Extensions (40 page)

“What about the girls?” she asks Ethel Osler.

“Pray, how can a man underground take care of two wee girls? They'll be comin' back to Comox with me for now. Me daughter Josie in Vancouver has only one o' her own. She might be willin' to take them.”

Jane's limbs go cold at this triple loss. Suzanne and June will have no more say in the shuffle than family pets. She has met Marjorie's sister Josie: an exact replica of their mother in shape and attitude. Practical, hard-working, responsible, outspoken. And humourless. The girls' needs will be met without softness or gaiety; she cannot bear to think of their deprivation. Her own selfish loss of their mother fades beside the many years they must live without her. She cannot permit herself to imagine Sara and Janet being dispossessed this way.

“Can I help? Could I take them while Milt is at work?”

“Lord knows the wee lasses are like four sisters themselves. But ye've got enough to worry about, dearie, wi' him and all.” She nods toward the front of the house where she last saw Roland, and Jane instinctively steps in that direction to prevent any view of him leading her son-in-law astray.

“Just for a short time. To get them accustomed to their mother's absence in a familiar place. It seems so drastic to lose everything you know all at once.”

“No point dragging it out when they can't stay here.”

Jane looks across at the girls and swallows her tears. As usual, Janet and June have been nudged off the swing, leaving Sara and Suzanne to chatter and rock together on the spot. The quiet twin and younger sister appear content to be counting ladybugs in dry oak leaves. “If you and Milt change your minds, the girls are always welcome in our home.”

A chilly breeze brings a shiver to Jane through her cardigan. She touches Mrs. Osler's sturdy arm, now folded across her bosom shelf, and turns to run back home across the garden path where so many memories of Marjorie have been planted.

Inside, she hopes Sara and Janet will not follow right away. She needs a moment alone. Grief is gaining momentum, now gathering thoughts of her son, too long silent, and in constant peril. She opens the drawer of a desk she bought for the girls at an estate sale. It stands between kitchen and sitting room and Sara makes the most use of it doing lessons or drawing while Jane is cooking or sewing with Janet by her side. Carefully, she takes out a pile of seven letters. She rereads the one on top for the twentieth time. Sara is already a better speller than Llewyllyn will ever be.

July 2, 1918

Dear Mother,

Thank you for your letters to Belgium. I read them over
and over. We are in Flanders after a batle at Kemmel
Ridge. I am still in one piece and that is a mirakle.
Thousands of soldiers have been killed or mamed. And
now the Spanish flu is taking anyone left. Our officers
say this war will soon be over. How I hope so.

I hope you are all staying healthy. Say hello to Papa
and tell Sara and Janet I will bring them something
spesial from France. Our company moves to Pikardy
next. Please keep writing.

Your son,

Llewyllyn

Jane has sent several more letters to the military post office address over the summer. Is he in one piece even now? Casualties from the Battle of Amiens were high — was he there? The bedroom he could hardly wait to leave is Jane's sewing space, now used only for their own clothes and special orders, thanks to Roland's regular hours. She wonders how often her son longs for its comfort in the wet, bloody trenches.

She folds the letter up carefully and returns it to the drawer. A few pieces of vellum paper remain in the pad she bought for letters to Llewyllyn. Jane vows to write to Catherine before she loses everyone she loves.

From the Gilchrist yard, a familiar inebriated voice disrupts the quiet. The damage has been done. She thinks of Milt stumbling into the house where his mother-in-law now rules. Will the queen of abstention in good conscience deny a man the chance to numb such fresh sorrow? She hears Marjorie whisper and giggle, “Now's the time to slip a little gin into her violet tea. She won't notice the perfumey taste.”

Jane almost smiles.

JAN KUBIK'S ACCENT was unmistakable. He had phoned to invite me to a small memorial gathering for their baby son. “It is not a funeral or a burial. We have had the cremation. And it is according to my wish, because my wife wants nothing. I am keeping it as small as possible, just to honour Anton. We would like you and Constable Holder to join us at 3
PM
tomorrow for a short walk through the Van Dusen Gardens followed by a glass of wine inside.”

I thanked him, hung up, and passed on the message to Tessa, who, her attention fixed on the computer, nodded her willingness to attend.

“If we're excused, that is,” I said to Wayne, bent over the Criminal Code checking a section on sexual exploitation for a case that had just come in.

“All in the line of duty,” he replied without looking up.

“Isn't the cremation a bit early? Do we have everything we need?” asked Dex, printing off a fresh virus alert for his collection.

“Autopsy was done when you were on the island. No surprises. We released the remains.”

Still no headway in the Kubik case. Typically,
IHIT
would have taken it over by now, but because of my work with the family — or whatever you wanted to call it — they had told us to run with it. Pressure or what? No more leads from neighbours, from evidence, or from the Porsche — if that's what it was. I remembered Monty saying there were channels to follow in investigations but no clear patterns of criminal behaviour. That a conviction might come where and when you least expected it. Were we to sit and wait then until the perpetrator was revealed? Such a sensational homicide would not be forgotten by the public, and I hoped it would not turn into a cold case like the Louis Strong murder, still unproven a century later. At least they had a suspect — more than we had.

Sukhi had left minutes before and I caught up with him in the cold dark air of the parking lot. His wife had just called to tell him she was pregnant, exploding his breath in visible puffs of joy. I gave him a hug, then jumped in my car and turned on the heater full blast, wishing I had a deluxe model with seat warmers. Just before I reached home, my cellphone rang.

“You're a busy woman,” said Warren Wright.

“It's been a busy year, all eight days of it. How are you?”

“Beginning to feel like a stalker. Wondering if I should quit calling.”

“No, don't do that.” I stopped to use my entry card to the underground parking lot and the steel door segments clattered noisily into the ceiling.

“So where are you now — patrolling cells?”

I laughed. “Just driving in. I'll be upstairs in a minute.”

“And you don't want me to know where you live.”

“Maybe soon.” His soft voice was causing my caution gauge to dip out of its safety zone. “How about supper tomorrow night?”

Did I say that? He sounded as surprised as I was.

“Well, well, well. I think I'm available.”

“The Mongolian Grill on Broadway and Cambie at six-thirty?” The Van Dusen Gardens weren't far from there and I would no doubt welcome a change of mood.

“I like this take-charge attitude. Like old times.”

Just after lunch the next day, Tessa was assigned to interview the victim of the sexual exploitation charge: a fourteen-year-old girl who alleged her volleyball coach had touched her inappropriately. I was thankful Tessa was the primary on this because I didn't have much experience with sex crimes; she was patient and kind and would get the most out of the girl without upsetting her. That meant I would be our only representative at the memorial.

Turned out I was the only other person at all. I saw Jan and Selena getting out of their Mercedes near the entrance just as I found a space at the end of the crowded parking lot. Jan greeted me formally with a handshake as I explained Tessa's absence.

“Thank you for coming. It is just the three of us then. I had wanted to invite my wife's sister and my brother but she would not hear of it.”

Selena, in a short tweed jacket, brown pinstriped pants, and low-heeled, blunt-toed boots, stroked my oregano blazer approvingly by way of a greeting. I was glad I had ironed my cream silk blouse and best black slacks to wear with it, and at the last minute stuck an antique brooch of Sara's on the lapel.

So I ranked above relatives again? As insiders to the case, Tessa and I required less energy on Selena's part — was that it? But what kind of family was this? At least there were more members than I thought, and the circle might even be larger, if I listened carefully.

All the decorations from the spectacular Van Dusen Gardens Christmas festival of lights had just been removed — Gail had gone with her family and reported it better than ever this year. Today the overcast sky and dormant foliage were less than alluring — unless you were a plant lover, which Selena apparently was. As we started through the groomed trails, I restrained my reckless curiosity and slipped in casual questions as one might offer tidbits to a wild cat you wanted to tame.

Unable to get past Selena's reticence, I spoke to Jan when she stopped to admire a shrub, thereby turning the nature walk into an opportunity to learn about more than just flora species. I learned that his younger brother was a bachelor accountant in North Vancouver. Selena's older sister in Coquitlam had been married briefly to a Canadian, had no children, and now managed a furniture store on United Way. They had all immigrated to Canada in 1990 just after the Velvet Revolution when Czechoslovakia was freeing itself from Communist rule. They were all Bohemians, Jan declared proudly, though he was from a wealthy background and Selena's father was a bricklayer. During the Communist crackdown in 1969, his parents, landowner professors, were sent to a work camp in Siberia, where they died. He was a student in Prague at the time and had no choice but to remain there, take care of his brother while they both studied, and later work for government firms. For years he would not consider creating a family under such a regime, until he met and was captivated by Selena. She was a window dresser in one of Prague's few fashion boutiques and was to him “like an orchid — beautiful, untouchable, and requiring just the right light and temperature.”

Between these intriguing snippets, Selena would rejoin us after contemplating a Christmas cactus or a larch sapling, her eyes alight with wonder, before being dulled again by the sound of her husband's voice. When she lingered at another flower in waiting, I would gently remind Jan where he had left off. Not that he needed it, because there was a relentless quality about his sentences that did not leave a word hanging. He told me Selena took to Vancouver like a seagull and immediately found a job working for a professional theatre company in the costume department. She was happy there for a few years, but when their attempts to have children failed, he persuaded her it was due to the stress of deadlines and opening nights. He made a good living and she should be content to stay home.

“Was she?” I asked, knowing the answer.

“No, she was not,” he sighed. “When this intended stress-free period also did not produce any children, she joined another community theatre group as a volunteer. I often wondered if I craved a family more, because I had lost my parents so young and finally felt safe enough in a country to bring a child into the world. My wife needed a creative outlet, and one or two productions a year kept her satisfied without the long hours. Eventually little Anton arrived, and she realized instantly what we had been missing. We are not young parents, Constable Dryvynsydes, especially me, and I had given up hope for such a gift.”

Selena caught up for the end of her husband's words and his arm reached out toward her: “…the whole ordeal has been unbearable for my wife, and all I ask is strength to take care of her.”

When she continued to walk on ahead of us without a pause, I wondered how he could be so blind not to see that his gestures, intended to comfort her, were having the opposite effect. It did seem strange that he always referred to her as “my wife,” and never by name.

With Selena again out of range, I used the final stretch to ask, “What's your connection to Kosovo?”