for last night. Joe, you’re probably the only one of us with an absolutely airtight alibi for the time of Marvin Cartwright’s murder.”
“Hal was rattling the windows when I got home at two from a night out with a girlfriend,” Maureen said. “Of course, who knows what he was up to while I was out.”
“I was working,” Hal said. “Someone has to.” The remark earned him an angry glare from his wife. “I took the last train and didn’t get home till half past one,” he added, shutting down the gas to the barbecue. He began transferring chicken breasts, sausages, and pork chops to a platter.
Shoe looked into the shadowy woods. Marvin Cartwright’s body had been taken away late in the day and the crime scene shelter had been dismantled.
“Where did they find the body?” Maureen asked.
Hal said, “Do we have to talk about this?” He banged the platter down onto the picnic table.
Maureen sighed heavily and turned toward the house. “I’ll get the veggies.”
“I’ll give you a hand,” Rachel said.
Rachel and Maureen went into the house, leaving Shoe alone with his brother and his parents. No one spoke, but Shoe was comfortable with silence. So were his parents, sitting close, his father’s hand resting lightly on his mother’s arm, as if to reassure her she was not alone. Hal, however, fidgeted and seemed on the verge of speaking, but evidently could not think of anything to say.
Shoe told himself he needed to make a greater effort to come home more often. Despite his father’s increasing deafness and his mother’s arthritis and blindness, his parents were remarkably fit for their ages, but they were, he reminded himself, both in their eighties. They were probably in better health than Hal, Shoe thought, judging from the pallor of his brother’s skin and that the slightest exertion seemed to make him short of breath. When was the last time Hal had had a physical? Shoe wondered. On the other hand, he thought grimly, when was the last time I had a complete physical? He’d been checked out in the Vancouver General ER just before Christmas, after a martial arts expert named Del Tilley had tried his best to kick him to death. His injuries, albeit painful, had been minor, mostly superficial, and they hadn’t done a blood workup or an EKG. To his credit, he tried to run at least ten kilometres three or four times a week, worked out with weights or swam as often as he could, and enjoyed walking. He’d never smoked, seldom drank alcohol, and watched his diet, although he wasn’t obsessive about it. He wore the same size jeans he had at twenty-five. He supposed he had a few miles in him yet.
Maureen and Rachel came out of the house. Maureen carried the platter of roasted vegetables, Rae another bottle of wine in one hand and three bottles of beer in the other, the necks between her fingers. She handed one to Shoe, one to her father, and Hal took the third, which got him another frown from his wife.
“I guess I’m driving home tonight,” she said. Ignoring Hal’s sullen glower, she started dishing out the food.
“Be right back,” Rachel said. Ignoring a conveniently placed gate, she effortlessly vaulted the chest-high, vine-covered fence into the backyard of the house next door, where the Levinsons had once lived, walked to the back door, knocked, and went inside. She emerged a moment later, accompanied by a portly, bearded man. He opened the gate, let Rachel through, then followed, carefully closing the gate behind them. Arm in arm, they walked across the yard to the patio. The man bore two bottles of wine in his free arm.
“Hey, Doc,” Howard Schumacher said.
“Evening, folks,” the man said. He set the wine bottles on the picnic table.
He was in his early sixties, Shoe guessed, with a neatly trimmed salt and pepper beard and longish greying black hair that was thinning on top. He wore rimless eyeglasses with thick lenses that lent him a slightly startled look. He was dressed in an oxford shirt, corduroy trousers that were slightly baggy at the knees, and rugged walking shoes.
“Doc,” Rachel said. “Meet my brother Joe. Joe, meet Dr. Harvey Wiseman.”
Shoe held out his hand. “How do you do, Dr. Wiseman?” Wiseman’s handshake was firm and quick.
“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you,” Wiseman replied, lamplight glinting off the lenses of his glasses. “I’ve heard a lot about you from Howard and Vera and Rachel. And, please, call me Harv.”
“Ignore him,” Rachel said. “Everyone calls him Doc.”
“Despite my best efforts,” Wiseman said. “I’m a physicist, not a physician. In my opinion, PhDs who insist on being called ‘Doctor’ are far too full of themselves. Besides, like Stephen Leacock, I’m afraid that if people call me Doc, one of these days I’ll be called upon to delivery a baby.”
“Far be it from me to put a helpless infant or unsuspecting parents at risk,” Shoe said. “Harv, it is.”
“I’m told I should call you Shoe.”
“Most people do.”
“Well, if Shoe fits,” Wiseman said, to an chorus of groans. “Now that that’s settled, let’s eat. I’m starved. Hal, those sausages look delicious. Blackened just the way I like them.”
“Uh, I think they have pork in them,” Hal said. “There’s chicken.”
“I appreciate the thought, really, but they definitely look kosher to me.” He speared a sausage off the platter, dropped it with a hard clunk onto his plate.
No one spoke for a time, concentrating on the food, while the cicadas and tree frogs sang along with Diana Krall. Shoe wondered what Muriel was doing at that moment. Working, most likely. He missed her, wished that she’d been able to come with him, but she’d been too busy. Perhaps next time …
“Doc,” Howard Schumacher said around a mouthful of chicken, finally breaking the lull. “You heard about the dead man in the woods?”
“Pop,” Hal said sternly.
“Yes, I did,” Wiseman replied. “The police spoke to me earlier today. Awful. Beaten to death. I understand he used to live in the neighbourhood. Did you know him?”
“Sort of,” Shoe’s father said.
“Look,” Hal said. “Do you really think this is appropriate dinner conversation?”
“Oh, Hal,” Rachel said. “Don’t be such a stuffed shirt.” She poked him in the gut with a finger. “Your shirt is already stuffed enough as it is.”
Maureen choked and coughed, unsuccessfully stifling a giggle. Hal’s face clouded. He threw down his knife and fork with a clatter, stood, and stalked away from the table.
Shoe’s mother cast about worriedly. “Hal, dear, what’s wrong? What’s the matter?”
“Forget it, Mother,” Rachel said. “Hal has left the building.”
chapter five
Shoe and Rachel sat side by side in aluminum lawn chairs at the top of the slope of the yard. Fireflies sparked lazily against the backdrop of the dark woods. Rachel cradled a bottle of beer
