Going Out With a Bang

by Joan Boswell

  I looked back at Philip, who hovered in the doorway as if he couldn’t stand to have her out of his sight. He was barefoot, tousled and delicious. She’s primed the pump nicely, I thought. Reawakened his primal needs and his hunger for life. I felt my own body hum at the thought.

  Ruth had to go.

  It would have to look like an accident, of course. A good, old-fashioned hit and run seemed easiest, especially on a dark, rainy night on that poorly lit backstreet. But I’d watched enough CSI to know about paint chips and tire marks and databases of auto repair shops. I’d have to steal a car to do the job, and that just sounded too complicated. I’d had a sheltered childhood, what with the teetotalling bible-thumper for a father, and I’d missed the part about hotwiring a car. Besides, nowadays cars beeped and flashed loudly enough to be heard across the Atlantic.

  I thought about a house fire—an electrical short seemed like the best idea, given that ancient house of hers—but death was far from a sure thing. Besides, I’m not a monster. She had to die, but I didn’t want her to suffer. I thought of shoving her off something high, like a rooftop or a cliff. That would be quick and merciful, but I couldn’t think how to lure her up there.

  Meanwhile I started to watch her, tailed her to the grocery store, to yoga, to the spa and the nail salon. The woman was the definition of self-absorbed, but there was something mischievous, almost endearing, about her shameless vanity.

  I soon realized why people hired a professional for these jobs. I didn’t think I was up to staring at her eyeball to eyeball while I bumped her off. It would have to be something arm’s length. I could break into her kitchen, slip some poison into her orange juice, and wait. In my cabinet, I still had a supply of Fred’s heart medicine that should do the trick.

  I picked a cold, sleety evening when I knew she was over at Philip’s. Not even the dog walkers were out. Soggy, wet leaves cushioned my steps as I sneaked into her backyard and through the kitchen door, which I’d discovered she never locked when she was across the street. A dog barked in the neighbouring yard, but otherwise nothing stirred. A dim light was on in her hallway, enough to light my way.

  I stood in the kitchen, messy like my own with dishes piled in the sink, coffee cups and wine glasses all over the table and a large, half empty bottle of Bailey’s on the counter. I hesitated. Should I put the drugs in there? It seemed a waste of excellent booze, and perhaps she was only an occasional one-splash person.

  CSI had taught me well. I was wearing gloves, a dark plastic raincoat and socks over my sneakers. I peered at the meagre contents of the cupboards and fridge. A loaf of bread, some milk and cheese, and some cans that had collected dust. No juice. The woman wasn’t much for cooking, and her appliances looked like garage sale rejects. The toaster in particular caught my eye. One metal side panel was falling off, and the cord was frayed at the base. I’d had one of similar vintage once, and it had blown me across the room when my hands were wet.

  Perhaps a little water on the counter underneath, barely noticeable when she staggered down to make breakfast...

  I was back outside in less than fifteen minutes. The plan wasn’t foolproof, but at least it would look like an accident without the complication of drugs showing up in her tox screen. If it didn’t work, the drugs were a good fallback for the next try.

  I had a bad moment in the middle of the night when I pictured Philip in her kitchen making her breakfast in bed—she was just the type to love that—and blowing himself to kingdom come. I almost aborted the whole mission, but when I rushed over there the next morning, her house looked the same as ever. The news reported no accidents. Days passed, until I was sure the water had dried up. Was it worth another try? How often did she go near that toaster anyway? Or even near her kitchen, for that matter.

  A week later, I was back in her kitchen, giving electrocution one last chance. I doubted the two lovers ever spent the night at her place. Why would they, with that palace across the road, probably outfitted with the latest in dream kitchens? This time I was in and out in less than five minutes, leaving a fair-sized puddle in my wake. The dog didn’t even bark.

  The next day I stifled my impatience till noon before driving over. I spotted the cop cars from a block away. Four of them, plus a firetruck and an ambulance.

  And most telling, a coroner’s van.

  I admit, I was a bit surprised by my reaction. I couldn’t drive away, couldn’t even move a muscle. Afterwards, I couldn’t eat for a day. It took some getting used to that I had killed that woman with the prance in her step, the twirling purse and the Bailey’s on her counter.

  I drove by the house the next day, thinking maybe I’d been wrong about her death. The crowds and excitement were all gone, but yellow police tape flapped in the cold, and a lone police cruiser sat in the street outside Philip’s house.

  It was almost a week before her death notice appeared in the paper. “Suddenly at home...” Just the barest minimum, no fanfare or celebration of life. I had to force myself out of my house to attend the visitation. I took extra care with my dress, hoping to put myself in the mood. A demure, dusty rose suit over a plum camisole with just a peek of cleavage. At my age, a peek is all you want. A modest gold chain, pearl earrings and a light hint of make-up. I put a dab of sparkle on each eyelid. Men never notice it, but it gives just a glint of mischief.

  The funeral parlour was fuller than I expected. Who’d have thought that such a vain, shallow woman could collect so many friends? They breezed around exclaiming at the photo display and peering into the coffin. I headed the other way, scanning the room for Philip. He wasn’t there. I had a bad moment before I convinced myself it was early yet. I kept one eye glued to the door while I worked the room, catching the bits of gossip her friends seemed eager to share.

  “Stark naked at three in the morning...” “Bailey’s all over the floor.” “And him right upstairs. So like Ruth, to go out with a bang!”

  I closed my ears and turned away. That’s when I saw him, sitting alone on a sofa at the far end of the room. Same Armani suit, same forlorn look.

  I hefted my cleavage, sucked in my stomach and headed towards him, words of condolence already forming on my lips. “So sorry for your loss. I knew her from yoga class, we shared so many laughs...”

  I was ten feet away when a police officer appeared in my path. Five foot ten, chestnut hair swept into a ponytail, not a hint of sparkly make-up on her liquid brown eyes nor an inch of cleavage beneath her tailored uniform. In an age bracket at least three decades down from mine. She sat at his side on the couch, laid a hand on his arm, and held out a cup of tea.

  “Here, Philip, drink this. It’ll help you feel better.”

  His eyes were dazed as he took the cup from her, but the smile he offered was grateful. Even warm.

  Barbara Fradkin is the author of the gritty, psychological mystery series featuring quixotic Ottawa Police Inspector Michael Green, which has won back-to-back Arthur Ellis awards for Best Novel. Her short stories appear in numerous magazines and anthologies, including all the Ladies Killing Circle books. As a child psychologist with a fascination with how we turn bad, most of her work is dark and haunting. In “A Three-Splash Day”, she takes a refreshing break.

  When the Whistle Blows

  Coleen Steele

  I knew it as soon as I saw the kid. Those wide green eyes, the pug-like nose, and the shock of poker-straight fair hair that would eventually dim to a mousy brown. When he gave his name, it clinched it. He was Hal Watterson’s kid.

  And I was a dead man.

  Our school car had been unhooked the night before, and left on the siding by a little cluster of shacks about twenty miles north of Cartier, a tiny dot on an Ontario map and a forty-minute rail ride beyond Sudbury. About twenty years earlier, before the Depression hit, the provincial government got the notion to use railway cars to bring education to the northernmost outposts. The scheme survived the hard times and actually flourished, so much so that the number of routes increa
sed, and there was a job for me when I completed my certificate after the War. For the past two years, I’ve been following the CP line between Cartier and White River, and back again, stopping for four or five days in tiny settlements along the way, opening my school car to the children of the north.

  It suits me fine, this posting so far removed from Toronto. I never worried about bumping into old acquaintances and believed I’d left my old life behind. That’s why it came as such a shock.

  I hadn’t even noticed the boy at first. I had ushered the children into their first day of the 1949 school term and directed each of them to one of the dozen desks the car contained. When I’d glanced over them to take stock, I’d seen a typical northern class: kids of British, Mediterranean, Eastern European and Native origin, ranging in age from six to sixteen. It wasn’t until I had them stand one at a time and give their names that I saw the demon in their midst. An eleven-year-old boy with a timid demeanour whose apparent apprehension of his new schoolmaster was nothing compared to the terror he struck in me. His name was Charlie. Charlie Watterson.

  So dumbfounded was I by seeing him there in front of me, that I scarcely heard the remaining children. My attention and my gaze continuously flicked to the Watterson boy, as if my mind could not comprehend what my eyes were seeing and must keep checking for an error. But there he was, looking innocent and innocuous sitting there with his hands folded neatly on his desk.

  I felt ill at the sight of him.

  “Yes, well,” I stumbled after the remaining students had provided their names, “um, let’s get started.”

  I don’t know how I got through the day. Somehow I forged ahead, trying not to dwell on what the Watterson kid’s presence meant to my life. I remember my heart convulsing and pounding frighteningly against my ribs every time the boy stirred. I hadn’t tasted fear like that since my battalion advanced through the Italian mountains with Jerry snipers taking pot shots at us.

  “Are you not feeling well, Wilf?” my wife, Katie, asked when the last of the students had departed for the day. “You haven’t seemed yourself.” Katie was in and out of the classroom during the school day, helping whenever her tasks as wife and mother didn’t keep her busy in our family quarters in the other half of the school car.

  “No. No, I’m not feeling very well.” I wasn’t lying either, but I couldn’t meet her concerned gaze. I began pushing the desks to the side of the cabin to make room for the people we were expecting. Our day didn’t end when the school day did.

  “Why don’t you lie down? I can look after the visitors this evening. And the stew’s already simmering on the stove.”

  “What about Janie?”

  Katie laughed. “You know you don’t have to worry about her. She’s never short of people to fuss over her.”

  She was right. It was remarkable how a two-year-old coquette could tease the tender side out of even the roughest of men. And some of the people drawn to the school car were pretty rough. By trade they were miners, or trappers, or loggers, or section men that worked the railroads—tough physical labour for tough physical men. I’ve never had a bit of trouble with any of them; they doff their caps when they enter the car and give us their Sunday school best.

  During the day, they send their children to me, and in the evenings they come with their wives, eager for a taste of the outside world. For my part I generally enjoy their company and find this aspect of my job gratifying. And it was considered part of my job, to bring “King and Country” to these northern denizens.

  But that evening I left it to Katie to see to their cultural and social needs. Retreating to our bedroom in the private section of the car, I declined Katie’s suggestion that I lie down, knowing there was no way I was going to get any rest, not with my nerves on edge. Instead, I paced.

  I just couldn’t believe that Hal Watterson was here.

  And in this tiny community, it was only a matter of time before he found me. My name wouldn’t mean anything to him; I’d taken care of that, adopting a new one when I signed up in thirty-nine. Hopefully that would buy me some time. But sooner or later, our paths would cross.

  What was I going to do? He knew me. He knew the man I was before the War. The life I’d led. There was no way he’d stay quiet about it. It was personal with him.

  I know I should have cleared matters up when I was discharged from the army. I’d meant to. I really had. But when I got back, things kept happening.

  Immediately following the war, the government had offered all of us decoms free college and university programs. I couldn’t pass that up; I’d always wanted to be a teacher, but in the thirties there was just no way I could afford the schooling. So I decided to grab the chance and get my teaching certificate, then go back and face the music. That only made sense. The opportunity wouldn’t last forever. But then, well, once I got my certificate, a teaching position came up, and being a vet, I went straight to the top of the list. How could I say no?

  Even then, I still intended on going back and owning up, as soon as I got my feet on the ground. Really.

  But then I met Katie.

  “There was quite a crowd tonight,” my wife reported after having put an already sleeping Janie to bed.

  “Oh,” I said. “Any new people?” This was our second year on this route, and most of the residents were familiar to us.

  “Yes. Mr. DaSilva brought his young bride over from Italy. Such a sweet girl, but doesn’t speak a word of English. And a Mrs. Greenfield. She’s the mother of that new first former, Lizzie. She has arthritis in her hands and was so grateful when I offered to help her write a letter to her sister in Kingston.”

  “No men?” I asked. A low rumble registered in my mind, and for a moment I thought it came from my stomach, it was clenching so tightly.

  “Well, there was Mr. McCurdy, Mr. DaSilva, Mr. Tulliver, and...”

  Four short blasts of a train whistle cut through the night air as the accompanying rumble grew louder.

  “...oh yes, there was a new gentleman tonight: a Mr. Watterson.” Katie brushed out her soft chestnut curls as she sat before her vanity mirror. “He seemed very nice. No wife. He’s raising a boy on his own. The poor boy’s mother and sisters died in a car accident. Mr. Watterson’s a section man,” she added, referring to his job for the railway, her voiced raised to be heard over the approaching train.

  I don’t know if it was a gasp or a gurgle that escaped me as I struggled for breath, but I remember being saved any explanation by the roar that drowned out everything else.

  “I hope it doesn’t wake Janie,” Katie said as the sound subsided and the car’s shaking lessened to a tremble.

  “No. No, I’m sure it won’t.” Watterson. Oh, God, it really was him.

  “Well, if the Monday Night Special won’t do it, nothing will,” Katie laughed.

  I’d forgotten about that train. It roared past every Monday night like clockwork, its time dependent on our location. Here, just above Cartier, it passed between nine-nineteen and nine-twenty-three. At our next school stop, it would go by closer to nine-forty-five. And unlike some of the other trains that eased up past our sided car, the Monday Night Special flew by at full-throttle, bouncing us around in its wake.

  Watterson. What was I going to do about him?

  “Hmmm. Pardon?” I said. Katie had resumed her review of the evening, but I hadn’t heard any of it.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, her voice full of concern. “You’re still not feeling well, are you? You go to sleep. Hopefully you’ll feel better in the morning.”

  But in the morning, she could see that I was still not myself.

  “I just need a few minutes to let my breakfast settle. Perhaps you could go let the children in, and I’ll join you shortly.” If Hal had walked his boy to school, I wanted him gone before I made an appearance.

  “Certainly, darling. Are you sure you don’t want to go back to bed? I could hand out the assignments.”

  It was tempting. I knew Katie could han
dle being a teacher for the day. She’d been halfway to getting her own teaching certificate when I met her. She only gave it up to marry me, and as it was, with the nature of my job, her studies didn’t go to waste. She had already proved a great helpmate and substitute teacher. But I couldn’t allow her to take on all my duties. Besides, the idea of staying holed up in our quarters all day, dwelling on my problem, was not very appealing.

  So I assured Katie I’d be fine and watched from behind one of her gingham curtains as the children arrived and the few adults that accompanied them went on their way. Hal Watterson was not among them. Young Charlie had walked to school by himself.

  The relief I felt at being given a reprieve from bumping into Hal should have allowed me to concentrate on my class and the day’s lessons, but it didn’t. It was another day like the last, where I struggled to concentrate on the children’s poetry recitations and their multiplication tables. I have no idea how many of the latter were bungled without correction, and I only just saved Toronto from moving east of Montreal on the map we were labelling.

  And through it all sat Charlie Watterson. His eyes, so big and round and innocent, held no knowledge of the pending doom he represented. They fixed on me unwaveringly, putting me off my stride. They were so reminiscent of Hal’s and...of Marge’s. I tried to ignore the boy, but still for all their innocence, those green depths taunted me, accused me.

  When at last I was able to ring the bell to release the children for the day, I did it hastily then fled to my own compartment. Katie, bless her, jumped in and saw the students off, then opened the door to adult visitors.

  “Perhaps we should send for a doctor or ask the next freight to carry us down to Sudbury,” Katie suggested later that evening when she was finally free to join me.