Speak Ill of the Dead. Mary Jane Maffini
getting out with Edwina’s lips pursed like that.
“I know,” sighed Alexa, twisting her napkin. “Poor Deb Goodhouse.”
“She is a little bit broad in the beam, but even so…”
Donalda didn’t get to finish her sentence.
“Her beam is not the issue. The woman is a well-respected politician and a wonderful contributor to the community. She’s given a lot of herself to environmental projects and to helping the third world and what does she get in Canada’s best-selling women’s magazine? Not a word about her achievements, just her backside. After I read that article, I cancelled my subscription.”
Well, I bet that showed them, Edwina, I thought.
“Poor, poor Deb.” Alexa was still milking the poor Deb theme.
I’d never given a moment’s thought to the Hon. Ms. Goodhouse before I read the article in Femme Fatale. Somehow she seemed to be important to my sisters.
“She some kind of a friend?” I asked.
The three of them turned and looked at me.
“Oh, Camilla,” said Alexa.
“Of course, she’s a friend,” said Donalda. “Don’t you remember? We all went to St. Jim’s together. She used to be at the house all the time.”
“So what was I then? Seven years old?”
“All the same. You must remember Deb.”
“Right,” I said, referring to woolly memories of a beefy brunette scattered among the long blondes, all of them giggling and smoking cigarettes and listening to Pat Boone in the upstairs bedrooms.
“You must remember how excited we all were when she won her first federal election.” Edwina gestured around the table to indicate that I was not only unaware, but also alone, in my lack of excitement.
The other girls nodded, as did my father and Stan. Joe smiled to himself, managing a hole-in-one on his internal golf course.
“I guess I missed it.”
“It was around the time of…” Edwina started to say Paul’s death but was silenced by the tensing of muscles around the table, signalling the topic was about to change. Every one in my family is always worried that any talk of Paul will plunge me into some internal chaos, from which I will never recover. I’m not so sure they’re wrong. We don’t get nearly as agitated over Alexa’s much more recent widowhood. The topic veered to the highlights of Deb Goodhouse’s career.
“So was she upset by these articles in Femme Fatale?” I asked.
A rustle of relief around the table confirmed the tricky topic of Paul had not caused me to plummet into instant depression. I guess I was as relieved as anyone else.
“Oh, yes,” said Alexa. “She was very hurt. They were terribly personal and insulting.”
“And even worse,” Edwina broke in, “she thought they trivialized everything she’d been working on. You know, these women politicians, it’s a pretty tough life for them, and then, to have the only article ever written about you in a national magazine focus on your backside, well….” Edwina became speechless at this point.
“Quite an effect,” I agreed.
“Not only that, but her blood pressure went practically through the roof,” said Alexa.
“Indeed?” I said. “She must have hated Mitzi.”
“God, yes,” said Alexa, avoiding my father’s flicker at her minor profanity, “Deb felt like killing her.”
Everyone made a point of letting me know this was just a figure of speech, only an emotion and not a reality, and Deb Goodhouse could never have crucified Mitzi Brochu, in case I had drawn that conclusion from Alexa’s remarks. Even Joe came back to earth during the brouhaha.
“Don’t worry about it, girls, I wasn’t about to call the police.”
“Well, of course not,” they said in unison, and changed the subject yet again.
“So, how’s Robin doing?” Donalda asked.
“She’s still in bed.”
“Still in bed!” said Edwina.
“Dr. Beaver’s been giving her sedatives. He says she’s too emotionally fragile to be up yet or to be on her own.”
“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…”