her off guard. ‘Um … OK … um … Thanks,’ she stammered. ‘I’ll be over shortly.’ She watched the man walk through the silence and disappear out of the door. As it closed behind him a bear of a man hurled himself from the kitchen brandishing a knife. ‘Where is he? I told him never to come back!’
A babble of voices chased away the tense silence and eventually the ursine man lumbered back to the kitchen. Catherine, straining to make sense of the jabbering, sat immobile.
‘Mom?’ Morgan whispered. ‘What was that all about?’
Catherine dragged her attention back to her daughter. ‘Our car is fixed,’ she replied.
‘I know, but why was everyone staring at him?’
‘I’ve no idea.’ Catherine rose and gathered up their belongings. ‘But it’s time for us to leave.’
They felt eyes boring into their backs as they made their way to the desk and paid the bill. A few fragments of conversation rose above the general roar. ‘… got his nerve …’ ‘… as cool as you please …’ ‘… not wanted around here …’
‘Now what?’ Morgan asked, fanning herself with Seventeen magazine as the wall of heat greeted them.
‘We get the car and go home. I’ve had enough of Atawan for one day.’ The Datsun was parked in front of the garage. ‘Do you want to wait in the car while I pay?’
Morgan nodded and climbed in. ‘It’s hot in here so don’t be too long.’
Catherine pushed her hair off her forehead and marched into the office.
The proprietor, his face pale and damp, waited for her in the stifling gloom. ‘Your car needs a good tune-up, Mrs Edison, but I think that’s all that’s wrong with it.’ He swallowed and blinked. ‘I changed the plugs and points and cleaned up the carburettor, but when you’ve more time you should have the timing done and the hoses and oil filter changed.’
‘I will,’ Catherine assured him. ‘What do I owe you?’
Ed smoothed the invoice in front of him and then handed it to her. ‘Most of it’s for parts,’ he mumbled defensively.
Catherine fumbled in her purse and retrieved the new pad of cheques she had received at the bank. In the upper left corner she wrote her new address before filling out the rest. She pushed the cheque across the counter.
‘Thank you, ma’am,’ he said, glancing down at the piece of paper. He let out an involuntary gasp and his hand shook as he stuffed the cheque into his cash drawer.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ Ed stammered, licking his dry lips yet again.
She leaned forward, hands gripping the edge of the counter. ‘It’s where I live, isn’t it? The Tomachuk place.’ This time she wasn’t going to be put off.
Ed nodded jerkily.
‘What’s wrong with it? Everyone’s acting strange as soon as they find out.’
‘Ed dropped into the swivel chair behind him. Catherine watched the tension pull his face into harsh planes. At last he cleared his throat. ‘A woman was murdered there.’
If there had been a chair on her side of the counter, she would have collapsed into it. As it was, she slumped against the counter. More death. Would she never escape?
Her reaction forced Ed to elaborate. ‘The woman who owned the place – Tracy Tomachuk – was killed ten months ago.’
Catherine looked at him, confronting his darkened blue eyes. ‘Did they find out who did it?’
The silence stretched taut. ‘No.’
A bluebottle fly buzzed against the freshly washed window. ‘How did she die?’
‘Strangled.’
Catherine fingered her neck. She again felt those fingers squeezing away her life. She stared at Ed but didn’t see him. Ed leaned forward. ‘Are you OK?’ Her obvious distress forced him out of his own misery.
‘I’m fine …’ Catherine smiled mechanically, then walked from the office like an automaton, but by the time she got back to the car she had carefully erased the shock from her face.
‘I’ve got to leave for work now,’ she told her daughter as she pulled into the driveway. ‘I told Martha I’d be there early afternoon.’ They went in and she gathered up her boxes of papers and her desktop computer. Morgan helped her haul them out to the car. ‘Will you be OK?’
‘Fine.’ Morgan yawned. ‘Think I’ll have a nap.’ Catherine watched her disappear into the house, then backed out of the drive.
She headed the car east towards the research facility twenty-five miles away. She had been to the place once before to visit her old colleague Martha Morin, and had found the atmosphere both intellectually stimulating and emotionally soothing. Must be the pastoral setting, she mused, hoping the murder of Tracy Tomachuk was a one-time intrusion from the big bad world.
Every day, Catherine expected Morgan to burst out with the murder story but a whole week passed and the bomb still hadn’t exploded. She considered saying something herself but decided not to break her daughter’s fragile bubble of peace.
‘Have you made any friends yet?’ she asked Morgan at the end of their first week in Atawan as she threw together a tuna salad for dinner.
Morgan shrugged. ‘I’ve talked to a few kids … they’re nice but they’ve got their own circle.’ She ran her fingers through her bangs and pushed her hair back over her shoulder. ‘I don’t mind.’
Catherine knew how reserved her daughter had become. It was a protective measure they’d both invoked. ‘Any other new students?’ she asked.
Morgan’s smooth forehead creased. ‘I’m not sure … There’s this guy, Jason somebody, who’s always alone like me, but I get the feeling the others know him. It’s weird … he seems OK. He’s not a nerd or anything.’
Catherine rinsed the lettuce under cold water. ‘Will you set the table, honey?’ she asked before continuing the conversation. ‘Maybe you should talk to him. Is Jason in many of your classes?’
‘French and maths.’ Morgan folded the napkins and slipped them under the forks. ‘Oh, and I think he’s in my art class. I’m not sure – he always sits at the back of the room.’
‘It might be worth saying hello,’ her mother encouraged but she didn’t push it. Only Morgan herself knew if she was ready to let her barriers drop a little.
After the dishes were done, Catherine strolled outside into the lengthening shadows. The heat and humidity had been blown away by some cool north winds and it was pleasant in the back garden. She breathed the clean air and enjoyed the caress of the breeze in her hair. If only the wind could blow away the cobwebs of tension
