The next day I awoke with the stomach flu and spent the day in Patrick’s bed, hoping he wouldn’t catch it. I was well enough to go into work the following day, and left before Patrick woke up — was I a coward? You bet. All morning and afternoon I found it impossible to work, but of course I had to.
I kept thinking about Owen. I needed to find out more without getting killed. I couldn’t just let him control my life and then waltz in and end it. On impulse I packed up my things and glanced at my watch: 5:30. I still had an hour before our dinner and three hours before Patrick had to be at the airport. I took the Parkway to Parkdale, then went along Carling, past the high school, to Bank. I drove to within a block of Owen’s garage, not really knowing why I was going, just knowing that I had to — offence rather than defence.
I walked the rest of the way on the other side of the street and studied the building. It was a large factory-type place, extending back from the street about a hun–dred feet. I remembered that the offices were in the front, but I’d never seen what was in back. I had no plan and no certainty that looking around his place would bring me any kind of information or proof of his theft — like a pile of Terry’s new books. The police would believe that.
But I didn’t want to be just a sitting duck.
The storefront looked closed. I crossed the street and walked toward the building, deciding to duck down the back lane and see if there was any way in from the back. I needn’t have worried. The two large back doors were wide open. I looked around me and then inside the building. Seeing no one, I entered the building; a typi–cal boxy warehouse with off-white siding on the out–side and unfinished plywood on the inside. It was full of cars and motorcycles, seemingly parked at random throughout the one room space. I was sneaking in along the sidewall, behind a dark grey BMW, when I was sud–denly jerked to a standstill. My heart thumped around my body for a while until I realized I’d just caught my jacket on a blue Subaru. I yanked it off and it tore, the rip sounding like a canon going off in a Quonset hut. I stopped dead in my tracks and waited, but there was no hue and cry. I picked my way down past a blue Camaro, a lemon yellow VW, and a really nice old BMW motor–cycle in pristine condition, with the keys in the ignition.
Suddenly I heard voices raised in anger coming from the doors I had just entered. I ducked down behind the VW to watch.
“You’re Michael’s wife? Jesus.” The man looked about and then said, “Look, it was a tragic accident.”
“How can you defend your sister? She was a cold-blooded murderer and you know it.”
The man and a woman stood in the doorway and I had a clear view of both of them. One was Owen, hands in his pockets and scowling at Elizabeth, who was wav–ing her arms about in anger.
“I don’t know it,” said Owen. “My sister walked in her sleep from the time she was five years old. All the experts agreed that it was a tragic accident. That’s all. If you’d been at the trial you would have known that.”
Elizabeth reached out and grabbed Owen by his shirt. “But you don’t believe it, do you? You know what happened that night because you were there. She would have confided in you.”
“Since you seem to know so much about her, what do you think happened?”
“I think you helped her fake it. The perfect murder. She did have a history of sleepwalking and the case in Ottawa where the guy killed one of his in-laws and got off on a sleepwalking plea set you both to thinking.”
Owen laughed. “That makes me brilliant.”
“No, that makes you a patsy.”
Owen took one step closer to Elizabeth, his face unreadable. What the hell was Elizabeth trying to do?
“She told you what to do, didn’t she? And you did it because baby brother has to follow big sister’s instruc–tions. She treated you like a dog and you weren’t man enough to stand up to her.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“You did everything for her, everything. I think you planned the murder and told her what to do.”
Owen visibly squared his shoulders, and I was pretty sure I could see a smug looking smile on his face as a gun suddenly materialized in his left hand. Where the hell had that come from?
The two of them stood frozen and framed in the doorway and I crouched there, paralyzed, wondering what the hell I could do, wondering what Elizabeth would do, and wondering what Owen would do.
His voice was low and wistful. “No one ever under–stood that the brains behind Terry were mine and always had been. Until now.” He looked at her. “Everyone ignores me. They say I’m a patsy, just like you did, but without me Terry would have been nothing.” He waved the gun at Elizabeth. “Ugly little brother — that’s what I was until Michael.”
Elizabeth looked stunned. “You had her kill Michael.” Owen laughed. “Terry, kill Michael? Give me a break. Even in her sleep she couldn’t have done that without my help.” He paused. “It was so easy. She was just the instrument that I played. I was used to following her when she sleepwalked, so like every other time I kept close to her in case she did something stupid. When she picked up the knife I almost stopped her, but something told me to wait.” He sighed. “When she got to Michael’s tent I followed her in and watched in fascination as she raised the knife two-fisted over Michael’s body. I’d heard about the case in Ottawa — the acquittal — and real–ized I was looking at exactly what Terry needed to kick-start her career. But the stupid idiot froze so I came up quietly behind her and took her hands gently in mine, and together we killed Michael.”
“You killed Michael for a goddamned career boost?” cried Elizabeth, the anguish in her voice causing Owen to look at her.
He laughed. “For the sensational publicity of a trial and an acquittal to launch a book about her experience as an innocent murderer. It worked too. She made her name on that book, although even then I had to help her.”
Elizabeth stood there speechless, her fists clenching and unclenching as she took in what Owen was saying. “And Michael’s book…?”
“Was gravy … I didn’t even think about it until he was dead.”
I heard Elizabeth moan. “You killed my husband for gravy?”
“You could put it that way. You have to realize it wasn’t that easy. I had to make sure no one had read it. But Michael was very accommodating. He was so secre–tive about his writing and only handwrote everything.”
“You fucking bastard.” Her voice was so full of hatred that even Owen was aware of it and he backed up several paces to keep his distance from her.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to talk like that to a man with a gun.” Owen jerked the gun and stared at Elizabeth, who suddenly squared her shoulders and glared at Owen.
“The sleepwalking murderer was a sensation. She was in all the papers and then when she was acquitted there was the story about the trial, her time in jail, her emotional pain. And plenty of publishers were lining up to buy it. It was a bestseller and it got her career off on the right foot.” He was really rubbing it in.
“And you ghostwrote it.”
“I ghostwrote it. So you see who really was in control.”
“You were always stepping in for her, weren’t you Owen?” Elizabeth’s voice was frightening. “Was Michael just the first of many? How many books has she published?
How many pseudonyms? How many murdered writers?”
Owen didn’t answer.
“You pushed LuEllen down the stairs after you found out she was going to vote guilty. Your plan didn’t call for Terry ending up in jail for good, just long enough to get material for a book. A hung jury would have ended in another trial. You didn’t want that. The first trial was risky enough as it was — you knew that some other sleep–walking defences had failed — and Terry had already been in jail long enough.” Elizabeth paused and then said in a cold hard voice, “And what about Heather?”
“You don’t seem to get the point, lady. I killed Heather.
Terry didn’t do it. It was easy to do. I just bumped into Terry and grabbed the wheel from her for a split sec–ond. I know she knew but she never said anything. She played the perfect innocent, because she was. Same as with Michael.”
“All for the sake of finding book material for Terry.”
Owen shrugged.
“Whose idea was it to use Michael and Heather’s manuscripts?”
“Who do you think?” sneered Owen.
“Rather lucky to find two very private and eccentric writers who refused to use computers.”
“Not as hard as you might think. And it’s a big coun–try. Terry gave a lot of classes.”
“Risky. What if they’d made a photocopy or read part of their work to someone else?”
“Risk is part of life.”
“So is anger. Do you realize Sally died for nothing? That she was acting a part in order to flush Terry out? Only it turned out to be you …” She paused. “You didn’t know that did you?”
Owen cleared his throat but said nothing.
“Did you know that her manuscript was bogus?”
Owen still didn’t respond.
“How do you feel about Terry now? She made you kill an innocent woman for nothing. What does that feel like, I wonder?”
“You think I killed Sally?” He laughed, but the bra–vado was gone.
“Yes, and I think you killed your sister too. There were no heroics here, no Sally saving Terry. You drowned Terry in her bathtub because she’d used you one too many times. You felt trapped by her, but you were not strong enough to cut the ties. She controlled you like a puppet and you let her. And then you killed her.”
Owen laughed. “She only used me because I let her. She didn’t control me. I controlled her. I let her think she used me. I used her as a murder weapon for Michael, then I convinced her that Heather and the others would benefit her if they were dead. She owes her fame to me. As I said, I made it happen for her.”
Others? But Elizabeth had moved on. “Why? Why would you kill for her?”
“She was my big sister.”
“You mean you killed Michael because she was your big sister?” Elizabeth’s voice was on the edge of control and beginning to slip over. “So what went wrong?” she whispered, visibly trying to pull herself together.
Owen bit his lip as if debating on whether to tell Elizabeth everything. If he did it was her death sentence.
I sidled over toward the BMW.
He finally made up his mind. “She was in the tub when I came to her cabin. She wanted out. Couldn’t stom–ach the bad stuff, she said. I couldn’t make her understand that there was no way out, no turning back. She belittled me, told me I was incompetent and a leech living off her income. Then she actually had the nerve and the unmiti–gated stupidity to try and cut me off. She fired me. Her own brother. I lost it.” He was brandishing his gun now.
“So you drowned her.”
“Yeah. I drowned her. It was so easy. It only took a minute. I was so angry, after all I’d done for her. But then I had to carry her outside so I could dump her over–board and she looked so pathetic lying there naked so I wrapped her in a towel. But then I heard Sally coming and had to dump Terry in the pool. I left the towel to make people think she’d just come from the sauna.”
“And Sally? What happened to Sally?”
“Sally was collateral damage. But not the way you think. How was I to know she’d play the stupid little hero?
She jumped in to rescue Terry without taking any of her clothes off. She was struggling but I couldn’t stick around, and it suddenly struck me as the perfect murder-suicide.
Sally kills Terry because she is distraught over Terry and
Arthur becoming a couple, then she kills herself, leaving behind a suicide note.”
“Why not just keep it simple? Sally tries to rescue a drowning Terry and fails. They both die.”
Owen smiled. “That was my initial reaction, but when I put the towel over the railing I suddenly remem–bered that the pool water was salt water and that the autopsy would show fresh water in her lungs. The police would start to snoop so I gave them a murder suspect.”
“But the suicide note?”
“Was from her handwritten manuscript. It was too bad to have to sacrifice it, but what a gift. Anyway, I felt I had no choice. Just as I have no choice now.” He raised the gun and I kicked the BMW to life. Owen jerked his head in my direction as the engine roared and Eliza–beth pounced. I could see her out of the corner of my eye, struggling with Owen’s gun arm as I skidded ninety degrees and drove straight for them and the doors beyond. Elizabeth and Owen looked up, even as the gun skittered across the doorway with Owen in pursuit. I slowed long enough for Elizabeth to get on and then opened the throt–tle and drove out into the sunlight. I turned the wrong way and had to make a big circle to come round to the driveway leading out to the main street.
“Owen is getting into a car,” yelled Elizabeth as we screamed out of the driveway, bumped down onto the road, and squealed around ninety degrees then headed down Bank toward the Queensway highway, taking the turn at Catherine Street almost too fast. We went up the on ramp and onto the highway as I tried to figure out just where to go.
“He’s right on our tail,” yelled Elizabeth.
I had pulled out to the outer lane when suddenly Owen was beside us, forcing me into the gutter rail. I slowed and he slowed. So I sped up. He sped up and was just in front of me when suddenly he opened his car door and hit the brakes. I braked and swerved looking for the lifesaving hole between his door and the gutter rail. And found it. Just. I squirted through, feeling like throwing up but knowing I couldn’t. Elizabeth was hanging on to me and I whipped over three lanes of traffic, took the off ramp at Parkdale, and squealed through a red light and under the Queensway.
We caught the light at Carling and Elizabeth craned her neck. “I think I see him. Blue Camaro, four cars back.”
We played cat and mouse along Carling until I did another fast two-lane switch and turned down towards Dows Lake.
“Still with us,” yelled Elizabeth.
I took a right at the lake and once I entered the traf–fic circle I stayed in it, feeling a bit like a rolling stone going nowhere fast. But at least I could keep moving until we ran out of gas. On our third pass around, the blue Camaro came screaming in ahead of us and we fol–lowed Owen for three turns before he manoeuvred his car behind us. The bump almost wrenched the handle–bars out of my hands and I fought for control as the bike skidded sideways. We came out of it just before I was about to give up and I gave the engine more gas. We were taking that roundabout way too fast, with Owen on our tail, when I saw a policeman enter the circle. I made up my mind. I went around once more, unable to see where the policeman had gone because of the mound of grass, trees, and shrubs in the centre. I flew by two exits before I saw him speeding away through the experimental farm in the heart of Ottawa. He was going pretty fast and I had to open the throttle to catch him. When I was right on his tail I waited until two oncoming cars were out of the way then I pulled out and roared past him. It didn’t take long before I heard his siren and I pulled over, my body numb and wobbly. I was glad I had Elizabeth’s legs to help stabilize the bike.
“Jesus. Where did you learn to drive like that?”
I watched as Owen cruised by, looking at us, and I wondered how this would all end.
“Ryan — my brother.”
“Thank god for Ryan,” said Elizabeth.