A Killing Spring (7 page)

“Jo, look. I’ve started the drawings for my mural.”

Taylor was standing in the bathroom door with her sketchpad under her arm.

I put my toothbrush back in the cup. “Okay,” I said, “show me.”

She pushed past me, flipped down the toilet seat and settled herself on top of it. After she had balanced her sketchpad on her knees, she began explaining. “Alex said nobody ever gets close enough to Nanabush to take his picture, but this is how I think he looks.”

As Taylor’s index finger danced across her sketchpad, pointing out details, lingering over problems, I was struck again by the gulf between the little girl perched on the toilet seat, legs dangling, and the gifted artist who had made the pictures of Nanabush on the pages in front of me. At the age of six, Taylor’s talent was already undeniable. It was a question of nature not nurture. Taylor’s mother had been a brilliant artist, and Taylor had inherited the gift.

When we’d looked at the last sketch, Taylor hopped off the toilet. “I’m hungry,” she said.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” I said. “You’ve already done a lot of work today. Why don’t I get you some juice and cereal. I have to go up to the university for a few minutes, but as soon as I get home, I’ll make pancakes.”

When I put the dogs on their leashes and led them to the garage, they looked dubious, and when I opened the back gate of the Volvo our aging golden retriever, Rose, sat down defiantly. “Come on, Rosie,” I said. “Get in. We’ll have our run out at the bird sanctuary. The paper says the bluebirds are back. It’ll be an adventure.” She cocked her head and looked at me sceptically. I moved behind her and pushed her until she finally lumbered into the car. Sadie, our collie, who was beautiful but easily led, bounded in after her.

By the time I pulled into the parking space at the university, the dogs had perked up, and they jumped out, eager to follow me, as I headed for the Education building. The red-white-and-blue police cars were still there, as was the vandals’ handiwork. The long glassed-in walkway that linked College West and the Lab building was dripping with all the ugly anti-gay invective the wielder of the spray-paint canister could think of. I was cheered to see that the vandal had crossed out the extra
s
that had initially been in “cock-sucker.” Maybe literacy was on the rise after all.

The dogs and I walked towards the Education building. A young police officer with a blond braid was standing by a squad car making notes.

“What’s up?” I asked.

Her look was noncommittal. “Everything’s under control,” she said coolly. “Why don’t you and your dogs finish your walk?”

“I’m not rubbernecking,” I said. “I teach here.”

“I hope for your sake that your office isn’t in this building.”

“Can I go in?”

“Not with your dogs.”

I walked them back and put them in the car. First seduced and now abandoned, they began to bark, furious at the betrayal.

When I came back, the blond-braided police officer had been replaced by a young constable who looked as if he could bench-press two hundred kilograms without breaking a sweat. I flashed my faculty
ID
at him and said, “I teach here.”

He waved me through. “Go ahead,” he said. His voice was surprisingly high and sweet as a choirboy’s. “Stay away from the areas marked by crime-scene tape, and if an officer asks you to leave, please obey.”

I went into the building, turned left, and walked towards the cafeteria. It looked as it always did after hours: the accordion security gates were pulled across, the tables were wiped clean, and the chairs were stacked in piles against the far wall. Someone had suspended cutouts of Easter rabbits and of chicks in bonnets from the ceiling above the empty food-display cases, and by the cash register there was a sign announcing that Cadbury Easter Creme Eggs were back. Everything seemed reassuringly ordinary, but when I continued along the hall and pushed through the double doors that led to the audio-visual department of the School of Journalism, I stepped into chaos.

I was ankle-deep in paper: computer printouts, dumped files, books with pages torn and spines splayed. The walls around me were spray-painted with the same snappy patter I’d seen on the walkway between College West and the Lab building. It was slow going, but finally I made it past the photography department and turned down the hall that led to the Journalism offices.

As I walked towards Ed Mariani’s office, I was reassured to see that whoever had done the trashing was an equal-opportunity vandal. The offices of straight and gay alike were destroyed. Through open doors, I could see books and pictures heaped on desks, plants overturned, keyboards ripped from their terminals. On Ed’s door was a sign: “Of all life’s passions, the strongest is the need to edit another’s prose.” Beside it somebody had spray-painted the words “Fairy-Loving-Bum-Fucker.” I closed my eyes, but I could still see the words, and I knew Ed’s sign was right: at that moment, I hungered for a paint canister of my own and a chance to do a little judicious editing.

Sick with disgust, I turned and doubled back towards the front door of the building. I wanted to be outside where my dogs were waiting; the air was sweet and the bluebirds had come home.

When I pulled up in front of our house, Taylor was sitting on the top step of the porch, with Benny on her knee. She was still wearing her nightie, but she’d added her windbreaker and her runners. “Winter’s over,” she said happily.

“It certainly feels like it,” I said. “Now let’s go inside and get something to eat. I’m starving.” I made coffee and pancake batter. Taylor, who had already eaten a bowl of cereal and a banana poured batter in the shape of her initials onto the griddle; when she’d polished off her initials, she made Benny’s initials. I was watching her devour these and waiting for my own pancakes when Alex came.

“I haven’t even had a shower yet,” I groaned.

“You look good to me,” he said. “After yesterday, you deserve to laze around.”

“I wish,” I said. “I feel like I’ve already put in a full day.”

I took the pancakes off the griddle. “Do you want these?”

“You take them, but if there’s plenty …”

I handed him the bowl and the ladle. “Taylor makes hers in the shape of her initials.”

He smiled. “She’s such a weird little kid.” He went over to the griddle and poured. “Okay. Fill me in on your day.”

I watched his face as I told him about the vandalism at the university. He listened, as he always did to whatever the kids and I told him, seriously and without interruption or comment.

“I guess it could have been worse,” I said. “At least whoever did it vented their spleen in words. Nobody was hurt.”

“Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me,” he said, and there was an edge of bitterness in his voice that surprised me. “Did Mrs. Gallagher get in touch with you last night?” he asked.

“She made a house call. She brought her keys over because she’s going to her sister’s in Port Hope.”

“She told me she might do that.”

“So she did talk to you.”

“Of course. She’s a good citizen. She wouldn’t leave town without telling us where she’d be. Anyway, I was glad she called. I had some questions; she answered them.”

“What kind of questions.”

“Just tidying-up-loose-ends questions. I wanted her to go over again what she knew about where her husband was in the twenty-four hours before he died. She didn’t have much to add except …”

“Except what?”

“Except I still don’t think she’s told us everything. For one thing, I have a feeling that yesterday wasn’t the first time she’d been in that rooming house on Scarth Street. When I took her there, she started down the hall on the main floor as if she knew where she was going.”

“But Reed’s body wasn’t on the main floor.”

“No. It was upstairs, on the top floor. Actually, we have a witness who thinks he saw Gallagher going up the fire escape at the back at around quarter to nine.”

“I don’t understand how you can let Julie go when you think she might be holding something back.”

“Jo, when someone dies suddenly, everybody who knew them holds things back. There are a hundred reasons why the living don’t choose to disclose everything they know about the dead, but as long as those reasons don’t have a direct bearing on our case, we don’t push it.”

“So Julie doesn’t have to stay in Regina.”

“There’s no legal reason why she should. Her husband’s dead, and human decency might suggest that she hang around till he’s in the ground, but there’s nothing to indicate that Gallagher’s death was anything other than accidental. They’re doing an autopsy this afternoon, but with the hood and the garter belt and all the other paraphernalia, I think we know what they’ll find.”

“Which is?”

“Which is that Reed Gallagher died of a fatal combination of bad judgement and bad luck.”

“It still doesn’t make sense to me.”

“Jo, a lot of sexual practices don’t have much to do with common sense, but that doesn’t mean they don’t happen. Sherman Zimbardo had coffee with a couple of doctors from the E.R. at the General last night; he says some of the stories those women had about what they’ve removed from there would curl your hair.” Alex deftly slid his pancakes onto his plate and smiled at me. “And it’s all in the name of love.”

I passed him the butter. “ ‘ “Thank goodness we’re all different,” said Alice.’ ”

Alex looked quizzical. “Who’s Alice?”

“Someone who stepped through the looking-glass,” I said.

Alex picked up the maple syrup. “I know the feeling,” he said. “Now, what’s on your agenda today?”

“Nothing but good works,” I said. “I’m going to take Taylor to her art class and get ready for tonight’s program. How about you?”

“I’m taking Angus for his driving lesson.”

I winced. “Talk about good works. Can I reward you by taking you to a movie after we do our show?”

“Sounds great, but I’ll have to take a rain check.”

I felt a sting of disappointment. “More paperwork?”

He looked away. “No, family matters.” His voice was distant. “I’ve got a nephew out on the reserve who seems to be in need of a little guidance.”

“How old?”

“Fifteen.”

“Angus’s age.”

“Yeah, but he’s not Angus.” The edge was back in his voice, and I could feel the wall going up. Alex talked easily about his life on Standing Buffalo when he was young, but never about life there now, and I tried not to pry.

Angus appeared in the doorway. For once, his timing was impeccable, as was his appearance: slicked-back hair, earring in place, faded rock shirt, and jeans so badly torn I wondered how he kept them on. He went over and slapped Alex on the back. “So,” he said, “are you ready to rip?”

It was only six blocks from our house to the Gallaghers’ condo on Lakeview Court, but because we were going straight to Taylor’s lesson after we were through at Julie’s, we drove. When I opened the front door, Taylor slipped off her boots and ran inside to find the aquarium. Before I’d even hung my coat up, she was back in the hall, breathless.

“Oh, Jo, they’re beautiful, especially the striped ones.
We’ve got to get some. We could stop at the Golden Mile after my lesson. They’ve got fish in the pet shop – all kinds of them. And we’ll need some of that pink stuff that looks like knobby fingers.”

“Coral,” I said.

“And a castle. These fish have a castle in the corner of their tank, and they swim right through the front door.”

“Do you know who would really love it if we got some fish?” I asked her.

“Who?”

“Benny,” I said.

Her eyes widened with horror. Then a smile played at the corner of her lips. “No fish, right?”

“No fish,” I said.

After I showed Taylor how much food to put in the aquarium, I turned to the rest of my tasks. There wasn’t much to do. The dishes and the checked cloths were off the rental tables, and the extra chairs had been stacked, ready for pickup. Julie had left the rental company’s business card on the kitchen table with a note asking me to arrange a time when I could be there to let them in. The only hints of the evening before were the pots of shamrock that had been in the white wicker centrepieces. The plants were lined up neatly on a tray where they could catch the light from Julie’s kitchen window. When I touched the soil, it was moist. She had taken care of everything, but those must have been bleak hours for her, alone in her house, dismantling the evening she’d planned with such care while her new husband lay dead in the morgue at Regina General.

The refrigerator didn’t take long to clean. There were no nasty surprises mouldering in old yogurt containers, just perishables that had obviously been intended for the party: two quarts of whipping cream, unopened; two large plastic bags of crisp salad greens; three vegetable platters that
looked as if they could still make the cover of Martha Stewart’s
Living
. I boxed up everything for the Indian-Métis Friendship Centre. Julie was moving into contention for their award as Benefactor of the Year.

After I dropped Taylor off at her art lesson, I drove Julie’s food donation to the Friendship Centre, and then headed downtown to check out the sales. Angus had been hinting about a new winter jacket, and Taylor needed rubber boots.

Cornwall Centre was in its spring mode. Hyacinth, daffodils, and tulips bloomed beside the water fountains, and winter clothes marked 60 per cent off bloomed on the racks in front of stores. At Work Warehouse, I discovered that the jacket Angus had admired loudly and frequently before Christmas had at last reached my price range, and I bought it. Then I went to Eaton’s basement and found a pair of rubber boots in Taylor’s favourite shade of hot pink. As the salesclerk was wrapping them up, I remembered my early-morning resolve to get back in Jill’s good graces by cosying up to Tom Kelsoe. From what I’d seen of Tom, the surest way to his heart was through his ego. I went to City Books.

There was a single copy of
Getting Even
beside the cash register. When I handed it to the woman behind the counter, she groaned. “That’s the last copy. I was going to buy it myself.” She eyed the author picture on the back and sighed. “He is attractive, isn’t he? He was on the radio yesterday morning. I didn’t hear him, but people have been coming to the store in tears because of a story he told about a mother and her two sons – right here in Regina.” She shrugged. “Well, I’ll just have to order more. Cash or credit?”