Deadly Fall (25 page)

“What passage are you reading?” she said.

“Nothing particular.” He yanked the bookmark out. Both sipped their beer. Behind her, the wind clacked the vertical blinds against the screen.

He stared at the unlit fireplace. “I guess everyone knows. Or they will in a couple of days.” He raised his bottle, as though making a toast, “Who the fuck cares? It's over.”

She adjusted her position on the hard cushion. “Did the police visit you in Ottawa? Is that why you flew home?”

“I was getting ready to go to the airport when they showed up. I told them if they want to talk, okay, but it would be in the taxi or nowhere. Not a smart move on my part.” He swigged more beer.

“Why were you coming home, even before—?”

“Why are you asking all these questions?” He kept staring straight ahead.

A gust of wind banged the blinds out toward her head. If the Ottawa cops had solid evidence, wouldn't they have taken him into custody? Later, she would think about why he had assumed Sam had sent her.

“What's the next step?” she said.

“For me?”

“The cops.”

“I expect the Calgary ones will grill me. When you rang the door, I assumed it was them. Sam left a message, saying they'd been to see him. My mother has left, like forty messages, on all my phones. I don't feel like talking to anyone. I don't feel like talking to you either, if that's okay.”

Despite his protests, he had invited her in, offered her a beer and had said a fair bit so far. Clack, clack, clack went the blinds.

“Do you mind if I open the blinds to let in more air?” she asked.

“I prefer it dark.”

“Can I ask you a few questions about Callie?”

“I'd rather you didn't. The cops asked me enough.” He scratched his thinning hair.

“Did you—”

“It's bad enough she was shot to death.” His voice wavered. “To be dragged in as a suspect. You don't know what that's like. I'd never kill her, no matter what she did.”

“What did she do?”

“It was my fault. Why didn't I do what she wanted? My career's shot now, anyway. I could have lost it as easily with her alive.” He stared at her, his eyes wild and red. “Have you ever looked at your life and watched it get sucked down the toilet and there's not one fucking thing you can do about it?” He slumped back on the love seat. It was hard to picture him as the affable politician who had spoken to her at the funeral.

The clack behind her was starting to drive her nuts. “Did you see much of Callie after she broke up with you last spring?”

“We met a couple of times.”

“I heard you stalked her at the folk festival.”

Anger flashed through his eyes. “Who said that? Isabelle? I didn't stalk her. It was a public place. I bought my ticket. So she happened to be there.” He leapt up. “Do you want another beer?” Without waiting for her reply, he strode to the kitchen.

If the cops came by later tonight, what would they think of him in this drunken state? He got a Corona from the fridge and plunked it on the counter.

Paula set her beer on the coffee table next to the Bible. “What did you and Callie talk about those last two or three times you met?”

He popped off the beer bottle cap. “The usual stuff. Music, the house, her studies, that is, what she'd do now that she was finished her
BFA
.” He sounded surprisingly sober.

“Did she apply to an Ottawa university
MFA
program and then withdraw after the breakup, not wanting to move there without you?”

“I felt shitty about that. I told her to try teaching for awhile and apply to the University of Calgary next year. Or chuck the university thing and form a band, get some gigs. Who cares if they don't pay very much? She wasn't doing this for the money.” He remained behind the counter. “Who would kill her? That's what I want to know. She didn't have problems with anyone except—well, I'm not accusing him. Her husband was still hung up on her, was always calling with some kind of excuse and working on her guilt about leaving him. I told her she shouldn't go back to him on account of that.”

“Was she considering it?” Paula reached for her beer bottle.

“She said it wasn't about him. The guilt was something else.”

“Guilt about something besides leaving Kenneth?”

“She refused to tell me.” He dumped the remaining quarter bottle of beer into the sink and got a fresh one from the fridge, opened it, and returned to the love seat.

Clearly, he did want to talk. He struck her as the extroverted type, inclined to turn to people when troubled rather than retreat, as Anne had said. Maybe he retreated when sober; reached out when drunk.

“Let me get this straight,” she said. “This conversation about the something other than Kenneth, did she bring it up repeatedly or just one time?”

He closed his eyes and swayed his head, as if he were listening to imagined music. “It started around last April, before she dumped me, and got worse.”

“What do you mean by worse?”

He leaned his head back and tapped his toes on the coffee table. “More nervous about it, or hyper, like it was getting hold of her. I said if she couldn't tell me, she should talk to her minister or someone. If you don't get it off your chest, sin eats away at you.”

She glanced at the Bible. “Did you tell the police any of this?”

“Not yet.” His eyes shot open.

“When was the last time you and Callie discussed it?”

“A couple of weeks before she died. I really think it was the Kenneth thing, but she insisted it wasn't so I wouldn't feel guilty about it.”

“Did you?”

“I should have, but didn't, somehow.” He looked at the Bible.

“You and she met three or four times since spring.”

He took a sip of beer. “So what if we did? It was talk, not sex.”

“Did she call you or you her?”

“I don't remember. It doesn't matter who did. We both wanted to be together.”

“Really?”

He stared ahead, not answering.

“Were you hoping to patch things up?” she said.

“Maybe, but I was playing it, cautious-like. Fuck.” He banged the bottle on the table, spilling drops on the book. “None of this matters any more. Don't you get it? She's dead. People say I'll get over her. Sure, I will. It isn't that.”

She sipped her beer. Let him spill his thoughts out.

“I don't care that much about fucking politics. I can find legal work. I've got great connections. Politics gets you that.” He picked up his bottle. “I'm not even worried about a criminal charge. I'll get off. I'm fucking friends with the best defense lawyer in town.”

She squinted at him. “What is it you care about?”

“Nothing.”

“So, why consume, like, forty bottles of beer in one night?”

He swished the beer around his bottle. “She was on her way to talk to you, wasn't she, the day she died?”

“It looks that way.”

“I told her to confide in someone. She picked you.”

The guilt needled Paula. “Do you feel guilty about sending her on the trail that morning?”

“Fuck, no. I couldn't predict that would happen. No one could.” He jumped up, walked to the counter and turned. “I didn't invite you here. Why did you turn up? Maybe she sent you.”

“Anne, your mother?”

“The soul lives on. I can't escape, couldn't escape her in Ottawa.”

Did he mean Callie? He thought Callie had sent Paula?

He rubbed his head. His thin hairs stuck up as though electrically shocked. “I'm the one who told her to confess. I should do the same: get it out, before it eats me to death.” His words were beginning to slur.

She held her breath. Would he confess to the murder? Did he think she wouldn't report it to the cops, or was he past caring? What if he stabbed her once it was off his chest? The knife block was awfully close to his hand. If the patio door was unlocked, she could make a quick dash.

Dimitri leaned against the kitchen counter, crossing one leg over the other. “My mother will stand by me to the end. She thinks I shit gold bricks.”

His voice had regained the calmness that interspersed his outbursts. It was hard to adapt to the swings. She relaxed, tentatively.

“My dad is almost as bad,” he said. “They'll both believe I'm innocent until they see me behind bars and even then they'll call it justice miscarried.”

She stared straight up at him. “You're lucky to have their support. By your dad, you mean—”

“Sam thinks I did it.”

“He's worried you did.”

“He knows I did. He has no doubt of it. He says he believes me. I know he doesn't. It's all over his eyes and face: it's in his words. There's not one fucking thing I can do to convince him.”

“Of your innocence?”

“Fuck yes. What else?”

She felt a mix of relief, disappointment, and confusion. “What is it you want to confess to me?”

“That was it.”

“What?”

“Confess, confide, what's the fucking difference?” He paced to the love seat and back, with the swift, jerky movements of a teenager. “Like I said, I'm going to be okay. You can't have everything you want. Monday, I'll meet with the party leader and resign my seat. One way or another, the affair shit will hit the public fan. They'll turn on me, throw me out. I deserve it. I shouldn't have done what I did. If I could take it back . . .” He halted, eyes red, hair wild. His face suddenly eased into an ironic smile that reminded her of Sam's. “So much for my political image.”

She stood and faced him. “Sometimes the public likes things real. People might find the affair romantic and appreciate your vulnerable, human side.”

He grinned. “That's what she always said.”

“You mean Callie?”

“Who else?”

“And what bothers you most is Sam's lack of faith in you.”

“What bothers me most is her fucking murder.”

“You didn't kill her?”

“Sam's convinced you I did.”

“No, he didn't.”

Faint hope lit his hazel eyes. “You believe I'm innocent?”

“I . . . I don't know.”

“That's why she sent you.”

“Callie?”

“You're open to the possibilities.”

“You think her spirit is acting on this?”

“I don't want to talk about it. Didn't I say that already a million times? Would you all leave me alone?”

Paula rode the
elevator to Hayden's office floor. He was waiting. As she exited, he kissed her.

“I thought we were saving ourselves for tomorrow,” he said.

“Something's come up.”

“Nothing serious?”

His shirt sleeves were rolled up; he wore no jacket or tie; a five-o'clock shadow shaded his jaw. They walked down the corridor lined with dark, empty cubicles

“I had breakfast with Detective Vincelli,” she said. “I told him all I've learned over the past few days.”

“I'm glad you finally contacted him. You've done your bit. The cops can take it from here.”

“Isabelle's moving in with Erin. Long story. It involves drywall and painting.”

“The point is Isabelle will no longer be living with you.” He smiled.

“It turns out Dimitri, Sam's son, was more involved with Callie than I imagined.”

“That house was a sick situation, everyone screwing each other.”

“It wasn't like that. Or maybe it was. I still don't know. There are too many possibilities.”

A single file folder and a few scattered papers remained on his desk. He had been working hard to free his weekend for her. Outside his corner windows, city lights shimmered along the highways and streets toward the mountains buried in darkness. Paula took her place in the visitors' chair, across from him, willing herself not to grab his New Orleans souvenir music box to fiddle with. This was going to be hard.

“I can't play tennis tomorrow,” she said. “I have to go to Kananaskis.”

“To interview a claimant?” Hayden looked puzzled, then brightened. “I'll go with you. We could stay overnight; turn it into a little holiday. God knows we both need it.”

Paula rocked the chair. “Sam asked me to go hiking with him and his friend, Felix.”

Hayden's face dulled.

“Isabelle's coming along,” she added.

“A double date? Cute.”

“You could join us, if you like.”

“And be a fifth wheel?” he said. “No bloody way.”

Paula exhaled in relief. Dealing with Hayden and Sam in one place would be like juggling matter and antimatter. As it was, she had probably made a mistake, giving into Isabelle's pleadings. Paula would have said no, if Tony and Ginette hadn't been so agreeable to Isabelle's going. They must truly believe Sam and Felix were innocent. They also seemed to think Paula was a good influence on Isabelle, which likely showed their bad judgment.

“It's not a date,” Paula said. “This might sound silly, but I think the cops need my help.”

“More than silly, it's arrogant to believe you can do more than the professionals.”

“It's not a case of doing more, but doing something different. I can attack from inside. Sam didn't ask the cops to go on a hike.”

“I wish Sam would take a hike.”

“I'll have a whole day with Sam as well as Felix, whom the cops consider major suspects, for reasons they won't explain. Sam might keep his cool, but Felix is a blabbermouth. One slip could provide all the evidence they need to nail whoever did this. Felix and Sam will be less on guard with me on a friendly hike.”

Hayden slammed his hands to his desk.

Paula got up and walked to the window. “I've just come from visiting Sam's son, Dimitri. He seems on the brink of cracking up, mainly because it bugs him that Sam, his father, believes he killed her.”