The Early Investigations of Joanne Kilbourn (24 page)

From the moment Rick opened the door of Ali and Mort’s brick bungalow in Tuxedo Park, he was at home. The work worlds of Rick and the two doctors might have been disparate, but their private lives were fired by the same loves: art, opera and the passionate enjoyment of food.

Two hours after we arrived, Rick Spenser was in the kitchen pressing a square of butter into a rectangle of dough for puff pastry, sipping an icy martini and fighting with Mort about whether the duet from
The Pearl Fishers
was the most perfect piece of music ever written. The evening was full of good talk and easy laughter. Even Peter forgot his shyness
and told stories about a boy from school named Gumby who seemed to have achieved mythic stature among the grade elevens. That night as I slid between the soft flannelette sheets in the front guest room, I said aloud, “I’m going to stay here forever,” and I fell asleep, smiling.

Saturday morning, Morton Lee pushed himself back from the breakfast table and said, “Here’s what Ali and I are going to do this morning. We’re going to take Peter and Angus and anyone else who wants to come downtown to the greatest toy store in western Canada.” Seeing Peter’s polite display of enthusiasm, Mort thumped himself on the head theatrically and said, “Did I say toy store? What I meant, of course, was toys for jocks – a store that has every kind of ball the mind of the jock can conceive of and all the equipment you need to play anything, plus cards: baseball cards, football cards, hockey cards. Everything.” Then Peter’s enthusiasm was real.

Rick sipped his coffee. “Well, I’m a cook not a jock so I’ll make dinner tonight. I have the menu planned and it is, to use Peter’s word, dynamite.”

As I slid behind the wheel of Ali’s Volvo, I knew I had left behind a happy house.

Tuxedo Park Road, where Lane Appleby lived, was just a five-minute drive from Ali and Mort’s. It was a street of tall trees, wide, deep lots and houses that glowed with the sheen of money. The Appleby house had the tallest trees, the widest, deepest lot and the most discreet glow. When I lifted the door knocker, I was glad Ali’s shiny Volvo was parked out front. Even borrowed glory is better than no glory at all.

Lane Appleby’s housekeeper answered the door. She was a square Scot with faded red hair and pale, freckled skin. She was no more welcoming in person than she had been on the telephone. In fact, she made no attempt to disguise the fact
that she was not glad to see me. The day was cool, but she didn’t invite me in.

“Mrs. Appleby is resting. You’ll have to come back at a more convenient time.” She turned and began to shut the door.

I edged my purse into the space that was still open. “This is the time we agreed to. I’m certain if you’ll just speak with Mrs. Appleby …”

“I’m certain” – she pronounced it “sairtin” – “she would prefer another time,” she said and began to push the door shut again.

I stuck my head past her into the house and called, “Lane Appleby, this is Joanne Kilbourn here to see you.” From inside the house I heard a voice husky and petulant. “Come.” I shot the Scot a look of triumph as I flashed past her into the front hall. Ahead was a foyer as big as my living room and a staircase that circled up to the second floor, but we turned left and walked through the dining room into a small room off it that opened onto the garden. I had been on enough tours of houses of this age to know what the room had been – a ladies’ sitting room, a place where women could wait out the time until the gentlemen came back from their brandy and cigars.

The room had been restored with taste and intelligence. All the elaborate detail of the woodwork had been left but everything, walls and woodwork, had been painted a soft yellow. There were three flowery love seats, just the right size for female confidences, turned toward one another in front of the window, a pretty grandmother’s clock in the corner, and in front of the fireplace, which glowed with warmth on this cold October morning, was a round table, set for coffee. On either side of the table was a wing chair covered in something silky and embroidered with bright, exotic birds. Lane Appleby was sitting in the chair facing the door.

The whole scene was so obviously one of welcome that I
was baffled at the housekeeper’s hostility. But when Lane Appleby stood to greet me, I understood. The lady of the house was as drunk as a monkey.

She reached across the table to take my hand and fell, laughing, back into her chair. I would have guessed her age at fifty-five but a great fifty-five: trim, athletic body, good skin, skilful makeup and a terrific haircut. When she smiled, the years melted away and you could see the girl she must have been, flirtatious, with that confidence lovely women often have, that way of saying, without saying, we both know this beauty thing is just silly, but let’s enjoy it.

Her voice was husky and pleasant. Next to her was an ashtray, full, and a half-empty pack of Camels. She’d earned the gravel in that voice. She picked up the coffeepot, aimed it at my cup, splashed the tablecloth and laughed.

“Well, maybe you’d better take care of yourself,” she said. Then without self-consciousness, she reached beside her to pick up a bottle of brandy and poured a generous slug into her own cup. That time she didn’t spill a drop. After she took a sip she sat back and looked at me. Her eyes were as unfocused as a baby’s and about as comprehending. She had lost the reason I was there.

“I’m Andy Boychuk’s friend, Joanne Kilbourn,” I said.

As soon as I mentioned Andy’s name, a flash of pain crossed her face. She took another slug of her drink, stood up and said very formally, “Mrs. Kilbourn, I’m not well today. I wonder if you would do me the favour of coming another time,” and she moved unsteadily toward the door. The side of the coffee table caught her leg, and she started to fall. I caught her before she hit the grandmother clock. She crumpled against me and leaned her head on my shoulder, like a football player who’d taken a punishing tackle.

“I’d like to go upstairs to bed now,” she said. There was nothing to do but take her there.

We walked through the dining room, past a magnificent table that would seat sixteen easily. Somehow, I doubted that Lane Appleby needed to seat sixteen often any more. When we came into the entrance hall, I looked around for the housekeeper.

“Gone,” said Lane Appleby, “gone for the turkey,” and she leaned even more heavily against me. Ahead, the stairs curved perilously toward the second floor. I adjusted my grip on her and took a deep breath, and we started up. It was a long trip. Lining the wall beside the staircase were pictures of Lane. As we went, she gave me a running commentary. The first one was black and white, a professionally posed picture of her in a figure-skating outfit.

“Nineteen forty-six,” she said, “the year I met Charlie. I was in the Ice Capades, but that picture’s a fake. I was never a star, just in the chorus … Not really good enough but, as you can see, cute as a button.”

“You still are,” I said, and meant it.

She laughed her throaty laugh. “Well, I think they would have canned me, but I beat them to it … Married the boss.” We moved up two steps toward the next picture – this one a wedding photo, palely tinted. I’d seen Charlie Appleby’s picture in the paper a hundred times, mostly with his hockey team. He was a big, rough-looking man, twenty years older than his pretty bride, but in the photo with Lane on their wedding day, plainly adoring.

That look of adoration never changed. The pictures by the staircase traced a life of rare and singular pleasures. Lane, laughing, struggles under the weight of the Stanley Cup while Charlie, the man who takes care of his wife, reaches to steady it. Lane, fifties-chic in a dark mink coat and a close-fitting feathered hat, smiles up into the face of a very young Lester Pearson while Charlie beams. Lane and Charlie, tanned and vital, drink cool drinks, piled high with fruit, at Montego
Bay; Lane and Charlie, brilliant in their bright ski clothes, stand silhouetted against the blue skies of Stowe, Vermont.

Finally, there is one of Lane by herself. Handsome still, but clearly growing older, she sits alone in the photographer’s studio.

“That’s the last one I’ll get done,” she said. “Damn depressing. If I had the nerve, I’d take them all down. Depressing, watching yourself grow old.” She turned and made a sweeping gesture with her hand and almost pulled us down the staircase. I strengthened my hold on her and dragged her along the hall to her room.

She didn’t put up a struggle. She sat at her dresser while I turned down her bedspread, then she lay on top of her sheets and fell instantly asleep. I was looking for some sort of cover for her when I found the picture – the picture that I had felt all along must exist somewhere. It was in a silver oval frame. A little girl of about six or seven in a white confirmation dress, her hair corkscrew tight in ringlets, stands on the stairs of a church. Beside her, a bishop, paunchy, bulbous-nosed, looks unsmilingly into the camera.

I put a blanket over the woman sleeping on the bed and slipped the picture into my bag.

Then I walked down the stairs, through Lane’s life, from the drunken, lonely woman passed out on the bed, to the widow, the wife, the bride, the shining figure skater. Somehow, I thought, as I opened the front door and stepped into the fresh air, Lane Appleby’s life seemed better when you looked at it backward.

Barbara Bryant answered on the first ring. “Jo, this is uncharacteristically sentimental of you. Or are you calling to see if the dogs are lonely?”

It was tonic to hear her voice. “No, I trust you to keep them reassured, but I need a favour, Barb. Would you mind
going next door to the granny flat and getting a picture that’s in a file there and sending it to me here?”

“As that odious toad across the street says, ‘No problem.’ ”

“Great. The key is in the window box.”

“Trust you, Jo. Never the obvious.”

“Well, you won’t have any trouble finding it, anyway. The picture I want is in a vertical file marked 1950. It’s Andy’s first communion picture. You can’t miss it.”

“Jo, speaking of the granny flat, there were some guys out there today from -” There was a crash and a howl. Then Barbara’s voice again, good-natured and resigned. “Sam just fell off his rocking horse. Have a great Thanksgiving. Sam and I’ll drive the picture out to the airport right now. The ride will take his mind off his injuries. The picture should be there by late this afternoon.”

“Barbara, thanks, I’ll do it for you someday. And happy Thanksgiving.”

I drove straight to Lane Appleby’s from the airport. I had the two pictures in my purse, and they confirmed what I had felt from the moment Roma Boychuk spit in Lane’s face the day Andy died. I knew that if I called Lane would put me off, and I was growing bored with her self-indulgence. Two good men had died, a broken woman I felt was innocent was in the correctional centre, and that might not be the end of it. I wasn’t sure where this piece fit, but I knew that at this point I couldn’t afford to set anything aside out of delicacy.

She answered the door herself. That was the first surprise. She was sober. That was the second surprise.

“Lane, I’m coming in,” I said. “I have something to give you.”

She must have felt like hell, but she gave me a smile and threw open the door. She led me through the dining room
to her little sitting room. There was a fire warm and welcoming in the grate and a fresh bowl of freesias in the centre of the table.

“This time really is drink time,” she said. She was pale but she was game. When she alluded to the adventure of the morning she tried another smile. “I think we have almost everything. I’m having tea, if you’d like that?”

“Tea would be fine.”

Her hands were shaking when she poured but this time she hit the cup. “Mrs. Kilbourn – Joanne – I’d like to explain about this morning.”

“Lane, believe me, that’s the least of my concerns. Since Andy’s death and then Soren’s, things seem to be spinning out of control. I need your help. I can’t force you to get involved, but I can tell you that if you know anything about any of this I think you have an obligation to tell someone.” I fished into my bag, pulled out the two photos and set them side by side on the table. The frames of both pictures were silver. Hers was oval, chased with a little flowery pattern; his was plain silver, heavier and square. But the church steps in the pictures were the same and the bishop was the same, although clearly younger in Lane’s communion picture. Andy had joked once or twice about being the child of his mother’s withered loins. Roma must have been much younger when Lane was born.

Lane’s reaction surprised me. She took my theft of her picture without comment, but there was a sharp intake of her breath as she saw the picture of Andy. When she picked it up to look at it more closely, the light from the fire warmed the picture’s silver frame.

It was, I thought, the right moment to ask my question. “Lane, Andy was your brother, wasn’t he?”

She looked up, surprised. The look on her face was the same as the look on Eve’s face the day in Disciples when she
told me I didn’t know the first thing about Andy. Lane leaned toward me. I could smell tobacco and perfume. Her voice was husky.

“I’m afraid you’re wrong, Nancy Drew. Andy Boychuk was my son.”

It was a familiar story: the pretty young girl and the favourite uncle – Roma’s brother. “I thought,” said Lane, “that when she found out she’d be on my side, that she would kill him, but it was me she wanted to kill.” She raised her voice in an uncanny imitation of her mother’s. “ ‘Slut. Whore. It’s always the girl’s fault, Elena. My brother Sid is a good man. You threw yourself at him. Scum. Streetwalker.’ ” Lane laughed throatily. “Mother love. She took the baby, of course. ‘The innocent baby, may he never know his mother, the whore.’ Well, you get the idea.”

She lit a Camel and inhaled deeply. “Charlie knew, but not until years after we were married. Oh, God, the guilt. And when I finally told him, he was so sweet. He said, ‘Well, Lane, what d’ya want to do?’

“I had this great scheme, straight out of a Bette Davis movie. I was going to go to Andy and tell him he wasn’t the son of some little babba out by the railroad tracks. He was Lane and Charlie Appleby’s son. The son of rich people who could do anything for him. And, of course, he would fall down on his knees at this amazing news.” She laughed. “And my mother would see the error of her ways and repent. Or she’d die. And either way we’d all live happily ever after.”