until she’d talked to someone else first. Of course, I was certain the person she had to speak to was a member of the odious group of women. So I said, ‘Stay away from those harpies or you’ll be sorry.’ All I meant was that she’d lose the ground she’d gained, but I must have shouted because apparently I was overheard. Unfortunately, no one overheard her response.”
“Which was…?”
“Which was, ‘I already am sorry.’ ”
“Did you tell the police this?”
“Of course. They wrote it down very carefully. I’m sure the report has already been consigned to the shredder. Isn’t that how the authorities process all statements from middle-class white men over fifty?”
“Can it, Kevin. Let’s keep the focus on Ariel. Did she tell you anything more about why she was clearing out her office?”
“Just that she was separating what she needed from what she didn’t need.”
“That was it?”
“That was it.”
I finished my coffee and stood up. “I’m glad you were there,” I said.
He shrugged. “I’m a human being, Joanne. That brings certain obligations.”
As I walked down the corridor to my office, I had to admit I was spooked. Why had Ariel cleaned out her office four weeks before her class was over, and what had she meant by “the next battle”? Something else was troubling. Despite his promise to call me, I hadn’t heard from Howard Dowhanuik. That mystery, at least, appeared to have a solution within my reach, but when I got back to my office and dialled Howard’s apartment, there was no answer. I checked my machine at home. There were two messages: the first was from Marie Cousin thanking me in advance for being a parent-helper the next week when Taylor’s class visited the Legislature; the second was from Howard telling me he was worried about Charlie, and he’d be in touch.
The day stretched ahead. I could do what a sensible woman would do: shop for groceries, pack, get ready for the long weekend; or I could see if Charlie would talk to me. Ed Mariani had told me once that the first lesson a journalist learns is that everyone wants to tell their story. Something in my bones told me that a man as obsessed as Charlie had been would want to tell his. Luckily, I had a credible excuse for paying him a visit. If I was going to teach Ariel’s class on Tuesday, I’d need her copy of the text. I went back to the main office and flipped through Rosalie’s Rolodex.
Ariel’s address was a surprise: 2778 Manitoba Street was downtown, in a neighbourhood in which, depending on your bent, you could get cured by a Chinese herbalist, saved at a Romanian Catholic Church, or beaten to a pulp if you chose to hang around after dark. The city’s core was an unlikely choice for two young people with good incomes and privileged backgrounds, and as I drove past businesses that promised to cash cheques, no questions asked, and second-hand furniture stores with year-round sidewalk sales, I began to wonder if I had ever known Ariel at all.
The house she and Charlie had shared was a thirties bungalow with a fresh coat of paint the colour of Devonshire cream, dark green louvred shutters, lace curtains, and wicker hanging baskets filled with scarlet double impatiens. Nestled between a pawnshop with barred windows and an adult video store, the perky innocence of number 2778 came as a sweet shock, like discovering Donna Reed in a Quentin Tarantino movie.
Charlie and Ariel had made two concessions to the realities of their neighbourhood. The front lawn was protected by a chain-link fence and, as I stepped onto the porch, the dog that began barking in the backyard sounded like it meant business. After five minutes, the dog was still barking, no one had come to the door, and my idea about ambushing Charlie into supplying some answers seemed hare-brained rather than inspired. As I headed back to my car, I tried to step carefully around the water pooling on the walk, but despite my efforts, my feet got wet. By the time I reached the car, my temper was frayed. It was a toss-up whom I was angrier at: myself for thinking I could play Nancy Drew, or Charlie for leaving his dog out in a downpour.
The penny dropped. It had been raining constantly since 5:30 that morning. I hadn’t been close to Charlie for years, but if the Jesuits are right about the boy being the father of the man, I couldn’t imagine the Charlie I knew growing into a man who would leave his dog out in the rain. I retraced my steps and walked by the side of the house and peered over the gate into the backyard. A man in a khaki slicker, whose hood hid his face from view, was trying to feed paper into a smouldering hibachi. The dog, a Rottweiler, was beside him.
“Why don’t you wait for the rain to stop, Charlie?” I said.
But when he turned, the man facing me wasn’t Charlie. With his strong features, wire-rimmed glasses, and slick, swept-back hair, he had the look of a man who was accustomed to dominating the situation: a lawyer or an actor. He didn’t greet me, and his silence seemed like a professional tool.
“I’m looking for Charlie Dowhanuik,” I said.
The man remained silent. His expression wasn’t hostile, but it wasn’t welcoming.
“I’m a friend of the family.”
He shrugged. “What’s Charlie’s mother’s name?”
“Marnie,” I said. “Marnie Sullivan Dowhanuik.”
“Where does she live?”
“Good Shepherd Villa, in Toronto.”
He walked towards me, and unlocked the gate. The Rottweiler stayed at his side. As I came through the gate, I held my hand out, palm up, to the dog. He sniffed it eagerly; then he let me scratch his head. The man watched with interest. “You passed the name test and you passed the Fritz test,” he said. “That’s good enough for me. My name is Liam Hill, and I’m sorry for being suspicious, but it’s been that kind of day.”
“Joanne Kilbourn,” I said. “Have you had to deal with a ghoul patrol?”
“The stream has been steady,” he agreed. “I guess it’s human nature, but when you know the people involved, it’s hard to see tragedy as a spectator sport.”
“So you’re a friend of Charlie’s.”
“And of Ariel’s,” he said. “Look, we’re getting soaked. Do you want to continue this inside the house?”
“Sure.” I gestured towards a sheet of yellow legal paper smoking wetly in the hibachi. There was handwriting on it. “That’s not going to work, you know.”
He stiffened. I saw immediately that he had given my words a significance I hadn’t intended. I didn’t want to alienate him. At the moment he was the only link I had. “It’s too wet now,” I said. “Why don’t you try later?”
I could see him relax. “Let’s go inside.”
Fritz loped happily ahead, and I followed. We walked across the deck into the kitchen, an attractive room with hardwood flooring, old fashioned glass-faced cupboards, an ancient slope-shouldered Admiral refrigerator, a huge gas stove, and a picture window that looked onto the garden. Flush against the window was a butcher-block table. On the table, Ariel’s tomato plants languished, dry and yellowing. Unexpectedly, my eyes filled.
Liam Hill didn’t notice. He had his back to me, hanging his slicker over the back of a chair. When he turned, I saw that he was wearing a navy sweatshirt with white lettering.
“St. Michael’s College,” I said. “I went to Vic, but my first serious boyfriend was at St. Mike’s. His name was Bob Birgeneau, and he told me that he knew I was a nice girl, but that other boys wouldn’t know I was a nice girl if I kept wearing slacks to class.” I smiled. “Sorry,” I said. “Too much information.”
“Not too much information,” Liam Hill said. “Just an interesting sociological nugget. Shall we sit down?” He pointed towards a built-in breakfast nook just off the kitchen. Like the refrigerator, it was a period piece, a restaurant-style booth with wine leatherette banquettes facing one another across a Formica-topped, chrome- edged table. “Incidentally, we’re a little more enlightened about dress codes at St. Mike’s now.”
I slid into my place, and Liam Hill slid into his across from me.
“I feel like I should be ordering a cherry Coke and fries.” I said.
He smiled. “Whatever happened to cherry Cokes?” Then he leaned towards me. “I probably should have said this off the top. I’m not going to talk about Charlie.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “Actually, I was hoping to talk to Charlie myself. I thought he might need a friend.”
“How well do you know him?” Liam Hill asked.
“Not well at all any more. He and my kids knew each other when they were growing up. My connection is really with his parents, which, of course, now pretty well means Howard.”
“You and Howard Dowhanuik are close.”
