The Nesting Dolls

by Gail Bowen

  “One of your neighbours let me in downstairs. I shouldn’t have walked in, but I must admit I enjoyed looking out your window. You have a great view.”

  “Theo agrees with you,” she said, and I could hear the assurance flowing back into her voice. “When I tell him we have front-row seats for the Human Comedy, he always concurs, don’t you, love?”

  His back ramrod-straight, his strong sculpted features still without an ounce of extra flesh, Theo was, as he had apparently always been, a handsome man, but his expression was blank. When Myra raised her arm to touch her husband’s, she winced. At the Wainbergs’ I’d been struck by her vitality and by the translucent glow of her skin. The woman leading Theo into the living room was pale and clearly tired but she did not allow her social mask to drop. “Remember my telling you that Joanne Kilbourn was coming for tea this afternoon?” she said brightly.

  Theo’s eyes darted anxiously towards his wife. “Did I invite her?”

  “We both invited her,” Myra said. “Now, why don’t you and Joanne chat while I get things ready.”

  Theo waited until his wife was in the kitchen area, then he moved purposefully towards the chairs that had been set out for tea, picked up one, moved it in front of the window, and sat down. I picked up another chair and carried it to the place next to Theo’s in front of the window.

  For a beat we sat in silence: Theo staring at the street, me, staring at Theo. He was carefully dressed. His suede loafers were brushed, his grey slacks were knife-edged, and his black turtleneck made him seem both distinguished and rakish.

  “It can’t be easy coming back to a city you left almost thirty years ago,” I said.

  “Everything changes,” he said; then he leaned so close to the window that his forehead almost pressed the glass. A young woman and two little girls in snowsuits the colour of lime popsicles had joined the solitary skater. “I’m hoping to get skates for Christmas,” Theo said. He lowered his voice. “Maybe you could tell the woman,” he said, jerking his head in Myra’s direction. After that, he and I retreated to our private thoughts. There didn’t seem to be much left to say.

  When Myra asked if I could come and help with the tea tray, I was relieved. Bringing in the tray, moving my chair back to the table, and exclaiming over the little feast Myra produced gave me something to do. The tray was festive with damask napkins, and pale green cups, saucers, and plates so thin I could see through them. The tea itself was excellent: Darjeeling and very strong. Myra had made bite-sized lemon tarts with pastry that I envied. There was fruit bread thinly sliced and lavishly buttered and a fine winter surprise – a bowl of strawberries. Theo popped a tart into his mouth; then, like the schoolboy he had apparently become again, loaded his plate. Myra laughingly shook a chastising finger at him, but wholly absorbed in contemplating his food, he ignored her. She shook her head fondly, and she and I exchanged smiles.

  “We saw your husband in action this morning,” she said. “We get gloomy staying in the apartment, so we put on our boots and tromped through the snow to the courthouse. Mr. Shreve puts on quite a show.”

  Theo was just about to pop another lemon tart in his mouth, but our conversation had captured his interest.

  “The one in the chair?” he asked me.

  “He’s my husband,” I said.

  Theo’s brown eyes were suddenly bright and shrewd – as if the veil had been lifted. “His argument was smart but not sound,” he said.

  “Lots of snap and dazzle, but no substance?” I said.

  Theo stared at me without comprehension. The veil had dropped again.

  “I disagree,” Myra said, knitting the ragged pieces of our discussion into a coherent whole. “Not with Joanne’s answer, but with your assessment, Theo. In my opinion, Mr. Shreve is right. No otherwise blameless person should have to pay for a moment of indiscretion with a lifetime of penance.”

  “So say you,” Theo said, and he went back to his plate.

  We moved to safer subjects: the changes that had taken place in the city in the past three decades; the effect sudden prosperity was having on the province; some interesting small galleries Myra and Theo might enjoy. Myra was a quick and intelligent conversationalist, but her slip on the ice had taken its toll, and she was flagging.

  When Theo yawned, Myra stood quickly. The party was over, but she was gracious. “Joanne, I haven’t given you a tour of the apartment.” She had already begun to move, and I followed. The small kitchen was separated from the living room by a counter on which there were two martini glasses: the first held red jelly beans; the second, green. “That’s a nice festive touch,” I said.

  “There were three,” Theo volunteered, “but she broke one.”

  “Joanne doesn’t need to hear about our domestic mishaps, Theo,” Myra said sharply. “We’ll get another.” She turned to me. “My husband has a sweet tooth,” she said.

  I smiled. “So does mine, but he’d regard using his martini glasses for anything other than gin as sacrilege.”

  “I’ll remember that when we entertain you,” Myra said. “Now here’s the master bedroom – sleek, no? I’m still getting accustomed to the new look of our lives. I decided it would be better to look forward, not back. Except for our clothing and Theo’s papers, we didn’t bring a thing with us from Ottawa. A fresh start was best. All my collections were… dispersed.”

  “It must have been difficult leaving all that behind,” I said.

  “It was a small death,” she said flatly. “Now here’s the bathroom – also sleek and soul-less. And,” she said, moving down the hall, “here’s my little warren.” She gestured to a study with a cranberry-coloured reading chair, stacks of novels with glossy dust jackets, and six framed black-and-white photos arranged in rows of three on the wall. The photographs in the top row were of a woman’s foot, its toes gnarled by arthritis, a graceful, liver-spotted hand, and a drooping breast. The photographs in the row beneath were of an eye with its lid slightly pouched, a mouth with thinning lips, and a buttock no longer firm. The pictures were oddly mesmerizing. As I turned to Myra, she read the question in my eyes. “My work,” she said. “A portrait of me as I am now: fragmented and aging.”

  “Myra! Myra!” Theo’s voice, youthful and excited, rang out from the other room. Myra sighed softly. “And there is Theo as he is now.”

  An odd scene greeted us. Theo was holding the matryoshka I’d purchased at Brokaw’s. My purse lay open on the table in front of him, and he was beaming. “She brought the doll, Myra. Every year at Christmas, we get a new one, and here it is. I spied it in her purse when she opened it to get her glasses, but I didn’t want to spoil the surprise.”

  “I’m so sorry, Joanne,” Myra whispered. She looked at her husband with concern. “I don’t think I can take it away from him.”

  “Keep it,” I said. “Please. Let it be my gift.”

  “Thank you,” Myra said.

  “Come and look,” Theo crowed. “This one is a real beauty.” The wooden matryoshka with her brightly painted headscarf, her shiny black hair, rosebud lips, and rounded flower-painted body was traditional, and Theo was clearly delighted. He held the doll between his thumb and forefinger. “I have a secret,” he said in a soft imitation of a feminine voice. He transferred the doll to the palm of his other hand, opened it, and removed a second doll. “I have a secret,” he said in a voice that was slightly higher in pitch. He repeated the action and the phrase “I have a secret” until five identical dolls, each smaller than her predecessor, were lined up on the coffee table. When he opened the sixth and found the final doll – no larger than a child’s fingernail but identical in every way to the others – he spoke the climactic line in a voice that was very small and very high. “And I am the secret,” he said. Then his eyes darted between his wife and me, seeking our approval.

  Myra smiled at him fondly. “That was splendid, Theo. Thank you.” She put her fingers firmly under my elbow. “Joanne’s leaving us now,” she said.

  Theo sto
od and bowed. “Thank you for coming,” he said. “Not many do.”

  Myra led the way to the door and then came with me as I stepped outside. She pulled the door closed behind us. Because the door had been open when I arrived, I hadn’t seen the wreath. It was fresh and eye-catching: a perfect circle of bay leaves, eucalyptus, and pomegranates dusted with gold mica powder.

  “That’s exquisite,” I said.

  “I made it,” Myra said. “I suddenly find myself with ample time for the womanly arts.” Her eyes met mine. “We’re going to have to take a different approach to our television project, aren’t we?” She began speaking quickly, cutting off the possibility of objection. “Perhaps we could arrange for an actor, someone really fine like Donald Sutherland, to read from Theo’s judgments. The TV people could intersperse the readings with videos of Theo talking about the law – before – when he was himself. I have a box of home movies: Theo hiking, picnicking – the human side of the man – and excellent videos of him discussing the philosophy of law with his students. Joanne, there are endless ways this could be done.”

  “Is it Alzheimer’s?” I asked.

  Myra slumped. She hadn’t convinced me, and she knew it. “No, but the effect is the same. He was shingling the roof of our cottage Labour Day weekend. We could have paid to have it done, but you know Theo.” Her laugh was short. “But, of course, you don’t know Theo. Not Theo as he was – as I believe he still is somewhere inside that shell you saw. The man I was married to for over four decades was the most capable human being I’ve ever known. He was also clever and charming and fascinating. And it was all over in a second.”

  “What happened?”

  “He fell. One minute we were leading the lives we’d always led. I was in my garden picking beans for lunch, and Theo was on the roof shingling. He lost his footing, fell to the ground, and suffered what is characterized as a ‘traumatic frontal lobe brain injury’ – it was devastating. Parts of his long-term memory are intact, but he has no short-term memory to put daily life into context. He’s confused; he’s agitated; he’s unpredictable. Drugs don’t help, but I’m not giving up. I believe I still see flashes of the man he was.”

  “There was a spark when he described Zack’s performance in court,” I said.

  “There was.” She was ardent. “I live for those glimpses of the man he was. They’re proof that the real Theo is still in there. My husband has always set himself goals and not only met but exceeded them. He’s already made progress. At first, he didn’t know where he was or whether it was night or day. Now, he’s putting the pieces together.” Myra’s eyes glittered. “Theo needs a reason to get up in the morning. So do I. Don’t take that away from us, Joanne.”

  It took Taylor and me an hour to feed the colonies of cats in the warehouse district and in the abandoned building across the alley from the condos on Scarth Street Mall. When we’d emptied our last bag of food on the snow, I looked across the alley and saw Louise Hunter getting into a Mercedes parked behind her building. She seemed to be in a hurry. She backed out, hit a garbage can, jerked forward, then backed out again and sped off. Angus, who had owned a series of clunkers but loved cars, would have said it was a shitty way to treat 200,000 dollars’ worth of sweet driving machine, and he would have been right.

  By the time we all got home, Zack and Taylor and I were hungry and tired, so we ate early. The borscht and thick slices of dark pumpernickel from the Brokaw family bakery made for a deeply satisfying meal. When he’d finished his second bowl of soup, Zack pushed his chair back and sighed with contentment. “You know, even the lousiest day has its moments,” he said.

  “And the evening has just begun,” I said.

  Right on cue, Zack’s cell rang. As he listened, his face grew sombre. When the call ended, he turned to us. “That was Delia,” he said. “The police just found Abby Michaels.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Zack was a realist. If the truth was painful, he faced it, dealt with it, and moved along. That evening after he talked to Delia, he didn’t waste time on any preamble when he spoke to Taylor and me. “Bad news,” he said. His voice was low and his eyes were filled with concern as his gaze moved between us. “Abby Michaels is dead. An hour ago, two men digging out the parking lot behind the A-l Jewellery and Pawn Shop on Toronto Street found a black Volvo with the licence plate LECTOR. Abby Michaels’s body was in the front seat. It’s early times yet but the police believe she was raped and strangled.”

  Taylor’s body tensed at the news. I put my arm around her and rubbed her shoulder. “How could something like that happen?” she said.

  The parentheses that bracketed Zack’s lips deepened. “I ask myself that every time I see a case like this. It’s hard to believe that human beings can treat one another so brutally. But it happens. All I can tell you is that the person who did this will be caught and punished.”

  Taylor’s face was strained. “But will anyone ever know why he did it?”

  Zack didn’t lie. “The Crown will present theories. The man’s lawyer will present other theories. But the only person who will ever really know what went through his mind before he attacked Abby Michaels is the man himself. Generally rapists are men who feel powerless and who feel a need to prove their power. Sometimes, the situation spins out of control, and they kill their victim. I know that’s not a satisfactory answer, but those are the facts.”

  I could feel Taylor’s muscles tighten again. When she spoke she couldn’t hide her fear and frustration. “I understand that part of it, but with Abby, there are other facts. Before the rape happened, she gave away her baby. It’s almost as if she knew something terrible was coming, and she wanted to make sure Jacob was safe.”

  Zack and I exchanged glances. “We’re all in the dark here,” I said. “But we’ll know more soon. Your dad’s friend, Inspector Haczkewicz, always says that a police investigation is like turning on the lights in a room where everything’s in place. You just need to see what’s already there.”

  “So you think the police will find out why she gave away her baby before that terrible thing happened to her?”

  “I know they will,” Zack said. “As your mother says, it’s a matter of time.”

  Taylor’s voice was tight. “I guess Izzy’s parents have already told her.”

  “I’m sure they have,” Zack said. He looked closely at Taylor’s face. It was pale and pinched. “Are you all right?”

  Without answering, she picked up her bowl and plate, walked to the sink and rinsed them. “Isobel was so excited about having a sister,” she said.

  “She could probably use someone to talk to,” I said. “Why don’t you give her a call?”

  Taylor glanced at the dishes on the table. “Do you need me to help?”

  “Your dad and I can handle it,” I said.

  After we’d finished cleaning up, Zack took two tulip-shaped Scotch glasses from the cupboard.

  I looked at him questioningly. “You’re not going over to the Wainbergs’?”

  He shook his head. “There’s nothing I can do except hold Delia’s hand, and she has Noah for that. Besides, I’m tired. Tonight I need a hand to hold, and Delia’s is not my hand of choice.”

  It was the first time I could remember Zack acknowledging that he was tired. “You’re in luck,” I said. “Mine is available.”

  “One of my clients gave me what he claims is a bottle of excellent single malt,” Zack said. “It’s called Old Pulteney. Interested in giving it a test run?”

  “You bet,” I said. “I’ll bring the glasses; you get Old Pulteney, and I’ll meet you in the family room. We can light the fire, turn on the tree lights, and try to remember that it’s Christmas.”

  When we were together on the couch, I handed Zack his drink. He held the glass under his nose and inhaled deeply. “My client told me that to be fair to the single malt, I should allow myself a half-hour free of stress and distractions before I sip.” He stared at the Scotch thoughtfully. “Screw that.” He took
a large swallow. “You know, this really is pretty good.”

  I sipped. “More than pretty good,” I said. “Here’s to a half-hour free of stress and distractions.”

  For a few minutes we sat in companionable silence, letting the warmth of the Scotch spread through our veins while we savoured the fire, the tree, and the closeness to one another. “I could get used to this,” I said.

  “So could I,” Zack agreed, “but we’re going to have to talk about Abby Michaels.”

  “Whenever you’re ready.”

  “I’m as ready as I’m ever going to be,” he said. “Taylor posed the right question. What happened? In a murder investigation, the police start with the body, then focus on the scene where the body was found and the victim’s history. The old cops call it the golden triangle, and a lot of the time they can make an educated guess about why someone was murdered just by checking out where the body was found. If a body is left in a public place, as Abby’s was, chances are they’re looking at what the cops call ‘a crime of opportunity.’ ”

  “The victim is just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” I said.

  “Right, but this time, the formula doesn’t work.”

  “Because of Abby’s determination to get Jacob into the Wainbergs’ hands before she was attacked,” I said.

  Zack nodded. “As Taylor says, it was almost as if Abby knew something was going to happen to her, and she wanted to make sure Jacob was safe.”

  “It does look that way,” I said. “Except Abby couldn’t have had any enemies in Regina. The only people she knew here were the Wainbergs.”

  “And she’d never met them,” Zack said. “So Abby Michaels comes to a city where she knows no one, gives away her son, and is raped and murdered in the parking lot behind a pawn shop.”

  “Abby had an appointment in Samarra,” I said.

  “You think her death was fated?” Zack said.

  I shrugged. “You know the old story. A man believes he sees Death threatening him in the market in Baghdad so he runs to Samarra to escape. When he goes to the market in Samarra, Death is waiting for him, because that’s where the man was supposed to die all along.”