Gail Bowen - The Last Good Day

“Why did she go away?” Taylor asked softly.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Did she and my father love each other?”

“Truth?”

“Truth,” Taylor said.

“No,” I said. “I don’t think they did.”

“Then why did they get married?”

“I think your mother hoped she could have a different kind of life. She wanted a child, and your father did too.”

“If my mother wanted a child, why did she leave me?”

“Your mother was always searching for something.”

“Is that why she made art?”

“No. She made art for the same reason you do.”

“Because she had to,” Taylor said.

“She loved that about you. When she came back and saw that you were an artist, like her, she knew that you were what she’d been searching for all along.”

“And then she died.”

“Yes,” I said. “And then she died.”

Beside me, Taylor stared up at the ceiling, her arms pressed against her sides, rigid as a soldier’s. When I drew her into my arms, she began to cry. She was not a girl who cried often and the intensity of her grief frightened me. Her body convulsed with sobs, and for a while it seemed as if the tears would never stop, but her grief had been gathering force for a long time. She had never cried for her mother and father. I buried my face in the lake-water smell of her hair and held her tight until the sobbing ceased and her breathing quieted. Finally, she seemed to fall asleep. But when I inched towards the edge of the mattress to leave, she reached out to me.

“Do you want me to stay?” I asked.

“No. I’m okay.”

I got out of bed. “You know where I am if you need me.”

“And if I call you, you’ll be there.”

I kissed her forehead. “Yes, I’ll be there.”

I stood outside Taylor’s room for a few seconds, listening, making certain that her reassurance wasn’t just bravado, but all was silent. I walked down to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of milk. Our brown bags of spice cookies were on the counter. I picked mine up and carried it with me to the porch. I was sorely in need of something to take the sting out. Willie, ever faithful, lumbered after me. I’d just settled into the rocking chair and taken my first bite of cookie when my cellphone bleated from somewhere in the house. I almost let it ring, then I thought of Taylor sleeping, and I leaped up to answer and stop the noise.

My caller announced her name straightaway. “This is Maggie Niewinski,” she said. I didn’t make the connection immediately. Luckily, Ms. Niewinski helped me out. “I’m Clare Mackey’s friend in Prince Albert.”

“Right,” I said. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long day.”

“That it has,” she said. “Nonetheless, I thought I should call and give you an update.”

“Has Clare been in touch with you?”

“No,” she said. “That’s the update. I’ve called everyone I could think of. All the women in the Moot Team have. Clare hasn’t been in touch with anyone we know.”

Despite the warmth of the evening, I felt a chill. “I guess there’s still the possibility that she just decided to cut her ties here.”

“Why would she do that?” Maggie asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I’m just hanging on to the hope that there’s a logical explanation.”

“There isn’t,” Maggie said sharply. Clearly she respected unvarnished truth. “Clare wasn’t an easy person to get close to. She was friendly with people, but she didn’t seem to have a need for friendship. That’s probably why it was so easy for her to simply vanish without anyone asking a lot of questions. But you asked questions. What’s your connection with Clare?”

“It’s tangential,” I said. “Clare was the running buddy of a woman who’d once been my teaching assistant. Her name is Anne Millar. Anyway, when Clare stopped showing up for their morning run in November, Anne went to the police and she went to Falconer Shreve. Everybody gave her the brush-off. Anne and I spotted one another at Chris Altieri’s funeral, and she unloaded. I just agreed to do what I could to help.”

Maggie’s tone was withering. “So a stranger and a casual acquaintance took the time to do what none of us who were with Clare every day for three years at law school bothered to do.”

“You had busy lives,” I said.

“Nobody should be that busy. But we’ll make up for it. You say the police gave Anne Millar the brush-off. Do you happen to know who she talked to?”

I hesitated, but I knew it was pointless to delay the inevitable. “Anne spoke to Inspector Alex Kequahtooway.”

“Kequahtooway,” Maggie repeated. “Okay, I’ve got it. He’s obviously the place to start. We’ll have to find out who’s issuing the inspector’s orders or who is paying him off.” For the first time, Maggie Niewinski faltered. “November to July. Eight months. It may already be too late.”

“You don’t think Clare’s alive?” I said.

“I hope she is,” Maggie said. “But I’ll tell you one thing. If anything’s happened to her, Inspector Alex Kequahtooway is dead meat.”

My mind was racing when I clicked off my cell. There was no way I could dismiss Maggie Niewinski. A telephone call was not an infallible indicator of character, but Maggie had not struck me as a fanciful woman, nor did she strike me as a woman who made idle threats. Obeying the adage that one picture is worth a thousand words, I walked back to my bedroom and picked up the yearbook from Clare Mackey’s graduating year at the University of Saskatchewan law school and returned to the comforts of the rocker on the porch and my bag of spice cookies.

I turned to the photo of the Moot Team. Maggie was at the centre of the picture, a fine-boned blonde with an air of fragility that, given her determination to leave no stone unturned in her search for Clare, was deceptive. I leafed through the book, looking for Maggie in other pictures. She was there many times, and always with the other members of the Moot Team. Clearly, they were women of parts: members of the staff of the Law Review; revellers toasting their tablemates at the Malpractice Mixer; exultant hockey players wearing skates and oversized sweaters with the U. of S. logo. According to the text on the page, their graduating year had been a good one for the women’s hockey team. They had triumphed at the championships in Montreal. There was a picture of the team, beaming, arms draped around one another’s shoulders. Beneath the photo the caption read, “Raising hell and kicking butt.”

Seemingly, they were about to continue the tradition. I put on my glasses and brought the photo of the hockey team closer to my face. Together, the women had the relaxed stance and easy body language of team players. They did not look like people who would relish destroying another human being, but that was exactly what they were about to do, and in my heart I knew that if I’d been in their position, I would have been leading the pack.

The scent of nicotiana wafted through the screened windows. Unbidden, memories of other nicotiana-scented nights washed over me. Alex wasn’t a faceless enemy to me. He was a man whose hands had caressed me and whose body I had loved. Our relationship had never been an easy one. There had been unasked questions and stupid arguments. We had quarrelled over small things because we both knew the big issue between us was beyond solution. But as problem-ridden as our personal relationship had been, I had never doubted that Alex was a good cop and an incorruptible one. Now it seemed that that assessment was being called into question.

The memory that drove me to pick up the phone and dial Alex’s number was not one I cherished. It was of a time when the door to Alex’s private world had opened and my cowardice had slammed it shut – perhaps forever. We had eaten dinner at my house and decided that, rather than driving, we would walk downtown to police headquarters. The night was unseasonably warm, and I hadn’t worn a jacket. When we started home, I’d been chilly, and Alex had put his arm around my shoulders. As we’d crossed the intersection near my house, a man in a pickup truck yelled an ugly racial slur, not at Alex but at me. His words had branded us both. “When you’re through fucking the chief,” the man had said, “why don’t you try it with a white guy?”