Gail Bowen - The Last Good Day

The idea of making a deal with the devil might have been a throwaway line for Maggie, but after she left, the words stuck to my consciousness, persistent as a burr. Blake wasn’t the only one who’d made a deal with the devil. Not many hours before he died, Chris Altieri told me he had committed an act that was unforgivable. By all accounts, Chris was a decent and principled human being, but he had also been involved in the rough-and-tumble world of the law for twenty years. He wouldn’t have minimized his culpability about what he had done to win the Patsy Choi case, but somehow I couldn’t imagine him characterizing the act as unforgivable.

The fate of his mizuko was another matter. Haunted by the memory of this child flowing into being, Chris had travelled halfway around the world seeking absolution. Yet the night of the fireworks he had made a point of telling me he had forced his lover to choose an abortion. What he’d said that night had nagged at me. Nothing about Chris Altieri suggested that he was the kind of man who would compel a woman to undergo an abortion she didn’t want. And Clare Mackey certainly did not seem to be a woman who would cede control of her body to anyone. It simply didn’t add up.

But there was another possible scenario, and it had its own cruel logic. Sandra Mikalonis had floated the possibility that Clare Mackey had chosen to abort her unborn child because she had decided Chris Altieri was morally unfit to be a father. If Chris had believed his unborn child had been denied its chance to come into being because of his own moral failure, he might not have been able to forgive himself. His responsibility for the abortion would have been the unforgivable act.

I had always believed the axiom that a burden shared is a burden halved, and the burden of my insight into Chris’s state of mind was heavy. I wanted badly to talk to someone, and that someone was Zack.

He had seemed so tired it was possible he was already sleeping, so when I arrived at his front door I knocked softly. He came to the door almost immediately. He was wearing the white terry-cloth robe he had worn the night before, and there was a stack of folders on his knees. When he motioned me in, I saw the living room was littered with law books and papers.

“Homework?” I said.

“You bet. I don’t like being humiliated, and to use a legal term with which you may not be familiar, I really stepped on my joint in court today.”

“Sounds painful.”

“You should have been there. Speaking of which, you’re ten hours early – not that I’m complaining. I’m just glad you’re here.”

“So am I,” I said.

He took my hand. “So do you want to go to bed or do you want to look at the sunset?”

“I think we need to talk first,” I said.

“Fair enough. Follow me.” Zack led me through his house to the deck. It was large and uncluttered and it faced west onto the spectacular light show of a Canadian sunset in cottage country.

“How did things go with Clare’s friends?”

As I gave my account of the women’s visit, Zack leaned forward in his chair. He didn’t interrupt or comment until I was finished. When he did speak, he was pithy.

“Fuck,” he said. “Why didn’t he come to me? He didn’t have to go through this alone. If he’d let me help with the Patsy Choi case, none of this would have happened. I must have offered to give him a hand a dozen times. I saw how he was throwing the money away. I just assumed we had it to throw.”

“What would have happened to Chris if he’d been caught – I mean, after he’d put the money back?”

Zack rubbed the back of his neck. “Probably not much,” he said. “The Law Society is the Law Society. No matter who’s involved, they have to investigate and decide on appropriate disciplinary action. But this is a small province, and Chris had a boy scout’s reputation. He was loyal, trustworthy, courteous, kind, clean, and obedient.”

“Don’t forget reverent,” I said. “After Chris died, one of the gents at Coffee Row said Chris went to Mass every day.”

“He did,” Zack said. “But the daily attendance started after the Patsy Choi case. Before that, although he never missed Mass, he went only once a week. Guilt, I guess.”

“Why did he feel such guilt?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe something happened when he was a kid that convinced him he had to take on the sins of the world.”

“Who was it who said, ‘Childhood lasts forever’?”

“Probably someone at social services,” Zack said sardonically. “But whoever it was, they were right on the money.” He brightened. “I’ll bet you had a real Norman Rockwell childhood.”

“Don’t bet anything you value,” I said. “Because you couldn’t be more wrong.”

“You’re one of the walking wounded?”

I nodded.

Zack moved his chair so that our knees were touching. He leaned forward and placed his hands against my cheeks. “Then maybe you’ve had enough,” he said. “Falconer Shreve is in for some rough times, Joanne. If you want to walk away, now’s the time.”

I covered his hands with my own. “Isn’t there a song called ‘Too Late Now’?”

“Frank Loesser,” he said. “One of my favourites. Want me to play it for you?”

“I’d like that,” I said.

“Then let’s go inside.”

It was a little after ten when I got back to the house. Angus and Leah were in the living room watching a video. Angus tapped an imaginary watch on his wrist. “So what were you up to at this hour of the night?”

“I was with Zack Shreve,” I said.

Leah grinned, and raised her thumbs in a gesture of approbation.

Angus was less enthusiastic. “Come on, Mum. Zack Shreve? He is way too much for you to handle.”

“You may be right about that,” I said. I gave my son a friendly punch on the arm. “Then again, you may be wrong.”

Shortly after two that morning, a violent storm began. One volley of thunder was so ear-splitting that I sat bolt upright in bed. Heart still pounding, I went down to check on Taylor. Despite flashes of lightning bright as daylight, Taylor continued to sleep the sleep of the just, and I wandered back to my room intent on catching a few more winks. I would have been more usefully employed trying to jam toothpaste back in the tube. No matter how diligently I pounded the pillows, smoothed the sheets, breathed deeply, sought my mental good place, assumed the shava-asana position, and willed my mind to free itself from thoughts of past and future, sleep eluded me. Finally, I gave up, took my blanket to the chair by the window, and sat back to watch the show and see if I could make sense of the revelations that had been coming like hammer blows, one after another.

It turned out to be a profitable night. By the time the worst of the storm was over and the bleak light of dawn seeped in my window, I hadn’t come up with any answers, but I was certain I knew what questions to ask. Eager to get started, I dug out my slicker and snapped on Willie’s leash. Like Maggie Muggins, I had places to go, people to see, and things to do.

It was a day to believe in the pathetic fallacy: a gunmetal sky, a driving, hostile rain that stung my face and legs, and a keening wind that tossed the gulls around like pieces of tissue. Oblivious to the warnings from the elements, Willie pounded through the sloppy gravel, barking happily as we rounded the road by the gazebo and he spotted the Inukshuk, a new friend. I would have turned back but there was something I needed to check. When I found what I was looking for, I felt the rush that comes when the pieces of a puzzle are beginning to fit together.

My exhilaration was short-lived. As we passed the Wainbergs’, a vehicle shot out of the driveway. Willie and I were right in its path. When I jerked him out of harm’s way, I lost my footing in the gumbo of the gravel road and fell. The car skidded to a stop and Delia jumped out. She was dressed for the city: a smart black suit with a very short skirt, black stockings, pumps with serious heels.