The Further Investigations of Joanne Kilbourn

by Gail Bowen

  When I was twenty, I had believed that the pleasures of sex were aesthetic and athletic. Then, the prospect of being physically intimate with a man when I was past fifty and my body was no longer a delight to look at or a joy to manoeuvre had filled me with alarm. I’d been wrong to worry. With Alex, I was enjoying the best sex of my life: by turns passionate, tender, funny, restoring, and transcendent. That September night, we managed four out of five. When we’d finished, our bodies were slick on the tangled sheets, and we were at peace.

  It was good to be back in the apartment. Since his nephew had come to live with him, Alex and I hadn’t spent much time there, but tonight we were alone. Declaring that Eli was in need of chill-out time, Dr. Kasperski had decided to keep him in the hospital overnight. As I looked at the lines of worry etched in Alex’s face, I thought the man I loved could use a little chill-out time himself. The events of the past twenty-four hours had taken their toll. Through the open window of the bedroom, I could see the plaster owl a previous tenant had anchored on the rail of the balcony to scare off pigeons. Alex called the bird his sentinel, and we had joked that as long as the bird was there, no intruder could disturb our delight in one another. As I felt the tension returning to Alex’s body, I knew I had to face the fact that even plaster owls had their limits.

  I moved closer to him. “Talk to me about it,” I said.

  “There’s not much to say. I had a quick visit with Dan Kasperski after he saw Eli this afternoon. Considering Eli’s his patient only until Dr. Rayner gets back to her practice, Kasperski’s giving a lot of thought to the case. He says his first task is to get Eli to see him as an ally who can help him find a way to deal with all the things that are troubling him.”

  “That makes sense to me,” I said.

  Alex’s dark eyes were serious. “Everything Dan Kasperski says makes sense. The amazing thing is he looks like he’s about seventeen years old. Maybe that’s why Eli’s responding so well to him. This afternoon, when Kasperski came in, I could see the relief on Eli’s face.”

  “Maybe you should ask him to take Eli on as a patient. In the next few weeks, Signe Rayner could have her hands full just dealing with her own life.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you know she’s Justine Blackwell’s daughter?”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No. Hilda and I went over to Justine’s house today to pay a condolence call, and Signe Rayner was there. Alex, how does Eli get along with her? She seems so …”

  “Forbidding? I know what you mean, but she came highly recommended, and she did get Eli to open up about the guilt he feels about Karen’s death.”

  “Guilt? You never said anything about him feeling guilty.”

  “It was Eli’s story to tell or not tell. Besides, he seemed to be dealing with it.”

  “Why would he feel guilty? Nobody can prevent a car accident, and from what you’ve said, Eli really loved Karen.”

  “He did love her, but he also caused her a lot of grief. I never could figure out why. Karen was about the best mother any kid could ask for: very devoted, very involved with the culture. But as great as Karen was, when Eli was about ten the graffiti started, and the running away to the city.”

  “Did something happen?”

  “No. Eli just got mad at the world. I went through the same thing when I was his age.”

  “You straightened out,” I said. “Can’t get much straighter than a cop.”

  Alex drew me closer. “I was lucky,” he said. “My mother didn’t die when I was sixteen. By the time my mother died, I’d had time to show her I valued the things she’d taught me.”

  “But Eli never had that chance,” I said.

  “No,” Alex said, “he didn’t. And it’s eating him up. Has he ever said anything to you about Karen?”

  “Never,” I said. “But he did talk to Taylor about her.”

  “To Taylor? She’s the last person I’d have thought he’d open up to.”

  “There’s a certain logic there, I guess. Taylor lost her mother too, and of course she’s so young, Eli doesn’t have to worry about being a tough guy in front of her. Just this morning, Taylor was telling me that she and Eli had talked about what a great swimmer Karen was.”

  In the moonlight, Alex’s face grew soft. “She was a great swimmer. We used to tell her she was part otter. She loved that lake. We had this old canoe. When Karen was four, she went clear across the lake in it. She was so little, she could barely hold the paddle.” His voice broke. “And could she ever run. Some of those hills we’ve got out at Standing Buffalo are steep, but that never stopped Karen. It seemed like every time my brother and I were supposed to be watching out for her, she’d take off on us. We always knew where to look for her – right at the top of the biggest hill she could find. As soon as she saw Perry and me, she’d start to run to us. We’d yell at her to slow down because we were afraid she’d break her neck, and then we’d catch hell. But she never slowed down. And she never fell.”

  For a long time, we were silent. Finally, Alex said, “The only thing that ever scared my sister was thinking about what could happen to Eli. When she died, I promised myself that I’d do everything I could to make sure he had a good life. Damn it, Jo, until yesterday, I thought Eli was going to be okay. What would make a kid take off like that, for no reason?”

  I sat up. “He had a reason,” I said.

  As I told Alex about the incident at the Rider game, I could see the cords in his neck tighten, but he didn’t say anything until I’d finished. Then, under his breath, he murmured a word I’d never heard him use before, and I could feel the barrier come between us. I went into the bathroom to get ready to go home. After I’d dressed, I looked out the bathroom window. On the balcony of the apartment across the alley, a man and a woman, who looked to be about my age, were having a late supper. There were candles on the table and fresh flowers. As I watched, the man leaned towards the woman and touched her cheek. When she felt his touch, the woman covered his hand with her own. That unknown couple might have had a hundred secret sorrows but, at that moment, I envied them their uncomplicated joy in one another. Moonlight and unspoken intimacies: that was the way love was supposed to be.

  Alex walked me down to my car. I slid into the driver’s seat. “Tell Eli the kids and I will come by and visit him tomorrow after school,” I said.

  “Considering the circumstances, maybe you’d better wait a while,” Alex said.

  “Whenever you think he’s ready,” I said.

  I waited as Alex opened the front door of his building and walked inside. He didn’t look back. His apartment was on the third floor at the corner. I knew exactly how long it took to reach it. I watched as the lights went out in his living room, and a few seconds later in his bedroom. Miserable at the thought of Alex sitting alone in the dark, his only protection against the vagaries of the world a plaster owl sitting sentry on a balcony railing, I took a deep breath and turned the key in the ignition.

  CHAPTER

  4

  I slept deeply that night and awoke thinking about Alex Kequahtooway and Martin Heidegger and the question of whether any of us ever truly knows who we are. It was gloomy pondering for 5:00 a.m. on the first workday after a holiday weekend, and I was relieved when the phone rang and I heard my older daughter’s voice. Mieka was twenty-four years old, and she had a great marriage, a career she loved, and a first child due any minute. To my mind, the only problem about Mieka’s life was that it was being lived in Saskatoon, 250 kilometres away from me.

  “I knew you’d be up,” she said. “No baby news. I’m just calling to whine.”

  “Whine away,” I said.

  She took a deep breath. “Well, for starters, I don’t think this baby is ever going to be born. My doctor says if I don’t get cracking by next weekend, they’re going to induce me. Is it just an old wives’ tale that painting the kitchen ceiling gets baby moving along?”

  “I don’t know about kitchen ceil
ings,” I said, “but I do know that going out for Chinese food works. That’s what your dad and I did the night before you were born.”

  Mieka laughed. “Tucking into a platter of Peking duck does sound more appealing than clambering up a ladder to slap on a coat of flat white.” She sighed heavily. “Mummy, I’m so discouraged. I haven’t slept through the night in eight months, I haven’t seen my feet since Canada Day, and I’ve got a seductive line of black hair growing from my breastbone to what used to be my organs of delight.”

  “It’ll be over soon,” I said. “I just wish I was there with you.”

  “But you will come when the baby’s born?”

  “Wild horses couldn’t keep me away.”

  After we hung up, I reached under the bed and pulled out the cradle board that Alex had made for Mieka and Greg’s baby. The hide bag stitched to the board was as soft as moss, and it smelled of woodsmoke. A newborn would feel safe in its snug confines. Later, the cradle board would hold the baby tight against its parent as it learned to keep a careful eye on the wonders and the terrors of the world.

  I slid the cradle board back under the bed and walked downstairs. The heat and the humidity in the closed-up house were almost palpable, and I opened the front door to let in some fresh air. On the cedar chest in the front hall, Taylor’s new tartan backpack bulged, waiting to be grabbed by its owner as she sped out the door, eager to seize all the learning and fun Grade 2 had to offer. Ordinarily, I loved fall days with their heady mix of elegy for the summer past and anticipation of adventures to come, but this September was different, and as Rose and I headed for our run around the lake, I wondered if the heat would ever stop pressing down on us, making our nerves jump and our spirits sink.

  By the time we got back, my hair was curling damply, and my clothes were soaked with sweat. I grabbed the newspaper off the porch and went inside to get Rose a bowl of fresh water and to plug in the coffee maker. As I waited for the coffee to perk, I glanced at the front page. The story of Justine Blackwell’s murder was above the fold. The picture the editors had chosen was a formal one of Justine robed for court. With her fair hair swept back into a smooth chignon and her coolly intelligent gaze, she seemed an unlikely candidate for grisly murder.

  The story accompanying the photograph was circumspect and predictable: a dry but factual account of the murder, a review of Justine’s legal career, a brief history of her personal life. No surprises, but the final sentence of the piece was unexpected: “Longtime friend Hilda McCourt announced that funeral plans for Madame Justice Blackwell were pending.”

  When Hilda came in, I held the paper out to her. It was 6:45, but she was already dressed for the day in a trim mint sheath, with a mandarin collar and neck-to-knee mother-of-pearl frog fastenings.

  “You’re famous,” I said.

  She took the paper, glimpsed at the story, and frowned. “I was afraid my name would be mentioned.”

  “How did the paper get hold of you?”

  “Lucy Blackwell gave them my name and your number,” Hilda said. “Joanne, I apologize for yet another intrusion in your home. This is becoming a distressing pattern.”

  “Don’t give it a second thought,” I said. “But I don’t understand why Lucy would decide that you should be the one dealing with the press.”

  Hilda sighed. “Neither do I. But according to Lucy, I was the unanimous choice. Apparently, Tina Blackwell is having a difficult time accepting her mother’s death. Her sisters think she’s in no state for media scrutiny. They’ve concluded that since Justine asked me to protect her interests, I might as well act as an intermediary with the press.”

  I felt a rush of annoyance. Hilda was a wonder, but she was an eighty-three-year-old wonder, and she had just been handed an open-ended duty.

  As always, Hilda was quick to read my face. “You’re not convinced I’m the best choice.”

  I shook my head. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re the best choice for any job you choose to undertake. I’m just not certain you should have been asked to undertake this one.”

  “It’s been busy, I’ll grant you that. Just after you left to meet Alex last night, I had a call from the journalist who is responsible for this.” Hilda tapped the Blackwell story with a fingernail freshly painted in her favourite Love That Red. “Later, there were other members of the press. I’m afraid your house was photographed, Joanne.”

  I felt a stab of irritation, not at Hilda, but at the intrusion. “Don’t worry about it,” I said, but my voice lacked conviction.

  Hilda leaned towards me. “Maybe it would be easier all around if I went back to Saskatoon. With facsimile machines and my message manager, I could handle everything from there, and you’d be spared the prospect of living in a circus.”

  “Don’t be silly,” I said. “In a day or two, there’ll be another story for the media to chase. Besides I love having you here. You know that.”

  Taylor’s ginger cat, Benny, padded into the room. As usual, her tortoiseshell, Bruce, followed meekly. My daughter wasn’t far behind.

  “I like it when you’re here, too,” Taylor said. She bent, grabbed Benny, hefted him under one arm, and scooped up Bruce. Then she twirled so Hilda could check out the back of her head. “Are my braids okay?” she asked.

  Her braids were, in fact, okay. So was her face, which was clean, and her runners, which matched and were tied. What wasn’t okay was the T-shirt she was wearing, which had a picture of a bull on it that bordered on the obscene, and an eyebrow-raising caption: “Bottlescrew Bill’s Second Annual Testicle Festival – I Went Nuts.”

  I knelt down beside her. “T, you look great, but you’re going to have to find another shirt.”

  “But this one’s so funny. You laughed when Angus brought it home from the garage sale, and everybody at the cottage thought it was good.”

  “It was good for the cottage,” I said, “but not for school.”

  “Why?”

  “Because wearing that shirt to school would be like wearing tap shoes to church.”

  “Dumb,” she said.

  “Not dumb,” I said. “Just not your best choice. Now come on, let’s go upstairs and find a shirt that isn’t going to get you thrown out of Grade 2 before the end of the day.”

  Taylor went off to school wearing a white cotton blouse and the intricately beaded barrettes Alex had bought the day we went to a powwow out at Standing Buffalo. They were reserved for special occasions, but she and I agreed this occasion was special enough. After she left, Bruce looked so miserable I gathered him up and began scratching his head. Benny came over, rubbed against my ankle and howled. Benny and I had never been close, but it was a day to put aside old enmities. I bent down to pick him up too. “She’ll be back,” I said. Benny shot me a look filled with contempt and streaked off; then Bruce, who was sweet but easily led, leaped out of my arms and dashed after him.

  When I finally got around to showering and dressing, I was running late. I knew that if I didn’t make tracks, I wouldn’t be on time for the early-morning meeting the Political Science department always held at the Faculty Club on the first day of classes. I decided to skip breakfast, grabbed my briefcase, hollered at Angus to get moving, called goodbye to Hilda, and raced out the front door and straight into the wall of muscles that was Wayne J. Waters.

  At close range, he was even more intimidating than he had appeared at a distance. He was not a tall man; in fact, he wasn’t much taller than I was, five-foot-six. But he was tattooed to terrify. On his arms, jungle beasts coupled ferociously; savage mastiffs chewed on hearts that dripped blood; buxom women straddled unidentifiable animals and embraced crucifixes. It was the Garden of Earthly Delights envisioned by a lifer. I couldn’t stop staring, and Wayne J. Waters caught me.

  “Better than an art gallery, eh?” His voice was deep and surprisingly pleasant. “Are you Hilda McCourt? That reporter who came to interview me did the usual half-assed job those media types always do – told me where to find Hilda but d
idn’t give me a whiff about how to recognize her.”

  “I’m not Miss McCourt,” I said. “But she is staying with me. I’m Joanne Kilbourn. Can I help you?”

  “We’ll give you a try. My name’s Wayne J. Waters,” he said. “I wanted to talk to Hilda about the funeral she’s got pending.” He shook his head and laughed. “The way we word things, eh?” he said. “Anyway, you get the drift.” He stepped closer. His aftershave was familiar and distinctive. Old Spice. “So is Hilda around?”

  My first thought was to lie, to simply say that Hilda had left town. In his sleeveless muscle shirt, Wayne J.’s upper arms were grenades, and Hilda’s account of his nasty confrontation with Justine the night of the party leapt to my mind. But my friend was not a person who took kindly to having decisions made for her; besides, the rumble of Wayne J.’s laugh was reassuring, and there was something in his eyes which, against all logic, inspired trust. It was a tough call. Luckily, while I was vacillating, Hilda appeared and made the call for me.

  As soon as he saw her, Wayne J. introduced himself and held out his hand. Hilda’s response was icy. “Mr. Waters, when I’ve satisfied myself that you had nothing to do with Justine Blackwell’s death, I’ll take your hand. Until then …”

  Hilda’s blue eyes were boring into him, but Wayne J. Waters didn’t flinch. “Fair enough,” he said. “Do you want to talk out here, or can I come inside?”

  Hilda shot me a questioning look.

  “It’ll be easier to talk where it’s cool,” I said.

  As we walked back inside, Wayne J. glanced at the briefcase in my hand. “Decided to play hooky, Joanne?”

  I shook my head. “Decided not to leave until you do, Wayne J.”

  He put his head back and roared. “Who could blame you?”

  Wayne J. Waters might have had his troubles with the law, but somewhere along the line he had come up with some personal rules about how to treat a lady. He waited until Hilda and I were seated before he lowered himself into my grandmother’s Morris chair. Once seated, he got right to the point.