Sticks and Stones

by Janice Macdonald

  The first was from Denise, with a terse message to call her. The second and third were both from Steve, to tell me that he loved me and that he’d be picking me up around seven. The fourth voice I didn’t recognize.

  “Keep your nose clean and stick with dead writers, ­Professor Craig, unless you want to have something in common with them.”

  I stood frozen in my little apartment, staring at the machine as the red light began to pulse once more. Then, in a frenzy, I ran to the windows and pulled closed all the blinds.

  32

  STEVE ARRIVED ABOUT WHEN HE’D SAID HE WOULD, and found me hunched up in the corner of my sofa trying to read. The fact that I’d spent the last hour on the same page hadn’t registered. I had been straining at every sound in the hallway and startling at every set of headlights shining through the kitchen blind.

  I played him the tape, which he removed from my machine wordlessly. Suddenly I found myself unable to stop talking. I blathered on about shopping, and Leo’s gossip and Denise’s call, which I still hadn’t returned, and my appointment with the possible Jane.

  Steve called in a report of the tape message, and after a short delay the word came back to him that the call had come from a pay phone on campus. He shrugged, replaced the receiver, then turned to me.

  “Get your coat on.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Once I’ve dropped this off at the station, we have reservations for Jack’s Grill.”

  I was going to demur and admit I had no stomach for ­supper, but the thought of remaining home alone, coupled with the offer to eat at one of the best restaurants in town, was too much to deal with. Steve helped me on with my coat, which lay abandoned on a chair by the door, and after ­making sure the door was securely locked, we headed for his car.

  I went into the station with Steve. He typed up the gist of what I’d told him, and I signed. After chatting with a couple of people whom I presumed were detectives since they were wearing jeans and sweaters, we drove off to a little strip mall in the southwestern corner of the city.

  Jack’s Grill is one of those places where you never have to worry about whether or not you’ll like what you order. It’s all fabulous. For such an out of the way place, the reservation list is months long. I wondered how Steve had managed to score us a sitting.

  The tablecloths are paper, and there’s a glass of crayons on the table for doodling while you wait for your meal. I chose a green crayon and did my usual doodle, lots of grass with a couple of dandelions sprouting. I looked over at Steve, who had taken a red crayon and was embellishing a huge Valentine with S and R in the middle. How could I not love this guy?

  “I’m going with you to see Jane tomorrow, “ Steve said over a very nice glass of wine.

  “I was meaning to ask if you’d talked with her already,” I said after I’d swallowed the last crab-stuffed mushroom.

  “I asked, and no one had followed up on it, although I’d put it in my initial report. What made you think of it, especially after I thought we’d agreed you wouldn’t be featuring any more than necessary in this investigation?”

  Steve was smiling, but I felt reprimanded.

  “Well, it’s not as if I’m completely out of it after tonight, am I? I’m not getting death threats for my fashion sense, after all.” It wasn’t until I’d actually verbalized the term that the reality hit me. I’d received a death threat. I took a quick swallow of wine to stop the sudden shakes.

  “Actually, tonight’s business is keeping me from really yelling at you. Randy, I know you’re going through some awful times right now, and if I could change it I would, but you’ve got to stay clear of this stuff. If not for your own safety, think of my job. I’m not supposed to bandy around what I do as pillow talk.”

  “Pillow talk?” I spluttered.

  “That’s what it will be seen as if it gets out, and it will.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because the death threat is the fourth on your tape. My supervisors will be listening to me swear undying affection for you. Most of them have been detectives long enough to make the connection.”

  “Oh.” That hadn’t occurred to me. This could be dicey for Steve.

  “Okay, so you’ll come along to the interview with Jane.” I was into placatory mode, since I certainly didn’t want to ruin the meal I saw the waiter bringing our way. “If she’s the right Jane, anyway,” I continued, after the waiter had advised us on the heat of our plates, ground pepper at us, and wished us an enjoyable feast, “I’m just riding a hunch, after all.”

  Steve dug into his entree with gusto. I suppose death threats are nothing to a man in uniform.

  “What made you go looking for her in the first place?”

  “I thought she should know about the journal going ­missing. If she is the right Jane, that makes her pretty easy to find. I mean, even I found her, and if the murderer took the journal, he could find her too.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short. You made some pretty astute leaps of logic. In fact, unless the perpetrator is campus savvy, I think Jane might stay safely incommunicado.”

  “Does that mean you think it was Gwen’s husband who did it? Stole the journal, I mean?”

  “I’m not going to continue this discussion. How’s your chicken?”

  I pretended to sulk, but allowed myself to be guided to other topics pretty easily. Murder wasn’t something I really wanted to dwell on. Not here, not with this wonderful man.

  Not with someone out there hating me.

  33

  STEVE HADN’T BEEN ABLE TO STAY THE NIGHT, and my sleep had been restless even with the kitchen chair shoved under the doorknob of the apartment door. I woke grumbling, with my hair squashed onto my face leaving red fossil traces on my cheek. I was still feeling hard done by, but very clean, after a hot shower.

  Steve arrived in time for a coffee before we headed off to our meeting with the possible Jane.

  Student Help was located in the basement of Athabasca Hall, one of the oldest buildings at the university. It was an older, burgundy brick building, structured like a U created by a north and south wing jutting outward on either end of the building. The result was a nice small quad in front of the main entrance. One entered Student Help through a door at the end of the south wing.

  Steve had dressed in detective clothes, which meant he looked like a cop on holiday. When we approached the woman at the reception desk, he let me do the talking.

  “My name is Randy. I’ve got an appointment to see Jane at ten-thirty.”

  She smiled and checked the register. “That’s right. Jane will be with you shortly. She’s just finishing with someone else. Would you like to have a seat?” She then looked quizzically at Steve.

  “I’m with Randy,” Steve said curtly.

  We sat on institution chairs placed around the perimeter of the area. Several People magazines and a couple of New Trails littered the top of the central round coffee table. Steve picked up one of the alumni magazines. I looked around, trying to imagine what the receptionist was making of the two of us. Maybe she thought I was pregnant and in distress, and Steve was the father. Or maybe he was my older brother, and I was having some sort of repressed memory of our father abusing me. Or maybe she figured I was in trouble with the law, and Steve was my minder. Perhaps she had no theories whatsoever, though that to me seemed the most fantastical ­possibility. I never believe people when they say they have no imagination.

  Before I could decide what she might or might not be thinking, she answered a softly beeping phone, and motioned us to go with her. She led us down a small hallway and opened a plain door.

  “Jane? This is Randy and friend to see you.” She motioned gracefully for us to enter and closed the door quietly behind us.

  Jane’s office was pleasant and non-threatening. There was a desk in the corner under the one window and another of those circular coffee tables sat in front of two chairs and a small sofa in the other corner. I took in a couple
of bookcases, some plants, and an inordinate number of Kleenex boxes placed practically everywhere. Tool of choice for therapists, I guessed.

  Steve and I sat on the sofa. Jane took one of the matching chairs.

  She was an interesting-looking woman, not beautiful but not plain. Her eyebrows were not quite as thick as Brooke Shields’ but they managed to make a statement. Her eyes were large and discreetly made up. She wore her black hair in a Louise Brooks chop, but it suited her. She smiled with her entire face, which is not something you see every day.

  “Which one of you is Randy?”

  “That’s me. This is Steve Browning, who asked to come with me today. I’m afraid we might be wasting your time, but we felt it was important to see you.”

  “Go on.”

  “I’m a sessional lecturer in the English department here, and Steve is a police officer. We’re, well, I mean, he is investigating the murder of Gwen Devlin. The reason we’re here seeing you is that Gwen wrote of her therapist named Jane in a journal she was keeping for my class, and we thought it might be you to whom she was referring.

  “I’m not sure what I’d be allowed to tell you,” Jane said.

  Steve broke in. “Then you are the Jane that Gwen referred to?”

  Jane smiled. “I suppose I can tell you that much. Yes, I am. She contacted me shortly after term began, and we met ­regularly. I was very saddened to read of her death.”

  It was my turn to break in on Steve. “The reason we wanted to come see you is that the journal you’re mentioned in was taken from my office last week, and we thought you should be aware of that.”

  Jane looked puzzled but not frightened. I guess knowing other people’s nightmares keeps you from jumping into your own.

  Steve took over again. “I would appreciate it if you could tell me the gist of what you and Ms Devlin spoke of in her ­sessions. If you need to consult with your superiors for approval, I’ll understand, but this is a police investigation, and we are pursuing several leads. If she mentioned that she was afraid of someone, or had dealings with someone ­unsavory, or hurt someone's feelings, it might shine a light on why she was murdered.”

  Jane now looked a little unhappy.

  “If you want me to, I’ll wait outside,” I offered, praying they wouldn’t take me up on it.

  Steve nodded to me. “If you wouldn’t mind, I think that would be best, Randy.” Damn him anyway. I left and sat flipping through magazines, wondering what the kindly receptionist made of my exclusion. She asked if I’d like a cup of coffee. Perhaps she really didn’t have any imagination.

  Steve came out in another twenty minutes. I got up and we stepped out into the bright December morning. I had to hurry to keep up with Steve. We were heading for the back entrance to the Student Union Building.

  As Steve held the door open for me, I stopped.

  “Well?”

  He grinned. “It may take more than a large café latte and cherry Bismarck to get it out of me, and it may not.”

  “You’re on.” I laughed.

  34

  IT TOOK TWO CHERRY BISMARCKS AND A LONG JOHN to get Steve to tell me that Jane Campbell had been less than forthcoming. Instead of expounding on her meetings with Gwen, she had agreed to answer questions Steve posed her.

  “The trouble was knowing what questions to ask,” he mumbled through icing sugar-coated lips. “I asked about her marriage, and whether she was afraid of her husband, and her adjustment to living in residence and whether anyone there had harassed her, and her classes, but what I’d really like to know is what took her to see a therapist in the first place, and that was strictly off limits.”

  “Is there anyway you can subpoena her files on Gwen?”

  “It’s not an issue anyone likes to force without obvious cause. We’ve had reports back from the staff in Fort McMurray who interviewed Gwen’s friends and neighbors there, but getting access to medical files is tricky. You can’t get anything without probable cause, and if you have enough evidence to get into the restricted files, you usually don’t need to see what is there. Chicken and egg.”

  “Guilt might have been her reason for therapy.”

  “Guilt?”

  “For leaving her children. Or if not guilt, then trying to deal with the lack of it. No matter how you play it, it’s not the accepted thing for a mother to leave her children. Maybe Gwen was finding that difficult.”

  Steve nodded as he bit into the long john. Watching all that sugar consumption was making me fairly weak. I broke off a bit of my low-fat cranberry muffin.

  “Did you get a sense of what kind of mother she was from the McMurray reports?” I asked.

  “They talked to the kids’ day care teachers and the next-door neighbors. All of them seemed surprised by her abandoning them. Seems she was a devoted mother.”

  “See? Even you think she abandoned them. Maybe someone’s sitting in judgment on her for leaving. I wonder who’s taking care of them while her husband’s down here.” I found myself scanning the tables for Rod Devlin’s face. “He is still down here?”

  “As far as we know. He was asked to keep us posted of his movements. The last address posted is a hotel down in Old Strathcona. He comes in every couple of days to see what’s happening. He seems pretty lost. As for the kids, I think they’re with his mom up there.” Steve was finished his doughnuts, but still looking interested in the display. There must be a doughnut gene in cops, there really must be. I broke off the lower part of my muffin and slid it across the table to him. He smiled and began happily to eat again. Between bites, he continued filling me in on the Fort McMurray aspects of Gwen’s life. Some of it I recognized from the journal, but not all. I wonder if there is a quantifiable number of sides to any given story. Here was a whole new view of Gwen’s world.

  “Gwen and Rod were high school sweethearts and from the sounds of it the beautiful couple of grade twelve. She was the editor of the yearbook and the captain of the girls’ basket­ball team. He was, of course, on the football team. They connected through some peer tutorial system and started going together in the middle of grade ten. They got married a year after grade twelve.”

  I was shaking my head in disbelief.

  “This sounds like a Ronald Reagan movie. Let me guess, she tutored him through poetry so he could play in the big game?”

  Steve laughed.

  “Actually, Spielberg, he tutored her through chemistry, physics and calculus. Seems Rod Devlin is really left-brained and Gwen was completely right-brained. She won all the essay contests, and he kept her from inadvertently blowing up the chem lab.” Steve’s face took on a more serious look. “You know, I have to give the guy credit. He didn’t want to lose her but he has been taking care of the kids and kept things going up there all this term. Even though he was probably figuring she’d fall on her face and come back home to him, he was graceful enough to let her try. It couldn't have been easy on him.”

  I nodded sadly. Taking care of kids looked to me like the one of those labors that the gods tested folks with. Even Hercules wouldn’t touch that one on his own. I had lots of respect for single parents, but I found myself not being able to pity Rod Devlin. Even though I had initially felt warmth toward him, he was tarred by being discarded by someone I had really liked, and there was something else, besides. Since he was one of the few people, other than students, who had been to the House this term since all the hoopla had begun, I found that I was subconsciously associating him with the night my office had been raided.

  “Do you think he’s the one who stole the journal?”

  “It’s a possibility.” Steve was noncommittal.

  “What about Mark Paulson, though?”

  “You really don’t much care for that reporter, do you, Randy?”

  “But if he overheard us at the Diner, then he knew where it was.”

  “As did sixty of your students, some of your colleagues, not to mention the possibility that someone looking for your exam to sell or use just happene
d upon it. You can’t just manufacture a case to suit yourself, you have to build it with blocks of provable evidence. And speaking of the case, I shouldn’t be.”

  “Do you really think you’ll get any flak from my answering machine tape?”

  “Too soon to tell. I have to report in to my boss tomorrow morning to brief him on the case, so I expect I may hear something then.”

  Steve shuffled a bit in his chair, and squared his shoulders. His body language said as much as his next words.

  “So, other than all this, how are things with you? Have you got your shopping done?”

  I am not completely adverse to subtlety. I changed the topic with a rueful smirk.

  “I have to find something drop-dead“—I winced—“I mean suitably glamorous for Grace’s party Friday night, but aside from that I’m pretty well on target.”

  “Does one go glamorous to a feminist’s party? I would have thought it was somehow inappropriate.”

  “Feminism attempts to foster sincerity, honesty and ­equality. There is nothing in any handbook anywhere that says beauty and joy are incompatible. We want to be admired thoroughly, not objectified, that’s all.”

  “Sorry, just a poor attempt at a joke. Actually, Grace struck me as a very nice person.”

  “She is really lovely, and her parties are wonderful. Would you like to come with me on Friday? You won’t be the only non-English type there. You might have fun.”

  “And you wouldn’t mind being seen to consort with a member of a bastion of male hierarchy?”

  “Well, unless you intend to bring along some phallic-­looking night stick, I don’t suppose many of them would guess your real identity.”

  “In that case, you’re on. Do we bring wine to this thing?”

  “Yep, and I’m supposed to make something, so if you get the wine I’ll rustle up a Mexican layered dip and we’ll be set.”