Part 6 (1/2)

”They've got a window for the time of death. You found Maureen Gault's body at 11:15, and the woman who works in the hotel smoke shop remembers seeing Maureen just before 11:00. She was just closing the till when Maureen came in to buy a package of LifeSavers. She said they were for her son.”

For the first time since Maureen died, I felt a pang. ”I'd forgotten about him,” I said.

”You had a few things on your mind,” Howard said drily. ”You still do, Jo. The cops are still checking people's stories. Logically enough, I guess, they're starting with the head table. There are only two of us who haven't got even a sniff of an alibi. I'm one of them and you're the other.”

”We should have gotten together,” I said, ”told the cops that we spent the hour in Blessed Sacrament praying for the justice system.”

He didn't laugh. ”I wish we had. Gary's okay. He went over to Tess Malone's for a nightcap. Jane and Sylvie ended up at Tess's too.”

”Talk about strange bedfellows,” I said.

Howard shrugged. ”Apparently, Sylvie and Tess are tight as ticks. Have been for years. Anyway, the four of them were together until midnight. Craig and Manda went straight home. Their neighbour was out shovelling snow, and they talked to him at about 10:30. Around 11:00 Manda ordered pizza. It was delivered at 11:29. The pizza place they got it from is one of those 'if we're late, it's free' operations, so they keep pretty good records. Anyway there are some holes in Craig and Manda's story, but it's better than ...”

”What I have,” I said. ”Howard, I don't understand this. I saw a hundred people when I was looking for Hilda. Doesn't anybody remember seeing me?”

”Lots of people remember seeing you, but n.o.body is willing to swear it was between 11:00 and 11:15. Jo, that's only fifteen minutes. Most people at the dinner had had a couple of drinks by then and, you know how it is, time gets kind of fuzzy.” He looked as tired as I felt. ”Do you want me to hang around for a couple of days? My plane leaves in an hour, but I don't have to be on it. I can get somebody to cover my cla.s.ses.”

”I don't need a babysitter, Howard. I just need the police to find something. And they will. They have to. For one thing, there has to be a connection with Kevin Tarpley's murder, and I'm in the clear there.”

”No handgun with your initials on it at the crime scene?” Howard asked.

”No. And I wasn't anywhere near Prince Albert that day. I have witnesses, too. There was a Hallowe'en party at the art gallery. Taylor and I went to it after her lesson. There must have been thirty-five people there. After that, we picked up Angus and took him downtown to get new basketball shoes. I'll bet we went to six stores and I'm sure the sales people would remember us. Angus is a difficult customer. Howard, I could find fifty people to verify that I was in Regina Sat.u.r.day. That's probably a world record. Now come on, if we make tracks, I can get you to the airport and still get back for my next cla.s.s.”

As we drove along the expressway, it was like old times. We talked about politics and Howard's ongoing courts.h.i.+p of his ex-wife, Marty. Rea.s.suringly ordinary conversation, but when Howard turned to say goodbye to me at the airport, I lost my nerve, and Howard, who had known me for years, saw it happen.

He reached across and covered my hand with his. ”Jo, I think you're right about this thing resolving itself pretty quickly, but until it does, promise me you'll stay out of it. Whatever's going on here is ugly. This isn't a case for Nancy Drew. Go home. Enjoy your family. Teach your cla.s.ses. Be safe. Trust the cops.”

”I'll try,” I said.

He shook his head and opened the car door. ”Not good enough,” he said, ”but a start. I'll be in touch.”

As I drove off I could feel the tension in my body. All the brave words in the world couldn't change the reality. For the time being at least, I was the prime suspect. And Howard was right. Something really ugly was happening. The only thing to do was steer a prudent course and pray that police would work their magic.

I headed back to the university. Filled with resolve, I went down to the political science office to check my mail.

Rosalie Norman was there waiting for me. ”In the morning paper there was a picture of that woman who was murdered. I recognized her. She was in the hall outside your office the day you accused me of leaving your door open.” Her blackberry eyes were gleaming with excitement. ”What do you think I should do?”

I leaned across the desk and picked up her phone. ”I think you should tell the police, Rosalie. Here, I'll dial the number for you. Put a little excitement in that life of yours.”

The adrenalin was still pumping when I walked into cla.s.s. I ignored the whispers and the averted eyes, and the cla.s.s went well. ”Don't let the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds grind you down,” I muttered as I put the keys in the ignition and started home. As I drove past Gary and Sylvie's big grey clapboard house on Albert Street, I remembered the worm cake and, on impulse, I pulled up in front of their house.

Jess answered the door. He was wearing blue jeans, a Blue Jays T-s.h.i.+rt, and a fireman's hat. He looked past me expectantly.

”Where's Taylor?” he said.

”At our house, I guess. I haven't been home yet, but Miss McCourt's there. I just stopped by to ask your mum if I could get the recipe for your birthday cake.”

”Sure,” he said. ”She's out back in her darkroom. I'll go get her. You can come in.”

I stepped into the entrance hall. It was a handsome area. The hardwood floor gleamed, and the patchwork quilt draped over the carpenter's bench by the door was welcoming. But my eyes were drawn to the walls. They were lined with blowups of black and white photographs. When I moved closer, I saw that the subject in all of them was the same: Jess.

I had seen Sylvie's book, The Boy in the Lens's Eye, and I'd been moved by the way in which she had captured the vulnerability and the toughness of her son. But nothing in the book prepared me for the power of the originals. Jess, at four, an otherworldly child, swinging naked on a tree branch, his small body surrounded by a cloud of light. Jess at two, laughing as he is engulfed by a field of sunflowers. All the fugitive moments of Jess Stephens's childhood were rivetting, but one in which he seems to swagger as he holds a brace of dead gophers out to the person behind the camera was a knockout. I was leaning close to the photograph, marvelling at the contrast between the black stiff bodies of the animals and the soft radiance of little-boy flesh, when the real Jess came up behind me.

I felt as if he had caught me trespa.s.sing, but he was nonchalant. ”You can look at those anytime. Come in the living room, I've got tropical fish.”

We looked at the fish, then Jess drifted off the way my kids always did when they'd fulfilled what they considered their social duty. Alone in the room, I looked around. More prints, not Sylvie's. Two Robert Mapplethorpe prints of flowers, a Diane Arbus, some I didn't recognize. Over the mantle above the fireplace was a photograph of Ansel Adams. Handwritten in its corner was a quotation, ”Not everybody trusts paintings, but people believe photographs,” and the signature, ”Ansel Adams.”

I walked over to a bookcase looking for The Boy in the Lens's Eye. I wanted to see if the gopher picture was there. But the book I found was Sylvie's first book, Prairiegirl. It had come out ten years before, and its publication had dealt a serious blow to Gary's political career. Prairiegirl was a collection of photographs of small-town girls from the southeast of the province. The girls were very young, mostly prep.u.b.escent, and their parents, not versed in the aesthetics of Mapplethorpe and Sally Mann, had been outraged when, instead of freezing their daughter's innocence in time, Sylvie's photographs had explored their burgeoning s.e.xuality. I had just begun to look at the book when Sylvie came into the room.

Without a word, she strode over and took Prairiegirl from my hands. Her gesture was so rude that I was taken aback.

”Jess invited me in,” I said. ”He was a very good host till he lost interest. His social skills seem about on a level with my kids'.”

She didn't respond. She was wearing blue jeans and an oversized white s.h.i.+rt. Her face was scrubbed free of makeup and her blond hair was brushed back. She looked weary and hostile.

”Sylvie. I just came for a recipe. Taylor's birthday is next week and she wanted me to make the same cake you made for Jess ... He really did ask me in,” I added.

She was holding Prairiegirl tight against her chest as if, given the chance, I would rip it from her hands. Her fear didn't make sense. Then, like Paul on the road to Damascus, the scales fell from my eyes. Sylvie thought she had a murderer in her living room. There didn't seem much point in prolonging the agony.

I walked to the entranceway. Sylvie followed me, and as I sat on the carpenter's bench pulling on my boots, she watched in silence. I put on my coat and headed for the door. When I opened it, Sylvie said, ”I'll send Gary over with the recipe. I wouldn't want to spoil Taylor's birthday.”

I turned. Sylvie had positioned herself in the centre of the hall, and her stance was aggressive. Behind her, Jess peeked out from the living room. ”I wouldn't let you,” I said, and I closed the door behind me.

When I pulled up in front of our house, there was more good news. A van from Nationtv was parked in my driveway, and there was a young woman on my front lawn talking to Taylor while the camera whirred. This time I was the one who did the grabbing. I took my daughter's hand and turned to the young woman. ”Beat it,” I said. ”If I ever catch you bugging my kids again, I'll break your camera.”

She started to argue, but I was past listening. ”Count on it,” I said, and I was pleased to see that she backed away.

Hilda opened the door just as Taylor and I hit the front porch. She took in the situation as soon as she saw the Nationtv van.

”d.a.m.n them,” she said, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng with anger. ”I've been fending off media people on the telephone and here they were in the driveway.” She looked at me. ”Did they talk to ...”

I nodded.

”No ethical sense,” she said. ”Ruled by expediency and the imperative to exploit.”

When I picked up the telephone, my hands were shaking so badly I could barely dial Jill Osiowy's number. As the phone in her office rang, I could hear the call-waiting beep on my line. I looked out my front window. The red, white, and blue truck of another TV network was pulling up in front of my house.

Jill had to bear the brunt of my anger. ”Whose decision would it be to send a news team out here to ask a six-year-old child if her mother was a murderer?”

For a moment, Jill was silent. Then she said, ”It's news, Jo. I'm sorry. I know that's not the answer you want, but that's the answer there is. You're news.”

”And that makes my kids fair game,” I said.

”In some people's minds, yes,” she said.

On the notepad beside the telephone, Hilda had carefully written the telephone numbers of all the media people who had phoned. Most had called more than once, but Troy Smith-Windsor had gone for the gold and called five times. Suddenly I was so exhausted I couldn't move.

”How long will this go on, Jill?” I asked.

”Till they find someone else.”