The Roar of the Crowd Read online

  “It has. How are you doing? It’s good to see you, Val.”

  “Do you have time for coffee? It’s not overly busy in the cafeteria area this time of year. We could grab a seat and catch up.”

  I agreed, and after lining up to fill cups from coffee dispensers and pay at the central till, we were soon sitting near a window and trying to fill in the blanks since we’d last seen each other.

  Val still looked great. She ran half-marathons, had a black belt in karate, and fairly radiated good health. Her springy dark hair framed her face in short, whimsically behaved curls, and while there was just a touch of silver creeping in at her brow, it was a spectacular silver, shining like intentional jewellery and just adding to the fun.

  Val was a full professor in the English department and had been very nice to me when I was maintaining several online courses for the college. She also had a family of three or four high-achieving kids and a doctor husband, so we hadn’t ever moved further than campus colleagues in the friendship spectrum. It was nice to see her now, though, especially as worried as I was feeling about Denise. Somehow, the tangible knowledge that there were other people I could connect with in this city besides Denise made me feel strong enough to be able to help her.

  I filled Val in on my latest project with the Shakespeare festival, and she was kind enough not to sound condescending about what sounded more and more like being a glorified camp counsellor as I spoke.

  “I love the idea of the Shakespeare cards! You could probably market those, don’t you think? I know my Connor could have used something like that last year in high school.”

  “He’s not as into English as his mother?”

  Val let out a hoot of laughter that drew the attention of two young men at the next table. “You could say that! I have no idea where the interests of my children came from. You would think at least one of them would consider medicine or English literature, but David is studying entomology, Susan is bound for Wall Street, and Connor’s back-up plan in case the NHL doesn’t draft him is to become a massage therapist and travel the world.” Valerie sipped her coffee thoughtfully. “I hope they aren’t really meant to be literary critics and are caught in the net of rebellion against parental authority. That would be sad, wouldn’t it?”

  I laughed. “I can’t imagine your kids having all that much to rebel against, to be honest.”

  Valerie wagged her finger at me. “Oh, you should never assume you know how people play out their home patterns from seeing their public displays. Isn’t that what literature really teaches us? That subtext and backstory is where everything really happens?”

  She had a point, and I conceded it as gracefully as I could. A lull fell over the conversation; it would have been comfortable if we’d been colleagues, but as we were just visiting, it seemed to herald the end of the visit. Val and I stood at the same time and walked our detritus to the wall of specified disposal bins: glass, paper, compost, recyclable, trash. I was half surprised there wasn’t a radioactive waste label on one of them.

  “I hear Denise Wolff may be in trouble,” Val tossed off as she discarded her Styrofoam cup, not looking me quite in the eye.

  I was caught a bit off guard. I hadn’t known that Valerie and Denise even knew each other, but I suppose English literature is a small enough world that you’d be aware of faculty in the institution across the river from you. Perhaps they met at conferences. Maybe they’d been in the same undergrad classes, for all I knew.

  “What did you hear?” I countered. It might be of use to know what the rumour mill was churning out.

  “People are saying she killed Eleanor Durant because she caught her cheating with her boyfriend, that director.”

  “Kieran Frayne.”

  “That’s the one. You’re working there, what do you think?”

  “Well, I may not be the best person to ask. When you’re right in the thick of things, it’s difficult to remain objective. However, I’ve known Denise a long time and I don’t believe for a moment that she had anything to do with Eleanor’s death.”

  “But the police were questioning her, right?”

  “The police have been questioning all of us, Valerie.”

  I excused myself as quickly as I could, and while it had been nice to reconnect, it felt as if it had been a mistake to wander into Grant MacEwan. I didn’t want to break my tenuous connection to Valerie, as I liked her a lot, but it was going to be difficult to reconcile people’s natural curiosity and desire to gossip with my own worries about my best friend’s predicament. While I didn’t mind nosing about, asking questions of folks in the cast or the Drama department about their sense of what was up with Kieran and Eleanor, I somehow felt as if connections in Denise’s circles were off limits. Maybe it was because I just couldn’t face the thought of assuming for even one moment that she could be guilty.

  Denise was my north star. Even though I could never hope to match her in terms of taste or willpower or vision, just knowing her and knowing that sort of strength existed somehow made me a better person and more capable of achieving my own small goals.

  Denise could not be tarnished. And with that noble, if selfish, thought, I headed back down 107 Street toward the LRT. I had to get home and actually get to work on making all of this go away if I was going to get anything done.

  Not to mention, I had to figure out at least three more activities to absorb and captivate teenagers for a fifteen-day stretch. I knew I had to over-prepare for that or they’d eat me alive. I had no delusions that I’d be dealing with “sweet gentles all” just because they were attending a Shakespeare camp. They were between the ages of fourteen and seventeen. I could just as likely have off-leash “dogs of war” on my hands. The only security I had was in over-preparing.

  I wished Steve were not in Sweden.

  13.

  I threw myself single-mindedly into intricate plans for the camp after I got home and nibbled mindlessly on rice cakes instead of stopping for supper. By eleven, I had most everything worked out, including handouts of some kick-ass soliloquies, two good scenes for cold readings, a section for them to try their hand at editing down for modern audiences, the card game, a crossword puzzle, several action games, and a scavenger hunt that would take them quite a lot of time searching through the complete works in order to finish.

  Add to that their times with the fight instructor, one of the actors, a Q and A with Kieran, and rehearsal time for their short end-of-camp production, and they wouldn’t have time to find a conch shell and break the fat kid’s glasses. Or at least I was hoping for a better outcome.

  My sleep was ragged, and I woke up with the nagging feeling I had been dreaming about running all night. I wasn’t sure whether it had been for exercise or escape, though. Whatever the case, I didn’t feel rested.

  A long shower woke me up a bit more. Dressed in jean capris and a long-sleeved striped tee-shirt, I made my way to the coffee pot.

  I was turning the tap to fill the carafe with water when the phone rang, and the weird timing made me think for a moment that the sound was coming from my action at the tap. That brought to mind the movie All of Me, where the swami equated the flushing of the toilet with the ringing of the phone, and I must have had a laugh in my voice as I answered.

  “Randy? Is that you? You sound pretty cheery for this time of the morning.” It was Denise.

  “Hey. Well, I guess so, though I didn’t sleep all that well.”

  “You and me both. I’m not sure whether to blame it on the stars or the stress I’m feeling. It’s probably a bit of both. The reason I called was to see if you’re up for breakfast today. I could swing by and pick you up in ten minutes.”

  I looked at the half-filled carafe in my other hand. “Sure. I’d love it.”

  I poured the water I’d intended for coffee into my umbrella plant in the corner of the dining room/office, and returned the carafe to its alcove in the coffeemaker. My satchel, as usual, was hanging off the back of my desk chair, and I rumma
ged in it just enough to be certain my wallet, cellphone, keys, and tissues were in there. There were, of course, more items than those in there, as well. Several crumpled receipts from the grocery store (“thank you, Mrs. Craig, do you need help out with that today?”), a package of gum, a box of dental floss, a notebook, three pens, some loose change, a granola bar, two folded reusable shopping bags, a bookmark advertising the Writers’ Guild of Alberta–nominated works for last year, two or three wrapped candies left over from restaurant cheque trays, a nail clipper, and a tube of lip balm were also housed inside the bag, which was probably why there was a groove in my right shoulder.

  I looked around the house, checked that windows were closed, drapes were drawn against the morning’s promise of heat, appliances were off, and my fly was zipped. I was ready. I slipped on my sandals at the door, locked it behind me, and went out to the back stoop to wait for Denise.

  She pulled up, true to her word, within minutes. I had been just about considering heading back in for a cardigan, Edmonton summer mornings being what they were, but she had the top down on her convertible Bug, and the seat warmers on, so I figured I’d be fine.

  “You look like a Frenchman in a comedy sketch,” Denise said, taking in my stripes and cropped trousers. “All you need is a beret, a bicycle, and a rope of garlic.”

  “Shoot. I was trying for beat poet.”

  “I have graded the finest minds of my generation?”

  “Something like that. Where are we having breakfast?”

  “I was thinking Cora’s. I love the fruit designs they make, the lineup shouldn’t be too bad on a weekday morning, and chances are pretty slim that any of the university or theatre crowd will be that far out. As far as I can tell, only about seven of them own cars.”

  I laughed, but had to concede it was true that most of the actors I knew lived close to either downtown or Old Strathcona and seemed to walk or bike everywhere. I suppose that was the way you survived on a salary embedded in the arts in Alberta.

  Denise drove down 109 Street with the aplomb of a taxi driver, whisking us around a turn and onto 104 Street and pointed toward Calgary. Cora’s was a popular chain that had crept out from Quebec, dazzling morning diners with omelettes, puffy pancakes loaded with fruit, cheery servers, bottomless coffee cups, and sunny signs all over the restaurants. On weekends, it was a good twenty- to thirty-minute wait to get in, but the portions were large and the atmosphere somehow invigorating. There were several Cora’s dotted around the outskirts of the city, and one or two in the outlying commuter towns. We were aiming for the one on the southern entrance to Edmonton.

  And it wasn’t long before we were there. Denise had surmised correctly. There was no lineup on a weekday morning and we were seated efficiently next to a sunny window. Coffee was poured as the menus were delivered to us, so we settled in to read through and gaze at the lovely photos of breakfast offerings.

  Breakfast, on the whole, is my favourite sort of meal, and I could cheerfully eat breakfast for every meal of the day: cereal, omelets, sausages, pancakes, eggs Benedict, fruit, porridge—who couldn’t make a meal out of that at any hour? I was deliberating between Cora’s oatmeal with fruit, and the ham-and-cheese-stuffed French toast when Denise closed her menu decisively. The waitress seemed to have been waiting for such a sign, because she was at our table almost immediately. Denise quickly ordered the Florentine omelet, and I panicked and opted for the April 89 crepe filled with fruit and custard.

  The waitress tidied away our menus, poured more coffee and left us for the moment to our own devices.

  Denise took a sip of coffee and looked me in the eye. “They think I did it, you know.”

  “Who does?”

  “The police.”

  “Have they arrested you?”

  “Not yet, but I am a ‘person of interest.’ Did you know that they say that to you directly? I thought it was only for offering as a sop to journalists. But no, I am a person of interest and have been advised not to leave the city without informing Staff Inspector Iain McCorquodale. Randy, I am not certain I can handle this.”

  “Of course you can. They will figure it out. You are obviously a person of interest because you were romantically tied to the man who was having an affair with the victim. That doesn’t mean you are the principal suspect in their eyes. They just can’t overlook you, that’s all.” I had never seen Denise this perturbed. If there hadn’t been a collection of condiments and syrup between us, I’d have patted her hand. I was hoping my words were enough to pull her out of her funk.

  “I hope you’re right about that. But I don’t think so. That Detective Gladue looks at me as if I was about to strangle someone in front of her.”

  “I thought Eleanor was stabbed.”

  “Whatever. Maybe I branch out.”

  The waitress arrived with our breakfasts, which could each have fed a family of four. Well, a small family of four. I eschewed her offer of authentic Quebec maple syrup in favour of the sugar-free kind on the table. It wasn’t that I was calorie-conscious as much as I was cheap.

  Denise, thank goodness, was as hungry as I was, and we didn’t talk for about ten minutes. I had demolished half my food before I sat back and took a breather.

  “We have a couple of options, as far as I can tell.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Either we spend our energy trying to make you a solid alibi for whatever time they figure Eleanor was killed, which I can tell you from experience is really tough to do. Innocent people have a hard time coming up with ironclad alibis, since we seldom think we’re going to need to account for our whereabouts. For instance, did you pay attention to what time we walked into this restaurant? Do you know any of the people here, who would be likely to remember you? Did you do anything outstanding that would stick in their memories?”

  “The time should show up on the bill, right? And while I seem to be here with a member of a French mime troupe, I could, if you like, stand and recite some of Henry V in a stentorian manner. I think they’d likely remember that, no?”

  “That’s my point. Unless you think you will need an alibi, you never do that sort of thing to call attention to yourself. Well, at least I don’t. Maybe people remember you showing up just by being you.”

  Denise shrugged. She was aware of her looks, even if she didn’t trade on them. “What was the other thing you had in mind?”

  “I beg your pardon? You said there were a couple of options.”

  “Oh right. I got carried away there, imagining how Cora’s patrons would take to your rendition of ‘St. Crispin’s Day.’ The other option, as I see it, is we have to find a few more suspects for the police to concentrate on. It worries me that they might focus on you to the detriment of their investigation and not pay attention to other possible murderers.”

  Denise sat forward. “That sounds good. How do we do that?”

  “If past experience is anything to go by, we make a lot of lists and ask a lot of questions.”

  “Who knows, we might even solve it ourselves!” Denise was getting a little too enchanted with this idea, and I could tell she was channelling Nancy Drew, the part with the titian hair and the shiny roadster. I, on the other hand, thought about Nancy’s friends Bess and George trapped down a well, which was the kind of thing that was far more likely to happen when you skipped off looking for desperate people.

  On the other hand, Denise energized and optimistic was far more fun to be with than Denise worried and afraid. I mentally promised myself I’d apologize to Steve for unleashing one more girl detective on the city, and doggedly finished my fruit crepe.

  We paid up at the till, saying no thanks to a piece of “breakfast fudge,” and were soon out at the car. Denise casually asked if I needed anything over at South Edmonton Common, since we were so close anyway, and she could stand to pop into the huge Superstore for some groceries while we were so close. Like any carless person offered transportation near a grocery store, I jumped at the chance. While we
were navigating the various curves and overpasses that to a crow would have been a kitty-corner manoeuvre, Denise confessed there were a few other things she needed to pick up.

  Two hours and six stores later, we were pointed back to my place with a car full of bags. I had netted a rainbow’s worth of peppers, apples, frozen fish fillets, a tub of Greek yoghurt and a large bottle of white vinegar, new running shoes, some yellow file folders, a drawer organizer, and a sundress with a pattern of large daisies sprouting up from the hem. It was a good thing I had a summer gig.

  Denise had fared equally well, and while I invited her in to make some lists, she demurred, noting she had to get her frozen stuff home. We side hugged before I climbed out of her car, and she swooshed off as I was still wrestling my purchases through the back door of the apartment.

  The pulsing light on my phone informed me I had a message waiting. I put away my groceries and filled the kettle before checking it out. The first message was from Steve, which gave me a twinge of regret for not having been in to speak with him. He was just checking in, though I figured there might be more to it than that. I wondered if Iain was keeping him in the loop about Denise being a person of interest in their investigation.

  The next message was from Kieran, wondering if I was planning to attend first run in the park. Or maybe it was an invitation to attend it. One could never be sure with Kieran. To me, statements that he might think of as sounding graciously open had vague tones of imperiousness to them. It was more of a command performance than an invitation. I dutifully marked the date on my calendar so that I wouldn’t forget. The run was only four days away, but with everything happening, there was no guarantee I’d remember anything if I didn’t write it down.

  I made a pot of tea and took it into the living room with me, setting it on the trivet I kept on the coffee table. Somehow, tea in the afternoon always made me feel civilized and British, even though I had realized long ago that whenever those heroines in the three-volume novels were talking about having tea, they were actually eating supper at four, before their sumptuous dinners at eight, like hobbits having two breakfasts. I instead opted for a huge pot of tea in the afternoon, topped off by another huge pot of tea in the evening after dinner proper.