Gail Bowen - The Brutal Heart

“As you said, Ned was a gentleman of the old school.”

I straightened the sprig of forsythia in Zack’s buttonhole. “I love you very much.”

Zack sighed. “Hold that thought, Ms. Shreve, because I have a feeling that we’re in for a rocky ride.” He tousled my hair. “But what the hell, as long as we’re together, there’s nothing we can’t handle, is there?”

A bone-rattling clap of thunder shook the heavens, and I shuddered. Zack was sanguine. “Listen to that,” he said. “The gods are definitely on our side.”

Sean Barton drove Zack to the police station. Zack had had very little to drink – a martini in the afternoon and a glass of wine with dinner. The cognac I’d poured for him had remained untouched, but given the prickly relationship between defence lawyers and cops, he was always cautious about sliding behind the wheel. After the two men left, the party began the slow dissolve to finish. The clouds in the west were still threatening, but the rain had stopped, and Peter, Angus, and Leah took advantage of the lull to give the dogs a run. The guests, too, decided it was time to head out. Ed Mariani was going to the airport to pick up his partner, Barry. During their time together Ed and Barry had never missed an airport reunion, and as Ed brushed my cheek with a kiss, he had the glow that comes when you know that the person you love will soon be in your arms. Even those who weren’t on their way to welcome their beloved had reason to move along. The next day was a working day, and their agendas were full.

Within an hour, Ginny Monaghan was the only guest left, and I was trying to conjure up the diplomatic words to speed her on her way. I’d had enough. Zack’s news had shaken me, and I needed time alone. Ginny, however, showed no signs of moving along. As the caterers began carrying out the rented glasses and dishes, I tried the last ploy of the weary host. “Can I get you anything, Ginny?” I asked. “A drink or a cup of tea?”

Ginny’s smile was mischievous. “Directions on how I can exit through the front door?”

I laughed. “Subtlety has never been my strong suit.”

“You’re doing fine. I’m playing the obtuse guest because I need to talk to Sean about what’s going to happen in court tomorrow.”

I glanced at my watch. “They shouldn’t be much longer.”

One of the caterer’s helpers came in and began collapsing chairs. The clatter reverberated through the silent room, and the young man looked at me questioningly.

“We’ll get out of your way,” I said. I turned to Ginny. “How would you like to see my second favourite room in this house?”

When we fell in love, Zack set himself the task of finding the perfect house for our family. His quest had not proven easy, but he’d been resolute, and, like all knights errant, in the end he triumphed. The house we decided on had been built in the 1960s, and it was solid enough to accommodate the retrofittings we needed and filled with enough space and light to please us all. The fact that our house had an indoor pool had sealed the deal. Taylor and I were committed swimmers, and after spending eighteen hours a day in a wheelchair, Zack needed exercise to give his cardiovascular system a workout, help control the spasms that harassed him, and just have fun. But the pool had been installed for therapeutic reasons and the area surrounding it was antiseptic, soulless, and depressing. It was a space in desperate need of transformation, and Taylor had thrown herself into the task.

Taylor’s birth mother had been my friend Sally Love, a painter whose work now routinely sold in the high six figures. Sally died when Taylor was only four, but from the moment I adopted her, I knew she had inherited her mother’s gift. Confronted with a space that was bare and ugly, Taylor made beauty: a mural depicting an underwater scene of swimmers – human, finned, and crustacean – that filled three walls and pulsed with colour and movement. The ceiling and the fourth wall were glass. Ed Mariani supplied a small forest of tropical plants; Taylor and I painted the wicker furniture that came with the house a shade of dusty rose the paint chart described as “azalea,” and we had a room that was a potent antidote to the grey months – just the ticket for a man whose frustration at navigating the snow and ice of a northern winter from a wheelchair spiked his blood pressure. Thirty minutes of laps unknotted Zack’s muscles, and twenty minutes with a chilled martini completed the job. Taylor’s mural and the moist gardenia-scented air were powerful restoratives, and that night they restored Ginny.

As soon as she came into the room, she collapsed on one of the wicker lounge chairs, kicked off her sandals, and flexed her feet. “It is so good to be away from all those eyes,” she said.

I lay back in the lounge chair next to hers. “You’re handling it well,” I said.

“Training,” she said. She raised the leg closest to me and began to rotate it from the hip. As she moved, the silk of her skirt fell back. She was wearing a string thong, but she was a woman at ease with her body and it was clear she took pleasure in experiencing its subtleties. “Athletes learn that personal victory means personal mastery,” she said. “You have to block out everything that gets in your way.”

“That can’t be easy,” I said.

“It isn’t,” she said. “But it can be done.” She switched legs; then, as the rain drummed on the glass above us, Canada’s latest infamous MP did hip rotations and talked about sports psychology.

“You have to clear your mind,” she said, and the measured cadences of her public voice disappeared. She sounded younger – both open and fervent. The words might have come from a training manual, but Ginny was a true believer. “You have to train yourself not to hear the noise or see the fans or feel the exhaustion or listen to that inner voice that tells you you’re going to fail.” For a beat she was silent. When she spoke, her tone was self-mocking. “Maybe instead of tuning out that inner voice, I should have listened to it. I really believed I’d become prime minister, Joanne. Looks like the only thing I’ll be remembered for now is being a dependable free-throw shooter.”

“There are worse things to be remembered for,” I said. “Drawing a foul is one of life’s most satisfying manifestations of justice. The other team gets punished, and you have a chance to rub salt in the wound by scoring free points.”

Ginny shot me a look of surprise. “You played basketball,” she said.

“Enthusiastically, but not well,” I said. “Mieka was really good, especially at sinking free shots.”

“Nothing feeds the ego like sinking a free shot,” she said. She dropped her leg and closed her eyes. “You stand on the line. The referee approaches. He bounces the ball to you. You line the seams up.” As she recreated the moment, her fingers splayed. Her hands were large and powerful, the nails unpainted and cut short. “Fingers spread over the ball. Focus. Bounce once, then twice. Breathe in slowly. Raise the ball up to your forehead, feel the balance of perfect form, elbow in line with the basket. Look at the top knot of the mesh and relax your chest. Breathe out slowly; your lungs are almost empty. The shot releases itself; your body knows what to do. Your legs and arms are in sync. The shot swishes dead centre and snaps the cord. Nobody can describe what a perfect shot sounds like, but when you’re a shooter it’s all you can hear.” Ginny’s voice was dreamy, but she was quick to shake off the memory and bring herself back to reality. “I’d give a lot to hear that sound right now.” She examined her hands with interest. “I’m going to lose, you know.”