Aloha, Candy Hearts (20 page)

“We’re just talking,” I said. “I’ve gotta get some work done, so good night.”

Mom gave me a hug and kiss good night. Joanne buried herself deeper under her covers.

I returned to my room, sipping the drink Mom had made for me. The Coke had gone flat and tasted sickly sweet. I wouldn’t drink it.

Settling back on my bed, journal in hand, I thought about what Joanne had revealed about my father. Even though married, he still couldn’t commit to one partner. Was it true, or was she spouting the imaginings of an eleven-year-old girl who didn’t get DD6AA2AB8

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enough attention from her daddy? I’d probably never know.

I opened Simon Durhuaghe’s journal and hoped I could wash it all away by focussing on what was inside it. I needn’t have worried. The journal quickly absorbed my attention, like plush white carpet sucks up red wine.

Durhuaghe was highly regarded for good reason. Even in his own personal journals, where he could rightfully have held himself to a lower literary standard, he wrote in a polished and compelling style. Words flew from his pen in full bloom. The man knew how to make even the simplest anecdote into a great tale.

His descriptions of people, places, and things were rich and full of life. Even more important, the content of the period covered by the journal was nothing short of sensationally dramatic. Within a few pages, I had a few guesses about who just might be driven to kill to get their hands on this notebook.

“Raw what?”

I shot Kirsch a “you big dummy” look as I laid out the light sushi lunch I’d picked up from Charlie’s Seafood on the way back into Saskatoon. After Mom’s meat extravaganza meals (breakfast was a doozy—who knew pork chops and pancakes went together?), I needed something that came from the sea.

I’d called the cop to join me for lunch at my place. It took some convincing of course, but the allure of getting in on my discovery at The Roxy was the tipping point in his decision. Sure, we’d had some laughs at the Irish pub the other night, but based on the tone of his voice when he heard mine at the other end of the phone line, I was thinking that would be a one-time thing. It was like we’d had a one-nighter and he was bashful to face me again, just in case I was expecting more. Straight guys can be such dolts.

“Just eat it,” I said, pouring water and hot sake before settling down next to him at the umbrella-shaded bistro table.

We were in one of the private nooks in my backyard, the one that affords the most shade on a sweltering hot day like this one was. The umbrella, angled to block the sun’s harshest rays, was a periwinkle blue. The result bathed our dining area in a lovely cool DD6AA2AB8

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blush of colour. Barbra and Brutus, who’d somehow over the years formed an inappropriate attachment to the big cop, were curled up near his feet. I think they were also a little put out because I’d left them alone again so soon after returning from Hawaii, so they were playing favourites. They’d get over it by tomorrow.

“It’s kinda nice back here,” Kirsch commented as he took in the landscaping and watched two black-headed grosbeaks cooling off in a nearby bird bath. “Treena would love this.”

I was about to say I’d have them over for a barbecue or something, but that might have sent the guy over the edge. That was what friends would do. And I certainly didn’t want him thinking me untoward in my intentions for our relationship. So I stayed mum while I munched on a California roll.

“Let’s hear it, Quant. I don’t got all day to sit around eating fish food in wonderland.”

That’s more like it.

“The treasure was a journal,” I told him. “The private diary of Simon Durhuaghe. Simon Durhuaghe is a writer who…”

“I know who Durhuaghe is, Quant. I just finished his latest book.”

Oh. Now that was a surprise.

“So what’s he say in this diary?” Kirsch frowned as he attempt-ed to use chopsticks on a piece of spicy tuna roll. “Is there fish in this one?”

I nodded.

“Anything important?” He frowned as one chopstick clattered to the tabletop.

“You might say that.” I was tired of seeing him struggle. The poor guy was going to starve. “Just use the fork I brought for you.”

He glared at me. He picked up the fork and used it to point at an unagi. “Is there fish in this one?”

I nodded. He tossed down his fork in a huff.

“Apparently Durhuaghe had an affair.”

The cop eyed up another piece of sushi. “Is there f…oh, to hell with it.” Kirsch grabbed a Spider roll and tossed it into his mouth.

He closed his eyes and scrunched up his face while he chewed.

“Huh,” was all he said after a quick swallow. “When?”

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“Thirty years ago.”

Kirsch gave me a deadpan look. “Ah jeez. Big deal. So he had an affair thirty years ago. That ain’t enough to get someone killed today.”

I shrugged. I was inclined to agree. “Maybe, maybe not.”

“I suppose the wife might not know about it. But still.” He picked up the little bowl of pickled ginger I’d set out, sniffed it, assessed it as inedible, and set it back on the table. “Do we know who the affair was with?”

“Some girl named Sherry Klingskill.”

“Oh yeah.”

“There’s more.”

“Whazzat?”

“The girl, Sherry, was only eighteen at the time.”

“Uh-huh.” He sounded bored.

“And she was engaged to another man.”

Kirsch sat up a little straighter. “Now that sounds a little more promising. So both Durhuaghe and the girl were married, or about to be. He would have been, what, in his forties? She’s only a kid, about to get hitched to some fresh-faced college boy. Durhuaghe seduces her. It’s a bit slimy, I suppose, but enough of a reason for murder? I dunno, Quant. I think it’s a stretch, especially thirty years after the affair is over.” He hesitated, then asked, “It’s over, right?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know.”

“What about the husband, do we know who he is?”

“No. Durhuaghe never mentions him by name. For that matter, he rarely used her name either. I only found it out because of the letters. From the girl to Durhuaghe. She signed each one, ‘Love, Sherry Klingskill’.”

“Kind of formal, wouldn’t you say? It feels more like correspondence between two people who don’t know each other very well, or a young person writing to an older person. Are you sure they were having an affair? Maybe she was just an adoring fan.”

“Wait until you read the letters. And the journal. Those two were having sex, no doubt about it. She was in love with him, I think. But I don’t think he felt the same. In the journal Durhuaghe DD6AA2AB8

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mostly refers to Sherry as ‘WSG’ and her fiancé as ‘ESG’.”

“Very espionage-ish.” Kirsch dipped a finger in the green blob of wasabi I’d squirted on his plate and winced when he tasted it.

“What the hell?”

“It’s like Japanese horseradish,” I explained.

“Jee-suz.” He pushed the plate away. “The acronyms, do you know what they stand for?”

Fortunately, Durhuaghe, always the meticulous journaller, had spelled them out. “Sherry, WSG, was the ‘west side girl’ marrying ESG, an ‘east side guy’.”

Kirsch caught on quickly to the references to the oft hotly disputed socio-economic discrepancies between the older, less-afflu-ent west side of Saskatoon with its crumbling neighbourhoods and higher crime rate, and the newer, more prosperous east side with its ritzy suburbs and big box retail outlet malls. “So the girl from the wrong side of the tracks landed herself a fancy boyfriend with a trust fund.”

“Sounds like it.”

“I still don’t get how this leads to a corpse at the Saskatoon airport.”

“Neither do I, but it certainly gives us some interesting new clues and suspects.”

Kirsch gave me one of those looks that keep me from adding him to my Christmas card list. “Us? There is no us, Quant. You are going to turn the notebook over to me, and that’s the end of us. Got it?”

I feigned alarm. “I thought we were working on this together?”

“Kind of like how you and I worked together to figure out the last clue? Kind of like how we found this diary together?”

I knew my lone wolf actions would nip me in the ass.

I’d already made a copy of everything I’d found in the urn, so I could afford to be gracious and agreeable. “Of course.” I handed over the journal.

Kirsch stood up from his chair. “I gotta go. I need to get me some real lunch on the way back downtown. Thanks for the raw food and hot green goop, Quant.”

“No problem. I knew you’d enjoy it.”

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“Are you staying here at your house again? I thought you were living somewhere else until this got figured out. Or have you decided the stuff with the white truck and the break-in were coincidences after all?”

“Nope. But I’m done being run out of my own home and office,” I told him as I followed him down the side of the house to the front where his car was parked on the street. “So I’ve sent a message.” I pointed to the front door of my house.

Kirsch stopped and stared in amazement. He let out a low whistle.

I’d posted a sign. In big letters I’d written: I FOUND IT. I HID

IT. NOT HERE.

“There’s another just like it on the front door of PWC, too.

Whoever was after me was only doing it because they knew I had the map. They either had to get the map away from me, or watch me until I led them to the treasure. Now that I’ve found it, and hidden it again, there’s nothing left for them to get from me.”

“Unless they decide to torture you until you tell them where it is,” the cop responded darkly.

Good point. I shrugged.

“You dumb ass. That’s what you want, isn’t it? You’re trying to drive them into the open with you as bait.”

I grinned. “The treacherous life of a PI.”

“Yeah,” Kirsch said. “Treacherous and short.”

That afternoon I made good on my promise to help finish the new Ash House deck. Jared, at some point in his life having obtained the how-to-build-a-deck skill, was in charge. Fortunately for me, Ethan was busy elsewhere on the property. Less fortunately, his new boyfriend Damien was not. He was on our work crew, along with two carpentry-loving lesbians Jared had recruited. It was a big job, and we needed everybody we could find to get it done.

Rails had already been cut and fit and support beams placed by Jared and the girls, but there was plenty of hammering things together that needed to be done to complete the structure. The wedding was now only two-and-a-half days away.

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So for several hours I sportingly sweated and swore and swigged Gatorade. I also tried to perfect a hate-on for Damien, but I couldn’t. It turned out he was a pretty decent guy, and handy with a hammer. My plans to “accidentally” bury him alive under the deck were ultimately dispensed with.

By the end of the day, we had a pretty fine looking deck, and I was utterly exhausted. I turned down an invitation for beers and headed for my car and a long shower at home. It was only as I was leaving that I saw Ethan again. He was on the far side of the yard, attaching a latch to a gate. He gave me a hasty wave in the failing sunlight, then quickly turned away. Up until that moment, I’d thought I was the one avoiding him. I was thrown, and a little hurt, to realize he’d been avoiding me too.

Barely in the back door, I heard the insistent ring of the front doorbell. Unless it was someone delivering a tub of Cherry Garcia ice cream, I was not looking forward to seeing whoever was on the other side of the door. Barbra and Brutus accompanied me to check it out. They too were hoping for ice cream.

“See, I knew he’d be home,” Alberta said over her shoulder.

Beverly was halfway down the front path, either coming or going, I couldn’t tell.

“What a surprise,” I said with little passion. I like my PWC co-tenants well enough, but I was not in the mood for company.

Alberta, resplendent in a puffy, off-white skirt that looked like a giant piece of popcorn, a black ruffled blouse that must have once belonged to an accordion player, and a barbershop quartet hat, stepped past me into the foyer. “Hello doggies! I brought you something!” she announced with enough enthusiasm to give a sideshow barker a run for his money. She distributed biscuits to my equally enthusiastic canines.

“I’m sorry about this, Russell,” Beverly said as she approached the front door. “I told her we should wait for tomorrow. It’s so late.

It’s just that we’ve been at the office until now, getting ourselves all worked up over this. We decided we had to talk to you. It won’t take long. I promise.”

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“Of course, come in,” I said, surprised by the stress I heard in the psychologist’s normally mellifluous voice. “You’ll have to excuse me though. I was helping with the Ash House deck and I’m all dirty and sweaty.”

“Mmm mmm, I like that!” this from Alberta who’d taken herself into the kitchen.

The rest of us followed. While we got ourselves settled around the kitchen island, Alberta snooped in the refrigerator. After some consideration of the options, she pulled out a pitcher of milk and a strawberry and rhubarb pie Mom had sent back with me.

“Russell, it’s this Errall thing,” Alberta said as she searched for a knife to slice the pie. “We have to make her see reason and change her mind about turning PWC into a women’s dress shop. Of all things, how she came up with that hare-brained scheme, I’ll never know. I mean, she dresses like a mortician!” This from the woman wearing popcorn.