A Colder Kind of Death (7 page)

“But you hate Harold Town.”

Hilda raised an eyebrow. “Well, there was no need to tell my friend that.”

I laughed. “Let me know if you need a ride.”

“I will,” she said. “Now, you’d better get over to the head table. Howard likes people to be punctual.”

Manda and Craig Evanson were already in their places. Manda was wearing a blue Mexican wedding dress, scoop-necked
and loose fitting to accommodate the swell of her pregnancy. Her dark hair, parted in the middle, fell loose to her shoulders. She was very beautiful.

Sylvie stopped in front of Manda, took out her camera, and began checking the light with a gauge. As always, Sylvie seemed to have dressed with no thought for what other women might be wearing, and as always she seemed to have chosen just the right thing. Tonight, it was a pinstriped suit the colour of café au lait, and a creamy silk shirt. As she moved around the table, adjusting her camera, I noticed more than one woman in iridescent sequins taking note.

“I don’t usually walk around like the inquiring photographer,” Sylvie said, “but I thought Howard might like some pictures of his party.”

Manda smoothed the material of her dress over her stomach. “He’ll be thrilled. Having Sylvie O’Keefe take your party pictures is like having Pavarotti sing ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’ right to you.”

Sylvie smiled. “Thanks,” she said, “but Howard has it coming. He’s a good guy.” She knelt so that Manda Evanson was in her lens. “Stay exactly as you are, Manda. Don’t smile. Just be. If Frida Kahlo had ever painted a Madonna, she would have looked like you.”

Face glowing with love, Craig Evanson looked down at his wife. The happiest man in the world.

When Tess Malone came in, the temperature at the head table dipped ten degrees. We all knew she’d orchestrated the demonstration outside. She went straight to where Howard was sitting. That was like her: confront the problem, no matter how painful. She was wearing a satin dress in a pewter shade that made her tightly corsetted little body look more bullet-like than ever.

She sat in the empty chair beside him, lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and began. “I know how angry you must be,
Howard, but I won’t apologize. I like you and I respect you, but this dinner was a good chance for us. Never miss a chance. That’s what you taught me when we were in government. If the shoe was on the other foot, you wouldn’t have passed up this evening, and you know it.”

For a moment, he stared at her. Then he started to laugh. “You’re right,” he said. “I wouldn’t have passed up a chance like this. Anyway, for once, your God Squad doesn’t seem to have done any harm.”

Tess looked at him levelly. “In the spirit of the evening, I’ll ignore that.”

“Good,” Howard said. “Now let me get you an ashtray before you ignite the tablecloth.”

We all relaxed, and for a while it was a nice evening. The hip of beef was tender, and the wine was plentiful. Just as dessert was being served, Tess’s protesters began pounding their drums in a heartbeat rhythm, and she went out and told them they’d done a terrific job and they could call it a night.

By the time the last dish was cleared away, and I stood to announce that the speeches were starting, the room was warmed by a sense of community and shared purpose. The new premier’s remarks about Howard were witty and mercifully brief, and the other speakers followed his lead. Sanity all around.

And then Maureen Gault joined the party. The speeches had just finished, and there had been a spontaneous singing of “Auld Lang Syne.” People were getting up from their tables to visit or to head to the bar for drinks. Our table was breaking up too. The new premier and his wife had another function to attend, and they were already headed towards the doors that would take them out of the ballroom. Manda and Craig Evanson were standing, saying their goodbyes to Tess. Howard was talking to a group that had driven in from Stewart Valley. Jane O’Keefe was leaning across her brother-in-law,
saying something to her sister. I couldn’t hear her words, but she didn’t look as if she’d cooled off much. A waiter came with a note in Hilda’s bold hand: “I think it’s time to revisit Harold Town. Don’t wait up. H.” It seemed like a good time to do some visiting myself. I was standing, looking for familiar faces in the crowd, when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned and Maureen Gault was behind me. She was smiling.

“I thought I’d give you a chance to apologize,” she said.

“For what?” I said.

“For being rude when I came to your house.” She moved towards me. Close up, her perfume was overpowering. “Apologize, Joanne.”

“Are you crazy?” I said.

People at the tables closest to us fell silent, and my words rang out, bell clear.

Maureen Gault’s pale eyes seemed to grow even lighter. “You’ll be sorry you said that, Joanne,” she said. “I’m not crazy. But I’m powerful. I can make things happen. Just ask them,” she said, and her hand swept in a half-circle that included everyone at the head table.

She leaned towards me. “Ask them,” she hissed. “Ask your friends what Little Mo can do.” Her spittle sprayed my mouth.

I rubbed my lips with the back of my hand. I was furious. “Get out,” I said. “This is a private party. Nobody wants you here.”

She drew her hand back as if she was about to hit me. Then she seemed to change her mind. She looked thoughtfully at the head-table guests. “Tell Joanne I have every right to be here,” she said. Her eyes were so pale they were almost colourless. “I thought it was nice the way you sang when I came in. ‘Should old acquaintance be forgot,’ ” she laughed. “Nobody better forget me.”

It was a good exit line, but she couldn’t leave it alone. When she had walked the length of the dais, Maureen Gault turned towards us. “I haven’t forgotten any of you, you know.”

I could still feel her spittle on my lips. I took a step towards her. “I told you to leave us alone. You’re not the only one who can make things happen, Maureen. If you’re not out of here in thirty seconds, I’ll get somebody from hotel security to throw you out.”

She smiled, then left.

Howard’s group from Stewart Valley were wide-eyed. Life in the big city was every bit as exciting as it was cracked up to be. Craig tightened his grip on his wife’s shoulder. Sylvie looked impassively at the spot where Maureen had stood. Gary Stephens, who by all accounts should have been accustomed to strange women making public scenes, seemed thrown off base by Maureen Gault’s outburst. White-faced, he poured the heel of the wine into his glass and drained it in a gulp. Jane O’Keefe left the table. Tess Malone was lighting a cigarette with shaking hands. Only Manda Evanson was immune.

“That’s one flaky lady,” she said mildly.

We did our best to restore the mood. But after a few nervous jokes, it was apparent the party was over. I picked up my bag and headed for the door. I wanted to go home, have a hot shower, and fall apart in peace.

There was a lineup outside the cloakroom. Regina is a government town, and the next morning was a work day. By the time I’d waded through the crush and found my coat, I was hot and irritable. My temper wasn’t improved when, after I’d tied my belt, I noticed my scarf was missing. I tried to check the coat rack and the floor, but I kept getting jostled, and after I got an elbow in the eye, I gave up and went into the hall to wait till the crowd thinned. When, finally, I went back into the cloakroom, the scarf wasn’t there.

I decided to call it a night. I was tired and dispirited, and scarves were, after all, replaceable. I’d already started down the steps which lead to the side door when I remembered Greg’s shy delight as he’d handed me the scarf at my birthday party. I couldn’t leave without checking out all the possibilities. It was possible the scarf had fallen out when I’d taken my coat off in the bar. However, when I went back to the Saskatchewan Lounge, the scarf wasn’t at our table, and the discreet waiter said no one had turned it in.

I took the elevator upstairs to the dining room. The waiters were stripping the tables, stacking the chairs. The head table had already been dismantled. It was as if the party had never been. I remembered Maureen’s pale eyes and her brilliant mouth. Maybe my luck would change, and the whole evening would turn out to be a dream. I took the elevator down to the lobby. As I stepped out, I noticed the reservations clerk talking on the phone at the front desk. I went over to her and waited, but she ignored me. When I didn’t go away, she put her hand over the mouthpiece. “Is there a problem?” she asked.

“Has anyone turned in a silk scarf, sort of a swirling pattern on a dark green background?”

She made a cursory pass through the paper in front of her.

“Nothing about a scarf,” she said, and went back to her phone call.

I took a piece of paper from my purse, wrote my name and address on it, and shoved it across the desk towards her.

“Call me, please, if it turns up.”

“Right,” she said, and she waved me off.

I left through the side door. The snow had stopped, but it had been a substantial fall. Across Lorne Street, Blessed Sacrament, fresh with snow, glowed in the moonlight. The parking lot had pretty much cleared out. Only a few cars were left. The old Buick was still there, and as I walked
towards my car, I thought of Howard’s prolonged virginity and smiled. I stopped smiling when I saw the body.

She was lying on her back, close to the right rear wheel of the Buick. I thought at first that someone had run her down. Then I saw the scarf. Bright as a parrot. I had always loved the way the material draped itself in a swirl of colours over the shoulder of my coat. But tonight the scarf wasn’t tied right. It had been pulled so tight around Maureen Gault’s neck that her head angled oddly and her eyes bulged from her head.

I felt my knees go weak. Then I took a deep breath and stumbled back through the snow towards the hotel. When I saw the cruiser turning down Lorne Street, I shouted for it to stop. The officer who jumped out of the car seemed too young to be out this late, but he knew his job. He followed me across the parking lot, but when he saw the body, he grabbed me.

“Don’t go any further,” he said. “Leave the area alone till the crime scene people get here. I’ll call for backup.” But he didn’t start for his car immediately. Instead, he took a step towards the body, and looked down.

“Do you know her?” he asked.

“Her name was Maureen Gault,” I said. “Little Mo,” I added idiotically. The security lights glinted yellow in Maureen Gault’s unseeing eyes. The crimson mouth drawn over her own thin lips seemed like a wound in her milky skin.

“Do you know of anybody who’d want her dead?” he asked.

I stared down at Little Mo’s inert body and shivered. My voice seemed to come from somewhere far away. “Me,” I said. “I wanted her dead.”

Half an hour later, I was sitting in police headquarters on Osler Street studying the medicine wheel on the wall behind the desk of Inspector Alex Kequahtooway. A Cree elder had told me once that the medicine wheel is a mirror that helps a person see what cannot be seen with the eyes. “Travel the four directions of the circle,” she said. “Seek understanding in the four great ways.”

I stared hard at the markings on the medicine wheel. At that moment, I would have given a lot to see what could not be seen with the eyes, but all I saw was cowhide and beadwork. I knew the fault was with me. A seeker must be calm and receptive. I was scared to death.

Inspector Kequahtooway was from Standing Buffalo Reserve, about a hundred kilometres east of the city. I knew this because I knew his brother. Perry Kequahtooway had been the RCMP officer in charge of investigating a tragedy which had threatened my family. During the investigation, I had counted on Perry’s calm determination to discover the truth; afterwards, I had come to know his kindness, and we had become friends. But that night, in police headquarters, it
didn’t take Alex Kequahtooway long to let me know that my relationship with his brother didn’t cut any ice with him. When he led me through the litany of what I had done and whom I had been with that evening, his face was impassive.

As I talked, he made notes in a scribbler that looked like the kind my kids used in grade school. When I’d finished, he read his notes over unhurriedly. I stared at the medicine wheel, and tried to remember the four great ways to understanding: wisdom, illumination, innocence, and something else.

Finally, satisfied that the first part of the interrogation was in order, Inspector Alex Kequahtooway turned the pad to a fresh page and looked up at me.

“Just a few more questions, Mrs. Kilbourn. You seem tired.”

“I am tired,” I said.

“Then let’s get started. When was the last time you saw your scarf that night?”

“I left it with my coat.”

“In the downstairs cloakroom. There’s a coat check upstairs near the ballroom. Why didn’t you use it?”

“None of us did. I came in with five other people, and we all left our coats in the cloakroom on the main floor. You have to pay to check your coat upstairs.”

“Too bad you didn’t pay,” he said, and there was an edge to his voice. “Nobody can touch the coats upstairs without dealing with the people who work there, whereas your coat …”

“… was unguarded right out there where anyone could get at it.”

“Right,” he sighed. “Now the next question presents even more of a problem.” He looked at his notes. “Before you came in, I had a few moments to talk with Constable Andrechuk. He was the first officer on the scene after you discovered
Maureen Gault’s body. Constable Andrechuk tells me he pointed to the deceased and asked you, and I quote: ‘Do you know of anybody who’d want her dead?’ Is that an accurate quote, Mrs. Kilbourn?”

“Yes,” I said, “it is.”

Inspector Kequahtooway made a check mark in the margin beside the question. “Now, listen carefully, Mrs. Kilbourn. Constable Andrechuk says that, when he asked you that question, you answered, ‘Me. I wanted her dead.’ Is that accurate?”

“Yes,” I said, “it is.”

“Why did you want her dead, Mrs. Kilbourn?”

I was silent. Images of Little Mo flashed through my mind.