by Ingrid Betz
“Like hell she didn’t. Little cat-faced bitch.” She pushed her fingers through her dark hair in a gesture of frustration. She had no proof, but she had her suspicions. Ever since the time a couple of years ago she’d heard them laughing together behind the closed door of the den. A few evenings later Asher had borrowed her car to go out of town. An emergency, he said, a milking machine had broken down. He’d returned in a foul mood, claiming the farmer hadn’t wanted to pay. Afterward Verena hadn’t come around to the house for at least a month. Elaine didn’t need a diagram to connect the dots.
“You think I don’t know what goes on in that so-called Cell of yours? Organizing protests, rallies, sit-ins—civil disobedience, you call it. It’s more like giving crazy people license to behave outside the law.”
“Protest is a legitimate form of expression in a democracy,” began Borrowman. He began to perspire. He never could deal with his daughter when she was in this mood. She was like her mother and he hadn’t been able to deal with Margaret either. When his phone rang, he almost cried, “Saved by the bell” out loud.
Until he saw on the screen that the caller was Verena. Disappointment stirred in his gut. He was hoping it would be Asher; he’d lost count of how often he’d left a message.
“Aren’t you going to answer?” said Elaine.
“I’ll take it in the study.” He picked up his mug and started for the door. He had a bad feeling about this, Verena never called him unless she was on assignment.
“Afraid I’ll hear what you say?” Elaine called after him. “It’s your little friend, isn’t it? In trouble and calling Dad to bail her out. If I were you…”
He didn’t catch what she’d do if she were him. Verena’s cool girlish voice was reverberating inside his head. Something about shooting a child and what should she do if the police tracked her down?
13.
THE MEETING AT THE ANIMAL SHELTER broke up shortly before ten. After they’d closed to the public for the day, the staff and volunteers held a get-together in memory of Lynn Harmer. Two of the older women made coffee in the big urn and a pot of tea for those preferred it. The manager, a serious stooped bespectacled man with an expression that permanently anticipated disaster, drove out specially to buy a box of Timbits from Tim Horton’s. One of the inspectors, who played in a local band, brought his guitar and sang a song he’d composed in memory of Lynn. She was known for her dedication above-and-beyond-the-call to even the scruffiest scrap of animal life, and more still for her run-ins with what she regarded as an uncaring public. Everybody had a favourite anecdote to contribute. There was plenty of laughter, but most of the women had tears in their eyes by the time they said goodnight.
“Give you a lift home?” said Ruth from Reception, catching up to Marigold on her way out the door.
“Thanks. But the Springbank bus stops right at the top of my street.”
The last car drove off with hands waving from the windows. Marigold took her place at the stop in front of the variety store where she used to wait with Lynn. The bus was due in minutes, according to the schedule. Lynn got off two stops before her, and it always cost her a pang to see her friend’s handsome, sturdy figure march off into the night. There were the headlights now, dipping and righting themselves as the vehicle hit a pothole. Slowing, it pulled up at the curb. Only it wasn’t the bus, it was a black SUV. Marigold stood frozen, staring at the Honda insignia on the hood.
“Peter?”
“Mar?” His voice sounded slurred over the mobile. He must have been dozing in front of the television; he seldom went to bed before eleven. “That you, Mar?”
She heard what sounded like the thwack of a bat against a ball. The Blue Jays were playing tonight, she remembered. Peter never missed a game.
“Yes. Sorry to bother you…”
“You realize the time?” He was coming awake, sitting up straight and frowning, she could tell from his tone. In the background, Darlene voiced a sharp-edged question and he muttered a reply she didn’t catch.
“I know it’s late. But I don’t know what else to do.”
“Where are you? Not still at that damned Shelter place?”
“No, no. They’re closed. I’m in the variety store next door.” Her gaze flickered nervously toward the counter. The youthful clerk, his eyes magnified by horn-rimmed glasses, was leafing through a magazine; Playboy it looked like. She hoped he wasn’t a sex maniac. There was no one else in the store.
“I missed my bus home. An SUV pulled up at the stop and I was scared… ”
“Christ. You missed your bus because of an SUV?”
“Please don’t use that name when you swear. I’m almost sure it’s the one that was waiting in the Metro parking lot after work yesterday. Black, with…”
Peter groaned. “Back up a minute. An SUV was waiting at the Metro? For you, you mean?”
“Yes. With two men in it…”
“How do you know they were waiting for you? Did they talk to you? Follow you home? What?” He thought she was making it up, imagining things. Next he’d be getting sarcastic.
“I’m pretty sure they meant to. Follow me home, that is,” she said with dignity. “Only I ran. They got held up in traffic and I lost them.”
“Did you get their license number?”
“No.” Her mind didn’t work that way. All she’d thought about was getting away.
From behind the counter, the clerk kept darting glances at her. He had a long pimply chin. She lowered her voice. “I think one of them talked to me yesterday. In the Metro…”
“What do you mean, think? What did he say?”
“He asked if I had a cat.”
“A cat?” Peter exploded. “Mar, you’re not making sense. Why would…? ”
“Peter, listen. I know it sounds crazy, but I believe the men in the SUV might be the ones who shot at Lynn and me in the Park.”
“Damn right it sounds crazy. For crying out loud, Mar. Get a hold of yourself. You’ve got Chinese on the brain.” He paused. The Blue Jays had scored, by the sound of it. When the commotion died down he said, “Is it still out there? The SUV?”
“I think so.” Phone held tightly to her ear, she edged around a circular rack of greeting cards, straining to see between the posters that partially obscured the front window. Light from the street lamp glinted on a black metal fender. She found herself whispering. “It’s parked next to the bus stop…”
“Speak up. I can’t hear you.”
“It’s there. With the headlights off,” she said hoarsely.
“Maybe they’re waiting for somebody else. Meeting the bus.”
“I could call the police. Tell them…”
“What, exactly?” Scorn poured down the line, as she’d expected. If they were indeed the men from the park and Peter was pursuing something dodgy with them, the last thing he’d want was for her to involve the police.
“Get real, Mar. They’d never take you seriously. You’d be better off calling a taxi.”
“I thought of that. But what if the SUV followed me home?” The clerk had come out from behind the counter and was rearranging the contents of the card rack. Marigold turned her back on him and spoke in a low pleading voice. “Peter, I’m scared. I can’t hang around here much longer.” She swallowed. “Do you think you could…”
“Pick you up? Is that what you’re asking?”
“Please, Peter.”
“Okay, okay,” he said irritably. He was moving into another room; the sounds of baseball faded. “Sit tight. I’ll get my keys.” He paused. “I’ll have to think of something to tell Darlene.”
She groaned. “Hurry, please.”
“Buy something in the meantime. A coke. Chips, anything. For God’s sake act normal. Don’t call attention to yourself.”
“No. Yes. Thank you,” she added, but Peter had hung up. She turned
to give the clerk a shaky smile.
“I was calling a friend to pick me up,” she explained. He nodded, his eyes on her hair.
Telling Darlene anything was always the hard part for Peter. Depending on her mood, it could result in a long drawn-out session of argument and negotiation. What if the men in the SUV got tired of waiting and came into the store after her? She must have been in here all of ten minutes by now; the bus had come and gone. She moved to the cooler and picked out a can of Orange Crush. “How much, please?” Her mouth was so dry she could hardly speak.
“Did you see it? That was it! The black SUV.” Marigold slid into the bucket seat, nodding at the taillights vanishing down the street.
“I saw it. Buckle up, Mar,” Peter reminded her, and obediently she tugged the seatbelt in place. She’d been watching from behind the posters and come hurtling out of the store the second the Corvette swung close to curb. Peter had the passenger door open, and she’d scrambled inside the way she used to scramble into bed, afraid the monsters who lived below would grab a leg and yank her out before she could get safely under the comforter.
Peter accelerated from the curb. “They took off the minute they saw the Corvette.” He sounded thoughtful, not annoyed or sarcastic the way she’d expected, which heightened her fear.
“You mean you believe me, about who they are?”
“Don’t be dumb, Mar. It’s a coincidence. I’m just saying.”
“A coincidence? After they waited all this time?”
The reason they took off was that they’d lost their chance to do whatever it was they were planning. At least for tonight, added a voice in the back of her head. Marigold hugged herself, shivering. Peter reached out to turn on the heater. “Must you always be such a drama queen?”
“Sorry. I know I’m a nuisance. But tonight brought everything back. Being stranded at the portage. Getting shot at.”
She sent Peter a sidelong glance as they stopped at the lights on Dundas and noticed his eyes were on the rearview mirror. “If that man hadn’t talked to me in the Metro,” she said defensively, “I’d have been okay.”
“You must have misunderstood. Why would he ask if you had a cat?”
“I was buying cat food,” Marigold said patiently. “In the cat food aisle.”
“Maybe he couldn’t read English and just wanted help.”
“Maybe.” She’d thought the same thing, after all. But Peter was still checking the mirror. “You think they’re following us?”
He pulled out to pass a couple of slower cars in quick succession. “Don’t be paranoid, Mar. Lots of black SUVs in this town.”
She was silent. A variety of small businesses unreeled along the street: a dry cleaner’s, Windshields Replaced While U Wait. A bunch of youths in dark hoods were horsing around the entrance of an all-night video store, and figures moved dimly behind the steamed-up windows of a laundromat. At the next intersection, Peter veered abruptly left without signalling. Marigold held on to the armrest to keep from being bounced against the door. They entered an older residential neighbourhood, bowling along above the speed limit under a canopy of trees. Windows flared behind porches and shrubbery. A dog rummaged in an overturned garbage can. Perhaps homeless, she wondered fleetingly.
“Is this a different way back to Norman Avenue?” she said. Peter didn’t like it when she implied he might not know what he was doing.
“No. I’m taking you back to my place.”
She turned, startled. “What? To spend the night?”
“Do you mind?”
“Mind…” Of course she minded. But she minded even more about what Peter’s decision was telling her. She looked over her shoulder, at the empty street curving away behind them. “So you believe me about being followed?”
He didn’t answer.
“Peter?”
“If you really want to know, I don’t like the thought of you being on your own in that poky flat, scared as a little kid. That’s all.” He sent her a look that contained an element of embarrassment. “The sofa in the den’s not bad. Darlene’s had me test it a couple of times.”
“Oh, Peter.” What could she say?
The streets wound one into another, the houses becoming progressively newer and the trees fewer, until she recognized the subdivision where Peter lived. She’d been to his place perhaps three or four times since she started working for him. For Christmas dinner the first year, when she forgot to mention until too late that she was a vegetarian, and Darlene caught her hiding a slice of turkey in her napkin to take home to Red Tom. There’d been other, similarly awkward occasions. Like the New Year’s Eve when Peter insisted she join them for drinks, even though she said she’d rather not, she wasn’t used to alcohol. She barely made it to the powder room in time to throw up, after having too much of what she thought was fruit punch. Worse yet was the party Darlene organized for Peter’s thirty-fifth birthday, where the small-business loans manager from his bank made a pass at her. A creepy type with insinuating eyes who told dirty jokes and apparently shared Peter’s predilection for red hair. She didn’t seem to have anything in common with the guests, and even less with her hostess. Marigold felt ill at ease with Darlene’s brittle manner, and with the smile she turned on and off as easily as tap water. Not that she turned it on very often for her benefit.
Not even when they were first introduced. It was at the lab one morning when Darlene stopped by to borrow Peter’s credit card. She’d eyed her sharply and her first comment was, “Is that your natural hair colour?”
Marigold’s response was to apologize. She’d learned to do this in childhood when kids ran after her in the street yelling, “Fatty, fatty! Hair on fire!”
“I could do you a nice darker tone,” Darlene had said, tilting her head critically. “With maybe a few blonde highlights. Give me a call at the salon.” Marigold never did.
“A lovely big yard,” she’d commented that first Christmas, looking out of the kitchen window at the previous day’s snowfall while Darlene tossed the salad. “Do you have a cat? Or a dog?” she asked hopefully, thinking of the overflowing cages at the Shelter. She didn’t know the Cormiers very well at that point.
“You kidding? Dogs dump on the lawn and cats dig up the garden. Don’t even get me started on what they do to furniture.”
Marigold fidgeted in her seat as the Cormier house came into view. Neat as a model home, with colour-coordinated shutters, blinds drawn tight, and Noma lights precisely spaced along the walk. Displayed on the front door was an artificial wreath, the type geared to the season and encircling the word Welcome.
“Won’t Darlene mind?”
“Mind?”
“Maybe you should have phoned her first. Let her know.” Asked her permission, she nearly said, only she didn’t want to hurt Peter’s feelings.
“She’s probably asleep by now.”
“You’ll have to tell her some time.” She didn’t want Darlene to think Peter was sneaking her into the house behind her back. That could lead to all kinds of other false assumptions.
“Of course I’ll tell her. I wouldn’t let you leave without breakfast.”
Darlene could, thought Marigold, as Peter clicked the remote and the garage door swung upward. Maybe she’d lie and say she never ate breakfast and save all of them the embarrassment.
“Shh.” Peter beckoned her inside.
Pink and purple scatter rugs enlivened the polished entrance hall floor. The house smelled of what—roses? Air freshener, decided Marigold, wrinkling her nose. A lamp with a tiffany shade burned on the table at the foot of the curving staircase. Peter put down his keys, careful not to let them clink together.
“Through here,” he whispered, leading her down the corridor to the den.
Pale paneled walls and wall-to-wall carpeting sprang to life as he pressed a light switch just inside the door. Vertical blinds covere
d the window and a work station in the corner held a computer and printer. Marigold had been in the room before. On that unfortunate New Year’s Eve, she’d surprised a couple kissing on the leather sofa. Doing decidedly more than kissing, actually. “Want to join us, honey?” the woman had called out, not even bothering to cover up. Shocked to the core, Marigold had backed out in a fluster of embarrassment.
“You realize, I don’t have anything with me,” she said. “Toothbrush. Nightgown…”
“Pretend you’re camping,” said Peter bracingly. And then, with a groan, “Sorry. I didn’t think.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she started to say, but his slim figure was already halfway out the door. “Let me get you a blanket. A pillow. Back in a sec.”
She took off her jacket, hung it over the back of a chair, and started clearing the ornamental cushions off the sofa.
Peter reappeared with his arms full. “I brought you a towel, too. Powder room’s off the hall. You remember?” She nodded; not a place she’d forget. “Want anything to eat before I go up?”
“No. I had some chips at the store.” She wished now she hadn’t, on top of the Timbits and the orange crush; her stomach felt queasy. “I wouldn’t mind a glass of water, though.”
He nodded and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen while she spread the blanket over the sofa and plumped the pillow. The blanket was a fluffy pink and the pillowcase had a scalloped lace hem and together they looked startlingly intimate. Peter came back with a bottle of mineral water and a glass and two Oreo cookies on a plate. “In case you get hungry later,” he said, setting them down on an end table. “I know you like these.”
He was trying, she thought, really trying. She was grateful of course; any time people were good to her it touched her. But she wasn’t stupid. She knew in Peter’s case it was because he had a guilty conscience. Suddenly she felt tired, too tired to wait for him to leave. Lowering herself onto the sofa, she unlaced her shoes.
