“I heard of another love child whose paternity was never known. It died too. Of natural causes. But that spark brought to light the other clues that weren't giving us anything on their own.”
“Like?”
“You asking me in the hotel room if I'd ever been betrayed, for one. Your tone was too raw to be thinking of a stranger. How you clammed up when I asked if it was the man in the Porsche. And the way you and Greg spoke so nonchalantly of each other. Too cool by a mile. Things kept coming together. Like the expensive Keith Holmes painting in Greg's hippie pad filled with posters and masks â did you buy it for him?”
Her eyes said yes.
“But I still have a couple of gaps. How did Greg McGimpsey end up at the Van Dusen Gardens when it was a private memorial?”
“I do not know. He left a message of sympathy on our machine. His concern was sincere. I did not return any of his calls. Jan spoke to him â he knows him from the theatre. He might have mentioned a closed gathering at Van Dusen to be polite. Jan is more polite than I am.”
“And how did you come up with a Kosovar?”
“That country was in my head and he had to be a foreigner. In case Greg was implicated.”
“You thought fast.”
“I did not think. If I had, I would not be sitting here. I only reacted.
Like a wounded animal.”
I knew Selena would withdraw again soon. Maybe forever. “It's your turn now.”
“It is unspeakable.”
“I'm preparing you for the questions you can expect.”
She groaned. “I am already a carcass. The vultures will pick my bones. I no longer care about myself, but I fear for Jan. He will disintegrate. And Greg will â how do you say â detonate? â when he hears the truth. I am not without a heart, Constable.”
“I've never believed you were. Passion can take over all our organs. But the pond, Selena. What happened at the pond?”
Bending and speaking slowly, she lit another cigarette. “Greg's news hit like a lightning clap â or is it a thunderbolt? I did not say much to him, but slammed the door and began to pace around the house with Anton in my arms. My distress frightened him and he began to scream. I tried my best to console him, but he would not stop. I walked around the house, bouncing him, stroking him, showing him his toys, all with no results. When I gave him his soother, there were a few moments of peace, so I took him outside to distract him â he liked watching birds in the yard. But soon he spat it out and screamed even harder. He turned blue trying to catch his breath â ” She paused. “And then I do not remember anything beyond a helpless feeling without a bottom. My arms went limp. He slipped from them into the pond.”
I thought of the cigarette falling just now and imagined the baby. She began crying again.
“I do not know how long I stood. My brain went blank. I do not believe I was punishing myself and Greg by discarding what I loved most, as you suggest, Constable. I do not know what to believe.” She put her face in her hands, the cigarette bobbing unsteadily between her fingers.
I let her cry. After a few moments, she raised her head. Her nose was dripping, but she continued.
“When my mind cleared, I saw my precious baby in the pool, as if for the first time. I became hysterical and dialled 911. You know the rest.”
I handed her more tissues from my bag and stood up. “I'll let you collect yourself for a moment. You're doing well, Selena, under such circumstances.”
I left the room and went next door. Sukhi was shaking his head in disbelief. Mine too felt dizzy, and I let out a big sigh. “Anything you want to add?”
He gave me two questions which I took back to Selena. “How did Greg know Jan was away that morning?”
Her head was again in her hands and her words barely audible. “I do not know. Jan travelled often for work and sometimes Greg phoned the office anonymously to make sure.”
“And wouldn't Greg wonder about an abductor so soon after he was here? The time and details were all over the media, although we kept the Porsche out of it. Didn't he see your fury?”
She mumbled. “He saw my shock but he did not see my fury. I do not know what he thought because I did not return his calls. He probably wanted to ask me about the abductor. But he would never reveal to anyone else that he had been here, for his own protection as much as mine.”
I stood up and offered my hand to help her out of the chair. I signalled Sukhi through the one-way glass that I would meet him upstairs. “Thank you, Selena, that's enough. I have to book you into cells until your appearance in court tomorrow. Until then you will not be allowed access to anyone other than your lawyer.”
On the way out, I asked her if she would like me to speak to Jan. Their lawyer would have informed him where she was.
“Would you please, Constable? I cannot face him yet. He did nothing to deserve this but love me.”
“And Greg will be a witness.”
“You will need a padded cell for that encounter. He is very emotional.”
At the door leading to the cell block, she turned to me. “What if I deny everything in court?”
“You won't. It's eating you up too much.”
The clank of the heavy door behind us caused her to flinch without changing expression. I led her down the women's corridor. Loud snoring came from one cell we passed; empty trays sat on the floor outside three others. At the end of the passageway the matron sat behind a large desk playing computer solitaire, a room with monitors of all the cells nearby. Today almost all of them were filled with women who had seen better times â or was that the case with all prisoners? The matron took Selena's name and listed her offence on a book-in sheet. A big woman from Trinidad, she was both practised and unruffled enough not to react even to a murder charge. She did not look up until she nodded to me that Selena was ready for the strip search. I did it quickly in the private room designed for it. I had more or less watched her change, after all, and anything illegal would have created an obvious bulge on someone as scrawny as she was. Neither of us looked at the other during the procedure, even when I was obliged to take her bra to prevent her from doing herself harm. It would go into a basket under the counter with her jacket.
After the matron took her picture, I suggested she call her lawyer again in a small room for that purpose. She seemed even more aloof after this conversation. The matron escorted her to the cell, unlocking the steel door with her cantaloupe-sized hand. “Your B
&
B for the night, honey.”
Selena paused briefly at the threshold of the cement cubicle, which contained only a mattress on a built-out ledge and a stainless steel toilet with a drinking fountain attached to the back. When the matron locked the door, I thought I saw more colour in Selena's face, but maybe it was just the blotchy patches blending. If confession wasn't good for the soul, at least it could not have been any worse than what she'd been holding in. And I too, through my nausea and fatigue, felt a welcome freedom, though little triumph.
Back in the office, Sukhi had supplied Wayne and Dex with the details. Our angry sergeant was pacing the room.
“What a lying bitch! Holding us hostage while we're working our asses off trying to find a killer. You especially, Dryvynsydes. How many hours did you waste with her, interviewing relatives, making sure she was all right? Jesus Christ! Why couldn't she have said it was an accident from the start? Aren't you madder than hell?”
“Sadder than hell.” I had no problem understanding the why of not coming forward, knowing everything else that had to come out with a confession. Wasting police manpower wouldn't have come into her calculations.
But Wayne was more agitated than I'd ever seen him. He had two kids, and I was looking almost as loony as Selena to him. “You're sad about a woman who kills her own child? Not because she or the baby has a life-threatening disease, or anything like a mercy killing. No, because she has the hots for some guy she can't have.”
His words stung more than expected. He had summed up the crime correctly, but the woman herself was more complex than one action. If I'd said that, he would have come back with “All killers are,” and been right again. I had no defence for it â or for her â and could only feel queasy at the thought of the seeds of emotion we all carry swelling so far out of control. It was just the first of the contempt that would greet Selena's name at every turn. I'd have to get used to it. “Despair like that is so ugly I don't like thinking about it. And the remorse must be worse than death.”
“You're verging on Stockholm syndrome,” Wayne said, still steaming. “Attachment to the criminal.”
Dex came between us. “I believe you mean Lima syndrome, Wayne. Stockholm syndrome is a morbid attachment of captive to captor; Lima syndrome is when the captor becomes sympathetic to his or her victims. It was coined when the guerrillas who took over the Japanese embassy in Peru let some of their hostages go.” Then he turned to me. “What tipped you off?”
“A precedent, you might say.”
I wasn't about to explain that two cases obsessing me had erupted in a “eureka” moment. Like the earth's plates shifting into each other. Cracking open and forcing light on what's underneath. If I got the attention of my three partners for that, I would surely lose it â Wayne's at least â in extending the plate-shifting theory to Selena's obsessive brain. Same upheaval, different results â in her case a tsunami. “A supercop friend of mine once said there are no reliable procedures in police work. Always be open to an outcome you'd never expect.”
Just as I poured myself a cup of coffee, my phone rang. Jan Kubik was downstairs at the desk. My stomach lurched at the prospect of this assignment, and the face of Roland Hughes â haggard but fine-featured like Sara â accompanied me on my way to meet him. At least he was spared the news I was about to deliver to Jan.
“Constable Dryvynsydes,” he said anxiously, shaking my hand. His leather car coat was a sootier shade than Selena's. “I want to see my wife.”
I told him he wasn't allowed any contact until after court tomorrow. “But I would like to speak to you, Jan.” I didn't reciprocate the surname formality. “To prepare you for what Selena is facing.”
He followed me to a small private room and made himself as comfortable as he could on the edge of a padded chair.
“Your wife has been charged in the death of your baby son.”
“Yes, yes, our lawyer has just told me that.”
“You aren't stricken by this news?”
“Of course I am, Constable Dryvynydes. How could it have happened?”
Anticipating a stunned silence, tears, or fury, I said quietly: “She confessed, Jan. She said the baby slipped from her arms into the pool, and she did nothing until it was too late. There was no abductor.”
He stared at me. Was I wrong in detecting impatience in his expression? That I should get on with my story and tell him something he didn't already know. “Selena killed your baby,” I repeated.
Jan Kubik lowered his head. “It was not my baby, Constable Dryvynsydes. Did she confess to that too?”
Now I was stunned into silence.
“Of course, she does not know that I know. That would have broken the spell for her. My wife required an excitement I could not give her. My complicity in her affair with Greg McGimpsey would have sucked the air out of it.”
I struggled to think of a response. “Your delicate orchid.”
“She always will be.”
“And you had the last laugh over Greg, because he didn't know.”
Jan nodded. “Greg is raw material, I am refined goods, and as you know, they are not encouraged in our diets. My wife craved both, but her early hardships would never allow her to choose the lifestyle he offered. Not just from a materialistic point of view, but because of her European culture, which I share. Nor would Greg have wanted my wife on a permanent basis. You are aware of his new woman from the theatre â someone much younger, with whom he can hike on weekends. Can you see my wife with a backpack? No, I was as certain she would not tell him as I was of his paternity. I am a precise man, if nothing else, Constable Dryvynsydes. I recently had myself tested and I am sterile. Being also a proud man, I had denied the possibility for many years. So you will understand that Anton was the supreme gift for me, thanks to Greg.”
“And Anton's death? Did you know about that too? I should warn you that you might be facing obstruction of justice charges.”
“I did not know. None of my suspicions made sense. The white Porsche led to Greg, but that was out of the question. And Selena's story seemed confusing, given all the co-ordinates. I knew I would get nothing more from her. But she was never a suspect in my mind,” he said emphatically.
“So is this a relief?”
Jan looked at me cynically, then caught himself. “I think perhaps release would be a better word. Like an open wound from a tight blister. But I would like to thank you, Constable Dryvynsydes, for your considerate manner toward my wife and myself. If there is nothing else, I will contact our lawyer as to how we should best proceed.”