and tried to help me, but I hit him and screamed at him not to touch me. I pulled off the sweatshirt he’d given me to wear and threw it at him. I remembered I’d had a backpack when I’d left Bill’s. ‘Where is my backpack?’ I shouted. ‘Where are my clothes? I’m getting out of here.’
“He told me I’d left it on deck. When he went up to get it, I went into the head and locked the door. I found a bottle of acetaminophen tablets in the medicine cabinet. The bottle had a childproof cap, and I when opened it, the top popped off and half the tablets fell onto the floor. I poured the rest into my mouth, washing them down with handfuls of water from the faucet, then got down on my hands and knees and began picking tablets off the floor and popping them into my mouth. Shoe knocked on the door and asked me if I was all right. I didn’t answer. I just kept popping tablets into my mouth and crunching them between my teeth. They tasted awful. He told me to unlock the door. I told him to fuck off, to leave me alone, so he broke it down.
“Christ, I must’ve been a sight, naked on my hands and knees gobbling pills off the bathroom floor. He picked me up and hauled me out into the cabin. I fought, clawing at him, raking his arms and face with my nails, gouging his flesh, but he held me in his arms, restraining me the way my father used to when I was a child and had thrown a tantrum. I screamed at him to leave me alone, that I wanted to die.
“‘No, you don’t,’ he said.
“‘Yes, I do,’ I said. ‘Yes, I do.’ But suddenly I was terrified. I realized I didn’t want to die and begged him to help me. ‘I’ll help you,’ he said, and held my head over the galley sink, pried my jaws open, and stuck his fingers down my throat.”
“Yuck,” Kit said. There were tears on her cheeks.
“I threw up most of the pills,” Victoria said. “Then he wrapped me in a blanket and took me to the Vancouver General ER.”
“If he didn’t save your life,” Kit said, “he probably saved you from serious liver damage.”
“Actually,” Victoria said, “I think it was later that he really saved my life. After I was released from the hospital, he helped me get my life on track, maybe for the first time since my mother died. He drove me to my appointments with the shrinks. He helped me find a place of my own to live. He even talked Bill into giving me my job back. He was there for me whenever I needed him, with no strings, no expectations. And I needed him a lot. At that point, I think if he’d asked, I’d have moved in with him, or maybe even married him. Thank god he didn’t ask.”
“There you go again,” Kit said. “I don’t understand. If I dug men, I might consider him a good catch. He obviously cares about you. And he seems nice enough. Nicer than Hammond, that’s for sure. Maybe even nicer than me. Which isn’t hard sometimes,” she added with a grin. “Not that I’m trying to talk you into anything, but what’s the problem?”
“I don’t know,” Victoria said. “Maybe it’s just that he knows me too well.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“You tell me.”
“I dunno,” Kit said with a shrug and a smile. “Maybe I just don’t know you well enough yet.”
Kit climbed off her stool by the counter. She removed the forgotten English muffin from the toaster oven and dropped it into the trash. Splitting another, she put it in the oven.
Victoria looked at her. “How do you do it?” she asked.
“Do what?” Kit replied, starting the toaster.
“Deal with it.”
Kit didn’t answer right away. Victoria waited for her to ask, “Deal with what?” But when she finally answered, she said, “Smoke and mirrors, kid. It’s all just smoke and mirrors.”
Precisely an hour after Shoe had spoken with Sergeant Matthias, the doorbell rang. A fraction of a second later, the telephone also rang. Jack put down his paintbrush and went to answer the door while Shoe went into the kitchen to answer the phone. It was Muriel.
“Are you coming into the office today?” she asked.
“I was fired, remember?”
Through the kitchen doorway, Shoe could see down the hall to the front door. A man and a woman stood silhouetted against the light. Jack stood aside to let them in, then closed the door behind them. Both looked to be in their late thirties or early forties, both wore long coats, open to reveal dark suits, and both wore ties, although the woman’s was a droopy bow. They looked no-nonsense and fit. They could have been Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormons, but Shoe knew they were cops.
“I’m thinking of quitting myself,” Muriel said.
“The place would fall apart without you,” Shoe said.
“I don’t think I care any more,” Muriel replied. “I don’t like what’s happening around here. Have you noticed that no one seems to have fun any more? It’s like working in a mortuary. No one smiles. No one laughs. No one posts those stupid jokes on the bulletin board.”
The cops stared at Shoe with hard eyes, practised looks learned early and meant to intimidate.
“Some of them were pretty crude,” Shoe said.
“Yes, but at least they were signs of life.” She sighed, breath rattling in Shoe’s ear. “Maybe it’s me. I don’t know. I suppose I’m just a little under the weather. SAD. Seasonal Affective Disorder.”
“Muriel, the police have just arrived. I’ll come in after lunch to clean out my desk and we’ll talk then, all right?”
“Sure,” she said dully. “See you later.” She hung up.
Shoe joined Jack and the two cops in the front hall. The male cop was just a few inches shorter than Shoe and fair, with hair the colour of wet sand, pale blue eyes, a square jaw, and a generous mouth. The woman was almost as tall, rangy and ruddy-skinned, with a deep bosom, dark mahogany eyes, and thick black hair chopped off just below her earlobes.
“We’ll be more comfortable in the kitchen,” Shoe said, gesturing toward the empty living room. “At least we’ll have somewhere to sit.”
Shoe went back into the kitchen. The cops followed, Jack trailing after them. There was a half-full pot of coffee in the coffee maker, dark and bitter. It had been on the warming pad for too long, but he offered anyway. Both shook their heads. He sat down and the cops followed suit. Jack poured himself a cup, sweetened it, and sat on the tall stool by the counter.
“You’re Joseph Schumacher?” the male cop said.
“I am,” Shoe replied. “And you are...”
He took his wallet out and showed his badge. “Sergeant Matthias,” he said. “We spoke on the phone.”
Shoe held out his hand and Matthias placed his badge wallet in it. The name on his ID card was Gregory Matthias.
“This is Detective Constable Worth,” Matthias said as Shoe handed back the wallet. “Do you want to see her ID too?”
“That won’t be necessary,” Shoe said.
Matthias
