"n.o.body's perfect, Jo. Anyway, I'm not working for him for much longer."

"It didn't work out?"

"It worked out. For a while, anyway. Gary has his faults, but I've always found him easy to get along with. And I liked the quiet around here." She placed the tape carefully along the top flaps of a packing box. "Unfortunately, it was too quiet."

"The firm was having trouble getting clients?"

She narrowed her eyes. "Look, Jo, maybe we shouldn't be talking about this. Anyway, you're the one who's got the mega-problem these days. Have the cops managed to find out who killed Maureen Gault?"

"No, that's why I'm here. I need to talk to Gary. Will he be back today?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. Gary's not exactly the poster boy for effective office practices."

"If he comes back, ask him to call me, would you? I don't want to go to his house. Sylvie thinks I'm Public Enemy Number One."

"I wouldn't let that keep you away."

"It won't," I said.

"Jo, can I tell Gary what you want to see him about?"

"Sure. Tell him I want to talk to him about the day before Ian died."

Her body tensed with interest. "They've found something, haven't they? Ian's death wasn't just lousy luck. There was a reason he was killed."

"They haven't found anything," I said, "but I think I have." As I told her about the evidence pointing to Maureen Gault, I could see the anger in Lorraine's eyes.

"You think she planned to kill him?"

"That's exactly what I think."

"But why would she want him dead?"

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out. Lorraine, could there be anything in Ian's appointment book that would shed some light on this?"

"Such as ...?"

"Such as the people he saw the last week. Maybe there was somebody out of the ordinary. Howard and Jane remember an old Ukrainian man who was around the night of the party. Does that ring a bell?"

She shook her head. "It's been such a long time, Jo." She smoothed the masking tape on the box in front of her. "I can tell you right now there won't be a clue in the last week's appointments. Ian wasn't there. Remember, you two took off the week before Christmas to go cross-country skiing with the kids."

"We went down to Kenosee. I'd forgotten." I said.

Lorraine picked up on the disappointment in my voice. "Don't give up on the office angle completely, Jo," she said. "Even if Ian wasn't there, I would have kept a record of his messages." She looked around the room. "I'm just about through here. I'll go over to the Legislature. I packed all Ian's stuff and sent it to the archives. It shouldn't be any problem to dig up Ian's appointment book. If anything looks interesting, I'll call you."

"Thanks, Lorraine," I said.

She came over and slid her arm around my waist. "Come on, I want to show you something." She took me over to the big plate-gla.s.s window that looked down on a parking lot. The area was a favourite for prost.i.tutes and for the johns who sought them out.

Lorraine pointed down. "That's where Gary parks his car," she said. "All last summer one of the street girls used his car as her office: sitting on the fender, fixing her makeup in the outside mirror, even lying over the hood and working on her tan when there wasn't any action. I must have volunteered twenty times to go down and tell her to beat it, but Gary wouldn't hear of it. He said everybody needs one place where they won't get ha.s.sled."

"And the point of the story is ...?"

Lorraine shook her head and smiled. "I don't know. Maybe just that Gary hasn't turned into as much of a rat as you think."

I hugged her. "Let's keep in touch, Lorraine."

One more errand and I could go home. By the time I left the Humane Society I was forty dollars poorer and a kitten richer. It was windy and cold when I drove into the Nationtv parking lot. I stuck the kitten inside my coat, and as I walked into the building I could feel the sharpness of its claws through my sweater. The door to Jill's office was open. She was on the phone, and she motioned for me to come in. When I took the kitten out of my coat, she said a fast goodbye to whoever she was talking to and leapt to her feet.

"I don't believe my eyes," she said. "You with a cat."

"I don't believe my eyes either," I said. "But here she is, and I'm appealing to you as a cat person to take care of her until after Taylor's party tomorrow."

"I accept," she said. "You can always count on cat people." She took the kitten from me and began stroking under its chin. I could hear the kitten's motor-hum of satisfaction. "So Taylor was the one who finally broke you down. How many times did the other kids ask for a cat?"

"Don't remind me," I said. "But it was all Taylor wanted."

Jill held the kitten against her cheek and rubbed. "How do you think Sadie and Rose are going to feel about an interloper?"

"They'll probably put out a contract on me," I said.

She looked at her watch. "The sun's over the yardarm somewhere. Do you have time for a drink?"

"I do," I said, "but you don't." I pointed to the cat. "You have responsibilities. Jill, could you bring her over tomorrow around 3:30? I thought the adults could get together for cake and a gla.s.s of wine when the kids had wound down a bit."

"I'll be there, at 3:30. Cat people are punctual to a fault, but of course now that you're a cat person yourself, you'll be learning that."

I stopped at the mall on the way home and bought the rest of Taylor's presents. After I'd hidden them in the bas.e.m.e.nt for wrapping later, I came upstairs and started dinner. I felt edgy but good. The answers seemed to be coming closer, I could feel it. I was rubbing rosemary into the lamb chops when the phone rang. It was Lorraine Bellegarde.

"I've got something," she said. "There was a stack of phone messages stuck in the appointments book. I guess after we heard about Ian, someone put them in there and forgot about them. Come to think of it, that someone was probably me. Anyway, there were the usual messages from const.i.tuents and government departments."

"How about from the Seven Dwarfs?"

"They all rang in. Do you want me to check who called when?"

"Could you?"

I wrote down the information and thanked her.

"And now for the piece de resistance," she said. "There were fifteen separate messages from Henry."

"Who's Henry?"

"I'm not sure, but I think he may be your old Ukrainian man. He called and called that last week. I remember him now. A sad old guy. He was always blowing his nose. Anyway, the bad news is he wouldn't leave his last name. The good news is he left his number."

"Bingo," I said. I repeated the number and wrote it down. "Thanks, Lorraine. Ian used to say he could always count on you to come through."

"Anytime, Jo," she said softly. "Anytime."

My heart was pounding as I dialled Henry's number. There were two rings. Then the operator's voice: "Your call cannot be completed as dialled. Please check the listing again, or call your operator for a.s.sistance." I hung up and looked again at the number. It could be long distance. I dialled one and tried the number again. This time I got through.

A young man answered. In the background, country music blared.

"Yeah," he said, not unfriendly.

"Could I speak to Henry?" I asked.

"There's no Henry here, lady."

I felt my heart sink. "He's an older man. Ukrainian."

He sounded kind but exasperated. "Lady, there's three of us share this house. None of us are Henry, none of us are older, and none of us are Ukrainian."

"Wait," I said. "How long have you had this number?"

"Three years." He started to hang up.

"Where are you?" I said. "Where do you live?"

"Lady ..." His voice was edgy.

"Just tell me the name of the city, please. It's important."

He laughed. "It's no city, lady. This is Chaplin, Saskatchewan, population 400."

I felt a rush. Chaplin. I should have known.

I had one more phone call to make. I dialled Beating Heart and got the machine. "Someone would be happy to help you during regular office hours which were ..." I hung up and opened the phone book at the M's. Tess Malone's home number wasn't listed. I dialled Beating Heart again and left Tess a message. "I need to talk to you about Henry," I said, and I left my name.

The phone rang again just as I was sliding the chops under the broiler. It was Jill.

"Did Taylor ask specifically for a female cat or was that just a whimsy of yours?"

"If I picked out a male, don't tell me," I said.

"Okay," she said, and the line was silent.

"I've changed my mind," I said. "Tell me."

"You chose a male," she said.

"How do you know?"

"I just lifted his tail and looked: three dots, not one. Next time, take me with you."

"There won't be a next time," I said, gloomily.

She laughed. "See you tomorrow."

After supper, Hilda took Taylor down to the library to return her books. I asked Angus to wrap presents while I made the birthday cake.

"What did we get her?" he asked.

"A case of cat food. A cat dish. A Garfield T-shirt and a book of cat cartoons from The New Yorker."

"Did we also get her a cat?" he said.

"A little ginger male. The man at the Humane Society says he's part Persian. What do you think about getting another pet?"

"I think it's amazing. Everybody knows how you are with cats. It's cool that you got one for T." He snapped his fingers. "Really cool. Okay, where's the wrapping paper?"

An hour later, when Taylor and Hilda came back, the presents were wrapped and the cakes were made. Taylor looked into the flowerpots critically.

"How did you make the dirt?"

"The way the recipe says to make it. A bag of Oreos pulverized in the food processor."

"And the mud?"

"Chocolate pudding and Dream Whip."

"And the jelly worms are in there?"

"All $5.27 worth."

She nodded. "Should I bring Jack in tonight or wait till tomorrow?"

"You're bringing Jack in?"

"For the party. For the centre of the table."

"T, he's getting pretty saggy. There are other things you could have as the centrepiece."

"Like what?"

"Angus had a clown head made out of a cabbage one year and an octopus another time. They were both pretty cute. And when Mieka was about your age, she had a doll with a cake skirt. Peter had a firehat three years in a row. You can pretty much use anything."

"Good," she said. "We'll use Jack." She leaned over and kissed me goodnight. The issue was settled.

Hilda was out with friends for the evening. After I tucked in Taylor, I made myself a pot of Earl Grey, sat down at the dining-room table, and thought of all the birthday parties that had been celebrated around it. I'd been a young mother when Mieka and Peter had had their parties. Children who had sat at this table singing "Happy Birthday" to my children were now old enough to have children themselves. And I was forty-nine. Not young.

Ian must have wasted a hundred rolls of film taking pictures of the kids' birthdays. He always managed to snap the shot at just the wrong time. We had a drawer full of photos of blurred children, of children with satanic red eyeb.a.l.l.s, and of me, looking not maternal but menacing, as I poised the knife above the birthday cake. Memories. But there were other memories. Better ones. Memories of the times after the parties when Ian and I would clean up, pour a drink, cook a steak, and be grateful for another year of healthy kids.

When I went upstairs to get ready for bed, Rose was in Angus's room sitting on the cape he had worn Hallowe'en night. I thought of the ginger cat, and went in and sat down on the floor next to her. I put my arms around her neck. "Changes for you tomorrow, old lady," I said. Full of trust, she nuzzled me. "Just remember," I said, "adversity makes us grow." She stood up expectantly. "We're not going anywhere tonight," I said. I picked up the cape. "Except down to the bas.e.m.e.nt to put this back. Look, it's covered in dog hair." I brushed off the cape and headed downstairs.

The trunk I'd taken the cape from Hallowe'en night was still open. I decided to check through the clothes inside to see if there was anything Peter or Angus could wear. I found a couple of sweaters and a pair of dress slacks that looked possible. I was sorting through a stack of sport shirts when I found the wallet. It was in a small bag, like a commercial Baggie, but of heavier plastic. The boys, never inspired in their choice of gifts, had given it to Ian that last Christmas. A young constable had brought the wallet, Ian's keys, and his wedding ring back to me after the trial. The wedding ring was upstairs in my jewellery box, and I'd given the keys to Peter when he started driving. I didn't remember putting the wallet in the trunk, but there was a lot I didn't remember about those months after Ian died.

I undid the twist-tie on the bag and took out the wallet. In the upstairs hall, the grandfather clock chimed. I opened the wallet. The leather was still stiff, and the plastic photo case was pristine. Christmas afternoon Ian had made quite a show of cleaning out his old wallet and transferring everything worth transferring to the new one. The boys had been very pleased. I looked through the photo case. There wasn't much there: Ian's identification, some credit cards, the kids' school pictures, Ian's party membership, and one picture of all of us that I'd forgotten about. We'd been in Ottawa, taking turns snapping pictures of one another in front of the Parliament Buildings, when a young man asked if we'd like a family picture. It had turned out well. I looked at us, suntanned and smiling in our best summer clothes, and I could feel my throat tighten. I reached inside the plastic to pull the photo out. There was another picture behind it, and I slid it out too. I hadn't seen this one before. It was a Santa Claus picture from a shopping mall.