you sir, what do you drive and were you at the Bide-a-While cabins last night?”
“I drive several vehicles: a black Mercedes SUV, a Lincoln and a Porsche. At the moment I’m driving the Lincoln. The Porsche is in for servicing. Furthermore, I don’t even know where the Bide-a-While cabins are. And, not that it’s any of your business, but I spent the evening at a fundraiser for the Alliance Party. Of course, I wasn’t there.” He levelled his gaze at the detective. “Perhaps it’s time for me to call my lawyers.”
Detective Roston’s lips curled upward. No one would have described the expression as a smile. “If you wish, sir.” He pushed the phone across the desk.
Marshall made an abortive move to reach for it and pulled back. “Later,” he murmured.
Roston looked at Bobbie. “And you?”
The white knuckles of her clenched hands betrayed her anxiety. “A Porsche.” She stared at her hands and mumbled, “I wasn’t there.”
“I think you were.” Roston’s voice dropped, and he sounded almost tender. “I’d like your car keys and permission to search your trunk. I think I’ll find a hose—a hose you used to pump carbon monoxide into Cabin Ten with the intention of killing Wilhemina Groenveldt.”
Marshall’s head lifted and his eyes narrowed. “This is outrageous. It’s harassment.”
“I did it for you, Daddy.” Bobbie said and began to cry again.
As the significance of Bobbie’s words registered, Marshall’s self-confidence collapsed. He reached over and gripped his daughter’s shoulder hard enough to make her wince. “You little fool,” he hissed.
Detective Roston charged Bobbie with attempted murder. Her back hunched and her face ashen, she made one last try, “I really did do it for you, Daddy,” she said as Roston led her away.
Marshall stomped after them muttering about lawyers. Carol came over, put her arm around my shoulder and hugged me before she left. When the office was empty, I moved behind the desk and phoned the hospital.
An officious voice admitted that Wilhemina Groenveldt’s prognosis had improved. The letter flashed into my mind. “I did you a FAVOUR… It’s time to return the FAVOUR.” Whatever the future held for Wilhemina Groenveldt and me, we would begin as equals. I had returned the favour—any debt I might have owed her had been paid.
JOAN BOSWELL fantasizes about rowing on Canada’s Olympic team while writing, painting and attempting to outwit her flat coated retriever. Her short stories have been published in several periodicals and five anthologies. In June 2000 she won the $10,000 Toronto Star Short Story Contest.
A BRISK SITDOWN
Here lies Joe “Couch-Potato” Howard,
A push-up, sit-up, jogging coward
Who never went to the local gym
That kept wife Janis so nice and slim.
Janis caught Joe with a neighbour’s wife
And Joe—in panic—exorcised his life.
Joe jumped through the window one second before
He remembered they lived on the sixteenth floor.
JOY HEWITT MANN
A MATTER OF THE HEART
DAY’S LEE
Our reputation is ruined!” Mrs. Tan’s heavy body sank into the worn sofa cushions. She clutched wet tissues in one hand and a package of fresh ones in the other. Granny listened sympathetically. Dressed in a rose print blouse and navy pants, her petite body was almost lost in the armchair’s pink and blue floral pattern. Her face, still clear and smooth at the age of sixty-six, registered shock. But Jenny Leung knew she was not surprised to hear the Widow Woo was involved.
“Mr. Lau, the owner of the Phoenix Noodle Company, has accused my husband of fraud!” sobbed Mrs. Tan. “He claims we owe him two hundred dollars, but we have not ordered anything from him for over a month.”
“Not a lot of money,” Granny murmured, “but enough to cast suspicion.”
“And it was only a month ago, during a mah jong game at the community business social, when my good husband discovered the Widow Woo had extra tiles hidden in her pocket.” Mrs. Tan’s voice wavered.
“Isn’t Mrs. Woo the bookkeeper for the Phoenix Noodle Company?” Jenny asked.
Granny nodded.
Mrs. Tan wailed louder.
Jenny poured tea and listened to Mrs. Tan’s hysterical intonations as she told her tale in Cantonese. Jenny was glad she had decided to come that Saturday morning for her grandmother’s lesson on how to make pork buns. Mrs. Tan’s stories of the goings-on in Chinatown were better than fiction. The aroma of freshly baked buns and roast pork were filling the house as Mrs. Tan rang the doorbell.
Mrs. Tan inclined her head and accepted the teacup from Jenny with both hands, but refused her offer of a bun.
“She did it. That woman is poison!” The distraught woman exclaimed between sips of the fragrant brew. She hiccuped and patted her ample bosom.
“Mrs. Woo is a bad gossip,” Granny said. “People will learn to ignore her.”
“It is her weapon of choice,” sobbed Mrs. Tan. She dabbed her brown eyes with a tissue and placed it on top of the little pile accumulating on her side of the coffee table. “It leaves no visible marks, but in her hands, gossip is as deadly as a sharp knife.”
“It is just talk.” Granny was always the voice of common sense.
“But she does more than talk,” Mrs. Tan gulped. A lone tear followed the worn path around her plump cheeks, down to the corner of her mouth and splattered on her green polyester dress. “Nobody can prove it, but wherever there is trouble she is close by.” Anger gleamed in her eyes. “She arrived from Toronto only a year ago and has already proven herself a meddler of the worst kind. And what decent woman her age wears so much make-up?”
“Her lies are evidence of her character,” said Granny.
“And what she did to Mrs. Yu is unforgivable!”
“What happened to Mrs. Yu?” Jenny asked.
“She had an affair with another man,” Granny said. “A tae kwon do master. He frequented the restaurant where Mrs. Yu worked as a cashier.”
“Isn’t her husband almost twenty-five years older?” Jenny said.
“Yes,” Granny said. “Mrs. Yu arrived from China forty years ago as a mail-order-bride. She and her husband had a son and a daughter, both of whom became accountants. A few months ago, Mr. Yu caught his wife having lunch in a restaurant far from Chinatown with the tae kwon do master.”
“It
