“Any luck?” Alvin interrupted.
“Just my sisters,” I said, lying nicely. “You know what they're like.”
The next message took me by surprise. I fumbled my tea cup, and the orange pekoe splattered my clothes.
“Holy shit. Who is it?” Alvin said.
“Ms. MacPhee? Violet Parnell here. By the time you get this, I will be off and away. Please do not come looking for me. I am sorry to have shaken you off in the hospital. However, there is a matter I urgently need to take care of. I realize it's all terribly melodramatic, and I beg your indulgence. In the meantime, I would appreciate it if you and Young Ferguson would look in on Lester and Pierre and see that they are taken care of. You know where the bird food is. They do enjoy watching a bit of television from time to time. Nature programs. Nothing with cats. Thank you for assisting me with this. I will make everything clear upon my return.”
I flopped into the chair and pressed “1” to repeat the message. I pressed the receiver to Alvin's ear.
“Listen to this, Alvin.”
Alvin listened and paced.
“What do you think?” I said, afterwards.
“She sounds great. Like her regular self.” Behind the glasses, Alvin's eyes shone.
“Yes,” I said. “She's perfectly lucid and logical. Except for one hitch: she's an eighty-three year old woman at risk for cardiac arrest. She knows she's taking a risk. She's intelligent and capable, and yet she lit out of here and won't tell us where to. Or why. There's definitely something wrong with that.”
“It's great news, Camilla. She's alive! She's okay. Maybe it is none of our business,” Alvin said.
“It's our business, all right. There's something wrong, or why wouldn't she tell us what it is, so that we wouldn't worry?”
“She said she had to clear up a matter.”
“And you tell me what happens with the three of us when we have to clear up a so-called matter?”
“We help each other. We work together. Okay, I get your drift.”
“We drop everything, and we do what we have to to help the other person.”
Alvin scratched his head. “She thinks we want to stop her. Why would we do that?”
“I don't know. She must have some compelling reason to keep us out of it.”
“She's all about comradeship. She might be wanting to protect us. Keep us from being upset.”
“I've thought of that. If she wants to protect us, then logically, there must be something we need to be protected from.”
Alvin paled. “If we need to be protected, then it must be dangerous, and if it's dangerous, if we're not involved, then who's going to protect Violet?”
“Exactly. There is another possibility.”
“What?”
“Maybe there's someone she wants to protect.”
“You just said that. Oh, you mean, aside from us.”
“Yes.”
“Who could that be? Aside from us and your family, especially your father, and maybe the super, who does she see?”
“No one. We're it. Except, what's new lately?”
“Lord thundering Jesus. This dead guy!”
“You got it, Alvin.”
“So how do we go about finding him?”
“I have no goddam idea.”
* * *
“Ray?”
“Hmmm?”
I have to admit, I got a little tingle at the way he said “hmmm”. This was hardly the right time for tingling.
“Thanks for your call. Sorry to bug you at work. I need to know if you can find out what plane someone took to go somewhere.”
“As queries go, Camilla, that's not the clearest I've ever heard. Try again.”
“Mrs. P. has taken off.”
“You mean she hasn't turned up yet?”
“She called.”
“Well, that's good.”
“I don't think so. We believe she's involved in something dangerous. We have no idea where she went. We located her Volvo at the airport. If we could find out what plane she was on, we'd have a clue about her destination and it might save time.”
“Dangerous?” A bit of his cop persona sneaked into his voice.
“We think maybe.”
“If it's dangerous, you shouldn't get involved. Does the word concussion ring a bell?”
No point in getting him ticked off. “We'd make sure the police were informed, of course.”
“Promise me you won't do anything foolhardy?”
“Don't be silly, of course, I won't. So can you find out about the plane?”
“I'll see what I can do. I'm surprised the Ottawa guys wouldn't help you out there. Oh, never mind.”
* * *
“We're doomed,” Alvin said, looking up as I put the phone down and walked back into my box-lined living room.
“Wrong attitude, Alvin. Keep positive. What do you think Mrs. P. would do?”
“I think she'd read those letters and see if there's anything there.”
“I'm not so sure.”
“Are you the same Camilla MacPhee who will break into people's apartments when it suits you?”
“Never mind, I always have my reasons. This seems so much more personal and, really, I can't see how it's going to do any good. They're sixty years old. These letters must be important to Mrs. P., or she wouldn't have kept them. I feel uncomfortable reading private letters. Maybe that's my own hang-up as a result of having the world's most intrusive family.”
I did not mention that I had many letters from my late husband, Paul. I didn't ever want some snoop eyeballing those. Ever.
“I seem to remember you creeping through people's bedrooms while they were sleeping when you needed something,” Alvin said. “That's pretty private.”
“Listen to me, Alvin. Let's try not to squabble all the time. We need to work together to find out what's she's up to. We waste energy on bickering. We have to work as a team.”
Alvin's nose seemed more pointed than usual. His Adam's apple bobbed. “We've always been like this. Anyway, it's not really squabbling. It's just standing our ground. All right, if we have to, we can stop. I suppose. I'll agree to watch my tongue if we can read the letters.”
Well, that didn't go the way I'd wanted. I sat scowling on the box with my arms folded trying to find another route.
Alvin, on the other hand, was quite perky. “This has to do with the war. Remember those websites. Even though Violet always talks about the war, she never mentions her part in it, does she? I don't even know where she went.”
“We know she was in the Canadian Women's Army Corps.”
“Sure we know that. And we know she went overseas in 1941.”
“She served in England. Working on trucks and things. She really enjoyed it, although she said it wasn't all that glamorous and exciting. Not like the guys who fought in Europe. She was proud to serve her country in her own small way, and it was a great adventure