by Gail Bowen
“You were smothering her, Charlie.” I could feel my blood rising. “She wanted her own life. Why couldn’t you get it? The day she died, you recited a poem by Denise Levertov. Remember it, Charlie? ‘Dig them the deepest well,/Still it’s not deep enough/To drink the moon from.’ Anyone who heard your show that day knew how angry you were.”
“Leave him alone, Jo.” Howard was angry, too.
“No,” I said. “Howard, you dragged me into this. You said you needed my help. If I’m going to help, I need some answers. Another thing – the police are going to want to talk to Charlie. He has to be prepared for the kinds of questions they’ll be asking.”
Howard’s face sagged. “She’s right, Charlie,” he said quietly. “You need to level with us.”
“About what?” Charlie voice was wary.
“For starters, about the baby,” Howard said. “You did know Ariel was pregnant, didn’t you?”
Strangely, Charlie seemed almost proud. “You can’t love a woman the way I loved her without being aware of every nuance in her voice, every change in her body. Of course, I knew.”
“And you knew it wasn’t your child.”
Charlie tightened. “It wasn’t a concern for me,” he said.
“Was it a concern for you when Ariel moved out?” I asked.
“She would have come back,” Charlie said. “It was only a matter of time.” He put his earphones back on and cranked up the sound on his Discman, sealing himself away, closing us out.
For a few moments, Howard and I were silent as strangers. Then he turned to me. “Maybe you were right,” he said.
“About what?”
“Maybe we were better off when all this was frozen solid,” he said, rapping on the window of the plane. “Maybe we were happier before the big meltdown when that first wise guy had the bright idea of climbing out of the slime.”
I glared at him. “Save the existential crap for someone who cares,” I said. “We gotta figure out what to do next.”
CHAPTER
11
“I can’t offer you a lift,” I said. “I took a cab this morning.”
Howard looked at his watch. “It’s almost five. Do you want to go someplace for a drink?”
Rumpled, weary, and blinking in the sunshine, Howard, Charlie, and I were standing outside the main entrance to the Regina airport. We were home, but there was no cause to break out the ticker tape. Coming home meant facing up to the hard questions we’d been able to dodge from the moment the Silver Fox had deposited us on the tarmac at Prince Albert airport, and we had boarded the first of the two public planes that flew us out of the boreal north back to the short-grass prairie. Surrounded again by coffee-carrying bureaucrats and business people, Howard and I had talked listlessly, and Charlie had wrapped himself in a blanket of impenetrable solitude. Circumstances had demanded discretion, but now circumstances had changed. The prospect of a drink and a private conversation in a dark restaurant was appealing, but it was also unrealistic. In our province, drunks and idealists still considered an ex-premier fair game, and Charlie’s blood-marked face made his anonymity unlikely.
“It might be easier to talk at my place,” I said. “Why don’t you come back for dinner?”
“What’s on the menu?” Howard asked.
“Gin,” I said.
“Sold,” he said, grinning wearily. Charlie smiled, too, and I felt a faint stirring of hope.
When we got there, the kids and the animals were in the family room watching an Adam Sandler movie. Howard was a familiar figure in our home; normally, his presence wouldn’t have merited much beyond a glance and a grin. But Charlie was another matter entirely. Taylor, who knew enough not to stare, said hi, then busied herself pretending to check her cats for fleas. Angus offered Charlie a laconic wave of acknowledgement, but Eli was transfixed. His idol was in the room.
“I don’t think you’ve met Eli Kequahtooway,” I said to Charlie. “He’s the nephew of a good friend, and he’s a big fan of yours.”
Charlie extended a hand and Eli took it.
“I’m sorry about your girlfriend,” Eli said softly.
“Thanks,” Charlie said. There was an uncomfortable silence, then Eli gestured towards an empty armchair. “This movie’s pretty cool if you haven’t got anything better to do.”
“I haven’t got anything better to do,” Charlie said. He sprawled in the chair and, within an instant, seemed wholly absorbed.
Howard looked at me. “There was a mention of gin.”
After considerably more than a mention of gin, we ordered take-out from Peking House. Howard’s treat. It was, he said, the least he could do, and I didn’t disagree.
Our order was extravagantly large and expensive. When the last of the cardboard containers had been emptied and Willie and the boys had run off their dinner, Angus and his girlfriend, Leah, went to hear the newest, hottest band, and the rest of us gravitated towards the backyard. Eli asked Charlie if he wanted to swim, and Charlie surprised me by accepting the invitation. He came back wearing one of Angus’s suits. His skin was the blue-white of skimmed milk, and his body was very thin; he projected an aura that was both vulnerable and achingly sexual. The exposure of self was disturbing, and I was relieved when he dove into the pool and his pale body disappeared beneath the water. Without exchanging a word, he and Eli began to swim laps, moving through the water with the methodical rhythm of channel swimmers headed for a distant shore.
Taylor plunked herself next to Howard. My old friend was only marginally better with children than he was with women, but he had one party trick that Taylor loved. He told Tommy Douglas’s old political parable about Mouseland with immense panache. Taylor had always been fascinated by the story about the little mice who, every four years, walked to the polls and blithely cast their ballots for an all-cat slate of candidates. That night, however, as Howard moved towards the story’s climax, my daughter was squirming. Howard had barely described the scene in which one little mouse proposes electing a government made up of mice and is locked up as a Bolshevik when Taylor streaked out of the room.
“Losing your touch,” I said to Howard. “She didn’t even stick around for ‘You can lock up a mouse or a man, but you can’t lock up an idea,’ and that’s the best line.”
“Maybe Bruce and Benny got to her,” Howard said gloomily. “Any more of that gin left?”
Luckily, my daughter was back before I had to tell Howard that, as far as he was concerned, the bar was closed. She was struggling under the weight of a canvas almost as big as she was. Howard jumped up to help her, and she sighed dramatically. “This was supposed to be a surprise, but when you told the story I knew I couldn’t wait.” Her eyes caught mine. “Jo, I won first prize in that Social Studies contest. Ms. Cousin wanted to tell you, but I thought it would be so neat if you thought you were just coming to the Legislature as a parent-helper, but it was really because I’d won.” She looked up at Howard. “Could you turn the painting so we can see it?”
Howard dropped to his knees and held the canvas out in front of him. “Jesus,” he said. “It’s Mouseland. Look, Jo, there’s the Legislature and there are all the mice, running the show. It’s great, Taylor, but who’s that old mouse – the tough-looking one with the snarl?”
“You!” Taylor crowed. “You’re in charge.”
“Maybe I’ll do a better job this time,” Howard said. He turned to me. “So fill me in. What’s this all about?”
“Actually, it was an idea Ben Jesse had to get kids thinking about studying government. All the grade twos from the city were eligible to submit projects. Livia chaired the committee that judged the entries. I knew she was going to be at the presentation tomorrow, but she didn’t breathe a word about Taylor winning.” I looked at my daughter. “Neither did you. I can’t believe you didn’t spill the beans.”
Taylor clenched her fists in triumph. “Angus says I can’t keep a secret. I kept this one right till the day before you were supposed to find out.”
“A record,” I said.
She ignored me. “The prize is you get to meet your Member of the Legislature and then you and your parent have refreshments with her or him.”
Howard hooted. “So, Jo, you’ll be breaking bread with Bev Pilon. That’ll be nice for you.”
I had tried hard to defeat Bev Pilon in the last election. She was smart, rich, and unswervingly committed to the proposition that the sleek should inherit the earth. In a real-life Mouseland, she would be Queen of the Mean Cats.
“My cup runneth over,” I said.
Taylor scrunched her face. “But you are glad I won.”
I reached out and touched her cheek. “I couldn’t be more proud. Now we’d better get that painting in the house before the mosquitoes splat into it.”
When I returned, I thought for a moment that Howard was asleep. He was stretched out on the lazy lounge with his eyes closed, but when he heard my step, he turned his head towards me. “There are good times,” he said.
I reached over and took his hand. “Plenty of them,” I said. “And there will be more.”
Across the yard, Charlie and Eli were getting out of the pool – Eli picked up a towel, tied it around his waist in the way of teenage boys, then threw another towel to Charlie. Charlie wrapped himself in his, instinctively covering as much of his body as he could.
When Eli started towards the house, Charlie called out after him. “Thanks,” he said. “That helped. It really did.”
Instead of following Eli, Howard’s son veered towards us and squatted cross-legged on the ground, turning his face so that the birthmark was away from us. “Not many people are smart enough to know that sometimes the best thing you can do to help is just be there and be quiet,” he said.
His tone was wistful and reflective, but Howard didn’t get past the words. “Goddammit, Charlie, do you think the cops are just sitting there being quiet, or do you think they might actually be out there asking questions and getting answers?”
“I just meant I was grateful to Eli, Dad.” Suddenly, there was an edgy danger in Charlie’s voice. “I understand that you need me to work out answers for the police’s questions before they ask me,” he said.
“I need you to tell the truth, son.” Howard’s words had a simple Biblical force.
So did Charlie’s response. “I’ll tell the truth,” he said.
The darkness had settled. It was a relief to listen without the distraction of Charlie’s face. Nightfall seemed to free him, too, allow him to become a truer self, one in whom I began to discern flashes of the boy Marnie had raised and, for a time, Ariel had loved.
Howard breathed deeply. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s start with the big one. Did you kill Ariel?”
“No.”
Howard nodded, seemingly accepting his son’s one-word answer as sufficient. It wasn’t enough for me, but I could feel myself moving towards belief in Charlie’s innocence.
“Then the next step,” Howard said, “is to find out if you know anything that will help the police find out who did kill her.” “All right,” Charlie said.
There was an awkward silence. Howard shot me a look that called for help. “So, Jo. You’ve been closer to this than we have. Any thoughts?”
“That was smooth,” I said. Charlie laughed quietly. Encouraged, I continued. “I guess my first thought is Solange,” I said. “Charlie, when you two clashed today, you told Solange that Ariel was afraid of her. Was that just a heat-of-the-moment accusation or was it true?”
Charlie made a gesture of dismissal. “There’s so much about the past that just doesn’t seem relevant any more,” he said. “Solange is going through her own hell.”
“I know,” I said. “But that doesn’t exempt her, and it doesn’t make what happened in the past irrelevant. We’re not just talking about being dumped here; we’re talking about murder. If Ariel really was afraid of Solange, it matters.”
Charlie drew in his narrow shoulders and looked down at the grass. “Ariel and Solange had an unusual relationship.”
“Unusual in what way?”
He looked thoughtful. “In its voltage,” he said finally. “It was far too intense – at least on Solange’s side. It wasn’t always like that. At first, Ariel and Solange were just friends, the way any two people who work together are. Solange even came by the house and had a drink with us a couple of times, but after they went to Mount Assiniboine it was different.”
“Solange told me that Ariel found herself on Mount Assiniboine.”
Charlie shook his head with the weariness of a man forced to explain a self-evident truth. “Ariel found herself with me. I gave her everything she needed or wanted. She’d lost sight of that, but we would have worked it out if Solange hadn’t come along with her insights.”
“So you don’t believe that Ariel was liberated by her experience on Mount Assiniboine.”
Charlie’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Liberated. That has to be Solange’s word, and it couldn’t be more wrong. Joanne, we’re not talking about girl power here. It’s something more complex.”
“Then explain it to me,” I said.
“Solange loved Ariel,” Charlie said. “Ariel felt that brought certain obligations.”
Howard’s reaction was a sputter. “You mean Solange and Ariel were …?”
“They were nothing.” Charlie’s voice was low with fury. “Solange was temporary. An abberation. Ariel’s destiny was intertwined with mine from the day we met. She was just confused.”
“You and Ariel talked about this confusion?” I asked.
“We didn’t have to,” Charlie said. “I didn’t need flaming letters in the sky. When you’re as close to someone as I was to Ariel, you learn to read the signs. After Mount Assiniboine, the signs were there. She didn’t want to be with me. There was never an angry word, but one night I brushed her arm and she flinched. It wasn’t calculated. It was the response a person has to touching something they find repugnant, like a snake or a slug. I ignored it. I knew that if I just kept loving her …”
“But loving her wasn’t enough,” I said. “She wanted out.”
“She thought she wanted out. But even when she was saying we had to break it off, her real feelings were apparent. She told me that her life had been immeasurably enriched by knowing me, that she couldn’t have asked for more in a lover or a friend.” He rubbed his eyes with his fists, like a child fighting sleep. “That’s why I couldn’t let her go. I knew neither of us could have a life without the other.”
“Jesus!” Howard’s curse was an explosion in the tranquil air. “I can’t listen to this.”
When Howard jumped from his chair, I grabbed his arm. “Let Charlie talk,” I said.
Howard’s son continued like a man in a trance. “So she stayed. I tried to anticipate everything she could possibly want: food, flowers, music – even Fritz. She’d always wanted a dog, so we went to the Humane Society and got Fritz. I thought our relationship was working.” He hunched into a position that was almost foetal. “Two weeks ago I came home, and she was moving out.”
“Fraser Jackson was with her,” I said.
“He was just incidental,” Charlie said wearily, closing the topic.
I reopened it. “So you came home by chance …”
“When it came to Ariel, I never left anything to chance,” he said. “Everything about her was too important. I knew her habits, her routines. She always folded her nightgown and left it under her pillow. That morning, I checked. The nightgown wasn’t there. That’s what alerted me. So I asked Troy to finish the show, and I came home early. Of course, she’d hoped to avoid a confrontation.”
“Did it get violent?” Howard asked.
“Do you mean apart from the fact that she was ripping our lives apart? No, Dad, it didn’t get violent. It was just sad – really sad – for both of us. She seemed so tired, but I couldn’t help myself. I lost it …”
“Lost it how?” I asked.
He winced at
the memory. “I cried. You know, that thing real men aren’t supposed to do. She just seemed to slump. It was as if I’d hit her. That’s when she told me she’d broken it off with Solange, too.”
Suddenly, Howard was all lawyer. He leaned forward. “What did Ariel say exactly?”
Charlie’s face tightened. “She said, ‘I can’t go through this again. I thought she at least would understand. She’s always insisted that all she wants is for me to be happy … but she was so angry. I’m frightened. She’s done some terrible things.’ ”
“And she mentioned Solange by name?”
“Not by name,” he said, “but who else could it be?”
Howard pounded his fist into his palm. “Why the hell didn’t you mention this before?”
Charlie looked at his father in amazement. “How anxious would you be to revisit the worst day of your life?”
They left early, not much past eight o’clock. Charlie insisted on staying at the home he and Ariel had shared, and Howard insisted on not leaving his son alone. I watched their cab pull away, then went upstairs to check on the kids.
Taylor was already in bed, eyes squeezed shut, courting sleep, but when she heard my step, she bolted upright. “I’m so excited,” she said. “Are you?”
“Very,” I said. “Now, I want to take a closer look at Mouseland. The light wasn’t very good outside, and we were all a little distracted.”
“By that boy,” she said.
“By that man,” I said, correcting her. “Charlie’s twenty-seven years old. The same age as Mieka.”
Taylor took in the information. “He seemed more like a kid.” She shrugged. “Let’s look at the picture. You didn’t even notice that I put you and me in there.”
I picked up Mouseland and carried it over to the bed. It really was a terrific piece: the Legislature was Crayola-bright and surreal, but Taylor had drawn the duly elected mice and the sulky displaced cats with a cartoonist’s eye for detail. At the top of the marble steps leading into the Legislature, a matronly mouse in sensible shoes raised her paws in delight as a shining-eyed young mouse with braids twirled on one toe.
