Chapter Eleven
As they locked the SUV in the museum parking lot, Lacey said, “Now remember, point out Jarrad to me, so I’ll know when to run over to you and be a witness. Couldn’t I just bounce him early?”
“I wish, but he’s on at the end of the program.” Dee looked around. “His car’s not here. He won’t come before Camille does, anyway. Unless she saw us passing and chases us down, she won’t have much time to alienate the waiters before some celebrity arrives to absorb her attention.”
Indoors, Lacey introduced herself to the evening’s uniformed security personnel. The two men already had their assignments and patrol routes from Wayne, more proof, if it were needed, that Lacey was surplus to requirements. She was only here because Dee had asked for her, only responsible for locking up at the end of the night. Quite a comedown for a woman who, a month ago, was supervising a full shift of constables in one of Canada’s largest, busiest urban-rural detachments. Dee was a lot calmer for her presence, though. She’d had three full nights’ sleep and that had to count for something. The motion lights hadn’t tripped once. No prowler. Was it just that Lacey had scared them off, or had there ever been one? The matter must be thrashed out soon.
Camille Hardy arrived like royalty, flouncing over to the kiosk to demand the vault be opened so she could show the state-of-the-art security to potential art donors. Lacey refused. Camille ordered, citing her status as board vice-president. Lacey was about to call Dee over when she appeared and stymied Camille instantly by pointing out it would not do the museum any favours to demonstrate a malfunctioning vault. That the vault was technically accessible because of the software glitch somehow never got mentioned. Then an early guest arrived and the vault was forgotten.
Camille was soon surrounded by her posse, at which point Lacey realized no borrowed evening gown could disguise this ex-cop as a trophy wife. These women reeked of money. It was a toss-up what cost more, the ten shades of streaks in their hair or the designer gowns on their sleek bodies. Every dress, every head, was in a hue to complement the decor, making the posse en masse a shimmering blur. Even their lipsticks blended. Their names, when Dee introduced them, were a similar blur: Tiffany and Tami (spelled out lest Lacey mistake it for a common “Tammy”), Twyla and Chareen. Women of a kind virtually unseen in the male-dominated world of the Mounties. Was it too late to return to the Force, retreat back to that orderly life where her street-earned skills had been respected and her hairstyle unimportant as long as it had no trailing ends for a suspect to grab?
Jake Wyman, his leathery face grinning above his western-cut tuxedo, stepped around the posse and charged toward Dee. If ever there was a bull in a china shop, he was it, from his string tie down to his gleaming black cowboy boots. Dee greeted him with both hands held out.
“The museum’s patron saint. Jake, this is my friend Lacey McCrae from Vancouver.”
“Nice to meet you, young lady,” he said, and shook her hand. “You gonna bring her to my party tomorrow, Dee-Dee? Nothing fancy like this shindig, Miss McCrae. Just a buncha folks watching the hockey game. Beer and pretzels kinda thing.” Imported beer, no doubt, with a German pretzel-twister flown in for the occasion. He turned away without waiting for an answer. “Camille, honey. How’s that old man of yours doing with his new pacemaker? Getting back on his game?”
“Hardly,” said Camille, with a slight curl to her perfectly painted lip. “He’s so sure he’ll have a heart attack that he’ll barely leave his recliner. I had to push him out the door for a little walk with Jarrad.”
“Time for photos, ladies,” said Dee. The expensive women flowed upstairs with Lacey trailing them. They clustered by the theatre so the photographer and videographers could capture the opening moments for posterity. Caterers lit fires under chafing dishes and whipped covers off trays of chilled canapés. Wine corks popped. The string quartet stationed in the upper-east lounge lifted their bows. The grand opening gala was finally under way.
As the theatre lobby filled up with guests, Dee found a moment to introduce Lacey to another neighbour. “Terry Brenner, Jan’s husband,” she said. “Terry, please make sure she knows what Jarrad looks like, okay?” Then off she spun into the throng.
“You’re Dee’s date?” Terry offered his hand.
Lacey shook it. “Don’t let the dress fool you. I’m the bouncer.”
“It would be a thrill to be rousted by someone so elegant.” He steered her toward the bar. “Let me introduce you to the people most likely to cause trouble: the hockey contingent. Not that they’ll set out to create havoc, but they’re all big and physical and think they’re invincible. So they break things, including themselves, through simple hijinks.”
“What are they doing in an art gallery, then?”
“Catering to the whim of Jake Wyman. Every year he rewards top-scoring youngsters with a week by his pool. Golf and horseback riding by day, parties and loose women by night. Except around here, all the loosest women are married.”
“Ouch.”
He shrugged. “Bored young wives of rich old oilmen, it’s bound to happen.”
“That what happened with the first patroness of the museum? I heard she ran off with a hockey player.”
“Pretty much. Jake’s my boss, though, so let’s change the subject before I say something I shouldn’t.” Terry wedged them into a cluster of muscular young men. “Guys, meet one of the only single women in the room. Lacey McCrae, meet …” He rattled off a list of names.
The young hockey players shook hands politely. No posturing for reporters here. They were barely into their twenties, brawny, well fed, and her height or better. Definitely eye candy, highly suitable for some women’s post-divorce fling. But, as Dee had often pointed out, Lacey was constitutionally incapable of flinging. Nor had she ever gone for younger men. This lot looked so young, in fact, that she couldn’t help thinking sex with any of them would feel like child abuse, regardless of the legal definition. If one of them was Jarrad, she hadn’t caught the name, and it was impossible to discreetly ask Terry to repeat it.
“Which teams do you guys play for?” she asked instead. After that, smiling and nodding seemed all the response necessary.
Before anyone thought to ask her a question in return, another athlete joined them. “Jarrad!” said someone. “Mick with you?”
Lacey glanced over to the bar, where Dee stood between a pair of distinguished older men in suits. No risk of a confrontation at the moment. She turned her attention back to Jarrad. Camille Hardy’s boy toy was slim, dark, wiry, and barely her height. He couldn’t be mistaken for any of the taller, brawnier young men around her. She couldn’t see any particular attractiveness in him, either. Why would a rich, gorgeous woman like Camille bother with a sulky boy ten years younger? Was it just to spite her husband?
“Barely. No thanks to the bitch queen.” He flicked a hand toward the bar, where Camille had joined Dee for yet another photo op.
Bitch queen. Did he mean Dee or his lover? Either way, he had all the class Lacey had expected from a pro sports type. She slipped out of that group and wound her way through others to the theatre doors. A glance inside told her nobody was in their seats yet, so she set off across the atrium bridge on a self-appointed patrol. The main gallery held a smattering of well-dressed drinkers ogling the artworks. In the pottery gallery, some young people were taking selfies beside the No Flash Photography sign. A handful of guests watched the musicians in the lounge, or stared out across the atrium. She went down the east stairs, disturbed an absorbed couple in the Natural History Gallery, and chased a handful of choirboys out of the settler’s cabin. Crossing the atrium’s stone floor, conscious of the river beyond the great glass wall, she descended to the classroom and studios corridor. Now designated temporary dressing rooms, this area seethed with performers in varied states of preparation and pre-show jitters. Dodging musicians and a double line of fidgeting child choriste
rs, including, she noted, the bunch from the cabin, she took the backstage stairs up. Sidling past the stage manager and his crew, she climbed up the auditorium’s side stairs, past row on row of seats, then checked the private boxes with their grey curtains. All in order, and nothing for her to do but return to the theatre lobby to scan for potential trouble.
Not much had noticeably changed. Dee flitted from group to group, waving a wine flute whose level never dropped. Jake Wyman had Jarrad cornered by the bar and was prodding his shoulder with a stubby finger. The other hockey players remained a group unto themselves, bantering and occasionally shoving each other. At least they weren’t swinging from the exposed log rafters. Everything seemed peaceful, and the elevator hadn’t glitched up once. No need for keys or codes so far. The music stopped, a bell chimed over the sound system, and people began moving toward the theatre. The last smokers trailed in from the terrace. Performance time.
Dee came over to Lacey. “We’re in a box on this side,” she said, leading the way. “Any trouble so far?”
“Nada. Were you expecting some?”
“With this crowd, a delayed elevator is a crisis. An exaggerated sense of entitlement is in their genes. Plus, you never know with the hockey jocks. Some of the younger ones you’d swear have never gone out in public before.” Dee took one of the box’s armchairs and waved Lacey to another before whipping out her phone for a last-minute check of messages. Terry Brenner came and collared the third chair.
“Bounced anybody so far, Lacey? Here’s hoping the hockey players will behave with Jake in the same box. Although he’ll be grilling them again.”
“What does he want from them?”
“His ex-wife’s address, I bet,” said Dee, her thumbs busy on her phone.
Lacey blinked. “Does everyone know he wants it?”
Terry nodded. “The players were discussing it earlier. Everybody’s afraid to tell him in case he sends muscle, but nobody wants to refuse outright, either.”
“Why not?” It was hard to imagine the old ranch-hand fellow had the vindictive streak necessary to send thugs after the man who stole his wife. But maybe there was some cowboy code of conduct involved.
“He’s a part owner of a team,” Terry said, “and knows owners and management everywhere. He could cast a chill on a fellow’s career.”
“But would he send a goon squad?”
“I don’t see it myself, but these guys are young and impulsive and judge others by their own reactions. Some player a few years ago went so far as to hire a hit man to go after his agent. Didn’t succeed, and later said it was all a misunderstanding, but still. And that’s far from the only scandal that’s still raw. All that money they get so young makes them targets for scammers and wild-living hangers-on. And the sex abuse scandals — those are hard for the whole sport to rise above.”
“Sex scandals? With the groupies?”
“You mean like the rape accusations that make the news in the States, against basketball and football players? Not so much in hockey, whether it’s not there or just not public. But young players being abused by coaches and others around the arenas. That has happened far too often. One guy was a serial predator and went through half a dozen junior teams before anyone reported him. There were also rumours about the guy whose player hired a hit man, but nothing proven there.” He scanned the audience below them. “Sheldon Kennedy — one of the most respected player whistle-blowers — was reported to be coming tonight, but I don’t see him.”
Dee tucked away her phone. “He’s got a kids’ camp this week or something. I don’t think art galleries are high on his priority list, anyway. Lacey, in the next box up from Jake is Mick Hardy, our local hockey legend. Camille should be with him, but she’s backstage making the actors and MC crazy. Mick didn’t do the cocktail hour. Having heart trouble, so he went straight to his chair.”
“Poor guy,” said Terry. “It’s a real comedown for a lifelong athlete. I should probably go sit with him, but frankly he depresses me, trying so hard to pretend he’s doing okay.”
Lacey looked over her shoulder. On the landing behind them, a videographer was alternately zooming in on famous faces and panning over the audience. Another video camera on the opposite landing half-blocked the stairs down that wall. Dee pointed out a provincial Cabinet minister and a media personality in the box below theirs. The house lights darkened. Rob stepped up to the microphone to express gratitude for all the hard work put in by the board and volunteers to bring them to this auspicious moment, then introduced the prominent radio personality who would be the master of ceremonies. The MC told the usual kind of jokes before introducing the first act, the children’s choir.
“The ‘we did it all for the children’ element,” Terry said.
The choir managed to keep their lines and their voices together, and the kids received enthusiastic applause as they filed off. They were followed by a mix of professional and amateur acts, including Camille’s posse posing as giggly, wiggly statuary in a mock artist’s studio. If there was a point to their performance, Lacey didn’t catch it. She was trying to spot Jarrad in Jake’s or Mick’s box. He was in neither, and she was wondering if she should go downstairs to see what he was up to when the curtain came up on him, wearing a bright-green doublet and lip-locked with Camille, who had draped a scarlet tunic over her golden gown. As a stab at Mick, it could hardly be more obvious. All that was missing was a giant letter A on her front.
Dee leaned over to Lacey. “I’ve got to go down for the finale.”
“I’ll come, too.”
“No need. Jarrad’s on stage and there are plenty of witnesses down there if we cross paths afterward.” Dee edged behind the box curtain.
“Lucky her,” Terry muttered, and Lacey had to agree. Camille’s star turn was worth skipping. She was shrill, Jarrad was wooden, and only the pro actor was believable, investing his role as the cuckolded king with rage and grief at the betrayal. Lacey looked over at the box where the ailing Mick Hardy sat, but he had retreated behind the curtain. No doubt hiding his face in anticipation of just such curious looks from his so-called friends. Poor man.
Chapter Twelve
As Dee hurried down the west stairs, a lone security guard at the kiosk looked up, nodding to her as she passed. The classroom level, in contrast to its earlier chaos, was now deserted. Most performers had already done their turns, changed their clothes, and gone up to the bar, or in the case of the children, gone home to bed. Her heels clacked on the easy-clean beige floor tiles. In the theatre above, two hundred people rustled, coughed, and whispered, yet down here all she heard were her own footsteps. Unease prickled up her spine. Her prowler could be someone connected to the museum. Maybe she should have brought Lacey down with her after all.
She shook off the shiver. Her immediate problem was how many minutes she had to repair her face and gather her thoughts for the presentation. Cutting through the clay room, she slipped through the short corridor to the packing room, presently the adult performers’ deserted green room. From here, the carpeted stairs led her silently up to the backstage area. Camille’s shrill voice assaulted her ears, followed by the smooth bass modulation of the professional actor. From what little she could see of Jarrad out on the stage, he was in his usual sulky pose. His voice was equally uninspired. He’d have no post-hockey acting career. Rob was in the wings on the far side, wincing and looking at his watch. The stage manager stood near the stairs, one eye on his clipboard and the other on a digital readout.
Dee whispered to him, “How long until the presentation starts?”
“Twelve minutes. Be back in nine.”
“Thanks.” She retreated down to the classroom designated as the women’s dressing room. The hush enveloped her once more and she sank into a chair before the rented makeup mirror, grateful for these few minutes of peace. The culmination of two years of work was being celebrated overhead, and all she coul
d think of was that she would soon get her life back. There would be other duties yet, cheques to countersign for the last tradesmen and tonight’s event expenses, but her main workload was over. Three nights of decent sleep had restored much of her inner calm. She could look forward to more of that, as it seemed Lacey had scared off the prowler with her mere presence. A low-stress weekend stretched out ahead of her for the first time since that horrible day last fall when Neil had made his affair blatant. Suddenly, this weekend could not start soon enough. She sat up straight, lightly dusted her face with powder, laid fresh gloss over her long-wear lip colour, and made for the door, ready to get that presentation over with so all those people would go away and let her get home to bed. Striding into the hallway, she ran into a man’s broad chest. He grabbed her arm. She shrieked.
“Dee-Dee. Did I hurt you?”
“Jake.” She sagged on his strong hand. “You scared the life out of me.”
“I saw that youngster leave the stage and didn’t want you to run into him alone down here.”
“That was kind of you.” Dee looked around but there was no sign of Jarrad. A small mercy for her pounding heart. “Do you mind escorting me to the backstage stairs?”
“Pleased to, ma’am.” Jake placed her hand on his arm and let her set the pace. “I’ll stay behind the stage and take you upstairs when you’re done. Can’t have you getting lost while all those nice folk will be waiting at the bar to toast you.”
“You mustn’t wait.” She was almost sure he didn’t know about the presentation, but it would look contrived if he appeared from the wings when his name was called. “There’s a great finale planned and I want you to tell me how it looks from the audience. Will you promise me to hurry straight back to your seat?”
“Yes’m.” If he’d been wearing his usual cowboy hat, he’d have tipped it.
When the Flood Falls Page 11
