When she reached the truck, Steve was deep in the shadows, surrounded by wires and sound gear. At first she thought he was working with fine tools. As she got closer, though, she realized that he was frowning at something in his hands. Was it a document? When the gravel crunched beneath her shoes, he shoved the paper under a stack of pale green forms that she recognized as purchase orders.
“Joan!” His smile came slowly and was more grimace than grin. She smiled back tentatively, but knew that Steve was spooked. Whatever he'd hidden, he didn't want her to see.
“Something the matter, Steve?” she asked.
Steven fumbled and mumbled. “These old speakers, I just opened them up. I expected to find mice turds and spider webs, but they're pristine inside, after all these years.” The back panel had been removed from both speakers. Screws lay in a neat pile.
“So they'll work for you?” asked Joan.
Steve nodded as he began to put the speakers back together.
“Oh, yeah. Yeah. Once we get them hooked up, we'll see if they're as good as we remember. Would you mind getting Rudy to give me a hand? We need to get them inside.”
“I'm stronger than I look, Steve. I don't mind helping,” said Joan. She saw his eyes shift to the roofing supplies in the corner. The motion was almost imperceptible, but she was used to watching for just this kind of reaction among her food test subjects.
“Just get Rudy.” He finally looked up at her. “Please, Joan.” Clearly, he wasn't going to budge.
Joan watched Steve and Rudy secure the large speakers onto a dolly and move them into the gym. To avoid suspicion, she followed them inside, then slipped out to the parking lot once they were preoccupied with the sound system. She climbed into the truck, staining her jeans with grease as she shimmied onto the tailgate, then she shuffled through the pile of work orders. Whatever Steve had been looking at had been moved. Creeping to the very back of the five-ton, where the roofing supplies were neatly stored, she shifted heavy buckets of black sealant. Nothing underneath. Rolls of thick tarpaper caught her eye. One was standing askew from the others. She leaned it over, looked through the long, dark tube, and saw something stuffed in the end. Reaching in, she felt cloth, soft and velvety. She pulled out a purple Crown Royal bag. Inside there were large-format photographs rolled up and secured with a rubber band. Aware that Steve would be back at any moment, she hid the sack in her jacket and walked briskly around the corner of the building.
Joan wasn't used to taking things that didn't belong to her. Her fingers shook as she reached into the bag and pulled out the photographs. There were four. She turned the first over and gasped. It was a grainy photograph of a girl lying on the grass, between ragged trees. She'd caught Steve with porn, a picture faded with age. The teenager was obviously passed out and her body had been positioned so that she was spread-eagled. She was wearing panties. Her bra had been pulled up to expose her breasts. Joan knew in an instant that she was the girl in the photo. Her stomach churned at the sight. The image of her own corpse couldn't have shocked her more. She shuffled through the other three pictures; different angles of the same incident. Her first thought was, who took the photographs? Her next was, who would have processed them?
Her mind was racing. The only time she'd ever been drunk enough to pass out was the Night of the Lemon Gin. Recollecting the bush party was like trying to focus through a vague and fractured kaleidoscope. Anything could have happened. As much as she was sickened and embarrassed by the photographs, fury propelled her forward. She needed to address this head on.
People were beginning to drift into the gymnasium for the Rank performance. Long tables had been decorated with paper covers and topped with centerpieces made from gold-sprayed branches that had been stuffed into blue detergent bottles; the colours of Madden High. Stacks of chairs waited to be dispersed. The centre of the room had been left clear, an invitation for dancers once the music started. With the Crown Royal bag clutched to her chest, Joan made her way to the stage and slid behind the closed theatre curtains. Rudy was on the ladder, tweaking the lights on the grid. When Steve saw her and the velvet sack, he put down the bass that he'd been tuning. He was embarrassed to look at her. She watched him chew his lower lip.
“Did you shoot these?” She whispered harshly and waved the roll of photos under his nose.
Steve blanched and his eyes widened. “God, no Joan. I'd never do something like that.”
She wanted to believe him, but years ago she hadn't thought he'd draw a penis on Hazel. By now, Rudy was straining to hear their conversation.
“Where did you get them?” she asked.
“From the inside of a speaker.” He glanced up at Rudy, who was starting to climb down the ladder.
“Before that?” As Joan shook the roll at him for emphasis, the rubber band, brittle with age, popped and the photos floated to the floor. When she fell to her knees to retrieve them, Steven was immediately at her side to help collect the damning images.
He shifted his gaze toward her. “I had nothing to do with it, I swear.” She felt as though she was with a fumbling teenager. As they stood up, Steve turned to Rudy, who was unabashedly eavesdropping. “Could you give us a minute, man?”
Rudy shrugged and reluctantly lumbered away.
“Okay, so you didn't shoot them, Steve.” She stuffed the photos in the Crown Royal bag. “These were taken before my dad died. You had no reason to be mad at me then. Did you?”
“No, not then.” He thought for a moment. “Not you, ever.”
“You know I'm sorry about what happened.” It was out of her mouth before she thought about what she was saying. It felt good. She'd spent so many years feeling as though the town had shunned her unfairly. Now, through adult eyes, she understood the extent of the damage her father had caused. She was truly sorry.
He met her gaze. “I missed you, kiddo. We all did.” He squeezed her shoulder. It was uncanny how much he looked like his father. It was like getting a hug from Uncle Chuck.
“Do you know anything more about the pictures?” she asked.
“After Roger left town to become a rock star, we moved a bunch of stuff to an old barn my uncle used for storage. That speaker has been there for years, since Rank broke up.”
“Your uncle?”
“Uncle Dan.” And Joan remembered. Dan Prychenko was Steve's maternal uncle. Marlena was his first cousin.
Try as she might Joan couldn't imagine Dan Prychenko taking the pictures. If he'd showed up at the bush party, it would have been to shut it down. He may have been a philandering husband, but nobody could have been a better boss when she worked for him at the gas bar. Aware of her family's financial downfall, he'd paid her more than he had the other young employees, and he'd done it without apology. On December 24, he'd gruffly shoved a hundred-dollar bill into her hand, calling it a “little bonus”. It meant they'd had Christmas that terrible year, the first without her father. When he drove her home on dark, sub-zero winter nights, after her shift was done, he'd never once touched her or made an off-colour remark. Sure, Dan Prychenko had been a known ladies' man, but she had no reason to believe he'd been a camera-toting pedophile. Chances were that those photos had been placed in the speaker before they went into storage. She knew, though, that her investigation would be incomplete if she left any stone unturned.
“I should talk to Dan,” she said flatly.
Steven looked stunned. “But, Joan, he died years ago, in the early nineties. He was coming home from the Legion, blind drunk. He hit a tree.”
She remembered that Dan Prychenko, a barrel of a man, had been a champion drinker. He'd left many a fellow Maddenonian under the table on a Saturday night. It wasn't a surprise that alcohol had painted his final canvas. “Steve, you're sure that nobody else saw the pictures?”
“You mean since I found them today?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Positive. And if I get my hands on the bonehead who took them, I'll take care of him myself.” He pounded his fist into his hand. “You know, Joan, I was going to rip them up and get rid of them, if you hadn't got to them first. And frankly,” he spoke shyly now. “I don't know that anyone would recognize you. I mean,” he smiled meekly, “you do know that you've changed?”
The shock of discovering the photographs had exhausted Joan. She'd rather have gone back to the motel, but if anyone else was killed, and she didn't have witnesses, she'd probably end up as Smartt's prime suspect in another death. She stood on the front steps of the Couch, where she had a strong cell signal and called the RCMP detachment. When she told Gabe about the photographs of her lying half-naked in the grass, he offered to come immediately. He was in the middle of reading the reports from his officers, comparing notes from witnesses, and verifying statements, but he'd drop all that. Joan reminded him that nothing would get solved if she kept pulling him away. He lowered his voice to discreetly share one more piece of information. The toxicology report on Peg Chalmers had arrived by email.
“She took the cimetidine with her breakfast along with her regular medications, yet there is no record anywhere of a prescription in her name.”
“Maybe she has another doctor who prescribed it,” suggested Joan.
“Not likely. It's for ulcers or severe heartburn, and she didn't suffer from any ailment of that type. It gets stranger. They found medications in her system used for a host of disorders that she didn't have.”
“Do you think she was trying to commit suicide?”
“Most of the drugs wouldn't do anything to her in the doses she'd taken, except make her feel drowsy and nauseous. It's only the cimetidine, mixed with the warfarin for her heart condition that was so dangerous. It makes no sense. There's no telling where she got the pills.”
“Did you ask Daphne? Maybe they belonged to her,” asked Joan.
“First thing we did was interview Daphne again, but she says she's healthy as a horse, only takes herbal remedies. She has no idea where the medications came from, swears that she just gave Peg the pills from her cupboard as she'd been asked. Peg had fallen back to sleep by the time Daphne brought her tray yesterday morning, so she just left it on her night table.”
“What else was found in her system? What other pills?” asked Joan.
“Primarily chemotherapy medication, and Peg didn't have cancer.” There was silence as they both considered the same question. Why would someone randomly swallow medication for illnesses they didn't have? Did she ingest them knowingly? Gabe promised that he'd get to the Couch as soon as possible, although he couldn't stay for long. He had a lot of work to do.
The bathroom sinks had originally been installed for grade school children, so Joan had to bend to see her reflection. Bracing herself to face the crowded room, she felt as exposed as the grainy images in those old photos. Then she reminded herself that the horrific pictures in the Crown Royal bag had been snapped thirty years ago. Although it was fresh in her mind, nobody else would be thinking about those images when she entered the room â except for Steve and, possibly, whoever had taken them. While taking one last look in the mirror, looking for the girl in the photographs, she heard voices coming down the hall.
“ . . . fancy-assed home in France, thinking she's so much better than the rest of us.” Marlena's voice was instantly recognizable. “Sarah's husband looks like he's ready to drop. I'd never marry a man that much older than me. Years ago I told Ray that Sarah better not expect us to support those kids if the old guy croaked.” Marlena entered the bathroom, yapping like a chihuahua, with Candy in tow, “Thank God they're all grown up now so I don't have to worry.”
Candy stopped abruptly. “You mean that your cheap bastard husband didn't support his own kids?”
“Of course not! Why should he? He never saw them.”
“You wouldn't let him.” Candy was looking at Marlena as though seeing her for the first time. “You know, Marlena, I've been thinking lately, sometimes you hold onto people out of habit. You think there's some sort of value to a friendship because it's been there so long. Then you stop and look at it and wonder âWhat am I getting out of this?' I think it's time I cleaned house.” She turned around and went into a cubicle.
Marlena shouted at the grey steel door. “Oh, it's all about what you get out of it? That's pretty selfish if you ask me. What about what I get out of our friendship? Huh, Candy?”
Joan slipped out of the washroom, before she got caught in the crossfire.
A
CIRCLE OF WOMEN, INCLUDING
L
INDA
Howard, Monica Weiss and Daphne Pyle, danced in the middle of the room, something that wouldn't have happened in Madden thirty years ago. Joan watched from the sidelines until she felt a tug at her arm. It was Hazel and Lila, beaming at her. She followed obediently. Hazel, in yet another ankle-length hand-painted silk gown, danced with unexpected grace for someone her size. She managed to get the entire circle of women, as well as Gerald Gillespie, coordinated into synchronized movement that reminded Joan of water flowing and winds swirling. She couldn't help but smile at Gerald, who moved with his eyes closed, as though in a trance. Couples danced on the edges of the small auditorium.
Candy had temporarily been lifted from the doldrums and was performing a robust version of “the bump” with a barrel-shaped man who looked vaguely familiar. Each time Candy rammed him in the hip, he rammed her back as though it was a competition to see who could bounce the other farther. Mr. Fowler watched everyone, keeping time to the music with his tapping foot.
Marlena had dragged Gabe to the dance floor. She seemed oblivious of her husband on the stage, his drums keeping beat for Rudy and Steve. A shy grin betrayed Ray's nerves at his imminent debut as solo vocalist. Joan felt sorry for him. Wasn't he like the rest of them, just a big kid hiding wounds and weaknesses? The sores begin accumulating when you're young. Some you deal with and they become strengths and personality. Others get pushed into dark corners where they fester into fears, chronic sorrow, and anger, sometimes even physical pain. Had those seeds, sown in one of these former classmates, been responsible for the deaths of Roger Rimmer and Peg Wong?