The Wandering Soul Murders

by Gail Bowen

  “Thank you,” I said, “and the word is psychic.”

  Peter introduced himself to Lorraine and Keith, then Taylor asked to hear the story of the cow. It was a good story, and Pete told it well. We were all still laughing when Christy came down from the house. She touched Pete on the shoulder, and as he turned I saw the light go out of his face.

  Christy saw it, too, and despite our history I felt a rush of sympathy for her. In the months they were together, I don’t think Christy ever really understood what she wanted from Peter. But that night at the lake she knew. She wanted him to be in love with her, and when she saw his face, she knew he wasn’t. It was a bad moment, and I was glad when Peter took her hands in his.

  “You look beautiful, Christy,” he said. “You really do. That dress is a knockout.”

  In fact, it was a simple dress, white, scoop-necked and short-sleeved. A dress for a summer party. And she was wearing shoes for a summer party, white Capezio flats of the softest leather. Taylor couldn’t take her eyes off them. Finally, she knelt on the grass and touched one. “Dancing shoes,” she said.

  Peter slid his arm around Christy’s shoulder. “Would you like to dance? I don’t know what they’ve got planned here tonight, but I can hear music somewhere.”

  “I’d love to dance,” she said, and there was such longing in her voice that I turned away, embarrassed.

  It was almost eight-thirty. The sun had moved low in the sky, and a swath of golden light swept from the west lawn to the lake. As Peter and Christy walked to the house, they followed that path of light. They looked like the happily-ever-after picture at the end of a fairy tale.

  On the ground beside me, Angus gave the portable radio one last adjustment with his knife. Suddenly the radio blared to life, and a man’s voice, disjointed and unnaturally loud, cut through the night. “… that was found by children in a stairwell two blocks from the murder site may be the weapon used in the stabbing death of seventeen-year-old Bernice Morin. Tonight, the provincial lab is analyzing blood found on the scalpel to see if it matches the blood type of the victim. As well, pathologists are attempting to correlate a number of small nicks in the cutting edge of the surgical scalpel with the wounds inflicted on …” The radio fell silent.

  As soon as she heard the words, Christy broke away from Peter and turned to face us. For a terrible moment, she stood frozen, staring at the radio, her eyes wide with horror. Then she turned and ran toward the house. Peter went after her. He got to the veranda just as she slammed the door. He hesitated, then he opened the door and disappeared into the darkness of the house.

  Lorraine Harris sat looking thoughtfully at the spot on the lawn where Christy had acted out her curious tableau. Then she shook herself out of her reverie and checked her watch.

  “Time to get the croquet started before we lose the light,” she said. “I’ll put Peter and his fiancé on the same team.”

  “His friend,” I said, “they’re not engaged.”

  “Well, his friend told me they were engaged,” Lorraine said. She wrote the names on her list. “Keith, you might as well bring your crew along now. It’s getting late. People can pick their own teams.”

  She stood, and we followed her as she strode up the hill and into the house. I started to go inside, too, then I stopped. “Remember the wrestling,” I said under my breath, “let them be. They’re not children. They’ll work it out.”

  A striped tent had been set up on the west lawn. It was filled with people and laughter. There was a well-stocked bar set up on one side; beside it, on a small table, an orchard of fruit floated in a crystal bowl of punch. In the centre of the tent, Lorraine Harris stood with her clipboard arranging teams, setting up games. There was a master list on a flip chart beside her. I checked the list.

  “We’re playing the Deuces,” I said to Keith.

  The Deuces turned out to be the rest of Greg’s groomsmen, four young men with the flawless good looks that come with a lifetime of solid nutrition and expensive orthodonture. The game wasn’t as one-sided as I’d feared. When it was over, we hadn’t distinguished ourselves, but the Deuces hadn’t blown our doors out, and as we walked to the tent we were happy. Inside, the noise level had risen, and the level in the liquor bottles had fallen.

  From the talk in the tent it was apparent that croquet had caught on. There were challenges and counter-challenges. On the flip chart someone had written the names of the winners of the first games and the matches for the second set.

  Keith checked the chart. “Losers’ tournament starts at seven-thirty tomorrow morning,” he said.

  I snapped open two bottles of Heineken and handed one to Keith. “I’ve already forgotten what you just said. Now, come on, let’s find the kids and get ready for the fireworks.”

  “Jo, I promised my dad I’d sit up on the veranda with him and watch. Do you mind?”

  “Of course not,” I said. “I’m going to see if Peter and Christy will come down and watch with us from the dock. I can’t figure out what’s going on there, but whatever it is, she and Peter might find it easier to be away from strangers.”

  Keith and I walked to the house together. Blaine Harris was already on the veranda waiting. The woman who had served our dinner was with him, tucking a blanket around his legs, but when Blaine saw his son, he shook the woman off.

  Keith called to his father, then he turned to me. “I’ll find you after the fireworks. I’ll bring that bottle of brandy, take the chill off our bones.”

  “I’ll be waiting,” I said.

  Keith bent and kissed my cheek, and from the veranda, the old man growled in disapproval.

  “His bark is worse than his bite,” Keith said mildly. Then he kissed me again.

  When I knocked on Peter’s door, he opened it so quickly I thought he must have been on his way out.

  “How are you doing?” I asked.

  “I’m okay,” he said.

  “And Christy?”

  “She’s out on the lake,” he said. “Canoeing. She said even when she was a kid, she did that when she was upset. It calmed her down.”

  “Where did she find a place to canoe in Estevan?” I said. “That’s pretty arid country down there.”

  Peter shrugged, “You know Christy. Anyway, if you want, you can ask her when she gets back. She says she has to talk to you. It’s urgent.”

  I stepped close to him. “What’s going on, Peter?”

  He gave me an awkward pat on the shoulder. “I don’t know, Mum. I thought I did, but now I’m not sure.”

  “Whatever it is, Peter, I’m on your side.”

  “I know,” he said softly. He looked very young and very troubled. In that moment, I knew that, this time, having me on his side wasn’t going to be enough.

  The kids and I walked to the dock alone. Just as we arrived, Mieka came and dragged her brother off to the beach, where Greg and his friends had lit a bonfire and set up the drinks.

  “You look like you could use some company that isn’t Angus,” she said. “Mum, you and the kids are welcome, too, but Greg swears the dock is the place to be because you get the best view of the lake. That’s where he always sat when he was little.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe Lorraine got everybody to set off their fireworks for our party instead of waiting till Monday night.”

  “She’s a very persuasive woman,” I said. “But I’m with her on this. I think your engagement’s more important than a dead Queen’s birthday.”

  Taylor grabbed my hand and gave it a yank. “Jo, come on. Don’t talk any more, let’s go.”

  We agreed to sit at the end of the dock. I’d brought blankets, and as Taylor curled up against me, I pulled a blanket around her and we looked at the lake. There were boats out there, lazily circling, waiting for the fireworks. I thought I could pick out Christy in her white party dress, but the canoe was so far away I couldn’t be sure. The fishy-bait smell of the lake brought memories of other lakes, other summers, and I let my mind float. I could feel T
aylor getting heavier in my arms.

  “You’re falling asleep, T.,” Angus said.

  She started. “No, I’m not.”

  “Just resting her eyes, Angus,” I said. “Remember, that’s what you used to say.”

  “Right, Mum,” he said. “Want me to tell you one of the stories I heard at scout camp last year, T.?”

  “Oh, yeah,” she said.

  “Not too scary,” I said. “I want to sleep tonight.”

  So Angus told all the old stories: the babysitter and the anonymous calls, the kids parked in lovers’ lane when the ghost of her first boyfriend comes and bangs on the roof of the car. And Taylor and I screamed and giggled and then somewhere around the lake a cottager put his tuba to his lips and played “God Save the Queen,” and the fireworks began.

  Greg had told us the Victoria Day ritual was as old as the cottages. The anthem, then one by one, the cottages set off their fireworks from the beach until the lake had been ringed with rockets.

  This year it was the Harris’s turn to begin. Greg had set up a rocket in the sand. As he knelt to light it, I could hear Mieka’s voice, “Be careful. Be careful. Get back.” And I thought she was her mother’s daughter after all.

  There was a small flash of light, and then the rocket went screaming up into the dark night; it hung there in space for a heartbeat, then it shattered into a shower of brilliant sparks, gold, green, pink.

  “Coloured stars,” Taylor said, and her eyes were wide with wonder. They kept getting wider. The Harrises were presenting an impressive array of fireworks. When the last stars from the last rocket fell to the ground, Greg came over to the dock with a packet of sparklers. As the moonlight hit his face, I looked for traces of Keith’s side of the family in him, but I couldn’t see any.

  Greg Harris had his mother’s colouring and her grey eyes but, curiously, not her good looks. The week before, he’d called the tux rental place from our house, and I’d heard him say, “I’m just an ordinary-looking guy, so nothing too Ralph Lauren.” He was right. He was ordinary looking. He was also kind and bright and funny, and crazy about Mieka. Every time I looked at him, I counted my blessings.

  As he handed the sparklers to Angus and went through the warnings, I counted my blessings again.

  “Best part coming up, Angus. You’re in charge. Watch your eyes, and don’t light Taylor on fire.” Greg grinned at me. “How’d I do, Jo? Cover all the bases.”

  I smiled at him. “You always do,” I said.

  We stood and watched as Angus, newly mature, lit the sparklers carefully and handed them to Taylor. She had never seen a sparkler, and her face was solemn as she wrote her name in letters that glowed and vanished in the dark summer night. And then there was a whooshing sound and the fireworks from the next cottage began, sputtering, climbing to the stars and exploding.

  “I’d better get back to the party,” Greg said. “From the sound of things they need a moral centre over there.” He gave me a quick hug. “Have fun, Jo. If you need anything, holler.”

  For an hour the rockets soared and coloured lights rained down on the lake. When I saw a man jump from the dock next to ours onto the beach, I said to the kids, “Last one. Greg says the last family always has to buy the most expensive stuff for the grand finale.”

  Taylor, already punchy from excitement and tiredness, leaned forward expectantly. But nothing happened. Then I heard a man’s voice, very faint.

  “Help,” he said. “Someone help me. There’s been an accident.”

  I looked toward the beach. Peter and Mieka were standing by the bonfire, their faces ruddy from the heat and reflected flames. They hadn’t heard a thing. People had started dancing, and the music must have drowned out the man’s voice.

  “Take your sister up to the house and get some help,” I said to Angus. Then I ran along the dock, jumped onto the rocky shore and moved toward the voice in the darkness.

  The man was still holding the rocket that was going to be the grand finale, but it didn’t look as if he’d be setting it off that night. He seemed to be on the verge of shock.

  “She’s drowned. I just got here from the city. I got tied up at the office.” He pointed to the pilings under the dock. “There’s a girl down there. I think she’s dead.”

  “Call an ambulance,” I said. “I’ll do CPR until someone comes. Go on,” I said.

  I went over to the pilings and pulled the woman’s body to the beach. Then I knelt on the rocks, leaned forward and tried to breathe life into the limp body of Christy Sinclair. I’d completed four cycles of compressions and ventilations when one of Greg’s friends came and relieved me. I’d talked to him earlier in the tent. He’d said he was an intern, and this was his first night away from the hospital in two weeks. We spelled each other off for what seemed like hours. Finally, he rocked back on his heels and said, “We lost her.”

  For the first time, I looked up. The guests from the engagement party were huddled in silent knots along the length of the dock. Greg and Peter were directly above me. Mieka was behind her brother, with her arms locked around his waist as if she was holding him back. But Peter didn’t look as if he was going anywhere. He seemed frozen, and his face as he looked at Christy showed disbelief. I moved toward Christy. One of her Capezios had fallen off. She had always been immaculate, and it didn’t seem right to let people see her with one foot bare and her white party dress sodden and weedy. I leaned forward and took off the other shoe and laid it beside her body. Then I wiped a flume of weeds from the skirt of her dress. She was so still. The animation that had always illuminated her face was gone. The stillness changed her, made her look as if, already, she had become the citizen of a far-off land. But her mouth hadn’t changed; it had curved into its familiar sardonic line. Christy Sinclair was greeting death with her sidelong pickerel smile.

  CHAPTER

  4

  The RCMP officer who was first on the scene after we discovered Christy Sinclair’s body was a round-faced constable named Kequahtooway. He wasn’t much older than the young men and women at the party, but he took charge easily. The first thing he did was call headquarters for reinforcements. It was a prudent move. There were sixty-three people at that party, and one of them was dead. The second thing Constable Kequahtooway did was try to bring some order to the chaos.

  Less than an hour earlier, Mieka’s and Greg’s friends, handsome in their summer pastels, had been careless and confident. Nothing would ever hurt them. Christy’s death had made them all vulnerable. Now, dazed and disoriented, they turned for reassurance to a young Indian man wearing the uniform of the RCMP and the traditional braids of his people. It was a scene that would have surprised everybody’s grandparents.

  Constable Kequahtooway blocked off the area where Christy had been found, then he set up a place for questioning in the tent. It had been half an hour since I’d sent Angus up to the house with Taylor; suddenly, I needed to know that they were safe. As soon as I turned down the hall on the main floor of the house, I ran into Keith Harris.

  “My God, what’s happening?” he said. “We were watching the fireworks. Everything seemed fine, and then the police car pulled up. As soon as he saw it, my father just went crazy.” As if on cue, a howling noise came from Blaine Harris’s room at the end of the hall. Keith winced. “He’s been like this ever since the police came. Jo, what’s going on?”

  “Peter’s friend Christy was in some sort of accident down on the beach. Nobody knows what happened, but, Keith … Christy didn’t make it. She’s dead.” It was the first time I had said the words, and I shuddered at their finality. “I still can’t believe it,” I said.

  Keith reached out and touched my cheek. “I’m so sorry,” he said. He looked toward his father’s room. “I’ve got to find a doctor for Blaine. He can’t go on like this. I’ll be right back. As soon as I get my dad taken care of, I’ll find you, and we can talk.”

  “I’d like that,” I said.

  Keith took me in his arms. It was the briefe
st of embraces, but that night it was good to be close to another human being, good to have an ally against the things that go bump in the night.

  The room Taylor and I were sharing was next door to Lorraine’s room, or what was normally Lorraine’s room. She’d put Blaine Harris in there because it was on the main floor. As I walked down the hall toward the room, I could hear the sounds he was making. He sounded furious. There was an edge of frustration in his cries, and I thought of the inchoate fury of my kids when they were very young and didn’t have the words to tell me what they wanted. Just as I opened the door to our room, the old man managed to form a word.

  “Killdeer,” he said, and as he pronounced the word, his voice was as loud and as penetrating as the bird’s call.

  Taylor was sleeping, and Angus was sitting in a chair by the window.

  “Scrunch over and make room for me,” I said.

  I squeezed in beside him and pulled him close. “How are you doing?” I asked.

  “Okay, I guess. Greg came by and told me that it was Christy down there. He said he’d stay with me, but I told him Mieka probably needed him more than I did.”

  He looked up at me. “I didn’t like Christy, Mum. She was always pulling stuff with Pete, and what she said in the car about getting married gave me the creeps.”

  “Me, too,” I said.

  “All the same …” His voice cracked, and he started again. “All the same, now that she’s dead, I feel like a real butt head.”

  For a moment we sat in silence, absorbed in our thoughts. Finally, I leaned toward my youngest son. “I fed like a butt head, too. Listen, Angus, I haven’t got many answers about this, but I do know it’s normal to feel rotten when someone dies and we haven’t treated her as well as we should have. You and I are going to feel bad about Christy for a long time. There’s no way around that. But there’s one thing we have to hang on to here. It wasn’t our fault that Christy died. It was an accident.

  “Now, come on, it’s late. You should try to get some sleep. I’ll walk you to your room, or would you rather stay here?”