The Brutal Heart Read online

  “I’m glad I caught you. I’m going to Saskatoon this morning. Ginny’s going to be on the Jack Quinlan show, and the campaign people have decided she’ll be more effective if she’s with him in studio. Anyway, I’m tagging along.”

  “But you’ll be back tonight, won’t you?”

  “I’ll be back by lunchtime. We’re flying.”

  “Whoa. Are you okay with that?”

  “No, but I should see Ginny’s performance first-hand.”

  Zack knew I hated flying. “I wish I could be there, so you’d have a hand to grip.”

  “So do I,” I said. “Promise me my martini tonight will be extra dry.”

  “You’ve got it,” he said.

  When we boarded the shuttle to Saskatoon, I felt the familiar clutch of panic. Keith looked at me closely. “Anything I can do to help?”

  “Take my mind off the fact that I’m sitting on an airplane,” I said. “Tell me what’s been going on in your life.”

  “Lately I’ve been paying for a lifetime of mistreating my body. Too many cigarettes. Too much booze. Too many late nights. Too much stress. Too much fast food. I’ve been spending a lot of time with my cardiologist.”

  “But everything’s okay now?”

  Keith shrugged. “I don’t want to waste our time alone together talking about my medical history. Tell me about Mieka and the girls. How’s the move to Regina working out?”

  “Fine. They’re living in my old house, and it’s nice to watch another generation of kids growing up there. Of course, we love having them close. Mieka’s doing well. It took a while for her to figure out what she wanted to do. She thought about going back to school, but academics were never really her thing. She didn’t want to go back to catering because she hated being away from the girls, so she came up with a business plan that seems to be working.”

  “So what’s the business?”

  “It’s called UpSlideDown. Mieka took the money from her catering business, bought an old hardware store over on 13th Avenue, and redesigned it as a combination giant play area and coffee shop. The kids play, the parents sip coffee and chat, and everybody’s happy – especially Mieka because she gets to earn a very tidy income and spend time with the girls.”

  “Good for her. And Taylor is still Taylor?”

  “Taylor is magnificent,” I said. “We’ll have to get you over to the house so you can see for yourself.”

  “I’d like that,” Keith said. “It’s good to know the Kilbourn women are thriving.”

  “We are. And our men are doing well too. Angus is being vastly overpaid for a summer job with a law firm in Saskatoon, and Peter’s walk-in clinic is making as much money as walk-in clinics in the inner city make, but he’s content. How does Greg like Montreal?”

  “He’s coping. Sometimes that’s all you can do.”

  “I wish he were closer,” I said.

  “It’s not easy being an ex-husband, especially when you still love your ex-wife. Greg thought a clean break was best.” Keith cocked his head so he could read my expression. “You don’t agree.”

  “No,” I said. “But nobody asked me.”

  “Or me,” Keith said. “Now, before we hit the big city, can you think of any questions that will poleaxe Ginny?”

  “Quinlan’s good at cutting off questioners who make you want to dig out their eyeballs with a spoon,” I said, “but there are some legitimate concerns about Ginny’s priorities, and he’ll let them through. Ginny’s sex life is her own business, but the stories are out there. Even Taylor’s heard the jokes.”

  Keith’s headshake was almost imperceptible. “Ginny’s been in public life long enough to be prepared for those. For anything she might not have considered.”

  “There’s something about Jason that Ginny knows and isn’t telling,” I said.

  “I sensed that too,” Keith said. “Any idea what the mystery is?”

  “No. But this is Saskatchewan – there are only a million people in the entire province.”

  “So you think somebody else will know the secret.”

  “I do,” I said. “And I’ll bet they’re ready to tell.”

  Over the years, I’d been on Jack Quinlan’s show a dozen times. The first time I’d been promoting a book I’d written about Andy Boychuk, a man who had been our province’s last best hope until he was murdered. Later, I’d been on air as an academic from the left whose views on the politics of culture, race, and land claims lit up the phone lines. Until lately, the studio for Quinlan Live had been so small and congested with old scripts, memorabilia, stained coffee cups, and junk that the host had to stand on his chair to see into the control room. But stellar ratings for private radio bring their own reward. The building that housed the new studio was charmless and functional, but the setting on the bank of the Saskatchewan River was prime.

  Our timing was split second. We arrived at the top of the hour while the news was being read. Jack Quinlan came out to the reception area, greeted Ginny, and jumped back in mock surprise when he saw me.

  “I’m here as an observer,” I said.

  “Well, come in and observe,” he said. In the studio, he pointed Ginny to her seat, and offered me a stool next to his. “If you get bored, you can look out at the river. The view from here is spectacular.” He handed Ginny her headphones, picked up his own, and they were on the air.

  Every phone-in show has its regulars: some have an opinion on every issue; some have a passionate opinion on one issue and feel compelled to share that opinion regardless of the topic under discussion. Quinlan’s audience was, on the whole, politically astute, but his regulars were predictable. As a caller from Elbow wound up for his well-worn joke about how Saskatchewan’s refusal to accept daylight saving time meant our province would forever be consigned to the Dark Ages, my eyes drifted to Jack Quinlan’s computer screen. I had time to read the message twice before he noticed the direction of my gaze and minimized the window. “GINNY MONAGHAN DESERVES TO WIN. WHEN THE TIME IS RIGHT, I’LL GO PUBLIC WITH THE TRUTH ABOUT HER EX-HUSBAND.”

  Jack glanced at me quickly, then went to the next caller. She was hostile. The next three callers were men – also hostile. It wasn’t Ginny’s morning. She was handling the enmity, but I could hear the tension in her voice. The fifth caller was a young woman from Regina who sounded as if she were reading from a script. She praised Ginny’s accomplishments as an MP, then dropped the bombshell. “Your accomplishment is even more remarkable,” the young woman said, “when one considers that while you were working for the people of this country, your ex-husband was living off the money he took from prostitutes in this city.”

  The caller was cut off, but the damage was done. Ginny sat bolt upright and glared at Jack. He raised his palms to indicate helplessness and cut to a commercial. Ginny ripped off her earphones and turned to Jack. “Why didn’t you stop that girl?”

  “I thought she was a plant from your party,” Jack said. “You’d had four rough calls. The girl was obviously reading. I figured she’d pitch you a soft question, and you could knock it out of the park while you caught your breath.”

  “We have a family,” Ginny said. She was visibly upset, but it struck me that she didn’t seem surprised.

  “We’re back,” Jack said. Ginny picked up her earphones and took the next call. From that point on it was smooth sailing, with more supportive than hostile callers. When the hour was over, Jack thanked Ginny for taking the time to come on his show, and Ginny responded with a gracious statement about how it was always a pleasure to have a chance to talk to the people of Saskatchewan.

  Jack walked us out. At the elevator, he and Ginny shook hands. “You should know this isn’t the first time someone’s been in touch with that gossip about Jason,” Jack said. “I don’t expect you to tell me whether the rumour’s true, but you should know that it’s making the rounds.”

  Ginny nodded acknowledgement. The elevator doors opened, and she stepped in, leaving the pertinent question unasked. Keith
wasn’t so reticent. “So,” he said. “Is the dirt about Jason helping us?”

  Jack stared at him coldly. “It explains why Ginny might have been seeking consolation elsewhere,” he said. “Is that what you need to win?”

  “We use what we get,” Keith said, extending his hand.

  “I guess Santa came early for you this year,” Jack said. He turned and walked back into his studio, leaving Keith’s hand outstretched and unshaken.

  News about the enticing rumour passed along by Jack Quinlan’s mystery caller moved fast. By the time we got on the plane, Keith had made some calls of his own, and the pulse beating in his temple suggested his excitement. The reports were good. Ginny’s seat was back in the undecided column, and that meant there was the possibility of forming a government.

  Ginny and Keith huddled together, conferring in whispers on the flight back to Regina. I sat next to a woman whose son had been in grade school with Angus, and we caught up on each other’s news. Time passed quickly, and I was surprised when the plane touched down.

  Keith and Ginny dropped me off at my house. Ginny was spending the afternoon canvassing, and I wanted to clean up and have a sandwich and a nap before I joined her. I checked the mail and found the usual mix of bills and ads. There was also an unaddressed padded envelope containing a DVD. That, too, was no surprise. NationTV had been taping since the candidate left the courthouse triumphant, and I knew they would have great footage of Ginny Agonistes, the combatant who wouldn’t quit.

  I walked into the house, left a message on Zack’s machine telling him I’d survived two flights, and went out to the yard to throw a ball around for the dogs until I’d come down from all the tensions of the morning. It didn’t take long before the dogs collapsed in the sunshine, and I went inside to make myself a sandwich and watch the DVD.

  I was so mentally prepared for shots of Ginny on the steps of the courthouse that it took me a moment to understand what I was watching. The quality of the picture was sharp, but the camera’s eye was static, so the effect was like watching a scene through a security camera. A woman, very slender with dark hair cut in a sleek bob, was sitting cross-legged on a bed, stroking a cat. I recognized her immediately. It was Cristal Avilia. She was wearing a T-shirt, and her legs were bare. She stood, walked out of camera range, and when she returned, she wasn’t alone. Zack was with her. He was wearing a robe.

  He handed her an envelope. She placed it, unopened, on an armoire and moved in front of him; then she took her fingers and began stroking herself. She began to moan and took her fingers and held them up to his lips. “Taste it,” she said.

  He took her fingers in his mouth. “That always works,” he said. He began to stroke her, and she thrust herself at his hand, whimpering.

  As Zack told me the night he explained his relationship with Cristal, from that point on, it was all business. He wheeled his chair next to the bed, pivoted his body onto the sheets, and they had sex. I couldn’t move. I watched until it was over, and Cristal slid out of bed. She was naked, she walked off camera, in a few minutes she came back, still naked, with washcloths and a towel. Zack cleaned himself, and she left the room as he dressed and moved back into his chair. When he was ready to leave, he wheeled towards the door without saying goodbye.

  “You never look at me, you know.” There was bitterness in Cristal’s voice; there was also longing.

  “We both know why I’m here,” he said. When he was gone, she threw the towel he’d been using against the door. “Bastard,” she said. Then the screen went black.

  I hit eject. What was on the disc was not a surprise. Zack had told me that he’d bought sex from Cristal Avilia. But knowing it and watching it were two different matters. I put the disc into the pocket of the folder that contained my notes about “Women in Politics.” I called Ginny’s cell and told her I couldn’t make the canvass this afternoon, but I’d meet her at Luther for the basketball game after supper.

  Then I made myself a sandwich that I didn’t remember eating, went outside, and started breaking up the soil in the patch beside the house where we’d decided to plant tomatoes. The bed hadn’t been worked before, and as I dug, the sun pressed down on my back like a hand. By the time I’d prepared the soil and given it a soak, I was sweaty, stiff, and thirsty, but I felt better. When I went back inside to shower, the phone was ringing. It was Zack.

  “Jesus, I was starting to worry,” he said. “Your cell must be turned off, and I’ve called home about a dozen times. Everything okay?”

  “I was out digging that bed where we’re going to put the tomatoes,” I said.

  “You sure you’re okay? You don’t sound like yourself?”

  “I don’t feel like myself,” I said. “Somebody left a DVD in our mailbox. It was of you with Cristal Avilia.”

  There was silence on the other end of the line. “And you watched it.”

  “Yes. Not the smartest move I ever made.”

  “I’m coming home,” he said.

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I know, but I want to.”

  I went to the little greenhouse Zack had had built for my birthday and began carrying out the tomato plants we’d been growing. They were thriving. I heard his car come up, but I didn’t go out to greet him. In a few minutes, he came up behind me and touched my arm. “So where do we start with this?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  He reached out to me, but I moved away. He wheeled his chair close to the plants. “How do you know when they’re ready for the big move outdoors?” he said.

  “You kind of ease them into it,” I said. “I’ll take them back inside tonight. When they’re ready and we can trust the weather, I’ll plant them. I used to help my father do this when I was a kid.”

  “You never told me that. In fact, you’ve never told me much about your father at all.”

  “I didn’t see him much,” I said. “He was a doctor, and doctors are busy people. But he liked to grow cherry tomatoes from seed. And he let me help him.”

  “So that’s why you wanted to do this.”

  “I guess. My father didn’t spend much time at home, but during tomato season, he’d always leave a little dish of these on the kitchen counter, and they’d be there when I woke up. It always made me feel good imagining him out there in the dark picking the tomatoes, thinking about me.”

  Zack took my hand. “Jo, what can I do to fix this?”

  “Make it go away,” I said.

  “I can’t,” he said.

  “Then I guess we just have to keep on keeping on,” I said.

  CHAPTER 6

  That afternoon, Zack and I followed the adage that the best thing to do when confronted with a problem is to sleep on it. We took a nap, and when I awoke with his body warm against mine, and the branches of the honeysuckle outside our window tracing shadows on the bedroom ceiling, I knew we had to do whatever it took to hold on to our life together. As if he’d read my mind, Zack reached for my hand. “We can’t blow this,” he said.

  I laced my fingers through his. “We did take those vows.”

  “It’s your call about where we go from here,” Zack said.

  “Let’s just get on with it,” I said. And so we did. We dressed and went into the kitchen. Zack made tea; I took a pan of lasagna from the freezer and put it in the oven for dinner, then like other busy couples, we sat down at the table and checked our messages.

  Mine were predictable: a call from Mieka reminding me that the next day was the first anniversary of UpSlideDown and that I’d promised to have lunch there with her and the girls. The rest of my messages were from Ginny’s campaign: two from Keith asking advice about media buys; one from Milo O’Brien, whose staccato intensity as he summoned me to a breakfast rally the next day at the Pile O’ Bones Club made his invitation sound like a threat; and one from Ginny telling me she was going to the Luther game early to watch the twins warm up and she’d save seats for us.

  I wrote down what I needed to remember
and poured the tea. When I handed Zack his cup, he was still checking messages, and I was smug. “Beat you,” I said. “My life is more manageable than yours.”

  He exhaled wearily. “You don’t know the half of it, Ms. Shreve. I have a message from the pal who referred me to Cristal. It turns out he’d recommended her to other guys, all lawyers, and all of them had very personal DVDS hand-delivered to their family mailboxes today.”

  “Without explanation.”

  “Right,” Zack said. “No explanations, no demands, no nothing. Just seven DVDS of married men doing what they shouldn’t have been doing with Cristal Avilia.” He rubbed his head. “You know, until now, I thought I had a pretty good idea of how that disc ended up in our mailbox.”

  “You never said anything.”

  “I wanted to make sure I was right. Jo, I thought Debbie Haczkewicz put it there.”

  “Debbie Haczkewicz? Come on, Zack, she’s a police officer. Why would she risk her job to hand you evidence?”

  “Because it wasn’t evidence. It was just something that happened to be in Cristal’s condo. Debbie knows I didn’t kill Cristal, and she knows I am married. She is also aware that Denise Kaiswatum opens and logs every piece of mail that arrives at Falconer Shreve and that much of the time I work at home. When you told me about the disc, I assumed that Debbie slipped it in our mailbox and didn’t have a chance to call and tell me it was there.”

  “Why would Debbie try to protect you?”

  He sipped his tea. “Because she thinks she owes me. Her son, Leo, was in an accident three years ago. He flipped his motorcycle on the Ring Road and broke his back. He’s a paraplegic. Nineteen. Not easy to be that young and know that you’re going to be stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of your life. But, like the rest of us, Leo didn’t have a choice. The doctors patched him up and packed him off to Wascana Rehab so he could ‘adapt to an altered lifestyle.’ ”

  “And Leo didn’t want to adapt?”

  “He wanted to die. I remember the feeling.” Zack’s lips were tight. “That’s when Debbie called and asked me to visit him.”