by Ross Pennie
Zol had drunk enough caffeine for one day. He didn’t need to add to the jitters he already felt. It was going to be tough to sift through the domestic details of a much-celebrated life he’d once seen as untouchable. The chore would be all the more complicated if Douglas Matheson recognized him from The Bard’s Table.
“Thank you, no,” Zol said. “Unless you happen to have decaf.”
“That’s all I ever drink. I’ll be back in a jiff.”
While the silver-haired gentleman padded off to the kitchen, Zol stole the moment to review his plans for the day. Too bad Ermalinda wasn’t free to mind Max the entire day; she had some sort of pressing commitment for the afternoon. After this visit with Douglas Matheson, he had to be home in time to give Max his lunch and get him to his swimming lesson for two thirty. Then they had to complete their weekly marketing at Four Corners Fine Foods before it closed at five. It was never a quick trip because Max liked a say in everything they would be eating for the next week. At seven thirty the group would reassemble in Zol’s sunroom to spend the evening, and possibly the whole night, dissecting all the information they’d gleaned separately today. Hamish would be meeting with Owen Renway’s partner, Kenyon Cheung. Rita Spinelli’s husband was expecting Natasha. Colleen would visit the parents of Tonya Latkovic. With luck, a common thread would materialize, a tantalizing lead that would satisfy Trinnock. Zol knew what would happen if Trinnock pulled the plug before Zol and his team were given half a chance to solve this case themselves. The blood roared in Zol’s ears at the thought of a flock of pompous, media-hungry epidemiologists descending from Toronto like vultures onto his investigation.
Zol looked around the living room. Photographic incarnations of Delia Smart watched him from all sides. From the piano, from the rolltop desk, from the mahogany side table: Ophelia the broken-hearted maiden, Catarina the endearing shrew, Cleopatra the sultry empress. Within a paired set of frames angled on the mantel, Delia Smart the ingénue gazed at quite another Delia whose facial creases spoke not of aging but of wisdom. There were no photographs showing Delia at The Bard’s Table, but Zol could picture her there all the same, seated in her favourite spot, radiant, her spoon poised over one of his special crème brûlées.
Matheson returned with two coffees on a tray. He handed Zol a mug, peered through the window, and grumbled about the blustery weather. “Hamilton has always been our winter home. It’s supposed to have less snow than Stratford. But you just can’t beat Stratford in the summer. . . .”
Zol let Matheson prattle on for another minute, then offered condolences and thanked his host for agreeing to meet on such short notice. He pulled a notepad from his briefcase and forced himself to begin the dissection of the celebrated life. “Perhaps we should start with . . .” He cleared his throat and started again. “Please, tell me how and when Miss Smart started showing signs of her illness.”
Matheson put down his mug and focused into the distance. “It’s hard to say exactly,” he said. “At first she just started forgetting little things, like leaving her sunglasses on the counter at the bank. I didn’t think anything of it. But when she couldn’t remember our grandson’s name, I knew something was wrong.” His fingers trembled as he ran his hand through his thin white hair in a practised motion that suggested he once had a much thicker mane. “I took her to the doctor, but he said she was just overtired.” Matheson slapped his palm against his thigh. “I knew it was more than that.”
“When was this, sir?”
Matheson looked at the ceiling. “Let’s see. I took her to the doctor the day after her birthday. Late November.” He inclined his head toward his nicotine-stained fingers, steepled against his belly. “Everything came to a head not long after Christmas. She wore a shamrock-green dress instead of her tartan shawl to the Robbie Burns dinner on January twenty-fifth, insisting to everyone that the beloved poet was Irish.” He looked at Zol, his eyes wide with dismay. “I can’t tell you how embarrassing that was. That doctor of hers is an idiot.” Matheson jabbed at his forehead with his fore -finger. “Overtired, my eye. She was ill, for God’s sake.”
Matheson began a cough that barked and rattled relentlessly, like a freight train. His eyes watered, his cheeks flared, his lips turned blue. Zol rose to fetch a glass of water from the kitchen, terrified he might be required to perform CPR, but Matheson came out of it. “Sorry. Bad lungs,” he croaked, patting his breastbone. “Old before their time.”
Into Zol’s mind flashed the shades of the summers he’d spent helping his father with the tobacco harvest, the truckloads of leaves dispatched from their farm to the brokers and the cigarette factories. He suppressed the images before they could fully take shape. “Please take your time. Do you need a glass of water?”
Matheson shook his head, wiped his eyes, and blew into his handkerchief. “Water doesn’t help.” He looked at Zol and dipped his eyebrows. “Where was I?”
“You were telling me how you first realized that your wife was having problems with her memory.”
“Oh yes. Well, the week after the Robbie Burns fiasco her director phoned me from the rehearsal hall. Said I had to come right away, that Delia was in a terrible state.”
“What was wrong?”
“He’d just cancelled her role as Gertrude — Hamlet’s mother — because she couldn’t remember her lines. He said she would never be ready for opening night.”
“That must have come as a shock.”
“She was off her head with fury. But by the next day she’d forgotten all about it.” His face darkened by sadness, Matheson cast a hand at the array of portraits that surrounded them. “The theatre had always been her life.”
“I’m so sorry. Do you mind telling me what happened next?”
Matheson explained that he was finally able to get his wife to see a neurologist. The diagnosis was early onset Alzheimer’s disease, which made sense in a fifty-eight-year-old woman whose parents had both died of the disease before they were seventy. She went rapidly downhill, deteriorating faster than her parents had, according to her brother. Nurses and homemakers were brought in around the clock, and by mid-September she stopped chewing. After that, she couldn’t even swallow.
“I didn’t force-feed her, you know. She’d always been adamant that I’d never feed her through a tube or put her on life support.”
Zol shifted in his chair. “Had she worried about that?”
“She’d seen the indignities imposed on her parents and vowed they’d never be inflicted on her.”
“I understand. Did she slip away at home?”
“Yes, on October tenth. Five days after her last sip of water.” Matheson closed his eyes. His shoulders heaved as he sobbed.
A lump caught in Zol’s throat. Douglas described his beloved Delia with such tenderness. When Zol recalled the stormy relationship he’d endured with Francine, their constant bickering and her numerous fits of dish-throwing rage, he was suddenly envious of the man sitting on the chesterfield, tears streaming down his bloated cheeks.
Matheson collected himself. He seemed relieved when Zol shifted the conversation away from Delia’s illness and toward mundane questions about where they’d purchased their food. Delia shopped mostly at Kelly’s SuperMart and Four Corners Fine Foods. When Zol asked about I and W Meats, the butcher shop where Joanna Vanderven had been a loyal customer, Matheson replied that he’d never heard of the establishment. A few minutes later, Zol found packages of frozen sausages and lamb chops bearing the Four Corners pricing label in Matheson’s freezer, but no wild game, no British bangers, no vials of growth hormone.
“Don’t know why a beautiful woman would need growth hormone,” Matheson grumbled when Zol asked about it. “But she did get regular injections. Cortisone for her knees — you can’t be limping all over the Stratford stage. And Extendo-Tox for, you know . . .”
Extendo-Tox, now the hottest brand of Botox anti-wrinkle therapy, had recently taken the market by storm. Ads for it were popping up everywhere. “I suppo
se that’s not surprising, really,” said Zol. “These days it’s just part of being a model or an actress over thirty-five.”
“Well, I didn’t like it. She was beautiful the way God made her. Besides, she only had tiny wrinkles. Not worth noticing, and certainly not worth injecting with some sort of toxin.”
Zol continued with his checklist. Delia had never lived anywhere but Ontario. She’d visited Britain many times but only for short stays. She usually ordered lamb, fish, or vegetarian when they ate out. “Except,” Douglas Matheson said, “at a place called The Bard’s Table. It’s in Stratford. They do a terrific beef Wellington.”
Was Matheson going to recognize him without a chef’s hat covering most of his head?
“Do you still go to The Bard’s Table?” Zol asked.
“Well, not since Delia . . . lost her memory. Up until then, we went once a month during the Festival season.”
CHAPTER 11
It was noon when Hamish pulled his Saab into a visitor’s spot in front of Heritage Towers, the condominium where Kenyon Cheung lived. The seven-storey tower dwarfed the leafy Hamilton neighbourhood of tiny brick houses built for veterans returning from the Second World War. Hamish turned off the ignition and sat for a moment, fingering his keys. Up close, gay men made him nervous. Not when they were his patients, distracted by their health concerns. Not when they appeared on television or in the movies. Not even when he observed their jubilations from the sidelines of Toronto’s gay pride parade. In fact, when viewed from a safe distance, gay men fascinated him. They quickened his pulse and stiffened his manhood. He wished he could join them. But in social situations they terrified him, reminding him of the day he had overheard his father shouting at his mother: “If that goddamn church singing turns my boy into a queer, I’m going to smother him with a pillow.”
Hamish was certain that at close range any gay man could see that he was queer and, given half a chance, would announce it to the world. His rational side knew that in Canada, in the twenty-first century, it was acceptable to be gay. In fact, gay men were often celebrated — in bars, in city halls, even in some churches. But it was his irrational side that was the problem. It governed his bedtime compulsions to straighten every book on the shelves in his study and align every shoe on the floor of his closet. And it consumed him in an overriding fear that the world would fall apart the instant it was known that trim guys with crisp haircuts turned him on.
In response to Hamish’s buzz at the panel in the vestibule, Kenyon Cheung released the front door lock. Hamish stepped into the lobby and rode the elevator to the seventh floor. He found Kenyon’s door, straightened his jacket, and ran a hand across his haircut.
“Be right there,” said a muffled voice in response to Hamish’s knock.
A young Asian man opened the door and offered a firm, dry hand.
Though Hamish’s stomach felt inside out, he found it a welcome change to greet another man eye-to-eye. Kenyon also stood five-foot-five. On recognizing the handsome manliness in Kenyon’s smooth, square jaw, Hamish stroked his own with a nervous hand. Though they both possessed enough clean-shaven whiskers to attest they’d gone through puberty, it was clear that neither could grow the sort of beard that would satisfy a lumberjack. When the two men stood on either side of the threshold and passed their palms in automatic unison across their salon-perfect flat-tops, a flash of understanding passed between them, and they smiled into one another’s eyes.
“Owen loved to eat,” Kenyon said to Hamish once they’d settled in the kitchen. “And I like to cook. So we were a good match.” The tentative smile faded from his face and he stared at his hands resting on the glass tabletop.
“Again, I’m sorry to intrude on you like this,” Hamish said. “It must all be so fresh. It’s been only a month since Owen . . . you know . . .”
“It’s all right, you can say it. He choked to death on too much steak and Burgundy. The old Owen would have enjoyed the irony.”
Kenyon was making this much easier than Hamish had expected. “Where would you have bought that steak?”
“It was nothing special, so I must have picked it up at Kelly’s.”
“Did you shop anywhere else?”
“Oh yeah,” Kenyon said, and proceeded to count the stores on his fingers: “We hit the Bombay Market for Asian stuff, Botticelli’s for Italian, I and W for their sausages, and Four Corners for everything else you can’t find at Kelly’s.” He smiled and rolled his eyes at Hamish’s discovery of their guilty indulgences. “Yes, we made the rounds.”
“I’m not much of a cook, but I’ve been to Four Corners once or twice. I hear they’ve got great chocolates.”
“Every kind you can think of — Lindt and Godiva, Rogers’ and Walker’s. And special Swiss ones with fantastic creamy centres.”
That sounded like the chocolates Brenda McEwen had told him her husband was addicted to. “Yes,” Hamish said, “don’t they come in kiwi and a few other fruits?”
“Our favourites are mango and passion guava. Owen doesn’t let a week go by without . . .” Kenyon closed his eyes and massaged his forehead with his fingertips. His lips quivered, but there were no tears.
Hamish wanted to reach out and pat Kenyon on the shoulder, an action that came easily when his elderly patients struggled with painful memories. But he just could not be that forward with a man his own age. He was afraid of the response he’d provoke. Recoil or reciprocation: either would be mortifying. “I’m sorry. This really is a bad time. Perhaps —”
Kenyon opened his eyes. “No. It’s okay.” He ran his hand over the dark, luxurious bristles of his flat-top. “You’re here on a Saturday, for God’s sake. This must be important. Just ask me all your questions, and I’ll get through it.”
Hamish scanned the list he’d prepared. “Did you and Owen ever eat game?”
“You mean moose and deer?”
“Yes.”
“Never at home.” Kenyon straightened the crease in his blue jeans. “Don’t know any hunters. Besides, Owen would never eat Bambi.” He gazed at the ceiling as though trying to jog his memory. “I’ve had venison at restaurants. Owen did try bison a few times. They do a nice job of it at The Bard’s Table. That’s in Stratford.”
“I know,” Hamish said. “A colleague used to work there,” he continued, jotting down reminders of the connections he’d discovered already: Owen with Miss Smart at The Bard’s Table; Owen with Hugh McEwen and the Swiss chocolates at Four Corners. After he’d exhausted his questions about their diet and filled three pages of his notepad, he was ready to probe the next topic on his list. “Did you do much travelling overseas?”
“Only cruises. Eastern seaboard and the Caribbean. Usually from New York. Owen was afraid to fly, so we’d drive to the ship, take the cruise, and drive home.”
“Did he ever get to Europe?”
Kenyon shook his head. “We did drive as far as Lauderdale a couple of times. Non-stop, except for gas. That was brutal. But a whole lot better than Owen clicking his tongue and grunting next to some mouthy jock in economy.”
“Sorry?”
“Owen had Tourette’s. Not too many signs of it at home, but when he got upset, he’d grunt like a porker. It worked like a charm on his income-tax defaulters. If they got the least bit huffy with him he’d start working his jaw, blinking his eyes, and grunting like a wild boar. The feds would get a cheque within a week.”
Hamish smiled. “Talk about inheriting lemons and making lemonade.”
“Yeah, well, he had to. The grunts got a lot less noticeable after they started injecting his vocal cords. About two years ago. The treatments made him a bit hoarse, but he was pleased at the improvement. I was, too.” He pulled a tissue from his pocket as his eyes began to glisten. “And then this latest thing hits him. Jesus.”
Hamish sipped his tea. He was about to clear the constant tickle from his throat but he found he didn’t need to. The tickle had disappeared. This tea was working wonders. “Perhaps you can tell
me how it all started,” he said, delighted at the strength of his voice.
“You mean the memory loss?”
“Yes, and perhaps he had other signs of encephalitis.”
Kenyon’s shoulders tensed. “Encephalitis. That’s a brain infection. Owen had a brain infection?”
“Um . . . That’s what his autopsy showed.”
“Wait a minute. All those questions about meat and butcher shops and travel.” Kenyon’s face flooded with alarm. “He had mad cow disease, didn’t he?”
Hamish stared at his cuticles. He didn’t know how he was going to phrase his answer. He’d promised Zol he wouldn’t reveal anything as specific as prions and CJD; Zol had gotten so angry when he thought Hamish had revealed too much to the dentist’s widow. But Kenyon’s question was so direct, and so insightful, that it demanded an honest answer. Hamish couldn’t lie. Not to a man with whom he felt such a strong connection. He paused and waited for a blast of inspiration.
Kenyon’s lips grew pale, his pupils huge. “Come on. You owe me an explanation.”
“Look — we don’t know exactly what it is. To be honest, it’s something so unusual that . . . that Owen was among the first to come down with it.”
“What? You mean there are others?” When Hamish didn’t answer, Kenyon stood and walked toward the window. He turned slowly and planted his feet. He jabbed his hands onto his hips and glared. “Look, I’ve been a trial lawyer for nine years. I’m a pro at reading faces, and yours says you’re hiding something.” He took his seat at the table again and lifted his teacup. He stared into it, swirled it slowly, and stared again. After several moments he put down the cup and rested a hand on Hamish’s wrist. He squeezed lightly.
It was a rush to feel the warmth of Kenyon’s palm against his skin. And amazing how right, how natural it felt.
