“Did you find the money?” Constable Delano asked.
“No — the Donnerels must have it,” Sergeant Fine said. “But we will find it, I suppose.” He said “I suppose” in a way which meant he believed that the case was well on the way to being solved, and he arched up on his toes, and had another drink from the cup.
John Delano’s eyes gave a slight discernible start in the mild end-of-summer air. And his eyes suggested this: They are upon a course of least resistance — everything could he proven, the case closed. If I mention any doubt about the Donnerels’ involvement, it will start another course that might lead nowhere.
But Constable Delano had written in his notes: “Imprint of money on victim’s skin.”
At the Smith residence, yellow ribbons crossed the path behind the store and up to the patio door. Dora had been outside once, to shut off the gas pumps. Then she had gone back and spoken in a grave tone to her husband, who didn’t seem to understand what was happening. He sat in the far room, at the back of the house, within view of Karrie’s bird feeder.
When the police had first notified him of his daughter’s death, saying there was indication that the motive was robbery, he nodded his head. “The thieves found us out,” he said. “They were watching us.”
Constable Matchett asked what he meant.
“We had a little tin box with some money,” Dora said.
“Yes, we found the box — how much was in it?”
“It’s what we donate every year to the Salvation Army,” Dora said quickly.
“And how much is that?”
Dora’s face turned crimson. She did not know how much money the police might have found. She looked sternly at her husband, who had turned in his seat to look at her.
“It wasn’t much,” she said, quickly picking up a shawl that Karrie used to put over her shoulders and folding it exactly as it had been folded, then impulsively throwing it.
“Over two hundred dollars?”
“It was a large amount,” Emmett said, shaking his head.
“But what do you mean — large amount?”
“He means a few hundred dollars — we donate it — but not always to the Salvation Army — sometimes to the Children’s Stocking Fund — here and there, you know, anonymously,” Dora said. “I like helping people.”
“Did anyone know you had this money?”
“No one — besides Karrie,” Dora said.
Emmett remembered laughing at a story Karrie had told at supper the night before. But already the body was at the morgue, and was soon to be transferred to Saint John for the autopsy. And realizing this, and seeing birds fly down to the bird feeder, he burst into tears.
“Vincent killed her,” Dora said suddenly. “Vincent and Tommie — the bastards — they said they were going to — all summer long they bothered us, didn’t they, Emmett — didn’t they!”
“Yes, they did,” Emmett shouted, convinced absolutely that he had heard them both.
Outside, cars slowed down and people looked in as they passed the house. It gave Dora a grand feeling, especially since she always felt superior to the Donnerels. Especially since it was realized, and mentioned by everyone, that she had donated money.
Constable Delano had what he felt was the unpleasant task of interviewing Michael Skid.
Michael came to the office, early on September 11. The day was bright and windy, and sunlight flooded the room. The tree-tops and the hedges waved, Michael’s eyes were watering, from the walk, and his face was red. He seemed sure of himself. He was smoking a cigarette and offered John Delano one. Delano felt a profound disrespect coming from Michael’s gaze. Delano looked through his notes and turned sideways in the swivel chair.
“Well, this has been a hell of a thing,” Delano said.
“Hell of a thing,” Michael said.
“There was no indication of this, was there? I mean, did she mention to you that Vincent was harassing her? When was the last time you saw Karrie? She was — a friend?”
Michael cleared his throat, “A friend — yes — a good friend — a few days before the murder — “
“Did she say there was any trouble?”
“Trouble? No — well, she said that Tom hit her.”
“She did say that — “
“Yes.”
“And where did you see her — that last time?”
“On the path.”
“On the path — where the murder took place. By accident, or you meet her there?”
“I met her there — “
“So you were good friends — “
“Friends, yes — well, she confided in me —” “In you — really? About what?”
Michael rubbed his right hand across his face and tried to think.
“I was at Laura McNair’s the night of the murder, I don’t actually know what happened —” He looked up. Delano went back to his notes.
“Of course — but you were her friend — she confided in you. So Tom might have been jealous of you. You were going away with her?”
Michael paused and lit a cigarette once again, in the small bright office.
“Who told you that?”
Delano looked through his notes, flipped back four pages and looked up.
“Dora Smith — ‘Michael and she were going away — so Tom had Vincent...’” He looked up.
“Oh — well we talked about that, you know, just to stop Tom from beating her. Who told you, Dora Smith?”
“Who is Professor Becker — a friend of yours at unb?”
“Well, I studied under him —”
“And you went to see him?”
“Oh — no — when?”
Again Delano paused, perplexed, looked through his notes. He glanced at Michael. Michael seemed angry, flustered.
“Well, you went to Fredericton and saw a Professor Becker — that’s according to Emmett Smith: ‘My Karrie wanted to go to university and Michael had spoken about her to Professor Becker last week, and now that’s all ruined —’”
“Oh — Karrie is confused — I didn’t really go over to speak to him — it’s just — I ran into him —”
“In Fredericton —”
“Yes.”
“Yet Karrie was confused.”
“Pardon?”
“In Fredericton?”
“Pardon? Oh yes — in Fredericton.” “In his office —”
Michael’s cigarette was hot as he dragged on it, and he looked at the half-closed Venetian blinds where sunlight splashed through.
“Well, we went to his office —”
“We?”
“Silver was with me.” “Silver Brassaurd?” “Yes — just for a drive.”
“All the way to Fredericton?” Delano smiled. “With Silver Brassaurd?”
“Yes — why not?”
“But it was to see if Karrie could enroll in a course — and go to university — this is what she tells Dora and Emmett on September 7.”
“Well — in a way — yes,” Michael said, blushing.
“Well, that was kind of you.” There was a long pause, perhaps a half a minute. “She went with you on the sailboat — where did you go, to P.E.I. one time?”
“We never went to P.E.I. — to Portage — Island once —”
Michael felt he was being forced into a position of protecting Karrie’s lies to her parents about university. He halted and looked at Delano.
“I was hoping she would go to university, you know — I thought she had — so much to offer —”
“So that was on her birthday — and you proposed to her —”
“Proposed?”
“On the sailboat — “
“Who? It wasn’t a proposal — friends go on a sailboat — so, you know, friends — don’t you have any female friends — as friends’“
“So there was no trip to P.E.I.?”
Michael looked about the office.
“I tried to be her friend,” he said, shaking his head, and looking deeply hurt.<
br />
“Of course — so there was no sexual intercourse? You weren’t her friend in that way”
“Well — we knew each other — on a sailboat, you know, you see each other — “
“But there was no sexual intercourse?”
“I was very fond of her — I tried my best to protect her — I thought — you know, if she could just be her own person, what a wonderful person she might be. But why can’t the police protect someone like this — why was it up to me?”
There was another long pause. Then Delano, taking a sip of coffee, while still looking at his notes, continued.
“Do you know why she was carrying money? Or who she might have been carrying money for? It wasn’t for you — this money?”
“No — of course not.”
“You didn’t owe any money on P.E.I.?”
“Why do you keep mentioning Prince Edward Island?”
“The coast guard towed you — one night. Karrie told Dora she went with you to P.E.I.”
Here Michael laughed. “No — we never really got there — the old Renegade — “
“You didn’t owe any money to Professor Becker for something — a course for Karrie perhaps?”
“Of course not. Things aren’t done that way”
“Did you ever see a tin box at the Smiths’?”
“What tin box?”
“You are not in any debt?”
“No.”
“And you know of no bad drugs sold late August in REX?” “No, of course not,” Michael said, his voice a whisper.
TWO
For a few days Tom and his brother existed in limbo, where nothing was expected of them, and nothing could be done for them. They stayed in the house, which suddenly looked unnatural, with its built-on extra room for Vincent. The little dog stayed outside. The farrier did not come back But the police were there, taking photos. Twice he had asked them if they’d found the diamond ring he had given to Karrie, and twice they brushed him aside, saying they were looking into it.
The days went on and each day the trees suspended in autumn dew changed colour slightly
Sometimes everything was extremely lighthearted with Tom and the police officers, and then a police officer would get a call, and come back into the house and address him.
“Vincent’s fingerprints are all over Karrie — his footprints are near the murder scene — his prints are on the tin box, he had a bloodied one-hundred-dollar bill in his pocket. Vincent carried her back and laid her in your barn and went to some trouble to try to hide the crime.”
Tom wouldn’t answer.
“The police will find the man,” Vincent kept saying. He said he was going to become a policeman and find the man. He asked Tom to telephone the police station every other hour to ask them if they had found the man.
They sat in the house together, both of them dressed to go to the funeral, as the hearse passed on the road beneath them and turned into the church lane, with its soft gracious trees in the bright sunshine.
“Karrie loved a day like this,” Tom said to Constable Matchett, but she looked at him and frowned just slightly, as if for some reason he wasn’t allowed to express devotion now. As the day wore on, as the moments passed on the small grandfather clock and sunlight flitted over the small dining-room table, Tom felt more and more as if he had caused everything.
“Karrie loved a day like this, boys,” Vincent said, nodding at Tom. And that in itself was excruciating to hear.
Line after line of cars passed their front field behind the hearse.
Tom couldn’t bear to look. An rcmp constable was taking pictures of the barn once again, and of the oak tree where the tin box was found. The area had been taped off and Tom had to ask permission to leave the house.
He had asked the police permission to go to the funeral that morning, and the last car had turned onto the church lane before anyone seemed to remember this.
There was a shuffle at the door and Constable Delano and Constable Matchett came in. Constable Matchett was looking at some papers in her hand, and leaned against the counter in an easy, callow fashion, her gun on her left side, as if those who owned the house had no right to expect her to stand on ceremony any more.
Constable Delano approached Tom. He advised him quietly not to go to the funeral.
“Why?”
“It’s just safer for you,” Constable Delano said.
Vincent sat with his photo album on his lap and stared at it, tears streaming down his face. He stared at the picture of him and Tom and Karrie at the picnic. He remembered they had been working in the stall that housed the game of rings, and Everette Hutch, who always tormented Vincent, put a ring on his head, and Tom said: “If you ever touch my brother — I’ll kill you.”
Then Everette and Tom fought, and toppled the rings; both of them were identical in stature and size, except Mr. Hutch (as Vincent called him) had a scar. Both threw some good punches. But Tom got in the best punch, a hard right uppercut. Then some of the men broke it up.
Later they had the picture taken, and Karrie stood between them. She put her arms around both of them, leaned forward and said: “Here I am between me two men.”
And Tom, with a cut lip, said it was still a nice day to have a picnic. Vincent had waited all week and had bothered Tom all that morning about the picnic.
Now, today, with the same childlike insistence, every five or ten minutes Vincent would ask Tom if they had caught the man. The wind blew against their farmhouse in the middle of nowhere.
Vincent said he was going to take the picture of Karrie down to the funeral. But they stopped him, so he did what he had always done: he asked Tom to help him. Just as he had asked Tom to tie his shoes every Sunday morning before they went off to church.
“Vincent, they don’t want to hurt you — Vincent, they don’t want to hurt you,” Tom kept saying.
Later, Vincent sat in his room, smoking his pipe. Tom came in and, sitting on the edge of the bed, he looked at him. At times in his idiocy, Vincent took a stubborn, implacable turn. Now he would say nothing. He only looked out the window as Tom spoke to him. The more Tom asked him about Karrie, the less Vincent would communicate.
“I don’t know — ya — okay — but I don’t remember,” was the only thing Vincent kept saying, puffing dramatically and stoically on his pipe.
“It is my fault, Vincent,” Tom finally said, staring at his brother’s immense shoulders and large hands. “It’s my fault. I drove you to it without even knowing — I caused it all.”
Karrie was buried in a grave near her mother close to the bay. Later, Emmett and Dora would have a fight over the stone.
More than four hundred people attended the funeral on September 14. Gail Hutch went, but left her little boy, Brian, at home, in the care of her brother Everette, who said he didn’t mind sitting at such a time. The men wore suits and ties; the ties, and Emmett’s salt-and-pepper hair, blew in the wind. Emmett was visibly weakened and crying. Michael, one of the pallbearers, looked tired, pale, and confused. Silver Brassaurd was one of the pallbearers also, and, like many working men, looked and moved unnaturally, almost robotically, in his suit. Often he was seen breaking down crying.
Dora followed them, standing beside the Skid family, looking immensely proud and unshaken.
THREE
Four days after the funeral the community was jarred by another event that gave people an unnatural feeling of regret, repentance, and culpability
The night they finally took Tom in to be interrogated, Vincent ran away from Constable Matchett and, holding on to Maxwell, he escaped into the woods. The little dog had one eye swollen shut because someone had come into the yard and booted it, and then that someone had run back along the fence so that Matchett couldn’t get a look at who it was.
Vincent had fed his gerbil, Snowflake, its supper and put on his jacket with the four big buttons. He had attempted to leave a note about going to visit his Aunt Libby. His main intention may have been to hide the dog fr
om people.
As soon as Vincent began to cross the brook he lost his balance and Maxwell fell over the falls, scampering here and there in a circle, its swollen eye unable to open, its two big front paws splashing the water in front of it.
Vincent jumped over the falls after the dog.
For two days men searched everywhere for him and found his dog, drowned, at the mouth of Derrick’s stream at nine o’clock the next Wednesday night.
Tom, thin and haggard-looking, was then taken to the Sheppardville Road to join in the search along Arron Brook.
Behind a windblow they found a boot. But for two more days there was no other sign.
And then Bobby and Joyce Taylor discovered the body lying half-hidden in the swirling water only thirty yards from where the dog had been found.
He had been dead four days. His jacket was still buttoned up. His pipe was gone.
Bobby remembered teasing Vincent once when he said he was sweet on Gail Hutch.
“I could protect her,” Vincent had said finally. “From Mr. Hutch.”
Bobby sat in the wet dirt on his knees, turning around at everyone: “No one will have to send him home now at ten o’clock” he said.
Arron Brook rushed on. And it rained all night.
The police, Constable Delano included, felt they had a weak case against Tom Donnerel. He went to Laura McNair at the prosecutor’s office with interviews and documents, and some pictures of Madonna Brassaurd found in Michael’s farmhouse. He said he did not know why these pictures were significant, but he had some faint “ongoing objection” to the direction they were taking in the case they were on. The interviews with both Michael and Silver made him feel this way as well.
“Why?” Laura said, glancing at the pictures and looking up at him, completely mystified.
“Perhaps it is this picture here” he said, shuffling through them and handing one to her. It showed Michael Skid on the verandah, leaning against the post, smiling, his long hair braided, a bandanna on his leg. In the corner, on a deck chair beyond the blue wooden table, was a small chocolate-coloured block of hash in tinfoil, and beyond that was Hutch’s Harley Sportster.
The Bay of Love and Sorrows Page 15