Still Water

by Amy Stuart

  “Can I tell her who’s here?”

  “Her niece,” Clare says. “Clare.”

  “Wait here.”

  Suzanne ascends a long set of mahogany stairs. Despite the homey touches, this place still feels medical, emergency plans lining the walls, a box of latex gloves on the table at the foyer’s center. The smell is too sterile. Clare wants to gag. Suzanne reappears at the top of the stairs and waves Clare up.

  “She’ll see you now in her room.”

  Clare follows her up the stairs and down the hallway to the very end. Suzanne guides her into the last room. Clare gathers herself before crossing the threshold. She finds Janice on a bed angled up to sitting, her legs covered by a homemade quilt. In her profile her jawbone is pronounced, her skin tinged yellow, a plain blue scarf tied over her head. She barely resembles the woman from the pictures Clare found online. Janice’s gaze is fixed out the window.

  “I don’t have any nieces,” she says.

  “I took my chances,” Clare replies.

  “You knew me by name. You must have a reason to be here.”

  Clare hovers, uncertain. “Do you mind if I sit?”

  “I can’t stop you.”

  Clare sets her backpack down in the corner, heavy with the weight of her gun. She pulls up a chair so it faces Janice. She thinks of her mother’s hospital room, the snow-coated parking lot out the window, the highway beyond it. Her mother had wanted nothing from home, no attempt to warm her room with photographs or trinkets, just as there are none here in Janice’s room beyond the quilt. I can’t bring any of it with me when I go, her mother mused from her wheelchair as they surveyed it together. If she understood that room would be the last place she’d ever see, she showed no regret over it.

  “You’re one of Helen’s lost girls,” Janice says.

  Clare bristles. Lost girls. “No. Well, not exactly. I’m here about Sally Proulx.”

  “Ah,” Janice says. “Clare. Yes. Jordan mentioned you when he was here last night. He said you’re an investigator.”

  So, Clare thinks, Jordan knows she is working the case. Someone must have told him. Somers, or Rourke? At this point Clare knows it no longer matters. The act is over. It ended yesterday when Rourke revealed himself to Clare, when Clare told Raylene the truth too.

  “Yes,” Clare says. “I’ve been undercover at High River. And I know that you’ve been part of helping women escape their pasts for a long time. Helping your husband with his work.”

  “Helping my husband?” Janice says. “No. This has been my life’s work. Philip was just along for the ride.”

  Now it makes sense, Clare thinks, why there is no sign of Philip in this room. Not a single reminder.

  “I don’t mean to pry,” Clare says. “But I’ve met Philip. At his office. He said he hasn’t seen you. He doesn’t know you’re . . . here?”

  Janice smiles. “He does not.”

  Clare isn’t sure what to say. Even in divorce, terminal illness seems like quite the secret to keep. Janice studies Clare, reading her thoughts.

  “Philip took forty-eight years of my life,” she says. “I figured I’d take back my own death. Go it alone. He’d just make it all about him anyway.”

  A nurse appears in the doorway. Janice lifts a limp hand to wave her off.

  “I’m not hiding from him,” Janice continues. “I just haven’t told him where I am. Unsurprisingly, he’s not putting much work into finding me.”

  “Does he even know you’re . . .”

  “Dying?” Janice says. “No. He doesn’t.”

  The tray is out of reach, so Janice must lean forward to collect the Styrofoam cup of ice cubes. She lifts one and runs it over her flaked lips before sucking on it. Janice looks just as Clare’s mother did in her final weeks, gaunt and wispy bald under her scarf.

  “I’m sure he’d want to see you, especially if he knew.”

  “It doesn’t matter what he wants,” Janice says.

  “What about what Helen wants? Or Jordan? Markus?”

  Janice smiles, wistful. “Jordan looks so much like his father,” she says. “It’s striking. I find I have a hard time looking him in the eye these days. All I see is Gerald. His father. He’s the spitting image.”

  Clare says nothing, allowing Janice room to continue.

  “Gerald was a star. There’s no other word for it. He was just gorgeous.”

  “You’re speaking about a man who murdered his own wife,” Clare says.

  “Believe me, I know,” Janice says. “By the time it happened, he and Philip had been law partners for ten years. Margaret was my best friend. I adored those children. They were all so beautiful, just like their parents. Philip and I weren’t blessed with any children of our own, so I thought of those kids as my family. We were all like family. Philip said Gerald had a temper. But don’t we all have tempers? I never realized . . .”

  Janice’s expression turns mournful, her hands folded across her chest. Clare thinks of the way Jason’s friends would glance at her when Jason flared over a football game or a lost poker hand, as if they understood how that temper might translate behind closed doors.

  “I just missed the signs,” Janice says. “They were there, and I missed them. And my dear friend Margaret didn’t feel she could confide in me, and then she was dead. She paid the price. After that it became my life’s work, to make amends to my friend for not helping her in time. Raising her kids, working to help as many women as we could to escape men like Gerald.”

  “That must have been difficult for you,” Clare says. “And the Haines children, they must have—”

  “They were traumatized. The older two, at least. Helen was nearly fifteen. Almost a grown-up. Markus . . . he struggled. He was angry. And Jordan was just a sweet little baby with no inkling of the injustice the world had already dealt him. They lived with us for five years, until Helen inherited the house and the trust fund and took on her brothers’ care herself.”

  “And she wanted to move back to the High River house?”

  “She was insistent,” Janice says. “We tried to support her, Philip and me. She wanted to make it a refuge. To do the same work we were doing. But that house. It’s so awful. So . . . haunted. Full of ghosts. Her mother’s blood is in the soil. And Helen? She was damaged. Iced over.” The shift in Janice’s expression is immediate. “And pregnant, of all things.”

  “Pregnant with Ginny?” Clare asks.

  Janice clenches at the quilt, her fingers too bony.

  “Did you ever meet Ginny’s father?” Clare prods.

  “Oh, I’ve met him. I know him very well. He couldn’t help himself.”

  “Oh,” Clare says.

  “He just couldn’t.”

  Clare feels her stomach twist. It clicks. Another piece. Philip in the office the other day, swooping Ginny into his arms, offering her money, coddling her as a guilty father might do.

  “How old was Helen when . . . ?” Clare begins.

  “Eighteen when he got her pregnant,” Janice says. “Nineteen by the time Ginny was born.”

  “Does Ginny know Philip is her father?”

  “I’m quite sure no one knows. Except Philip, Helen, and me. And now you.” Janice straightens up, her collarbones angling out sharply.

  “Why the cover-up?” Clare asks.

  “I ask myself that question now more than ever. The truth is, I don’t know. To save face, maybe?” Janice lets out an anguished laugh. “At first Helen and Philip tried to hide it from me. I’m astounded that I couldn’t see it. Couldn’t see the way they were carrying on. Or maybe I just didn’t want to see it. Philip whistling while he shaved, hitting the gym to pump iron. Helen quiet, never looking me in the eye. Wearing baggy clothes. She was six months pregnant before I even realized. I think she was in denial too. She’d yet to see a doctor. How stupid can you possibly be? By then there were no viable options but to have the baby.”

  Janice looks to the ceiling, her eyes glassy with tears. Clare is silent and st
ill in the chair.

  “What was I to do?” Janice continues. “I offered to keep the baby myself. But it was clear Helen wasn’t going to give it up. She wanted that child. It became clear to Helen too that Philip wasn’t her knight in shining armor. That he was a weak fool. He behaved the worst of anyone. Offering her money to give the baby up. But she refused. She swore to me she wouldn’t tell anyone if I didn’t, provided she could keep the baby. She had enough of her own money and said she wanted nothing from us but our silence. She came to me one night, her belly all the way out to here, and told me she was sorry. Said it was her fault. That she’d let it happen. She didn’t stop him when he tried to seduce her. Can you believe that? A child, apologizing for the transgressions of a grown man.”

  “So Helen just left?” Clare asks. “Went back to High River?”

  “We made a pact, Helen and I. Promised we’d keep the secret. We confronted Philip together and gave him an ultimatum. He would keep the secret too, and he would never touch Helen again or go near her or the child. And Philip, the great savior of women, never seemed terribly troubled by our pact, by abdicating responsibility for his only child. As long as no one openly besmirched his virtue.”

  There are many questions that might come next. About why Janice chose to stay with Philip, to keep his dirty secret. About why Helen would want to return to a house filled with such harrowing memories. Janice lifts a wand cabled to her morphine drip and presses the button.

  “Why are you telling me all of this?” Clare asks.

  “Because you asked. Because I’ve made mistakes. Because who else is there to tell? Not Jordan. It would break his heart. So, lucky you! Happening upon my final confession.”

  Clare cannot look at Janice. She fixates instead on the contents of the bedside table. Hand cream, a half-eaten packet of saltine crackers, a pad and pen, a box of tissues, a rosary.

  “The strange thing is,” Janice says, “I didn’t hate him. After the kids were gone, things went back to normal, in a way. Philip and I just continued on with our lives. I buried it. Women are capable of that. Of burying things. I’ve had a full life. He was good to me in a lot of ways, probably making amends too. But recently, it all bubbled back up. Maybe it was the cancer growing in me. Forcing things out.”

  Imagine, Clare thinks, considering yourself lucky to be married to a man who fathered a child with a teenager you’d promised to protect. The act of dying leaves you bitter or wistful, Clare’s mother used to say on their visits to the hospital for her treatments, and the luck of your actual life doesn’t predict which way you’ll swing.

  “This can’t have anything to do with Sally Proulx,” Clare says.

  “Don’t be so sure,” Janice answers.

  Clare feels a swell of impatience that shames her. “Janice,” she says. “Please. If you know anything about Sally, can you tell me? I’m afraid for her.”

  “I have an apartment,” Janice says. “A hideaway. One of those little buildings I’ve always loved. You know, with a courtyard pool? I rented it for over a year before I left Philip. It sat empty, waiting for me. That’s how long it took me to build up the courage to leave him.”

  Clare opens her mouth to speak, but Janice lifts a hand to stop her.

  “I lived there for five days before I got the final diagnosis. Five days free of him. That’s all I got. The liver, you know. No one lasts long when it hits the liver. I’d been having symptoms for months. Deep down, I knew. Maybe that’s why I finally left.” She lets out a long sigh. “Life is cruel, isn’t it?”

  The warbled slur in Janice’s voice is familiar to Clare. Morphine.

  “Janice—”

  “Helen called me,” Janice says. “A week ago. Less. She was desperate. There was a woman who’d made some terrible mistakes, she told me. A dead child. Helen needed to get her out of High River fast. She needed a place to go.”

  “Is Sally Proulx at your apartment?” Clare asks, her voice rising.

  Janice nods almost imperceptibly. With great effort she draws herself forward and collects the pad and pen from the bedside table. The address she scribbles is barely legible, but Clare can just make it out.

  “You’re making me anxious now,” Janice says, falling back to her pillow. “I need you to leave.”

  Janice presses the button again, this time with urgency. Clare collects her backpack and rests her hand on Janice’s leg, so brittle through the blanket that Clare worries it will crack under her touch.

  “Thank you,” Clare says.

  Janice nods, eyes closed. Clare exits the room and winds down the hallway. She takes the stairs two at a time, pressing onto the street before anyone from the hospice can intercept her.

  Clare jogs down the leafy street until she matches the address on the building to the one scribbled on the paper. Number 4316. An old brick low-rise apartment with a gated yard. In the courtyard an older man swimming laps in the pool climbs out and towels himself off. Clare approaches the door. It’s locked. On the call list she finds the listing J GODFREY under apartment 2A. She makes a show of searching through her bag until the old man meanders over and uses his own key to let her in.

  Clare takes the stairs to the second floor and walks the long hall. She knocks on 2A and listens. Shuffling. She knocks again.

  “Sally?” she calls, ear to the door. “Sally?”

  The door opens. Helen Haines, her shoulders slumped. Exhausted. She steps aside wordlessly and allows Clare to enter the apartment. The living room is sunny and lined with boxes and packages of unassembled furniture. Five days, Janice had said. Clare looks left to right, peering through the doorways to the kitchen, to the bedroom, for any sign of someone else.

  “Where is she, Helen?” Clare asks. “Where’s Sally?”

  Helen sinks into the couch. “She’s gone. I came here last night and she was gone.”

  Clare sits at the far edge of the couch, allowing Helen a wide berth.

  “Do you know where she went?”

  The look Helen gives Clare is pure anger, ice. “Somers told me the truth about you,” she says. “A hired PI. And here you are. Investigating.”

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you,” Clare says. “But you never would have let me stay if—”

  “No,” Helen says. “I wouldn’t have.”

  “Helen,” Clare says, reaching for her hand. “Let’s start at the beginning. Tell me what happened. I can help you.”

  “Ha.” Helen laughs bitterly. “You can help me? You were never even her friend.”

  “No,” Clare says. “But what I told you by the river about my own life? That was true. I left my husband and I’ve been on the run ever since. I really do care. I want Sally to be safe. I want you to be safe. Raylene. Ginny too. Where is Ginny?”

  “She’s on her way,” Helen says.

  “Good,” Clare says. “We can get to the bottom of this. Truly. I want to help. Let’s just start at the beginning.”

  Helen sighs and presses her fingers to her temples.

  “He was already dead,” Helen says. “By the time I got to Markus and Rebecca’s, he was dead.”

  “William?”

  Helen nods.

  “Okay,” Clare says.

  “The boy had been sick for a week, maybe more. We all knew he was sick, fevered. Rebecca had been treating him. She has these . . . potions. These tinctures she was giving him to break the fever. Tinctures! Sally seemed okay with letting them take care of him. I told Markus they needed to take William to the hospital. But Rebecca . . . she kept interfering. And Sally trusted them. She trusted Markus, especially. I talked to Markus that very afternoon and he said the boy was getting better. He promised me they’d take him to the hospital the next morning if the fever hadn’t broken. Rebecca really wanted to see what she could do on her own. But later that night Sally came to find me. She was beside herself. By the time we got back to Markus’s house, William had stopped breathing. There he was, this tiny little body, pale as a ghost on their couch. A
nd Rebecca said nothing when I came in. Nothing. It was like she was made of stone. Sally hugged William to her. He died in her arms.”

  “Jesus,” Clare says. “Why didn’t you call the police then? Or an ambulance?”

  “Because everyone panicked.” Helen wipes a tear. “I went to call 911, but Markus stopped me. ‘You can’t! They’ll arrest us,’ he said. ‘They’ll call it neglect. They’ll blame Rebecca. We’ll go to jail for years. They’ll take Willow.’ And Rebecca, I turned to her then, and I don’t even know that she was flustered. Maybe she was in shock. All she said was that she didn’t understand why the tincture didn’t work. Like some kind of fool! And Sally was hysterical, saying over and over that she wanted to die. And if that wasn’t enough, Markus started going on about Jordan. How hard he’d been working on my behalf with the developers. How a dead boy might mean the property couldn’t be sold. A scandal. An end to the safe house. To Jordan’s reputation. And when I mentioned the police again it was Sally who started screaming, ‘No police! They’ll arrest us!’ I couldn’t think straight. I didn’t know what to do.”

  Clare sees it, the stillness of the boy’s body, the chaos, Sally’s terror. She must have known that if the police came they might also trace her to the scene of Raylene’s husband’s death, that her crimes extended beyond the agony of her dead son.

  “So what did you do?” Clare asks.

  “I phoned Janice,” Helen says. “I couldn’t think of anyone else. Anyone I could really trust. She’s the only person I know who could hide something of this magnitude. There she was, dying of cancer in a hospice bed, and she took control. She told me to get Sally to the bridge right away. Walk her a mile beyond it. She would find someone to come for her. Someone she could pay off to keep quiet. Janice had people. People to call. She’d seen it all before. That operation Jordan and Philip say they run? The work they do? It was always Janice. She is the brains behind everything.”

  Helen is curled over, head lowered, her hands wringing furiously between her knees. Her composure finally unraveled.

  “What did Janice tell you to do with William?” Clare asks.