For what remained of the night he lay in bed worrying about his eaves. He had meant to clean them before it rained but he hadn’t gotten around to it. They were packed with willow and Chinese elm seeds. The rain continued to come down hard. He wondered if he should go out and do it now in the early morning light in the rain. The light didn’t amount to much with the heavy cloud cover but he didn’t like the picture he had in his mind of the water running down his house into the cracks in the foundation.
Instead he turned on the reading lamp, opened up his Michael Connelly book, and managed to lose himself in the story. Connelly’s main character, Harry Bosch, was a policeman. He retired and then returned to the job. Frank wondered if he could do that. If they would have him. As morning arrived, the rain began to let up, and Frank nodded off over his book.
34
There wasn’t a cloud in the sky when Frank woke up, and the air was cool and fresh. The basement was dry and he berated himself for fretting. He took his coffee out to the porch, where the wind was high, getting a good start on drying things up. The wet leaves of the cotoneasters shone in the sunlight. Both kids were in their beds — he had checked — and Emma was fine as of yesterday evening.
Except for the Featherstone fiasco, making an idiot of himself in front of Jane continually, and his anxiety about Mrs. Mortimer, all seemed right with the world for the first twenty minutes or so of the new day. He was almost certain he could iron out the Featherstone mess with a little fake tact and diplomacy, less sure that Jane would ever see him again in the same light after the past couple of days. But somehow that was okay: if you couldn’t lose your marbles in front of your closest friend, who could you lose them in front of? He was mildly surprised when he realized that he thought of Jane as his closest friend. She was gently moving in to fill the canyon left by Gus’s absence. He wouldn’t mention it to her ever, not even on his deathbed. He didn’t want to scare her any more than he already had.
And if it was, indeed, Mrs. Mortimer inside the wall, there was nothing he could do to save her.
His pilfering of the photograph no longer even registered on his personal graph of things that mattered.
The phone rang and Frank went inside to answer it. It was Norm Featherstone, ending his working relationship with Frank and Jane.
“Fine, Norm,” said Frank.
He couldn’t muster up anything more.
Norm hung up first.
Frank felt relief until he remembered that he’d have to tell Jane. He began to sweat and when he caught a glimpse of himself in the hall mirror he was alarmed by what he saw: a vaguely familiar man without a trace of colour in his face, who appeared to have aged a decade since the last time he had noticed him. Maybe he was coming down with something — the flu or a summer cold. He supposed this would be as good a time as any, seeing as he had no big jobs on the horizon. The Featherstone thing was going to be his summer. There was Mrs. Frobisher’s hallway, but that was two days at most.
He decided to postpone calling Jane till later in the day when his breaths were coming more easily. Hell, he’d leave it till morning — let her get through her Sunday without knowing.
It was his plan to go and see Mrs. Beresford again, on his own this time, but he got to feeling worse. The beginning of the blanket feeling returned to his chest. It started out small, thin even, like a summer sheet, but as the day wore on it changed into something heavier, a cotton blanket, perhaps, and ended up as a woolly rug covering his heart and other vital organs. In the evening the woolly rug was damp and almost beyond carrying.
At nine o’clock Frank placed a large pail containing two inches or so of water beside his bed. He was certain that he was going to puke and he was beginning to feel dizzy. He couldn’t bear the idea of throwing up onto something other than a receptacle prepared for that purpose.
When he crawled into bed and lay on his back the woolly blanket dissolved and he thought before he drifted off briefly that maybe all he needed was good night’s sleep.
35
On Monday morning when Frank opened his eyes he looked directly into the face of a rosy-cheeked nurse, who greeted him cheerfully.
“Good morning, Mr. Foote,” she said. “You’re in the hospital. You’ve had a heart attack, but you’re doing fine.”
“What time is it?” he asked.
She looked at her watch.
“Seven fourteen.”
“I need to phone my kids.”
“Your kids are here, Mr. Foote. Would you like to see them now?”
“Yes, please.”
Tears were streaming down Sadie’s face — it seemed like she was always crying, just like her dad, Frank thought — and Garth looked as though he were propping up a heavy slab of marble on his young baseball-playing shoulders.
“Oh, Dad,” said Sadie.
She hugged him carefully, avoiding the delicate tubes entering and exiting his body.
Frank couldn’t speak and he struggled without success to stop his own tears from falling.
“You’re not going to die,” said Garth. “The doctor told us that. You’re going to be as good as new.”
“It’s true,” said Sadie. “I asked him if it was mild, medium, big, or massive and he said mild.”
“Well, good then,” said Frank.
He gave Garth Jane’s phone number and asked him to put her in the picture. He also asked him to mention to her that the job was off. In other words, he asked his boy to do his dirty work for him, but he had no choice.
Something stirred in Frank’s brain: a vague recollection of himself stumbling down the stairs in the night to phone 911. He remembered opening the front door so that no one would break it down in an effort to get to him. He hadn’t wanted to wake his kids, which he had realized was insane when he heard the distant sound of a siren coming for him as the world turned to black.
“Emma’s coming,” said Garth.
“Oh, no. There was no need to tell Emma,” said Frank.
“Yes, there was,” said Sadie. “She’ll be here later today or tomorrow.”
“No need,” said Frank again and closed his eyes.
“Need,” said Garth.
Frank drifted off to sleep.
Jane came to see him later in the day with the news that she had picked up their tools. She also brought peas from St. Leon Gardens.
“It’s almost the last of them,” she said. “But they’re still good.”
She knew how he felt about fresh peas.
“Everything seems to be intact, tool-wise,” she said. “I can’t vouch for your stuff, but mine is all good.”
“Thanks, Jane. I hope they were nice to you down there.”
“Yeah, they were fine.”
She didn’t seem able to look him in the eye.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“I’m so sorry, Frank. About all this.”
She gestured to take in their surroundings and Frank realized that it was his heart attack that was causing her discomfort. Was she embarrassed by his feebleness, his oldness? Or maybe she was one of those people that couldn’t abide hospitals. There were a lot of those.
“I’m sorry too, Jane, especially about the Featherstone thing.”
“Don’t worry about that, Frank. Please don’t worry about that. He’s a dick and we’re well rid of him. I can concentrate on Mrs. Frobisher’s hallway until you’re better and then we’ll see what’s what.”
Sadie walked in.
“Here’s my beautiful girl,” said Frank.
“Hi, Sadie,” said Jane.
“Hey, Jane. Hey, Dad. Garth went to work this aft but he’s going to come by on his way home.”
“Good. I’ll need to speak to him about holding the fort.”
“Emma’s going to be here by tomorrow afternoon. The fort will be well held by the three of us.”
Frank reached out for his daughter’s hand.
“How are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m doing well. I’m sc
heduled for an angioplasty tomorrow morning and then I should be out of here in no time.”
The colour drained from Sadie’s face.
“What’s an angioplasty?”
“It’s when they clear your arteries by placing tiny balloons inside them and then blowing them up into slightly bigger balloons.”
“An operation,” Sadie said.
“Yes, but just a minor one. The balloons are stuck in with a catheter.”
“What’s a catheter?” Sadie’s eyes welled up.
“I don’t know, but it means that the operation doesn’t amount to much,” Frank said. “It’s not hugely invasive.”
Jane put her arm around Sadie and gave her a squeeze.
“My Aunt Leslie had an angioplasty last year,” she said. “It was a piece of cake.”
“Speaking of cake,” Sadie said, pulling herself together, “I brought some carrot cake. There’s enough for you to have some too, Jane.”
“Mmm,” said Jane. “I love carrot cake.”
“Sadie’s is the best in the world,” said Frank.
“I didn’t think to bring accoutrements,” Sadie said. “I’m going to head down to the cafeteria for forks and napkins and stuff.”
Her brief appearance seemed to have increased Jane’s comfort level somewhat.
“I ran into Chas Sampson at the Public Safety Building,” she said when Sadie had gone.
She spoke quietly, as there were many people milling about. Frank was still in the ICU awaiting a bed on a medical ward.
“The autopsy has been completed.”
“Man, that was fast. Did he tell you anything?”
“Yes, he certainly did. He couldn’t wait. I think Chas is pretty excited about the whole thing.”
Frank smiled. “More likely he’s excited about you.”
Jane blushed, as he knew she would.
“Anyway, the cause of death was inconclusive and an identification has yet to be made but there are some interesting facts that came out of it.”
“Go on.”
“The girl, and she is indeed a girl, was about fifteen years old and she had Down Syndrome, something they figured out from the shape of her skull. Also, because her pelvis was intact, they were able to deduce that she had given birth.
Frank gave a low whistle.
“A fifteen-year-old girl with Down Syndrome who’d had a baby. That’s no good at all. This girl was in trouble long before she was boarded up in a wall.”
“Yeah.”
Frank knew that Mrs. Mortimer was a little off kilter, but he also knew what Down Syndrome looked like. The girl in the wall was someone else.
“They’re going to do further tests to try to find out the cause of death,” said Jane.
“I wonder what became of the baby,” Frank said.
“Who knows?”
“I wonder if Jim Coulthard was the father of the baby.”
“Who knows?”
“Have they confirmed how long she had been there,” Frank asked, “how long she’s been dead?”
“No. Again, they’re going to run more tests. And concentrate some on the nightgown — its origin and so on.
“With nothing to compare her DNA to it’ll be hard to figure out who she is,” Jane went on.
“Unless we find the baby.”
“That would be very hard to do, even if we knew when it was born.”
“I’m thinking 1970,” said Frank. “’69 or ’70. It could have been even earlier, I guess. The girl had probably been of child-bearing age for at least a couple of years.”
“You’re assuming the photograph is pointing the way.”
“Yes, I am. I don’t know who those people are in the photo, if they’re connected in any way to our girl, but it tells us who put her in the wall and when. It’s possible that Jim Coulthard had a need to leave a clue. He disappeared to avoid trouble, but he was unable to leave it totally hanging. He wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, as my mum used to say, and he was probably in a hurry, but he left us a clue. He was a show-off. He wanted credit.”
“Hmm,” said Jane.
“Pea?” She held out the plastic bag.
Frank took one and ate it like someone who ate peas professionally. One swift movement of his thumb and the pod was empty, the peas inside his mouth and gone.
“You’re right,” he said. “They are still good.”
He ate another and then another.
“The baby would be easier to find if it was dead,” said Jane.
Frank’s forehead crinkled.
“I don’t want it to be dead, Frank. I’m just saying. Death records for most likely a two-year or less period would be easier to peruse than the whole world in search of a thirty-six-year-old.”
“If it lived, chances are good it was given away.”
“Or worse, when you consider what happened to its mother,” said Jane.
“Whose mother?” It was Sadie back with supplies.
“No one’s,” said Frank.
They all ate cake.
Sadie and Jane departed together with promises of returning soon. He asked to speak to each of them individually before they left. With Garth being at work, he wanted to make sure that Sadie would be okay on her own during the day till Emma arrived.
“Of course I will,” said Sadie. “Tomorrow is very soon, Dad.”
Tomorrow! Emma was coming tomorrow!
With Jane he had one request: please wait for me before you go to see Mrs. Beresford again.
“Of course, Frank! What do you think?”
“Thanks, Jane.”
“Sadie and I are going to the Red Top for a bite to eat.”
“That’s fantastic,” Frank said and his eyes closed. He was very, very tired.
36
“The nightie that the girl was wearing was from Eaton’s,” said Jane.
“Great,” said Frank. “I’m sure that will help us immeasurably.”
They were in Frank’s living room. He was home from the hospital, propped up on the couch with pillows behind him. Jane was in an easy chair. They were drinking tea that Emma had prepared for them.
All three kids were in the kitchen making preparations for a welcome home barbecue for their dad. Even though Emma had been home for a few days, Garth and Sadie were still grilling her about her life in Hawaii.
“Have you gone surfing yet? Are you going to?”
“Do people live on the beaches?”
“Have you seen anyone famous?”
“Is it as beautiful as it looks in pictures?”
“Do girl sunbathe with no top on?” That last question from Garth.
“What?” asked Emma.
“Garth often leaves the esses off the ends of his words,” Sadie explained. “Are you going to live there forever? Can I come and visit you?”
“Of course you can,” said Emma.
Frank was beaming.
Jane smiled back at him.
“It must be good to have her home,” she said.
“Yes,” Frank said, wishing he could keep all three of them in the kitchen forever.
“Anyway,” Jane said, “other than the nightie, they’re no further along. I spoke to Chas this morning.”
Frank wanted to ask Jane who called whom, but he held back.
“Let’s give her a name,” he said. “I don’t like calling her the girl in the wall and other things like that.”
“Rilla,” said Jane.
“Rilla?”
“Yeah. She’s one of Anne of Green Gables’ kids, her youngest daughter. That’s what I’ve been calling her to myself all along.”
“Rilla of Ingleside,” Emma called out from the kitchen.
“That’s her!” said Jane.
“I like it,” Frank said. “Rilla.”
“Why do they have to call unidentified females Jane Doe?” Jane asked.
“I’m not sure. I guess someone just came up with a fairly simple name without too many syllables.”
&nbs
p; “I have a simple name that is the same as countless sad cases all over the English-speaking world who have no one to claim them. You’d think my parents could have tried a little harder.”
“They probably just liked the name Jane and didn’t think too much past that.”
“One of my grandmas was called Jane.”
“Well, there you are then.”
“They should have thought it through better.”
“Well, I guess you could take it up with them now if you think it would help.”
“I just might.”
They drank their tea and munched on Emma’s chocolate chip cookies. She was almost as good a baker as Sadie.
“How would you feel about going and visiting Mrs. Beresford again?” Frank said.
“I thought you’d never ask,” said Jane. “I’ll drive. I brought my car.”
“We can walk,” Frank said. “I’m up to it, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I’m sure you are, Frank, but it might be hard work talking to her and you’ll need all your strength for that.”
It was very important to Frank that Jane not think he wasn’t up to anything that required physical stamina. But he let her have her way. He could walk tomorrow. He could walk all the way into next week once he got home from dealing with Mrs. Beresford again. He had to admit he felt a little weary just thinking about it.
“Thanks for the tea, Emma,” he called out. “Jane and I are going out for a little while.”
Emma came around the corner with a dish towel over her shoulder and two hands full of ground beef.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“Out,” Frank said, grinning from ear to ear.
“We’re going for a little drive,” said Jane. “I’ll have him back within the hour, Emma. I promise.”
Emma kissed her dad, dropping a lump of meat on the floor.
“Be careful,” she said.
“You too,” said Frank.
“Will you come back and have burgers with us, Jane?” Emma called after them.
“I’d love to, Emma. Thanks.”
“We’re having other stuff too, including cake.”
“Great! I’ll be here.”
Jane drove her 1990 Honda down Lyndale Drive and parked at the end of Lloyd.
The Girl in the Wall Page 18