The legacy, p.4
The Legacy, page 4
Tom Kelsoe decided to make life in the penitentiary work for him. Determined to gain parole as soon as possible, he created a pattern of behaviour that would offer the parole board concrete proof that he was a model prisoner, remorseful and eager to contribute something to his new community. Funding for programs educating prisoners had been slashed, and when Tom volunteered to teach other prisoners how to write their stories, the prison authorities accepted the offer with alacrity. The stories were collected in a series of chapbooks titled The Pen. Not surprisingly, Tom Kelsoe’s fellow prisoners protected and adored him. Seemingly, once again, Tom Kelsoe had landed on his feet. Life in prison was bearable and Tom had big plans for the future.
Fourteen years after Kellee Savage’s horrific death, the lives of Linda van Sickle, Jumbo Hryniuk and Neil McCallum, who were all innocent of wrongdoing, were still marred by Kellee’s tragedy. Only Tom Kelsoe had walked away emotionally unscathed, prepared to build himself a new life with no regrets and no self-doubt. He was, to use that much overused cliché, a survivor — more than that, he was the person who walked away from the horror and, without missing a beat, created a new world for himself.
* * *
As we readied ourselves for bed, my husband and I were silent, absorbed in our own thoughts. After he had transferred himself from his chair and settled himself in our bed, Zack said, “That really is one helluva book.”
“Val had one helluva story to tell,” I said. “And he told it so powerfully. Zack, do you remember that trial?”
“Are you kidding? I even managed to get into the courtroom a few times thanks to my wheelchair. There aren’t a huge number of advantages to being paraplegic, but access to hot ticket events is one of them. Everything about that trial was unforgettable. Kelsoe had planned and executed the murders of two innocent people, but there were groupies outside the courthouse carrying signs with hearts drawn on them and the message ‘Free Tom’ written in pink. The Tom Kelsoes of this world always manage to land on their feet. Kelsoe was sentenced to two life sentences to be served concurrently, but most often those sentences are commuted to eleven years.”
“So Tom Kelsoe could be living among us …”
“Jo, don’t think about that. A lot can happen inside a penitentiary in eleven years.”
I shuddered. “I don’t want to think about that either,” I said.
“In that case, don’t. Let’s call Val tomorrow and tell him how deeply affected we both were by his novel. You may not agree with me on this, but that book deserves more than a private printing of one hundred copies. I think we should encourage Val to submit Two Journalists to the company that’s publishing his biography of Steven Brooks.”
“I agree with you,” I said. “Reading that book was painful for me, but what I felt is not even one-hundredth of the pain Kellee Savage lived through in the last days of her life. She deserves to be remembered and honoured.”
* * *
Sunday, August 28, 2022
That night we both slept well, and Sunday morning we awoke to sunshine and birdsong. “Another lollapalooza day,” I said. “The Drache sisters will see Lawyers Bay at its late summer best.”
Zack stretched lazily. “And in ten days, we’ll be attending Angus and Leah’s wedding. Let’s hope the great weather sticks around.”
“Outdoor weddings are always chancy,” I said. “But Leah and Angus have made plans for any contingency, and since the renovations, the Scarth Club really is a great choice. The club is over a hundred years old, and the renovations left all that beautiful cherry wood untouched and brought the old kitchen into the second decade of the twenty-first century.”
“Thank God for that,” Zack said. “Because the food prepared in the old kitchen all tasted the same — awful. Anyway, now the chef in charge of the kitchen knows what he’s doing, and the club still offers its signature old-fashioneds, which are irresistible but lethal.”
“And for that reason,” I said, “old-fashioneds will not be served at the reception. Our son says he and Leah want everyone to have a great time, and that means no drunks, no drama. Hence the split-second schedule.”
Zack ticked off the sequence of events on his fingers. “Four o’clock, the wedding ceremony starts in the back garden; five o’clock, cocktails and photographs, also in the back garden; six o’clock, sit-down dinner, speeches, cake-cutting and dancing; ten o’clock, sharp, the evening ends. That plan definitely sounds as if it was drafted by our daughter-in-law-to-be.”
“Apparently, it was mutually agreed upon,” I said. “As was the decision to pass on the bachelor and bachelorette parties in favour of a weekend with friends at Lawyers Bay.”
“Angus gave me the rundown on that agenda too,” Zack said. “Saturday is for water skiing, swimming and boating, lunch across the lake at Magoo’s and a bonfire on the beach. Sunday is for hiking, throwing around a football, watching the Labour Day Classic between the Roughriders and Blue Bombers and finishing the day with a barbecue.”
“And Monday, after lunch, everybody drives back to the city, rested and ready for the wedding rehearsal,” I said. “It’s perfect.”
Zack placed some pillows against the headboard and propped himself up. “Certainly a helluva lot better than a bachelor party,” he said. “Those things really are rank: too much booze, too much porn, too much sex on offer and too many boyish hijinks that get out of control.” He shook his head in disgust. “At the first bachelor party I attended after law school, the groom got so drunk he passed out and someone shaved off his pubic hair.”
I grimaced. “Ugh!”
“It gets worse,” Zack said. “The guy doing the shaving was hammered too, and he used a straight razor.”
I raised my hand in a halt gesture. “Enough. Did the groom-to-be come out of the experience —”
“Intact?” Zack said. “Yep, not even a nick. Of course, seeing his nether parts the next morning was unsettling, but the groom soldiered on, and the wedding went off without a hitch.”
“There were no straight razors at the bridal showers I attended, but there were many times when I would have welcomed one,” I said. “Those showers were so earnestly sweet they made my teeth ache. I was maid of honour five times for girls I went to school with — that meant I had to attend all the showers held in their honour.”
Zack cocked his head. “So what did you do at the showers?”
“We drank weak tea from fancy cups and ate sandwiches made from tinted bread the hostess had rolled out so she could create pinwheels from ham salad or egg salad. For dessert there were pastel-coloured meringues. After we’d had our fill of pinwheels and meringues, we all sat in a circle so we could watch the bride-to-be open her gifts.
“Showers were most often connected with either the kitchen or the bedroom: the two rooms where a newly married woman was expected to excel. The kitchen gifts were predictable, but the bedroom gifts for the bride — crotchless lacy black panties, masks and sex toys that no one, including me, could ever figure out — were just weird.”
Zack’s face creased with sympathy. “And you endured all this?”
“I did, and as maid of honour, it was my job to write down the bride’s exact words as she opened each gift, and when all the gifts were opened, I had to read aloud what I’d written and explain that this is what the bride would say when she saw her new husband’s penis for the first time on their wedding night.”
Zack was pensive.
“The perennial favourites were ‘This one is so big I’m going to need some help with it,’ and ‘This one’s soft and squishy — it has to be a joke.’ While the merriment was going on, the bride’s mother would be taping the bows from gifts on a paper plate, and when the last gift had been unwrapped, the mother would tie the paper plate on her daughter’s head and the shower was officially over.”
Zack held up his arms in a gesture of surrender. “You win,” he said. “The ham salad pinwheels and the paper plate hat beat the groom’s shaved groin, hands down …”
“So to speak,” I said.
Zack slid down the pillows and pushed himself into a half-turn so he was facing me. “Right, so to speak,” he said, and his laugh, deep and hearty, was the laugh I hadn’t heard for a while. He drew me close. “To the victor go the spoils. Choose your prize.”
“I choose you,” I said. “But I’ll have to wait to receive my prize because the Drache sisters and their brother-in-law, Steven, will be here at ten.”
* * *
The first time I met Mila Drache was when she and her sister, Reva, hosted a Valentine’s Day party at the Scarth Club to announce Angus and Leah’s engagement. That evening I was struck by how alike the sisters were. Both were in their early seventies, fine-featured, with deeply set, knowing hazel eyes, enviable complexions and delicately sculpted, expressive mouths. They were petite, but their contralto voices rang with confidence, and both could effortlessly command a room.
The sisters’ similarities went beyond the physical. Both women were recently retired psychiatrists — Reva practised in Toronto; Mila, in Regina. Neither had married, both were protective of Steven and doted on Leah, the niece they had raised after her mother died in childbirth. Planning the wedding had been a source of delight for them, and they had been conscientious about checking with Zack and me about every decision.
The Drache sisters — intelligent, genial and witty — were good company, and Zack and I were looking forward to introducing them and Leah’s father to life at Lawyers Bay. When my phone rang fifteen minutes before the Draches were due, my first thought was that they’d overshot the turnoff that led to our place. The turnoff was in a treed area, and it was easy to miss. But my caller was our son-in-law, Charlie Dowhanuik.
Charlie was the host of Charlie D in the Morning, a wildly successful national radio show. I had been in the delivery room when Charlie was born. I had heard his first lusty cry, and thirty-five years later, I still welcomed the sound of his voice.
“All’s well at your house?” I said.
“Everybody’s blooming,” he said. “I’m just waiting outside the library for your granddaughters. They were in need of books.”
“A need I understand,” I said.
“Actually, Jo, I’m calling you about a book. You have an advance copy of the Steven Brooks biography, don’t you?”
“I do. It’s in the stack I’m going to read when life gets back to normal after the wedding.”
“Good, then you can help me. I just received a weird message. Pub date for the book is September 7, but Valentine Masluk will be on the book tour by then, so I’m taping an interview with him tomorrow afternoon. Anyway, the email said, ‘When you’re interviewing Mr. Masluk tomorrow, ask him if pages 329ff of the Brooks biography tell the whole story.’”
“And no information about the sender, of course,” I said.
“It’s ‘signed’ 329ff with a Hotmail address that’s probably a burner.”
“Hang on. I’ll get the book,” I said. I went to our bedroom, picked up the biography and began leafing through until I found page 329. “Okay, got it,” I said. “Do you want me to read it to you?”
“No, just give it a quick look and tell me what it covers.”
I started reading, but when it became apparent that the passage was going to continue for a while, I said, “The section focuses on the period when Steven Brooks had that incapacitating attack of writer’s block after his third novel was not well received.” I skipped a couple of pages ahead. “It seems to end when Steven happens upon the story of Medusa and writes Medusa’s Fate, which was published in 2010, nine years after his failed novel, and then the biography moves right into the writing of The Iron Bed of Procrustes, which was published in 2016.
“I’ve been leafing through the research Randi, our assistant producer, gave me. One of the pieces referred to Medusa and Procrustes as ‘two blips of genius after three competent but unremarkable novels.’”
“That’s harsh,” I said after a pause.
“Harsh but true,” Charlie said. “All the critical pieces I’ve read say they anticipate with great interest Steven Brooks’s next novel.”
“So the pressure is on,” I said.
“Yes, and apparently there’s nothing at the publishers yet. I’ve been pondering the wisdom of asking Valentine Masluk if he found anything in his interviews with Brooks or with his agent and publisher to suggest when novel number six will appear. The agent and the publisher aren’t saying anything, and Brooks refuses to discuss what he’s working on. He suffered a debilitating writers’ block for the nine years before he produced Medusa’s Fate, so rumours are cropping up.”
“And there’s speculation that he’s suffered a relapse?”
“There’s that, and then there’s an uglier rumour. The disparity between Brooks’s first three novels and the two that won all the awards and kudos is marked. Randi is diligent about research, and she says there’s speculation that Brooks was not the sole writer of Medusa’s Fate and The Iron Bed of Procrustes.”
I felt a knot in my stomach. “And you’re thinking of asking Valentine Masluk about this?”
“The rumours are out there, Jo. Randi tells me the reviews that will be online this weekend are already making oblique references to the possibility that if Steven Brooks does not produce a new novel as exceptional as Medusa’s Fate or The Iron Bed of Procrustes, there will always be question marks surrounding his legacy. My interview with Valentine Masluk will be aired on the day the biography is published. By the end of the week, the unsettling question 329ff is raising will be the one people want answered, and I’m paid to ask the questions our audience wants answered.”
“I know that,” I said. “But when you have your pre-interview chat with Val, it might be courteous to ask him if that’s a question he’s able to answer.”
Charlie D was quick off the mark. “‘Val?” he said. “Are you and Mr. Masluk on ‘Val’ and ‘Jo’ terms?”
“We are,” I said. “It’s a long story, but Valentine Masluk was a student of mine. He was Val Massey then, so I didn’t make the connection, until yesterday when he invited Zack and me for lunch.”
Charlie’s tone was teasing. “And your son-in-law, the intrepid journalist, was told none of this? Joanne, you and I are going to have a talk about sharing.” He sighed theatrically. “But — thanks to your granddaughters — for the time being, you’re off the hook. Madeleine and Lena just came out of the library with loaded bags. I suspect half the books are for Desmond. The girls love reading to him, and he loves being read to.”
“Madeleine and Lena are reveling in being big sisters,” I said. “Des is a lucky boy.” I paused. “Charlie, how many people would know that you’re interviewing Valentine Masluk tomorrow?”
Charlie whistled. “Good point,” he said. “Only a handful on my end. Of course, it’s possible Masluk mentioned it to somebody.”
“I doubt that. Val didn’t mention it to Zack and me, although we would have been a logical choice. Anyway, I guess you’ll find out soon enough.”
“I’ll send you an MP3 of the interview tomorrow night,” Charlie said.
“Leah’s father and her aunts are coming to Lawyers Bay this morning,” I said. “They’ll be here any minute. If I hear anything that might clarify that email, I’ll text you.”
Chapter Three
Zack and I were both outside to greet our guests. Mila and Reva were quick to get out of Reva’s Lexus and approach us, but their brother-in-law was nowhere to be seen. We exchanged greetings, and Zack said, “No Steven?”
“No, he’s a little under the weather,” Mila said.
“I’m sorry,” Zack said. “I was looking forward to sitting down with him, lighting up our Primo del Reys and having the father of the groom, father of the bride talk.”
Mila smiled. “I’m afraid you’re going to have that talk with the bride’s doting aunts.”
“So no cigars?” Zack said.
When we all laughed, I felt my nerves unknot. My chat with Charlie D had been disquieting, and I wasn’t ready to face Steven Brooks.
The fashion choices of the Drache sisters were very different, but each had chosen exactly the look that worked for her. Reva, the Toronto psychiatrist, wore her thick, lustrous iron-grey hair long, held back from her face by one of the extraordinary copper hair clips I’d noticed on her visit in February. She wore no jewelry, and her clothing was beautifully cut but simple. That morning she wore black slacks, white Skechers and a grey blazer in a cropped, unstructured silhouette that looked both fashionable and comfortable.
Mila’s silver pixie bob with side bangs was elegant and playful, as was her clothing choice: a creamy Irish Aran sweater, silver and turquoise drop earrings, close-fitting tan wool slacks and intricately tooled turquoise western boots.
I’d set out a tray with tea and scones on the partners’ table in the sunroom. When she spotted the table, Reva clapped her hands in delight. “That oak table is absolutely glorious.”
“The designer who made the decisions about the interior of our cottage bought it at a country auction,” Zack said. “It came from a long-defunct law firm. I’ve tried to track down the firm, but no luck.”
Reva was looking closely at one of the twenty-four chairs that came with the table. “And those chairs are in perfect condition,” she said. “Your decorator found a real gem.”
“Agreed,” Zack said. “Joanne will tell you that I’m never happier than I am when every seat at the table is filled and there are a couple of high chairs pulled close.” He turned his wheelchair towards the hall. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a Zoom meeting that will probably last longer than it should, but I’ll be back in plenty of time for us to take the boat across the lake to Magoo’s for lunch.”
