The legacy, p.1
The Legacy, page 1
The Legacy
A Joanne Kilbourn Mystery
Gail Bowen
Contents
Dedication
Character Guide
Joanne’s Family
Associates
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Copyright
Dedication
For
James Holden, MD, FRCSC, Associate Professor, General Surgery
Kristopher Ledding, MD, Qualified Royal Order of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada
The countless medical professionals who have treated me with such skill and kindness since December 1, 2022
And as always for Jack David, my acquiring editor: an enthusiastic supporter and cherished friend
Character Guide
Joanne’s Family
Zack Shreve
Fifty-seven, Joanne’s second husband of nine years. Once a hard-driving, hard-drinking paraplegic trial lawyer who lived like an eighteen-year-old with a death wish, he fell in love with Joanne and decided to clean up his act.
Taylor Love-Shreve
Twenty-two, a gifted visual artist. Joanne adopted four-year-old Taylor when her mother, Sally Love, Joanne’s half-sister died. Lives with her childhood best friend, Gracie.
Mieka Kilbourn-Dowhanuik
Thirty-six, Joanne’s eldest daughter. Married to Charlie Dowhanuik (second husband). Mother to Madeleine (fourteen) and Lena (thirteen) from her first marriage and Desmond Zackary Dowhanuik (nearly two).
Peter “Pete” Kilbourn
Thirty-four, Joanne’s son, married to Maisie. Peter and Maisie have twin boys, Colin and Charlie (five).
Angus Kilbourn
Thirty, Joanne’s youngest son, engaged to Leah. He’s a lawyer in the Calgary branch of Zack’s law firm and a great admirer of his stepfather.
Leah Drache
Angus’s first love and fiancée. She’s an MD, daughter of author Steven Brooks and niece to psychiatrists Reva and Mila Drache, who helped raise her.
Charlie Dowhanuik (Charlie D)
Thirty-six, Mieka’s husband. Host of the hugely successful radio show, Charlie D in the Morning. It’s a mix of in-depth interviews, fun interviews, music and Charlie D’s riffs on life.
Maisie Crawford
Thirty-four, Joanne’s daughter-in-law, married to Peter. One of Zack’s law partners and a killer in the courtroom.
Esme, Pantera (d.), and Scout
Joanne and Zack’s dogs.
Goldie
Charlie and Colin’s new pup.
Associates
Neil McCallum
Bouvier dog breeder who has Down syndrome; owns an acreage east of Regina where he lives and operates with his mother, Margaret. A former friend of Kellee Savage (d.), Joanne first met him fourteen years prior during the Tom Kelsoe case.
Valentine “Val” Masluk
thirty-five, writer, and neighbour to the McCallums. Formerly Val Massey, Joanne’s journalism student fourteen years ago. Author of Steven Brooks: A Biography and Two Journalists, a novel based on the Tom Kelsoe investigation.
Rainey Arcus
Val’s researcher for his books and another former journalism student of Joanne’s.
Steven Brooks
Father of Leah Drache and the reclusive bestselling and award-winning author of Medusa’s Fate and The Iron Bed of Procrustes.
Georgie Kovacs (née Shepherd)
Mid-forties, Jo’s former writing partner on Sisters and Strangers, wife of Nick Kovacs, and former girlfriend of Steven Brooks.
Laurel Woodrow (d.)
An author whom Steven Brooks potentially plagiarized. She took her own life fourteen years ago, two years prior to the publication of Medusa’s Fate.
Rebecca Woodrow
Laurel Woodrow’s granddaughter who is bringing a plagiarism suit against Steven Brooks.
Patrick O’Keefe
Lawyer representing Rebecca Woodrow in her suit.
Tom Kelsoe
Killer, sociopath, and Joanne’s former co-lecturer at the School of Journalism. Currently in prison for the murders of journalism student Kellee Savage and professor Reid Gallagher fourteen years ago. Jo’s friend Jill Oziowy had formerly been in an abusive relationship with him.
Annie and Warren Weber
Friends of Jo and Zack; parents to older son Simon and baby daughter Maeve.
Simon Weber
Wedding photographer and son of Annie and Warren; former associate at Falconer Shreve who had to stop practicing law after suffering a psychiatric break.
Ed Mariani
Sixty, the head of the School of Journalism; work associate of Joanne’s and close friend. She was his best man at his wedding to his partner Barry.
Debbie Haczkewicz
Head of Major Crimes who knows Joanne and Zack well.
Kam Chau
Mid-thirties, executive producer for Charlie D at MediaNation.
Norine Macdonald
Zack’s executive assistant at his firm.
Sawyer MacLeish
Twenty-nine, a long-time friend of Joanne’s son Angus and like family to Joanne.
Chapter One
Morning, August 27, 2022
In spring, summer and early autumn, when we’re at our cottage at Lawyers Bay, my husband, Zack, and I usually sleep with our windows open. Except for the occasional tang of skunk, the air we breathe in is a gift, and on the Saturday morning of August 27, our bedroom was fragrant with the scent of stargazer lilies and summer’s last roses.
Zack and I were lying side by side, our hands touching. I stretched lazily. “We seem to be in for another day of glorious weather,” I said. “It looks as if our seemingly endless summer knows it’s time to pull out all the stops to remind us that nothing lasts forever.” My husband chuckled softly, but he didn’t respond.
I would be turning sixty-four in a month, and Zack was fifty-seven. From the day we stood in front of the altar at St. Paul’s Cathedral and promised to love and to cherish until death did us part, “seize the day” had been our byword. But as benevolent as the weather promised to be, a large question mark loomed over the hours ahead.
Our grandsons Charlie and Colin were going to choose their first puppy, and, still at the sweet age of nearly six, they wanted their grandparents to be part of the adventure. Zack and I were both dog-lovers. From the time I’d left boarding school, I had owned a dog — but our most recent, Pantera, had been Zack’s first dog. Pantera had been abandoned at our son Peter’s animal clinic. His young owners brought the bullmastiff in to be neutered, but, despite repeated calls from the clinic, they never picked him up. Finally, they severed their connection to Pantera with a brief and pithy text: “He was real cute when we got him, but he just kept getting bigger. Stop guilting us.”
I’d asked Peter to bring Pantera to my house to discuss his future and to see how he got along with my old dog. They were doing well, then Zack wheeled into the backyard; Pantera loped over to him, and it was love at first sight for both man and mastiff. Pantera turned out to be “a Velcro dog.” He had chosen Zack, and he was determined to stay by his side, come hell, high water or whatever perils awaited the man we both loved. Over the next eight years and eight months, Pantera was an intrinsic part of our family, and then, in early July, his big heart simply stopped beating. He had nine happy, healthy, loving years of life and a sudden and painless death.
The average lifespan of a bullmastiff is eight to ten years. That was a fact, and as a trial lawyer Zack was accustomed to dealing with unpalatable facts, but Pantera was the first dog Zack had ever owned, and he grieved. I was grateful that Pete and Maisie were with us the day Pantera died. Pete made the arrangements, and the next week we buried our much-loved mastiff in the spot under the Amur maple that he favoured for sunning.
In the almost two months since Pantera left us, Zack was always on the mark professionally and personally, but I knew he was suffering.
Saturday was the day we’d promised to meet the twins and their parents at breeder Neil McCallum’s acreage, sixty-seven kilometres east of Regina. The boys wanted to get an early start, so we’d arranged to meet them at nine thirty. When Zack came into the kitchen for breakfast, I knew he was miserable, but I also knew he was determined not to let the boys down. I’d made blueberry waffles, one of Zack’s favourites. When he saw them, he smiled appreciatively. “Thanks,” he said. “Your blueberry waffles could get me through just about anything.”
I watched as he poured on melted butter and maple syrup and then just stared at the plate.
“Zack, we don’t have to go,” I said . “I can call Pete and Maisie.”
“And tell them what? Jo, you remember how insistent Charlie and Colin were that I was the one who could help them pick exactly the right pup.”
“I do. And I remember that when you pointed out that their father is a veterinarian who could tell them everything they needed to know, Colin said, ‘But Daddy can’t read a story the way you do, Granddad. When you read a story I can feel it in my stomach.’”
Zack shook his head at the memory. “That sealed the deal,” he said. “Let’s eat our waffles and hit the road.”
“Would you like me to drive?” I said.
“You read my mind,” he said. “It’s an hour’s drive to the breeder’s, and I can use that hour to man up.”
* * *
For the first ten minutes of our drive, Zack was silent. Seemingly, manning up took time.
Finally, he said, “Okay. I think I’m ready to join the human race again. Tell me about Neil McCallum.”
“Well, for starters, I know you’ll like him. I haven’t seen Neil in fourteen years, but we talk on the phone a couple of times a month. And, of course, he always sends us a holiday letter with news and photos of his dogs.”
“I’m not big on holiday letters,” Zack said. “But I enjoy Neil’s. They seem to capture the spirit of the season.”
“That’s because Neil is always filled with the spirit of the season,” I said. “He’s made a very good life for himself. When I met him, he had his first Bouvier, and he was planning to breed her.”
“Judging by the photos, Neil’s built quite an empire with his Bouviers.”
“He has,” I said. “Neil has Down syndrome, and he and his mother work hard to maintain that empire. They have the town’s only concession stand, and they move it to wherever the action is. Neil says when you own a concession stand, there’s always something to look forward to. In the spring, there’s tee ball, baseball and horseshoes, so Neil and his mum set up in the park. In fall, there’s football, and the big fowl supper and then comes Christmas, so Neil and his mother set up in the hall that the town uses for the holiday market. After Christmas, there’s curling at the curling rink. According to Neil, ‘It’s all just so good.’”
Zack was pensive. “Seems like Neil’s figured life out,” he said. “A lot of us buy into the argument that our reach should always exceed our grasp — that life is about making it to the next rung.”
“Neil doesn’t see it that way,” I said. “He’s content with what he can reach, and he’s a happy man. And it’s not because he’s settling for less than the best. He recognizes that what he has is the best.”
Zack reached over and stroked my leg. “What you just told me about Neil may be exactly what I needed to make it through the morning. Bring on the pups!”
I covered Zack’s hand with mine. “Welcome back,” I said.
* * *
When we arrived at Neil McCallum’s, Maisie and Peter’s Volvo was already parked in the driveway, and Neil was waiting for us. He was holding a squirming puppy, and he seemed remarkably unchanged from the young man I remembered. Neil was a little below medium height and had a stocky build. He was wearing blue jeans, a green and white Saskatchewan Roughriders long-sleeved shirt and a Riders ball cap. The hair not covered by his cap was brown, and he had the almond-shaped eyes, small nose and distinctive mouth of a person with Down syndrome.
He moved close to us as I got out of the car. “I’m so happy to see you, Joanne. I’m happy to see you too, Mr. Shreve.” Zack had reached into the back seat and was snapping the pieces of his wheelchair into place. When the chair was secure, he transferred his body from the passenger seat to his wheelchair. Neil was fascinated by the sequence. “You do that so fast, Mr. Shreve.”
My husband smiled. “Practice makes perfect.”
Neil spoke slowly, and he stuttered a little when he was excited. “That’s right. It took me a while to find the right puppy for you, Mr. Shreve. But I found him, and here he is. He’s a boy, and you get to choose his name.” Neil handed the squirming puppy to Zack, and the pup immediately settled in. Zack was clearly gobsmacked.
Neil was beaming. “See how happy he is! I’ll take a picture.”
Bouvier puppies look like little black bears. They’re hard to photograph, but in Neil’s photo, Zack’s new pup did indeed appear to be content, and Zack did indeed appear to be gobsmacked. But Neil had already moved on to the next item on his agenda. “Maisie, Peter and the kids are waiting, but there are two things I have to tell you. Mr. Shreve, we have a bathroom on the main floor that your wheelchair can fit in.”
The enthusiasm with which the puppy in Zack’s arms was licking his new master’s face had apparently short-circuited my husband’s thousand-megahertz brain, and he was slow on the uptake. “That’s good to know,” he said finally. “And Neil, please, call me Zack.”
“I will,” Neil said. “Here’s the second thing I have to tell you. Joanne, my neighbour Valentine Masluk wants you and Zack to come to his house for lunch today.”
“Valentine Masluk, the writer?”
Neil nodded. “His house is only ten minutes from our house. Joanne, when I told him last night that you were coming today, Valentine asked me to tell him asap if your answer to lunch is ‘yes’ or ‘no.’”
I glanced at Zack to see how he felt. But Zack and his new puppy had bigger fish to fry than consider an invitation from a stranger. “Please tell Valentine yes,” I said. “But Neil, I’m curious, did Valentine Masluk say why he wanted to have us over?”
Neil’s head shake was vehement. “No. Do you want me to ask him, or do you want to be surprised?”
“This seems to be a day for surprises,” I said. “Please just tell Mr. Masluk we’d be pleased to join him for lunch.”
* * *
The next hour was a happy blur. Zack’s wheelchair was manual, so he handed his new pup to me and wheeled over to the boys. At the first whiff of puppy breath, I knew this little Bouvier belonged with us, but there was another puppy to choose, so our pup stayed with me while Charlie, Colin, their father and grandfather made their deliberations.
As soon as she saw that I was alone, our daughter-in-law was by my side. When Pete brought Maisie home to meet us for the first time, she’d just come from a lacrosse game, and her upper lip was split. Her smile was crooked but winning. Zack said when he shook hands with Maisie that night, she crushed three of his fingers.
Maisie was now a senior partner in Zack’s law firm. That morning she was wearing white cotton shorts and a black T-shirt with an image of the scales of justice and the words “born to argue” printed on it in white block letters. Like my husband, Maisie was a trial lawyer, and like him, she loved her work.
“Jo, I want to tell you how grateful Pete and I are that you suggested giving our sons this chance to spend time with Neil McCallum. Before we came, we explained to the boys that Neil is a person with Down syndrome, and that the way he looks and speaks is a little different from the way most of the people they know look and speak. But Neil didn’t need our intervention. He’s so patient and kind with Charlie and Colin, and, of course, he has puppies. The twins think he’s amazing. Pete and I do too.”
“I’m glad we were able to bring Neil and your family together.”
“So you’re not angry about the way Zack got ambushed and you ended up with a potential new dog?”
When I glanced down at the pup and saw his dark eyes peering up at me with frank curiosity, I felt a sudden rush of something very close to love. “No,” I said. “We’re not angry.”
“That’s a relief,” Maisie said. “It was just a misunderstanding. When the boys were looking over the puppies, they told Neil that their granddad has been sad since his dog died, and he needed a puppy too. Neil didn’t miss a beat. He said, ‘If your granddad needs a dog, we’ll find the right dog for him.’ And then he told them that people always make easy things hard and he just didn’t get it. Pete was going to straighten out the situation, but we realized that Neil and the boys were right. Zack did need a dog.”
