Woman Chased By Crows Part 26

Sunday, March 20 Orwell was a late-night house roamer. He often fell asleep in his little office under the stairs and woke with a crick in his neck and a need for a small bite of something sweet. After an hour of foraging, checking the weather, looking for the Fancy Fowl magazine he'd misplaced, making certain that the house was secure and all who should be home were home, he would take himself to bed. Only to be up again long before dawn, fussing with paperwork and fretting about inconsequentials just to have something to occupy his mind. Erika was by now accustomed to her husband's odd routines. She had tried on many occasions to ease him into a "normal" schedule of sleep, plying him with hot milk, Ovaltine and cocoa. But while he was happy to have a warm drink in the evening, especially if a couple of sugar cookies were on the saucer, he tended to fall asleep in a chair as easily as in a bed, and rarely spent more than three hours in any one location.

Sat.u.r.day night and pre-dawn Sunday were even more unstructured than usual. Detective Stacy Crean's lengthy phone report had dragged him from the dinner table just as dessert was being served and had lasted until dishes were being put away. By the time Stacy had finished giving him the high points of her excursion, his family was scattered to who knows where and he was reduced to eating dessert alone at the kitchen table, a not entirely unhappy occasion (an ample slice of Erika's mixed berry crumble, an unfinished Sat.u.r.day crossword to wrestle with) but not as agreeable as it might have been with all family members present for the weekend recap and projections. He never did get to hear how close Patty and Gary were to pinning down a date (sometime in June if possible), or how brilliant Leda was in rehearsal that afternoon, or how Diana's meeting with Georgie went, if in fact she was inclined tell him.

04:30 Sunday morning found him back under the stairs checking his murky aquarium for signs of fish and replaying Stacy's verbal report in his mind. Sounded like an exciting trip, even though Stacy was p.r.o.ne to gloss over the bits where she beat people up. The retrieval of the missing handgun was satisfying. The possibility that it had been used in a homicide was unfortunate. The unspoken awareness that the murder might very well have been committed by a member of the Toronto police force was troubling. But however you looked at it, the excursion had been a success. Stolen gems were recovered, suspects were arrested, a missing woman was located. All parties had been processed, interviewed, and their overnight accommodations arranged. Stacy had done everything expected of her and more. She really was too good to be stuck in Dockerty for an entire career. As much as he would hate to lose her, if he could help her move on, he would.

"Anybody alive in there?" It was Diana, in the doorway, pointing at the aquarium.

"Oh. Well. Oscar's fat and sullen, as usual, but I thought I saw a fishlet lurking in the weeds at the bottom."

"A fishlet?"

"A little Molly or Platy or some kind of hybrid minnow critter. Oscar ate all the grown-up live-bearers but mayhap there's a tiny survivor in there."

"Stay out of sight if he knows what's good for him."

"You're up early."

"Beat some of the traffic back to Toronto. You want coffee, Dad?"

"Oh sure, I'll make some."

"It's already made."

He followed her into the kitchen. "I didn't hear a thing," he said. "When I make coffee in the morning it wakes up the whole house." He sat at his end of the table and watched her fix him a cup. "You and Georgie come to any arrangement?"

"Oh yeah," she said. "He's all raring to go." There was amus.e.m.e.nt in her eyes as she watched him struggle to appear disinterested. "It's okay, Dad. I haven't even spoken to our client yet."

"Our client."

"That's a.s.suming Carey-Michelson & Carey will turn me loose to work with Georgie."

"Is there a possibility they won't?"

"They're touchy about image. They might not think it's in the firm's best interests."

"And if they say you can't?"

"Then I'll have a tough decision to make. I'd be walking away from a good spot with a very cla.s.sy outfit."

"You'd do that?"

"As I said, tough decision."

The stars were still out when they walked to her car. A first-quarter moon was falling in the west. Horse noises from the barn, clomping and blowing.

"What's today? The twentieth?"

"Sunday."

"Tomorrow's the equinox," he said. "Start of spring."

"d.a.m.n cold for spring," she said.

"Nevertheless," said Orwell. "Your mother's snowdrops are up. They know what time of year it is."

She got behind the wheel, cinched up, checked her mirrors, aware that he was making sure everything was done properly. "Listen up, Dad, if my getting involved in this is going to cause you any grief, I won't even consider it."

"Somebody has to defend the poor b.u.g.g.e.r."

"Doesn't have to be the police chief's daughter."

"Ha! That does make it more . . ."

"Complicated."

"I don't mind complicated," he said. "As long as we observe the rules we'll be okay."

"Who knows if I'll even be involved?" she said. "They could tell me to forget it."

"Anything you decide is okay by me, sweetheart." He patted the roof of the car. "Drive safe."

She had red hair like her father, and the fair freckled skin and bright blue eyes that went with it. She was locking her bike in the rack at the condo entrance. Adele felt a melancholy flutter - the wide mouth, tiny creases at the corners, so much like Paulie's. "Danielle. Hi. How are you doing?"

"I'm okay, you know."

"How's your mom holding up?"

"She's okay, too. She's sorry it happened, you know, she cried, a little bit."

"How about you? You cried?"

"Sure. Of course I did. We were supposed to go away for March break. He said we'd do something special. He was always saying stuff and then it never happened. I was used to it. I figured he forgot."

Adele collected Paulie's mail and jammed it into her coat pocket. "I'll deal with it. I'll deal with it," she muttered. "Just not. Right. Now." The elevator doors opened. Danielle took a step back. "We don't have to go up," Adele said. "This can wait."

"It's okay."

It didn't look like Lacsamana and Heatley had even been in the place. The cups from Sunday morning were still on the coffee table, the rolltop desk was shut up tight, the room hadn't been searched.

Danielle went first to look at the framed photographs covering most of one wall. Many of the pictures were of her. "I've only been up here two times," she said. "Mostly we'd go to a movie."

"He loved you a lot."

"Oh sure, I know."

"He wants you to have his pension and insurance and whatever else there is. He wanted to make sure your . . . that it went to you. Only you. So he asked me to set up some kind of trust or something, I don't know s.h.i.+t about stuff like that. I'll get a lawyer to work out something. He figured you could use the money to go to school, university. You planning on going to university?"

"I guess. Yes."

"Any ideas?"

"Not really. Maybe art school. I like fas.h.i.+on."

"I can see that."

"You don't."

"Never saw the point.

"You'd be surprised. You should let me do a makeover sometime." She lifted a photograph of her and her father from the wall and held it like a book. "You going to sell all his stuff?"

"Nope. He said you should have whatever you want."

"Didn't he give you anything?"

"Oh sure. He left me his music, his blues collection. But if you want it you can . . ."

"No. You should have it. I'm not into that old-timey stuff anyway."

"You don't have to cart things away, we can maybe stick Post-it notes on whatever you want, with a 'D' on them. I'll have it delivered."

"I'm not into furniture. Maybe I could have his leather jacket. The college one."

"Sure."

"Not to wear, well, maybe sometimes, but to have."

"He liked that jacket." Adele had absolutely no idea where to start. "So. You want to look around? Pick stuff out?"

"I'd like this picture. From when we went to a baseball game. He almost caught a foul ball. Bounced right off his hands. He was so mad."

"That would have p.i.s.sed him off."

"I know."

"He was such a jock."

"I've got a picture of him playing basketball. He looks totally dorky. His shorts were really short. I mean really short."

Adele felt suddenly overwhelmed. Her legs felt soft and she plopped onto the couch. "Suffering Christ, it's going to take forf.u.c.kingever to go through all this."

"I can help."

"Would you? s.h.i.+t. I'd appreciate."

"We should start collecting boxes."

"Right. A plan. A place to start. Boxes."

"You're bad at this, aren't you?"

"Very. I'm hopeless when it comes to personal s.h.i.+t. I moved into my place five years ago and I still haven't unpacked everything. Thing is, I don't miss any of the stuff I haven't unpacked. Probably means I should just get rid of it."

"At least my dad's stuff is organized. So, did he have a storage locker?"

"Oh f.u.c.k." The thought hadn't occurred to her.

"Our building has lockers."

"Is it going to rain?"

"I don't think so, clouds are too high. Maybe tomorrow."

"I am in your custody?"

"I'm just giving you a lift home."

"I suppose I may not smoke in your car."

"Police vehicle. Sorry. I can stop for a while, if you like."

"You would do that?"

"Sure. I need some gas. Up the highway."

They were on 35, heading north, Dockerty was a half hour away. Weather coming in, gusty March weather from the northwest, always from the northwest it seemed, grey clouds moving and climbing. Anya leaned against the pa.s.senger door, her hands inside her coat sleeves. She wasn't wearing the brown wig and she had scrubbed off the crooked lipstick. "The detectives wanted to keep me one more night," she said.

"Your alibi checked out," said Stacy.

"The best alibis are simple, do you not agree, Detective? I was asleep. Refute it if you can. I had the receipt for a nice little motel on Kingston Road. Silver Lake Motel. Sixty-three dollars. Not cheap. But it had a colour television. I had a long bath and went to sleep." They pa.s.sed a dark stand of trees and she caught a brief reflection of her face, a flicker of white. She smiled at herself. "I could have had a long bath and a short nap and gone out after midnight. A receipt is not much of an alibi. Is it, Detective?"

"Not much."

"But you would need a witness who saw me leave, or return, and a witness to put me at another location."

"That would be helpful."

"Otherwise there is no point holding me."

"It takes time to build a case. Just because you aren't in jail doesn't mean you're eliminated as a suspect."

Anya turned to face her. "Yes. That is good."

"Why is it good?"