Stain of the Berry (23 page)

a village, maybe not even a hamlet, but a one-cow dust bowl about an hour's drive out of Saskatoon. "She was the only child of dirt poor parents who subsisted on the kindness of others-that and cigarettes and alcohol. They died as people of that sort do, much too young, and within a year of each other. Darlene was thirteen at the time. She ran from this Smuts and, sadly, there was no one to run after her. Not even the police bothered to search for her.

"She ended up in California where the weather was warm and a beautiful child-especially a smart one-had options. Like any young girl, she dreamed of money and men and fame and fortune, but, being wise, she intended on earning them on her terms, and somehow escaped the trap that many runaways fall into. She watched as her peers became prostitutes and drug addicts and alcoholics in order to dull the pain of their dingy lives. She herself knew there was no such thing as.. .well, as free lunch. She wanted to pay for her lunch.. .and leave a big tip as well.

"The morality of a beautiful and desirable young girl faces many challenges, and over the years some she won, some she did not. In order to achieve her goals, she learned to lie. She lied about everything-where she was from, what her skills were, how old she was-in order to get jobs that did not involve giving away sex when she did not wish to, and allowed her to pay for rent, food and clothing. Bad jobs led to sad jobs which led to better jobs and eventually jobs that paid well enough to allow her time to go to school at night and complete her education."

"What were these jobs?" I asked.

"Mostly modelling. A fourteen-year-old pretending to be an eighteen-year-old who looked like a thirteen-year-old proved to be very popular, especially with the sorts of men and magazines that don't bother to check personal statistics too closely. Eventually she became an actress in commercials. She also enrolled herself in every beauty pageant she qualified for. If they wanted her to be a Southern belle, that's what she became. If they wanted her to be an innocent, that's what she became. You understand, yes?"

I did.

"Of course, not being a US citizen-that being the one thing she could not easily fake-Darlene Krimpky, now Candace Clark, could not enter most of the very big, important pageants, but, being a dazzling beauty, she won many low-grade affairs and thus captured the attention of many," he paused, "interesting people."

"What sort of interesting people?"

"People who could further her lofty goals and ambitions. I'm sure many of these, mostly men at first, assumed they were taking advantage of her, but the opposite was more often true.

"By the time Candace turned twenty, she was a minor player in a 'C list, jet-set crowd that consisted of low-level royals, high-level studio executives, also-ran movie actors and musicians, celebrities-for-hire and the almost-rich-enoughs who could afford to rent the good life but not purchase it. In such a group of people, Mr. Quant, there are never enough stars to go around, and a woman like Candace, a woman with uncommon grace, sharp wit and smouldering sexuality, is always a fine alternative and very welcome."

I turned my head away from Maheesh, and stared out at the strange steel blue sky outside my window. I tried to picture Sereena doing everything he was describing and found it easy to do. Maheesh must have recognized my need for reflection and remained quiet. After a moment I looked at him and asked him to continue.

"For the next decade, Candace met with greater and greater success furthering her plan: escaping the world of Darlene Krimpky and the cold and dirty streets of Smuts. And, I do not think she would deny it, she had a considerably good time doing so. With every diamond-encrusted brooch she was given, with every king and sultan she bedded, with every couture gown or chinchilla coat she draped across her shoulders, with every wealthy husband, she strove for that alluring prize which, frustratingly, always 97 of 163

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seemed to move just out of her reach. That place, that thing, that finish line...whatever it was...I don't think she ever truly knew what it was...eluded her."

Diamonds, sultans, chinchilla...gawd, Sereena
is
the woman from that song.

"By thirty-five she'd made her way through many preposterously rich men and divorced two of them with little more than a blink of her eye. She left them both with many fabulous memories and much less money, property and jewels than they had before they met her. But, really, she'd taken little of
real
value from them. She began to search for something more, although, once again, I don't know if she knew what it was until she found it.

"Her third husband was Arthur Ashbourne. He was fifteen years her senior. Of course he was very rich, travelled in the highest social circles, but that meant little to her. By this point Candace had been on every yacht, seen every tropical island, breakfasted in Paris, lunched in Madrid, supped in Kiev, all that nonsense. She had titles and prestige and famous friends and homes she never visited. But it was what she didn't have, that she found with Arthur, a very kind and wise man. Quite simply, Mr. Quant, she found love."

I smiled like an idiot, as if I were watching a Sunday afternoon Danielle Steel movie of the week.

Sereena was played by Lindsay Wagner or Jacqueline Bisset or Jaclyn Smith and Arthur Ashbourne was Efrem Zimbalist Jr or Perry King. I'm a sap for happy endings. But something told me Maheesh wasn't done with me yet. I wanted him to stop right there. I wanted to have this happy-at-last ghost of Sereena's past live on in this fairytale setting Maheesh had described. For a little while, I got my wish, for about then a stewardess, who had been hidden until then, approached us and asked what we'd like for breakfast.

Maheesh had kippers and scrambled eggs and tea with milk. Very British, I thought. I opted for toast, unbuttered, and coffee with skim milk.

Over our meal, Maheesh kept the conversation light, veering off the subject of Sereena or Candace or Darlene or whatever her name really was, preferring instead to ask me about myself. Our conversation was as mundane as talk between two strangers on a jet heading for who knows where can be. I was grateful for the respite, for as I ate, my mind was busy enough. Part of me wanted to dash away, escape this crazy man and his hefty henchmen who'd abducted me in the middle of the night (sort of) and put me on a flight to nowhere, filling me with incredible tales that might not be true. I was also worried about my case. I had made a promise to the family of Tanya Culinare that I would find out why she died. I was worried about Jared and how he might be tied up in what was turning out to be a complicated mess. Was he in danger from this boogeyman character that Tanya and everyone around her had come to fear? Was I in danger? Was Maheesh Ganesh my boogeyman and I hadn't even recognized him? Who was he really?

Why had he come to get me? That's what I asked him next as we sipped on the remains of our beverages.

In response to my question, Maheesh moved to adjust his body in his seat, grimacing with the effort, a sign that this was not a young man. We paused through a jag of turbulence then continued our talk. "After a great deal of time and effort, Candace and Arthur conceived a much wanted child," he told me. "This was not the first pregnancy for Candace, and it was not easy for her. There were risks. She was in her late thirties by this time. She lost that baby."

I pulled in a breath and felt sad for my friend.

"Another pregnancy the following year went to full term."

Hope.

"Tragically, the child was stillborn."

Dashed.

"Arthur..." Maheesh hesitated and shifted his eyes to the ice blue outside. Finally he turned back to me.

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"You'll excuse me. This next thing is difficult to speak of.

"Only days after the death of the child, Arthur was felled by a massive stroke and died in Candace's arms. Her own body and mind were still traumatized by the loss of their child." More silence, then, "A short time later, Candace attempted to take her own life."

I was stunned. Not only by Sereena's sad story but also by the harsh reality that life had once conspired to steal her away. I would never have known her if she had been successful in her suicide attempt. I wanted to ask how it all happened, who saved her, but decided not to. This was Maheesh's story to tell in his own way.

"It took Candace years to pull herself together. Many tried to be good friends to her, including myself, but, I'm afraid, we fell painfully short. She wallowed in depression for some time, but her spirit was too strong to sustain that. She eventually turned to over-indulgence once more, and with greater verve than before. Drugs, alcohol, frivolity, all masks for her pain." He shook his head then, pursing his lips in great consternation, and, if it was possible, his dark eyes turned even more sorrowful. "For the next part, I blame myself. And for this I am ashamed."

I accepted more coffee from the stewardess and kept my silence.

"I thought it would be good for her, you see. I thought she needed a new place, new things, new people, new air to breathe, something to pull her from the path of destruction I believed her to be on. You see I was returning to India for several months, to attend to family business and asked...or rather, cajoled...Candace to join me. Whether she would remain for all or part of the trip didn't matter and I told her she could decide once she got there."

In the back of my suspicious detective's mind, I wondered if this was Maheesh's romantic play for the lonely, lovely, wealthy widow, but I kept the uncharitable thought to myself. For now.

"And that was when I made a most dreadful mistake. I introduced her to one of my colleagues, Akhilesh Batten. He came from a traditional but well-to-do family. He was well-educated in America. His name, Akhilesh, means "Lord of the Universe". Candace liked this. And so, in time, she and Akkie were married."

Oh dear.

"Candace accepted her new life with great aplomb and responsibility. She'd had lives in New York and Munich and Rome, and now it was time for her Indian life. Another grand adventure in her life story. To make matters even better, Candace immediately became pregnant and gave birth to a healthy daughter."

I smiled. Oh my goodness. My Sereena is a mother.

"They named the girl Sangita, which means "music". Candace's life was full of new joys. Her husband was attentive and lavish with gifts. He was also...a child molester."

Would this never stop? My heart fell to the soles of my feet as I steeled myself for what was coming next and Maheesh, anxious to be rid of this horrible tale as fast as possible, thankfully made short work of it.

"We believe Akhilesh began molesting his daughter at less than one year old. He was clever in hiding his deeds, but Candace was too good a mother not to notice the changes in her daughter. She began to keep a very close eye on her child, becoming upset if Sangita and Akkie were left alone together for too long. Candace just knew something was not right. She had no proof, but something about how the child had changed gnawed at her and told her that all was not as it should be.

"As she became more suspicious, Akhilesh began to tell people, his family, his friends, me, that he 99 of 163

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feared Candace was becoming mentally unstable, and that
he
doubted
her
ability to care for Sangita.

There was a tension growing between them that all of us could feel. But we had no idea what was really happening. Candace did her best, but ultimately she failed. One night..." He stopped with a choke in his throat. "In an attempt at intercourse with the child, Akkie killed...our dear, sweet baby...our Sangita died."

Maheesh stood up then, for the first time since I'd laid eyes on him. "It was the most ghastly, ghastly thing." His tortured voice sounded like the ripping of paper. "I know. I was a guest in their home that night."

I looked up at the older man and saw the horror etched clearly on his face, even so many years after the event. "And Sereena?" I asked softly. "What about her? Was she there too?"

"Oh yes," Maheesh whispered. "She murdered Akhilesh Batten."

After the stunning revelation that Sereena,
aka
Candace, had killed the husband who'd molested and murdered their daughter, Maheesh begged to be excused and stumbled off to the washroom. I was glad of it, for I had no idea how to react to the information. For a moment I thought I might give way to hysteria.

Was this some sort of sick, hallucinogenic dream I was in? What the hell was going on? How did I get on this plane? Where were we going?

When Maheesh returned, he sat in a different seat, away from me, saying he needed some time alone and that we would talk more later. I used the time to mull over the story Maheesh had told me, formulating a million questions as I did. It didn't seem like much time had passed when I felt the Citation point down and begin its descent into...well, I still didn't know where we were. All I could be certain of, because of my clever knowledge of where the sun rises and sets, was that we'd gone north and maybe a little west.

Once we were on the ground, the jet taxied to a stop and I saw a sign welcoming us to Yellowknife. We were in the Northwest Territories! Good God, I thought to myself, what had I gotten myself into? But I didn't have much time to dwell on that. After a short stop, the plane rushed back into the sky, heading northeast this time.

We arrived at our final destination, a private landing strip somewhere on Somerset Island, Nunavut, at just after 2 p.m. We were in the frickin' Arctic! If I spit I could probably hit the North Pole. During that last twenty minutes of the flight, the pilot, more talkative the farther into no man's land we got, pointed out that we were flying across the legendary Northwest Passage. We flew low enough so that when I glanced out of my window I could clearly see seals and whales in their home environment. The light here was different somehow. Maybe all the ice and water we were flying over grabbed hold of the sun's beams and supercharged them, filling them with an almost gem-like glow. Stunning. And yet I knew I wasn't feeling the exuberant joy I usually experience when faced with such natural splendour. My mind and heart were heavy with the story I had heard on the trip, and with deep concern for Sereena.