A Colder Kind of Death by Gail Bowen Read Free Book Online Page A

Yard. “I’ll bet you’ll still be here on St. Patrick’s Day, Jack,” I said.
    Hilda McCourt came into the kitchen as I was knotting the scarf Greg had given me. She bent to look at its intricate swirls of colour.
    “Amazing,” she said. “A silk for the seraglio.”
    She was wearing a black and gold velvet evening coat, and jewelled starbursts flashed in her ears. With her deep russet hair, the effect was stunning.
    “You look as if you could be in a seraglio yourself,” I said.
    “I don’t think I’d last,” Hilda said. “I’ve never found it agreeable to dance on command.” She smiled serenely. “I must admit, though, that the idea of having young men dance at my bidding is not without appeal.”
    The snow started as we turned off Albert Street onto College Avenue. By the time I drove into the parking lot behind Sacred Heart Cathedral it was coming down so hard I could barely make out the hotel across the road.
    I pulled up next to an old Buick. A man was leaning over the car, brushing the snow off its windshield. I couldn’t see his face, but I would have recognized the familiar bulk of his body anywhere. Howard Dowhanuik had paid his way through law school with the money he earned as a professional boxer. Age had thickened his body, but you could still sense his physical power.
    I got out of the car and walked over to him. The former premier of Saskatchewan was peering so intently into the front seat of the Buick that he didn’t hear me.
    “Angus tells me these vintage cars are a snap to hot-wire,” I said. “Want to go for a joyride before the big event?”
    He didn’t look up. “Sure,” he said. “It’d bring back a lot of memories. The first time I ever got laid was in a car like this.”
    “When was that?” I said.
    “In 1953,” Hilda said. “This is a 1953 Buick Skylark, Joanne.”
    Howard straightened and faced us.
    “And you’re sixty now,” I said. “That would make you twenty-one. Good for you for waiting, Howard. I’ll bet not many boys in law school did.”
    He laughed and threw an arm around my shoulder. “Same old Jo,” he said. “Still a pain in the ass.” He held out his other arm to Hilda. “Come on, Hilda. Let’s get in there. I’ll buy you a Glenfiddich before the agony begins. Did you come down from Saskatoon just to watch me squirm?”
    “I’d come farther than that for a tribute to you,” Hilda said simply.
    Howard’s old fighter’s face softened. “Allow me to make that Glenfiddich a double,” he said.
    When we saw what was waiting for us outside the hotel, we were ready for a double. The Saskatchewan is a graceful dowager of a hotel, but that night the dowager was confronting the politics of the nineties. Demonstrators spilled from the entrance and onto the sidewalk. There seemed to be about forty of them, but they were silent and well-behaved. Around the neck of each protestor, a photograph of a foetus was suspended, locket-like, from a piece of cord. Two boys who didn’t look as old as Angus were holding a scroll with the words BEATING HEART written in foot-high letters.
    Beating Heart was Tess Malone’s organization. The media potential of Howard’s dinner must have been too tempting for her to resist. The new premier and half his cabinet were coming, and they all supported the Women’s Health Centre. When the demonstrators saw Howard there was a stir. Howard might have been only an ex-premier, but he was still the enemy. Oblivious, he took my arm and Hilda’s and started up the stairs. The Beating Heart people moved closer together. Beneath the heavy material of his overcoat, I could feel Howard’s body tense.
    “Hang on,” he said. I shuddered, remembering other demonstrations I’d had to wade through since the Women’s Health Centre had opened in late summer. They were never any fun. I braced myself and moved forward. Then Hilda was in front of me, so close to the demonstrators that her trim body seemed pressed against the body of