An Ordinary Decent Criminal

by Michael Van Rooy

  “What the hell are you doing?” Claire had been working at finding me a job, using the newspapers and telephone, and when she came out of the kitchen, she had a pad of scrap paper.

  “Our landlord’s assistant is coming over right away to talk. I’m just setting the stage.”

  Claire looked at the table and the chairs and sat down on the stairs. “Trying to take the moral high ground?”

  I went into the kitchen and came out with the good china service, which we kept in a large wooden wine crate, and I carefully removed each piece and dealt them around the table like cards.

  “Nope. Just trying to make her queasy. Think it’ll work?”

  “Maybe. She’s smart, I think. I dealt with her personally when renting this place.” Claire stared at the set-up and tapped the phone book with her fingers. Then she added, “Should work. I’m going to sit in, if that’s okay with you?”

  It was so I got out another setting and then brought the missing chair from the back room where I’d stashed it. A few minutes after everything was ready, Fred started to nod off towards his afternoon nap and I took him to his room and tucked him in. Ten minutes later the assistant rang the bell and Claire let her in just as I reached the door.

  “Hello, Mr. Parker, Mrs. Parker.”

  She stood in the foyer until I felt constrained to offer her a hand removing her coat and motioning for her to remove her boots.

  “Come in, Ms. . . . ? You know—I don’t know your name.”

  She was right behind me and she laughed. “I guess we haven’t been formally introduced. My name is Vanessa Rose. Should I call you Mr. Parker or Mr. Haaviko or what?”

  “Just Sam.”

  We went through the living room into the dining room and I watched carefully but she didn’t have any reaction I could see to the stained carpet. Claire was already sitting down and pouring coffee by the time I reached my seat. “Do you take milk or sugar or fake sugar or none of the above?”

  Vanessa sat down and put an oversized canvas purse primly in her lap. “The first two, please.”

  She accepted the cup and drank from it with her little finger partially extended. Claire refilled my cup and then turned a little in her seat. “Dear? The dog’s outside, do you think that’s all right?”

  “He’ll be just fine. He hates the weather, you see.”

  I addressed the comment to Vanessa but it bounced right off her meaningless smile. From where I was sitting, I could see that she had her feet raised so they weren’t touching the carpet but were hooked on the rungs of her chair. I had to bury a grin in the cup and then I continued. “So. You wanted to talk.”

  Claire watched patiently as Vanessa put down her cup and set her purse on the table. She glanced at the pamphlets and focused on me. “I’ve read your letter and there is some merit to the points you’ve raised. However, at the same time, we do feel that you misrepresented yourself to us and, therefore, we have grounds to evict you.”

  She raised a hand to fend off any anger that I might be feeling, but I wasn’t feeling any so the gesture was wasted. Claire had to drown her own grin in her coffee and Vanessa just rattled on when she figured out that neither of us was going to react. “We do feel that perhaps we were, shall we say, overly enthusiastic about the eviction notice. If we were to extend the time involved by, say, three weeks, would that be acceptable?”

  Neither Claire nor I said anything and she went on. “And, of course, we’d add in some money to help in your moving expenses, perhaps five hundred dollars. We would also return your damage deposit, all four hundred and fifty, for a total of nine hundred and fifty dollars.”

  She looked expectant and Claire spoke up. “So we’d have three weeks before we’d have to leave?”

  “Yes.”

  Vanessa drank some coffee.

  “And you’d give us five hundred dollars on top of everything?”

  “Yes. We think that would be fair.”

  Claire smiled. “But why should we move? I mean, we’re in the right, right?”

  Vanessa didn’t react and Claire went on. “And we, my husband and I both, really like this town and this house. So you see our problem.”

  “Well, we could go as high as a thousand dollars to help with your relocation.”

  Claire looked at me and I gazed blankly back and she nodded and answered. “No.”

  Vanessa was startled. “What?”

  “No. We don’t want to leave. We’ll go right away if you find us another equivalent residence here in town but, other than that, no.”

  Vanessa leaned back in her seat and let her feet touch the ground. “Under the law we can ask you to vacate if we give you three months’ warning.”

  “Sure. So, are you going to give us our warning now?”

  She gritted her teeth, both figuratively and in reality. “I don’t want to, but I will.”

  “Fine. Do it in writing.”

  Vanessa reached into her purse and came out with a sealed envelope but, before she could put it on the table, I spoke up. “Wait a second. What about the repairs to bring this place up to standard?”

  “They’ll be done.”

  “When?”

  She put the envelope down and Claire opened it and read it. When she was finished, she nodded and then held up a hand to me before asking another question. “You know that this letter says that the property is going to be, and I quote, ‘extensively renovated’?”

  Claire gave her a chance to answer but Vanessa didn’t say a word. “You didn’t have to say that. Now you’re actually going to have to do it.”

  Vanessa shrugged again and Claire went on. “We’ll want a replacement carpet in right away. Is there a place in town or do you use a contractor?”

  Vanessa growled a little and poured herself a refill without asking. “What does it matter?”

  Claire looked at her with the sweetest possible expression on her face. “I’m going to call them tomorrow. I just want to make sure I get the right place.”

  “Don’t do that. I’ll do that. That’s my job.”

  Claire tapped the letter in front of her. “Just like you kept the place up to standards? You’re not stupid, you knew what your boss was doing, why’d you go along with it?”

  “She’s my boss.”

  Vanessa looked a little confused and Claire tapped the letter again.

  “Even though all the repairs can be written off? Even though the repairs build up the equity of the property? Doing it this way is not very smart at all.”

  Vanessa thought about it for a moment and when she spoke again her voice was compounded equally of mild anger and distaste. Oddly enough, it didn’t seem to be directed at either of us but more towards the world in general and her boss in specific.

  “I agree. I’m quite money-oriented. However, my boss doesn’t see things in quite that way and she’s the boss. In the end, it’s her decision.”

  Claire put her pad of paper on the table and picked up a pen. “So the name of your carpet place is . . . ?”

  “Hansen’s. It’s in the North End nearby.”

  “Good.”

  I looked back and forth at the two women and then spoke up. “So we’ll be gone in three months. That’s plenty of time.”

  Vanessa had refilled her cup from the pale pink and gold pot and was idly stirring her coffee.

  “Plenty of time to do what?”

  “Oh, mostly to convince you and your boss to let us keep the place. We really are very fond of it. It’s just right for us.”

  She snorted, which was a very unladylike noise indeed. “Fat chance. My boss does not change her mind.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  She looked at me and then at Claire and then back at me again. “No. I don’t bet.”

  Claire reached over and patted her arm. “That’s very wise of you.” She turned to me and said solemnly, “See, I told you she was bright.”

  I laughed and Vanessa closed her purse and looked around the room for a few minutes. I cou
ld see the muscles tense in her throat a couple of times and then relax, so I waited until she said what she needed to say. “Well, now that that’s all settled, can I ask you a question?”

  “Shoot.”

  “You don’t seem like a, I don’t know, bad guy, I suppose.”

  Before answering, I drank some more coffee. “Well, not now. I used to be one, though. I used to be really bad but I stopped.”

  There were more words in my mouth and more ideas but I held them back with difficulty and continued on a different track. “I just stopped.”

  It sounded lame and it hung there for a long time while Claire held her hand out where I could take it, but I didn’t reach out and she pulled hers back.

  “But . . . killing those three boys. How did it make you feel?”

  I stared at her and fought down a surprising surge of rage. Claire noticed and moved around to kiss me on my cheek. When she spoke, I could feel her breath tickling the hair around my ear. “She didn’t mean anything.”

  Vanessa was starting to look a little worried and I exhaled loudly through my nose.

  “It made me angry and sad.”

  She stared at me and shook her head. “Really?”

  Claire was holding onto my shoulder quite tightly and I looked up and addressed what I said to her alone. “Yes, really.”

  For a second I thought there was a tear in Claire’s eye and then she squeezed my shoulder again.

  Vanessa deadpanned, “Strange. I wouldn’t have felt a thing.”

  I started clearing the table. I wanted to say something nasty, but instead I spoke very carefully. As though it was something important to recount. “I didn’t feel a thing the first time. Or the second. Or even the third. After that, well, sometimes I felt happy and really good and that scared the piss out of me. Eventually I started to feel a little pleasure every time. It was right after that that I decided to stop being bad.”

  Vanessa stared at me and a slow flush came across her face. And then, abruptly, she left.

  29

  Thompson phoned a little after 5:00 p.m. I’d just finished taking the last load of garbage out of the basement and packing it neatly in the same cardboard boxes we’d used for moving. While I was coming in from the back door, the phone jangled and I caught it on the second ring. “ ’Lo?”

  Thompson sounded sober. “I just received a phone call from the Crown attorney. The RCMP are serving a warrant tomorrow morning at your residence and they’re giving us notice.”

  “That’s great. Why?”

  He answered, confused, “Why what?”

  “Why give us notice, that’s not standard procedure, is it?”

  “Well, no. They probably wanted to make sure everything went by the book. That makes sense, right?”

  “Sure. Oh, are you and your wife coming over on Saturday for the barbecue? We sent out a note but haven’t received a response yet.”

  Thompson was quiet for a few moments. “Sure, I think so. I guess my wife has the letter, I haven’t seen it yet. But sure. Now, about tomorrow, the cops are coming at 9:00 sharp.”

  “Can you make it yourself?”

  “Sure. Wouldn’t want to miss this. I’ll see you then.”

  Claire came down from the second floor, holding a half-filled garbage bag. “Who was that?”

  “Thompson. The cops are going to search the house tomorrow morning.”

  “Ah, shit. No point in cleaning, then.”

  She dropped the bag and sat on the stairs.

  “Well, we can finish cleaning up after they leave.”

  I nodded agreement. “Right. So I declare a holiday for the rest of tonight.”

  “Before we do that, let’s check the house for anything that shouldn’t be there.”

  “Like anything planted?”

  “Right.”

  So we did. Claire found it in the garbage pile in the back by the alley: a slightly torn, ziplock bag of white oblong tablets and cracked crystalline pebbles. We both stared at it for a moment and then I put the garbage bag back on top.

  “Leave it?” Claire was biting her knuckle.

  “Yeah.”

  We found a piece of particleboard and put it on top of the stuff before going back into the house to look some more. The last thing we did was both sign our names in marker on the board, along with the time and date.

  Then we sat and listened to the rain for a few hours until we fell asleep.

  The first person arrived at exactly two minutes before 9:00. When I opened the door, there was a big man in an expensive suit standing along with the Crown prosecutor, McMillan-Fowler, and Thompson. Behind them, and looking sodden in the rain, were three Mounties in their patrol uniforms.

  McMillan-Fowler spoke first. “Mr. Parker? Good morning, I am here with Inspector Atismak of the RCMP and these other officers to serve a search warrant. Your lawyer, Mr. Thompson, is here as well.” She tried to walk past me but I didn’t let her.

  “One moment. May I see the warrant?”

  She had it under her coat and handed it over as Thompson crowded up to read it as well.

  “. . . search the premises . . . address is right . . . firearms, narcotics and biker paraphernalia. . . . What the hell is biker paraphernalia?”

  McMillan-Fowler gestured expansively with one hand. “Patches, literature, signs, stuff like that.”

  “Oh.”

  I turned to Thompson, who was holding his own copy of the paper.

  “Looks okay?”

  “Looks fine.”

  I stepped away and made a grand gesture. “Come in, come in, mi casa es su casa. Coffee and donuts are on the kitchen table. And there’s what looks to be some crack cocaine and some kind of tablets planted in our garbage pile by the alley.”

  Everyone froze at that but then the big cop and McMillan-Fowler went out the back while the others stood staring at the table and at me. Claire had gone out at 6:00 that morning before I had woken up and the pastries were arranged on little napkins along with a big urn of coffee in the dining room. The big RCMP officer stepped back in and slung his jacket over his left arm. He didn’t mention the stuff outside and gestured at the table.

  “Looks familiar.”

  McMillan-Fowler came in and the cops scattered through the house while Thompson scurried after them to keep them honest. Claire and Fred were sitting together on the sofa by the window and playing with a bit of string. I’d chained the dog up outside and he barked every few minutes, more curious than angry.

  I turned to the Mountie who’d commented on the coffee and donuts. “It should. I got the idea from Twin Peaks.”

  He looked blankly at me and I continued defensively. “Obscure social referent.”

  “Yes, I was just remembering. The table in the rear of the town’s cop shop, the flaky secretary set up a spread like this every day for the local police.”

  I was impressed. “You’ve got a good memory.”

  He nodded politely and faced me silently before walking back into my home. The front door was still open and I could see a big, black panel truck parked just down the street. Leaning against it were five men wearing black uniforms and carrying heavy-assault weapons. With difficulty I ignored them and Claire came up beside me, still holding Fred. “Whatcha thinking, love?”

  I motioned at the cops with a twist of my neck. “Two Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine guns, blow back action, very accurate, reliable, prime; five thousand dollars each. One Colt M-16A2 or assorted variants assault rifle, full or semi-auto; two thousand dollars. One Remington 870 pump shotgun with extended magazine; about five hundred dollars. One Remington M-700 accurized rifle with variable scope, probably in 7.62 mm or 7 mm magnum, maybe point 300 Winchester; about twelve hundred.”

  “Hmmm. So, in other words, college for Fred?”

  “Yep. Or you.”

  She kissed my lips and we turned back into the house before answering.

  “Not me. Been to college.”

  “You dated frat boys, there
’s a difference.”

  She held my hand and responded, “You’re probably right.”

  “Sir? Sir?”

  One of the cops from upstairs came racing down the stairs, holding a big plastic bag. In it was the Mauser bayonet that I had left beside the bed, but before I could say a word, Atismak spoke.

  “What is that?”

  “A sword. I found it upstairs.”

  The Mountie was young and had barely grown into his black walrus mustache and he looked very happy indeed. Atismak, however, did not look happy, he looked very tired all of a sudden.

  “May I see it?”

  He took the bag and held it up. “Not a sword. Not a knife, either. A bayonet?”

  Claire was tense but I was watching Atismak’s face when I answered. “Right. From a Mauser rifle, model 1871. I bought it in an Edmonton pawn shop. They used great steel back then, keeps a good edge.”

  Atismak handed it to me. “Right. Now, Officer . . .”

  He turned to face the cop, who kept his eyes on the bayonet. “Did you read the search warrant I gave you yesterday?”

  “Yes.”

  Atismak didn’t wait. “That’s, yes, sir.”

  “Right, sir. Yes, sir.”

  “Good. The warrant read ‘Narcotics. Guns. Biker paraphernalia.’ Is that bayonet you grabbed narcotics, guns, or biker paraphernalia?”

  The cop was silent and Atismak went on. “So, it’s cutlery. Why don’t you wait outside and we’ll talk later.”

  The young Mountie went and I brought Atismak one of the mismatched pairs of coffee cups.

  “Coffee? Cream and sugar are over there.”

  “Thank you.”

  He limped over in considerable pain to doctor his own cup and I squeezed Claire’s shoulder gently through her blouse. “That is a smart cop.”

  She blew into Fred’s belly, which made him squeal, and answered in a monotone. “Contradiction.”

  “Well, that’s that.”

  McMillan-Fowler had come back down with Thompson as the other cops trooped out. Atismak had never left my side and now he put down his fourth cup of coffee, shrugged into his coat, and gave me a barely perceptible nod, like he was thanking me.