The Wandering Soul Murders (11 page)

She grinned at me.

I didn’t fall for it. “T., you’re going to have to change,” I said. “Why didn’t you wear what I put out for you?”

“Because I felt happy,” she said.

It was the first time she had said that since her mother died. If I’d had a party dress and baseball socks handy, I would have worn them myself. I reached down and took her hand.

“Good enough,” I said. “Let’s go to Samantha’s party.”

After I dropped Taylor off, I drove downtown to the Lily Pad. Not much had changed. The wooden frog still sunned himself on the lawn, and the kids still smoked on the steps. When I walked past them, they looked at me incuriously through dead eyes. The front door was open and I went in. Someone had tacked up a sign on the Sharing Place: “Global thought for the day: Have a birthday party for the world.” On the
TV
in the living room, Oprah was talking about relationships; no one was watching. I kept on going. The state-of-the-art kitchen was gleaming and empty. On the counter, what looked like twenty pounds of standing rib roast thawed on a tray.

I was trying to decide what to do next when my friend Helmut came in. I hadn’t liked him the day before and I didn’t like him now. He was wearing a sweatshirt that said, “Let Me Be Part of Your Dream.” When he greeted me, his smile was as dazzling as ever, but there was no mistaking the hostility in his eyes.

I gestured toward the rib roast. “Good groceries,” I said.

He moved between me and the meat. Incredibly, it seemed as if he was trying to keep it a secret.

“Don’t hide it,” I said. “You deserve praise. Not many drop-in centres for runaways serve prime rib.”

“I thought I shared the rule about visitors the last time you were here, Joanne,” he said.

“You know my name,” I said. “Who told you?”

The smile was even more forced. “I don’t think that’s something you need to know.”

“I think it would help us relate,” I said. “Caring people shouldn’t have secrets from one another.”

“Kim told me,” he said.

Not in a million years, I thought. But I smiled at him. “Well, Kim is the person I’ve come to talk to.”

He gestured to the empty kitchen. “As you can see, she’s not here.”

“Do you expect her back soon?”

Helmut shrugged. “The kids who come here are dysfunctional, Joanne. They aren’t big planners. People come. People go. It’s called a transient population.”

“What about your mentor program?” I asked.

I could see the muscles in his neck tighten, but his smile grew even wider. “That’s one of our few failures. We had to abandon it. There were too many jealousies. Adolescent girls tend to be emotionally labile.”

“Pretty sudden decision, wasn’t it?” I said. “I’m sure Kim Barilko wasn’t the only young woman who was looking forward to having a chance at a different kind of life.”

Helmut Keating looked at me stonily. “We have programs here at the Lily Pad,” he said, “as you would have discovered if you’d read the brochures I gave you.”

“How can the programs help Kim when you don’t know where she is?” I asked.

Helmut narrowed his eyes.

“Just asking,” I said. “I don’t think we’re communicating very well here, Helmut. Maybe I’d better let you get that million-dollar roast in the oven. Is there someplace I could leave a message?”

“The Sharing Place,” he said tightly.

I wrote a note to Kim, telling her that a friend of mine who worked in television was interested in meeting her, and I left my name and phone number. I pinned it right under “Have a birthday party for the world.”

That night Keith called and we went to a new East Indian restaurant. We ate samosas and curried shrimp and groped at each other under the table. It was a nice evening, and it seemed to usher in a nice weekend. Saturday morning the kids and I enrolled Taylor in a summer art class at the old campus, then we went downtown and shopped for the endless items on Angus’s camp list. In the afternoon, I sat on the deck and read political journals while Taylor and her friend Samantha splashed around in the pool.

Sunday evening I went to the shower Lorraine was giving for Mieka. It was the first time I’d been inside Lorraine’s Regina apartment. The floor plan was the twin of Keith’s, but the decor was coolly modern – all white. The only touches of colour in the room were the silvery wrapping paper of the gifts piled high on the table beside the window, the pink of the sweetheart roses that bloomed from a crystal bowl beside the chair for the bride-to-be, and the ice-cream pastels of the dresses the guests were wearing.

It was an evening that unfolded itself impressionistically, in a series of flashes that somehow revealed the whole. The rosy pink of the cold lobster in the seafood salad was the same shade exactly as the chilled rosé Lorraine handed around in her delicately fluted glasses. Lorraine’s friends, brilliantly fashionable, talked in throaty voices about new cars and old boyfriends or old cars and new boyfriends; no one seemed to care which. My daughter, who had always despaired of her looks, bloomed into beauty as she breathed in air perfumed by spring roses and listened to her friends’ gently mocking talk of love.

There were other flashes, equally sharp but more unsettling: the faint shudder of distaste that ran through Lorraine Harris’s body when she overheard Jill and me talking about my visit that day to the Lily Pad. Lorraine’s eyes, stern behind her horn-rimmed glasses, as she laughingly warned me against raising unpleasant topics at my daughter’s wedding shower. The two elegant women, friends of Lorraine’s, who heard me mention Helmut Keating’s name and came over to gossip about him and the Lily Pad.

“Of course, I’m on the board,” said the first woman, “so I see a fair bit of Helmut. He’s a bit too free with the jargon, but he works hard and the kids seem to love him. He’s a very caring guy.”

The second woman, who had had several glasses of rosé, roared. “And don’t forget that fabulous streaking job. Now whoever did that is an artist. I think there’s a song there,” she said. “Helmie has great hair and it’s only fair ’cause he’s a very caring guy.”

The first woman smiled and took her friend’s arm. “Time to say good night,” she said. And they did.

And one last vignette. Just before the party broke up, there was a knock at the door; it was Blaine Harris. I could see his nurse, Sean, waiting in the hallway, but Blaine propelled his own wheelchair across the room and handed Mieka a long blue jeweller’s box, tied with a white ribbon. Mieka opened it, held the gold locket that was inside up for everyone to see, then fastened the chain around her neck.

The old man watched intently, then made a saluting gesture to Mieka and wheeled himself through the door into the hall. The whole scene couldn’t have taken much more than a minute, but by the time Blaine Harris left, there wasn’t a dry eye in the room.

It was a nice moment, and as I walked home, warmed by that memory and by other memories of the glowing party, I decided it was time to stop worrying about the things I couldn’t change and to start cherishing the good things in my life.

During the next week I tried. I read; I went over to the
TV
station and watched tapes of politicians and press conferences and pundits; I took Taylor to two art galleries to see new exhibits; I shopped and made the final purchases on Angus’s camp list. I even bought a mother-of-the-bride dress in aquamarine silk. Mieka was so relieved she took me out for ice cream and a movie. It was a week in the life of a lucky woman. And every night before I slept I could feel Christy’s bracelet burning warm on my wrist; every morning when I stretched for the day, I could feel the bracelet’s weight heavy on my arm.

I found I made detours. I took not the shortest route between stops but the one that would take me close to the Lily Pad where I could run in and check the Sharing Place. “Have a birthday party for the world” gave way to “Wave to a bird because you cannot fly,” then “Wake up early and dance for the sunrise,” but there was never a message for me from Kim. Three times I went to the bridal store where I had come upon Kim by chance the day after Christy’s funeral. I ached to see her. I ached to right the wrong I had done to Christy. I ached to redress the balance.

Monday, June third, I did the first television show. Keith picked me up and we drove to the studio together at five-thirty. We walked through the glass and steel lobby with pictures of the network stars suspended from the ceiling like the banners of medieval knights. A young woman, slender and fashionable in a black jumpsuit and odd socks, one pink, one turquoise, led us along corridors to an underground room where another young woman put makeup on us. She looked at Keith’s solid pale-blue suit approvingly and flicked his face with a powder puff. When it was my turn, she said my makeup was pretty good. She did some deft things with eyeshadow. “Brown is always more natural looking,” she whispered. She touched my earlobes with blush, then stood back and looked at me appraisingly. I had bought a new dress for the show, flowered silk, pretty as a summer garden.

“Next time,” she said kindly, “try to find a solid colour. That’s going to make you look like you’re wearing your bedroom curtains.” She looked at her watch, grinned and said, “Showtime. Knock ’em dead.”

The young woman with the odd socks marched us through a corridor to the studio.

“I like your dress,” Keith said.

“You’d like my bedroom,” I said.

We got microphones, Jill introduced me to Sam Steinitz, who arrived breathless from the airport, and we were away. It seemed to go all right, but I was immensely relieved when it was over. When they took off the microphones, Keith turned to me and grinned. “Well, shall we go over to my place and debrief?”

We stopped at a French deli and bought crusty bread and cold cuts and a salad made of tomatoes, fresh basil and ripe Brie. Then we went to Keith’s, debriefed and sat on the balcony eating dripping sandwiches, drinking wine and analyzing each other’s performances. I decided I liked
TV
.

Keith drove me home around ten-thirty. Mieka and Greg were sitting at the kitchen table poring over the guest list. They gave me a standing ovation when I came in. I kissed Mieka and she made a face.

“Oh, why do I find myself suddenly thinking of Provence?” she said. “I don’t suppose you brought leftovers.”

I held up a greasy bag.

“You suppose wrong,” I said. She and Greg attacked the bag like kids, and Mieka ran through the evening’s messages. There were calls from old political friends, most of whom, according to Mieka, wanted to tell me what to say next time. Peter had called collect. He’d been in the middle of nowhere when the show came on, but had found a pub with a
TV
and made everybody watch his mother. He’d liked the show, and he said the guys in the bar thought I seemed sharp for a woman. My old friend Hilda McCourt called from Saskatoon to tell me I deferred to Keith and Sam Steinitz too much and that solid colours tended to photograph well and make the wearer look slim, but that she thought I had a future in
TV
. Keith and I had a final glass of wine with the kids, and by eleven-thirty, I was showered and in my nightgown. When I turned down the bedspread, I saw the picture Taylor had left for me. It was called “Jo on
TV
.” I was smiling and wearing my flowery dress. I looked very thin and very fashionable. When I went to tuck her in, I gave her an extra hug. That night I went to bed happy.

The next day I got a message from Kim Barilko.

CHAPTER

8

The morning of June fourth was glorious: hot, blue-skied, alive with possibilities. After I showered, I took the dogs for a run, got the kids off to school and sat down at the picnic bench with a cup of coffee. The tension of the first
TV
show was over; the kids were safe; the shoes I’d chosen to wear with my mother-of-the-bride dress were off being dyed. Life was under control. All I had to do was sit back and enjoy it. But I couldn’t.

Half an hour later, wearing sandals, a black-and-white checked sundress and my Wandering Soul bracelet, I pulled up on the street in front of the Lily Pad. I walked up the sidewalk and made my way through the smokers on the front steps. By now they were used to me; I was as unremarkable to them as the wooden frog sunning himself on the lily pad on the front lawn. I went straight to the Sharing Place. My note was there, but there was still no answering message. As I walked to my car, I felt the familiar sting of defeat.

That’s when I saw him. He was standing by my Volvo, slight, young, dressed to intimidate: sleeveless black shirt; skintight blue jeans, black hair pulled into a ponytail under a high-crowned black cowboy hat, black reflector glasses. He lit a cigarette and inhaled it lazily.

“I saw you on
TV
,” he said. “It was on in the place where I was,” he added quickly, in case he’d revealed something.

I could see myself reflected in his glasses. I seemed distorted. My forehead was huge, and my body seemed to dwindle off, caricaturelike, toward a point on the sidewalk.

“You’re the one looking for Kim,” he said.

My face in the shining black glass was suddenly alert.

“Yeah,” I said. “I am.”

“She’ll meet you,” he said. “Until last night she didn’t believe it about you knowing someone on
TV
.”

“Where can I find her?” I said.

“She’ll find you,” he said. “Tonight at the coffee shop in the bus station, ten-thirty.” Then, for just a second, the tough-guy edge in his voice softened. “She’s a good kid,” he said. “She needs a lucky break.”

I called Jill and told her the news. She sounded tired and discouraged.

“Maybe some good will come out of this after all,” she said. “I’m certainly getting nowhere.”

“Darren Wolfe’s hot information wasn’t so hot?” I said.

“Oh, it was hot, all right, at least I think it could be hot, but somebody needs to do a lot of digging, and the network is determined it isn’t going to be us. I told you they were dragging their heels on this, so this morning I decided to fax Toronto all my notes from the interview with Darren. Jo, I was so sure if I just laid things out they’d see what a great story the Little Flower case is.”

“And they didn’t,” I said.

“Twenty minutes ago I got a fax telling me in no uncertain terms that street journalism is not the network’s mandate and that I’m the only regional news director who hasn’t submitted plans for Canada Day coverage. Here I am sitting on one of the best stories of my life, and I have to shut everything down so I can call Eyebrow, Saskatchewan, and see what they’re doing on July first.”

I laughed. “I’ll bet you a hundred thousand dollars they’re having a softball tournament.”

“No bet,” she said. “Listen, Jo, see if you can shake anything loose from Kim tonight, would you? Specifically, about kids disappearing.”

“You mean kids her age?”

“No, little kids.”

I felt a chill. “Jill, what do you think’s going on?”

“I don’t know. I just get glimpses. Be careful, Jo. I’ll tell you what I tell our interns from the school of journalism. Keep your eyes open, don’t believe anything until you’ve heard it from three sources, tell only the people who need to know and always remember where the door is.”

“Right,” I said. I hung up and looked at my watch. It was going to be a long wait till ten-thirty. I went upstairs, made files for a box of clippings and started to organize my office. Busy work. At noon I picked up Taylor, and we drove downtown and offered to buy Mieka lunch at Mr. Tube Steak if she’d come and sit in the park with us. She did.

After lunch, Taylor and I had a swim and a nap and started to get ready for dinner. Keith was flying to Toronto that night, so I’d asked him over for an early barbecue.

Taylor and I made a potato salad and coleslaw. After she’d finished at Judgements, Mieka came by with a double chocolate cheesecake from another caterer. (“She’s good, but I’m going to be better,” she said, smiling, as she put the cake in the refrigerator.) Around five, Greg and Keith came over, and we barbecued chicken. It was a nice family evening. After coffee and dessert, I drove Keith to his place to pick up his bags. We walked upstairs together; when we opened the door, Keith’s apartment was hot and airless.

“Air conditioner must have gone again,” he said. “Do you want me to run inside and grab my bags? We can have a drink at the airport.”

“Let’s just sit out on your balcony,” I said. “I’ve got some news about Kim Barilko, and I’d rather you were the only one who heard.”

Keith took my hand and led me to the balcony. He was silent as I told him. When I finished, he looked at me searchingly. “Jo, are you sure you’re not getting in too deep with all of this? The Hardy Boys stories are fun when you’re a kid, but this sounds serious to me.”

“Nancy Drew,” I said.

Keith raised his eyebrows.

“For girls it was Nancy Drew,” I said, “and I know it’s serious, but, Keith, I can’t just walk away. Kim Barilko isn’t anybody’s ideal fifteen-year-old, but she’s funny and smart, and she deserves a chance not to be hassled by assholes.”

“I take it that’s a direct quote,” Keith said.

“Pretty much,” I said.

Suddenly there was a low moaning sound from the balcony below us. “Blaine’s air conditioner must be broken, too,” Keith said.

The air was split with hooting noises, and Keith smiled sadly. “Well, you are a miracle worker, Jo. Those are Blaine’s approbation signs. He agrees with you. Blaine believes that Kim Barilko deserves a chance.”

After I drove Keith to the airport, I came home, had a swim with the kids and got everybody settled for the night. Then I drove downtown. At ten-thirty I pulled into the parking lot opposite the bus station. Across the street at the Shrine Temple, men’s laughter escaped through an open door into the hot night. The bus station was brightly lit. I went into the coffee shop, sat down at the counter and ordered iced tea. There was a Plexiglas wall between the coffee shop and the bus waiting room. I could see people sitting on benches, patient, still. Mostly they were native people or they were old. The past winter a once-famous newsman from the east had said that our city was dying, that soon the only people left in Regina would be old or native. For most of us that prospect seemed a lot more comfortable than living in a city filled with once-famous newsmen. I finished my tea and looked at the big clock over the coffee machines. It was ten forty-five.

The waitress came over and asked if I wanted a refill. She was a pretty young woman, with the dark slanted eyes some northern Cree people have. On her uniform was a button saying, “Smile, God Loves You.”

I ordered another iced tea. She brought it, then picked up a damp cloth and began wiping down the counter.

“Closing time?” I said.

“I wish,” she said.

The outside door opened and two young women came in. You didn’t have to be a sociologist or a cop to know how they earned their living. Low-cut sweaters, high-cut skirts, bare legs, shoes with three-inch heels. The smaller of the women was holding her hand against her cheek. Without a word, the waitress scooped up some ice, dropped it in a cloth and handed it to her.

“Thanks, Albertine,” the woman holding her face said. Her voice was muffled by her hand.

The other girl said, “Two Diet Cokes. Is it too late for fries?” Albertine shook her head, and the young woman with the swollen face said, “My lucky night. Two fries with gravy.”

Then in the same flat voice with which she’d ordered the fries, she said to her companion, “Two blow jobs, two hand jobs and a half and half, so I’m thinking that’s enough. It’s too fucking hot for anybody to want to get laid, I’m going home, and if Rick says I didn’t make my quota, tough. Then this suit pulls up in a Buick and we go to the Ramada, and it’s cool there, and I think my fucking luck is maybe changing. A hundred, and all he wants is to do some lines of blow right off my belly, so it looks like an easy evening. Anyway, I’m lying there in the air conditioning with this pig snorting along my stomach, thinking I’ll maybe get home in time to watch Letterman, when he goes berserk and starts beating the shit out of me. I got out of there, but the asshole just about caved in my face. Asshole.” Then she lapsed into silence.

I got up and walked past them toward the bathroom. The one who had been talking had a pocket mirror in her hand. She was looking at her reflection with anxious eyes as she smoothed pancake makeup over the swelling line of her cheekbone.

When I came back, Albertine was bringing the Cokes and the fries and gravy – Angus’s favourite, too. Up close, these girls didn’t look much older than Angus, but, as I listened to their young voices trading street stories, I knew that the dates that appeared on their birth certificates were irrelevant. The morning Mieka had found Bernice Morin’s body, one of the cops had given Bernice her epitaph. “She was a veteran,” he had said. As I watched these girls, carefully eating French fries through lips thick with gloss, laughing at the vagaries of a world that should have been inconceivable, I thought that they were veterans, too.

Kim Barilko never showed up. I waited till midnight, then, bone weary and depressed, I gave up. I was tired of tilting at windmills. When I got home, I went upstairs to shower. After twenty minutes under the hot water, I still didn’t feel clean.

The next morning was overcast – more than overcast. The skies were heavy with rain, and the air was ominously still. When Taylor and I were leaving the house, the first drops began. Angus came out the front door just as we were getting in the car.

“Did you take out the garbage?” I asked.

He started with an excuse.

“No excuses,” I said. “You better get it out quick before the rain hits.”

Grumbling, he threw his books down on the porch and ran into the house. “You’re my hero,” I yelled, and Taylor and I drove off.

When I came back fifteen minutes later, it was raining hard. Angus’s schoolbooks were still on the front porch. I went into the house, calling his name. Uneasy, I opened the door to the backyard. Angus wasn’t there, and the gate that opened into the back alley was open. Angus never left that gate open. He always worried that harm would come to the dogs if they got out of our backyard. As I ran toward the gate, I felt the edge of panic.

There was a puddle just past the gate. I jumped it, but when I came down, I lost my footing in the mud and fell. In a split second, our collie, Sadie, was with me. My husband had always made jokes about Sadie. She was a beautiful animal, but not a smart one. Ian used to call her the show girl. That day the show girl was right on the money. She put her nose under my shoulder and tried to push me up. Then she barked and loped down the alley. She stopped in front of our garbage bin. Our other dog was there, and so was Angus. He was lying in the mud, moaning. I pushed myself up and went to him. His face was ashen.

“The garbage,” he said, in a small, strangled voice.

“Don’t worry about the garbage,” I said. “What happened to you?”

Mute, he shook his head. His eyes were wide with shock. He put his arms around my neck and pulled himself up.

“Don’t look in the garbage,” he said.

I lifted him up and carried him into the house. He was a dead weight and he was covered in mud. I put him on the chair in the kitchen, and he sat there staring into space, holding his leg and crying. His behaviour scared me. Our kids had had their share of sports injuries, but after the first shock, they’d rallied. Angus wasn’t rallying. In fact, he seemed to be sinking deeper into pain.

“I’m taking you to emergency,” I said. “I think we should let a doctor have a look at you.”

“Don’t leave her there,” he said. “We can’t go to the hospital and just leave her out there.”

“Leave who?” I said. “I got the dogs in. We’re all okay.”

“There’s a girl out there in our garbage,” he said. “She’s dead.”

I looked at him. Telling me seemed to calm him. I ran through the yard to the alley. Our city sanitation unit uses industrial waste bins, the kind a garbage truck can unload automatically. I looked into ours. On top of the garbage there was a girl. She was lying on her back. Her peroxided Madonna hair shot out like a halo around the bloody ruins of what had once been her face. Her shirt was soaked with blood, but the rain had washed one patch clean, and I could make out the original colour. Popsicle orange. I would have known it anywhere. Suddenly the air was split with the sound of screaming. Frozen, I listened until somewhere inside, I recognized the voice of the screamer as my own.

The next minutes still have a special terrible clarity for me. I ran to the house. I put on the kettle, called the doctor, and then I called the police. I called Mieka at Judgements, told her there had been a problem at home and asked her to pick Taylor up from school at lunchtime and take her somewhere. I could hear Mieka’s voice, urgent, still asking questions, when I hung up the phone. The kettle boiled. I made Angus tea with a lot of sugar and gave him two Aspirins, then I sat at the kitchen table with him until the police and our doctor came.

The police made it first. I had thought when I met Inspector Tom Zaba that he had the kind of face that was made for smiling, but when I looked at him as he came through the doorway of our kitchen that morning I thought he would never smile again. He was wearing a slicker and he was soaked with rain. Even the ends of his moustache drooped with wet. He looked ineffably sad.

When our doctor came, she took one look at Angus’s leg and said he needed to be seen by an orthopedic surgeon. Inspector Zaba asked if he could talk to Angus first. She agreed.