by Gail Bowen
Ronnie watched him leave, then came out from behind the counter. Today she was a western belle wearing a denim halter top, matching ankle-length skirt, and hand-tooled cowboy boots. Her hair was almost to her waist and sun-streaked. A skeptic or a stylist might have suspected extensions, but the wild profusion suited her. So did her manicure: each of her nails was painted in a different pearlized colour – I knew the names of the shades were ultra-cool because of Taylor’s unrequited longing for them: Bruise, Urban Putty, Raw.
Ronnie caught me staring at her fingers, and she wiggled them obligingly. “Make quite a statement, eh?”
“My younger daughter would love them. She’s always wanting to paint her nails.”
“It was the same for me when I was a kid,” Ronnie said huskily. “Of course, given the circumstances, it was out of the question.” She shrugged. “Well, better late than never.”
As she had before, Ronnie led me to the back of the video store and unlocked the back door. When she opened it, I found myself face to face with a young man I recognized from the newspapers as Kyle Morrissey. He was soap-star handsome with bulging pecs, a trim waist, a mop of black curly hair, and what we used to call bedroom eyes, languid and long-lashed. He was wearing a T-shirt that cautioned “Think Long and Hard Before You Take Me Home,” but there was a vacancy in his sexy eyes that gave the warning an unsettling edge.
“That’s quite the shirt,” I said.
Kyle smiled obligingly. “Ronnie gave it to me. It’s sort of a joke, but not really.” He adjusted his features to an appearance of solemnity. “You’re here to see Bebe,” he said. He looked at the cardboard box in my hand. “I hope there are Barbies in there.”
I smiled. “Nine of them.”
“Great,” he said. This time the smile was as open as a prairie sky. “Bebe will be really happy.”
He led me up the stairs, but stopped outside Bebe’s room.
“Wait here till I get our snack,” he said.
“Thanks, but I just ate.”
His brow furrowed. “Bebe said we’ll need a snack.” He looked confused.
“Okay,” I said. He disappeared into a room on the right and reappeared almost immediately with a tray upon which were a litre of milk, a bag of Dad’s cookies, a cow-shaped plastic container of chocolate syrup, and three glasses. I followed him into Bebe’s big front room.
As she had on my first visit, Bebe was sitting in the wing chair by the window. In the early-evening shadows, the sea of bubble-gum-pink Barbies had muted to dusky rose, and Bebe herself seemed softer, an old woman who welcomed the gentle embrace of the gloaming. It was a scene from a Hallmark card, and just as remote from reality.
The second she spotted me, Bebe flicked on the powerful standard lamp beside her, and the illusion shattered. “Let’s see them,” she barked.
I handed her the cardboard box. She lifted the flaps and examined the dolls with the professional squint and unerring fingers of a veteran customs inspector. When she’d checked out the last one, she smacked her lips. “Not bad,” she said. “How much did you pay?”
“Twenty-five dollars.”
Bebe made a hissing sound through her teeth: whether it was a hiss of approval or opprobrium was impossible to tell. “Better you than me,” she said finally. “Let’s visit with Kyle for a bit, then you and I can talk business.”
Kyle passed around the cookies and mixed the chocolate milk with exquisite care. When he handed Bebe hers, she turned up her nose. “You know I like a double.”
He picked up the plastic cow obligingly and poured syrup into Bebe’s milk until she held up a palm to indicate that he could stop.
“That’s more like it,” she said, then she raised her glass. “To justice,” she said.
“That’s a surprising toast coming from you,” I said. “Has something happened?”
“You bet your sweet bippy something’s happened. The cops have finally figured out our boy couldna done it. Proving once again that, as soon as you put a blue uniform on a person, they have a harder time adding two plus two than a normal person does. But I’m getting off track. The point is the cops finally found themselves the truck driver who gave Kyle the wrong directions. Of course, Kyle told them about this lady driver on day one, but they didn’t exactly bust their humps looking for her. Anyway, on the morning in question, this lady truck driver was dumping off a load of wiring in the sub-basement – no connection with what Kyle was doing, so of course no one pursued her. Kyle asked this driver where he should go to fix the air conditioning, and she got turned around and pointed him towards the room where, unbeknownst to her or Kyle, that girl Ariel was already dead.” Thrilled by the vagaries of fate, Bebe Morrissey rocked back and forth in her chair. “The one lucky thing for Kyle was that the truck driver was a lady.”
“Why was that lucky?” I said.
Bebe rolled her eyes. “Because there’s never been a woman born who, once they saw Kyle, forgot him.”
Bebe’s great-grandson lowered his head in embarrassment.
I turned to him. “You must be so relieved,” I said. “These last days must have been a nightmare.”
Kyle furrowed his brow. “Ronnie always says you have to take the crunchy with the smooth, and it’s been crunchy. All the same, I’m not mad at anybody. Not even the police. I know why they thought it was me. Ariel was so pretty and so smart. They couldn’t believe she’d want to be my friend.”
“She was a good person,” I said.
“Whoever killed her didn’t mean to.” Kyle’s voice rang with conviction. “They just loved her so much they made a mistake.”
Bebe gave him a thin smile. “Go watch TV,” she said. “The Jays are playing, and you like them. Come back in ten minutes and get our snack dishes. If you don’t wash the glasses quick enough, all that chocolate gunk sticks to the bottoms.”
As soon as Kyle was out of earshot, Bebe shook her head. “A nice boy, but dumb enough to be a cop. He’s moved back here now.”
“Ronnie told me,” I said.
“It’s for the best,” Bebe said. “He’s got a short fuse, and until they capture the real murderer, people are going to be giving him the evil eye.” Her head darted like an old tortoise’s. “Which leads me to my next point. Did you talk to that African prince?”
“Yes,” I said. “We had a long talk this morning.”
Her eyes danced with expectancy. “So – could he have done it?”
I thought of the man who had felt ten feet tall and bulletproof from the moment Ariel asked him to help her have a child. “Not in a thousand years,” I said.
“Case closed on him?”
I nodded.
“Good. Not often you see a real man any more. It would be a shame to have to turn him in. How about the one with the face?”
“He’s … out of town.”
Bebe’s radar registered my hesitation. “That’s not the same as ‘case closed,’ is it?”
“No,” I said, “it isn’t.”
“Then keep your ears open.” She flicked her tongue over her upper lip and captured a drop of chocolate that had caught on a whisker. “I’ve got another potato to throw in the pot,” she said. “What do you know about the girl’s mother?”
“Molly Warren? She’s my gynecologist. She’s phenomenal.”
“Maybe not so phenomenal,” Bebe said mockingly. “She came to visit the girl a few times. They only quarrelled the once in my hearing, but it was the kind of spat that left questions in my head.”
“Questions about what?”
“About parents and kids and where you draw the line.” Bebe’s tone had grown sombre.
“How many kids do you have, Bebe?”
“I had three – all dead now. What I’ve got left is Ronnie, who was my youngest’s youngest, and Kyle, who is my one and only great-grandchild. I’ve had disappointments in my life. Don’t kid yourself about that. All the same, I never woulda spoke to one of mine the way that doctor of yours spoke to her girl.”
“All I heard was a snippet. They were squabbling about something the daughter wanted to do. I don’t remember what it was, but finally the girl said, ‘I have to do what I think is best. I only have one life.’ Then the mother said, ‘You’re wrong. You have two lives, because I gave you mine.’ ”
“When was this?” I asked.
“Not long ago,” Bebe said. “Coupla weeks, maybe three. But the when isn’t as important as the what. In my opinion, that’s a helluva thing to say to your own flesh and blood. I never got all the way through grade eight, so maybe I’m not one to judge. But if I was you, I’d be asking myself whether I might’ve been wrong in thinking my friend, the gyn-e-col-o-gist, was such hot stuff.”
By 5:30 the next morning, Bebe’s words were still roiling in my mind. Maybe that’s why I ended up having a double martini for breakfast, or maybe it was just that, on that particular day, gin seemed as reasonable a way to cope with the vagaries of human existence as any other.
On the day of Ariel’s burial, the fanfare prelude to the AccuWeather forecast catapulted my body into full flight-or-fight mode, but I was neither a fighter nor a flyer. I was a fifty-two-year-old woman trembling with the hope that climatologist Tara Lavallee’s forecast for the day ahead would be shot through with Old Testament pyrotechnics: skies riven with lightning, torrential winds, bushes exploding into flames. Anything to make travel impossible. But Tara’s chirp was lively, and the weather she predicted was picture-perfect, province-wide.
I reached down and stroked Willie. “No exit,” I said, but Bouviers aren’t hard-wired for existential gloom. When I swung my legs out of bed, Willie’s hind end shimmied with joy. As we had every morning of our life together, we were going for a run around the lake. It was the highlight of Willie’s day, but that morning the run was for me. I was counting on exercise to dull the edge of the axe that was pounding at my nerve ends.
It didn’t work. Neither did the long, hot shower or the series of deep inhalations of Lavender Breeze scented oil that Angus had given me for Mother’s Day with the suggestion that aromatherapy might help me chill out.
Molly Warren had been adamant about not wanting us to wear anything “funereal” for the trip to Lac La Ronge. She said Ariel had loved the cottage, and it would be good for us to spend at least part of the day exploring the island’s rough terrain. As I pulled on my bluejeans, a turtleneck, and my favourite fleece jacket, I tried to banish fear by imagining the species of wildflowers that might cover the island at this time of year, but I was beyond help. Visualization may make it possible for a tight end to win a Super Bowl ring, but it didn’t work for me. The knot of terror in my stomach as I started downstairs in search of something to eat was the size of a bowling ball.
From my pregnancies I had learned that even the queasiest stomach can tolerate soda crackers. I found half a box of saltines in the cupboard and opened the refrigerator in search of something with which to wash them down. When I shook the orange-juice carton and discovered it was empty, my fate was sealed. The bright blue bottle of Bombay gin jumped into my hand.
Remembering the sense of well-being that had enveloped me in Druthers when the first sip of gin and vermouth hit my bloodstream, I mixed a martini that was very dry and very large. The four jumbo olives I added for food value would have made a traditional martini glass pitifully small, and I complimented myself on having the foresight to use a tumbler. I took my breakfast to the deck, where I shared my crackers with Willie and savoured my martini. By the time, I’d emptied the glass, I could have flown to New Delhi. Gin: the Breakfast of Champions.
The waiting area for Athabaska Air is at the north end of the Regina airport terminal. In all, five of us were flying north: Molly and Drew Warren, Solange, Fraser Jackson, and me. I was the last to arrive, and as we exchanged greetings I thought that with our jeans, hiking boots, and air of forced conviviality, we could have been taken for a group about to fly to some sort of corporate retreat. Only the rectangular box in Molly Warren’s hand hinted at a mission grimmer than formulating shared goals or fine-tuning human-relations policies.
The 8:05 flight to Saskatoon was a favourite of business people and civil servants. A dozen of them, toting laptops and insulated coffee mugs, crossed the tarmac ahead of us. I tried to emulate their confident, purposeful stride, but my feet dragged. Halfway to the plane, filled with longing for the safe world I was leaving behind, I turned to gaze back at the terminal.
The sun was glinting off the windows that separated the waiting room from the runway, so at first I couldn’t be certain that the woman pressed so close to the wall of glass really was Livia Brook, but the Botticelli abundance of hair and the explosion of scarlet poppies on the woman’s shawl were dead giveaways. As I watched, Livia raised her arm in a gesture that could have been either farewell or benediction. I averted my glance. The memory of her sad party for one was still vivid; I didn’t need another image of Livia Brook’s painful longing for connection.
Behind me, Solange’s shout was insistent. “Joanne, what’s so fascinating? They won’t wait for us, you know.” Solange, too, had lingered, anxious for a final smoke before boarding. She had abandoned her customary uniform for a costume that was the epitome of urban chic: bluejeans, white T-shirt, smart black leather jacket, backpack decorated with Japanese cartoon characters, black ankle-length boots. When she saw me coming towards her, she took a lung-filling drag, threw the cigarette to the pavement, and ground it out with her toe. Then she looked at me with an abashed smile. “No more delaying tactics,” she said softly. “Time to take our friend home.”
In the first days after Ariel’s death, I had feared for Solange. Her grief and anger manifested themselves in a manic energy that could have consumed her, if she hadn’t found an outlet for it. Luckily, she had. Rosalie told me that Solange had taken to riding her bike for hours at a time: twice she had ridden all night. When she had shown me her shining Trek WSD the previous September, Solange had admitted the bike cost her a month’s salary and then some. That morning at the airport, it seemed the bike had been worth every penny. Solange was pale but composed; it was apparent that somewhere in her solitary journeys along the bike paths and streets of our city, she had found a measure of peace. As that seriously undervalued philosopher Frank Sinatra once said, “Whatever gets you through the night.”
When Solange and I fell into step, I touched her arm. “Did you see Livia in the airport?”
Solange made a moue of disgust. “I would have thought she’d have more pride. She’s been obsessive, as if this trip were an adventure one longed to be a part of.”
“Were she and Ariel that close?”
“Maybe at the beginning. Ariel told me that when she and Livia met at that women’s retreat on Saltspring, they were both at a turning point in their lives. They supported one another’s choices, the way women are supposed to do, and for a while there was a bond. I’ve always assumed Livia was instrumental in getting Ariel the job here.” Solange looked away. “I’ll be grateful to Livia for that as long as I live.”
At that moment, the attendant asked for our boarding passes, and we had to climb the stairs and find our seats. The plane was small and airless. I felt a flicker of panic, but the Bombay gin seemed to have long-lasting anaesthetising power, and as Solange led me to the only two empty seats left, I surrendered to inevitability.
After we’d fastened our seatbelts, Solange pointed her index finger towards the place three seats up and across the aisle from us where Fraser Jackson was sitting with Drew Warren. “Now you can answer a question for me,” she whispered. “What’s he doing here?”
I didn’t tell her the truth. The news of Ariel’s pregnancy would have caused Solange anguish, and on that grief-filled day none of us deserved another helping of pain. “I guess they were friends,” I said lamely.
“Fraser Jackson and Ariel?” Solange raised an eyebrow. “Different types, wouldn’t you say?”
“Peop
le are full of surprises,” I said.
The plane’s engines coughed to life. I closed my eyes and grasped the armrests.
Solange leaned towards me, curiosity mingled with concern. “You hate small planes,” she said.
“I hate all planes.”
Her gaze was skeptical. “The competent Joanne Kilbourn. I don’t believe it.”
“Believe it,” I said. “Right now, it’s all I can do to keep from clawing my way past you to get out of here.”
“I always thought you were impervious.” She reached into her backpack and pulled out copies of the magazines Femme Plus and Lundi. “Choose,” she said. “The human mind can hold only one thought at a time. Work on your French.”
“I’ll take Lundi,” I said. “Femme Plus is too earnest. I want to hear Pamela Anderson dit tout sur ses implants.” By the time we’d reached Saskatoon, the gin was wearing off, but as Pamela parle à coeur ouvert de sa vie, I’d learned a great deal about true love, forgiveness, and the removal of prosthetic enhancements. We were in Saskatoon just long enough to catch the flight to Prince Albert. Molly was the first of our group to board the plane; Drew and Fraser were right behind her. On the plane from Regina, I’d been puzzled by the fact that Drew had chosen to sit not with his wife but with Fraser. My assumption was that Ariel’s parents had decided that the flight north would give at least one of them a chance to come to know the man their daughter had invited into her life. Molly’s reaction when Drew tried to sit next to her forced me to re-examine my hypothesis. She tensed her lips as if to trap words she would not allow herself to speak, then she tightened her grip on the rectangular box and retreated into isolation as complete as that of a figure in an Andrew Wyeth painting.
