A Very Tranquil Murder

Chapter 14

"Sorry to bother you," Angélique said, crossing the foyer in a taut, barefoot motion that hinted at the energy compressed into her muscular frame.

Her black eye-makeup looked thick and smudgy, as though she'd cried it off and reapplied it. Her voice was husky. The 'sorry to bother you,' really got me. In the time I'd been running the B&B, it was seldom enough that a guest had said 'sorry' for anything. Usually they were the ones complaining, and I was the one apologizing: Sorry the coffee wasn't hot enough. Sorry there weren't enough towels in the room. And, recently, Sorry that your loved one died in my thermal pool. Yet here was this tough lady, apologizing for bothering me with her pedicure appointment.

"It's no bother," I said. "Come this way."

She drew a silk mask from the pocket of her robe and put it on, as I led her through the bistro tables of the breakfast area toward the aesthetics room. I donned my mask as well, recalling the bad rap that nail salons had gained as spreaders of the coronavirus.

It had been one of the first incidents of unneighbourly conduct to hit the headlines last spring: as Ontario eased out of lockdown, the personal care businesses like hairdressers and nail salons had opened in smaller, more northerly towns, while still legally shuttered in Toronto and southern Ontario, the epicentre of infection in the province. This had prompted a group of Toronto women to drive two and a half hours to Kingston to get their nails done. You had to wonder what was so critical about a buff and a polish that people would go to these lengths in the midst of a pandemic. In any case, it turned out that one of the women was infected with COVID, and this had sparked a chain of transmission in a city that, previously, hadn't recorded a single case. In a sense we were all playing with fire, trying to keep our businesses open while not inadvertantly killing anyone.

I flicked a switch as we entered the room: salt lamps filled the room with an amber glow. A diffuser wafted lavender-scented mist into the air. Soothing music burbled from speakers hidden amidst leafy, green plants. I ushered her to the reclining chair in the middle of the room, laid a warm towel over her eyes, and set her feet to soak in a swirling bath of warm water. Her face, clenched tight with suppressed emotion, gradually relaxed. A tear trickled down her cheek.

"I'm really sorry about your friend," I said.

"Damn, I wasn't gonna start crying again. I told myself I wasn't gonna start crying again."

"Can I get you something to drink? A cup of tea, or maybe a glass of wine..."

"A glass of wine would be great, thanks."

Normally, I didn't serve alcohol to guests. Not only did I lack a liquor license, but as the owner of what strove to be an upscale B&B, it went against my brand to serve people the Chateau de $9.95 Plonk which I kept in the fridge to help me through the evenings when I had to work late. But I could make an exception for a woman who'd just spent the day making funeral arrangements for her friend who'd died in my thermal pool. I rummaged in the kitchen and came back with a generously-poured glass of red, provenance indeterminate.

"Thanks," she said, taking a gulp. "It's been a rough day."

I lifted her left foot out of the warm water and began to rub it with a gentle exfoliating scrub. She had callouses on the balls and heels of her feet. Apart from that her feet were well cared-for, though hardly delicate: square-toed, wide and strong.

"Tell me about Jerry," I said.

"Oh, Jer' was a real sweetheart. He came out to New Brunswick, about two, three years ago. He'd had some kinda big fight with his dad, I don't know what it was about. Anyway, he shows up at Carmela's place with everything he owns in the world stuffed into the back of this beat-up Datsun. And of course she takes him in.