Flight of Aquavit (6 page)

the more than obvious.

“Yes,” he agreed. “I did like Jo. Very much.”

“Yet you think he’s the one who’s doing this to

you, you think he’s the blackmailer?”

Daniel seemed to shake himself clear of the

images of young Jo and resumed the serious busi-

ness at hand. “Yes.”

“Why exactly?”

“Because he was in my house.”

“Did he do something that night to make you

suspect him now? Did he say something? Steal

something? Try to contact you again?”

“No,” he admitted. “None of those things. We

met only the one time. But just the fact that he

knows where I live, knows my name, knows

about…the sex, makes him the likely candidate.

The only candidate. And in addition to the obvi-

ous fact that we’d had sex together, it would have

been so easy that night for Jo to figure out I was

married and financially well off.”

42 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t

He had a point. “I suppose that’s true.”

“It’s him, Russell, I know it.”

“What else can you tell me about him? What

did he look like?”

“Well, he was twenty-two. He had long, blond

hair and he wore it messy-like and parted in the

middle. Blue eyes. Lean but well toned if you

know what I mean? Really white teeth. He smiled

a lot, like it came easy to him and there was a bit

of a gap between his two front teeth. Cute. He was

articulate for a young guy. I guess the acting classes

did that, I don’t know. He seemed natural, real

sure of himself, confident. He laughed a lot.” He

stopped there, his cheeks a peachy-pink, then

added, “Do you need to know…y’know, more

physical details about him?”

I may have blushed too but I doubt it. “No, I

don’t think I’ll be needing those characteristics to

identify him. But if I do, I’ll get back to you.”

He smiled shyly. Really, he did.

“Anything else?” I asked. “Anything I might

be able to use to track him down?”

“It took him less than twenty minutes on his

bike to get to my place, so he must live within that

radius of my house.”

I didn’t think that would be too helpful. It

would be a better clue in a metropolis the size of

Toronto or Montreal or Los Angeles, but, if you hit

the traffic right, you can get a quarter of the way

across town by bicycle in that amount of time in a

city the size of Saskatoon. “You said he was a

drama student?”

“More than that, actually. He said he’d gotten a

Anthony Bidulka — 43

bit part in some local play and that I should ‘check

it out.’”

Now this was interesting. “Did you? What the-

atre?”

Daniel scoffed at the question. “Of course not.”

Then just as quickly realized the loss of a potential-

ly valuable clue. “I guess I should have asked him

more questions about it but I really didn’t…”

He really didn’t care is what I guessed he was

about to say, but he let the sentence dissipate.

“This was October?” I asked, mentally figuring

out how I could extract as much as possible from

this bit of information. “Early or late in the

month?”

“Early.”

“Daniel, you’re convinced Jo the drama student

is our top suspect?”

Daniel cleared his throat to firm up a voice that

had grown rumbly and perhaps a bit weary. “Yes,

Russell. There is no doubt in my mind that Jo is

Loverboy. Jo is the man who is out to ruin my life.”

“The Travelodge Hotel and Banquet Facility. This is

Marianne speaking, how may I direct your call?”

said the cheery female voice.

“I’d like to speak to your banquet manager,” I

told Marianne. I was now back in my office with a

contract signed by Daniel Guest promising to pay

me ninety-five dollars an hour plus out-of-pocket

expenses and applicable taxes as well as a retainer

cheque for $1500. I like clients who show up with

cheque books and aren’t afraid to use them.

44 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t

“That would be Natalie. Hold on and I’ll con-

nect you.”

As I waited through an interminable chorus of

clicks and buzzes there were enough clicks and

buzzes in my own head to run an entire phone

company. I had a million questions following my

meeting with Daniel. We had certainly made some

headway, but I sensed he still doubted the PI

approach to solving his problem and in the end I

decided it was best to let him scamper off to the

safety of his accountant world while I did a bit of

initial snooping around.

Finally I heard Natalie’s phone ringing.

“Banquets. Marge speaking.” A less cheerful voice.

“Yes, I’m looking for Natalie.”

“She won’t be in ’til after one.”

I looked at my watch, did some fast calculations

of traffic and travel time and said, “Okay, could

you book me in to see her at that time?”

Marge hesitated, as though I’d called KFC and

tried to order pizza. “You want an appointment,

like?”

“Sure. I’ll only need a few minutes of her

time.”

“Well, like I says, she’ll be back around one.”

So did that mean I had an appointment or

would it be a matter of luck to catch her at her

desk? I didn’t think Marge gave a hoot one way or

the other. I said my thanks and hung up. I put my

computer to sleep, grabbed my coat, a favourite

brown suede with a faux fur lining, and headed

downstairs. I found one of the homemade muffins

Beverly regularly stocks in the kitchen. That

Anthony Bidulka — 45

would have to do for lunch today. As I waved to

Lilly and told her I’d likely be out the rest of the

day, I noticed Errall’s waiting room was still

crammed with clients. Busy girl.

Outside I unplugged my Mazda RX7, threw

the cord into the trunk and, nearly frozen solid by

the time I sat inside, was ever thankful for the car-

warmer I’d installed last year. I let the car run for

a minute. One of the benefits of having a small

vehicle in a cold climate is that it doesn’t take

much time for the heater to do its job. I directed

the car towards 22nd Street hoping to get out of

downtown before the lunchtime crowd got mov-

ing. Noon hour traffic is especially fierce close to

Christmas. For some reason, even though stores

are open seemingly all hours of every day, every-

one gets the same bright idea that they’ll find that

perfect gift if they can just slip out for a few min-

utes over their lunch break. As if there really was

any chance it would only take a few minutes—or

such a thing as the perfect gift.

Persephone Theatre is one of the best of several

options for live theatre in Saskatoon. Even though

it is illogically located in the middle of a residential

no man’s land near the west end of town, it’s been

around for over thirty years so they’re obviously

doing something right. And I hoped I was too.

I pulled up to the converted one-time church,

grateful for the empty parking lot adjacent to the

front doors. In Saskatchewan, wise wintertime

parking decisions always involve keeping vehicle-

46 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t

to-shelter distance at a minimum. But as luck

would have it, the front doors were locked. I

pulled up my collar, stuffed my un-mittened

hands in my jacket pockets and ran around the

side of the building to where I hoped I’d find an

office entrance. And indeed, up a barely shovelled

walk and through a door with a cracked glass, I

found what looked to be a small reception area.

Behind a scarred desk that I imagined once

belonged to a curmudgeonly old school teacher (I

think the theatre atmosphere was inspiring my

sense of the dramatic) sat a very pale girl with

very black hair eating a very insubstantial looking

sandwich. Butter and lettuce maybe, on paper-

thin white bread.

“Hello, my name is Rick Astley and I’m the

Artistic Director for Theatre Quant in Mission.” I

was betting she wasn’t old enough to be up on her

late 1980s teen idol trivia or informed enough

about British Columbia community theatres to

catch on to my clever ruse. And actually she

looked pretty unimpressed with life in general,

regardless of the decade. I continued on, hoping

my enthusiasm, if not my really bad English

accent, would be contagious. “I’ve been visiting

Saskatoon and of course have made a point of

seeing each of the current season’s Persephone

productions. Well, one of your actors has caught

my eye. And now that I’m preparing for a

remake of the classic
Who’s Afraid of Valerie

Bertinelli
, I just have to have him for one of the

lead roles.” I stopped there to give her an oppor-

tunity to express her amazement.

Anthony Bidulka — 47

She blinked.

“So I was hoping you might help me get in

touch with him. I know you will want to. Acting is

such a risky career these days. Always has been

actually. I used to do some acting myself, you

know—Shakespeare—the exquisite bard—now

that is real acting. You’ve no doubt heard of me?”

Nibble, nibble.

“Of course I’m better known for my roles in

more contemporary classics like, ‘She Wants to

Dance With Me’ and ‘Take Me to Your Heart,’

which I’m sure you’re familiar with, being a part

of the theatre world as you are.”

Blink, blink.

“But great roles were hard to come by and I

finally found myself ‘Giving Up on Love,’ my love

of acting that is and turning to directing. And of

course my reputation in that arena is…well, let

me just say, ‘I’ll Never Let You Down.’ So, do you

think you can help me, Miss…?”

“Rebecca.” She had finally put down the sand-

wich and managed a look of idle curiosity. “You’re

who again?”

Brave young thing. “Rick Astley. You see I have

a description of the actor I am looking for, but no

name or contact information.”

“You saw him when?”

She must not have been able to chew and listen

at the same time. Probably for the better, she

might have actually recognized one of Astley’s

bigger hits and revealed me as a fraud.

“This past fall. You have what, three shows in

the fall season?”

48 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t

“Uh-huh. But, I only just started working here

this month.”

I was not shocked by this news.

“There’s really no one else here who could

help.” She screwed up her face. I’m sure she was

wondering if that meant she’d actually have to do

something herself. “Our last show just closed and

most of the management people are gone on

Christmas break. They’ll be back after the holi-

days though,” she added sluggishly.

“Oh dear, well, I’ll have to cast the show long

before then. I’d hate for this actor to lose this

opportunity to make some good money doing

wonderful theatre.”

She nodded sympathetically. “Yeah, yeah,

that’s for sure. But I don’t know how we could

help you without a name or anything.”

Perfect, just the opening I was looking for. “Do

you have a copy of the programs for the shows

you’ve done this past season?”

“Well, yeah, sure.”

“Could I take a boo?”

“Huh?”

“Take a look, dear, could I please take a look at

those programs?”

“What show did you say it was?” Her voice

was whiny, as if she was beginning to strongly

suspect this might involve some effort on her

behalf.

“Unfortunately I don’t recall. Could I see all

three?”

She lethargically pulled open a drawer that

must have weighed several tonnes given the effort

Anthony Bidulka — 49

she expended to do so and pulled out just the doc-

uments I was looking for. I quickly scanned the

first one and was gratified to see that indeed the

photographs of each of the actors for each produc-

tion, as well as those of the staff of the theatre,

were semi-glossily reproduced in miniature. I went

over all the pictures in the three programs and

identified five men who could conceivably fit the

description of Jo given to me by Daniel Guest. So

far so good. Next hurdle.

I looked up at Rebecca and judged her recov-

ered enough from the drawer opening adventure

to move ahead with a new task. “Now, I ask all