The Girl in the Wall (20 page)

No one claimed Rilla's body, so the Province of Manitoba managed the burial in May of the following year. Frank remembered another such funeral in Brookside Cemetery many years ago for a tiny baby found in a rain barrel. That baby had gone unclaimed as well.

For no clear reason, it also reminded him of the time he had found a cat on Young Street. The little fellow had been living outside and seemed at the end of his tether. Frank took him to a vet, where he was given the once-over. There wasn't much wrong with him that food, rest, and extensive dental work wouldn't cure. The vet needed to know who would be picking the cat up. Frank hadn't thought it through, so it was suddenly his, as there was no one else. That's how they'd come to have Hugh as a pet all those years, till he finally died of natural causes.

Rilla was cremated, and Frank and Jane and Garth and Sadie went to the graveside ceremony. Frank and Jane knew, of course, that her name was Regina, but neither of them liked it, so they stuck with Rilla. A few others turned out: province people, Frank guessed, and funeral junkies, who were mostly elderly women. He had invited Mrs. Mortimer to come with them, but she had declined.

Rilla was buried as Jane Doe.

With a little help from an old contact at Vital Statistics Frank had been able to track down Baby Boy Buckingham, who died in April of 1970. He, too, was buried at Brookside, not far from his mother, with a few other long-dead Buckinghams, including his grandfather and his grandmother in her recently dug grave. He and Jane had found him on a previous excursion.

Frank had a qualm or two about burying Rilla away from the others but didn't suppose it mattered in the grand scheme of things. He spoke to George about it and put his mind at rest.

There had been no need to involve Mrs. Mortimer. She owned no clues to the whereabouts of Jim Coulthard and that was the only knot left untied as far as Frank was concerned. As Mrs. Beresford had said, he was away and then he was missing and then he was just gone.

Mrs. Mortimer had carved out a life for herself that could carry her through, Frank hoped. Over the last months she had often talked to him of dying and he never felt as though he did a very good job on his side of those conversations. There were no words, he supposed, at least none that he knew, that could keep her here on earth if she truly wanted to die.

Unbeknownst to the others that day, Mrs. Mortimer was at the cemetery watching from a ways back behind an old oak tree.

“Thanks, Frank Foote,” she said. “Thanks, Georgie.”

It was impossible that he could have heard her, but at that moment Frank turned towards the giant oak and smiled, giving an almost imperceptible nod toward the small voice that rose up on the warm spring breeze.

“Don't die, Mrs. Mortimer,” he whispered softly and turned back toward the others.

Alison Preston was born and raised in Winnipeg. After trying on a number of other Canadian cities, she returned to her hometown, where she currently resides. All of her mysteries are set in the Norwood Flats area of Winnipeg, including
The Rain Barrel Baby
,
The Geranium Girls, Cherry Bites
, and
Sunny Dreams
.

A graduate of the University of Winnipeg, and a letter carrier for twenty-eight years, Alison has been twice nominated for the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer, following the publications of
The Rain Barrel Baby
(Signature Editions) and her first novel
A Blue and Golden Year
(Turnstone Press). She was also shortlisted for the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award and the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award for
Cherry Bites
and the Mary Scorer Award for Best Book by a Manitoba Publisher for
Sunny Dreams
.

Sunny Dreams

978-1897109-20-5

On a spring morning in 1925, Violet Palmer and her mother are choosing treats from the dessert display at Picardy's restaurant in downtown Winnipeg when baby Sunny is abducted from her pram mere feet away. As the first minutes turn to days, months, then years, the Palmer family collapses. Mrs. Palmer never recovers from her loss and succumbs to her grief, leaving Violet motherless. A decade later, the appearance of a couple of drifters looking for work finally sheds surprising light on the Palmer tragedy.

* Mary Scorer Award for Best Book by a Manitoba Publisher Finalist

Cherry Bites

978-0921833-99-4

On a summer afternoon in 1954, a jealous four-year-old Cherry Ring bites her baby brother on the cheek, so hard that he needs a skin graft to repair the damage and will have a scar for the rest of his life. Cherry knows what's she's done is wrong, and she really is sorry. But sorry isn't good enough. The bite marks the beginning of a troubled relationship between the siblings that will last a lifetime. When disturbing incidents begin to occur around her house in the sultry summer of 1995, Cherry realizes she has never managed to escape her past — or her brother.

* Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award Finalist

* McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award Finalist

The Geranium Girls

978-0921833-83-3

Beryl Kyte goes for a hike one beautiful spring Sunday in St. Vital Park and literally trips over a body, a dead woman with mushrooms sprouting in her mouth. A cellphone-toting passerby calls the police. Among the officers who arrive on the scene is that nice Inspector Frank Foote, whom Beryl has seen around her neighborhood. She is questioned and escorted home. It isn't long, however, before another body turns up and then another. As she follows the horrific discoveries in
The Winnipeg Free Press
, Beryl thinks she sees a pattern emerging.

The Rain Barrel Baby

978-0921833-73-4

Inspector Frank Foote's quiet Winnipeg neighbourhood is greening into summer when a dead baby is discovered in his neighbour's rain barrel. The tiny body has evidently been in the rain barrel for some time, and there are no obvious leads in the case. Frank is a cop, and he's seen a lot of crime scenes, but this one is a little too close to home. Frank is a good father, he tries to be a good husband, and he hopes he is a good cop. But, like all of us, Frank has a few old secrets that he is ashamed of. And when Ivy Grace suddenly resurfaces after a long absence, one thing is certain: before this summer ends, Frank will have to confront his past.