Verdict in Blood

Chapter

8



It was 1:00 a.m. when I got home. Jill had cleaned up the dog mess in the front hall, but Rose lowered her head in shame when she saw me. I bent down and put my arms around her neck. “It wasn’t your fault, Rose,” I murmured. “Don’t blame yourself.”

Jill came out to the hall when she heard my voice. She was carrying the Jungian biography of the prime minister I’d been reading. She had her place marked with her finger.

“How’s Hilda doing?”

“She still isn’t conscious,” I said. “They sent me home. She has a concussion; she lost a lot of blood and she was dehydrated. The worst thing is that no one knows how long she was lying here. It could have been twenty-four hours.”

Jill caught the edge in my voice. “Don’t beat yourself up about this, Jo. Much as we want to, we can’t always keep the people we love from harm. Sometimes terrible things just happen.” She put her arm around my shoulder and led me into the family room. “Come on. Let’s have a drink. One of the delights of this particular B and B is its well-stocked bar.”

I sighed. “Scotch, but make it a light one. I have a nine-thirty class.”

Jill frowned. “You’re not planning to go to the university, are you?”

“I am. First-year students need some sense of continuity; besides, I’m afraid Rosalie will yell at me if I cancel out this early in the semester.”

“The only rationalization I would accept,” she said.

When Jill came back with our drinks, she handed me mine and took a long pull on hers. “What can I do to help?” she asked.

“You’ve already done it,” I said. “I’m so grateful you could come over and be with the kids tonight. Did Taylor ever wake up?”

Jill shook her head. “Nope. She slept through the whole thing. Cops and all.”

I winced. “Do the police have any theories about what happened here tonight?”

“If they do, they weren’t telling me.” Jill raised an eyebrow. “Of course, they couldn’t keep me from listening when they were talking to each other.”

“And?”

“And they didn’t find any signs of forced entry.”

Suddenly I felt cold. “You mean Hilda let her attacker in.”

“It looks that way,” Jill said grimly. “And it also looks as if this wasn’t a robbery. The police asked me to check around and see if anything was missing. I couldn’t spot any glaring aberrations. Your desk was a mess, but your desk is always a mess.”

“I suppose you shared that little nugget with the police.”

Jill nodded. “I did, but they didn’t seem very interested. Actually, the one thing they seemed really interested in was some towel. From what they said, I gathered the paramedics must have taken it with them to the hospital.”

“They did,” I said. “It was one of my kitchen towels. Whoever attacked Hilda had folded it to make a little pillow under her head.”

“That’s sick.” Jill’s voice was icy.

“Sick or compassionate. I guess the folded towel could suggest remorse.”

“A little late for that, wasn’t it?” Jill drained her glass and headed for the liquor cabinet. “Care for a refill?”

“I’m okay,” I said. “My stomach’s doing nip-ups. Oh, Jill, I’m so glad Taylor didn’t see Hilda. She really loves her. So does Angus.”

“He gave me a pretty graphic description of the scene you walked into tonight.”

“My son has had one hell of a weekend. So have we all, come to think of it.” I stood up. “I’m going to grab a shower and get out of this dress. When Angus told me about Mieka, I was so excited, I forgot to pack anything but my toothbrush and a change of underwear. I’ve been wearing this outfit since Saturday afternoon.”

“ ‘Fashion File’ says that once you get a look that works for you, you should stay with it.”

“I think I’ve stayed with this one long enough. Jill, I really am grateful that Angus had you to talk to. Do you think he’ll be okay?”

“Yeah, beneath all that hip-hop-happenin’ attitude, he’s a pretty sensible kid. He’s worried, of course, but he’s handling it.” She looked at me hard. “How are you doing?”

“Not great,” I said. “But I’m coping, and I’ll cope even better when I get some sleep.” I finished my drink. A thought hit me. “Jill, is the kitchen … ?”

“Taken care of,” she said.

“Thanks,” I said. “I couldn’t have faced that.” I stood up. My legs felt rubbery. “Would you mind staying here tonight? If I have to go back to the hospital, I’d like somebody to be here with the kids.”

Jill smiled. “I brought my toothbrush, just in case.”


I slept fitfully, listening for the phone that, mercifully, did not ring and trying, without success, to banish the images of the night. The pictures of Hilda’s suffering were sharp-edged, but the scene that made my heart pound was one that existed only in my imagination: my old friend, in her cheerful summer outfit, hearing the doorbell, putting down Justine’s papers and walking down the hall to admit her attacker. But who had been on the other side of that door? In the week since Justine’s murder, Hilda had travelled in circles I could only guess at, among men and women whose characters were a mystery to me. For hours, I moved between sleep and consciousness, trying to conjure up the face of her assailant, but it was a futile exercise. By the time my alarm went off, I knew there was no turning away from the truth: any one of a hundred people could have picked up that croquet mallet and tried to end my old friend’s life.

I dialled the number of Pasqua Hospital. Hilda had made it through the night, but there was no change in her condition. For a few minutes I lay in bed, thinking about the day ahead. I wasn’t looking forward to it.

Jill was at the sink filling the coffeepot when I got back from the park with Rose. She was wearing the same white shorts and black NationTV sweatshirt she’d had on the night before, but her auburn hair was damp from the shower, and she looked fresh as the proverbial daisy. She glanced at me questioningly.

“No news,” I said.

Taylor was sitting at the table with a bowl of cereal in front of her. Her spoon stopped in midair when she saw me. “Wasn’t yesterday the best day? Madeleine is so cute. I can’t wait to tell Ms. Anweiler about her. I hope she’s wearing her diplodocus earrings.”

“Me too,” I said. “Now, you’d better finish your breakfast. You don’t want to be late. You’re an aunt now, so you have to be responsible.”

Taylor’s eyes grew large. “I’m an aunt … really?”

“Sure,” I said. “Mieka’s your big sister, so that makes Madeleine your niece.”

Taylor’s spoon hit the bowl. “Now I really can’t wait to get to school.”

Angus came into the kitchen warily, and I caught his eye. “Come out on the deck for a minute, would you?”

He followed me out to the deck without a word. The air was hazy; the first brittle leaves from our cottonwood tree were floating on the surface of the water in the swimming pool, and the breeze was fresh with the piney coldness of the north.

Angus’s voice was a whisper. “Did she die?”

I shook my head. “No, she’s still alive but, Angus, I won’t to lie to you. She may not make it much longer.”

He turned from me. When he spoke, his voice broke. “It doesn’t seem right,” he said.

“What doesn’t?”

He looked around him. “That it can be such a great day when such a lousy thing is happening.”

When we went back in, the phone was ringing. Jill gave me a questioning look and then reached for it.

“It’s okay,” I said. Heart pounding, I picked up the receiver, but it wasn’t the hospital calling with news; it was Eric Fedoruk.

“Hilda McCourt, please,” he said.

“She’s not available right now.”

“Is this Mrs. Kilbourn?”

“Yes,” I said, “it is.”

“Mrs. Kilbourn, could you have Miss McCourt call me as soon as she gets back? She’s supposed to come in today to discuss Justine’s estate, but she didn’t phone my secretary to arrange a time.” There was an edge of irritation in his voice.

“She won’t be coming in,” I said.

“She has to,” he said flatly.

“Mr. Fedoruk, Hilda doesn’t have to do anything for you. She’s in the intensive-care unit at Pasqua Hospital. Someone came into my house and attacked her.”

“Is she going to be all right?” The concern in his voice seemed heartfelt, but I was beyond caring about Eric Fedoruk’s feelings.

“I don’t know if she’s going to be all right,” I snapped. “All I know is that I want you and everybody else connected with Justine Blackwell to stay away from Hilda. Leave her alone. No more making her the final arbiter; no more signing off on responsibilities; no more sending the press to my house. It’s time everyone took responsibility for their own lives. Got it?”

Eric Fedoruk was stammering out his apology when I hung up. His words cut no ice with me. I was sick of justifications and explanations.

Jill made a face when I hung up. “Glad I wasn’t on the other end of that,” she said. “Jo, what’s going on here?”

I gave her the bare bones: Justine’s transformation in the past year; the request she’d made of Hilda; the will which named Hilda as executrix; the warring factions in Justine’s life; the tensions that existed between Justine and all the people she was closest to.

“And you think what happened to Hilda is connected to Justine’s death?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Ever since you told me the police think Hilda must have known her attacker, I’ve been reeling. But, Jill, there has to be a connection. It’s just too much of a stretch to believe that seven days after Justine’s murder, somebody would take it into their head to try to kill Hilda.”

Suddenly, Jill frowned. “Jo, is there some sort of guard on Hilda’s hospital room?”

“I don’t know.” The penny dropped. “Oh God, what if … ?” I jumped up, went to the phone, and dialled police headquarters. Detective Hallam was way ahead of me. In the early hours of the morning, he had sent a constable to Pasqua Hospital to monitor everyone who went in or out of Hilda’s room.

I could feel the relief wash over me. I hung up and turned to Jill. “It’s taken care of,” I said.

Jill looked thoughtful. “Let’s hope it is. Jo, I don’t like any of this. I especially don’t like the fact that we don’t know who we’re dealing with here.” She picked up her coffee mug, walked to the sink, and rinsed it. Then she turned to face me. “When I get to the office, I’m going to see what I can pull together on the people in Justine’s circle.”

“You mean biographical stuff?”

“That and gossip. It’s amazing how few secrets there are in a town this size. I’ll call you tonight, and let you know what I come up with.”

“Why don’t you come for dinner? I’m going to have to tell Taylor about Hilda, and it would be good if she knew that some things in her world are still the same.”

She gave me a weary smile. “That’s my role in life,” she said, “the permanent fixture. Six o’clock, okay?”

“Six o’clock’s perfect,” I said.

Before I left for the university, I made one more call. I hadn’t left my office number at the hospital. I gave it to the nurse in intensive care and told her I’d come by later in the afternoon. She said to make sure I had some identification; there was a young constable outside Hilda’s door, and she was a tiger.


The lecture I gave to my first-year students wasn’t the best I’d ever given, but it wasn’t the worst either. When I finished, I went down to the Political Science office to pick up my mail. I was in luck. Rosalie was on the phone. I dropped a note on her desk, saying I could be reached at home for the rest of the day, and made my escape.

I stopped at the IGA and picked up a roasting chicken and some new potatoes. I was putting away groceries when my neighbour came over with two deliveries from the florist. One was addressed to Hilda, the other to me. I opened mine: an arrangement of bronze and yellow mums in an earthenware pitcher. The card read: “With the hope that you’ll accept my most sincere apologies, Eric Fedoruk.” I took the phone off the hook, set the alarm for 2:30 p.m., and went upstairs to bed. I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

It was five to three when I drove into the parking lot at Pasqua Hospital. Angus had a football practice, so he wouldn’t be back till supper time, but Taylor would be home at 3:30. My visit to Hilda would have to be a quick one. To the right of the glass doors of the main entrance, the usual contingent of smokers in blue hospital robes huddled, their intravenous poles looming over them like spectral chaperones. In the lobby, a gaunt young woman with a frighteningly yellow pallor looked on as a little boy showed her an apple he had cut out of red construction paper. The elevator was empty, and there was no one in the corridor as I walked into the intensive-care unit.

A fine-featured blond man, about the age of my daughter Mieka, sat at a desk in the centre of the nursing area. A small bank of TV monitors was suspended above the desk, and as he made notes on the chart in front of him, the young man kept glancing up to check the screens. The patients’ rooms radiated in a semicircle off the area in which he was sitting. In one of those rooms, a radio was playing country music. The sound was incongruous but oddly reassuring. There was another reassuring note: in front of the room I presumed to be Hilda’s, a uniformed police constable gazed out at the world, alert and ready.

I waited till the young man at the desk finished with his chart. “I’m here to see Hilda McCourt,” I said.

“I’ll have to ask for some identification,” he said.

I took out my driver’s licence and handed it to him. He glanced at it and handed back. “You can go in, Mrs. Kilbourn. Detective Hallam okayed you.” He picked up another chart.

“Wait,” I said. I leaned forward so I could read the name on his picture ID. “Mr. Wolfe, I wonder if you could tell me how Miss McCourt is doing?”

He shook his head. “No change. She’s still scoring low on the Glasgow Coma Scale. That’s the way we measure responses to things like light and speech and pain. The higher the score, the better the prognosis.”

“And her prognosis isn’t good?”

“You’ll have to talk to her doctor about that.” Nathan Wolfe flipped to Hilda’s chart. “Miss McCourt’s doctor is Everett Beckles. He’ll be making his rounds in about an hour. You can talk to him then.”

“I can’t stay,” I said. “Could you ask him to call me?”

Nathan Wolfe slid a notepad towards me. “Leave your number, but don’t count on a call. Dr. Beckles is really busy.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Is there anything I should know before I go in there?”

“Nothing special. Just be sure to talk to her. Sometimes just hearing a human voice helps.”

“Is that why the radio’s on over there?”

Nathan nodded. “The guy in that room was in a motorcycle accident. His wife says he’s a big Garth Brooks fan, so she brought the radio so he’d hear some familiar voices when she couldn’t be here.”

When I started into Hilda’s room, I remembered that I was carrying the flowers my neighbour had brought over. I handed them to Nathan. “These were sent to Miss McCourt. I know she can’t have them in her room, but maybe you’d like them for the desk out here.”

“This place could use some brightening,” he agreed. He opened the floral paper carefully. Inside were at least three dozen creamy long-stem roses. Nathan whistled appreciatively. Then he reached into the folds of paper, took out the card, and handed it to me. “You’ll want this,” he said. “Whoever’s paying the bill for those roses deserves a thank-you.”

I glanced at the card. “For Hilda, with our love and best wishes, Signe, Tina, and Lucy.” I ripped the card in two and handed the pieces back to Nathan. “Put this in the trash, would you? The people who are paying for those roses don’t deserve diddley.”

The constable who was on duty outside Hilda’s room was a young woman I’d met before. Alex had introduced us at a dinner honouring outstanding police work. Her name was Linda Nilson, and she’d won an award for community service. She was coolly attractive: tall, slim, with a nicely chiselled profile, and dark hair cut in the kind of pixie style Audrey Hepburn made famous in Roman Holiday.

She smiled in recognition when she saw me, but still insisted on seeing a piece of ID, and I was relieved at her thoroughness.

Intubated and wired, Hilda looked impossibly small, but she’d lost the ashen look that had frightened me so much when I found her in the kitchen the night before. I bent to kiss her forehead, then opened my purse and took out a photograph I’d taken of her at the lake. She was sitting in our canoe, paddle poised. As always, she was dressed for the occasion, this time in white shorts, a navy-and-white striped gondolier’s shirt, a bright orange lifejacket, and a straw boater to keep the sun off her extravagant red curls.

I taped the picture to the head of her bed. “This is so everyone will know what a knockout you are,” I said. Then, heeding Nathan’s advice, I began to talk. At first, I was self-conscious, then, despite the grim surroundings, I found myself relaxing into the easiness I always felt when I was with Hilda. I talked about everything that was on my mind: Mieka’s baby; seeing Keith Harris again; my fears about the deterioration in my relationship with Alex; the dinner I was planning with Jill. I was careful to avoid any mention of Justine and her troubled family in my monologue. I was amazed when I looked at my watch and saw it was already 3:20. I kissed her forehead again. “I’ll be back after supper,” I said. “And this time I’ll bring a book to read to you.”

Taylor and I arrived at the house together. “Perfect timing,” I said.

She beamed. She followed me into the kitchen and, as I prepared the chicken, she told me her about her day. It had been a good one. Ms. Anweiler had picked her to be the class monitor for the week ahead. Taylor was going to have a chance to show how responsible she was. I asked if she wanted a dress rehearsal in responsibility, and she agreed to set the table and wash the potatoes while I went out to the garden.

The herbs in our clay pots were flagging, but there was still tarragon, and the parsley was plentiful if drooping. Whatever the state of our parsley crop, my late husband, Ian, had always revelled in quoting his mother’s aphorism: “Parsley thrives in a house where the wife dominates.” As I snipped herbs for the chicken, I thought, not for the first time, how good it would be to have a husband to laugh with and to lean against. I was tired of dealing with problems alone, tired of having no one to pick up the baton when I dropped it, tired, to use an old friend’s telling image, of being “always a driver, never a passenger.”

Keith Harris and I had talked vaguely of marriage when we were together, and I think at some level I believed it was a likelihood. There were no impediments. He had never married. My kids liked him, and the fact that he was Greg’s uncle was icing on the cake. We were the same age; in fact, we shared a birthday. Other people approved of us as a couple; I approved of us as a couple. Then he found someone else, and my fantasy that Keith and I would walk hand in hand through the golden years faded.

Alex and I had never talked of marriage. We had been content to enjoy the here and now, but lately even the here and now had been riddled with tensions. That day, as I bent to pick tomatoes for dinner, I wondered whether what we had had ever really been enough for either of us.

When the chicken was in the oven, I walked out to Taylor’s studio and told her about Hilda. I was honest, but I didn’t dwell on the worst possibilities. We would jump off that particular bridge when and if we came to it. Taylor’s reaction surprised me. She loved Hilda, and she was a child whose emotions were close to the surface, but that afternoon she took the news calmly.

When I finished she said, “Is Hilda going to die?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

Taylor looked at me steadily. “She talked to me about this.”

“When?” I asked.

“At the cottage. I told her that next summer I’d be able to swim right across the lake, the way Eli’s mum did. And I said, ‘Promise you’ll be there,’ and she said she couldn’t promise, because a promise was a serious thing and she might not be able to keep it because she was old and nobody lives forever.”

“Did she say anything else?”

Taylor nodded. “She said she’d had more fun than anybody.”

I touched my daughter’s cheek. “Let’s hope there’s more fun ahead,” I said. I left Taylor painting and went back in the house. The next day in my senior class, we were dealing with federal–provincial relations during the eighties. I’d lived it, but I didn’t remember it, so I had some serious boning up to do.

The small room I used for an office was down the hall from the kitchen. As soon as I saw my desk, I knew that Jill’s assessment had been right. It was a mess, but it wasn’t a mess I’d made. I started sifting through the chaos. Nothing appeared to have been taken. Whoever had ransacked my desk obviously had concerns larger than unmarked freshman papers and academic articles. Before I’d left for Saskatoon, Hilda had told me she was planning to spend Saturday night working on Justine’s personal financial records. But I hadn’t noticed any papers that might have belonged to Justine in our house. I went upstairs to Hilda’s room. It was pristine. The only evidence that Hilda had stayed there was her library books, which were neatly stacked on Mieka’s old desk by the window. There were no papers. I checked the family room, and the dining room. There was nothing. I called Jill, but she was gone for the day. Then I called the police. The officer I spoke to took my information without comment, but she seemed interested, and she made certain she got a number where I could be reached that evening if the investigating officers had further questions.

Perplexed, I went back to my office and picked up an article on the Romanow–Chrétien constitutional tour of 1981. The press had dubbed it the Uke and Tuque show; reading about it, even in the dry language of academe, brought back a lot of memories. I became so absorbed I almost forgot to get the squash ready. It was only after I’d prepared it with butter, brown sugar, and nutmeg, the way Hilda liked it, that I remembered Hilda wouldn’t be at the dinner table to enjoy it.

By the time Jill arrived, the chicken and squash were ready, a casserole of new potatoes was waiting to be micro-waved, and I was slicing tomatoes to sauté with zucchini and onion and garlic. Jill was carrying a bottle of Chablis in one hand and a file folder in the other.

She handed me the folder. “Some interesting stuff in there, but it can wait.” She waved the Chablis. “This, on the other hand, won’t keep for a minute.”

I poured us each a glass of wine.

Jill took hers and raised her glass. “To absent friends,” she said solemnly.

“To absent friends,” I said.

She pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and sat down. “So,” she said, “what’s shaking around here?”

“A mystery,” I said. “That mess you saw on my desk wasn’t of my making.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You mean somebody tossed it?”

“Hilda was working on some financial records that belonged to Justine Blackwell. I think they must have been looking for those. Judging from the fact that the papers are nowhere in evidence, I’m guessing that whoever attacked Hilda found what they were looking for.”

Jill sipped her wine thoughtfully. “This is beyond us, Nancy Drew.”

“I know,” I said. “I’ve already called the police. I’ve done everything I can. So have you. Let’s take the night off.”

“Good plan,” she said. “We can start by refilling our glasses.”

Dinner was less boisterous than usual, but we tried. Angus gave us a rundown on his team’s chances for the coming season; Taylor talked about the trip to the Legislature Ms. Anweiler was taking her class on the next day. Jill had some funny behind-the-scenes stories about NationTV. I recounted Ian’s mother’s parsley story. We all missed Hilda.

After supper, Jill and the kids drove to the Milky Way for ice cream and I went back to the hospital. It had taken a while to decide which book to bring to read to Hilda. There were three on her bedside table: Justine’s Geriatric Psychiatry: A Handbook, A. S. Byatt’s Still Life, and a translation of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History. In my opinion, none quite fit the bill. I was casting about for something when I remembered Hilda’s passion for L.M. Montgomery. So as I stepped into the elevator of the Pasqua Hospital, there was a copy of Anne of Green Gables in my hand.

I waved it at Nathan as I walked by the desk. “Ever read this?” I asked.

He looked up from his charts, “No, but I saw the TV series when I was fourteen, and I was hot for Megan Follows till I hit Grade 11.”

There was a new police officer outside Hilda’s door. He looked tougher than Mark Messier, and I didn’t stop to chat. I showed him my driver’s licence, went inside, pulled up my chair, and began to read: “Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies’ eardrops …” As the tubes attached to Hilda delivered their elixirs of antibiotics and nutrients and carried away her body’s waste, and the machines recorded heartbeats and blood pressure, I kept on reading. I read until the intercom announced that all visitors must leave and Anne, holding the carpet-bag that contained all her worldly goods, entered Green Gables for the first time. When I bent to kiss my friend goodnight, I thought I detected a flicker in her eyelids. As I passed Hilda’s police guard, he looked up at me. “Sorry to see you go,” he said. “I was just getting interested.”

Jill was still there when I got home. Angus and Leah were in the family room studying, and Taylor was in bed, but not asleep.

When she heard me come into her room, she propped herself up on one elbow. “How’s Hilda?” she asked.

“The same,” I said. “But no worse.”

“Is that okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, “that’s okay, at least for now.”

Taylor spotted the copy of Anne of Green Gables in the outside pocket of my bag. She leaned over and took it out. “Hilda told me a story from this,” she said. “It was about this girl who dyes her hair green. Hilda said she’d read the whole thing to me at Christmas if I learned to sit still for a book with no pictures.”

When I stood up after kissing my younger daughter goodnight, I was dizzy with exhaustion. The day had finally caught up with me. It took an act of will to force myself to go back downstairs. Jill was sitting at the kitchen table poring over the folder of information on Justine and her circle that she’d brought with her.

“Good stuff in here,” she said. Then she caught sight of my face and frowned. “You look lousy, Jo.”

“That only seems fitting,” I said, “because I feel lousy. Jill, stay as long as you like, but I’m heading for bed.”

Jill pushed her chair back and stretched lazily. “Nope, I’m out of here. I’ve had enough fun for one day too. But let’s get together after you’ve had a chance to look through that folder. For a figure of judicial rectitude, Justine Blackwell certainly surrounded herself with a compelling cast of characters.”

“More compelling than the characters in Anne of Green Gables?”

Jill made a face. “Where did that come from?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Well,” said Jill, “considering your state of mind, I won’t press for the particulars. And, to answer your question, Justine’s cast of characters may not be as compelling as Lucy Maud’s, but they’re a hell of a lot more dangerous.”