The Further Investigations of Joanne Kilbourn Read Online Free PDF

isn’t Detroit. No one could have predicted a drive-by shooting.”
    “Especially not of a model prisoner,” I said.
    Jill looked at me sharply. “Right,” she said. “And he was a model prisoner. Until six months ago, the warden said all he did was work out in the gym, watch television, and count the days till his next conjugal visit.”
    The elevator doors opened, and we stepped out. “With Maureen Gault,” I said, remembering. “The girl who was in the car with him that night. They got married during the trial, didn’t they?”
    “In unseemly haste, some thought.” Jill raised her eyebrows.
    “That’s when he changed his story.” Angus’s voice was tense. “I read that in the paper. After they got married, he said she tried to stop him from … doing what he did. That’s why her fingerprints were on the …” For a moment he faltered again. Then he said firmly, “on the weapon.”
    “The Crown dropped the charges against her that afternoon,” Jill said. “Just like in the movies.” She stopped and pulled a key-ring out of her jeans pocket. “Here we are,” she said. “Corporate heaven.”
    The boardroom was handsome: walls the colour of bittersweet, an oversized rectangular oak table surrounded by comfortable chairs, a big-screen TV , and, in the far corner, a refrigerator with fake wood finish. Jill opened the fridge and handed a Coke to Angus.
    “Pick a chair, any chair,” she said. She took out a bottle of beer, opened it, and positioned it carefully on the table. “Heads up, Jo,” she said, then she slid the beer along the polished surface of the table towards me. As I caught it, she grinned. “I’ve always wanted to do that,” she said. “Okay, it’s your show. Where do you want to start?”
    I bent over and took a tape out of the wagon. The label on the spine said “Kilbourn/Tarpley/Gault.” The names had the resonance of the familiar, like the names of partners in a law firm or of baseball players who had executed a historic triple play. I handed the tape to Jill. When she put it in the VCR and switched off the lights, my pulse began to race. I wasn’t looking forward to the show.
    But the first images that filled the screen weren’t of death but of life at its best. Ian was standing on the steps of the Legislature being sworn in as Attorney General. It was a sun-splashed June day; the wind tousled his dark hair and, sensitive even then about how his hair was thinning, Ian reached up quickly to smooth it. As he took the oath of office, the camera moved in for a closeup; at the sight of his father, Angus leaned forward in his chair.
    And then I was there on the screen, beside Ian. My hair was shoulder-length and straight; I was wearing a flowered granny dress and holding our oldest child, Mieka, in my arms. She was three weeks old, and I was twenty-eight.
    “You were so young,” Angus said softly.
    I felt a catch in my throat. Jill’s voice from the end of the table was caustic. “And her hair was so brown, Angus. Check it out …”
    A smile started at the corners of Angus’s mouth.
    “How come your hair didn’t turn blond till you were forty, Jo?” Jill continued.
    Angus’s smile grew broader. Relieved that we’d gotten through the moment, I said. “I don’t know. It seems to have happened to a lot of women my age.”
    “Maybe it had something to do with living through the sixties,” Angus said innocently, and we all laughed.
    Then the next image was on the screen, and we stopped laughing. It was the scene on the highway. Jill jabbed at the remote control and fast-forwarded the tape until the snowy highway gave way to scenes outside the Regina Courthouse. Police cars pulled up. Officers ran out of the building, then ran back in. Television people jostled one another for position. One young woman with a camera was knocked back into a snowbank. The sequences were as mindlessly predictable as a bad movie of the week.
    “This is where the RCMP brought Kevin