shuddered and broke apart like the off-kilter merry-go-round in Strangers on a Train. Until that moment, Belle hadn’t imagined the possibilities of Miriam killing anyone, but beneath the sensible, sang-froid exterior lay passionate depths. Miriam had an abiding contempt for child molesters, had watched her former husband slug the family uncle when he’d tried to continue his historic abuse with Rosanne. Even so, what could have caused her anger? The merry trio had been off to dinner. “That’s absurd! She was in love with him.” At Steve’s calculating look, she stopped short. Giving him information was one thing, providing ammunition that might hurt Miriam was another. Passion was one of the world’s paramount murder motives. “Each man kills the thing he loves,” according to Oscar.
He poured himself a cup of black coffee, warming his hands on Miriam’s “Are We Having Fun Yet?” mug. “Not a very discriminating choice for our mutual friend. Elphinstone is linked with phony investment schemes in Vancouver and Calgary going back twenty years. He slithered out of the major charges, but spent a year in Club Fed on the coast. Guess he didn’t like the ocean view or the tennis courts because we haven’t any recent records.”
“Invest . . . but she was doing fine. Last time we talked . . .” she said. Suddenly cold at possibilities, she recalled her friend’s unguarded trust and infatuation. Or was she trivializing Miriam’s feelings, smug in her solitary, risk-free world of tramping forest paths with Freya? Suddenly she felt mean-spirited.
Steve’s eyes narrowed with interest. “So she did invest with him. How much?” But Belle merely shook her head. “Apparently he was quite the ladies’ man, a lucrative avenue. Cozied up with wealthy widows,” he added, giving her a sidelong glance. “A bit older than you, I’d say.”
The drive across town in the unmarked Crown Vic took only minutes. Except for the manager chipping ice from the sidewalk with a wicked pick, all was quiet at Miriam’s six-suite apartment building. Her Neon sat out back, blanketed with the weekend’s snowfall, which made Belle increasingly uneasy. As they got out of the vehicle, she said, “I hope she’s OK. She hasn’t answered the phone. Why did I leave her like a sick dog licking her wounds?”
After climbing the stairs, they stood before the door to 3B and knocked to a hollow response. With a shrug, Steve tried the knob, which turned easily. Belle held her breath, knowing that townies never left homes unlocked. The door opened into the living room, a scene of chaos. Newspapers were scattered on the floor amid islands of tissues and crumpled mail. Vinyl records had been sailed against the wall, some broken, others scratched or bent. Miriam’s tastes appeared to run to Johnnie Mathis and late Sinatra. Belle placed a battered LP onto the table. “The Twelfth of Never” was the featured song.
Then with a nod from Steve, she went down the hall. In the bathroom, towels smeared with make-up littered the floor, along with tatters of the lovely apricot dress, as if Miriam had rent her garments in classical fashion. Signs of illness appeared on the toilet bowl rim. An empty pill bottle had rolled into a corner, a tap dripped. Suddenly Belle was reminded of the shower scene in Psycho. Shivering, she opened a connecting door into Rosanne’s old room, posters of Ben Affleck, Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise in pectoral poses. Pink was the dominant colour scheme, the quilt a pastiche of teddy bears.
A small groan led her to the larger bedroom, where Miriam lay face down, her head half-covered with a pillow. “Are you asleep?” Belle asked foolishly, touching her naked, freckled shoulder like a timid lover. There was no response, just a sour reek of gin, that telltale juniper from the innocent woods. Gently, Belle turned her friend onto her back. The curly grey hair lay in damp mats, and Miriam’s skin, creased from pressure, looked sallow as beeswax. When her lids fluttered open for a second, her eyes were dull coins, as if she were in another painless country. Belle spoke her name twice, three times, getting no response.
“Is she here or not? What’s taking you so long?” Steve appeared in the doorway, suddenly alert. “Christ, a suicide attempt? Better let me handle this.”
As he shoved her out of the way, Belle moved to the other side of the bed, her foot connecting with something which clinked against the frame. “Call a doctor, Steve, or we’ll have another corpse on our hands.”
Sniffing pointedly, he examined Miriam’s eyes and listened to her breathing. Then he took her pulse. “She’s just smashed. When she comes to, I’ll have to take her downtown. You can’t avoid an interview by staying drunk.” As he muttered legal technicalities, a small tear dripped from Miriam’s reddened eye.
Belle moved into the bathroom to collect a cold compress, fill a glass with water, tidy the towels, anything to keep moving. How could Steve insist on cruel protocols in the face of such a pitiful spectacle? With a shudder, she picked up the empty medicine bottle, removed her distance glasses and squinted at the label. Voltaren, an anti-inflammatory. So Miriam had arthritis, though unlike Belle, the hypochondriac, she never complained. Nobody overdosed on that, nor on the Tylenol, yet unopened. The medicine cabinet was empty of other prescription drugs.
As she soaked and rung a towel, she could hear Steve bark instructions on the phone in the living room. Returning to Miriam, offering soothing words, mindless but helpful to herself, she laid the cold cloth onto the pale forehead. When she tried to offer a drink, water dribbled from the slack mouth. “It’ll be OK. Relax for now. We’ll get a doctor.”
Any more relaxed and Miriam’s heart would stop. Where was Steve? Did he intend to handcuff the helpless woman and frogmarch her to jail? And what awaited her in the humiliation of custody? Even in the new police building, conditions couldn’t be comfortable. A smelly holding tank of drunks and prostitutes? Drug addicts? A detox facility? And if she were jailed, for how long? What horrors would Miriam endure before the bloated justice system moved her case forward?
At vigil by the bed, feeling more confident since Miriam had begun to snore, for twenty more minutes she waited for Steve. Gone to collect the manacles? Then she heard a door open, voices were exchanged, and in walked a silvery blonde angel with a single thick braid down her back. Evelyn Easton, an emergency room surgeon, a treasured combination of skill and savvy. Steve met Belle’s surprised look with a grin. “Ev’s granddaughter’s a friend of Heather’s. Luckily cops can pull strings.”
Not one for unnecessary words, Evelyn nodded to Belle, whom she’d met professionally, opened a medical bag, and motioned them out with an imperious wave of her hand. At six feet, she was an imposing woman, a natural athlete, whose reflexes, even at fifty, served her well.
In the living room, Steve sat on the overstuffed sofa and took notes while Belle paced around, unable to concentrate. One wall featured a gallery of family pictures, Miriam as a frizzy-topped baby, Rosanne in childish poses, then serious at graduation. Black-and-whites featured a pleasant older couple with a post-war Plymouth coupe, perhaps Miriam’s late parents. In a prominent spot in a silver frame, someone with a familiar moustache smiled. Melibee, larger than life. Belle read the signature: “To my beloved from Mel. Together forever, forever we two.”
Absolutes always disappointed, she thought with a grimace. Weren’t those the words to a banal disco song which reverberated in the brain long after it had mercifully departed the airwaves? Instead, Melibee would be reunited with the dead wife Miriam had mentioned, if there were an afterlife. She turned to the window to watch the snowflakes cover the city grime and grit with a white innocence.
From the frantic moments upon arrival, time had slowed to a crawl. Belle passed from the pictures to the quilts on the walls. Miriam’s award-winning hobby demonstrated patience, skill and a genius for colour. She remembered with fondness the thoughtful gift of a Whig Rose masterpiece that adorned her waterbed in the fleeting summer months when she could abandon the giant down duvet. One
