by Gail Bowen
He nodded morosely. “My client is alleged to have taken a knife to the lover who betrayed her.”
“Another case of a man led astray by his John Thomas,” I said.
Zack raised an eyebrow. “Somehow you didn’t strike me as a John Thomas woman. Be that as it may, the victim’s John Thomas isn’t going to lead him astray any more.”
“Is he dead?” I asked.
“No, but he is without his John Thomas.” Zack’s smile was wolfish. “So I’ll make a reservation for six o’clock?”
“Perfect,” I said.
I saw Zack out, then turned to Willie. “What do you want to do for the next five hours?”
Willie didn’t keep me on tenterhooks waiting for an answer. He went to the hook where I kept his leash, and we were on our way. We ran the horseshoe of Lawyers’ Bay, stopping only to check on the girls’ progress. Project Inukshuk was right on schedule. Seeing Taylor reminded me that I had to make some arrangements for her to have dinner, so Willie and I changed direction and headed for the Point Store. Through the screen door I could see Leah restocking the chocolate-bar display.
Willie hated being tied up, and I hated tying him up, so I just leaned closer to the screen. “How’s it going?” I said.
Leah came over, pushed the door open, and stood on the threshold. “Great,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve found my life’s work, but not many people have summer jobs that involve unlimited access to Werther’s Originals.”
“Since you’re having so much fun, maybe you wouldn’t mind doing me a favour.”
“Anything,” Leah said.
“Could you and Angus give Taylor dinner tonight before the tournament? I’m coming, but I’m going to have meet you at the field.”
“No problem,” said Leah. “So where are you having dinner?”
“With Zack Shreve.”
Leah shivered theatrically. “Ooooh,” she said. “The man who’s mad, bad, and dangerous to know.”
“That was Lord Byron,” I said. “Someone who knew Zack in law school said he attracts women who want to get up close and personal with a chainsaw.”
Leah grinned. “You can handle a chainsaw.” She glanced over her shoulder. A customer had arrived at the checkout, and he had the air of a man who didn’t like to be kept waiting. “Duty calls,” Leah said.
“I’ll catch you later,” I said. “Is Angus around?”
“He took the truck over to Bonnie Longevin’s to get strawberries. We’re going to set up a stand out front here to lure the cottagers.”
“Marketing 101,” I said.
“Something like that,” Leah said. “Anyway, Angus should be back any minute. Help yourself to a cup of our gross coffee and catch a few rays while you wait.”
“I can expand my knowledge, too,” I said. “I always learn something when I visit Coffee Row.”
The old gents were already at their places when I slid into a spot at the picnic table next to theirs. Endzone was there, too. Morris had put a piece of rug on the ground so that the dog didn’t have to lie on the wet grass. As Willie collapsed beside me, he gave me a reproachful look.
“Your dog’s mad at you,” Morris said. “Hang on. I’ll get you something to put under him.” He shoved the stub of his cigarette between his lips, walked over to his half-ton, pulled out a hunk of carpeting, and handed it to me. “Make him a little bed,” he said, and watched until I did as I’d been told. Willie curled up happily. I picked up my coffee and the gents went back to their conversation. As always, I arrived in medias res.
“I’m betting he swallowed his gun,” Morris said.
“Why the hell would anyone swallow his gun?” Stan Gardiner asked.
“He didn’t actually swallow the gun.” Morris hawked a goober disgustedly. “It’s a figger of speech. Jesus, Stan, if you stopped mooning over the champagne lady on Lawrence Welk and watched a real man’s show once in a while, you might join the rest of us in the twentieth century.”
Stan glared at him. “The twenty-first century,” he said. “That’s where the rest of us live, Morris – in the twenty-first century.”
Aubrey entered the fray. “Where we have VCRS that allow us to watch old TV shows and movies whenever we want.”
Morris fixed his friends with a malevolent eye. “And you’re so busy watching those old shows that you lose touch with how people today talk. Nowadays when people speak of a man swallowing his gun, they mean the man killed himself.”
I was keen to see where this discussion of semantics would take us, but at that moment Angus’s truck appeared, and Willie and Endzone got into a barking match. By the time Morris and I had calmed the dogs, the thread of conversation had been broken. As I left to greet my son, the old gents were talking about what would happen to a dog that had his bark removed, a good topic but not, in my opinion, a great one.
When Angus opened the truck’s tailgate, the scent of fresh-picked strawberries was enticing. “Put a quart of those aside for us, will you?” I said.
“Help me unload the truck and I’ll knock off a couple of bucks.” He grinned, and I felt a rush of love for this handsome stranger with the easy ways and quick smile who seemed to move farther from me every day.
“Can we talk a bit first?” I asked.
My son frowned. “What’s up?”
“Have you heard from Alex lately?” I asked.
“How lately?” Angus said carefully, and in that moment I knew there was something he wasn’t telling me.
“Within the last few days,” I said. “Robert Hallam came out to the lake after lunch. He says Alex booked off work to attend to personal business, and he hasn’t come back.”
Angus looked away. “That doesn’t sound like Alex. He’s Mr. Reliable.”
“He is,” I agreed. “That’s why this unexplained absence is so puzzling.” I stepped closer. “People are predictable,” I said. “Take you, for instance. Whenever you answer a question with a question, I know you’re holding something back.”
The corners of Angus’s mouth twitched. Once again I’d found him out. “Is this important?” he asked.
“I think it may be,” I said. “So shall we start again? When was the last time you talked to Alex?”
He didn’t hesitate. “The Sunday you went to Saskatoon to see Mieka.”
“Did he just call you out of the blue?”
“No,” Angus said. “We’ve kept in touch.” He sighed.
“And you never told me.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“How come?”
Angus was his father’s son, tall and dark, with an unruly forelock and an easy smile. But his eyes, grey-green and unreadable, were mine. His gaze didn’t waver. “Because I didn’t want to have this conversation,” he said. “But if you say it’s important, I guess we should.” He pointed to the tailgate. “Do you want to sit down?”
“I’m okay,” I said. “Let’s hear it.”
“Last year, just before New Year’s, I got into some trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Drinking and driving.”
My stomach turned over. “Oh God, Angus, how many times have we talked about that?”
“A million. I was a mutt. Okay, I know, but that’s not the point. The point is I got pulled over in a spot check. I honestly thought I was all right. I’d eaten and I hadn’t had anything to drink for three hours, but I blew above. 04 – not that bad, but bad enough. The cop took my licence and got Leah to drive home.”
“Leah was with you.”
“And she was furious at herself, said she should have insisted on driving. We also had three people in the back who were really ripped, so the car smelled rank. That didn’t help matters. Anyway, when I got home I called Alex.”
“You didn’t ask him to intervene…?”
“Give me a little credit, Mum. The officer who pulled me over had been very clear about the consequences. I knew I’d lost my licence for a month and I knew I had to take a DUI class.
But I was scared. I forgot to ask her if the charge was going to be on my record permanently. That’s why I called Alex. I just needed – I don’t know – reassurance, but Alex insisted on talking to me face to face.”
“Where was I when all this was going on?”
“Upstairs in bed.”
“Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“It was late.” Angus’s tone revealed his exasperation. “Really late. Mum, give me a break here. I was scared. I hadn’t had a chance to think through what had happened. I was hoping Alex would give me a piece of information that would sort of soften things when I talked to you.”
“But you never did talk to me.”
“Because Alex said you’d been through enough, and he was right. It hadn’t been that long since you two broke up. Then Aunt Jill was in all that trouble at Christmas. I knew you’d been gritting your teeth through the holidays. I didn’t think you needed me barrelling in to tell you I’d been arrested and your ex-boyfriend had come over to take me to Mr. Bean for coffee.”
“Nice summation,” I said. “And put that way, it sounds as if you were right. So what did you and Alex talk about?”
Angus shrugged. “Mostly about how people have to be careful about the decisions they make, because everything a person does stays with him. Pretty much what you would have said.”
“That is pretty much what I would have said,” I agreed. “I wonder why Alex felt he had to be the one to say it.”
“You’re angry,” Angus said.
“A little,” I said. “I wish Alex practised what he preached. He made a decision; he should have been prepared to accept the consequences.”
“Not being part of your life meant he shouldn’t be part of mine?” I could hear the resentment in my son’s voice.
“Angus, I’m not the bad guy here. It was Alex’s choice. He was the one who walked away. I wanted us to stay together.”
“He wanted that, too, Mum. You wouldn’t be so harsh if you’d seen him the night I lost my licence. Alex has always been on top of things. When he came to drive me to Mr. Bean, he looked beaten down. And all the time that he kept talking about decisions and dragging everything along with you, it wasn’t like a lecture. It was as if he was talking about himself.”
“Angus…”
“Mum, let me finish… please. The day after Chris Altieri died, it was worse. Alex just kept looking at me. It was bugging me so I asked him to stop. He apologized, then he said he had to convince himself that I was okay.”
“He was a day late and a dollar short there, wasn’t he?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, if Alex had been concerned about our family, he could have called, and he didn’t. Not once in all the months after he left.”
“He wanted to, Mum.”
“Then why didn’t he pick up the phone?”
“I don’t know,” Angus said miserably. “All I know is, the day after Chris died, Alex told me that the best time of his life was his time with us, and he’d do anything to keep us from grief. Do you have any idea what he was talking about?”
“No,” I said. “Maybe some day, when everyone’s feeling less fragile, we can talk about it.”
“That’d be good,” Angus said.
“I agree,” I said. “Now, reassure me. You really have learned not to get behind the wheel when you’ve had a drink?”
“I’ve learned,” Angus said. “That DUI course I took sealed it. I made friends with this guy named Pedro who got picked up on his birthday. He was so drunk from his party that he doesn’t remember getting behind the wheel. Wouldn’t want to run into Pedro on the highway. Lots of other scary stories. We got treated like infants for the whole weekend, but we deserved it. Oh yeah, the guy who was my DUI instructor was also the guy who took me out for my driver’s test. How about that?”
“Cosmic irony,” I said. “So is the charge going to be permanently on your licence?”
“Nope,” Angus said. “I was lucky. Didn’t run into Pedro. Didn’t hurt anybody else. Nothing on my record permanently. Horseshoes up my ass but I’m not going to push it.”
“Good,” I said. “I’ll sleep better knowing that.” Then I put my arms around my son and, despite the gawkers in the cars going by, I held him close for a long time.
There was a message on my cellphone when I got back to the cottage. It was Maggie Niewinski. I called her back.
She sounded breathless. “Glad you caught me,” she said. “I was just on my way downtown.”
“Shall I call later?”
Maggie laughed. “No, I’m not due in court for an hour. I thought, since I was in Regina, I’d check out the sales. I was just calling to bring you up to speed.”
“Have you found something out?”
“Nothing encouraging. Sandra Mikalonis went to Clare’s apartment building and talked to the super. He remembered Clare’s leave-taking very vividly, mostly because it took place so quickly, and he didn’t deal with Clare face to face. In fact, the super doesn’t remember seeing Clare at all after the first week in November.”
“Did he usually see her?”
“Yes. She lived at the Waverly on College Avenue. It’s not one of those vast, soulless places. The super saw Clare most mornings when she came back from her run. He says what everyone says. Clare was pleasant but she kept to herself. He also says he was surprised that Clare never knocked at his door to say goodbye. He thought they were friends.”
“Was the lease up?”
“It was a sublet. The original tenant came back on the first of January. Clare’s rent had been paid until December 31.”
“Smooth as silk,” I said.
“Yes,” Maggie said. “Someone arranged for a moving company to come in and pack for Clare – everything, right down to the toilet paper on the roll, the super said.”
“Where did Clare’s furniture get shipped?”
“A warehouse in Vancouver. Joanne, it’s still there. Clare’s things were never claimed.”
I felt the last small wisp of hope escape. “Have you told the police?”
“Yes, and we think it’s time we told the partners at Falconer Shreve what we know. They think they’ve pulled this off. We have to show them that they haven’t – that we’re carrying out our own investigation and that, unlike Inspector Kequahtooway, we can’t be bribed.”
My spirits sank. “You think that’s what happened, that someone at Falconer Shreve paid the inspector to shut down the investigation?”
Maggie made no attempt to check the asperity in her voice. “Do you have a better explanation? Anyway, it’s obvious that someone at Falconer Shreve knows something. They’ve got a firewall of administrative assistants and juniors at their office. We’re thinking that if we come out to Lawyers’ Bay, we can go for a walk on the beach, make ourselves conspicuous. Then maybe someone who needs a chance to talk will realize they can talk to us. What do you think?”
I remembered the calm determination of Clare Mackey’s face in her graduation portrait. “I think it’s worth a shot,” I said. “And, Maggie, why don’t you give Anne Millar a call and tell her what you’re planning to do? She might want to be a part of it.”
Maggie sighed. “Good idea. I’ll need her number.”
I gave Maggie Anne’s number. “I guess the next step is to decide when you’re coming. Zack’s been working from his cottage and Blake and Delia both drive out after work. So I guess you can pick your evening.”
“How about tomorrow around seven?”
“Tomorrow’s fine,” I said.
“Thanks for helping, Joanne. I know that Clare is just a name to you, but she was a decent human being.”
“That’s reason enough,” I said.
CHAPTER
10
I dressed with more than usual care for my evening with Zack Shreve. I was under no illusions about the motive behind his dinner invitation. From the night that he manoeuvred his chair into the gazebo bent on discovering and discrediting wh
at Chris Altieri told me, Zack had his sights trained on me. He wasn’t sure what I knew or where I fit into the picture, but he wasn’t about to let me disappear from his range of vision. Now I had my own reasons for establishing rapport. So when Zack called from his car to say he was out front, I smoothed the mauve-grey silk of my favourite summer shirt and slacks, freshened my lipstick, and took a deep breath. It seemed entirely possible that, to quote Bette Davis’s stinging appraisal, we were in for a bumpy ride.
We got off to a good start. Seated behind the wheel of his white Jaguar, Zack could have been a GQ cover: great tan; jacket, slacks, and shirt in coordinated shades of taupe and coffee; dark hair still curling damply from the shower. He leaned across and opened the door on the passenger side. “You look sensational,” he said.
I slid in beside him. “You’re looking pretty tasty yourself,” I said. “Shall we get started?”
The lake on which Lawyers’ Bay was situated was one of a quartet known as the Calling Lakes, which wound through the Qu’Appelle Valley. The Stone House restaurant was on the lake next to ours. Zack had put the top down on his convertible, and we drove to the restaurant through the shimmer of heat in the colour-drenched world of high summer.
On the way there, Zack told me that the Stone House had once been the summer home of a wealthy American who had fallen in love with the history and legends of the Qu’Appelle Valley. Fired by tales of buffalo runs, the American had built his house not on the lake, but far above it at a point where a man could have stood and watched the buffalo pour like a mighty and endless river over the hills around him. The view from the restaurant was reputed to be spectacular, but the road there was steep and filled with hairpin turns, and as Zack negotiated them, my nerves were on full alert.
“Without setting foot in this place, I can already see one reason why it’s doomed,” I said. “Don’t restaurants count on alcohol sales for a hefty source of their revenues?”
“They do,” Zack said. “I’ve already decided I’m going to have one perfect martini and switch to water.”
“You shouldn’t have to be the designated driver just because you’re the man,” I said. “We’ll flip a coin.”
