LITMIR.BIZ

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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 the grey Persian. And the plump little three-coloured number, which Robin said was a calico cat. I didn’t know their names and didn’t plan to find out.

      It was just before nine and I decided to try a few chores to bore me to sleep. Reading the week’s papers, locating the week’s laundry, washing up the week’s dishes. Not that I cherish these chores, just that I find it better in the long run if I attend to them. And they are soporific.

      But the visit from my sisters earlier in the week had thrown the schedule off. The laundry was done, and there were only the breakfast dishes in the sink. Most of the papers had disappeared. Figuring I could limp on for another week without indulging in drudgery, I shook the Persian off the remaining papers and retired to the balcony with a lamp, an extension cord and a clear conscience.

      My apartment building is perched on the edge of the parkland which borders the Ottawa River Parkway. The balcony looks down on the Ottawa River from sixteen stories. To the North lie the Gatineau hills, green and rippling even in mid-May. I can see the bike and pedestrian pathways like ribbons along the river. And to the East, the green-roofed Parliament and Supreme Court buildings. A turn of the head shows downtown Ottawa, highrise clusters with more blotches of green, some with green rooftops and others consisting of mundane blocks of concrete and glass, creating wind tunnels. I could make out the mellow pink of the Harmony Hotel, the top stories glowing between two office towers.

      The Harmony Hotel, where Mitzi Brochu had checked into a spacious peach suite, expecting luxury and finding death.

      The Harmony Hotel, where Robin had kept an appointment and discarded her mental health.

      The Harmony Hotel, I thought, is the key to understanding everything.

      I chucked the papers back into the corner of the living room and lifted a cat from my favourite pair of running shoes.

      It was time to start sticking my nose in. And I knew the place to start.

      Forty minutes later, I walked into the lobby of the Harmony Hotel.

      Another girl with big hair was working the Reception Desk. This one’s tag said Naomi and she didn’t trill, she chirped.

      I flashed my driver’s license in front of her, and said, “We found a few gaps in the Mitzi Brochu investigation. Can you confirm a few facts, ma’am?”

      It wasn’t my fault if she mistook me for the police. Her eyes widened.

      “What kind of facts? I wasn’t on duty that day. But I’m sure one of the others…or even Mr. Sandes could…”

      “Don’t worry about it. You’ll be fine. I just need you to check the files to see if anyone was sharing Suite 815 with the victim on this trip. Or on any of her previous trips.”

      “One minute, please,” she breathed and vanished through a door behind the counter.

      I was drumming my fingers on the marble surface, when a voice behind me said, “Good evening, Ms. MacPhee, will you join me in my office?”

      The day had not been good to Richard Sandes, perhaps because he was still at work at night. His hair was a little greyer than I remembered it and there seemed to be extra space in his suit. I remembered him being very sick in the powder room after we’d found Mitzi’s body. Very sick and for a very long time.

      “Smoke?” he said, passing me the package.

      “No, thanks.”

      But his smile was still in working order. His eyes were rich and dark, like Belgian chocolates.

      “Naomi seems to be under the impression

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