The Further Investigations of Joanne Kilbourn (53 page)

When I turned the Volvo onto the parkway, I was deep in the puzzle of Val Massey’s connection with Kellee’s death. I didn’t see the city bus until it was almost upon me. I hit the brake, and the bus sped on. As it passed me, I saw Tom Kelsoe’s picture on its side panel. He was wearing his stressed-leather jacket, his black hair was tousled, and his eyes burned with integrity. Under the photo, in block letters, was the word
“KELSOE!”
Then, in smaller letters, “Saturdays at 6:00, only on Nationtv.” There were no pictures of Glayne Axtell or Senator Sam Spiegel. Just of Tom. He’d moved quickly. As I pulled up in front of our house, I knew it was time that I moved quickly, too.

When I walked into the living room, Taylor was kneeling at the coffee table drawing and Angus and Leah were sitting on the rug, drinking tea and playing Monopoly. Angus was in the middle of his usual Monopoly cash-flow problem, and he waved at me absently. “There’s a message from Constable somebody-or-other, but it’s nothing to worry about. You’re just supposed to give her a call. Her number’s on your desk.”

Marissa Desjardin sounded weary. “There are no surprises in the pathology report,” she said. “Death due to a combination of acute alcohol poisoning and exposure. In other words, Kellee Savage drank enough to shut down her major systems, and the weather did the rest.”

I thought of the wicked storm we’d had on the night of March 17. It made sense and yet … “Constable Desjardin, if Kellee was that drunk, how did she get so far?”

“That occurred to us too, and we’re looking into it. The most likely explanation is that once Kellee hit the highway, somebody picked her up and gave her a lift. I’ll bet whoever picked her up regretted it. They’d probably have to fumigate their car. Even after two weeks in the open air, her clothes smelled like a brewery.”

Something about what she said nagged at me. “You mean Kellee’s clothes smelled of beer?”

“They were soaked in it. There was an empty beer bottle beside her when they found her, and a full bottle in her book bag. Do you have any other questions?”

“No,” I said. “Thanks. That’s all I needed to know.”

As soon as I hung up, I realized why Marissa Desjardin’s reference to the smell on Kellee’s clothes had nagged at me. When Linda Van Sickle described Kellee’s drinking that night, she said she’d been struck by the fact that Kellee had been drinking Scotch. The beer-soaked clothes were another puzzle piece that just didn’t fit. I was more anxious than ever to talk to Val Massey.

It was close to 8:30 when I finally got through to Herman Masluk, and he was ready for me. It seemed that during his time at the hospital, Herman had figured out that the blame for everything that had gone wrong with his son could be laid on the doorstep of the university, and that night the closest he could get to the university was me.

Between the accusations and the invective, a few facts emerged. Sometime during the previous night, Val had tried to commit suicide. Herman Masluk had found his son parked in an old garage they sometimes used for storing vehicles. The door to the garage had been closed, and the motor of Val’s Honda Civic had been running. Val had attached a length of hose to the exhaust and run it through the window on the passenger side into the car’s interior. Mr. Masluk had been out looking for his son all night. It was just good luck that he noticed that the door to the garage hadn’t been closed properly.

The ferocity of Herman Masluk’s anger rocked me; so did the depth of his love for Val. It was apparent from what he said that he felt he’d been engaged in a battle for Val’s soul. The university and all it stood for was anathema to this man who had worked for a lifetime to give his son a profitable business. Val’s suicide attempt had terrified his father, but it had been proof that he was right, that nothing but trouble came from those alien buildings on the plain.

As he talked about Val, I found myself warming to Herman Masluk, and when it seemed his tirade had run its course, I told him about my daughter, Mieka, and the struggle we’d had when she decided to quit university. He listened intently, and soon the two of us moved into a discussion of that age-old topic: the struggle between a parent’s experience and a child’s hope. I told him that when I felt I was floundering with our kids, I’d often found my bearings by remembering C.P. Snow’s line that the love between a parent and a child is
the only love that must grow towards separation. He was silent for a moment, then he asked me to write out what I’d just said and bring it along with me to the hospital when I visited Val. Before he said goodbye, Herman Masluk told me that Val had never known his own mother, and that maybe what his son needed was a lady’s perspective. I told him I’d do my best.

After I hung up, I dialled Ed Mariani’s number. I knew Ed would want to know about Val; more selfishly, I welcomed any excuse that would allow me to get my relationship with him back on solid ground. There was no answer at Ed and Barry’s, but I left a message on the machine, thanking them both for the paella dish and telling Ed I’d be in touch.

By the time I got to Taylor’s room to tuck her in, she’d fallen asleep. In the crook of her right arm was the Marc Chagall book; in the crook of her left arm was Benny. When I reached down to move the book, he shot me a look filled with reproach.

“I’ve learned to live with your displeasure, Benny,” I whispered, and I turned out the light and went downstairs. I made myself a pot of tea and put Wynton Marsalis’s recording of Haydn’s Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra in E-flat Major on the
CD
player. I had plans to make, and I needed an infusion of clarity. As they did surprisingly often, Haydn and Marsalis did their stuff, and by the time I went to bed, I had the next day pretty well mapped out. The last thing I did before I turned out the light was drop Tom Kelsoe’s book,
Getting Even
, into my bag.

If I had believed in omens, I would have found plenty to reassure me in the weather on Saturday morning. The sky was blue, the sun was bright, and I could feel the possibilities of birdsong and wildflowers in the air. Even the house on Dahl Street looked less grim.

As it had been on Tuesday, the front door was propped open with a brick, but this time when I pounded on the inside door, a girl about Taylor’s age opened it and let me in. Flushed with good luck, I ran upstairs and knocked on the door to number 3. A good-looking native kid with a brushcut answered, and as he gave me the once-over, I was able to look past his shoulder and get a glimpse of life in apartment 3 on a Saturday morning. The television was blaring cartoons, and a boy, who judging from his looks was the older brother of the boy who had answered the door, was sitting on the couch. Beside him was the woman I had frightened so badly when I’d come in unannounced on Tuesday. Today, she had a pink ribbon tying back her long dark hair, and, as I watched, the boy reached up and smoothed it with a gesture of such tenderness that I felt my throat catch.

Across the room was the blonde who’d thrown me out. Today she was in blue jeans, a denim jacket, and her Nancy Sinatra boots. She was wholly engrossed in the television. Apparently, she’d been expecting a delivery, because when I came in, she gestured towards the door without looking up. “My purse is on the table, Darrel,” she said. “Give the kid a nice tip.”

“It’s somebody else,” Darrel said. As soon as she heard his words, the blonde woman’s head swivelled towards me. She might have looked like a superannuated superstar Barbie, but she moved like the wind. Within seconds, she was so close to me that our noses were almost touching. “Teacher,” she said in a voice heavy with exasperation. “This is Saturday. No school today. Go home.”

I stood my ground. “I want you to listen to something,” I said. “If you decide you don’t want to hear what I’m saying, stop me. I’ll leave and, I promise you, I won’t bother you again.”

Without waiting for her answer, I pulled
Getting Even
out of my purse and started to read the story of Karen Keewatin and her sons. I didn’t get far before the blonde reached out and took the book from me.

“Let’s go out in the hall,” she said. “My name’s Bernice Jacobs, and you and I got things to talk about.”

Half an hour later, I was back on the sidewalk outside the apartment on Dahl Street. I was edgy but exhilarated; Bernice Jacobs had not only confirmed my theory about what had happened to Kellee Savage, she’d come up with some theories of her own.

When I saw the little girl who’d let me into the building throwing a ball against the side wall of the apartment, I called out and thanked her. What I had learned from Bernice Jacobs was terrible, but knowledge is a sturdier weapon than ignorance, and I was grateful I didn’t have to go into the battle ahead unarmed.

I was halfway down the block when I heard the kitten’s thin mewing. I almost kept walking. Taylor was the cat person in our family, and I had enough on my plate. But the image of the kerosene-soaked animal I’d seen the first time I’d come to Dahl Street was a powerful spur. I turned and retraced my steps.

The little tortoise-shell had crawled in between two garbage cans in the alley beside the apartment building where Bernice lived. When I moved one of the cans to get a closer look, the kitten struggled to get away. It didn’t get very far. It was dragging its right front leg and, as I watched, it collapsed from the effort. I went back to my car and got the blanket we kept in the trunk in case we got stuck in a blizzard. After I’d wrapped the cat up, I went back to the building on Dahl Street. The little girl was still throwing her
ball against the side wall. I could hear her voice, singsonging through the same ball chant I’d used forty years earlier: “Ordinary, moving, laughing, talking, one hand, the other hand, one foot, the other foot.” When she dropped the ball just before “clap in the front,” I made my move. I pulled the blanket back so she could see the kitten’s face.

“Do you know who this belongs to?” I asked.

She glanced at it without interest. “It don’t belong to nobody.”

“Are you sure?”

She sighed heavily. “It lives on the street,” she said, and she turned away and threw her ball against the wall. “Ordinary, moving …,” she began. I covered the cat again and headed for the Volvo. It was 10:30; our vet stayed open till noon on Saturday mornings.

Dr. Roy Crawford had been our vet for more than twenty-five years. He was a gentle, unflappable man, but he winced when he looked at the cat I’d brought in.

“Can you do anything?” I asked.

He looked at me hard. “It depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether this animal has a home to go to when I’m finished. That leg’s going to need surgery. There’s no point operating on this animal if it’s going to be euthanized in a couple of weeks. Your decision, Mrs. K.”

“It’ll have a home,” I said.

He raised an eyebrow. “With you?”

“Where else?” I said. “Incidentally, is it a male or a female?”

Roy Crawford leaned over and checked out the cat’s equipment. “Male,” he said. Then he smiled. “There’s going to be hell to pay when Benny has to abdicate the throne.”

“Benny won’t abdicate,” I said. “He believes he’s there by divine right. But he is going to have to learn to share the crown.”

By the time I’d signed the papers at Roy’s, it was past 11:00. Herman Masluk had said that since the only two names on Val’s visitors’ list were his and mine, I could go to the hospital whenever it suited me. Eleven o’clock seemed as good a time as any.

I parked in the lot beside the General, made my way past the inevitable cluster of patients and practitioners huddled around the doorway smoking, and headed for the elevators. When I stepped out on the fifth floor, I was facing a desk and a nurse who looked like a defensive lineman. He had a lineman’s professional warmth, too, but when I’d finally satisfied him that my name was on his list, he looked almost cordial. “Can’t be too careful,” he growled.

“You’re telling me,” I said, and I walked down the hall towards room 517.

It surprised me that Val was in his bed. At first, I thought he must be sleeping, but when I called his name, he turned. Then, reminding me of just how young twenty-one really is, he dived under the pillow.

I pulled a chair up and sat by the side of the bed. “We have to talk, Val,” I said, “but I can wait till you’re ready.”

Waiting for Val to decide when to face the inevitable gave me far more time than I needed to check out his room. It was small and relentlessly functional; the only non-institutional touch was a soothing landscape of a pastel boat in which no one would ever sit, drifting serenely on a pastel lake which no ripple would ever disturb. Prozac art.

I’d just begun to wonder if I’d erred in letting Val take the initiative when he sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and faced me. He was wearing a blue-striped
hospital gown that seemed designed to strip the wearer of dignity, but Val managed to give even that shapeless garment a certain style.

“It’s my fault she’s dead,” he said, and there was an edge of hysteria in his voice that frightened me. “I didn’t mean for any of it to happen, but she’s still dead, isn’t she?” His face crumpled, and he buried it in his hands.

I reached out and touched his shoulder. “Yes,” I said, “Kellee’s dead. But, Val, if you can tell me what really happened between you and her, I think we can get at the truth.”

“And the truth will set me free,” he said bitterly.

“No,” I said, “you’ll never be free of this. But the truth might help you put what you did into perspective. Start at the beginning.”

“You know the beginning,” he said. “She was telling lies about …”

“About Tom Kelsoe,” I said.

Val sighed with relief. “I’m so glad he finally decided to talk to somebody about it. Tom always puts other people first. Even when Kellee was trying to destroy him, he protected her. The night he called and told me that she was accusing him of sexual harassment, I said he should go to Professor Gallagher. But you know Tom. All he thinks about is his students. He said that Professor Gallagher would have to expel Kellee, and he didn’t want that.” Val’s voice was filled with the fervour of the acolyte. “But Tom said that for Kellee’s own good she had to learn that a journalist’s reputation for truth must be beyond reproach.”