The Gifted (23 page)

Our next stop was Pawsitively Purrfect to get food for Willie, Pantera, Bruce, Benny, and the feral cats that Taylor and I fed. Lena and I were exclaiming over birthstone charms for dogs’ collars when I heard Celeste Treadgold’s smoky contralto. “People are full of surprises, Joanne,” she said. “You never struck me as a woman who would buy her dog a bone-shaped birthstone charm.”

“We own a bouvier and a mastiff – both male,” I said. “I can’t see either of them sporting a bone-shaped birthstone charm. My granddaughter and I are just having a shopping day. Lena, this is Celeste Treadgold. Celeste, this our granddaughter Lena Kilbourn.”

“I’m pleased to meet you, Lena,” Celeste said. She touched the Day-Glo pink cast. “What happened to your arm?”

“I was skating and I tried a Salchow.”

Celeste grimaced. “Let that be a lesson to you. Forget physical activity. Take up smoking.”

Lena looked questioningly from Celeste to me. “That was a joke,” Celeste said.

Lena nodded gravely. “I thought it must be.”

There was a rack of dog mugs a few feet away. Celeste took Lena’s hand and steered her towards them.

I was on edge and Celeste’s move jarred me, but Lena was already happily inspecting a mug. “Mimi says we’re starting our Christmas shopping today,” she said. “Maybe I can find something for somebody.”

“I’ll bet you can,” Celeste said. “This store is chock-full of gifts with a very large WOW factor.”

When Celeste rejoined me, she picked up a birthstone charm. “Maybe I should buy a couple of these as welcome-home presents for the salukis. The cleaners are finished with the house, so I’m picking up Darius and Dalila from the kennel today.”

“Your father is going to move back in?”

“For the time being, and I’m moving back into my old room for a while, too,” Celeste said. “Life’s funny, isn’t it? After all these years, I finally have my father all to myself, but I don’t know how to treat him, and he doesn’t know how to treat me. We’re like solicitous strangers, always tiptoeing around each other, fearful of saying the wrong thing.” She gave herself a shake. “Anyway, moving back to the house seemed like the simplest solution, if only because of the dogs.” She fell silent. Clearly she had something on her mind that wasn’t easy to say. Finally, she cleared her throat and began. “Joanne, I can’t believe we just ran into each other. I’ve been trying to get up my nerve to call you.”

“Kismet,” I said. “An old friend of mine used to say, ‘Fate leads the willing and drags along the reluctant.’ ”

Celeste’s laugh was short and sardonic. “I’m certainly reluctant, but I had to do something. I heard an ugly rumour today. Apparently, some people are saying my father sent
the video of Lauren and Julian so he wouldn’t have to pay alimony.”

“That is ugly,” I said. “But I thought it was sent only to the R-H working team.”

“It was.” Celeste rubbed her temples. “Jo, I hate involving you yet again in the black hole of my life, but Zack needs to know that I was the one who sent out the video. It wasn’t premeditated. I went over to the house to borrow my father’s digital camera. There was no one there, so I looked around. I found a camera. I knew it wasn’t his because his had been a gift from me a couple of Christmases ago. I don’t think he’s ever used it. Anyway, I figured this one was probably Lauren’s. The memory card wasn’t empty, so I decided to see what might be on it.”

“And you found the video of Lauren and Julian.”

“I did, and I wish I hadn’t. I have my father’s temper. I get these blind rages. I wanted to punish Lauren for what she’d done to my father. And I needed to ease my own guilt for sending my father the text that started the whole disastrous chain of events. When I saw the video I thought I’d found a way to make it right.”

“But you hadn’t,” I said.

“No. Yet again I screwed up. I overheard Lauren telling my father once that my presence in the house just made everything worse.” Celeste regarded the dog charm in her hand pensively. “It turns out Lauren was right after all,” she said.

Lena came back carrying a mug with picture of a mastiff on it. “Do you think Granddad will like this for Christmas?”

“You know how much he loves Pantera,” I said. “This mug will be perfect.” I turned back to Celeste. “I’ll tell Zack about the camera, and the video. But you should tell your father yourself, Celeste.”

She took a step closer to me. “Joanne, you have to believe that I didn’t intend for any of this to happen. Things just
took on a life of their own.” Her azure eyes were troubled.

“I believe you,” I said. “But, Celeste, you’d better prepare yourself because I think the repercussions have just begun.”

When we got back to Halifax Street, Lena and I stopped in the alley beside our building to feed the feral cats. I pulled a bag of kibble onto the tailgate, carried the bag to a sheltered place near the abandoned furniture factory next door to us, slit open the bag with my pocketknife, and dumped the kibble onto the ground. I repeated the process three times.

Lena was fascinated. “Do you ever see the cats, Mimi?”

“No, but I know they’re there because by tomorrow morning all that food will be gone.”

“And then what will the cats do?”

“Wait for us to bring more kibbles,” I said.

After lunch, Lena decided to take a nap. I lay down beside her and drifted off. We awoke to see Zack in his chair beside us. “You two were both smiling in your sleep.”

I sat up. “We had a good morning, didn’t we, Lena?”

“Mimi and I got you Christmas presents.”

“That sounds promising,” Zack said. “My morning was less festive.”

“Have you eaten?” I asked.

“I had a sandwich at the office, but I wouldn’t mind a cup of tea. How about you, Lena?”

“Can you fix it my special way?

“Half milk and two teaspoons of sugar,” Zack said. “Consider it done.”

When we slid the rain forest puzzle out of the way to make room for the new puzzle, Lena pointed to the toucan’s beak. “Did you know the beak helps keep the toucan comfortable? It’s like a thermal window. When it’s too cold
outside, the beak keeps the heat inside the toucan and when it’s too hot, it lets the heat out.”

“Where did you learn that?” Zack asked.

“From Riel,” Lena said. Then she opened the new puzzle, dumped out the pieces, and began.

“We’re not needed here, Ms. Shreve,” Zack said. “Let’s take our tea into the living room.”

We settled into our new favourite place – me in one of the reading chairs by the window and Zack beside me in his wheelchair.

“I have news,” I said. “Lena and I ran into Celeste Treadgold today at Pawsitively Purrfect, and she had a confession to make. She was the one who sent the video of Lauren and Julian to everyone.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Zack said.

“Apparently, Celeste came upon it by accident—”

“So she decides to humiliate her stepmother and, incidentally, give her father yet another motive for murdering his wife.” Zack stirred his tea. “Boy, the shit just keeps piling up, doesn’t it?”

“Seemingly,” I said. “So where do you go from here?”

“Well, the cops are on it, of course, and we have private investigators looking into Lauren’s life – trying to figure out who hated, or loved, her enough to kill her. Vince and Julian are at the head of the line, but Celeste isn’t far behind.”

“Celeste is carrying a heavy burden of guilt,” I said. “Today she told me that she ‘didn’t intend for any of this to happen – that things just took on a life of their own.’ ”

Zack grimaced. “That sounds perilously close to a confession,” he said. “Maybe I should give her a little lawyerly advice.”

“Celeste said she was going to talk to Vince,” I said. “Zack, I’m tired of all this uncertainty, and suspicion. I would be so grateful if somebody flushed out the friend of justice.”

“Better yet would be if the friend of justice had a suitcase full of cash, a solid motive for wanting Lauren Treadgold dead, and no alibi,” Zack said. “If that happened, I’d tell Santa he could take my name off his list.”

Lena had just awakened from her nap when Mieka and Madeleine came by to take her for a Dilly Bar at the
DQ
. Not long after that, Taylor called to share her own immediate plans. She had an appointment with Chantelle at Head to Toe. She’d take a cab home from the salon, but Julian was picking her up for dinner at six, and she’d probably be a little late.

When I passed the message along to Zack, he rolled his eyes. “If I have to sit chatting with Julian for an hour, I’ll go bug-fuck nuts. Is it too early for a drink?”

“Yes, but you can make me one, too.”

Watching Zack do anything gave me pleasure. He was always completely focused on whatever he undertook. When he handed me my glass, he said, “Do we have anything planned for dinner?”

“Nothing,” I said. “I thought maybe we’d order in.”

“We haven’t gone out to eat for a while. We could go to a restaurant.”

“The same restaurant Julian and Taylor are going to?” I said.

Zack’s face was innocent. “Coincidences happen.”

“If we showed up at the restaurant where Taylor and Julian were having dinner, she’d never speak to either of us again. Zack, I’m no happier about this situation than you are, but if we start putting up barriers, we’ll make Julian irresistible to Taylor.”

“Forbidden fruit,” Zack said gloomily. He took a large sip of his martini. “So what do we do?”

“We continue to welcome Julian in our home. We watch
him like a hawk, and we hope for the best. Now why don’t I call Margot and ask her if she and Declan want to join us for Chinese tonight.”

“You win,” Zack said. “But let’s get extra almond shrimp. They’re Taylor’s favourite.”

“So we’re going to show her what she missed by not staying home with us?”

“No, we’re going to show her that we love her.”

Dinner with Margot and Declan was pleasant. Peking House never disappointed, and we somehow managed to keep the conversation light and lively.

Zack and I cleaned up and were in bed before eight-thirty. We were still curled up, half dozing, when there was soft knock on our bedroom door. It was Taylor. She came in and sat on the edge of our bed.

“How was your evening?” I said.

“Good,” she said. “We were planning to go LaBodega – that’s always fun – but Julian said he needed some place quiet to unwind, so we went to Table 10.”

“Lauren Treadgold’s death must be hitting him pretty hard,” I said carefully.

“It is,” Taylor said. “There’s so much going on inside Julian. Tonight he was talking about how there’s a finite amount of water on the earth and how every drop of water has been here forever. The water evaporates and falls to earth as rain or snow or sleet. It moves around, but the amount of water never changes. Julian says it’s the same with talent. There’s a finite amount of talent and it moves around, and I was lucky because the talent fell on me.”

“And Julian wasn’t lucky,” I said.

“He used to think he wasn’t,” Taylor said, “but now that he has me, Julian thinks his luck has changed.” She stood, bent to kiss us both goodnight, and started for the door.
I wanted to call her back, but her revelation about Julian had stunned me.

Zack reached under the covers for my hand. “Taylor, there’s a carton of almond prawns from Peking House in the refrigerator for you,” he said.

For a second or two, Taylor seemed frozen. “Is something wrong?” I said.

Taylor half turned. “Not with me,” she said. “I was just wondering what Julian’s life would have been like if he’d had someone who remembered he liked almond prawns.”

Zack waited till Taylor closed the door behind her. “This can’t go on, Jo.”

“I know,” I said. “I just don’t know how to make it end.”

CHAPTER
11

In its earliest days, the office of the Racette-Hunter project was housed in the same glass tower as Zack’s law firm. The optics were bad, and Norine began searching for a space that reflected what Racette-Hunter was about: access, opportunity, and equality. The place Norine found was ideal: a restaurant that had, by turns, been a greasy spoon, an Italian bistro, a barbecue joint, a deli, and a noodle house. After the noodle house folded, the owners of the building offered the space for rent, and Norine snapped it up.

For our purposes, it was ideal. It was in North Central, it had been retrofitted to meet the accessibility code for public places, and it was clean and spacious. The kitchen still functioned, and that meant there was always soup and bannock for hungry volunteers.

The morning after Taylor’s dinner with Julian at Table 10, I had an early morning meeting with Norine about a program called Public Allies that I thought might be a good fit for North Central. Zack had some items he wanted to
run by Norine, so the two of us were at the Racette-Hunter office by a little after eight.

There were already a half-dozen volunteers there. Norine led us to the one private place in the building: the kitchen. She offered us coffee and then reached into her briefcase, pulled out a bulky envelope, and handed it to Zack. “Someone left this in our mailbox during the night,” she said

Zack opened the envelope. It was filled with hundred-dollar bills, neatly bundled. Zack counted them. “I know what this is about,” he said.

Norine raised a nicely shaped eyebrow. “Really?”

Zack and Norine had never had secrets. Zack moved his chair closer. “Someone was shaking down Lauren Treadgold for $20,000,” he said quietly. “The blackmailer was supposed to meet Lauren the day she died. Until this moment, we weren’t certain whether the blackmailer actually showed up that day.”

“Why would the blackmailer drop the money off here,” Norine said.

“Guilt?” I said. “Maybe whoever blackmailed Lauren had second thoughts and decided to donate the money to a good cause.”

“Or maybe they just didn’t want to have all those crisp hundred-dollar bills in their possession if the police came calling,” Zack said. “Whatever the mystery donor’s motivation, that money is going to have to go to the cop shop for a while. I’m not crazy about Debbie learning about the friend-of-justice angle, but I can’t hold this back. That money is evidence in a murder case.”