interesting stuff in there, but it can wait.” She waved the Chablis. “This, on the other hand, won’t keep for a minute.”
I poured us each a glass of wine.
Jill took hers and raised her glass. “To absent friends,” she said solemnly.
“To absent friends,” I said.
She pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and sat down. “So,” she said, “what’s shaking around here?”
“A mystery,” I said. “That mess you saw on my desk wasn’t of my making.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You mean somebody tossed it?”
“Hilda was working on some financial records that belonged to Justine Blackwell. I think they must have been looking for those. Judging from the fact that the papers are nowhere in evidence, I’m guessing that whoever attacked Hilda found what they were looking for.”
Jill sipped her wine thoughtfully. “This is beyond us, Nancy Drew.”
“I know,” I said. “I’ve already called the police. I’ve done everything I can. So have you. Let’s take the night off.”
“Good plan,” she said. “We can start by refilling our glasses.”
Dinner was less boisterous than usual, but we tried. Angus gave us a rundown on his team’s chances for the coming season; Taylor talked about the trip to the Legislature Ms. Anweiler was taking her class on the next day. Jill had some funny behind-the-scenes stories about NationTV. I recounted Ian’s mother’s parsley story. We all missed Hilda.
After supper, Jill and the kids drove to the Milky Way for ice cream and I went back to the hospital. It had taken a while to decide which book to bring to read to Hilda. There were three on her bedside table: Justine’s Geriatric Psychiatry: A Handbook, A. S. Byatt’s Still Life, and a translation of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History. In my opinion, none quite fit the bill. I was casting about for something when I remembered Hilda’s passion for L.M. Montgomery. So as I stepped into the elevator of the Pasqua Hospital, there was a copy of Anne of Green Gables in my hand.
I waved it at Nathan as I walked by the desk. “Ever read this?” I asked.
He looked up from his charts, “No, but I saw the TV series when I was fourteen, and I was hot for Megan Follows till I hit Grade 11.”
There was a new police officer outside Hilda’s door. He looked tougher than Mark Messier, and I didn’t stop to chat. I showed him my driver’s licence, went inside, pulled up my chair, and began to read: “Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies’ eardrops …” As the tubes attached to Hilda delivered their elixirs of antibiotics and nutrients and carried away her body’s waste, and the machines recorded heartbeats and blood pressure, I kept on reading. I read until the intercom announced that all visitors must leave and Anne, holding the carpet-bag that contained all her worldly goods, entered Green Gables for the first time. When I bent to kiss my friend goodnight, I thought I detected a flicker in her eyelids. As I passed Hilda’s police guard, he looked up at me. “Sorry to see you go,” he said. “I was just getting interested.”
Jill was still there when I got home. Angus and Leah were in the family room studying, and Taylor was in bed, but not asleep.
When she heard me come into her room, she propped herself up on one elbow. “How’s Hilda?” she asked.
“The same,” I said. “But no worse.”
“Is that okay?”
“Yeah,” I said, “that’s okay, at least for now.”
Taylor spotted the copy of Anne of Green Gables in the outside pocket of my bag. She leaned over and took it out. “Hilda told me a story from this,” she said. “It was about this girl who dyes her hair green. Hilda said she’d read the whole thing to me at Christmas if I learned to sit still for a book with no pictures.”
When I stood up after kissing my younger daughter goodnight, I was dizzy with exhaustion. The day had finally caught up with me. It took an act of will to force myself to go back downstairs. Jill was sitting at the kitchen table poring over the folder of information on Justine and her circle that she’d brought with her.
“Good stuff in here,” she said. Then she caught sight of my face and frowned. “You look lousy, Jo.”
“That only seems fitting,” I said, “because I feel lousy. Jill, stay as long as you like, but I’m heading for bed.”
Jill