Too much mystery in these murders

The leaves are changing colour, the days grow short, and it’s time to curl up in an overstuffed chair by the fire with another attempt to enjoy a murder mystery. People love murder mysteries. I tend to find them confusing, but this time I will pencil a list of characters to keep me straight. Let’s begin!

The setting is an luxurious but old wooden resort in the Muskokas, during a particularly hot weekend in August. The floorboards creak. The hallways are sinister and not well lit. An owl hoots, odd for mid-day but we will not be picky.

The Mordred family are guests at the resort for a family reunion. All the guests have murky pasts. The cabin in the woods has a murky past. Peter is the absent-minded father, accompanied by his second wife. Julie is the resentful daughter. Sally is her friend and possible lover. Is Mrs. Greatcourt the owner of the resort or the laundrywoman? I check my list. She is the owner of the resort but she has an obsession with properly folded sheets and towels, which is not fair play by the author. I check his biography. He has written nineteen LeClerc mysteries and owns property on Saltspring Island in British Columbia as well as in Hawaii.

Retired inspector Soufflier LeClerc is also at the resort on this sinister weekend, on holiday with his adorable, witty wife who is a Supreme Court justice in her spare time. Everywhere LeClerc goes there is a murder, in each and every one of the nineteen books in the series. The man is up to his elbows in gore and should be the first suspect in every investigation.

Andrew is a butler who spits in the soup before he serves it and who keeps S&M literature in the bottom drawer of his dresser. The laundrywoman has developed an interest in Andrew. But there is still plenty of resentment to go round, over something called a holographic will, just like Princess Leia talking to R2D2 in the Star Wars movies but concerning disputed inheritances. The will has disappeared.

Who the hell is Clarence? I check my list and realize I named him Carl by mistake. He collects knives and sneaks into the resort kitchen at night to pocket discarded lemon rinds from the kitchen compost.

The murder happens on page twenty-two. Someone named Felicity is stabbed in the back, with a knife, in the study — but no luck, Colonel Mustard is not in this book and cannot be the suspect. There are discarded lemon rinds stained with blood near her body. Were they put there before her death or after? I try to erase the line I made through Carl’s name but make the list indecipherable instead. I am on my own, just like Bernice, the second victim, in the cabin in the woods. Forty thousand words to go!

By page fifty-three Carl has an ironclad alibi. I cross him off the list again and tear a hole through the paper.

During the next chapter the entire cast of characters eyes one another suspiciously over roast beef and Yorkshire pudding in the grand dining room, watched over by taxidermied moose heads. Excellent descriptions of food! I make a snack.

An hour later, after a doze, I feed my list to the fire and open a nice, uncomplicated biography. Chapter Two in Volume 24 of Robert Caro’s Lyndon Johnson, in which the young Lyndon learns to fly a kite.

THE INBOX. Genre: horror. Coming soon to a desktop near you

Clearing out your home office?

It’s a tray of polished buttery antique pine, like something a 1920s Ontario housewife would put a plump pillow of dough in to rise, but what it contains today is a yeasty foot-high pile of papers, a dry highlighter, two dimes used for turning screws and a dusty paperclip. The papers have been accumulating since June. Time to get to the bottom of the inbox.

Let’s make two piles.

Three piles.

Okay, a fourth pile, but that’s just going to go into the recycling bin. That RRSP statement mailed in May can’t go in the recycling bin, though. Then whoever digs through fourteen tonnes of recycling materials will find I bought $1,632.08 in cannabis stocks. Those are too good to pass up. They’ll find my name and portfolio number and hack into my bank account and rob it. Rip it up. The Bitcoin thief is not going to get his hands on my assets.

Receipt tickets for The Lost City of Z. Interesting film, Robert Pattinson disguised as unattractive. Came out in 2017. Fourth pile. The Bay is offering me a 20 percent gift card for all purchases before July 8. Same. Six receipts for things I cannot remember buying.

Final notice invoice from lawn sprinkler people that system will be cut off. Drought in the back garden may not be as bad as I thought.

Brochures to writers’ conferences, workshops, editing sessions and forums. All of interest. All past their registration and, in fact, have already taken place already. Pile four.

Pile for filing gets put in pile two. Two dozen letters from government, bank, utility companies, aunts, aunts on behalf of uncles, aunts on behalf of charities, charities themselves. How do I tell the David Suzuki Foundation that I have shifted my patronage to African elephants? Will Decide Later, which is pile three.

Cheque from dental insurance for $182.86. Possibly staledated. Pile one.

Nearly at the bottom of the box, but now have four piles of paper on the desktop. Going to the movies. Perhaps no need to keep the tickets.

I am away from the office

Hello! This message is to tell you I will be away from the office until Wednesday, August 21.

Hello! I am currently out of the office. Please do not leave any messages.

I am currently upside down on an inflatable kayak in a northern lake and cannot take your call.

Greetings! I am ashamed to return your message as my mouth is full of butter tarts.

Please do not continue to leave messages. Repeating yourself is not going to change anything and makes you look needy.

Hello! Please contact me at my other number which I will answer late at night in the closet as I am desperate to have a conversation that does not begin with “Where do we keep the bug spray?”

i have a rash and cannot come to the phone.

I am not available to answer at the moment. My fingers have swelled to the size of bananas. You can reach my husband who is with me at the Haliburton Hospital, hiding in a closet to have a conversation with someone other than me.

Hello! I am away. Please believe I am having a wonderful time.

Mr. Darcy in Anger Management

Delighted to make your acquaintance, Phil, John, Al and Harry. Darcy.

My turn? My name is Fitzwilliam Darcy, and I have been told I need anger management, even though I only said her family was of inferior birth and was in no humour to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted.

I believe I am here because I have not the talent which some people possess of conversing easily with those I have never seen before.

Neither with those I do know? You cut me, Al.

There was happiness, if you must know. I suppose it could be described as a honeymoon period after our nuptials, but one reverts to habits in the course of daily life. And for that I make no apology.

All right, I did apologize.

No, I did mean it.

I am a man of character. I don’t have behaviour. A man of character cannot change. That’s why he has character.

I tell you, men, the power of doing any thing with quickness is always much prized by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance. A restraining order is therefore a blunt instrument.

My tone? I took elocution at Eton. I have no tone; that is the point of going to Eton.

I agree, Harry. Men of sense do not want silly wives.

Well, in essence that is what you said. I am sure Sylvia is a dignified dog-walker, as you call it. Dogs can no longer walk without assistance?

You meant well — it’s Phil, is it? I did also. My object was to show her I was not so mean as to resent the past. I hoped to lessen her ill opinion by letting her see that her reproofs had been attended to. Apparently these days more is expected of a gentleman.

Contrition?

Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.

What does ‘fake it till you make it?’ mean?

Gentlemen, I will see you all next week. I would invite you to Pemberley this week-end for the shooting, but regrettably I was told ‘that is just not going to happen.’

Draw the hands of a clock

The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali, 1931

The little paper bag with the prescription in it was found in an Ann Taylor shopping bag sitting on the floor of our bedroom after an hour and a half doing this: checking my purse and under the bed, putting on rubber gloves and going through the garbage in the garage (Someone who lives here has been buying lingerie! Someone else has been eating McFlurries!), pulling the sofa and the chair forward in the TV room, inhaling dust bunnies from under the beds, and rehearsing what to tell the pharmacist. (Hello! What do I do if I’ve lost my prescription? It was for synthroid, an entirely nonaddictive medication of no interest to drug addicts. I just picked it up yesterday. Yes, i know my insurance won’t cover it. Of course I remember my address!).

My wallet was found two weeks ago in the pocket of my work knapsack after six hours of doing this: retracing my steps to the drapery store past a Subway sandwich shop, turning the house upside down, checking the pockets of everything I’ve ever worn, going to the bank, and panicking at the teller’s printout of latest purchases, including a purchase at a Subway Shop within the last hour. Not my order. Forgetting that my husband buys a Subway sandwich most days for lunch, I immediately cancelled everything.

I’m not even going to mention that I phoned the bank after I got home, convinced that in the last ten minutes I’d lost the new debit card they just gave me.

Time to take the online Alzheimer’s test again. I love taking this test. It’s the only part of life that makes me feel I have a good memory.

The stigma of cowardice

The Deserter by Ilya Repin, 1917.

Last night’s second episode of the final season of Game of Thrones was mostly taken up with conversations the night before the battle with the White Walkers. Characters contemplated how they’d like to die or patched up longstanding quarrels that had no relevance anymore. One character was knighted, another had sex for the first time because she wanted to know what it felt like, a third revealed important secrets. Tidying up one’s life or, as the doctors sometimes tell doomed patients, ‘putting your affairs in order.’ The scenes were reminiscent (probably deliberately) of an older and greater creative work, Shakespeare’s Henry V . The before-battle scene there is lit by a ‘little touch of Harry in the night,’ as the king walks through the camp visiting the men who are about to die for him and their country. These are both fictions of what repeats in real life, countless times, throughout history.

It is unfathomable to me. Contemplating death is difficult enough, but for soldiers from the medieval peasant to the modern private it is a job requirement. There are two ways to enforce it. The first gives deserters death by execution — killing at the hands of your friends rather than your enemies. The second is more subtle: make running away as unfathomable as staying and contemplating the battle tomorrow morning. How on earth is that possible? By turning rational behaviour (self-preservation) into something abhorrent: the stigma of cowardice. It’s easy for us to think being called a coward is insignificant compared to saving your own life. But it must have been pretty strong to make contemplating your death in the morning a preferable choice.

Expeditiousness

Hello? I'm calling to cancel a hotel reservation.

This is the hotel. We no longer handle hotel reservations because they’re too complicated. You have an Expedite reservation so you'll have to call Expedite to get your money back.

 Welcome to Expedite. This is a computer. Are you calling about a flight plus hotel or just a hotel reservation?

 Just hotel.

Press 2 and hold and I'll get you the right representative.

 Salsa dancing music.

 Hello, my name is Dorman, may I have your name and itinerary number? 

The number is 3.14159265359.

 And how may I help you today?

 I'm calling to cancel a hotel reservation.

 Ah yes, I see here. Just one moment and I'll cancel the reservation for you.

 Steel drum music.

 Ma'am? I'm actually with Expedite Gold customer service and I see you are Expedite Silver. Just a moment and I'll get you the right representative.

 Irish step-dancing music. Stir 5 boxes of matzoh ball mix with 10 eggs and oil and put in fridge. Fill 3 pots and one wok with water and put on stove to boil.

 Hello, my name is Amid, may I have your name please? Thank you, and your itinerary number?

 3.14159265359.

 And how may I help you today?

 I'm calling to cancel a hotel reservation.

 Ah yes, I see here. Please hold just one moment and I'll cancel the reservation for you.

 Country fiddle music. Shape 48 matzoh balls and boil for 20 minutes.

 Rose?

 Rose is my last name. It's Barbara.

 Yes, Rose? I see here you are not with Expedite in the United States but with our offices in Canada, a country we've never heard of and cannot find on a map. I can transfer you if you stay on the line.

Throat-singing music.

Ma'am? We are experiencing longer than usual wait times. Would you like to continue to hold?

Actually I think I will hang up and call Expedite Canada myself.

 Please, please, Rose, just give me a few more minutes or I will be flogged by Human Resources.

 Scoop 48 matzoh balls from boiling water, one dozen of them smelling faintly of soya sauce and ginger, and arrange on parchment-lined cookie sheets to cool. Place in freezer.

Ominous electronic gurgle. Music stops.

 Hang up and go online. Four days left to cancel or Expedite will charge for the reservation in full. Wait! There is a link to cancel reservation! Click, click and done!

Phone rings. 

This is Amid. Please let me connect you now or at least acknowledge that I tried to help you or I will be fired.

Written, edited and published during the length of one experience to cancel a hotel reservation with Expedite. Plan Your Trip Today!

The four faces of Justin

No matter what you think of who did what to whom in the SNC-Lavalin scandal, it’s an interesting opportunity to consider an unacknowledged, serious flaw of journalism: the editorial photo. Unlike the editorial cartoon, a drawing which contains an image expressing the artist’s (and the newspaper’s) opinion, the editorial photo is the picture chosen to accompany a supposedly unbiased article. There should be no ‘editorial’ in it, but there is. Look at these photos in recent articles in the Globe and Mail and the New York Times about SNC-Lavalin:

At top in the Gray Lady New York Times is the ‘there, that’s all fixed’ photo from the end of Trudeau’s statement yesterday. The second Globe and Mail pic is from the same day, but it is a more contemplative and unrelated photo that says, ‘I remember sunny days.’ The third is a composite of Wilson-Raybould, the chief accuser in the scandal, looking accusatory, with Gerald Butts on the right, wearing the impassive look your dad has when you explain why it was necessary to take the car without asking. In the middle is Trudeau looking all ‘why-should-I-sell-your-wheat.’ Last is the photograph of Trudeau in the article about him ‘seeking advice’ about the crisis: seated, head bowed, the picture of contrition.

You may agree with any of my descriptions or none of them: my point is that the photos are subjective and that by choosing one over another photo editors make editorial decisions daily in the areas of media that are supposed to be strictly reportage.

Lastly, a personal confession: I must say this is a more eye-pleasing exercise to do using Justin Trudeau’s photographs than just about anybody else.