The Early Investigations of Joanne Kilbourn (11 page)

“A woman?” I asked.

“No,” he said, “I thought she might listen to you because now that Andy’s gone, Craig Evanson will run for leader again, and your good opinion of him would carry a lot of weight.”

“For someone not involved in politics, you know a lot, Mr. Eames.”

“I had a good teacher,” he said softly.

He looked about as miserable as I felt.

“All right,” I said, “I’ll give it a try.”

Julie had her back to the door, so she didn’t see me come into the cloakroom. She was so intent on her son that I don’t think it would have mattered if she had. As always, Julie looked impeccable in a dress that she had, no doubt, sewn herself. It was black with a pattern of pale green leaves and white roses. As she pleaded with her son, the roses on her
dress shook as if in a summer storm. But the platinum cap of her hair remained perfect – it always did.

Her voice was low. She was trying not to make a scene, but it was an effort. “Mark, please, let me run through it one more time. Slowly. There are some people coming to the house for drinks, and it would help Daddy if you were there. It’s just for a couple of hours, but it’s important for you to come. People say things if families aren’t together at a time like this.”

Mark listened quietly, his hands resting on the handles of Carey’s wheelchair. He looked perplexed, as if he were trying to work through the possibilities in his mind.

Finally he said, “I’d like to help Daddy, but I have a job. I have to make sure that Carey is okay. He’s my responsibility.”

When she was at her cruellest, her most cutting, Julie Evanson had a little trick. She would laugh. I was never sure whether her laughter was intended to lessen the sting of her words or to suggest her disdain. At that moment, when she laughed at her son, there was no doubt. She was laughing to show her contempt for him and his life. It was an ugly sound.

“Mark, you don’t have a job. You’re just a babysitter.” She looked quickly at Carey. “You’re a babysitter for a half-wit. Do you know how humiliated I was when you walked up the centre aisle of that church today with your little charge? Everybody we know was there. Can’t you at least try to make it up to me? Damn it, we’re your family. You owe us something, don’t you?”

Mark listened quietly, then he said, “No, Mama, I’m sorry. I’m a family man myself, and I have responsibilities. I’m sorry I disappointed you,” and he bent forward and gently did up the zipper on Carey Boychuk’s raincoat.

“Can I help you with anything, Mark?” I said. Even to my ears, my voice sounded stilted.

Julie wheeled around and looked at me. Then without a word, she walked past me into the hall, and I knew I’d just moved up another notch on Julie Evanson’s enemies list.

But when I looked at Julie’s son standing quietly and expectantly, I knew there was no time to worry. I took a deep breath, pasted on a smile and said brightly, “So, Mark, do you need some help?”

His face lit up with its sweet born-again smile. “No, we’re just fine, Mrs. Kilbourn, thank you.” He thought for a moment. “Well, actually, you could help us with one thing.” He leaned forward and whispered confidingly, “You can help us find Soren so we can go home.”

I found Soren, then, in one of those small moments that seem significant in retrospect, I saw Rick Spenser.

He was standing with his back to the stage and he was being spoken to by an old woman with savagely cut red hair and lipstick that was a bright fuchsia streak across her face. It was Hilda McCourt, Andy’s high-school English teacher. Andy had introduced me to her at the picnic. During the tribute-to-Andy part of the program, she’d given a little talk. It hadn’t been the usual “I knew he was marked for greatness” stuff. She’d given a good, dry and professional account of Andy’s strengths and weaknesses as a student, and I had liked her.

I joined them. “Miss McCourt, I don’t know if you remember me, but –”

She cut me short. “My memory is excellent, Mrs. Kilbourn, as I was trying to explain to Mr. Spenser here. I was telling him that some time in the past I met him; he insists I’m wrong.”

“You know, Miss McCourt, media people are in our living rooms so often that they do seem like acquaintances.” From her look, I knew I’d taken the wrong tack, but I blundered on. “A couple of times I’ve gone up to someone and felt so
certain I knew her. Then she’s turned out to be someone I’d seen on television.”

Hilda McCourt’s brown eyes were bright with anger. “Mrs. Kilbourn, if your thought processes are muddled, you have my sympathy. Mine are not. In future, you’d do well not to ascribe your shortcomings to others. I hope you and Mr. Spenser will excuse me if I find more congenial company.” And off she clipped on her perilously high heels, leaving Rick Spenser and me face to face.

What was surprising was how attractive he was. He was undeniably a big man. Even the skilful cut of his beige linen suit didn’t disguise that. From hard experience I have learned that television is not kind to people whose features are not well defined, but the camera really did not do Rick Spenser justice. On television he looked cherubic and bland; in person, his face was both less innocent and more interesting. He was, I remembered reading somewhere, forty-three, but he looked younger. There was a boyishness about the way he wore his dark blond hair – parted at the side and slicked down, the way mothers and Ivy League academics slick down hair. He wore round glasses of light tortoise-shell, and his eyes behind the lenses were hazel and knowing.

Most of the men I know are politicians or professors – notoriously lousy dressers both – but I recognized that Rick Spenser dressed with elegance. He was six-foot-two or so and at least three hundred pounds, but his clothing was just right. He had style. It was a pleasure to look at him and a pleasure to listen to him. He pronounced words the way someone who loves the possibilities of language does. Even that day in the church hall of Little Flower Cathedral with Hilda McCourt’s assault still vibrating in the air, Rick Spenser seemed to savour the words he spoke.

“That’s twice you’ve saved my life in five days. I’m in your debt, Mrs. Kilbourn. She really is a formidable person.”

“That’s what Andy always said. She was his high-school English teacher, and I think that even after he became leader she intimidated him.”

“Not one of those sweet old things who invites the class over for tea and cakes on the Bard’s birthday?”

“She seems more the three-fingers-of-gin-for-Dorothy-Parker type to me. But Andy thought highly of her. There was some sort of bad patch in high school that she helped him through … I’m sorry, Mr. Spenser, I shouldn’t be rambling on. How are you? You look great – no cast on your arm, and that bruise on your forehead looks much less angry.”

“I’m fine, and Mrs. Kilbourn – Joanne – I’m not good at this sort of thing, so I’ll just say it once. I am deeply grateful to you for saving my life.” He reached out one tanned and beautifully manicured hand and touched the top of my hand for a split second, then he withdrew it and smiled. “Now let’s hear the gossip about Hilda McCourt.”

“I haven’t got any, really. I just wish I hadn’t hurt her.”

“Conscience?”

“Partly. And partly something less admirable. I’m mulling over the idea of writing Andy Boychuk’s biography and I don’t think alienating Hilda McCourt was the smartest way to begin. She knows a lot, I think.”

Rick raised an eyebrow. “A biography?” He reached over and picked something off my suit jacket. “Lint,” he said, putting it carefully in an ashtray at the end of the table. When he turned to me, I couldn’t read the look on his face. “A biography,” he repeated. “Not a bad idea. You certainly have a gripping final chapter. And, if memory serves, some other gripping chapters as well. There was an earlier tragedy, wasn’t there?”

“You surprise me, Mr. Spenser.”

“I do my homework, Mrs. Kilbourn. Now the accident …?” He looked at me expectantly.

“It’s public knowledge. It was about ten years ago. Eve Boychuk was driving. They were all in the car, Andy and Eve and their two children. Their daughter was killed instantly. Carey had terrible head injuries. He’ll never be capable of living a normal life. Andy was thrown clear. Eve was injured, but she recovered. Well, I guess a mother could never recover from a horror like that. Anyway, she survived …”

Standing in the middle of that hot room filled with smells of turkey and coffee and cigarette smoke and people, I suddenly remembered sitting in my kitchen on a sweet spring day and opening the paper and seeing those pictures: the blackened metal of the car, Eve’s eyes, dazed like the eyes of an animal caught in a headlight. Andy standing on the side of the road with the two stretchers … and something else. In the background, the swoop of the overpass at Belle Plaine.

“That’s where the accident was …” I had spoken aloud. Rick Spenser was looking at me curiously. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Two pieces of a puzzle just clicked together for me.”

“I’m glad,” he said. “That is, if you wanted them to fit.”

“I don’t know if I did, but I guess it’s always best to know the truth.” Eve’s eyes dull with pain as the Buick pulled onto the Belle Plaine overpass. “I’ve tried to believe that we can be in charge of our lives, that … we can create miracles.” In that close, hot room, I suddenly felt a chill.

“Are you all right, Joanne?” Rick Spenser’s face bent close to mine, concerned.

“I’m fine, just … I would like to change the subject, though. How long are you staying in the city?”

He sighed. “I’m here till Sunday night. I couldn’t get a flight out because of the holiday weekend. The young woman on the phone assured me they always reserve a few seats for those who might need a flight out for compassionate reasons. Apparently the fact that I was suffering from terminal boredom didn’t excite her compassion.” He
looked so woebegone that I fell into what my daughter calls “the mummy mode.”

“Why don’t you come over and eat with us tomorrow night? I’ve promised the kids a barbecue, and I am a serious cook.”

He brightened. “I accept, but since the promise of dinner tomorrow will bring to three the number of times you’ve saved my life, I insist on preparing a meal for you. I, too, am a serious cook, Joanne.” He raised a finger to silence any protest. “You’ll be doing me a service. Truly. It will give me something to do.”

“I’m convinced,” I said. “You’re on. Now, we’re in the book. J. Kilbourn on Eastlake. Give me a call when you’re ready to shop and I’ll pick you up and take you to Piggly Wiggly.”

“Piggly Wiggly?” he said, eyebrows raised.

“Piggly Wiggly,” I said. “This isn’t Ottawa.”

He looked at me hard, then he grinned. “You know, all of a sudden, I don’t care that this isn’t Ottawa. I really am looking forward to tomorrow night, Joanne.”

“Yeah,” I said, “me, too,” and I meant it.

When I got home after the funeral, there was a note from Mieka saying she’d taken the boys for haircuts. I made myself a pot of tea and a plate of toast, stuck a casserole in the oven for the kids and went upstairs to my bedroom. I turned on the radio to listen to the news, but I never heard it. By six o’clock, I was asleep.

I slept fitfully at first, dreaming dreams that in the strange world of the subconscious had their own peculiar logic. I can remember only fragments of one of those dreams. I was at a wedding and I was dancing with Andy. I could smell the odour of almond paste on his breath, and I tried to warn him not to eat any more wedding cake. I knew he was in jeopardy, but he wouldn’t listen to me. Then Rick Spenser and I were in my kitchen and he was making little marzipan doves that carried gossamer strands of spun sugar in their beaks. And then Andy was there, but I don’t remember the rest. Finally, I fell into a dreamless sleep and I slept deeply and well.

When I woke up, my bedroom was filled with the pale light of early morning. The digital clock on my radio said 6:00 a.m. I had been asleep for twelve hours.

I went downstairs, let the dogs out, made a pot of coffee and turned on the radio. It was, said the voice of the man buried in the windowless basement room of the glass broadcasting building across the park, going to be a beautiful Labour Day weekend. Bright, warm and breezy – perfect weather for late sailing and football and barbecues.

I showered, pulled on some cotton sweatpants and a T-shirt, stuck my head in Peter’s room and asked if he wanted to come with me to take the dogs for a walk around the lake.

Of my three children, Peter is the most restful to be with. Mieka is bubbly and witty. When you are with her, you are, like it or not, drawn into the maelstrom of her exuberance. Angus is the one who questions everything. He is dreamy and stubborn and inventive. When he was six, he came back from Good Friday service at our church and lashed together a broom handle and a piece of two by four. Late that afternoon, I walked into our bedroom and saw him standing in front of the full-length mirror, head lolling to one side, arms gripping his cross. “This is how it must have looked,” Angus’s image in the mirror said to me. Indeed.

Peter is neither exuberant nor stubborn. He is content just to be. He loves sports, animals, and his family in an order that changes constantly. That morning what I needed more than anything was an hour with his quiet goodness.

When he came down, we put the dogs on their leads and headed toward the lake. The city had that lazy holiday feel to it – light traffic, a few joggers, but generally pretty quiet. There was a breeze from the southwest, and for the first time in a long while, the windsock in the marina showed some life. The little waves on the lake flashed in the sun, and as Peter and I walked along the shore we could hear the water lapping against the rocks. In the sky, some geese were trying out a preliminary V, and my son and I turned to one another and said, “Fall’s coming” at exactly the same moment.

By the time we turned up the walk in front of our house, I felt healed enough to start the day. I made pancakes as I do every Saturday, then we went to the Lakeshore Club, also as we do every Saturday. Over the years, the boys have gone through every racquet sport imaginable, and Mieka has graduated from Moms and Moppets to high-impact aerobics, but my routine never varies. Every Saturday morning I put on my never-quite-fashionable bathing suit and swim laps. Then I shower, get dressed and take the kids to McDonald’s for lunch. The high life.