Tell Anna She's Safe

by Brenda Missen

  His words amazed me. And then, suddenly, I could see it. From my first meeting with her at the Gallery: the bombshell Kevin was describing. I had forgotten that Lucy.

  “She could have had anyone she wanted,” he said. And then he laughed. “She did have anyone she wanted. But she always dumped them eventually. I was never sorry. Until Curtis.”

  “You knew Curtis?”

  “Oh yes. I had high hopes for Lucy and Curtis. He really did fit all her criteria. They had so much in common. Music. Food. Dancing. He loved to dance as much as she did. They moved in together. Worked on their issues together. He was good for her. He called her bluff, and he wouldn’t let her run away. He made her stay and fight her demons.”

  I was relieved to hear Kevin talking about Curtis this way. Maybe I would call him. Some day when this was all over.

  “But she did run away, in the end,” I said. “She ran to Tim.”

  “Lucy was always running away,” said Kevin, flatly.

  “So she wouldn’t be abandoned,” I said. The word was suddenly there in my head, from one of our early conversations.

  “She told you about that?”

  “She called it her abandonment issue, didn’t she? She seemed kind of, I don’t know, almost excited by it.”

  “I know what you mean. I think it was enthusiasm to work it out. It went way back.”

  Back to her early childhood. I was starting to remember what Lucy had told me. She’d been quarantined in hospital with chicken pox as a toddler. She’d said her mother had never come to see her. “I confess I never really believed the part where her mother never visited her in hospital,” I told Kevin now. “How could you not visit your baby in hospital?”

  “I guess you never met Mrs. Stockman.” His tone was wry. “She really was off in her own world. Did Lucy tell you she was a poet? She could have been a model as well. She was very poised. And very absent. That seemed to suit Lucy’s father. He just wanted his wife to look beautiful and to have his dinner on the table by six-thirty every evening. I don’t know how she accomplished even that. I think that was all the domesticity she could manage—certainly not raising two girls. I don’t think Lucy was so far off the mark when she claimed the house had raised her.”

  “So she felt abandoned by both parents?”

  “Pretty much,” said Kevin. “And you know what those formative experiences can do. You end up repeating them in your adult relationships. That’s what happened with Lucy. She was always choosing men who weren’t there. But she was very aware of the pattern. She was determined to break it.”

  “But, from what you said, it sounds like Curtis was there. What happened?”

  “Lucy Stockman’s famous unrealistic expectations.” The words were harsh; the tone was fond. “She wanted Curtis to be something he wasn’t. She wanted him to be there all the time. On her terms. Oh, that’s not entirely fair. It takes two, as they say. Curtis was no saint either. And he didn’t have a very good job. Lucy was the breadwinner. She was pretty proud of being financially independent. Of being secure. Obsessed, you might say.”

  “So she started a relationship with Tim,” I said, to get him onto Tim.

  There was another heavy sigh at the other end of the phone. “Something was driving her. Even Curtis could see that. He was no match for Tim. She drove halfway across the province to visit him in prison. It might even have been in a snowstorm. Something really had to be driving her to do something like that. She rarely ever drove farther than the Gatineaus.”

  I remembered Lucy saying once that she had been making progress in fighting her fears. I hadn’t given much thought to how much nerve it would take to actually visit a prison. God, she knew how to pick her cures. “But that was good, wasn’t it?” My voice was doubtful. “Progress of a sort.”

  “I guess you could say that. By the end she was sneaking things in.”

  “Sneaking things in? To prison, you mean? Past the guards?”

  Kevin laughed. “Don’t let Lucy mislead you with all her fears. She had balls that one. She even smuggled in a bottle of wine once. Candles too, I think. I can’t remember what else. She said she wanted to smuggle in some romance to that most unromantic of places.”

  “Holy cow.” I couldn’t imagine it.

  “And after Curtis moved out, she learned how to do things for herself, how to be alone. I think it was the first time she’d ever lived on her own for that long. Two years. I think meeting Tim took her out of her self-absorption. Even Curtis hadn’t been able to do that.”

  “You mean so she could rescue someone else?”

  “No.” His voice grew thoughtful. “I don’t think Lucy was into rescuing anyone but herself.” Then: “Do you think he did it?”

  I answered before I could censor myself. “Yes.”

  Another sigh. “It seems obvious doesn’t it? Maybe too obvious.”

  I steeled myself for the same question from Anna. But the call went to a machine. I left a message saying I would be back in Chelsea after the weekend.

  *

  THE LETTER CONFIRMING SHE WAS eligible to visit arrived the same day the Sidekick did. She took it as a sign. Encouragement from the Universe: Go to Warkworth. She read the list of rules. She examined the directions.

  The physical directions were straightforward. There was even a list of local motels in nearby Campbellford. But where was the section called “How to get your nerve up”? She had to find the courage somewhere deeper inside herself than Trish’s hands could go.

  Fuck the courage. That was just a word, like “fear.” Just do it.

  She would have preferred the unsettled weather to be over. But it was the middle of April when anything could happen—rain, sleet, thunder, snow, a blizzard. The best she could do was pray for the day to be clear.

  Her prayers were answered. There were no clouds in the sky the day of her drive. There was no storm to contend with. Not outside the car. The storm was inside the car. The storm was behind the wheel, letting nothing stand in her way—not the fear, not the panic, not the overwhelming impulse to turn the car around fifty kilometres out of town.

  *

  I WAS STARTLED OUT OF my thoughts by Marc bursting in through the door. He saw me and slumped against the door jamb. “I have been trying to call you all day. I thought you had flown the coop.”

  “I’m about to,” I said, “if I could just find your blasted phone book.”

  “Why didn’t you answer the phone?”

  “I never heard it. I just woke up an hour ago.”

  Marc smiled. “And I bet you have a splitting headache.”

  I gave him a wry look. “Actually I don’t. I guess I slept through the hangover too. Marc, thank you for … for … I appreciate your letting me come here. But I have to go back. Do you have a phone book?”

  “It’s in the truck,” said Marc, as if that were the natural place to keep a phone book.

  “Marc.”

  “You could have phoned Information.” He was crossing the room toward me. He came in slow motion. It gave me too much time to think, to brace myself. If he put those arms around me, I’d be finished.

  But he stopped two feet away.

  “Marc, I can’t stay here. I was an idiot to run away. I need to talk to the police. I need to look for Lucy.”

  “Ellen, there’s nothing you can do.” His voice was infinitely gentle. “Lucy is dead.”

  “You don’t know that! I think she’s alive. I can’t explain.”

  “You could explain if you wanted to.”

  His body was too close. There was a magnetic field around it, pulling me, irresistibly, in. I took a physical step back. I shook my head. “I can’t.”

  Marc was looking at me. “You could, though. You could stop being so stubborn for once in your life, and we could—” H
e stopped. “I’m sorry I left like that. I want to try again.”

  I shook my head again. I couldn’t bear the longing on his face. I also couldn’t do anything about it. Not now. “I can’t deal with this right now. I need to get back—” The words got caught in my throat watching him turn on his heel and head back out the door. I heard the truck door open. And shut.

  This had happened already, a week ago. It couldn’t be happening again, here. I didn’t want to be left here.

  I ran to the door. I slammed right into Marc. Right into the phone book between us.

  He pushed me away, gently, with the phone book, and held it out to me. Looking away.

  I took the book. I hugged it. I walked to the phone, and sat down, and opened the book. I tried to see through the blur.

  “Ellen.”

  I wiped my nose on my sleeve.

  Arms came around me from behind. I sagged against them.

  Marc’s familiar voice spoke in my ear. “Stay. You’re scared and you’re exhausted. I won’t bother you. You can stay as long as you need to.”

  He lifted me to my feet, turned me around, held me close.

  “Oh Marc. Stop being so bloody understanding. I can’t stand it.” And I burst into tears for the first time ever in the arms of my now ex-lover.

  I waited until Marc had gone to pick up the Chinese food. Then I made another call to the Ottawa police. If they weren’t going to follow Marnie, I would just have to give them the more complete directions back to the barns.

  Neither Roach nor Lundy was available. It was after six. Quinn would be gone. I told the switchboard operator it was important. I asked to speak to anyone who was available. I waited to be put through to another officer.

  “Sergeant Quinn here.”

  I inhaled a breath. Relief and nervousness vied for the dominant place in my lungs.

  “Sergeant Quinn.” I made my voice formal. “It’s Ellen McGinn. I have more information. The messages are getting clearer. I have more specific directions now about where Lucy is. But she’s going to be moved soon. You have to act soon.”

  “Okay, Ellen. Slow down. I’m listening.”

  I told him to go six or seven kilometres south on Bank Street starting from Lucy’s street. I told him there was a street off Bank; that it might be Hunt Club but I wasn’t sure. “And this time,” I said, continuing my half-lies, “I got outbuildings. Not just buildings. It could be those barns, or some other outbuildings close by.”

  It wasn’t as hard as I’d expected lying to Sergeant Quinn, though I wasn’t sure anymore why I felt I had to.

  “I’ll have this checked out, Ellen. I promise.”

  “It has to be soon. The other piece of information is that Tim is supposed to dump Lucy’s body in the Gatineau River Saturday evening.” I felt stupid saying it, but he didn’t question it.

  “That’s tomorrow. He’d have to go back there then to where she is.”

  “Yes, but it might be too late by then.”

  “What d’you mean? You said Saturday night.”

  “She’s still hovering between life and death, but my sense is she’s barely coming to consciousness now. The sooner you get there—” My voice broke.

  “Are you okay? Do you want to come in?”

  “Well, it might take a little while to get there.” I gave a half laugh. “I’m in Thunder Bay.”

  “You’re where?”

  For some reason I enjoyed taking Sergeant Quinn off his guard.

  “I’m visiting … a friend.”

  “Isn’t this a bit sudden?”

  I hesitated. “I needed to get away.”

  “I see.” Something in his voice changed. I couldn’t put my finger on it. “And when you do you plan on being back?”

  “As soon as I can get a flight. Tomorrow probably.”

  “Pretty quick visit,” he commented. “Give me the number there.”

  It was my turn to be taken off guard. I didn’t want to give him Marc’s phone number, but there was no way to refuse. His request had not been phrased as a question. I gave him the number.

  “Lundy and Roach are going to be working through the weekend,” he said. “Whatever it is you’re doing, try to enjoy yours and leave it to us.”

  “Yes,” I said. Maybe, finally, I could.

  *

  THE SIGN FOR THE TOWN of Warkworth pointed to the right. A much smaller, more discreet green sign with an arrow pointed left for Warkworth Institution. How did the residents of Warkworth feel about having their town name associated with a prison? You wouldn’t want to be going around saying, “I’m a resident of Warkworth.” People might get the wrong idea.

  She considered turning right. It seemed the friendlier option. Except it didn’t. Tim wasn’t there. And the residents of Warkworth were likely an embittered and hardened community who didn’t welcome tourists. They likely lived in prisons of their own. Prisoners of a prison town.

  She shut off these pointless thoughts. At least she tried to shut them off. The brain went where it wanted. She had no control. She only had control over whether she followed where it went. Her brain could take the road to the right if it wanted and go and gawk at the Warkworthians. But she was going to turn left.

  The road to the prison followed the gently rolling hills of idyllic farmland. The view from prison (were there windows in prison?) was at least peaceful. But what about the view from the farm? Maybe the farmer had made so much money from the sale he didn’t care about the view. More likely, the government had expropriated the land and the farmer had to live with it. Except didn’t you get money from expropriation? She thought so. Expropriation for a prison would probably have made the farmer very rich. He was probably happy to live with it.

  “It” loomed in the distance—a compound of institution-grey, single-storey buildings planted in the middle of open fields and surrounded by a high chain-link fence, with coils of barbed wire at the top. As she got closer, she could feel something snake-like coil around her heart. She sounded the mantra that had got her this far from home: Tim is in there, Tim is ahead of me, Tim is waiting for me.

  The snake uncoiled. The sudden release seemed to open something in her heart beyond what had been there before. The new openness felt remarkably like joy.

  *

  SLEEP WOULDN’T COME. I DISENTANGLED my arms and legs from Marc’s. I shut the bedroom door quietly so I could turn on the light in the kitchen without waking him. He was breathing in that contented audible way of his that was not quite snoring. In fact, it usually lulled me off to sleep too. My body was relaxed. Marc had drugged it, another talent he had. But he couldn’t drug my mind. Not that night. It was spinning.

  Sergeant Quinn was among those in the vortex. I should have explained why I’d left Ottawa. He had known I wasn’t telling it all. I should have just admitted I’d been suddenly terrified of Tim. His tone had changed after I’d said I was in Thunder Bay. Suspicious was what it had become. But suspicion of what? Oh God. Suspicion of everything. That I, someone who knew Lucy, had been the one to find her car. Why I was giving him all those directions. How I knew where to direct them. I knew because I must be involved. I’d come to him in a panic in the dead of the night. Claiming I thought she was alive. Claiming a voice in my head was telling me where she was. Then I had taken off. And when I didn’t show up back in town tomorrow, as I’d said I was going to? What would he make of that?

  I put the kettle on and opened cupboards, hoping Marc had tea in the house. He didn’t.

  On the couch, I let the mug of hot water fill my insides and made myself think rationally. Suspicious behaviour wasn’t everything. What were the things you needed? Motive and opportunity. Well, I had opportunity. My live-in boyfriend had conveniently taken off the day before. Lucy had been invited to my party. Maybe she had shown up after
all the guests had left. And motive? Maybe I had decided to eliminate her from Ottawa’s cutthroat communications industry.

  Even this ludicrous thought didn’t calm me down. Everywhere my brain went, an unpleasant train of thought was waiting. I reached for the paddling magazine on the coffee table. Like the Gideon Bible in a motel room, it was the only thing around to read.

  But the magazine made me think of Marc. And Marc made me think of Curtis. And Curtis made me think of Lucy. Kevin had said meeting Tim had brought her out of her self-absorption. Visiting a man in prison would do that for you.

  *

  SHE STOOD AT HER FRONT door. She waited as she had waited in front of the gate at Warkworth the day before. She stood as if expecting the door to swing open the way the prison gate had slid open. She wasn’t seeing the metal curls on the screen door; she was seeing the metal links in the prison gate and the sign posted on it: STAND CLEAR UNTIL GATE IS OPEN.

  The wording had bothered her. One could stand tall, stand out, stand up, stand for … and stand clear of. How did one simply “stand clear”?

  She had forced herself to ponder this question as she waited. She was standing, shaking knees notwithstanding. Was she clear?

  Yes. Clarity of mind was, in fact, the only thing she did have at the moment. She didn’t have “clarity” anywhere else. Her body was giving her its usual not-calm responses: dry throat, sweating palms, shaking knees. Her head ached from the long drive. But she was here, by God. And, all stress aside, she was clear. She knew why she was here and that she was supposed to be. It was another miracle. Like Tim’s letter arriving in the mail.

  She concentrated her attention on the block-lettered sign. Was this clarity going to abandon her after the gate was open?

  According to the instructions she’d been sent, once the gate opened, she was going to have to surrender her purse to a guard. She was going to have to walk through a metal detector. She was going to have to wait for someone to phone someone else, who was going to check the photo she’d had to send in and confirm that she was who she was claiming to be. She wasn’t going to be searched. It was illegal for them to do a body search unless they had reasonable cause. Knowing all these facts gave her a semblance of control. It was a semblance at best.