Wednesday Late Morning …
As soon as Doreen got home, she put on coffee, desperately in need of the caffeine. Her mind was in chaos. And finally, with her coffee in a travel mug, she reached for the dog’s leash, and soon, with the animals at her side, she stepped outside, this sense of confusion, chaos, and tension coiling through her. A good walk would help. At least she hoped it would.
She wandered the streets, not really watching where her path took her, struggling to sort through all the conflicting thoughts and emotions running amok in her mind. Of all the cases that she had seen so far, this one was the one most puzzling. And she thought it was because of Denise herself. It made no sense; none of it made any sense. Mack had mentioned she had a brother, … but, as usual, had another call and abruptly ended their discussion.
For that reason alone, Doreen was trying not to think about Denise but to view the whole thing from a completely different perspective. While Doreen was out wandering around, she found herself in the back of Mission Creek, on the pathway going up and down the hills. When her phone rang, she was surprised to see it was her ex. She answered it. “I’m not supposed to talk to you,” she said, without preamble.
He snorted. “You never were very good at listening.”
She frowned. “Did you have a reason for calling?”
“If I called you, then I did, didn’t I?”
She hated that tone in his voice. “Then speak up,” she snapped.
“I thought you weren’t allowed to talk to me.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose and glared into the phone because, of course, she wasn’t supposed to speak with him. She shouldn’t have answered the phone call to begin with, and now he was reminding her of how much of a jerk he could be. Just something in his tone suggested he knew something she didn’t and that he would always know something she didn’t because she was simply too stupid to understand.
“I’m hanging up in three seconds,” she said, “if you don’t start talking.”
“Wait,” he said, the first sign of alarm entering his voice.
“Wait for what?”
“I think you need to rethink this document.”
“I haven’t got any document here in front of me,” she said, “so what are you talking about?”
“The divorce papers,” he said, his voice turning surly. “No way you’re getting this much.”
“Well, look. If you hadn’t tried to cheat me out of everything,” she said, “it wouldn’t have come to this.”
“Hey, I didn’t cheat you. That was your lawyer. You’re the idiot who got the lawyer involved.”
“I had to get a lawyer involved because you had a lawyer involved.”
“Yes, but it was our family lawyer,” he said, his tone turning persuasive. “You could have just left it at that.”
She laughed. “Really? Is that what you think? Personally I think my lawyer couldn’t have been any worse. But then, of course, you were sleeping with her as a way to get her even more on your side.”
“I didn’t have to even sleep with her,” he said. “The woman was a psychopath.”
“I’m not sure you’re any better,” she said cheerfully.
“You can’t mean that,” he said, his tone injured.
She frowned, then shook her head, warning herself not to even get involved in this. But knowing she’d already made that mistake, she said, “Speak up, if you’re going to.”
“I just want you to rethink things,” he said, trying for a convincing tone. “We had a lot of good times together.”
“What’s that got to do with the divorce?” she asked. “You cheated on me. You ousted me from the house, and you got my lawyer to cheat me too. So where in all of this do I owe you any loyalty?”
His voice darkened, deepened into a threat. “You better, or you’ll regret this,” he said. “You haven’t heard the last of me.” And he hung up.
Knowing that she would get in trouble for it, she quickly texted Nick and said that Mathew had called, giving Nick the gist of the conversation.
And why did you answer?
The truth? Out of habit.
Her phone rang then, and, as she wandered up and down the pathway, she saw a beautiful fallen tree trunk up ahead, and she perched on it, while she answered. “I know I wasn’t supposed to,” she said, “and I really did try to get him to make his point, and all he would say is, he wants me to rethink the document, and I don’t deserve half. At the end though, it sounded more like a threat.”
“What kind of a threat?”
“Something about I’ll regret it.”
“Yeah, that’s a threat,” Nick said, obviously writing something.
She heard scratching on a pad. “Are you taking notes?”
“Of course. It’s all powerful information to give to the judge.”
“Ugh,” she said. “You know how I feel about a court and a judge.”
“Doesn’t matter how you feel,” he said. “You still have the process to get through.”
“I could just walk away.”
“You could, and you could go back to living on the streets and having nothing to eat too. Is that really how you want to live your life? This isn’t money you’re stealing from him. This is money he is stealing from you. If you put it in perspective, it makes things a whole lot easier.”
“But he’s one scary dude,” she said.
“And yet you had dinner with him,” he said, but no rancor was in his voice, no judgment, just curiosity.
“I was trying to help Mack,” she said.
He stopped and said, “Oh, that explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“Nothing,” he murmured in a much more cheerful voice.
She frowned. “Don’t you read more into this.”
“I won’t,” he said on a burble of laughter.
She frowned. “Why does everybody think there’s more between us than there is?”
“Because there is,” he said. “You’re just taking some time to figure it out.”
She frowned. “I’m really not stupid, you know?”
“Absolutely not, and no way I would ever think that,” he said. “That’s not the kind of person I am, and you’ve shown that you’re very intelligent. Look at how many cold cases you’ve solved.”
As soon as they hung up, she hopped off the log to her feet. Feeling the tension inside her increasing, and, with the animals in tow, she raced down the big set of log steps. She raced back to where the eco center was and then headed up the pathway about half a mile. Up there was another set of steps, which she took on up. Wandering aimlessly, her mind still confused, she found herself on a deserted road, surrounded by orchards and country homes.
She smiled in appreciation, as she saw the apples and the pears on the trees all alongside the road. “That’s the wonderful thing about Kelowna,” she said out loud to the animals. “Beautiful fruit trees. It’s a really great temperature for growing them.”
There were so many good things about being here in Kelowna, starting her new life. She stood still, thoroughly admiring the countryside. She eyed the view behind her and stopped for a moment to admire the city laid out before her. Hearing the sound of a vehicle, she walked to where the road was, then stepped out of the way as she came up upon it suddenly.
A car whipped past, and she surprisingly recognized the vehicle from her recent trip to the morgue. It was Denise. Frowning, Doreen wondered what Denise was doing up here. She headed down the same road that Denise had taken, not even exactly sure where Doreen was at this point. She was also afraid to get herself caught up too far away or with too long of a walk to get back home.
But then she automatically felt comfortable, knowing that, if she called Mack for help, he’d come and pick her up. Still it wasn’t the smartest idea to get lost, and there were plenty of places in town that, if you weren’t driving, were quite a distance away.