Taylor’s eyes travelled between Zack and me. “Do the police think that the people who killed the man working on the Village Project did this to our house?”
Zack shrugged. “Nobody knows. Both cases involved explosives, so it seems logical. Taylor, your mum and I aren’t holding anything back. We really don’t know anything more than what we’ve already told you.”
I put my arm around her shoulders. “The important thing is that no one was hurt,” I said.
“Not yet,” Taylor said. She was trembling.
Her hair smelled of rosemary and mint. I closed my eyes and held her closer.
“No one’s going to be hurt,” Zack said. “The police will see to that.”
I thought of Mieka and her girls, and of our sons. From the tension in Taylor’s body, it was obvious that she, too, realized, we had entered a new and complex world.
“I’m scared,” Taylor said, “and not just for me.”
“I won’t lie to you,” Zack said. “This is not a great situation. Until whoever did this is caught, we’ll take precautions we never thought of, and we’ll live our lives differently. But we’ll be safe. I promise you that. Lawyers’ Bay is a gated community. Nobody gets in here but us, and we’ll make arrangements for a secure place in the city.”
“We’re fine,” I said. “And we’re going to continue to be fine.” My voice was calm and assured. When I gave Taylor a final hug, I hoped she couldn’t feel the pounding of my heart.
I like driving, and usually Zack asks if I want to take the
wheel. That morning he didn’t. He got into the driver’s seat, folded his wheelchair, snapped on his seatbelt, and shut the door. “Ready?” he said.
“As I’ll ever be,” I said.
The landscape pulsed with the extravagant beauty of late spring, but our talk was grim.
Zack waded right in. “Have you ever seen a house where there’s been an explosion?”
“No.”
“I have. It was years ago. A client of mine – an estranged husband – blew up his wife’s house with a concoction he improvised from fertilizer and diesel fuel.”
“Isn’t that what was used in the Oklahoma City bombing?”
“It’s a popular choice,” Zack said. “It’s cheap, easy to get, and it does the job. Farmers use it to clear land or dig ditches.” Zack fell silent as he concentrated on passing a semi.
“Did the wife survive?” I asked finally.
“No. She was blown to kingdom come – along with most of the house. The Crown had an explosives expert testify. A lot of these guys are so in love with the sound of their own voices that they bore the tits off the jury with jargon, but this guy was good. I was watching the jury when he testified, and after he explained what happens during an explosion I knew he’d nailed my client.”
“What did the expert say?”
“He said that an explosion is just a very rapid expansion of a gas – it was as if a really powerful balloon had been placed inside the house of my client’s ex-wife and it had been suddenly inflated. Where there was nothing strong enough to stop it, the balloon just pushed through.”
“And your client’s ex-wife wasn’t strong enough to stop it.”
Zack’s nod was distracted. “She weighed 104 pounds. She never had a chance.”
“Oh God,” I said.
“There’s more,” Zack said. “But if you’ve heard enough …”
“I’m going to see the house in a few minutes,” I said. “I might as well be prepared.”
“Okay. Well, Debbie says they’re still having trouble getting the fire in the garage area under control – probably because of that full tank of gas in my car.”
“Shit,” I said.
Zack gave me a quick grin. “That’s the spirit. And you know, Jo, unlike Humpty Dumpty, houses can be put back together again. We still have the number of the contractor who did the retrofitting. And he was good.”
“He was,” I agreed. “So were you. I’ve never seen anyone as committed to anything as you were to finding that house and getting it ready for us to move into the day we were married.”
“Never underestimate the power of love and fear,” he said.
I turned to him. “What were you afraid of?”
“Losing you.”
“There was never any danger of that,” I said.
“I thought there was. When we flew to Saskatoon for that retirement dinner, I knew you were wavering. People were falling all over themselves telling you what a prick I was, and then that night one of my exes got a snootful and asked you if I was still into threesomes.”
“I remember,” I said. “I also remember that was the night I told you that I couldn’t imagine my life without you.”
“I needed to nail it down, Jo. I thought that if I found a good solid family house, you’d know that I was willing to do whatever it took to make us a family.”
“And now we are,” I said.
“You bet we are,” Zack’s voice was strong and comforting. “We’re going to be okay, Ms. Shreve.”
Our street was blocked with police cars and media trucks. There was no way we could fight our way through, so we
parked on Leopold Crescent. As we walked down the alley that joined Leopold to our street it became increasingly difficult to breathe. It was unbearably hot, and the air was heavy with the acrid stench of burning fuel, rubber, and who knows what else. The house we left when we went to the lake had been pleasingly designed and nicely landscaped – unexceptional except for its accessibility ramps. Now the place where Zack, Taylor, and I had lived with our dogs and cats looked like a dollhouse that a wilful child had kicked hard in a fit of temper. The force of the explosion had blown out the windows and doors and ripped off a section of the roof that we had reshingled the spring after we moved in. The new roof had been guaranteed to last twenty-five years.
A young woman, whom I recognized from our local six o’clock news, was doing a stand-up on the sidewalk in front of our house. As she pointed to the police barricades surrounding our property, she noted that the police had established a security perimeter to protect the public and the evidence. One glance suggested it had been a wise precaution. The explosion had strafed the property: our lawn was covered in chunks of concrete, wood bristling with nails, and shards of glass blown from windows. It was chaos, but the forensic investigators moved through the chaos purposefully with measuring equipment and grid markers.
When I saw the charred, ragged remains of our family room, the enormity of what we had lost hit me like a slap. The room had been the heart of our house and now it was destroyed. I gazed at what was left of the walls. Zack and Taylor and I had pored over a lot of paint chips before we found a colour we could all live with. We had settled on hibiscus.
Zack followed the angle of my vision. “Don’t,” he said gruffly. “We’ll have a Christmas tree in the family room again, and we’ll watch movies together, and the dogs will
steal our popcorn and throw up on the rug. It’s just going to be a while. Now, come on. Let’s find Debbie.”
Friendships between police officers and trial lawyers are few and far between, but Debbie and Zack were tight. When Debbie’s son crashed his motorcycle and awoke to discover he was a paraplegic, he attempted suicide. At Debbie’s request, Zack spent hours with Leo, convincing him that life in a wheelchair could still be sweet. It had taken a while, but Leo was now teaching English in Japan. He had married a Japanese woman and they were expecting a child. It was a happy ending, and Debbie credited Zack with helping to write it. When she approached us that morning, her first concern was personal, not professional. “I know how much you loved your home. This must be devastating.”
“We’re still alive to complain about our lousy luck and that’s a definite plus,” Zack said.
Tall and forceful, Debbie was all cop when she was on the job, but her smile was warm and her insights were solid. “So I don’t have to waste my energy feeling sorry for you.”
“Nope,” Zack said. “In the next few days we’ll probably do a pretty good job of that ourselves, so you might as well concentrate on finding the bad guy.”
“Why don’t we sit in one of the squad cars?” Debbie suggested. “We’ll be out of the sun and our friends in the media won’t be able to hear the conversation.”
“You’re the boss,” Zack said. We followed Debbie to a car that was parked in the shade. Zack and I slid into the back seat. Debbie reached towards the dash, started the motor, and flipped on the air conditioning. “It’ll kick in soon,” she said. She turned back to face us. “Okay, I already know the answers to the first two questions, but protocol must be followed, and my colleagues will be covering these topics with your neighbours.”
I took Zack’s hand. “The Van Velzers will be in their glory.”
Debbie stiffened. “Your neighbours don’t like you?”
“No, they like us, and we like them. The Van Velzers just enjoy being involved.”
“They watch and they listen,” Debbie said. “Worth their weight in gold – at least to me.”
“So what are you going to be asking Mr. and Mrs. VV?” Zack said.
“First, we’ll ask them if the relationship between you and Joanne is solid.”
“As a rock,” Zack said. “Next question.”
Debbie tapped her pen on her notebook. “I hate interviewing lawyers. Next question. Are the Shreves having financial problems?”
“Nope, we’re raking it in. If you need to talk to our accountant, I’ll give you her number.”
“That won’t be necessary – at least not yet. So, do the Shreves have any enemies?”
Zack laughed. “C’mon, Deb. I’m a trial lawyer. I’ve got nothing but enemies.” Zack turned to look again at the wreckage of our home, and his smile faded. “Obviously, there’s at least one person in town who doesn’t wish us well,” he said more quietly.
Debbie changed position so she could focus on me. “Joanne, is there someone who might have a grudge against you?”
Debbie’s question surprised me, although it shouldn’t have. Zack and I both lived in the house, but from the moment Zack told me about the explosion, the connection with the Village Project was so glaring I never even considered that the target might have been me.
Now I was forced to consider. “Once in a while, a student is angry about a grade or a comment I made in class,” I said. “But they limit their retribution to firing off an angry e-mail
to my department head or the dean. A student wouldn’t have done this.”
“You sound very sure,” Deb said.
“I am,” I said. “Students these days have a high degree of self-interest. They wouldn’t risk their future to get even with a professor.”
“Does either of you have any theories about what happened?”
“It’s hard not to believe there’s a connection between Danny Racette’s murder and this,” Zack said. “But they didn’t use dynamite here?”
Debbie shook her head. “No. Fertilizer mixed with diesel fuel.”
“So – homemade,” Zack said.
“Out of ingredients that are easily obtainable in an agricultural province,” Debbie said. “They’d need a detonating device, but they could easily have found one by breaking into a construction shed. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
Zack rubbed his head. “Anybody trying to scare Leland into stopping work on The Village is wasting his time. There’s serious money involved. People are expendable. Investment isn’t. You know how long they stopped work after Danny Racette died? Two minutes. If I’d been blown sky high, Leland would have had another lawyer by lunchtime. I’m small potatoes, Deb.”
“You’re also one of Leland’s groomsmen.”
“Only because there’s nobody else around,” Zack said.
Debbie tapped her pencil on her notebook. “So no insights about why your house was targeted?”
Zack shook his head. “Nothing you haven’t considered,” he said.
Debbie turned her eyes back to me. “I understand you witnessed the incident between Riel Delorme and Leland Hunter yesterday after the university’s convocation.”
“I did, and as I’m sure you know from your officer’s report, I said it was an accident.”
“And you were certain of that.”
“Yes.”
“You’re aware of who Riel Delorme is.”
“He was a student of mine. It was at least five years ago, but he’s the kind of student I remember. Riel and I talked about his plans for doing a master’s and then he dropped out.”
“What was his thesis topic?”
“He seemed to have trouble settling on one, but he finally decided on Che Guevera and the politics of revolution.”
Debbie raised an eyebrow. “ ‘The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.’ ”
“You’ve been studying Che Guevera?” I said.
“Just Googling,” she said. “Outside the Conexus Centre yesterday, the protestors were shouting, ‘Make them fall.’ The chant seemed familiar. One of my colleagues suggested I Google Che Guevera. And there was our quote.”
“There’s no incitement to violence there,” I said.
“How about, ‘I don’t care if I fall as long as someone else picks up my gun and keeps on shooting?’ ”
“Those were Che’s words, not Riel’s,” I said. “Debbie, when Riel was deciding on a thesis topic, he was looking for a model that would be effective in battling what he saw as systemic racism and poverty.”
“And he decided that violence was the answer.”
“History is filled with people who believe they’re justified in destroying a society that degrades them,” I said.
“And most of them believe the end justifies the means,” Debbie said.
“Riel didn’t believe that. At least not when I knew him,” I said. “In those days, he believed that people who were marginalized could change the system by working together.”
“And now he’s working with gangs,” Debbie said.
“So, guilt by association?” I said.
Debbie made no attempt to hide her annoyance. “No one who associates with The Warriors and The Brigade is an innocent. Gang members are mad dogs, and if Riel Delorme was smart enough to get into graduate school, he’s smart enough to figure that out. He should also be smart enough to realize that by brokering an alliance between The Warriors and The Brigade he’s given them twice the power they had before.”
Zack leaned forward. “You mean Delorme actually pulled off a coalition?”
“He did,” Debbie said. “Of course, it hasn’t worked out quite the way Delorme anticipated. The Warriors and The Brigade did come together to fight the Village Project, but the love affair didn’t last. Gang members are gang members. It didn’t take long for some of them to get bored listening to Delorme’s rhetoric about empowering disenfranchised youth and joining forces with sympathizers outside North Central to change the system. So they defected and joined Red Rage—”