I'd almost reached the door of the office when my cellphone rang. I balanced on frozen toes and tried to avoid getting knocked into the street by a slip-sliding man with a briefcase. To hell with it. I let it ring. It would be one of my three sisters and the subject would be Alexa's wedding and why I wasn't more cooperative about it. They all had cellphones and there was no getting away from them.
So hardly worth getting killed over. Another minute and the latte would be as cold as my toes and I wasn't even sure they were still attached to my feet. By the time I hit the front door, two more cruisers had flashed past. Must be one hell of a bank job, I thought as I heaved myself up the stairs to the second floor. I figured the latte was solid.
The sirens screamed on.
I opened my office door, holding the coffee between my chest and my chin. The bag with my chocolate almond biscotti was clutched in my teeth.
“Gotta go, Ma. Camilla's getting in. Don't worry about anything.” Alvin, my office assistant, hung up the phone.
“I hope I don't find another batch of collect calls from Sydney on the next phone bill,” I said.
“Hey, Camilla. Just fourteen days left before Valentine's Day, le jour de l'amour.”
“Do not speak.” I kicked the door closed. Valentine's Day is never my favourite occasion. This year my sister had chosen it for her wedding day. Another strike against it.
The bag with the biscotti slipped from my mouth and tumbled to the floor. Naturally, the cellphone rang again.
“Gee, I wonder who that is?” Alvin said. “We've already had a couple of calls from your sisters this morning.”
I let it ring. “Tell me something I wouldn't already know.”
Alvin tossed his ponytail. “This wedding is making you grouchier than usual, although that is hard to imagine. Try to chill out.”
“I'm chilled, Alvin.”
I plunked the latte on his desk and started to remove layers. Trusty parka. Wool hat. Thinsulate gloves. Snazzy leather boots. They were just three months old. Too bad they held in the damp and let out the heat. I had to replace them, but it was too cold to shop. I hate when my teeth chatter.
“People carry on about the weather up here, but I think it's all in the mind,” Alvin smirked.
“Oh, come on, don't you miss those mild Atlantic winters, Alvin? Soft fog, gentle breezes, mild temperatures?”
“Wet feet,” Alvin said, “grey days. Nope. Give me real weather any time. I love this stuff.”
Too bad. I always had high hopes I'd stumble on a way to send Alvin back to his loving family in Nova Scotia.
As usual, it was marginally warmer inside the offices of Justice for Victims than outside. I kept on the fleece, the silk long underwear and the red thermal socks—good to thirty below. I figured it wouldn't take more than twenty minutes until my toes rejoined the party.
You get what you pay for in office space. In our case, not much. Justice for Victims is in a lousy financial position at best. It would be a hell of a lot worse if I took a realistic salary. Or if Alvin did.
Was it my imagination or could I see my breath? I put the hat back on.
“Guess you're not expecting anyone to drop in,” Alvin said.
I still didn't bite.
“Wind chill factor must be some new record. I can tell because all those little hairs on your upper lip are covered with frost.”
My hand shot up to my face.
“What hairs on my upper lip?” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop myself.
Alvin so often wins in the game of gotcha. As if it weren't bad enough being the stubby, dark-haired younger sister to a trio of elegant, willowy blondes, now I had a moustache. This could send my family into crisis. They'd have me waxed and plucked and probed by a dermatologist if they even suspected a hairy upper lip.
Alvin leaned back and flicked his ponytail over his shoulder. Behind the cat's eye glasses, his eyes glittered. He didn't react to the cold other than conversationally. The shirt with the parrot motif was a nice touch. So was the Jimmy Buffett CD. “Margaritaville” blasted out of Alvin's portable player.
But what was different about him? Ah. I spotted the squeeze tube of flash tan on the desk. That explained the coconut scent in the air. It also explained why Alvin's face was an odd shade of rust, as was one of his arms.
“Are you turning orange, Alvin? Perhaps you should seek medical attention before it's too late.”
“I'm using the power of positive thinking. You should try it. Decide it's not cold. Let your mind dictate to your body.”
“Assuming you have a mind,” I muttered. “The jury's still out.”
But Alvin wasn't finished. “If your mind dictates to your body, then you don't have to be a prisoner of winter and wear ugly clothes and have frost on your lip which makes you look like W. O. Mitchell. The white moustache, I mean, especially teamed with those red socks. Although, I'm not sure W.O. would have been caught dead in that hat.”
I picked up the coffee from his desk, bent down and retrieved the bag with the biscotti, and limped over to my own desk. I sat in silence and popped the lid. All the foam was gone. I took my first taste. Slightly better than a cold shower.
“It's not a style for everybody, but you carry it off, Camilla.”
Sometimes you have to make the best of adversity. On a typical day, I send Alvin on clusters of low-level yet time-consuming errands all over town: the post office, the dry cleaners, the bank. He finds addresses from the public library, pays traffic tickets at City Hall, and picks out birthday cards for my sisters, although after his last selection I had to stop that. But this could be the morning to send him to the drugstore for panty liners.
I dipped my biscotti into the flat cool latte and daydreamed about precisely what it would take to carry Alvin out of my life. I was rubbing my socks in an effort to restore feeling to my toes when the phone rang. And rang again.
“Answer the phone, Alvin.” I did not swear. I did not indulge in sarcasm. I did not hyperventilate. Not even on the third ring. I didn't want Alvin to press my buttons. This was harder than it sounds. “And take a message if it's one of my sisters.”
Midway through the fourth ring, before it flipped over to call answer, Alvin lifted the receiver with a languid hand and produced the kind of upbeat chirp you might expect in a chewing gum commercial.
“Justice for Victims. Good morning! Yes. Yes, it is. What? Oh! All right, certainly, I'll see if she's available. Please hold.”
“What? Of course I'm available. I'm right in front of you.” I reached over and snatched the receiver from Alvin's hand. “Camilla MacPhee here.”
“It's your sister,” Alvin said.
“Damn.” Too late. I didn't even have time to ask which one.
Edwina's measured tones drifted down the line. “Camilla, you have to get rid of that boy.” In a previous life Edwina might have been a head of state, leading the population through war and famine, brooking no opposition, keeping the dungeons full. Of my three sisters, she is the one I am least fond of finding on the end of a phone line.
“Perhaps you're right,” I said, “but I'm always afraid they'll bring back the death penalty.”
“Why can't he answer the phone like any normal person?”
“He