Crush. Candy. Corpse. (15 page)

“Your Honour, for the defence’s next witness, we would like to call the defendant to the stand.”

I get up, knees shaking, and walk wobbly to the witness box. Does the jury notice? Do they think I’m nervous because I’ve got something to hide?

“State your name for the record,” my lawyer tells me quietly.

“Sonja Ehret.”

“Do you wish to swear an oath or make an affirmation?”

I can’t help checking out those twelve people now in charge of the next three years of my life as I choose to make the affirmation. Right now I don’t believe in God. Maybe if Mom gets good news from the doctor on Thursday morning that will change. Are the jury members churchgoers? What do they think of me at this moment?

“Could you tell us in your own words what happened on February 14, when you visited Paradise Manor?”

“No.”

The lady with the soya stain leans forward.

Heh, heh
, the guy in the front coughs nervously.

“Are you refusing to answer your own attorney’s questions?” the judge asks.

“No, Your Honour. It’s just I can tell you what I think happened on that day, but mostly I don’t really know. I only know what I did and didn’t do.”

“All right.” Michael McCann smiles at me. “Can you tell us your part in the events that took place that afternoon?”

I have to be absolutely truthful about every detail. I can’t slip up or the jury may think I’m lying about the whole thing. That’s why I said no that first time. I hope that buys me points for honesty with them.

“On Valentine’s Day I was heading for Paradise Manor after school as I always did once a week for my volunteer credit. Only by this time I had finished my forty hours. That made me a regular visitor. Regular visitors don’t have to follow all the student volunteer rules. I mean, I’ve never seen adult visitors be reminded to wash their hands and they can visit the residents alone in their rooms.

“To be honest, I wanted to drop off a few presents to the seniors I had worked closely with as a kind of goodbye. And I was going to meet Cole Demers to go out with him afterwards.

“That afternoon Donovan gave me a lift to the mall to pick up the presents. He was also going to drive me to the Manor afterwards, only we had an argument. I decided to take the bus. Because of that, I was about forty-five minutes later than usual. I don’t know why Cole didn’t wait. I mean, he was supposed to help out with the party, so he should have been there for at least another hour.”

That’s what I tell the courtroom but in my mind I replay the last time I saw Cole and the look on his face. What I find hard to live with is the reason he didn’t stick around to see me.

The Forty-First Hour

I turned in my volunteer journal and thought I was well on the way to an A+. From then on I could do what I wanted, get the job at Salon Teo and visit the Manor whenever. Everything would be perfect, especially after I dumped Donny.

Whether or not Donovan had just found the pin on the floor didn’t matter. Every smile or touch seemed like a lie to me now. If he told me I was beautiful, it just made me wonder what he wanted from me. When he smiled, I felt he was posing for a camera. Even his curls seemed artificial; I found myself wondering if he’d had his hair permed.

So I had the talk with him at school at lunch. We went for a walk around the football field and as we strolled, I started. “Donovan, we’ve been together almost eight months —”

“Best months of my life. When you’re beside me, I feel like . . . I dunno . . . Superman. Nothing can bring me down.” He didn’t even stop walking to look at me. If anything, he moved quicker. Did he sense what was coming?

“Eight months is a really long time and we’re young —”

He interrupted. “But it seems like no time at all. Now I understand how a guy can stay with one woman for life. I can see that with you, Sunny.”

“No.”

He slowed down. “Well, I know we’re young. Especially you. And I’m not pressuring you —”

“No, we’re not going to be together forever. Trust me on that one.”

“I know you’re ticked about the camera pin. But you’re changing me. I’m becoming a better person. That’s how much you mean to me.”

“Donovan. I’m breaking up with you.”

“No, no. You can’t. You don’t even know all I’m doing to change.” He stopped and grabbed my wrist. “You have to give me another chance. Let me prove myself to you.”

“We’re finished, Donny. I’m sorry.”

“No. No! Wait till Valentine’s Day. You’ll see. I’m going to do something for you that will change your mind about everything.”

“I have to be at the Manor that day. I want to help with their party.”

“Then I’ll drive you. You know you never get there on time when you take the bus.”

“Okay, fine.” It wasn’t though. Once you’re done with a person, you really don’t want to be around him and I shouldn’t have accepted the lift. It gave him too much hope.

After school on Monday, he was right at my locker waiting. I tried to smile. “Do you think we could make a quick stop at the mall? I want to get a few little gifts for the residents.”

“You have money?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m not asking you to pike anything.”

“Sunny!” he held his chest as if I’d stabbed his heart. Again he rushed to open the car door. We passed the city bus and instinctively I looked up to see if I could find a jester’s hat in the window. But the streets were dry and it was bright out, so Cole probably took his bike.

We got to the mall and I picked up some chocolate, one of those singing stuffed bears that sang “That’s What Friends Are For” when you squeezed its paw, and some carnations. I couldn’t afford the roses.

Back at the car, Donovan opened the trunk and got a long garment bag from it.

“What’s that?” I asked.

He opened my car door. “Sit and you’ll see.”

I got in and he draped the bag across my knee. I couldn’t open it. I wanted it to go away.

He ran to get in on the other side. “Go on. Look!” He grinned at me.

I unzipped the bag a few centimetres, just enough to see the shimmery blue fabric. “You didn’t!” I gasped.

“My dad advanced me my first cheque. I’m working at the doughnut shop. I didn’t get the pizza job.”

“You have to take it back.” I zipped the bag up again.

“No, no. I want to do this for you.”

He wasn’t making this any easier. “Donovan, I’m not going to the prom with you.” My voice sounded loud to me. He had to have heard me, but was he registering any of it?

His eyes looked blank.

“I’m not going out with you any more. We’re through. There’s nothing you can do to change that.”

He put his head down on the steering wheel then, not saying a word. This was a different Donny. Was he crying?

Oh my god! What could I do? I reached over to give him a bit of a back rub, to make him feel better. “There, there. It’ll be all right.” He wouldn’t look up. I gave him a comforting hug. Not too long. Still, from the corner of my eye I saw movement.

I jumped back and saw a red bike. Cole? I waved, feeling a bit lighter and happier to see him.

His head turned but he didn’t wave back. He didn’t smile. He looked disappointed, sad even.

Oh my god, what had he seen? What was he thinking? I jumped out of the car, scrambling to collect the presents I had dropped.

“Cole!” I yelled and waved wildly. Way too far ahead. He didn’t hear me. I had to catch up to him, to explain. That hug meant nothing! I ran to the bus stop. I heard Donovan’s car tires squeal around the corner as he took off.

The bus took forever, circling the whole town. People got on and people got off at every single stop. Up the stairs, down. It made me crazy. I had to catch up to Cole and tell him I’d done it. I was free. We could see each other outside of Paradise Manor now.

Rush-hour traffic crawled, blocking every turn, slowing the bus into a four-wheeled turtle. It was turning into one of those nightmares: you know the kind where you try and try to get somewhere but somehow it’s always just a little farther out of your reach. I began to think I would never get to Cole.

“Oh, great!” The police had blocked the street directly to the Manor. The bus had to take a detour.

“Looks like there’s been an accident,” a lady with shopping bags told the driver. “I hope nobody got hurt.”

A siren warbled in that moment.

“Must have just happened,” he answered back. “Here comes the ambulance.”

I didn’t know where the bus would go from there, so I stood up to ring the signal bell. Something made me turn to look back. A red light pulsed across my eyes. I squinted.
It isn’t
, I told myself.
It couldn’t be
.

My lawyer jumps in with another question. “Maybe there is a detail you can clarify for the court. Why did Cole ride a bike that night if he meant to go out with you afterwards?”

I close my eyes for a second, open them and sigh. “As long as there was no ice on the road, he always rode his bike. Taking the bus takes twice as long, and that’s if you’re at the stop at just the right time. Besides the bus, if you don’t have a licence you have to rely on parents or friends with cars. Cole just wanted to do his own thing.”

“But you two were going to go out after.”

“I don’t know if he planned to leave his bike at the Manor and take a cab after. But I would have taken the bus or ridden on his bike with him if he’d asked.” Whoops. Did I go too far? Riding two on a bike was illegal. Did that show I didn’t mind breaking the law and so I would easily be able to help Helen Demers die?

“Sunny,” Michael says gently, “did you know what had happened to Cole when you arrived at Paradise Manor?”

I shake my head. “But the bus I was on passed the accident. The ambulance arrived as we made the detour and I saw a crumpled bike at the side of the road. I’d hoped it wasn’t Cole’s, but not that many people bike in February and it was red like his.” Tears burn at the back of my eyes. My fists bunch. It’s been a whole year since Cole rode away from Paradise Manor. How many times will I cry over that? I have to blink and that sends a tear sliding down my cheek. I don’t wipe it away — I don’t want to call attention to it.

“Did you continue with your regular volunteer activities?” Michael asks me.

“No, because it wasn’t a regular volunteer hour anyway.”

“Right.” Michael nods. “This would have been your forty-first hour.”

“Yes. But I had this awful feeling. When I stepped through the door of Paradise Manor, my head felt like it was floating off my body. Still, I followed all the rules, signing the book, washing my hands, keying in the lockup code. I passed out my gifts to the residents, but I didn’t stop to chat with them. I couldn’t.

“Only Jeannette was holding a bag of candies. She told me she’d taken them from Helen Demers’s room. Cole never leaves those behind, so I thought maybe he’d just gone to the bathroom.

“I took them back from her and headed for Mrs. Demers’s room. I saw some of the aides talking and the way one looked at me, I knew something was wrong.

“Still I wasn’t sure what. I ran to Mrs. Demers’s room, hoping Cole would have returned by now.”

“But he hadn’t,” Michael says gently.

I shook my head. “No. So I sat down beside Mrs. Demers and I heard, we both heard, the receptionist, Katherine Filmore, tell someone that Cole had been hit by a car. Thrown. I couldn’t move or do anything for a while.”

Michael coaxes me on. “Do you feel Mrs. Demers understood what was said about the accident?”

I shook my head. “I couldn’t tell. Mrs. Demers just stared at me, not saying anything.”

“But this would have been perfectly normal for her in her condition, correct?”

“Yes, but it did feel different. I reached out and touched her hand and she called me Cole and asked if I could give her a butterscotch.”

“Would she normally have been able to speak in full sentences like that?” Michael McCann asked me.

“No, not for a month she hadn’t. So I unwrapped one and put it in her mouth for her.”

“Did she begin to choke?”

“No, she didn’t. I didn’t take the rest of the bag with me because it didn’t belong to me. And honestly, Mrs. Demers couldn’t walk anymore. She was in a wheelchair. There was no way she should have been able to reach the rest on the bureau where I left them.

“But at that moment I just couldn’t stand being there any longer. I left her room and ran down the hall and out of the building. I know I didn’t sign out or talk to anybody. But I couldn’t deal with anything at that moment.”

“To the best of your knowledge, you did not kill Mrs. Demers with that one candy, then?”

“I’m positive I didn’t.” What I don’t tell them is that she motioned to me for another butterscotch. I waited for a second but she moaned and waved her hands. In a minute I thought she would start yelling the way Jeannette did when you didn’t humour her. So I unwrapped a second candy slowly. I didn’t want to give it to her. She hadn’t even eaten the first one. I just wanted to play along with her, to comfort her. Just as the staff always did.

“No further questions.”

“Mr. Dougal, do you wish to cross examine the witness?” the judge asks the buzzard.

“Yes, I do, Your Honour.” He stands up and flicks at the back of his robe. His black feathers unfold behind him. He clears his throat. “Miss Ehret, you appear to be crying. Are you sad that a seventy-six-year-old woman died last year?”

“Objection!” Michael McCann calls.

“Overruled,” the judge says. He turns to me. “You may answer the question.”

That buzzard saw my one tear and he knows it isn’t for Helen.
That sarcastic tone of his
. What should I answer? Should I be honest? I wipe both cheeks with my hands and take a breath. “Yes, I am sad.”

“But you knew she was dying of Alzheimer’s. That she couldn’t walk or talk or even eat the things she liked anymore.”

“Yes, I’m sad for all those things too.”

“Aren’t you really sad over Cole’s accident?”

I nod. “Yes.”

“Which are you sadder about?”

I shake my head and shrug my shoulders. “Cole was my friend and I lost him that day.”

“Aren’t you really just upset about having to stand and testify in front of all these people?”

“No . . . I mean yes. All of it. Honestly, I didn’t even know I was crying.”

The buzzard tilts his head in disbelief. “Do you always tell the truth?”

I stare into the buzzard’s eyes for a few seconds and swallow hard to give the answer he doesn’t expect. “No.”

The lady in the front row pulls back likes she’s been slapped.

“On February 14, when you knew Cole had been in a serious accident, did you really give Mrs. Demers only one candy?” His buzzard eyes brand me.

I answer quickly. “Yes.” I never
gave
her another butterscotch. After I held the unwrapped Werther’s in my hand for a moment, she kept up with the moaning, only louder. Then she reached over and, with her mouth to my hand, took the candy like a dog. Then she gestured for another. Mesmerized, I unwrapped it and she took it in the same way. I didn’t have a clear idea of what she was doing but I had a feeling. I think she would have kept asking for more but I ran out.

“Do you expect the court to believe that this woman, who rarely spoke and couldn’t walk, suddenly reached over and took two more candies, unwrapped them, and stuffed them down her own throat so that she would choke?”

“No. Yes. Maybe . . .” I begin to sputter now. This was so important for my mother, that I not be guilty.

“Didn’t you, in fact, keep giving Mrs. Demers candy till she started coughing? Didn’t you then quickly walk away, hoping she would die? Thereby helping your friend Cole out with a promise to his grandmother that you knew he couldn’t keep?”

I feel my skin heat up. Had I heard her coughing? There was a rasping sound, not unlike what that juror is doing right now.

Heh, heh, heh!

Johann used to cough like that
.
It could have been anybody. Did I think it was Cole’s grandmother? Doesn’t matter, I didn’t go back to check. “No!” My voice comes out whiny. I can’t admit any of my true thoughts. It might spoil everything. I don’t like the way everyone’s staring at me.

“No further questions.”

I know I haven’t done well. I can see the chubby guy rubbing his forehead. That man in the front is coughing again.

I’d help you if you were choking, honest I would.

But I also know my lawyer has one more witness to call. Everything now depends on my mother. “Your Honour, I call Ursula Ehret to the stand.”

My mother gets up and walks to the front. She’s tall and long necked, graceful as a swan. Would that set her apart from the jury? What about that slight upper-crust Oxford accent?

She places her hand on the Bible and swears to tell the whole truth.

“How would you describe the way your daughter behaved at home?”

“Sonja has been a delight since the day she was born. She adored and looked up to her older brother. She was never disobedient to my husband or me. Never sloppy. She always kept her room tidy. She did her own laundry and helped with chores. Always respectful, no problem with drugs or skipping school.” My mother lifts her hands and spreads them out like two birds flying away from her. “Never in trouble like some teenagers get into.”

Is she forgetting our arguments over Donovan? Does she not remember when she was called in to Economart over the shoplifting incident? What about the report cards? She threw them to the table and huffed in disgust. “Too much time in front of the mirror.” What about the arguments over coming to help at the condo office like dear old Wolfie?

Is my mother lying? I look into her tired blue eyes, tiny wrinkles crowfooting from around them. The blue looks as though it has faded, is fading, along with my mother. What will the doctor say about her cancer on Thursday? Remarkably, in that moment she smiles at me, like there’s a secret between us that she’s going to keep.

“How would you say Sunny related to elderly people?”

“She loved them. When we first came to this country, my husband and I worked such long hours, so we brought my mother over to help us look after the children. It was my mother who nicknamed our Sonja ‘Sunny’ because she always brought smiles and joy to everyone around her. Especially my mother.”

In German
Sonnenshein.
I hear the music and her voice in my head.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are grey.

“How did she react to your mother’s death? She died of cancer when Sunny was six, correct?”

“Yes. She didn’t understand. Maybe we should not have taken her to the funeral. She seemed lost and very sad. She drew pictures of her Omi leaving her in a plane and on a boat.”

The music and singing stops.

“Two summers ago, you fought a battle with cancer. How did this affect Sunny?”

“We didn’t realize so much at the time . . . but she pulled away. She didn’t come to our family’s business office anymore. She started seeing this boy . . .”

“Donovan Petrocelli?”

“Correct. And we forbade her to see him because he got into trouble.”

“Did she listen?”

“No. But my husband and I let it go. We were busy with the hospital appointments . . . and the business. We didn’t ask her too much so she didn’t have to lie. We knew she was a smart girl and would figure it out for herself.”

“What about the hair colouring? The pink streaks in her hair.”

My mother smiles at me again. “That’s when I knew my Sunny was coming back to me.”

“Could you explain?”

“As I was going through treatments for breast cancer, Sunny did not want to be around me. I thought she was angry with me for becoming sick. But she could not talk about it. When she put the pink streaks in her hair, I didn’t ask. I didn’t have the strength to discuss and argue. But then her friend Alexis explained.”

“What did she say to you?”

“That Sunny thought I was leaving her just like her grandmother. That Alexis tried to get her to do the Run for the Cure but she couldn’t do it. Instead she dyed her hair pink at the front almost like the ribbons they give out.”

The lady with the soya sauce down her front turns slightly to look at me. She smiles.

Anybody can spill sauce,
I think.

“What about Sunny’s volunteer work at the home?”

“My husband and I thought it was the best thing for her. We weren’t sure when Sunny attended the funerals at the home. But then we could see that maybe it even helped her. She realized that people are . . .” my mother hesitates and makes a quick eye contact with me again, “mortal, through no fault of their own. They do not die to leave someone.”

“Mrs. Ehret, do you believe she might have wanted to aid in a mercy killing or suicide last February 14?”

“Absolutely not. I feel she was very upset by the accident. That she was in shock and could not react and behave normally.”

“Do you think she walked away as Helen Demers began choking to death?”

“No, no, no.” My mother rubs at her eyes and when she looks up again, they are tear filled. “It doesn’t matter how upset she was, she would not leave this woman to die.”

“Thank you. No further questions.”

“Mr. Dougal, do you have questions for the witness?”

“No . . . wait. Yes, Your Honour.” The buzzard flies up and faces my mother.

I sit back, knowing there is nothing he can say to rattle or trip her up in any way.

“Mrs. Ehret, we can tell that you love your daughter and that you are proud of her.”

My mother smiles and nods.

“Would you say that you would do anything in your power to protect her?”

“Yes, yes but . . .”

“No further questions.”

The lady in the sweatsuit frowns and looks as upset as I feel that the buzzard cut Mom off. My mother would lie for me, that’s how it sounds. How can Michael McCann ever get the jury to acquit me if they think even my mother lies? I sit waiting for the judge to call it a day but then, surprisingly, my lawyer stands up again.

“Your Honour, we would like to ask the court’s indulgence. We want to call one last witness up. We were uncertain whether he would be physically capable of testifying but it now appears he can. We call Cole Demers to the stand, please.”

Mrs. Johnson gasps. A surprise witness. For once we both feel the same about something: shocked. There’s some murmuring between the reporter and Mrs. Demers.

The judge calls for order. “Members of the court are reminded that their reactions can influence the jury and therefore should be reserved for outside this room. Otherwise, they could be used as a grounds for mistrial.”

Meanwhile, a tall, pale boy I hardly recognize makes his way slowly to the front. Cole looks heavier than when I last saw him and he drags his left foot slightly. When he finally sits down in the witness box and faces me, I see a zipper-like scar stretching from the corner of his left eye to his upper lip.