Extensions (34 page)

The two women next to me had just paid their bill and were getting up to leave. One now had her arm around the other, who was openly crying. That didn't come from the safety of fantasies. Expectations, maybe, but not fantasies.

By now, the Kubiks might have spent themselves until the next flood of tears. I paid my bill and walked slowly to the elevator. I knocked quietly on the door, announcing who it was.

Jan opened the door and let me in. Pouches sagged under his red eyes and his skin was pale. “Come in, Constable,” he said politely. “My wife is lying down.

“You must be exhausted yourself,” I said. “To be greeted with this after an international flight.”

“I am accustomed to exhaustion and even loss, but never one on this scale.” He spoke even more formally than Selena and in a more measured tone.

“I'm so sorry for this tragedy.” I took his two cold dry hands in mine. “Is there anything we can do for you and Mrs. Kubik?”

“Thank you, but no. Sleep will help her. She has borne too much by herself. A lifetime in a day.”

“And you?”

“I am not ready to sleep yet. I am afraid of waking up later.”

“Then I will leave you two alone. Your house is free again, whenever you want to go back.”

“Thank you, Constable. We are better off here for tonight. We have a condo in Whistler and I might take my wife there tomorrow for a few days while the cleaning lady removes the baby things.”

“Do you have any friends or relatives who can help her through this?”

“I will take care of her now,” he said.

I picked up my overnight bag and handed him my card. “Please call if you need anything or if anything occurs to you or your wife that will help us solve this crime. Is there a chance the abductor was someone with a motive — or sent by someone?”

“No chance at all,” he said firmly in the voice of a European count.

“We didn't think so, but we have to consider all angles, you understand.”

“I understand, Constable. Thank you for staying with my wife.”

“Take care of yourself, Mr. Kubik.” I went out the door with my bag. “And don't forget to put the chain on.”

As I stood in front of the elevator, I shivered. Jan Kubik seemed a civilized man, a product of European culture and attitudes. But the hotel room now held the same chill I had detected in the house on Colleen Street, one that was not noticeable when I was alone with Selena earlier, even as detached as she was. It must be generated by the combination of the two of them. What was the opposite of spontaneous combustion? Dry ice?

THE NEXT TWO DAYS DISSOLVED in a flurry of whipping rain, paperwork, more questioning of the neighbours, and a more thorough search for the Porsche. We decided to keep this lead from the media for now, in case the perp decided to paint or get rid of the evidence. Sukhi, now back in the office after missing the excitement, commented: “It's like finding the white Fiat that clipped Diana's Mercedes in the fatal crash.”

“Peugeot,” said Dex.

“The Peugeot was black, the one they swerved to avoid. White paint traces on the Mercedes came from a Fiat.”

Wayne looked up from the sushi he was eating at his desk and said flatly, “First accounts described the Fiat as dark blue, later witnesses said it was black, red, and white. A recent inquest reported testimony of an erratically driven white Fiat emerging from the tunnel, but no evidence has ever been found. Our Porsche could end up the same way.”

We agreed that young men usually knew their cars, but could we trust a hungover one on a misty morning? Maybe he was dreaming about a Porsche. The other neighbour simply said it looked like a white sports car, but every manufacturer had a few sporty models now. Sukhi and I joked about Jake's reaction if the murderer's vehicle turned out to be a Volvo.

“Selena said she thought it was someone delivering flyers on the front step,” Tessa said. “Have we checked delivery people?”

“I've never known community freebies to be that early,” said Sukhi.

“That's just what she thought it was,” said Tessa. “The only sound that occurred to her.”

“Did she give you any more when you took her to change, Tessa?”

“That was it. And then she withdrew completely.”

“Speaking of upstairs, was there a nursery?” I asked.

“Khaki walls, lime green and aqua bedding. Everything spotless and in its place. I almost expected a pewter crib, but it looked like cherry wood.”

My inside track with the Kubiks had left me with little information, but an overblown curiosity about the two of them. When and why did they come to Canada? What was Selena's profession, if any? If I hadn't silenced her with my awkward questions, I might have found out more. I couldn't get past the horror of what they were going through and had to fight the urge to call them — even in Whistler, if that's where they were. But what would I ask other than how they were doing? Sensing my nosiness, Wayne gently reminded us not to get too personally involved in these files. Victim Services was available and we should confine our interest to pertinent evidence; otherwise, some of it might be tainted.

After days like these, Dad's warm suppers were more than welcome. It was becoming clearer why men get married. Or used to. Today there were no guarantees of home-cooked meals from the woman of the house. Almost as soon as I finished eating, I fell asleep, either on the couch or after a page or two of reading in bed. I was providing all work and no company for Dad — a good time to prepare him and myself for the move back to my apartment on the weekend. I would take my stuff over in the afternoon and invite him to come for supper later. At least I could try to reciprocate a thousandth of what he had done for me.

On Saturday morning, as I was packing up my clothes, the phone rang.

“So you made the national news on your first file,” said Monty. “We looked for you in the clips.”

“I hid. But it's been quite a week.”

After a few minutes of shop talk, he came to his next point. “What about the other case?”

I had to think.

“Jane — your great-grandmother. We've been waiting for a followup. Gail and I are having coffee and got talking about it. You were to call Wendell's sister, remember.”

“Aren't
you
the tough corporal? It's only been a week — do you know how consuming this has all been?”

“No excuses.” He gave his giant laugh. “Here's Gail.”

Gail too was laughing, but did not let me off the hook about phoning Mona Mingus. “Don't forget I broke the Mingus connection, so you have to do your part. Maybe she knows how those letters got back to Canada from Wales.”

“I always thought other people's genealogy was a bore.”

“You're not other people.”

“Okay, okay, I'll call.” We chatted then about the kids, the weather in Saskatchewan, and the gruesome case. As a cop's wife, Gail knew I couldn't say much, and there wasn't much to say anyway.

Dad was passing as I hung up the phone and I relayed the conversation to him.

“Why don't we call Mona Mingus right now?”

I figured, as the contemporary cousin, he was volunteering, but he handed the number to me. Obediently, I dialled.

A low voice at the other end answered.

“Mona Mingus?”

“Yes.” Also a slow voice.

“This is Arabella Dryvynsydes in Vancouver.”

“Yes.”

“My father and I met your brother Wendell recently and we've confirmed that we're cousins.”

“Yes.”

“Your mother and my grandmother were sisters.”

“Wendell told me about you.”

So why didn't you say so immediately?
I wanted to reply, but contained myself. “Did Wendell mention any letters written by your grandmother?”

“Yes, he did.” Pause. “He also told me you bought that picture of Mother and her twin sister at a garage sale. We never knew where that picture got to, Mother and me. When her mind started wandering, she forgot about it, but I never did. Cindy had no right to sell it.”

“I wanted to match it with one I have from my grandmother. But the letters — do you still have them?”

“Yes.”

The pause now came from me as I caught my breath. “Have you read them?”

“I don't think so.”

Explain yourself, woman.
“Uh, if you had, when might it have been?”

“I believe there's only one or two. I might have opened the envelope when I brought Mother to Calgary. To see if I should put them in the financial or personal pile.”

“What did you decide?”

“Personal.”

“And it's still there, you say.”

“Must be, because I haven't touched that trunk for over thirty years.”

“Would it be possible for you to send it to Dad and me? We'd pay the courier.”

“No, I'm afraid it wouldn't be possible. I don't want to disturb Mother's things.”

“Do you think we could have a look at it sometime in your presence? If we ever make it to Calgary?”

“I'm not so sure about that. All mother's papers are pretty old. They might crumble.”

At an impasse, what to do with a balky witness? Offer a trade and leave them an out to save face. “We know how to handle them. We have a pack of our own. We'll bring the picture back to you, if we come.”

Her stumped silence told me I had her. “Well, maybe if you were very careful with them.”

“We would be. Do you know, by any chance, how the letters ended up in your mother's possession? I believe they were originally sent to Wales.”

“Mother said they came from some Aunt Lizzie on Vancouver Island.”

I was baffled. “Aunt Lizzie? Are you sure? She's the one Sara — my grandmother — lived with. They thought Janet — your mother — was dead.”

“That's all Mother ever said. And I know it was Lizzie because when she told us, Dad made a joke about his old Tin Lizzie car. I remember that for a fact.”

Mona's tone made clear that she had reached the end of her patience, especially after the concession. “It's been nice talking to you, Miss Mingus,” I lied. “Mona” sounded too friendly for what was not a friendly exchange. “I hope to speak to you again in person soon.”

“Goodbye.”

I shook my head and said to Dad: “Wendell was right, she is a queer duck.”

He was in the dining room arranging the pages of his labour of love. “Didn't Wendell say she took after their mother?”

“No sister of Sara could be that uncommunicative.” I told him about the letters, how we had to go to Calgary to read them.

“You, maybe. I have no plans for a trip to Alberta.” Tenderly he tapped the sheets into alignment: his rhyming story in a whimsical font, shown off by vivid illustrations. Market research had advised him that children's book publishers want plain text and prefer to find their own artists, but his little book was going out as a package. He could not resist sending his vision of the finished product.

“Did you hear the part about Aunt Lizzie? How could Aunt Lizzie have sent the letters to Janet? They all thought she was dead.”

“You're the sleuth.” He attached a cover letter and a folded self-addressed stamped envelope to the manuscript with a paper clip, then slid the bundle into another manila envelope.

This was his baby. His mission to keep himself from going under in the absence of his mate. Sissipuss had been a more loyal companion than I had been during the months of his bereavement. Now Sissipuss and I were both leaving him on the same day. What would the empty house hold for him now? “What's your next project?”

“You mean until I have to enlist lawyers to fight for film rights?”

“Yeah, until then.”

“Not sure. Guess I'll think of something.”

I watched him cross the kitchen and set the envelope on the counter next to the dish of keys, so he would not forget to take it to the post office on his next outing. As if he ever would. He seemed to have lost weight without my noticing; a thin face made his ears look larger than ever, the wattle of skin on his neck more pronounced. When he reached for a plate on the top shelf of the cupboard, his head extended horizontally like a turtle from the rigid shell of his shoulders, not vertically as a supple neck would carry it. Fighting to deny the thought of my father as an old man and what I might have done to delay it, I strained to think of something cheerful to say. “I can hardly wait for the book launch. I'll learn to make appetizers by then and we'll have it here.”