Grave Deeds (2 page)

Mrs. Robinson stalked down her sidewalk and right across the street to the van. She waited for the next load of cats to be dumped inside. “They killed her, didn't they?” she demanded. “Those cats ganged up on her, right? She fell and couldn't feed them, right? They ate her. I told you and told you they were dangerous. I knew something like this would happen, I just knew.” Her voice cracked.

The uniformed officer had finished speaking to the last of the group on the far sidewalk, and waved them off to their homes. He hurried across to the driveway, but the scratched detective beat him to her. He put his hand on her arm and drew her away from the van. The two Humane Society officers grinned at each other. One drew circles in the air around his ear. The other shrugged and picked up two more empty cases.

“Guilt,” the old man hissed.

“What?” I was trying to hear what Joe was telling the woman, but they were too far off, their voices lowered in intimate whispers.

“Guilt,” he repeated. “She always said she wished the old lady would die and take her cats with her. She can't stand it now that it's happened.”

“The cats really didn't eat her?” I shuddered at the vision.

“No. Mrs. Robinson watches too much TV. You know, those American crime shows, rescue squads, whatever. Bunch of baloney, if you ask me. Pets wouldn't do such a thing. Not 'less they were really starving, and it couldn't be more'n a day since the old lady died.”

“What happened to her?”

He shook his head. “Ah, it's a sad story, sad indeed. Mr. Iannou was telling me.” He nodded toward the other old man who was now arguing with Mrs. Robinson and the cop. “He found her, you know. Lives next door, has lived there fifty years, and I daresay she's never said more'n two words at a stretch to him. 'Good day' — you know. Or Tine evening.' But he kept an eye out for her, specially once that woman moved in and started on about the cats. Anyways, he realized he hadn't seen her for two days. Regular as clockwork she was, letting the cats in and out, once in the morning, once in the evening. And today was her church morning. She never missed a morning service, not even in winter. But today, nothing. So he knocks on the door and all he hears is them cats squalling. So he calls the cops.”

Mrs. Robinson stamped past us back to her house. She was muttering, but I couldn't quite hear what she said. I didn't want to hear it.

“And?” I prompted the old fellow.

“And they break down the door. And they find her, at the
bottom of the stairs. Fell she had, and died. Funny, though.”

“What?”

“Them stairs. Been years since those windows on the top floor been boarded up. Can't imagine what she'd been doing going up there. Even I have some trouble with stairs these days. Moved my bed down to the dining room. Granddaughter says it's a good thing I put in that first floor toilet when Martha took ill. Martha was my wife. Fifty-two years together we had. Fifty-two wonderful years. Are you married?”

“Granddad, what are you doing?” A young woman thrust herself in between me and the old man. In spite of her designer jeans and tailored cotton shirt, she was disheveled, almost frumpy. “It's not just the boys I have to watch, but you too, is it?” she whined. “I go to lie down for just five minutes, and off you go. I've been looking all over the house. I should have realized you'd be out here with all the ghouls.” She sniffed angrily and glared at me. “Who are you? What do you want with my grandfather?”

“We were just talking,” I said.

“That's no way to be speaking to a stranger, a lady at that,” the old man grumbled. “Didn't your mother teach you better manners, girl?”

“Spare me the lecture.” She tugged at his arm. “And put that damn dog down. You'll strain your back carrying him around.”

“He don't weigh hardly anything,” the old man protested. He sighed, then did as she said.

“You're coming home with me this minute. I bet you forgot your pills again, too, didn't you? You know you're supposed to take them at exactly three p.m., and it's half-past already. You're worse than the boys. A grown man you are, you ought to know better.”

“Don't worry, girl, I'll be all right this once. I had to say good-bye to Mrs. Baker now, didn't I? She's the last of the old ones to go. 'Cept me, of course, and with you looking out for me, I got no worries about that happening too soon, eh?” He chuckled, and gently patted her shoulder.

She flushed. “Oh, you.” She pushed his hand away and then clutched it. “You'll be the death of me, you know.”

“Come on, then, let's go take those pills. See what those
scallywags of yours are up to.”

“Oh my god, the boys.” She dropped his hand and ran off, her sandals slapping the pavement.

“Your granddaughter?” I asked.

“She loves me.” The old man shook his head. “Don't know why, but there it is. I let her boss me round some, but don't take much notice of her tone. She can't help it. She had bad luck with that man of hers, left her with two little ones and a third on the way. The baby's two now, sweet little thing. She needed a home and I had that big old place, too big for me to keep up myself after the wife died. Family should stick together, eh? Well, I best be going before she's out here after me with a frying pan.” He chuckled. “Got a temper that one has, just like her grandma. Come on then, Winston, old boy. Time to go home. Good-day.”

I was ready to leave as well. I turned to find my way blocked by the plainclothes officer with the scratched palm.

“Excuse me.” He was very polite. “May I have a word with you, ma'am?”

It was too late to pretend to be uninvolved, a passerby. Once again, my curiosity, like a cat's, had caught me.

The cop smiled and flipped his badge. “I'm Detective Joe Gianelli. And you are?”

“Rosalie Cairns,” I said. “What happened in there?”

“You live around here?” he asked.

“I hate people who answer questions with questions,” I retorted.

“It's my job,” he shrugged. “Let's get the preliminaries over with, okay?”

I sighed and gave him the address, not just of my apartment here in the city, but of my house in the town where my husband lives and has his business.

“You're separated?” He looked me up and down. From the way his eyes shifted from belligerence to attentive friendliness, I realized he must like what he saw. I wasn't wearing my usual graduate school uniform of jeans and bulky sweater, but had dressed up for tea in my one good outfit: burgundy suede jacket over a white silk blouse and black linen slacks. He and I were about the same age, in our early forties, but he used dye to keep his thinning hair black while I ignore the gray that streaks through the mass of curls I still wear long and loose in spite of the aggravation it causes. I took up swimming this past year, an hour a day in the university pool. Trying to stuff all that hair into a bathing cap almost ruins the pleasure of competing against myself for more and more laps.

“No, not separated.” I answered curtly.

“Divorced, then?”

“No.”

“You work here? You commute?”

“It's too far to commute. That's why I have a place here. I'm in graduate school at York.” I searched in my bag for my spectacle case and switched from the oversize dark prescription lenses to my wire frames. The sudden brightness made me blink.

“What does he do? Your husband?”

“He's a carpenter/contractor, renovates old houses, that kind of thing. He's just started his company and can't leave the business. I go home most weekends.”

“Who takes care of the kids? I assume you have kids.”

“I thought cops didn't make assumptions,” I snapped. “And no, we have no kids.”

“So you're all on your own here.”

My hand itched to slap the smirk from his face. I counted to ten — slowly. Losing my temper would only worsen matters. I took a deep breath and spoke clearly and slowly, as if to a child: “I'm working. I'm in the library most days, and most nights too, for that matter. I don't have much time for socializing. It seemed like a good idea when I decided to come back to school, to take an apartment here until my course work is done. As soon as this academic year is over, I'll be moving home.”

I could hardly wait for the school year to end. Once my oral exams were over, I would be free to research and write my thesis, and I could do that in my own study in my own house. When I had first come to the city, I'd rented a tiny bachelor apartment on the twenty-fourth floor of a highrise, in a development in the suburbs near York University. The windows wouldn't open and the elevator always stopped at every single floor going up or down, although no one seemed to be waiting for it. The walk to classes along Keele Street past strip plazas and car dealerships was a misery of slush, biting winds, and exhaust fumes. Living downtown meant I had a long transit ride out to campus, but I was close to the Robarts Library for my research. Everything I needed was within walking distance: Kensington Market for food, Chinatown for inexpensive but interesting meals out, bookstores, movie theatres, the
University of Toronto campus with its sports complex and myriad cultural activities. Sometimes, I felt like an undergraduate again, twenty years old and carefree; and, far too often, lonely.

I missed my dog, Sadie, and our walks along the river close to our house. I missed Will. Our time together was always too short, a fever of talk and love-making. There was always so much to do: work on the house, work on my courses, seeing friends, shopping and laundry. I looked back almost with nostalgia on those long, slow days of underemployment, when I worked part-time at a bookstore. It was easy to forget how bored I'd been then.

Gianelli looked down at his notebook. “This street's not exactly in your neighbourhood,” he said. “Are you visiting someone around here?” He managed to make his question sound suggestive.

“I was on my way to my aunt's. She'd invited me to tea.”

“And she lives?”

“Right behind you.”

He swivelled and stared at the little house as if he'd never seen it before. The animal control officers slammed the van door on the final load of cats. They waved to Gianelli before driving away. He grimaced.

“Who's this?” It was the man who had ribbed Gianelli about the cat scratch. He was younger than either of us, a black giant in a rumpled blue suit. His shoulders strained at the polyester fabric. From the way he balanced on the balls of his feet, I could tell he was one of those guys who worked on his muscles at a gym. A cop with a “Terminator” complex: what a cliché. His body was taut and sculptured now, but I shuddered inwardly to think how he would appear in thirty years when age took its revenge.

“Detective Wilson,” he shook my hand in a vise grip.

“You're partners?” I asked.

“Not exactly,” he laughed. “We work out of the same division. Happened to be on our way to lunch when the call came in and he wanted to check it out. I'd leave it up to the constables, but … my friend here is looking for a Big Case, get his name in the papers. Hey, Gianelli, you started frothing yet?”

“Lay off,” Gianelli growled. “This is a relative.”

“Of the old lady?” Wilson's smile hardened. “How could
you let her live like that? Die like that? You been to see her lately? Like in the last decade or so? You should be ashamed.”

“I've never even met her. I didn't even know I had an aunt until she wrote me.”

“You got the letter with you?” Gianelli ignored the younger man and held out his hand to me.

I handed him the envelope. He compared the address on it with the one I'd given him and eased the letter out with care. He held it at arm's length, squinting as he read the short message. He should have been wearing the bifocals I glimpsed in his breast pocket.

Wilson grabbed the letter away from him. “Can't you read any faster? Where're your glasses?
Dear Mrs. Cairns
— that's you, I presume?”

I nodded. Gianelli pulled a silver cigarette case out from an inside pocket. He tapped it open and offered it to me. I shook my head. He chose a filter tip and made a show of lighting it with a gold lighter. The sun winked on the diamond in his pinky ring. He was exceedingly well dressed for duty.

Wilson continued to read: “
I understand that you are the only daughter of my nephew, George Cook. It would please an old woman greatly if you were to forgive the neglect of the past, and come to visit me for tea next Wednesday, at three p.m., at the address above. You may find it in your interest to attend. I look forward to meeting you. I am, your dear Aunt, Beatrice Baker.
Will you listen to that? Talk about formal.”

“What's this about past neglect?” Gianelli demanded.

“I told you I never met her. My father left when I was just a baby, and my mother never talked about his family. I just assumed he hadn't any, but was an only child like me. Only child of an only child — it was something special we shared. That I thought we shared.”

“You think she was going to give you something? Take you back in the bosom of the family?”

“I didn't want anything from her. I wasn't going to come at all at first, but I was curious. I might have cousins. She might have pictures of my father and my grandparents.” I blinked away sudden tears. “I just wanted to meet her. To see where I came from. Is that so hard to understand?”

Wilson folded the letter and put it back in the envelope. He
hesitated before handing it back to me. I put it in my bag — so much for family.

“You were pretty cosy with that old fellow with the dog,” Gianelli said. “You been around already? Checking out the place maybe?”

“I'd never seen him before today. He just wanted to talk to someone. You know how old people like to talk.”