fresh snow brought to mind the possibility of skiing that day. He guessed the temperature to be about minus five to minus ten degrees Celsius, calling for blue wax, possibly green. For a moment this thought steadied his mind, gave him something tangible to consider: smoothing out wax along the base of the skis with the heel of his hand. Then he realized that Karen wouldn’t accompany him skiing that day, and possibly never again. She had such aptitude and grace on skis, a naturally long stride and an eagerness for this same sport that Peter loved so much. He imagined her skiing, cutting a telemark turn on a slope of virgin powder, and he began to cry. The large snowflakes continued to fall, each one like a particle of his own hope, and soon his heart would be empty.
chapter six
A fusillade of unforeseen work hits Peter the next morning. Recently, a probation officer went off on maternity leave, and as yet they have no auxiliary to fill her position. Now the summer holiday rotation has begun, sometimes leaving the office short-staffed. Greg Milchem picks this day to call in sick. From the minute he steps in the door, Peter is taking phone calls from the police, social services, then some irate ex-girlfriend of an offender trying to track the man down for child support payments.
“I’m acquainted with him, yes. I’m afraid I can’t give you his address. Or his phone number. I hear you, I tend to agree, but what you’re asking for is confidential information. As a matter of fact, I can’t even confirm that he’s reporting to this office. That’s your assumption... That’s one way to put it. Let me give you the number for Maintenance Enforcement.”
The counter bell rings repeatedly throughout the morning — clients to rebook, some three days or a week late, some half-drunk at 10:00 a.m. In between these varied tasks Peter attempts to update a few of his own ninety-odd files. This week’s bail intakes are still in the admin basket, out of sight and out of mind for the moment, well down the priority list. Noon takes him by surprise, and he flees out the back door.
He fights the urge to smoke for all three blocks to the 7-Eleven, where he buys a pack. Then he goes to Frieda’s Deli, ostensibly German, but which employs a Punjabi woman in the kitchen who makes terrific samosas. Afterward he makes his way along the sidewalk with another smoke, sucking a mint. Despite the ever-present haze and amber-tinted light, the town doesn’t look so bad, even has a dusty charm.
When he arrives back at the office, shortly after one, Todd Nolin stands there scowling in the waiting room. Catching sight of him, Peter recalls that he hasn’t yet made any arrangements about Nolin’s personal effects.
“Todd is here to pick up his things,” Tammy sings out. She’s on a first-name basis with the jock, it seems, because as it turns out they attended the same high school in years gone by.
“Yeah,” he snaps, “so where’s my stuff?”
Peter stalls his reply, checking his mail slot, swallowing his mint before he turns to the front counter. “Hello, Mr. Nolin. I did speak with Ms. Faro the other day. She was still quite shaken from the events of the past weekend. Once we discussed the conditions of your order and so forth, it didn’t seem the right time to ask her to gather your belongings. If you see what I mean…”
“No, I don’t!” He jerks his big jaw sideways, an odd spasm of frustration, ill-concealed rage. It’s very easy to picture him out on the ice, dropping his gloves, circling an opponent. “I need my clothes and all my shoes, and you said you’d have them here this afternoon.”
“Tell you what,” Peter says, “I’ll call her again, once I get back to my desk, and see if I can pick up your things this afternoon. If that works out, I can save you the trip back here. I’ll drop the stuff off at your workplace if you like.”
“Yeah, sure,” Nolin snarls, backing toward the exit, “with everybody at the store watching. No thanks. Just get it here and call me.”
Peter finds the Nolin file-in-progress in the secretary’s pending work basket, awaiting information entry for the Corrections Data System. He takes it back to his desk and drops it on top of the pile. Sometimes that’s all it is — a heap of work waiting to be done. It’s easier not to dwell on the fact that each file bears a name and concerns someone in crisis — victims, offenders, families falling apart. The circumstances of new files, which he receives via fax in the form of a narrative, have become all too familiar: a relationship on the rocks, man gets drunk, argument ensues, he shoves her, she shoves him, he slaps her, holds her against the wall, the bed. Someone calls the police. And Peter deals with the aftermath, does the paperwork, and makes the phone calls.
After three rings, he expects to leave another message, ready to note with his pen in the file’s running record: “303-7131 message to call re TN’s clothing, etc.”
“Hello.”
“Yes, Ms. Faro?” He jots the date in the margin column. “Peter Ellis calling from the probation office. We spoke the other day briefly. And I stopped by your place yesterday, in fact, to deliver a copy of the undertaking with Mr. Nolin’s conditions of bail. But your neighbour, the landlady, discouraged that idea. And she was right. I shouldn’t have come by unannounced.”
“Yes, she mentioned you were here.”
Again there’s something in her voice, or the absence of something, that’s unsettling. And a sound in the background — water dripping? Maybe she’s washing dishes. What people do while they’re on the phone always intrigues him. Are they typing sporadically, shuffling papers, digging in a drawer?
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