola on a heel of baguette and bit in. “You know, I’d forgotten eating can be a pleasure.”

“Life’s full of pleasures,” I said. “Every so often you just have to turn a blind eye to the rest of reality.”

“Not so easy these days. Jo, I hate to louse up a great lunch, but what’s Zack doing to get Ginny out from under all this?”

“He’s ruled out trying to prove that Ginny couldn’t have killed Jason. She had motive and opportunity, and she was the one who called 911. So he’s focusing on exploring other possibilities.”

“Any star candidates?”

“Sean Barton’s looking into Jason Brodnitz’s business dealings. It looks like Jason was involved with Cristal Avilia.”

There was a pause. “Then I owe Sean an apology,” Keith said. “I tore a strip off him for fuelling that particular rumour during the campaign. But if it wasn’t a rumour …”

“It’s not that simple,” I said. “The rumour was that Jason was involved with the business of prostitution. So far, it looks as if he was just acting as a kind of broker for Cristal’s real estate dealings.”

Keith’s laugh was short and humourless. “Of course, our boy Sean was smart enough not to lie. All he ever said was that Jason Brodnitz had financial dealings with prostitutes. He didn’t correct the media when they inferred that Jason was a pimp.”

“You don’t like Sean, do you?”

“You don’t think I’m being fair?”

“Putting a potentially damaging statement out there and leaving it open for interpretation is an old political trick,” I said. “You’ve done it in the heat of a campaign. So have I.”

Keith sighed. “I’ll give Sean a call. Incidentally, what’s his status with Falconer Shreve these days? Things were a little iffy there for a while, weren’t they?”

“More than iffy. Sean was disappointed when he wasn’t named partner. Zack thought he’d leave, especially when the firm brought in another trial lawyer. But apparently Sean’s decided to stick around, and so far it’s smooth sailing.”

“Just to satisfy my curiosity, why wasn’t Sean named a partner?”

“Zack thought he cared more for the game than for the people in the game.”

“That was exactly my take on the way Sean approaches politics.”

“Maybe he just has to grow up.”

“Still the same old Jo. Everybody’s perfectible.”

“Still the same old Keith,” I said. “There are three decent people in the world: thee, me, and some other guy whose name I can’t remember.”

Keith laughed. “I’m just jealous because Sean is young and smart and studly and I’m none of the above.”

“You’re two of the above,” I said. “Now stop feeling sorry for yourself and eat your gazpacho.”

For the next hour we reminisced about the old days. It was pleasant talk and Keith seemed reluctant to leave. “I’d better be getting back to what we still refer to as headquarters, although with no candidate and no campaign, I’m not exactly certain what we’re all doing there.” He took out a cigarette, looked at it longingly, and placed it beside his plate. “Jo, when do you think I should tell Ginny that it’s over.”

“I imagine she already knows,” I said. “Give her the weekend. We’re all going to the lake. Why don’t you come up on Sunday? You can visit with Maddy and Lena, and then when the moment’s right, you can talk to Ginny.”

He shrugged. “Who knows? There may be good news by then.”

I laughed. “Political people are the last adults on earth who believe in miracles. Let me get you one of our maps.” When I came back from Zack’s office with the sheet of directions to our cottage, Keith had moved from the kitchen table and was standing at the back door looking out at the garden. His cigarette, still unlit, was between his fingers.

“How long has it been since you had one of those?” I said.

He looked at his watch. “An hour and a half.”

“Do you want it?”

He sighed. “There are a lot of things I want,” he said. “This is just the only one that I have any chance of getting.”

“In that case, why don’t we go outside and have a cigarette together.”

Keith grinned. “You too?”

“It’s been more than twenty years, and I’ll probably throw up, but it’s the least I can do for a friend.”

CHAPTER
14

When we drove through the gates at Lawyers’ Bay that night, Ginny and her daughters were shooting hoops on the court that Blake had built for Gracie. As soon as they spotted us, they stopped their game and came over to help us unload the cars. The three women had obviously been playing hard; their faces were pink with exertion and damp with perspiration, but they no longer looked like accident victims, and when Chloe took the other end of a laundry hamper heavy with groceries, I was grateful for her help and for the chance to chat.

“How’s it going?” I said.

“Not bad,” she said. She gave me a sidelong glance. “I’ve been thinking about that story you told Em and me about hurling on your dress at your birthday party.”

I smiled at her. “It’s a memorable story,” I said.

She stopped walking and looked at me. “It was the same as me cutting, wasn’t it? You know, a way of saying, ‘Hey, does anybody actually realize that I’m in here, going crazy?’ ”

“It took a while, but I did finally figure that out.”

Chloe’s eyes were like her mother’s, grey and probing. “That’s because you didn’t have the benefit of professional help.”

“So how do you feel about the cutting?”

“Now you sound more like my therapist than the girl who puked on her dress.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“It’s okay. It’s a fair question.” She levelled her gaze at me. “So when you’re under pressure, do you still drink cherry brandy till you blow chunks?”

“No,” I said “It doesn’t seem to help.”

Chloe shifted the hamper. “Well, there’s your answer,” she said.

As soon as the cars were unloaded, Ginny and the twins went back to the court and resumed shooting hoops. They were still there when, as on dozens of other evenings after we’d arrived at the lake, we took our granddaughters for a run along the shore to get out the kinks before we sat down to dinner.

The basketball court was deserted by the time we got back and slipped into the grooves of our familiar routine. We ate at the partners’ table so we could watch the birds on the lake; then Zack and Taylor cleaned up and I gave the kids a bath and readied them for bed. Zack was always the hands-down choice to read bedtime stories. Years in the courtroom had taught him how to draw in an audience and keep them with him as he wove a narrative. Like countless juries before them, the girls thrilled to his booming bass, as Taylor and I accepted our fate and walked the dogs.

That Friday night, as we passed her cottage on our way home, Ginny waved us over.

“Can I interest you in a drink?” she asked.

“Not me, thanks,” Taylor said. “Jo and I made up this book list, and she says that, starting this weekend, I have to read fifty pages a day, so I’ll be ready for high school in the fall.”

“What are you reading?”

“It’s called
A Complicated Kindness
. My friend Isobel says it’s good, but I haven’t even started it yet.”

“Better get on it, then. Joanne, can you stay?”

“Are you sure you want company?”

Ginny nodded “I’m sure. Can I get you anything?”

“I’m fine.”

“So am I,” Ginny said. “Or at least moving in that direction.” We watched as Taylor and Pantera walked towards our cottage. “A girl and her dog,” Ginny said. “It’s a nice reminder that life doesn’t always have to be complicated.” She stretched out in a Muskoka chair and motioned to the one beside her. “I know I should call Keith or Milo, but truthfully, I don’t want to deal with what they’re going to tell me.”

“There’s no rush. Keith’s coming out for dinner on Sunday. You can talk to him then.”

“Is this visit your idea or his?”

“Both,” I said.

“You two were a kick together. That was such a great campaign.”

“Past tense?” I said.

“Past tense,” she replied. “Joanne, I know I’m going to lose Palliser.”

“Sounds as if you’ve come to terms with it.”

“I don’t have an alternative,” Ginny said. “Vince Lombardi may have believed that winning is the only thing, but even kids know that every time somebody wins, somebody else loses.”

“Have you thought about what you want to do next?”

“Well, until this mess is cleared up, I can’t do anything. Even then, I imagine it’ll be a long time before the corporate headhunters come knocking at my door. Financially, I’m in good shape. Maybe I’ll just coach the twins and see what happens.”

“You’re amazing,” I said.

Her smile was sardonic. “I’m faking it,” she said.

Willie, curled up by my feet, began to moan. The awareness that Pantera had headed home without him was dawning. I picked up his leash. “Ginny, if you want to talk, we’re around, but I’m not going to press it.”

“I appreciate that,” Ginny said.

When I got back to the cottage, Taylor was sprawled on the living-room couch engrossed in Miriam Toews’s novel. The little girls were in bed asleep, and Zack was in his chair beside their bed reading
Charlotte’s Web
.

I touched his shoulder. “You do realize the kids are down for the count,” I said.

He raised an eyebrow. “That’s why I’m not reading aloud. I wanted to know how the book ends.”

“You’re not going to like it,” I said.

“Does Wilbur die?”

“No.”

“Not Charlotte!”

“Zack, the lifespan of a spider is about a year. But Charlotte does have her magnum opus.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Which is?”

I kissed his head. “Finish the book.”

We spotted Ginny and her girls often over the weekend: running on the beach, playing tennis, kayaking. We waved at one another and shouted greetings, but we went our separate ways. They were obviously relishing the chance to be alone and, as someone who has experienced that need many times in my own life, I understood.

Besides, we were busy. Zack and the little girls barrelled through to the end of
Charlotte’s Web
. He and I were both relieved that Madeleine and Lena, unlike their grandfather, showed no signs of being scarred forever by Charlotte’s passing and were comforted by the fact that Charlotte completed her magnum opus before she died. Taylor, too, had been gripped by literature. She had never been a reader, but
A Complicated Kindness
captured her interest and made me hopeful that she might get more than a mercy pass in Grade Nine English.

Not all our pleasures were literary. Our front lawn ended in a sandy hill that ran straight to the lake, and on Saturday morning Maddy and Lena embarked on an ambitious project of digging and dam building that occupied us all for much of the weekend. The plan was to create a stream bed that would allow them to dump water at the top of the hill and watch while it made its way to the lake. There were many impediments in their way, not the least of which was the unassailable truth that sand swallows water, but the girls were determined. They dug and piled up dirt, shoring the sides of their waterway with twigs and stones as they worked. After half an hour, I set aside the biography of Matisse I was reading and got down on the sand to help. Zack, who normally hated being out of his chair, slipped onto the ground and dug along with us. We burrowed patiently down the slope. When it was time for lunch, Zack waved off my offer of assistance, hauled himself back up the hill, and, dirty but triumphant, got back into his chair.

That afternoon, Taylor and I took the girls for a canoe ride, then returned to the sand project. The next day, after a run with the dogs, an intense reading session, and lunch, we were back on the hill. When Ginny and her daughters came by to check our progress, the sun was hitting the sandy slope, and the air was warm and inviting. Emma and Chloe looked at the hill with narrowed eyes. “Looks like you could use some help,” Emma said.

Lena wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Do you know how to dig?”

“Sure,” Emma said.

Taylor handed each of the twins a trowel and they all walked down to the excavation site. I turned to Ginny. “Do you want to dig, or do you want to sit under that aspen and watch the kids slave away?”

Ginny’s face brightened. “They’re young. Let’s watch. As you may have noticed, the girls and I have decided that the way to get through this is to keep moving.”

“Whatever you’re doing seems to be working. You look great.”

“Great is probably stretching it, but I do feel better. It’s been so good being with Em and Chloe. They’re remarkable.” Her smile was rueful. “They’re also twenty-five years younger than I am, and I wouldn’t mind an hour under a tree doing nothing.”

When Zack joined us, Ginny and I were talking about daughters. “You two look content,” he said. “How’s it going, Ginny?”

“Better, thanks.”

“And the twins?”

“We’re all doing fine, but I have a feeling you’re about to burst my bubble.”

Zack’s voice was gentle. “Nope. Just going to pass along some information you need to have. We’ve had a team of investigators going through Jason’s business dealings, and Sean, Margot Wright, and my partner Blake are spending the weekend examining their findings. Sean just called with a kind of preliminary report. Ginny, there’s no doubt that Jason was brokering real estate deals for sex-trade workers.”

Ginny swallowed hard. “But he wasn’t a pimp.”

“He was living off money he received from prostitutes. Some people might find it hard to make the distinction.”

“Does Sean think he was killed because of his association with those women?”

“He thinks it’s a possibility, but there’s something else. In the weeks before Cristal Avilia’s death, she and Jason were in constant touch. Cristal had sizable real estate holdings. She went to my partner Blake and asked him to put them on the market. Blake refused. He said real estate prices in the warehouse area were going to skyrocket, and that Cristal should wait.”

“So she went to Jason instead,” Ginny said.

“Apparently. Luckily for Cristal’s heir, these things take time. But Jason did manage to sell two of the condominiums that Cristal owned in another building. The deposits were both paid in cash. The police found $50,000 in cash in Jason’s house. The problem is that the rest of the money is missing. It’s a large amount. Sean thinks it’s possible that Jason murdered Cristal for the cash.”

“And then someone associated with one of those women killed him.”

“Yes.” Zack took a breath. “Ginny, I know this is ugly, but there is a silver lining. The police will have the same information we have. I don’t think you’re a serious suspect any more.”

Ginny rubbed her temples. “Tell everybody how grateful I am, especially Sean. He never gives up. He’s a terrific lawyer, Zack. Your firm is lucky to have him.”

“I take it you and Sean have talked about his future.”

“Yes. I’d offered him a job with me before everything blew up, but he’s very loyal to you. He says Falconer Shreve is where he wants to be.”

“And that’s where he’s going to be. After we talked this afternoon, I offered him a junior partnership and he accepted.”

“I’m happy for him,” Ginny said, and her voice was fervent. “He deserves the best.”

Keith Harris arrived just as the girls finished digging the last metre of their waterway. He had time to throw off his jacket and lift a ceremonial shovel of sand before the Brodnitz twins and Taylor scooped buckets of water out of the lake, carried them up the slope, and Maddy and Lena tipped the first bucket. As the water made its way down the system of culverts and dams, we held our collective breath; when, finally, it emptied into the lake, our cry of joy was spontaneous. Beside me, Chloe and Em gave each other a high-five. They were the mirror image of each other, and when Chloe’s face crumpled, Em’s did too.

“For a moment I almost forgot,” Em said. “But it’s all still there, isn’t it?”

Chloe draped her arm around her sister’s shoulder, and they turned and walked towards the cottage: two handsome young women caught in the web of private grief.

As we watched my granddaughters tip bucket after bucket into the waterway, then run down the hill to watch the water arrive in the lake, Ginny decided a communal accomplishment demanded a communal celebration. As her thank you for the weekend, she offered to take us all out to dinner. Given our range of age and moods, there was only one choice: Magoo’s, a diner across the lake where for $10, a hearty eater could plow through homemade cheeseburgers, greasy onion rings, homemade slaw with a vinegar kick, and milkshakes so thick they had to be eaten with a spoon. After dinner, patrons could drop quarters in a jukebox and burn off the calories on an old wooden dance floor. Chief among its many draws was that Magoo’s could be reached by boat, and so by five-thirty, we were all down at the dock, donning life jackets and taking our places. Keith, who wanted to get to know his grandnieces, went with Zack, Maddy, Lena, and me; Taylor, who wanted to get to know the Brodnitz twins, went with them and their mother, who was driving Blake Falconer’s Chris-Craft.

Musically, Magoo’s was heavy on nostalgia, and as the motors were cut and we glided towards the dock, the plangent notes of Rick Nelson’s “Garden Party” filled the air. It was an evening for an anthem to the truth that you can’t please everyone, so you might as well please yourself, and as Ginny steered her boat expertly into the slip beside ours, she was humming along.

That night exists for me in sharp-edged memories: Keith’s gruff delight as Maddy and Lena took his hands and pulled him onto the dance floor where they all rocked to Buddy Holly until our food orders arrived; my husband putting a quarter in the jukebox, pushing the button beside the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows,” and never taking his eyes off my face until the song ended; Ginny and her daughters, all three ponytailed and in jeans and sweatshirts, bending over their plates and eating with the stoic determination of athletes who know that, no matter what, bodies must be fuelled; Taylor flushing with pleasure when a boy she remembered from the summer before came over and asked her to dance.

The emotional shoals were everywhere. Jason’s brutal death and uncertainty about what was next were fresh in the minds of every adult at the table, but Maddy and Lena’s delight in every detail of the evening was infectious and the sweet optimism of the music was tonic. The sun was setting as we drove back across the lake, but none of us wanted the evening to end. Taylor and the Brodnitz girls went over to their cottage, and after Zack and I tucked the granddaughters in, we brought out the brandy and snifters and sat on the deck with Keith and Ginny until the sun fell beneath the horizon and the first firefly appeared.