The Corpse Will Keep

by Pat Capponi

  I nod sympathetically and am opening my mouth to offer some words of comfort when he lifts his head and smiles wanly.

  “Now this is the relevant part, relevant to why I’m engaging you.” My ears perk up. “When she was younger, my mother was expected to be involved in good works, charity balls, that kind of thing. Though it was against her nature, it was good for business. So was being involved in their church, where she chaired the Social Service committee, raising money for overseas work, helping to build schools in poor villages. Last year, she was pressured by some of the younger, more liberal parishioners to lead an effort to establish a local Out of the Cold program—you know, offering meals and overnight shelter. I know the idea appalled her, but she told me she felt trapped into doing it. Appearances. Half the church felt the same way she did, but felt no compulsion to hide it. There was quite the ruckus, dire warnings about street people hanging around the building, stealing the wine, ruining the neighbourhood. Still, it gave us something to talk about. As much as she was put off by the idea of actually having to deal with the homeless—‘smell the urine,’ was how she put it—she rather enjoyed the novelty of being seen as a champion of the left.”

  Something like a snort escapes me, but I control myself for Bernie’s sake. I’ve decided I don’t like this woman very much. “So what happened?”

  “They opened the program and my mother was an active part of it, helping cook and serve meals at least one night a week. I know it was exhausting for her, but maybe it was better than going back to an empty house, I don’t know. I’m sure she missed my father—they were a team in business and socially—and then, a couple of months ago, she had this accident, slipped and fell, fracturing a bone in her leg.

  “She couldn’t care for herself, so I wanted to either bring her home with me, or move in with her so that I could take care of her, but she insisted that I find her a place where she could recuperate among strangers—not that she put it that way. I pulled a few strings and got her into an assisted-living centre, where she seemed reasonably happy. Not three weeks ago, when I dropped by to visit, she told me that it was high time I got on with my life and stopped fussing about her. She was nice about it, but I felt she was pushing me away deliberately. So I stopped visiting her so often and she left the centre and returned home without telling me. Since then, we’ve only spoken on the phone, and she’s refused to see me, telling me how busy she is. Now, she’s always been active, but this is very odd, even for her. She’s never totally shut me out.”

  “Bernie…” I say, thinking he’s nothing more than a lonely son, when his next words set my senses tingling.

  “As peculiar as all that was, it was followed by our bank manager, Harold Amos, calling, quite discreetly, to inform me that she’d emptied out two rather large accounts, using cheques made out to cash. I don’t care about the money, of course, but it’s clear something very strange is going on. Before you ask, there’s nothing wrong with her mind; senility doesn’t happen overnight, as far as I know. And I can’t help thinking it has something to do with this homeless venture.”

  Here it is. Our first official case, right in front of me. Still, I can’t help feeling that now’s the moment to stand, make my apologies, and suggest he hire a real detective. What keeps me in my chair is that I hate to go back empty-handed to Delta Court. I know they’re all waiting, eager to hear, eager to help. They need this as much as I do.

  “So there I was at home, watching the news, worrying about my mother, and just stymied as to how to proceed, and there you were, right on my screen, like an answer from the gods, and you looked just as you did when we were in school. I’ve never forgotten you, Dana, how you helped me, didn’t judge me back then. I’ve always felt we had such a strong connection.”

  My mind is racing with questions, and I can see the hope in his eyes, on his face, wanting me to be the one to find the answers. I cave.

  “Bernie, I would be happy to help you. I’ll do whatever I can.”

  He beams at me, relieved, then starts to rummage through the files on his desk, and produces yet another photo. This is a staged one, professionally done, of his mother. She is beautiful, in a superior, upper-class, doctor-assisted kind of way. I’m guessing poor Bernie must have inherited his father’s looks, because he has none of his mother’s sculpted features.

  “I have no idea what she thinks she’s up to. My fear is that people may be taking advantage of her. She is relatively innocent about the ways of the world. Rosedale matrons lead a sheltered existence.”

  “Have you spoken to her friends? Have they seen her?”

  “I called around, pretended I was looking for advice on a special Christmas gift for her. No one in her circle has heard from her at all. They also expressed some concern.”

  “What about just going and knocking on her door?”

  He looks appalled. “Unannounced?”

  “Yes, if you’re so worried, it would make sense.”

  “You have no idea how she can be. If you insist, I will. What else should I do?”

  The weight of this hits me, and I think it’s time for a little revelation myself.

  “I have to be honest here, Bernie. I haven’t completed the private investigator course I’m taking yet. I don’t even have a licence. I’m not sure I’m the best person to help you.”

  He waves away my words as though they were puffs of smoke. “Listen, I could engage a whole firm of private investigators. And they’d all stand out like sore thumbs. I need someone who can fit in anywhere, and more importantly, I need someone I can trust. It’s you I’m engaging, Dana Leoni, a proven commodity.” I wonder how that would look on a business card. “Please help me, Dana. Find out what’s going on for me.”

  I’m thinking hard about where to begin. People change; I only have to look at Harp to know that. By his own admission, he has lots of reasons to be angry and bitter, even vengeful. Could his mother have sensed this?

  “Can I speak to your banker?”

  “Yes.” He speaks with such eagerness it’s touching, and pokes a button on the intercom. “Get Harold for me, right away.”

  “I need to know about your financial situation, and how your company is doing.”

  “Absolutely. You’re welcome to the information.”

  The intercom buzzes, and Harp grabs the phone. “I’ll put this on intercom. Harold, listen, I’m sending a young woman over to speak to you. Her name is Dana Leoni. You are to answer whatever questions she puts to you, about my affairs or my mother’s. Is that clear?”

  A thin voice comes over the speaker, obviously unhappy. “Bernie, it’s one thing to talk to you, quite another to speak to a stranger. I’m bound by confidentiality in your mother’s case.”

  “You already burned that bridge when you called me, Harold. We both know how my mother would react to that were she to find out.” Whoa, Bernie the barracuda.

  There’s a lengthy pause, followed by a sigh. “Fine. Send her by.”

  Bernie hangs up, and looks at me expectantly. I nod, and he beams in relief.

  “Thank you. Thank you so much. What a weight you’ve taken from my shoulders.” He pulls a bound chequebook toward him and begins writing with a flourish. He tears the paper out and hands it over. “That’s merely an advance, to cover costs. You can bill me as the need arises.”

  It’s a fantastic sum, five thousand dollars. I stare at it, but the numbers don’t change, don’t disappear. It takes a great effort to pull my eyes away, to ask quick questions, like the name of the nursing home, the location of her bank and church. I offer to shake hands, but he says “nonsense” and hugs me again, holding on to me the way someone might hang on to a life preserver. He then breaks off to summon his assistant to lead me out of the maze of offices. I follow her in a daze, clutching a padded envelope with Anna’s photo. The cheque seems to weigh a ton in my pocket. Five thousand dollars! My current account has twelve dollars and thirty-five cents. Reflecting on my new net worth, I stand a little strai
ghter in the elevator going down, head held high among the captains of industry crowding in.

  Out in the street, the clouds have reasserted themselves, and a blustery wind careening through the grey buildings has added a definite chill to the day. I need some time to think, so I walk until I find a coffee shop, a sad little operation with a scattering of tables and chairs and no other customers. It’s fine with me. I get my coffee and a stale-looking doughnut, carry it over to the window and sit staring into the steam rising from the mug.

  I am remembering more now, remembering a night when we partied at Bernie’s until close to dawn. I’d escaped the noisy, boisterous crowd to stand on the back porch, desperate for fresh air, trying to clear my head. He was sitting there, all by himself, his head in his hands, the living definition of misery. I sat beside him, unsure of what to say, but not wanting to leave him alone. I knew some of the revellers had done mushrooms, magic mushrooms, and I thought maybe he’d spiralled into a bad headspace. After a few minutes he spoke up, his words gruff and startling: “I’m a fraud, Dana, a total fraud.” It took some prodding, but soon he was ready to explain what he meant. “I like to portray myself as this great independent thinker, this critic of the establishment. You’ve heard me rant about the ruling classes, quote Marx and Che and all the rest of them, but the truth is, the truth is, I’m one of them, me.” I squeezed his arm, just a bit; he needed to talk, he needed me to listen. “I’m graduating soon, there’s no way for me to stay anymore. Which means the best part of my life will be over.”

  That night, that early morning, he told me about his parents, about the business he was expected to join, how what he wanted didn’t matter in the slightest. He was trapped. “They pay for everything, Dana, this house, the furnishings, my clothes, my tuition, even the wine they’re drinking in there.” He gestured over his shoulder at the house. “I’d have nothing if it wasn’t for them. And I can’t disappoint them more than I already have. I can’t free myself.” Gusts of laughter rose over the blaring music, as inside the party continued.

  “Harp, I’m sorry you’re so upset, but you’re not the only student whose parents are paying their way here. And so what if you’ve enjoyed some luxuries? It’s not like you never shared your good fortune with the rest of us.”

  “It’s not just the money. I could walk away from it. At least, I’m fairly sure I could. No, it’s much more than that, it’s—if only they would love me for who I am, not who they want me to be. If only it didn’t matter so much. They only see what I’m not and criticize me for it. My mother especially. You know something, I can’t remember a time when she even hugged me. Not once. I mean, she must have, right? Sometimes at night, I wonder why they ever had me. Or, maybe if I’d been some other boy, a better boy…”

  He was trying not to cry, his whole body clenched with the effort. For a while we sat in silence. I stared at my feet, on the verge of tears myself.

  This was a Harp I’d never seen. I had to give him something. Then and there I told him what I’d hidden from everyone else, my own shame and embarrassment at having to literally run away from home in order to get an education, escape from working-class, immigrant parents who had their own cast-iron ideas about what a woman’s, their daughter’s, life should be. He looked at me in awe. “And you don’t speak to them at all?” He shook his head, dumbfounded. “Tell me, Dana, did they love you?”

  “Yes, I think they did. I felt loved growing up, very loved, as long as I was a child. Yes.”

  “What’s it like?” A whispered question. I knew what he meant.

  “Warm. Safe. Accepting.” Remembering the little house, the tiny vegetable garden, the cooking smells. “I was the centre of their universe. I could see it in their eyes, feel it when they tucked me in at night.”

  “And you just walked away?”

  “Ran away. I had no choice. They were so fearful of everything, of anyone who was different from them. They blamed themselves for coming to Canada, exposing me to ideas above my class, my station in life. I’d been contaminated by Canadian culture, made rebellious. What they wanted for me suddenly wasn’t good enough. I think, if they could have forced me to go with them, I’d be back in their village right now, tied to a stove, married to a day labourer.”

  “You’re a brave woman, Dana. You stood up for what you wanted for yourself. I can’t do that because I crave what you had—how did you put it, that look in their eyes. I have everything, Dana, everything but parents who love me, and I think I’m doomed to spend the rest of my life trying to make myself into someone they can accept.”

  The party spilled out of the house then, separating and silencing us in the ensuing chaos. One of his statuesque ladies claimed him, dragging him inside and disappearing with him into the bedroom. It was the last time we saw each other.

  My coffee is cold. I haven’t touched it, or the saggy, sugary doughnut. Poor Bernie. I shake off the past, and the melancholy I feel. I have one last thing to do before I can go home.

  The bank is close enough to Preston Inc. that Bernie could keep an eye on every dollar he owns. Walking in, I’m reminded of going with my mother to the tiny CIBC a few blocks from our house. She hated banks, partly because of her poor English, but mostly because anything remotely official intimidated her. Except priests, whom she revered. I remember how hard she’d clutch my hand in the winding lineup, as though we were surrounded by marauders and thieves instead of average men and women. I knew better than to fool around inside that particular building, no skipping or touching the velvet rope that hemmed us in; not even whispers were allowed. She’d shush me urgently or yank me back to her side. But the ordeal really began when she reached the teller and had to communicate exactly what she wanted to do: cash a cheque, make a deposit or withdrawal, pay some bills. The teller’s voice would grow loud and impatient, while my mother would blush furiously, her halting English deserting her totally and bringing her close to tears.

  I’ve never liked banks.

  The manager’s office is near the main entrance, to show how accessible and friendly the institution is, I suppose. I knock on the open door, and the large man at the desk looks up, sighs, and waves me in.

  “Miss Leoni?”

  “Yes.”

  “Harold Amos.” He’s made no effort to rise, or to offer me his hand to shake. Fine, I think to myself, I don’t like you either. “I’m the manager here. Please take a seat. You should know how irregular this is. I can only hope you will be discreet.”

  “Of course.” For a moment, just a moment, I wish my mother could be here, watching me put the squeeze on this corpulent symbol of all her nightmares.

  “What do you wish to know?”

  “First things first.” I take out the cheque that Bernie has written, and, borrowing a pen that’s lying in front of Harold and that weighs at least ten pounds, I endorse the back of it. “I’d like two hundred dollars in twenties, and the rest in a money order, please.”

  He looks at me as though I’ve lost my mind, mistaking a manager for a lowly teller.

  “I don’t have time to waste standing in line. We have important matters to discuss, Mr. Amos. Tell me about Bernie’s business. How is it doing?”

  There’s a pause for some battle of wills he thinks he’s engaged in, then he sighs and presses a button on his phone. In response, a lovely woman appears, and he orders her coldly to take care of the cheque, repeating what I’ve asked for. She almost bows on her way out.

  “The business is thriving. Since his father’s retirement five years ago, Bernie has doubled the client list. They have an excellent reputation on the street, well deserved.”

  “And his personal affairs?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “His worth, personal worth.”

  “Substantial.”

  “As substantial as his mother’s?”

  “More so, though his mother is very wealthy in her own right. She brought her own money—trust funds and inheritances and the like—into the marria
ge with Mr. Preston. As far as I know, it was always kept separate. Mr. Preston insisted. He certainly had no need of it, and neither does his son.”

  “Can you tell me a little about what she’s like, Mrs. Preston?”

  He looks at me, as if assessing me before answering. “A dragon lady, in many respects. Difficult. Abrasive. Not someone to suffer fools. Must have things done her way, and very precisely. She’s also predictable, or at least she used to be, the same charges to her accounts every month, the same yearly charitable donations. That’s why I took the extraordinary step of calling her son when I saw the cheques she’d been writing. She never wrote checks to cash. Ever. And certainly not in those amounts. I called her, you know, as soon as that lady presented herself.”

  “What lady was that?”

  “The lady with the cheque, of course, the one made out to cash. She gave her name as Lorraine Wilson. Looked like a common criminal, an addict, really. All washed out, pale and pimply, skinny too. Dyed hair, an unnatural shade of black. I was sure something was wrong. So I phoned, as I said, and Mrs. Preston answered right away, and she was very cutting. I explained that I’d be remiss in my duty to her if I didn’t question, but she was having none of it. ‘It’s my money, not yours, Mr. Amos,’ she said. ‘If you have difficulty with that concept, perhaps I should move my account somewhere else.’” Little beads of sweat appear on his forehead as he remembers that phone call, and there’s a slight trembling in the hands on his desk.

  “Really, it was most unjustified, how she spoke to me. Nonetheless, I ordered the teller to give that—that woman—the money. And she was back, at least twice more. I didn’t dare call Mrs. Preston again. I agonized quite a bit over this, and decided to speak to her son.”