Kaleidoscope (18 page)

“Was they’re some connection between him and the homeowners?”

“None, and as it turned out that was the heart of the matter. Zack was the boy’s lawyer, so of course he tried to talk with the parents. He made appointments with them to come to the office, but they never showed up, so Zack went to their house. It was on Winnipeg Street. Zack pounded on the door, and when there was no response, he went in. His client was sitting on the floor watching
TV
, fighting off a cat for his plate of Rice-A-Roni. The mother was passed out on the couch. The boy’s sister was in the bedroom with a paying client. The whole place was beyond filthy. Guess what the boy was watching?”

“Cartoons?”

“A home improvement show. He told Zack that was all he watched.”

Ed winced. “Jesus.”

“I guess at a certain point the rage just boils over,” I said.

When Ed and I returned to the front of the house, two men with clipboards were standing on the lawn, seemingly assessing our property. Both were lanky with snub noses, sandy blond hair, and the permanent sunburn of fair-skinned
people who work outdoors. I assumed they were father and son. I also assumed they worked for Leland. I was right on both counts.

The older of the two men approached me. “You must be Joanne Shreve,” he said. “The police said that you and your friend were going through the house. I’m Andy O’Neill, and this is my son, Drew. We’re project managers for Peyben. Mr. Hunter asked us to stop by.”

“So what’s the verdict?” I said.

“I can’t say anything definitive until we’ve had a chance to look inside, but it’s a solid house. The contractor did good work.”

“Do you think the damage can be repaired?”

The son frowned. “It’s too soon to make a decision. When a property sustains a blow like that, there can be weaknesses you can’t detect at first. If the weaknesses are there, sooner or later, they can undermine the whole building.”

“Life’s full of metaphors,” I said.

Andy’s laugh was short. “You’re a cool one, Ms. Shreve.”

“Not really, “I said. “But I am working on it.”

As it turned out, my coolness was put to an immediate test. When Ed and I arrived, I’d noticed a scattering of rubberneckers gasping and gaping at the devastation that was once our home. Ed had muttered something about schadenfreude, and we’d moved along. But as we turned to go to our cars, I saw that the number of rubberneckers had been increased by two. Louise Hunter and Sage Mackenzie were on the sidewalk looking intently at the debris.

“Pretty awful, isn’t it?” I said.

Louise turned, the flush of embarrassment at being caught gawking already spreading from her neck to her face. “It’s terrible to think that you could have been here,” she said. “Declan told me that if you hadn’t gone to the lake a day
early you would have been asleep and God knows what might have happened then.”

Sage was surveying the scene coolly. “Remarkably, the explosion barely touched the bedrooms,” she said. Her amber eyes shifted to me. “You must have been born under a lucky star, Joanne.”

“I guess I was,” I said.

On our way back from Taylor’s school, she and I stopped off at the mall to pick up underwear and other essentials for the next few days. Clearly my definition of
essentials
differed from our daughter’s, but it was fun to check out the frillies at La Senza, and Taylor got a dynamite deal on some Santa bras. When we got back to the condo, Taylor ran upstairs to her second-floor retreat and I headed for the kitchen.

I’m an orderly cook. I assemble all the ingredients before I begin. I make certain everything I need is at hand, and then I begin. It’s important for me to know that if I plan carefully and follow the steps outlined in a recipe, I’ll end up with the result I’m going for.

That afternoon, as the sun streamed in the condo windows, I checked my purchases against the list of ingredients in my paella recipe and felt the pleasure of being in control. Then unbidden and unwelcome, the memory of my old kitchen in the house on the creek filled my mind. I could have made a dish like paella blindfolded there.

But I wasn’t there. I was here on Halifax Street in a kitchen that was as perfect and soulless as a magazine ad. As I waited for the olive oil to heat, I seasoned the chicken breasts and dusted them with flour. When the oil was sizzling, I sautéed the chorizo, then removed it and browned the chicken. As I chopped the onions, garlic, and parsley for the sofrito, the familiar aromas filled the air, and I knew how Alice felt when she stepped through the looking-glass
and found herself in a world that was recognizable in many ways yet was not her own.

I was peeling and deveining the shrimp when Zack called.

“This is a nice surprise,” I said. “How come you’re not in court?”

“Ten-minute recess – just long enough for me to take a leak and check in with Norine. Guess what? Good news – the cops gave her the okay to have the art that survived delivered to Halifax Street and our clothing sent to a dry-cleaner who specializes in smoke damage. So what are you up to?”

“At the moment, I’m making paella.”

“To make Taylor feel at home?”

“To make us all feel at home.”

“Good call. Gotta go. Love you, Jo.”

“I love you, too,” I said. But I was talking to empty air. Zack had already hung up.

It was an afternoon where I had nothing but time, and setting the table on the terrace was a pleasant task. Like everything else in the condo, the linens and dishes evoked the lush beauty of Tuscany. The tablecloth I chose was a swirl of orange and red – the perfect complement for dinnerware the colour of a ripe pear. As I moved, the sunshine and the moist heavy air pressed down on me. Finally, I sat in one of the chairs, tilted my head to the sun, and, eyes closed, listened to the rustling of ornamental grasses in the terra cotta pot beside the patio door. The Italians were right:
dolce far niente
. It can be very sweet to do nothing.

Zack was home at six. He had his trial bag slung over the back of his wheelchair and as frequently happened when I saw him, I felt a spark of lust. I leaned in and kissed him. He ran his hands over my hips and growled. “Is there more where this is coming from?”

“You have no idea,” I said, “but Taylor’s upstairs and if the paella burns, we’re out $37.00 worth of seafood.”

“There’s always
KFC
,” Zack said. He smacked his lips. “Paella, sex, and fried chicken. This could be a memorable evening. Do we have time for a drink?”

“We’ll make time,” I said. I followed Zack into the kitchen and watched as he mixed the martinis. When he handed me mine, I took a sip. “This is one of my favourite times of the day – the time when we have a drink and just talk.”

“You might not love it so much today. Cronus passed along some troubling news about Riel Delorme. It turns out Riel’s been a busy guy the past few years.”

I felt a prickle of fear. “So what’s he been doing?”

“Not to put too fine a point on it, screwing up and attempting to deal with the consequences. Anyway, as you know, Cronus built his empire renting out houses in North Central, so when Riel started talking to the tenants about their rights and showing them how to contact inspectors from public health and the fire department, Cronus hired somebody to do some digging. It turns out that when Riel dropped out of university, he was a full-fledged Marxist and revolutionary. Apparently, his apartment was filled with everything that had ever been written by or about Che Guevara.”

“That’s not surprising,” I said. “Riel was considering Che as the subject of his master’s thesis.”

“Well, according to Cronus’s information, Riel was doing some writing of his own that wasn’t scholarly. It was incendiary, and the message was always the same: the only way for oppressed people to make progress was to unite and fight together.”

“That’s no different from anything Tommy Douglas or Gandhi or Martin Luther King advocated.”

“Maybe, but none of them advocated violence. Riel told
his people that the oppressed had to match the oppressors weapon for weapon.”

The image of Lena giggling as Riel swung her through the air flashed through my mind. “I can’t believe Riel would incite violence,” I said, but as I spoke the words, I remembered Riel’s furious assertion that by associating with the man who had razed blocks of houses for the Village Project, Zack and I had invited the destruction of our own home. “Does Cronus have any evidence?” I asked.

“He says he had tapes of speeches where Riel called for an armed insurrection.”

I was incredulous. “And the police didn’t know?”

“They knew. Cronus isn’t stupid.” Zack’s frustration was palpable. “Riel was turning out to be a major pain in the ass for him, so he took all the information he’d gathered and dropped it at the cop shop. Just being a good citizen, of course.”

“Zack, if the police had all that evidence against Riel, why didn’t they arrest him?”

“That’s the question that Cronus raised with his previous lawyer. God, I wish I’d got this case sooner. Not to speak ill of the dead, but the late Guy LaRose must have been a real soup can. He was dying, but he knew that he had obligations to his client. If he couldn’t do the job, he should have told Cronus to get another lawyer.”

“And he didn’t,” I said.

“No. Guy forced Cronus to hang with him till death did them part, and at the end Guy made a real hash of his case. When Cronus told him that Delorme might have had a reason to set him up for Arden Raeburn’s murder, La Rose told him that raising questions about Delorme was just a distraction.”

“And Cronus accepted that?”

“Yes, because not long after Cronus dumped his information at the cop shop, Riel did a 180. Cronus thinks Riel finally figured out what any seven-year-old kid in North
Central knew – that the gangs are dangerous and they are uncontrollable. Anyway, that’s when Riel stepped away from the secret meetings and militancy and began working out of the Willy Hodgson Centre and co-operating with the police.”

“That doesn’t explain why the police didn’t follow through on the information Cronus brought them,” I said. “Riel might have decided to back away, but he
had
attempted to recruit a group of armed militants to his cause.”

“Agreed. Something stinks here, but right now I just don’t have the time to go into it. I’m struggling for time, Jo. All I can do is try to dig up evidence that despite his unsavoury past, Cronus did not kill Arden Raeburn.”

“Cronus’s history isn’t admissible, is it?” I said.

Zack sighed. “Not unless he testifies, which he will do over my dead body.”

I winced. “Can’t you just tell Cronus he can’t testify?”

“Nope, all I can do is tell him that I strongly recommend against him taking the stand, and I’ve done that. If Cronus testifies, the Crown prosecutor can cross-examine him on everything questionable in his past, and believe me there’s plenty: fights with tenants that ended up in front of the Rentalsman; perpetual litigation in small claims court, and behaviour towards women that, to put it charitably, has been less than chivalrous. Cronus is no Boy Scout, but I’d bet the farm that he was set up for this murder. The problem is I don’t have a clue by whom or why.”

I linked my fingers with Zack’s. “You know what I think?” I said.

“I think we should have had a second martini.”

“It’s never too late,” Zack said.

“It is for me,” I said. “If I have another martini, I’ll do a face plant in the paella.”

“Rough day?”

“I’ve had better,” I said. “But tell me about how things went in court.”

“Let’s see. I huffed and I puffed and I blew a few holes in the Crown’s argument, and then Linda huffed and puffed and blew a few holes in my argument, so I’d say it was a draw.”

“How did Cronus do?”

“He ignored my suggestion to dress down – he showed up in a $2,000 suit, a really great tie, and Ferragamo shoes.”

“That’s the way you dress.”

“True, but the jury doesn’t need to bond with me.”

“So you’re going to have to win on the facts?”

“Looks like.”

Taylor and I carried the food out to the terrace, Zack opened a chilled bottle of pinot grigio, and we dug in.

I watched as Taylor took her first bite. “Mmm,” she said. “This is good.”

“As good as Barry’s?”

She took another forkful and considered. “Close,” she said.

“I’m going to count that as four stars out of a possible five,” I said.

Zack turned to her. “So how did the kids at school react to the explosion at our house?”

She shrugged. “Fine. When I got there, everyone made a big deal of being sympathetic, and by second period they were all back to obsessing about what they were wearing to the All-College.”

Zack stopped, fork in midair. “One of life’s great lessons,” he said. “Everybody’s got their own shit. They don’t really give a shit about your shit.”

Taylor lowered her eyes, concentrating on her food, but her lips were twitching. She glanced at me, waiting to see if I was going to issue a language warning. I didn’t. “Your dad’s right,” I said. “People have their own lives. And our family
has more than enough to deal with. Ed and I went through the house today.”

The news I was about to deliver was harsh, and Taylor and Zack both knew it. Zack reached across the table and took our daughter’s hand.

“So how bad is it?” he asked.

“It’s bad,” I said. “Everything in the east half of the house is pretty well gone. The bedrooms are all right. The police wouldn’t let us look at the basement, but I think it’s safe to assume there’ll be structural damage there.”

“So what’s left?” Taylor asked, her voice small.

“Your mother’s paintings are still on loan to that retrospective, so they’re safe. And the Scott Plear and your abstract were in our bedroom, so they’re fine. Nothing in your bedroom was touched.”

“But the room where the pool was is gone?” she asked.

I nodded.

“So the fresco I painted on the walls is gone?”

“Yes.”

“And the self-portrait I gave Dad for Christmas?”

“It was in the family room.”

“And the family room is gone?” Taylor’s eyes brimmed with tears, but she set her mouth in a determined line and turned to Zack. “I’ll paint another one.”