by Hubert Furey
“Look, I didn’t break into that store. And that’s the truth, whatever Tom Blanchard and Rocky Bates told you. They didn’t come for no Christmas visit. They were the ones who came to me with that plan already made up because they didn’t know how to crack the safe. They’d already followed Dick Furneaux out the highway toward Couteau to rip him off there, and the only thing that saved Dick Furneaux’s life was the line of traffic in the storm. And you’d never be talking to me now if they had got their way yesterday, and you’d be finding Dick Furneaux’s body behind a picnic table by the Goose Pond River. Anyway, I wouldn’t be using no spike and sledgehammer. If I were serious about going after that money, I would have that safe open in less time than it takes you to spin that .38 you got in your holster, and you know that. And I’d have that money out, and I wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave a foolproof clue right beside the safe. C’mon—give me credit.”
The officer was writing quickly, rustling the paper with hurried strokes as Jimmy continued, his tone visibly softened. “I did break into that store, a long time ago, the day I left here. And today I’m really sorry I did it. And as soon as I get the chance, I’m going to pay Dick Furneaux back—and not only for the money and cigarettes.” He slouched back in the seat, letting his head fall on the rest.
“I’ve spent a lot of time in Dorchester, and I’ve sworn to Christ that I won’t be spending another minute there. And if you think I’m going back for a few lousy cigarettes or a coupla dozen beer, you’d better think again.” He was going to finish with “a million dollars, maybe,” but he thought better of it. It might leave an opening for them to pursue. The officer continued to write at a frenetic pace, not looking up. Outside the car the crowd were still talking, but Jimmy couldn’t hear. Charlie Mackay stood away from the crowd, leaning against a pickup load of sawn birch. He had a worried look on his face. Jimmy slouched farther down in the seat, folding his arms in resignation. The officer behind the wheel slouched in turn, resting his head against the window.
In the silence that followed, the other Mountie leaned around in his direction, factual in his approach, a curious look in his eye. “How come you didn’t mention saving the Wilson girl’s life? Pulling her from the car? She gave a statement, you know, before you came out. She was all upset because we were suspecting you. Said you couldn’t have done it, although she couldn’t account for your whereabouts after she left.”
“She said all that?” He couldn’t remember anybody any time saying something good about him, especially to the police.
“Couldn’t sing your praises loud enough.” The officer looked at Jimmy directly, the halting tone of the words indicating that he was uncomfortable posing the question.
“You weren’t with her, after . . . ? You know. It would corroborate your story.” It would have been nice to spend the night with Cheri Wilson, and not just for something as crass as to provide an alibi.
“No, she doesn’t even know me. Besides, I don’t want her involved in this.” The officer was staring through the window, his eyes focused on the agitated form of Cheri Wilson shrugging off her father’s restraining arm.
“That’s not the way she’s thinking. Looks like she wants to be involved, very, very deeply, although I don’t think her father shares her feelings.”
Cheri Wilson had torn herself away from her father and was rapidly approaching the car, ignoring the efforts of the female police officer to hold her back. The officer behind the wheel rolled down his window as she approached. She didn’t give him a chance to speak. “Look. I know why you’re questioning him, but there’s no way he could have done it. No way. I just know.”
The officer on the passenger side leaned across. He appeared sympathetic. “Is there anything you want to add to your statement, Miss Wilson? You’ve told us you were in his presence early this morning.”
Cheri stood back, her face distorted in frustration. “No, I can’t add anything. What can I add? We brought over food and stuff, Dad and me, then we left.” She seemed reluctant to have to finish as she did, and Jimmy could only stare in awe as a feeling of warmth infused his body. Something he had never dreamt about was transpiring right before his eyes. With all the hurt and cruelty women had endured at his hands, here was a woman risking her reputation, her ties with her family, risking everything, trying to help him.
He corrected himself. She was helping him? She had already helped him. If all that came out of this was spending the rest of his life rotting in some filthy prison cell, she had helped him, and his life would never be the same again. She believed he was innocent. He leaned ahead, ignoring the presence of the two officers. “Cheri. Stay out of this. It’ll work out. Don’t separate from your family because of me. Now, go home with your father. There’s one thing I can tell you. I didn’t do it, and a good lawyer won’t have a lot of trouble proving it.” He wasn’t so sure of that, but he felt he had to say it.
The fear in her eyes eased, but the worry and concern still remained, plainly visible, showing through every line in her face, and he knew that nothing he could say would make that disappear completely. He felt totally defenceless. How was he going to escape from the trap Rocky and Tom had set? How was he going to set the record straight?
Cheri eased herself up from the car door and slowly backed away, wanting to believe him, leaving him alone once again with the officers. Jimmy threw his arms open in a gesture of submission.
“Look, if you want to you can search the house. If you’re worried about the warrant, I’ll sign something or give you permission in front of witnesses or whatever. And I’m not going anywhere. I don’t have any place else to go.”
The harsh rap of a fist echoed from the car window, distracting their attention to the outside. The angry-looking face of Frank Ryan was beckoning their attention through the glass, motioning the officer to roll down the window. The puzzled officer complied, assuming a professional air. “Sir, we have an investigation in progress here.” Frank Ryan forced his face into the closeness of the car, looking straight at Jimmy and ignoring the officer completely. Jimmy leaned back. It was no surprise that Frank Ryan wanted to stick his nose into this one, too. He had probably seen everything through the kitchen window before the lamp was doused, probably tipped off the police to the visit from the b’ys. He closed his eyes and relaxed. He could get it all from the police when he got a lawyer.
Frank Ryan continued to look directly at Jimmy, speaking in a convulsive, angry tone to the police officers, as if he were scolding them. Jimmy had heard the older men speak like that as a child, roaring like they were going to tear you apart, trying to hide their nervous fear and their feeling of being uncomfortable behind a cloak of harsh invective. The musing had totally unprepared him for Frank Ryan’s beginning remark.
“I knows whas goin’ on. Everybody knows. But that man didn’t do it. That man didn’t do nothing. So ye can let him go.” Jimmy blinked, astounded, staring at Frank Ryan’s face, unable to believe what he was hearing. In the living room window of the house he could see Mildred Ryan looking anxiously toward the police car, her shoulders jerking periodically. The officer taking the statement was trying to speak.
“If you wish to make a statement . . .”
Frank Ryan ignored him as if he weren’t there, continuing to speak in a lecturing, reprimanding tone. “Now, you let go that man. That’s what I’m sayin’. You let him go. He never left that house last night after the young Wilson girl and her father left. Never left it.”
“How do you know?” The second Mountie was trying to interrupt.
“I knows because I was watching that house all night. I saw dem udder two go in, and I saw ’em go out, and he never left widdem. I was watchin’ that house every minute, and there wasn’t a stir after them other two left, sir. Not a stir. Now, you mark that down.”
The officer sounded incredulous. “You were watching the house every minute?”
“Every minute,” Frank Ryan retorted defiantly. “Mildred’s been walkin’ the floor, frightened to death he’s goin’ to come over and murder us in our beds. Den when I looked through the window last night and saw them other two go in, I knowed there was goin’ to be something up, and I sat on the bench and watched—me eyes never once left the place—and I sat there until the wife got up this morning. And there was no stir after they left. Not a stir.”
“You’re sure of that?” The Mountie was again writing hastily.
“Sure as Christ is in heaven. He never moved out after.”
“What about the back door?” It was the second officer from the passenger side.
“I’d have to see his fetch along the edge of the cliff, and anyway, he’d have to come down the meada somewhere to get to the road, ’cause the cliff is all around the house, an’ thas only a small meada. No! I woulda seed him.”
The officer continued, peering through the open window. “Are you willing to give a statement, appear in court as a witness?”
Frank Ryan’s elbows rested on the car door. “I’ll do anyt’ing I got to do. Although to tell you the truth I wasn’t goin’ to open me mouth. But Mildred wouldn’t hear of it. She made me come out here and tell ye. I knows he’s been in and out of jail, and maybe he should go back in, but not fer that. Fair is fair and right is right, and she couldn’t have that on her conscience. He didn’t do no robbin’ last night. So I’ll write down whatever ye wants me to write down, and I’ll sign whatever ye wants me to sign. After them other two left, there wasn’t a stir around the place until ye came this mornin’, not a stir.”
The officer continued to look at Frank Ryan incredulously. Then he turned to look intently at his partner. “No, no, that’s all right. We’ll come back later and get a full statement. There are some other people we want to talk to again.”
Turning to Jimmy, he indicated the door, as the Mountie on the passenger side slid out to open it from the outside. Frank Ryan had already moved away and was making his way, head bowed, to the front door of his porch, where his wife waited for him. Jimmy noticed that the jerking in her shoulders had slowed considerably.
“Well, Mr. Blanchard, you have a witness to verify that you never left your house. With him ready to take the stand in your defence, we can’t place you at the crime scene, so I guess there’s not much of a case against you. You’re free to go. But stay around. Those guys were in communication with you, so that doesn’t let you off scot-free.”
Jimmy leaned back, his eyes closed, unconcerned about the implied threat in the policeman’s statement. It was taking a while to digest what he had just overheard. If he hadn’t witnessed it, he never would have believed it. His arriving next door had so agitated Mildred Ryan that Frank Ryan had to sit up all night and watch his every move to reassure Mildred. And it had saved his life, literally. Without Mildred Ryan being terrified and Frank Ryan being nosy, he would be going back to Dorchester. It was something to think about.
The Mountie with the clipboard took a sip from a half-empty Coke bottle and wiped his mouth with his hand. The mood in the car had changed completely. He was chuckling to himself as he added a final note to the paper. “‘No stir around the place!’ Boy, you Newfoundlanders really talk funny.”
Jimmy never smiled. He was too engrossed. Frank Ryan was willing to swear . . . “But he wouldn’t give me any wood?” He was just thinking out loud. It wasn’t meant for conversation. The officer thought the statement was meant for him.
“Afraid of you, I guess. Afraid that once you got in . . . you know. Anyway, turns out he’s not your worst enemy here in Brine Cove. Anything else?” The officer was looking at him expectantly. Jimmy was staring through the windshield, still thinking about Frank Ryan. He sounded distracted as he answered.
“No, no, there’s nothing else.”
The car door opened, and Jimmy eased his way out. The officers watched him silently. Jimmy paused, holding the open door, surveying the watching crowd. It had become more animated, their spirits lifted by the new disclosure. Some were even smiling in his direction. They had heard Frank Ryan, too. He realized that Cheri Wilson and her father had not been there to hear Frank’s testimony to his innocence, but that was all right. Soon the whole town would know. Those telephones would make sure of that. It was hard to understand. He pushed the door shut firmly with both hands, looking vacantly at the open window.
“No, no, there’s nothing else.” He walked away from the police car, conscious of the eyes of the crowd following him as he headed in the direction of his house. The fire was probably gone out by now, and he knew he would have to go to all that trouble to light it again, but somehow it didn’t matter. First Charlie Mackay, then Fr. Joe MacIntyre and Mother Hennessey, then Cheri Wilson, now nosy Frank Ryan. He stopped beside the broken gateposts, precariously tipping in the banked snow, dwelling on the image of Cheri pleading in the window of the car. Putting it on the line for him—him, a jailbird with a record a mile long. Putting her reputation on the line, defying her family in front of the whole town—for him.
And Frank Ryan. Nosy, gossipy Frank Ryan . . .
He continued his slow ascent up the broken path of snow, but turned at the sound of a voice calling his name. A short, chubby boy with thick glasses was puffing and panting as he ran to catch up, seemingly unconcerned about the constant twitching of his body. Jimmy was reminded of Mildred Ryan in church. The boy was panting with exertion. “Mr. Blanchard! Mudder Hennessey wants you to come down for Christmas dinner. I came up, but you was in the police car, and I ran back and told her, and she told me to come back and wait and when you was finished to tell you to come down to Christmas dinner no matter when ye wuz finished. She says she’s alone anyway and she might as well cook for two as for one, an’ she says ye can come down any time ye wants to.”
Christmas dinner! He had totally forgotten about Christmas dinner. They had had Christmas dinners in Dorchester, but they weren’t very Christmasy, with the murderous looks that were in some eyes. The boy stood, twitching violently and panting, waiting for an answer. He studied the boy, becoming aware of how he was dressed, in what looked like a cast-off skidoo suit and a stocking cap that was much too large drawn tight over his ears. The knitted mitts he wore were too big and had holes in several places. Was that how he looked when he was a child? He had never thought that he was poor, but he used to dress just like that.
He remembered something else, too, something he had forgotten until now. He remembered Dick Furneaux coming to visit his mother with a big box one Christmas Eve, and Dick Furneaux had pressed a two-dollar bill into his hand and winked at him, and he had thought he had all the money in the world. He had never given money. He had only taken it. Without thinking, he reached in his pocket and handed the child one of the twenty-dollar bills, causing the boy to recoil in horror.
“No, sir, I don’t want no money for this. Mrs. Hennessey always gives me stuff, and she just gave me money to shovel her path, and she’s going to give me another pair of mitts when she gets ’em knit, so I can’t take any money for bringing a message.” But the boy’s eyes were staring at the twenty-dollar bill as if it held the gateway to his fortune, just as his own eyes stared at that two-dollar bill twenty-five years ago. Jimmy stepped forward, pressing the money into his hand.
“Take it. When the shop opens, buy yourself a hockey stick and puck. If that isn’t enough, come back and I’ll give you more.” The boy took the money and headed down the path, his whole chubby person absorbed in the bill which he held at arm’s length in front of him, seemingly unable to believe his good fortune. Jimmy watched him until he disappeared around the bend, remembering again the two-dollar bill Dick Furneaux had pressed into his hand that Christmas Eve. He had held the two-dollar bill just like that everywhere he walked that afternoon.
He bowed his head and walked to the gate, pondering the memory. The th
ree officers were still in the police car, huddled in earnest conversation, paying him no attention. The crowd had drifted away, so there was nobody to hold his attention as he instinctively turned for one last parting look at his house, before tucking in his collar and heading for his first real Christmas dinner in a long time. At the gate he turned, setting his course in the direction of Mother Hennessey’s, ready to leave the investigation and the police car behind him, when his eyes met those of Sheila O’Keefe, walking on the opposite side of the road, her head erect, the look of contempt and scorn a sharp contrast to the soft beauty of her face. She was glancing alternately from him to the police car still parked by the side of the road. On that straight stretch she would have been able to witness enough to form a conclusion. Her mouth was set and the tone was icy, but her eyes were hurting.
“Still friends with the police, I see.” The tone seemed more forced than sarcastic. Jimmy remembered the face of pain at the door of the church vestibule the night before. He had hurt this woman enough.
“Yeah. They questioned me about the break-in at Furneaux’s last night. I gave them a statement, best I could. For once I could say I never did it.”
They had stopped, facing each other. The look on her face had become more set. “Well. It’s not like something you haven’t done, is it?” He winced, but just for a moment. They called her stuck-up, but nobody ever called her weak.
“Look, I didn’t do it, if that’s what you’re wondering. I might be broke and out of jail, but I’ll starve first before I go back in, that much I’m sure of. Besides, I think I’ve paid for that first one, several times over.”
She was still looking at him, her face still solidly set, but she could not remove the hurt from her eyes. “Not like some other things, hey?”