Gail Bowen - The Last Good Day

Anne Millar’s grey eyes widened with disbelief. “How could you know that? You never met Clare. You’d never even heard her name until I told you about her at the funeral.”

“But I met Chris,” I said. “The night he died he told me he was haunted by a relationship that ended in an abortion. He didn’t mention the woman’s name. I didn’t discover it was Clare until later.”

Maggie was chewing her thumbnail. Sandra reached over absently and batted Maggie’s hand away from her mouth, then she turned to me.

“Who told you the woman was Clare?” she asked.

“Zack Shreve,” I said. “After Anne went to Falconer Shreve and put pressure on Chris to supply the name of the firm Clare had joined in Vancouver, there was a meeting. According to Zack, Chris told his partners that Clare left because she didn’t want to be near him.” I glanced around the table. “You all knew Clare. Is that behaviour consistent with the kind of woman she was?”

“Is,” Linda Thauberger said angrily. “Let’s try to hold on to a little hope here. And let’s have a reality check. Clare would not have made the decision to have an abortion lightly.”

“Because of her religion?”

“I never heard her mention religion,” Linda said. “Just her own ethical sense. She would have lived with the consequences of what she had done.”

“Not if she thought the father of her unborn child was immoral,” Sandra said thoughtfully.

“Oh, come on,” Maggie said. “I’ll grant you that defalcation isn’t exactly admirable, but it isn’t as if Chris Altieri was diddling altar boys.”

“I agree with you,” Sandra said. “I’m just not sure Clare would. Don’t you remember what she said about her father that night we celebrated passing our bar exams?”

Maggie groaned. “I don’t remember anything about that night.”

“I do,” Linda said. “It’s the only time I remember ever seeing Clare angry – actually, it’s the only time I ever remember her revealing anything personal at all.”

“It’s coming back to me,” Maggie said, narrowing her eyes. “Her father embezzled funds from the company he worked for.”

“Right,” said Sandra. “Then he skedaddled, leaving Clare’s mother alone to raise her daughter. They lived in a small town. Everybody knew what had happened, and Clare felt that people were always watching her, waiting for her to slip up. That night at our little celebration, she was still bitter. I remember her saying, ‘It took me twenty years, but I’ve finally proven to them that I’m not my father’s daughter.’ Maybe she was afraid history would repeat itself.”

“But duplicity isn’t a hereditary disease,” Anne said.

“You know that, and I know that,” Sandra said. “But when it came to questions of morality, Clare wasn’t rational. I think it’s more than possible that when she discovered she was carrying the child of a man who’d done exactly what her dear old dad had done, she just overreacted.”

After that, there wasn’t much to say. When Linda replaced the Patsy Choi file in her handsome red briefcase, it seemed to be a signal to us all that the meeting was over. We pushed our chairs back from the table and made our way to the front door. The evening we walked out into had the clarity of a Dutch painting: everything was bathed in the warm golden light of the setting sun.

“I guess it’s time for us to take our stroll along the beach,” Linda Thauberger said. “Not exactly a sacrifice. It’s so beautiful here.”

Anne Millar took a deep breath. “I think we could all use a little fresh air before we head back to the city.”

Sandra Mikalonis kicked off her sandals and, ponytail flying, sprinted towards the lake. Maggie and Linda weren’t far behind. With every step, they seemed to leave the years and the tensions behind.

Anne’s voice was rueful. “They make me feel ancient.”

“Your advanced age aside, how are you feeling about the way things are moving?”

“Rotten,” Anne said. “I’m sure Clare is dead.” The words, uttered baldly and without preamble, were a blow. Anne stared intently at my face. “You believe that too, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I said.

“So do the police,” Anne said. “Of course, they’re not about to make an official statement, but Linda says the officers she talked to really grilled her about how the case was handled. She also said the phrase she heard from everybody at headquarters was ‘we needed to get to this sooner.’ ”

“They could have,” I said. “You talked to Alex Kequahtooway at the end of November.”

Anne laughed shortly. “The problem is Inspector Kequahtooway didn’t talk to anyone else about what I told him.”

“He didn’t write up an official report of your conversation?”

“Apparently not. I guess there’s some sort of internal investigation going on about what the inspector did or did not do. Frankly, I couldn’t care less. What matters to me is that the police finally want to get to the bottom of this. Like everyone else involved in this very cold case, it’s finally dawning on them that they failed Clare Mackey.”

When Anne glanced towards the lake, something caught her eye.

“Who’s that with our little group?”

I followed the direction of her gaze. “Let’s see. The smallest of the girls in the navy bathing suits is my daughter, Taylor, the other two are her friends, and the man with them is Blake Falconer.”

“Well, well, well,” Anne said. “They landed a big one.”

Blake and the girls had just come from a swim. The girls clearly had plans other than spending the evening jawing with adults, and it wasn’t long before they hightailed it for the Wainbergs’ cottage. As they darted off, Blake watched them fondly. He was bare-chested and barefoot, and his towel was slung over one shoulder. In the red-gold light, he seemed to glow himself, ruddy and handsome. We strolled over to where he was talking to the rest of the Moot Team.

“Hey,” he said when he saw me. “I was just introducing myself to your company. More lawyers, just what we need around here.” His smile was broad and genuine. Linda and Maggie and Sandra were smiling, too. It was a nice moment, and the part of me that longed for harmony wanted to ignore the ugly questions and ask if he’d had a good swim and if the water was still warm.

But the woman I had never met deserved better. “These aren’t just lawyers, Blake,” I said. “They’re friends of Clare Mackey’s from law school.”

The wattage of his smile didn’t diminish. “So how’s she doing?” he said.

I pressed on. “No one seems to know.”

“We haven’t heard from her in months,” Linda Thauberger said. “We were hoping someone from Falconer Shreve might be able to give us some contact information.”

Blake chewed his lip. “I’m not the best one to talk to about this,” he said. “You should get in touch with my wife, Lily. She and Clare were quite close there for a while. At least, they always seemed to be huddling.”

“Could we talk to Lily now?” Anne asked.

“No,” Blake said. “Lily’s not well tonight.”

“Tomorrow then,” Anne said.

Blake’s eyes met mine. “Maybe Joanne could call you when the time is right.” There was such sadness in his face that my heart went out to him.

“Maybe that would be best,” I agreed.

“Well, goodnight, then,” Blake said. And he walked up the path that took him to whatever awaited him at home. The five of us watched until he disappeared from sight.

“For a guy who’s supposed to have the world by the short hairs, he’s not very happy, is he?” Maggie said.

“No,” I said, “he’s not.”

She gave her curls a toss. “Well,” she said, “you make a deal with the devil…”