The Further Investigations of Joanne Kilbourn (29 page)

Alex was behind us. Suddenly, he leaned forward. “Look,” he whispered. “There, coming out from the coral. Lionfish – a pair of them.” For a few moments, the three of us were silent, watching. Then Alex said, “They’re amazing, Julie.”

They were amazing: large, regal, and as dazzlingly patterned as a bolt of cloth in a street market in Jakarta. They were also menacing. Spines radiated like sunbursts off their sleek bodies and, as they drifted towards us, I instinctively stepped back.

“They’re my favourites,” Julie said.

“Have you ever been stung?” Alex asked.

Julie dimpled. “Oh yes, but I don’t care. They’re so beautiful they’re worth it. Reed doesn’t like them. He wants a dog. Imagine,” she said, “a dog.” For a moment, she was silent. Then she said, “Was he alone?”

It seemed an odd first question, but Alex was unruffled. “He was when the landlady found him.”

Julie flinched. “Where was he?”

“At a rooming house on Scarth Street.”

“I want to see him,” she said. Her voice was lifeless.

“If you want, I’ll take you to him,” Alex said. “But I need to know some things first. Could we sit down?”

Julie gestured to one of the tables that had been set up for the party. Alex took the chair across from her. He was silent for a moment, watching her face, then he said, “When did you last see your husband?”

Julie’s answer was almost inaudible. “Last night. Around eight-thirty.”

“Was it usual for you to spend the night apart.”

She looked up defiantly. “Of course not. We’d just had a disagreement.”

“What was the disagreement about?”

Julie shrugged. “I don’t remember. It was just one of those foolish quarrels married people have.”

“But it was serious enough that your husband didn’t come home. Weren’t you concerned?”

“No … Reed was angry. I thought he’d just gone somewhere to cool off. I went to bed.”

“Did you try to locate him today?”

Suddenly Julie’s eyes blazed. “Of course I did. I called his office, but he wasn’t there.”

“And that didn’t surprise you?”

“He’s an important man. He doesn’t have a silly little job where he sits at a desk all day.” She leaned forward and adjusted the green bow on the wicker basket. When the ribbon was straight, she looked up warily. “Why are you asking me all these questions?”

“The circumstances of your husband’s death were unusual.”

Alex’s tone was matter-of-fact, but I could see Julie stiffen. “What are you talking about?”

“Well, for one thing, he was dressed oddly.”

Julie’s eyes widened. She was wearing a silk shirt, a cardigan, slacks, and sandals, all in carefully co-ordinated shades of taupe. She glanced reflexively at her own outfit as if to reassure herself that, whatever her husband’s eccentricities, her own clothing was beyond reproach.

Alex leaned towards her. “Was your husband a transvestite?” he asked softly.

Julie leaped up so abruptly that her legs caught the edge of the table. The crystal wine goblet in front of her leaned crazily, then fell. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she snapped. “I don’t know why they’d send someone like you out here in the first place. What are you, some sort of special native constable?”

“I’m not a special anything, just a regular inspector who happens to be Ojibway.”

“I don’t care what kind of native you are,” she said.

She disappeared down the hall, and when she came back she was wearing a trenchcoat and carrying an over-the-shoulder bag. “You can leave now,” she said. “I’m going down to the police station to find someone who knows what he’s doing.”

As he zipped his windbreaker, Alex’s face was impassive. “I’ll give you a lift,” he said. “I don’t think you should be driving right now.”

“I’ve got my car here,” I said. “I can take her, Alex.”

She shot me a venomous look. “So you can relay all the details to your friends? No thanks.”

She headed back into the hall, and I followed her. There was a mirror near the front door and she stopped and checked her makeup.

“Julie, there has to be something I can do,” I said.

Her mirror image looked at me coldly. “Always the girl guide, aren’t you, Joanne? But since you’re so eager to serve,
why don’t you phone my guests and tell them the party’s cancelled. The list is by the phone in the kitchen.” Beneath the mirror there was a small bureau. Julie opened its top drawer, took out a key and handed it to me. “Lock up before you leave,” she said. “There was a break-in down the street last week. Put the key through the letter slot when you go.”

“I’ll make sure everything’s safe,” I said.

She laughed angrily. “You do that,” she said. Then she opened the door and vanished into the rain.

Alex turned to me. “I’ll call you,” he said. “Right now I’d better get out there and unlock the car before Mrs. G. gets soaked.”

I drew him towards me and kissed him. He smelled of cold rain and soap. “My grandmother used to say that every time we turn the other cheek, we get a new star in our crown in heaven.”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “Let’s hope she’s right. I have a feeling that before Reed Gallagher is finally laid to rest, his widow is going to give us a chance to build up quite a collection.”

CHAPTER

2

Julie’s kitchen was the cleanest room I had ever seen. Everything in it was white and hard-scrubbed: the Italian tile on the floor, the Formica on the counters, the paint on the walls, the handsome Scandinavian furniture, and the appliances, which shone as brightly as they had the day they’d come out of their packing boxes. That morning my fifteen-year-old son had taped a sign above our sink: “Kitchen Staff No Longer Required to Wash Their Hands.” Somehow I couldn’t imagine Angus’s sign eliciting any chuckles in Julie’s kitchen.

The telephone was on a small desk in the corner. Beside it, in a gold oval frame, was Julie and Reed Gallagher’s formal wedding portrait. They had been a handsome bridal couple. The week before the wedding, Reed had been invited to speak at a conference in Hilton Head. Judging from their tans, he and Julie had logged some major beach time in North Carolina. Against her white-blond hair and dark eyes, Julie’s bronzed skin had looked both startling and flattering. She had worn an ivory silk suit at her wedding. She had made it herself, just as she had sewn the ivory shirt Reed
wore, dried the flowers that decorated the church, tied the bows of ivory satin ribbon at the end of each pew, and smoked the salmon for the hors-d’oeuvres. She had been attentive to every detail, except, apparently, her new husband’s appetite for unusual bedroom practices.

I picked up the photograph. Reed Gallagher didn’t seem the type for kinky sex. He was a tall, heavy-set man, with an unapologetic fondness for hard liquor, red meat, and cigars. I’d met him only a few times, but I’d liked him. He took pleasure in being outrageous, and in the careful political climate of the university, his provocations had been refreshing. I tried to remember the last time I’d seen him. It had been in the Faculty Club at the beginning of the month. He’d been in the window room with Tom Kelsoe and my friend Jill Osiowy. They’d been celebrating Reed’s birthday with a bottle of wine and, as people always do when they’re celebrating, they had seemed immortal. I put down the photograph and started reading the names on Julie’s list.

Twenty-four people had been invited to the party, and the first name was that of the guest of honour. I dialled Tom Kelsoe’s office number. There was still no answer. There was no one at his home either. I hung up and dialled the next number. I drew a blank there, too, but there was an answering machine, and I left a message that was factual but not forthcoming. As the hour wore on, I had plenty of opportunities to refine my message. Out of the seven couples and ten singles on the list, I was able to talk to only three people.

One of those people was Jill Osiowy. She was an executive producer at Nationtv, but her concern when she heard the news of Reed’s death was less with getting the story to air than with making certain that she found Tom Kelsoe so that he would hear the news from her rather than from a stranger. Her anxiety about Tom’s reaction surprised me. In the years I’d known her, Jill had had many relationships, but none of
them had ever reached the point where a blow to the man in her life was a blow to her.

Until she met Tom Kelsoe, Jill’s romantic history could be summarized in one sentence: she had lousy taste in men, but she was smart enough to know it. The fact that the deepest thing about any of the men who paraded through her life was either their tan or the blue of their eyes never fazed her. When she came upon the term “himbo” in a magazine article about the joys of the shallow man, Jill had faxed it to me with a note: “Thomas Aquinas says, ‘It’s a privilege to be an angel and a merit to be a virgin,’ but check this out – there are other options!”

For the past six months, it seemed Jill had decided that Tom Kelsoe was her only option. At the age of forty, she was as besotted as a schoolgirl. At long last, she had found Mr. Right, but as I hung up the phone I wondered why it was that Jill’s Mr. Right, increasingly, seemed so wrong to me.

It was 4:30 when I crossed the last name off Julie’s list. I could feel the first twinges of a headache, and I leaned back in the chair, closed my eyes, and ran my forefinger along my temple until I found the acupressure point I’d seen a doctor demonstrate on television the week before. I was so absorbed in my experiment with alternative medicine that I didn’t hear the doorbell until whoever was ringing apparently decided to lean on it.

All I could see when I opened the door was someone in a yellow slicker hunched over a huge roasting pan, trying, it seemed, to keep the wind from tearing the lid off. I couldn’t make out whether my visitor was a man or a woman. The hood of the slicker had fallen forward, masking individual features as effectively as a nun’s wimple, but when the person at Julie’s front door began to speak, it was apparent that I was not dealing with a Sister of Mercy.

“Holy crudmore,” she said. “Are you all deaf? There’s a monsoon going on out here in case you hadn’t noticed.”

She pushed past me into the house, and I glimpsed her profile: determined chin, snub nose, and skin rosy with cold and good health. She kicked off her shoes and headed for the kitchen.

“Just a minute,” I said. “What’s going on?”

“Catering’s going on,” she snapped. “At least it’s supposed to be unless you’ve changed your mind again.” She tossed her head, and her hood fell back. She glanced towards me and her mouth fell open. “Oh, my lord, you’re not her. Sorry. I should have checked before I snarled.”

“You may still want to snarl,” I said. “I’ve got some bad news. There isn’t going to be any party.”

“You mean she gave into him after all?” She struck the palm of her hand against her forehead. “And what,” she groaned, “am I supposed to do with that old-country trifle of hers with all those barfy kiwi shamrocks?”

“Mrs. Gallagher has had some bad news,” I said. “She’s just found out that her husband died. That’s why I’m here. We just heard about what happened.”

Her young face grew grave. “Bummer,” she said, stretching out the last syllable in anguish. “Bummer for him, of course, but also for me.” She looked thoughtful. “I guess I could make sandwiches out of the corned beef, and you can always do something with potatoes.” She slumped. “But the Lunenburg cabbage! And the old-country trifle! No way I can hold that trifle over till tomorrow.”

“You won’t be out anything,” I said. “Just send the bill to Mrs. Gallagher. She’ll understand.”

“She’s not the understanding type.” The girl’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry. It’s just I’ve had such an awful week. Trying to please Mrs. Gallagher was about as easy as putting socks on a rooster. Then last night when she called to re-book,
she told me that, if there were any extra costs, I’d have to swallow them because it was her party, and it was unprofessional of me to cancel the party without consulting her. I mean, wouldn’t you figure that if a husband calls you and says ‘Cancel the party,’ you should cancel the party?”

“Yes,” I said, “I would. Did Mr. Gallagher explain why he was changing their plans?”

“No, he just said the dinner was off, but at least he was nice about it. Told me he was sorry for the inconvenience and he’d pay the bill. Not like her. She’d squeeze a nickel till the Queen screamed. Trust me, this is going to cost me big time.” She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Have you got a Kleenex?” she asked.

I opened my purse, found a tissue and handed it to her.

“Thanks,” she said. “I never even told you who I am, did I? I’m Polly Abbey.” She fumbled in the pocket of her slicker, pulled out a business card and handed it to me. “Abbey Road Caterers. Like you’d ever hire me after seeing me like this.”

“I understand,” I said. “My name’s Joanne Kilbourn, and my daughter owns a catering business. I know what these last-minute cancellations do to her cash flow. Look, why don’t I buy some of the meat. I haven’t got anything started for dinner tonight, and my kids love corned beef.”

Polly brightened. “You can have the Lunenburg cabbage too,” she said. “I’ll even throw in some potatoes. Now if I could only find a home for that stupid trifle.”

I thought of Julie’s poisonous dismissal of Alex. “Polly, do you know where the Indian-Métis Friendship Centre is?”

“Sure,” she said. “It’s on Dewdney. Actually, it’s not far from my shop.”

“Good,” I said. “Why don’t you drop the old-country trifle off there on your way back? Tell them it’s a gift from an admirer.”

Her eyes widened. “Not Mrs. Gallagher?”

I nodded.

“Cool,” she said, and for the first time since she’d come in out of the rain, Polly Abbey smiled.

When I opened the front door to our house, Benny, my younger daughter’s ginger cat, was waiting. He looked at me assessingly. As usual, I didn’t pass muster, and he wandered off. Somewhere in the distance the Cranberries were singing, but theirs were the only human voices I heard.

“Hey,” I shouted. “Anybody home?”

Taylor came running. She was wearing the current costume of choice for girls in her grade-one class: jeans, a plaid shirt, and a ponytail anchored by a scrunchy.