A Door in the River Read online

  “Obviously.” She passed Hazel a pair of dice. She stared at them for a moment and then dried them and put them in the cutlery bin on the drying rack. “So get to the point, Hazel. You already know how I am. All the doorknobs in the house are soaking in a bucket of bleach in the mudroom. That’s how I am.”

  “I’m sorry, Cathy.”

  “Are you here to make me more miserable?”

  “No. I’m not,” she said confidently. “I’m just wondering about a couple of things, a couple of loose ends.”

  “Loose ends.” A stapler.

  “You put a stapler in hot water?”

  “There’s no staples in it. Just dry it thoroughly.” She watched the detective dry the stapler.

  Hazel took a breath. “Did Henry mention to you where he was going to be Saturday night?”

  “He was at the store until six. Then he said he had to pick up a shipment of filters. They come in huge boxes: it’s easier to go to Mayfield to get them than it is to have them shipped all the way up here.”

  “The reserve is really out of the way if he was coming home with them.”

  “Maybe he had a call. Or he took the 26 and stopped to buy some water.”

  She heard Cathy stringing the scene together as she spoke. “No one saw him in the store,” she said. “I called down about an hour ago to see if he went in. He didn’t.”

  Cathy Wiest turned her hip against the countertop. “What are you saying he was doing down there?”

  “I’m asking you because I don’t know. You said he didn’t smoke.”

  “So what? They did the autopsy, Hazel. I can’t ask him why he went down there now, can I?”

  “What about the casino?”

  “I have no idea. He never went there when I’ve known him.”

  “But he did, you mean? He used to go?”

  “Like I say, not while I’ve known him. Knew …” Cathy pulled the apron up over her head and walked into the hallway. Hazel followed her. Cathy was digging a pack of cigarettes out of a drawer in the hall table.

  “I overheard Uncle Ed talking about a brief period of wild youth,” Hazel said.

  “You don’t know about that?”

  “Not in any detail.”

  “It was a hundred years ago, Hazel. He had a little gambling problem at one point. As far as I understand. And he took some money from the store a couple of times. I wasn’t here, I just … oh, for Christ’s sake –”

  “Cathy, what is it?”

  She’d turned away and clamped her hand over her mouth.

  “Cathy?”

  “Wait here.” She went up the stairs behind them, leaving Hazel in a state of anticipation and confusion. She listened to the footfalls cross overhead and then back, and Cathy came down the stairs with one of those little manila envelopes banks give people their cash withdrawals in. It was bulging. She handed it to Hazel.

  It was full of hundreds. Hazel said, “Ah.”

  “There’s fifty-five of them.”

  “And Henry didn’t normally carry around this kind of cash?”

  “No.”

  Hazel hefted the heavy little packet in her hand. “Cathy …”

  The woman’s hand shook as she brought the cigarette to her mouth. “You’re just going to wear me down, aren’t you?”

  “I want to redo the autopsy.”

  “Christ.”

  “Don’t you need to know? You didn’t have to show me the cash, Cathy.” She tossed the envelope onto the hall table. “You must have doubts of your own.”

  “Don’t you have to keep that?”

  “It doesn’t mean anything yet.”

  Cathy opened the drawer in the table again and took a second cigarette. She tossed the cash in and closed the drawer. “Do I have to do anything?”

  “No. But I thought I’d get your permission anyway.”

  “You can just reorder the autopsy by yourself?”

  “I have to ask a coroner, but it’s fairly straightforward.”

  “Then why come to me? Why even tell me? Do you want my blessing or something?”

  Hazel looked at a vase of flowers on the hall table. “I guess so.”

  “Just do what you have to do,” Cathy said angrily.

  Hazel went to the door and left it open as she descended the steps into the garden. It smelled like warm grass in the day’s heat. Cathy Wiest called to her, and Hazel turned around in the riot of flowers. Cathy’s face was burning. “How will I know when all of this is going to be over?” she said.

  “The investigation?”

  “No, Hazel.” She spread her arms. “This.”

  ] 4 [

  Evening

  Hazel was almost used to the renewed pleasure of eating dinner at her own table, going to sleep in her own bed, in her own house, under her own star-filled window. The time spent recuperating in her ex’s basement had been almost as difficult as the back pain that had caused her to seek his aid. Now the back pain that had plagued her for years was mostly gone. With its absence, and the fact that she hadn’t had a Percocet since the end of May, she felt renewed. Women her age weren’t supposed to have renaissances, but here she was having one. Maybe the timing of Ray Greene’s return to Port Dundas was supposed to be part of this rebirth of hers? Maybe she was meant to get out now. Actually retire. Get a hobby. Take care of her mother.

  Hobby, she thought, and she laughed meanly under her breath.

  She and her mother had settled back into what passed for their domestic reality quite quickly, and after escaping from an invalid’s prison at her ex’s house, Hazel began to find it much easier being with her mother. At first she chalked it up to relief at being out of Andrew and Glynnis’s basement, but then she realized it was something else. Her mother was finally slowing down. The recent deaths of a couple of her close friends and some health troubles of her own were weighing on her. Which, Hazel thought, shouldn’t come as a surprise. Emily would be eighty-eight in three weeks. Her time was coming. But it was still hard to believe that this locomotive of a woman was finally slowing down. She still needled Hazel endlessly, but Hazel was beginning to think her heart wasn’t in it.

  “I will kill anyone who tries to throw me a birthday party this year,” she grumbled one night to Hazel over a dinner of grilled cheese sandwiches. “Or a cake with any number of candles on it. I don’t want my wattle catching fire.”

  “Why don’t I just make you dinner at home?”

  “You’re going to cook for me? A special dinner?”

  “I can do more than grilled cheese or hangar steak, Mother. I cooked for my husband … on and off … for thirty-six years.”

  “Your infrequency of cooking probably prolonged your marriage. We could order in if you’d rather.”

  “I don’t rather, but it’s your call.”

  Hazel could tell that her mother didn’t actually have a preference. She wasn’t sure her mother cared about much these days, and although Emily was making an attempt to seem her old self, it wasn’t particularly convincing. It wasn’t even a year since a murder spree had come to its climax under this very roof. A mild-mannered psychotic named Simon Mallick had been crossing the country killing the terminally ill, seemingly at their invitation. He got all the way to this house and the mild-manneredness had worn off him by then: he staved in the head of one of Emily’s oldest friends, Clara Winchester. It was no wonder Emily hadn’t looked particularly well since they’d come back to this house. But really, Hazel had to admit to herself, her mother looked even worse than a woman who’d been through what she’d been through.

  Emily was sleeping in front of the television when Hazel got in from Kehoe Glenn at six o’clock on Tuesday night. The kitchen was dark: nothing had been readied for supper. She decided to let her mother sleep and she cracked four eggs into a bowl and mixed them with a dash of cream and nutmeg. She fried onions and mushrooms in butter and then poured the egg mixture in. The smell of onions woke her mother and Emily shuffled into the kitchen looking bleary. �
�Did you turn off the TV?” she asked.

  “It’s past six, you know. You were asleep.”

  “No I wasn’t.”

  “I just got in, Mum. You were snoring.”

  Emily sat down at the kitchen table, hovering over a chair before dropping into it. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  Hazel dished the meal out onto two small plates and put some bread in the toaster. Her mother refused a slice and picked at the eggs. “I think maybe we should go see Dr. Pass, Mum. You’re flat, you know? Maybe he can suggest some vitamins.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with me that can’t be fixed by a facelift and a bottle of whiskey.”

  “I’m serious.” Hazel slid half her mother’s supper off onto her own plate, like she used to with the girls. The toast popped up and she dropped two dry pieces into the basket on the table. “Finish what’s on your plate and you can be done.”

  “Don’t talk to me like I’m an invalid,” Emily said, and she pushed the meal away.

  Hazel took both of their plates to the sink and washed them. Perhaps her grief over what had happened here was the reason for her lethargy, but Hazel suspected it was deeper than that. Her colour was wrong. “Listen,” she said, “we don’t have to stay here, you know. I can sell the place, we could get an apartment in town. This place is too big for us, anyway.”

  “You think I should be in a home.”

  “I don’t.”

  Emily humphed and picked at a piece of toast in the basket. “Maybe we should both be in a home.”

  “Our own home, Mum. Whether it’s here or somewhere else, but I don’t think either of us has to be alone. God knows if the home for spry annoyances would take you now, anyway. With the spring going out of your step and all.”

  “I’ll grant you that my step is more spongy than springy these days, Hazel. But so will yours be when you’re eighty-seven. Just promise me the day before you want to put me in a home you’ll leave me alone in the house for an hour.”

  “So you can gravely, but not mortally, wound yourself with a firearm you won’t be able to lift all the way to your head, Mother? Don’t worry, I’ll shoot you first if it comes to that.”

  Finally, her mother smiled. “You were always such a romantic when you were a girl, Hazel. You so rarely show that side of yourself these days.”

  The following morning, as soon as she walked into the station house, Wingate flagged her down. “Jack Deacon’s on the phone. All excited about stinging insects.”

  “Excellent,” she said. “Ask Melanie to patch him through to the thingy.” She hung her coat on its hook. “Aren’t you leaving today?” The phone rang a moment later and she punched the speaker button.

  “Thursday,” Wingate said.

  “Thursday?” Deacon repeated in the speaker.

  “James is taking his first vacation since arriving in Westmuir. Nine months without so much as a long weekend.”

  “I don’t like to relax,” James said.

  “There’s more than one way to die,” said Deacon.

  Hazel got to the point. “What d’you have for me, Doctor?”

  “Well, it turns out there are nocturnal wasps, Detective Inspector. But they don’t live in North America.”

  “I see.”

  “However, there’s no saying what might happen to someone who steps on a nest in the dark. Sundown’s almost at ten right now, and wasps do burrow. He could have disturbed something.”

  “And then been stung only twice? And on the face?”

  “Anything is possible. This is nature we’re talking about.”

  Hazel sighed. “All right. I was hoping for more, but never mind.” She stole a glance at Wingate, who was squinting with one eye. “We better get Harvey Tilberg.”

  “You want to redo the autopsy.”

  “Who the hell is Tilberg?” Wingate said.

  “Coroner.”

  Deacon spoke over them both. “He’s going to want a reason, Hazel.”

  “According to the reservation canvass, nobody saw Henry in the smoke shop. It wasn’t a service call, and he parked far away from the doors. He’s not even an occasional smoker; he’s got no business at all on the reserve. And he had a gambling problem once.”

  “What?” Wingate yelped.

  “A long time ago. But he stole money at that point. And, well, yesterday, Cathy showed me an envelope of cash. It wasn’t a sickening amount, but it was still fifty-five hundred.”

  Wingate closed his right eye. The force of her will and her peculiar way of building evidence for a case was something to see. He understood why she’d driven Ray Greene crazy. And in the end you had to agree with her! There was no way you were going to make your own logic as internally consistent as hers. Supposedly this was “instinct.” He’d never really seen it. Too bad she wielded it like a mallet.

  “So you think this is foul play?” came Jack’s voice, finally.

  “Committed by whom?” said Wingate.

  “A jealous husband. An angry creditor. Someone who felt they were getting the short end of a stick.”

  “Armed with what? An angry bee? What’s the weapon?”

  “That’s our job, Jack.”

  Wingate was facing partially away from her as she continued to negotiate the reinvestigation of Henry Wiest’s body. After a few more exchanges, Deacon acquiesced to whatever Tilberg deemed necessary. It was never good karma to have to redo another doctor’s postmortem, but he would serve as requested. She pressed the button on the star-shaped console, and the doctor was cut off. She felt Wingate’s eyes on her.

  “Something is wrong,” she said.

  “Are you sure you’re not looking for a last hurrah or something?”

  “I never had a first hurrah, James. Are you totally satisfied?”

  “Well, what we know is that the band police, a respected institution, with well-trained officers, wrote a thorough report that covered all the bases. We know a wasp sting is not only possible but likely; we know there are no witnesses, there were no signs of a struggle, no contraband in Wiest’s car, no drugs or alcohol in his system, forty-five dollars in his wallet …”

  She was smiling, listening to him. “I know.”

  “But? Would you be doing this if you hadn’t known him?”

  “I would have wondered about it, sure. But I might not have felt so strongly about ruling out foul play as I do in this case. I know there’s a chink in your armour, James. You can live with this.”

  “I’m going to be on vacation, so it won’t matter.”

  “That’s right. So go. Don’t let me make you any crazier.”

  “Unless you’re right.”

  “No, you go. I have all the resources I need. You need to recharge, James! Let yourself go for a week. You look a little drawn these days.”

  “I am going, don’t worry. Just don’t cut me out of the loop if one starts forming.”

  “You think this is the right thing to do, don’t you?”

  “I’m on vacation.”

  “You are the loop, James,” she called to him as he exited her office.

  ] 5 [

  Wednesday, August 10, late morning

  The following morning, Howard Spere showed up with a boyishly excited look on his face. He’d been dispatched as the intermediary between her office and the coroner’s, and now he was here with the papers. The label from a packet of grape jelly was stuck to the side of his suit jacket – Welch’s. She imagined him furtively trying to flick it from his fingertips to the floor in whatever diner he’d had breakfast in this morning, eyes out for the waitress. He was hanging on her doorknob, dangling a sheet of paper pinched between thumb and forefinger. “Did someone order a body?”

  “You find this a cheerful business, Howard? I thought you knew Henry Wiest.”

  “I did. In fact, I knew him well. He would have been pleased to know we were being thorough.”

  “That’s what I thought. But would he have been pleased to know we now doubt the cause of his death
?”

  “Do we?” he asked.

  “That’s why you’re bringing me those papers this morning.” She held her hand out for them. He passed them to her and she found the line her name had to go on and signed it there.

  “What I meant –”

  “I know what you mean, Howard. He deserves the truth.”

  Spere left with the papers and she settled down to go through Tuesday’s reports. Maybe something unrelated would catch her eye and lead to a brilliant deduction, like it did in the movies. Kojak chomping on almonds and realizing the murderer had used cyanide. There were only three reports and there wasn’t a single interesting thing in any of them. A keyed car in Port Dundas, a stolen bike in Kehoe Glenn, a fight over a girl in a bar in Hoxley. Maybe Henry was murdered by a jealous husband who happened to have a thing for bikes. And hated Buicks.

  She signed off on the files and closed them up. She’d seen a lot of dead people in her years. She’d seen things she would never be able to forget, including things she never wanted to talk about again. You had to have the talent to depersonalize when dealing with all the awful things that could happen or be done to a human body. But you could never separate yourself enough. Your body still responded, still felt a refractory pain. You could not witness the kind of dead she saw in her work and not want to help them if you could.

  She went down to the funeral home in Kehoe Glenn with Spere and stood away from the drawers as they got Henry off of his metal bed and onto a gurney. She stared at a calendar on the wall of the cold room while she listened to the sound of plastic and zippers. There were three boys jumping off a dock in the picture. An innocent summer scene.

  The body went to Mayfair. She got the call to come down in the early evening. Spere met her by the staff door beside Emergency, where they waited for ten minutes, watching a man sleeping on a gurney. He wore an oxygen mask. It looked soothing to have oxygen pumped into you, but that man did not look like he was having a pleasant experience. At least Henry was already dead. A secretary they’d never seen before led them down into the autopsy room. “What happened to Marianne?” Hazel asked.

  “She went back to school.”