I headed back out to the highway, digging Francy’s grocery list out of my front pocket. Here was something pro-active I could do to make the world a better place. I could help out my friend. I had a few things to buy for her, and I decided to pick up a bottle of brandy just in case Becker turned out to be interested in coming back up to my place for a nightcap later. Hope springs eternal, and all cops like brandy. I knew this was true: I had read it somewhere.
Nineteen
The shape of your skin,
The smell of your bones,
the sound of your hair when you’re
dancing alone…
—Shepherd’s Pie
The extremities of the puppet were finished. The head, hands and feet were complete, sculpted to resemble Mark Becker’s. I had molded a small pair of regulation police boots and I’d made one of the hands curl around thin air, ready for grasping weapons or food, like a G.I. Joe doll. The head, I have to admit, was dead on. Now I just had to make the body, and to do that correctly, I had to do some research.
In order for a marionette to work the way it is supposed to, the person building it must have a reasonable grasp of basic anatomy. If you make a knee joint the wrong way round, the finished puppet will walk funny. If you miscalculate the distance from shoulder to hand, your puppet’s knuckles will drag. But even the most anatomically correct puppet will remain lifeless until you give it character. Character comes from how the joints are fitted, which way a puppet leans when it walks. No human head is fastened squarely in the middle of the shoulders. If the head sprouts from a point close to the chest, the puppet will slouch. If you attach it towards the back, the puppet will strut. To get the character of the body right, I had no choice but to study the life-model, preferably in the nude.
I started to get ready for my date with a policeman by heating the water for a bath. While I waited, I picked up a stray lump of clay and started rolling it absently between my fingers. Five minutes later I had a perfect little puppet penis, testicles and all. Nothing monstrous. Just lovingly detailed. I felt shy for having made it, but I couldn’t destroy it, so I hid it in my stash box. Maybe later I could wire it up with the rest of the bits—just another moving part.
After my bath, which I had in the zinc tub in front of the fire, I ached with indecision about what to wear. Apart from the fact he was a cop, what did I know about him? Here I was planning to jump him and all I knew was his name and profession. How could I possibly jump him if I was wearing the wrong clothes?
I tried on everything I had, which took about four minutes, then I repeated the process a couple of times.
There were three ensembles to choose from. First, my “please, at least try to look respectable” outfit, a sober, black wool suit circa 1948, which had been my mother’s. It was perfect for weddings, funerals, and anything official which required a skirt. Outfit number two was for parties at which I wanted to look sleazy. I hadn’t worn it since Toronto. Narrow black jeans, a cropped, skin-tight tank-top and a jacket which was meant to be undone when it got too warm. Wearing it in Cedar Falls or Laingford would be reputational suicide.
Outfit number three was for meetings with people who wanted me to build puppets for them. It included a clean item from my shirt collection, a pair of trousers which weren’t stained and my city boots. I went with number three, but the shirt was silk and I accessorised, even. (My earrings and belt buckle were both silver.)
I don’t own any make-up, so it wasn’t an option, but if I’d had some it would have meant another half hour wrecking my complexion with three increasingly disastrous applications and three scrubbings off.
I put on chapstick, though.
I got down to George’s at seven and found a note on the door.
“Gone to the harvest dance at the Community Hall with your aunt. Join us? Will run past midnight.
George.
P.S. Night chores are done. Will be back tomorrow.”
Tomorrow? Aunt Susan and George were having a pyjama party? Oh God, if Aunt Susan married him and moved to the farm it would mean I’d have to go. My aunt was close enough in Laingford.
I let myself in and borrowed a shot of single malt scotch from George’s bottle of Glen Lach (clear your throat and mumble the next bit) Flanghlahlyn. I’d had a shock. I’d suspected that there was something up, but staying overnight? Was it wise? Or perhaps he would be sleeping on the couch. That was it. They’d stay up late playing cribbage and he’d fall asleep on the couch. Susan would cover him up with a blanket and make cocoa. Hah. No way. They were doing it.
Becker arrived in a black Jeep Cherokee. It was spit-polished and very big. Lug-nut stood on the porch, barking, and wouldn’t stop until I got in front of him and held his mouth shut. Becker stayed in the truck.
“Lug-nut, no. Friend. Hush.” I let go of his muzzle and he gave me a look straight out of a cartoon. I called to Becker.
“It’s okay. He just doesn’t recognize your vehicle.”
Becker got out and came over to where I held Lug-nut’s collar just in case. He was wearing designer casuals, expensive cowboy boots and that dizzying aftershave. I couldn’t help thinking that he must be making good money for a policeman. I mentally reviewed what I was wearing and thought about going back to change into the party outfit.
“Hey, Lug-nut,” Becker said, reaching out to the dog with a friendly hand. “We’re pals, remember?” Lug-nut sniffed his hand and relaxed, then wagged his tail, so I let go of his collar.
“I imagine, like me, he thinks you might be a different person, out of uniform,” I said.
Becker held out his hand again, this time to me. “Mark Anthony Becker, ma’am. I work for the government.”
“Pauline Deacon,” I said, taking it. “I work for food.”
I invited him in for a scotch, and he came, willingly.
I always kept another bottle of Glen-thing stashed up in the cabin and when the one at George’s got low, I switched them. George pretended it was his magic bottle. It was our own private Santa Claus game.
“Thanks,” Becker said, as I handed him one. “And where is your chaperone this evening, may I ask?”
“He’s with a lady at the harvest dance down in the village hall,” I said. “I thought we could drop in, maybe.”
“I can’t dance,” Becker said.
“You wouldn’t need to. I just want to give George something,” I said. I had a condom in my pocket that I wanted to give my old friend, just to let him know that I was aware of what was going on.
“Sure. No problem. So he’s gone out, eh? You house-sitting?”
I stared at him. He was wearing exactly the same expression Harold Finley wore in grade eleven whenever he asked me if I was babysitting. Harold used to come over and we’d neck.
“I do have my own place,” I said, “but yeah, I guess I am.”
“Do you have to feed the animals as well?”
“The goats? Not till tomorrow morning. George did the evening milking before he left.”
“You have to milk them too?”
“Yup.”
“By hand? Like a cow, right?”
“Hey, Becker, don’t tell me you’ve never seen a goat.”
“I’ve never seen a goat.”
“I said don’t say that. Really?”
He grinned and knocked back his Glen-alcohol. “Show me one,” he said.
We threw on barn coats and I gave him the grand tour. He liked the goats, I think. They can be enchanting en masse. When a visitor comes to the barn, the goats don’t say much, but they all start watching. If they’re chewing cud, they’ll be too relaxed to get up, but they’ll crane their necks to keep you in view. The young ones will slip out of their pens (the gaps in the fencing are wide enough for kids to pass through) and prance around, acting cute.
I introduced him formally to each goat.
“Donna Summer, Julian of Norwich, Erma Bombeck, Annie Oakley, Kim Campbell, Rose Marie, Vicki Gabereau, Loreena Bobbitt, Princess Diana, Su
sannah Moodie, Cher, Saint Bernadette and Mother Theresa,” I said.
“Hi,” he said and got right in there, scratching faces and touching noses.
“This is Pierre Trudeau,” I said, guiding Becker down to the pen at the end where Old Pierre, a mournful, testosterone-driven love machine with a face like a muppet, waggled his stinking beard and moaned in welcome.
“The sire of the herd. Don’t touch him,” I said, but it was too late. Becker drew his hands back gently and looked at me.
“He pisses on his beard when a doe’s in heat,” I said. “Mother Theresa is raring to go and poor old Pierre can smell it. He’s been nuts all day.” The musk glands behind Pierre’s horns would have been giving the old goat a twenty-four hour, hot oil treatment.
Becker put his hands to his nose and sniffed.
“Whoa. Does this come off?”
“Soap and water, no problem,” I said. “Just don’t wipe your hands on your pants.”
He lifted his hands like a surgeon after a scrub. “I won’t.”
I caught a flying goat kid as it leaped up into Pierre’s manger. “This is Keanu. The new stud. He’s only a week old and he’s already sucking up to his dad.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Becker said, shaking its small hoof and rubbing its head. “I hereby anoint you with the body odour of the holy goat. Now can I wash my hands?”
We walked back up slowly, not saying much, enjoying the silence of the evening. I showed him where the bathroom was, then went back to the kitchen to rinse our glasses. He came out a few moments later, still holding his hands upside-down in the air.
“There was no towel in there,” he said. I found one in the hall linen cupboard and draped it ceremoniously over his hands. He smiled, then gasped, crossed his eyes and went stiff.
“Dr. McCoy,” he said, “that goat-poison. It’s—it’s got me. I can’t move!”
“I’m a doctor, Jim,” I said. “Not a spin dryer.” However, I moved in and dried each of his fingers carefully one by one. Then I took the towel away with a flourish. “Voilà. You are healed.”
He sniffed his hands. “I cant smell anything? Can you?”
I sniffed in his general direction. “Well, there’s a strong smell of Ivory soap, overlaying a more subtle, yet lingering odour—” a worry line appeared between Becker’s eyebrows “—of something male, some particular—”
“I’ll wash them again,” Becker said.
“I’ve got it. Old Spice, is it? Or Paco Rabanne?”
“Obsession for Men,” Becker said. “My ex gave it to me.”
“Oh. Well. I like it.”
“She hated it. It was a divorce-iversary present. I sent her sexy underwear. It’s a thing we do every year.”
“A weird thing.”
“Yeah, well, you gotta keep laughing, you know.”
“Any kids?”
“Bryan’s with his mom,” Becker said. “I get him alternate weekends. He’s seven.”
“Anything else I should know about? You have a Doberman, too, right? She’s in your Jeep.”
“No Doberman. I do have a fish, though. Called Wanda.”
“In the Jeep?”
“Yup. There’s an attack tank in back. Watch her like a hawk. She’s the jealous type.”
We were standing very close.
“You didn’t, you know, touch your stinky goat hands anywhere else, did you?” I said.
“I might have rubbed my face.”
I started sniffing.
“Maybe over to the left. Yeah. About here.”
He was a pretty good kisser, for a cop. There was no hurry, just a mutual and leisurely reading of the lips.
“Umm, Bkrr?”
“Mm?”
“You got plans for tonight?”
“Mmm. I was thinking of taking this interesting woman I know out for dinner and a game of pool in Laingford.”
“Lucky her. Anyone I know?”
“Well, she’s about your height, got a tiny scar on her chin just like that one…”
“You’re dating my evil twin sister, Hydra? You deceiving cad.”
We tussled. My hair got mussed, and he popped a button on his designer shirt. It was very satisfactory and we both hit pause at the same moment, which was better still.
“Let’s drop off whatever at the village hall and then go have dinner,” he said. Lug-nut knew I was going, and as we left, he settled down agreeably on the porch to wait. Life was working out just fine.
There were dozens of vehicles in the Cedar Falls Community Hall parking lot. Lots of Jeeps, pickups and 4x4s, although very few of them were new. Lots of junkers, too. The people of Cedar Falls aren’t rich. If they were, they’d be living in Laingford.
Becker squeezed his SuperJeep between a dented Ford van and a rusty pickup with wide tires, splattered with dried mud. I hoped the pickup boys didn’t leave before we did, or we’d find rude things scrawled on the Jeep windows when we got back. The pickup boys were trouble. They were four young guys from the Cedar Falls Chairworks, renting a house together in the woods. They’d been rowdy in the village and were locally suspected of having had a game or two of mailbox-baseball along the River road.
Frankly, they scared the heck out of me, but they weren’t doing much more than being obnoxious. They were of drinking age and they had jobs, which made them cocky and often really stupid. Still, I would have been happier if Becker hadn’t parked right next to them. I didn’t say anything, though. I figured he probably recognized the truck and parked there on purpose, being a cop and all.
The hall was fairly crowded and very dimly lit. The music was live and too loud—it always is at community dances. The bar was doing a brisk business, and there were plenty of people on the dance-floor.
“Polly! Nice to see you here. Who’s your friend?” It was Donna-Lou Dermott, the egg-queen. Donna-Lou, who still hand-delivered to a few select customers, also kept the Cedar Falls grapevine in working order.
“Hi, Donna-Lou. This is my friend Mark. Mark? Donna-Lou.” They shook hands. Becker had gone pink.
“From the city, ain’t you? Nice boots.”
“Thanks,” Becker said.
Otis Dermott, well oiled, came up behind his wife and draped an arm over her solid little shoulders. I knew that the holy rollers generally didn’t approve of drinking and dancing, but maybe Otis and Donna-Lou were an exception. Otis seemed awfully pleased to see me. In the state he was in, he was probably awfully pleased to see anybody at all.
“It’s Susan Kennedy’s Polly. Hello, girl. With a man, eh?”
“Otis,” Donna-Lou said.
“You look familiar,” Otis said, squinting at Becker. “I seen you before?”
“I’m not from around here,” Becker said.
“Ain’t I seen him before?” Otis asked his wife.
“Nice to meet you both,” Becker said and moved away into the crowd.
“Yeah. See you later, eh?” I said, then followed him.
“I’d rather not stay too long,” Becker said.
“We’re just checking in to say hi. George invited us. Courtesy call, that’s all. I take it you don’t want to be recognized.”
“That’s right. I may need to question some of these people later.”
“Wouldn’t they be more likely to talk if they knew you out of uniform?”
“Let’s just find Mr. Hoito and his lady, okay?”
I picked out George and Susan, sitting at a table crowded with empty glasses near the band. Their heads were close together and their gazes were locked. They just had to be doing it.
The band started playing an old country favourite, suitable for stomping around to, and the dance-floor filled quickly, blocking my view.
“We might as well have a beer while we’re here. You want one?” Becker’s face was very close to my ear, and it startled me. “Hey, you okay?” he said.
“Yup. I’d love a beer. Thanks. Shall I meet you over there?”
“Where are they?”
“The table next to the band on the right. George’s hair is directly below a blue stage light, so he’s kind of glowing. You can’t miss him.”
“I’ll be over. You know where the washrooms are?”
“Downstairs in the basement. Make noise going down, eh?”
“Why. Are there snakes?”
“Sort of. You’re off duty, right?”
“Absolutely.”
I waded through the crowd, dodging the twirlers and stompers as best I could. When I reached George and Susan’s table, they were gone, but their jackets were still there, so I guessed they must be up jumping around. I don’t care for dancing, myself. I always feel cumbersome and very aware of how silly we all look.
Then George and Susan danced by the table, laughing and looking radiant, not the least bit silly at all. I guess it’s how you feel when you’re doing it that counts.
When the music ended they returned to the table, holding hands. When they saw me they smiled and didn’t let go, so it was out in the open, at least.
“Where’s the fellah?” Susan said. “George said you might drop by with a gentleman caller. He wouldn’t tell me who it was.” I glanced at George, surprised.
“Why not?” I said.
“He just said you had a date with a government man,” she said. “Who is he? It’s not like I have anything against civil servants, not that I have any say in the matter anyway. Incidentally, George has told me that you know that we hid Francy’s whereabouts from you. I’m sorry about that, Polly, but you must remember that we’re dealing with the police. They’re a nasty, brutish, impolite lot, and it’s best to have no dealings with them at all.”
“One round coming up,” Becker said, setting down four beers. “Ms. Kennedy, good to see you again. Mr. Hoito, how are you?” My aunt had been speaking loudly, in order to be heard above the music. Her eyebrows did a beautiful double-take, but she recovered quickly.
“Why, Detective Becker. What a surprise. Drinking on duty are you?” I think she meant it as a joke.
“I’m not working right now, ma’am,” Becker said. “Here. It’s Canadian.” He handed her a plastic glass of beer.
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