“Skank?” This was a new one for Audri. She’d heard a lot of bad things about Kallita, but no one had ever called her a skank. Not that she could remember anyway.
“Ya, that’s right, skank, floozie, bike, slu—”
“Yes, OK, I get it. Kallita was a lot of things, but I never thought of her as loose.”
“Roy never knew. He wouldn’t believe it, even when I could prove it. She came on to everything in pants when he wasn’t around. He would go to work and take the kids to the babysitter. She’d be next door ridin’ the pony.”
Audri was mortified.
“How do you know this? We’ve known each other for years. You never said a word.”
“I seen it with my own eyes. Roy’s truck would be out of sight, and she would be slippin’ through the back gate into Freddy’s place. Lickety-split. She’d spend half the day there. It’s ironic too. She didn’t trust Roy one bit. He wasn’t allowed to go anywhere, other than work, without her or the kids in tow. And as for telling you, when did Kallita Prewitt ever enter into any of our conversations? Why should she? By the way, did you tell Emily what she did to you?”
Audri’s face paled. How could he know about that? She studied Jim’s face for some sense of what he knew.
“How, er, what are you talking about?” She felt her face flush.
“Audri, you know this town as well as I do, better probably. You know nothing stays secret forever.”
“So why have you never mentioned—”
Jim cut her off, “Because we never talked about her. It’s none of my business.”
“Why mention it now, then?”
“You started it by askin’ me why I lied to Emily. That purse she found is bad news. Kallita Prewitt disappeared twenty-five years ago, and for all I care, she can stay that way. I don’t want to know anything about her. So, for the record, so each of us knows the straight goods, what went on with you two?”
“You first,” Audri settled back in her chair and crossed her legs.
“We’re gonna need more coffee,” Jim grabbed the pot from the counter and poured each of them another brew. “Twenty-six years ago, I’ll never forget it…”
* * *
August 1991:
Already hot and humid, it was only 8:30 in the morning when Roy pulled into Jim’s driveway. His dad kept a garage on the edge of town where they worked on their stock cars. Jim had been around the racecars all his life. He couldn’t remember a time when the whole family wasn’t playing with, fixing or tuning up one of the racecars. Now it was his turn. As a teenager, Roy had helped Jim with the cars. When he went away to college all that had to stop. Roy was working in Hamilton for a couple of years when he met Kallita at a party. It turned out that she had lived in Clarksville while married to her first husband. They hit it off pretty well, and a couple of months later, he moved in with her. Less than a year later, they were married. After moving back to Clarksville, he bumped into Jim at a coffee shop. The two got to reminiscing, and it wasn’t long before Roy was back in the pits again, helping Jim with what was now his racecar.
“It’s going to be a hot one, Jimbo.” Roy grinned at his partner as he pulled on his coveralls. “The sooner we get this show on the road, the sooner we’ll be at the track and can relax a bit before the race. Hope it cools down a little by then.”
“Me too, hand me that nine sixteenths there will ya?” Jim pointed to the tool chest lying beside the car. “Just one more nut and we can roll this baby onto the trailer and get out of here. Where’s Kallita and the kids?”
“On their way already. She didn’t want to wait for us, but I’ve got orders to get my ass there, tout suite.”
“Yeah, we’re out of here in ten.” Jim chuckled; he knew only too well that Kallita wasn’t kidding. If they didn’t roll in by noon, there’d be hell to pay. He’d seen it all before. Kallita could be sweet when she wanted to, but she never seemed to want to around Roy. Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth if she was talking to him, or some other guy, but Roy? No way! Jim always thought she treated him like a butler.
It had been a full day of racing. First, the qualifiers in the afternoon and then into the evening for the finals. The feature race hadn’t gone well. Jim blew the engine on the third lap, putting an end to their racing for the weekend. All he wanted to do was relax around the campfire and have a few beers. Kallita was in a surly mood. She wasn’t happy about having to watch the kids all evening while Roy was in the pits working on the car. They had no sooner arrived at the campsite, and it started.
“Here, she needs changing.” She handed the child to Roy as if to say it’s your turn. Jim could see Roy wasn’t happy.
“She’s wringin’ wet! When did you last change her? Good God Kallita, do I have to be here every waking moment? Is it too much to ask that you change your own daughter’s diaper? Jeezus!” Roy took the child inside to change her. Kallita simply ignored him, sucked on her beer, and stared at the fire. Jim could sense it coming. The fight that was brewing between them was going to be a dandy. He decided discretion was the better part of valour. Picking up his beer, he began to make a discreet but hasty retreat to his trailer. Martha was already in bed with the kids, and all he wanted to do was unwind.
“Ah, come on, Jim, don’t abandon me here.” Kallita looked so childlike and forlorn in the firelight. “He’s gonna go to bed, so let him.” She took another swig of beer and lit a cigarette. “It gets lonely out here on my own.”
“Really, Kallita, it’s been a long day. I need to get some sleep.” Jim kept edging toward his trailer.
“Just have another beer with me,” Kallita cajoled. “It’s still early.” She stood up and grabbed two beers from the cooler, intercepting Jim before he could get into his trailer. Stuffing a beer into his hand, she pushed up against him, a little too close for comfort. Stepping back, he could see Kallita had more than beer on her mind.
“Ehm, I think you better call it a night, Kallita. This isn’t a good idea.” Before he could react, Kallita kissed him, throwing her arms around him, pressing herself into him as hard as she could.
“Don’t fight it,” she said in a breathless whisper. “I’ve seen the signs, Jim, Martha won’t know.”
Jim’s head reeled, for the briefest moment he considered it. He came to his senses, wanting nothing to do with this. Kallita was good looking sure, but he had no interest in her. Pushing her away, he scolded her.
“Get your head straight girl, I’m not interested. Jesus, where is this coming from?”
Ignoring Jim’s protests, Kallita threw herself back into his arms, and loudly pleaded with him,
“Why, Jim, what’s wrong? It can be like before, no one has to know. I won’t say a word, I swear.”
“What the hell is going on here?” Martha stormed out of the trailer missing the bottom step and almost falling flat on her face. Regaining her balance, she grabbed Kallita and shoved her away from her husband. “You little slut! I always wondered about you.”
Jim looked at his wife, stunned by the whole episode.
“Nothing, I swear, I don’t know what got into her. I was coming in to go to bed, and she jumped me. Started kissing me and push—”
“Oh come on, Jim,” Kallita interjected. “It’s time everybody knew.” She turned to Martha with a sardonic smile and said, “I’ve been doing your husband all summer.”
The words hit him like a kick in the groin. “It’s not true, don’t believe her! Christ! What’s wrong with you?” He turned to Kallita in wild-eyed disbelief. “What did I ever do to you? Why?”
The answers never came. Before he could react, Roy came out of nowhere and blindsided Jim with a blow to the jaw. He knocked him to the ground. Jumping on top of him, he gave Jim no chance to fight back. Constantly pounding him with his fists, while crying real tears and asking, “Why?” When he finally let up, Jim lay in the dirt bleeding from a cut over his left eye and a bloody lip. Roy was inconsolable. He gathered the kids, loaded them into his truck and spe
d away.
In tears, retreating back into her trailer and locking the door, Martha left Jim and Kallita, where she found them. Jim in the dirt, and Kallita once again sitting by the fire with a beer in her hand. An ever so slight smile of accomplishment forming on her lips.
* * *
“So there it is. Three months later Martha sued for divorce. All we had done was fight. She never believed me. None of it was true. Kallita made the whole thing up just so they wouldn’t have to go to the races, and Roy wouldn’t leave her on her own with the kids. That’s all I can think it was about. She disappeared that following winter. Screw her and good riddance. The bitch wrecked my life.” Standing from the table to get another coffee, Jim abruptly switched directions, opened the fridge and grabbed a beer instead. “You want one?” He waved a bottle at Audri .
“No thanks, I better not. I have to drive later.” Audri had always thought he and Martha had a good thing between them. Jim’s story certainly gave her a different slant on things.
“Your turn.” Jim twisted the cap off his beer and sank back into his chair.
“Tina McClarty had quit as president in the summer. I was away at the time and for whatever reason, I was voted in as her replacement. It’s been that way ever since. It was just before Christmas and things were crazy busy. I don’t know what it was about Kallita. I really didn’t know her that well, but it seemed to me that she alienated everyone she ever met. She was the bookkeeper for the condo corporation, so, we had to see each other at least once a month, sometimes twice. I don’t think Kallita was a happy person. She could be pleasant at times, but it appeared to me that she had a hard time accepting other people’s happiness. I remember telling her that I had an unexpected windfall, and that’s when it all started…”
* * *
September 1991
“I WON! I WON FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS!” Gord burst through the door, grinning from ear to ear. The words literally bounced off the walls, echoing throughout the house.
“Never! You never did!” Audri had to be dreaming.
“I did! Look here.” He stuffed a scratch ticket in front of her. “Look! I got the whole box. Fifty thousand, I can’t believe it.”
Audri didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Years of stress and worry might suddenly become a thing of the past. Being married to a gambler was hard, and Gord’s addiction to scratch tickets was constant. Spending hundreds of dollars each week with only a few minor wins to offset the losses took a toll. Once a month, the disability cheques would be deposited in the bank, and the cycle would begin again. Before the smoke cleared, Audri would have disposed of every dime in a vain attempt to pay down their credit cards. Gord would see the balance on the statement and consider it his green light to run the cards up even higher in some convoluted belief that he could win his way out of debt.
His addiction caused them to live on their credit cards, using them for everything from groceries to utilities. Over the years, their balance kept inching ever higher, and the credit card companies kept increasing the credit limits and issuing new cards with even higher limits. The temptation was too much for Gord. They were rapidly getting to the point where it was more and more difficult to pay even the minimum payments, putting them in danger of defaulting on their mortgage.
Gord was dancing around the living room like a rambunctious schoolboy, waving the ticket in the air, kissing it and waving it around again. She watched him as he paraded around, and when he finally came back down to earth, she took the ticket from him and examined it more closely. Her excitement grew as she realized that the ticket was genuine, and he had, by God, won fifty thousand dollars. Relief flooded over her as she thought of all the stress that would be eliminated by this money. However, there was one problem.
Trying to bring Gord’s euphoria down to where she could talk sense to him took ages.
“Gordon, sit down! We need to discuss this rationally.” Gord had no desire to sit. For the first time in his life, he had some real money.
“First, we have to figure out how to keep this money.”
“Huh?” That did it. The look on Audri’s face told the story.
“You know the disability people will have to be told. They’ll find out one way or the other. So what we have to do is figure out how to keep the money and still keep our pensions.”
“What do you mean? If we’ve got the money, what’s the difference?” The bewildered look on Gord’s face told Audri he didn’t understand.
“They’ll take our pensions away, Gord. How long do you think fifty grand is going to last? It’s not fifty million, it’s fifty thousand, and do you have any idea how much we owe Visa and Mastercard? They’ll eat up thirty thousand easy, and then there’s the car loan and the mortgage, plus our own cost of living. Gord, we’ve been living beyond our pensions for years, and it’s only because our credit is good that we’ve lasted this long. We can’t afford to lose our pensions. We have to hide this money.” Audri shook her head with the thought of the grief this winning might cause. Cooler heads had to prevail. They had to find a way to keep the money, get out of debt, and still retain their pension. This was their chance to start over again, and perhaps, with luck, never find themselves in this mess again. She decided to ask Kallita for advice.
With every word, Kallita’s opinion of Audri diminished. It wasn’t that high, to begin with, and now that she knew how Audri and Gord made a living, she disliked her even more. She hated people on welfare and disability was no better. Her hard-earned tax dollars were going to people who could obviously work in some capacity, and all they were doing was sucking the government and, in turn, herself dry. To top it off, these deadbeats win fifty grand, and they expect me to help them figure out how to keep it, essentially having their cake and eating it too. Well, help, I will.
“Let me do some digging into this, Audri; I’ll check to see what the regs are, but I don’t see any problems. I’m sure there is a mechanism in place with the government for circumstances such as this. In the meantime, you and Gord should cash in the ticket. Once you have the money in the bank, we can deal with your pensions. Oh, and one more thing. My services are not free. I’ll need a five hundred dollar retainer before we get started.” Kallita pushed an invoice across the table for Audri to see. “I can take a cheque, no problem.”
Audri was relieved. Kallita knew what she was doing. After all, she had figured out the mess that Trudy Bishop had left behind. Kallita had found a way to get the government to refund some of the condo’s property taxes. Confident that she could help, Audri wrote the cheque.
“We’re going to Toronto tomorrow to turn in the ticket.” Audri handed her the cheque. “I’ll let you know when the money is deposited.”
Kallita knew that there was a mechanism in place for such windfalls. Cashing Audri’s cheque right away, she couldn’t wait for the fun to begin.
* * *
Audri fidgeted with the straps on her handbag. The butterflies in her stomach would not relax, and more than once, she felt the urge to vomit. Sitting in the office of her caseworker, she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Kallita must have known that merely reporting the win to the disability board would set in place a procedure of managing the finances. First, they would seize the money, then ensure that all debts were paid, including any mortgage arrears, plus a percentage in escrow for future mortgage payments, utilities and credit card debt. Any balance remaining, up to $7500.00, would be exempt from any penalty, and the remaining balance would be deducted from the pension cheques, dollar for dollar. In Audri’s case, they would have walked away debt-free, with a big chunk paid down on their mortgage, all the credit cards and their car loan paid off, with about four thousand left in cash. They wouldn’t skip a beat with their pensions.
Following Kallita’s advice, they cashed in the ticket first and paid off the credit cards and the car loan, without telling the disability commission. They were out of debt as far as the credit cards were concerned, but now because they never d
eclared the money, they were cut off indefinitely and would be unable to appeal the decision for at least six months. Even then, it would take almost an act of Parliament to reinstate their pensions. Devastated, she didn’t know what to do. Audri hadn’t intended to defraud anyone.
Nevertheless, she was being treated as such, and now they had no income. The few dollars they had leftover would have to last. Kallita had to have known. Audri would get even.
* * *
“I hated her for what she did to us. She disappeared not long after that. I didn’t shed any tears over her. You can believe that, but with all the mystery surrounding her disappearance, I didn’t want anybody looking in my direction. It took over a year to get our pensions reinstated. All that kept us afloat were the credit cards, but we might have been better off if we’d never won. I’ve kept it a secret all this time.” Audri stood up, stretching her legs. Sitting for so long had her numb. “Oh, God, look at the time. I gotta get going. You know Jim, I don’t think any of this needs to be repeated. It’s best left in the past if you know what I mean.”
Jim nodded in agreement as he stood to see Audri to the door, “Amen to that. The least said, the better.”
* * *
Riveted to his spot by the conversation he was hearing, Bill Peters had to pee badly. Finally, able to move without being detected, he rose from his patio chair. Rushing inside for the bathroom, he thought, you’re right about one thing, Jim, old son. It’s hard to keep secrets in a small town. Especially if you don’t keep your doors and windows shut. This is one for the lodge brothers for sure.
Kill Her Twice Page 4