“I’m not a pervert, Mrs. Marshall.”

I walked through the gate, closed it, and looked back at him. He was caught in the same setting sunlight as the rest of the scene and, like the rest of the scene, it made him look nostalgic. Not Grychuk himself, who was hurt. Just the whole picture, the sunlight, the lake, the sky.

Grychuk put his hands in his pockets and walked toward me, lowering his voice. “I just thought you were a nice woman and might need some company. Seeing as how you lost your husband and I lost my wife last year, we could talk about things. That’s all. Not really a date. You gotta talk about things sometime, right?”

“Sure,” I said. “Maybe sometime. Not now.”

I left him standing in the lane, watching me walk through the garden and through the back door of my house, which I secured with the double locks.

23.

I woke the next morning resigned and determined. Resigned to the fact that I was not likely to learn the truth about Gabe and Wayne Honeysett and the whole damn thing until Mel or someone else let me in on the secrets they were keeping from me. And determined to get on with my life. I would not stop searching for the truth about my husband’s death, but I would find things to do that gave me as much sense of normalcy as I could expect.

One thing I could do was return to work at Trafalgar Towers. I would need the income more than ever, it would provide a reason to get out of bed, and the job would enable me to see more of Mother.

It was another mild and sunny day, so I decided to walk to the retirement home, crossing the lift bridge on foot for the first time since Wayne Weaver Honeysett had spoken to me from beneath it. I stared straight ahead to avoid seeing the bridge operator’s window, although I knew Grychuk wouldn’t be there so early in the day. Crossing the bridge, I followed the road leading back to Lakeshore Boulevard, turned right at the second street, and climbed the steps to Trafalgar Towers, surprised by how comforting it felt to return to a familiar routine.

Intuition is never turned off. Not mine, anyway. When I entered the reception area, Candace, the day receptionist, glanced at me with a smile that faded almost immediately, and looked back at her computer screen. Candace and I were hardly sorority sisters, but I could usually make her smile with some snappy observation. She once took my advice about ditching an abusive boyfriend and thanked me for weeks, so her response at the sight of me entering the reception area was confusing.

“I’m back,” I said when I reached her counter. “I need the work, I need the money, and I need to see your smiling face. How’re you doing?”

Candace said she was fine, never taking her eyes from the computer while reaching for the telephone receiver. “I’ll tell Helen you’re here,” she said. After one quick glance at me, then away again, she added, “She wants to see you.”

This was strange, but so had my life been for the past couple of weeks, and when Candace said, “You can go up now,” I took the elevator to the third floor and Helen’s office.

The elevator faced Helen’s door, and both opened simultaneously. I stepped out to see Helen standing at the entrance to her office, waiting for me to arrive. “Come in,” she said, and when I passed her, she said, “Please sit down,” and closed the door behind her.

“What’s going on?” I asked when she settled herself in her chair, facing me across her polished and empty desk.

“I’m not sure what you mean.” Her hands were clasped in front of her.

“First Candace treats me like I’m some broom peddler off the street, and now you’re acting as though you’d prefer not to see me.”

“Actually, I wanted to see you,” she said. “Are you here to discuss your job?”

“And to see my mother.”

“I’m certain she will be pleased to see you. She is concerned about you.” She frowned at a spot on her desk, pressed her index finger on what I assumed was a speck of dust, and wiped it on her dress.

“Why are you acting like this?” I asked. “Last week you were hugging me and now you’re behaving as though … I don’t know, as though I’m a threat or carrying some kind of disease …”

“We had a visit yesterday from a senior police official.” When I said nothing, she added, “He was making inquiries about you.”

“About me? What kind of inquiries?”

“So far …” She was uncomfortable. Good. So was I. She began again. “So far they have been only empty charges, only suspicions, nothing definite—”

“Helen,” I interrupted, “I don’t have any idea what the hell you’re talking about. For god’s sake, get to the point. What is going on?”

“This officer, this detective, wanted to know if anything, uh, untoward has occurred in our finances lately. If there is any money missing or improper cheques issued, that kind of thing.”

“You mean they’re wondering if I’m crooked? They’re suggesting I’m stealing from the place, skimming money, submitting false invoices, getting kickbacks, that kind of thing?”

This seemed to give her confidence. She arched her eyebrows and sat up straighter. “You certainly appear familiar with those activities,” she said.

“Did you believe him, whoever it was who came here?”

“The allegations were made, as I said, by an individual in an office of some authority with the police department, and I would be foolish to ignore them.”

“Well, you were an ass to believe them,” I snapped. “Who told you these things? Who’s accusing me of stealing from you?”

She raised her chin, and with a voice and attitude that would have done Queen Victoria proud, she said, “I prefer not to identify the individual.”

She didn’t have to. “Walter Freeman, right? Big guy, nose like a walnut, head like a melon?”

She twisted her mouth and looked away.

“He’s upset with me because I refuse to believe his crap about my husband committing suicide. My husband was murdered, Helen, and Walter and his incompetent creeps are pissed at me because I insist on them getting off their asses to find who did it. That’s why he came in here to spread rumours about me. I haven’t taken a damn penny from this place that wasn’t mine.”

“We are making other arrangements,” Helen said. “For your job. Of course, if our audit reveals that the allegations are false, you may be invited back to reclaim your position.”

“I don’t plan to reclaim anything,” I said, standing up. “Except my mother.”

“Your mother is a wonderful woman,” Helen said to my back as I headed for the door. “She will always be welcome here.”

I’LL GET OUT OF HERE AS SOON AS I CAN, Mother wrote on her blackboard. I had finished describing my encounter with Helen Detwiler.

“Don’t,” I said. “I’m not moving, and there’s nowhere else this nice for you that’s close to the beach strip.”

Mother erased the words on her blackboard and wrote, You have been difficult, but you have always been honest.

“Not always,” I said. “Mother, I have not done anything wrong here. You believe me, don’t you?”

And she wrote, You are my sweetheart. You always have been. Of course I believe you.

I was damned if I would shed tears in front of Helen, but at the sight and the meaning of Mother’s words, I sank to my knees and lowered my face to her lap while she stroked my head and wiped away my tears.

WALTER FREEMAN WOULDN’T SPEAK TO ME. “He said you could leave a message,” the duty cop at Central told me over the telephone. “If you have a complaint about his conduct, you can write the commissioner.”

I promised I would, after the audit at Trafalgar Towers cleared my name.

But before I did that, I would go to Vancouver.

It wasn’t Tina I wanted to see. It wasn’t even Vancouver, which I have always considered a city that’s like somebody else’s attractive spouse. You visit because it gives you a thrill, you have a good time, and after the thrills have ended you get the hell out of there. Later, you feel silly about being seduced by mountains and ocean and mild weather and tofu, and you forget about them until the next time you realize your own spouse is boring. So where do Vancouver people go for that kind of sensual fix?