The Geranium Girls (10 page)

Beryl stood at her kitchen window on Sunday morning and wished that Dhani had stayed the night. She had been afraid to invite him, afraid he would think she was asking too much. So he went off in the wee hours, to his own home. And he went cheerfully. They hadn’t fought last night, not about anything.

The phone rang and she made the mistake of picking it up. It was Joe Paine.

“I’m sorry to bother you, Beryl. I…I know I was driving you a bit crazy with all of my calls back when…well, you know.”

“No, that’s okay, Joe. It’s good to hear from you,” Beryl said and then regretted it immediately. It was true. The new murder had caused her to think about Joe and she had wondered how he was getting along. But she didn’t want to encourage him, even a little bit.

“I was just wondering if you had heard anything about this new woman that they found in Whittier Park,” Joe said.

“Just what I read in the paper,” Beryl replied. “Why? Do you know anything else about it?”

“No.”

Joe didn’t have anything to say. He just wanted to talk about the murders in vague terms and Beryl couldn’t blame him. It was just that she didn’t want to be the one he was talking to, although she did realize she was the logical choice for him.

“Are you having trouble with this, Joe, with what you saw back in June?”

There was silence on the line for a few seconds and then he said, “Yeah. I guess I am.”

He sounded so meek and afraid that again, Beryl had trouble relating this man to the confident, well-liked veterinarian and author of
Doggie Dog Days
.

“Joe?”

“Yes?”

“I think it would probably be a good idea for you to seek some help, someone to talk to who isn’t me.”

Beryl opened her desk drawer and the face of the mushroom girl stared up at her.

“I don’t think I’m that great of a choice for you.” Her voice caught in her throat.

She turned the picture over and closed the drawer. “There’s probably even support groups for things like this.”

“Are you going to join one?” Joe asked.

“No.”

“Are you doing okay, then?”

“I think so, yeah.” Beryl didn’t know if this was true.

There was a long pause then and she walked into the living room. She was sticking her finger into flower pots to see if any of her plants needed water when something occurred to her.

“Joe?”

“Yeah?”

“Has anything odd happened around your house and yard since the mushroom girl, I mean, since Beatrice Fontaine?”

“What do you mean, Beryl?” Joe sounded even more uneasy than he had before.

“I don’t know, have you noticed anything odd around your place since June, that made you think maybe someone had been hanging about?”

“Like what kind of thing? Give me an example.”

“Vague stuff, but things you would notice.”

Beryl didn’t want to give him an example. She already regretted bringing it up. She didn’t want to talk about the lobelia or the beautiful white cat who was rubbing up against her ankles right now. If anything had happened at Joe’s place like what she had tried to describe, he would know what she was talking about. Unless he was totally thick and she didn’t think he was. Just frightened and horribly unappealing.

After she got off the phone Beryl decided to ask Stan if he had been to the vet lately and if he had, if Joe Paine had seemed his usual self.

She wondered for a moment if Joe was the person who had violated her yard and cat. His renowned way with animals would have made it possible for him to approach Jude and attach a collar around her neck.

So often, though, she had heard about people who commit heinous crimes starting out on animals. And Joe couldn’t be one of those guys — he loved animals.

Not that deadheading lobelia could be considered heinous. It’s just that she couldn’t stop connecting it in her mind to the two dead women.

And anyway, the person who attached the collar to Jude could very easily have forced himself upon her. Jude was easy.

Beryl lay down on the couch and her sturdy little cat jumped up on her chest and settled in.

“If only you could talk,” Beryl said as she gently rubbed Jude’s ears. “I wonder what you’d have to tell me.”

“Hello. We’ve never actually been introduced, but I see you all the time. My name is Beryl Kyte.”

She held out her hand and Frank took it. They stood over the yellow beans at St. Leon Gardens.

He smiled. A weary smile, one that couldn’t rid his forehead of deeply etched worry lines. “Hi, Beryl. Yeah, I guess it is about time we spoke. I’m Frank Foote.”

“Yes. Hi, Frank. Someone at your house must really like beans.”

One bag was full and he was working on another.

He laughed. “Yeah. It seems to be one of the few things we can all agree on — yellow beans with butter and salt and pepper.”

“Mmm,” Beryl said. “My mouth’s watering just thinking about it.”

She added more beans to her own bag.

Frank offered her a ride home, which was what she had been hoping for. She had bought more vegetables than she could comfortably carry. And there was the matter of the new dead woman.

As they stood in line to pay for their vegetables, Beryl saw her young neighbour, Russell, and his father over by the ears of corn.

“I’ll be in the play area!” Russell called up to his dad and began to make his way over to a cordoned-off section of sand and play structures.

“What?” Russell’s dad asked.

“I’ll be over here in the play area!” Russell shouted, a little impatient.

“Yes, all right, son, I won’t be long.” The dad seemed a little surprised by Russell’s decisive words and behaviour.

“Hi, Russell!” Beryl called out and waved.

His face lit up. “Hi, Beryl!” he yelled and slid down the slide.

Beryl waved at the dad too. She had never met him, just seen him around, as she had Frank.

“I saw in the paper that there was another body found,” she said, as she and Frank settled into his car. She fastened her seat belt, pretending it was second nature to her. It felt a little bit exciting, knowing a cop this way.

“Yes.” Frank pulled out onto St. Mary’s Road, drove a couple of blocks to Lyndale, where he turned left, and then cruised slowly down the drive toward Beryl’s place.

He looked at her. “How are you doing, Beryl? I mean, as regards that business in St. Vital Park. It must’ve shaken you up some, to have found her, I mean.”

“You recognize me from that day, then? I wasn’t sure if you did.”

“From that day, from the miserable evening when I belted Menno Maersk, from seeing you walking around the neighbourhood. I see you all the time.”

Frank turned down her street. “See, I even know where you live.”

“This would be creeping me out,” Beryl said, “if I didn’t also know where you live and how many children you have and your dog’s name.”

Frank laughed. “This neighbourhood is a bit like a small town, isn’t it?”

“Would you be able to tell me what it is about the new person they found that makes her case similar to Beatrice Fontaine’s?” Beryl asked.

“She’s tall and slim.”

“Yeah, they said that in the paper. Anything else?”

“They were both killed where they were found and we think they were both killed in broad daylight.”

“How do you know that? The second part, I mean, that they were killed in the daytime?”

“We don’t. We just think it.”

“Why do you think it?”

Frank stopped the car behind Beryl’s house and put it in neutral.

“I shouldn’t be talking to you about this.”

Beryl stared straight ahead. “I can’t stop thinking about the dirt in Beatrice’s mouth. About the mushrooms that grew there.”

Frank put the car in park.

Beryl undid her seat belt and turned to face him. “Did the new dead person have dirt in her mouth too?”

She stared at Frank’s quiet profile. “Were there mushrooms?”

“No.”

“No what?”

“No she didn’t and no there weren’t.” Frank turned off the ignition and turned to face Beryl.

“I can’t be talking to you about this. I’m so sorry you’re having a hard time. No one should have to see something like that. We have something called the VSU downtown, the Victim Services Unit. Why don’t I give you their phone number? Someone from the unit would be happy to talk to you about all of this stuff. It’s what they’re there for.”

It was an old car Frank was driving, Beryl noticed, old enough that the front seat was all one, the kind where you could slide over and sit next to the driver and he could put his arm around you. And you could rest your head in his lap while he drove. And feel him get hard against your ear. You could touch him through his jeans and unzip him and take him into your mouth. He would have to pull over to prevent killing you both.

“I like your car, Frank.”

Beryl knew she was blushing, but there was no way in the world he could know why. If he noticed at all, he could think she was having a stroke or something.

“Thanks.” He smiled. “But you’re not going to flatter any information out of me.” He scribbled a phone number and the initials VSU on a small slip of paper and handed it to Beryl.

“May I smoke in your car?” she asked.

“No! Are you crazy? My kids would kill me. They’d think it was me and I’d never be able to convince them otherwise. I smoked for a few months about a year ago and it really freaked them. They figured for sure I was going to die on account of it. So I quit, but they keep a real eagle eye out for any slip-ups.”

“Why did you start smoking?” Beryl asked. “Was it a relapse? Did you used to smoke?”

“No. It was my first time. I guess I just wanted to do something different. Don’t you ever just want to do something different?”

“Yeah. All the time. Smoking just seems like kind of a stupid thing to have picked.”

Frank chuckled. “Yeah. I’m not very imaginative. But, hey, you’re a fine one to talk.”

“Yeah, I guess. Would you like to sit on my deck so I can smoke?” Beryl asked.

She opened beers for them and they drank to the lives of the two people who had died.

Frank swallowed half his beer in one go.

“There was dirt,” he said, “but not in her mouth this time.”

Beryl’s beer suddenly tasted like dirty coins in her mouth, like she was sucking on old pennies. “Where, then?”

“I don’t want to tell you, Beryl.”

“Please.”

Frank stood up and walked around on the deck. Then he came back and sat down.

“It was her eyes. Someone had gouged out her eyes and filled the sockets with dirt.”

“Oh my God,” Beryl said. She put her drink down and pressed the palms of her hands against her own eyes and stayed that way for a long time.

“Who found her?” she asked finally and Frank didn’t answer. He looked past her, into the branches of the willow tree. Many of its leaves were dying; something was eating away at it, aphids, most likely. But Frank wasn’t seeing that; he was miles away.

“Was there anything growing there, Frank, in her eyes?” Beryl pressed on. “Had she been there long enough?”

“What? God! Why does that matter? Why is it of interest to you?”

“I don’t know. It just is,” Beryl said. “I’m sorry.”

She started to cry. Her shoulders shook and her mouth opened in a soft rectangle and tears streamed down her face. She didn’t wail, just gasped for breath from time to time. She wasn’t sure she was ever going to be able to stop.

Frank crouched by her chair and his knees cracked. He took both of her hands in his and offered her his handkerchief.

Beryl blew her nose.

“I’m sorry,” they both said at once and Beryl’s chest heaved.

“God, I’m so sorry, Frank. I don’t usually cry. Really.”

“Crying’s okay,” he said.

“Thanks.” She hiccuped. “And I’m sorry about my terrible questions.”

Frank stood up again and stepped down the wide stairs into the yard. He peered at the deck’s underside.

“This is very fine workmanship,” he said. “Who built it?”

Beryl ignored his question. “Frank, do they have any idea who killed those people?”

He came back up and sat down across from Beryl in one of her green chairs.

“They know a few things,” he said, “like that he’s left-handed and what sort of tool he used to do the gouging, but they don’t have a clue who he is. They figure he used one of those little arrow-shaped devices that people dig around in their house-plants with. But they haven’t found it. There’s some talk of getting someone in from the RCMP to do a profile of a person they figure would do something like this.”

“Will that do any good?” Beryl wiped her eyes and stuffed Frank’s handkerchief in her pocket.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t really think that kind of thing helps us much. They’ll describe a wack job whose Uncle Cletus tortured him since babyhood and who probably has the outward appearance of a regular guy living a normal life.

“Then we’ll catch him,” he went on. “But it’ll be by our regular-type methods. And it’ll turn out that he fits the profile and so what?”

Frank stood up. “I’ve got to get home,” he said. “There are three hungry kids there waiting for their yellow beans.”

Beryl had heard that Frank and his wife had separated for a while and she wondered now if they were still apart.

She wanted to tell him about the way a stranger had entered her yard and tended to her flowers when she wasn’t home. She was reminded of it by his talk of house plants and arrow-shaped devices. It hung over her like a black veil and she was beginning to feel as though it may not be too silly to mention.

“Thanks for the ride.” She followed him to his car.

When he was settled behind the wheel she stuck her head in the passenger window.

“Was there anything, Frank? Growing in her eyes?” Beryl wondered why she couldn’t shut up about it. She hadn’t even known she was going to say it. She wanted to rip out her own tongue and throw it in the river.

Frank sighed. “Jesus.”

He looked at her and then stared straight ahead down the lane.

Russell and his father pulled into their driveway two doors down, on the other side of Clive’s place. Beryl wondered if maybe she should ask Russell’s dad if he had observed anything weird going on around Clive’s yard, or hers.

“I’ll give you a hand,” Russell announced and took one of the bags from his dad.

“Thanks, Russ. You’re quite a help.”

“Hi, Beryl!” Russell hollered.

“Hello, Russell!” she shouted back and tried to smile.

A soft breeze stirred the leaves in the Kruck-Boulbrias’ Manitoba maple.

“The beginnings of Chinese elms were growing there where her eyes were supposed to be,” Frank said. “I shouldn’t be telling you this and you’re going to wish I hadn’t.”

He fired up the Dodge.

Beryl knew all about Chinese elm trees. They were the main weed growing in her garden. Clive had a Chinese elm in his yard and the seeds took over in early summer. Those and maple seeds; they were everywhere. Beryl wondered if she would ever be able to weed her garden again without seeing a terrible picture in her head. She’d see it forever; she would never be finished with it.

And she knew that Frank was right; already, she wished he hadn’t told her.

As he drove off, she looked after him. He didn’t return her wave, even though she was sure he was watching her in his rear-view mirror. Beryl shoved her hands deep into her pockets, where she found Frank’s balled-up handkerchief. She didn’t want him to dislike her; but it was too late. She had the feeling that at the very least, she creeped him out.

She had planned to work around the yard today but changed her mind without realizing it. She was in her house with the doors closed against the fine summer afternoon before she stopped to think about what she was going to do next. The day got away on her.

Covered in her eiderdown quilt and her two cats, who liked her no matter what, she napped on the couch. In spite of the heat, she felt chilled to the bone.

When Beryl awoke she realized she had forgotten to ask Frank how the women had died, if they had both been killed by the same method, and a million other questions. Not that he would have answered them. She sighed. The questions didn’t seem so important now. More details weren’t what she needed.

Should she have mentioned that Beatrice was a customer of Hermione’s? Would Frank think that was important? There was a lot to keep track of. She doubted she’d make a good police detective.

Frank hadn’t mentioned the photograph she had taken from Sergeant Christie’s bulletin board. Maybe the sarge hadn’t ratted her out, although that seemed hard to imagine.

If I had a party, Beryl thought, I could invite Frank and his wife if he still has one, and the man who built my deck, so Frank and he could talk about the deck and how fine it is.

A late afternoon sunbeam lay across the three of them there on the couch and Beryl felt guilty for sleeping away part of Sunday.

“I don’t think I’ll be having a party any time soon,” she said to her cats as she gently moved out from under them.

She got up and warily opened the back door. There was no immediate evidence of anything dreadful happening outside. Maybe she could convince Clive to have his Chinese elm chopped down. He likely didn’t even know he had one. She could chop it down herself when he was out of town. He probably wouldn’t notice.