Authors: Anthony Bidulka
“She had no idea Daniel was gay. None of us
did. They seemed like a pretty normal, happy cou-
ple. But it was me who found out.”
“How?” I asked.
“One weekend Cheryl was away, Daniel
stayed behind to work. Cheryl asked me if while
she was out of town I wouldn’t mind taking him
over a hot casserole or something. She knew he’d
be too busy to cook and if he even bothered to eat
he’d end up ordering in crappy fast food. I love to
cook and I didn’t mind doing her a favour so I did.
I made a meatball casserole and walked it over
there. I passed right by their living room win-
dow.” She stopped there to catch her breath before
continuing. I could see her chest begin to heave as
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she contemplated getting to the next part of her
story. “It was dark out and there was a lamp on
inside and the drapes weren’t quite closed. I saw
the movement as I was passing by and I could just
sense there was something weird about it so I took
a closer look.” She stopped again and looked
down at her hands, a rose bloom appearing on
each cheek.
“You saw Daniel Guest having sex,” I guessed,
hoping to help her over the tough part.
“With another man!” she hissed. “At first I
thought it was another woman because…well
because that would make more sense and because
the other person had long blond hair, but I looked
closer to see if I could recognize who she was
and…well, it was
not
a woman.”
The part of me with a warped sense of humour
wanted to laugh, but I knew that wasn’t a good
idea, so instead I swallowed it and asked, “And
then what did you do?”
“I ran home and took my casserole with me.
There was no way he was going to get my food! I
didn’t know what to do then. I didn’t know if I
should call Cheryl, or contact the police, or tell my
husband or what. So I did nothing. Until about a
week later. Cheryl had come back and we were
having coffee like we do a few times every week
and I just couldn’t hold it back. She’s my best
friend after all. And she had a right to know. For a
lot of reasons.”
“How did she react?”
“You can just imagine. It’s a good thing I told
her first thing in the morning while Daniel was at
Anthony Bidulka — 399
work, because if he’d been home, I think she
would have ripped his…she would have hurt him
somehow.” She gave me a look that invited my
imagination to conjure up one of many possible
blood-and-guts scenarios. “It took her all day to
calm down. She just yelled and screamed and
threatened to do all sorts of things to him and to
herself. Eventually she calmed down and we
began to really talk. Apparently the sex between
she and Daniel had never been that great and by
then almost non-existent. It hadn’t been a mar-
riage in a long while. She admitted she’d been
thinking about divorce. She’d been trying to make
it work, trying to make it appear to the world she
and Daniel were the perfect couple…so much so
that Daniel probably believed her too. But this
was it, the end of the line for her.”
Blackmail time, I thought to myself. “So you
hatched the plan?” I coaxed her on.
“Well, yeah, I guess. She wanted a divorce. But
she wanted proof of what I’d seen first.”
“Proof?” I was getting confused.
“Yes. She hired a private investigator.”
Ta-da! Jane Cross. But why was Jane chasing
me? I hadn’t been the one having sex with Daniel.
And what about the blackmail and kidnap? “Then
what happened?” was all I said. I didn’t want to
put words in Anita’s mouth.
“I don’t know really. I didn’t hear much from
Cheryl for the next little while. She was under-
standably withdrawn. I thought it best not to push
her about it. But she must have found out some-
thing from whomever she hired because she came
400 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t
to me a couple days ago and asked me to…” She
had the sense to look a little penitent here. “She
asked me to make a stink bomb for her so she
could teach somebody a lesson. I assumed it was
for whoever was fooling around with Daniel. I
thought…well, I thought it was harmless and the
least I could do to help my friend through this mis-
erable thing. A little wifely retribution is necessary
every once in a while y’know. Kind of like
The
First Wives Club
.”
I always thought there was something deeply
disturbing about that movie.
That being said, I found myself believing Anita
Soloway. She knew nothing about the blackmail or
the trip from hell into the frozen countryside. She
was simply an unwitting accomplice in Cheryl
Guest’s voyage of fury and revenge.
I looked out the window and saw Darren
Kirsch along with two SPS police cruisers pull up
curbside.
Darren and I were standing on the doorstep when
Cheryl Guest opened her front door. The other
constables remained in their vehicles for now. I
wondered if Anita Soloway and perhaps her hus-
band too were sneaking peeks from next door.
At first Cheryl said nothing, taking her time to
assess the situation, glancing behind us at the
police cars near her driveway and taking a half
step forward to look both ways down her street.
Was she worried about which of her neighbours
were witnessing what was sure to be a spectacle?
Anthony Bidulka — 401
“Mrs. Guest, I’m Constable Darren Kirsch of
the Saskatoon Police Service.”
I shot Darren an aggravated look. I thought
we’d agreed on the phone that I would lead the
confrontation with Cheryl Guest because…well,
because I’d figured out what was going on (sort
of) and he hadn’t. Jeepers.
“And this is…”
But she didn’t let him finish. “Yes, I’m familiar
with Mr. Quant. My husband’s…private detec-
tive.” The way she said the last two words made
the profession seem almost scurrilous.
Without inviting us in she turned and took a
faltering step away. Stopped. A hand on a hallway
table, the other in a fist on her hip. I saw her back
slowly rise and fall as she took a deep breath,
and then, much to our surprise, she threw back
her head and let out a deep, sorrowful roar, like a
wounded lion. For a brief—very brief—second
afterwards, with the aggrieved sound still hang-
ing in the air, I felt sorry for Cheryl Guest. Despite
all she’d done, here was a woman wronged, a vic-
tim of perfidy, outraged and filled with unfath-
omable sadness at the lamentable outcome of her
useless vengeance.
We stood there for a moment, Darren and I,
staring at her back as it shuddered. Eventually she
moved forward and we followed her into the
house. Despite its owners, a gay man and a
woman in the fashion industry, the home (or at
least what we could see of it) lacked pizzazz. They
were trying for an English Butler/The Bombay
Company—authentic fake antique—look but had
402 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t
somehow missed the mark. They had the pieces,
but they just weren’t put together right. Not, I
mused to myself, unlike their marriage.
Ending up in a sitting room, we each took an
offered seat while Cheryl excused herself to get a
glass of water. When she returned, she was not
only rehydrated but looking remarkably com-
posed following such a harrowing fall-apart. She
sat down on a settee opposite us and gave me a
curious look. I wondered if she was simply sur-
prised to see me alive after having me dropped off
to freeze to death. My earlier sympathy for her
was quickly waning. She then turned to Darren
with an expectant gaze. “Well,” she began, “what
is it?”
Ah, the woman had balls.
“We know what you’ve done,” I began before
Darren could hop in. “We just want you to fill in
the details.”
“Oh?”
“Where is your husband, Mrs. Guest?” Darren
asked.
Drat, good question. I should have asked that.
“He’s at a meeting with a colleague.”
“On Christmas morning?”
She cocked her eyebrows at him and shot me a
look.
“We know you found out about Daniel’s affair
with a man and hired a private investigator, Jane
Cross, to find out who that man was,” I started
again.
“And what a useless waste of money that was,”
Cheryl said bitterly. “That woman couldn’t find
Anthony Bidulka — 403
her way out of a brown paper bag.”
Oooo, I’d really have to share that tidbit with
my new bud, Jane.
“I wanted to have proof in hand before divorc-
ing the bastard, but I got nothing from her. I was
worried if we started proceedings without it,
Daniel and all his high-priced professional friends
would find a way to hide all the money and I’d get
nothing. And I wanted to show everyone what a
horrible man he is and how he’d fooled me, how
our marriage was a sham. But that wasn’t work-
ing…at least not quick enough. So I decided to
take further steps.”
“Blackmail,” I said.
“Not just that,” she responded, a tightness
developing around her mouth and eyes.
“Humiliation.”
“You knew about his award so you devised a
way to get the blackmail note into the envelope he
received at the SBA awards ceremony.”
“Not that difficult, believe me.” She spent a
second rearranging her hair and checking the tabs
on her pierced earrings. “I wanted to see him
squirm, in front of everyone. And let me tell you,
Mr. Quant, it was worth it. And yes, it was about
the money too. I wanted to get at least the fifty
grand out of him up front, tax free—my account-
ant husband taught me the importance of that—
just in case.
“But then you came along.” She gave me a
snarling look. “I met you at the Christmas party
and I was certain you were Daniel’s lover. Young.
Handsome. Fake date.”
404 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t
Hmphf. How had she seen through Sereena
and me?
She kept on going. “You didn’t have the long
blond hair Anita told me about, but gay guys get
new hairstyles all the time, don’t you?”
I wanted to shoot her a raspberry, but propriety
won out.
“So I sicced Jane on you. Surprisingly, she’d
already been on your tail since spotting you out-
side Daniel’s office. I began to realize you were
something more than a roll in the hay.”
I winced and said through gritted teeth, glanc-
ing sideways at Darren as I did so, “I was never a
roll in the hay.”
Cheryl ignored this and went on. “When Jane
found out you were working for Daniel I began to
worry you would counsel him not to pay the fifty
thousand.”
“So you came to my office under the guise of
wanting to hire me. Why? To riffle through my
files to find out what I knew?”
“And, by good fortune, I also found out you
were going to New York City.”
Crap! I had my electronic ticket and hotel con-
firmation information sitting on my desk.
“I didn’t know if you were going to New York
for a romantic weekend that Daniel’d tell me some
cock-and-bull story about at the last minute before
he got on a plane to join you, or if you were going
to meet some high-powered divorce attorneys or
blackmail specialists or whatever. All I knew is
that I had to know what you were up to. So I sent
Jane after you.”
Anthony Bidulka — 405
“When did you find out about James Kraft?” I
asked. I sensed Darren tensing at the mention of
the potential murder victim’s name.
“Who?”
The look on Cheryl’s face told the story. She
had no idea who James Kraft was. How could that
be? She was Loverboy yet James had also admit-
ted to being Loverboy. The NYPD had now
labelled his death suspicious. Up until then I
thought there had to be some connection, but what
if there wasn’t? Did James call himself Loverboy
simply because I’d put the idea in his mind? Was
it one last irreverent jest from an unbalanced actor
before he killed himself?
“Who is he?” Cheryl spat out. “Is he Daniel’s
lover? I have a right to know.”
“No, Mrs. Guest,” Darren said with quiet