Verdict in Blood (20 page)

There were no messages on my voice mail; my e-mail was clear; my desk was empty. It wasn’t quite noon. I stuck my head into the Political Science office to tell Rosalie I was leaving. She was arranging rusty-gold marigolds in an old-fashioned glass milk bottle. She looked up expectantly.

“I love marigolds,” I said. “They always make me think
of the September when my older daughter started school. Every morning she’d take her safety scissors out to the garden and snip a bouquet. She always cut the stems too short. I often wondered what her teacher did with all those stubby little flowers.”

Rosalie laughed softly. “And marigolds last forever,” she said.

“One of their charms,” I said. “Anyway, there’s nothing I need to stick around here for, and I have a friend in the hospital, so I’m off.”

“Just a minute.” Rosalie took a handful of the flowers, folded a piece of waxed paper expertly over the stems and handed the bouquet to me. “For your friend,” she said.

As I walked along the hall towards Hilda’s room, I had my copy of
Anne of Green Gables
in my bag and Rosalie’s marigolds in my hand, prepared for anything. In the room where the young man was recovering from his motorcycle accident, Garth Brooks was singing “Ain’t Going Down (’Til the Sun Comes Up).” Earlier in the week, I had brought in a radio for Hilda, and there was music in her room too. It was Callas singing “In questa reggia” from
Turandot
. Garth and Maria seemed like a compelling duet to me, yet the nursing station was empty. When I saw Nathan Wolfe leaning over Hilda’s bed, I panicked, but as he turned to greet me, he was smiling. “Good news,” he said. “She’s coming out of it.”

I looked at Hilda. Much as I longed to, I couldn’t detect any sign of change. “Did she regain consciousness?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “But remember me telling you about the Glasgow Coma Scale?”

“Yes, but I was so scared, I couldn’t seem to take anything in.”

“Got time for a quick lesson now?”

“Of course.”

“Let’s go out to the desk.”

I followed Nathan to the nursing station. He picked up a pencil and a pad of paper. “Okay, this is how we monitor changes in the patient’s level of consciousness. We look at three aspects of behaviour; the first is –” he printed the words “Eyes Open.” “If the patient’s eyes open spontaneously, that’s a 4; if they open when you speak to them, that’s a 3; if they open to a pinprick, a 2; not at all is a 1.” As he spoke he wrote the numbers in a column opposite the responses. “The second is Motor Responses. If a patient can move what you ask them to move, that’s a 6; if they respond to localized pain, that’s a 5; if they withdraw, that’s a 4; abnormal flexion – that’s this,” he said, demonstrating – “is a 3; extends is a 2; and nothing is a 1. The third thing we look at is Verbal Response. If a patient’s conversation is oriented, they get a 5; if their conversation is confused, they get a 4; if they use inappropriate words, that’s a 3; incomprehensible sounds get a 2; and nothing gets a 1.” He added up the best responses in each category. “Highest possible score is 15; the lowest is 3. A score of 7 or less is generally accepted as coma. Miss McCourt’s been scoring pretty low, but today when I pricked her arm, she opened her eyes and withdrew her arm.”

I looked over Nathan’s shoulder at the column of figures. “So those responses score 2 and 4,” I said. “That’s a 6.”

“And,” said Nathan in the tones of an enthusiastic nursery teacher, “she made some incomprehensible sounds. So 8 in total. She’s moving up.”

I stared at the column of figures. “What can I do to keep her moving up?” I asked.

Nathan smiled. “The problem with these figures is that they make recovery look like a neat and orderly process, and it isn’t. A lot of what happens we can’t explain.”

“Then what should I do.”

He shrugged. “If you’re comfortable with it, just keep on doing what you’ve been doing.”

I handed Nathan the marigolds. “Thanks,” I said. I took
Anne of Green Gables
out of my bag and waved it. “If you need us, Hilda and I will be in Avonlea.”

I read until Matthew and Marilla decided to let Anne stay, at least provisionally. Every time I turned a page, I glanced over at Hilda, watching for a sign of response. She seemed more restless than she had been, but she did nothing that would have counted on Nathan’s Glasgow Coma Scale. When I finally closed the book, I was discouraged. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” I said. “Rest well.”

As I opened our front door, I realized how much I was looking forward to an afternoon alone. I took a package of pork chops out of the freezer, set them on a plate on the counter to thaw, then picked up the phone and checked my messages. Eric Fedoruk had called twice; so had Wayne J. Waters. Signe Rayner, announcing that she was spokesperson for her sisters, expressed her deepest concern. All of my callers left numbers where they could be reached and implored me to get back to them. I deleted the messages without writing down a single phone number. Hilda and I were simplifying our lives.

I decided to begin my simplification by logging some pool time. The sun was high as I walked through the leaves to the swimming pool. The water was warm, and I didn’t hesitate before I dove in and gave myself over to the mindless pleasure of swimming laps. If I’m lucky, I can lose myself in swimming, and that day I was lucky. When I finally noticed Keith standing by the edge of the pool, he was laughing.

“I was beginning to think I was going to have to jump in there to get your attention.”

“What are you doing in Regina?”

“I came down to see you. Is this a private pool party, or can anybody join?”

“Got your suit?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” he said. “Now that I’m out of politics, I’m turning over a new leaf. This morning I bought the first bathing suit I’ve owned in twenty-five years. And I brought it with me, because I heard the weather in Regina was unbelievable, and I thought you and I might find time to do this very thing.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Believe it,” he said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go in the house and jump into my new Speedo.”

“The Speedo I don’t believe.”

“And you’re wise not to. The only suits left on the clearance table were depressingly sombre and modest, but they
were
cheap.”

For half an hour, Keith and I swam laps, silently and companionably. Then we collapsed on the lounge chairs and soaked up the sun. For the first time in days, I felt my nerves unknot completely. It was a nice sensation. Keith was telling me some unrepeatable gossip about our ex-premier, and we were both roaring with laughter when I glanced over and saw Alex standing by the side of the house.

“I rang the doorbell,” he said. “I thought you might be back here.”

I jumped up and started towards him. “Alex, I’m so glad to see you. Come in and sit down.” My voice was all wrong – falsely hearty. “Keith just got here,” I finished weakly.

Alex looked over at Keith, then back at me. “Then I won’t intrude.”

Keith was on his feet. “Why don’t I go inside and give you two a chance to talk.”

Alex’s eyes never left my face. “Thanks,” he said, “but I just came by to ask about Hilda. Bob Hallam mentioned her
case today. I guess he assumed I knew about it. You should have said something, Jo.”

“You never gave me a chance,” I said.

For a beat, we gazed at each other in silence. I could see the anger in Alex’s eyes, but when he spoke, his voice was steady. “It’s pretty obvious you’re moving along with your life. I’ll let you get back to it.” He nodded in Keith’s direction, then disappeared through the side gate.

I didn’t go after him. I stood frozen, listening till I heard the car door shut and the motor roar. Finally, Keith came over and put his arm around my shoulder. “I’m not making a pass,” he said. “The sun’s gone in. You’ve got goose-bumps.”

I leaned into him. “I’m glad you’re here,” I said.

“So am I.”

He took my hand, and we walked into the house. As soon as we were inside, Keith took me in his arms and kissed me: a lover’s kiss, not a friend’s. It wouldn’t have ended there, except that just as his hand slid over my breast, the front door slammed. Taylor was home. Keith smoothed my hair and smiled. “Does anyone on earth have lousier timing than me?” he asked.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

He shrugged. “Well, be warned. I’m going to keep trying till I get the timing right.”

That night after dinner, Keith flew back to Saskatoon. Still shaken by the afternoon’s events, I grabbed my bathing suit off the clothesline, changed into it, and headed for the pool again. As I knifed through the quiet water, I tried to focus on my grandmother’s axiom for troubled times: forget the experience, remember the lesson. Lap after lap, I worked at bringing perspective to the day, but it was no use. Try as I might, I could neither forget nor remember. When I finally gave up and went to the house, I had found neither peace
nor insight. The best I could hope for was distraction. I changed into my sweats, opened a bottle of Great Western beer, picked up the folder of material Jill had brought, and started reading.

I began with the guest list of Justine’s last party. Jill had thoughtfully provided the rap sheets for a number of the merrymakers. The list of their offences against the Crown was impressive: break-and-enter, forgery, hit-and-run, counterfeiting, vehicular homicide, fraud, armed robbery, manslaughter, and assaults of every possible kind with every conceivable weapon.

Angus would have characterized the men and women among whom Justine Blackwell elected to spend the last hours of her life as a bad-ass group, but bad-ass or not, Justine had believed she owed them reparation. Much of the information Jill submitted was photocopied, but she had handwritten the notes from her phone calls and interviews, and the picture of Justine that emerged from these notes was of a woman prepared to use every resource she had to make amends.

According to Jill’s sources, Justine had supplied the down payment for the building on Rose Street that became Culhane House, and she was making the mortgage payments. She’d promised a substantial renovation of the building to make it suitable as a kind of residential halfway house; she had guaranteed that any contractor who did the work would have to use ex-prisoners as part of their labour force. There had been more personal philanthropies: she had signed herself on as a guarantor of loans; she had paid installments of tuition; she had written cheques to dentists and clothing stores and used-car rental agencies. But from Jill’s information, one thing was clear. Justine might have been atoning, but she was atoning with a tight hand on the purse-strings. Except for small gifts, all Justine’s bequests were
conditional. With just a few well-placed calls, Justine could have put an end to Operation Reparation.

Wayne J. Waters’ empire was a shaky one. And according to Jill’s notes, Wayne J. was not a man to handle stress or reversal of fortune equably. He had started out as a kid doing break-and-enter, moved up through the ranks to robbery and armed robbery, and finished as a generalist, a jack of all illicit trades. He prided himself on never becoming involved with drugs or prostitution, but those seemed to be the only lines he refused to cross. He was immensely strong and enormously glib. No one Jill had talked to could say with any certainty whether Culhane House was a genuine attempt at altruism or just another scam. On one point, all Jill’s sources were in agreement: despite his seeming conversion, Wayne J. Waters was a very dangerous man.

I was relieved to put his file aside and pick up Eric Fedoruk’s. There was nothing in it to make the pulse race. An illustrated magazine article chronicled his smooth transition from hockey player to successful lawyer. There was a nice photo of him with Justine, whom the caption characterized as his childhood neighbour and enduring mentor. From Jill’s notes, it appeared Eric Fedoruk was one of those lucky people who move from accomplishment to accomplishment. His two passions were the law and his Ducati Mostro, which Jill pointed out helpfully was a motorcycle. He had never married. “A possibility for me here,” Jill had written in her large looping hand. “I’ve always longed to hop on one of those Eurobrutes and ride off into the sunset at 160 kph.”

There wasn’t much in the photocopied material about Lucy Blackwell’s life that I didn’t already know, but Jill’s notes contained a surprise. After her father’s death, Lucy had attempted suicide. She had been hospitalized briefly, and when she was released, she headed for San Francisco. Within
months, she had a song on the charts and, apparently, she’d never looked back. Jill said her source was utterly reliable, but to my mind the story raised a number of questions, not the least of which was why Justine would allow a vulnerable sixteen-year-old to strike out on her own. It was puzzling, but when it came to Justine’s life, it seemed there were many puzzles. I tried to remember if there were any suicide references in Lucy’s famously autobiographical songs, but I came up blank. Like Wayne J. Waters, Lucy Blackwell had apparently decided there were areas where it was wise to draw the line.

There were other troubling revelations in Lucy’s file. For one thing, Jill’s source said that Lucy had been forced to finance
The Sorcerer’s Smile
herself. The movers and shakers in the music industry had made it known that they saw Lucy as yesterday’s singer, and that they had no interest in backing a
CD
boxed set that encapsulated her personal history in music. The rejection must have bruised Lucy’s ego, but her decision to go ahead with the project had hit her in the pocketbook.

During the heady years of the eighties, Lucy had built a home in Nova Scotia. Jill had included a photo spread from
InStyle
magazine on Lucy at home in the oceanfront hideaway she had designed herself. The house was fanciful, idiosyncratic, and, to my mind, beautiful. In the article, Lucy had been lyrical about what her home on the ocean meant to her, but last year she had sold it, a sacrifice to her determination that her musical legacy would be preserved. The final photograph in the article was a close-up of Lucy exultant as the waves crashed behind her on the beach. Her smile was dazzling, but as I closed the folder, I found myself wondering about the pain behind the smile.