finished here. Just remember that none of us knows for sure just what happened last night. Don’t say anything that will muddy the waters.”
I scrambled to my feet. “I’m pretty good at keeping my focus,” I said.
Lily’s grey eyes bored into mine. “Good,” she said. “That’ll make it easier all around, won’t it?” She picked up the leash and whistled. Willie had not distinguished himself at obedience school, but he came to Lily immediately. She rubbed his head, snapped on the collar, and offered me the leash. “Chris’s death was an accident,” she said. “A terrible, terrible accident.” Her tone was without emotion – like that of a schoolgirl reciting by rote words that were beyond her comprehension.
When Willie and I got back to the cottage, Alex Kequahtooway’s silver Audi was in the driveway. I swore softly. I was depleted, without resources to examine a night that was still a fresh wound. There was something else, and it did not reflect well on me. The accident and its aftermath had battered me to the core, but apparently my vanity had survived. As I walked by the Audi, the rear-view mirror was in easy proximity, but I didn’t bend down to give myself a quick onceover. There was no point. I knew I looked like hell.
Alex was sitting in one of the rockers on the front porch. I hadn’t seen him since Christmas. He’d been involved in a difficult case then, and I’d chalked up his pallor and weight loss to overwork and stress. But the man in the rocker was suffering from something beyond too many late nights and too much caffeine. His eyes were closed and his head was resting against the wicker back of the rocker. His lethargy was a shock. Alex had always been driven, a dynamo who could grab a few hours’ sleep and function well. That morning, he looked as if something had hollowed him out. I called his name.
When he heard my voice, he opened his eyes and then raised his head slowly. “You’re okay?” he said.
“I will be,” I said.
“And Angus?”
“He’s remarkably resilient – as you well know.”
“Jo, how did you and the kids get mixed up with these people?”
“I explained that to the officers we talked to last night. We’re renting a cottage here for the summer.”
“And your landlord is Kevin Hynd, the hippie lawyer.”
“I see him more as Kevin Hynd, the loyal friend,” I said.
Alex flushed. The reference to loyalty had been a zinger. We’d broken up when Alex had become involved with another woman. Despite the hit, he soldiered on. “The storefront law business must be booming if Mr. Hynd was able to take off for parts unknown,” he said.
“They’re known to me,” I said. “Kevin is in Tibet, half a world away from Lawyers’ Bay. He’s not connected with this.”
“Maybe not,” Alex said. “But patterns are always provocative. It would be interesting to know why Mr. Hynd keeps walking away – first from a partnership in a highly lucrative law practice, now from his storefront office. Something seems to be making him uneasy.”
“This conversation is making me uneasy,” I said. “If you have questions about last night, I’ll answer them. Otherwise, I’m going inside to take a shower.”
“Okay, let’s get started.” Surprisingly, Alex made no movement to get his notebook and pen. “Something in your statement caught my eye. You said you were sleeping out here last night. Any special reason?”
“It was hot. It had been a full day, and my mind was racing. Monkey thoughts, my yoga instructor would say.”
“You’re still going to yoga?”
“Inner peace takes time.”
Alex smiled. “You seem to be moving in the right direction. You look good, Jo.”
The air between us was heavy with things unsaid, but I was in no mood for a trip down memory lane. “We were talking about the accident,” I said.
The warmth went out of Alex’s face. “All right, then why don’t you take another run at your story? Somehow, it just doesn’t feel right to me.”
My account of what had happened the night before was truthful and, except on one point, meticulous. As I had in my first interview, I hurried over my conversation with Chris Altieri. When Alex didn’t challenge me, I thought I was home free. I was wrong. He might not have been super-cop any more, but he hadn’t lost his touch. When I’d finished, he took out his notebook and uncapped his pen. “Interesting,” he said. “Now why don’t you tell me everything you know about Christopher Altieri.”
“There’s not much to tell,” I said. “Twenty-four hours ago Christopher Altieri was just a name to me – there must have been dozens of people at that party who knew him better than I did.”
“You’re probably right, but so far we’re coming up empty. The peripheral people – clients, friends, other cottagers – are anxious to help, but all they say is that he was a great guy. The people who should have known him best – the juniors in the law firm, the partners and their spouses – aren’t saying anything. That leaves you.”
“And I have nothing to say.”
The life had come back into Alex’s obsidian eyes. “I think you do,” he said. “I hear you had a one-on-one talk with Mr. Altieri last night.”
“You’d be wrong to attach any significance to that,” I said.
“Would I?” Alex made no attempt to hide his skepticism.
“It was a party. Lots of people were having one-on-one talks.”
“But you were the only person who had a one-on-one talk with the man who was about to die.”
“Alex, if you’re asking me whether Chris told me anything that explains the way his life ended, the answer is no. Nothing else is germane. Why don’t you just let him rest in peace?”
For an awkwardly long time, we held one another’s gaze. Alex looked away first. “I wish to God I could let this rest in peace, Jo, but I can’t.”
In all our time together, I had never seen Alex appear frightened, but in that moment I knew there was something he was afraid of. “Alex, what’s wrong?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he walked to the window and turned his back to me. “When I was growing up, I was out on this lake every day, swimming, canoeing, fishing, playing hockey. I knew it the way I knew my own body. These people have changed everything – cleared away all the brush, gouged the hills, bulldozed paths, transplanted the grasses that were here to places where they thought some indigenous grass might make them look culturally sensitive. Everything’s for appearance. This land means nothing to them. It’s just another playground.”
Suddenly I was furious. “Alex, you sound like a retread from the sixties. You hated living at Standing Buffalo. You left as soon as you could. You went to police college in the city, you got a job, and as far as I could see you never looked back.”
“Maybe that was a mistake,” he said softly. “Maybe we all would have been better off just staying where we were.”
“Who is this we you’re talking about? You’ve never divided the world into them and us before.”
“Maybe that was a mistake too.”
“Were you and I a mistake?”
Pain knifed his face, but he didn’t offer any reassurance that our three years together had been worthwhile. “Just be careful, Jo. You may be new to Lawyers’ Bay, but I’m not. I know these people. If anything comes up, you’ve got my number.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve got your number.” The bitterness in my voice surprised even me.
A cloud of dust almost obscured the silver Audi as it sped up the road, but I was still able to see that, instead of heading straight for the highway, the car turned into the Falconers’ driveway. I had a pretty good idea about the purpose of Alex’s visit. Lily Falconer had been born and raised on the Standing Buffalo reserve too. Alex’s epiphany that blood was thicker than water had clearly prompted him to remind Lily that, in this world, there were two camps, and the wise stayed with their own kind.
Showered, splashed with my Mother’s Day extravagance of Bulgari, and wearing a polo shirt, slacks, and sandals, I arrived at Coffee Row just as the festivities were about to begin. There was a buzz when I arrived. I had, after all, been part of the drama the night before, but my star was eclipsed the moment Leah poured the ceremonial first cup of java and presented it to Stan Gardiner. No doubt about it, this was a big event. The photographer from the town paper was there, so were the reeve of the municipality and the three candidates contesting the riding in
