The Early Investigations of Joanne Kilbourn (7 page)

“Pork chops something and chocolate mousse.”

“Wow.”

He smiled. “Right, and Angus and I rented a movie for you. Something with Robin Williams. The guy at 7-Eleven said it’s hilarious. And there were a bunch of phone calls for you but Angus took the messages so you’ll probably have to wait for people to call back. Anyway, here they are.” He handed me some slips of paper and grinned a little. “And that television guy – the one you decked yesterday – Rick Spenser?”

I shuddered.

“Right. Well, a delivery man came with some flowers he sent you.” He gave me the thumbs-up sign and closed the door behind him. He had not mentioned the word
murder
. It was a delicacy I was grateful for. I sat on the bed, took a sip of tea and looked through the messages Angus had taken.

There were two surprises: Eve Boychuk and Soren Eames had phoned. I called Eve first. She sounded composed, and asked me to go to the funeral with her. She didn’t, she said, know who else to ask. She and Roma Boychuk, Andy’s mother, hadn’t spoken in years. “And that,” she said wearily, “leaves only Carey and, of course, you, Jo.” She didn’t explain the “of course.” I said I would go with her. She said she’d get back to me.

Soren Eames, sounding tentative but friendly, said he just wanted to make sure I’d gotten home safely. I thanked him and told him that the next time he was in the city, I’d be pleased if he’d call me. I hung up, certain I would hear from him again. The lady whom I’d beaten out for the cab at the bus depot didn’t call, but I was two for three on my morning encounters. Things were definitely looking up.

There was a call from a detective named Millar Millard of the city police. Detective Millard was out of the office but he would be in touch with me, said a young woman named
Ironstar, who added that one winter she had taken a class in human justice my husband had taught at the university.

And there were phone calls from friends. Ali Sutherland, who had been my doctor and my friend when Ian died, had called to send love and condolences. And there were invitations to dinner from two of the people in this world I would under most circumstances have liked to have dinner with – Howard Dowhanuik and Dave Micklejohn. I turned them both down. They would have talked about Andy’s murder, and I couldn’t face it. That night, nothing could compare with the prospect of sitting in my cotton nightgown at our kitchen table, eating Mieka’s pork chops something and chocolate mousse, then curling up and watching a movie some guy at the 7-Eleven said was hilarious. Safe in my house, I could vanquish the word
murder
.

When I padded downstairs in my nightie and bare feet, I felt virtuous – all those phone calls answered – and I felt hungry. What Mieka was cooking smelled of ginger and garlic. As I entered the kitchen, she was putting a loaf of sourdough bread into the oven to warm, and Angus was chopping vegetables. When Mieka told me to fix myself a drink and check out the dining-room table, I kept walking.

The table was set with the knives and forks reversed – Angus again – but in the centre of the table was a crystal pitcher so exquisitely cut I knew it was Waterford. It was filled with gerbera daisies. Half were that vibrant pink we used to call American beauty, and the others were rosy orange. The late summer sunshine poured in the window, turning the facets of the crystal to fire. It was a centrepiece from a Van Gogh picnic. There was an envelope propped against my water glass. Inside, on hotel stationery, was a note from Rick Spenser: “On November 22, 1963, Aldous Huxley died. His death will always be merely a footnote to the Kennedy assassination. Thank you, my dear Mrs. Kilbourn,
for keeping me from becoming a footnote. I have never liked seeing my name in small print.” It was signed
“RS.”
I called the hotel and left a message thanking him.

All things considered, it was a happy evening. Mieka’s dinner was great, and after we ate I made myself a gin and tonic and plugged in the fan and we all sat and watched the movie. The guy at the 7-Eleven had been right. It was pretty funny. Angus fell asleep on the couch, so when the movie was over, I brought down a blanket and pillow for him, tucked him in, kissed the big kids and went up to bed.

The light from the little brass lamp on the bedside table made a warm pool in the darkness. Under the lamp, a stack of novels in bright dust jackets sat unread and inviting. The bed was turned down and the pillows were fluffed against the headboard. Peter again. Obviously today he was bucking for sainthood. He had my vote.

When I walked toward the bathroom to brush my teeth, I noticed a splash of material on the chair by the window – my dress from the picnic. I picked it up to throw in the laundry hamper. Under it was Andy’s blue leather speech portfolio. Printed in gold Gothic type on the cover were the words “Property of Every Ukrainian Mother’s Dream.” Dave Micklejohn and I had given it to Andy for Christmas, when he’d announced that he was running for the leadership.

When I opened the folder, I expected to see that last speech. What I saw was not my words triple spaced on the familiar buff paper, but a single sheet of dove-grey paper – expensive paper. A third of the way down the page, handwritten in elegant calligraphy, were eight lines of poetry:

At the top of the page, centred the way they would be on engraved notepaper, someone had drawn the letters
A
and
E
. But they weren’t separate; they were linked with little swirls and flowers the way they would be on a wedding invitation.

“His dark secret love/Does thy life destroy.” Those had been the last words Andy Boychuk had read before his death, the last image retained on his eye. The warm, familiar room suddenly seemed alien, violated. My hands went slack, and the portfolio slid off my knee to the floor.

That night I dreamed of roses the colour of dried blood and of gold Gothic letters that refused to arrange themselves into coherence. I awoke with my mouth dry and my heart pounding.

“Who killed you, Andy?” I whispered in the dark. “Who killed every Ukrainian mother’s dream?”

Inspector Millar Millard had done what he could to make his office human. The fluorescent lights overhead had been disconnected, and the room was lit by a reading lamp on his desk and an old standard lamp in the corner. Along one wall was a bookshelf with some interesting names on the book spines: Dostoevski, Galsworthy, Thomas Mann, C.P. Snow. On either side of the low round table by the window were two chairs, real chairs, overstuffed and comfortable looking. In the middle of the table – a surprisingly domestic touch – was a fat yellow ceramic teapot.

There was a folder on the table in front of one of the chairs; Inspector Millard motioned me to the other one.

“Would you care for tea, Mrs. Kilbourn? Or I could send out for coffee if you prefer.”

“Tea would be fine,” I said, sinking into the chair.

On the bottom bookshelf were a dozen or so coffee mugs, each with the orange and yellow sunrise logo of
Good Morning, Canada
. They were given as mementos to people who appeared on the show. As I looked across the table at the man pouring tea, I thought I must have watched him
earn all those mugs, and a dozen more besides. His face, weary and decent, had flickered across
TV
screens for twenty years. It was comforting to see him sitting across from me.

He was a tall, courtly man, white-haired and sunburned. His clothes were off the rack: lightweight trousers, not expensive but nice, and a white golf shirt. When he handed me the mug of tea, I noticed that the tips of two of his fingers were missing. The tea was good, and I said so.

“Earl Grey,” he said. “I change blends during the day but I like Earl Grey for mornings – a good, no-nonsense tea.”

“Yes,” I said, and we lapsed into an awkward silence.

“Well,” he said finally, picking up the folder, “it’s about this business, of course.” Across the file in blue marker was the name “Boychuk.” “I’ll need you to tell me about some things. Why don’t you just start at a point you feel is useful, and I’ll stop you if I need help following your line of thought. Would it irritate you if I smoked?”

“No, of course, not. I used to smoke myself.”

“Everybody’s smoking is in the past tense but mine,” he said gloomily, opening a fresh pack of Kools. “You deserve praise for quitting.”

“Thanks,” I said. “It’s been a while.” If the city police force trained its officers to do the good cop, bad cop procedure, then Millar Millard must have been the prototype for the good cop.

Two hours later I knew he could also be the prototype for the smart cop. I had described that last day hour by hour, minute by minute. I had begun with Dave Micklejohn picking up first me at my house then Andy at the apartment on College Avenue where he stayed when he was in the city, and I had gone through our stop at the Milky Way for ice cream, the time at the picnic, the people we saw, the things we ate and drank. Millar Millard had been gentle and encouraging. After about an hour he had made us a fresh pot of tea,
and brought out a box of Peek Freans biscuits, which he arranged carefully on a plate before offering them to me. I began to relax. We were friends, two intelligent people working out a problem together. At least that’s what I thought, and that’s why what happened came as such a shock.

I had found giving a narrative of that last day painful but bearable until I came to the moment when Andy walked across the stage to the podium. When I remembered how happy and certain he had been in those last minutes, I felt my throat closing. I had to look out the window to keep from breaking down as I told the story of the last minutes of Andy Boychuk’s life. When I finished, I turned from the window and looked into the face of my new friend Millar Millard. I guess I expected some sort of commendation. I had, after all, gotten a pat on the head for quitting smoking. This had been worse, but I’d managed to give him a thorough, controlled account of those last awful minutes on the stage. Praiseworthy.

But there was no praise.

Inspector Millar dragged deeply on his cigarette. He had changed. We had changed. I was no longer someone helping the police with their investigation. I had become something else. Millard’s blue eyes had lost their weary amiability, and his voice had lost its warmth. He leaned toward me.

“Just two more questions, Mrs. Kilbourn, but I want answers: How did you know there was poison in that water Andy Boychuk drank at the podium?”

I was thrown off base. I babbled a long and aimless story about being in Florida when my children were little and how one day on the beach my daughter had instinctively recoiled from a poisonous man-of-war even though it was as blue as a jewel. “It was as if Mieka just knew that thing was a killer,” I finished lamely. “When I bent over to give Andy
mouth-to-mouth, I knew the smell on his lips was deadly, and I knew I couldn’t let Rick Spenser drink from the glass Andy had drunk from. Call it atavistic, if you will …”

“Oh, I will, Mrs. Kilbourn,” he said dryly. “I will note in my report that you were obeying a primal response when you tackled Rick Spenser.” He stubbed out his cigarette, looked hard at me and said, “Shall we abandon this area for the moment and look at another puzzling aspect of your behaviour that day?” His eyes were the hostile grey of a March sky. “What was it that you took from the podium before the police arrived? There are, I should mention, a dozen witnesses, albeit reluctant ones, who will testify that they saw you remove something from the area in which the murder had been committed.”

“I believe they call it the scene of the crime,” I said, smiling.

“I believe they do,” he said, not smiling.

I took a deep breath, reached into my bag, pulled out Andy’s speech portfolio and handed it to Inspector Millard. “This,” I said, “is what I removed from the scene of the crime.”

It was his turn to be knocked off base. He read the words on the cover aloud: “ ‘Every Ukrainian Mother’s Dream.’ ” Mrs. Kilbourn, I’m at a loss here. Is this some kind of joke?”

“Yes,” I said, “that’s exactly what it is – or was. That’s Andy Boychuk’s speech portfolio. The inscription was a private joke.”

His eyes were glacial. “Private between whom and whom?”

“Between Andy and the people who worked for him. The portfolio was a gift to Andy from Dave Micklejohn and me last Christmas. One of the Ukrainian newspapers in the province had run a picture of Andy and used the Ukrainian mother’s dream thing as a caption.” I hesitated. “It seemed pretty funny at the time …”

He lit another Kool and rubbed the area between his eyes. “I’m sure it did. These little whimsies always look a bit tawdry when there’s been a murder.”

“You have more experience of that than I do, Inspector,” I said.

He looked at me wearily. “Mrs. Kilbourn, let’s cut the crap. Why did you take the portfolio from the stage that day? You’re a clever woman. You knew better than that.”

“I guess I wasn’t thinking clearly. If you want to dismiss me as hysterical or stupid, go ahead. But there was nothing devious in my taking the portfolio. I had given it to Andy. It contained the last speech I’d ever write for him. He was dead. At that moment I suppose I just thought I was taking something that was mine.”

“Mrs. Kilbourn, you amaze me.” He shook his head sadly. “Well, let’s have a look at the last speech.” He opened the portfolio. The poem was still in place. He read it without expression and when he was through, he looked up at me. “William Blake,” he said. “ ‘The Sick Rose.’ ”

“Yes, I know.”

“What’s it doing here?”

I was angry. I picked up my bag and stood. “I guess that’s for you to find out, Inspector. Thanks for the tea.” I started toward the door. I think I expected him to stop me. He didn’t.

But when I opened the door, he said very quietly, “Any time, Mrs. Kilbourn. And, Mrs. Kilbourn, I’m certain I don’t have to tell you this, but we’d appreciate it if you didn’t leave the city for a while.”