Authors: Gail Bowen
“That makes sense,” I said. “Still, it must have been frightening.”
Glenda put her fingers to her temples. “It was terrifying. But just now, when I was listening to my father sing, it was as if he was right there in the room with me. We used to joke about being able to read each other’s minds. Hearing his voice again brought him close. I knew exactly what he’d say about my ‘psychiatric episode.’ ” Glenda straightened her spine so that her posture was like her father’s. “He’d say, ‘Kiddo, those were the worst hours of your life, why would you want to remember them?’ And he’s right. I have years of wonderful memories. Those are the times that matter.”
I followed Glenda into the front hall. She shrugged on her jacket, then bent to pick up her packages. “And now,” she said. “Back to what I laughingly call my life.”
“Glenda, why don’t you take the records with you?” I said.
She smiled. “I don’t have a record player.”
“Then take the record player too,” I said. “Zack and I are getting married soon. We’ll both have to leave things behind. I’d really like you to have the Sam and Bev collection.”
“In that case, I’ll take it – the whole kit and caboodle – as my dad would have said. And I’ll cherish them, Joanne. I promise you that.”
Zack was home at six o’clock on the button. Over our martinis, I filled him in on my afternoon with Glenda. Taylor was subdued at dinner, but she perked up when Zack asked her if she had any ideas for the bare, institutional walls of the room that housed the pool at our new home. As she started to float possibilities, the light came back into her eyes, and I thought, not for the first time, how lucky she was to have her art.
At eight, Zack finished his coffee and turned his chair towards the door. “Time to go,” he said.
“I thought you were going to cut back,” I said.
“I am,” he said. “I called McCudden this afternoon. If it’s okay with you, he’s going to convert that bedroom at the end of the hall into an office. That way, I’ll be able to work at home.”
“That doesn’t move the Statue of Liberty,” I said.
“Does it please you?”
“Yes,” I said. “It does. Apart from teaching and office hours, I can work at home too.”
“Better and better,” Zack said. “Okay, now I’ve really got to make tracks.”
“Is this a foretaste of what’s to come?” I said.
“Probably,” he said. “Are you all right with it?”
“Yes,” I said. “Are you all right with the fact that I have a full life of my own?”
His gaze was steady. “That’s another reason I love you,” he said.
Taylor and I were unloading the dishwasher when Howard Dowhanuik called. I asked him to hold till I moved to another room. When I picked up, I explained that I didn’t want Taylor to hear me talking about Kathryn Morrissey’s death.
Howard was gruff. “I’m not going to say anything to upset the apple cart. I just wanted you to know (a) that Margot Wright is a great choice for a lawyer, (b) that the cops were back this afternoon, and (c) that they took my fucking vacuum cleaner.”
“Thanks for the update,” I said.
“You’re welcome, but I wanted your opinion about that vacuum cleaner. Why would the cops take it?”
“I’m guessing they talked to your neighbours and discovered that in the eighteen months since you moved into your condo, you never had a fire. On Halloween night, smoke would have been billowing out of your chimney. Neighbours in condos tend to notice things like that. And the police probably took note of the fact that by the time they interviewed you early on the morning after Kathryn’s death, you had already vacuumed up the ashes from your one and only fire.”
“Shit,” he said.
“Whatever,” I said. “Tell Margot. She’s paid to listen, and she can’t be asked to testify against you in court. I can. And Howard, talk to Charlie. You’re getting in deep and I’m not certain you have to.”
“Do you know something?”
“No,” I said. “But tread carefully. Martyrs have to wait hundreds of years before they’re recognized as saints.”
“You think I’m trying to be a martyr.”
“I know you are. And lately, there’ve been times when I would have paid good money to see you flayed, but this isn’t one of them. You’re setting yourself up, my friend.
Talk to Charlie.”
“I’ll try.”
I hadn’t even made it back to the kitchen when the phone rang again. It was Howard. “My son answered and when he heard my voice, he slammed the phone down in my ear. What do I do now?”
“Short of keeping your lawyer informed and your mouth shut, I don’t know. I’ll let you know if I come up with anything.”
After Howard hung up, I stared at the phone. Charlie might not be talking to his father, but my kids were still talking to me. I dialed Peter’s number. He was voluble about the emergency that had taken him back to the clinic Halloween night. There’d been a call on his answering machine around nine from a boy whose dog had been hit by a car. The dog was hanging on, and Peter had gone to the clinic to do what he could. It hadn’t been enough, the dog died. He was home shortly after eleven.
“And your sister was with Charlie then.”
“Mum, please …”
“Peter, this is important.”
“They were together when I got back.”
“Where were they – in the living room, the kitchen, where?”
“Mum, don’t do this.”
“Were they in Charlie’s room when you got home?”
“Yes.”
“Were they just talking or what?”
Peter’s voice was exasperated. “They were in the same room,” he said. “I didn’t go in there to see what was going on. You’ve never once asked us to rat on each other. Don’t start now.”
“I won’t. I’m sorry, Pete. I’m getting a little desperate.”
“I know, Mum, but it’ll be all right. Really, it will.”
My daughter and I had never had any trouble keeping open the lines of communication. Most often our conversations were as inconsequential as they were deeply satisfying, but the Mieka who answered the phone that night at her home in Saskatoon was a stranger – guarded and suspicious.
As soon as she heard my voice, she established the boundaries. “I’m not going to talk about Charlie, Mum.”
“You have to, Mieka. The police are finding evidence that connects Howard to the murder.”
“What kind of evidence?”
I told her about the police’s interest in the garbage cans that belonged to Howard and Kathryn Morrissey, and about the fact that the forensic people had taken Howard’s vacuum for testing.
For the first time she sounded frightened. “Do the police think that Howard found something incriminating and burned it?”
“I don’t know what the police think, Mieka, but that’s what I think.”
I had knocked her off base. The sureness was gone from her voice. “I’ll talk to Charlie.”
“You do that,” I said. “And, Mieka, I know your feelings for Charlie have always been intense, but you can’t let Howard take the responsibility for a crime he didn’t commit.”
“The police will find something that will prove Howard’s innocent. Then he can just walk away.”
“Mieka, this isn’t a
TV
show. There are real consequences here.”
“I have to go, Mum,” she said. “The girls need me.”
“That’s right,” I said. “They do. Don’t lose sight of that, Mieka. If you know something, tell the authorities or at least talk to me. Please.”
We were taking the eleven o’clock flight to Calgary for the funeral, so I had time to stop by Howard’s Friday morning before we left. Nothing had changed. The silence from my daughter had been resounding, and Charlie hadn’t returned Howard’s calls. The police, however, had been attentive. The mills of the gods were grinding, but Howard seemed oddly tranquil. He was sober. He liked Margot. He seemed reconciled to his fate. When I left, he asked me to tell Glenda Parker that she had been fortunate to have Sam Parker as a father.
We shared our cab to the airport with Glenda. It was the first time Zack had seen her as a woman, and when he told her she was lovely, her pleasure was poignant. On the flight west, Glenda was quiet but controlled. As a white-knuckle flyer, I was working on control myself. Whether it was the diamond brilliance of the day or the fact that Zack never let go of my hand, my pulse didn’t lurch into triple digits during the hour and fifteen minutes we were in the air. When the mountains came into view, Zack leaned towards me. “How would you like to come out here for our honeymoon?”
I turned to him. “I’d love it,” I said. “I love the mountains and the sky and the trees and the air and the light. When the kids were all at home, we used to strap our ski equipment to the luggage rack of the station wagon and drive here for the weekend.”
“I didn’t know you skied.”
“Well, we do. Mieka’s really good,” I said.
“We could get a place out here if you want,” he said.
“Skiing wouldn’t be much fun for you,” I said.
“But it’d be fun to watch,” he said.
Beverly Parker’s church was on the airport side of the city. It was a sprawling octagon surrounded by a parking lot with enough spaces to service a mid-sized shopping mall. Our cab dropped us off at the main entrance where a burly man with a brushcut, a fixed smile, and eyes glazed with the joy of being born again greeted us. He pumped Zack’s hand. “I recognize you from the trial,” he said. “Thank you for clearing Sam Parker’s name.” The man took my hand and pumped it. “Welcome,” he said. “We’re glad you’re here.” His eyes slipped over Glenda and focused at a point beyond my shoulder. “More people arriving,” he said. “This is going to be a big one.”
“Thank you for helping us honour my father, Mr. Phillips,” Glenda said to the man’s retreating back.
“Someone you know?” Zack asked.
“My Little League coach,” Glenda said. “Taught me how to throw a curve ball.”
Zack picked up on the tension in Glenda’s voice. “Even assholes have their uses,” he said evenly. He looked around. “So what’s the deal with this church – it is a church, isn’t it?”
“Not just
a
church – the one
true
church. And as you can read on that tasteful sign over the main doorway, this atrium was the gift of Samuel and Beverly Parker. I’m surprised my father’s name is still there. He left the church when the elders came to him and advised him to disown me.”
The sign was tasteful; the lobby, less so. The Samuel and Beverly Parker Atrium had all the defining features of an overpriced shoddily built hotel: the soaring glass roof, the water fountain that spewed eternal healing streams of recirculated water, the small forest of flourishing tropical plants, the groupings of plush, welcoming couches and chairs. But there were also concessions to the day-to-day demands of running a church that apparently aimed to meet all its parishioners’ needs. Signs indicated the location of gyms and meeting rooms. A wall was lined with machines that dispensed soft drinks, chips, and candy bars. A large pixelboard streamed announcements of events that would fill the calendars of the faithful from cradle to grave: Moms and Moppets, Junior Explorers, Volleyball (boys), Volleyball (girls), Teen Movie Night, Networking for Success, Family Life, Single-again Bridge, Estate Planning for Seniors.
Zack was fascinated by the range of activities. “If you belonged to this church, you’d never have to leave the building,” he said.
“That’s the idea,” Glenda said dryly. “They want to keep you safe from the taint of secular humanism.” She squared her shoulders. “I guess we’d better go into the worship space. I doubt if anyone’s reserved a seat for me.”
The large auditorium had a stage, a podium, and hundreds of seats banked theatre-style. The place was already packed, but there was an accessibility section in the first row that still had room. We settled in and listened as a disembodied voice on the sound system announced that television screens had been set up in the gymnasium and meeting rooms and overflow seating was available. Finally, Beverly Parker entered and took her place, not far at all from where we were sitting. In a terrible and tasteless cosmic joke, the suit she was wearing bore an uncanny resemblance to Glenda’s.
Even Zack noticed. He leaned close to Glenda and whispered, “It looks better on you,” and the three of us exchanged furtive smiles. It was our last light moment. When Sam’s casket, mahogany, dark, and gleaming, was carried in, Glenda’s intake of breath was jagged. After the pallbearers had set the casket in place, Beverly stood and placed a simple spray of roses on its lid. The flowers were of the same delicate pink as Alberta’s provincial flower, the wild rose, and I swallowed hard.
The service was simple and mercifully short. The hymns, played over the public address system, had a professional slickness that kept them from tugging at the heart; the eulogy, delivered by an old rancher friend of Sam’s, was brief and affectionate. The minister delivered the prayers and read the psalms with practised ease, and when he offered the benediction, I thought we were home free. But as the pallbearers picked up the casket and started back down the aisle, Sam’s voice filled the auditorium. He sang “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” in a voice so strong, sweet, and passionate that it seemed impossible it would ever be stilled. Beside me, Glenda slumped and covered her face with her hands. After the last note had died, she straightened and fixed her eyes on the space where the coffin had been. I took her hand in mine. There were no words to ease the sting of that moment.
As we made our way out of the church, I noticed an ugly and unmistakable phenomenon. Many people recognized Zack and came over to thank him for helping Sam. Picking up on my connection with Zack, people nodded and thanked me for coming. But no one acknowledged Glenda’s presence. The shunning was corrosive. Glenda chewed her lip. “Apparently the mercy of our Lord and Saviour doesn’t extend to me,” she said.
Zack turned to his wheelchair to the door. “Let’s get the rock out of Dodge,” he said. “There’s a bar at the airport. We could all use a drink.”
“Good plan,” I said. “Let me pay a quick visit to the bathroom, and I’ll be right with you.”
“They’re a little hard to find,” Glenda said. “I’ll come with you.”
We walked across the atrium together, and Glenda guided me down a corridor that led to the bathrooms. She pointed to the Women’s. “Success,” she said. “I might as well come in too.”