by Gail Bowen
I decided to call it a night. I was tired and dispirited, and scarves were, after all, replaceable. I’d already started down the steps which lead to the side door when I remembered Greg’s shy delight as he’d handed me the scarf at my birthday party. I couldn’t leave without checking out all the possibilities. It was possible the scarf had fallen out when I’d taken my coat off in the bar. However, when I went back to the Saskatchewan Lounge, the scarf wasn’t at our table, and the discreet waiter said no one had turned it in.
I took the elevator upstairs to the dining room. The waiters were stripping the tables, stacking the chairs. The head table had already been dismantled. It was as if the party had never been. I remembered Maureen’s pale eyes and her brilliant mouth. Maybe my luck would change, and the whole evening would turn out to be a dream. I took the elevator down to the lobby. As I stepped out, I noticed the reservations clerk talking on the phone at the front desk. I went over to her and waited, but she ignored me. When I didn’t go away, she put her hand over the mouthpiece. “Is there a problem?” she asked.
“Has anyone turned in a silk scarf, sort of a swirling pattern on a dark green background?”
She made a cursory pass through the paper in front of her.
“Nothing about a scarf,” she said, and went back to her phone call.
I took a piece of paper from my purse, wrote my name and address on it, and shoved it across the desk towards her.
“Call me, please, if it turns up.”
“Right,” she said, and she waved me off.
I left through the side door. The snow had stopped, but it had been a substantial fall. Across Lorne Street, Blessed Sacrament, fresh with snow, glowed in the moonlight. The parking lot had pretty much cleared out. Only a few cars were left. The old Buick was still there, and as I walked towards my car, I thought of Howard’s prolonged virginity and smiled. I stopped smiling when I saw the body.
She was lying on her back, close to the right rear wheel of the Buick. I thought at first that someone had run her down. Then I saw the scarf. Bright as a parrot. I had always loved the way the material draped itself in a swirl of colours over the shoulder of my coat. But tonight the scarf wasn’t tied right. It had been pulled so tight around Maureen Gault’s neck that her head angled oddly and her eyes bulged from her head.
I felt my knees go weak. Then I took a deep breath and stumbled back through the snow towards the hotel. When I saw the cruiser turning down Lorne Street, I shouted for it to stop. The officer who jumped out of the car seemed too young to be out this late, but he knew his job. He followed me across the parking lot, but when he saw the body, he grabbed me.
“Don’t go any further,” he said. “Leave the area alone till the crime scene people get here. I’ll call for backups.” But he didn’t start for his car immediately. Instead, he took a step towards the body, and looked down.
“Do you know her?” he asked.
“Her name was Maureen Gault,” I said. “Little Mo,” I added idiotically. The security lights glinted yellow in Maureen Gault’s unseeing eyes. The crimson mouth drawn over her own thin lips seemed like a wound in her milky skin.
“Do you know of anybody who’d want her dead?” he asked.
I stared down at Little Mo’s inert body and shivered. My voice seemed to come from somewhere far away. “Me,” I said. “I wanted her dead.”
CHAPTER
5
Half an hour later, I was sitting in police headquarters on Osler Street studying the medicine wheel on the wall behind the desk of Inspector Alex Kequahtooway. A Cree elder had told me once that the medicine wheel is a mirror that helps a person see what cannot be seen with the eyes. “Travel the four directions of the circle,” she said. “Seek understanding in the four great ways.”
I stared hard at the markings on the medicine wheel. At that moment, I would have given a lot to see what could not be seen with the eyes, but all I saw was cowhide and beadwork. I knew the fault was with me. A seeker must be calm and receptive. I was scared to death.
Inspector Kequahtooway was from Standing Buffalo Reserve, about a hundred kilometres east of the city. I knew this because I knew his brother. Perry Kequahtooway had been the RCMP officer in charge of investigating a tragedy which had threatened my family. During the investigation, I had counted on Perry’s calm determination to discover the truth; afterwards, I had come to know his kindness, and we had become friends. But that night, in police headquarters, it didn’t take Alex Kequahtooway long to let me know that my relationship with his brother didn’t cut any ice with him. When he led me through the litany of what I had done and whom I had been with that evening, his face was impassive.
As I talked, he made notes in a scribbler that looked like the kind my kids used in grade school. When I’d finished, he read his notes over unhurriedly. I stared at the medicine wheel, and tried to remember the four great ways to understanding: wisdom, illumination, innocence, and something else.
Finally, satisfied that the first part of the interrogation was in order, Inspector Alex Kequahtooway turned the pad to a fresh page and looked up at me.
“Just a few more questions, Mrs. Kilbourn. You seem tired.”
“I am tired,” I said.
“Then let’s get started. When was the last time you saw your scarf that night?”
“I left it with my coat.”
“In the downstairs cloakroom. There’s a coat check upstairs near the ballroom. Why didn’t you use it?”
“None of us did. I came in with five other people, and we all left our coats in the cloakroom on the main floor. You have to pay to check your coat upstairs.”
“Too bad you didn’t pay,” he said, and there was an edge to his voice. “Nobody can touch the coats upstairs without dealing with the people who work there, whereas your coat …”
“… was unguarded right out there where anyone could get at it.”
“Right,” he sighed. “Now the next question presents even more of a problem.” He looked at his notes. “Before you came in, I had a few moments to talk with Constable Andrechuk. He was the first officer on the scene after you discovered Maureen Gault’s body. Constable Andrechuk tells me he pointed to the deceased and asked you, and I quote: ‘Do you know of anybody who’d want her dead?’ Is that an accurate quote, Mrs. Kilbourn?”
“Yes,” I said, “it is.”
Inspector Kequahtooway made a check mark in the margin beside the question. “Now, listen carefully, Mrs. Kilbourn. Constable Andrechuk says that, when he asked you that question, you answered, ‘Me. I wanted her dead.’ Is that accurate?”
“Yes,” I said, “it is.”
“Why did you want her dead, Mrs. Kilbourn?”
I was silent. Images of Little Mo flashed through my mind.
Inspector Kequahtooway leaned towards me. His obsidian eyes seemed to take everything in. “Did you hate her because Kevin Tarpley had killed your husband?”
“No,” I said, “I was afraid of her.”
“You were afraid of her all these years?”
“No,” I said. “I wasn’t afraid of her after Ian died. When you see the files on his murder, you’ll know that there wasn’t anything … personal … about his murder.”
“That’s an odd word to use, Mrs. Kilbourn.”
“It’s the right word. Ian was killed because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was Fate, like being hit by a bolt of lightning on the golf course.”
Alex Kequahtooway’s voice was so low I had to strain to hear it. “Something changed,” he said.
“For the six years after the trial I never saw Maureen Gault. Then the day of Kevin Tarpley’s memorial service, November 3, she came to my office at the university and she came to my house.”
“Did she threaten you?”
“Not verbally. But, Inspector Kequahtooway, something had come loose in her. She seemed to feel she had to pursue me. I don’t know why. Last night at the hotel, she told me that she could make things happe
n, and I’d better remember her.”
“Some people who were sitting near the head table say they heard you call her crazy.”
“She was crazy,” I said, “and dangerous.”
“And you’re glad she’s dead.”
I looked at him. He was older than his brother, and harder. I remember Perry telling me his brother was the first Indian to make inspector on the Regina police force. I guess he’d had to be tough, but there was something about him that invited trust. I took a deep breath.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m glad she’s dead. But Inspector Kequahtooway, I didn’t kill her.”
He made a final note in his scribbler, and capped his pen. “That’s good news,” he said. He stood and motioned towards me. “You can go now, Mrs. Kilbourn. I guess I don’t have to tell you that we’ll expect you to keep us aware of any travel plans.”
When I stood up, my legs were so heavy I knew I’d be lucky to make it across the room. “Travel won’t be a problem,” I said. “Goodnight, Inspector.”
It was a little after 2:00 a.m. when I got home. I checked on Angus and Taylor, showered, put on my most comforting flannelette nightie, and climbed into bed. I was bone-tired, but I couldn’t sleep. Every time I shut my eyes, I saw the red wound in Maureen Gault’s white face: Cherries in the Snow.
Finally, I gave up and went down to the kitchen. Hilda was sitting at the table, drinking tea and reading a book titled Varieties of Visual Experience.
“Boning up on Abstract Expressionism?” I asked, and then, I began to sob.
Hilda leaped up and put her arms around me. “Good God, Joanne, what’s the matter? It’s not one of the children …?”
“No, it’s not the children,” I said. “It’s me. Hilda, I’m in trouble …”
I started to tell her about Maureen, but I guess I wasn’t making much sense, because she stopped me.
“Let me get you some tea,” she said. “Then you can start again. This time, tell me what happened in chronological order. Nothing calms the nerves more effectively than logic.”
Hilda poured half a mug of steaming tea, then she went into the dining room and came back with a bottle of Metaxa. She added a generous shot of brandy to the tea and handed the mug to me. “Drink your tea,” she said, “then we’ll talk.”
An hour later, when I went to bed, I slept. It was a good thing I did, because the next morning when I picked up the paper, I knew it was going to be a long day. The paper was filled with stories about Maureen Gault’s murder and, whatever their starting point, by the final paragraph they all had an arrow pointing at me.
I could feel the panic rising, and when the phone rang, I froze. “Whoever you are, you’d better have good news,” I said as I picked up the receiver. I was in luck. It was my daughter, Mieka, sounding as exuberant as a woman should when she was on a holiday with her new husband.
“Mum, guess where I am.”
“Some place sunny and warm, I hope.”
“I’m sitting at a table in a courtyard at the Richelieu Hotel in New Orleans, and I just had grits for the first time in my life.”
“And you phoned to tell me,” I said.
“No, I phoned to tell you that Greg and I got the same room you and Daddy had when you stayed here on your honeymoon.”
A flash of memory. Lying in each other’s arms, watching the overhead fan stir the soupy Louisiana air, listening to the sounds of the French Quarter drift through the open doors to our balcony.
“I hope that room’s as magical for you as it was for us.”
“It is,” she said softly.
I could feel the lump in my throat. “I’d better let you get back to your grits while they’re still hot,” I said. “As I remember it, grits need all the help they can get. And, Mieka, tell Greg thanks.”
“For what?”
“For making you so happy.”
“I will,” she said. “And you tell everybody there hello from us. We’ll call on Taylor’s birthday.”
I’d just hung up when my oldest son, Peter, called from Saskatoon. He tried to be reassuring, but I could tell from his voice that the stories in the Saskatoon paper must have been pretty bleak.
“You know, Mum, I think I’d better come home for a while,” he said.
“In the middle of term?” I said. “Don’t be crazy. You know the kind of marks you need to get into veterinary medicine. Besides, by the time you get down here, this will have blown over.”
“Do you really think so, Mum?”
“No, but I really do think you’re better off there. Pete, if I need you, I know you can be in Regina in three hours. At the moment, that makes me feel a lot better than having you jeopardize your term by coming here to hold my hand.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. Now let me tell you about what your sister and Greg are doing.”
“Eating everything that’s not nailed down, I’ll bet,” he said.
“You got it,” I said. By the time I finished telling Peter about New Orleans, he sounded less scared and I felt better. When I heard Hilda and the kids coming downstairs, I took the paper outside and shoved it into the middle of the stack in our Blue Box. Out of sight, out of mind. I made porridge and, for the next half hour, life was normal. The night before, Hilda had volunteered to stay a few days to keep my spirits up during what she called “this trying time.” I turned her down flat, but as I watched her help Taylor braid her hair, I was glad Hilda had overruled me.
When Angus came to the table, it was apparent he hadn’t been listening to the radio. He knocked over the juice, and as he mopped up, he grumbled about a bill that showed he owed Columbia House $72.50 plus handling charges for cassettes and CDS.
Taylor, who was turning six on Remembrance Day, chirped away about plans for her birthday. “What I want,” she said, “is a cake like the one Jess had. His mum made it in a flowerpot and there were worms in it.”
Angus emptied about a quarter of a bag of chocolate chips onto his porridge. “You know, T, that’s really gross,” he said.
I took the chocolate chip bag from him. “Speaking of gross …,” I said.
Taylor grinned at her brother. “They’re not real worms. They’re jelly-bellies. On top, Jess’s mum had brown icing and flowers made out of marshmallows. Jo, do you think you could ask her how she did it?”
“Consider it done,” I said.
“Probably we’ll need to make two,” Taylor said thoughtfully. “I have a lot of friends.”
“I’ll ask Jess’s mum to copy out the recipe twice,” I said.
Taylor shook her head. “That’s another one of your jokes, isn’t it, Jo?” She took her cereal bowl to the sink and trotted off upstairs.
Angus leaned towards me. “Am I supposed to be at this party?”
“Only if you expect help paying that $72.50. I hear Columbia House has goons who specialize in shattering kneecaps.”
He flinched. “I’ll be there,” he said, and he stood up and started for the door.
“Hang on a minute,” I said. “Angus, something happened last night. I think you should take a look at the paper before you go to school.”
I brought the paper in, and as he read it, his eyes widened with concern. “They don’t think you did it, do they?”
“I don’t know what they think,” I said. “But I know I didn’t kill Maureen Gault.” I put my arm around his shoulder. “Angus, this is going to work out. But you’d better prepare yourself for a little weirdness at school.”
“I don’t get it, Mum. Maureen Gault just shows up out of nowhere and all of a sudden she’s dead and they think it’s you. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“It doesn’t make sense to me, either,” I said. “But Angus, there isn’t any logic here. Whatever else happens, hang on to that. ‘This invites the occult mind,/ Cancels our physics with a sneer.’ ”
He furrowed his brow. “What?”
“Chill out,” I said.
He gave me a small smile. “Yeah
,” he said. “And you stay cool, Mum. There’s going to be weirdness coming at you, too.”
He was right. I could hear my 10:30 class buzzing as I came down the hall, but as soon as I stepped into the classroom, there was silence. They seemed to have trouble looking at me, and I remembered a lawyer on TV saying he always knew the verdict was guilty if the jury couldn’t make eye contact with the defendant. Some of my colleagues seemed to have a problem with eye contact too. As I passed them in the hall going back to my office after class, they muttered hello and hurried by.
When I opened my office door, I was glad to see Howard Dowhanuik sitting at my desk. He had shaved and he was wearing a fresh shirt, but he looked like a man who had been up all night. When he saw me, he smiled.
“First friendly face I’ve seen since I got here,” I said.
“That bad?”
“That bad,” I said. “This is a city that reads its morning paper.”
“That’s why they keep the morning paper at a Grade 6 reading level,” Howard said.
“Whatever happened to your reverence for the common man?” I said.
“Man and woman, Jo. I’m surprised at you. And the answer is I don’t have to revere them any more. I’m out of politics.”
“Right,” I said.
Howard looked weary. “Have you got coffee or something?”
“We can go to the Faculty Club,” I said. Then, remembering the ice in the greetings I’d gotten on my way back from class, I said, “On second thought, maybe I’d better make us a pot here.”
I made the coffee and plugged it in. “Howard, before we talk, let me call Taylor’s school. I want to make sure someone’s keeping an eye on how she’s dealing with all this.”
After I talked to Taylor’s principal, I felt better. Taylor was the fourth of my children to go to Lakeview School, and over the years Ian MacDonald and I had come to know each other. He knew that none of the Kilbourns would ever be a Rhodes Scholar, but he also knew that my kids were decent enough, and that he could count on me when he needed an extra driver for a field trip. He said he’d talk to Taylor’s teacher, then he cleared his throat and told me he knew I wasn’t a murderer and he would make sure that other people knew that, too.
