Free A Colder Kind of Death by Gail Bowen Page A

downstairs, I took the paper outside and shoved it into the middle of the stack in our Blue Box. Out of sight, out of mind. I made porridge and, for the next half hour, life was normal. The night before, Hilda had volunteered to stay a few days to keep my spirits up during what she called “this trying time.” I turned her down flat, but as I watched her help Taylor braid her hair, I was glad Hilda had overruled me.
    When Angus came to the table, it was apparent he hadn’t been listening to the radio. He knocked over the juice, and, as he mopped up, he grumbled about a bill that showed he owed Columbia House $72.50 plus handling charges for cassettes and CDS.
    Taylor, who was turning six on Remembrance Day, chirped away about plans for her birthday. “What I want,” she said, “is a cake like the one Jess had. His mum made it in a flowerpot and there were worms in it.”
    Angus emptied about a quarter of a bag of chocolate chips onto his porridge. “You know, T, that’s really gross,” he said.
    I took the chocolate chip bag from him. “Speaking of gross …,” I said.
    Taylor grinned at her brother. “They’re not real worms. They’re jelly-bellies. On top, Jess’s mum had brown icing and flowers made out of marshmallows. Jo, do you think you could ask her how she did it?”
    “Consider it done,” I said.
    “Probably we’ll need to make two,” Taylor said thoughtfully. “I have a lot of friends.”
    “I’ll ask Jess’s mum to copy out the recipe twice,” I said.
    Taylor shook her head. “That’s another one of your jokes, isn’t it, Jo?” She took her cereal bowl to the sink and trotted off upstairs.
    Angus leaned towards me. “Am I supposed to be at this party?”
    “Only if you expect help paying that $72.50. I hear Columbia House has goons who specialize in shattering kneecaps.”
    He flinched. “I’ll be there,” he said, and he stood up and started for the door.
    “Hang on a minute,” I said. “Angus, something happened last night. I think you should take a look at the paper before you go to school.”
    I brought the paper in, and as he read it, his eyes widened with concern. “They don’t think you did it, do they?”
    “I don’t know what they think,” I said. “But I know I didn’t kill Maureen Gault.” I put my arm around his shoulder. “Angus, this is going to work out. But you’d better prepare yourself for a little weirdness at school.”
    “I don’t get it, Mum. Maureen Gault just shows up out of nowhere and all of a sudden she’s dead and they think it’s you. It doesn’t make any sense.”
    “It doesn’t make sense to me, either,” I said. “But Angus, there isn’t any logic here. Whatever else happens, hang on to that. ‘This invites the occult mind,/ Cancels our physics with a sneer.’ ”
    He furrowed his brow. “What?”
    “Chill out,” I said.
    He gave me a small smile. “Yeah,” he said. “And you stay cool, Mum. There’s going to be weirdness coming at you, too.”
    He was right. I could hear my 10:30 class buzzing as I came down the hall, but as soon as I stepped into the classroom, there was silence. They seemed to have trouble looking at me, and I remembered a lawyer on TV saying he always knew the verdict was guilty if the jury couldn’t make eye contact with the defendant. Some of my colleagues seemed to have a problem with eye contact too. As I passed them inthe hall going back to my office after class, they muttered hello and hurried by.
    When I opened my office door, I was glad to see Howard Dowhanuik sitting at my desk. He had shaved and he was wearing a fresh shirt, but he looked like a man who had been up all night. When he saw me, he smiled.
    “First friendly face I’ve seen since I got here,” I said.
    “That bad?”
    “That bad,” I said. “This is a city that reads its morning paper.”
    “That’s why they keep the morning paper at a Grade 6 reading level,” Howard said.
    “Whatever happened to your reverence