The Roar of the Crowd Page 21

  A voice I almost recognized answered the call, which I had to imagine was an embarrassing situation. I think I’d have let it go to voicemail, given the circumstances. What if someone flushed?

  “She’s here, I saw her in the back row,” said the voice in the next stall. “I can’t believe the gall.” There was a pause. “Well, not yet, but they will.”

  I wanted to hear more, but the woman on the other side of me flushed and I realized that I was holding up a substantial line of people who had lineups aplenty to get to. I flushed and got out to do a bit of a dance with another woman washing her hands. The person on the phone was still in her stall, though no longer talking. I couldn’t stand there waiting for her to emerge, it was too small a space.

  I went out to meet Denise, who was well back in the line to get into the next show. As I joined her, the line began to snake along. With all the movement, I had to abandon my attempts to see who was emerging from the washroom door.

  I hadn’t quite recognized the voice, but it made me edgy all the same. I knew I wasn’t being paranoid. We had been sitting in the back row. The woman had been discussing Denise.

  32.

  I am never certain if it’s the English accent or the British school and broadcasting system that makes for a richer use of language, but I tend to think people with British accents seem more well-educated. Even when I tune into Coronation Street, with its blue-collar, working-class characters, their ability to say, “I’m a trifle flummoxed by this” rather than “I don’t get it” makes me think more highly of their inability to manage whatever has presented itself. This is, I believe, why British émigrés manage to snag good North Americans jobs, PBS is clogged with English television shows, and Hugh Grant movies rule at the romantic box office.

  Or maybe it just has something to do with Hugh Grant.

  Whatever the case, there was no denying that the three young men of The School of Night were intensely clever, weaving an improvised plot around a model of a five-act revenge tragedy, sending up tropes and Shakespearian standards as they went. They provided a double whammy, educating at the same time as they parodied. Their audiences were going to leave having learned enough about Shakespeare to laugh knowingly with the rest of us as the School of Night sent him up.

  “Oh, that was just what we needed,” laughed Denise, as we emerged to a still sunny but slightly more adult Fringe. As the evening began, the fire acts became pronounced among the buskers and more couples on dates could be seen in the milling crowds. We made our way out to the west and toward the parking lot where Denise was parked.

  It was slow going, but Denise dodged in and around the one-way streets of Old Strathcona and emerged onto 109 Street just long enough to get in the left lane and turn toward the university. She let me out in front of my building, reminding me that we had a date for Tuesday.

  “Shall I pick you up? It will be over at the College St. Jean, not the Fringe proper,” she reminded me.

  “That would probably be best. It’s a bit of a jog to get there, though I could get a bus along Whyte Avenue and walk down after.”

  “No, I’ll come get you, say at five.”

  “Great!” I waved her off and then went into my apartment. There was a light blinking on my phone machine.

  I pressed the button and Kieran’s voice came into my house.

  “Randy, I was wondering if I could talk to you. Privately? It’s sort of a delicate matter.” He went on to offer a couple of times when we could meet, and suggested the Three Bananas Café down in Winston Churchill Square, which to my way of thinking was probably the least private place I could imagine, in view from all angles, but on the other hand, you’d certainly see anyone approaching you.

  I didn’t particularly feel like talking to him so soon after spending time with Denise, so I emailed to say that his suggestion of Monday at 2:00 p.m. at the Three Bananas would be fine.

  So, I was looking forward to meeting a potential murderer on Monday, a suspected murderer on Tuesday and, with any luck, hearing from the chair of the English department by Wednesday. There was a sort of symmetry there, if you looked at it just so.

  Though it was only about eight o’clock on a summer Saturday night, I felt too stimulated to even watch TV. I sent a chatty email to my mom and dad, telling them about the Fringe shows, another less chatty one to Steve, floating the idea of going out to brunch the next day, and then went to wash up and get ready for bed.

  I was scrubbing the smut of the day from my skin with my favourite washcloth when I thought about what I had said to Denise about Kieran being strong enough to carry a dead weight up all those stairs. Why did he have to be carrying Eleanor’s body up the stairs at all?

  He could just as easily have been carting her body down the stairs. It’s just that someone might have been more likely to see him at it. But maybe they’d think she was drunk, not dead. Who was going to notice a fellow and a seemingly intoxicated girl leaving the Old Strathcona area? Especially if he timed it for when all the bars let out and the drunks shouted and slurred their way through the otherwise beautiful neighbourhood? For the first time, I wondered what exactly Eleanor had been wearing when they found her. Maybe she hadn’t been in obvious running gear at all.

  Maybe we had been looking at it all wrong. And if that was askew, what else wasn’t I seeing?

  I brushed my hair and braided it loosely so it wouldn’t wake me up in the night by creeping into my mouth or strangling me, and pulled on a cotton nightie. August evenings weren’t quite cooling off yet, so one had to do one’s best to make do.

  Having set my bedding just so, to afford a yank of the duvet when I eventually would want the cover, I lay there with my body ready for sleep and my mind racing. There was one death or maybe two to solve, and way too many suspects if one were to consider desiring a plum job the reason for murder. Aside from Bob Baker, who would probably be artistic director of the Citadel Theatre for another twenty years, any director in town would leap over their granny for the Chautauqua job. And in Edmonton, that meant a slew of people.

  It wasn’t sheep, but I fell asleep counting theatres in Edmonton.

  33.

  The night’s sleep had done nothing for me and I woke up feeling rumpled and headachey. A long shower, which usually could sort me out, only helped to make clear what the trouble really was. I was feeling sidelined while the world swirled around me. Denise was in trouble, even though things moved so politely and slowly from the police end of things.

  The theatre community was in flux, however much they seemed to believe that the police were honing in on the right person. Well, all but one of them was thinking that. I was positive the killer was somewhere in the theatre community. It was too ludicrous to imagine that Eleanor had been the victim of a random mugging gone wrong. While we did have sporadic elements of non-targeted violence in the city, it was usually associated with hockey season.

  Most violent acts in Edmonton, including once when someone aimed a small plane into a suburban bungalow, had a specific person in mind. The murderer had been stabbing Eleanor Durant and stuffing her under the Queen Elizabeth stairs, not just some redheaded jogger.

  Someone had wanted Oren Gentry dead. That was something I could get Steve to poke around in, I was hoping. Fifty-four-year-old men didn’t have heart attacks as a regular occurrence. Or did they? Who knew how stressful running a mid-level western Canadian theatre could be? Who could I ask? Kieran? Not likely. He was my top suspect.

  I had to admit, he was mostly on top of my list because of the shameful way he had treated Denise, taking up with Eleanor behind her back and Sarah so quickly after breaking it off with my best friend. Kieran was a certifiable asshole, but that didn’t necessarily translate to killer. It would be nice to lock him up, anyhow.

  As if the universe was bugging my thoughts, my email pinged and I discovered that Kieran was weaseling out of our Monday meeting at the Three Bananas. Just when I’d had my mouth set for one of their designer café au laits.
Whatever he’d wanted to discuss with me couldn’t have been all that important after all. Well, at least it meant I would definitely not be asking him anything about Oren Gentry.

  I’d cleaned away the breakfast mess on autopilot and set about getting ready for some more thoughtful work. Valerie had kindly back-channelled me the default list of texts that had been purchased for freshman English classes at Grant MacEwan, and I planned to scan the tables of contents to rough out a sample syllabus, just in case I did get hired at the last minute.

  Luckily, everything was online these days. I found the anthology listed on the Pearson website, clicked onto the “look inside” button, and flipped through to the table of contents. I always used to start with the Shakespeare and the play offerings. It was how I tended to choose anthologies, although of course I’d be stuck with this one for my first term.

  You could supplement poetry and short stories if you had to, but plays were pricey and the Shakespeare was the cornerstone to the course. Most high school students had read Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, and Hamlet. Woe betide you if you made them read something twice, so I was glad to see that The Tempest was the Shakespeare of choice in this collection. A Glass Menagerie would do nicely as the modern offering, too. Both plays had characters the students’ age and were on the surface simple enough for freshmen to grasp their linear plots.

  I was halfway through a list of poems I’d stick into the opening section on poetry when the phone rang. Having to drag myself out of the mindset of term architect made me realize how much I missed the classroom atmosphere. I hauled myself up off the loveseat, where I had been hunched over my laptop much of the morning. Creaking myself upright, I reached for the phone. It was Steve, wanting to know if I had lunch plans.

  I looked up at my yellow wall clock. It was already past eleven. On cue, my stomach rumbled.

  “I’d love some lunch,” I said. He said he’d be five minutes, which gave me enough time to close my computer and grab my bag. True to his word, he was pulling up outside the back of my building just as I was coming out the door.

  “Where do you feel like going?”

  “I have no preconceived yearnings,” I admitted. There are times when anything would be good, and the first thing you hear is just what you’ve been longing for.

  “How about mac and cheese?”

  “Blue Plate Diner mac and cheese?”

  “Is there any other?”

  In no time, we were ensconced in the eclectic little restaurant in the midst of the trendy stretch of 104 Street, just north of Jasper Avenue. There had to be a warehouse full of chrome and Formica tables to kit out so many restaurants in this particular style. Granted, several of the tables seemed to be distressed old wooden jobs, too. It was a noisy place, and no place to hold a business meeting or reunion of any sort, because you could hardly hear yourself think, let alone hold a conversation, but the food was delicious and relatively quick.

  Steve and I both ordered the macaroni and cheese without bothering to look at the menus and sat back to look around. The place was two-thirds full, and the noise levels were bearable. A mother and daughter shared a table near us; four young girls with shopping bags around their feet were obviously taking a retail therapy break; two hipsters in skinny jeans and plaid shirts with bow ties were laughing together in the far corner; and in the middle of the restaurant were a couple of familiar faces. Just as I was figuring out that they were Christian and Janine from the Shakespeare troupe, Louise walked into the restaurant. After a quick look around the room, she spied their table in the middle and joined them.

  “That’s funny,” I said, as quietly as possible, given the acoustics.

  “What?” asked Steve.

  “What’s a table full of actors doing so far from the Fringe? You would think that every one of them would be either part of a show or busy supporting friends. At the very least you’d think they’d be on the other side of the river, hanging out in a restaurant in Old Strathcona instead of downtown.”

  “Maybe they’re hiding out from the theatre crowd.”

  “In the very middle of a popular restaurant?” I was dubious.

  “Well, as you say, they’re far from the epicentre of theatre in Edmonton at the moment. They could be avoiding someone they know for sure is at the Fringe.”

  “Possibly. Or maybe they just live around here. There are loads of lofts and condos in the area now.” I liked this street a lot, and if I could afford to buy a condo, it would be around here, for sure.

  “Do you think actors can afford downtown prices?”

  “I never presume to know what people can or can’t afford, or what level of debt they’re comfortable living in.” I shook my head. “There have been students in my classes who would mention their vacation plans or accommodations in their journal entries sometimes, and I’d think hey, I am really in the wrong business.”

  “Okay, so imagine they live nearby. Is there any reason why that particular trio shouldn’t be together?”

  I shrugged. “It’s not a clear fit. Louise is at least fifteen years older than Christian, so I don’t think there’s anything romantic going on there. Janine is a fight coordinator, so more connected to the stage management and techie ends of things than the acting. Plus, I’m pretty sure she’s gay, so there’s nothing between her and Christian, either. I think Louise and Kieran had a thing going a few years back, making her ostensibly hetero. So, truth to tell, unless they all discovered a mutual love of anime while they were working at the Shakespeare festival, I am not sure why they’d be together.”

  “Isn’t Christian a director as well as an actor?”

  I looked at Steve. “You’ve been talking to Iain and Jennifer Gladue, haven’t you?”

  He dipped his head and grinned. “Well, I couldn’t let you have all the fun. I’ve cleared away some of the Scandinavian transit report material and offered my services to them as a third-party sounding board. We were discussing things yesterday, and they could use the help.” He took a bite of the divine mac and cheese that had just been served to us in big white bowls, three types of cheese melting together and sending up fumes of delight.

  I was blowing on a steaming forkful of noodles and cheese, ready to take a bite.

  “So you know what this means, right?” Steve looked at me, with a “don’t shoot the messenger” look. “I’m not going to be able to discuss the case with you from here on in.”

  I chewed the mouthful of comfort food, wondering if Steve had deliberately chosen this restaurant to divert me from his announcement. “That’s okay; at least I know there will be someone on the team who doesn’t immediately believe that Denise is capable of murder.”

  “That’s true.” Steve took another bite of his mac and cheese. “But don’t forget that I can believe that anyone is capable of murder.”

  “Even me?” I batted my eyelashes at him in my best Clara Bow manner.

  Steve cocked his head and smiled. “Oh, I would never underestimate you in any way, Randy.”

  We let the noise of the restaurant overtake our conversation and devoted ourselves to the bowls of noodles and cheese. The place had filled up by now, and from where we sat I could no longer see Louise, Christian, and Janine. I was glad to hear Steve was going to be part of the investigation. But really, what on earth had he meant by his all-encompassing statements?

  Could he really believe Denise was guilty of murder? Was nobody listening to reason?

  Of course, what could possibly be reasonable about murder?

  34.

  Denise was relieved to hear Steve was joining the investigation, as I knew she would be. The strain of being suspect number one was wearing on her, and she took the news as evidence of someone being on her side. Someone of value to the cause, that was, because I am sure she knew I was on her side.

  I didn’t let her in on his last couple of statements, since I figured she needed all the optimism she could find.

  We were on our way to the French campus of the Un
iversity, College St. Jean. Years earlier it had been a private French boys’ school run by priests and nuns. Eventually, they had combined with l’Academie Assomption, a private French girls’ school adjacent to a convent in the inner city, and become a francophone separate school called J.H. Picard. The old girls’ school had been various things and was currently a social services centre. The boys’ school had evolved into a French-language campus satellite of the University of Alberta. Set as it was in the heart of the francophone district of the city, it became a hub for the French community. While outsiders thought French in Canada was relegated to Quebec, and most Canadians considered only Quebec, New Brunswick, and parts of Manitoba to be bilingual centres, there was actually a strong and vibrant Franco-Albertain presence, especially from Edmonton northward. It really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone with even a vague understanding of Canadian history. If you followed the rivers of the fur trade settlements, you saw the entwined histories of French, Scottish, Irish, Cree, and Métis peoples, like the colourfully woven sashes called “flèches,” which voyageurs had once worn and many Métis associations had adopted as their talisman.

  Denise had made us reservations across the street in the Café Bicyclette for a quick meal before our Fringe play. I was settling for a salad with warm goat cheese, because I really wanted to save room for their cinnamon brioche, which I’d spotted on the counter on the way to our table. Denise was tucking into duck with lemon sauce and wild rice.

  “So, guess who else has applied for the artistic director position?” Denise smirked, so I knew it wasn’t going to be good news.

  “Who?”

  “Sarah.” Denise tore her roll apart with a twist that made me feel as if she was picturing Sarah’s head and shoulders coming apart between her hands.