by Paula Todd
Leanne Bordelais. Leanne Bordelais! The name I’d been chasing for weeks. Leanne Bordelais — complete with the precise spelling of Karla Homolka’s middle name. Leanne Bordelais? I wipe the sweat and dust out of my eyes and look again.
“You have got to be kidding,” I say out loud. After all the trekking and tracing, finally a stroke of luck — or more. The idiot in the white car is forgiven. My plan was to check every house and mailbox in the area, but this twist of fortune has saved me hours on foot.
The fenced house behind the mailbox is large and set well back from the road. There’s an open gate followed by a grassy path to the front door. Signs of people are everywhere: cars parked in the driveway, an outdoor dining tent on the lawn, a garage door wide open, beautiful landscaping and pots of flowers.
Yet there’s no one around, anywhere. Only a strutting rooster pecking at the ground. On the patio of the smaller house next door, racks of clean, white children’s undershirts dry in the blazing sun.
That’s when my heart starts to race. What if I have actually found Homolka? Can I convince her to let me in? To talk to me? I’ve made it this far, and, if I have indeed found her, I am determined to find out how this deal with the devil has turned out.
First, though, I drive quickly back to my hotel. I’m sticky with dust and sweaty from the heat. I peel off my clothes, fly through the shower like it’s a car wash and search my suitcase for a dress. I need to get back on the road immediately, but I take the time to apply makeup — the first time since my arrival. Homolka, I’ve read, is meticulous about her appearance. Once, as Kristen French lay dying in the master bedroom Homolka shared with Bernardo, she infamously left to blow-dry her hair.
Instead of driving back alone to visit “Leanne Bordelais,” though, I hire an experienced cabbie for company. I explain in French that I’m visiting someone but it could be dangerous. He shrugs. “Okay.”
I look at him somberly. He speaks some English and wants to practise.
“Come with me and don’t leave,” I say. “No matter how long I am gone.” I don’t think to tell him what to do if I don’t come out.
He nods gravely. “I promise I will not leave you,” he says. “I promise.” I study his warm face and intelligent eyes, and decide to go for it. Plus, I figure, this could be one hell of a cab fare for him.
I had wanted to hire security or take a couple of new island friends — big and bilingual — with me. But now I feel my window of opportunity is closing fast, and I’m ready to go.
By my estimation, I have less than two hours before the sun begins to set and the family starts making dinner. Never a good time to drop by unexpected.
Of course, it could be another wild goose chase. I’d found false clues in other places: an Emily Bordelais in Paris; L. Bordelais, the local school mistress; a Mrs. Thierry B. in a far-flung district of Quebec; an Emily Bordeaux (a derivative of “Bordelais”) with whom I played an Internet word game.
The “Leanne Bordelais” mailbox is certainly promising but also incredibly careless, if she is in hiding. The print on the box is clearly not in Homolka’s hand, so I could be on my way to meet another namesake with no tie to death.
My driver pulls onto the same gravel road I was forced down earlier that day. I suggest he park out of sight, and I get out quietly and move swiftly, steeling myself. Anything can happen now. The gate is open, so I walk up the path to the front door and look around.
My tension drains away. No one. The place is deserted except for tropical birds calling out to the cooling afternoon. Up close, I realize the structure is more like a small apartment building than a house. I see a pile of toys and books stashed on the lower walkway. They include a set of encyclopedias, which turn out to be The Bible Commentary. Now, that’s interesting.
There are toys everywhere. Shiny red scooters. Stuffed animals. Bright play furniture. The chairs look just the right size for a five-year-old, the age Homolka’s son would be now if reports of his birth in February 2007 were accurate. Someone hosts some very nice tea parties down here.
I see a wide stairway of peach-and-blue glazed tiles that leads upstairs. It’s long and steep and looks dark at the top. I circle around the staircase a couple of times, weighing the risk of climbing upward. There’s something ominous here and my internal alarm is buzzing. I retrace my steps and check again for someone on the first floor, where it would be easier to get away if I run into trouble. I knock on the only door I see.
Hot, heavy silence. It’s like I’m watching a horror movie, trying to predict the next heart-stopping attack so I can close my eyes. Except my job is to keep my eyes as wide open as possible.
I quickly climb the tiled staircase.
The second floor is similar to the first. A short row of curtained and closed French doors line the open-air corridor. An oval plastic patio table with a green-checkered tablecloth sits waiting for an alfresco dinner. There are nine white plastic chairs. The tension is whining in my ears now, a violin note stretched tight.
I tap on one of the glass doors. Nothing. I wonder whether the whole place is deserted. And then, a door opens further down the corridor. A tall woman beckons. In French, I explain I would like to speak with Leanne Bordelais. “Je cherche Madame Leanne Bordelais, s’il vous plaît.”
In English, with a French accent, she says, “I am Leanne Bordelais.” My heart sinks. This woman is tall and thin and her black skin is deeply sun-wrinkled. And yet, she could be Thierry Bordelais’s mother, covering for her notorious daughter-in-law.
I pause at her door, thinking quickly. Something is definitely off about this Leanne. She is clearly an older local woman and a native French speaker, more a Madeleine than a Leanne. But even if her name really is Leanne, her swift reply had been a little too swift — more the pace of a quickening heart and a well-rehearsed answer. I decide not to believe her.
No, I explain, still in French. I’m a lawyer from Canada and I’m looking for “l’autre Leanne,” the other Leanne. The younger, white, English-speaking one. She nods.
A grizzle-haired man of the same vintage joins her. Maybe Bordelais’s father? The man points to the end of the long corridor. I see a hammock and a small exercise bike. Hope again. Homolka always liked to stay in shape.
The woman comes out to guide me, and the man, likely her husband, smiles and gestures to me to follow. At the end of the corridor, she takes a sharp left. There before us, well set back out of sight, is a small staircase — completely encased in a cage of black metal bars. The heavy barred door at the bottom of the steps has a metal lock but is wide open at the moment. When it’s closed, it must be like a prison cell. Awfully heavy security for an old building with gracious bones and open-air verandas.
And that’s when my heart really starts to pump. My mouth goes dry. This strange, caged staircase may very well lead to the real Leanne Bordelais. The real Karla Homolka.
I wonder what I’m about to walk into. But turning back doesn’t enter my mind. The woman begins to climb the wooden steps. She is wearing a silk summer dress dotted with flowers. It bounces lightly on her knees as she climbs. Her legs are bare and strong. She looks back once and smiles. We move upward through the unlocked cage to sunshine and a soft breeze coming from the open corridor above.
At the top, we step through an apartment door and onto a cramped landing in a white hallway. The wall I am standing beside has a little framed window, wide open. I look through it into a tiny, tidy kitchen. There, bent over the sink, is a petite woman with light hair. She turns her face sideways to see who’s arriving. Then she freezes.
We reach into each other’s eyes at the same moment. A wave of amazement sweeps over me: I’m staring straight into the face of Canada’s most notorious female serial killer.
I have found Karla Homolka, and I’m not sure which of us is more shocked.
We don’t take our eyes off each other. Slowly, she straightens up from the sink, and I see the new Karla. She’s lost the extra prison weight and her hair, o
nce thick with blonde highlights, is sandy beige and pulled tightly back into a ponytail. Her face has narrowed to a thin oval and the wrinkles she got in prison, creeping down then from her nose to mouth, have deepened into folds.
She has a light-caramel tan and wears little makeup. There is no truth at all to persistent online reports that she’s surgically altered her looks or cut off and coloured her hair. For the most part, she looks exactly the same as she did when a Montreal television reporter briefly spoke with her in 2006. But her mouth, then a straight line, has now collapsed into a little pile of lips.
Having just turned forty-two yesterday, she is no longer the vivacious, chubby-cheeked young woman with a sparkling engagement ring and dreams of a perfect husband and home. She’s slim and neatly dressed in white capri pants and a cowl-necked bronze top, under which I will eventually see a white bra.
She moves swiftly from kitchen to landing. A man joins her. I recognize him from a Montreal newspaper photo in which he’d been identified as Thierry Bordelais. Instinctively, they create a human wall, blocking something or someone from my sight.
Her eyes are dark with anger — but I can see fear there, too. Bordelais, who was wearing a big parka in the only photograph of him I’d seen, is smaller than expected, a thin man, barely medium height, with close-cut dark hair. He is wearing a neatly pressed short-sleeved blue plaid shirt and long navy shorts. His voice is soft, but right now he’s electrified. There are no hellos or bonsoirs. In French, he asks the older woman whether she had invited me up to their home. The woman beams and says yes. His eyes widen as he shakes his head in disbelief, visibly trying to control his temper. He orders her back down to the second floor, saving his anger for me.
Meanwhile, my mind rushes to reconcile my seemingly impossible quest with the surrealism of Homolka’s presence. Here, right in front of me. The elusive Karla Homolka, savage sex criminal and pimp for a serial rapist. The woman who’d offered up her own sister’s virginity and, ultimately, her life with an overdose of stolen drugs. The woman who’d helped Paul Bernardo dispose of Leslie Mahaffy’s cement-encased torso into Lake Gibson. The woman who’d helped dump Kristen French’s tortured and strangled body into a ditch.
But there is no attempt to throw me out. Just a brief calm before the proverbial storm.
“What do you want?” Bordelais says in French. I begin to answer in his native language, but Karla interrupts brusquely in English with her own sharp demands. She is in charge here. Her glare is angry and condescending at the same time. Quite a feat.
“Who are you?”
I tell the truth, that my name is Paula Todd and I’m a Canadian journalism professor and lawyer researching a book about life after prison, and that I want to talk about her experiences.
Momentarily, she looks intrigued. Then, her eyes grow wary. “How did you find me?”
I offer to answer her second question, to show her the flaws in her disappearing act, if she will speak with me awhile.
“Why would I talk to you? I have everything to lose, you have nothing.”
She and Bordelais shift slightly as they press in closer to each other. It’s just enough to give me a better look at what’s behind them.
There, on a large, open-air balcony, I see something almost as jarring as Homolka’s presence.
Leaping and tumbling in the late afternoon sun are small children with mocha colouring and delighted smiles. One. Two. Three of them. Two boys and a girl. One son I was prepared for, but does the woman who killed three children now have three of her own?
The irony comes crashing in.
Chapter Seven
I’ve made it — escorted, no less — into the entry hall of Karla Homolka’s Caribbean hideout. But can I convince her to let me stay? Not if Thierry Bordelais has his way. He’s fiercely protective of her, and anxious to dispatch me. But apparently this won’t be his decision. She addresses me, not him: “Why should I talk to you?” Oddly, it’s more an invitation to debate than a dismissal.
“If I found you others will, too,” I say. “There are many more people looking for you.”
“How do you know?”
“You’re all over the Internet. People want to find you.”
“So, why haven’t they already?” she counters.
I shrug. “They haven’t looked in the right places.”
That alarms her. “Who are you?”
And then I realize that she doesn’t know I’m a journalist. The only people she likely imagines with the skill to find her are far more threatening — police detectives, private investigators, or even an assassin. Cyberspace is teeming with calls for her torture and death.
Bordelais moves forward to direct me back downstairs, but Homolka puts her hand on his arm and holds him back. I see the cue and quickly step past him. She leads me onto their wide, sunny veranda. I mention how pretty it is. She ignores me.
We wade through the kids who are grabbing at her legs and arms, entreating her to play. I laugh, trying to lighten the mood. She scowls at me.
She points ahead to white-curtained French doors.
“Yes,” I say, “Let’s go somewhere safe.”
“What makes you think I feel safe? You’ve just proved that I’m not.”
I’m actually thinking about the three little children, who she will later confirm are theirs. The oldest Bordelais son is playing with his little sister, and the baby is sitting on the ground, stretching his arms out to her. I have no idea when or how Homolka plans to tell them their mommy is a rapist and serial killer. But I’m sure not going to do it.
She opens the door on the right and tells me to go through into the darkness. I hear the door close and click behind her. Slowly, my eyes adjust from the laser sun to the shadows. I see with some relief that we’ve entered an ordinary living room. Sparse, immaculate and serene.
A blue velour couch and teak coffee table sit on a turquoise faux-Persian rug. They are arranged in front of a flat-screen television mounted on the facing wall. Behind the couch is a small, round, glass dining table, shiny clean, with four small chairs. Their wrought iron backs curl into hearts. The baby boy must sit in a high chair kept neatly out of sight.
Is this where notorious sex killers wind up?
It’s not the posh retreat by the sea so many have suggested, nor a den of sexual torture — although Bernardo and Homolka, in their little pink house, were never what they seemed.
It also occurs to me that there are no obvious signs of how Homolka and Bordelais earn a living. A few bloggers have long insisted they run an online business specializing in environmentally friendly children’s clothing. If so, there’s no evidence of sewing and packaging in the front rooms of their apartment.
Homolka gestures to the couch, and I slide to the furthest end. She takes the other end, closest to the door. I stay still, saying and doing nothing under her scrutiny, trying to remain as calm and casual as possible. I can tell that she is poised to throw me out at the slightest violation.
It looks like we’re settling in for a chat, except she’s glaring at me, trying hard to figure out what to do. Her face is a mask of disdain. But there’s interest, too. Outside, a rooster crows to the easing sun. Beyond that, I hear the muted buzz of passing cars on the narrow road. I wait. Let her make the first move.
Her interrogation begins.
“Who are you?”
My answer is the same as it was at the door — a Canadian writer and lawyer researching a book about what happens to offenders after they’re released. She’s shaking her head, squeezing her face and lips into a tight cone of disbelief. In the silence, I can hear her breathing is quick.
“You are upset,” I say. “Is it because I am here?”
She answers with sarcasm, “Yea-aah.”
Yet she does not ask me to leave. Instead, she fixes me with a stare (neither penetrating nor evil) and tries again to make sense of my presence.
“Why are you here? What do you want?” she demands again.
; My mouth is dry as I begin to explain the research for my book.
What was it like, I ask, to re-enter society without protection and face the maddened crowds? Did Canadians force her from her home in Montreal, and is that fair given she’d served every second of her sentence? The courts didn’t hand her a life sentence, but is she nevertheless serving one, hidden and constrained?
She glances upward. She wants to tell me, to rail against the injustice she’s complained about in private letters and public court documents.
But she keeps staring, eyes narrowed.
An essential part of being a journalist is the ability to briefly slip into the mind of your interview subject. You must be able to see as much of the other side as possible so you can describe it. That’s the closest we get to some sort of neutrality. So I tell her again that if she helps with my research, I will return the favour and show her how I tracked her down.
“If,” she says with a sneer. “So it’s blackmail.”
That surprises me. How interesting that Homolka sees a mutual favour as a trap, negotiation as blackmail. Many Canadians would agree that’s exactly what she did to government prosecutors. Her deal to avoid life in prison, despite her grisly crimes, could very well be seen as blackmail.
Before she can speak again, the living-room door opens. Sunshine and a curious boy enter.
Homolka and Bordelais’s first-born has her oval face and the slight build of his father. His skin is a soft mocha and his dark hair shot with tufts of blond. In time, I will learn he is quiet, thoughtful and, after some nudging, obedient. He speaks both English and French and has a soft, gentle voice. He likes to write his name and draw pictures.
Following close behind him is an entirely different creature. Homolka’s middle child, about three years old, is a precocious, round-cheeked extrovert. She has the dark-chestnut colouring of her father. Her hair is a mass of shiny black curls. She clambers up into her mother’s lap, pulling at her face, her breast, her arms. She makes happy little-girl sounds.