Another Margaret (The Randy Craig Mysteries Book 6)

by Janice Macdonald

  But what was Guy’s involvement with Quinn, anyhow? He had told me she was his third reader, but that normally was not much of a connection in academe. A third reader read and made comments on finished work, not work in progress. The commitment to a student was almost peripheral, except for a week or two of intense connection during the last two weeks.

  I reached for my own notepad and scribbled a “where was Guy?” on it, and turned the last statement over to find the typed autopsy report, transcribed from a recording made by the Chief Medical Examiner for the Province of Alberta. The typing bounced up several levels of competency.

  There was a lot of medical and anatomical verbiage I didn’t quite understand on first reading, though checking for Latin roots helped me guess at a few terms. I skimmed through the first section, and slowed down at the summary.

  The shotgun had taken away the structure of her jaw and upper sinuses, making dental identification impossible. She also had quite a bit of alcohol in her system at the time of death, which was understandable. Dutch courage, possibly. There was something else in there about her liver, which was how I presumed they understood her alcohol levels. Her lungs were discussed, as well, but I wasn’t entirely clear on that. From what I could gather, it seemed that Hilary Quinn was a pack-a-day smoker, which surprised me. I hadn’t pegged her as a smoker, and that was back in the day before “no smoking” signs in the buildings. Although we hadn’t been allowed to smoke in our offices, there had been a smoking room on the main level of the Humanities Building and ashtrays in every bar. I hadn’t really been aware of her habits, though. After all, it wasn’t as if she and I were going for drinks at the Faculty Club together all the time.

  Steve coughed and I looked up. He had been watching me, and smiled as I focused on him.

  “Interesting reading?”

  “Muy interesante, yes. How did you manage to get hold of this?”

  “I requested it. It takes a while, but our archives can usually get their hands on anything that has passed through the squad. The question is, does it suggest anything to you?”

  “Well, the first thing that surprises me is that Guy isn’t mentioned in here anywhere. He was the one who told me about it, and I thought he had found her. I must have got that wrong.”

  “Why did you think he found her?”

  “He had a key to her office, or at least he did while she was away. Maybe he’d had to give that back when she got back into town.” I looked back down at the papers. “Does it say here who did find her?”

  Steve pulled the file back across the table, and straightened it out, turning back to the initial report, which was pinned to the left of the file.

  “A man named Anton Moritius called the police at 6:37 a.m., having gone into Dr. Quinn’s office to clear the trash can. He and a Professor McConnaghie were waiting for the police outside her office. Apparently, McConnaghie had the office next door, said he had heard nothing, but had not been near his office for a week prior due to the flu.”

  “I remember Professor McConnaghie. He used to wear academic robes to lecture, and had model airplanes all over his office. Right, he would have been right next to Quinn. So, Guy must have just glossed all of that and called me after he’d found out about things. I wonder if he even saw her in her office.”

  “Do you remember what he said to you? Did he describe the crime scene in any detail?”

  “Crime scene?”

  Steve shrugged. “Suicide was on the books as a crime till 1972, and old habits die hard. The officers there would have been treating it as a suspicious death, until suicide was confirmed.”

  “Confirmed how?”

  “Probably with their finding this,” he said, handing me a photocopy of a typed note. A square at the top showed the photocopy image of a paperclip, and a scribble saying Found in typewriter on desk. The note was a straightforward declaration that she was taking her life, that she was passing her role of literary executor over to the department chair, with the executor’s stipend to go toward the writer-in-residence program, and the rest of her will could be found in her safety deposit box.

  “That is the coldest suicide note I’ve ever seen,” Steve said.

  “Sounds just like everything of hers I’ve ever read, though. I can’t imagine her not dotting her I’s and crossing her T’s right down to the last second.”

  “What about Guy, do you recall what else he said to you?”

  “You know, I can’t remember what he said, and everything I have learned about him recently, with his stealing my work and all, has really coloured my thinking about him, anyhow.”

  “Jot down anything that comes to you. It’s a red flag to me that he’s not mentioned here, for sure.”

  “You bet. Maybe we shouldn’t tell him what it is you do when I introduce you two at Denise’s reunion party, and you can pump him for information under the guise of polite conversation.”

  Steve laughed. “First of all, entrapment is still on the books as a crime, and second of all, there is no way that a police interrogation would ever pass for polite conversation.”

  “But what if he cuts and runs when he finds out you’re a policeman?”

  “Then we’ll be pretty sure he is guilty of something.”

  “But what, you mean?” I nodded. “Yes, I see. He could think he was going to be arrested for plagiarism. It wouldn’t have to be murder.”

  “Murder? You think Guy Larmour killed Hilary Quinn?”

  “I am not sure what I am thinking, anymore.”

  “Why did you decide to cover up the hoax, Randy? I mean, it would have been a hell of a thesis.”

  I shook my head. “I just loved those books. I was so worried that no one would read them anymore, if they turned out to be just evidence of a hoax, and no one would take them seriously as important entries to the Canadian canon. I figured, since Guy didn’t know all of the things Quinn had told me, if I never spoke of it, we could go along, revering Ahlers as a writer cut down in her prime.”

  I wiped away a rogue tear. “It never occurred to me that Guy would try to pass off another manuscript as a new Ahlers.”

  “Are you sure it is Guy doing it?”

  “Who else could it be?”

  “Honestly, I have no idea, but we aren’t getting any closer to knowing now. Let’s go for dinner and shake this off for a bit.”

  The minute he said “dinner” my stomach gurgled so loudly that he heard it as well as I did. We both laughed and I went to get my purse. Steve put the file back in order and slid it into his briefcase. As we got into his car, he locked his briefcase into a box in the trunk.

  “Can’t be too careful. Julia in records would have my guts for garters if I lost a file.”

  The records person was a woman. I wondered idly if Guy had managed to get into the police station and talk his way past her, to eliminate himself from the file. That seemed too preposterous to consider, but Guy was so far from whom I’d thought him to be that I was ascribing super-villain powers to him in my mind.

  We drove out to Tasty Noodle for some dim sum à la carte. Buoyed by the waitress’s comment of “you sure can eat a lot,” we scarfed down sticky rice, har gow, shu mai, curried squid, shrimp cakes, cocktail buns, and loads of hot tea. Part of my theorizing dimmed as I ate, making me suspicious that conspiracy theorists might all just need a bit more nourishment.

  “So, what do you think will come of this reunion?” Steve asked, spearing another pork dumpling.

  “Probably most of us will expand our Christmas card list and Facebook friends for a while, but aside from that, I am not sure. I’m bound to spend a year in therapy working out my sense of failure when I get a load of all the amazing things other people have done with their lives.”

  “You in therapy? I don’t see it.”

  “No? Watch me. I wallow in self-pity whenever I think about Denise’s pension plan. Just multiply that by one hundred.” He laughed, which he was supposed to do. I wasn’t necessarily joking, though. I had
grave reservations about what this whole reunion exercise was going to do to my psyche.

  “I would say you had a pretty nice life carved out for yourself, Randy Craig.”

  “I’m not complaining. Most of the time. But the whole lack of security does grind me down from time to time.”

  “You do know there is a way out of that, right?”

  “What do you mean? Are you going to want that last cocktail bun?”

  “Go for it.” Steve cleared his throat. “I’ve been meaning to say this for a while, and I have thought it for a lot longer than that.” I bit into the lovely coconut warmth of the sweet bun as he reached for what I presumed was a handkerchief in his pocket.

  He pushed a small blue velvet box at me and reached for the hand not full of cocktail bun.

  “Miranda Craig. I love you. Would you marry me?”

  36.

  So there I was, proposed to in the Tasty Noodle on the Calgary Trail, at 7 p.m. with the autumn sun streaming through the lattices of the blinds and the tanks of fish and crabs bubbling behind us. It could have been worse in terms of romantic surroundings, I suppose. I knew a couple who proposed to each other in an A&W.

  The ring, which Steve told me had belonged to his grandmother, was a series of small diamonds circling a larger stone. It was nestled in the small box in a sea of pale blue satin, though the material was a bit worn and frayed where the tight hinge sat at the back of the box.

  Some jewellery just sits there looking either bland or ostentatious. This ornate little ring fairly glowed with love. I stretched out my left hand, which maybe women are all just programmed genetically to do, and Steve slid the ring onto my finger. It fit beautifully. And felt like it belonged.

  It also felt tremendously scary.

  I looked up at Steve, who was beaming like he’d just won a marathon, and laughed. He looked a bit startled, and then he began to laugh, too. One of the older waitresses ran over to us to ask if everything was all right. Steve smiled at her, bringing her into our complicit circle and said, “Everything is great. We’re engaged!” He waved my hand at her, and she began to clap.

  There was a flurry of activity, and we were soon having our photo taken with the owner and several of the waitresses, who all seemed to think this was an event worth sharing widely. Finally, Steve threw enough money down on the table so we didn’t have to wait for change, and we fled the cheering and waving.

  “We’ll be up on the wall next to his photo of shaking hands with Ralph Klein, just you wait.” Steve opened my door magnanimously and ushered me into the car. I sat and admired my hand, which somehow now looked entirely different, lying on my lap. The diamonds were cut for brilliance, because the sun hit myriad angles and refracted all over the glove compartment in front of me. For an old ring, it gave off a great deal of opulence.

  “What’s the story on your grandmother?” I asked Steve as he settled in behind the steering wheel. “I’ve not heard you talk about her much.”

  “There’s not that much to tell that doesn’t sound like a lot of grandmothers here. She was the daughter of a wealthy family out east, but they sent her west after the Great War to take care of her brother, because her fiancé had died in the war. She met my grandfather out here, and he asked her if she wanted a diamond ring or a fancy new stove, because he couldn’t afford both right away. She told him she’d had enough of diamonds, and would take the stove. I never saw her wear this ring, but it was in an envelope marked for me, the eldest grandchild. It must have been given to her from the boy who died in World War I.”

  That was both the most romantic story I had ever heard, and a great relief. The ring hadn’t been pulled off a dying old woman to hand to me. It had been waiting in a dresser drawer all these years, to commemorate another great—and hopefully this time, not doomed—love.

  “It’s beautiful and I love it, and you.” I smiled over at Steve, who leaned over to kiss me.

  “I love you, too, Randy. And don’t worry, I’m not going to rush you into anything at all,” he smiled. I looked at him in wonder. The man really could read my mind. “We can just keep going on the way we are for now, forever if you want. I needed to make a grand gesture at this point, I suppose. Maybe it’s all these people from your past returning or maybe it’s my birthday looming, but I wanted to declare to the world that we’re a partnership.”

  “We certainly are,” I nodded. “And thank you for doing this before the reunion, too. It will take some of the heat off of not doing much else since any of them saw me last.” Steve roared with laughter.

  “The old reunion one-upper,” he pulled out his Maxwell Smart impression as he turned out of the parking lot onto Gateway Boulevard, heading back to the heart of the city.

  “You bet. Engagement to your true love trumps tenure, any day!”

  “Well, I was thinking, if you were to write up and publish your knowledge of the Margaret Ahlers/Hilary Quinn conspiracy, and in doing so find a way to defang Guy the Plagiarist, you might just manage to get yourself a regular gig teaching in a university, no?”

  “Oh gosh, I think I might get excommunicated by the Alumni Association! Academe doesn’t mind controversy, as long as it isn’t within its hallowed walls. Besides, I am starting to think there really are no jobs in academe left for the likes of me. There are too many PhDs who need to land somewhere, and more lining up at the gate. I got three courses this year across the river, but I’m not sure I’ll even be on the lists for Grant MacEwan next year, when they can take their pick from specialists who can pinch-hit senior-level courses, too.” I smiled. “Of course, writing up the conspiracy would mean I went out with a bang. And I might even get invited to speak at things like LitFest.”

  “There you go. So go for it! It could even make the novels more popular, you know.”

  “Just as long as they don’t become merely curiosity pieces. Like the J.K. Rowling mystery she first published under the assumed name of Robert Galbraith, you know? The Cuckoo’s Calling is a damned fine mystery novel, and I’ve read the others in the series since, but no one reviewed it or commented on its merits. The only story was that it was her branching out incognito, and how many more books were sold once her identity was leaked. The poor book got lost in the shuffle.”

  “As I recall, that book then sold millions,” Steve commented.

  “Well, yes, I see your point. Some of those people must have liked it. But it has lost its own stance, somehow.”

  “Okay, so I sort of get your point, but it hasn’t done any good to the memory of Margaret Ahlers if someone else is profiting off of writing another one. Have you read it? Is it any good?”

  “It’s different from the earlier books, for sure,” I said.

  “You’re sounding uncertain. Is it a long-lost manuscript that Guy or the executors stumbled across? Or is it someone else pretending?”

  “It is a very different format from the other novels. It is seven linked short stories. But it has a similar ambiance in terms of location and sensibility. I am not sure, to tell you the truth.”

  “Can you send it through a concordance program to check it for usage?”

  “That’s a possibility, but I think they are awfully expensive. I wonder if my web specialists the Black Widows could run that sort of thing for me. They are so on top of tech stuff, they must have some sort of scanning capabilities.”

  We were by my apartment, and with his usual luck, Steve pulled up into a vacant space right in front of the doors.

  “Is it too unromantic to say I can’t come in tonight?”

  I laughed. “We should be past the point of worrying about things seeming romantic or not, shouldn’t we?” His grandmother’s ring danced in the streetlight’s beam, as I reached up to pat his face. “Don’t worry about me. As long as I can parade you around the reunion, I don’t mind sharing you with Edmonton’s Finest for now.”

  He leaned in and we kissed. It was the sort of kiss I remembered from when we were first seeing each other, long, searching
and dizzying. I pulled back, finally, and drew a breath.

  “Maybe there is something to be said for grand gestures, after all!”

  Steve laughed, a bit shakily. He had felt it, too. “Maybe, eh?” I got out and he drove off, leaving me to admire my hand opening the door, checking the mailbox and turning my keys in the locks on my apartment door. It glinted at me, as if to say, “Take care of my boy’s heart.”

  “I will,” I whispered. “I will do my best.”

  37.

  Denise was the first person I told about the engagement, and she squealed with all the delight of a young co-ed in the early minutes of a horror movie. It was gratifying to have a friend to reflect and amplify the feelings one should have at turning point moments in one’s life.

  I was still a little bemused and shell-shocked by the whole concept. I wasn’t positive about my motives in accepting the proposal, though I trusted Steve’s in proposing. We loved each other and he wanted us to seal that pact officially. I hoped I wasn’t jumping into security for the sake of security. He deserved so much more than that. I hope we didn’t move too fast.

  The best part of the whole situation from my point of view was that I could stop having to call him my “boyfriend.” That had to be the stupidest word for anyone over the age of thirty, and it was what we had been stuck with for more than a decade. Come to think of it, moving fast had not been one of our problems to date.

  My work at MacEwan and at home had taken on a strange rhythm of feeling totally normal for as long as it took for my left hand to move somewhere within my peripheral vision, and then segueing into an odd sensation of getting distracted, slightly hot behind the ears, and forgetting for a moment what I was saying. I am not positive my students even noticed, but Valerie spotted the ring a day after it had taken possession of my hand, and was suitably congratulatory.

  “Oh Randy, that’s wonderful! Have you set a date yet?” We were standing in the third-floor hallway toward the English main office, where students didn’t go until papers were due.