The Kissing Fence

by B. A. Thomas-Peter

  William’s confidence grew with McKinnon casting his line. “Why would I celebrate his death? I’d just made a deal with him to leave. I was paying him off. It was done. Over. He didn’t need to be dead to achieve that.”

  There was another pause before McKinnon said, “That’s what you say. No one has any evidence of you making a deal with him. It was something you said after he was dead, and we know what you say can’t be relied on. A jury might think you haven’t been straightforward with your wife, your employees or the police. You’re just … not very honest.”

  Another stretch, thought William. “I don’t know what they’ll believe, but they’ll know I wasn’t there when the fire started. Cathy would never say that I was.”

  “Because she’s protecting you?”

  “Because I wasn’t there!”

  “You didn’t have to be there when the fire started.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Dennis was dead before the fire started. Skull was broken. He was found at the bottom of the stairs, as if he had fallen, but the injury that killed him doesn’t match the fall. So …” McKinnon hesitated to let William absorb the implications. “You could have been there when he died. That’s what we call a slam dunk: motive and opportunity, but in your case it’s even better. The motive is connected to an opportunity that you conjured. You phoned Cathy to get his home address. You phoned Dennis to make sure he would be there. You went to his house, on a Saturday, to get him to stop seeing Cathy. You even said it yourself, to a number of people, including me. There was nothing accidental about the opportunity. Chance wasn’t involved. It was all quite deliberate.”

  “That’s ridiculous. It’s what you do when you are about to let somebody go before the following Monday. Anyway, why would I make it so obvious where I was going if I was going to murder someone?”

  The door of the barren room opened suddenly and a note was passed to McKinnon. Everything stopped while he read.

  “Well,” he said. “The mysterious lawyer is back—this time for you. We’ll have to suspend this interview while you speak with her.” He stood. “Interesting, isn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “Our two suspects. One confesses to everything, and the other denies everything, but both with the same lawyer.”

  * * *

  As he stepped out of the taxi that brought him home, fatigue overwhelmed William. It was not the close call it might have been, but the disguise of deceit weighed heavily. William distracted himself and began scrolling through his messages to find something from Julie. The short messages all asked that he make contact as soon as possible. A message from the hospital caught his eye. It invited him to check his voice mail to find a follow-up appointment with his surgeon later in the week. There was nothing substantial from Julie in his messages. She may have left him a note on the kitchen table, but more likely a terse email awaited him. He began spinning through the clutter of his inbox. There it was.

  William—I don’t know if you will get this. If you do, it will be because you have not been arrested. The police were here looking for you and I told them you were on your way home from Grand Forks. They told me not to contact you until they had spoken to you, which they will have by now. They said you and Cathy were suspected of being together and both involved in the murder. I knew you were in trouble but I didn’t appreciate how serious it was or that you were involved with her. I can’t tell you how hurt and saddened I am.

  I have taken Kelly to my parents’ so she would not know of you being taken away from the house. If you are out, please stay away from us. Collect your things and leave in the next couple of days. We’ll be all right until you are out. I need time away from you.

  Julie

  William cursed the deliberately clumsy McKinnon for disclosing his theory to Julie. Just a little discretion might have saved him, and Julie, from this. It was part of McKinnon’s style to unsettle people. His iPhone dinged and William checked the screen. An emoji and number beckoned him to call. He rang and Uri answered.

  “William! I’m glad you called.” Uri sounded jovial. “We haven’t talked for a long time. Too long.”

  “I thought, with the police sniffing around, it would be best if we weren’t in contact.”

  “Good, William. Thank you for being careful. How was your talk with the police?”

  William wondered how he could know it was over, but then it was obvious. “I’m out of the police station now, on the way home. Thanks for the lawyer.”

  “My pleasure, William. We look after each other; it’s what partners do, Cathy also. But what did you say to them?”

  “They were trying to link me and Cathy, saying we were in it together and Cathy is protecting me. They’ve got nothing.”

  “The lawyer says the same. She says you did well, but Cathy confessed before the lawyer saw her. She told them about your … relationship. A pity. We would have asked her not to involve you. Did you learn anything about what they know?”

  “Cathy hasn’t said anything about you. They don’t know about you or the shipments. I feel sure about that.”

  “Good, William. That’s very good. What makes you think that?”

  “They asked if Dennis was blackmailing us, but they thought he was threatening to tell Julie and Cathy’s husband about the affair. Nothing about the business.”

  “Excellent. Thank you for telling me this. It is the end of it, I think, but if they try again, say nothing without the lawyer.”

  “What about Cathy?”

  “There is nothing to do about Cathy.” Uri left it hanging, waiting for William to understand.

  “What did the lawyer say about her?”

  “You must let her go. There is nothing you can do,” said Uri.

  It was true, thought William. She was lost, but he had to know. “Do you know what happened?”

  There was an audible sigh from Uri. “Okay, William, but after I tell you, we let it go.”

  “Agreed.”

  “It is only what the lawyer has said. Cathy was in the house with Dennis when you arrived—she was upstairs. She listened to the conversation with Dennis. He said to you he would leave her and go back to his wife. Cathy was upset when she heard this. When you left there was an argument between them, and she hit him with something. He fell down the stairs. She set fire to the house, hoping to cover it up. It was foolish and not enough.”

  “She’s confessed to all this?”

  “She has. She is gone, William. There is nothing to do.”

  Uri spoke again. “I must tell you something, William. Cathy believed you did this thing with Dennis, letting him go, because you wanted her for yourself. She thought you wanted to stop her having a life with him because you were jealous. Later she was angry with you because she was mistaken.”

  William heard the words “Oh God” escape his lips without intention. Her ferocious seduction of him made some sense.

  “You are feeling badly now, but you must leave Cathy alone. She will think you are just trying to make yourself feel better and it will make her more angry with you. You know what women think. You have had your pleasure with her and now you want her to help you feel better about what you have done. She will say more to the police if you make her more angry.”

  Lessons in human emotions from Uri were a paradox, and yet he was right. “Okay. Thanks for telling me, and for the advice. I’ll say no more about it.”

  “The next shipment is coming in two weeks. You need to be ready. I’ll send you replacements for Dennis and Cathy—people we can trust. Don’t worry. Business as usual, eh, William?”

  “Yes, of course. Bye, Uri.”

  The coldness of Uri’s understanding and the consequences for Cathy were typical of him. He spoke as though all of life were merely a journal of events, each without real meaning but needing to be known and understood before one moved on in pursuit of the next opportunity. The chaos left behind mattered not at all. William could not prevent himself from thinking they h
ad that in common.

  Cathy’s urgency, her nonsense talk of knowing what he wanted, the coyness she displayed when he told her of Dennis’s intention to return to his wife and the contempt as William departed all made sense to him. It was her big play for him and the comfort she might salvage without Dennis. It was clumsy, visceral and persuasive in the moment but nothing more. He recalled his single interest in getting away from her when the rutting stopped. Ashamed, he had exited quickly. She might have expected to be with him after killing Dennis, or perhaps her seduction of him was simply desperation, bubbling up from the chaos driving her. In either case he was responsible. He had driven a wedge between Cathy and her husband years before, reducing her to chattel in that relationship, but now what life she may have had was lost to her, and he was entwined with that course.

  William sat alone in bed with his laptop on his knees. An apple, a block of cheese and a shower had revived him sufficiently to consider one final task before sleep. He wrote:

  Julie—I want you to know that I had nothing to do with Dennis’s death. Cathy has confessed to his murder and setting the fire. The police thought I was involved with this because I had been in his house that afternoon, and recently, as you now know, Cathy and I had sex. I feel ashamed about this. She told the police about it, and now they have some evidence. There is no point in denying it to you or them. The bottom line is, there is no relationship between Cathy and me, and I am no longer a suspect, according to my lawyer.

  I am truly sorry for the Cathy thing and accept responsibility for the hurt you feel. I have been a fool, not just over this but in just about every way possible. I learned just how foolish on my trip to Grand Forks. I spoke with my mother for the first time in twenty years. I wish I had gone sooner.

  On Thursday at 2:00 p.m. I have an appointment with the surgeon who operated on me before Christmas. He said there would be changes from removing the tumour, and I am sure you have noticed things being different. I have struggled with these changes in addition to being weak and foolish. If you have the smallest hope that we can/may, in time, recover from this, please come to the meeting with the surgeon and listen to what he has to say.

  Love, William

  It was a Hail Mary, but with damage already done there was little to lose. He wanted his email to read in a straightforward way, without the blemish of excuse or justification, but on reading it again, he found this was impossible. In any case, he wanted her to hang on to the possibility that not everything he had done was within his control, so this would have to do. He took a breath and pressed Send.

  He closed his eyes and fell into a restless sleep.

  * * *

  William dangled below the owl and surveyed the earth below. As far as could be seen, grey-black mountains folded the earth. Their rivulets and lumps were etched in snow. There was nothing inviting about falling among them, but it was not fear that he felt.

  “If I let go, it will be the end, won’t it?” asked William.

  Owl blinked at William as if surprised by the stupidity of the question.

  “Or a beginning,” it said.

  “I want it to end.”

  “No, you don’t,” said Owl.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean it’s not what you want.”

  January 11, 2018

  William and Julie sat stone-faced in a hospital office. The door opened. A smiling man in pyjamas and surgical hat, with a mask tucked under his chin, arrived suddenly.

  “Mr. Koren. How are you? And Mrs. Koren, nice to see you too. I’m Dr. Franklin, the surgeon who saw you before Christmas, remember?”

  “Yes, I remember.” William recalled the smiling eyes and round nose above the mask of the man now sitting in the chair opposite.

  “Tell me, how you have been? Have you noticed anything, a runny nose, bad headaches, stiffness in the neck or shoulders?”

  William tried to focus in the blizzard of leading questions. “Just headaches from time to time, and whistling in my ears.”

  “How do you manage the headaches?”

  William said, “Tylenol works okay.” He watched Dr. Franklin’s head nod approvingly. “Can you do something about the noise in my ears?”

  “Tinnitus! Almost everyone gets it sometime. Not something we’ve found a cure for. I can refer you to someone, but in the end, they’ll try to sell you hearing aids you don’t need. The best thing is to learn to live with it, I’m afraid.”

  “It drives me mad.” William smiled awkwardly.

  “It drives all of us mad. Is there anything else you’d like to tell me?”

  “There is something,” William began, conscious of Julie’s silent presence beside him. “You told me that I might notice changes after the operation. Well, I’ve noticed that I seem to say things without thinking. I’m not concentrating as well as I did. Not all the time, but I blurt things out that I’d normally keep to myself. It isn’t like me.” William paused. “Sex is different too.”

  Dr. Franklin’s face became serious for the first time. “How so?”

  “Julie and I had not been … active for a number of years, but it started again. There’s been nothing for about ten years and suddenly … it started.” William could not help feeling like a schoolboy.

  “That sounds like a good thing,” said Dr. Franklin. Julie’s expression caused him to reconsider. “But I’m guessing it’s more complicated than that.”

  “It is more complicated. I’ve made it more complicated.” William saw the concentration on his face and understood there was something that did not add up in Dr. Franklin’s calculation.

  Dr. Franklin said, “The problem I have is that the kind of disinhibition you have described won’t, I’m sure, be connected to the tumour or removing it.”

  “I thought you said I would notice some changes like this.”

  “Well, I did say something like that, but that was before we had the tumour out and could examine it. The reason we removed it was because it was quite large, about the size of a small fingertip, but that is considered large when it’s near the brain. The problem is, these things continue to grow. Eventually it would have pinched the optic nerve and caused all sorts of trouble, so it had to come out. I had thought it was possibly of a type that secretes and interferes with the endocrine system, which regulates lots of functions in the body. That might have explained your disinterest in sex and then recovery of that interest when it was out, but it wasn’t of that kind, and neither was it malignant.”

  William felt a wave of disappointment and then anxiety that Julie would hear this. “Something has to explain it. I thought it would explain why I’ve been dreaming more and feeling more emotional. I’ve even thought I might cry sometimes. Just not like me.”

  Dr. Franklin moved his head from side to side. “I’ve heard people say they were irritable before the operation and less so after it, but this is most likely because they’re tired much of the time, which can happen with secreting adenomas, but not yours. I don’t think being emotionally labile following the removal of your kind of tumour has been reported, certainly not to me.” Dr. Franklin moved closer. “Remember, there’s trauma involved in the operations you’ve had. It takes time to recover and sometimes it opens people to discovering new things about themselves.” He shrugged. “An operation can focus the mind on what’s important and what’s not. Best not to search too hard for an explanation.”

  “So why have I been so different?” William asked.

  “That,” said Dr. Franklin, “is not a question for me. I can only tell you that there is no physical reason to do with your brain or the tumour we removed. There’ll be other reasons and I’m not qualified in any of them to comment. Talk it through with your family doctor or perhaps you might think of going to counselling; maybe it’ll help. Is there anything else I can help you with?” He smiled broadly.

  William wondered what the doctor would think if he knew of the havoc his words would cause. Julie continued to sit motionless next to h
im, allowing the doctor’s message to percolate within her, confirming every dread, justifying each angry thought, extinguishing the last of hope.

  Dr. Franklin continued. “Well, if there is nothing more, let me take a quick look at the scar.” Lifting his nose in the air to examine William through his half-glasses, the doctor stood against his patient, tilting William’s face upward, as if to kiss him on the forehead or cut his throat. William thought either intimacy would be comforting. Dr. Franklin stroked William’s eyebrow with a thumb. “It’s fine. Very good. I’m pleased with the outcome,” he said and released him. “I don’t think I’ll need to see you again, unless something changes.” He smiled, moved toward the door and leaned back awkwardly, extending his hand toward William.

  William reached for the hand. “Thank you.”

  “Good luck, the both of you.” He waved incongruously to Julie, who smiled thinly, and was gone.

  Julie and William sat side by side for about ten seconds. Then Julie lifted her bag from the floor and her coat from the back of the chair and left without speaking.

  3:00 p.m.

  Stepping out of the hospital into the cold was fresh. William walked from the hospital, drew in the air and found himself at Tim Hortons on Lonsdale Avenue. He bought a double-double and moved to the counter to arrange his cup sleeve and plastic lid. People around him moved mechanically through the lineup with solemn faces, masking most of what they were. They were all strangers to each other, and that was just fine by William. His family was now lost to him, which should have been a terrible thing, and yet there was something about not having to struggle to save it that released him from the tension of trying. What remained was the need to salvage a relationship with Kelly. Julie would probably allow it, but before he turned to that there was something else to resolve.

  If only I could wash my hands of Uri, thought William. The relentless cycle of deliveries, each one a doorway to jail for most of his remaining life, was not what he had anticipated or agreed to. Neither was the death of Dennis, or Cathy’s plight. Without disengaging from Uri, there was little chance of keeping with Kelly. It seemed unlikely that Uri would grant him a free exit, especially now that he had moved closer to the centre of the operation.