Verdict in Blood

Chapter

11



The first voice I heard Sunday morning was Detective Robert Hallam’s. His gravelly baritone was uncharacteristically tentative. “I’m glad you’re up and about, Mrs. Kilbourn. You are an early bird, aren’t you?”

“It appears you are too.”

“They say the early bird gets the worm.”

“Exactly what worm are you after, Detective Hallam?”

He cleared his throat. “Actually, I’m after Rosalie Norman’s telephone number.” He coughed again. “It’s not in the book, and I thought perhaps you might have it. You wouldn’t be violating any privacy rights. Rosalie and I are planning to meet for lunch tomorrow.”

“Couldn’t wait, huh?”

“It’s not that. It’s …” He lowered his voice. “I thought Rosalie might like to go to the matinee of that play at the Globe.”

“They’re doing Romeo and Juliet, aren’t they? I hear it’s a very passionate production.”

“Do you think Rosalie will feel I’m coming on too strong?”

I thought of the new kittenish Rosalie with her black turtleneck and laughter in her voice. “She’ll love it,” I said. “Hang on. I’ve got last year’s university directory here. Her number will be in it.”

After I gave him the number, he repeated it twice, then lowered his voice to a whisper. “Thank you, Mrs. Kilbourn. I appreciate your help.”

“Any time. Detective Hallam, while I’ve got you on the line, have you made any progress on finding out who attacked Hilda McCourt?”

“No. We’re back to interviewing people in your area about whether they spotted anyone suspicious that evening.”

“Didn’t you already do that?”

He sighed. “You bet we did. Twice. We’re not exactly popular with your neighbours. But Inspector Kequahtooway is pretty determined about this one.”

“I didn’t think he was part of the investigation.”

“He wasn’t. But he followed up some leads on his own time, then asked to be assigned officially.”

I remembered how I’d slammed the phone down the last time Alex and I spoke. More coals heaped upon my head. I took a deep breath. “Could you transfer me to Inspector Kequahtooway?” I said. “I’d like to let him know how grateful I am that he’s involving himself in Hilda’s case.”

“No problem, and thanks again, Mrs. Kilbourn. I know I got off to a lousy start with you, but you’re a peach.”

“At the moment I’m feeling a little bruised.”

“What?” he barked.

“It’s a joke.”

“I don’t get it,” he said. “Hang on, I’ll transfer you.”

For a few minutes, I languished in the silent land of on hold. Finally, Detective Hallam was back on the line, and his gravelly baritone was back to full volume. “Not on duty,” he said. “Inspector Kequahtooway has booked off on personal business. One of the other aboriginal guys said he thought Inspector K. said something about going out to his reserve with his nephew.”

“Thanks for trying,” I said. “I hope you and Rosalie enjoy the play.”

I took my coffee out to the backyard. It was another five-star day, perfect weather to be out at Standing Buffalo. The hills would be warm with the colours of autumn: silver sage, burnt umber, goldenrod. Echo Lake, free at last of its summer burden of Jet Skis and motorboats, would be serene. Karen Kequahtooway had loved those hills, that lake. I sipped my coffee and tried to imagine this woman I’d never met. As a child, she had, Alex said, been surefooted, confident, filled with life; as a mother, her love for her son had made her vulnerable. Her hopes and her fears for him ended in a twisted mass of glass and metal when the brakes on her car failed and she missed a hairpin turn on the road that winds through the Qu’Appelle Valley. Eli had been with her on that lonely road; he had seen everything, and now Signe Rayner was forcing him to unearth all the pain he had buried beneath his memory’s surface.

When I spotted Eli’s plastic football abandoned in our fading flower garden, the symbolism overwhelmed me. I didn’t even try to hold back the tears. Eli was worth crying over; it had been a lousy month, and I was tired of being brave. After a few minutes of noisy crying, I felt better. I found a tissue in my jeans pocket that didn’t look too disreputable, blew my nose, and walked down to the garden to pick up the football. When I turned to go back to the house, Taylor was running towards me. She was still wearing her nightie, her face was swollen with sleep, and her hair was a tangle. At that moment, I couldn’t have conjured up a more beautiful sight.

I bent down and hugged her. “So,” I said, “what’s the plan for the day?”

“Come and see my new painting,” she said. “Then we can decide.”

I followed her out to her studio. One glance at the canvas on the easel and I knew Leah Drache had been right: the new picture was sensational. It was a fantasy, a picture of Taylor’s dream dragon-boat team. The boat was pulled up on the shore, and the members of the crew were getting ready for the race. Taylor, wearing her orange lifejacket over her green Bottlescrew Bill T-shirt, was already seated in the prow, beating her drum. Mieka and Greg and Madeleine were in place behind her. Hilda was helping Leah climb into the seat behind them. Angus and Eli were still on the shore, handing out paddles. I was sitting at the back of the boat, alone.

I pointed to the empty place beside me. “Who’s going to sit there?” I asked.

Taylor shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe just a made-up person.”

“I’m glad you put Eli in,” I said.

“I miss him,” Taylor said.

“I miss him too,” I said.

“I don’t get it,” my younger daughter said.

“What don’t you get?”

“Why just because we lose Alex, we have to lose Eli too.”

As I scrambled the eggs for breakfast, I thought about what Taylor had said. She was right. The fact that Alex and I hadn’t been able to work things out didn’t end my family’s commitment to Eli. Whether Alex wanted me to be involved or not, Eli could use an advocate. I popped two English muffins into the toaster and poured the juice. Church was in an hour, and I had to get cracking because suddenly I had plans for the day.

During the service, I couldn’t keep my mind from wandering. Twice, Angus had to turn the page in our shared prayer book; each time, he favoured me with the chilly raised eyebrow of the pious. But even my son’s theatrical opprobrium couldn’t prevent me from thinking of Eli and of Signe Rayner. By the time the choir and congregation had sung the recessional, I’d made up my mind. In the past month, Justine’s daughters had burned up the wires calling to express their concern about Hilda; an impromptu visit would simply be a charitable way of responding to their interest, and if I had a chance to ask Signe Rayner one or two pointed questions, so much the better.

Taylor and I dropped Angus off at Leah’s, grabbed a quick sandwich at home, then walked across the creek bridge to The Crescents. I’d considered calling Jess’s mother to ask if I could leave Taylor with her, but my daughter loved to visit. There was a less altruistic reason to take Taylor along. She was an exuberant little girl, and I was counting on her enthusiasm to smooth over any uneasiness the Blackwell sisters might have about an unannounced social call.

As soon as we hit Leopold Crescent, Taylor found something worth looking at. A man at the house across the street from Justine’s was out with his leaf-blower. Taylor watched with professional interest until he was finished, then she went over and asked him how his machine worked. He was an amiable, unhurried man who looked like the adviser in an ad for prudent long-term investments, and he explained the intricacies of his leaf-blower with the kind of loving attention to detail that characterizes the born teacher. Taylor was in luck. So was I. After he’d finished explaining, I held my hand out to him.

“Thanks,” I said. “That was great. My daughter’s just started a leaf-raking business, so you’ve given her something to aspire to.”

“It was my pleasure, Mrs.… ?”

“Kilbourn,” I said, “Joanne Kilbourn.”

“Darryl Hovanak,” he said. “And if your daughter wants a job working with me next fall, I might just take her on. These old trees are one of the beauties of this neighbourhood, but they do create work.”

“This is such a beautiful street,” I said. “Have you lived here long?”

“Twenty-eight years.”

“Then you knew Justine Blackwell,” I said.

His face clouded. “I did,” he said. “Her death was a loss to us all. She was a good neighbour, and –” he gave me a small self-deprecating smile – “she was almost as house-proud as I am. Her place was always shipshape.”

“Even with all her houseguests?” I said.

He frowned. “Did she have houseguests? I never saw anybody. Justine kept pretty much to herself.”

“Even in the last year?”

Darryl Hovanak eyed me warily. “Mrs. Kilbourn, I hope you’re not from the media.”

“No,” I said. “I teach at the university, but a close friend of mine is also an old friend of Justine’s. My friend was concerned about …” I let the sentence drift.

Darryl Hovanak completed it for me. “About wild parties, that sort of thing? Tell your friend to put her mind at ease. From the day I moved in here till the day she died, Justine Blackwell was the best neighbour a man could ask for.”

Taylor and I rang the doorbell of Justine’s house, but there was no answer. I was just about to give up when Lucy Blackwell came around from the side of the house. She was wearing a flowing ankle-length skirt in swirls of russet and deep green, a loose-fitting deep-green blouse, and, wound around her neck, a scarf of the same flowing material as her skirt. With her tanned bare feet and her dark honey hair, she looked gypsyish. The effect was dazzling.

“This is a surprise,” she said with a smile that was a beat too slow in coming.

“Surprises are good,” Taylor said agreeably.

“Some are,” Lucy said. She turned to me. “What can I do for you, Music Woman?”

“I need to talk to you,” I said. “All of you. It won’t take long.”

She frowned and took a step towards me. “I don’t think now’s a good time to talk.”

“It’s as good a time as any,” I said. “Are your sisters in the backyard too?” Then, without waiting for an answer, I pushed past her and headed for the garden.

It was obvious from the scene that greeted us that Taylor and I had interrupted a very elegant alfresco luncheon. On the fieldstone patio, three wrought-iron chairs had been arranged around a circular table covered by a snowy linen cloth so full it edges touched the ground. A graceful vase of yellow anemone was in the centre of the table, and at every place setting crystal glasses for water and wine blazed.

A woman carrying a tray came through the French doors that opened onto the patio. I had never met her, but there was no doubt about her identity. Tina Blackwell’s hair was different than it had been in her TV days: the shellacked, platinum, anchorwoman ’do had been replaced by faux sauvage spikes in a becoming ash blonde, and her outfit was decidedly youthful: a tiny black mini, black lace-up boots, and retro op-art tights. It was a great look, but it was hard to get past the ruin of Tina Blackwell’s face. The skin around her eyes was ridged with scar tissue and her cheeks looked as if they had been scraped raw. As soon as I saw her, I flashed a glance at Taylor, but she neither stared nor looked away. She kept walking until she was beside Tina.

“This is so pretty,” she said, looking at the table appreciatively. “Is it somebody’s birthday?”

“No, just a fancy lunch,” Tina said, turning her face away in a gesture that seemed poignantly instinctive.

I walked over to her. “I’m Joanne Kilbourn, Hilda McCourt’s friend. This is my daughter, Taylor.”

Tina acknowledged Taylor’s presence with a nod and a small smile. She raised her hand to her ravaged cheek. “I was sorry to hear about Miss McCourt’s accident.”

“It wasn’t an accident,” I said. “It was an assault, a vicious assault.”

Tina Blackwell looked towards her sister. “I thought you said she had a fall.”

Lucy shook her head. “Too much Prozac, Tina. You’re going to have to cut back.” She took a step towards me. “How’s Hilda doing? We’ve called you, but you never return our calls, and that policewoman outside her door at the hospital is a dragon.”

“You went to the hospital?” I said.

“You’re not the only one who cares about Hilda.”

“Sorry,” I said. “To answer your question, she seems to be improving.”

Signe Rayner came out through the French doors. She was wearing her signature muumuu-caftan; this one was magenta, and with her blonde hair swept into its Valkyrie braided coronet, she was a figure of such obvious rectitude that it seemed impossible to imagine her guilty of professional misconduct. But if I had mastered one lesson in my life, it was that appearances can be deceiving. Signe nodded to me. “Is Miss McCourt coherent?” she asked.

“She’s improving,” I said. There was an awkward pause.

Lucy and Signe exchanged glances. Suddenly, Lucy was all hostess. “We were just about to open a bottle of wine. Will you have a glass? Toast Hilda’s recovery?”

“There’s nothing I’d rather drink to,” I said. As Lucy poured the wine, Tina disappeared into the house. When she came back, she was carrying a bottle of Snapple. She handed it to Taylor. “I hope this is all right,” she said.

“I love Snapple,” Taylor said. “Thank you.” She pointed to a small pool at the bottom of the garden. “Is that a fishpond?”

Tina nodded. “And the fish are still in it. Do you want to go down and have a closer look?”

“Could we?”

Tina looked surprised. “You want me to come?” She picked up her glass of wine and shrugged. “Why not?” she said.

Lucy watched as her sister and my daughter walked to the end of the garden, then she turned to me and lifted her glass.

“To Hilda.”

“To Hilda,” I said.

The wine was an excellent Liebfraumilch, but it was the glass that drew my attention. When I held it up to the light, the sun bounced off its beautifully cut surface and turned it to fire. I looked towards Signe Rayner. “And to Eli. Let’s hope they’re both back with us soon.”

Signe Rayner flushed, but she didn’t duck. “You were saying that Miss McCourt is improving. What’s her prognosis?”

“Guarded,” I said. “It’s not easy to recover from the kind of blow Hilda sustained. Eli seems to be taking time to recover too. Dr. Rayner, I’m just a layperson and I know you can’t talk about the specifics of Eli’s case, but I wonder if you could explain to me why a psychiatrist would use hypnosis with a boy like Eli. It’s obvious, even to me, that he hasn’t got the strength to deal with his memories.”

Signe Rayner looked at me coldly. “I couldn’t explain Eli’s treatment in terms that would make sense to you.”

I leaned forward. “Fair enough,” I said. “Then tell me if there are risks involved. Could a sensitive boy, like Eli, who was pushed too hard, get to the point where he might harm himself?”

Signe Rayner’s eyes, the same extraordinary turquoise as her sister’s, bored into me. “Mrs. Kilbourn, what’s your agenda here?” she asked.

“I have no agenda,” I said. “I’m on a fact-finding mission.”

“Then may I suggest you use the university library. They have an adequate section on psychiatric practices.”

“Thank you,” I said, “I might just do that.” I put down my glass and turned to Lucy. “You were lucky to find replacements for your mother’s Waterford,” I said. “This is an old pattern. I would have thought it would be impossible to match.”

Lucy had the good grace to avert her eyes. I called Taylor, and she and Tina Blackwell came back. They had obviously enjoyed their time together and Tina looked stricken, when I said we had to leave. “So soon?” she said.

“You’re just about to have lunch,” I said.

Tina Blackwell looked quickly at Signe. Whatever she saw in her sister’s face obviously made her decide not to press the invitation. “I’ll walk you out,” she said.

“Thanks,” I said. “I wonder if I could use your bathroom before we leave.”

“Of course,” she said. This time Tina didn’t seek her sister’s approval. “Follow me,” she said.

I held my hand out to Taylor. “Come on,” I said. “You might as well go, too.”

We walked in through the French doors. They opened into the living room, a coolly beautiful room with dove-grey walls, exquisite lace curtains that pooled on the floor, and furniture with the gleaming wood inlays and fine upholstery of the Queen Anne period. A rosewood pier table between the two floor-to-ceiling windows at the far side of the room was covered in photographs. Taylor, who loved pictures, ran over for a look. “Are these your kids?” she asked.

Tina smiled. “No, those photographs are of my sisters and me.”

They had been lovely girls, and the photographs of them chronicled a happy life of Christmas stockings, Easter-egg hunts, summers at the lake, and birthday parties. “My father took all those,” Tina said softly. “We stopped taking pictures after he died.” She took a deep breath. “Now, you wanted to powder your nose. I’m afraid all the bathrooms are upstairs. They’re in the usual places. Just keep opening doors till you find one.”

“Thanks,” I said. Walking up the curving staircase was a sensual pleasure. The bisque-coloured carpeting under our feet was deep, and the art on the walls was eye-catching. The works were disparate in period and technique, but all the pieces were linked by subject matter: justice and those who dispensed it. There was a reproduction of a Ben Shahn painting of Sacco and Venzetti, a wonderful contemporary painting of Portia by an artist named Kate Rafter, whom I’d never heard of, but whom I was willing to bet my bottom dollar I’d be hearing about again. There was also a striking black-and-white photograph of LeCorbusier’s High Court Building in Chandigarh, and a kind of mosaic depicting Solomon’s encounter with the two mothers. Interspersed with the art were formal photographs of actual judges in full judicial rig-out.

I could have taken Tina at her word and opened every door on the second floor, but by the time I got to the top of the stairs, I didn’t need further proof to validate the theory I’d been forming since I talked to Justine’s neighbour. Epiphanies be damned: there was no way in the world the woman who had assembled this house would have exposed its treasures to people who had the rap sheets I’d seen in Jill’s report. I was now ready to bet the farm that the scene Hilda and I had walked in on the Monday after Justine’s murder had been carefully arranged. The odour of garbage, the sticky floors, the desecration of the wallpaper in the dining room had all been part of an elaborate hoax. Clearly, the game had been to make us believe Justine’s mind had disintegrated, but her daughters had lacked the time and the stomach to finish the job. I remembered how carefully we had been shepherded into the dining room, and led out again. Given the time constraints, the Blackwell sisters had put on the best show they could.

At least, two of the sisters had. Tina seemed to be in the clear. She hadn’t been around the day Hilda and I had visited, and today she hadn’t hesitated when I asked if we could use the bathroom. Nothing seemed certain in this house, but given her openness, it seemed reasonable that Tina Blackwell hadn’t been part of the farce that had been prepared for Hilda and me.

I looked at the emblems of justice that decorated the wall beside Justine’s staircase. Suddenly, all I wanted to do was get away from Leopold Crescent. I turned to Taylor. “Come on T, let’s blow this pop stand.”

“We didn’t pee.”

“Do you have to?”

“No, but you said …”

“I made a mistake. Let’s go.”

Tina looked wistful as she let us out the front door. “Thanks for coming over, Mrs. Kilbourn, and thank you, Taylor. It was good to forget for a while.”

“It was fun,” Taylor said.

“Maybe someday I could visit you,” Tina said.

“Any time,” I said. “By the way, I forgot to mention that I’m a friend of Jill Osiowy’s. She tells me she admires your work.”

For the first time that afternoon, Tina turned her face fully towards me. “Does she admire my work enough to ignore this?” she asked bleakly.


As we walked home, I tried to sort out the information I’d gleaned from our visit to the Blackwell sisters. It seemed that, like characters in a Pinter play, Justine’s daughters’ most significant communications were carried out through silence and subtext. While I puzzled over the line between illusion and reality, Taylor performed the useful work of planning the rest of our afternoon. As always, she proposed enough projects to fill a thirty-six-hour day, but we settled on a more modest agenda. We’d get the car, drive to the hospital to see Hilda, then take in the new show at the Mackenzie Gallery.

Our stay at the Pasqua was short. Hilda appeared to be sleeping comfortably, and we didn’t want to disturb her. Taylor left her a drawing she’d made, then slipped away to sit with Nathan. When Taylor was out of earshot, I leaned over and kissed Hilda’s forehead. “Justine’s daughters lied to us, Hilda, but it won’t happen again. Now that I know what we’re dealing with, I won’t be so gullible. We’ll get to the bottom of this. I promise.”

The new show at the Mackenzie was too cutting edge for Taylor and me. We hurried through, then headed outside to visit the Fafard cows; half-sized bronze sculptures of a bull, cow, and calf in front of the gallery. The animals’ names were Potter, Valadon, and Teevo, and for me, the time we spent admiring their perfect lines and the gentleness of their expression had the restorative power of a romp in a meadow.

My sense of renewal was short-lived. When we got home, I could hear the phone ringing before I unlocked the front door. I raced to pick it up, heard the husky music of Lucy Blackwell’s voice, and felt my spirits plummet.

“Music Woman, you’ve got to give me a chance to explain.”

“Go for it.”

“Not on the phone. Can we meet for a drink somewhere?”

“I have a family, Lucy. I have to make supper.”

“I’ll take you to a restaurant – all of you. Please, you have to listen to what really happened.”

I almost hung up on her, then I remembered Signe Rayner. There was a chance that if I heard Lucy out, she might answer some of my questions about her sister. I took a deep breath. “Forget the restaurant,” I said. “You can come over. But it’s going to have to be a quick visit.”

Lucy Blackwell was at our front door in ten minutes. She was still wearing the gypsy outfit, but there was nothing carefree in her manner. As she looked around the living room, she seemed both tense and unfocused. “This is so homey. That rocking chair is perfect.”

“It was my grandmother’s,” I said.

Lucy laughed softly. “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me. Can I sit in it?”

“Of course,” I said. “Would you like a drink?”

She shook her head. “I had too much at lunch. After you left I was feeling a bit shaky.”

“Because I’d caught you in a lie.”

She flushed. “Yes. What Signe and I did was stupid, and childish, but it wasn’t malicious. It was,” she shrugged helplessly, “make-believe. We were just using make-believe to show you the truth. In the last year, my mother had fooled so many people.” Lucy leapt to her feet and came over to where I was sitting. In a swift and graceful movement, she knelt on the rug in front of me. “Mrs. Kilbourn, you saw Tina’s face today. That abomination was a direct result of my mother’s enlightenment.”

I almost cut her off. I had believed Eric Fedoruk when he told me that Justine had given Tina the money she asked for, and I’d had my fill of make-believe. But there was a real possibility that, as she spun her latest fiction, Lucy would reveal a truth that I needed to know. I sat back in my chair. “Go on,” I said.

Lucy’s gaze was mesmerizing. “Tina was in a business where you can’t get old. When she asked for help to get the surgery that might have saved her career, my mother didn’t even hear her out. Instead of cutting her a cheque, Justine gave her a speech about how privileged we all were, and how it was time we stopped taking and started giving. That job of Tina’s might not have looked like much to you or me, Joanne, but it was her life. You should see her apartment. It’s filled with pictures of her doing all this demeaning public-relations stuff for CJRG: riding the float in the Santa Claus parade, flipping pancakes at the Buffalo Days breakfast, running in the three-legged race with the sports guy on her show. Total fluff, but it was her identity.” Lucy raked her fingers through her hair. “Tina’s always been fragile, emotionally. My mother knew that. She knew terrible things might happen if Tina was hurt again.”

“What kind of terrible things?”

Lucy looked away. “Forget I said that. I didn’t come here to talk about Tina.”

“That’s right,” I said. “You came to explain why you and Signe decided to produce that little vignette for Hilda and me.”

She winced, but she soldiered on. “I told you, it was just a way of getting you to see the truth.”

“How many lies do you think it’s going to take before I see the truth, Lucy?”

Her body tensed. “What do you mean?”

I moved closer to her. “I know Tina got that money from your mother.”

“How do you know?”

I remembered Eric Fedoruk’s certainty. “There’s a cancelled cheque,” I said. It was a bluff, but it did the trick.

In a flash, Lucy was on her feet. “Tina must have lied to me,” she said weakly and she started for the door.

“Wait,” I said. I got up and followed her. “My turn now, and I haven’t got time to figure out which of you is lying about what. Lucy, I have one question for you, and the answer you give me had better be truthful because I’m running out of patience.”

Lucy gazed at me intently. “What’s your question, Music Woman?”

“What happened between Signe and the boy in Chicago?”

Her face registered nothing. “I have to be going,” she said.

“No, you don’t,” I said. “Not until you tell me if the story is true.”

“Signe was found innocent.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

Lucy walked to the window. “Is that your Volvo out there?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve always wanted a Volvo wagon.” Her back was to me, and her tone was flat. It was impossible to tell if her words were derisive or heartfelt.

“Lucy, you’re running out of time here.”

“Okay, I’ll tell you the truth. I don’t know what Signe did in Chicago, but she isn’t using that treatment on Eli Kequahtooway. My sister doesn’t make the same mistake twice.”

“She talked to you about how she’s treating Eli?”

Lucy shrugged. “She may have mentioned it.” She whirled around and gave me her dazzling smile. “So, that’s it, Music Woman. You’ve shaken out all the skeletons in our closet.” She adjusted her scarf. “Now, I’d better be on my way, let you get on with making supper for your kids.” Lucy Blackwell looked at me wistfully. “It must be nice to lead such an ordinary life.”


As I stood in my garden in the late-afternoon sunshine, picking the last of the summer’s tomatoes, I thought about Lucy. If the purpose of her visit had been to clear the air, she hadn’t succeeded. As far as I was concerned, the Blackwell sisters were still, in Winston Churchill’s famous phrase, “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”

All during dinner, I pondered the problem of where to find the pieces that would make sense of the puzzle. The possibility I came up with was born of desperation. After supper, I got Taylor bathed and in bed, pointed Angus towards his books, and drove downtown to Culhane House and the person who, according to Eric Fedoruk, had been Justine’s closest companion in the final year of her life.

When I got out of my car on Rose Street, the chill of apprehension I felt wasn’t wholly attributable to the fact that I was walking in an unfamiliar area on a moonless Sunday night. Detective Robert Hallam had characterized Wayne J. Waters as “lightning in a bottle”; it was impossible to predict how he’d react to an unexpected encounter. I checked the address I’d written down. Culhane House was only half a block away. I was almost there; it would be foolish to turn back now.

The building was an old three-storey house on a corner lot. In the first half of the century, this had been a fashionable downtown address, but the people who were on their way up in the world had long since abandoned the neighbourhood to those who were going nowhere. From the outside, Culhane House looked solid and serviceable. In selecting it as the site of an organization that would serve as both hostel and headquarters for ex-cons, someone had chosen wisely. The location was central; the upper storeys could be used as temporary living quarters, and the bottom floor appeared to be spacious.

The hand-lettered sign on the front door said “Enter,” so I did. The room into which I walked was dark, acrid with cigarette smoke, and, except for the sounds coming from the television, silent. On the TV screen, the Sultan was plotting vengeance against Aladdin and Princess Jasmine; none of the half-dozen or so people watching his treachery even glanced my way.

“Do any of you know where I can find Wayne J. Waters?” I asked.

The blonde in leopardskin spandex draped over the chair closest to me gave me the once-over. “He’s in the office,” she said, “right through them double doors. But hang on to your pompoms, girlie, he’s in a lousy mood.”

The room in which I found Wayne J. appeared to have been the dining room in the house’s earliest incarnation. The chandelier he was sitting under had long since shed its crystal teardrops, but the long oak table in front of him and the sideboard in the corner were battered beauties. When he saw me, Wayne J. jumped to his feet and surprised me with a smile. “I’d given you up for dead,” he said. “How’s Hilda?”

“Coming along,” I said.

He made the thumbs-up sign. “Good, she’s a classy broad.”

“She is,” I agreed.

“You got time for a coffee?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said. “It’s been a long day. Coffee sounds great.”

When he went off to get the coffee, I looked around the office. There wasn’t much to see: an old Tandy computer; a battered filing cabinet; a poster of a kittens rollicking with a roll of toilet paper under the words “… been up to any mischief lately?”; and a wall calendar for the month of September. The calendar had the kind of surface that can be written on with markers, and it was a crazy quilt of colour. When I examined the entries more closely, I saw that they were a record of appointments, colour-coded to match the various names in the legend printed at the bottom of the calendar. Terrence Ducharme’s name was in red marker, and his list of meetings would have kept him busier than most middle-class children: Anger Management; A.A.; Substance Abusers Anonymous; Interpersonal Skills. I was checking the entry for the night Hilda had been attacked when Wayne J. came back with the coffee.

“Terry didn’t do her, you know.” His tone was conversational.

I turned to face him. “I know,” I said. “The police told me he had an alibi for the night Hilda was attacked.”

“I’m not talking about Hilda,” he said. “I’m talking about Justine.”

“But he didn’t have an alibi,” I said.

“Maybe he lacked an alibi,” Wayne J. said judiciously, “but he did have a disincentive.”

“You’re going to have to explain that.”

“There’s nothing to explain,” Wayne J. said, setting our mugs of coffee carefully on the table. “Terry knew the same thing everybody here knew.”

I slid into the chair nearest me and picked up my mug. “Which was?”

Wayne J. blew on top of his coffee to cool it. “Which was that I would have considered it my personal duty to kill anybody who touched a hair on Justine Blackwell’s head.”

Whatever his intention, Wayne J.’s words were a conversation-stopper. For a beat, we sipped our coffee, alone in our private thoughts. Wayne J. seemed content to be silent, but I wasn’t. I hadn’t come to Culhane House to reflect; I’d come to get answers.

“How are things going for you now?” I asked.

Wayne J. gave me a sardonic smile. “F*ckin’ A.” The table in front of him was littered with bills. He scooped up a stack in one of his meaty hands. “As you can see, our creditors grow impatient. Unfortunately, Culhane House lacks the wherewithal to meet their demands.”

“And no prospects?” I asked.

He laughed his reassuring rumble. “None that are legally acceptable. And believe me I’ve explored my options. I even bit the bullet and went to Danger Boy’s office.”

I must have looked puzzled.

“Eric Fedoruk,” he said. “Owner of one of the sweetest machines money can buy, and I’ll bet he never takes it past 160 kph. What a waste! Anyway, Mr. Fedoruk gave me a rundown of the situation with Justine’s money. He used a bunch of legal mumbo-jumbo, but I’ve spent enough time in courtrooms to cut through that crap. The bottom line is that I’m going to have fight like hell to get any of Justine’s money.”

“Are you going to do it?”

“No.”

“That surprises me,” I said.

Wayne J. leaned towards me; he was so close I could smell the Old Spice. “Why? Because I’m broke and because everything I care about is going down the toilet?”

“Something like that.”

“Some things are worth more than money, Joanne.”

I sipped my coffee. “What is it that’s worth more than money to you, Wayne J.?”

“Not dragging Justine’s name through the mud. If I got myself a lawyer and went to court about this, those daughters of hers would haul out all the dirty laundry. They don’t have much regard for their mother.”

Here was my opening. “What went wrong between Justine and her children?” I asked.

“They’re losers, and Justine was a winner,” he said judiciously. “And losers always hate winners. It’s human nature. And you know what else is human nature? No matter what a winner does for a loser, it’s never enough.” Suddenly Wayne J. clenched his hands, raised his fists, and brought them down on the table so hard, I thought the wood might crack. “She f*cking did everything for them,” he said. “She gave Tina a bundle for that facelift or whatever the hell it was she wanted. And the singer was always there with her hand out too.”

“Lucy asked Justine for money?”

Wayne J.’s tone was mocking. “It costs money to make records. Haven’t you heard?” He was warming to his narrative now. “And the shrink had her own monetary needs – major ones. I know because I was involved in that one.”

“What?”

He shook himself. “Look, I shouldn’t be talking about any of this. It’s violating a confidence.”

“Justine’s dead,” I said. “Nothing she told you can hurt her any more.”

Wayne J. furrowed his brow in contemplation. “What the hell,” he said. “The good doctor never even thanked me. This couple in Chicago was shaking her down. Justine didn’t want her daughter involved, so she asked me to deliver the money to them. It was the only time she ever asked me to do her a favour. I was proud to do it.” Remembering, he looked away. “I was glad Justine didn’t have to deal with those people. They were garbage. The architect was a peckerhead – totally p-ssy-whipped. His wife was crazy and mean as hell. She had this little dog, and she made it wear boots when it went outside. To keep it from tracking in mud, get it? No wonder her kid needed a shrink.”

“Did you ever find out why these people were blackmailing Signe Rayner?”

“I never asked,” he said. “I just delivered the money, and told them it was a one-shot deal. If they got greedy, they’d get sorry.” His eyes bored into me. “Mrs. Kilbourn, I’d appreciate it if you kept this little story to yourself. I don’t want anything floating around that will make Justine look bad.”

“Then help me out with something else because, in my opinion, this does make Justine look bad.”

He laughed mirthlessly. “That screw-up about the burial plots at the cemetery,” he said. “I noticed you and Hilda didn’t stick around.”

“We had Lucy Blackwell with us,” I said. “When she saw there were strangers buried in the family plot, she was devastated.”

Something hard came into Wayne J.’s eyes. “Lucy’s mother had her reasons for doing what she did.”

“What possible reason could she have had? I know Justine had undergone some profound philosophical changes in the past year, and I know she wasn’t close to her daughters, but didn’t she have any feelings at all for her husband?”

“She respected him,” Wayne J. said. “That’s why she did what she did. She said he’d be better off spending eternity surrounded by the kind of people he’d spent a lifetime defending than with Goneril and Regan, whoever they are. I figured that was some kind of family joke, but Justine wasn’t laughing when she said it. She was dead serious.” He reached for my empty coffee cup. “Refill?”

“No thanks,” I said. “I’d better be getting home.”

He stood up. “Come on,” he said, offering me his arm. “I’ll walk you to your car. After dark, this neighbourhood is no place for a lady.”