The Further Investigations of Joanne Kilbourn (27 page)

When I saw Jess, I thought of what Alex had told me about the police investigation. Everything they turned up had substantiated their theory that, for the last weeks of his life, Gary was a man possessed by his need to keep his son. The letter Kevin Tarpley had sent to Gary was in a box of unfiled correspondence Lorraine Bellegarde had packed when Gary had moved out of his office. Alex said the letter had been only three sentences long. Kevin had printed out Exodus 20:13 – the
sixth Commandment: “Thou shalt not commit murder.” He had promised Gary that, if he asked Jesus to forgive him, he would gain eternal salvation. And then Kevin had written a final and fatal sentence in which he told Gary he could no longer let his son be raised by a man who had sinned as Gary had sinned. There was a receipt from the private airline that had flown Gary to Prince Albert on Hallowe’en and brought him back to Nationtv in time to do the promotion for Howard’s dinner. There was a bank statement showing that Gary had withdrawn all the cash in his business account the day after Hallowe’en. The amount wasn’t large. Certainly, it was nowhere near the amount of money Maureen Gault had been flashing when she’d made the offer to buy Ray-elle’s beauty salon.

It had taken the police a while to find the source of Maureen’s bonanza. When they questioned the people Gary knew, a sad picture of Gary’s activities in the days before Maureen’s death emerged. He had gone to everyone he knew asking for money. He’d been so desperate he hadn’t even bothered to fabricate a story. He just said he was in trouble. Most of the people Gary had gone to had already bailed him out when he’d skimmed his legal accounts after Ian died, and they turned him down flat.

Only one person was willing to help, and her identity was no surprise to me. Lorraine Bellegarde owned a small house on Wallace Street. She had been proud of the fact that it was paid for “right down to the last nail,” but she had mortgaged it for Gary.

Alex had been the one to interview her, and her behaviour had baffled him. “She seems like such a sensible woman,” he’d said. “Do you think he just laid on the charm or what?” I told him that Lorraine had been around Gary long enough to be immune to his charm. Then I remembered the story of how Gary hadn’t let Lorraine get rid of the prostitutes who’d
been using his car as pick-up point. “I guess she decided he deserved a hassle-free zone,” I’d said.

Alex had shaken his head in disgust. “What kind of guy would let a woman mortgage her house for him? He must have really been a piece of work.”

“He was that, all right,” I said. And we didn’t talk of the matter again.

In the church, Jess laid his head against his mother’s arm. The service was generic: the Lord’s prayer, the twenty-third Psalm, a few mournful hymns. The young minister spoke obliquely about the mysteries of the human heart and seemed relieved when he was finished.

So was I. Gary had been cremated, and, despite everything, the cloth-covered urn on the altar was painful to contemplate. When the minister said the closing prayer and invited us all to join the family in a reception room at the back of the church, Taylor looked at me expectantly. I shook my head. I’d had enough. When we came into the vestibule, Sylvie and Jane were talking to a man from the funeral home. I headed for the door, hoping Taylor and I could slip out of the church unnoticed. But Sylvie spotted me and came over.

She seemed preternaturally calm, and I wondered if Jane had given her something. Then I remembered what Sylvie had endured in the last few days, and I knew there was nothing in the pharmacopoeia that could have even made a dint in her pain. Sylvie was a strong woman, and she was drawing on her strength.

She didn’t waste time on preambles. “I need to talk to you, Jo,” she said. She gestured toward an area down the corridor. “Come back and have a cup of coffee.” Taylor and Jess ran on ahead, and I followed her down the hall.

If I’d needed anything to depress me further on that depressing day, the reception set out for Gary Stephens’s funeral would have done it. There were plates of sandwiches
and dainties, two big coffee urns, and cups and saucers for at least a hundred and fifty people. We were the only ones in the room.

Sylvie led me to the corner where four chairs had been grouped for conversation. When she sat down, she clasped her hands in front of her, like a schoolgirl. I noticed she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. For a moment, she seemed at a loss. Finally, she said, “I didn’t know about Jenny’s death, and I didn’t know about Ian. I didn’t know any of this, Jo. You have to believe me.”

“I believe you,” I said.

Sylvie pointed to Jess and Taylor sitting at another table. “I was afraid you wouldn’t let Taylor play with Jess.” When she said her son’s name, her voice shook. “I don’t want anything more to go wrong for him.”

She looked away. “Do you remember how beautiful he was, Jo?”

I was confused. “How beautiful Jess was?”

“Not Jess,” she said. “Gary.”

“I remember,” I said.

“I don’t feel anything,” she said. “He’s dead and I don’t feel anything. There was a time when I thought I couldn’t live an hour without him.”

For the first time that day, Sylvie’s eyes filled with tears. “How is that possible, Jo? How can a person just stop loving?”

I didn’t know what to say. At the same time, I knew Sylvie didn’t need my words. At least not then. Mercifully, Taylor and Jess heard Sylvie and came over. I gave Jess a hug, then I stood and put my arm around Taylor. “Jess is welcome at our place anytime,” I said. “So are you.”

Sylvie nodded. “Thanks,” she said. “And thanks for coming.”

We started to leave, but Taylor grabbed my arm. “Jess says we’re supposed to sign the book.” Beside the door there was
a small table with a guest book and a photograph of Gary. It was an outdoor shot. He was wearing an open-necked shirt, and he was squinting against the sun. Beside the portrait there was a vase with a single prairie lily. I signed my name in the book; under it, Taylor carefully printed hers. Ours were the only names on the page.

Craig Evanson was waiting outside the door. “I thought you and Sylvie might want some privacy,” he said.

“Thanks,” I said.

“How’s the baby?” Taylor asked.

“Perfect,” Craig said. “Would you like to see her?”

“You mean today?” Taylor said.

“Why not?” Craig said.

“Jo doesn’t believe in kids skipping school for no reason.”

“Seeing a new baby is a reason,” Craig said.

Taylor looked glum. “It won’t be a reason for Jo,” she said.

“At the moment, I can’t think of a better one,” I said. I held my hand out to her. “Come on. Let’s go.”

When Manda Traynor-Evanson answered the door, she had the baby in her arms and the ginger cats, Mallory and Alex P. Kitten at her heels. Taylor didn’t know who to grab first. Manda solved the problem. She asked us to take off our coats, then she turned to Taylor.

“Would you like to stay for lunch?”

“I would,” Taylor said.

“So would I,” I said.

“Great,” said Manda. “But, Taylor, you’ll have to give me a hand with the little one. Why don’t you scoot into the family room and sit in the big brown chair. That’s the official baby-holding chair.”

When Taylor was settled, I stood behind her. Together, we looked down at the baby.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” I said.

Taylor touched the baby’s hand gently. “I didn’t know babies were born with fingernails and eyelashes,” she whispered. “I thought they grew those later, the way they grow teeth.”

“No,” I said, “they’re pretty well perfect right from the start.”

“She’s perfect,” Taylor said. Then she furrowed her brow. “Jo, what is this baby’s name?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “There’s been so much going on. I guess we just never asked.”

“Ask,” Taylor said.

“You ask,” I said. “It won’t sound so dumb coming from a kid.”

Manda was standing in the doorway. “What won’t sound so dumb?”

“That we don’t know your baby’s name,” Taylor said.

Manda grinned. “Her name is Grace. After we’d bored everybody to death asking for advice and bought every book, we named her after Craig’s mother.”

I looked at the baby. Her hair was dark and silky, and her mouth was as delicate as a rosette on a Victorian Valentine. “Grace suits her,” I said.

Lunch was fun. When Craig came home, he set up a table in the family room, so we could watch the birds at the bird-feeder while we ate. Manda had warmed up a casserole of tofu lasagna, so I was glad Taylor was distracted. When we’d had our fill of tofu, Craig and I cleared the dishes, and Taylor played with the cats while Manda fed Grace. Then we all drank camomile tea from thick blue mugs and talked about babies.

“If Grace had been a boy, what were you going to call him?” Taylor asked.

“Craig, Jr.,” Manda said, shifting the baby on her hip. “We’ll save it for the next one if that’s okay with you.”

“That’s okay with me,” Taylor said. “It’s not a good name for a cat.”

“Did I miss something here?” Craig asked.

“Taylor still hasn’t named her kitten,” I said.

Manda shrugged. “I’ve got a stack of baby name books over there, Taylor. If you like, you can take them with you when you go. We’ve already got a name for Kid Number Two, and when Number Three comes along, I’ll get the books back.”

Craig turned to Taylor. “You’re welcome to the books,” he said, “but I think I know a name that might work. It’s the name of the man who’s the patron saint of artists: ‘Benet.’ ”

“Benet,” Taylor repeated the name thoughtfully. “What do you think, Jo?”

“I like it,” I said.

“So do I,” Taylor said. “Because if my cat’s name is Benet, I can call him Benny for short, and I really like the name Benny.”

The wind was coming up as Taylor and I walked home. When we got to our corner, I saw that the boys had turned the outside Christmas lights on. The day had turned grey and cold, and the lights in front of our house were a welcoming sight. Even Jack O’Lantern looked good. During the long mild spell, his centre of gravity had shifted. From a distance, the lights inside him made him look like an exotic Central American pot.

Taylor ran ahead. She couldn’t wait to tell Benny that, at long last, he had a name. Halfway up our walk, she wheeled around and waved her arms at me. “It’s snowing,” she yelled. “We’re going to have snow for Christmas.”

I looked up at the sky. Storm clouds were rolling in from the north, and with them the promise of a world that would soon be white and pure again.

A Killing Spring

CHAPTER

1

In the twenty-five years I had known Julie Evanson-Gallagher, I had wished many things on her. Still, I would never have wished that her new husband would be found in a rooming house on Scarth Street, dead, with a leather hood over his head, an electric cord around his neck, and a lacy garter belt straining to pull a pair of sheer black stockings over his muscular thighs.

I was on my way to my seminar in Politics and the Media when Inspector Alex Kequahtooway of the Regina Police Force called to tell me that the landlady of the Scarth Street house had found Reed Gallagher’s body an hour earlier and that he wanted someone who knew Julie with him when he broke the news. Although my relationship with Reed Gallagher had not been a close one, I felt my nerves twang. Alex’s description of Reed Gallagher’s death scene was circumspect, but I didn’t require graphics to understand why Julie would need shoring up when she heard about the manner in which her husband had gone to meet his Maker.

On the Day of Judgement, God’s interest might lie in what is written in the human heart, but Julie’s judgements had
always been pretty firmly rooted in what was apparent to the human eye. Discovering she was the widow of a man who had left the world dressed like RuPaul was going to be a cruel blow. Alex was right; she’d need help. But when he pressed me for a name, I had a hard time thinking of anyone who’d be willing to sign on.

“Jo, I don’t mean to rush you …” On the other end of the line, Alex’s voice was insistent.

“I’m trying,” I said. “But Julie isn’t exactly overburdened with friends. She can be a viper. You saw that yourself when she paraded you around at her wedding reception.”

“Mrs. Gallagher was being enlightened,” he said tightly, “showing everyone she didn’t mind that you’d brought an aboriginal to the party.”

“I wanted to shove her face into the punch bowl.”

“You’d never make a cop, Jo. Lesson one at the police college is ‘learn to de-personalize.’ ”

“Can they really teach you how to do that?”

“Sure. If they couldn’t, I’d have been back on Standing Buffalo Reserve after my first hour on the beat. Now, come on, give me a name. Mrs. Gallagher may be unenlightened but she’s about thirty minutes away from the worst moment of her life.”

“And she shouldn’t be alone, but I honestly don’t know who to call. I think the only family she has are her son and her ex-husband, and she’s cut herself off from both of them.”

“People come together in a crisis.”

“They do, if they know there’s a crisis. But Alex, I don’t know how to get in touch with either Mark or Craig. Mark’s studying at a Bible college in Texas, but I’m not sure where, and Craig called me last week to tell me he and his new family were on their way to Disney World.”

I looked out my office window. It was March 17, and the campus, suspended between the bone-chilling beauty of
winter and the promise of spring, was bleak. Except for the slush that had been shovelled off the roads and piled in soiled ribbons along the curbs, the snow was gone, and the brilliant cobalt skies of midwinter had dulled to gunmetal grey. To add to the misery, that morning the city had been hit by a wind-storm. Judging from the way the students outside my window were being blown across the parking lot as they ran for their cars, it appeared the rotten weather wasn’t letting up.

“I wish I was in the Magic Kingdom,” I said.

“I’m with you,” Alex said. “I’ve never been a big fan of Minnie and Mickey, but they’d be better company than that poor guy in the room upstairs. Jo, that is one grotesque crime scene, but the media are going to love it. Once they get wind of how Reed Gallagher died, they’re going to be on this rooming house like ducks on a June bug. I have to get to Julie Gallagher before one of them beats me to it.”