Verdict in Blood (7 page)

I slept deeply that night and awoke thinking about Alex Kequahtooway and Martin Heidegger and the question of whether any of us ever truly knows who we are. It was gloomy pondering for 5:00 a.m. on the first workday after a holiday weekend, and I was relieved when the phone rang and I heard my older daughter’s voice. Mieka was twenty-four years old, and she had a great marriage, a career she loved, and a first child due any minute. To my mind, the only problem about Mieka’s life was that it was being lived in Saskatoon, 250 kilometres away from me.

“I knew you’d be up,” she said. “No baby news. I’m just calling to whine.”

“Whine away,” I said.

She took a deep breath. “Well, for starters, I don’t think this baby is ever going to be born. My doctor says if I don’t get cracking by next weekend, they’re going to induce me. Is it just an old wives’ tale that painting the kitchen ceiling gets baby moving along?”

“I don’t know about kitchen ceilings,” I said, “but I do
know that going out for Chinese food works. That’s what your dad and I did the night before you were born.”

Mieka laughed. “Tucking into a platter of Peking duck does sound more appealing than clambering up a ladder to slap on a coat of flat white.” She sighed heavily. “Mummy, I’m so discouraged. I haven’t slept through the night in eight months, I haven’t seen my feet since Canada Day, and I’ve got a seductive line of black hair growing from my breastbone to what used to be my organs of delight.”

“It’ll be over soon,” I said. “I just wish I was there with you.”

“But you will come when the baby’s born?”

“Wild horses couldn’t keep me away.”

After we hung up, I reached under the bed and pulled out the cradle board that Alex had made for Mieka and Greg’s baby. The hide bag stitched to the board was as soft as moss, and it smelled of woodsmoke. A newborn would feel safe in its snug confines. Later, the cradle board would hold the baby tight against its parent as it learned to keep a careful eye on the wonders and the terrors of the world.

I slid the cradle board back under the bed and walked downstairs. The heat and the humidity in the closed-up house were almost palpable, and I opened the front door to let in some fresh air. On the cedar chest in the front hall, Taylor’s new tartan backpack bulged, waiting to be grabbed by its owner as she sped out the door, eager to seize all the learning and fun Grade 2 had to offer. Ordinarily, I loved fall days with their heady mix of elegy for the summer past and anticipation of adventures to come, but this September was different, and as Rose and I headed for our run around the lake, I wondered if the heat would ever stop pressing down on us, making our nerves jump and our spirits sink.

By the time we got back, my hair was curling damply, and
my clothes were soaked with sweat. I grabbed the newspaper off the porch and went inside to get Rose a bowl of fresh water and to plug in the coffee maker. As I waited for the coffee to perk, I glanced at the front page. The story of Justine Blackwell’s murder was above the fold. The picture the editors had chosen was a formal one of Justine robed for court. With her fair hair swept back into a smooth chignon and her coolly intelligent gaze, she seemed an unlikely candidate for grisly murder.

The story accompanying the photograph was circumspect and predictable: a dry but factual account of the murder, a review of Justine’s legal career, a brief history of her personal life. No surprises, but the final sentence of the piece
was
unexpected: “Longtime friend Hilda McCourt announced that funeral plans for Madame Justice Blackwell were pending.”

When Hilda came in, I held the paper out to her. It was 6:45, but she was already dressed for the day in a trim mint sheath, with a mandarin collar and neck-to-knee mother-of-pearl frog fastenings.

“You’re famous,” I said.

She took the paper, glimpsed at the story, and frowned. “I was afraid my name would be mentioned.”

“How did the paper get hold of you?”

“Lucy Blackwell gave them my name and your number,” Hilda said. “Joanne, I apologize for yet another intrusion in your home. This is becoming a distressing pattern.”

“Don’t give it a second thought,” I said. “But I don’t understand why Lucy would decide that you should be the one dealing with the press.”

Hilda sighed. “Neither do I. But according to Lucy, I was the unanimous choice. Apparently, Tina Blackwell is having a difficult time accepting her mother’s death. Her sisters
think she’s in no state for media scrutiny. They’ve concluded that since Justine asked me to protect her interests, I might as well act as an intermediary with the press.”

I felt a rush of annoyance. Hilda was a wonder, but she was an eighty-three-year-old wonder, and she had just been handed an open-ended duty.

As always, Hilda was quick to read my face. “You’re not convinced I’m the best choice.”

I shook my head. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re the best choice for any job you choose to undertake. I’m just not certain you should have been asked to undertake this one.”

“It’s been busy, I’ll grant you that. Just after you left to meet Alex last night, I had a call from the journalist who is responsible for this.” Hilda tapped the Blackwell story with a fingernail freshly painted in her favourite Love That Red. “Later, there were other members of the press. I’m afraid your house was photographed, Joanne.”

I felt a stab of irritation, not at Hilda, but at the intrusion. “Don’t worry about it,” I said, but my voice lacked conviction.

Hilda leaned towards me. “Maybe it would be easier all around if I went back to Saskatoon. With facsimile machines and my message manager, I could handle everything from there, and you’d be spared the prospect of living in a circus.”

“Don’t be silly,” I said. “In a day or two, there’ll be another story for the media to chase. Besides I love having you here. You know that.”

Taylor’s ginger cat, Benny, padded into the room. As usual, her tortoiseshell, Bruce, followed meekly. My daughter wasn’t far behind.

“I like it when you’re here, too,” Taylor said. She bent, grabbed Benny, hefted him under one arm, and scooped up Bruce. Then she twirled so Hilda could check out the back of her head. “Are my braids okay?” she asked.

Her braids were, in fact, okay. So was her face, which was clean, and her runners, which matched and were tied. What wasn’t okay was the T-shirt she was wearing, which had a picture of a bull on it that bordered on the obscene, and an eyebrow-raising caption: “Bottlescrew Bill’s Second Annual Testicle Festival – I Went Nuts.”

I knelt down beside her. “T, you look great, but you’re going to have to find another shirt.”

“But this one’s so funny. You laughed when Angus brought it home from the garage sale, and everybody at the cottage thought it was good.”

“It was good for the cottage,” I said, “but not for school.”

“Why?”

“Because wearing that shirt to school would be like wearing tap shoes to church.”

“Dumb,” she said.

“Not dumb,” I said. “Just not your best choice. Now come on, let’s go upstairs and find a shirt that isn’t going to get you thrown out of Grade 2 before the end of the day.”

Taylor went off to school wearing a white cotton blouse and the intricately beaded barrettes Alex had bought the day we went to a powwow out at Standing Buffalo. They were reserved for special occasions, but she and I agreed this occasion was special enough. After she left, Bruce looked so miserable I gathered him up and began scratching his head. Benny came over, rubbed against my ankle and howled. Benny and I had never been close, but it was a day to put aside old enmities. I bent down to pick him up too. “She’ll be back,” I said. Benny shot me a look filled with contempt and streaked off; then Bruce, who was sweet but easily led, leaped out of my arms and dashed after him.

When I finally got around to showering and dressing, I was running late. I knew that if I didn’t make tracks, I wouldn’t be on time for the early-morning meeting the Political
Science department always held at the Faculty Club on the first day of classes. I decided to skip breakfast, grabbed my briefcase, hollered at Angus to get moving, called goodbye to Hilda, and raced out the front door and straight into the wall of muscles that was Wayne J. Waters.

At close range, he was even more intimidating than he had appeared at a distance. He was not a tall man; in fact, he wasn’t much taller than I was, five-foot-six. But he was tattooed to terrify. On his arms, jungle beasts coupled ferociously; savage mastiffs chewed on hearts that dripped blood; buxom women straddled unidentifiable animals and embraced crucifixes. It was the Garden of Earthly Delights envisioned by a lifer. I couldn’t stop staring, and Wayne J. Waters caught me.

“Better than an art gallery, eh?” His voice was deep and surprisingly pleasant. “Are you Hilda McCourt? That reporter who came to interview me did the usual half-assed job those media types always do – told me where to find Hilda but didn’t give me a whiff about how to recognize her.”

“I’m not Miss McCourt,” I said. “But she is staying with me. I’m Joanne Kilbourn. Can I help you?”

“We’ll give you a try. My name’s Wayne J. Waters,” he said. “I wanted to talk to Hilda about the funeral she’s got pending.” He shook his head and laughed. “The way we word things, eh?” he said. “Anyway, you get the drift.” He stepped closer. His aftershave was familiar and distinctive. Old Spice. “So is Hilda around?”

My first thought was to lie, to simply say that Hilda had left town. In his sleeveless muscle shirt, Wayne J.’s upper arms were grenades, and Hilda’s account of his nasty confrontation with Justine the night of the party leapt to my mind. But my friend was not a person who took kindly
to having decisions made for her; besides, the rumble of Wayne J.’s laugh was reassuring, and there was something in his eyes which, against all logic, inspired trust. It was a tough call. Luckily, while I was vacillating, Hilda appeared and made the call for me.

As soon as he saw her, Wayne J. introduced himself and held out his hand. Hilda’s response was icy. “Mr. Waters, when I’ve satisfied myself that you had nothing to do with Justine Blackwell’s death, I’ll take your hand. Until then …”

Hilda’s blue eyes were boring into him, but Wayne J. Waters didn’t flinch. “Fair enough,” he said. “Do you want to talk out here, or can I come inside?”

Hilda shot me a questioning look.

“It’ll be easier to talk where it’s cool,” I said.

As we walked back inside, Wayne J. glanced at the briefcase in my hand. “Decided to play hooky, Joanne?”

I shook my head. “Decided not to leave until you do, Wayne J.”

He put his head back and roared. “Who could blame you?”

Wayne J. Waters might have had his troubles with the law, but somewhere along the line he had come up with some personal rules about how to treat a lady. He waited until Hilda and I were seated before he lowered himself into my grandmother’s Morris chair. Once seated, he got right to the point.

“To set your mind at ease,” he said, “I had nothing to do with Justine’s death. If I have to give you specifics I will, but for now, I hope it’s enough to say that she was the classiest woman I ever knew, and she was a good friend to me and to a lot of other people I could name.”

Hilda adjusted the mother-of-pearl button fastening at the throat of her dress. “Yet you quarrelled with her bitterly the night of her party.”

Wayne J. Waters put the palms of his hands on his knees and leaned forward. “Didn’t you ever fight with a friend?” he asked softly.

Hilda wasn’t drawn in. “Not one who was murdered a few hours after our dispute,” she said.

Wayne J. reddened. “You were lucky. I’d serve ten years of hard time to see Justine walk into this room. But that isn’t gonna happen. As they say, all we can do is honour her memory.” He squared his shoulders. “That’s why I’m here. Hilda, will the people who Justine helped out at the end be welcome at her funeral?”

Hilda’s brow furrowed. “Provided it’s not a private service, I see no reason why anyone who chooses to attend wouldn’t be welcomed.”

Wayne J. sighed heavily. “That’s all I needed to know,” he said, standing up.

“Wait,” Hilda said. “I answered your question. Now please answer mine.”

He turned and looked at her expectantly.

“What was the cause of your quarrel with Madame Justice Blackwell?” she asked.

The question could hardly have been a surprise, but as Hilda posed it, the pulse in Wayne J.’s neck began to beat so noticeably that the wings of the eagle tattooed on his neck appeared to flutter. I remembered Detective Hallam’s one-phrase description of him: lightning in a bottle.

“Money,” Wayne J. said, biting off the word.

“Can you elucidate?” Hilda asked.

He eased himself back into his chair. “Justine had promised to give some money to Culhane House – it’s a prisoners’ support group some of us started up for cons and ex-cons.

“Culhane House, as in Claire Culhane?” I asked.

He gave me a sidelong glance. “She was another classy
lady,” he said. “Justine suggested the name.” He turned back to Hilda. “Prisoners’ rights aren’t exactly a hot ticket now. Most people seem to think the only choice society should give a con is permanent incarceration or the end of a rope.”

“But Madame Justice Blackwell believed there were more humane alternatives,” Hilda said.

Wayne J. shrugged. “You could say that, but I wouldn’t. I think for Justine it was more a practical thing.”

“Practical in what way?” asked Hilda.

“Like in the way that, most of the time, prisons just don’t do what solid citizens want them to do. All prisons are good for is pissing away lives and pissing away money. You can make semi-good people bad in prison, and you can make bad people worse, but you never make anybody better. And I’ll tell you another thing, Hilda. They may be hellholes, but I’ve never seen a prison yet that made anybody scared to come back. Every time I hear some expert running off at the mouth about that three strikes and you’re out crap, I want to laugh. The only guy who’s scared of going to prison is a guy who’s never been there. Any ex-con knows that he might as well be in prison as anywhere else. Justine finally figured that there was a cheaper, better alternative to prison, and she was prepared to use her chequebook so that other people could figure it out too.”