12 Rose Street (9 page)

When Zack arrived, Margot greeted him at the door. “So what’s up?”

Zack wheeled towards the living room. “For starters,” he said, “Darryl Colby popped by this afternoon. It turns out that I am Cronus’s executor and sole beneficiary. Jo and I now own a sizeable portion of the slum housing in North Central.”

“Holy shit,” Margot breathed.

Brock’s eyebrows furrowed. “So how are we going to handle this?”

Zack leaned forward. “Milo O’Brien is texting the media, inviting them to a news conference in North Central tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. Milo’s giving them the broad strokes about
the inheritance from Cronus, and he’s copying Slater Doyle on the announcement. I’m going to promise to do everything I can to make the houses I’ve inherited habitable for the tenants. I’m going to say that when I’m elected mayor, my first priority will be affordable housing. Then Joanne and I are going to head for the hills.”

Margot leaned forward. “Peyben can help. By the end of the week, we can have workers on the job making those houses safe and livable. We’ll show that you know how to get things done.”

“And drive home the fact that Zack did more in one year to establish a training and recreation centre in North Central than the city, the province, and the feds have done in decades,” Brock said.

Margot was thoughtful. “I wonder if that’s why Cronus named Zack as his sole heir.”

“We’ll never know,” Zack said. “But the day he died, Cronus made a significant contribution to our campaign. When I thanked him he said, ‘This is my city too.’ ”

Sometimes Zack’s and my massage sessions ended up in making love, but most of the time they just gave us a chance to unwind and talk. That night as I poured the massage oil into my palm, Zack introduced a topic that was on my mind too.

“What do you think is going on with Margot and Brock?” he said.

I rubbed the oil into Zack’s shoulders. “I think they’re both lonely. They’re both crazy about Lexi, they’re having a child together, and they enjoy each other’s company.”

“No romance?”

“Brock’s still wounded from the breakup with Michael Goetz,” I said. “And he
is
gay.”

“Brock and Margot managed to get pregnant. Or was that just a one-shot deal?”

“Actually, Brock told me it was a three-shot deal.” I kneaded Zack’s shoulders.

When I began to work deep circles in his muscles with my thumbs and fingertips, Zack groaned with pleasure, but his mind was still on Brock and Margot. “You don’t think there’s a chance they’ll have a future together?” he said.

“Who knows?” I said. “Their child will always be a bond. But Margot and Brock both know what it’s like to share a life with a person they love. Sooner or later, I imagine they’re both going to want the whole package.”

“There’s a lot to be said for having the whole package.”

“There is,” I agreed. “Now, you’re still tight. I’m going to massage your feet for a while.”

“That’s not very sexy. I can’t feel my feet.”

“I’ll work my way up.”

The press conference was being held on the sidewalk in front of 12 Rose Street. I’d suggested the street because Zack and I now owned every house on the block. I hadn’t mentioned Brock’s and my encounter with the old woman who lived at Number 12 to Milo. He had chosen the house simply because its mustard-coloured stucco was, in his words, “so shit-bucket ugly that nobody should have to live with it.”

By the time I arrived, a small crowd had already gathered. There was a solid media turnout, a sprinkling of the curious and the bored; a half-dozen kids who should have been in school, a couple of sex workers looking exhausted at the end of their shift, a man with a walker muttering obscenities to himself, two drunks, and some guys who were obviously coming down hard from a high. The old lady from Number 12 was there, again wearing her hunting jacket, trousers, and men’s slippers.

There were no signs of life at the house where Angela lived. I didn’t know Angela’s last name, but I’d brought along a note, telling her I was thinking of her and giving her my contact information. Before the press conference began
I knocked at her door. I could hear the television blaring inside, but when no one came to the door, I dropped the note in Angela’s mailbox and went back across the street.

Slater Doyle was standing a few feet away from the action, observing. As always, his mid-brown hair appeared to have been freshly barbered, the creases in his trousers were knife-edged, and the sides of his tie’s Windsor knot were perfectly symmetrical. Slater suffered from photophobia so he was never without the tinted shades that served the dual purpose of protecting his eyes against the light and making it impossible for interlocutors to peer through the windows to his soul.

On the rare occasions when we had run into each other, Slater and I had always been civil, but that morning when I approached him, he turned away. I ignored the slight and stepped into his line of vision. “Glad you could make it,” I said.

I expected a little banter, but Slater’s tone was urgent. “What’s Zack going to do with the houses?”

“Stay tuned,” I said. “Now I have a question. Have the police talked to the people behind your campaign about Cronus’s murder?”

It was a shot in the dark, but it hit the target. Slater tensed. “What people?” he said. “We have the same support we’ve had in the last three elections. No defections. No additions. Same loyal crowd of upstanding citizens.”

“We’re looking into that,” I said. “The Shreve campaign is absolutely transparent. If you want a list of our donors and the amount of their donations, I’ll send you one. Will you reciprocate?”

“No.”

“Inspector Haczkewicz is confident that the police will find out why Cronus was murdered,” I said.

“It was a gang thing,” Slater said quickly.

“That’s certainly how someone wanted it to look,” I said.

Slater lowered his voice. “You have a fine family, Joanne. Despite your husband’s physical limitations, you appear to be devoted to him. Your adult children have turned out well. Your daughter Taylor has a promising career and those granddaughters are adorable.”

“Is that a threat?”

“No, simply a reminder that the Ridgeway campaign is going to do whatever it takes to win.”

“That works both ways,” I said. “Now, no more shop talk. We have company.”

My son Angus, who had just started his articling year with Falconer Shreve, was walking towards us. Angus bore a striking resemblance to my late husband, and that day when I saw him – tall, handsome, dressed as young male lawyers dress, and absently touching the unruly forelock that he had inherited from his father – I felt a pang. When I started to introduce Angus, Slater Doyle cut me short.

“Angus Kilbourn,” he said. “Twenty-two years old, graduated from the University of Saskatchewan College of Law last spring, worked three summers in Falconer Shreve’s Calgary office, and now articling with his stepfather’s firm.”

Angus whistled. “The Ridgeway campaign must have one sweet database,” he said.

“We like to keep track of people,” Slater said and strode away.

Zack’s announcement followed the lines we’d decided on the night before. He explained Cronus had named him executor and sole beneficiary and that while the housing problem in North Central required long-term solutions, Peyben workers would be on the job before the end of the week, talking to tenants in the houses Cronus had owned and arranging for the repairs that would make the houses habitable over the
winter. When Zack explained that starting this month tenants’ rents would be dedicated to repairing their homes, there was a murmur of interest.

The media didn’t have to scramble for queries. Did Zack have a theory about what had happened to his benefactor? Was there a possible connection between Cronus’s passion for rough sex and his death? Inevitably, someone asked whether the fact that Zack was suddenly a slumlord would hurt his campaign. The journalists were probing, but as a trial lawyer, Zack was expert at answering what he had to answer and deflecting the unanswerable. When the old woman in the hunting jacket raised her hand, Zack moved his chair to face her. “You have a question,” he said gently.

“I have the word of God,” she said. Her voice was deep and stirring. “Matthew 7:24–27.
Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
She folded her arms over her breast and levelled her glittering black eyes at Zack, waiting for a response.

He answered as smoothly as a man who was in the habit of reading the New Testament over breakfast. “The lesson of that passage is not lost on me,” he said. He gestured towards the mustard yellow house behind him. “This house will be made safe. So will all the other houses my wife and I now own. If that means rebuilding the foundation, that will be done. These houses will have a firm foundation. They will not fall.”

I glanced over at Slater Doyle. He was on his cell and he did not look happy. As far as I was concerned, Slater’s discomfort was reason enough to declare the press conference a success.

The final question came from a young man from a local free newspaper called
Prairie Dog.

“In leaving you everything he owned, Cronus obviously sent a message about his faith and trust in you,” the young man said. “How did you feel about him?”

“He was a client, not a friend,” Zack said. His composure broke. For a few moments he was silent. When he spoke his voice was husky with emotion. “I wish I could change that now,” he said. “Thank you all for coming today.” And with that, the press conference was over.

When Zack joined us, Angus clapped him on the back. “Nice stickhandling,” he said. Milo, in the way of political operatives, had been standing at the back of the crowd. When he caught my eye, he made the thumbs-up sign and left for fresh adventures. The media packed up; the watchers wandered off; Angus went back to work. Zack and I were alone on the sidewalk. The sadness clung to him.

“Want to go home for a while?” I said. “Lick our wounds in private?”

“That is
so
tempting,” Zack said. “But Norine called. She wants me to stop by Falconer Shreve to discuss Cronus’s files.”

“I’ll go with you,” I said.

“I’d appreciate that,” Zack said. “I am not eager to be alone with my thoughts.”

Success always comes with a price tag. Three years earlier when Falconer Shreve had been bursting at the seams, the firm moved from its old offices into one of the glass towers downtown. The new digs were sleek, corporate, and, to my mind, unwelcoming. The first time I saw Zack’s new office, I was struck by its assertive masculinity. The walls were
painted the same soft grey as the walls in our cottage, but the ambience was distinctly male. Black leather client chairs, a grey leather couch, an oversized mahogany desk; large black-and-white photos of great moments in sports: Muhammad Ali knocking out Sonny Liston; the Blue Jays’ Joe Carter catching Otis Nixon’s bunt for the final out in the 1992 World Series; the Roughriders’ Dave Ridgeway kicking the thirty-five-yard field goal in the last seconds of the 1989 game that gave Saskatchewan the Grey Cup.

I said nothing, but Zack gradually softened the office’s edges. Silver-framed family photos now had pride of place on his desk and credenza, and the walls were hung with some eye-catching Canadian art. That morning, Zack closed his office door behind us and wheeled over to a painting titled
Mozart Core
that I’d given him for his last birthday. For a few moments, he was silent, absorbing the work’s exuberant splashes of pink, purple, orange, yellow, and green. “This painting always makes me feel hopeful,” he said.

“You should write to Scott Plear and tell him that,” I said. “Artists like to know that a piece has found a good home.” I took his hand. “So is
Mozart Core
getting the job done today?”

Zack’s eyes hadn’t left the painting. “We may have to give it a few minutes. It’s been a lousy morning. The question that kid from
Prairie Dog
asked really got to me. I wish I had been a better friend to Cronus. I wish I’d been a friend to him period.”

“Cronus obviously felt you were his friend. That’s going to have to be enough.”

“I guess so,” Zack said. “Death eliminates the possibility of a do-over.”

“On the day he died, Ian and I had a fight,” I said. “It wasn’t anything major, just the usual. I thought he spent too much time at work and not enough time with us. Anyway,
we quarrelled, and Ian left. I was angry, and I didn’t say goodbye. I had to live with that memory for a long time.”

Zack held out his arms to me. “We never talked about this before.”

“No, and I don’t want to talk about it now. I just wanted you to stop beating yourself up about Cronus. You can honour his memory by doing exactly what you’re doing, so let’s find Norine and get on with it.”

Norine MacDonald had been with Zack since Falconer Shreve opened its doors twenty-eight years earlier. She had extraordinary organizational skills, she was smart and unflappable, and she knew what Zack wanted before he knew it himself. She was tall, stately, and elegant with the high cheekbones and the long legs characteristic of many Plains Cree. Norine had competed nationally as a long distance runner and she told me once that she’d seriously considered becoming a coach and working at the high school on her reserve. Luckily for Falconer Shreve, she chose another path.

For as long as I’d known her, Norine’s wardrobe was exclusively Max Mara. Today she was wearing a single-breasted tan wool suit, a silky cream blouse, and a gold chain necklace. She looked sensational. When she saw us, her face brightened. “Good to see you both,” she said. “Inspector Haczkewicz called. Darryl Colby’s offices were broken into and pretty well trashed last night. Mr. Colby had couriered Cronus’s files here yesterday afternoon, so whoever did it probably didn’t get what he or she was looking for.”