by Gail Bowen
“Did she do it?”
“Of course. That night when I was at home, my phone rang. Gordon Barnes was chairman of the drama department in those days. He was a dear man, but he did not suffer fools gladly, even rich ones. When I picked up the phone, he was on the other end. ‘The mark is not altered,’ he boomed, and that was the end of it.”
I laughed. “Poor Stu.”
“Indeed,” said Hilda. She leaned a little closer. “And Joanne, do you know the title of the play that Stuart’s mother thought he had done such a bang-up job on?”
I shook my head.
“Oedipus Rex.”
We both laughed, and then Hilda grew serious. “It is funny in the telling. But when you think of what Stuart became, the story’s not so funny. Graham Greene has a splendid line in The Power and The Glory: ‘There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.’ I wonder if that was Stuart’s moment?” Her eyes looked sad. “I don’t think Stuart ever had a chance to develop any moral muscle. Caroline was always there, running interference, and her son became a man who has no ability to deal with adversity because he never had to. You saw him when Sally left him. He just about destroyed himself with liquor. Luckily for everyone, Sally’s mother came along and Stuart had someone to lean on again. She’s much the same type as Caroline, you know.”
I thought I’d misheard her. “Nina and Stu’s mother? Oh, no, Hilda, you’re wrong there. Nina has her faults, but …” Pain stabbed the place behind my stitches. It was the first time I’d ever articulated a criticism of Nina.
Hilda looked at me curiously. “I’m always willing to be convinced, but not at this moment. Right now, I want to talk about you. How long are they keeping you in here?”
“The doctors say a few more days. They also say I can teach on Monday. The way my face looks, I may wear a mask. The plastic surgeon says no makeup till all the cuts are healed. I hope I look a little less horrifying by the night of Sally’s party.”
“You’ll be fine. You’re in good health. You’ll heal quickly.” She stood up. “Now, if there’s anything at all I can do to help, let me know. And when you’re up to snuff again, you can help me. I need a fresh eye to help me shop. I’m having a terrible time finding a dress for Sally’s gala. Everything seems too trendy. I like a sense of fun in daytime clothes, but when I get an evening gown, I want to get one I can wear for years.”
She zipped up her ski jacket and disappeared down the hall – more than eighty years old and determined to find a party dress she could really get some mileage out of.
Two days later I was discharged from the hospital. The cuts in my forehead would be a long time healing, but the bruises under my eyes were fading, and the cuts on my cheek were distinctly better. Most importantly, I felt fine. Mieka had continued with what she called her “test runs”; three times a day something freshly prepared and tasty would arrive in the distinctive green Judgements wicker basket. There was a half bottle of wine with dinner. It was food to get well for, and I did.
On the day I was discharged, a package came to me by courier from Vancouver. Inside was a bubble-gum pink sweatshirt, with I LOVE JO written across the chest in sequins and bugle beads. In Sally’s surprisingly precise hand there was a note: “Now you’ve got it in writing. Get well soon. Love and XXX, S.”
I wore the sweatshirt home from the hospital. As Peter pulled into the driveway, I could see the dogs waiting at the front window. Inside, Angus had a bed made up for me on the couch in the den, and the morning paper was open at the TV page. As I pulled the afghan around my chin and settled in to watch the local news, the dogs came in and nuzzled curiously at the hospital smells on my clothes. When they satisfied themselves that the old familiar smell of me was there after all, they relaxed, curled up on the floor beside me and fell asleep. I was home.
CHAPTER
10
In the next two weeks it seemed that life had gone back to normal. I taught my classes on Monday, and when my students did not run screaming from the classroom at the sight of my face, I was encouraged enough to try again on Tuesday. That worked, too, and by Wednesday, it seemed as if I’d never been away. The only lingering effects from the accident seemed to be that I tired quickly and that I was afraid to drive a car.
That first week, Peter drove me out to the auto graveyard in the North Industrial Park, and I saw the Volvo. The driver’s side was mashed in, and the motor had been badly damaged. It was a write-off. As I stood looking at the car, once as familiar to me as my own face, now alien and abandoned in the snow, the man in charge of the yard came over.
“Any other car and you would have bought it, lady. I hope you know that.”
I looked at him. Then I looked at my valiant Volvo. For the first time since the accident, I burst into tears.
Peter made me stop at the car dealerships on the way home and pick up some brochures.
“Therapy,” he said. “You have to get back on that horse. If you’re nervous about driving Sally’s Porsche, get a car of your own.”
But I didn’t. That January I looked at a lot of brochures and went to a lot of showrooms. Somehow nothing I saw seemed quite right. By the end of the month I still hadn’t driven a car.
Sally was coming back the afternoon of February first. That morning, Peter looked at me sternly when I came down to breakfast.
“The least you could do is take Sally’s car around the block to make sure it turns over,” he said. “It’s been pretty cold. I don’t think a dead battery would be much of a homecoming present for her after she was decent enough to leave you her car.”
“Browbeating me into doing the brave thing, are you?” I asked.
He grinned. “Something like that. Just drive it around the corner, Mum. They came and cleaned our street this morning so it’s clear sailing. You know, it really is time you got behind the wheel again.”
“Okay,” I said, “you win. After I take the dogs for their run, I’ll drive Sally’s car around the block.”
“Promise?” he asked.
“Promise,” I said.
When the dogs and I came up the driveway after their walk, I patted the Porsche on the hood. “Your turn now. I’ll run in and get the keys and we’ll go for a spin. Nothing to it.”
But as I slid into the driver’s seat, I was overwhelmed with anxiety. I felt frightened and clumsy. I dropped the keys on the floor, and it seemed like an omen.
When I bent down to pick them up, I saw the tuque. It was under the passenger seat, and it was dirty and wet. It looked like any of a dozen wool hats that my kids or their friends had abandoned on the car floor over the years. Except this hat didn’t belong to my kids. I pulled it out and looked at it carefully. A green tuque with the logo of the Saskatoon Hilltops. Like the hat Councillor Hank Mewhort had been wearing the night of Sally’s opening. But not like the one he’d been wearing at Clea Poole’s funeral. That day he’d been wearing a tweed cap with ear flaps.
The hat in my hand was the tuque Sally had ripped off the head of the man who was lingering around the Porsche the night Clea was killed. I was certain of it. She must have thrown it on the seat when she drove to the gallery. In the inevitable progress of tuques in cars, it had worked its way onto the floor and out of sight.
“Out of sight, out of mind, until today,” I said as I went into the kitchen and picked up the city phone book. “But, Councillor Mewhort, today your chickens have come home to roost.”
The woman who answered the telephone at his office in City Hall told me I was in luck. Friday morning was the time the councillor reserved for drop-in visits from his constituents.
Half an hour later, I dropped in.
His office surprised me. I thought a man whose daily business was hand-to-hand combat with sin in Saskatoon would work in a room furnished with flaming swords and thunderbolts. Hank Mewhort’s office was ordinary: a nice old oak desk, clear except for a telephone and a desk set; an empty bookshelf; a wall filled with the plaques from o
rganizations I didn’t want to know the names of, and a large and ugly ficus plant.
Councillor Mewhort was sitting at his desk. Stripped of his troops and his placards, he looked ordinary, too. He was wearing a shirt and tie and a powder-blue cardigan that had Christmas present written all over it. His pale hair was carefully combed, and his face was pink and innocent. When he saw me he rose and held out his hand.
I didn’t take it, and I didn’t sit down when he motioned to the chair across from him.
“I’m a friend of Sally Love’s,” I said, “and I have something for you.” I dropped the tuque on his empty desk, and for a moment it lay there between us, alive with possibilities.
I think I expected a scene – a denial or threats and accusations – but for the longest time there was silence as Hank Mewhort looked down at the hat.
Finally, he spoke. “You won’t believe this, but I’m glad you’re here. Ever since Miss Love pulled those creatures off me after the funeral, I’ve known I had to come forward. They had the time of Reg’s death in the paper that same day, you know, 6:21. I cut the story out of the newspaper.” He opened his desk drawer, pulled out the story and handed it to me. Proof of good intentions.
“Sally Love was in her house at 6:21,” he said. “I could see her through the front window. She was painting. She didn’t come out until later. By the time our disagreement was over, it was 6:35. I looked at the clock in my car.” He looked at me steadily. His pale eyes were as guileless as a choirboy’s. “I believe in doing the right thing,” he said.
“Now’s your chance,” I said.
He walked over and took his Siwash sweater off the coat rack.
“Right,” he said. “Now’s my chance.”
I walked to the police station on Fourth Avenue with him, and I waited with him in the reception area until Mary Ross McCourt was free to see him.
“Councillor Mewhort has information that proves Sally couldn’t have killed Reg Helms,” I said when Inspector McCourt came out to get us.
She raised her carefully plucked eyebrows and looked hard at him.
“True?” she asked.
“True,” he said.
I watched as he followed her down the corridor and into her office. Then I sighed with relief. The wheels of justice were starting to grind.
Five hours later I was sitting at the kitchen table marking thirty-five papers on the failure of Meech Lake when the dogs started going crazy. I went to the front door and there was Sally with her arms filled with pussy willows.
I helped Sally off with her coat and took the pussy willows from her. Then we walked into the kitchen together.
“I have news,” I said.
Sally smiled. “It must be pretty hot. You look like the cat that swallowed the canary.”
“I feel like the cat that swallowed the canary. Sal, I found the man you had the fight with the night of the murder. And he’s already been downtown and told Mary Ross McCourt his story. You’re off the hook.”
Sally collapsed onto the kitchen chair. “Oh, my God, Jo, this is so wonderful. I can’t believe it. Is it really over? Is it really over at last?” She jumped up and hugged me. “Who was it?” she said. “Who did it turn out to be?”
“Elvis,” I said. “Back from the dead to give you an alibi. Sit down and I’ll tell you the whole story.”
When I finished, Sally looked serious. “Who would have believed it? Councillor Hank Mewhort, the leader of the pack. Anyway, I’m in the clear. How can I ever thank you, Jo?”
“Be happy,” I said. “Now let’s have some coffee and talk about ordinary things. You can fill me in on Vancouver.”
I made the coffee and we sat at the kitchen table in the middle of my Meech Lake papers and looked at pictures Sally had taken of her new house in Vancouver. It was beautiful: very West Coast, surrounded by trees, lots of glass and exposed beams and dazzling views. She was filled with homeowner’s pride, and as she talked she drew quick floor plans of the rooms on the cover page of one of my essays.
“Here,” she said. “Here’s where the door is, but we’ll knock that out so Taylor can have a really spectacular bedroom. And that deck can be extended clear around the house, so you can sit there any hour of the day and feel the sun on your face. It’ll be like living in a clearing in the forest.” Then she stopped drawing and looked at me. “Jo, I am so happy,” she said simply. Then she bent over her sketches again.
The night of February fourteenth was a Valentine itself: mild, still, moonlit, a night for lovers. It was a little after six when the taxi dropped me in front of the gallery. Everything was quiet. The invited guests wouldn’t be arriving for an hour and a half. I was there early to help.
The first voice I heard that morning had been Hilda McCourt’s. “Joanne, I’m taking advantage of our friendship to ask a favour. That fine young woman who’s been looking after this appreciation with me just telephoned to say she has the flu. Everything is in the hands of the professionals, but as you know even professionals need a nudge now and then. Do you know Nicolas Poussin’s work? Seventeenth-century French?”
“No,” I said, “I don’t think I do.”
“Well, you should,” she said. “He was the greatest of all classical painters. His motto was ‘Je n’ai rien négligé’ – I overlook nothing. When it comes to this celebration of Sally Love’s generosity, I think we should emulate Poussin. Come early tonight, would you, and help me keep everybody up to the mark? After all she’s done for the artistic community of this city, Sally Love deserves a perfect evening.”
When I saw the gallery that night, I thought of Nicolas Poussin. “Je n’ai rien négligé” – every detail was perfect. The bright banners bearing Sally’s name were still hanging along the portico, but they were interspersed now with vertical chains of hearts, very stylized, very contemporary. In the reception area a string quartet played Ravel, and porcelain vases filled with roses perfumed the air with the sweet promise of June.
Hilda McCourt came out of the tea lounge to meet me. She had found her classic evening gown: a Chinese dress of red silk shot through with gold, form-fitting and secured from throat to ankle by elaborate frogs. She was wearing a pair of milky jade earrings that fell almost to her shoulders. When I complimented her on them, she smiled.
“They came from a friend,” she said. “He was a missionary in China, but a great lover of beauty.”
“I can see that,” I said.
I was surprised to see her blush at the compliment, but she was quick to seize the initiative again.
“You look lovely, Joanne. Just as I predicted, your face has healed nicely, and that dress was a wise choice. Lipstick red is wonderfully vibrant on ash blondes. There’s a lesson there. After forty, women should stick with true colours; pastels wash us out. Now come along. Let’s get a peek at those studies that are going up for auction.”
The drawings were on display in the Mendel salon. They were mounted simply, and to me at least they were a surprise. In their final form, painted in the fresco, the sexual parts had seemed spontaneous, fleshly imaginings. But here I could see the work behind the flash and the wit. The preliminary sketches showed process. Each of the genitalia was drawn in pen on a kind of grid of faint pencil lines. At the top of each page in a neat pencilled hand were notes on scale and proportion. I looked at the complex relationships of angles and circles and marvelled at the effort it must have taken for Sally to teach herself the principles of geometry she needed for her work. The studies were designated by number only.
Hilda and I went through quickly. Every so often, we’d stop at a particularly interesting one and speculate about the identity of the owner.
“Tempted to bid on any?” I asked.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Either number twenty-three or fifty-seven would add an interesting dimension to my bedroom. Now come along, we’d better check on the caterers. They’ve done wonders in Gallery III. If the food is as good as the ambience, we’re home free.”
The cat
erers had set up round tables throughout the room. Each table was covered by a red and white quilt of the wedding-ring pattern; in the centre a scented red candle in a hurricane lamp cast a soft glow.
I bent to look at the stitching on a quilt.
“Hand done,” I said to Hilda McCourt. “It’s exquisite. The whole room is exquisite.”
“Here comes the man you should praise,” she said as a tall, heavy-set blond man moved carefully among the tables toward us. He looked like a man who cared about the pleasures of the senses. The chain from his gold pocket watch gleamed dully against a cashmere vest the colour of claret, and his moonlike face arranged itself easily into a smile.
“Stephen Orchard,” he said, “from Earthly Delights Catering.”
“I’ve always loved your company’s name,” I said, “and the food, of course. It’s always good news for me when I see one of your trucks parked outside a party I’ve been invited to.”
He beamed. “Would you like a look at what you’ll be eating tonight?” He picked up a stiff menu card from the table nearest us and handed it to me.
Barbecued British Columbia salmon
Consommé Madrilene
Rolled veal stuffed with watercress
Wild rice La Ronge
Fiddleheads
Tomatoes à la Provençal
Sorbet Saskatoon
Coeurs à la crème fraîche
“Perfect,” I said, handing the menu back to him. Then a thought struck me. “Someone did tell you about Sally’s allergies, didn’t they?”
He adjusted the fold of a linen napkin. “Her husband was most conscientious. And really it’s no big deal. I don’t use nuts for parties this size; you’d be amazed how common that allergy is. And everything else Mr. Lachlan mentioned is simply a basis of sound cooking: organically grown ingredients, no additives, no preservatives.” He smiled. “We’re all growing wiser about what we put in our bodies.”
