The Death of Donna Whalen

by Michael Winter

  Sheldon, on the phone, said that Paul Troke was being accused of something he didnt do, that it was somebody with long hair who done this. A lawyer would be contacting her. When she hung up she was wondering where he was. He concentrated entirely on his brother Paul’s involvement in a crime.

  As soon as she hung up there was a police officer came in off-duty. She told him all about it.

  THE

  MURDER

  SHARON WHALEN

  Mom said, Let go, no, Sheldon. And she was saying, Leave me alone, and a voice said, Be quiet Donna, be quiet.

  Someone who knew her mom’s name. Regular talking. Like she was in her dreams. It was not a loud whisper. Sheldon, when he got into an argument he was so loud that people out in the street could hear him. But everything was really quiet. Sharon thought her mom was having a dream, or Sheldon was up, ransacking the house. The fight sounded different. That night it sounded low and other times they were right loud.

  Who owned this other voice? Sheldon. I thought Sheldon was up in the house, so probably it was Sheldon.

  Sharon has a little clock. You can make it close and it’s small and you can put it in your purse or your pocket. It’s a digital clock that doesnt light up at night. She’s not sure if she saw 30 or two zeros. That bureau been there probably two or three days. She was able to look out into the living room through mirrors. The two bureaus, her old one and the new one that was her mom’s, were by each other. She could look out and see things.

  The police tried to line these mirrors up, any which way they could to see if they could see from the room out into the living room and they werent able to do it. Is this like a dream or did Sharon actually see things in the mirror? Could have been. The only big lot of noise she heard was the coffee table and the glass break. She didnt fool with her clock, trying to see what time it was, she just went back to sleep, because she thought nothing was wrong. She thought she saw lights going on and off. There’s a fan in the living room. It’s not the kind that hangs beneath lights. There’s a touch light. You have to touch it to make it go brighter and then touch it again to make it go dimmer. She thought her mom might have did it to herself. All the stuff going on, her life she thought it was dull and she thought that she was fat and everybody hated her.

  The night before, her mom was wearing tight blue jeans. Sometimes her mom would go in the bathroom and change her clothes and leave some of her dirty clothes on the floor and then come out and go to bed. Sheldon had a baseball top on, it was grey and he had a pair of jeans on. A red and black jacket. He must have come home on Thursday night after Sharon had gone to bed, because when she woke up on Friday morning he was there. At suppertime on Friday her mom was trying to talk to Sheldon but he was playing with Cory. She was saying Sheldon, I wants to tell you what I’m going to get before I goes to the wedding and he didnt answer her, and then she started to get contrary. She had a frown on her face and he said, What’s wrong Donna? And then she said, Youre not listening to me. And he said, Yes I am. I just won’t answer you. And she said, Well, I dont know. And they started getting into a big fight.

  CATHY FURNEAUX

  Since Raymond died Cathy slept on the sofa. So when Paul Troke wasnt there that bedroom was open. Her son, Robert, didnt even bother to go in there. Paul wasnt what you call paying any rent. He was only on social assistance hisself and he had his own apartment that they were paying for so the guy wasnt getting any money. If Paul was eating he’d buy bread. If Cathy was going to the supermarket he’d give her twenty-five dollars if he had it.

  This other apartment was around Bannerman Park. Cathy even held on the key one time for him. She was never inside of it. Paul said it was awful small, you can put your hands out and touch the walls.

  When she got home that night she had a conversation with Paul. He seemed fine to her. He was sat down in the rocking chair. If he was after smoking a draw she could tell. She had seven beer that night, that was tops. She knows if Paul had to come in that front room she would have woke up. Because Paul is a real klutz.

  She never hauled the blankets off him. He had the blankets hauled up. Paul always slept like that. He was there probably naked because that’s the way he sleeps.

  She has a cordless phone that was on the coffee table. The phone was off. She had it turned off because if you leaves it on the battery will go down. That was just a routine. The phone in the front room rings and she picks up the cordless one. That’s how she answered the phone when Bertha called the next morning to tell her about Donna.

  ROBERT FURNEAUX

  That Friday night Paul came home around two and Robert’s mom came home shortly after. She locked the door and came up over the stairs and took her coat off and laid it in the kitchen where you puts your coat. Paul was sat in the rocking chair, Robert was on the couch. Him and Paul and Mom were talking and then she laid down on the couch and Robert got on the floor and Paul stayed in the rocking chair and he and Paul watched TV and she fell asleep. Then the two of them went to bed about a half-hour later. They went up over the stairs the same time.

  The door has one of those bolt locks on it. You need a key from the inside and the outside and it squeaks when you open up the door. You can hear it up on the top floor. You could jump out through the window. You’d probably break your legs. There was no fire escapes or nothing like that.

  Mom woke Robert up and told him Donna Whalen was dead.

  Usually Robert hangs out by Leo’s, just a couple of doors up from their house on the corner. He has no idea what time he got home other than some time before eleven because he was on probation.

  PAUL TROKE AND CATHY FURNEAUX WIRETAP

  Paul: They said me and your statements dont check out. They said that Mom’s a liar. They said that I wasnt home in bed and Sheldon wasnt home in bed and they can place me and Sheldon at the scene of the crime. They said to me that you went to bed first.

  Cathy: I said I was on the chesterfield.

  They said you went to bed first and we stayed up and watched TV.

  I said you and Robert were up. I was on the chesterfield.

  They fucking lied.

  They knew I didnt sleep in the bed.

  Me and Sheldon was just out there talking to Jim Lythgoe and he said they must have the DNA testing back and now theyre fucking down trying to fuck us around. Ches Hedderson said I’m a liar. Sheldon’s a liar. They got witnesses. I booted the fucking chair across the room. I jumped up. I said now look I got fuck all else to say to ye. Why dont ye fucking leave me alone. The DNA testing must have come back now because it’s a month now right.

  It takes six weeks.

  Jim Lythgoe said it should be.

  Well you know what’s wrong. The DNA test came back and everything came back on you and Sheldon all right and theyre just trying to hound ye. Because you know what it is, whatever animal that done that to Donna they can’t find the person so they just want someone to pin it on.

  He said Mom’s a liar. He said Sheldon wasnt home in bed and I wasnt home in bed.

  The truth is when I came home, you were sat in the rocking chair, Robert was on the couch, watching TV. I had a big bag of salt-andfucking-vinegar chips in me hand. I asked ye did you want some and I laid the bag of chips down on the side and I was awake for a while and then I laid on the chesterfield and you and Robert were watching TV and then the two of ye went up to bed.

  I’m not sure if I said I went to bed first or fucking you went to sleep first. I said when Cathy wants to go to sleep we turns the TV off and goes to bed which we do. And you know what else he said? He said ever since Donna got murdered you’ve been getting in nothing but trouble. I said fucking listen here, I’ve been in trouble all my fucking life. He said you’ve been taking pills and drinking booze ever since Donna died. Cathy, before Donna died I was into pills and drinking. Like holy fuck.

  Jesus Paul I know you always did the fucking pills.

  I was hiding it from Trisha but I was still in the fucking pills and the fucking dr
inking.

  There’s only once you gave up drinking, you and Joey Yetman had a bet and you gave up for a week and a half.

  And then he called Mom a liar and I booted the chair across the room. I’m fucking about to go crazy, boy.

  Dont listen to them. Look you knows in your own heart and soul youre innocent and Sheldon knows in his own heart and soul youre innocent and all of us knows youre innocent.

  He said to me youre going to get eight to ten years on this armed robbery. I said I’m only fucking on charges. I said I aint found fucking guilty yet.

  You dont know nothing. I mean if you knew anything.

  I told them. I was getting ready to cooperate with them, Cathy.

  That’s what I mean.

  I got nothing to hide. I was out there trying to help the two fucking bastards and then they called Mom a liar. Then he said your stories dont check. Fuck I was drunk, you were drunk. I dont know who went to bed fucking first.

  I wasnt drunk drunk.

  I know one thing, fucking I was home.

  I wasnt drunk drunk Paul when I came home.

  No you werent drunk but you had a buzz going.

  I had a buzz going.

  I wasnt drunk either. I had a buzz on just the same as yourself.

  BERTHA TROKE WIRETAP

  That’s the way they works it. If they go and tell Paul that you gave a statement and then they’ll go to you and say Paul is after rolling over on you, this is the way they works, Cathy. Anyways, as far as I’m concerned about police, I dont give a fuck if my phone is bugged, to be a policeman you got to be streetwise so they’d have to commit crimes theyselves. Or how could they become police, but they’ll fucking lie to you and everything else and I knows it because I went through the experience. When Ches Hedderson said to me over there how Sharon said Sheldon done it and I said Sharon also said Jacob Parrott done it and he got in my face about five times and said no she didnt and I said yes she did. I said because Donna’s mother told me and Donna’s mother did tell me.

  CATHY FURNEAUX AND IRIS TROKE WIRETAP

  Cathy: If they comes here any more I’m going to say no. I gave ye everything. Ye searched the house from top to bottom. They done it all to me and I dont want ye around here no more. I got a youngster to look after.

  Iris: I’m after looking at it from every angle and I knows in my heart Sheldon didnt do it. But every time I talks to Ruth Vivian she’s like—Cathy did you ever get this you can pick out something not being said? It’s like that woman almost knew. She knows something, Cathy. The last time I spoke to her she said Donna knew all that week something was going to happen to her.

  Cathy: What do they think, I’m fucking nuts or something. That I’ll actually let someone in my house that’d be after killing somebody and let them come in here and me be sitting down like nothing ever happened? Sure I’d be fucking frightened to death of the person myself. I mean theyre sick fucking people.

  BERTHA TROKE

  Bertha Troke didnt know anything about Donna going away until she overheard the conversation Sheldon had with Donna’s mother on the phone. Donna didnt know herself she was going away. Sheldon had sold his car and he gave her a hundred dollars to put towards her package. On Thursday before Donna died, Sheldon left to pick up his cheque because he wasnt working that day. Bertha saw him again that night around eight-thirty, him and Paul and Eugene Driscoll. They stayed at Bertha’s house and when they were leaving she told Sheldon he should stay home because he was going to work the next morning and he said he’d be home.

  The next time she heard from Sheldon it was eight on the Friday night and he phoned. Bertha was watching TV. Did she know that Joey Yetman’s girlfriend won the lotto? Bertha said no, the woman that won it her picture is in the paper, and Sheldon told her yes she did, they were halves, and he said well I’ll be home around ten oclock. He was calling from Donna’s.

  The man that lived next door was after taking off around six-thirty from the Waterford Hospital and his family were in a panic. He’s fifty-six years old but they were worried about him because he’s on heavy medication and they were looking for him, and Bertha told them she’d keep a watch out for him and if she heard anyone out into the house she’d let them know. So she was watching the cars coming up and down the road. Ten minutes after ten a car pulled up by the door out towards the curb. Bertha saw the headlights, she couldnt see the colour of the car. And where her husband Clayton was sitting he said that’s Sheldon, he could see him coming to the steps. She didnt know if it was Donna or Tom Vivian driving. Agnes Whalen told her the next morning that Donna drove him home. It was ten after ten because right by the window there’s a gold clock and that’s her chair. Nobody else sits there.

  Sheldon came in and walked to the door where that black thing is hanging over the living room door. He looked in and said what are ye doing and Bertha told him what was on. He took his coat off, hung it up in the hall and went out in the dining room to roll his cigarette. He got a glass of cream soda and came in. He sat on the end of the chesterfield, smoked the roll and drank his glass of cream soda. It’s very quiet there, there’s no children and there’s just Bertha and Clayton and when youre rolling them cigarettes with the cigarette roller you can hear it clicking.

  It was just about over by the time he got in, it started to come up on the screen the names, and Sheldon passed the remark that Lee Harvey Oswald was framed, and got up with the glass and he walked out and put the glass on the cupboard and as he passed the door to go upstairs he said good night. Bertha said are you going to work tomorrow. Now the only reason why she asked him was he didnt always work on Saturdays, and if it had to be any night of the week she wouldnt have asked him. So he continued on and went upstairs. It was close to ten-thirty so there was another story came on and Bertha and Clayton watched that, that was over at twelve-thirty. She went out and started to make Sheldon’s lunch and Clayton was still looking at TV. She made the lunch and put it in the refrigerator, and she had his thermos bottle rinsed and took the cover and laid it on the cupboard, took the frying pan out and laid his eggs in it for the next morning. Clayton was after going upstairs ahead of her. It would have been one oclock because Clayton watches Are You Being Served? and she’s sure he wouldnt have left until it was over because he loves looking at that.

  He was up there ahead of her because when she made the lunch she had to turn off the lights and make sure the door was locked.

  Sheldon’s bedroom. Outside the door it shows where this mat is at the top of the stairs and the washroom and you can see the hamper in Sheldon’s bedroom and part of the bed. His bedroom door it could be closed if you had to take the carpet square and fold it back but you couldnt close the door because it wouldnt go over the carpet, you’d have to move the carpet back.

  Clayton and Bertha sleep in the same room. That’s Bertha’s bedroom, her phone and clock, her lamp and teddy bear. That clock, the hands are a sort of lime and it lights up in the nighttime. Do you want to take a loan of it for a night?

  When she got to the top of the stairs Sheldon was snoring his head off. There was no light on in his room. There’s a white sheer up to the window and it’s a long window and it’s bright. You could almost go and take a bath without a light on because it was two poles on the outside close to the house. The walls are white, the bedspread is white, the bed is white, the sheer is white.

  Bertha got up during the night. Because this complaint that she has you get a feeling that you can’t hold, it’s not worth going for but still you got to go. It’s a common thing with a woman with a large family. The first time she went it was around twenty-five after two. She saw Sheldon in bed and heard him snoring. If he had to have the bedroom door closed she still would have heard him snoring but she wouldnt have been able to see him. The bedroom door wasnt closed. She even told Sheldon that he could close it and how to hoist up the carpet. He said no he didnt need it closed. Not that night but before that.

  At three-forty-five Sheldon was in bed.
The next time she got up she went downstairs and it was twenty-five after five by her clock but it was six oclock by the clock downstairs. He was still in bed. This clock she got is always losing time.

  At six she felt a bit hungry. She got to explain this sickness. This sickness is not something that you can’t eat or anything, it’s an aggravating feeling. She got a bowl of Special K. After that she went back to bed and started feeling tired because she was awake off and on.But that’s every night for her, that wasnt just that night. That’s been going on for years. She got records to prove that.

  Now throughout the night it really wasnt sleep, or what she calls sleep is like catnaps. She goes to sleep and wakes up because they have the scanner on too and she listened to that because it was a Friday night and Paul was downtown. She wanted to know where he was at downtown and the scanner lets her know.

  Bertha’s been getting very little sleep for the past six or seven years. She’s under the care of a psychiatrist and this is one of her problems. She dont sleep. She can get her files. She’s on the go all night long. She had a few pills left over when she got them from the doctor and she took them. She normally gets up at two oclock in the morning and moves her furniture around and not go to bed at all. A few minutes’ sleep is good enough.

  You dont get a telegram saying youre going to get like this. This is just something comes over you. Youre not a woman, youre not after having a big family so you got no idea what way this strikes you. Bertha knows what way it strikes her. She’s had it over twenty-seven years and it’s quite common in a woman after having children. You dont get no warning. It’s not something that’s going to kill you or youre going to die from it. It’s quite tormenting and you didnt have no children so you dont know what youre talking about there. You’ll have to talk to a doctor.