Burying Ariel

by Gail Bowen

  He scowled at me. “All right,” he said. “I’m ready to learn. As the Buddhists say, ‘Leap and the net will appear.’ ”

  “And I’m the net,” I said.

  He nodded. “I’ll bring you coffee. You can find the propaganda while I’m gone.”

  I moved to my own chair, turned on the computer, and waited.

  When Kevin came back, he handed me the orange and brown striped mug and examined the screen. “The information isn’t there.”

  “Kevin, if I bring up the Web site for you, there’s no leap.”

  He dragged the student chair over so it was beside mine. “Okay,” he said. “Teach me.”

  For someone who had spent years railing against computers as the handiwork of the devil, Kevin Coyle proved to be a surprisingly quick student.

  He made a few false starts, but within minutes the Web site appeared. It was striking: a black screen with a yellow dot glowing in the lower left corner. As I watched, the dot etched a graceful sunflower. It was an image I had introduced myself, yet I felt a stab of anger at this fresh proof that my private memory had suddenly become public property. The sunflower vanished, and Ariel’s name flowed across the screen, followed by the dates of her birth and death. There were some photos and, in the guest book, a dozen e-mailed memories. All grew out of the nine brief months Ariel had taught at the university. Solange had not cast her net wide, and even a quick glance revealed that the Web site had the sweetly elegaic flavour of a high-school yearbook.

  I turned to Kevin. “Perfectly innocuous,” I said. “Looks like you lost your status as the last of the Luddites for nothing.”

  Kevin stabbed at the computer screen with his forefinger. “What are those?”

  “Just links to other sites that may be of interest to people who cared about Ariel.”

  “How’s that one connected to her?” he asked, pointing to a site with the address “redridinghood.”

  “Easy enough to find out,” I said. I clicked on the word “redridinghood,” and swivelled my chair to face him. “Even a child can do it,” I said.

  He was staring at the monitor, transfixed. “That’s not for children,” he said. I followed his gaze. The picture filling the screen was of a woman: her gender was the only fact a viewer could know for sure. Violence had obliterated her other distinguishing characteristics. The hair surrounding her face was a rusty mat of dried blood. It was impossible to tell if, in life, she had been a blonde, brunette, or redhead. Whether she had been pretty or plain was anyone’s guess. Someone had pounded her face into the livid pulpiness of a rotted eggplant. Her naked body had been hacked at, her breasts severed, her genitals slashed.

  I scrolled down the page to see if there was explanatory text.

  The quotation that appeared on my screen was evocative:

  “… the better to eat you with my dear”

  This site is devoted to all the Red Riding Hoods – to all the women who have been devoured by the wolves that walk among us.

  I shuddered.

  “Someone just walked over your grave,” Kevin said absently. He took the mouse and clicked on “NEXT.” There was page after page, each with a photo of the murdered woman; each had been taken from a different angle, but they were all equally blood-drenched and appalling. The worst picture was the last because, as the caption indicated, it had been taken just hours before the woman died. The photo recorded what must have been a pleasant moment for her: a good-looking young man wearing an Armani suit, a Santa Claus hat, and the punchy look of the slightly drunk was raising a glass to her.

  Red Riding Hood #1 wasn’t looking at him; she was gazing at the camera with a steadiness that suggested a woman who wasn’t easily deflected by party tricks. Her short black hair had been brushed back sleekly from her heart-shaped face, and a silvery T-shirt glittered through the opening of her smart black jacket. The outfit was festive yet professional, exactly the kind of outfit Marie Claire or Cosmopolitan or Flare would suggest a successful woman should wear to a holiday gathering at the end of a business day. By anyone’s criteria, Red Riding Hood #1 was a success. A newly minted MBA from Queen’s University, her curriculum vitae was so impressive that, the caption said, she had created the job she wanted with a venerable Bay Street brokerage firm and had landed it after one interview. The photograph had been taken at her company’s traditional supper gathering on the last working day before the Christmas break. After the firm’s partners sang “God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen,” the carol which, for seven decades, had been the signal that the company Christmas party was at an end, the good-looking young man in the Santa cap followed Red Riding Hood #1 home to her shining new condo in the Annex, and raped and murdered her.

  Another click took us to Red Riding Hood #2, a real-estate agent with a client who had said he was keen on finding a property that could be a real hideaway. Red Riding Hood #3 was a shift worker in a plant that made pasta; Red Riding Hood #4 was a kindergarten teacher; Red Riding Hood #5 had a husband who couldn’t live without her. In all, there were a dozen grim little folk tales, each with its own stomach-churning, mind-numbing illustration.

  The last click took us to a familiar passage. It was the moral Charles Perrault had appended to his version of Little Red Riding Hood three hundred years earlier:

  From this story one learns that children,

  Especially young girls,

  Pretty, well-bred, and genteel,

  Are wrong to listen to just anyone,

  And it’s not at all strange,

  If a wolf ends up eating them.

  I say a wolf, but not all wolves

  Are exactly the same.

  Some are perfectly charming,

  Not loud, brutal or angry,

  But tame, pleasant, and gentle,

  Following young ladies

  Right into their homes, into their chambers,

  But watch out if you haven’t learned that tame wolves

  Are the most dangerous of all.

  When I read our children the story, I’d always stopped before I came to Perrault’s moral. I hadn’t wanted my daughter to grow up believing that men were the enemy; I hadn’t wanted my sons to grow up seeing themselves as predators to be feared. I thought about my granddaughter, a girl whose smiles went everywhere, and wondered whether the world into which Madeleine had been born would allow for such a benign omission.

  I braced myself for a blast of blowtorch rhetoric from Kevin, but it didn’t come. He was as shaken as I was. “Unspeakable,” he said. His hugely magnified eyes were anxious. “But this horror show is only going to make things worse. Not just for me,” he added quickly, “for all of us.”

  I pushed my chair away from the desk and stood up.

  “Are you bailing out on me?” Kevin asked.

  “No,” I said. “We’ll sink or swim together on this one. I’m going to ask Solange to remove the link to ‘Red Riding Hood’ from her Web site.”

  The door to Solange’s office was open. She had visitors: Livia Brook was there, her poppy shawl loosely knotted over a white turtleneck, and – bad luck for me – Ann Vogel was there, too. Six months earlier, Ann had claimed a new identity as Naama. Now it appeared she had metamorphosed again. As Naama, she had been a woman who flowed: shoulder-length hair that streamed behind her, diaphanous, ankle-length skirts and loosely cut, filmy blouses that floated as she walked through the halls. Now her hair was henna-burnished and buzzed into a Joan of Arc cut, and she was wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and Converse high-tops. The attempt to ape Solange was an act of such teenage hero worship, I was embarrassed for both women, but Ann was beyond shame.

  When she spotted me, her irises became pinpoints of loathing. “This is a private meeting,” she said.

  “Then I won’t intrude,” I said. I smiled at Livia and walked over to Solange. “When you’re free,” I said, “I’d like to talk to you about your Web site.”

  Solange nodded assent, but Ann Vogel wasn’t about to give anyone a graceful compromise. “The
women in our group have no secrets from one another,” she said tightly, “but, of course, you wouldn’t understand about sisterhood.”

  “I’m all for sorority,” I said. “I’m just not a big fan of hate groups. Incidentally, Ann, if I were you, I’d let the buzz cut grow out. I’m not sure the paramilitary look works for you.”

  “You really are a bitch, Joanne.” She enunciated each word separately, Bette Davis style.

  Solange raised a finger to silence her. “Joanne is not our enemy,” she said. She turned towards me; the bruised-eye pain of her gaze made it difficult not to look away. “You have a concern about the Web site?” she said. The words seemed pulled from her, as if even articulating a sentence caused her anguish. I thought of the French phrase Elle vit à reculons. She lives reluctantly.

  It would have been unconscionable to add to her grief. “What you’ve done is perfect, Solange,” I said. “The tributes to Ariel strike exactly the right note. It’s the hot link to the ‘Red Riding Hood’ site that troubles me.”

  Ann was clearly furious. “Why should we listen to you? You’ve already sided against us once.”

  I tried to isolate her. “I’ve never had a quarrel with anyone but you,” I said. “You used Kevin Coyle to forward your own agenda, and I don’t want to see you doing the same thing with Ariel’s death.”

  Solange’s eyes grew wide. “Ariel’s death must not be used,” she said.

  I could feel the momentum shifting to me, and I pressed ahead. “No,” I agreed, “it mustn’t. The night of the vigil, Molly Warren told me that what she feared more than anything was having Ariel’s death politicized. This tragedy is deeply personal for all of us.”

  Ann’s eyes glinted. I had linked the words “political” and “personal”; for a fanatical feminist the bait was as irresistible as catnip to a Siamese.

  I hurried on before she could pounce. “I know the catechism,” I said. “I know that the personal is political, but the whole purpose of the Web page is to let the people who cared about Ariel share their memories and their sense of loss. Later, we can think about larger implications, but the focus now should be on Ariel. Besides, linking her page to the ‘Red Riding Hood’ site is placing Ariel’s death in a political context that might not even be accurate. Kyle Morrissey hasn’t been charged with her murder. From what I’ve heard he may never be.”

  “What do you mean?” Livia said.

  “I mean the case is weak,” I said. “It’s possible that Ariel was killed by someone else. For all we know the murderer is a woman.”

  Ann took a step towards me. Her fists were clenched, and she was shaking with rage. “Get out,” she said.

  We were on the edge of real ugliness, but Livia stepped between us. She was pale, but in control. “Joanne, we’ll reconsider the ‘Red Riding Hood’ hot link. I’ll make certain that we give your suggestion a fair hearing.”

  “But I can’t stick around to argue my own case.”

  Livia took my arm and led me out into the hall. When she spoke her voice was low and intimate. “Given the history you share with some of the women who created the Web site, perhaps it would be best to let them discuss it privately. Joanne, you know this department is all I have now. Trust me to do the right thing.” She leaned forward and kissed my cheek.

  Whether it was the poignant reference to our shared past, the familiar smell of Pears soap, or the brush of cool silk I felt when her poppy shawl touched my arm, I was drawn into her orbit. “All right,” I said, “I’ll trust you.”

  Kevin was still hunched over my computer when I got back. When he heard my step, he started. “Well …?”

  “They’re going to discuss it,” I said.

  “What do you think our chances are?”

  I cringed at being included in Kevin’s possessive pronoun, but I smiled at him. “Livia says we have to trust her. And I do.”

  He scowled. “Well, I don’t. Why would I trust a woman who has wanted my head on a plate for two years?” He shrugged. “You’ve just given me all the justification I need for spending some of my dwindling savings on surveillance.”

  “You’re going to hire somebody?”

  “Good God, no. I’m going to buy a computer. I’ll find it easier to trust those handmaidens of the victim culture if I can keep an eye on them.” He started for the door, but when he came to the threshold he turned. “Thank you for being my net.”

  “You didn’t need a net, just a push.”

  He grinned, revealing more silver fillings than I’d seen in twenty years. A man with ancient dental work, a lens held on by masking tape, a limitless supply of white, short-sleeved polyester shirts, and an uncertain future. My heart went out to him.

  “Be careful, Kevin.”

  “In the computer store?”

  “Everywhere,” I said.

  Alone in my office, I was edgy. I picked up the phone and dialled.

  When I heard Ed Mariani’s blithe greeting, I felt as if I’d re-established contact with the world as I knew it.

  “Can I buy you lunch?” I asked.

  “Only if you promise to bring along the latest photos of Madeleine at the lake.”

  “I haven’t even taken the film in yet,” I said.

  “And you call yourself a grandmother,” he said. “But I’ll still eat lunch with you. Does noon at the Faculty Club suit?”

  “Noon is fine,” I said, “but let’s go off-campus. I’ve had enough of this place.”

  “That sounds ominous.”

  “It is. Ed, have you seen that Web page Solange has created for Ariel?”

  “I didn’t even know it existed. I haven’t been at the university since last week.”

  “Count your blessings,” I said. “But I’d be grateful if you’d check it out and another site it’s linked to: ‘Red Riding Hood.’ ”

  “ ‘Red Riding Hood’ – that’s intriguing. You do know, don’t you, that both Luciano Pavarotti and Charles Dickens are on record as saying they identified strongly with that little girl. I’m past the age for tripping through the woods with a picnic basket, but if it pleases you, I’ll be more than happy to give the site a whirl. Now about lunch … have you got time for Druthers?”

  “I do if you do,” I said.

  “I have all the time in the world,” he said.

  The comment was more than a pleasantry. The amount of time that elapsed between the placing of an order and the arrival of food at Druthers was legendary. So were the short fuses of the restaurant’s father-and-son chefs. More than one patron’s meal had ended abruptly when the father, hurling curses, exited through the restaurant’s front door, and the son, also hurling curses, exited through the back door. But the menu was inventive, the food invariably excellent, and the atmosphere, when father and son were in accord, sublime.

  That spring afternoon, as I walked through the front door of the old converted house in the Cathedral district, it appeared that Ed and I were in luck. James and James Junior, father and son, greeted me with smiles and ushered me to the cool peace of the Button Room, my favourite of the restaurant’s three small dining rooms. The Button Room took its name from its walls, which were hung with framed shadow boxes filled with antique buttons of incredible variety: military buttons of shiny brass bearing the insignia of once-proud units; mourning buttons of jet or of hair taken from the head of the newly deceased and woven into stiff discs; tiny buttons of mother-of-pearl or satin that the fingers of eager bridegrooms had fumbled undone as they claimed their trembling brides. The linen at Druthers was always snowy, and the flowers, exotic. Today a single fuchsia orchid blazed in our bud vase.

  Ed rose when he saw me. “I’ve ordered martinis,” he said. “After seeing that Web site, I thought that we needed more than a Shirley Temple.”

  James Junior brought the martinis, ice blue with two olives apiece, handed us the menus and announced the specials: wild mushroom pâté; grilled tomato gazpacho, sweetbreads Druthers, mixed greens; coffee chocolate-chunk cookies.


  I didn’t even open the menu. First, the Rombauers and now Druthers. It was obvious that sweetbreads were in the air, and I never bucked synchronicity. Ed followed my lead.

  After James Junior withdrew with our orders, Ed raised his glass. “To sanity,” he said. “Although it appears to be fast disappearing from our troubled world. That ‘Red Riding Hood’ site is heartbreaking, Jo. To think of Ariel being one of that long, sad line …”

  For a moment, we were both silent. Wrapped in our private thoughts, we sipped our martinis. They were excellent but ineffectual. The liquor burned, but it didn’t wipe out the memory of that long, sad line of girls and women, and of Ariel among them.

  Finally, Ed broke the silence.

  “I have some news,” he said. “Kyle Morrissey wasn’t a stranger to Ariel. Val Massey called me this morning. He’s working for the Leader Post, and he’s been assigned to Ariel’s story.”

  Val Massey was an old student of ours. “How’s he doing?” I asked.

  Ed smiled. “Dazzlingly. Bob Woodward in the making. At any rate, when he found out Kyle Morrissey had lived next door to Ariel …”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “There’s nothing next door to Charlie and Ariel’s place but an X-rated video store.”

  Ed nodded. “EXXXOTICA. That’s where Kyle lives, or at least lived until December when he ran into a little trouble with the police.”

  “The assault charge that went away,” I said.

  Ed raised an eyebrow. “And who’s your source?”

  “Rosalie’s betrothed,” I said. “And Detective Robert Hallam says this case doesn’t feel right to him.”

  “That’s pretty much Val’s take, too,” Ed said. “He’s spent some time with Kyle’s aunt, Ronnie. Apparently, there’s something a little weird there, but Val says Ronnie is quite an advocate for her boy, and she’s managed to convince Val that Kyle’s only feelings towards Ariel were ones of gratitude.”

  “Gratitude for what?”

  “Until December, Kyle worked at EXXXOTICA. It’s the family business. Anyway, after Kyle’s narrow escape, his aunt Ronnie decided that the kind of clientele who came in to rent triple-X movies, might not be creating an ideal milieu for her nephew, and that it might be wise to get Kyle out of harm’s way.”