by Gail Bowen
“I am,” I said. “We need to stay close tonight.”
“That was my plan,” he said.
Chapter Twenty-Three
On the morning of Ellen Exton’s funeral, I knew it was raining before I opened my eyes. The air that came through our bedroom window smelled of wet leaves and cold. Pantera was flattened on the floor outside Zack’s bathroom door, but Esme stayed put until I was in my running clothes. When I came out of my bathroom, Zack was in his robe looking out at the rain through the open patio door. The sky was grey, and the wind had picked up.
“Winter is icummen in / Lhude sing Goddamm,” I said. “Raineth drop and staineth slop, / and how the wind doth ramm! Sing Goddamm.”
Zack chuckled. “Good lord, what is that?”
“A poem by Ezra Pound. The title is ‘Ancient Music,’ and I’m reciting it because I know how you hate winter. Do you want to hear the rest?”
“Absolutely,” Zack said, “but I want to watch your performance.” He closed the patio door and turned his chair to face me. “Showtime,” he said.
“And I’m ready.”
After I recited the rest of ‘Ancient Music,’ Zack opened his arms to me. “Thank you,” he said, “for giving us a brave start to what we both know is going to be a grim day. How are you doing?”
“I’m okay,” I said. “I’ll be glad when the day’s over, and we’re home again, but going to Saskatoon for the funeral is the right thing to do for Ellen, for her parents and for us.”
“Agreed,” Zack said. “So, we’re picking up Charlie D and Kam Chau at noon, and the funeral is at three thirty. We should be fine for time.”
“Pantera, Esme and I better get going, but it’s going to be a short run. The dogs and I are getting older, and we crave comfort.”
“I’m not going to the office this morning, so we can take our time over breakfast. If I put macadamia nuts and dried cranberries in the porridge, will you teach me ‘Lhude sing Goddamm’?”
“Deal,” I said. I kissed the top of his head.
* * *
That morning, Zack and I worked across from each other at Sally Love’s old work table in our home office. We often chose separate spaces for work at home, but this was a time when we needed to be together.
Saying that Ellen had always loved the months of September and October with their promise of new beginnings, her parents had asked that none of those attending the funeral wear black; Zack and I were both in the rich autumnal shades that always evoked harvest and Thanksgiving for me. But Ellen Exton’s funeral would mark a bitter harvest for a life cut short, and I was dreading it.
When we left the house, the rain had stopped, but the wind had picked up, and the air carried the pungent zing of ozone. More rain ahead. As we made our way to our Volvo, I knew Zack’s heart, like mine, was heavy.
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the sky was suddenly black with geese, hundreds and then thousands of them on the great migration south for the winter. Their cries filled the air, and, like a tuning fork, my spirit resonated. I took Zack’s hand in mine, and we watched until the last of the geese, the stragglers, flew out of sight. Neither of us spoke. We had experienced a pure and shining reminder that we are part of a timeless mystery, and there were no words.
* * *
When I entered the MediaNation galleria, Mark Evanson was sitting behind the reception desk. As always, he rose and greeted me with a smile of indescribable sweetness.
“Charlie and Kam told me you were coming,” he said. “They’ll be upstairs in just a very few minutes.”
“Good,” I said. “That gives you and me a chance to visit.”
Mark’s smile grew wider. “I’d like that.” Then remembering the gravity of the situation, his face grew sombre. “This is such a sad day. Ellen was always kind to me, and to Lori. Every two weeks, Lori and I have lunch together at the cafeteria. Lori heard on TV that it’s important to have dates even when you’re married because you have to keep the romance alive. So, that’s what Lori and I do.” Mark lowered his voice and blushed. “It works,” he said.
“My husband and I have dates too,” I said. “And Lori’s right. It is important to keep the romance alive when you’re married.”
Mark nodded. “I’ll tell Lori you said that. She tries hard to do the right thing.”
“Obviously you’re both doing the right thing,” I said. “After we ran into you that day at the picnic, Zack remarked on what a happy couple you are.”
“We are happy. We just wish . . .” When his sentence trailed off, Mark seemed at a loss about how to pick up the thread of our conversation. The silence between us was lengthening into awkwardness when Mark saw something on his desk that saved the day. “Lori made a card for Ellen’s parents. Would you mind giving it to them after the service?”
“I’d be glad to.”
“And there’s something else Ellen’s parents should have.” He reached beneath his desk and brought out a gift box with a lid covered in pictures of cats. “Islande, who does the night cleaning, found this when she started her six o’clock shift the day Ellen left MediaNation.
“Ellen had to clean out her desk, and management said I had to be there to make sure she didn’t take anything that belonged to the company. She would never have done that, but I guess nobody in management knew the kind of person she was.
“I offered to help, but Ellen said she was okay, and everything seemed fine until she couldn’t find her key and then she just fell apart. She dumped her purse and her messenger bag out on the desk, and we went through everything, but we couldn’t find the key. When I asked her what the key was for, she said her desk had a file drawer that locked and she needed what was inside. I offered to go down to maintenance to see if they had another key. She started to cry. Ellen never cries. I didn’t know what to do, and then Charlie D came, and they finished packing Ellen’s things into boxes, said goodbye to me and carried everything down the hall to the elevator.
“I thought Ellen and Charlie D had settled the problem with the file drawer, so I didn’t think about it again. The next morning when I started my shift, this box was in the space under my desk where, for twenty-four hours, I keep items people have left behind so they can pick it up before it goes into Lost and Found.
“There was a note from Islande taped to the box saying that one of the other cleaners had told her everything was supposed to have been cleared out of Ellen’s desk, and if there was anything left there, we’d all get heck. When Islande found the locked drawer, she went to maintenance, got a key, unlocked the drawer and found this box.
“I tried a hundred times to call Ellen. Lori and I talked it over, and we thought that since the box mattered so much to Ellen, she’d want her parents to decide who should see what was inside it.” Mark’s eyes were troubled. “Mrs. Shreve — Joanne — did we do the wrong thing?”
“No,” I said. “You and Lori didn’t do the wrong thing. This is a very difficult situation, Mark. None of us knows what the right thing is. I’ll make sure Ellen’s parents get the box, so they can decide.”
I looked towards the door from the studios downstairs. “Charlie and Kam are here, so I have to go. Mark, I really enjoyed our talk.”
“So did I,” he said. “Joanne, I know saying goodbye to people we’ve cared for is hard. John 1:5 will help you. ‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome the light.’”
“I’ll hold on to that,” I said. “Right now, there’s just so much darkness.”
Mark’s voice was patient. “The light’s always there, Joanne. Sometimes, you just have to wait awhile before you see it.”
“Sorry for the delay,” Charlie said. “Kam and I had to change out of our jeans and sweats into something more appropriate, and neither of us could remember how to tie a Windsor knot.”
I checked both ties and made a small adjustment on Charlie’s. �
��Perfect,” I said. “And while you were getting spiffed up, Mark and I had a chance to have a good talk.”
Charlie winked at Mark. “This is a good man to talk to,” Charlie said.
“He is indeed,” Kam added.
When we left the galleria, Mark was beaming.
The rain had started again, and as we left the building to run to the car, I tucked Ellen’s box under my jacket. After we were all belted in, I handed the box back to Charlie. “You guys have more room back there than we do.”
“No problem,” Charlie said. “What’s the story with this?”
After I’d finished relating Mark Evanson’s account, Zack said, “Do you think it’s wise to hand this over to Ellen’s parents without knowing what’s inside? If it’s connected to whatever Ellen was investigating, it may contain evidence, and it belongs with the police.”
“Good point,” I said. “And even if it’s not evidence, there was that exchange of explicit photos with the online creep. Ellen wouldn’t want her parents to see those. I’m with Zack on this. I think you have to open the box.”
Charlie shook his head. “Nope, not us. Kam and I worked with Ellen, and we’re on our way to her funeral. If there’s something in that box that she’d prefer we didn’t see, I think we’d prefer that too. But I do agree that someone should look inside the box before we hand it over to Ellen’s parents.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “I’ll take it.”
The shiver of trepidation I felt as I opened the box evaporated as soon as I saw what was inside. “Nothing to worry about,” I said. “The box is full of pictures of Mary and Mr. Grant. And they’re dressed up for the holidays — Christmas, Valentine’s, St. Patrick’s Day. I wonder how Ellen got those costumes on them.”
Kam laughed. “As a cat owner, I can assure you those costumes didn’t stay on them long.”
I continued sifting through the pictures. “These are fun though. And — bonus — there’s an envelope at the bottom of the box. I suspect these are the cats’ more formal portraits.”
When I saw the first photo — a professional quality black-and-white picture of a naked beautiful adolescent and his equally beautiful lover — my pulse raced. They were so young and so wholly involved in each other. Bodies pressed together, limbs tangled, eyes closed, oblivious to everything except the sliding scale of pleasure carrying them headlong towards the ecstasy of release, they were the embodiment of carnal joy. A breath-stopping embodiment of that moment of abandonment that, for the lucky among us, is part of the human experience.
But I knew that the boy in the picture was seventeen years old, and the girl was sixteen, and they were brother and sister.
I sifted through the photos. All were of Thalia and Nicholas Monk exploring the complexities and joys of physical intimacy. The photographs were as breathtaking as their subjects, and I was overwhelmed.
“Zack, there’s a public rest area somewhere along here,” I said. “Could you pull in?”
He gave me a quick grin. “Sure. Never say no to a pit stop.”
“It’s not that. Zack, there were some other photos in the box, and I think they may be significant.” When I handed the photos back to Charlie and Kam, there was silence for a moment and then Charlie breathed, “Holy shit.”
After we pulled over, Kam handed the photos to Zack. He looked at them carefully and shook his head. “Not quite the smoking gun,” he said. “But close.”
“They’re so young,” Charlie said. “And those pictures don’t leave any room for misinterpretation. This is going to blow everything sky high.”
“It will,” I said. “Maisie and I talked about the possibility of incest just after she and Zack received information about the Monk family from Colby and Associates. Joseph Monk’s decision to separate his children in the middle of the school year puzzled us both. From the information Colby had gathered, it seemed that Thalia and Nicholas were both thriving, and that Joseph Monk was a devoted and caring father. He must have known what separating his children would do to them, and yet he separated them.”
“Because he had no alternative,” Zack said, and his voice was ineffably sad. He handed the photos back to me.
“That’s pretty much how Maisie and I saw it,” I said, “but we had no proof that the relationship between Nicholas and Thalia was sexual. There was something chilling about the school photographs Colby and Associates sent of them their last year at school together. Maisie felt the chill too. She and I talked a little about the possibility that Nicholas and Thalia had a Siegmund and Sieglinde relationship, but we let it drop. All we had was conjecture, and as the headmistress at Bishop Lambeth said many times, ‘Girls, when speculation has done its worst, two and two still make four.’ Now we have those photographs, and they raise their own questions. Those photographs are not pornography; they’re art. Who took them?”
“An answer to that question will have to wait,” Zack said. “We need to hit the road.”
As we headed back onto the highway, Kam leaned forward in his seat directly behind me. “I can shed some light on the question of who took the pictures. Nicholas and Thalia were both avid photographers, and at the farewell party for Patti after the last show of Sunny Side Up, it was clear that their interest was solely in photographing each other.”
“Kam told me about that party,” I said. “It was seven years ago, so Thalia would have been thirteen and Nicholas, fourteen. They were living in Toronto, but they’d flown out to surprise Patti.”
“I take it the surprise did not go well,” Zack said.
“It was a disaster,” Kam said flatly. “The farewell show was supposed to be a trip down memory lane with former employees showing up to wish Patti well, interspersed with highlights from Sunny Side Up over the years: good moments, goofy moments, sentimental moments — the usual. But Thalia’s and Nicholas’s presence threw Patti off.”
“Why?” Charlie said. “They’d lived with her before they moved to Toronto, and from what Ellen told me, there’d been no drama behind the move; it was just a practical decision. Patti was concerned that her show might be cancelled and she’d have to move to a different city and uproot the kids, and Joseph Monk’s job was secure.”
“Something must have happened in the interim,” Kam said. “Because there were definitely tension that day. Nicholas and Thalia arrived dressed almost identically: black slim-fit slacks, lace-up boots and tailored white cotton shirts. They had the same haircut, very short with a long side bang. And, of course, they both had those amazing sapphire eyes.
“Nicholas and Thalia made no attempt to mingle. They both had camera bags slung over their shoulders. When they were approached, they were polite, but they made it clear they were fine on their own. Not long after they arrived, they took out their cameras — top of the line Leicas — and began taking close-ups of each other from different angles. They were wholly absorbed in what they were doing. It was as if the rest of the room didn’t exist. People got the message and respected their space, but Patti was livid. Finally, she went over, took Nicholas by the hand and said, in a voice clearly intended to be overheard, ‘Come on, Nicky, time to let your mother show off her pride and joy.’ When she attempted to pull him after her, Nicholas didn’t miss a beat; he extended his hand to Thalia. The dynamic shifted, and suddenly their mother was stuck with two pride and joys.”
“Patti looked stricken, and she just wandered off. Nicholas and Thalia moved closer together, looked into each other’s eyes and exchanged a private smile. The connection between them was electric. I’m an opera buff too, Joanne, and I remember thinking, ‘Siegmund and Sieglinde.’”
“Charlie and I obviously had misspent youths,” Zack said. “Could one of you explain who Siegmund and Sieglinde are?”
“They’re characters in Wagner’s opera Die Walküre,” I said. “They’re twins, separated at birth. Neither knows of the other’s identity, but lat
er in life they meet and fall in love. They discover they’re brother and sister, but their love is too great for separation. They have a child together named Siegmund, but that’s another opera.
“That’s also a very pedestrian account of a really stunning work,” I added. “The music when Siegmund and Sieglinde become lovers absolutely shimmers.”
“So does Sieglinde’s speech when she explains to her twin brother how she fell in love with him at first sight,” Kam said. “‘I saw my own image in a stream, and now it is given to me again; / Just as it came up out of the water / You offer my own image to me now!’ and Siegmund replies, ‘You are the image I harbor in me!’”
“My knowledge of opera may be lacking,” Zack said, “but I am familiar with the myth of Narcissus.”
Kam laughed. “You’re not the only one. There’s enough scholarly work on the connection between narcissism and incestuous love to fill a good-sized library. In essence, the argument is that the narcissist transfers their erotic energy to the object most like themself — the sibling.”
“And the photos of the Monk siblings were in a locked file drawer in Ellen Exton’s desk,” Zack said. “I imagine Debbie Haczkewicz will see that as a compelling motive for murder.” He paused for a moment. “Come to think of it, so do I.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
By the time we hit Davidson, an hour away from Saskatoon, there was a marked improvement in both the weather and our spirits. The sky was cloudless; the sun was shining, and the pavement was dry. It was a perfect October day.
Even more significantly, we had agreed on the next step and taken it. The discovery and disposition of the photographs of Nicholas and Thalia called for legal advice. Fortunately we had a lawyer behind the wheel. The four of us floated possibilities and settled on one that covered the legal bases and protected Thalia.
