“Moral outrage. Hang on to your toque, Joanne. Mrs. Carruthers told Richard she quit because she couldn’t spend another night in a house that had nurtured a murderer.”
“Did she name her suspect?”
“Nope, but she did give Richard some interesting nuggets to ponder. She said that Bryn’s relationship with her father was unnatural.”
“No surprise there.”
“Then try this. According to Mrs. Carruthers, Bryn was not the innocent victim. In Mrs. C’s words, it was ‘tit for tat.’ ”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning that Bryn threatened to withhold favours if she didn’t get her way.”
I felt a coldness in the pit of my stomach. “What kind of favours?”
“Not sexual. For lack of a better word – professional. Remember that bizarre thing Bryn did with the camera – speaking to it directly about what Evan was doing to her?”
“Yes.”
“The housekeeper says Bryn used the camera to barter. She’d tell the camera what she wanted, and if Evan didn’t come across, she’d screw up the film.”
“And our pillar of rectitude, Mrs. Carruthers, did nothing.”
“She didn’t believe it was her place to interfere. She felt that was up to Bryn’s flesh and blood.”
“Who, as we know, did nothing.”
“And that’s the part I don’t get,” Kevin said. “I’m not exactly a cock-eyed optimist when it comes to my fellow beings, but you would have thought someone in that house would have stopped Evan.”
“Maybe everyone just had too much to lose,” I said. “Evan was Bryn’s father. If someone confronted him, he could have simply taken her and moved away. Claudia devoted years of her life to that girl. She might have convinced herself that as long as she and Bryn were under the same roof, she could exercise some control.”
“And Tracy just needed a roof over her head,” Kevin said. “Incidentally, Mrs. Carruthers says that particular need has become more pressing. Tracy lost her job on that kids’ show.”
“No more Broken Wand Fairy?”
Kevin laughed softly. “Hey, losing her wand might not be the worst thing that ever happened to Tracy. Her ‘Magictown’ gig looked like a dead-ender to me. And they do say that freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”
“So is ‘desperation,’ ” I said. “Tracy tried to commit suicide this afternoon.”
Kevin groaned. “Oh shit.”
“My sentiments exactly,” I said. “And it gets worse. Tracy is Bryn’s birth mother.”
“Whoa,” Kevin said. “Now that is heavy.”
“But it explains a lot,” I said. “We saw how close the sisters were. I’m assuming Annie’s epilepsy made pregnancy too much of a risk, and Tracy volunteered.”
“Does Bryn know?”
“Jill’s telling her as we speak. And Kevin, I’m certain Gabe Leventhal had put the pieces together the night he died.”
“So Tracy had motives for killing both Gabe and Evan.”
“For Gabe, yes, but I don’t understand what she’d gain by killing Evan after he and Jill were married. The moment Evan slipped the ring on Jill’s finger, she was Bryn’s stepmother.”
“Maybe the laws are different in ‘Magictown,’ ” Kevin said. “Or maybe something about the wedding just ticked Tracy off. In my experience, the motivation for most murders is pretty mundane.”
“I guess it doesn’t much matter what was going on in Tracy’s head,” I said. “She had an alibi, remember?”
“Right,” Kevin said. “She was with Claudia. Which, of course, means that Claudia also has an alibi.”
“You think it’s possible they’re both lying.”
“I think we’d be smart not to rule anything out,” he said. “Mrs. Carruthers is no fan of Claudia’s. I gather the Rottweilers may have something to do with her distaste, but, apparently, Mrs. Carruthers is of the opinion that an able-bodied woman like Claudia should be able to make her own way in the world and not sponge off her mother.”
“I take it that’s a direct quote.”
“A close paraphrase,” Kevin said. “Mrs. C did add one interesting stroke to our portrait of Claudia. Apparently, she’d been having some pretty ugly quarrels with the man in her life lately.”
I thought of the heavy vellum card in Bryn’s treasure trove of potentially useful memorabilia. “Any chance the boyfriend had a slight German accent?” I asked.
“Was there something going on between Claudia and Felix Schiff?”
“Enough that they had a shoving match in the hotel lobby the morning after Evan died.”
“Never a dull moment,” Kevin said. “If they’re this rambunctious when they’re on the road, they must be a real treat when they’re back at the old homestead.”
“Speaking of,” I said. “Did you find out anything about Caroline MacLeish?”
“No, Mrs. Carruthers was very protective of the matriarch.”
“And yet she quit when Caroline MacLeish needed her most,” I said. “Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
“Face it,” Kevin said. “They’re an odd bunch. I’ll tell Richard to keep digging – see what else the MacLeish clan has buried in the backyard.”
I winced at the metaphor, but it did prod a question. “Kevin, do you know anyone here in town who could do some digging?”
“Sure. There’s a woman here who’s a whiz. What do you want her to look for?”
“Anything that will get us out of the maze.”
Kevin laughed. “Hey, Shania’s a whiz, not a miracle worker.”
“Shania?”
“Shania Moon,” Kevin said. “You’d be amazed at how many people can’t resist opening up to a woman with a provocative name.”
“See if Ms. Moon can get someone to open up about what went on at Gabe’s hotel the night he died.”
“You’ve got it,” Kevin said.
It took me a few minutes to screw up the courage to call Alex’s office. He picked up on the first ring.
“Kequahtooway.”
“Alex, it’s Joanne. I wondered if we could get together for a few minutes.”
There was a pause. “Business or pleasure.”
“Business,” I said.
“I have a few things to finish up here. I’ll meet you in half an hour at Brenners.”
“Thanks,” I said, but he’d already rung off.
Every failed love affair has its own subtext. It wasn’t difficult for me to read volumes into the fact that Alex had chosen Brenners for our meeting. If the owner of Brenners had been an art lover, it would have been tempting to believe he had modelled his cafe after Edward Hopper’s painting Nighthawks. But Marv Brenner’s decision to illuminate his cafe with the harsh, unsparing voltage of a police interrogation room had nothing to do with giving the lonely and dispossessed a sanctuary in which to spend the small hours. Marv was famously misanthropic. The archives of the Leader Post were full of letters bearing his signature; the ones the paper chose to print revealed a man who believed the world was divided into four categories: pissants, punks, perverts, and people like Marv. The harsh lighting and floor-to-ceiling uncurtained windows were designed to protect people like Marv from the others. Not surprisingly, the pissants, punks, and perverts flocked to Brenners like moths to a porchlight. Everybody likes a clean, well-lit place.
I was five minutes early, so I found a booth by a window that looked onto Broad Street. I ordered coffee and waited for the silver Audi to appear. Alex was right on time. When he slid into the place across the table from me, I tried not to show that I was shaken by his appearance. His complexion was grey, and the skin under his eyes was pouched and dark. Without being summoned, the waitress brought him a coffee with two creams and a sugar. Obviously in the weeks since we’d broken up, Alex had become a Brenners regular.
He opened the cream containers and the sugar package and dumped everything into his cup. “How was
