Verdict in Blood (12 page)

Dan Kasperski frowned and looked away without responding.

“All right,” I said, “I understand your position. Since you’re not technically Eli’s therapist, maybe you could answer a question for me. Is there any reason you know of why a patient who was doing as well as Eli seemed to be doing would suddenly fall apart like this?”

“Sure,” he said. “He’s a human being.”

“Meaning?” I asked.

He laughed. “Meaning, as Albert Ellis once said, that Eli, like every human being who has ever lived, is ‘fallible, fucked up and full of frailty.’ ”

During the next few hours, if I’d been searching for insight into human behaviour, my own and that of those around me, I couldn’t have picked a better guide than Albert Ellis. “Fallible, fucked up and full of frailty” pretty well covered it. Alex had taken the late plane back from Saskatoon. He arrived at my place at 10:30, keeping the taxi he’d ridden in from the airport waiting so he could take Eli home. Both of us were edgy with fatigue and fear, and our fight was as stupid as it was inevitable.

When he saw me, Alex didn’t make any attempt to embrace me. From the moment he came through the door, his manner was distant and professional. “What happened this time?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Angus and Eli were in the family room. Angus decided to go off to Blockbuster to rent a video …”

“Leaving Eli alone,” Alex said.

I felt the first stirrings of anger. “Angus asked Eli to go with him. He didn’t want to. Eli’s sixteen years old, Alex. He doesn’t need a babysitter.”

“He’d just gotten out of the hospital, Jo. Angus knew that. So did you.”

“So did you,” I said. “But you weren’t around.”

“I had a job to do.”

“So did I. And I have kids to raise. Alex, I know you’re worried about Eli. I’m worried about him too, but your nephew’s not the only one who’s affected by what happened here tonight. What about my children? Tonight while you were in Saskatoon doing your job, Eli was out in Taylor’s studio drawing this grotesque decapitated horse over the painting of the dragon-boat races she gave him.”

Pain knifed across Alex’s face. “He ruined her painting?”

“Yes, and that was
after
I’d told him Taylor wanted the painting to be a surprise for him. Alex, I’m going to have to explain this to her, but I don’t even know where to begin.”

I could see the pulse beating in Alex’s neck, but his voice was impassive. “He shouldn’t have been out there alone, Jo. If you knew he was going through some sort of crisis, you should have called me and stayed with him till I got here.”

I took a step towards him. “Alex, there was no crisis. It was a perfectly ordinary Friday evening. As far as I could see, everything was fine.”

“Maybe you only saw what you wanted to see, Jo.”

“Meaning … ?”

“Meaning you might have looked the other way because you wanted a nice peaceful evening. You don’t like problems, Jo.”

“Alex, that’s not fair. If I was afraid of problems, I would have bailed on you months ago. I did everything I could to help Eli. So did my kids. We did our best. It’s not fair to blame us because our best wasn’t good enough.”

“You people are always beyond reproach, aren’t you?”

I felt as if I’d been slapped. “ ‘You people’ – Alex, you’re talking about me and Angus and Taylor. We’re not the bad
guys.” For a tense and miserable moment we faced one another in silence, like strangers whose lives had suddenly collided in some violent and permanent way.

When he finally spoke, Alex’s voice was tight. “I’d better get Eli,” he said. “Where is he?”

“In Peter’s room.”

Alex went upstairs. When he came back down, Eli was slumped against him. Dr. Kasperski’s injection had relaxed Alex’s nephew to the heavy-limbed state of a sleeping child.

Alex didn’t stop to talk. When he reached the door, I opened it for him. “Let me know how Eli’s doing,” I said.

He didn’t answer me. I watched as he and Eli made their awkward passage towards the taxi. Till the moment they got into the car, I expected Alex to turn and call out to me. He never did. As the cab pulled away, I felt a rush of pure anger. I slammed the door and started up the stairs. Alex hadn’t once asked about Angus, nor had he expressed concern about Taylor. After months of doing everything we could to include Eli in our lives, my children and I had been shut out. We were an abstraction: “you people,” an enemy not to be trusted.

Saturday morning, I awoke to the kind of thunderstorm that comes only at the end of a period of suffocating heat: lightning, thunder, and a downpour of rain that pounded the earth so viciously it seemed to assault it. I told Rose she was out of luck. There’d be no walk that morning. When I let her out in the backyard for a pee, I spotted the croquet set near the back gate where the boys had abandoned it after their ferocious game the night before. Eli had been happy that afternoon, grinning, waving the mallet over his head. “You can play if you want to, Mrs. Kilbourn, but this is a take-no-prisoners game.” That had been a good time for all of us. As
I ran across the backyard to drag the croquet set under the shelter of the deck, I wondered if we’d ever have a day of such mindless joy together again.

Sylvie dropped Taylor home at a little after 9:00. I didn’t say anything about the painting, and miraculously my daughter didn’t ask. She was filled with owl news, and as I made pancakes, I was grateful for the soothing rhythms of her prattle. After Angus came downstairs to take her to her lesson, I stood at the kitchen window and watched the rain. If it kept up, my tomato plants would be flattened by noon.

I was dressed and digging through my closet to find a raincoat to wear to the funeral when the phone rang. Certain it was Alex, my heart pounded as I picked up the receiver. But the call was for Angus.

I wrote down the number, hung up, and turned to go back to my closet. Hilda was standing in the door to my bedroom.

She was all in black: patent-leather pumps and handbag, a black suit in the timeless style of Chanel, and a pillbox hat that must have been thirty-five years old. Her outfit was both smart and appropriate, and I glanced assessingly at my black T-shirt and white cotton skirt.

Hilda read my mind. “You look fine, Joanne. This outfit was not of my choosing. I called and asked my next-door neighbour in Saskatoon to select something apropos from my closet. She’s a dear soul, but she still lives her life according to
Emily Post’s Etiquette
. Now, if I’m not rushing you, I’d like to get there early. Given our cast of characters, I’d like to be around to make certain this goes off without incident. Are you ready?”

I picked up my raincoat. “Ready as I’ll ever be,” I said.

The funeral was scheduled for 10:00 a.m. at St. Paul’s Anglican Cathedral. The cathedral was not my church, but I’d been there on many occasions, happy and sad. One of the
best had been the day my daughter Mieka had been married in its chapel.

The rain hadn’t let up as we pulled up on McIntyre Street, so I dropped Hilda off and went to find a parking place. By the time I got back to the cathedral, Hilda was in an intense conversation with the Dean. I waved to them and made my way to the chapel. The last time I’d been there had been on Mieka and Greg’s wedding day. It had been at 2:00 in the afternoon, and the late summer sun had poured through the stained-glass windows, suffusing my daughter and her new husband in a glow warm as a blessing. As she knelt at the altar, Mieka’s profile, under the filmy circle of her bridal hat, had been a cameo. Today the shafts of light that split the chapel’s gloom were murky, and as the rain drummed against the windows, I shivered with a nameless apprehension. I slid into a pew, pulled down a kneeler, and prayed that my daughter would come through childbirth safely and that the new baby would be whole and healthy. Then I prayed for my other children, and for Eli and Alex and for all of us.

When Hilda came and knelt beside me, I felt foolishly relieved. I was the mother of four, and soon I would be a grandmother; nonetheless, there were times when I was overwhelmed by the need to hand over all my problems to a grown-up. That morning was one of them.

As we walked back into the church, Hilda touched my arm. “Did you say a prayer for Mieka?” she asked.

“Among others,” I said. “How about you?”

She gave me a wry smile. “I prayed for strength.”

When the service got under way, I found myself hoping that Hilda’s prayers would be answered. Justine Blackwell’s funeral was a standing-room-only affair, but despite the crowding, the congregation had divided itself to reflect
the two warring halves of Justine’s life. On one side of the church sat men and women whose bearing and grooming suggested a privileged past and a promising future; on the other were people with wary eyes and faces which spoke of their hard lives. Hilda and I took our places with those whose cause Justine had championed in the last year of her life. During the wait for the service to begin, the two camps regarded one another with mutual suspicion, but when the first chord of the opening hymn sounded, all eyes followed Justine Blackwell’s daughters as Eric Fedoruk led them up the aisle.

The Blackwell women were a striking trio: Lucy, in a black scoop-necked, miniskirted, floral-print dress, seemed more seductress than mourner; Signe, her thick blonde hair braided into a Valkyrie’s coronet, looked powerful enough to storm Valhalla; Tina, in black from head to toe, head covered by a lace mantilla, face hidden behind a black veil, suggested minor European royalty. When they took their place in the front pew, the church fell silent. Almost immediately, there was a second stir. Wayne J. Waters may have been wearing a cheap, ill-fitting suit, but he carried himself with the unmistakable air of a man who demanded respect. When he slid into the pew opposite the Blackwell sisters, it was obvious the show was about to begin.

For a while, it seemed Hilda had made all the right choices. The Mozart mass she had selected was pure beauty; the carefully barbered young men who had accompanied Justine’s mahogany casket to the altar disappeared on cue; the Dean’s prayers were comforting; and the eulogy by Eric Fedoruk was affectionate without being mawkish. He made no reference to the direction Justine’s life had taken in the year before she died. When Eric Fedoruk went back to his seat, I glanced down at my program. All that was left was the
closing prayer and the recessional. I picked up my purse and let my mind wander to thoughts of curling up on the couch with the Saturday paper and a pot of Earl Grey.

Suddenly, Hilda sat up ramrod straight, cutting short my reverie. Wayne J. Waters had slid out of his seat and started up the aisle towards the casket. As he reached it, he nodded, touched the lid affectionately, then turned to face the congregation. For a moment, I thought he was going to share one of those painful personal memories that have become the vogue at funerals. I was wrong.

“This one’s for Justine,” he said. “Not the judge Mr. Fedoruk was talking about, but the woman I knew. I learned this for her, because it was her favourite.” In a deep and powerful voice he sang Blake’s old hymn “Jerusalem,” with its thrilling final verses about social justice:

When he finished, there was a smattering of applause, quickly muffled, from Wayne J.’s side of the church. Then he resumed his seat, and we were back on program. The discreet young men from the funeral home reappeared; the casket came back down the aisle and Eric Fedoruk and the Blackwell sisters followed it. Eric’s arm was around Lucy’s shoulder; she looked dazed, like the survivor of a disaster. Tina’s emotions, hidden behind her black veil, were unreadable, but Signe
Rayner was white with fury. When we came out of the church into the transept she was waiting for us. She grabbed Hilda’s arm and took her aside.

“Whose decision was it to let that creature sing?”

Hilda tapped the program. “As you can see, Mr. Waters was not part of the Order of Service. He acted on his own initiative, and I, for one, am glad he did.”

Signe’s voice was low with fury. “Will you still be glad you let him sing when he’s arrested for murdering my mother?” She turned on her heel and strode towards the mourners’ limousine. One of the young men from the funeral home helped her in; the door slammed shut, and the car sped off.

“Wait.” When I turned, I saw Lucy standing at the entrance to the church. “They left without me,” she said. She looked at us beseechingly. “Can I go to the cemetery with you?”

“Of course,” I said. “Hop in.”

During the ten-minute drive to Crocus Hills Memorial Park, no one said a word. When we drove through the gates, Lucy, who was in the back seat, leaned forward and pointed. “It’s just over there,” she said. “It’s past the place where all the soldiers are buried. You can’t miss it. There’s this incredible weeping willow.”

Hilda turned towards her. “Your mother isn’t being buried there, Lucy.”

“Why not? That’s our family plot. That’s where my father is.” There was an unsettling edge in Lucy’s voice.

Hilda must have heard it too. Her answer was firm and factual. “When I talked to the people from Crocus Hills, they said the family plot was full. We had to purchase a new burial space for your mother. There was no alternative.”

Lucy’s teeth began to chatter. “That’s crazy,” she said. “That plot was for all of us.” She opened the car door. “I’m going over there.”

I glanced at Hilda. She nodded. “Maybe it’s best if Lucy sees for herself,” she said.

We drove past the area reserved for military burials. Under the gunmetal sky, it was a solemn sight: row upon row of identical grave markers, each with its own small red-and-white Canadian flag.

I pulled up in front of the area Lucy had indicated. Before I turned off the ignition, she was out of the car and running towards the weeping willow. She stopped in front of a low black marble headstone; then she gazed around her, as if she were trying to get her bearings.