you wanted to get rid of an abusive bastard of a husband….”
“It’s getting better — keep going.”
“How would you kill him?”
There wasn’t even a pause. “I’d hire a hit man: Tracey Ullman in I Love You To Death. Or maybe I’d get my lover to do it, like Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity. Or better yet, we’d do it together and then I’d die in a car crash, ironically leaving my lover to be convicted of killing me: Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice.”
“Okay, let’s rethink this. You live in a small town where everyone knows you and there are no hit men, maybe even no lovers. Then how would you do it?”
Donny thought this over. “First of all, I’d never live there, if there is such a place. And if there is, it’s got to be in Saskatchewan. Second, I’d probably poison him and make it look like an accident.”
“Me, too. Okay, where would you hide the body?”
“I wouldn’t. The death already looks accidental, right?”
“What if you killed him somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be, so you had to get rid of the evidence?”
“That’s too difficult. I’d need to know the area to find a place that would be fair game for anyone to go, and where he might just end up getting poisoned all by himself.”
“Exactly!”
“What film is this?”
“The Craig Killingworth Story.”
“I was afraid you might say that.”
“Kisses. Gotta go.”
Dan hung up and replayed Trevor’s message. His uncle’s horses had not died from rat poison, as he’d expected. They’d died from something far more interesting. He pictured the stone house in the woods under the pine trees, the red creeper vine along the wraparound porch, and the bright blue flowers in the Killingworth garden the day he and Bill had arrived for the wedding a month ago — he looked at the circled date on his calendar — tomorrow. He did a Google search for images and found what he was looking for.
Dan barely slept, rising in the dark before Ked and Lester were up. He left a note and some money for Ked, telling him to take Lester to the zoo for the day — he’d square it with school later. He stepped into his car, feeling exhilarated. His mind raced all along the 401, heading east in the pre-dawn darkness. Just before seven o’clock, gold spilled over the horizon, the sky cracking open.
It was past eight when he reached Picton and rolled up beside St. Mary Magdalene Church. The grass was overgrown, the stones cracked and leaning. The church had been turned into a museum at some point in the past twenty years. That wouldn’t make any difference. It was the man he was looking for, not the church. He thought back to his first impression of the Poplar Plains house: Klingsor’s castle. The realm of a magician who controlled everything from afar without ever appearing in person. The ultimate trick of the dead.
He walked along the rows of plots. A long rectangular tomb leaked along the edges, water seeping down and turning green at the base:
Nathaniel Macaulay
1914-1990
A God-fearing Christian
Dan looked up at the weeping angel set atop the monument. His voice cut through the air. “What were you thinking, you miserable old bastard? What’s to fear if you’ve done nothing wrong? What do you know?”
A tractor started up somewhere in the distance.
“Speak up — now’s the time to confess. Tell the court what you did.”
The wind stirred in the grass.
“And don’t give me that, ‘Oh, poor me’ stuff. I’m onto you. There’ll be no peace for the dead if there’s none for the living.”
The house looked the same, as much a showcase as ever. An olive green Saab was stopped at one end of the drive’s half-circle. An upstairs window angled the light. Dan placed it somewhere in the hallway outside the room where he and Bill had spent their final night together. He drew up beside the Saab. No need to hide. A few minutes would give him all the time he needed and maybe an answer or two.
In the morning sun, the gardens were popping with the bright blue flower he’d noticed on his previous visit. Monkshood. Blooming this late in the fall meant they were a particularly virulent variety known as Aconitum Michaelii. A minimal amount would be fatal if ingested. Even the leaves were poisonous to touch. Symptoms showed up as soon as five minutes after contact. Vomiting, sweating, blurred vision, and paralysis would follow soon after. Cause of death would appear to be heart and respiratory failure. There was no antidote.
He’d brought his gloves. He pulled up a bunch of the deadly flowers with their bright blue spines and their little blue caps. He heard the door open. Lucille Killingworth stared at him in disbelief. He quickly grabbed a stock of purple asters in the other hand, holding them behind his back as he confronted her with the noxious flower held in front of him.
She eyed him warily, as she might a crazy person. “What are you doing? Please leave my property!” Please leave. Ever the gracious hostess.
Whatever had happened to Craig Killingworth had happened a long time ago, Dan reasoned. He was risking a lot by being there and doing what he was doing. There was no justification for it, other than one — he needed to be certain.
“Would you hold these for me, Lucille?”
Her face in confusion, she opened her hands to accept the Monkshood. Dan whisked them away at the last moment, substituting the asters. “Sorry, not these ones,” he said. “I forgot — the blue ones aren’t safe. Are they?”
“What is going on here? What are you doing to my garden?” she demanded.
“Is this what you poisoned your husband with? Or did you have Magnus do it for you?”
Fury overtook her. Her body trembled. In that moment, Dan was sure she was capable of violence. And now he knew what it took for her to abandon her social graces.
“I’ve had enough. Leave now before I call the police!” She headed back to the house.
“Yes, I’m sure you’ve got Commissioner Burgess on speed dial for emergencies like this.”
She turned back to him. Her eyes flashed venom. Dan held her gaze. “Where did you bury him? Somewhere in the garden? What if I came back with a warrant and dug up your entire estate?”
“Is that what you think you’re doing? Looking for my husband’s body? My god, you’re a madman!” Dan saw the defiance. “Go ahead.”
“Or how about if I have them drag the bottom of the drop-off on Lake on the Mountain?”
The defiance wavered, but only slightly. Twenty years later it would probably be impossible to determine cause of death from something like aconite.
“You want me to open up a twenty-year-old cold case on the grounds that
