The Brutal Heart

“Absolutely. I’ll be here at the office for the next couple of hours. After that, he has my cell number. Any time is good.”

I took out the tray with the drinks. Margot pushed herself to her feet, wiped her hands on her skirt, and reached for her glass. There was mud on her skirt and a smear of dog drool on her jacket.

I groaned. “Margot, your suit.”

She shrugged. “That’s why God gave us dry cleaners, and I miss having a dog. Until I moved to Saskatoon to go to university, there wasn’t a day in my life when I didn’t have a dog. My dad farmed, so there were always yard dogs. Whenever there was a runt in a litter, my dad would say, ‘Well, we’ll have to find a little bullet for that one.’ So of course, I’d pitch a fit until I got the puppy.” She beamed at the memory. “Every dog I ever owned was named Bullet. Dogs on farms never live long – giving them all the same name made life easier.”

Margot’s childhood had been a happy one, and as she talked about her twelve-year-old niece, Larissa, it struck me that A.E. Milne was wrong when he said we can’t retrace happy footsteps. Like her aunt, Larissa was growing up in duck-hunting country, and as Margot described teaching her how to clean ducks so she could charge rich hunters top dollar to deal with the mess of blood and feathers their expensive rifles brought down from the autumn skies, her eyes shone.

After Margot’s sleek BMW disappeared down Albert Street, Zack was smug. “I would call that a good afternoon’s work,” he said.

“It’ll be handy having a partner who knows how to clean ducks,” I agreed.

Zack snaked his arm around my waist. “Duck hunters,” he said happily. “Another client base to tap.”

“I hate to puncture your balloon,” I said. “But Sean called while Margot was here. I think he’s hoping his win today might change the partnership picture.”

Zack frowned. “Why would it? Sean caught a break today. It happens. Margot’s client turned out to be a more decent human being than our client. If a first-year law student had been representing Ginny Monaghan, the outcome would have been the same.”

“Is Sean really no better than a first-year law student?”

Zack shook his head. “That wasn’t fair. Actually, Sean’s pretty good. Otherwise, we would have let him go long ago. He’s just not partnership material.”

“Why not?”

“Truthfully? Because Sean doesn’t understand that the law is about human problems. At the centre of every case, there’s a real human being in trouble. The law is there to help them get justice. Sean doesn’t care about that; he just sees the law as a means to an end.”

“Money?”

“No. I’ve never heard Sean even mention money. It’s something else.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. I just know human beings aren’t part of the equation.”

Taylor and I hadn’t talked about how she was getting her hair cut. Except for a brief flirtation with hair products when she was in Grade Six, she had always worn her dark hair long. Braided, ponytailed, or brushed loose, it had been one of her glories, but when she bounced through the front door that afternoon, it was clear she had decided it was time to move along.

The new haircut was boy short, with just a wisp or two around her face – tres mignon, as the French would say. The gamine look transformed her face: her brown, long-lashed eyes seemed even larger; her cheekbones, more defined; her generous mouth, broader; her pretty neck, longer. The marriage of Taylor’s birth parents had been a disaster, but they had given Taylor a deep and enviable genetic pool from which to draw, and she’d been lucky. She’d inherited her mother’s talent but not her wildness, and even with the fierce mood changes of adolescence roiling inside her, Taylor had Stuart Lachlan’s steadiness. She also had his dark hair and delicate colouring, a combination that somehow softened her mother’s dramatic features. In every way that mattered, Taylor had always been a lovely girl, but suddenly I saw the physical beauty of the woman she would become, and I knew Zack saw it too. We exchanged a quick glance.

“Well,” Zack said.

Taylor’s face crumpled. “You hate it. I know it’s… extreme, but I thought… well, never mind what I thought.”

Zack clapped his hands together. “It’s a knockout,” he said. “Your mother and I are just a little overwhelmed at how terrific you look.” He wheeled towards the door. “Hey, where’s that camera Blake and Gracie gave me for my birthday? I’ll take a picture and you can see for yourself.”

I walked over and put my hands on my daughter’s shoulders. “It’s a great haircut, Taylor, and you look sensational. You are sensational.” I felt my throat tighten. “I’ll get the camera. It’s in Zack’s office.”

The grey, eyeless Care Bear Francesca had given Zack to celebrate her freedom was still on the couch. I stared at it for a moment, then went to the bookshelf, took down the camera, and walked up the hall, grateful beyond measure for a life filled with incandescent moments.

CHAPTER 5

Except for the comics and a quick glance at the front page to see if there were trials of note, Zack never read any of our morning papers. Whoever made it to the porch first brought the papers in, but after that Zack left them for me to read or recycle as I saw fit. That morning, there was a change in our pattern. When I came in from my run with the dogs, Zack held out the Globe and Mail. “Some nice coverage of Ginny in here,” he said.

I took the paper, poured myself coffee, and read. The front-page coverage of Ginny was positive: a large and flattering photo of her with the twins as they came out of court and the headline, minister of family wins daughters. I read the article. The account of the custody dispute was factual, but the slant was positive: no hint of Ginny’s sexual adventures, and Jason Brodnitz’s decision to withdraw his case hinted at indiscretions he did not wish made public. The article concluded with Ginny’s response to a reporter who asked how she planned to spend the evening. “With my daughters,” Ginny said. “They’ll have questions and we’ll have to help one another find answers.”

I put the paper back on the table and measured out the dogs’ food. “That article couldn’t have been more glowing if Ginny had written it herself,” I said.

“Nope,” Zack agreed, “and the other two are even better.”

I sat down opposite him. “So, a good news day.”

Zack shook his head. The Leader-Post was folded in his hand. “Cristal Avilia made the front page too.”

I took the paper and turned it to the lower fold. The picture of Cristal was smaller than the one of Ginny, but it was large enough for me to see what she looked like. I don’t know what I’d expected, but she was a surprise. The woman in the picture was fine-boned, with dark hair swept back to reveal a high forehead and dreamy eyes. She looked liked the kind of young woman I’d see at the opening reception of a small gallery or a performance art piece.

“Well,” I said.

“Well what?” Zack said.

“She isn’t what I expected. She looks like a girl out of a locket – very sweet and innocent.”

“I guess that’s why her billing rate was the same as mine,” Zack said dryly.

“How many clients did she have?”

“I don’t know. She told me once she kept it to three clients a day, and her bookings were two hours minimum. Plus, she warned me against counting on a weekend date because she was often away with clients from Friday to Sunday.”

“At $500 an hour,” I said, “Cristal must have earned serious money. Why would she blackmail Ned for $10,000? That would be small potatoes for her.”

“Good question,” Zack said. “And I guess now we’ll never know the answer. There are a lot of things we’ll never know.”

I looked at the photo again. Unexpectedly, I felt my throat tighten. “And a lot of things Cristal will never know,”