Gail Bowen - Burying Ariel

Eli sat on the edge of my bed. “That’s the only music he’s playing. It’s his theme, ‘Ants Marching.’ ”

“I’ve heard it before,” I said. “It’s a good song, but I’m not sure how many repetitions I could take.”

Eli nodded. “Charlie D’s taking calls, too. Some of them are really scary. Threats. He doesn’t seem to care. CVOX has been running announcements all day saying they’re standing behind Charlie D. On the news just now, a guy said the Friends of Red Riding Hood are renting buses to take the Friends out to the station tonight so they can protest. Charlie D told them to come ahead.”

I looked at Eli. “I’m going to call Charlie’s dad,” I said.

I tried Howard’s apartment. There was no answer. I tried his cellphone. A female voice told me, in both official languages, that the customer I was calling was unavailable at the moment. The news was hardly surprising; in order to have been ‘available,’ Howard would have had to activate his phone, and that was something he seldom did.

“No luck,” I said to Eli.

“What are you going to do?” Eli asked.

“Get dressed and go up the university. Howard knew there’d be trouble, and he’s always believed in attacking trouble at its source. The march is scheduled to start from the library. Even if Howard isn’t there, I’ll be able to see firsthand what’s happening.” I glanced at the clock on my night-stand. “Incidentally,” I said, “it’s two-thirty. How come you’re home from school.”

“Half-day teacher in-service,” he said. “I told you about it last night.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m playing with an incomplete deck these days. Does Taylor have the afternoon off, too?”

“Nope, it’s only the high schools. Taylor’s class is on garbage patrol in her schoolyard, so she won’t be home till after four. She mentioned that, too,” he said gently.

“How would you like to move in permanently?” I asked. “We’ve never had a kid around here who actually delivered messages.”

“Cool,” he said. “Talk to Uncle Alex. I think we’re a matched set.”

I threw my pillow at him. “Get outta here,” I said.

He left with a grin, but the strains of ‘Ants Marching,’ Dave Matthews’s indictment of mindless conformity, lingered.

As I drove to the university, my nerves felt as if they were connected by piano wire. I couldn’t slap a label on what I feared, and so, nameless, the fear grew. It took an act of will to insert the key in the lock of my office. When I saw the envelope lying on the floor, my heart sank. Any message Solange had considered critical enough to slide under my door the night before wouldn’t be good news. The envelope I picked up was the kind our office used for business letters. Inside was a single sheet of university stationery. The note was handwritten, two lines long: Joanne, The heart has its reasons, and they’re not always immediately apparent to others. Forgive me, Solange

The remorse was apparent, but the note’s ambiguity gnawed. The two lines could be read as either an apology for a temperamental outburst or an admission of complicity in something more sinister.

I walked down the hall and knocked on Solange’s door. There was no answer, and when I tried the knob, the door was locked. I had no better luck at the main office. It was 3:30 – Rosalie’s coffee time. Even Kevin Coyle wasn’t in.

I went back to my office and tried Solange’s home number. There was no answer. I pulled the mid-terms from my briefcase and began to read. Five minutes later, I gave up. I would not have wanted one of my kids to have their paper marked by an instructor whose concentration was as fragmented as mine. I reread Solange’s letter. It didn’t yield any answers. All I knew for certain was that there had been a radical shift in Solange’s feelings. The question was, Why?

Luckily, the time frame during which the change took place was a narrow one. Fraser Jackson had been with Solange on the island and on the flights back. He had struck me as a man with keen powers of observation and a good ear for detecting variations in the emotional pitch of others. I packed up my mid-terms, locked my door, and walked to the elevator. I needed information, and Fraser seemed as good a place as any to start.

His door was open, but when I stuck my head around the corner, I saw that he was on the telephone. As soon as he saw me, he hung up. “Synchronicity,” he said with a grin. “I was just calling you. Molly told me on the way back that it was your idea to invite me. I’m grateful, Joanne. I found it very comforting to be part of the ceremony.” He gestured to the chair opposite his. “But you came to see me…”

“I wanted to talk about yesterday, too,” I said, taking the chair he’d offered. “Fraser, I was hoping you could tell me about how Solange was after I left.”

He took a breath. “Well, at first she was very angry. Of course, you saw that.”

“It was pretty hard to miss,” I said. “But sometime last night she slid this under my office door.” I gave him Solange’s note.

As Fraser read the note, his face was sombre. “I can’t say that I’m surprised,” he said.

“Then something did happen.”

“No single thing,” he said slowly, and I could see my own concern reflected in his dark eyes. “Solange took me aside as soon as you left with Howard and his son. She was… distraught. She asked me about my relationship with Ariel. There didn’t seem to be any point in lying, so I told her the truth. She took the news calmly; in fact, she seemed almost indifferent. I’ve thought about it since, and I think I just had to establish my bona fides before she asked the one question that really mattered to her.”

“Which was?”

“Which was if Ariel had ever suggested, in any way, that she feared her.”

“Had she?” I asked.

“Never. She always spoke of Solange with the greatest affection and respect.”

I felt the piano-wire tension of my nerves lessen. “So Charlie was wrong.”

“One hundred per cent wrong.” Fraser was adamant. “Solange was a hero to Ariel. She believed Solange had given her some sort of key to living her life fully.”

“And you told Solange that.”

He shook his head in amazement. “She was so grateful, Joanne. She told me I couldn’t have given her a greater gift. Then the penny dropped.”

“What do you mean?”

“I wish I knew. All I know is that the light went out of her face, and she said, ‘If it wasn’t me, then who was Ariel afraid of?’ After that, she just withdrew. I made a point of sitting beside her on the flights home, but she didn’t say another word till we were about to land in Regina. Then she asked me something I’m still puzzling over. She wanted to know if I’d ever studied Murder in the Cathedral.”

“T.S. Eliot,” I said. “I don’t get the connection.”

“Neither did I, but I wanted her to keep talking. I told her the summer before last I’d seen a terrific production of the play in London, and that I’d done some work on it and was considering doing a student production here. That’s when she asked me if I knew Thomas Becket’s line about the greatest treason.” Fraser leaned towards me. “Are you familiar with the play?”

“Very,” I said. “When my husband was in politics, that particular line came up a time or two. ‘The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason.’ ”

Fraser nodded approval. “It’s a provocative line for idealists,” he said. “I wasn’t surprised that Solange had been taken with it, but it seemed she was more interested in the inversion. ‘It’s treason the other way, too,’ she said. ‘If a person does the wrong deed for the right reason.’ ”