Operation Wormwood

by Helen C. Escott

  Their conversation was interrupted by a hospital worker who brought in her lunch tray and put it on the table across the foot of her bed. “Lunch is here.” The young worker greeted the patient with a friendly smile as she did with every other patient.

  “Shouldn’t you ask for permission before you come into a room?” asked Ms. Power. “Do you really need to tell me it’s a lunch tray? Do you think I don’t know what this tray is for? There’s no need to talk to me every time you enter this room. Do your job and leave.” Myra noticed how Ms. Power seemed to delight in using tone of voice to belittle those she considered below her. The worker turned and left, giving Myra a sideways glance and a nervous smile.

  Mary Power pulled the table closer to her. She laced her fingers together in front of her and bent them so every knuckle cracked. She took a tea bag from a small bowl, shook it, and placed it in the silver teapot full of hot water. “Why can’t they put the tea bag in the pot and then pour the hot water over it as it is supposed to be done!” she complained. She lifted the small tub of orange juice from the left side and placed it on the right. Then she rolled the silverware out of its napkin and placed it beside the plate in the proper order. Myra took note of her quirks. She lifted the cover off her plate and used the fork to push the green peas away from the mashed potatoes and the meat away from the vegetables so they didn’t touch. Myra noticed the small, pink bow in her hair. It looked like something a child would wear, he thought. She looked at him again, timid now that she knew he was watching her. He was amazed by how quickly she changed character from evil to innocent—a true psychopath.

  “Funny no one visits you.”

  Myra had barely finished his sentence when Ms. Power put up her bony hand, ordering him to stop talking. “I am eating. I do not like conversation while I am enjoying my food. You may leave.” She dismissed him without looking at him. She cracked her knuckles once again and began to eat, as if oblivious of Myra’s hate and frustration directed at her. Ms. Power was an expert at detecting those emotions, and she truly enjoyed making people feel them.

  He stood up, feeling the anger rising in his chest, and headed for the nearest exit. While walking toward the car, his phone rang. His team had found someone at the correctional centre for women in Clarenville, a two-hour road trip away. Myra asked his team to notify the prison he was on the way to speak to this prisoner, and he hit the highway.

  * * * * *

  Rosemary Penashue was from Sheshatshiu, forty kilometres southwest of Happy Valley–Goose Bay. She sat in the small interview room staring at the top of the table in front of her. She had no idea what she had done wrong, but she knew enough to keep her mouth shut and say nothing. When the tall policeman opened the door, she did not lift her eyes to meet his. As he was pulling a chair out from the table to sit across from her, she snuck a peek and realized that he was twice her height.

  “Rosemary, my name is Sgt. Nicholas Myra. I am with the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary.” He reached his hand out to shake hers. She looked at him from under her eyes and stretched her hand toward his for a weak handshake, then quickly drew it back. The woman nervously sat on both hands, still wondering why she was there.

  “I am hoping you can help me,” he continued. “Do you know a schoolteacher by the name of Mary Power?” He observed her reaction to the name. Her chest caved in as her shoulders came forward, and her head lowered almost to the tabletop.

  “Rosemary, do you remember Miss Power? She was your teacher in grade five.”

  Rosemary lifted her left hand and begin to chew on her thumbnail. “I don’t remember her,” she whispered. Her thick Innueimun accent and low tone made it hard to understand what she was saying.

  “Are you sure, Rosemary? She was your teacher in grade five. I have your class picture. Let me show you.” Myra took out his phone and opened the picture one of his team members had sent him. “This is you in the front row.” He then pointed to the prim and proper teacher sitting three students to the right of her. “And this is Mary Power. Do you remember her now?”

  The young woman looked at the screen on his phone. Her hand moved to her forehead, and she began to rub it in a circular motion. “No, I don’t remember her. Why, is she dead?” She looked directly into Myra’s eyes.

  Sgt. Myra put his phone back in its holster and paid careful attention to her face. She was pretty, with deep brown eyes and golden skin. Her file said she was forty-five years old, but he was expecting a much older-looking woman after reading her long history in the corrections file room. Her record contained mostly drunk in public charges and petty theft, and she had been the victim of domestic violence several times. His team pulled her juvenile record, which showed her run-ins with the law started when she was around ten years old. Approximately the same time this picture was taken.

  “No, she is not dead. She’s in hospital and very sick.”

  “Nothing to do with me,” she muttered.

  “Well, that’s what I am trying to find out.” He decided to cut to the chase. “Do you know what Wormwood is?”

  She looked at him and shrugged her shoulders. “Is that a plant or something?”

  “No, it’s a disease that some believe only affects pedophiles.” He watched her face for a response.

  Rosemary shrugged her shoulders again. “Nope, never heard of it.”

  He could tell from her body language that she was telling the truth.

  “What has that got to do with me? I never touched nobody!”

  “No. That’s not what I am saying.” He tried again. “Are you sure you don’t know Miss Power?”

  She looked down at the table again. “No.”

  He knew she was lying. He intertwined his fingers and cracked his knuckles. Rosemary jumped, putting her two arms over her head as if someone was about to hit her. Her reaction startled Myra.

  She looked at him from the space between her two forearms as her hands stayed over her head.

  “She beat you, didn’t she?” Myra knew his gut was right.

  She shook her head but kept her arms and hands firmly in place.

  “Rosemary, you ran away at ten years old, and you haven’t stop running. I can help you stop running. If you help me, we can put this monster in jail for good.”

  She slowly lowered her arms and wrapped them around her body, hugging herself as she rocked back and forth. With her eyes still looking at the tabletop, she began. “One day a girl in my class told Miss Power someone stole her lunch from the coatroom. Miss Power told the class she wanted the lunch returned. She made every girl get up, one by one, and go into the room. She said that after the last girl went in, she would check, and if the lunch was not returned, she would strap the thief in front of the class. The lunch was not returned.

  “She came out of the coatroom with her long, wooden ruler in her hands. I knew when I heard her knuckles crack, someone was getting it. She grabbed me by the hair and dragged me out of my desk to the front of the class. She bent me across the teacher’s desk and lifted my uniform, then started whipping me with the ruler. She kept screaming ‘This is what happens to bad girls who steal!’”

  Rosemary rocked faster now and lifted her head to face Sgt. Myra. “I didn’t steal the lunch. I was poor, and I was hungry, but I didn’t steal the lunch.” Myra did his best to hold his anger in. “Later that morning,” she continued, “the girl whose mother had made the lunch came to the school, bringing the lunch. The mother had forgotten to put it in the girl’s bookbag. And so, the girl had thought the lunch was stolen.”

  She looked at the table again. “You never knew when you were going to get a beating or how brutal it would be. Sometimes she would leave welts all over your body. Sometimes she would leave you unconscious.”

  “Were there other incidents?” Every muscle in Myra’s body was pulled tight in anger as he listened to her story.


  “There were lots of incidents. The beatings were a daily thing. Anything would set her off. Like, if we tried to speak Innueimun or said we wanted to go hunting with our families. She would not allow us to continue with our native traditions. She called us ‘savages.’ You knew you were going to get a beating when she cracked her knuckles. To this day, I can’t take the sound of it.”

  Sgt. Myra wasn’t going to be happy with a simple assault charge. He needed more. “Can you tell me if she was ever sexually inappropriate with you or any of the other girls?”

  “She liked girls. She hated men, she would say that all the time. She had a secret room behind her office that had no windows. It used to be a storage room. She had a small bed put in there for ‘sick kids.’ No one could hear you when you screamed in there. At least no one came when I did.”

  “When you say she liked girls, do you mean children?” He needed her to say it without putting the words in her mouth.

  “I know what you’re trying to do, Sgt. Myra. The Mounties tried to do the same thing. We all gave our statement years ago to the RCMP, and it never went anywhere.”

  It felt like someone had come up behind him and driven an ice pick through the centre of Myra’s skull. He was nauseated from the pain. His breath stuck in his throat, and his voice grew louder than he planned. “When? When did you give statements to the Mounties?” He tried not to show his anger, but his whole body was shaking.

  “About twenty-five years ago. I think I was twenty.” She looked at him like he should have known this. “Sure, about thirty of us went to the detachment in Goose Bay that month and gave our statements. Nothing ever came from it because they said we weren’t credible.”

  He pushed the chair back and jumped to his feet. “You’re kidding me, right? Are you pulling my leg?” He had to put his hands in his pants pockets to hide their trembling.

  “Why would I do that? I’m already in jail! Go talk to Inspector Michaels. He had them all in a white box. I saw them in his office. I thought he really believed me. He wanted to put her in jail, too.”

  Myra wanted to punch something. He tried not to show how angry he was. “I will find him, and he will be held accountable.”

  “Sgt. Myra.” Rosemary’s voice was low. “She’s heartless and cruel.” She shook her head back and forth, not understanding why her life had turned out like this. “When you put her in jail, please put her in this jail.”

  He was taken back by her request. “Why would you want her here, near you?”

  “I have to look her in the eye. I have to see her face when you bring her down.” His heart broke as he watched her eyes fill up.

  “Rosemary, it’s not going to help you heal. Have you been thinking about your abuse a lot lately?”

  “I usually drink to forget it, but in here there’s no booze. When I am sober, it’s all I think about.” It made sense to him now. That’s why Mary Power was in hospital—Rosemary was dry and thinking about her abuse all the time.

  “I want to hurt her. Sometimes I want to kill her. But it won’t change anything. It won’t give me back my childhood.”

  “Rosemary, you may be able to help me answer another question.” There was something sticking in his brain about Mary Power.

  “Sure, if I can.”

  “She wears a pink bow in her hair. It looks like something a child would wear. Do you know the significance of it?”

  “That belongs to Suzie Rich. She died when she was in grade two. Everyone was told she fell off the swing set on the playground, but I know Miss Power beat her in the room that morning and she fainted. Miss Power walked her out to the playground, sat her on a swing, and walked away. That’s where another teacher found her. On the ground, under the swing.”

  “Are you saying Mary Power killed a child while she was a teacher at your school?” Myra’s heart was beating wildly.

  “I believe she did. I know Miss Power took her out of class and brought her to her office, because I was the prefect on duty that morning and saw it. Miss Power was also the principal of the school. So, no one would question her on that.”

  “Are you sure she walked her to the playground?” Myra realized he now had a whole new investigation.

  “My sister was sitting in class and could see the playground from her window. She watched Miss Power walk Suzie to the swing and sit her on it. Then walk away. She was wondering why Suzie was allowed to go to the playground during class. Then the bell rang, and she changed classes. Suzie was found during the lunch break.”

  “Was there an investigation?”

  “I know the police came to the school, because I saw them in the front office. They didn’t talk to any kids, just Miss Power and the teachers.”

  Really?” Myra was stunned by this new information. “What about the bow?”

  “Suzie wore that bow all the time. After she died, I noticed Miss Power had it in her hair. It was like a warning to the rest of us what could happen if we didn’t do as she said.”

  “For helping me out, I am going to talk to the warden about getting you the help you need. You have to talk to someone who is a child abuse specialist. You need to be closer to your family and your Innu culture. Would you like to be transferred to the women’s facility in Goose Bay?”

  “Yes!” Rosemary let out a loud, piercing cry. “I want to go home.” She began to sob.

  He sat back down, reached across the table, and took her hand. “Rosemary, the more you talk about your abuse, the more you will heal.” Myra knew that was true, but he also knew the more she talked and thought about it, the more pain Mary Power would endure, if Father Cooke’s theory was right.

  “You’re a good man, Sgt. Myra.”

  He waved at the guard watching through the protective window, indicating he was finished. He watched her being led away. As soon as the door closed behind her, all the spite, rage, and frustration came to the surface as his fist hit the steel door. Blood spattered over the dull grey paint, and the pain ran through his arm to his shoulder. The guard fell back against the wall, scared out of his wits. “What was that for?” he yelled.

  “For assholes who spend money keeping people in prison when they should be in facilities getting the care they need!”

  Myra walked past him holding his hand. The guard waited for him to leave before going over to look at the dent in the steel door. “Glad that wasn’t my face,” he muttered.

  Myra’s first stop was the warden’s office. He told him Rosemary was part of an undercover investigation that he was conducting, and he needed her moved to the Goose Bay facility immediately. He also requested that due to the stress this investigation could cause, he wanted her to see a psychologist weekly.

  By the next morning, Rosemary was moved, and the help she desperately needed was made available to her. The psychologist gave her a diary and told her to write down her feelings every day and they would discuss them at their weekly meetings.

  * * * * *

  Myra hit the highway in a fury. He asked his team to track down RCMP Inspector Michaels who oversaw Labrador twenty-five years ago. His team started making calls, and by the time Sgt. Myra got back to his office, they had tracked down Inspector Boyd Michaels, who was now retired and living just outside of St. John’s.

  He sat at his desk and picked up the phone. His hand was swollen and bruised. The blood had dried around the cuts, and his knuckles felt like they were broken. His fingers were still shaking when he dialled the number.

  “Hello,” answered an authoritative voice.

  “I am looking for retired RCMP Inspector Boyd Michaels,” Sgt. Myra responded.

  “This is Inspector Boyd Michaels speaking.”

  “Inspector, my name is Sgt. Nicholas Myra with the RNC. Do you have a few minutes to talk with me?

  “Yes, of course. What is this about?”

&
nbsp; “When you were the district commander in Labrador, you investigated the physical and sexual abuse of girls in Sheshatshiu.” Then he added, “And a death which could have been a murder of a young girl at the school.”

  There was a pause, and Myra could hear him taking a deep breath. “I have been waiting for twenty-five years for this phone call, Sergeant. When can we get together?”

  “When is good for you?”

  “I can be at your office within an hour.”

  “It’s late and I have had a long day. Why don’t we meet tomorrow morning?” Myra was tired and sore from the long drive to Clarenville and back.

  “Okay. I have waited so long to get this off my chest. It haunts me every time I close my eyes. I suffer from severe PTSD from carrying the guilt of this file. I thought I would die with this on my conscience. I can’t tell you how happy I am to receive your call.” Michaels’s voice shook with emotion.

  “How about nine a.m. tomorrow morning at RNC headquarters?” Myra offered.

  “Yes. I will be there with bells on.”

  28

  Sgt. Myra arrived at the side employee door of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary at 8:00 a.m. As soon as he unlocked his office door, the phone was ringing. The sergeant on the front desk informed him there was a guest in the front lobby who had been waiting for him since 7:00 a.m. He immediately went to see who it was and looked out through the small glass in the lobby door. There stood Inspector Boyd Michaels, pacing back and forth. He was approximately seventy years old, with short white hair, stocky but trim, about six feet tall with neatly pressed pants and shirt. Your typical Mountie, Myra thought. He opened the door and extended his hand. “Inspector Michaels. You’re early. Thank you for coming in.”

  “Early bird gets the worm, as they say.” They exchanged a firm handshake. “Quite the pair of mitts you have on you, Sgt. Myra. Looks like you taught someone their manners recently.” He pointed to Myra’s knuckles.

  Nick rubbed his sore hand. “I took my frustrations out on a steel door. Doors don’t make complaints.” He laughed.