by Paula Todd
She disagrees, but instead mistakenly stammers out an affirmation that we’ve been on the record the entire time: “No, everything I said to you from now on.”
She realizes what she’s just said and backtracks.
“No, from the start.”
I shake my head.
She flares with anger. Her voice becomes hard and righteous.
“Ah, this is the journalistic trickery that I despise.” She draws out “despise.”
“It’s not trickery,” I say.
She drips with contempt: “Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is.”
I stand firm. “It’s not trickery. It’s the rule of the profession.”
She snaps back, “Oh, yeah? Where are they written?”
“In every manual.”
Then, I remember she was baptized a Catholic, and, therefore, her confessions to a priest are considered highly confidential and usually won’t be repeated to the outside world. “It’s not always written that a priest can’t speak, but a priest doesn’t speak,” I say.
She snaps back: “Until you say not to speak.”
Again, no sense there. I ask for clarification. “What are you saying?”
She stumbles again. “Because . . . everything . . . uh, uh.”
Tongue-tied, she knows enough to stop. “Well, I’m not saying anything now.”
We are at an impasse. The kids, whose names (and the neighbourhood in which they live) I’ve intentionally not revealed (they are innocent, unaware of the baggage they have inherited), are tired of being away from the action and burst out of their bedroom. The baby is struggling with sniffles, and is hungry for Homolka’s breast. A subdued but cranky choir of little needs begins: Pay attention to me! Feed me! Hug me! Play with me!
The tension of the past hour has left everyone drained. Now, Homolka becomes the shrill schoolmarm: “Yes, you are upsetting my children!”
Hardly, but Homolka’s attack on me has signalled an opening for the subdued Bordelais. The way he moves toward me is unnerving, so I swiftly offer the one thing I’m certain Homolka still wants: the key to tracking her down, the needle in the haystack even she missed. She touches his arm to stop him and sits down, now docile and confiding.
“Is this going to be something that we should discuss away–?” Her eyes go to the kids.
“No,” I explain, it’s all business.”
Her voice is soft again, “Okay, okay.”
I tell the couple where they’ve unintentionally left a tiny paper trail. I read from the documents I have uncovered, but keep them in my hands.
I finish, then ask with a touch of incredulity, “And why does it say ‘Leanne Bordelais’ on the mailbox?” For a woman who’s desperate to stay hidden, it’s a strange move.
Homolka’s looks down. (Soon after, however, her name is removed from the mailbox.)
Then, I do something that shocks Homolka. In fact, I’ve never seen anyone as astounded. I drop the photocopied documents onto their coffee table for them to keep. The details may enable her to sweep away the trail that led me here. Her mouth falls open. It seems as though she can’t believe I’ve kept my word.
I turn and walk alone onto the veranda, into the dusk. Quickly, I cross to the small landing and take a last look at the little kitchen window through which I’d first glimpsed Karla Homolka. The cage door at the bottom of their apartment stairs is open, and when I make it down to the tiled mezzanine on the second floor I pick up my pace. I’m free.
But I soon feel movement behind me. Out of the dark, right at my back, without a word, Thierry Bordelais falls in beside me. I am under guard. He is a protective husband and father who’s given his wife room to talk but steps in now to secure his home.
He follows me wordlessly out of the big gate and back onto the road, where my cab is dutifully waiting. I say good night, but he just glowers as we pull away. He stands a long time watching our tail lights. I wonder how much Thierry Bordelais really knows about the mother of his children, whether her version of events is all he believes.
Darkness deepens as we drive through the cooling streets. The music of a thousand night frogs envelops us. Tammy, Leslie and Kristen are in my head. They are dead. Their families walk wounded. Their killer has moved on, from manslaughter to motherhood.
I know now that, despite online fabrications, Karla Homolka is not Luka Magnotta’s partner. She does not live in luxury by the ocean, but in relative isolation on one of the four islands of Guadeloupe. She often avoids coming outside altogether — not even onto the veranda, where her children play and her husband fills a little blue splash pool.
Two weeks later, a highly skilled photographer using a 500-millimetre lens will catch Homolka’s hand in the living-room window. She’s holding a cloth and straining in an awkward position to clean the glass while staying out of sight. She has always been the cleaner, washing up after Bernardo’s rapes, cleaning Leslie Mahaffy’s corpse, helping Kristen into a whirlpool after sexual torture.
Day and night, the photographer will wait to see more than Homolka’s hand. He feels sick most of the time, but remains hidden, far away from the building, in the sweltering jungle, fighting off mosquitoes, goats and apprehension. He is a good father and his conscience is pricking. He doesn’t want to cause harm. But as far as he’s concerned, Homolka became a public figure the moment she sacrificed her fifteen-year-old sister.
Then, on a steamy afternoon, the photographer hears shrieks rising from the apartment: “Stop it, stop! What are you doing? STOP it!” He wonders whether that’s what the schoolgirls cried as they were raped, tortured and killed. Suddenly, Homolka darts out of the house — and into the lens — just once. The photographer will capture her wailing baby reaching up to her for help.
The camera shoots seven frames per second. Later, he will count the frames. Karla Homolka emerged for only four seconds. Just long enough for the world to see proof that she’s now a housewife trapped with her kids in a cage she built herself.
Finding Karla:
How I Tracked Down an Elusive Serial Child Killer and Discovered a Mother of Three
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Paula Todd is a writer, lawyer and an independent investigative journalist. She is a print and broadcast journalism professor in Toronto and sits on the board of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression. Her bestselling book, A Quiet Courage: Inspiring Stories from All of Us, details the secrets of ordinary people around the world who survived and thrived after profound tragedy. Paula is currently at work on another non-fiction book, Inside Out, which documents the post-prison lives of violent criminals. She has worked for Canada’s largest broadcasters and newspapers, and is a frequent public speaker.
ABOUT CANADIAN WRITERS GROUP
The Canadian Writers Group represents more than 100 of Canada’s top independent writers and journalists. To learn more about the agency and its writers, please visit http://www.canadianwritersgroup.com.
A Canadian Writers Group eBook
Copyright © 2012 Paula Todd
Cover Design: Parcel Design Inc.
Cover Photo Credit: Frank Gunn, Canadian Press
eISBN: 9780988009141