Forever Dead (10 page)

“Oh damn! The cow!” He leapt into action. The tubes were trying to suck out the milk that was no longer there, and the cow was doing a bit of a jig. Ryan scooted around darting in to pull the tubes off, and I found I couldn't help laughing. Ryan emerged from the side of the cow looking sheepish.

“At least I made you laugh,” he said as he moved down to the next cow. “But I don't see it, Cordi. Maybe they mistook your lab for someone else's. Are any of your colleagues in biology or entomology doing any controversial stuff that environmentalists or animal rights activists might be offended by? Even bugs are getting their sympathy these days.”

I hesitated and ran my hand down the backside of the cow, who was moving about restlessly, her udder painfully distended as Ryan moved in with the tubes. He'd been late in starting the milking.

“Ryan, there's no reason for it that I can see. No animal rights activist would come hounding me when there are other, more photogenic critters to stalk.”

“Have you failed any student lately? Or what about Hilson?”

I shook my head, “No. I don't think he has the guts to take things that far. And I haven't failed anyone who'd be a likely candidate. No, there's simply no reason for it that I can see unless it has something to do with this Jake Diamond guy.”

Ryan looked bewildered, reached for some words, hesitated, reached for others, and finally said, “Diamond. That's our dead body, eh?”

“Yeah, turns out he was the guy causing all the trouble up there over the logging, a guy with a quick temper apparently.” I filled Ryan in on Diamond's biography, or what I knew of it, and then told him about the larvae and how only the specimens from Dumoine had been taken.

“So, in the space of a week we find a dead body, almost get killed, and then your troubles begin. The dead larvae from the canoe trip are stolen along with all your disks, some of which had data from the trip already entered.” He looked at me for confirmation. I nodded. “Also your hard drive is toast.”

“That's right,” I said, “and the only link that I can see is the larvae. They came from Diamond's body. So it must to be related to Diamond's death, my disks, the larvae. He seems to have made a few enemies, Ryan, especially among the loggers. There are a number of people out there who might be quite happy he is dead.” Ryan looked at me in astonishment.

“His death was an accident, Cordi,” he said, reading my mind and not liking what he saw.

“Was it?” I asked.

Ryan slammed the gearshift back down to second and braked as the grey Jeep ahead of him came to a sudden stop.

“How the hell can you go through this every day?” I looked up from reading the newspaper and eyeballed the snaking line of rush hour cars ahead of us on the Champlain Bridge. I thought things were actually moving along quite smoothly.

“You get used to it, even look forward to it.” I said. “I've learned to shut out the traffic, think about other things, plan my day. It's only when some jerk starts honking that I get rattled. I mean, what are you supposed to do? Ram all the cars off the bridge to let the sod by?”

“It's a thought,” said Ryan through gritted teeth.

“Yeah, right.” I said. “And where would that get you? I used to daydream about all sorts of ways to vent my frustration but it only made me angrier when the day-dream
was over and I realized nothing had changed. The same jerk was still trying to turn left in a ‘no turn' lane.”

Ryan glared at me as if it were my fault and revved the car in exasperation. He hated going into Ottawa and usually begged a ride with me when he had business in town, so that he would have some company. I would drop him off where he wanted to go — the film lab today — and he would meet me at my office after work.

“Hey, look at this! I rated another piece in the paper. The same guy that interviewed me last week and wrote that piece about my accidentally collecting the larvae. The reporter thought it was gross and would sell papers.” I thought it made me look like a fool, but I didn't know how to tell him it was off the record without looking worse. I mean, anyone who hadn't seen the body bits would wonder how I could mistake a human being for a wild animal. Ryan was preoccupied with the driving so I read the article to myself. This time he'd added all kinds of gossipy stuff including some of the items found in the tent — sleeping bag, camera, film canister, chocolate bar. Why would he do that?

Ryan honked the horn at some guy ahead of us who hadn't moved ahead fast enough. My voice trailed off as my thoughts took over and we drove the rest of the way in silence.

By the time Ryan had driven himself to the film lab, rush hour was over and I had no trouble zipping down the Queensway to work. I stopped by the computer store where I'd dropped off my computer the day after the theft to check on it, but the news was bad. They hadn't been able to salvage anything.

“What did you do to it? It stinks,” asked the totally unsympathetic store clerk, making me feel like a jerk. I paid the bill and took the computer back with me, feeling absolutely rotten-to-the-core stupid. Why could these
guys make me feel like that? Secretly I hoped the jerk was wrong and the computer would one day spew out all my data. Fat chance. By the time I pulled in to work the staff parking lot was full — some dingbat had parked in my spot under the oak and I had to cruise the streets looking for a place to park. I spiralled out further and further, feeling like a vulture caught in an updraft, when down was where it wanted to go. In the end I had to hoof it for ten minutes.

The zoology building was a utilitarian six-storey affair that paid no homage to any school of architecture, except box-like boredom. Even the brickwork was an anemic yellow. Maybe it had been cheaper than the rust red variety. At least it wasn't like the architectural monstrosity of the library across the road. That looked like something out of a sci-fi plot.

I crossed the small quadrangle of grass and weeds, with its token tree cordoned off from harm by a three-foot-high fence, and took the five flights of steps two at a time to my office. Half an hour late and so much to do. Damn. I rushed in through the tiny outer foyer of my office to find Martha drinking coffee with a blond bombshell. The comparison between the two was ludicrous, like an elephant and a gazelle. The bombshell rose swiftly to her feet and I turned to Martha for some explanation. As far as I knew I had no appointments this morning. And I didn't want any either. I didn't feel like talking to anyone.

“Lord love you, lady. Where have you been, Dr. O'Callaghan? I told her half an hour ago you'd be here in two minutes. This poor woman is swamped with my gut-rot coffee and is too polite to say no every time I fill up her cup.”

The bombshell made ineffective noises through her perfect teeth, as if she was embarrassed, but not really.
She was taller than I am and very, very thin. She wore burnt orange pants that fitted her like a glove and a silk blouse with a navy blazer. Very elegant. She made me feel positively inelegant in my faded navy cords and T-shirt with frogs hopping all over it. She wore her frizzled hair shoulder length and her watery pale blue eyes looked unfocused as she turned to me. Her round, full lips were shaped like the period beneath the exclamation mark of her straight nose. Her anorexic eyebrows were dyed jet black. She was very heavily made up, sporting every colour of the rainbow on her face, except the natural ones. Around her neck was a stunning silver pendant and embedded in it was a small curved tooth. I looked pointedly at Martha for an explanation or introduction or something.

“Oh yeah. Right. Sorry. This is Lianna Cole, Dr. O'Callaghan.” We shook hands and I was surprised at the strength of the handshake; I actually had to keep from grimacing as I matched her pressure and felt my ring jam into my hand. She hadn't looked the type. I had pegged her as the dishrag variety. Martha said nothing more — she either didn't know why the woman was here or was quite content to let the two of us work it out, hoping for an extra tad of gossip.

“What can I do for you?” I asked.

Lianna glanced over at Martha, who stood there looking at the two of us with a big expectant smile on her face. She looked positively predatory. Martha could sense gossip and scandal the way an ant can sense sugar.

“Come on into my office,” I said, and led the way past Martha, who gave me the hairy eyeball.

Lianna followed, picking her way through the pile of papers on the floor in the doorway. I cursed under my breath and pulled off a stack of file folders from the only guest chair in the room. My grimy lab coat lay sprawled
on the floor, and I was suddenly aware of how messy it must look, but I was determined not to apologize for the mess. I sat on my desk, wondering if my hair looked as wind-blown as it felt.

“Sorry about the mess.” I bit my lip. Damn. “What can I do for you?”

Lianna Cole rummaged in her purse and took out a cigarette, her surprisingly short, chubby fingers gripping it like a vise.

“Do you mind?” she said as she raised it to her round red lips. I was reminded of all the cigarette butts I saw in the parking lot, so many with red lipstick. I could see the grey choking smoke swirling through the trachea and bronchi to the tiny alveoli and capillaries. Positively revolting.

“Yeah, sorry, but I do mind, unless of course you want to take over my laundry bill and buy me an air ionizer to clean up after you've left.”

Whoa Cordi — you're way out of line here
, I thought, surprised at myself, as I watched the confusion spreading over her face. She wasn't used to hearing no to that particular question, and I wasn't used to saying it. I felt rotten, but even so, I didn't say anything to make it easier for her, and wondered why. I guess I was just in a foul mood.

Lianna tossed the cigarette into her purse, closed it, and, tight-lipped, said, “Maybe I've come to the wrong place. I'm not so sure you can help me.”

I bit my lip and refrained from saying, “Just because I don't like smoking?” and said instead, “Well, I won't know unless you tell me.” Why was this woman getting under my skin?

She stared at me for what seemed like an eternity, and then made up her mind.

“Jake Diamond was my husband.”

Oh boy. What an insensitive jerk. Too late, I now saw that the finely sculpted face looked puffy; the carefully applied makeup didn't quite hide the shadows under her eyes, and the blush, expertly applied, didn't hide the extreme pallor of the rest of her face. She was struggling for emotional control. Or was she?

I wildly searched for the right words, but couldn't find them, and said nothing instead, surprised again by my own belligerence. I'm not normally rude, and certainly not to strangers. Like everyone, I usually like to make a good first impression.

Lianna took a deep breath and said, “I kept my family name when we married. He used to kid me that I was the only woman he knew that didn't want to exchange Cole for a Diamond.” She laughed, a lonely, haunting sound that made me squirm. Cole for a Diamond. Jeeesus.

“I understand that you found the, um, that you found …” Her voice cracked and her hands nervously fiddled with her necklace. Hauling my eyes away from the necklace, I finally rallied to the niceties of human etiquette.

“Yes, that's right. We were on a canoe trip and found his camp. We didn't know who it was until later. I'm so sorry,” I added lamely.

Lianna held up her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Look. I'm not here to hear your rendition of how you found the body. I'm here because Jake accidentally took my diary with him and I sort of want it back.”

“Haven't the police contacted you about his belongings?” I asked.

“The police finally released everything to me. But there was no diary. I called them but they knew nothing about it — said they'd never seen a diary.”

“It must have been lost,” I said, trying to remember if I'd seen it. “The cops must have misplaced it.”

“I don't think so,” said Lianna. “I mean the cops, anyway. They did double-check for me. And why would they lie?”

“What's this got to do with me?”

“You were there, before the cops got to the scene. Was it there?”

My interest quickened. “What did it look like?”

“It was about the size of a deck of cards, hard black cover with bright orange tape on both sides, so that I wouldn't misplace it easily.”

I thought back to the inside of the tent, saw the empty canister, the sleeping bag where I had thought a body would rear up and bite me. I saw an image of a small black book with an orange slash poking out from under the tent, but the name on it had not been Lianna's. I hesitated, then said, “I think there was a small black book of some kind, but I didn't look at it.” It had been there and yet it wasn't when the cops arrived. What had happened to it? What was going on here?

“Look, Lianna, it was likely lost in the shuffle,” I added. She looked at me curiously and I ploughed ahead. “There was a lot of stuff the police took. They could easily have lost it, or more likely misplaced it. I'm sure it will turn up. Why is it so important?”

“You can ask that? I've just lost the man I spent fourteen wonderful years with and you ask me why I want my diary of some of those years?”

“I didn't mean to sound callous but …”
Jesus, I did mean to be callous
, I thought. And why this reluctance to tell her everything I knew? And why hadn't she asked me about their cat — presumably it was hers too? And it was still lost out there in the woods, as far as I knew. We'd forgotten about it in our haste to get back.

“Look, I don't see that there's anything I can do,” I
said, hoping my lies weren't as transparent to her as they were to me.

Liana stared at me, and then gathered up her bag. “It was there. You saw it. You said so. Maybe you took it.”