Falling (22 page)

THE SKY WAS A FRESHLY WASHED BLUE
, and the air was cool, much cooler than it had been the day before. Two men came to the front door of a little bungalow on Stanley Street. One fiddled with a hangnail on his thumb. His cheeks were slightly flushed and he had a neatly trimmed moustache. The other was older and less self-conscious. There were wrinkles around his eyes, and his dark brown hair was beginning to turn grey at his temples. Both were dressed in uniform.

The older one, Bob Rieker, had done this kind of thing before, but it was the worst part of his job. The only good thing, he thought, as he knocked, was that he’d had two cups of strong coffee that morning; this helped, though not much. He knew that Warren Sangster, the young policeman next to him, was hoping his inexperience might not be apparent to the person who came to the door.

Rieker rapped hard on the door a second time, and now they could hear someone unlocking it.

Good morning. Jasmine Blakeney?

A purplish-haired young woman faced them at the threshold. He flipped open the leather wallet that held his
identification and the younger policeman did the same.

We’re with the Niagara Parks Police, said Rieker.

The woman tightened the belt of her terry-cloth robe. Jasmine, she called. Couple of cops here to see you.

She scrutinized them.

So what’d Jasmine do? she asked. Rob a bank or something?

No.

Another young woman came along the hall in bare feet, smoothing her sundress.

He won’t tell me what you did, Jas, said the purple-haired woman, drifting away from the door.

Jasmine Blakeney? I’m Constable Rieker and this is Constable Sangster. We’d like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.

I don’t mind, she said.

Do you know someone by the name of Ingrid MacKenzie?

Damian’s mother, she said blankly. Yes.

Have you spoken to Ingrid or Damian this morning?

Why? she asked. What’s happened?

We have reason to believe that Damian is missing, Rieker said, thinking how she was about the same age as his daughter.

Missing?

A jogger saw a car, a car with a roof rack, parked near the Hydro Control Dam early this morning. She also saw a yellow boat, which she described as a kayak, going down the river toward the Falls. She thought she saw someone in it, a man, but she wasn’t positive. She contacted us early this morning. She also contacted the
Niagara Herald
, unfortunately –

What are you saying?

We’re just conducting an investigation at this point, he said, as casually as he could. We’d like to find the owner of the car that was abandoned. It’s got Nova Scotia plates and the owner is Ingrid Elizabeth MacKenzie, from Halifax. Halifax police have been to her residence, but there’s no one at home. What we need to know is whether she owned a kayak – there’s a roof rack on her car, but no kayak.

Yes, she said. No. It’s Damian’s kayak. Are you saying that he could have – I don’t think – no, you must have the wrong person.

We’re just trying to find out more, he said quietly.

She made a moaning sound and backed against the wall. Tarah, she cried.

The purple-haired woman came and put her arms around her. Oh God, she said. Oh shit.

There was a card on the passenger seat of the car, Rieker continued. He held the card away from him because he needed his reading glasses.

Victorian Hair Wreaths & Braided Pictures, Jasmine Blakeney, 5934 Stanley Street – He looked up from the card. You’re Jasmine Blakeney, aren’t you?

She didn’t answer, and her friend, still holding her, nodded for her.

All I can say, Miss Blakeney, is that a car has been abandoned and a kayak is missing. That’s as much as we know. Rieker wanted to be out of the dark hallway, out in the clean morning air again.

His partner pulled out a pencil and a small coil-bound book.

You’re Tarah? he said.

Yes.

Maybe you can help – do you know who else Damian has been in contact with since he’s been here? he asked. Do you know where he’s staying?

I know he was staying with his uncle, said Tarah. Damian and his mom were both staying there. Roger Hock – something.

Hockridge, said Jasmine. On River Road.

He noted it in the book.

What are you going to do? asked Tarah.

We’ll be in touch as soon as we can, said Rieker.

Their shoes made crisp, authoritative sounds as they went down the steps. The younger man got in the car, but the older man paused with his hand on the door handle and looked back at Tarah, still holding Jasmine in the doorway. Then he got in the car too.

What Bob Rieker hated was telling the mother, who’d said nothing at all. She’d just closed her eyes and put her hands up as if to shield herself. Then she’d gone quickly out of the kitchen and down the hall; he heard her going up the stairs.

That left the blind guy, sitting there crying like a child. He imagined the worst, right away.

Last night Damian was upset, he said, wiping his face. There was just no reasoning with him. His sister died less than a year ago, and last night he couldn’t find the box that held her ashes. His cousin had taken it – my son. And Damian was just beside himself. It’s all my fault.

It’s not –

I should have gone after him. I should have made it right. God, I wasn’t there for him. Once, you know, I said something to him. I said that he should do it in the middle
of the night, because they’d slap a fine on him otherwise. I told him that. He must have got the idea from me.

Do what in the middle of the night? asked Rieker.

He was going to toss his sister’s ashes in the river. I never imagined he was thinking of anything like this.

Would you say he seemed depressed?

No, he was angry. He was angry with his cousin. He was angry with all of us. Not so much depressed as erratic, capable of anything. Poor Ingrid, he added.

The boy’s mother?

Yes.

It reminded Rieker of the time his grandmother had died, and how his father had told him, carefully, as if there was a way to say the words without making them hurt. But it had hurt. He’d run upstairs, away from his father, and cried in the bathroom with the door locked, lying on the cold tiles of the bathroom floor, looking up at the round, shiny underside of the sink.

What could Rieker have done? He wasn’t the kind who had ever reached out and held another man, but something about this man’s crying made him want to.

Oh Lord, cried the blind man, rocking back and forth. Oh, Damian.

We don’t know anything yet. We’re just conducting an investigation.

But he took the kayak and –

The man couldn’t finish. He pressed his hands to his forehead, drawing them down his face so that Rieker could see the inside of his lower lip for a moment. It was ruby red.

No one at the Control Dam saw him? he asked.

No. A jogger, a female, said she saw a kayak going toward the Falls – it was above Table Rock. But she was
looking through the trees and it wasn’t completely light.

Will you tell me as soon as they find the boat? As soon as they find anything at all?

Yes, sir, we’ll let you know just as soon as we know anything more. We’ll certainly let you know.

What surprised Rieker, and also made him feel foolish, was that the man cried tears. They ran down his face until his cheeks were wet. The man was blind, yet he cried tears, just like anyone else. For some reason he found this unexpected, like the time he had seen a thin slash across his dog’s paw, made by glass, and the beads of bright red blood that sprang from it. He’d been stupidly surprised by the red blood, which was so like his own.

After the two policemen left the big house on River Road, they went and got themselves a cup of coffee at Tim Hortons. It was only ten o’clock, but it seemed as though they’d put in a long day already. Rieker drank his doubledouble, but he had a headache. He knew he had to look as if this kind of thing was all in a day’s work, because Warren, who looked like he was still hanging on to his mother’s apron strings, was watching his every move. At some point, this kid would have to do what Rieker had done, and he’d have to do it well, but he’d also have to make it seem as if he’d done it many times before.

Rieker rolled up the rim of the paper cup to see if he’d won anything, got up with a sigh, and tossed the cup in the trash. They’d go back and do up the paperwork. He’d eat his sandwich with light cream cheese and turkey that Moira had made for him. But this business of the boy had made a black hole in his day.
Jasmine circled around the kitchen aimlessly, tears running down her face. She turned to the wall, leaning her forehead against it.

Oh fuck.

She struggled to think of what to do next. Her thoughts were very slow. She sat down at the table, looking at the steaming brown liquid in the blue cup. Tarah had made coffee for her. Jasmine could hear, distantly, the sound of a shower in the bathroom, and she concentrated on the sound.

Tarah had held Jasmine and talked soothingly to her. But finally, she said she had to go to work, because she was two hours late already. Would Jasmine be all right? And Jasmine had nodded.

Milk. She needed milk for the coffee. When she got up and reached for the handle of the refrigerator door to get the milk, she saw Damian standing in the doorway, tall and loose and sleepy. She closed her eyes and when she opened them, he was gone.

They’d got it wrong. Those policemen. The jogger.

Yet she could see a yellow boat, bright as a bird, tipping over the edge. It tipped and was gone.

She splashed cold water from the kitchen sink on her face and stood alone in the dim room. She picked up the phone and dialed. Her mother answered, and Jasmine imagined her on the brown sofa with the handmade blue-and-chocolate-brown quilt folded neatly over the back. She spoke softly, in that breathy voice that was so familiar.

Hello, Mum, said Jasmine, putting her hand to her eyes to stop the tears.

Sandra, said her mother. It’s so early in the morning. Only Esther Pavlovich phones so early. The rates are better after six in the evening.

I know.

What time is it there?

I don’t know.

Well, it’s not yet nine here. Do you want to call again after six in the evening?

No, Mum. I just wanted to hear your voice.

Oh, said her mother. Well, here it is. My voice, I mean. If you hadn’t gone off to God-knows-where you’d be able to hear my voice more often.

Mum –

Do you need money?

No – no, I’m fine for money. Jasmine was staring at the clock. Was it ten o’clock or two o’clock? She couldn’t figure it out.

Sandra? Are you all right? It sounds like you’ve been crying.

No, I – How are you and Dad?

We’re fine. This cat of yours has been acting strangely. Didn’t you say you were going to take it?

Yes. I’ll take her the next time I come home.

Well, that’ll be Christmas, said her mother. I don’t know if I can wait that long. Some days I think it’s that cat or me, and both of us won’t fit in the same house. She’s ruining the curtains.

The curtains, repeated Jasmine.

The new ones from Sears. Are you all right, Sandra? You don’t sound all right.

I’m –

You’re still working? asked her mother. Are you taking your vitamin C every day? You are? Well, are you pregnant? You’re not phoning to say you’re pregnant, are you?

No, I’m not pregnant.

Well, you’re probably low on iron, because girls always are. And you have to be careful there. It’s not like here. People take advantage of you in places like that. It’s really no place for you to be –

You’ve said that, said Jasmine.

You could come back here. There’s always your room here – we haven’t changed a thing, except that I made a new valance for your window. It’s pink and white, like the bedspread.

Is Dad all right?

Other than being cross with you, he’s as fine as a person can be who’s on blood thinners.

Tell him I called. Jasmine leaned her head back; she closed her eyes.

I’ll tell him. Remember to take care of yourself, will you?

I love you, Mum.

Yes, dear, I love you too. Next time call after six in the evening, all right?

Yes, Mum.

She put the receiver down slowly, thinking about the cat. She saw Spats, the grey cat with the white paws, and her father’s large hand holding it by the scruff of its neck. Spats had peed on the living room rug. She remembered how he’d chucked the cat out the door, but it righted itself even as it fell, so it landed perfectly. And then she’d run outside to comfort it. That was what she wanted now, she thought, to hold her cat in her arms and feel it purring. She wanted her old dog too, but Queenie was gone.

She still had her hand on the phone. Then she picked up the receiver again and dialed a number.

Roger? Oh, Roger – I’m sorry, I can’t do this. I can’t talk.

Jasmine.

I can’t talk.

Wait –

It was several days before the policemen returned to the house on Stanley Street.

Jasmine was lying on her bed staring at the ceiling when she heard the knock at the door. She hadn’t been able to sleep for two nights, and now she was exhausted. But the knocking at the door persisted and after a while she got up, buttoning her jeans, and went down the hall.