Gail Bowen - The Glass Coffin

Bryn led me to a bank of windows that overlooked the hospital’s central courtyard. In the gentle seasons, the place was a green and blooming oasis, but on that raw, windy day it was desolate. Despite the bleakness, the weathered picnic benches were dotted with smokers. Most wore scrubs and winter jackets, but there were a few civilians. One of them was Jill.

“I hate that she smokes,” Bryn said. “But I told her to go out and have a cigarette. This is all so awful.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Bryn nodded. Her state seemed almost fugue-like and I wondered if she’d been given some sort of sedation. “It’s my fault,” she said numbly. “Tracy says she did it for me.”

“Did what for you?”

Bryn shrugged. “Everything, I guess. When the ambulance came to get her at the airport, there was blood everywhere. Do you know what Tracy did?”

“No.”

“She dipped her fingers in it and held them out to me. ‘This is for you,’ she said. ‘Your blood for you.’ ”

My shudder was visceral, but Bryn picked up on it. “See, it freaks even you out. What chance do I have?”

“The only chance any of us have,” I said. “You have to make yourself strong enough to handle whatever comes your way.”

Bryn spoke without self-pity. “There’s always so much.”

“I know,” I said. “But don’t underestimate yourself.”

Surprisingly, she smiled. “I’ve made it this far, haven’t I?”

“No small accomplishment.”

“And now the camera won’t be there,” Bryn said. She shrugged. “I guess that’s what Tracy meant when she said she did it for me. I guess what she did was make sure that fucking camera would never be in my face again.”

Ken Dryden once said that the goalie’s job is to know what’s coming next and insert himself like a stick into the spokes of a bike and stop the action. When I saw Inspector Alex Kequahtooway get out of the elevator and head towards the psychiatric ward, I knew the time had come to be a stick in the spokes. Tracy had passed the point of meltdown. Alex wouldn’t need his considerable skills as an interrogator to unearth the fact that Tracy was Bryn’s birth mother. The seventeen-year-old girl beside me had already endured a lifetime of assaults. I didn’t have the power to deflect the next blow coming her way, but I could defer it.

I turned to Bryn. “Let’s go home,” I said.

She looked puzzled. “What about Jill? She’s still outside finishing her cigarette.”

“We’ll find her.” I went over to the nursing station and left a message for Claudia. Then I punched the elevator button. When Bryn and I stepped out on the main floor, Jill was there.

“I was just coming up,” she said.

“Change of plans,” I said. I slid my hand under her elbow and steered her towards the door.

During the taxi ride, Bryn talked about how the smell of hospital in her hair and on her clothes was making her sick. As soon as we were through the door, she ran upstairs to shower and change.

After Bryn left, Jill slumped against the wall. “I can’t remember ever feeling this tired,” she said.

“In need of your java-enabler?” I said.

“Make it strong and keep it coming,” Jill said.

I made a pot of Jill’s favourite Kona, and we took it into the living room. The coffee seemed to restore her. After a few sips, she sat forward in her chair. “Okay,” she said. “I’m fortified. Now tell me why we had to beat such a hasty retreat from the hospital.”

My account of Tracy’s true relationship with Bryn observed four of the five W’s of journalism. I told Jill everything I knew about Who, What, When, and Where, but I didn’t venture any guesses about why Bryn’s family had hidden the truth from her after Annie died; nor did I speculate about why Gabe Leventhal had died within hours of discovering what I’d discovered.

Like any smart journalist, Jill was a good listener. When I finished my account, she asked, “Is there more?”

I shook my head. “Your turn now. Any questions?”

“Have we heard from that private detective in Toronto?”

“Not that I know of. I’ll call Kevin and get him to stir things up a bit.”

“Good.” She leaned towards me. “Jo, we need to know what the police have found out.”

I met her gaze. “Alex doesn’t trust me any more. I’ve made it pretty clear I’m on the other side.”

“Just do your best, okay?”

“Okay,” I said. “More coffee?”

“Thanks, but I should talk to Bryn. No point in delaying the inevitable.” Jill stood and smoothed her leather pants. “Jo, she has so few resources. How do I break this to her?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Just take it slow, and see how she reacts. If she’s having a hard time, stop and let her decide where to go next. Bryn trusts Dan Kasperski. I’ll call him, so he’ll be ready if you need him.”

After Jill left, I dialled Dan’s number and left a message on his machine. Then I sat back and waited for word of trouble upstairs. When there was none, I picked up the phone and called Kevin Hynd.

“Synchronicity,” he said. “I was just about to call you.”

“If you tell me you have news from the detective in Toronto, I’m going to believe God is Alive and Magic is Afoot.”

Kevin chuckled. “He is, and It is. Our man, whose name is Richard Shanks, called tonight. He struck paydirt.”

“So soon?”

“It’s all in knowing where to dig,” Kevin said. “Richard talked to the MacLeish housekeeper. She was a temporary, but she filled him in on her predecessor. The lady’s name is Isobel Carruthers. She’d been with the MacLeish family for fifty years, but she was only too willing to talk.”

“Fifty years of service and suddenly she’s spilling the beans? What happened? Did they fire her?”

“Apparently, she left of her own volition when she heard that Evan was dead.”

“She was that attached to him?”

“No. According to Richard, Mrs. Carruthers believes that whoever killed Evan did the world a favour.”

“So what was her problem?”

“Moral outrage. Hang on to your toque, Joanne. Mrs. Carruthers told Richard she quit because she couldn’t spend another night in a house that had nurtured a murderer.”

“Did she name her suspect?”

“Nope, but she did give Richard some interesting nuggets to ponder. She said that Bryn’s relationship with her father was unnatural.”

“No surprise there.”

“Then try this. According to Mrs. Carruthers, Bryn was not the innocent victim. In Mrs. C’s words, it was ‘tit for tat.’ ”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that Bryn threatened to withhold favours if she didn’t get her way.”

I felt a coldness in the pit of my stomach. “What kind of favours?”

“Not sexual. For lack of a better word – professional. Remember that bizarre thing Bryn did with the camera – speaking to it directly about what Evan was doing to her?”

“Yes.”

“The housekeeper says Bryn used the camera to barter. She’d tell the camera what she wanted, and if Evan didn’t come across, she’d screw up the film.”

“And our pillar of rectitude, Mrs. Carruthers, did nothing.”

“She didn’t believe it was her place to interfere. She felt that was up to Bryn’s flesh and blood.”

“Who, as we know, did nothing.”

“And that’s the part I don’t get,” Kevin said. “I’m not exactly a cock-eyed optimist when it comes to my fellow beings, but you would have thought someone in that house would have stopped Evan.”

“Maybe everyone just had too much to lose,” I said. “Evan was Bryn’s father. If someone confronted him, he could have simply taken her and moved away. Claudia devoted years of her life to that girl. She might have convinced herself that as long as she and Bryn were under the same roof, she could exercise some control.”