It would have been unconscionable to add to her grief. “What you’ve done is perfect, Solange,” I said. “The tributes to Ariel strike exactly the right note. It’s the hot link to the ‘Red Riding Hood’ site that troubles me.”
Ann was clearly furious. “Why should we listen to you? You’ve already sided against us once.”
I tried to isolate her. “I’ve never had a quarrel with anyone but you,” I said. “You used Kevin Coyle to forward your own agenda, and I don’t want to see you doing the same thing with Ariel’s death.”
Solange’s eyes grew wide. “Ariel’s death must not be used,” she said.
I could feel the momentum shifting to me, and I pressed ahead. “No,” I agreed, “it mustn’t. The night of the vigil, Molly Warren told me that what she feared more than anything was having Ariel’s death politicized. This tragedy is deeply personal for all of us.”
Ann’s eyes glinted. I had linked the words “political” and “personal”; for a fanatical feminist the bait was as irresistible as catnip to a Siamese.
I hurried on before she could pounce. “I know the catechism,” I said. “I know that the personal is political, but the whole purpose of the Web page is to let the people who cared about Ariel share their memories and their sense of loss. Later, we can think about larger implications, but the focus now should be on Ariel. Besides, linking her page to the ‘Red Riding Hood’ site is placing Ariel’s death in a political context that might not even be accurate. Kyle Morrissey hasn’t been charged with her murder. From what I’ve heard he may never be.”
“What do you mean?” Livia said.
“I mean the case is weak,” I said. “It’s possible that Ariel was killed by someone else. For all we know the murderer is a woman.”
Ann took a step towards me. Her fists were clenched, and she was shaking with rage. “Get out,” she said.
We were on the edge of real ugliness, but Livia stepped between us. She was pale, but in control. “Joanne, we’ll reconsider the ‘Red Riding Hood’ hot link. I’ll make certain that we give your suggestion a fair hearing.”
“But I can’t stick around to argue my own case.”
Livia took my arm and led me out into the hall. When she spoke her voice was low and intimate. “Given the history you share with some of the women who created the Web site, perhaps it would be best to let them discuss it privately. Joanne, you know this department is all I have now. Trust me to do the right thing.” She leaned forward and kissed my cheek.
Whether it was the poignant reference to our shared past, the familiar smell of Pears soap, or the brush of cool silk I felt when her poppy shawl touched my arm, I was drawn into her orbit. “All right,” I said, “I’ll trust you.”
Kevin was still hunched over my computer when I got back. When he heard my step, he started. “Well…?”
“They’re going to discuss it,” I said.
“What do you think our chances are?”
I cringed at being included in Kevin’s possessive pronoun, but I smiled at him. “Livia says we have to trust her. And I do.”
He scowled. “Well, I don’t. Why would I trust a woman who has wanted my head on a plate for two years?” He shrugged. “You’ve just given me all the justification I need for spending some of my dwindling savings on surveillance.”
“You’re going to hire somebody?”
“Good God, no. I’m going to buy a computer. I’ll find it easier to trust those handmaidens of the victim culture if I can keep an eye on them.” He started for the door, but when he came to the threshold he turned. “Thank you for being my net.”
“You didn’t need a net, just a push.”
He grinned, revealing more silver fillings than I’d seen in twenty years. A man with ancient dental work, a lens held on by masking tape, a limitless supply of white, short-sleeved polyester shirts, and an uncertain future. My heart went out to him.
“Be careful, Kevin.”
“In the computer store?”
“Everywhere,” I said.
Alone in my office, I was edgy. I picked up the phone and dialled.
When I heard Ed Mariani’s blithe greeting, I felt as if I’d re-established contact with the world as I knew it.
“Can I buy you lunch?” I asked.
“Only if you promise to bring along the latest photos of Madeleine at the lake.”
“I haven’t even taken the film in yet,” I said.
“And you call yourself a grandmother,” he said. “But I’ll still eat lunch with you. Does noon at the Faculty Club suit?”
“Noon is fine,” I said, “but let’s go off-campus. I’ve had enough of this place.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“It is. Ed, have you seen that Web page Solange has created for Ariel?”
“I didn’t even know it existed. I haven’t been at the university since last week.”
“Count your blessings,” I said. “But I’d be grateful if you’d check it out and another site it’s linked to: ‘Red Riding Hood.’ ”
“ ‘Red Riding Hood’ – that’s intriguing. You do know, don’t you, that both Luciano Pavarotti and Charles Dickens are on record as saying they identified strongly with that little girl. I’m past the age for tripping through the woods with a picnic basket, but if it pleases you, I’ll be more than happy to give the site a whirl. Now about lunch… have you got time for Druthers?”
“I do if you do,” I said.
“I have all the time in the world,” he said.
The comment was more than a pleasantry. The amount of time that elapsed between the placing of an order and the arrival of food at Druthers was legendary. So were the short fuses of the restaurant’s father-and-son chefs. More than one patron’s meal had ended abruptly when the father, hurling curses, exited through the restaurant’s front door, and the son, also hurling curses, exited through the back door. But the menu was inventive, the food invariably excellent, and the atmosphere, when father and son were in accord, sublime.
That spring afternoon, as I walked through the front door of the old converted house in the Cathedral district, it appeared that Ed and I were in luck. James and James Junior, father and son, greeted me with smiles and ushered me to the cool peace of the Button Room, my favourite of the restaurant’s three small dining rooms. The Button Room took its name from its walls, which were hung with framed shadow boxes filled with antique buttons of incredible variety: military buttons of shiny brass bearing the insignia of once-proud units; mourning buttons of jet or of hair taken from the head of the newly deceased and woven into stiff discs; tiny buttons of mother-of-pearl or satin that the fingers of eager bridegrooms had fumbled undone as they claimed their trembling brides. The linen at Druthers was always snowy, and the flowers, exotic. Today a single fuchsia orchid blazed in our bud vase.
Ed rose when he saw me. “I’ve ordered martinis,” he said. “After seeing that Web site, I thought that we needed more than a Shirley Temple.”
James Junior brought the martinis, ice blue with two olives apiece, handed us the menus and announced the specials: wild mushroom pate; grilled tomato gazpacho, sweetbreads Druthers, mixed greens; coffee chocolate-chunk cookies.
I didn’t even open the menu. First, the Rombauers and now Druthers. It was obvious that sweetbreads were in the air, and I never bucked synchronicity. Ed followed my lead.
After James Junior withdrew with our orders, Ed raised his glass. “To sanity,” he said. “Although it appears to be fast disappearing from our troubled world. That ‘Red Riding Hood’ site is heartbreaking, Jo. To think of Ariel being one of that long, sad line…”
For a moment, we were both silent. Wrapped in our private thoughts, we sipped our martinis. They were excellent but ineffectual. The liquor burned, but it didn’t wipe out the memory of that long, sad line of girls and women, and of Ariel among them.
Finally, Ed broke the silence.
“I have some news,” he said. “Kyle Morrissey wasn’t a stranger to Ariel. Val Massey called me this morning. He’s working for the Leader Post, and he’s been assigned to Ariel’s story.”