Scare the Light Away (24 page)

The restaurant was almost full, but the end of the lunch hour was approaching. Most of the tables were occupied by dirty plates and remnants of meals waiting to be cleared or patrons hurriedly finishing their coffee and pie before heading back to work. Maggie bustled about, collecting empty plates, carrying bills, and scooping up money. I perched on a stool at the counter and pretended to read the plastic menu.

“The soup today is split pea and the sandwich is roast beef on a bun with fries and gravy,” the waitress, not Maggie, told me with a disinterested sigh. She was short, with thin, greasy hair allowed to grow too long and bad skin covered with too much cheap makeup. And far too young to be carrying such a bulging stomach out in front of her. She reminded me of the trees in the woods behind our house, proud in the display of their new buds. The girl caught me looking at her belly and lifted her left hand so I could see the plain, cheap wedding band she wore. As if, at her age, pregnant and working in this dump, it would make much of a difference that she was married.

“Coffee please, just coffee.” She started to walk away. “And a piece of apple pie with ice cream. Please.”

The coffee arrived almost immediately, fresh and delicious. The diner was emptying out. I could smell the pie before it arrived: warm with vanilla ice cream melting around the edges. At the first bite I was swimming in a heavenly bath of cinnamon, warm apples, cool vanilla, and flaky pastry.

I ate my pie with enthusiasm, but sipped the coffee, trying to stretch out my visit. Maggie collected money, wiped down tables, and laid them once again. Finally she had to pass my stool, where I lay in wait, a determined hunter in a duck blind.

“Hi, Maggie,” I said cheerfully. “Remember me, Rebecca McKenzie? I came in the other day with my dad?”

She stopped, too polite to shove her way past. Thank heaven for good manners. I have found that you can always take advantage of people by preying on their sense of propriety.

“I remember. How’s Bob doing?”

“Not too good,” I sighed mightily. “It’s hard for him, trying to manage all on his own. Actually I’m glad I ran into you. When we talked earlier you indicated that you might be interested in the housekeeper job we’re offering. It’s still open.”

She looked around, nervous, twitching. “I have a job, Miss McKenzie.”

“Oh, right.” I lowered my voice, fellow conspirators we. “If you’re still interested, that would be great. Why don’t you come up to the house when you get off work and we can talk about it?”

“I don’t know… Folks are saying…”

“Saying what?”

“There’s talk. About your brother.”

“So? I’m not asking you to work for my brother. You know my dad, right?”

She nodded.

“You know he’s a good man, right?”

“Yes.”

“My brother’s a good man, too. But that doesn’t matter. If you think you would like to work for my dad, that’s great. No one’s asking you to work for Jimmy.”

“Maggie. Tables need setting.” A man came out of the kitchen, a stained white apron stretched across his ample stomach.

I raised my voice. “I’ll have another piece of that apple pie. With ice cream.”

Maggie went to get the dessert, and the bossy fellow returned to his kitchen. The pregnant girl shuffled about the room, pouring coffee for a single man at the other end of the counter and taking the order of a couple newly arrived.

Maggie returned with my pie.

“Actually, Maggie,” I said, cutting the pastry with my fork. “To be fair, I should tell you that I stopped by because someone else is interested in taking the job. I wanted to make sure that you weren’t still thinking about it before I offer it to her.” The oldest, dumbest, cheapest trick in the book.

I should have been ashamed of myself.

But I wasn’t. Not in the slightest. It’s been known to work on corporate investors.

“Lunch shift is almost over,” Maggie said. “I have a couple hours off before dinner starts.”

“Good. It’s a warm day. Why don’t we sit down by the river and have a nice talk? You know the park on Riverside Street?”

“Yes.”

“What time do you get off?”

Maggie glanced at the clock commemorating someone’s visit to Sudbury. “Soon’s tables are clean. Ten minutes? Fifteen?”

“See you then.” She returned to her chores and I leisurely finished my pie, rather pleased with myself. Hiring a housekeeper or floating a ten-million-dollar loan. The principle’s the same.

I offered Maggie Kzenic the job on the spot. There weren’t a whole lot of eligible candidates eagerly lining up to take the position. She explained that she would have to talk to Peter, the owner of the restaurant. She was sort of hoping, she told me, that she would be able to stay on to work the dinner shift. She was finding the morning-to-night workday too hard, problems with aging knees made long hours on her feet a misery, and she had told Peter that she wanted to cut her hours down, but she couldn’t really afford to do so. The job with my dad would be perfect for her. We arranged that she would come in four days a week: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. She would get Dad a late breakfast/lunch, do a bit of light housework, have his dinner ready, put it into the oven to keep warm, and be off to her next job by 4:30. I told her that judging by the amount of local home cooking stored in the big chest freezer in the cellar, it would be a long time before she would have to cook. On Fridays she would leave the fridge with enough supplies for the weekend and make up sandwiches and salads or casseroles to be heated in the microwave for his meals.

It occurred to me that after the incident with the bacon in the frying pan the other day, I might ask Jimmy if it was possible for Maggie to disable the stove somehow before she finished for the day.

“I’m going back to Vancouver on Saturday. I’ll tell Aileen what we’ve discussed, and from then on you can deal with her.”

She shifted on the uncomfortable picnic bench.

“Is that okay?”

Maggie looked out across the park. Two Canada geese were poking in the brown grass. Not much nourishment, this time of year. In my childhood they all flew south for the winter, great black V formations passing across the clear, blue sky, splitting the rapidly cooling autumn air with their honking chorus, encouraging their friends to keep up. These days, many didn’t get any further than Toronto, and there they stayed all through the winter, fed by enthusiastic children with paper bags stuffed full of stale white bread.

“Miss McKenzie?”

“Rebecca, please.”

“I’d prefer to deal with your sister, Shirley Smithers.”

“Oh.”

“Not that I have anything against Aileen, you understand. She’s a nice lady, Aileen is. But with all that’s going on…” Her voice trailed off.

“Aileen’s closer. But if that’s what you want, I’ll mention it to Shirley. My brother didn’t do it. He didn’t kill Jennifer Taylor.”

“Well, to tell you honest, I don’t know. But folks are saying…”

“Lots of people around here don’t seem to have anything better to do than gossip. And others don’t have the intellect to realize vicious garbage when they hear it.”

I didn’t have to look at her face to know that I’d made a mistake. I do have a big mouth. One thing I learned early in the business world: It’s not a bright idea to insult someone you’re trying to get to do something for you. My words stumbled all over themselves in an attempt to make repairs.

“It’s been hard the last few days. Hearing what people are saying about my brother. Most people don’t have all the facts. They’re judging him on his past behavior and that’s not fair, is it?”

“I remember Jim when he was a young one,” Maggie said. “In all this town there wasn’t one person talked about more than Little Jim McKenzie. He was a great one for the girls, your brother.”

“That’s an understatement.”

“There’s somethin’ you should probably know. Gossip, scuttlebutt moves fast in this town. And most of it’s worth nothin’ more than the air it’s breathed into.”

“But?”

“But, some folk are saying that the cops won’t do nothin’ to charge Jim McKenzie. So they’ll have to do for themselves what the cops won’t.”

“You heard this?”

“Last night, before closin’.”

“There was trouble at Jimmy’s place this morning. Fortunately it came to nothing. The police are watching the house now. Will you tell me if you hear any more? Please?”

“My brother’s in the OPP, stationed over in Thunder Bay. He’s a good cop, real proud of what he does.” Maggie picked at a bit of dried food clinging to the front of her dress. “He wouldn’t take a bribe, look away from a child’s killing. No way. The police here wouldn’t either.

“Men get to talking when they’re enjoying their food. I’ll keep my ears open. Let you know if I hear anything worth hearin’.”

“Thanks, Maggie.”

We parted with a smile. She had to go home and take a nap before the next shift. How perfectly awful must that be? I work hard, but that’s different, very different. I’m not on my feet all day. I sit in a nice office, in an expensive chair, and often stop simply to think and look out over the multi-million-dollar view. I love every minute of my job, but even so, I wouldn’t want to head back to it a few hours after finishing. Not day after day.

For Maggie the idea of putting in a day helping my father at his house and then going in for a shift at the restaurant seemed like an improvement.

The things Maggie told me, about what she overheard in the restaurant, disturbed me. I walked to my car with a lot to think about. Who did Maggie overhear talking about taking matters into their own hands? The Taylors? It was highly unlikely that the family would be having dinner at a restaurant the day after their daughter’s body had been pulled out of the swamp. Jack and Pete? If they had planned trouble last night, they would have consumed more than a few drinks to work up the courage and shown up at Jimmy’s after closing time. Not like them to go home and sleep on it.

Suppose the townspeople made a concentrated effort to go after Jimmy? Most of the men in this town were reasonably law-abiding, but the Taylors were a respected family, long-time residents, owners of Fawcett’s Hardware Store. Might people follow them? Possible. Particularly on a Saturday night after the bars closed. And my good friends Jack and Pete didn’t appear to need any backup in order to make mischief. The idea of the single patrol car sitting at the side of the road seemed rather pathetic. As the saying goes: just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.

In Ontario the bars close at two a.m. Sampson and I would be sitting up late these next few nights.

And after I left?

By then everything would be resolved.

I have always been an incorrigible optimist.

Chapter 41

The Diary of Janet McKenzie. October 3, 1961

Of all the unimaginable things. Shirley today announced that she and Al Smithers want to get married. I can’t bear that boy. He is so supercilious and smug. I told her and told her that he was no good and I forbade her to date him. But would she listen to me? Of course not. The fool girl is all of sixteen years old. Younger even than I was when I met her father. And look at what a mistake that turned out to be.

She hasn’t said anything, not yet. But I’ve known for several weeks that she is in the family way. What mother wouldn’t know? I am going to be a grandmother. A thought too horrible to contemplate.

It will not happen to my Rebecca. It will not. If I have to move heaven and earth, I will make sure that Rebecca has a chance in this world.

November 24, 1963

In court today. Again. I am about ready to consider myself obliged to invite the judge over for dinner, I know him so well. They caught Jim drinking this time. And him only fifteen. You would think that his family would be ashamed. To have a son in and out of court like he was the revolving door I saw in Toronto back in ’46. But Mr. M. just laughs and slaps the boy on the back and says, “A chip off the old block.” Poor Mrs. M. knows so little of what is happening these days; she just smiles and packs the boy a lunch of dry bread and a slice of moldy cheese to take with him.

Bob is concerned enough to tell me that he would go to court if he could get the time off work. Of course he can’t.

A small fine, and my boy is out the court house door. All of fifteen years old and walking down the main street like the cock-of-the-walk. He is a good-looking boy, and I say that not as his mother, because I think life would go better for him if he had a bit of humility. He is short, like his… father… and ashamed of it, so he works hard to build up his body and strut as if he doesn’t care. He is still a good bit shorter than I. Boys his age have a few more growing years yet, but I have seen him eyeing me and then the men in his family and I know that he is worried. Oh, that we lived in a perfect world. Where such things don’t matter. And no one will judge my son by the length of his body. But we don’t live there, and I can still hear the mocking voice of my husband’s own father laughing at him for marrying a woman taller than he. My mother-in-law doesn’t even touch five feet. All the better to allow her five-foot-four husband to grind her into the ground.

To top it all off, we had barely arrived home from the courthouse when Shirley announced that she and Al are expecting another baby.

I wanted to cry, although I’d suspected as much. They are still living with Mr. and Mrs. Smithers and Al is spinning big tales of moving to Toronto and getting a good job and moving into one of the new houses that are springing up around the city, acres and acres of them. Bob looked stunned—at least he was surprised. Mr. and Mrs. M. were over at our house, (when is one of them not?). He smirked, of course, and slapped Al on the back as if it were something he’d managed all by himself, and invited Al into the kitchen, and we could all hear the fridge door opening. I don’t think Mrs. M. quite understood.

I am going to be a grandmother for the second time. And here I am scarcely thirty-seven.

How did I get to be so old?

Chapter 42

Shortly after dinner I made my excuses and, to my dad’s amusement, headed for bed. I set the alarm for two o’clock, but I needn’t have bothered—I hardly shut my eyes. When I slapped the buzzing alarm off, everything was quiet. I left Sampson in the house (stealth isn’t her strong suit), but closed the door without locking it in case she was needed in a hurry. Creeping down the road to check out the police car, I managed to startle the constable on duty as much as he scared me. My head popped up from behind a rock the very moment he lowered his zipper to take a pee in the bushes.

“Couldn’t sleep. Out for a walk. Sorry.” My cheeks burned with embarrassment. It must be a great deal easier to be on surveillance in the countryside than in the city. How do female officers manage in the city anyway? I wondered, scurrying backward through the brush.

It was thoroughly dark. Thick clouds obscured any trace of moon or stars. And quiet. Only the distant swamp was awake with the nighttime chorus of deep-throated frogs and high-pitched bugs. I carried a flashlight but kept it switched off. No need to attract any notice. If anyone should be out here to notice me.

I crept up the dark, peaceful road to check on the big house. Every outdoor bulb had been left on so that the yard was as ablaze with light as an Olympic stadium during the running of the 200 meters. But all was quiet. Returning to my father’s house, I got my dog and my car (into which I had earlier stowed a blanket, a thermos of coffee, tuna sandwiches wrapped in wax paper, a handful of dog biscuits, a bottle of water, a book, and the tiny reading light I use when traveling) and drove up the road without headlights. I pulled over at the side of the road, switched the engine off, and there we sat.

Not even a deer or a raccoon broke the silence of the night. The frogs had all gone to bed. As we settled into our watch, the clouds abruptly scattered, leaving the sky clear. A full moon washed the big house in white light. It probably washed my car as well, but that didn’t matter. The best I could do would be to scare troublemakers away if they came up through the woods, avoiding the police on the road. If they thought I was another cop car, that would be all for the good.

Four o’clock. I started up the engine and drove back to the little house. I certainly wouldn’t have deterred any professionals from doing what they came to do, but if a gang of drunks from the bar had been hiding in the woods waiting for me to leave, they would have given up after ten minutes and staggered off home.

***

The next morning I was sound asleep when Dad knocked on my door and told me that Jimmy wanted to see me. I staggered into the kitchen still in my pajamas to find my brother making coffee and toast. He turned his full-wattage smile on me.

“Good morning, Rebecca. Up late last night?”

“Not her,” Dad said. “Hardly finished dinner before she was off. Had to let the dog out myself.”

“Hard day,” I said.

“Well then, you sit right there and I’ll get breakfast.” Jimmy pulled margarine and jam out of the fridge. Dad smiled at us both. He loved to have his children around. A touch of guilt shuddered through me at the thought of my thirty-year absence, but I pushed it to the back of my mind and took a seat. My father could have come to visit me in Vancouver anytime. And when we were children he didn’t seem to much care whether we were around or not. As I remember, he usually nodded goodnight to me from behind the bottom of a beer bottle.

“What’s it like outside?”

“Raining. Looks like an all-day drizzle.” Jimmy poured coffee. “Funny noises in the night. Did you hear anything, Dad?”

“Nope. Slept like a log.”

“I thought that a car was watching the house, but I might have been mistaken.”

”Didn’t see nothing like that.”

“I must have dreamt it. There was a woman, a really great-looking woman, with a dog in this big car. Drinking coffee and reading. The woman, that is, not the dog. And even before the car arrived someone or something was creeping around in the bushes. Not a dog though.”

“A deer?” Dad suggested. “They’ll sometimes come pretty close to the house this time of year. Hungry, been a long winter.” Jimmy had brought the newspaper up with him. Dad flipped it open to the sports section.

“You’re probably right.” Jimmy smiled at me. “Toast, Rebecca?”

“I’m only trying to help. Someone needs to be on watch.”

“Someone was,” Jimmy said.

“Oh.”

He poured the coffee. He’d brought his own beans, previously ground.

“However, even the omnipotent someone has to go to work. Fortunately my big job right now is for out-of-towners. They haven’t heard the latest news, so haven’t called to let me know my services won’t be wanted for the foreseeable future.”

“Leafs lost again,” Dad mumbled from behind his newspaper, while reaching for a slice of toast and jam. “Can’t they ever do anything right?”

“Aileen’s determined to go to Huntsville. A new line of jewelry arrived at the store yesterday, and she insists that only she can unpack it and arrange the pieces on the shelves. And I would rather she didn’t go alone. In case unexpected customers drop into the store, you understand.”

“Nice coffee,” I said.

“Good idea,” Dad said. “All this rain, the roads are gonna be bad.”

“Rebecca?”

“I’d be happy to go with Aileen. Her shop is a wonder, and I’ve been intending to buy some gifts to take home.”

“A full day of shopping and girl talk and you might even sleep the whole night through.”

That comment deserved only a growl in response. “You okay to look after Sampson for the day, Dad?”

“Course I am. She’s a nice dog. We get on real well. Don’t we, Sampson?” He tossed her a piece of toast and scratched behind her ears. She threw back the toast and thumped her tail in agreement.

***

Jimmy was managing the stress of recent events with an almost unnatural calm. Aileen, on the other hand, was as jumpy as Sampson at a porcupine convention. I offered to drive.

Aileen didn’t talk a great deal on the road down to Huntsville, merely twisted her hands together and stared out the window at the passing rocks and trees and lakes. Which were followed by even more rocks and trees and lakes.

Aileen grunted without much interest when I told her that the arrangements were settled with Maggie for the housekeeping job. I said that Maggie would use Shirley as her contact, because they were old friends. (I lied.) I would send Shirley money to cover Maggie’s wages. Did she think Shirley would be offended? Aileen grunted again.

The rest of the trip passed in silence. When I turned off Highway 11 to Huntsville, I mentioned that I was thinking about getting some gifts. Something nice for Ray’s mother, something fun for Jenny. A token for the neighbor who was bringing in the mail and watering my plants.

She twisted in her seat and turned slightly to face me, for the first time in the long, boring trip. Her hands stopped moving. They were shockingly red, angry, the skin raw, tortured with worry. Her fears come out on her body.

“The heartache that flesh is heir to.”
Hamlet
. One summer, so very long ago, before we were married, Ray dragged me to Bard on the Beach, an annual summertime outdoor production of Shakespeare. Nice, but I hadn’t given the play another thought. Until now.

“What sort of thing does your mother-in-law like?” Aileen asked, a small, very small, spark of interest flickering across her brown eyes.

“Glass. Stained glass, sculptures of glass, light-catchers. She loves glass.” That might have been a mistake: Jack had destroyed the glass duck. But Aileen appeared not to make the connection.

“We have some things like that.”

“Good.”

The silence hung between us until we pulled up into the alley behind Cottage Art and Design.

Like an ice sculpture sitting out in the sun on a too-warm day, Aileen began to thaw the moment she set foot into her perfect shop. A handful of customers were scattered about, but Chrissie greeted us with much enthusiasm. Her thick hair had been swept off her face and held back in a loose ponytail.

She held up her right hand and made a signal, a code of some sort, something about the customers. Whatever it was, it had Aileen actually cracking a grin.

“I’ll leave you to it,” she said. “Is the shipment in the back?”

“Yup.”

“Rebecca, I’ve some work to do. You’re welcome to browse through the shop for your gifts, or if you’d rather you can look around town. I’ll be at least an hour, probably longer.”

One of the shoppers, a tall, thin woman, exquisitely dressed in a tan raincoat hanging open over a crisp navy pantsuit, coifed in soft, perfect waves of blond hair, exclaimed over a quilted wall hanging. It was one of my mother’s. The forest in winter.

“You do what you have to do, Aileen. I can manage by myself.”

She disappeared into the back, and I slid closer to the woman with the perfect hair as she called her companion over to have a look. They
oohed
and
aaahed
in unison. If the shop weren’t so small that they likely saw me enter with Aileen and exchange greetings with Chrissie, I would have rushed forward to try (unsuccessfully) to snatch it out of their hands.

I wandered through town, in and out of a few shops. There were some that matched the quality of Aileen’s. But nothing to better it. A newspaper rack standing at the entrance of a convenience store held the latest copy of the
Huntsville Forester
. A picture of Jennifer Taylor figured prominently, beside a smaller photo of the swamp, taken from some distance. Hope River Murder,
the headline proclaimed. I didn’t bother to read the copy.

I let an hour and a half pass before returning to Cottage Art and Design.
Aileen was in the front, carefully arranging her new purchases. The jewelry might be described as “creative” and “edgy.” Much too heavy for my taste. Other than Aileen and Chrissie, the shop was empty. My mother’s wall hanging was gone.

“I’ll be about another half-hour, Rebecca,” Aileen said in greeting. She held up a necklace in front of her face, turning it around and around, examining every angle. It was pewter, sort of representative of a wolf head thrown back against a vague forest background, howling at what was probably supposed to be the full moon. Perfectly hideous.

“No problem. Take all the time you need.”

Ray’s mother would have adored the duck’s bottom, carved so delicately in glass and destroyed so senselessly by Jack Jackson. I avoided anything even remotely like it and selected a sun-catcher, one to join the profusion hanging over her kitchen window. No matter how many she owned, there would always be a place for one more. For the neighbor watering my plants and bringing in the mail I settled on a tiny painting, an original, in watercolor. A boathouse, gray with white trim, an antique wooden boat pulling in at sunset. For Jenny I selected a T-shirt with a picture of a giant mosquito, primed and ready for battle, above the slogan
Huntsville Fighter Squadron
. I pulled the wolf-howling necklace off the display rack. “This would be perfect for someone I know.”

Aileen beamed at me. “I wasn’t too sure about this artist. Her work is somewhat heavy, too arty, for most of the people who come in here. But if you like it, I’m sure the line will be a run-away success.”

“It’s different.” No point in telling her I hated the stupid thing and was buying it for an incredibly efficient woman whose taste I wouldn’t trust to judge tinned soup.

Chrissie wrapped my purchases in tissue paper and rang up the bill. Gifts for only three people. And one of them someone who worked for me. Ray had friends, Ray and I had friends, but once Ray’s funeral was over and the suitable period of commiseration came to an end, I had been left with no one.

Sampson and I had spent the last year in isolation. I went to work; we walked the beach or drove to Pacific Rim Park for long walks in the rainforest. She ate out of a can and I ate out of a microwaved cardboard box. We watched TV together or she snoozed while I worked on papers brought home from the office. Not much of a life. For neither dog nor woman. But then I wasn’t looking to have a good time.

Chrissie handed me my packages with a warm smile. “Your friends will love these, I’m sure,” she said. Without warning a tear slid down my cheek. “Are you all right? Can I do something? Shall I call Aileen?”

I shook my head. Her concern made it worse, and before I could stop it the tears were out of control. “I’ll wait outside till Aileen’s finished.”

Of course she told Aileen. Jimmy’s wife met me on the sidewalk in front of the shop. “I’m finished here,” she said. “Would you like to get a cup of tea, some pastries maybe? A much-deserved indulgence after a difficult few days?”

“No. Thank you. If you don’t mind.” I kept my head turned away from her. The tears were finished, and I furiously rubbed their traces off my face. But my nose still ran and my breathing was deep and uncontrolled.

“I don’t mind. Thank you for buying your gifts in my store. That was kind of you.”

“Not kind,” I said, honestly. “You had the best selection.”

“Time we’re heading home, then. Shall I drive?”

“No. I’m fine. Besides, it’s a rental car and the insurance is only good for me. But thank you anyway.”

She slipped her arm through mine. “Thank you, Rebecca.”

Chrissie stepped out onto the sidewalk to say goodbye. “See you on Friday, Aileen.”

“Friday it is. I’ll have lunch ready.”

“If I don’t see you again, Rebecca, have a safe trip home.”

“Thank you.”

A woman stopped to peer into the window. Frail, elderly, well dressed, every strand of silver hair sprayed into place. Liking what she saw, she came into the store. Chrissie grinned goodbye and followed the customer.

We reversed our mental positions on the way back to Hope River. Aileen put up a pretence of chattering happily while I huddled behind the steering wheel wallowing in my misery. I told her how lonely I’d been since Ray’s death, and she muttered words of understanding. I popped
Bruce Springsteen’s Greatest Hits
into the CD player, and before too much longer we were both swaying to “Dancing in the Dark.” How can you not sway (and sing and tap feet and all that fun stuff) to “Dancing in the Dark”?