Deadly Appearances

by Gail Bowen

  I joined them. “Miss McCourt, I don’t know if you remember me, but –”

  She cut me short. “My memory is excellent, Mrs. Kilbourn, as I was trying to explain to Mr. Spenser here. I was telling him that some time in the past I met him; he insists I’m wrong.”

  “You know, Miss McCourt, media people are in our living rooms so often that they do seem like acquaintances.” From her look, I knew I’d taken the wrong tack, but I blundered on. “A couple of times I’ve gone up to someone and felt so certain I knew her. Then she’s turned out to be someone I’d seen on television.”

  Hilda McCourt’s brown eyes were bright with anger. “Mrs. Kilbourn, if your thought processes are muddled, you have my sympathy. Mine are not. In future, you’d do well not to ascribe your shortcomings to others. I hope you and Mr. Spenser will excuse me if I find more congenial company.” And off she clipped on her perilously high heels, leaving Rick Spenser and me face to face.

  What was surprising was how attractive he was. He was undeniably a big man. Even the skilful cut of his beige linen suit didn’t disguise that. From hard experience I have learned that television is not kind to people whose features are not well defined, but the camera really did not do Rick Spenser justice. On television he looked cherubic and bland; in person, his face was both less innocent and more interesting. He was, I remembered reading somewhere, forty-three, but he looked younger. There was a boyishness about the way he wore his dark blond hair – parted at the side and slicked down, the way mothers and Ivy League academics slick down hair. He wore round glasses of light tortoiseshell, and his eyes behind the lenses were hazel and knowing.

  Most of the men I know are politicians or professors – notoriously lousy dressers both – but I recognized that Rick Spenser dressed with elegance. He was six foot two or so and at least three hundred pounds, but his clothing was just right. He had style. It was a pleasure to look at him and a pleasure to listen to him. He pronounced words the way someone who loves the possibilities of language does. Even that day in the church hall of Little Flower Cathedral with Hilda McCourt’s assault still vibrating in the air, Rick Spenser seemed to savour the words he spoke.

  “That’s twice you’ve saved my life in five days. I’m in your debt, Mrs. Kilbourn. She really is a formidable person.”

  “That’s what Andy always said. She was his high-school English teacher, and I think that even after he became leader she intimidated him.”

  “Not one of those sweet old things who invites the class over for tea and cakes on the Bard’s birthday?”

  “She seems more the three-fingers-of-gin-for-Dorothy-Parker type to me. But Andy thought highly of her. There was some sort of bad patch in high school that she helped him through … I’m sorry, Mr. Spenser, I shouldn’t be rambling on. How are you? You look great – no cast on your arm, and that bruise on your forehead looks much less angry.”

  “I’m fine, and Mrs. Kilbourn – Joanne – I’m not good at this sort of thing, so I’ll just say it once. I am deeply grateful to you for saving my life.” He reached out one tanned and beautifully manicured hand and touched the top of my hand for a split second, then he withdrew it and smiled. “Now let’s hear the gossip about Hilda McCourt.”

  “I haven’t got any, really. I just wish I hadn’t hurt her.”

  “Conscience?”

  “Partly. And partly something less admirable. I’m mulling over the idea of writing Andy Boychuk’s biography and I don’t think alienating Hilda McCourt was the smartest way to begin. She knows a lot, I think.”

  Rick raised an eyebrow. “A biography?” He reached over and picked something off my suit jacket. “Lint,” he said, putting it carefully in an ashtray at the end of the table. When he turned to me, I couldn’t read the look on his face. “A biography,” he repeated. “Not a bad idea. You certainly have a gripping final chapter. And, if memory serves, some other gripping chapters as well. There was an earlier tragedy, wasn’t there?”

  “You surprise me, Mr. Spenser.”

  “I do my homework, Mrs. Kilbourn. Now the accident …?” He looked at me expectantly.

  “It’s public knowledge. It was about ten years ago. Eve Boychuk was driving. They were all in the car, Andy and Eve and their two children. Their daughter was killed instantly. Carey had terrible head injuries. He’ll never be capable of living a normal life. Andy was thrown clear. Eve was injured, but she recovered. Well, I guess a mother could never recover from a horror like that. Anyway, she survived …”

  Standing in the middle of that hot room filled with smells of turkey and coffee and cigarette smoke and people, I suddenly remembered sitting in my kitchen on a sweet spring day and opening the paper and seeing those pictures: the blackened metal of the car, Eve’s eyes, dazed like the eyes of an animal caught in a headlight. Andy standing on the side of the road with the two stretchers … and something else. In the background, the swoop of the overpass at Belle Plaine.

  “That’s where the accident was …” I had spoken aloud. Rick Spenser was looking at me curiously. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Two pieces of a puzzle just clicked together for me.”

  “I’m glad,” he said. “That is, if you wanted them to fit.”

  “I don’t know if I did, but I guess it’s always best to know the truth.” Eve’s eyes dull with pain as the Buick pulled onto the Belle Plaine overpass. “I’ve tried to believe that we can be in charge of our lives, that … we can create miracles.” In that close, hot room, I suddenly felt a chill.

  “Are you all right, Joanne?” Rick Spenser’s face bent close to mine, concerned.

  “I’m fine, just … I would like to change the subject, though. How long are you staying in the city?”

  He sighed. “I’m here till Sunday night. I couldn’t get a flight out because of the holiday weekend. The young woman on the phone assured me they always reserve a few seats for those who might need a flight out for compassionate reasons. Apparently the fact that I was suffering from terminal boredom didn’t excite her compassion.” He looked so woebegone that I fell into what my daughter calls “the mummy mode.”

  “Why don’t you come over and eat with us tomorrow night? I’ve promised the kids a barbecue, and I am a serious cook.”

  He brightened. “I accept, but since the promise of dinner tomorrow will bring to three the number of times you’ve saved my life, I insist on preparing a meal for you. I, too, am a serious cook, Joanne.” He raised a finger to silence any protest. “You’ll be doing me a service. Truly. It will give me something to do.”

  “I’m convinced,” I said. “You’re on. Now, we’re in the book. J. Kilbourn on Eastlake. Give me a call when you’re ready to shop and I’ll pick you up and take you to Piggly Wiggly.”

  “Piggly Wiggly?” he said, eyebrows raised.

  “Piggly Wiggly,” I said. “This isn’t Ottawa.”

  He looked at me hard, then he grinned. “You know, all of a sudden, I don’t care that this isn’t Ottawa. I really am looking forward to tomorrow night, Joanne.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “me, too,” and I meant it.

  CHAPTER

  8

  When I got home after the funeral, there was a note from Mieka saying she’d taken the boys for haircuts. I made myself a pot of tea and a plate of toast, stuck a casserole in the oven for the kids and went upstairs to my bedroom. I turned on the radio to listen to the news, but I never heard it. By six o’clock, I was asleep.

  I slept fitfully at first, dreaming dreams that in the strange world of the subconscious had their own peculiar logic. I can remember only fragments of one of those dreams. I was at a wedding and I was dancing with Andy. I could smell the odour of almond paste on his breath, and I tried to warn him not to eat any more wedding cake. I knew he was in jeopardy, but he wouldn’t listen to me. Then Rick Spenser and I were in my kitchen and he was making little marzipan doves that carried gossamer strands of spun sugar in their beaks. And then Andy was there, but I don’t remember the rest. Finally, I f
ell into a dreamless sleep and I slept deeply and well.

  When I woke up, my bedroom was filled with the pale light of early morning. The digital clock on my radio said 6:00 a.m. I had been asleep for twelve hours.

  I went downstairs, let the dogs out, made a pot of coffee and turned on the radio. It was, said the voice of the man buried in the windowless basement room of the glass broadcasting building across the park, going to be a beautiful Labour Day weekend. Bright, warm and breezy – perfect weather for late sailing and football and barbecues.

  I showered, pulled on some cotton sweatpants and a T-shirt, stuck my head in Peter’s room and asked if he wanted to come with me to take the dogs for a walk around the lake.

  Of my three children, Peter is the most restful to be with. Mieka is bubbly and witty. When you are with her, you are, like it or not, drawn into the maelstrom of her exuberance. Angus is the one who questions everything. He is dreamy and stubborn and inventive. When he was six, he came back from Good Friday service at our church and lashed together a broom handle and a piece of two by four. Late that afternoon, I walked into our bedroom and saw him standing in front of the full-length mirror, head lolling to one side, arms gripping his cross. “This is how it must have looked,” Angus’s image in the mirror said to me. Indeed.

  Peter is neither exuberant nor stubborn. He is content just to be. He loves sports, animals, and his family in an order that changes constantly. That morning what I needed more than anything was an hour with his quiet goodness.

  When he came down, we put the dogs on their leads and headed toward the lake. The city had that lazy holiday feel to it – light traffic, a few joggers, but generally pretty quiet. There was a breeze from the southwest, and for the first time in a long while, the windsock in the marina showed some life. The little waves on the lake flashed in the sun, and as Peter and I walked along the shore we could hear the water lapping against the rocks. In the sky, some geese were trying out a preliminary V, and my son and I turned to one another and said, “Fall’s coming” at exactly the same moment.

  By the time we turned up the walk in front of our house, I felt healed enough to start the day. I made pancakes as I do every Saturday, then we went to the Lakeshore Club, also as we do every Saturday. Over the years, the boys have gone through every racquet sport imaginable, and Mieka has graduated from Moms and Moppets to high-impact aerobics, but my routine never varies. Every Saturday morning I put on my never-quite-fashionable bathing suit and swim laps. Then I shower, get dressed and take the kids to McDonald’s for lunch. The high life.

  Rick Spenser turned out to be an accomplished, considerate, no-nonsense cook. If the meal he prepared for us wasn’t the best meal I’d ever eaten, it was certainly in the top ten.

  He called just before two and asked me to meet him at the fish counter of the Piggly Wiggly. When I arrived ten minutes later, there he was, a striking figure in rough-weave cotton pants and an open-necked shirt the colour of bark cinnamon. Next to him a woman with a print dress pulled too tight over her small, round, pregnant stomach was looking speculatively at a slab of whitefish. An adolescent boy on yellow roller skates glided up to the counter, filled a clear plastic bag with oysters in the shell and skated toward the front of the store. Rick Spenser didn’t see either of them. He was wholly absorbed in something he was pointing to inside a closed glass case.

  Behind the counter a bored young woman wearing surgical gloves stood holding a fish.

  When I touched Rick on the arm, he didn’t even turn toward me.

  “Good, you’re here,” he said. “What do you think of that pickerel? This young woman tells me they were caught last night and flown in from the north this morning.”

  “From the way the eyes are bulging I’d say she’s telling the truth. I think twenty-four hours ago that pickerel was probably swimming in Lac La Ronge planning her new fall wardrobe.”

  “What?” He looked puzzled.

  “I think the fish looks great, Rick.”

  “Oh, good.” He was still distracted. “That’s what I thought, too. Now, do your children like pickerel?”

  “I don’t think anyone’s children like pickerel.”

  He didn’t miss a beat. “We’ll get them steaks. Children like steaks.” He wrote something in a little pocket notebook, then spoke to the woman behind the counter, who was still holding the fish. “We’ll take that one and the third one from the left.”

  While she was wrapping the fish, he handed me his notebook. “See if there’s anything you’d like to add.” It was a splendid list: chicken livers, cream, butter, nutmeg, watercress, baguettes, pickerel, beef tenderloin, new potatoes, fresh dill, walnut oil, blueberries, and at the bottom in tiny letters, “Does J have a garden?”

  “How can you add to perfection?” I said, handing the notebook to him, “and, yes, I have a garden.”

  For the first time since I’d come into the store, he looked at me. “I hope you’re going to like me, Joanne.”

  It was such an intimate and revealing thing to say that I was taken aback. “Of course, I’m sure I will …” We both stood there, embarrassed, until Rick had the wit to get us moving.

  “Good, that’s settled. Now let’s leave the Piggly Wiggly behind and get to your place and start cooking.”

  From the first, we were easy with one another. When we were taking the grocery sacks out of the trunk I said, “Do you like kids?”

  He turned and looked hard at me. “Honestly?”

  “Honestly.”

  “I hate them. They scare me.”

  “Mine won’t.”

  “Well,” he said, sighing, balancing the French bread delicately on top of two bags of groceries, “I’m willing to be convinced.”

  I guess one of the reasons we fell in together so easily was that we shared two passions: food and politics.

  Rick had bought an apron that he unwrapped with great ceremony before we began to cook. It was a huge red-and-white striped affair – a butcher’s apron. When I laughed, he produced a duplicate – but in a smaller size – for me.

  “Jo, you said you were a serious cook, so I thought perhaps we could cook together.” He tied my apron at the back, then scrutinized me closely. “I just can’t imagine why these would have been on the clearance table. Now let’s have a glass of something cold and get started.”

  “There’s some Carta Blanca in the refrigerator.”

  “You really are perfect,” he said. I could feel my neck colouring with pleasure.

  We cooked well together. Rick would run through what he had in mind, then, without even discussing it, each of us took a couple of tasks.

  There was one odd note. As we stood with the bowl of chicken livers between us, I realized that the recipe for pâté Rick gave me was my own. Not like mine, but mine to the smallest detail. I’d come up with it when I was pregnant with Mieka and I’d had a problem with anemia. Our doctor had prescribed liver, liver and more liver, and the pâté had been one of the ways I’d come up with to make it tolerable. I could close my eyes still and remember standing in that gloomy kitchen in our house on Avenue B and trying out different combinations of herbs and spices till I’d hit upon thyme and allspice. And I could remember Ian’s expression when I’d used the last of his Christmas cognac to moisten the pâté. It had been a wonderful addition, but in those days we saw brandy once a year, so I’d switched to cream and melted butter, cholesterol be damned, and that was the way I made pâté to this day. But here was a man who was almost a stranger, and he had my recipe right down to the last cracked peppercorn.

  When I spooned the pâté out of the blender bowl into a round little dish, I said to Rick, “This is terribly deflating. All those years believing this was my own invention. Anyway, I’m glad we made it today – it was one of Andy’s favourites.”

  He broke off a heel of bread, spread it with pâté and handed it to me. “Here’s to Andy Boychuk,” he said with a smile.

  “You need one, too,” I said. So I broke off th
e other heel of bread, spread it with pâté and handed it to him. “Here’s to Andy Boychuk. Here’s to Andy.” And very solemnly, we both ate.

  For someone who hated children, Rick was thoughtful and generous with them. While we were cooking, he gave Peter money to get a bag of ice cubes and a case of soft drinks, and he threw the ice into an old washtub on the deck so the drinks would keep cold for the kids during supper. And, perhaps even more telling, just before supper, when Angus came in to say we had an hour, tops, to eat and be at the ball diamond because his game had been rescheduled, Rick accepted Angus’s need without question. “Really, Joanne, it’s all right. Everything’s prepared. We just need to get the coals ready. We five can be full and happy and sitting in the dugout in an hour.”

  “I don’t think Angus’s coach would be wild about all of us sitting in the dugout, but I can teach you the terminology when we get there. Are you sure you don’t mind? We could feed the kids and eat after they leave, you know.”

  “And miss your son’s performance? Never. Let’s have another glass of burgundy and get the steaks on. We can come back for dessert. I think people in Ottawa will be impressed to hear that I went to a Little League game. You know,” he said happily, “baseball on Labour Day weekend does have a certain cachet.”

  And so we went and sat in the bleachers and drank terrible coffee while the baseball mothers around us chanted their litany for their sons: “Come on, Brandon, buzz like a bee … You got him … Hum, baby, hum … Bring it in, Brandon, bring it in!” And the sun slipped down on the horizon and the sky glowed with streaks of pink and peach and purple. And I thought about Andy and how much he would have loved this evening. He would have been down on the field, volunteering to coach third base, yelling for the kids. I could feel the anger gathering. He should have been there. God damn it, he shouldn’t be dead. Then the tears started.