Missing Chldren

by Gerald Lynch

  “Who knows why you, Lorne Thorpe. Or why any of it, really. You know as much as I do, or almost. You stepped into it when you joined that Troutstream Community Association. Like I said before, you walked into Alice’s life at the right time, or the wrong time, as she must’ve been stressed to the point of cracking by then, if she’d not already cracked. You had gift horse written all over you: the middle-aged white man of power, ideal opportunity for her mad revenge. Then, in her eyes, you became part of the TCA crew cheating Bob of the money owed him, and she and Bob had to have that money. She’d been working only as a crossing guard and as the school-bus assistant, minimum wage for few hours. She volunteered a lot of time to local children’s agencies and charities and was always in hock for promised donations, including to all those places she’d brought to the children’s history fair. So money again. She needed the money Bob Browne had been promised by your TCA. She needed money to give to charity.”

  He paused and shook his head. Proceeded: “So Alice decided in her warped way to teach you and the TCA a lesson, but especially you, Dr. Lorne Thorpe, by taking Shawn and the other children. On top of that, you probably made her jealous, because you and Bob became friends. He was her great love since childhood, as those sick videos showed us. She went crazy over time — I think we know why — and Bob loved her to the end, as you told her up there on the shit diving board. Some love story. Think again, Lorne, what were Bob’s last words? Willie Pep? The boxer?”

  “Of course. Little Pep. Save the children. Save Little Pepper.”

  “She’d lost it, whatever of it she had left by then. I mean, she even turned against Bob. Maybe it was her jealousy of Bob’s friendship with you inspired her to use jealousy with the Slasher against Bob. But I won’t lie to you. It also happened to you because you are you, Dr. Lorne Thorpe. You rubbed her the wrong way, like you rub a lot of people the wrong way. That’s why you. Really, though, we may as well ask, why not you?”

  “Wy Knots?”

  He chuckled. “Don’t be dumb-dumb, ask again!”

  In my sore head I zoomed back to beginnings. “Alice fits the physical profile of the man with the dog at the museum. But how did she know Shawn and I would be at the Museum of Science and Technology last Sunday?”

  “You must have told her.”

  “No.”

  “Who else knew?”

  “Veronica, Owen …”

  “You told Bob Browne?”

  “No, I’d not seen Bob — Wait, I’d complained to Foster in a text Saturday night, because he’d had my Caddy since Friday, about having to drive Veronica’s car to the museum next day.”

  “That’s it then. Foster could have mentioned it to Debbie — his first friend of a friend — who was always at CHEO with one of her kids, as you know. That was the routine: Foster calls Debbie, who contacts Alice Pepper-Pottersfield with a request for Alice’s special friend, Bob Browne, to visit a problem child at CHEO. All done anonymously, and Debbie must never have been allowed to meet him at CHEO, so she couldn’t match him to the Bob Browne you brought in to do the playground work. Or Foster could have mentioned it to Bob himself, jealously making fun of your fixation on your Caddy, since you and Bob were already friends by then.”

  “Alice set Bob on me, told him to make my acquaintance, become my friend, and to say that he needed work badly. She prepped him and counted on me getting him for the playground job to solve their money problems.”

  “Most likely. But Alice didn’t need Debbie and Foster and Bob to know what you were up to, Lorne. Soon as you walked into that first meeting of the TCA, she knew everything about you. She already knew how to manipulate men like you, like us. Call it a gift or a curse. She’d learned it the hardest way.

  “I’ve done some more checking, talked with all your TCA friends again. Debbie is still scared shitless of Alice Pepper-Pottersfield. How could you have sat through recent TCA meetings and not noticed that, Dr. Sherlock? Frank Baumhauser, too, and the Lewises, they were all scared to death of her, did what she told them to do, believed what she told them to believe. Not at first, but I suspect that not long after you joined, all she had to do was raise an eyebrow and the rest kowtowed. It probably began with that children’s history fair. Baumhauser claims she’d been working on him for weeks. All you’ve gotta do is say Alice to any of your committee friends and it’s like saying boo from behind — even now when she’s dead!”

  I squirmed. “Did you ever find out where they came from?”

  “The info was still in their phones and a server’s cloud site. Alice and Bob showed up in Ottawa about a year ago. They’d been activists in Germany for a couple of years. Alice went to a G20 summit in London to protest child-labour sweatshops and joined a group there, or took it over actually. They were apart for a few months, then she emailed Bob in Munich that she was moving to Ottawa because the Canadian prime minister had promised to make child poverty a priority.”

  “Oh, yeah? Whatever happened to that promise?”

  “Same as all the other bullshit you hear in Ottawa, fresh and fuming only until the next election’s over.”

  I sipped and thought. “Okay, say a lot of it was my bad luck, even just me being me and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I can accept that. But why did Bob Browne survive it all and Alice didn’t?”

  “Bob survived?”

  I took another drink. “How come, after the exact same childhoods, Alice goes psycho and Bob turns out…well, weird, sure, but such a great guy too? And more than that, his own little miracle worker?”

  He steepled his fingers again, placed them over his nose and spoke between his hands, like someone megaphoning quietly: “That’s a mystery, Lorne, bottomless, one that no Dr. Sherlock is ever going to explain and tie up neatly in some lousy movie’s reveal scene. Maybe the difference between Alice and Bob was in their infancies, from their parents, the quality or quantity of their mothers’ love, say. But going from what we do know so far of their identically perverse childhoods — Little Pepper’s and King Robbie’s — I’d have to say that earlier upbringing can’t account for the big difference either, or not alone. For some reason — say, as a toddler, Alice saw a cat kill a bird, something that insignificant — Alice turned inward. Then she was horribly abused and filled with self-loathing. Alice disappeared, got lost inside somewhere, and a number of other Alices — more powerful, in control of things — got pushed out onto life’s stage. Nowadays that’s pretty well textbook multiple-personality disorder.”

  I extended his line of thought: “And Bob — who could have witnessed the very same cat kill the same bird — became altruistic, with Alice as his chief charge, his responsibility, and the love of his life. Still, you’re right, that hardly explains the gigantic difference between them.”

  He blew air. “No, it doesn’t. Maybe it’s just testament to the value of teaching and learning and practising — believing in the Golden Rule. But like I said, these are not questions we two dumb-dumbs are going to answer. We’ll just have to live in some bafflement. You need to rest up and I really better call Veronica.”

  “Tell no one else I’m awake.”

  “Gotcha.”

  He was at the door when he turned back with a drawled, “Oh, yeah …” Looking uncharacteristically sheepish, he returned to bedside, undid the top button of his polo shirt and lifted a necklace over his ginger knob. “A little get-well gift.”

  With some effort I moved and rotated my hand, and he placed the Jew’s harp in my palm. Blankly I stared.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, “it’s been cleaned.”

  “Too bad.”

  My inability to continue made him nervous. “You also might like to know that I arranged for Bob and Alice to be buried side-by-side.”

  “Good.” I plucked the trigger with my forefinger. It made a barely audible tone, a forlorn note. My eyelids weighed on me. “Aren’t you messin
g with evidence here, Detective Beldon? I mean, this was a murder weapon.”

  Fading fast I just caught what he said.

  “Some prized evidence, I had a helluva time locating it. The murderer himself is dead and so’s his accomplice. Who are they gonna prosecute? But better keep it under cover all the same or I’ll get…busted back to…Missing Persons.”

  I held it under the covers, squeezing till its point dug into my flesh. Self-surgery. What hurts can heal, what heals can… And sank deeply into welcome, dreamless sleep.

  When I next awoke, Veronica and Shawn were waiting by the bed. Veronica leaned down and kissed my desiccated lips.

  She smiled an old smile and said, “How are you feeling, dear?”

  “Much better now.”

  I raised myself up on my elbows and was soon fairly propped on pillows by the nervously bustling two of them. One of the tubes was gone and I fingered the other. “Do I still need this?”

  She looked towards the door, where Art Foster had quietly been standing. He came to the other side of the bed.

  “No, you don’t need that. You can finish the course of antibiotics orally at home — the whole course, Doctor. Keep sipping this water, though, you need the glucose and electrolytes. Eat a banana when you get home.”

  As he was removing the IV and dabbing the puncture, he whispered, “Lorne, I can’t tell you how sorry I am about all this.” He kept his head bent overlong to the simple task of applying a Band-Aid.

  I whispered, “Don’t worry yourself on my account, Art. If you need my forgiveness, you’re forgiven. But you don’t need it. How come you’re not suspended?”

  Straightening, he grinned, and I recognized my devious old friend from long ago and far away. “I may be yet. I’ve been legally cleared, but the board’s still contemplating some form of reprimand for moral turpitude.” He turned to leave.

  “Art, I want to testify for you.”

  “Thanks, old buddy.” He was already at the door.

  “Art, what’s happening with the Caddy?”

  He glanced first at Veronica and Shawn, then quizzically at me. “I don’t know. It’s no longer impounded, thanks to Detective Beldon, if that’s what you mean. I’ll see about getting it, uh, fixed up and returned pronto.”

  “It’s yours.”

  He startled. “Mine? I don’t… What would I do with…? Besides, well …” He briefly shifted his eyes to Shawn.

  “Will you do me a favour then? Arrange to have it sold and the money donated to the Children’s Wish Foundation.”

  “With pleasure. It should fetch a price.” And he was gone.

  I looked at Veronica. “Who made Art my doctor?”

  She put her arm around Shawn’s waist and brought her close to the bed. “He did. He took right over. He’s broken a ton of rules to get you in here and protected from everyone.”

  We were making strange. It was in the stiffer way she held her head, the lack of eye contact, the tone echoing her Jake-voice, the way she was positioning Shawn. Hollowness bubbled in my chest, a nudging panic.

  She moved behind the uncharacteristically shy Shawn. “Shawn and I have made a deal that she’s going to visit with you alone first. I’ll be back.” She held Shawn’s shoulders and smiled around our growing daughter. “Are you sure you’re strong enough for this now?”

  “I am.”

  Without a backward glance, she left.

  I felt pain when Shawn hopped up and perched on the edge of the high bed, but I smiled. She leaned across me — ouch — and touched the Band-Aid.

  “Are you really all better, Dad?”

  “I am, sweetheart, better than ever.”

  And without further preliminary she just lay easily on my chest and cried and cried like the world could never get enough of her tears. I stroked her dandelion head and waited. Hurting like hell. I never felt better.

  She sucked it up, but didn’t sit up. “It’s all my fault. I don’t care what Mom says. If I’d never gone with that crazy Alice and the dog she stole, none of this ever would have happened. But right away when I came out with the water for the dog she told me she liked playing dress-up as a man and started talking about knowing Wy and how she would bring me to him for helping with the dog. I shoulda told you and Mom and Detective Beldon the truth. If I’d not made that Alice mad down by the stream, she wouldn’t have gone to the sewage building and be dead and you’d not have been nearly killed!”

  “It’s not your fault, Shawn. Your mom’s right and I think you’re old enough to know that.”

  “Sure… Then whose fault is it?”

  “Don’t be dumb-dumb, ask again?”

  Lovely laughter before she asked, “Was it Bob Browne’s fault?” She sat back and looked at me as directly as any adult.

  “Sweetheart, it was Bob’s fault, but not much. My fault and Dr. Foster’s fault too, and a lot of other people’s fault, including you a little. Do you remember what I said to you down by the bus?”

  She reflected. “You said she was mental because grown-ups sexually abused her when she was a little girl. And I’ll bet because nobody loved her enough, either.”

  “Smart girl, you.”

  “How can you love anything if nobody ever loved you enough? It’s like what Wy says about all animals.”

  God bless Wy. “But still, even after all her pain and suffering, Miss Pepper-Pottersfield did love someone and very much — Bob Browne.”

  She made her scrunched face: “Hmm… I guess I can see that. I’m glad.”

  I rewarded myself with a hit of the sweet warm water.

  She grinned mischievously: “I’ll bet you didn’t know I saw you last Tuesday!”

  “What?” I steadied myself. “But how could that be?”

  “I got Miss Pepper-Pottersfield to drive the school bus past our house. She made it like a game and got all disguised like a man in sunglasses and a cap and I crouched down behind her. It was real fun, you looked like you were kneeling in the driveway beside Jake and washing his legs! I said that to her and we laughed and laughed and, well, like, hmm… I guess she was okay too sometimes. She let me out later by the community centre. She drove the bus right in and I just walked home.”

  “You know, I actually remember that bus, and I’m glad it wasn’t all bad for you and Miss Pepper-Pottersfield. But how’re all the other kids from the bus?”

  She couldn’t get it out fast enough: “Mrs. Kilborn’s home again and she’s trying to organize the parents to sue everybody and she’s suing the school board because Jake was left out of our adventure, she keeps calling it! Can you be-lieve it! But we’re all okay. A lot of us met in the busted-up playground yesterday, after we heard you were going to be all right, I mean. Anyways, we started a club and all the other kids who missed out are so jealous. And we got the grief people to get us some time off school for secret meetings in the playground and Jake’s mom told Mrs. Carswell her lawyer friend says Pete had better shut up saying he’s all right —”

  “All right, you two, break it up. My turn.”

  I could have listened to Shawn forever, or at least till I saw Veronica again. She came forward and Shawn said, “Oh, all right.” She stood away from the bed and grinned.

  “Well,” she continued, “I guess I have to leave you two old lovebirds alone now.” She passed behind her mother and backed out making mock-kissing noises. The door closed quietly.

  We laughed uneasily. We looked away. How could we be uneasy alone with one another? Yet there we were.

  I smirked. “Old lovebirds.”

  She looked at me and didn’t blink. “Well, are we?” She awkwardly sat on the edge of the high bed.

  “To tell you the truth, I don’t know why you put up with me. But I certainly hope Shawn’s right, that we are a pair of old lovers.”

  When I looked up she was just watching
me with those deep brown eyes that had been saving me from myself since we’d met. Saying nothing, she made me suppress a conniption of pain by collapsing lightly on my chest, resting her left cheek over my heart.

  It had been our first long walk to the beach at Mooney’s Bay, in early summer, our third date, the perfect evening of a wonderful day. We had rested together in this very pose on still-warm sand. She’d joked: Uh-oh, I don’t hear anything. My heart. I’d been about to tell her for the first time that I loved her. Instead I’d breathed deeply her tickling wind-freshened hair as her head lifted on my breathing in gentle waves…and let the moment extend comfortably, as I watched the stars prick infinite darkness with the eternal mystery of light. She’d actually fallen asleep. She snored. I’d fallen forever in love, for the first time. I was forty. A miracle. Yes.

  Now I broke the silence, whispering: “First I’m saved by my mother’s love, then by yours. There must be something wrong in that?”

  She eased up and sat back in a very controlled kind of way. “Not by my lights. You do your job, we do ours.”

  “You’re way better than me at multitasking.” I laughed weakly.

  I sensed her selecting her words, in the same way she examined a bin of Granny Smiths or remainders at a bookstore, with doubtful eyes and tongue tip just parting her lips.

  “I never went to be with Jack Kilborn, Lorne, sexually speaking. Nothing so exciting. Or desperate. It was Jake I worried about. But I did leave you for a while, I won’t lie.”

  She gazed at me in a way that made me feel lost. I must have looked a sight because she hurried, “It was all part of the craziness of this whole business.”

  Deal. Crazy would be our explanation then, same as Kevin explained mad Alice at bottom. As the poem has it (the one Veronica recited to me once over a campfire in Algonquin Park, with Owen sleeping in his car seat between us, and which instantly burned itself into my poor memory for such): When we are old and grey and full of sleep, and nodding by the fire…together we will remember these crazy days, this crazy story.