brutal act in any terms but violent. She hated being the bearer of bad news, though as a doctor she was thrust into that role too often.
Rosie held onto the counter for support.
“Rose,” the other server called out, “there are customers here!”
Suddenly in the doorway leading to the back, a large lumpy man in an undershirt smeared with flour appeared. Displeasure with Rosie turned into puzzlement as he watched her lead Rebecca past him into the back.
“Oy, this is no good, I gotta sit down.” Rosie held her stomach as if she suddenly had a bellyache, then collapsed into a floury chair. Her eyes clouded over; a tear drifted quietly down her cheek.
“I don’t understand,” she said, her voice cracking. “Goldie’s
dead? Murdered in her house? No, I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it.” She sat doubled over a moment, tears dropping on the tile floor mixing with the flour.
Finally she sat up with a deep sigh. “Why would someone do this?”
“You have any idea?”
Rosie wiped a tear then flapped her hand through the air. “She could drive you crazy, but to kill her...”
“Did she tell you about her past? Where she came from?”
“Ach! The background, very bad. Terrible things she went through. This drove her crazy. Sometimes I remember, a customer walk into store and she runs to the back. ‘He’s here for me,’ she says. ‘He’s gonna get me.’ The guy walk out. Nothing.” Rosie tapped her index finger against her temple. “I felt sorry, but what I could do?”
“Did you see her Tuesday?”
Rosie thought. “Only in the morning. She worked till maybe lunch. Then she went somewhere. Downtown, I think.”
“Wasn’t that unusual?” Rebecca asked.
“Sure. I was surprised. She had to go on the bus.”
“Did she say where she was going?”
“To be honest I didn’t pay attention. She was telling me while I was serving a customer and ... well, I loved her but she could drive you crazy with her stories.”
Rosie got up abruptly and took a few steps to a corner where her purse leaned against the wall. She retrieved her wallet and from it she handed a photo to Rebecca. In the photo, Rosie and Goldie stood in the bakery, shoulder to shoulder, happily grinning at the camera. Rebecca felt a pang of loss.
“You know, must’ve been a store,” Rosie said, ruminating. “The place she went Tuesday. I remember something. I know sounds funny, but I think the name was after a river.”
So she hadn’t just gone shopping. Rebecca recalled the confusion with Goldie’s English the day the poor woman had run into the office. Rebecca had heard a verb where Goldie had meant a noun. The cousin had asked her for a shop, a particular shop, not to go shopping, as Rebecca had understood.
“A river?”
“You know, in the name. A famous river.”
“You mean like the ‘Mississippi’ Shoe Store?”
Rosie stared at her bleakly. “I’m sorry, I only trying to help.”
“I’m not making fun of you,” said Rebecca. “I’m just thinking out loud. Would it make any difference if I told you the place was within walking distance of Beverley and Dundas?”
She shook her head. “You know more than me.”
“She came to me very frightened Tuesday afternoon,” Rebecca said. “All I know is she walked to my office from wherever she was. She was killed that night.”
“She came to you before she was killed?” Rosie watched her horrified and perplexed. The unstated question: Why didn’t you do something?
A lump formed in Rebecca’s throat. “Could I borrow this photo?” she asked. “I’ll get it back to you.”
Rebecca felt the woman’s uncomprehending eyes follow her as she left the store.
chapter seventeen
Rebecca drove home along Eglinton Avenue with Rosie’s voice ringing in her ears: She came to you before she was killed? She came to you...? It was barely 9:15 a.m. and Rebecca was already tired.
She had a few hours before her first patient, scheduled at one. She thought of flipping through the Yellow Pages to look for the store Rosie had mentioned — if it was a store — but she didn’t know where to begin. She couldn’t look up restaurants or furniture or garden supplies. All she knew (and that was probably too strong a word for it) was that there might be a river in the name of it, whatever it was. A river. How many rivers did she know the names of? The Mackenzie, the Missouri, the Thames....
From habit Rebecca’s eyes searched out the watercolour on the wall of the den. The only painting of David’s she hadn’t taken down to store in the basement. It had been hard to come across them at every corner of the house. Now it was just hard in the den. David had painted her in profile sitting with her ankles tucked beneath her on a green verge of grass by the lake. The picture was bathed in the kind of golden light the sun might deliver on a late afternoon in summer. He had told her she was like the sea when he made love to her because she was all around him, she was everywhere, and he had to submerge himself in her even if he drowned. She hadn’t the heart to take this one down.
Okay, the river. She stepped over to the bookcase in the den and retrieved an atlas. Happily, there was a page on world statistics: the largest countries, the highest mountains, the most populated cities, and among this fascinating lot, the one she needed — the longest, ergo best-known, rivers. Only she couldn’t imagine how anyone would work them into the name of something in downtown Toronto. The Nile What. The Amazon Something. The Yangtze Such and Such. And there were columns of them, rivers she had never heard of, rivers she had forgotten about. There was no easy way to find what she was looking for. She would just have to get on with it.
She was putting on her jacket when the phone rang.
“Rebecca? Are you all right, dear?” said the Polishaccented voice. “I saw your picture in the paper and I got worried.”
That awful picture of her coming out of Goldie’s place. “I’m fine, Sarah; thank you.” Rebecca didn’t want her mother-in-law to worry; she was still getting over the death of her son.
“Was it someone you knew?”
“A patient of mine.”
“I’m so sorry. What a terrible thing. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“I’m fine, really.” Sarah was an elegant, cultured woman who loved art and had imparted that love to her son. She had been responsible for David being the man he was and Rebecca would always be grateful to her for that. But his death, instead of bringing them closer together, had formed a wedge between them, each reminding the other of their loss.
By 10:15, Rebecca was driving
