What's Past Is Prologue, page 21
Ed’s laugh was deep and redolent of remembered pleasure. “Oh yes,” he said. “Cheese toast and The Golden Girls have never failed to get Barry and me exactly where we need to be.”
I breathed deeply and exhaled. “Barry, I know you’re good about passing along recipes, but please remind Zack that he asked for that recipe,” I said. And then, remembering all the times that my husband came back from a day in court, bloody and fighting hard to remain unbowed, I said, “Ed, could you shoot that recipe for cheese toast to me, too? My grandmother always said, ‘Any port in a storm’ and I suspect there are days ahead when Zack and I will welcome the prospect of bingeing on The Golden Girls and munching on cheese toast.”
* * *
When I peeked into our home office and saw that Zack was finally off the phone, I took advantage of the break in the action. “It’s martini time,” I said. “I’ve ordered a gyro pizza from Copper Kettle and it will be delivered at six.”
“Is that the pizza with the tzatziki sauce?”
“That’s the one, and our schedules are free and clear till it arrives.”
“I’ll get the drinks,” Zack said. “There’s something I want to run by you. It’s still in the mulling stage, but the idea may have merit.”
“Is it about keeping Hogarth & Associates viable?”
Zack’s jaw dropped. “How did you know about that?”
“While you were on the phone, I checked in with Brock and he said he’d like to talk to you about arranging a virtual meeting with Catharine Steadman to discuss that very thing.”
Zack shook his head in admiration. “Gotta hand it to Brock. Killer cold or not, he is quick on the uptake. I just mentioned Hogarth & Associates in passing. When Brock told me he wasn’t blown away by the possibility of opening a Vancouver office and he thought expanding the Calgary office could wait, I suggested we might look into doing something with Hogarth & Associates. That’s all I said, but Brock moved ahead. Good for him. I’ll call him and let him know that I’m in for a virtual meeting with Catharine Steadman ASAP.”
Pizza is a dish best eaten in the kitchen, and when Zack came in to make the drinks, I’d already set the table, and noticing the tulips were drooping, I’d taken them to the sink to give their stems a fresh cut.
When he saw what I was doing, Zack frowned. “Is it sayonara for the tulips already?”
“No, they just needed a little trim and some fresh water with a penny in it.”
“Does that really work?”
“I’ve done the penny thing ever since I was a kid, and that includes the nine years we’ve been married. You just never caught me in the act.”
“Where did you find a penny?”
“When the Canadian mint stopped making them, I kept fifty pennies back. They’re in a shoebox in the mudroom.”
Zack rubbed my lower back. “You still have secrets,” he said.
I turned to him and smiled. “But now I have one less.”
* * *
We took our drinks into the family room. I raised my glass. “Let’s drink to a rosy future for Libby’s law firm.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Zack said. “Until Bob Colby came, I wasn’t up to much beyond feeling sick at the probability that with Libby gone, Hogarth & Associates would not survive. I was planning to ask Brock to go to Toronto as soon as he was over his cold, rally the troops and give me his informed opinion about whether it would be to anyone’s benefit to have Falconer Shreve step in.”
“Step in and take over?”
“I never got that far, but today after Bob Colby told us that Libby and Fred had a son who became a very good trial lawyer and, not to put too fine a point on it, who I know will be receiving a substantial inheritance and might be willing to take a chance on expanding Hogarth & Associates, I thought we might work something out. When you were taking Bob to the airport, I called and introduced myself to David Shevchenko.”
“How did that go?” I asked.
“He was excited, and he was grateful.”
“How much did you tell him?”
“Almost everything. I didn’t mention the possibility of Falconer Shreve and Hogarth & Associates coming to some sort of agreement, because that is still just a possibility. Anyway, I introduced myself. I told David what my relationship had been with his biological parents and said that if he ever had questions or simply wanted to talk about them with someone who had been close to them both, I was available, and I would always be honest with him.”
“And David was amenable to the idea?”
“He leapt at it. He said that from the moment Bob Colby told him that his biological parents were Fred C. Harney and Libby Hogarth, he had questions, and it was a relief to know there was someone who could answer them.”
Zack sipped his drink. “So, I waited, expecting a barrage, but David had only one question, and it was a heartbreaker. He said, ‘Tell me what Fred and Libby were like, and Zack, tell me the truth.’”
“That must have been difficult,” I said. “Libby and Fred were complex people and, like all of us, they had flaws.”
“I worked up to that part. I realize I’ve already shared this with you, but I told David about how much Fred C. and Libby loved and revered the law and how deeply respected they both were in the legal community. I told him about the lunch I had with Libby before she agreed to article with Fred C. Harney. David’s year of articling isn’t that far behind him, so he was well aware of the significant impact the principal’s involvement with their student can have on the student’s professional future. Over his entire career, Fred C. only chose thirteen students to article with him. I told David that Libby knew it was an honour to be chosen by Fred, but she was concerned about his drinking.”
“Did you tell David how serious Fred’s drinking problem was?”
“I did. He’d asked me to be honest, and I was. I told David about Fred’s blackouts and that I’d explained to Libby that her main duty with her principal would be to stay with Fred C. when he was in court, take careful notes of the proceedings and fill in the gaps in Fred’s memory back at the office. And I told David that I’d advised Libby to go for it because, unorthodox as her relationship with her principal would be, if she stayed the course, she would have received a master class in trial law from a true master.”
“That’s quite the origin story,” I said. “How did David react?”
“With amazement,” Zack said. “I told him what I thought he should know, but as I was talking, it occurred to me how little I really knew about Libby and Fred C.’s lives. When we were talking, I made a mental list of people who could give David a more dimensional idea of who his biological parents were.”
“Libby mentored Margot when she was at Ireland Leontovich,” I said. “And I know Margot would be more than eager to do whatever she could to help Libby’s son understand the person Libby was.”
“I agree. Margot will be a great asset, but at the moment, she’s as sick as a dog. David and I are having a Zoom meeting tomorrow morning at eight thirty. We’ll be finished in plenty of time for church, and I’d like you to be there.”
“Zack, I don’t know how much I can contribute.”
“I disagree. You were with Libby a lot during the last week of her life, and you’re perceptive. You and I both felt that Libby was preoccupied with a regret she had about the past. Today Bob Colby said Libby hired him on December 6th of last year, and December 6th is David’s birthday. I know learning that his birth mother remembered her son on his birthday and decided to find him will make Libby very real for her son.”
“I agree. I’m eager to meet David too.”
“You’ll like him, Jo, and I know he’ll like you. Now, before the pizza arrives, I think we should call Taylor and Gracie.”
“You know they’ll want an update on Sawyer’s condition,” I said. “And we don’t have one.”
“I’m going to remedy that,” Zack said. “I’ve seen you staring at the phone, waiting for it to ring. It’s time for me to be the bad guy who pushes his way to the head of the line. I’m going to call Vince and ask him if Dr. Jay-Louise has something to report.”
* * *
When the doorbell rang at quarter to six, I picked up my wallet and opened the door, prepared to meet the pizza man. But it was Kam Chau.
“I know I should have called,” he said.
“You’re always welcome here, Kam,” I said. “Come inside, but prepare to stay for dinner. A gyro pizza from the Copper Kettle is arriving here in fifteen minutes, and without Taylor around, it’ll be too much pizza for Zack and me.”
“No arm-twisting is necessary,” Kam said. “I’m hungry, and pizza from the Copper Kettle is always numero uno with me. But there’s a problem, and Eden Sass appears to be at the centre of it.”
“I think this is where we make sure there’s a lawyer present,” I said. “Let me take your coat. Zack’s in the family room.”
Zack lit up when he saw Kam. “Hey, just in time to have dinner with us. Always good to see you.”
“I hope you still feel that way when I explain why I’m here.”
My husband gestured towards the chair next to him. “Sit down and we’ll find out.”
“I walked over from my place,” Kam said. “A comfortable chair in a toasty warm room is exactly what I need, because I’m not only cold, I’m at a loss about what I should do next.”
“Well, you know the old saying ‘Two heads are better than one,’” Zack said. “Just imagine what three heads will be able to do.”
“That’s what I’m counting on,” Kam said. “The day started on a troubling note. I went to Mercury for breakfast, and Rylee came over as soon as she saw me. She was wearing her uniform, but she sat down opposite me in the booth. You saw how ebullient she is, but this morning it was as if all her joie de vivre had seeped away.
“Rylee didn’t hesitate about getting to the point. She said, ‘I know you’re a friend of Eden Sass’s. I heard what she told Charlie D about her life during her interview, and I heard the tribute to Jared Delio the day after the police found his body. Eden Sass has suffered so much, but Kam, sometimes we are so knotted up in our own suffering that we don’t think of others.’ Then Rylee went on to tell me what happened the night of Taylor’s opening. She said that when she and her friend, Cambria Ravenhill, were at the opening, they were as happy as either of them could ever remember being, but on their way home someone who was ‘knotted up in their own suffering’ almost killed them.”
I shuddered. “What happened?”
“Everyone who lives or works in Cathedral recognizes cars that belong to people we know, because the cars, like the people who own them, are just part of the neighbourhood. So it’s not surprising that many of us know that when Eden came back to Regina after the ordeal of the Delio trial, Devi gave her a brand-new Lexus — a dream car in a vibrant blue. Rylee loved the colour of Eden’s Lexus. She said it drew attention to itself, without trying too hard to draw attention.” He paused. “Rylee told me that she and Cambria were almost the last people to leave the opening.”
“I noticed them,” I said. “They were both so thrilled about the art and about everything else. They didn’t seem to want the evening to end.”
“Well, it did,” Kam said. “And it almost ended catastrophically for Rylee and Cambria. They share an apartment on Albert Street, and they were walking home. When they attempted to cross at the intersection of 13th and Albert, a car travelling from 13th onto Albert ran the red light. Except for their quick reactions, the Lexus could easily have killed them. Both Cambria and Rylee were certain the driver saw them but was so absorbed in their own world that they didn’t care.
“Rylee and Cambria called the police immediately to report the speeding Lexus. They knew the car belonged to Eden Sass. She’d always been friendly to them, and they hated to report her, but they knew her reckless driving put her life and the lives of others in danger.”
“I can’t imagine Eden being a reckless driver,” I said.
“I agree,” Kam said. “But that car of hers is distinctive. Rylee and Cambria didn’t hear back from the police until late yesterday afternoon. They assumed, correctly, that investigating the shootings was the police department’s top priority. Both Rylee and Cambria were able to identify the car as belonging to Eden Sass, and although they couldn’t be precise about the time, they thought it was probably around twenty after nine.”
“Our daughter and her friend believe the shooting must have taken place at about nine fifteen,” Zack said. “If Eden was driving that car on 13th Avenue at the time of the shooting, the police should certainly interview her.”
“That’s exactly what the police want to do, but they can’t find her,” Kam said. “Eden and Seth Wright share a bungalow on Wallace Street in Broders Annex, but nobody’s there, and according to the neighbour, nobody was there last night.”
“Seth was here to talk to Zack yesterday, and he mentioned that he’d be working on a project out of town for a few days,” I said. “But he said that if Margot or anyone else needed him, I could text him, and he’d get back to me.”
Kam was thoughtful. “You might want to do that, Joanne. I was out for the afternoon, but when I got home two officers from the Regina police were at the front door. They said they were looking for Eden Sass. I told them I didn’t know where she was and I asked if I could help.
“They said they’d appreciate my cooperation, and we went inside. We stayed in the hall, but we talked for about ten minutes and what they told me was troubling.
“As you know, the police all over the province are using the tip line to learn how the Remington rifle that killed Libby Hogarth and injured Sawyer MacLeish got from the Wright family’s padlocked hunting lodge south of Wadena to Regina where it was used to shoot Libby and Sawyer, and was back in its place in the gun cabinet the day after the shooting.
“The Regina police received a tip this morning that throws some light on what might have happened,” Kam said, leaning forward. “Just after Jared Delio was found innocent, a snowmobiler, who lives in the area where the cabin is located, noticed smoke coming from the cabin’s chimney. He drove closer to make certain the cabin hadn’t been broken into. When he saw a shiny blue Lexus parked in front of the cabin, he thought one of the members of the Wright family must be inside, so he knocked on the door. A young woman answered the door; he recognized her from the media coverage of the trial as Eden Sass. She explained that she was staying in the cabin for a few days and that Seth Wright knew she was there. The snowmobiler said she was courteous but distant. He wrote down the licence number of the car because as he told the police, ‘You never know when something like that will be important.’
“That was over two years ago. The night of the shooting, he saw the car again. He was driving home from Regina. It’s about a two-hour drive, but under winter road conditions, it takes longer, and he was driving cautiously. He said the blue Lexus seemed to come out of nowhere. It was travelling well over the speed limit, it passed him and disappeared, but he saw the last two numbers of the licence plate. This morning he checked and the last two digits of the speeding car were the same as the last two digits on the blue Lexus that had been in front of the cabin when Eden Sass was staying there. So he called the Regina police.” Kam looked at our faces. “Eden’s in a lot of trouble, isn’t she?”
Kam’s question was still hanging in the air when the delivery person arrived. Kam carried the pizza into the kitchen; Zack opened a bottle of chilled Sauvignon Blanc. We all washed our hands and then we sat down to a pizza that smelled divine — but a conversation that promised to be far from heavenly.
Not surprisingly, our conversation focused on whether we thought Eden was capable of murder. Reluctantly, the three of us agreed we didn’t know. There was the intelligent, disciplined, insightful woman that I knew from the master’s thesis she’d written and defended; that Kam knew from their work together on the Long Reach of Childhood podcast; and that Zack knew from the time he spent with her before and during the interview in which she recanted her testimony.
And then there was the unpredictable Eden, a woman with a history of rejection who had attempted suicide at the age of twelve and in an act of blind vengeance had lied, under oath, about her sexual relationship with Jared Delio.
Towards the end of her interview with Charlie, on the day Eden recanted, he had pushed a note across the desk to her. His note read, “Would you go back to Jared?” And Eden had answered, “No, I’m strong enough to self-preserve.”
“Charlie told me about the note,” Kam said. “The ambiguity of the single sentence Eden wrote is chilling, and Charlie and I talked about it. Was the woman who had written ‘I’m strong enough to self-preserve’ asserting that she was strong enough to endure whatever life threw at her, or was she asserting that she was strong enough to do whatever she needed to do to survive?”
As we cleared away our plates, stomped on the pizza box so we could fit it in the recycling bin and rinsed out the empty wine bottle and placed it in the bin for bottles and jars, the question remained unanswered. But we had agreed that our best course of action was to call Seth Wright and let him discuss the situation with Eden. He loved her, and she trusted him. I called Seth’s number, but the call went straight to voicemail. Once again, it seemed that nothing had been resolved.
When the phone rang almost immediately after I ended my call to Seth, my nerves tightened. I hadn’t decided how to tell Seth that the police wanted to talk to Eden about where she and her Lexus had been the night of the shooting.
When the phone rang again, I picked up. But my caller wasn’t Seth, it was Dr. Jay-Louise Yates.
