Grave Concern, page 27
Mary squeezed Mary’s shoulder. “Yes dear, but nothing so entertaining as listening to you.”
By the time they set foot on Cemetery Road, the sky had clouded over. Growing tired of putting one foot ahead of the other, Kate thought of a rather nice old expression for a woman who was pregnant: great with child. The sky now, you could say, was great with rain. The air had grown dense, explosive. She led Mary into the bush toward J.P.’s grave.
“So you know in theory where we’re going,” Kate said. “But still, you’re not going to believe your eyes.”
Mary cast her eye over the scene: the displaced picket and, just as Kate had claimed, obvious diggings. Gronk hunched, like an evil thought, on a branch nearby. “Kate, look! We’ve got company.”
At Mary’s words, he seemed to wake up. He hopped to the end of the branch and flew off as though to lift the sky on aching wings. Kate was amazed. She had never actually seen Gronk fly more than a few feet, assuming old age or chronic injury kept him close to ground. She felt rather sluggish, herself, and the dank humidity had left her hair in strings.
Just as the first thunder rumbled in the distance, Gronk returned to the pine, this time way up top. And threw a croak out to the world. And another. Gronk repeated his throaty musings for all to hear, while Kate strained to understand what the hell he was on about.
By some magic Kate would never understand, Nicholas’s cell number was stored on her phone. She dialed it now, watching Mary watch a rerun of Friends they had, between them, seen at least eight times before. They were drying out after a thorough soaking from the storm.
“What is it about this stupid show that is so addictive?” Mary said, swirling Kate’s Carmenère in her glass.
But she never got her answer, because just then, Nicholas picked up.
“Nicholas? Kate. Listen, I’m sorry to bug you at work or whatever, but Mary and I have been ruminating.”
Mary laughed as Kate held the receiver away from her ear and a male voice ranted unintelligible syllables into the telesphere.
“I know, I know,” said Kate, gingerly bringing the phone closer. “But here’s the thing. No, wait. Nicholas! Hang on. Listen for a sec. You know that bird J.P. had? The raven. Yeah. Was it very old?”
More unintelligible invective. When the decibel level diminished, Kate reapplied the phone to her ear. All Mary could hear now was Kate’s side.
“Okay, so how long do they generally live?”
“Well, I’ll eat my hat. So, it’s conceivable he could still be around? ”
“Yeah, well now he answers to ‘Gronk.’ ”
“Yeah! Yeah! That’s the one.”
“He’s a she?”
“Anyway, Hille Hatter — you know, married to Ron Whatshisname — was under the impression J.P. went in to rescue it. Her. Have you ever heard anything like that?”
“You’re kidding me. Oh, man.” Kate dropped the phone against her thigh, dropped chin to chest and momentarily closed her eyes.
“Well, okay. So what do you know about a ‘ten grand’?”
“Because that bloody bird keeps cawing about it is why. And here’s stupid me thinking only parrots could talk. Unless they’re dead, of course.”
Mary, a long-time Monty Python fan, laughed until she snorted. Wine sprayed inelegantly from her nose.
Kate herself grew dead silent as Nicholas continued speaking. Her features betrayed heavy weather. Finally, just above a whisper, she said, “Oh, my God. I’m so sorry, Nicholas. Just forget I ever called. I’ll let you get back to your son’s soccer game. Thank you, though; thanks for this. You’ve been very helpful.”
“Well?” said Mary, mopping her face and Kate’s floor with a napkin she had found.
“At the trial, there was speculation that J.P. might have gone back into the hotel after Raw-Raw — you know, his pet raven — who hung out in the kitchen a lot. But it also came out that, at the same time the hotel was burning down, Raw-Raw had been seen horsing around at the school playground with some kids. The court never resolved whether J.P. actually thought Raw-Raw was in there or not. Or if there was some other reason he ran in. There was the phone, of course, and calling for help. And there was also some loose speculation about a strongbox. Nicholas, in fact, testified that J.P. had boasted to him about this stash of money he kept as his personal pension plan. Not being much of a one for conventional banking.”
“So,” said Mary. “A decent sum of money. A nest egg. Enough to live on when he retired.”
“Or a start on it, at least. Yeah, that’s the idea. Apparently, it was never found in the wreckage.”
Mary’s eyebrows shot up. “Strongbox. Normally metal, aren’t they? Should have survived the fire, in some kind of condition at least.”
Kate nodded. “Leading me to believe,” she said, “Gronk — a.k.a. Raw-Raw, by the way — might not be talking up his you-know-what with the ten grand. And, Mary, don’t forget the digging at the grave. Pseudo-grave.”
“Jesus, what a confloption, eh? Puts a deal of folks under suspicion. The first being Nicholas himself.”
Kate was shocked. “Nicholas? Nicholas would never do that.”
“I thought you told me he turned up everywhere you went up there at the graveyard. And then the night he hung out pretending to watch for pussycats? And he took off pretty quick out of here, no? He didn’t actually seem pleased when you found him by phone, now, did he?”
Kate pictured Nicholas’s face when she followed him on the night of the bloody carcass. What had she read there? Disappointment. Indignation. Impatience — he certainly seemed to want her out of his hair. Hadn’t he said something about wanting to get out of Pine Rapids as soon his job was done? Kate was beginning to doubt herself — and him.
Despite that, or perhaps because of it, she came out swinging. “What about J.P.’s dad, John Marcotte? I’d say he’s the more obvious one. After all, who wasn’t interested at all in his son until he saw a hope of finding out where he was buried, namely moi?”
Mary nodded. “I’d agree he’s a damned good bet. But dear, look at the odds. Could have been anyone at the trial, or anyone reading about it later, if the details came out at all in the media.”
“Yeah, but no one would know where to look. Plus look at all the assumptions they’d have to go with. First, that the strongbox existed. Second, that it was found by someone other than the firemen. Third, that it was subsequently hidden. Fourth, that the hiding was a burial. Fifth, that the burial was with J.P. Mary, it doesn’t make sense. And well, it may seem obvious, and maybe I’m missing something, but why, on finding ten grand, would anyone bury it in the first place?”
“Now that’s where this whole mystery’s after getting all mauzy,” Mary said. “Fat lot of good money’s going to do underground. Well, dear, one thing’s for sure, if it was buried, and buried with J.P., then only the family members who buried him knew where it was. Unless, of course, they blabbed.”
Though she could barely credit it herself, Kate had another suggestion. But she wasn’t about to say it. What if Extraordinary Wayne, a.k.a. J.P., having somehow faked or escaped his own death, really was hanging around, knowing the box was likely buried with his remains but not knowing where those would be? What if he finally came upon the stake, after she herself had moved it? What if J.P. himself had been digging?
Mary looked expectant, Kate having given the impression she was about to speak. Kate threw her a bone. “Maybe it was some kind of ritual, like the ancients’ burying possessions with the dead.”
Mary looked doubtful. “Now that’s running off on a tangent, if you’ll excuse my saying. Why not stick with the obvious? You know, dear, I used to read a lot of Nancy Drew as a kid. If this were one of those mysteries, as in Nancy Drew and The Case of the Grave Diggings, my money’s on either Nicholas, who was at the fire and could have found something he’s not admitting to, or John Marcotte, who could know more than he’s letting on.”
“Well,” Kate sniffed. “It can’t be Nicholas. So John Marcotte it is.”
The next morning, at work, Kate got a call from Leonard, also at work, but “not quite in my right mind with jet lag,” as he admitted.
“And,” continued Leonard, “that’s my excuse for asking a very personal question.”
“Yes?” said Kate, suddenly atremble with knowing Leonard was so close, not half a kilometre away, sitting on the old chrome stool at Ho Lam Video and Electronic’s Arborite counter, talking on his phone to her.
“Will you marry me?”
Kate, who happened just then to have a load of saliva in her mouth, inhaled sharply and began choking so hard she dropped the phone.
“Kate! Kate! Are you all right?” she could hear the tiny voice crying from the floor.
Kate recovered enough to pick up the phone. Still choking, she squeezed out an “all right” and then an “okay” and then “just a min — ” and then “minute.”
“I’ll take that as a yes?” Leonard said.
“Uh, you can take that as a ‘Let’s get together some night soon and try out the ol’ bedstead, shall we? And then maybe live together for a while to see if we can stand it all right? And then’ — ”
“Okay, I guess it was kind of rash. It’s just that when I was away, I really really missed you, Kate. Way more than I ever would have thought. And I’m not getting any younger. And what with Auntie Hue, life suddenly seems so short.”
“Leonard. Stop. You’re going to give yourself a tonsillectomy with your foot.”
“Right. So how ’bout I come over tonight? You like takeout Chinese?”
“I like Vietnamese better. Never mind, bad joke. Chinese sounds good. Six o’clock sharp. The first thing to know about me, Leonard, is when I get hungry, I’m a little less easy to get along with.”
“A little or a lot?” said Leonard.
“A lot,” Kate replied.
Leonard appeared at Kate’s door on the dot with an armload of stuff: a couple of plastic bags filled with Styrofoam takeout boxes and a mysteriously odd-shaped package wrapped in brown kraft paper, a blue bow clinging on for dear life.
“You take that,” said Leonard, indicating the gift. “I’ll get these sorted out in the kitchen, so you can begin eating immediately after opening your present.”
Kate smiled and produced some beer for them both. “Beer goes so much better than wine with Chinese, don’t you think?”
“Agreed,” said Leonard.
“Okay, here goes!” Kate said and tore open the whacky package. From it emerged a glowering, slouching yet somehow extremely adorable stuffed raven made of jet-black felt. “Nevermore Creations,” said the tag.
“Picked it up at the Vancouver airport,” said Leonard proudly. “I looked in Vietnam. Silk scarves, lacquered boxes, stuff like that. But nothing was quite you. And flowers weren’t quite right this time at all. Then, on the way back, I saw this — ”
Kate stopped cold. “Wow, it just hit me. It was you! That gorgeous bouquet when I busted my ribs — ”
“Squeeze the beak,” Leonard said, ignoring her completely.
Kate squeezed. “Raaaw, raaawww,” it called in realistic tones.
“I love it!” she said. “It’s going to sit above my desk at work. Or possibly on my bed.”
“Well, while you’re deciding,” said Leonard, “by all means, let’s get at it.”
Kate paused …
“Oh, the food!”
As they ate, Kate lazily fondled the raven’s tag. It was a complicated one, with several bits affixed indicating the materials, the SKU number, the fact that it was designed in Canada and made in China. The last tag was larger, with several pages, like a tiny book. Inside was a Native legend about the raven in print too tiny for Kate’s graduated bifocals, and after that, some slightly larger-print “Raven Facts.” Kate leaned in to get a closer look, grazing the ginger beef with her chin.
“It says here, ‘Ravens like to collect shiny objects, which they hoard.’ Oh, and get this, it also says, ‘Ravens are known to bring predatory mammals to a carcass with their loud call. These animals tear open the carcass for the ravens to scavenge.’ ”
“Mmmmm, yum,” said Leonard.
“There’s more,” said Kate. “ ‘They especially like the — ’ ”
“Uh,” interrupted Leonard. “Could we talk about this after dinner?”
“Oh, sorry,” Kate said.
They changed the subject, talking of Leonard’s trip and the funeral, his mother’s grief, and the long, weary flight home. Leonard spoke a little of the country itself. Some things felt familiar, he said, like the anchovy smell of the streets and markets, the ropey muscles of the cyclo drivers’ legs, the fishmongers’ Cyclopsean wares displayed on tables in neat regimental rows. But ultimately, he said, the culture felt foreign to him now, a place he could no more imagine living in than, say, Iqaluit. He said, too, that the trip had made him think about many things, not least of which was his relationship with Kate.
Kate held her breath.
“Sorry about the presumptuous phone call.”
“You mean the proposal?” Kate said.
“With the jetlag, as I said then, I’m not really myself.”
“Ah, what’s the ‘self’ anyway but a pile of crap we’ve lived on top of all our life,” Kate said. “Anyway, philosophers are always falling over themselves to deny it exists.”
“What do you figure they’re falling over, then?” Leonard asked.
“Hah! Touché!” Kate said. “I love it when you say stuff like that.”
Leonard looked in her eyes, grew quiet. “Love it?”
Kate softened. “Okay, you win. Kate Smithers’ potential multiplicity of selves love Leonard Ho Lam’s potential multiplicity of selves.”
“As in ‘I love you’?” Leonard said.
“Sort of. Yeah.”
“That as good as I’m going to get?” Leonard said.
“Take it or leave it,” Kate said.
After dinner, Kate suggested watching a movie. Leonard was game, and of the three old VHS tapes Mary had loaned her during the long closure of Ho Lam’s Vacuous Viewing, they chose Casablanca, which, they agreed, you could never see too many times. Kate inserted the cassette in the machine, and Leonard settled into her couch with the remote.
“Hey,” she said. “How did you know that was the right remote?” It had taken her a couple of weeks, when she moved back into her parents’ house, to sort out which of several possible remotes went with which device. To Kate, these gadgets were no less than alien life forms, sent to weaken earthlings by messing with the collective mind.
“I dunno,” said Leonard. “Just looked right.”
“How does a remote ‘look right’?”
Leonard studied the remote, and then Kate’s face. “Dunno. Like when I first saw you, you just ‘looked right.’ ”
“Wow, smooth,” said Kate. “How many women you picked up with that?”
“No, really,” said Leonard. “I just go with my gut. Like that guy, for instance — ” nodding at the raven glowering from the dining room table, “ — he just looked right, too.”
“So … your gut, eh?” said Kate. “Okay, so here’s a puzzle I’ve been going over and over in my mind. The trouble is, my mind seems incapable of figuring it out. It’s driving me bonkers. Maybe what I need is your ‘gut.’ You with me?”
“Uh, okay …”
Kate explained the conundrum of the fire and J.P. and the strongbox and Raw-Raw and the diggings and the new tidbits of information coaxed from Nicholas. She withheld mention of J.P.’s ghost.
Leonard looked miffed. More than miffed. Downright upset. “You still obsessing on that?”
“Obsessing. Yeah, I guess you could say that. But,” Kate hastened to add, “not to the exclusion of all other obsessions.”
“Isn’t that a line in the wedding vows?”
“Not to the exclusion of all other obsessions?”
“To the exclusion of all others.”
“Yeah well, in my case, I’m afraid the obsession has been lifelong.”
“Has been. But Kate, will it always be, assuming of course the future tense exists?”
“The future tense exists, for sure,” Kate said.
“Okay, okay. The future, then. Does the future exist? Because I don’t know if I can handle your obsession too far into it.”
This stopped Kate dead. Leonard was right. If she was going to have anything serious with him at all, she would have to cool off in a major way on the whole J.P. thing.
“Kate, J.P. is dead. He’s gone. He’s not here. He may be in some parallel universe, but if you go visit him there, I don’t want to know about it. And I’m definitely not coming along. Okay?”
Kate was silent for a moment. Then she said, “Well, what about you? Here you are, thirty-six years old, and I haven’t heard a whit about a woman. There must have been someone, no?”
“Ask my parents: nevarh mahriet, nevarh mahriet.”
Kate did not smile. “You’re not getting out of it that easily,” she said.
“Okay, okay. Yes, there’ve been a few. A few, not many. A couple serious ones, back in the city. One, Lisa, I lived with for two years. I nearly married Kim-Ly — that would have been a huge mistake. But they’re over, Kate. Done. I don’t think about them anymore. Except maybe as long-ago fond memories, like a friend in public school. Something like that.”
“So I’m guessing,” Kate said, “you’re not going to lend me your gut for my private investigations.”
“I’ll lend you any other part of my body, however,” Leonard said.
And with that, Casablanca was forgotten. For the second time in his life, Leonard was taken to bed in Kate’s house. But for only the first time, the bed he was led to was Kate’s.
