The Devil You Know: A Novel (29 page)

I think I know what happened, I said. I need your help. Which one is he? I spun the photograph back toward him.

If you have a question about David’s father, he said, I wish you’d ask your mother, not me.

What if Cameron’s been hiding in plain sight the whole time, I said.

Robert Cameron’s getting dug out of the ground up north, he said. You just told me yourself.

He stood up.

I’m going to give this place a once-over so you can sleep, he said. Go let your hot water run and then turn it off. I bet we hear that rattling that had you worried.

We looked at each other quietly for a moment, the photo with its raggy edges still lying on the table where I’d left it. I went into the bathroom and my father stood in the hallway with his palms against the wall.

Now go, he said. Throw it on hard.

I cranked the tap. Water spat out at full volume, hitting the sink at a sharp enough angle that I could feel the spray on my forearms, going from cold to hot. In the wall, the pipe throttled and shook with the force of the water.
Tock tock tock tock tock tock tock.
I turned off the water and the tapping in the wall slowed but didn’t stop. It ticked and clicked faintly.

I hate being me, I said. My father’s cheeks lifted.

I said: I’m too stupid to live.

Hard on the heart, he said.

S
ometimes, at moments like that, I think about those other kids in the class. The opposite end of the spectrum, the ones who don’t have much recollection, or any at all. There are girls from that class who live alone and don’t ever give what happened to Lianne Gagnon a second thought. They don’t scan bars for the man sitting darkly in a corner, or turn completely around when they’re walking home at night to check the path behind them. Their reality has a different configuration. One of my secret mechanisms is to simply pretend that I am one of those girls. They’re allowed to grow up.

I imagine myself in this same apartment but in a different body and my shoulders relax. The tightness in my jaw slacks off and I can feel the relief right across my forehead, down into my cheekbones.

The door closed behind my father and I heard him go down the stairs and I latched the dead bolt and turned around and leaned against the door and imagined myself in this other, parallel body. It’s an easy space and it feels good. Let’s assume he’s right and this is the same old anxiety. It seems crazy that a thing can have that kind
of staying power, can keep coming back to give you a regular kick to the head.

The pipes, shaking in the wall.

So you can stop it now, I said out loud to myself. Everything’s fine, everything’s easy.

I came back into the kitchen and picked up the honey jar from the counter and put it into the cupboard. I was aware of myself doing this as keenly as if I was doing it for a camera. Enter stage right: Regular girl cleans up and gets ready for bed.

Our coffee cups were still on the table and I picked those up, too, and stopped for a minute and leaned my shoulder against the dark window to look out over the patchwork of backyards.

A hand reached out and touched the window from the other side.

I jumped back. My hands popped open and the cups hit the floor, banging hard but not smashing. He was out there on the balcony, his hand pressed against the glass. I grabbed on to the chairback and shoved the chair at the window, between us. His hand on the glass at the level of my shoulder. A thick black glove at my throat, his face half in shadow, the wool cap pulled down low on his brow. A half beard, or thick stubble, the same coat and black hoodie. He pulled back from the window slightly. I couldn’t see his eyes.

Had he been there the whole night? Standing back in a shadow, watching me paint, the phone call, my father arrive, everything. How long was it since my father left?

I can see you, I said. I said this out loud and the sound of my voice surprised me.

I leaned forward and touched my own hand to the glass. It matched his, but smaller, finger to finger.

M
ercer was back.

We did a quick perimeter check on the way in, he said. Did you get a better look this time?

He has a beard, I said. Like half a beard, or just really unshaven. He wears this wool cap, black gloves, black hoodie. He put his hand on the window.

You sure it’s the same guy?

I looked at Job.

Okay, Mercer said. What time was he here?

Job said, I promise you he can’t get in through that window.

If I’d been only a year or two younger I would have started crying. I had the prick, the hot threat of tears, and I was sure they could tell and even that was humiliating.

I’m just telling you this, Job said. He can’t get in. He can’t come in here unless you let him. This is a safe house.

Mercer took down the notes and stats.

I’m really sorry, I said. I really don’t want to cry. This is stupid.

You’re shaken up, Job said. That’s why you’re crying. It’s an invasion.

Everything’s fine, I said.

Geez, I went to see a break-and-enter yesterday. I mean, the occupants weren’t even home when it happened but they come home and the door is forced, right? They were in way worse shape than you, he said. The lady, she was like, hysterical. You? You’re shook up. He turned to Mercer. Am I right?

Mercer made a shrugging face with his lips and patted his notebook against his fingers.

Job said: You’re a little shook up. That’s all.

He stayed around for maybe two or three minutes, I said. I don’t know. I don’t know. Maybe less. Maybe it was longer.

Mercer said: What time was he here?

I don’t know. I don’t know how long. A long time.

You called 911 at 12:46.

Okay.

Did you call right away?

I thought maybe I was making it up, I said. I thought I was seeing things.

How long was he here?

He had his hand on the window, I said, right here. It was right here and I put my hand on the glass.

Job said: What happened then?

He didn’t disappear.

I
spent the next day with my feet up on the dash of Angie’s car, watching nothing get resolved in St. Catherines. I hadn’t slept after the cops left. I sat up finding things to do until it was time to leave for what felt like a better place. Put it that way and it seems crazy. I felt more comfortable sitting outside a murderer’s house than inside my own apartment, but it was the crowd that made it safe. I wasn’t alone. Not even close. The light and the new surroundings felt good and I was tired and snuggled back into the furry lining of my coat. The house itself was blocked off by police vans. A guy with a flat cap and a gray beard came by early and set up an easel next to where I was. I pulled on my hat and got out of the car. The man told me his name was Rod Carey. Former art college painting prof, retired or fired when he was discovered to be the Phantom Pooper. For two years he’d taken midnight dumps in the school library.

Any section, he said. It wasn’t targeted. It was performance.

He took three quick sketches of the house, the high fence, front porch, whatever he could see, and worked them up in watercolor. He had spattered leather gloves on against the cold. The wind came up and he put away the easel and tied the canvas to a pole instead.

Twyla Sweet, he said. You know her? She’s queen of Niagara-on-the-Lake. She does watercolors of kids and dogs and those redbrick houses with the gingerbread trim. Cute Ontari-ari-ari-o. He stopped and put down his brush. Two guys wearing paper anti-contamination
suits came out of the house carrying cardboard file boxes. They could have been housepainters.

They wear shower caps so their hair won’t mix in to the house, the prof said. That last girl, they cut off all her hair. You hear that? In a ditch, with her hair all sawed off. He picked a new brush up and spat on it. I fucking wish Twyla Sweet would paint this house. I’d buy that shit.

By mid-morning, press vehicles had a hard time getting in. Some guys camped out overnight. I was due to start trading off with Mike Nelligan but Angie kept finding other stuff for him to do. I’d been in the car since five in the morning. Around eleven o’clock, a guy I knew from j-school came by and knocked on my window. He works for the Hamilton paper. Any other kind of investigation, he’s all boob jokes. I reached over and cranked the window down. He’s the kind of guy who’d hand you a dildo and think that was really funny. He’d hand you a vacuum nozzle and call it a dildo. But he just gave me a coffee and it was sweet and full of cream and we didn’t talk.

At noon I noticed a tall guy with a half beard and a black leather car coat hanging around too close to my car, for a little too long. There were more cars every day now, reporters I didn’t know. Everyone was a stranger. I flipped open my notebook and took down a full description. Fifteen minutes later he was gone, but I started noting any strange man standing around within ten feet of me. Three or four different guys over the course of the day. I measured them quietly against the man from the fire escape: height, build, anything identifiable. I didn’t get out of the car again except to line up for the Porta Potty.

The sky was overcast but bright. I’d brought water with me in the car, and some fruit, and trail mix. It’s easy to get focused on watching the other reporters watch. I wrote up anything I thought of by hand in a three-hole lined notebook from the drugstore. I had a photo of Rod the painter in my camera.

At the end of the day, I stopped at the office to type up my notes
and file them off to Angie. I parked her car down in the garage and then sat there with all the doors locked. There was no one around and I realized I was waiting for someone to make it safe to get out of the car. A locked car in an empty parking garage feels like one of those shark cages that scuba diving explorers use so they can take pictures of the sharks and not get torn to pieces. Park close to the exit and wait inside the cage until it’s safe.

Statistically, a garage is where I’m most likely to get raped. It’s dark and there’s lots of things to hide behind, lots of places to go. Before Bernardo and his wife, I would have been waiting for a woman or a couple to come down for their car. Now I wasn’t sure. Who knows what a threat looks like? I got out of the car, carrying my bag and Angie’s spare umbrella. A woman is more likely to be attacked if she’s got her hair in a ponytail; less likely if she’s carrying an umbrella. A ponytail is an easy thing to grab on to.

Job called from 14 Division while I was still at my desk.

I’ve got news and no-news, he said. The news is, they grabbed up a Peeping Tom in Woodbridge last night, more or less fits your guy. Black hat on, hoodie, a week’s worth of beard.

Do you think it’s the same guy?

Officially? Maybe, Job said. It’s a possibility. He fits the mug and he was doing the same thing, looking in the lady’s window off her balcony.

Off the record? I said. What’s the no-news?

Off the record, don’t count on it.

That sucks, I said.

Yeah. I have to tell you if we arrest a reasonable suspect, but geography is working against you here. Woodbridge is pretty far out of town. Maybe it’s him, Job said. But don’t go around leaving your windows open, you know?

No news is supposed to be good news, I said.