Two taps on the door, and Laurence said, “Can I come in?” I opened the door and he entered quickly, shutting the door behind him. He smiled when he looked at me, raised his eyebrows and nodded at my ensemble, and started emptying his pockets on the bed.
“No corkscrews,” he said.
“Well, probably not a good idea in a rehab,” I said.
“Sends the wrong message,” he said. I looked at the bed. My brother had relieved the kitchen of half a dozen steak knives in what looked like the plastic sheaths they were bought in, one lone serrated bread knife, and a hammer.
“It’s not a cooking kitchen,” he said, defensive. “I could have brought you tons of teaspoons and butter knives. People obviously only eat toast and take-out in there.”
“And the hammer?”
“The bottom drawer has a few tools in it.” He looked at what he was wearing, his neat flat-front khakis and white Oxford cloth button-down. He stuck the business end of the hammer in his right front pocket and looked at himself in the mirror.
“Subtle,” I said. “But you might get some male attention.”
“That ginger cop is cute,” he said. “Young. But cute. Oh, but he’s Mary’s nephew, isn’t he. Yikes, I take that back.”
“Excuse me, sir. Is that a hammer in your pocket or…” Laurence adjusted the hammer, pushing it deeper into his pocket, and the effect made him look like he had the world’s hugest – if slightly oddly shaped – erection.
“Well,” he said, “I do dress right.”
I laughed so hard my cheeks hurt, watching Laurence strike poses in the mirror with his hammer hard-on. It was so good to laugh that I felt it border into something close to hysteria.
“You are such a fucking tool,” I said, and that sent us both over the edge. Laurence took the hammer out and threw it onto the bed next to where I was sitting. We calmed down and sat in silence for a minute.
“I’m scared,” he said. He was looking at me in the mirror.
“I know,” I said.
“For us, and for Dickie. And Sarah.”
“I know,” I said. “Me too.” I wanted to tell him to get in the car and drive to Halifax, drive back to the airport and let me handle this. I wanted him to get away from here, away from this. None of us were safe; that was obvious. But I knew he wouldn’t go, and I also didn’t want to leave him alone, even for the drive, even just to the airport.
The yellow pickup had followed us from the airport. There wasn’t enough traffic on sections of that highway, and I didn’t want to hear that Mary’s Mustang had been found abandoned by the side of the road, with no sign of Laurence. Except maybe a body part.
I shivered and felt sick. Literally a bit sick, as though I was coming down with something. “We need to eat something,” I said. “Even if we don’t want to, we need to.” We hadn’t had dinner last night. I took off my weighted baseball cap and hit myself in the palm with it a couple of times so Laurence could hear its weight. “Wear this,” I said. “Doesn’t pack the same punch as your buddy there,” I looked at the hammer, “but, what the fuck, it can slow somebody down for a minute.” I put it on his head.
“I’m staying with you, Danny,” he said. “Until they catch this guy.” His nose went a bit red, and I realized he was trying not to tear up. Then I remembered: I wasn’t the only one who had lost Ginger. Darren, Laurence, and Skipper had, too. And just because I had never seen Laurence cry before last night, didn’t mean he hadn’t shed his fair share of tears privately.
“Yes, you are.” I kissed his cheek. “Let’s eat. Maybe if we have pancakes, by the time we’re finished Sarah will have been found alive and well, and the crazy psycho axe murderer will have been caught.”
“And Dickie found too,” he said.
“And Dickie,” I said, standing up. Maybe even alive, I said in my head, but I think Laurence heard it anyway.
* * *
The day was clouding over and cooler than it had been when I had been doing my unexpected sunbathing on the roof.
“We’ll need our jackets later,” Laurence said. We walked the thirty or so yards to the converted carriage house that acted as Rose’s dining hall. I looked at the sky, at the storm clouds that seemed to be gathering out over the Bay of Fundy, and thought of Sarah. I hoped that she had managed to live through the night, and that she was at least inside somewhere. Then again, that would make her harder to find. I glanced at my brother, who was staring at his shoes as he walked. I figured he was thinking about Dickie.
Laurence was one of the most honorable people I’d ever known. He could be difficult, testy, stubborn, and a bit of a curmudgeon at times, which Ginger and I had always chalked up to his dating men who were generations older than he was. If he had sworn this filial oath to Dickie Doyle, no matter that it was the kind of romantic gesture that undergraduates everywhere indulge in and few actually think about twenty years later, he took it seriously. He wasn’t a man with a ton of friends.
He would be worried to death about Dickie right now, first and foremost.
And I owed him. I owed all my siblings, for what I’d put them through. On top of which, if it hadn’t been for my lifestyle, Ginger would probably still be alive. I needed to protect Laurence, and if the police didn’t find the killer – or killers? Wouldn’t it make sense that this was more than one person? – very soon, then I was going to have to act.
The carriage house had a large picture window facing the water, but now the view was gray and dismal. The minute we stepped through the door into the steamy warmth, the rain began behind us.
There were only three people in the dining hall, other than Laurence and me: the counsellor Janet, who was standing looking at the food in the steam trays, unmoving; Colin the cop, Mary’s nephew, who was drinking a coffee; and the tattooed Australian resident. I didn’t know his name, but in my head I was calling him Aussie Rules.
No kitchen staff or servers, and none of the usual bustle. We were late for lunch, but I had the feeling that it wouldn’t have mattered. The place was losing people by the hour. Some of them with all their body parts intact.
Colin nodded at us, looking grim. The Australian was reading something on his phone, and Janet still hadn’t moved. I grabbed a tray and looked at the food with her. Half a dozen grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches, a soup with a handwritten label that said Barley, and some fresh greens, with a couple of containers of crumbled bacon and grape tomatoes and feta cheese. Not terrible, but nothing like the breadth of fresh, elegant food I’d become used to.
“Chef left,” Janet said. Her voice sounded tight and loud in the quiet room, with its high ceiling. “One of his assistants put this together a few hours ago, but I think she’s left as well.”
“Nobody can blame them,” Laurence said behind me. He put his hand gently on the woman’s shoulder. “Can I help you carry something?” His voice was quiet and kind, and Janet pulled a tissue out of her pocket and wiped her eyes.
“Oh!” she said. “Thank you, but I’m okay. Just need some soup, I think. Need to warm up. The day’s turning. Can’t trust the weather here, at this time of year.” Her movements were slow, and I looked more carefully at her. I knew that many addiction counsellors were former or “recovering” addicts themselves, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the fear and stress in the air had made more than one person turn back to their drug of choice. I hadn’t paid much attention to Janet before now – she was the kind of earnest do-gooder who generally bored me stupid, and I found it hard to believe she’d taken anything stronger than cold medication in her life. And even that, exactly as the directions on the box stated. Not a huge sense of humor, that one. One thing you can say about sober addicts: We tend to be able to poke fun at ourselves. Janet always looked like her eyes would turn pink and she would wilt if anyone chided her. About anything. I hadn’t really spoken to her since I’d been here, and then I realized that was a pretty shitty thing. She was doing her best in this life, like the rest of us. Or most of us, anyway.<
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“Eat with us,” I found myself saying, and Laurence looked at me with genuine surprise. “I think I’ll try the soup too.” I did ladle myself out a bowl, but also fixed myself a plate with a sandwich and some greens. I might need the fuel later. And nutrients.
For half a second looking at my tray, I thought, I hope when they do my autopsy, this isn’t the last food in my stomach. I watched as Laurence carried Janet’s soup and his own sandwich over to a table, like a gentleman, and thought, better me than him. Any day of the week.
Oh God, for some crack. I wondered what the Australian’s drug of choice was. He was probably a meth-head, I decided. Maybe heroin. I wanted to put my food down and run back inside the house and search all the rooms for hidden spots for drugs. Sarah had hidden some weed in the basement; maybe other people had had a similar idea. Maybe there were nooks and crannies in there with little baggies and spoons and all kinds of illicit paraphernalia.
Then I thought of Sarah, who had tripped over Evan’s headless body in that basement, and the fact that she was very probably in pieces somewhere.
As soon as we had finished eating, I would ask Colin where the searchers were meeting. And if I had enough time, I might leave Laurence in his company – I could see he carried a sidearm, and there were people in this room; Laurence would be safe here – run inside pleading gastrointestinal issues, and do a quick search of the place.
“This is it,” Janet was saying as I sat down. She nodded at Aussie Rules and us. “The people in this room. And Sarah,” she added. “Everyone else has left, or is leaving. Gone to hotels in the city until the police let them leave the province, I guess.” Halifax was the only city of size in the province, and it was about an hour or so away. “Well, Mary is still around, of course, but she doesn’t sleep here. No other staff. I’m the only live-in.”
“Why haven’t you left?” Laurence asked her gently.
Janet played with her soup spoon. I wanted to tell her to eat already. I wanted to make her a steak. Then I realized that I wanted a steak. I took a bite of my cheese sandwich and, without intending to, exhaled in audible disappointment. Janet looked up at me, mistaking my sigh for impatience.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “This is all so…” She reached into her pocket and fished out a Kleenex.
“Yes, it is,” I said. “Sorry, Janet. This must be awful for you. How long have you been here?” It occurred to me that while I’d gotten to know Mary very well, and Evan a bit, I knew absolutely nothing about Janet’s life at all.
“Oh, I’m from the Valley here,” she said. I tried to guess how old she was, whether she would have parents or family waiting for her, worrying. “I mean, I was born in Halifax, but my parents adopted me when I was a baby. They’re gone now.”
I wanted to ask her if she meant gone as in dead, or gone to Europe or somewhere, but I could see Laurence shaking his head slightly and frowning at me. My social skills around the nice people sometimes left a little bit to be desired.
“I can stay at the house,” she said. She blew her nose surprisingly loudly, and the Australian dropped his phone, which made me jump. “But I don’t feel safe there either, with all this.” She pointed at the house. Fair enough. If she felt safe, she’d be either an idiot or the killer. Ipso fatso.
“I’m sure the police will get this sorted out quickly,” Laurence said. I hated when people said things like that. We had no idea what was going to happen, and when someone said something patronizing and mundane like that to me, I usually wanted to slap them silly. How can you be prepared for the crap in life if everything is sugar-coated for you? After Ginger died, I’d gotten a sympathy card from someone I used to train with who said my sister was in “a better place.” I was reading the cards when I got back to my apartment in Toronto from my two-month convalescence in Maine, after I’d gotten a big fat delivery from D-Man, my friendly Eastern European drug dealer. I debated calling the stupid cow and giving her a blow-by-blow about the “better place” Ginger had been in during the hours before her death, but then I thought, no. I am, for a change, going to take the high road. Try to take on some of Ginger’s good qualities. She’d been all smarts and sweetness and goodness, and I was the one in school who’d punch anyone who looked at her wrong. Division of responsibilities, I used to say to her. I had plenty of love, but it just came out differently than Ginger’s did. As we were twins, our dad used to say that when the egg split, I was probably swimming around in there, making sure Ginger got all the good nutrients and cushioning her against any blows from the outside world. We were born very close together, only three minutes separating us, because, as Dad said, I wasn’t going to let her out there on her own.
I tried to look at Janet and feel the same protective urges toward her. She looked like she needed protecting desperately, far more than Ginger – who may have been gentle, but was tall and athletic – ever did. She looked like a bunny rabbit, pink nose and eyes and all.
“It’s not just this,” Janet said. She toyed with her food. “I have a little sister, also adopted, and she stays at the house sometimes, and she – well, it’s awful to say, but I don’t like her.”
Laurence looked at me. We were getting the full-on life story. I tried to make myself more comfortable in my chair. I thought about whether I should have taken more salad. “Well, you don’t have to like her,” I said. “But staying there sounds better than staying here at the moment, right?”
“I just don’t feel safe there either,” she repeated. She looked utterly miserable, and for a minute I wanted to shake her. But I was trying to be nice.
“Janet, I think you should go into Halifax like everybody else,” I said. “Or do you have anybody who can come and stay with you? A boyfriend? Girlfriend?” Laurence looked down at the table and smiled. Janet went bright red.
“No! I’m not gay or anything!” She looked at my brother and got redder. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course!” Well, at least she had better gaydar than Sarah.
“Of course not,” Laurence said, all soothing. Another Cleary who went out of his way to be kind to the needy, whereas I seemed to make people either want to cry or kill me. “Danny is just concerned about you. I think she meant ‘girlfriend’ as in female friend?”
“Yes, whatever,” I said. There was an axe – or whatever – murderer on the loose. Social nuances were going to give me a sinus headache any minute. “A good friend, someone you trust. Or someone whose house you can stay in.”
Janet shook her head. “Not really,” she said. “Just from the old days. You know, my friends who aren’t sober, and I can’t stay with them.” I nodded. This, I understood. “Mary’s got her husband, and of course he’s in a wheelchair some of the time so he needs her. Dickie needs me to keep an eye on things.”
Laurence looked at me. I shrugged about three millimetres. Mary’s husband was that disabled? She was a dark horse; I had no idea. I knew MS could get that bad, I supposed, but I was surprised Mary hadn’t mentioned it if Geoffrey’s illness was that advanced. Still, as chummy as Mary and I may have gotten, there are things we all keep to ourselves, and it had only been just over two weeks since I’d met her. And we all have tough lives, one way or another. Scratch the surface of any beauty queen or billionaire, and you’ll find dark secrets and areas of pain. It’s the human condition. And without pain, we wouldn’t appreciate the joy as much.
At least, that’s what I liked to tell myself.
“Honey, for all intents and purposes, Rose’s Place is closed for now,” Laurence said to her, the soul of gentleness. “Dickie is missing too. Danny and I are staying in the dorms for now, as I’m Dickie’s oldest friend, so I’m going to keep an eye on things for him.” He looked at the Australian and lowered his voice. “We can check, but I bet that one’s booking his hotel online as we speak. Or his ticket back to Oz. There are no more classes, or whatever you call them, for the time being.”
“Meetings,” Janet said. “And therapy.”
; “Oh, what about Dr. Singh?” I said. I’d just thought of her. I liked Dr. Singh. She was one of the rare strangers who seemed to find me entertaining.
“She lives in Halifax, commutes in three times a week,” Janet said. She finally brought herself to take a mouthful of barley soup. “I’m sure Mary’s talked to her, or the police have.”
“So will you go somewhere?” I said. I’d eaten my sandwich and salad, and so had Laurence. I was about to start my soup, but I turned around and eyed the hot plates, keeping a mental note of how many sandwiches were left.
She shook her head. “I can’t,” she said. “I owe money. But maybe I’ll go back to my house after all, I guess.” She looked at me straight on, the first time she had. “It’s on the mountain,” she said. “Dad farmed for a while until he got sick. But it’s a big property, and the house is old.”
“Isolated?” I said. God. I couldn’t imagine this poor woman living there at the best of times, let alone with a killer targeting people who had anything to do with Rose’s. And a mean little sister. It would be What Ever Happened to Baby Jane up there. The incredibly boring version.
She nodded. “Kind of. There’s a farm about a half-mile down, but it’s up for sale. Has been for a year.” She’d stopped eating. I pushed the bowl an inch closer to her. I wanted to take her outside and teach her a few self-defence moves, but knew I’d probably just scare the life out of her. You’re either ready, or you’re not. Like getting clean. Had I been ready? At this very minute, it didn’t seem like it, as a third of my brain was already inside searching for drugs.
“I’ll pay for a nice hotel for you,” I said. “Don’t worry about it and don’t thank me.” Her spoon hung in the air, and her mouth was open as she stared at me. “Seriously, Janet, I’m going to find a nice, safe hotel in the city for you and give them a credit card and you stay there as long as you need to. And I won’t hear another word about it.” I nodded at her soup, and she dutifully took another spoonful. Her face was crimson.
Rehab Run Page 9
