by Rick Blechta
Sandra’s expression clearly said she didn’t believe me. “Well, at least Kate likes her.”
“Yes, Kate does, and I enjoy having someone around to talk to.”
Fortunately, our daughter bounced down the stairs with her pink overnight bag and a bulging knapsack, out of which peeked two of her stuffed animals.
“Be good, my little pumpkin,” Sandra said as she bent over to dole out a forehead kiss and a hug. “I’ll see you Monday evening – at eight,” she added pointedly, looking at me. “You have an extra day off, but there’s still school on Tuesday.”
Kate took my hand as we walked to the car. “I’m bringing Martin the Mouse and Lainey the Lamb to show Olivia. She said she wanted to meet them really badly.”
I dragged my mind out of whatever sewer it was scurrying down. “Huh?”
“My stuffed toys, Daddy! Really, you have to pay more attention when I’m talking to you!”
She sounded just like her mother, but when I looked down, the little minx was smiling up at me broadly. Kate certainly knew the right buttons to push on her dear old dad.
Olivia was down in the basement studio when we got home, plunking away on the piano. Ronald should heed what Dom said, I chuckled to myself.
Kate disappeared down the stairs, coat, knapsack and all, to show Olivia her fuzzy friends, and in short order I could hear the two of them talking and giggling.
As I got busy with lunch (dialing Kate’s favourite pizzeria), the girlspassed through the kitchen on their way to Olivia’s room. After calling them when lunch was on the table, I could hear them racing down the hall, then the stairs and finally to the kitchen door.
“I win!” Kate screamed.
“So what were you two doing upstairs?” I asked after a couple of slices had disappeared from everyone’s plate.
“Olivia and I want to paint her room. We were discussing what we’re going to do.”
“You don’t mind, do you, Andy?” Olivia asked.
I shrugged. “Knock yourselves out. Those old walls could use a fresh coat of paint.”
Both girls looked at each other and burst out laughing.
“No, Daddy!” Kate explained. “We want to do a painting on the walls.”
“Don’t forget our plans for the ceiling,” added Olivia.
“Would you drive us to an art store after lunch? Please, Daddy?”
“Sure,” I answered and took a swig from a can of pop. “But why would someone want to do a painting on the walls of a bedroom?”
Kate reached for another slice of pizza. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s going to be an existential statement about the fragility of the separation between conscious reality and universal unconscious.”
I must have looked pretty stunned hearing that from my eleven-year old, because Kate shrieked with laughter.
“And who came up with that description?” I asked weakly.
Olivia dipped her head as she raised her hand shyly. “Uh, that would be me.”
“You are finding this difficult, aren’t you?” Shannon said, but then laughed. “Please, answer my question. We don’t have all day.”
“No, no, you need to know the background if this is going to make any sense.”
I was very grateful for the art project, because it really got Kate excited to the point where she would have moved back home if it had been feasible. That gave me a childish bit of satisfaction, because I knew it really bothered Sandra.
The weekend before Olivia left the Sal with those two men, Kate couldn’t visit because Sandra had grounded her over something she’d said to Jeremy. I was dying to find out what that was but restrained myself. Olivia was as disappointed as Kate, and that might have been part of the problem. Olivia seemed to be coming between Kate and her mom – even if it was unintentional.
Olivia’s song repertoire was pretty substantial by this point, so we didn’t need to rehearse as much. With or without my daughter present, she was spending a lot of time on “the art project”, almost as if she knew her time was limited. I hardly saw her, and the door to her room was generally shut.
I have to admit that having her around the house was becoming distracting. There was no sense of a “come on” from her in the slightest, but when she was painting, she would bounce around the house in one of my old shirts, her legs bare, because then she’d only have to hop into the shower to clean up. None of her clothes – even those she wore to gigs – were tight-fitting or particularly revealing, but it wasn’t hard to see that she had a very nice body.
So like any red-blooded male, I noticed. I did keep that to myself, feeling more like her guardian, or at worst, a big brother, but it’s obvious now that I was beginning to succumb to Olivia’s feminine charms.
Two days before she left, she worked all day, only coming down once for tea and toast.
As she sat in my now paint-covered shirt, paint also in her hair, on her face, hands and legs, I thought she looked enchanting.
Down boy! I said in my head.“You really ought to eat a decent meal,” I told her.
She looked up at me with those big, dark eyes. “Maybe later. I’m really not hungry now.”
I went down to the basement to practise when she disappeared upstairs.
Dinner was a solitary affair, after which I watched the hockey game in my bedroom, followed by the news.
Shortly after eleven thirty, I did a quick hosedown in the shower and went to bed. Sometime in the night, the sound of the shower woke me, but I quickly drifted off again.
Later, there was a light tap on the door.
“What is it?” I asked groggily.
“Can I come in?”
I turned on the bedside lamp and pulled myself up, resting on my elbows as Olivia opened the door a crack. She’d been crying.
“What’s wrong?”
She crept into the room a little farther. She had on a knee-length T- shirt, and her hair, combed off her forehead, was still damp. “I’m frightened.”
“About what?”
“Things.”
“What things?”
“I can’t talk about them.”
She was standing there in bare feet, shivering, and I did something really foolish.
Pulling the covers back on the empty side of the bed, I said to her. “Get in and get yourself warm, then tell me what’s bothering you. The last thing you need is to catch a cold.”
Her body was like ice, so I pulled her against me, my front to her back, while giving myself a stern warning that it was only until she stopped shivering.
The effect of that warning lasted all of about ten minutes.
“Next night, she showed up almost as soon as I’d turned out the light, removed her T-shirt and slipped into my bed without asking. Night after that, she was gone.”
Shannon’s expression looked non-committal as she pondered my words. “So you think sleeping with her had something to do with her leaving with those men?”
“I hope to God not!”
“I don’t see why you should feel ashamed about what happened. It’s perfectly natural.”
“Olivia is like a child in many ways. I know that it shouldn’t bother me, but what I did with her just feels wrong, that’s all.” I sighed heavily. “I was supposed to be watching out for her.”
“According to who?”
“According to me.”
“That’s just unrealistic, Andy.”
“You haven’t met Olivia. You wouldn’t say that if you had.”
“Did she seem upset about it?”
“It was certainly awkward. We’d crossed a line and both knew it.”
“What did she say?”
I looked down into my lap, embarrassed. “She thanked me for getting her warm. And she wasn’t being coy.”
At that point, we were interrupted by a knock on the door. “What is it?” Shannon asked, loud enough to be heard.
Goode stuck her head in. “You might want to take a lo
ok at what I found. I think I’ve hit paydirt.”
Chapter 8
Shannon was happy to be free of her stuffy office. A glance at the wall clock showed that she and Andy had been talking for nearly an hour.
Jackie and her secretary Janet were behind the desk in the far corner. Strewn over it was an avalanche of paper. Both the fax machine and computer printer were humming away.
The boss stopped with her hands on her hips and nodded.“You two have been busy.”
“God, I love the Internet!” Goode said, taking yet more papers from the printer.
“So what do you have?”
Janet looked at Jackie. “You tell her. I’ve just been pressing keys for you.”
Jackie, now sorting through the papers on the desk, looked up. “I’m just trying to get this into some semblance of order, but suffice it to say, I think we’ve found where they’ve taken Olivia.”
“Where?” Curran asked in a choked voice.
“You were right, Shannon: California. I’ll bet when you get all that flight information from your guy at the airport, it will confirm it, although New York or Florida are outside chances.”
Shannon pulled over a couple of the scarred chairs from the waiting area. “You better explain it all, but take your time. I want it in order.”
“This stuff,” Jackie began, waving a sheaf of papers, “is information I didn’t bother downloading last night. It will have to be gone through for any new tidbits, but it’s basically repetition, mostly coverage from the media about the murder investigation and what happened to Olivia afterward – although there’s not much about that.
As Janet handed Jackie another sheaf of papers, she continued:“Now this is general information about the St. James family going back to the great-grandfather, although as I said earlier, there isn’t much, since they kept to themselves and shunned the media when it didn’t suit them.”
She handed one stack to her boss and one stack to Curran.“Give me a moment to pull the faxes together.”
Shannon began reading the information on the murder. Even though it was pretty sensational stuff, she got the feeling several of the local Florida papers had pulled their punches. Even some of the big national rags had done only a cursory report. Overall, the coverage had not been as massive as she would have expected with a case of this notoriety.
“Janet, make a note to check out who owns these newspapers, will you?” she asked, handing over the printouts in question.
Jackie and Janet pulled together a third grouping of papers, as their boss looked down at a two-page document. It was from another Florida paper, and this one didn’t pull any punches. The reporter made her disapproval of the investigation loud and clear. She’d also obviously gone further afield for background information.
One thing leapt off the page:“The death of Bernard St. James III and his sister being found mentally incompetent opens the question of who will control the family’s fortune, reputed to be worth more than five hundred million dollars.”
Christ! Shannon thought, this article was written over six years ago. What are they worth now? She held up the printout.“And I want to talk to the reporter who wrote this.”
Jackie looked back over her shoulder. “I’m already working on that. She’s moved on to one of the Washington newspapers. I’ve contacted them, and she’s supposed to call us back.”
The phone rang. Janet picked it up, listened, then said, “She’s right here.”
Taking the phone, Shannon heard all the sounds of a police squad room. “Palmer?”
“Hi, Shan. I hear you tried to shake my little escort,” he chuckled.
“I don’t need babysitters, Guy. If you want my boy, just tell me.”
“I want your boy, Shannon.”
“Why? What’s up?”
“Further developments. First, the dead woman wasn’t killed on Curran’s porch. Someone dumped her there. Things like that don’t happen by accident. I want to know why her body turned up there. Second, the woman was ID’ed by Vice. Seems she made her living on her back. Generally high-class stuff, out-calls and the like, but also a number of steadies coming to her apartment.”
“So why do you want to speak to Andy?”
“Wouldn’t it make sense that someone deprived of the comfort of his wife might look for a little something to tide him over?”
“Not everyone is like you, Palmer.”
“That’s hitting below the belt, especially with me trying to play ball with you for the sake of your old man’s memory.”
“I’m just trying to save you from yourself. This is a pretty stupid line of investigation to follow. You’ve got a killer on the loose. If she was a hooker, fine, look for one of her johns. I’m confident my boy wasn’t one of them.”
“Nonetheless, I want to speak to Curran. Are you going to bring him down, or should I send someone to get him? Notice again, Shannon, how nice I’m playing with you, but my respect for your dad has its limits.”
“Can I put you on hold for a second?” Shannon looked at her silent companions. “Palmer wants to speak to you downtown, Andy. He’s found out that Maggie was turning tricks, and he stupidly thinks you might be implicated. You’re going to have to speak to him.”
Curran looked scared as he nodded.
“You didn’t know this beforehand, did you?” she asked.
“Not really.”
“I don’t like the sound of that ‘not really’.”
“No, no! I didn’t hold out on you. Olivia never said anything directly about it, but I got the distinct feeling that the reason she was panhandling is that she didn’t want to hang around Maggie’s apartment for some reason. In passing, I thought prostitution might be a possibility, based on the way Maggie dressed and acted.”
“It might have been wiser to let the police in on that surmise. They don’t take kindly to people who skirt around things. You’ve done it to them twice now.”
“I just didn’t think of it.”
Shannon reflected that her client was too much of a gentleman by half. “Do you want me to take you downtown?”
He thought for a minute.“No. I’d rather have you stay here and work on this.”
“Okay,” Shannon said, as she clicked off the hold button on the phone.“He’s all yours, Palmer. Send in whoever you’ve got outside to get him.”After hanging up, she turned. “Do you have that card your lawyer friend gave you? I think it would be a good idea to have some representation about now.”
Curran blanched. “You think it’s that serious?”
“Let’s just say I’d rather be safe than sorry. There’s another thing.”
“What?” “Maggie wasn’t murdered on your porch. Someone dumped her there. Now why would they do that?”
“A warning?”
Shannon tilted her head forward as Michael massaged her tired neck and shoulders. “That feels so good.”
The glass coffee table in front of her looked as bad as Janet’s desk had earlier in the day: almost completely covered with paper. At least everything was now colour-coded so they could keep track more easily.
It hadn’t taken much coaxing for Shannon to stay overnight with Michael Quinn, her lover of just over two years, in his expansive downtown loft. It had been a case she’d taken on for him that had brought them together, and while it had been one of the most difficult and dangerous ones of her career, it had also been one of the defining moments of her life.
Now the owner of a successful musical instrument rental business, Michael had also been a keyboard player of note with one of the seminal rock bands of the early 80s.Back then,he’d also been her high school crush, and that had really complicated things in the early part of their relationship.
“Are you through for the evening, luv?” Michael asked in his gorgeous British accent. She couldn’t understand why he thought it was so ugly, but then most people from England seemed to think the same thing about a Birmingham accent.
“Not really, but toughing it out m
ight do more harm than good. I’m sure to miss something.”
“Can I get you a drink?”
“Yeah. Make it a double,” she said as she turned her head and kissed the back of his hand. “I need it.”
Now, after eleven, Shannon felt every minute of her very long day in her tight muscles and aching brain.
When Michael sat down, she leaned against him, feet curled next to her, and took a long sip of the bourbon she favoured. The warmth radiated out from her belly.
“Oh, that’s nice.”
“I’ve haven’t seen you this involved with a case since that day I walked into your office.”
“If I’d had any idea where this one was going, I’d have run away screaming.”
“I’ve seen Andy Curran play a couple of times, you know. He’s quite good. And a couple of weeks ago, someone was in the shop, raving about this singer you’re trying to find.”
Taking another sip of her drink, Shannon shook her head at the perversity of life. Michael’s band had reformed on a part-time basis, and she was in a relationship with the man she’d worshipped as a seventeen-year-old.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked as he stroked her hair.
“I wish you didn’t have to go to England next week to rehearse.”
“The tour is staring us in the face, and I’ve put the lads off as long as I dare. At least it’s only twenty-two shows.”
“Yeah, I know, and at least five of them will be in Canada.”
“This is why I hate going on the road.”
“You’ll have fun. Rolly and the others have grown up now, and you have a million-selling CD to support.”
“You could come, if you’d like. Chuck the business and run away with me.”
“You know I can’t do that. Besides, there’s the kids.”
“As if they would mind!”
“My mother...”
“Bring her along too.”
“Yeah, right! I can just see her riding herd on Rolly and Lee. ‘Don’t forget to wear your rubbers, boys. There are lots of diseases out there, you know.’”
They both laughed, and Shannon turned her face up to be kissed.
