She was more comfortable in the dark. Philip’s blood on the walls, it was the neatness that bothered her. There was no blood on the floor, and there had been no blood on the floor of her bedroom. The grotesque message scrawled with deliberate precision was intentionally obscure, she was certain of that — the meaning was in the way it was done.
“Thanks,” she said.
The other two women stepped back as she pulled open the bathroom door. Morgan was standing sentinel on the other side, facing away and framed by the busy glare in her bedroom. The body was covered with a clean sheet, like a rumpled bed.
2
The Message
Morgan and Miranda stood in the living room with Spivak and Eeyore Stritch. Morgan looked angry. Spivak seemed puzzled. He stared at Miranda with genuine concern, which was somewhat concealed behind his habitual scowl. His young partner seemed anxious.
“We’ve got a problem, Miranda,” said Morgan. “Your friend, they can’t find him.”
“What are you talking about?” she said, cocking her head toward the bedroom. “You can’t get more found than that.”
“Yeah, you can,” said Spivak.
“Someone’s in there,” Morgan said.
For a desperate moment she thought it was all a mistake, that it was someone else dead in her bed.
“His name is not Philip Carter. There was no Philip Carter at Ogilthorpe and Blackbourne, they’ve never heard of him.”
“Morgan, what are you talking about?”
“There’s no home in Oakville. No teenage daughters, no wife.”
For another weird moment, Miranda felt relieved; she would not have to bear the guilt for a widow’s grief or fatherless children.
“Your friend, he doesn’t seem to exist.”
“Is that an existential proclamation?”
“Listen to me. Philip Carter, his driver’s licence, his health insurance card, credit cards, they’re fakes.”
“No,” she snapped. “His address —”
“A Vietnamese variety store in Oakville. They met him once, he paid them, they forwarded his mail to a mailbox in Toronto.”
“But you know him, Morgan. For God’s sake, Philip is Philip.”
“We never met.”
She was incredulous. Morgan was so inextricably a part of her life.
“Never?”
“You never talked about him.”
“Really!”
“Okay,” said Spivak. “Enough true confessions.” He motioned Eeyore to come closer then turned to Miranda. “Where’d you meet this guy?”
“In court.”
“Lawyer, criminal, judge?”
“I met him coming out of a washroom.”
“Janitor?”
“Lawyer.”
“Women’s or men’s?”
“Me, I was coming out of the women’s. He was in the corridor. I walked straight into him.”
“In the courthouse?”
“Yes.”
“You were there for the Vittorio Ciccone trial?”
“I’m a witness.”
“Yeah, everyone knows you’re a witness.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Yeah, everything connected with Ciccone is complicated. Finding a dead guy in your bed, is that a Vittorio Ciccone complication?”
“Philip is a corporate lawyer. Was.”
“Drug lords need corporate lawyers, especially phantom corporate lawyers.”
“No, Philip didn’t know him.”
“It’s as dangerous to be for Ciccone as against him.”
“I’m neither.”
“You’re the link between a dead guy and a guy who kills people. You ever see him practise law?”
“No. How do you watch a corporate lawyer practise law?”
Spivak smiled, and the effort made him break into a rough, rising cough. “So tell me about the wife and kids?”
“He was married.” She refused to say he was “unhappily” married. “He had two teenage daughters.”
“You’ve seen pictures?” Spivak asked.
“He wanted to keep that part of his life separate.”
“From?”
“From the part he shared with me.”
“Generous man. You’ve known him for two months?”
“Nearly.”
“Not very well.”
“Who knows anyone very well?”
“Did you kill him?”
She felt rage choke in her throat and thought she was going to vomit again.
“Lookit,” said Spivak. “Why would a stranger use your gun to kill another stranger, mutilate the corpse with your knife — M.E. says he was gutted post mortem — and then scrawl with his guts on your walls, and oh, yes, with you sleeping through everything, not a mark on you?”
Silence.
“And one more thing,” said Spivak. “There’s gunpowder under your nails.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“Gawd no. I’m not even taking you down for questioning. But don’t leave town, as they say. You’re the prime until something better turns up. Sorry about the boyfriend.”
Miranda had known Spivak for years. He wasn’t a bad cop and he wouldn’t get in the way while she and Morgan conducted their own shadow investigation. The kid seemed agreeable, maybe a little odd.
It was midday and they were alone. Morgan found a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape in the kitchen cupboard. A recent vintage, but with a fulsome aroma. He did not recognize the label; this surprised him. He poured them each a long drink, using crystal stemware he had never seen before.
Leaning side by side against the counter, they toasted in a grim salutation to the surrounding emptiness.
After a while, they toasted again.
“Here’s to old what’s-his-name,” said Miranda.
“Yeah,” said Morgan. “To Philip.”
“He brought this for a special occasion,” she said. She was cupping the tulip-shaped bowl of the glass in her hand. Morgan reached over, took the glass from her, then returned it so she could properly grasp only the stem.
She offered a wan smile of acquiescence. She could feel the warmth of her lover’s body, his hands, his breath.
The wine was the colour of arterial blood before it congeals. She sipped but it tasted raw, although Morgan was enjoying it.
“The prints on my gun, my prints should