Aloha, Candy Hearts (31 page)

“You were stupid,” I said bluntly. And of course, the second after I said it, I realized it probably wasn’t the nicest thing to say to a groom on his wedding day. But fortunately…

“I was stupid,” he wholeheartedly agreed. “Kelly realized it too, didn’t she? She eventually figured out that she ran away from the only thing she really needed. The only thing she couldn’t live without. That’s why she came back. To die with Errall back in her life.”

More nodding from me. An impossibly huge lump was growing in my throat. I wondered when thoughts of Kelly would no longer do that to me. Probably never.

“She ran out of time. But I’m not going to wait that long. I love DD6AA2AB8

215

41

-B193

-AD32

-4CDB

-3503D88E1

Aloha, Candy Hearts

Anthony. He loves me. My life could not be more perfect than it is right now.”

I was in awe of this man, whose celebrated beauty had been taken from him, destroyed in mere seconds by a glassful of acid tossed into his face by another man with a damaged mind. He was getting through it. He was leaving it behind.

“It’s time.” Sereena was at the door.

I finished with Jared’s tie, gave him a kiss on the cheek, then we were off.

It was a beautiful wedding.

Except for the plough wind.

The United Church minister was just getting to the good part when the sides of the tent began to quiver. Her voice rose to be heard over the bellowing wind. Guests on the outside aisles leaned away from the shuddering canvas walls. The only warning that bad was about to get much worse, was a menacing whipping sound that filled the air, like rope being pulled through giant eye-lets.

And then the top of the tent disappeared.

DD6AA2AB8

216

41

-B193

-AD32

-4CDB

-3503D88E1

Cries of panic and alarm ripped through the air.

Thankfully, the driving force of the plough wind, like a runaway locomotive made of air, moved on as abruptly as it had arrived. Unfortunately, it took the top of the wedding tent with it.

By the time the crowd settled down, the canvas sheet was probably sitting in a field someplace far, far away like North Dakota. Surprisingly, pretty much everyone had remained where they were. So when the blustering wind suddenly died down to barely a whisper, everything looked just as it had before. Except, that is, for the great lengths of flower garlands, and anything else that was lighter than a human, strewn about the space in an unholy mess.

We all looked at each other, at first struck numb and dumb by the freakish thing that had just occurred. I caught sight of my mother across the room and expelled a sigh of relief to see that she was unharmed and seemingly unfazed. Slowly the tent—or what was left of it—filled with murmuring, reassurances that we were DD6AA2AB84

217

1

-B193

-AD32

-4CDB

-3503D88E1

Aloha, Candy Hearts

all okay. We stared up at the sky above us—now visible where the roof had been—almost accusingly, angry at the churning clouds, thick with rain, for what they had just done to us. Then murmur turned to mumble turned to all-out cacophony as people began to recount what happened, as if no one else had seen it but them.

Eventually, that too died down. We fussed with our hair, straightened collars and hemlines, then fixed our gazes expectantly on the preacher.

Just as her mouth opened, so did the sky. The rain that fell on us was heavy but warm. We might as well have been in a shower, in a shower with our finest clothes on and eighty dollar updos.

And two grooms waiting for the words they’d waited years to hear.

It was a disaster. The makeshift wedding chapel was in total disarray. The guests were soaking wet. The decorations were slowly making their way down stream to the South Saskatchewan River. The preacher was discombobulated, not knowing whether she should go on with the ceremony, try to turn some of the water to wine, or race for the hills. Everyone was looking at our grooms with pity in their eyes. Should we cry? Get angry? Scream in frustration?

I caught Anthony’s eye. I was jolted by what I saw there. A gleam. A sparkle. The look of a man who knows, without doubt, what the important things in life are. Not only do you not sweat the small things, you don’t sweat the big ones either. Just keep your eye on the prize. And today, his prize was Jared, and making that man his husband. No matter what. Everything else was just window dressing.

The sound that came next was the most unexpected of all.

Anthony and Jared threw back their heads…and laughed.

They were laughing so hard, they had to hold on to each other to keep from falling down. Their upturned faces were being chris-tened by sluicing rain, perfect hair flattened against their skulls, tuxedos soaked through. What a couple they made. Nothing on the outside meant a thing. Anthony, at fifty-eight, an aging James Bond, and Jared, the once breathtakingly handsome supermodel with a scarred face. They were perfect for one another.

DD6AA2AB8

218

41

-B193

-AD32

-4CDB

-3503D88E1

Anthony Bidulka

No one knew what to do at first. But of course, there was only one thing left to do. We joined in. First me. Then the other attendants. The minister. Everyone else. I’m sure the gales of rollicking laughter could be heard all the way to that field in North Dakota.

And that was how Anthony and Jared became Mr. and Mr.

Anthony and Jared Gatt-Lowe. Protected from a whirlwind of tur-moil by a cocoon of love, our love for them, their love for each other.

As the wedding party, including me and Errall, made our way down the sodden aisle, out of that wrecked tent, a clear voice rang out. Someone was strumming a guitar and singing. I searched the space and found my sister, Joanne, perched on a stool in one corner, near a flapping gape in the tent wall. Her eyes were closed, head tilted slightly back, revealing tendons and muscles toiling at her slender throat. The song was unfamiliar to me. Something about her riding her pain like the wind. It was loud. It was inappropriate for the occasion. And it was perhaps, the most haunting-ly beautiful sound I’d ever heard. It was her gift to Anthony and Jared. It was indeed the song of a wounded bird.

The major disaster that was the wedding weather, helped dwarf the minor one that occurred as I continued down the aisle.

My cellphone began to jangle. Anthony and Jared were too busy smiling and waving and ducking confetti to notice a thing. The guests were entranced by the grooms and the music accompany-ing their first walk as husbands. Errall, walking next to me, was another matter however. I smiled weakly at her. She glared at me with something akin to murder in her eyes.

As soon as we breached the edge of the tent and were outdoors, I ran away. More to escape Errall’s wrath, than to catch the call.

“Hello,” I answered as I took cover from the insistent rain under the roof of a nearby gazebo.

“I’m calling for Russell Quant,” a voice told me. “I hope I have the right number.”

“This is Russell Quant. Who am I speaking with?”

“My name is Susan Crawford. Helen Crawford’s sister.”

Hallelujah. I thanked the woman for calling back and got right DD6AA2AB8

219

41

-B193

-AD32

-4CDB

-3503D88E1

Aloha, Candy Hearts

into it.

“Well, I don’t know anything about a treasure map,” Susan said after I’d finished giving her a quick rundown of the past week’s events (just the parts she needed to know.) “But I am familiar with the Durhuaghe archive items you describe.”

Double hallelujah.

“Helen swore me to secrecy when it all began. But she needed someone to talk to. Someone independent of the archives.

Although we lived in different cities, and rarely saw one another in person until she retired and moved here, my sister and I have always remained close. We spoke on the phone several times a month.” I marvelled at this.

“What exactly did she tell you about the Durhuaghe material?

Helen found the journal and letters in the items he donated ten years ago, isn’t that right?”

“I don’t recall if it was Helen or one of the other archivists who first discovered the material,” she said, “but I do remember that the discovery caused quite a commotion at the time. There was a great deal of disagreement amongst the archivists about what to do with the item in question. Should they destroy it, return it, or keep it in the archives in the spirit of full disclosure? You can see how opinions might vary.

“Helen took her stewardship role very seriously, Mr. Quant.

She loved history. And books—she started out as a librarian, you know—and she loved the world of great literature and revered the people who created it. Simon Durhuaghe was among her favourites. To her, he truly was a god. She knew that by allowing the information in those journals and letters to become public knowledge, she would be responsible for a disastrous blow to Durhuaghe and his career. She simply couldn’t bring herself to play a part in that.

“It took my sister weeks of intense deliberation and soul-searching to decide what to do. A minute in the shredder, and no one would be the wiser. Yet to return the material to Durhuaghe would make her an accomplice in a different kind of act she also could not stomach: subverting history.

“Helen was in a horrible bind, Mr. Quant. Although she didn’t DD6AA2AB8

220

41

-B193

-AD32

-4CDB

-3503D88E1

Anthony Bidulka

want the papers to see the light of day, she also did not feel she had a right to be part of making them disappear forever. We talked about this over the phone for hours and hours. Our phone bills were astronomical. Helen did accept that perhaps, one day, the information should be made known. Just not under her watch. She did not share her final decision with me. If she hid the journal and letters, where, or how, I cannot say, Mr. Quant. She considered that privileged information. But this map you talk about, the poem with the historic clues, although I couldn’t swear to it, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to be told my sister had created it. She was peculiar in that way. Using the past to hide the past, oh yes, there’s a certain nice quality about that. Helen would have found great pleasure in it.”

I was surprised by how much the sister knew, and disappointed by what she didn’t. “If she didn’t tell you about what she did with the material, why would she involve Walter Angel? I understand they weren’t that close.”

“My sister knew she was dying, Mr. Quant. She’d have known it was time to pass on her role as safekeeper to someone she trusted.”

The time had come to ask Susan Crawford the same question that had upset Sven Henckell. But that’s what PIs have to do sometimes: ask the tough questions others are afraid to.

“Ms. Crawford,” I began, pulling the sodden bow tie from around my neck. “Did your sister use the material in the journal and letters to blackmail Simon Durhuaghe?”

“No,” was her quick and unequivocal response. “She admired Simon Durhuaghe and his work. Certainly, she was gravely disappointed to find out what she did about his personal life, but she’d never have used it against him. To Helen, Simon Durhuaghe the great writer was very separate from Simon Durhuaghe the man.

She did what she did to protect the one despite the actions of the other. What she did ten years ago, Mr. Quant, was to keep anyone from doing exactly what you’re accusing her of.”

“Can you be sure, Ms. Crawford? I know how close you were to your sister, but sometimes…”

“No, Mr. Quant, I have no doubt.”

DD6AA2AB8

221

41

-B193

-AD32

-4CDB

-3503D88E1

Aloha, Candy Hearts

One more try. “It isn’t inexpensive to retire early to Victoria.”

“It is when you share a house with a sister and a friend who’ve also retired. The three of us lived simply, Mr. Quant. We just wanted to live out our years in a place we loved. We didn’t travel. We didn’t buy expensive things. We planned to live in this beautiful place, keeping each other company, reading good books, enjoying nature. She deserved more time to do all those things. People may tell you Helen was a bit odd, and she was. But she was a wonderful, thoughtful woman, Mr. Quant. I hope you believe me about that.”

I sat in the gazebo for a while after I hung up. It was time to think outside the box I’d built around this case. I was so certain that whoever killed Walter Angel did so to keep him from using the Durhuaghe journal and letters to blackmail someone…

Durhuaghe himself, or Sherry Fisher, or maybe someone else entirely? Yet, if I was to believe what I’d heard that day, the two likeliest blackmailers, Walter himself and Helen Crawford, weren’t using the material that way at all. Instead, rather than using it to extort money, they were doing whatever they could to keep it hidden. If that were true, Durhuaghe, or Sherry, or whoever, had nothing to fear from Walter. Yet he’d been killed. And, Durhuaghe admitted that someone was blackmailing him.

My brain crept out of the box and came upon a realization: maybe the murderer wasn’t someone who wanted to prevent blackmail. Maybe the murderer was someone who wanted to perpetrate it.

“Quant, how about getting off your ass and giving us a hand,”

came Darren Kirsch’s delightful voice.

I looked up, startled. I was so deep in thought, I’d forgotten where I was for a moment.

“The chairs. We have to move chairs and tables into the house for dinner.”

“They’re going to feed a hundred and fifty people inside a house that isn’t even finished?”

“No choice. Rain and no roof don’t mix well. The caterers and servers are scrambling to adjust. It’ll have to work somehow. And your sitting here having a little daydream isn’t helping any.”

DD6AA2AB8

222

41

-B193

-AD32

-4CDB

-3503D88E1

Anthony Bidulka

An idea popped into my head. “Kirsch, did your detectives check the phone calls made in and out of Walter Angel’s hotel room while he was in Victoria?”