Deadly Fall (8 page)

“Maybe you should, for awhile.”

“I'm not a baby or babe.” Leah stuck out her jaw.

“You could, at least, stop taking the back lane home at 3:00
AM
.”

“It's a short-cut,” Leah said.

Children's squeals emanated from the lane. Kids were playing street hockey, but this wasn't the safest neighborhood. More than once, Leah had found discarded needles in the lane. Leah and Jarrett liked their neighborhood's “edginess.” Paula would have thought the same when she was their age. Maybe she still did. Several friends, including Hayden, had questioned her decision to move to Ramsay, Calgary's former red-light district and now the location of Callie's murder.

Leah laid the paper on the dresser top, next to Jarrett's boxer shorts. “Skye invited me to a private service at her place tomorrow night. I think I'll go to that instead of the church service. Is Hayden going with you?”

“He can't get away from work.”

“What about Erin?”

“She has a class she can't miss.” That might be an excuse. Her younger daughter was sensitive about death. Erin had cried for days after Gary's father's funeral.

If Gary were in town, Paula would like his company at the service, even more than her daughters' or Hayden's. Gary had known Callie better than they had and had liked her a lot. With Gary not here, maybe it was better for her to go alone and sit by herself in the church, so she could totally focus.

Organ music wafted from the sanctuary. The church was about half full. An inverse pyramid of spectators tapered to loners seated by the aisles. The front pews below the pulpit stood empty, reserved for family members. Kenneth Unsworth's balding head bobbed above a group in front of the altar. He leaned forward to speak with Sam. A woman in a red dress wove between them. From Paula's position at the sanctuary entrance, the woman looked the image of Callie in her twenties and could only be Skye, her grown-up daughter.

The back rows were already claimed by those wanting an overview or distance. Paula took her place in the second-to-last pew, in front of two women about her age. For the moment, she had a clear view past the empty rows in front of her. The pulpit stood on a stage-like platform. Behind it, a pianist played a classical piece on an electric piano that mimicked the sound of an organ. A small choir sat in front of stained glass windows portraying Jesus with a group of children and a cross draped with flowers. It had been several years since Paula had been inside a church. Since high school, she had limited her attendance to the rituals: christenings, weddings, funerals. She looked at the memorial card she had been handed after signing the guest book. The front page featured Callie's newspaper portrait, with her name, Calandra (Callie) Lansing Moss, her dates, and the caption “In loving memory.” A lump formed in Paula's throat.

“Bev,” called one of the women behind her.

“Janice. It's been ages.” Bev towered above them in the aisle. She wore an enormous brimmed hat.

“You remember Wendy,” Janice said.

“Wendy Watson?” Bev said. “I didn't recognize you as a blonde.”

“I've also put on weight.” Wendy's high-pitched voice contrasted Bev's husky one. “Are you sitting with anyone? We can squeeze you in.”

The women shuffled to make space for their friend. Paula caught a whiff of powerful perfume.

“Isn't it tragic?” Wendy said in a stage whisper. “I'm in shock. I was saying to Janice that I can't stop thinking of Callie and us dropping the kids off at nursery school. That was twenty years ago.”

“Don't remind me of time,” Bev drawled.

“Remember how that first day Ryan clung to my skirts and cried?” Wendy said. “Skye grabbed his hand and marched him right in. All those kids are grown-ups, now. Look at Skye up there, at the front of the church. I wish I had her figure.”

“Did Skye marry or is Ravenshaw a stage name?” Janice asked.

“Who knows,” Bev said.

Skye took the name Ravenshaw from a high school boyfriend. At school, she had hated all the kids teasingly calling her “Ucksworth.”

“What do you make of Skye wearing red to her mother's funeral?” Wendy said.

“Skye's the blonde in the clingy red?” Bev said. “She always had to be the center of attention. Who's the girl beside her, the one dressed like a tart?”

Janice giggled. “Maybe an actress friend?”

The girl was Isabelle, Callie's niece, whose traditionally black dress ended at her upper thighs. She wore fishnet stockings and black boots. Bev's description was apt, if annoying.

Paula opened the card. The left inside page reprinted the newspaper death notice that offered minimal detail.
Survived by her sister Dorothy and her brother Tony.

“When I heard about the murder,” Wendy squeaked, “I figured, oh well, it's just a hooker or a homeless bum; nothing for us to worry about. I didn't recognize the name Moss. Janice phoned me and said it was Callie. I almost fell off my chair. I hadn't known she was divorced.”

“She came into my store last winter,” Janice said. “She told me she'd remarried, but didn't add more than that.”

“Do you mind if we sit here?” a man asked Paula.

She stood to make way for the elderly couple and considered moving across the aisle to get away from the women's chatter. A trio of youths grabbed the spot. She re-settled on her seat, wondering if the youths were Callie's children's friends. The women's conversation had shifted from Callie to themselves. The organ-like music segued to a folk-rock tune that sounded familiar. One of the women owned an interior design business. Another worked in a clothing boutique in Mount Royal Village. One had divorced and remarried. Someone had given up eggs due to high cholesterol. Wendy had a grandson.

“Ugh,” Bev said. “I still think of myself as thirty years old.”

“You look it,” Wendy said. “So did Callie in her newspaper picture. I wonder how old it was.”

“It was recent,” Janice said. “At the store, I'd swear she looked the same as she did in our kids' nursery school days.”

“The miracle of plastic surgery,” Bev laughed.

“I don't think Callie had work,” Janice said. “The store lighting is good and I see women our age every day. I can tell when someone's done it, Bev.”

It would be interesting to see the face beneath Bev's hat. The church was now about three-quarters full. There must be two hundred people here already. Were they all connected to the family or were many of them voyeurs? Paula hoped some were better friends of Callie than Janice, Wendy, and Bev.

“We Are Lost Together,” by Blue Rodeo. That was the name of the familiar song.

Kenneth, the ex-husband, took his place in the third row. The tall, thin gray-haired women flanking him must be his mother and sister. Anne and her husband were behind him. Sam remained in the aisle talking with his son. Both had the straight posture common to short men used to looking up at others. They were joined by an obese man, who patted Dimitri on the back and spoke animatedly, using elaborate hand flourishes.

Blue Rodeo merged into an operatic piece. Callie and Kenneth used to buy season's tickets to the opera. Sam couldn't stand opera, she had said.

Wendy's shrill voice jolted her. “Which one is Sam, the new husband?”

“He's the short one talking with Felix Schoen, the journalist,” Bev said.

“Cripes,” Wendy said. “Felix sure has packed on the pounds. That scruffy gray hair makes him look like a street person.”

Callie had mentioned Felix often, but, for some reason, Paula hadn't met him. He was a good friend of both Callie and Sam. They had lived with him while their Riverdale house was being gutted.

“I don't get out to the charity parties these days,” Janice said. “Is that how you know Sam?”

“I did the interiors for a building he designed,” Bev said. “We always work with the architect.”

“What's he like?”

“All architects are the same,” Bev said, “in love with their own importance.”

Callie had said something similar about Dimitri, the politician.

The memorial card's right inside page contained the order of service and the names of the pallbearers. Callie's brother, Tony, her son, Cameron, friend Felix, husbands, Kenneth and Sam, and Dimitri, Sam's son. Evidently, women weren't strong enough to wheel a casket down the aisle. Or would it be an urn? Would the casket or urn be brought in or was it hidden behind the people at the front?

The memorial card said the Reverend Ellen Lavigne was officiating at the service. There would be two Bible readings and some music. The memorial card's back page concluded with a Shakespeare poem.

This was going to be hard. Bev's babbling and perfume made Paula gag. A woman in ministerial robes entered from a side door, spoke to the gathering at the front of the church and stepped up to the pulpit. The crowd parted, revealing a trolley supporting a cherry wood box. Candles and flowers decked the altar behind it. The box was about a foot wide and eight inches high, Callie's urn.

The reverend waited for the buzz to subside. Callie's children took their seats in the front pew. The gray-haired couple settling beside them would be Dorothy and Tony, Callie's sister and brother, who must be roughly the ages of their parents when they died. Now, they were burying their baby sister. The redhead next to Tony said something to Dimitri, who moved to the aisle spot to make room for Isabelle and Sam.

Rows of heads bowed. A few pews ahead of her, Felix Schoen's large heaving shoulders suggested he was crying. The church was full. Paula looked back to see if anyone was standing. A man in the last row across the aisle nodded at her. She turned away, feeling guilty for having been caught, although the man was also ignoring the prayer. He was about thirty years old with a shaved head and beard stubble. She spun around. Detective Michael Vincelli smiled.

She hadn't recognized him in this different context. Did detectives normally attend the funeral of a murder victim whose case they were investigating? It made sense that they would. From the back pew, Vincelli could observe Callie's family, friends, and associates for suspicious behavior, such as her checking out the crowd rather than praying.

“I didn't know Callie long,” Reverend Lavigne said. “She joined our church a year ago and was a blessing to the choir. Once, while standing in this spot, I heard her clear soprano soaring above the rest. She added a richness that will be missed.”

On the platform, several choir heads nodded.

“Callie told me she had been raised in the church,” the reverend continued. “As she grew into adulthood, like many of us, she strayed and convinced herself the Lord had no meaning in her life. Marriage, children, work, friends, and other worthwhile activities consumed her time, but in the back of her mind a feeling nagged: this is not enough.

“When she rediscovered our Lord, Callie tried several congregations and chose ours for its music program. She took on the task of directing the children's choir whose presentation you will hear at the end of the service. Now, senior choir members who were able to attend today will grace us with a hymn.”

Paula had been stunned when Callie told her she had joined a United Church. “They're more open-minded than the others,” Callie had said. “Why any church at all?” Paula asked. Callie changed the subject. Perhaps the reverend's words explained it.

Reverend Lavigne was painting an image of a woman who delighted in life's simple pleasures, savoring the moment. She said Sam had talked about the joy Callie found in gardening. Callie had spent hours with his father discussing ways of producing better tomatoes.

From her brief meeting with Sam, Paula couldn't imagine him using the word “joy” in connection with gardening, if anything. She guessed the word was the reverend's interpretation of whatever he had said. No man Sam's father's age was sitting with the family. Callie had said the old man adored her. Was he ill and unable to attend?

The reverend shared more anecdotes from Callie's family. A holiday in the Yukon . . . Callie stayed up all night to watch the Northern Lights. Amusement park rides . . . Callie laughed and shrieked as much as the kids. The reverend asked them all to rise for a hymn.

“What a boring old dyke,” Bev said. Through the rousing chorus, she whispered to her friends, “I've got to split. This has dragged on longer than I expected. It's been great seeing you guys.”

“We'll have to do lunch,” Wendy said.

“I'll give you my card.” The hat brim nudged Paula's head. “Where the hell is it? Did I forget to move my card holder from my regular purse to this one? Shit. This has been one of those days. Oh, here it is.”

Choking from Bev's perfume, Paula turned around to tell her to shut up. Detective Vincelli was watching her.

Reverend Lavigne rested her arms on the pulpit. She expounded on grief . . . sudden and violent death that makes no sense. Paula gaze strayed to the urn on the altar. She squinted to read the altar inscription:
Do this in remembrance of me.

“Ta ta girls, I'm off,” Bev said.

Hadn't that bitch already left?

At the front of the church, candles illuminated the altar and urn. Paula wiped her eyes. She couldn't do anything for Callie now.

“Are you all right, dear?” a woman asked.

Blood pricked the back of Paula's hand. She must have bitten it while trying to block the tears. She rolled her shoulders in an effort to calm the shaking.

The woman passed her a fresh tissue packet. “Did you know her well?”

“It was more about me than her.”

“Isn't it always?”

Paula blew her nose. The pews were emptying into the aisles, front to back. Felix Schoen shuffled by, his eyes red. Hadn't he been listed as a pallbearer? The trolley and urn were long gone. Paula's row was coming up. Paula tried to stand so the couple beside her could pass.