Evil Eye

by Michael Slade

  But suddenly that angst was gone as she rolled another page, for there in the January 27, 1956 issue of The Times, on a page of reports out of Africa, the main column devoted to the Mau Mau Rebellion, with sidebars on Rhodesia, Tanganyika, and South Africa, Alex saw the photograph of Lance-Sergeant Rex Craven's Rorke's Drift trophy box. It was— The Times told her— now possessed by a Canadian heir, RCMP Constable Ted Craven of Lethbridge, Alberta. Of interest to all appalled by Mau Mau oaths would be the snakeskin pouch with its witchcraft bones.

  Alex sought out the librarian, who inserted a copy card into a microfilm printer, and, for twenty cents a page, ran off magnified copies.

  CHESSBOARD

  Monday, January 17, 1994

  The crux of the Crown's case against Nick involved proving his mom's blood stained the right sleeve of his Red Serge tunic, so this morning Wilde and Kidd were in the lawyer's harbor-view office tightening the evidence. The snowfall threatened on Friday had bypassed the city for the Interior, and now weak winter sunshine streamed from a cloudless sky. Wilde's office doubled as a black museum full of relics from his greatest wins, displayed in glass cabinets arranged around the marble chessboard floor like chess pieces. In the cabinet to Kidd's right the sawed-off end of a broomstick lay diagonally across colors won from the Headhunters Motorcy-

  cle Club. In the cabinet to her left arsenic graphs followed a patient's decline. Kidd sat facing Wilde, who sat behind his desk facing "The Trial of Oscar Wilde'' mounted behind the Mountie. At the far end of the desk, a chessboard was in play.

  "1 see you play white?" commented Kidd.

  "White gets the advantage, since white always goes first."

  "So I've learned," the black said dryly.

  "The setup on the board is a fork. Black is about to lose a rook no matter what it does. Saving this rook means that rook's taken. Save that rook and this rook goes. Black's forked in more ways than one," the lawyer punned.

  "Court's a chess game to you?"

  kk And checkmate's my play. Strategy takes the board every time. Craven says he left his mom alive at five-ten. We've got the man who dry-cleaned his tunic. Since one of the brass buttons came off the uniform's sleeve, requiring the cleaner to sew it back on, he swears the cuff wasn't stained when Craven picked his Red Serge up shortly before the murder. You know he didn't enter the house while you were there or get near his mom's corpse before it went to the morgue. That leaves Knight three moves on the board:

  "One, Craven innocently stained his tunic with her blood before he left the house;

  "Two, Craven's tunic was tainted by other exhibits between the time you seized it from his home and Wood performed the test:

  "Three, the DNA test was faulty."

  A knock on the door interrupted them. Wilde's secretary entered with a FedEx letter. kt From Knight," the lawyer said as he ripped it open. Reading it once, then reading it twice, he passed the puzzling correspondence to Kidd.

  The original of this courtesy copy to Lyndon Wilde QC had been sent to Staff Sergeant Tipple at Coquitlam GIS. Under Knight's letterhead, the top sheet read: The trophy box in this picture copied from the London Times is missing from the attic of Dora Craven's home, and so is the cabinet with her monthly records. Since both are essential to Corporal Craven's defense, I ask that you

  undertake a thorough search for them. I may inform the trial judge you were asked to pursue this lead seven weeks before plea.

  Clipped to the covering letter was a blowup of the trophy box.

  "Africa?" said Rachel. "How does that fit into the case?"

  "The club," said Wilde. "It must be the club." He poked the knobkerrie in the trophy box. "If Knight's not careful, this could explode in his face. Who but Craven would know about the box? Is that where he got the club to bludgeon his mom? I wish the knob were faceup so we could see if the striking side is carved with a zigzag pattern."

  "Africa?" Rachel repeated. "I know where to start. Dial this number, and put us on speaker phone." She fed Wilde seven digits, which he punched in. One, two, three rings . . .

  "Biology."

  "Dermott Toop, please."

  "Derm, it's for you."

  Far-off voice: "Take a number and I'll call back."

  "He's in the middle of a test and can't—"

  "Tell him Kidd's on the line and it's important."

  "Kidd's on the line and says it's urgent."

  The far-off voice: "Put her on speaker phone."

  "Derm?"

  "I hear you, Rach. Something wrong?"

  "Defense threw us a curve ball in the Craven case. You're South African. Know anything about a trophy box from Rorke's Drift? Contains a Zulu club and a pouch of bones, with a bayonet and Victoria Cross. Rex Lancelot Craven carved on the lid."

  "You need my cousin, Rachel. Got Three-Way Call on that phone?"

  Yes, Wilde nodded.

  "I'm in Lyndon's office. Give me the number, then hold on while I dial." Depressing the receiver till she heard three short tones followed by a dial tone, Rachel called UBC. Just one ring . . .

  "Hello. Ken Mbhele."

  "Ken, my name is Rachel Kidd. I'm a friend of your cousin. Hold a moment while I connect Dermott to this

  line/' She pressed the receiver again. "Derm, we're all set."

  -Ken?"

  k Hello, Dermott."

  -Rachel needs your help. Ever come across a trophy box from Rorke's Drift?"

  Mbhele groaned. -Powerful magic, that box. A woman was here Friday asking about it, too."

  -Who?" Rachel said, jumping in.

  "A writer named Alex Hunt. She's working on a book about—"

  -That fucking DeClercq," sneered Wilde.

  DeClercq looked up from the stack of paperwork on his desk to find Chan at the door. "It must be serious, for you to come to me."

  -I've had a complaint about you."

  -From whom?"

  "Lyndon Wilde. He alleges Special X is nosing into the Craven case. Seems he's keeping track of who visits Nick, and you did last Thursday. Then Friday has Zinc's girlfriend at UBC, and what she uncovers is sent to him through Vic Knight. He claims you're using Alex Hunt as a puppet to flout my order."

  "A weak circumstantial case, if you ask me."

  "You think Nick's innocent?"

  "I'm certain of it, Eric. But I'm trying to adhere to your—"

  Chan's palm became a stop sign. "The night you sat with Sally and me at our first Red Serge Ball, how high a backlash price did you pay? And when you stood up for Jack when they tried to kick him out for being gay, I heard some call you names behind your back. And had you not backed Zinc in that Cutthroat mess, where would he be now? And then there's Peggy, and you were there again. I respect your loyalty. When Nick became a suspect and we disagreed, I said, 'When it comes to racism, I think I'm much more sensitive than you.' That was out of line and I want to take it back. As far as Wilde's concerned, I told him I was shocked. In this day and age, who'd dare think Alex was under Zinc's thumb? The Craven case meshes with her other work, so the last thing I'd do was tell him to keep the little

  woman in line. I fear I may also have said, 'When it comes to sexism, I think I'm much more sensitive than you/ "

  ASYLUM

  Coquitlam

  Boarded up and pillared like a Deep South mansion, moonlight silvering its eerie facade, West Lawn loomed above the Riverview road, as Alex drove the switchback up to the asylum.

  Unknown to her, Evil Eye followed.

  The earliest recorded case of insanity in B.C. was in 1850. Back then, male lunatics were deported to Napa Asylum in California or jailed. When B.C. joined Canada in 1871, the province was told "the Dominion Government has declined to take charge of the lunatics in B.C. as it might be too large an undertaking." Such has the attitude of the East always been to Lotusland. To appease the people of New Westminster, who hoped their city and not Victoria would be the new capital, Victoria decided to build the B.C. lunatic asylum here as a consolation. To the outr
age of New West, it was built on the cricket pitch, with chain gangs from the local jail raising the two-story "nuthouse." When the first inmates arrived in 1878, Dr. John Ash, the member for Comox, suggested to the legislature that it not be made too comfortable or those with no right to be inside would flock in. Robert Smith of Yale voiced he always felt New Westminster the proper place for lunatics. The first brick laundry was built in 1894, all washing done by hand by the Chinese patients.

  By 1901, the asylum was packed. No wonder when the main causes of patient madness were listed as heredity, intemperance, syphilis, and masturbation. So in July 1905, eighteen inmates trudged upriver to clear Colony Farm and the benchland above. By 1911, the patient

  farm was producing 700 tons of crops and 20,000 gallons of milk per year, and uphill on Mount Coquitlam. Esson-dale Mental Hospital was taking shape. On April 1. 1913, the doors of West Lawn confined 340 chronic males, followed later by Center Lawn (the psychopathic unit), then East Lawn for chronic females. In 1942, elec-troshock therapy began, and by 1957 when Dora Craven started work in the new Essondale laundry, psychosurgery—lobotomies—was in vogue.

  Tonight was the second trip Alex made to Essondale—now Riverview—Hospital.

  The first was this morning.

  Having found photographic proof of the Rorke's Drift trophy box, she had turned her attention to the missing files. "If the killer stole them after murdering Dora, why take the heavy cabinet?" Zinc had asked on the weekend. "I doubt he. if it's a he, could lower it from the attic by himself. In any event, why not just remove the files?"

  •You don't think the killer took them?"

  "No," he replied.

  So after dropping Zinc at the airport this morning— he was off to an Interpol conference in Ottawa—Alex drove inland to Riverview. From 1957 until she retired last June, Dora worked first in the laundry, then after it closed a decade ago and cleaning was shipped out. on the food line in East Lawn. Dora's life centered around work and her son. so odds were if she had a confidante. that person also worked at Riverview. Coquitlam GIS had pegged Nick early as prime suspect, so Alex wondered if Kidd had questioned all Dora's work-mates in East Lawn. That's what she'd done this morning, and that's how she heard about Flora.

  Flora launched the Home Cooking Restaurant in Port Coquitlam. Dora came in every Saturday for lunch. Flora was a movie buff so classic films played on video above the counter. A joke with the regulars was to act along. Flora doing Bergman while Moe the Plumber was Bogart in Casablanca, Flora doing Davis while Dora was Baxter in All About Eve. When Vancouver joined L.A. and New York as the top three filming centers. Flora changed serving food into set catering. Depending on the job, sometimes Dora helped out.

  Flora and Dora.

  The Home Cooking pair.

  Lunar shadows lurked in the grounds of the lunatic asylum, stalking her car as Alex snaked up the hillside to West Lawn. At Colony Farm Road, where Bert and Ernie had turned right toward the Forensic Institute huddling by the river, she had turned left, then right, to angle up the slope, skirting the sign river view hospital site map 300 meters, the headlights on hospital traffic only stenciled on the road, the winter trees bared of leaves to their skeletons, through which Colony Farm stretched flat below, moonlight sheening its ditches, rivers, and pools, the sole sound—but for her car—the squeal of steel wheels on train tracks edging the highway. Where Holly Drive forked into Pine Terrace she branched left, switching back up Fern Terrace toward Pennington Hall, as West Lawn, Center Lawn, East Lawn lined the hillside to her right, three antebellum plantations out of Gone With The Wind. Forming a reverse Z up the rise, Boxwood Drive zigged back in front of West Lawn, but Alex drove up Clover Street to park behind. The dousing headlights caught a sign: caution! overhead hazards, watch for falling objects.

  Like Poe's House of Usher, West Lawn was crumbling down.

  Alex parked beside the only other car. The elderly woman behind the wheel climbed out. "Spooky, huh?" she whispered, when Hunt joined her in the creepy shadow of West Lawn. "Easy to see why it's used as a horror movie set."

  "What was filmed here?"

  "Jennifer 8, with Andy Garcia and Uma Thurman. The X Files, of course. Tales From The Crypt comes in after Psychotic, which I feed."

  "Dora worked on Psychoticl"

  "Only for a day. Then the star broke his wrist, so production shut down. I went to California for a month and just got back. Didn't hear poor Dora was dead until after Christmas."

  "Thanks," said Alex, "for meeting me tonight."

  "You're much younger than you seemed on the phone. It's obvious your nerves are stronger than mine. No way would I work alone in here at night. Her files are that important?"

  "Maybe," Alex said.

  "As I mentioned on the phone, West Lawn is gutted. It's the oldest building at Riverview. Both Center Lawn and East Lawn are still hospitals. West Lawn is no more than a shell. There's no heat, and no power, until both generators return. I hope you brought a good flashlight and batteries."

  From the sack in her hand, Hunt withdrew a six-volt Duracell. The lantern shot a beam at the building when she switched it on, spotlighting five stories of brick with dormers high above, upper windows broken and those at this level boarded up, the circle sweeping here and there like a prison break. Nineteen steps climbed to an iron door.

  "Were you and Dora close?" Alex asked.

  "Close enough," Flora said as they ascended.

  "Did she talk about her son?"

  "All the time. Hard to believe he killed her, from how proud she was."

  "Did Dora mention having twins?"

  "News to me! You must be mistaken. Not a word was said." From her parka Flora produced a key worthy of Fort Knox. This went into a lock capable of securing the Crown jewels.

  The door swung open as West Lawn breathed a sigh. Halitosis of decay fouled Hunt's nose. The lantern beam stabbed in over a tiled floor, while hesitant footsteps picked a path through the rubble. Each step echoed into black vaults beyond.

  "How'd her files get here?" Alex asked.

  "Filming involves waiting, waiting, waiting," said Flora, "for prima donnas to demand something nowl When I suggested Dora find a task to kill time, she told me she'd been meaning to cull some old files for years, so I had the boys swing by and pick them up. Then we shut down. So here they are."

  "The files moved when?"

  "End of November."

  Slamming the door, Flora locked it from inside, as Evil Eye—car hidden—skulked shadow to shadow around back of West Lawn.

  Moonlight on steel.

  One summer at Cannon Beach when Alex was a teen in braces, she'd read the "Had-I-But-Known" novels of Mary Roberts Rinehart. The plot was standard: foolish female finds herself involved in a situation she's been warned to avoid, then to prove how pigheaded she is, forges on risking life and limb until she's plucked from the jaws of death, hopefully by her lover. See-through nighties are a big help. "Had I but known then what I know now, these awful murders would not have occurred," she opens in retrospect, while the reader shouts, "No, you fool, stay clear of the asylum!" But our plucky heroine will not be deterred.

  Recalling such "HIBK"s with a grin as she shut the door behind Flora, the old woman having shown her where the files were, Alex turned the key to lock herself in. This being the age of hero(ine)s with balls, forget plucky airheads and plucking lovers, and besides, hers was off in Ottawa, back down the circular staircase she went to the ground floor, unaware Flora was having her throat cut outside.

  Had she but known . . .

  The ground-floor kitchen was as makeshift as could be: a portable stove, fridge, and sink in what was once a Quiet Room, where if she listened hard she could hear hallucinations lingering from bedlam frights. Moonlight seeped through gaps around boarded-up windows. Plaster crumbled from the ceiling to crack underfoot. Pipes and wires were exposed in patches torn from the walls. The last vestige of a hospital was the iron bed to one side with restraint straps. And next
to it stood the cabinet full of Dora's files.

  Her realm shrinking to the pool from the lantern's beam, in parka, scarf, gloves, and mukluks against the cold, Alex got down to work.

  The records began the year Nick was born: 455 thin files, one for each month, advancing from January 1956 to November 1993. The first eleven months of 1956 were filed by Nick's father, until December 7th when he shot himself. Only with that final month did Dora take over, completing her husband's work for the year to compute a tax return.

  In file February 1956, Alex found reference to the trophy box. A letter from London dated January 28:

  Dear Sir:

  I note your Rorkes Drift trophy box reproduced in The Times. My name is Nigel Hammond, and Vm the London agent for South African buyers who repatriate artifacts removed from that Colony in Imperial times. To this end I shall be in Canada the first week of March, and shall stop in Lethbridge to discuss the Zulu izikhombi bones in the box. Yours truly, Nigel Hammond

  The first week of March, according to Force memos on file, saw Nick's dad involved in a manhunt north of the Arctic Circle, so if Hammond did make it to Lethbridge, only Dora was home. As there was no follow-up letter concerning the bones, which Nick found in the box in the attic ten years later, obviously the Zulu relics weren't returned.

  Alex removed the Hammond letter, then refiled the file. In the darkness about the lantern pool, something scurried by.

  Half an hour later, in file January 1957, the word placement caught her eye. It was in a letter mailed to Lethbridge from Medicine Hat, written to Dora by Ted's younger sister, Nick's Aunt Eleanor:

  Sister Superior of Sacred Heart vows the placement has the sanctity of confession. She is someone I loved as a child. A thankful donation to Sacred Heart would be in order.

  Alex removed the Eleanor letter, then refiled the file. From the darkness about the lantern pool, rodents watched her.