by Gail Bowen
“My God, Peggy, are you all right?”
“Shaken, but I’m fine. It all happened so quickly. The doorbell rang. I answered it and four men wearing ski masks pushed into the house and began wrecking things. When one of them picked up that photograph of Tommy Douglas on the mantle, I grabbed it out of his hand. He raised his arm. He was going to hit me. One of the other men stopped him. He said, ‘Don’t hurt her.’ Then the first man said, “We were supposed to beat the crap out of her, remember?” Then the man who saved me said, “Fuck that. Let’s get out of here.” And as quickly as they’d come, they were gone.”
“I’ll be right there,” I said. I stepped outside. I had two calls to make. Zack’s phone went straight to voicemail, so I left a message. Jill Oziowy answered on the first ring. Clearly she was anxious to talk, but I didn’t give her a chance. “I’ve got a story for you,” I said. “Some goons just broke into Peggy Kreviazuk’s house. They smashed her furniture and threatened her. Peggy told me you were at her house this morning trying to find out the name of her source about taxpayer money going to Lancaster.”
“Peggy didn’t tell me the name.”
“That’s because Peggy’s an honourable person. She protected a friend. But you told Graham Meighen that Peggy wouldn’t reveal her source, didn’t you?”
“Jo, I never meant for anything like this to happen. You have to believe me.”
“Why? Why do I have to believe you about anything? Just get a crew from NationTV to Peggy’s house ASAP. You know the address, and I’m sure that, thanks to you, Graham does too. Show the world what your new beau is capable of when he doesn’t get his way.” As I ended the call, I was shaking with fury.
A police car was already parked in front of Peggy’s when I arrived. It wasn’t long before the NationTV truck rolled up; it was followed shortly by two media vans and a car with a reporter and photographer from our local paper. All journalists are aware of the first principle of tabloid reporting: “If it bleeds, it leads.” There had been no bloodshed at Peggy’s, but the destruction wrought on her pretty home was sobering, and Peggy’s account of how one of her assailants said they had been instructed to “beat the crap out of her” was chilling.
Despite her ordeal, Peggy was careful to position herself so that during her interviews the camera caught her flanked by the portraits of Tommy Douglas and Woodrow Lloyd on her mantle. Peggy had been involved in politics long enough to understand the usefulness of the soundbite, so she answered questions succinctly. Her message was simple: “People in this city should be able to ask questions about where their taxes are going without being physically attacked.”
After the police and the media left, I stayed with Peggy to wait for the insurance adjuster. She seemed fine, but I was relieved that I was able to convince her to join us for dinner that night. When the insurance man arrived, Peggy walked me to the door. “The struggle continues,” she said. As I always did, I replied, “And so do we.” Over the years, we’d said the words a thousand times, but standing in the rubble of Peggy’s living room, the exchange had a special resonance. Peggy felt the intensity too. She embraced me. “We can’t let them intimidate us, Joanne. If we back down, they win, and nothing changes.”
“I know,” I said. “We can’t allow that to happen.”
As I started down Peggy’s walk, I felt strong and determined, and then I saw Jill. She was coming towards Peggy’s, but as soon as she spotted me, she turned. Her cowardice unleashed something ugly in me. I ran to her and grabbed her arm roughly. “Those thugs threatened her, you know. Peggy heard one of them say their orders were to ‘beat the crap out of her.’ ”
Jill was very pale. “But she’s all right. Our reporter said Peggy’s fine.”
I was livid. “How the hell could she be ‘fine’? She’s eighty-two years old, Jill. She was sitting on her sofa listening to the news when goons broke in and tore her house apart. And they would have torn her apart too.”
“Jo, you have to believe me, I didn’t know there would be retaliation against Peggy.”
“That’s because you never thought about Peggy at all. She was just a tool to set the wheels in motion so you could get a story.”
“Jo, please. Peggy’s a friend. I would never sacrifice a friend—”
I cut her off. “You’d never sacrifice a friend to get what you wanted? Have you forgotten who you’re talking to? I was your friend, but that didn’t keep you away from my husband.” I tightened my grip on her arm. “And while we’re on the subject of my husband. Was the baby that you aborted Ian’s?”
She crumpled. When she responded, her voice was a whisper. “Of course. From the moment I met Ian there was never anyone else.”
“That’s a coincidence,” I said. “Because that’s the way it was for me too.”
Except for the morning after the abortion, I had never seen Jill cry, but she was crying now. “Jo, you’re not the only one who suffered. After the abortion, Ian was very tender with me, but we never had vaginal intercourse again. He said he didn’t want to put me through the pain of another unwanted pregnancy.”
I was incredulous. “Jill, have you lost your mind? I don’t want to hear how tender my husband was with you. And I don’t want to hear that, out of concern for you, he denied himself the pleasures of vaginal sex. Actually, Ian and I conceived two children during that period, so obviously he didn’t deny himself totally.”
Jill hung her head like a whipped dog. “I’ve never known you to be cruel.”
“Then get away from me. Go back to Toronto.”
I was relieved Zack wasn’t there when I got home. He was always sensitive to my emotional temperature and I was feverish with anger. I stripped off my clothes, turned the shower on hot and high, and tried to wash away the last two hours.
I had limited success. I’d arranged with my new best friend, Harold Haney, to have a SPOT-LESS crew clean up Peggy’s house as soon as the police and the insurance company gave the go ahead. The house could be restored, but I wasn’t so sure about me. After I towelled off, I wiped the steam from the mirror and looked at my reflection. Jill was right. I had never been a cruel person, but when she told me about Ian’s tenderness to her after the abortion I wanted to hurt her and I wanted to hurt him. Ian was beyond pain, but Jill wasn’t, and remembering the pleasure I felt in wounding her, I was sick at heart.
Until that morning, I’d handled the situation as well as anyone could have. When Slater Doyle broke the news, my first thoughts were about how I could lessen the blow for Mieka and her brothers. I had laid out the facts as I knew them, without embellishment and without anger. It appeared to have worked. I had vowed that I was not going to let a past betrayal ruin future happiness, and that appeared to be working too.
Incredible as it now seemed, I had never once pictured Jill and Ian tangling limbs and exchanging juices in the act of love. Jill’s admission that in the years after the abortion she and Ian never had vaginal sex changed all that. Now my mind was filled with a kaleidoscope of images of the two of them engaged in discovering all the strokings and penetrations that aroused their lover: Ian tonguing Jill’s clitoris until she climaxed; Jill sucking Ian’s nipples as he moaned with pleasure; Ian sliding his erect penis into Jill’s anus as she ecstatically urged him to go deeper.
I shook my head to clear my mind, then I dressed, dried my hair, and put on moisturizer and lipstick. I still had one photo of Ian. It was of the two of us the night our party won the unwinnable first election. I’d hung the picture in the corner of our family room that I used as an office. I went into the family room and took down the photo. It was a nice picture of a happy moment. I was nine months’ pregnant with Mieka and I was beaming. Ian was beaming too. According to Valerie Smythe, Ian and Jill had begun their affair a few weeks before E-Day. I walked out into the hall, dropped the framed photograph down the chute our condo reserved for non-recyclable garbage, then went back inside, hung the portrait of Cronus in the place where the photo of Ian and I had bee
n, and made myself tea and toast.
By the time Zack came home, I was on my second cup of Earl Grey and I was able to pass for sane. When I bent to embrace him, Zack drew a deep and appreciative breath. “You smell good.”
“Thank Taylor,” I said. “That’s my birthday body lotion. How was your day?”
“Very informative. But you first. How’s Peggy doing?”
“She’s amazing,” I said. “She was brilliant with the media. When I left, she was dealing with the insurance adjuster.”
“How bad is the damage?”
“Bad enough,” I said. “The dining room chairs and the end tables in the living room will have to be replaced, and they smashed the mirror over the mantle and Peggy’s mother’s collection of Royal Doulton figurines. Peggy was sanguine. She said that at her age she’s learned to let go of things, but I’d like to keep an eye on her for a while. She agreed to come out for dinner with us, and I’m hoping I can convince her to stay in our guest room tonight.”
“Good idea,” Zack said. “Where do you want to eat?”
“Peggy told me she likes the new vegan place on Cornwall Street – the Wheat Grass Smoothie.”
Zack grimaced. “Does she have a second choice?”
“Well, she raves about the black and bleu burger at Bushwakkers.”
“Bushwakkers it is. It’s close so nobody has to drive, and we can sample the brews to our hearts’ content.”
“Now tell me about your day.”
“I spent most of it with developers and Chamber of Commerce types.”
“Enemy territory,” I said. “That can’t have been much fun.”
“Actually, it was. Peggy’s revelation that large sums of city money have gone straight into the Lancaster bank account has really pissed them off. A lot of them are Lancaster’s competitors. As long as the city threw them a meaty bone now and again they were fine, but learning that while they’ve been playing nice, Lancaster’s been raking in the tax dollars has raised their ire. They won’t vote for me, but they say they’re not giving another cent to the Ridgeway campaign, and I believe them.”
“And nobody from Ridgeway’s campaign has approached them to discredit what Peggy said.”
“Nope, apparently the information Peggy passed along was solid. Milo’s getting one of our supporters to launch a social media campaign demanding a public investigation.”
“So some good has come of Peggy’s ordeal,” I said. “She’s certainly paid in hard coin for telling the truth. I ran into Jill outside Peggy’s house this afternoon. She said she didn’t know there would be retaliation against Peggy and that she would never sacrifice a friend.”
Zack scowled. “I bet that went straight to the bone.”
“It did.” I took a deep breath. “I lashed out, and Jill said she’d suffered too. She told me that the baby she aborted was Ian’s, and that after the abortion she and Ian never had vaginal sex again. Apparently, he wanted to spare Jill the pain of another unwanted pregnancy.”
Zack was the master of the unreadable expression, but that afternoon he made no attempt to hide his disgust. “What a prick,” he said.
“That’s pretty much my take too,” I said. “But Ian didn’t renounce all sex with Jill – just vaginal. The affair didn’t end. For the next fifteen years they were doing something to each other. Since I came home from Peggy’s, visions of Jill and Ian in all one hundred positions of the Kama Sutra have been dancing in my head.”
Zack wheeled over to me. “Let’s sit down on the couch and neck.” He squeezed my leg. “You do realize that you’re smiling again.”
“You always make life better.”
“That works both ways,” Zack said. “Let’s not waste time fooling around on the couch. It’s been years since I checked out the Kama Sutra. There must be a couple of positions we still haven’t tried.”
After we made love, I took my ceramic Ernest Lindner off the nightstand, balanced it on my chest, and looked at Ernie’s face.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Zack said.
“I was thinking that with both you and Ernie Linder on my side, I might just be able to make it through the rest of the day.”
Zack reached over and tousled my hair. “This really has been rough on you, hasn’t it?”
“It’s been rough on all of us,” I said. “And it’s not going to get any better. Zack, I moved Brock’s press conference tomorrow morning from the R-H Centre to 12 Rose Street, but now I’m getting cold feet.”
“That doesn’t sound catastrophic, but if you’re worried, we can go back to the original plan.”
I took a deep breath. “No. We have to stay the course. Ever since I saw Slater Doyle’s reaction when you said we were going to make certain all the houses we own in North Central would meet the building code, I’ve had a gut feeling that somehow Cronus’s murder and everything that’s happened since is connected to 12 Rose Street.”
Zack frowned. “All this because of Slater’s reaction? Jo, I’ve learned to trust your instincts, but that’s quite a leap.”
“I’m hoping that changing the venue of the press conference will spook Ridgeway’s people into making a move. Something strange is going on with that house.” As I related what I’d learned from Angus and Harold Haney, Zack was rapt, but when I told him that Nell Standingready constantly burns sweetgrass to try to rid her house of its bad medicine, he was incredulous.
“Bad medicine? Jesus, Jo, what are we talking about here?”
“I don’t know. All I know is that Nell did not want me to see the house, but I insisted. She was beside herself. Zack, at least half of the basement is sealed off – enclosed by concrete walls. Harold Haney says that Number 12 was a sex club for ‘rich perverts.’ Admission was for members only. The door was always locked and the walls were thick.”
Zack’s eyes widened. “I heard about that club, though I didn’t know exactly where it was. I was invited to go a few times, but it wasn’t my scene. Apparently customers could get whatever they wanted there, but from what I heard the people who frequented that place were into seriously kinky stuff. A few years ago, the club suddenly closed.”
“It was almost ten years ago,” I said. “And that’s when the room was sealed off. Mr. Haney couldn’t remember the exact date, but he said the workers had to rush to beat the snow.”
“So we’re moving the press conference to make the Ridgeway camp believe we know something incriminating about the history of 12 Rose Street. You’re really rolling the dice, Jo.”
“I know I am,” I said. “But Peggy’s last words to me today were ‘If we back down, they win, and nothing changes.’ She’s right. We’ll be cautious until this blows over, but we can’t back down. We have to keep the Ridgeway campaign’s feet to the fire.”
Zack moved to transfer his body to his chair. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it.”
Zack and I showered, and then he made calls while I went downstairs to talk to Brock. The change of venue would be a gamble, and Brock would be at the centre of it. As I explained my reasons for the move, I watched for Brock’s reaction. There was none. In fact, he was so preoccupied he didn’t seem to be following what I said. Finally, I stopped in mid-sentence. “Brock, are you okay with all this?”
“Sure. I’ll be there.”
“If you don’t like the idea, we can go back to the original plan.”
Brock rubbed his temples as if to clear his head. “I get it, and I’m in. I’m having trouble processing something I just heard. Michael called me a few minutes ago to tell me he and Slater Doyle were married yesterday.” Brock shook his head. “I still can’t believe it. When Michael and I were together I was sure we’d both found what we wanted. Looking back, I guess Slater has always had a hold on Michael.”
“But Michael left Slater for you.”
“It wasn’t that straightforward. Slater and Michael’s affair was long-term but very private. Slater had a wife.”
“I’ve met his daughter, Bridie. She’s a
beautiful child. Where is her mother in all this?”
“She died,” Brock said. “It was very sudden. She seemed to be in perfect health. She was on the treadmill, and she collapsed. Apparently, it was a genetic problem with her heart. After she died, Michael assumed he and Slater could be open about their relationship, but Slater wasn’t ready. They split up, and by the time I came along, Michael was willing to try again. It was the best time of my life, but in retrospect, I realize Michael never severed his ties with Slater.”
“Were the ties personal?”
“I didn’t think so. Michael and Slater were both close to Graham Meighen so it seemed natural enough for them to stay in touch. Apparently, the relationship was more complex than I thought.” Brock’s obsidian eyes were troubled. “Jo, I’m certain Michael doesn’t love Slater Doyle. Since Michael told me about the marriage I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out why the man I love, a man whom I’m sure still loves me, just married someone else.”
Brock joined us for dinner at Bushwakkers. A couple of hours with good food, good company, and a good band always lightens the burden. When the four of us left the restaurant, we were restored. Zack and I convinced Peggy to spend the night with us. The destruction of Peggy’s house was the lead story on the late news on all three of our city’s network outlets. Thankfully, we were beside Peggy when images of her home’s slashed upholstery, broken furniture, and shattered keepsakes filled the screen. The reporters hinted at the possibility of a connection between Peggy’s comments on Quinlan Live and the havoc that persons unknown had wreaked on her property, and then the cameras turned to Peggy for her reaction.
Shoulders squared, voice steady as she vowed to continue to speak the truth, she was an appealing figure. As much as I was sickened by the cruelty to which Peggy had been subjected, I knew her misfortune would bring us votes. I also knew E-Day was still twenty-three days away, and a great deal could happen in three weeks.
