“What does he know about emotional shock, you tell me that?” said Donalda, “If she were my daughter, I’d send her to the vet before I’d let old Bucky Beaver look after her.”
“Tell me about it,” said Alexa. “I’m surprised he didn’t recommend mustard poultices to draw out the poisons in her system. Or maybe he did. Camilla?”
“Sorry to disappoint, but I think it’s just good old fashioned tranquilizers.”
“Well, none of my business, of course, but Robin hasn’t really led such a sheltered life. I mean, she is a working lawyer and she did do a lot of legal aid work before she went into real estate law and, sure, it’s traumatic finding a dead body, but don’t you think she’s over-reacting?” asked Edwina.
“I’d like to see how any of you would hold up if you stumbled across a crucified, bleeding corpse, still warm.”
“Pass the lamb, dear,” said Stan.
“On the other hand,” said Edwina, “you stumbled across the very same bleeding corpse, still warm, too, I believe. And yet, here you are bouncing off to work and indulging in a full and active social life.”
Fighting off the memory of dead Mitzi while I slumped around the office and getting dragged off to family dinners with shades of the Spanish Inquisition was more like it. Still, Edwina had a point. Robin was overdoing it.
“Unless,” Edwina continued, “Robin killed this woman. Then she’d have a reason to feel so upset.”
“Edwina,” said my father.
And I’d thought he was dozing at the other end of the table.
“I know, Daddy, but she was there, all covered in blood and she won’t tell anybody why she was in that room and now she’s verging on a catatonic state. Something’s very strange about all that.”
“Oh, Edwina, you can’t think Robin would kill anybody.
We’ve known her since she and Camilla were kids. It’s not possible,” said Donalda.
Donalda was right. It was far, far more likely I would kill somebody. And even that was out of the question most of the time.
Edwina was not one to give up when she was onto a good angle.
“Maybe Mitzi Brochu had something on her and was going to do an article on it.”
“Oh, right, Edwina,” I said, “and what would Mitzi have on Robin? Putting too much milk in the cats’ dishes? All of Canada would rush to the newsstands to buy that issue.”
“You may be her best friend, but you don’t know everything about her.”
“Yes, I do know everything about her. And I know she didn’t, and she couldn’t kill anybody.”
I felt unshakable certainty about this. I’d thought for hours about Robin and what she could have done. I’d examined every memory I had of her since the day in kindergarten, when we’d first shared the red crayon and become friends for life. Robin was always the one who helped the smaller kids with their overshoes and zippers. Robin always helped the old ladies cross the street. Robin would give anyone her last dime. Robin didn’t kill Mitzi.
But Robin, Robin, Robin, I thought, why are you lying?
“Maybe,” said Alexa, “she was in love and…”
This startling suggestion was followed by a strangled gasp from Donalda. We all turned to gawk at a set of teeth complete with full gums, sitting in the middle of the table next to the silver vase with the six baby roses. The teeth grinned in a mad parody of every denture advertisement ever made.
For a minute there was total, and uncharacteristic, silence at the table. Until Edwina reached forward to wipe that smile off her Irish linen tablecloth.
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA,” roared the teeth. “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHA…” Startled, Edwina dropped them into her Minton vegetable platter.
So that was what Stan had been prowling around in the basement for. A suitable replacement for the laughing mirror.
“HAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHA,” howled the teeth from on top of the broccoli.
With the exception of me and Joe, who didn’t return to earth this time, everyone collapsed with laughter. Donalda’s shoulders shook and her head bobbed. Alexa wheezed out heeheehees until twin streams of tears ran down her cheeks. Edwina had a full-bodied boom, not unlike the teeth in the broccoli. Even my father had to smile. Stan was a happy man.
“Get that damn thing out of here before I toss it,” I said.
Stan stretched toward the broccoli where our new friend was starting to wind down to a “hahaha”.
“She’ll do it!” he squeaked. “She threw the mirror out of the car.”
“Oh, Camilla” said Edwina. “He’s only trying to cheer you up.”
“He’ll have to try a lot harder,” I said.
Donalda reached over and patted my hand. “We all know how worried you are. But Robin will be okay. Her mother told me Brooke’s on her way back from Toronto. That should make a big difference for Robin to have her sister here.”
Sure, I thought. It will mean there’s that much less attention for her when she needs it the most. Brooke will siphon off every extra bit of tender loving care the Findlays were lavishing on Robin. They won’t even know it’s happening. If I knew Brooke, it would be just little things, but soon her mother would be busy altering clothing and making special little meals for Brooke’s friends, and making her bed and picking up after her. And what was this “on her way back” business? Toronto was a fifty minute flight or a four-and-a- half-hour drive. Why wasn’t Brooke at home already?
Somehow I couldn’t see Brooke soothing Robin after her nightmare. On the other hand, Robin, like her parents, would do anything for Brooke. Maybe even get out of bed to help out with the added workload Brooke always presented. Brooke might be good for Robin, but for all the wrong reasons.
As we started to clear the table, I got instructions to relax in the living room with the boys. Does all this special treatment make me the same kind of person as Brooke? I wondered as I lounged on the sofa. A user, a burner-up of the good will of others?
Alexa brought me a fresh cup of coffee. She leaned over and whispered, “He hasn’t called yet.”
My thoughts of Conn McCracken were not fond. I’d already had a couple of chats with him and all the information had been flowing one way. I had a feeling I would keep on hearing from him until he found out why Robin had gone to see Mitzi Brochu and why I’d gone with her. Whenever I’d ask him something, he’d indicate in that big, comfy way of his, that he couldn’t answer me.
“Count your blessings if he didn’t call, Alexa,” I said, thinking that the fewer complications any of us had in our lives, the better.
“Oh, Camilla.” She bit her lip as she flounced back to the kitchen.
I couldn’t help noticing she was wearing red lipstick for the first time since her husband had died.
My father eyed me warily from the armchair at the end of the living room. Finally, he spoke.
“Tell me,” he said, “how’s Alvin getting along?”
Four
Back in my apartment, I was so well-stuffed with lamb and rice and broccoli that I was ready to settle down for the rest of the evening. I shifted from novel to novel, from task to task. The phone at the Findlays’ was busy. And there were too many cats, everywhere you looked. I was getting used to them and even recognized the damn things. The black one, the white one with black markings, the ginger Tom, the tabby and