Flush

by Sky Curtis

  Doug plugged his nose and blue a raspberry. “A neighbour.”

  Right then Shirley made a grand entrance in a fog of perfume and a camel pencil skirt that was way too tight. “Hi everyone.” She waved her fingers and raised her coffee in a toast, “Good morning. What’s going on?” She was wearing fake eyelashes that had been curled so tightly their sharp little points had left black dots of mascara where they had jabbed above her eyes.

  Doug was flustered and said to Shirley, “I think we need to call the police before they come here.”

  “Why? My skirt is criminally tight?” Such a flirt.

  “We have a big problem here. Murder. A suspect.” His thumb pointed at me.

  The bantering good cheer fell from Shirley’s face like a stone. She stood in front of Doug and looked at me with the protective glare of a fierce mother bear. “My office. Now.”

  I followed Shirley as if pulled by an invisible thread. But I had the presence of mind to look over my shoulder and call to Cindy, “Don’t go to the crime scene without me.” In the corner of my eye I saw her sit down as I was dragged in the wake behind Shirley’s expensive perfume.

  10.

  WHILE SHIRLEY HUSTLED AROUND HER OFFICE getting settled, I stood by the door and stared out the window. She had a wide corner view, looking south and east. The reverse floor plan of Doug’s. I could see a large ship at the docks over to the east, probably around Leslie, if not further. Straight ahead the trees on Toronto Island were beginning to lose their bright green summer foliage as shades of brown and orange crept into their leaves. The sky had clouded over and the lake was gunmetal grey, broken by random white caps. Was this an ominous portent of the day to come?

  Shirley hung up her coat on a rack in the corner and shoved aside some files on her desk, making room for her coffee. She stuffed her purse in a drawer, flicked on the overhead light, and turned on her computer. She finally sat down and gestured with an impatient shrug of her head for me to sit in one of the hard wooden chairs that had been pushed against the wall by the overnight cleaners.

  I shifted the files that were slumping on the chair onto the floor, sat down, and while I waited for Shirley to stop fiddling around with her bits of paper, heard a siren below on Jarvis Street. There was a feel to the day that was making me shudder. What kind of mess was I in? It felt serious. I wished I’d never met the guy. But then I felt uncharitable. He was dead after all. Eerie to think of that. Last night he was living, breathing, drinking, laughing. And okay, lying. Tonight? All that was simply gone. Unbelievable. No one knew how it had happened. I felt a bit sick.

  I watched Shirley busily organizing her day. A day planner was consulted. Her phone was checked for texts. She logged into her email. A finger scratched at her scalp, poking through her bird’s nest. And then, without a word she asked, no demanded, all the details of the sordid story from me, her hand insisting with beckoning fingers: tell me all.

  And so I exhaled and began the long, somewhat embarrassing tale. The valve opening ceremony, the dating site, the article, the date, Jack England, and now the death. Sometime throughout the long recitation Shirley had tilted her chair back and was staring at a spot over the door, lost in thought.

  “I’d like to cover the story,” I said.

  The chair came crashing forward. There was a guffaw. “You would, would you?”

  “I think it would be a good opportunity for me. Besides, I knew the guy.”

  “Well, that’s sort of the problem, isn’t it?”

  I sidestepped. “Do you think Doug would let me? It is a crime story. Not flowers. Maybe I could team up with Cindy.” Did I actually say that? What an idiot.

  “Yes, that worked so well in the past.”

  I had the grace to lower my eyes. What a fiasco. My cheeks were burning.

  Shirley relented, “I’ll put in a good word for you.” She tilted her chair back again and looked up at the ceiling. Thinking. “I am on your side, Robin. I do want to help you. I’ll remind him about that great Everwave story you wrote. The one that came out the morning Radcliffe was discovered dead.”

  She slapped these words into the air as if to strike sense into me. The story had come out? Today? I hadn’t yet seen a copy of the paper, and what a thing to miss. My first cover story.

  “Such great timing,” Shirley continued, “I don’t see why he would refuse.” She laughed and fell forward, looking down and watching her bosom jiggle as her chair hit the floor. The “me” was implied.

  Nonetheless, I was grateful. However she got him to acquiesce was fine by me. Giggle all you want, Shirley. My first cover story and now, hopefully, my first crime scene. Even the words sent a bolt of electricity through me. “Thanks, Shirley.”

  Shirley had her many idiosyncrasies, but getting things done was one of her strengths. She picked up the phone, muttered a few words that I couldn’t hear, and tittered a little with her pink tongue poking out the side of her mouth. Obviously they had connected. The request was made and the answer given. It was a go. I could tell by the way Shirley pushed her enormous chest forward. “No problem,” she said to me after she’d hung up. She smiled triumphantly and dusted off her hands. “It’s your baby, not Cynthia’s. But Cynthia is to mentor you.”

  I couldn’t believe my luck. Here I was in a pile of shit and I still had come up smelling like roses. “Thank you so, so much, Shirley. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this opportunity.” I made a hasty exit before she could change her mind.

  Shirley stopped me at the door with a large “Ahem.”

  I turned around. “Yes?”

  “Don’t embarrass the paper. Be very professional. No drinking on the job. And give your statement to the police before you get to the scene.”

  I was mortified. Did Shirley know about my drinking or was it merely a general statement?

  But Shirley continued without a pause. “If they start asking you where you were after your date, say nothing more and tell them you’ll be getting a lawyer. The paper will supply one. We have a good lawyer on staff here for this sort of thing. Russell Whetstone. Even though it was a personal date, you met the fellow initially while doing a story for the paper. Right? That came before the internet connection. Right?”

  “Yes, Shirley.”

  “So, there you have it. Russell is good. And work with Cindy, do not do all the work. Get her to do some, not like the last time. She is your teacher; ask her for help. Listen to her.”

  “Yes, Shirley.”

  “Be safe. A crime was committed. As far as we know. You may be at risk. On the other hand, maybe Todd’s death was from natural causes.”

  “Yes, Shirley.”

  “Go to the police before they come to you. Before you go to the crime scene. If, indeed, there was a crime. They will want your information. Go give them a statement.”

  “Yes, Shirley.”

  “And check out England’s story. Why was he following Radcliffe? What does he suspect or know?”

  “Yes, Shirley.”

  “And don’t give Jack a thing. Do not support England.”

  “No worries, Shirley. I am a true Canadian.”

  Shirley laughed heartily and waved me out of her office. I felt as if I had survived a meeting with the school principal, somewhat giddy that I didn’t get a detention or have to write out one hundred times “I will not date again.”

  I shut the door on Shirley’s cigarette smoke-filled office and tried to keep from skipping to my desk. I was less of a failure than yesterday! Still fat—I could feel my legs rubbing together as I trotted smartly along—and definitely alone after my disastrous fling with internet dating, but I had advanced to crime reporter. I sat at my desk and smoothed out the crinkles that bunched at my thighs in my polyester black pants. The stretchy ones that still fit. I went over the conversation in my head. My ears blazed with Shirley’s admonishment to be pr
ofessional and no drinking. Did she know?

  Okay, first things first. That drinking had to go. I hadn’t heard back yet from my naturopath so I signed into my email account and sent her a short request for an appointment. Next, I had to talk to Cindy, my assigned guru. On the corner of my desk was a small tidy stack of three-inch paper squares that had been cut from scrap paper. I licked a finger and removed one, grabbing a pen out of the I-heart-Mom mug on my desk. On the small scrap of paper I wrote: “CAN. SEE YOU,” and then folded the paper into a small fighter jet. I aimed it carefully at Cindy’s back.

  At that moment the air conditioning kicked in from a vent in the ceiling to my left, creating a sideways draft that carried the paper airplane far further than I had ever intended, so that it landed with a small elegant whoosh on Derrick Johnston’s desk. Derrick Johnston was a Ryerson dropout who had somehow burrowed his way onto the sports desk. He was a real yahoo, with hoo-ha’s coming out of his mouth with every score he reported. He was the kind of guy that turned his hand into a gun and pointed it at you when he saw you, instead of saying “hi.” He opened the paper up, raised his eyebrows as he read the message, scribbled on it, folded it back up, and sailed the plane over to me.

  I grabbed it out of the air as it soared by and saw that he had added just one letter to my missive. He’d pressed his pen hard into the paper and written a “T.” The “CAN’T SEE YOU” taunted me. What an arrogant and assuming jerk. As if. I’d never go out with someone like him. I changed the “A” to a “U” with a firm stroke and crumpled the plane up into a small ball. I got up and nudged Cindy in the ribs while whispering “bathroom” and pranced past Derrick’s desk, dropping the wad on his desk. “Oh, hi Derrick, Cindy and I are going to the can.”

  “What was that about?” asked Cindy as I followed her through the glass door.

  “Nothing. He’s an asshole.” I tossed my comment over my shoulder, just loud enough for Derrick to hear. I twisted slightly trying to see Derrick’s reaction to my edit. He had turned a bright pink and was staring wide-eyed at his computer. I laughed.

  I tucked my arm into Cindy’s as we went towards the washroom. “Welcome to the new me. I got the story!”

  We settled ourselves on the daybed in the corner and established who was going to cover what. Lines were drawn in the sand. We nestled next to each other, heads almost touching, with Cindy’s red hair contrasting sharply with my dark brown. The story, as we currently knew it, was discussed thoroughly and specific tasks were divvied up. After Cindy’s failure to follow through with her end of the bargain on the Everwave story, I was careful to reiterate the jobs.

  Because Cindy was working on another story—a gang warlord had been gunned down the night before in the west end—she would dig up everything she could about Todd and Everwave on the internet and in the paper’s library. She could do this anytime, even in the middle of the night, or between working on her other story and trying not to get shot by a member of the Vipers.

  I would be the upfront visible reporter. She would come with me if she could, but ostensibly it would only be me who would talk to Todd’s family, his coworkers, and people from his past and present. I would schmooze with the cops at the scene. Cindy figured that because the police didn’t know me they would be freer with their tidbits of information. A Home and Garden reporter had little cause to have a relationship of any kind with the police. Beaten to death by a daisy? Not a story.

  Cindy, on the other hand, had been a cop pest for years. The police simply wouldn’t talk to her now. When the detectives saw her long legs striding through a crowd of onlookers, her fiery red hair alight as she plowed through the uniforms at a crime scene, they clammed up, telling her to wait for the press conference like everyone else.

  Cindy took her mentoring job seriously. “One of the things you have to do is determine the cause of death. Was it natural? Accidental? Suicide? Or a homicide?”

  “I’ll never remember all that.”

  “Sure you will. It’s an acronym: NASH. You will ‘nash’ your teeth over this story.”

  “Thanks. That makes it easy.”

  As the reality of giving the police an official statement sank in, I became more uneasy. “Listen,” I said to Cindy, “I’m not sure I can talk to the police. They are kind of aggressive aren’t they? Sort of no-nonsense and mean? How do you get information out of them? I don’t know how to do this. Give me some clues.”

  Cindy took my hand, “I know this is a big deal for you Robin, a really big deal, but you’ll be fine. You are so ready for this.”

  “But, I have never talked to a cop before,” I said plaintively, “and I have to give a statement.”

  “Well, that’s not quite true.” Cindy took a deep breath and forged on. “You have talked to the police before. Who told you about Trevor’s death? Remember? That night when the cops came to your door, hats in their hands? They were pretty normal people, weren’t they?”

  Even though it was six years ago, the memory of the awful night when the news of my husband’s death had been given to me crashed into my brain like a truck. But Cindy was right; the cops had been human, mostly, that sweet young blonde girl and her rolly polly partner. I forgot their names, it had been so long ago now. I remembered talking to them, for hours, it seemed.

  And then I remembered that at one point I had had the feeling that they were checking me out, trying to assess whether I had somehow arranged to have him killed. Outrageous. Even with all the troubles in my marriage, I would never do that. Luckily our mortgage wasn’t insured and his life insurance was one that was included as a matter of course in his benefits and wasn’t much. This meant the cops had no money motive, although I remembered I thought they were being kind when they had asked their pointed questions about insurance.

  “Well, they can seem pretty normal, but they can be cutthroat too. They know how to play games to get information.”

  “And so do you, my friend, so do you. You are far wiser now than you were then, and you will be able to figure out what they are doing. What exactly are you worried about?”

  “When I give my statement I think they’ll think I did it.”

  Cindy threw back her head and laughed out loud.

  I bristled. “Don’t scoff at me. I was the last person to see him alive. It would be natural to suspect me. You told me that.”

  “The last person who saw him alive was the person who killed him, not you.”

  “Good plagiarism, Cindy.”

  She didn’t bat an eyelash. “Look, you are completely innocent, you don’t even have to act it. Just be yourself. If they start asking you leading questions, then say nothing and get a lawyer. Simple.”

  “That’s exactly what Shirley said.”

  “Well, she’s right. And the paper would probably supply one. What’s the guy’s name? Russell Whetstone.”

  “That’s what she said, too.”

  “So, you have no worries. He’s extraordinarily good. You should see him all over this mayor business. Nothing escapes him.”

  “Well, if I am completely innocent, which I am, then why shouldn’t I simply answer all their questions? Won’t it look as if I am hiding something if I say I want a lawyer?”

  “Remember the police are like terrier dogs with rabid imaginations. If they want you to be guilty, if they like you for the crime, believe me, they will bend what you say to suit their theory. You must have a lawyer present if you even get the slightest hint they are thinking about you. Plus,” Cindy dropped her voice and spoke like an officious police officer, “anything and everything you say can and will be used against you, etcetera etcetera.”

  I laughed, “Just like on Law and Order, right?” Then I turned serious again. “Well, should I mention Jack England and how he nabbed me?”

  “Of course you should.”

  “Won’t he get in trouble? I mean, won’t that look kind of weird
for him? Suspicious?”

  “Tough shit. He’s a big boy. He has his own paper backing him. He’s a very experienced crime investigator. He knows how to handle the police.”

  “But they’ll think he did it.”

  “And maybe he did! Not your problem. Big boy, remember?”

  I remembered how he had pushed me against the brick wall at the construction site. Underneath my fear of the potential danger he was posing, there had been a magnetic attraction pulling me towards him. I had felt the heat emanating off him through his jeans and sweatshirt and every sinewy muscle rippling in his body as he pinned me to the wall. He was a big boy, oh yeah.

  11.

  I LEFT CINDY WORKING ON HER gang research and took the elevator down from the fifth floor to the parking lot below. I tentatively entered into the maze of parked cars. The fluorescent strip lighting cast eerie indigo shadows behind the cement pillars. Underground parking lots gave me the creeps. I stood stock still and listened. There was no tell-tail shuffle of feet as a boogeyman snuck down a ramp. No soft thunk of a car door as a mugger hid in wait inside a vehicle. I heard nothing but the whoosh of an exhaust fan off in the corner.

  I scurried to where I thought I’d left my car, head nervously turning left and right, peering warily into the blue shadows behind the cement columns. As I hustled, I put the long car key between two fingers, closing my fist around the fob. If anyone jumped out at me, I would jab them in the throat. Really? Like that would work. At five feet two inches I would hardly be able to reach a tall person’s chest, no less their throat. I’d be better off aiming for their balls.

  I laughed at myself. Such a brave crime reporter.

  Finally I saw my little red car hiding behind a huge black Ford Expedition and beeped the doors open. I hastened towards it and jumped in, locking the doors with a reassuring clunk. I tried not to race towards the exit as if I were being chased by demons, the hairs rising on the back of my neck. The garage door squawked open and I gunned the car out onto the street, finally free from the parking lot ogre. I pulled over to the curb in the soft morning sunshine, and tried to figure out out the best way to get to the crime scene.