Five
It’s okay, Babe, if they hurt you,
God doesn’t care how it’s done.
God wants you there with a smile on your face
making sure that your man’s having fun.
—Shepherd’s Pie
“Did you touch anything?”
“Nope. Just got my tootsies in a little blood,” I said and felt my face drain like a bathtub. Damn. Keeling over in Mark Becker’s arms a second time just would not do. Especially since Morrison had shifted his butt out of the driver’s seat and had come pounding in behind Becker when I called, or rather, screamed for help.
Morrison was really awfully big. How had he got on the force? Maybe he was regulation size when he was hired and ballooned afterwards. Some cops just get sucked into the Tim Horton’s vortex and never escape, I guess.
I sat down on a kitchen chair and stuck my head between my knees, breathing deeply until the world stopped spinning. When I looked up, Morrison was standing there with a glass of water in his hand.
“Shock, right?” he said. He was smiling kindly.
“Thanks. Yup. Shock.” I schlooped the water in a fair imitation of Lug-nut. Becker was making a phone call.
“… photographer, the works,” he was saying. When he hung up, his face was grim. “Judging from the amount of blood on the floor, I’d say Travers bought it right here,” he said. “You go wait in the car, Ms. Deacon. We don’t want to spoil the scene.”
Oh, so it was back to the formal Ms. Deacon, was it? What did he think I was going to do? The dishes? Still, he had blood to examine, and I had a dog to feed and my friend to find. I figured, accurately as it turned out, that this would plunk the crime directly in Francy’s lap, and I knew she couldn’t have done it. I had to find her before they did.
“Do you have any objection, Detective Becker, to my just getting a little dog food from that cupboard, or do you think that might constitute tampering with the evidence?”
He thought seriously for a full minute. Gone was the sense of humour, if it had ever been there.
“All right,” he said, finally. I picked up the feed bucket and walked towards the cupboard.
“Wait,” he said. He removed his nightstick from its sheath and used it to open the cupboard door. The bag of kibble was open, with an empty margarine container lying on top. I looked at it closely before touching it.
“No bloody fingerprints,” I said. “I think we can safely assume that the victim was not bludgeoned to death with Kibbles and Bits.” Morrison snorted, but Becker just glared at me. I filled the bucket and stalked out, trying desperately to remain dignified. I don’t think it worked. Truth was, I wanted to stay and watch them detect, but I was too proud to say so.
Lug-nut greeted my arrival with so much exuberance that I had no choice but to sit down and bond with him. He wolfed the food and turned over on his back again, his tail wagging so hard his whole body jack-knifed in the dirt, sending up clouds of dust. I clung to him for comfort and thought about what to do.
The Schreier’s place was only half a kilometre away to the east. It would take me ten minutes to walk there, less if I took the bush trail. If Francy was there, I could at least warn her that the police were coming. I had little doubt that she already knew what was going on, but Francy thought she was invincible. She led her life walking right on the edge of things. Without a friend there, this time, I was afraid that she would end up with more than bruises.
Becker had ordered me to go wait in the car. I looked at the front door of the house, which I had slammed behind me. Morrison and Becker were probably sifting through the debris, oblivious to everything but the evidence—the evidence which might send Francy to jail.
What had happened last night? I pictured John coming home from Kelso’s tavern, liquored-up and horny maybe, or just spoiling for a fight. I knew how Francy felt about having sex with her husband when he was drunk. It was a battle every time, which she sometimes lost. We had been over it more than a dozen times. I would urge her to get out, go to the Women’s Shelter in Sikwan, before it was too late. I urged her to get help, get counselling. She always said that John didn’t mean it, that he always begged for forgiveness afterwards, and she was content with that. He would never do it again, she said. She also said that if I reported John to the police, she would hate me forever. I believed her. Now, when the police were well and truly involved whether she liked it or not, I discovered that I wanted to protect her from them. Go figure. Somehow, I felt that the whole mess was my fault. I should have tried harder.
Maybe, last night, the baby had been crying. Maybe the dog had been howling. Maybe something was said or done that made Francy lose her patience, her stoic “I can handle it” attitude. I imagined her grabbing the shotgun from its rack beside the kitchen door—I hadn’t even looked to see if it was there. The cops would, though.
John kept it loaded, I knew that. It was his “protection”, he said. From what, he never bothered to explain. Maybe, like Spit’s gun, it was for the bears.
Maybe Francy blasted a hole through John as he reeled towards her with a smashed beer bottle in his hand, his eyes piggy and insane. I could imagine it and I didn’t blame her one bit, if that’s what happened.
What I couldn’t see was Francy loading the body into the truck and driving it to the dump. She didn’t drive, for one thing, and she would never leave Beth, for another. What I couldn’t see her doing was whacking Spit Morton over the head to cover her crime. Somebody had, I was certain, but it wasn’t Francy.
Although it was obvious that someone had blasted a hole in John Travers in his own kitchen, I was sure that Francy had not dumped the body.
“Hush, now,” I said to Lug-nut, who whined once and then sat looking at me as I tore off on the woods path to the Schreier’s place.
There are black bears in them thar woods. The dump attracts them, and they are not as afraid of humans as they ought to be. I had never met one, but everybody has monsters and bears are mine. After my parents were killed when I was ten, I woke up screaming night after night, chased by bears. Black ones, grizzlies, polar bears, vaguely bear-like villains, and once, horribly, a sweet, murderous teddy-bear—the result of my well-meaning aunt’s gift of a fuzzy Paddington to comfort me at night.
George had told me that the best thing to do if you meet a bear is to run away. Francy said climb a tree. Eddie Schreier said lie down and pretend you’re dead, but I think he was kidding. Everyone has a different answer. Rico Amato, the antique dealer, assured me that bears in this part of the world are a myth, perpetuated by macho hunters who need an excuse to wander off into the bush and get drunk.
Aunt Susan advocates a calm about-face and a little song as you walk away. I can just see me coming nose-to-muzzle with a bruin, turning my back on it and humming “O Canada”. Not likely.
This is why I took the woods path to the Schreier’s place at a brisk trot. The sun had gone in behind a dark cloud, and the woods were gloomy. It was late autumn, and there was an added danger; not only were there bears, there were hunters, looking for deer, moose, or basically anything
