Freda’s restaurant was popular on Saturdays. It had started as a bakery and made soups and sandwiches but Zeke Sinclair held a burger in both hands and had a chocolate milkshake at his elbow. He looked up as Roxanne approached and avoided eye contact. His Aunt Tracy didn’t smile either.
“You’re the cop?” she asked as Roxanne pulled out a chair.
“Sergeant Roxanne Calloway, RCMP.” Roxanne didn’t order anything to eat. She was hungry, but hopefully this wouldn’t take long. “You’ve got something for me, Zeke?”
Zeke placed his burger on the table and reached into the pocket of his jeans. He slid a bundle of keys across to Roxanne. Then he lifted the shake and sucked on the straw, this time fixing an unblinking stare on her.
The black car fob bore the Audi logo and was exactly as he had described, studded with silver buttons. Press one and the key popped out. There were five door keys, three of which looked similar. One of them could be the master key to Prairie Theatre Centre, the one that had required the whole building to be rekeyed when it went missing. The fourth and fifth probably unlocked the apartment where Gerald Blaise had lived. There were two small keys, one yellow, one silver. One probably unlocked the padlock to the cage that housed Gerald’s stash of memorabilia, the other, a mailbox. Then there was a long, thin key, the kind that opened a safety deposit box. They weren’t the set that he had described to her, as if the house keys were missing, but at least she now had them.
“What ya gotta say, Zeke?” said his aunt. She had already demolished a sandwich and was halfway through a mug of coffee. A heap of half-eaten french fries, doused in ketchup, lay between them.
“Sorry,” mumbled Zeke. He didn’t look at all sorry.
“You said you threw them in the river.” Roxanne fingered the keys. “Why did you lie?”
“Just did,” he shrugged.
Roxanne didn’t need to know why. It was obvious. He’d found a body in the trunk of the car. He’d wanted to avoid more trouble. “The house keys are here. Did you go into the house?” He continued to look straight at her and bit his burger. His aunt nudged him.
“No, ma’am,” he said.
“You found them?” Roxanne asked Tracy Ross.
“He left his jeans lying on the floor and I picked them up to throw them in the wash,” said Tracy. “They fell out of his pocket.” She had given them back to Zeke so he could hand them to Roxanne himself. And say that he was sorry. Tracy Ross was doing her best to keep her youngest nephew out of trouble. She had her hands full. Roxanne rose to go.
“Tell Jeremiah that I don’t appreciate getting my tires slashed,” she said.
“Jem’s none of my business,” said his aunt. “You wanna tell him, tell him yourself.”
Roxanne walked outside into bright sunshine. The town was busy this Saturday morning. Everyone who could take time off was doing so, enjoying being outside before the snow hit. Finn would be done on the ice at the rink by now. She should go pick him up. Get lunch. Her phone rang as she reached the car. Coop Jenkins.
“Got your message,” he grunted.
“So, you’re off for a while?”
“Well, yeah. Them’s the breaks.” Coop sounded nonchalant.
“How’re you doing?”
“Fine,” he lied. “Want to go grab a coffee?”
Should she? The smell of the food in Freda’s had reminded her how hungry she was. And she did want to know why he had thought Tamsin was in a sexual relationship with Budgie Torrance. Finn was with his cousins. He’d be fine.
“How about lunch?”
“The Forks again? See you in twenty.”
As she drove out of the parking lot, she passed the window where Zeke Sinclair sat with his aunt, finishing off the last of the fries, watching. He didn’t take his eyes off her until she disappeared from view.
Roxanne was far from being the only person still at work this long weekend. Business had resumed at Prairie Theatre Centre. Theatregoers still attended. Rehearsals continued. Jazz Elliot and her stage manager, Nell Bronson, watched Budgie Torrance and Danny Foley finish rehearsing the scene where the Macbeths murder King Duncan.
“A little water clears us of this deed,” she said, holding out her hands as if they really dripped blood.
“She’s doing better now that Marla’s taking care of things for her,” said Nell.
“Yep.” Jazz nodded in agreement. “Hiring Marla was a great idea. That Alison Beck’s real smart.”
“Sure is. She made sure she got Marla out of that office fast as she could. Marla’s as clever as she is. Alison doesn’t want any competition on the job.”
“She won’t be there for long. Tamsin will be back, right?”
Neither of them knew whether or not that was true. Tamsin was shut away in the psych ward for the weekend, out of sight but not out of mind. Alison Beck’s appointment as her temporary replacement was not finding favour everywhere at PTC.
In the sewing room, Carol Hansen stood at an ironing board touching up the lace on Budgie’s new negligee. She looked up, the iron steaming in her hand, as Sadie Williams kicked the door closed behind her and slapped an envelope down on the nearest flat surface.
“That Beck bitch has just canned the new designs for A Christmas Carol,” she announced.
In another week, the play being presented right now, the one that matinee audiences were just arriving to see, would close. Jazz and her cast and crew would move onto the big stage and rehearsals would begin for another new production in the rehearsal hall. A Christmas Carol was a perennial favourite at PTC. Audiences loved it. Going to see it had become a winter holiday tradition that many Winnipeg families looked forward to with eager anticipation. Gerald had produced it in his first year as artistic director twenty years ago, and there had been a couple of attempts to replace it, but nothing else was as popular, nothing else sold as well.
So each year, the set was dragged out and refurbished, some of the same actors showed up, including the ones who always played Scrooge and the Fezziwigs. It was like an annual reunion for them. However, the costumes were long past their best. This had been the year that Gerald had ordered new ones. Sadie had been asked to stay on after Macbeth to design and supervise the rebuild. Now that wasn’t going to happen. Alison Beck had cancelled the contract. Things were too precarious right now, she had told Sadie, to incur that expense. And a new AD might not want to keep presenting that old chestnut of a play. It wasn’t worth investing in all those new, expensive costumes.
“You’re allowed to make that decision?” Sadie had asked.
“Oh, yes.” Alison had smiled and stretched her spine like a well-fed cat. “The executive is in complete agreement.”
“Wish we could get Tamsin back.” Sadie lowered her large frame into one of the low armchairs. “She would never have agreed to this. Guess I’ll be gone once Macbeth is up on its feet. I turned down a couple of good gigs too, so I could do those big costumes for Christmas Carol.” Theatre artists worked contract to contract. She’d be paid something to compensate her for the time she had already put in on the designs but it wouldn’t make up for the loss of income.
Carol switched off the iron and plugged in the kettle. “Maybe they’ll find out Tamsin didn’t kill anybody and we will get her back,” she said. “Alison’s just doing this to suck up to the board. She always was good at that.”
“Wouldn’t count on it. There’s only a couple of weeks until I was supposed to start in on the Christmas Carol designs,” Sadie grumbled from the depths of her chair. Carol perched on the arm of the other.
“It’s too bad,” she said. “It would have been fun to have you around for a few weeks more. And those old costumes are in bad shape. Some of them are falling apart. It’s going to be almost as much work to fix them up as it would have been to make new ones.”
“Go tell that to the board.” Sadie hauled herself upright. “Maybe I’ll talk to Jazz. They might listen to her since she’s famous. We’re going to drive up to Cullen Village in Budgie’s new car on Monday. Go see Roberta Axelsson’s hand-dyed wool. Jazz wants to buy some. And eat a Thanksgiving lunch. Probably won’t work but it’s worth a try.”
Coop Jenkins wore a ball cap to cover the shaved, taped-up patch on his skull, and a purpling lump protruded above his left eyebrow. They went inside, bought food and found a table beside a window, one that looked out across the plaza to the river. It was thronged with shoppers and people strolling, talking, children running around. Roxanne had chosen Chinese vegetables and rice. Coop picked at a sandwich but he didn’t look hungry.
“You look like you should still be in the hospital,” she said. “How come they let you out?”
“Glad to see me go.” Coop looked around him, checking everyone out, force of habit.
“Aren’t you supposed to be lying down? Don’t you have a concussion?”
“Don’t know that for sure. I’ll be fine.” He didn’t look fine. His skin was sallow. “Guess I got it wrong about the Longstaff woman and Budgie Torrance.”
“You sure did. What made you think that they were a couple?” Roxanne speared a floret of broccoli and bit into it.
“Dunno. A hunch, I guess.” He stared out the window at people relaxing, hanging out, having fun. “It’s got to be one of them, right?”
“Not your case right now, Detective Sergeant.”
“Well, Dumbo Dawes isn’t going to help you solve it.” He pushed the uneaten food aside. “We’re just talking, right? Keeping up to speed.” The right side of his mouth lifted in a crooked smile, almost. “Tamsin Longstaff was the only one of them who had a reason for wanting rid of the drama prof. That’s why I went after her like I did. Bet she’s your murderer.” Coop drank some Coke from a large paper cup using his one good hand. “Did you see how mad she got at me? And violent with it. Bad temper. What if she got pissed off like that at Gerald Blaise? She’s strong too. She sure clocked me one.” He put down the cup and fingered the lump on his forehead. “And then what if Prof. Dyck figured it out? He must have known she didn’t like having him hanging around at the theatre. Knew she didn’t like him. Bet he didn’t like her neither. He’s a smart guy, right? Maybe he figured it out and that’s why she did him in.”
“Do you always make up stories like this?” asked Roxanne.
“Sometimes I get it right,” said Coop Jenkins. There was that attempt at a smile again.
“And sometimes you don’t,” she replied. “Neither Budgie Torrance or Tamsin Longstaff has ever shown the least interest in having sex with other women.”
“Win some, lose some.” Coop looked away from the window and looked back at her. “How d’ya know that?”
“Budgie has a reputation with guys.” Roxanne put down her fork. “And Tamsin has had a thing going on with Frank Moran for the past few years.”
“That right?” Coop snorted. “Figures. He’s a jerk. So, if they didn’t do it, who did?”
“Don’t know, Cooper.” She had cleaned her plate. Coop’s still sat off to one side, virtually untouched. “One thing’s for sure. If Tamsin actually was involved, nobody’s going to get killed this weekend. She’s safely tucked away in the psych ward. You got any other good stories that might explain what happened?” She reached for a plastic tray and put her empty plate and cup on it.
“Nope.” There was silence.
“We done then? You finished with that?” She added his uneaten food to the pile, walked to a waste container and tipped the lot inside.
“How did you get here?” she asked as they walked towards double glass doors.
“Got a daughter,” he said. “She dropped me off.”
A couple of children were playing on a low stone wall as they exited the building. One of them reminded her of Finn. She felt a momentary twinge of guilt. She really should go spend some time with her son. She’d better offer to drive Coop Jenkins home first though. He looked old and tired. It wouldn’t take her long.
She led the way to a three-storey open parkade. The Forks was a popular spot on holiday weekends. The ramps were lined with cars. She could hear a band warming up at a sound stage in the distance. The blue Focus was parked halfway up the second floor.
“You’re driving that?” said Coop. “What happened to your Toyota?” Then he stopped and peered at it. “Someone’s been at it with a knife.” They walked around the car. Its paintwork had been scratched deliberately, all the way along each side. The letters F U cop bitch were carved onto the hood.
“Well,” said Roxanne, reaching for her phone to photograph the damage. “At least it’s driveable this time.”
She told Coop how her tires had been slashed the previous day, right outside the RCMP HQ, as they drove west towards his apartment building. “It’s maybe a message from Jem Sinclair. To tell me to stay away from his little brother.”
Coop remembered Jem’s threat, back when they had talked to him in the Youth Centre. “How would he know you were driving this car now?” he asked.
“Because I met Zeke again, just before you called me. Zeke watched me leave in this car.”
“But how would Jem know you were going to the Forks?”
“Maybe he was watching.” She glanced involuntarily behind her. “Maybe he’s following me.”
“Jem’s a bad bastard,” said Coop Jenkins. “Is he still a suspect? For the murders?”
“Don’t think so. If he had done it he wouldn’t be drawing my attention to him like this.”
“Well,” said Coop, “you can’t drive around in this all weekend.”
She might have to. It might not be easy to get another replacement today from the carpool. The RCMP liked to patrol the highways in unmarked cars on long weekends, watching out for speeders. Or drunk drivers, heading back to the city after a boozy evening out of town.
“My truck’s not going anywhere. I’ll trade you.”
She turned her head towards him, astonished. “Your Silverado? Are you kidding?”
“Can’t drive it, can I? And it’s only for the weekend.” The last thing she had expected was an offer like that from Cooper Jenkins.
“Anyway,” he drawled, “you’ll have to bring it back, right?”
She got it. This was Coop’s way of staying in touch with the case. And he was right. She couldn’t take this vandalized car home where small boys might notice the message carved onto it. Finn was learning to read and catching on fast. There would be awkward questions.
She drove around the block where Coop lived twice, slowly, both of them watching to see if anyone was following her. It looked like whoever had caused the damage was long gone. Coop’s truck was parked behind his apartment building. Eight floors up, he told her, and pointed to a balcony. They swapped keys. She backed the big green Silverado truck out, and he drove the blue Ford into the vacant spot. She waited until he sloped off towards the back door of his apartment block. She lowered the window and called out, “Thanks, Coop.”
“You’re welcome.” He touched a finger to his forehead and was gone.
She drove south, towards home and her sister’s house. She remembered the kid playing on the wall at the Forks, out in the sunshine, having a good time. Her son and his cousin would love this big truck. She’d go pick them up and drive to the park. Maybe take the puppy along. She’d stop at the bakery on the way. Buy a couple of pies. One pumpkin, one apple. And a tub of ice cream. Her contribution to Thanksgiving dinner, tomorrow, at her sister’s house. Baking was not Roxanne Calloway’s thing.