Fit to Die

by Joan Boswell

  I removed a single sheet of paper.

  “Dear Anna. Because of what I read in an article about you and the Olympic rowing team, I realize I’m your mother. I left you in St. Michael’s church when you were three months old. Just like the article said, your birthday is February 15 and you’re 26. I saw in the picture that you still have the birth mark on your left shoulder.”

  Much larger printing and capital letters made the next sentence jump from the page. “IF I SPILL THE BEANS, YOU WON’T GO.

  “You’re not a citizen. I brought you to Canada from Holland. Your father emigrated first but didn’t meet us. I couldn’t look after you. I did you a BIG FAVOUR by giving you up and letting you have a good life. It’s time to return the FAVOUR. Pay me $10,000 and I won’t tell your secret. I’m in Cabin Ten at the Bide-A-While motel. If I don’t hear from you by FRIDAY, I’ll phone the Victoria paper.”

  I reread the letter. The shocking message remained the same. My birth mother wanted to blackmail me. What kind of woman was she to even contemplate doing this? But she had one thing right. She had done me a favour—a huge favour. No one could have been luckier with her adoptive parents than I’d been.

  If what she said was true, what should I do? Borrow $10,000 and pay her? But was she right? Would the circumstances of my birth bar me from the Olympics? The Children’s Aid Society would know. I dialed and asked for the director.

  “Ms. French is out of the office for the day. She’ll be in tomorrow, but, if it’s urgent, perhaps I can help you?”

  Twenty-four hours to wait for the verdict. Should I warn Carol, my coach? Of course not. Why upset her about something that might not happen? I threw the envelope in the waste basket and shoved the letter in my desk drawer.

  But I couldn’t get it out of my mind. After a nearly sleepless night, I staggered out of bed. Exhausted, I debated whether to drive or walk to the lake for the first of our three daily rowing practices. I opted for the twenty-minute walk, hoping the exercise would untie the knot in my stomach. The grey clouds that blanketed the sky, promising rain, echoed my mood.

  As we gathered on the dock, my team mates handed folded sheets of paper to Carol. Damn, I’d forgotten this morning was the deadline for returning one of the many forms our bureaucratic country required.

  “Carol, I left it on my desk. Is it too late to run over at lunch?”

  “It is. One of the guys from the office is coming to get them…” she checked her watch “in half an hour. They have to go out in this morning’s mail.”

  “Dad could go,” Bobbie Johnson said.

  Most mornings, multimillionaire Marshall Johnson, a rower on Canada’s 1968 Olympic team, parked his Porsche at the far end of the lake and watched our practice.

  Carol shook her head. “The girl at the desk in the residence wouldn’t let him go up.”

  “My car’s here,” Bobbie said.

  It always was. Her car, a dark-blue Porsche that matched her father’s, seemed to be her security blanket, her reassurance that her daddy loved her enough to buy the very best. Poor Bobbie lived in fear she’d lose her place on the team and her father’s approval. Marshall Johnson supported Olympic rowing financially. I suspected he’d withdraw his money if Bobbie lost her spot. This had to be the reason why Carol kept her when Marnie, the first alternative, was a better rower.

  Bobbie curried Carol’s favour in every possible way. “It won’t take me a minute. I’ll be back by the time everyone’s warmed up.”

  Carol nodded.

  I could offer to go with her, but why spoil her chance for brownie points? I thanked Bobbie and tossed her my room key.

  We’d just finished our stretching exercises when, true to her word, Bobbie’s Porsche peeled around the lake and screeched to a halt beside the dock. She delivered the paper to Carol and joined us as we lowered ourselves into our shell.

  In the boat I forgot everything but the joy of moving through the mirror-calm lake. The oars dipped, dragged, lifted, flashed forward, turned and sliced. The creak of our seats as they slid back and forth, the rush of the bow as it cut through the water—every motion and sound was as familiar and comforting as my own heartbeat.

  We followed the row with a two-hour run. Light rain coated the path with a film of moisture which made each footfall treacherous. Rain drizzling on our skin chilled us as we clocked the miles. Although I tried to empty my mind, to focus on breathing, to visualize molecules of fresh air entering my nostrils and filling my lungs—I failed. Instead, I fixated either on the possibility of not being on the Olympic team, or on my birth mother—her name, her appearance, her life.

  Later, back in my room, mouth dry and heart clattering, I dialed the Children’s Aid. After the opening pleasantries, I posed my question.

  “Of course, you’re a Canadian. Once your adoption became official, the province issued you a new birth certificate. The circumstances of your birth have no bearing on your citizenship.”

  Relief. I could forget the letter.

  But could I? Could I ignore the presence of my birth mother waiting for me at the Bide-a-While cabins? I flopped on my bed and hauled the duvet over my head, but, no matter how I twisted and turned, I couldn’t get comfortable. Finally, I faced two facts: I wasn’t going to sleep until I set up a meeting, and I needed sleep before I faced her. I thumbed through the telephone book and, before I could change my mind, dialed the Bide-a-While cabins.

  “Cabin Ten,” I said.

  “The cabins don’t have no phones. You wanna leave a message?”

  “Please tell her Anna called and will drop in later.”

  Exhaustion washed over me.

  • • •

  Four a.m. Should I go now, before morning training? It wasn’t exactly a normal time to visit, but this wasn’t a normal social call. Sure, I’d wake her, but, in case she turned nasty when I told her there wouldn’t be any money, I’d have the advantage of being wide awake. Just to be on the safe side, in case there was trouble, I tucked my cell phone in the pocket of my track pants.

  As I approached the cabins, the fluorescent Bide-a-While sign flickered a lurid welcome. At the last moment, my nerve failed. I drove by, slowed, made a U-turn and parked beside the highway, where I could watch the motel and argue with myself. This was crazy. Who but a burglar appeared at five in the morning? But, if I didn’t do this now, I’d never have another chance.

  I peered at the lopsided cabins sloping away from the road. Except for the fourth one, they were dark. While I surveyed the run-down collection of buildings, a car pulled out of the drive and sped past me. Only the first twittering of waking birds and the wailing of a baby broke the silence.

  Crazy or not, I had to see her.

  Cabin Ten carried its sixty or seventy years badly. The tiny front porch, trimmed with peeling dark green paint, listed slightly to the right. When I stepped inside the porch, it smelled of mildew and garbage. I opened the outer door with the torn screen and knocked gently. Nothing. I banged harder. Still nothing. She must be an exceptionally heavy sleeper. On impulse, I turned the knob and pushed. The door opened.

  Inside, my eyes just had time to adjust to the light filtering through the flimsy curtains and to fix on the outline of a substantial woman lying on her back in bed before my nose told me something was wrong—very, very wrong. The place reeked of exhaust.

  I rushed to the bed and grabbed the woman’s shoulders.

  “Wake up. Wake up.” I shook her and felt her unresponsiveness.

  Thanking God for the strength I’d gained during the months of training, I flipped the bedspread on the floor and hauled her heavy body off the bed. Quickly knotting the ends, I grabbed hold and dragged her outside.

  She looked dead, but I didn’t check for vitals. Instead I made sure her throat was clear and began CPR.

  She was breathing.

  I checked her pulse. Thin, irregular, but there. I reached for my cell phone and punched 911.

  “It’s Anna Marks. I’m calling because I
’ve just found a woman nearly dead from carbon monoxide poisoning in Cabin Ten of the Bide-a-While motel on Highway 5.”

  God. This was awful. Where had the carbon monoxide come from?

  I stared down at her. Blonde hair framed a broad face. My own heavy bone structure.

  The ambulance, the firemen and the police arrived. Without seeming to rush, the paramedics clamped an oxygen mask on her face and bundled her into the ambulance, which then shrieked its way toward the hospital. An officer, Constable Stern, suggested I wait in his cruiser. When he joined me, I asked: “Will she live? Were the fumes from a space heater?”

  “Hard to say. Why did you think it was a space heater?”

  “Because there wasn’t a car outside the cabin, and I’ve read that malfunctioning space heaters kill people. What was her name?”

  He eyed me for what seemed like ten minutes before he said: “You don’t know her name, yet you dropped in to see her at what time—five in the morning? Not the usual hour to visit a person you don’t know.”

  Nothing for it, the story had to be told. “It’s very weird, but here’s what happened.”

  After I’d finished, he said, “Who else knew of this blackmail threat?”

  “No one. The letter arrived yesterday and, except for talking to the director of the Children’s Aid, I haven’t told anyone.” I couldn’t wait any longer. “What is her name?”

  “Her name? You really didn’t know?”

  “No. She didn’t sign the letter.”

  “Wilhemina Groenveldt.”

  Wilhemina—like the Dutch royal family. Had my, my what, my biological grandmother named her after the queen, or was it a family name? And I was Julianna, the mother of Beatrix, today’s Queen. Tears clogged my throat.

  “Are you okay?”

  I swallowed. “No. But, if you’re finished, I should get back to training camp.”

  “We’ll have more questions, but that’s it for now.

  I’d missed the first rowing session. Back at the university, I sprinted from the parking lot to the gym, grabbed what I needed and joined the pack of runners stretching and jogging-on-the-spot while they waited for the laggards. On the two-hour run, my mind returned again and again to Wilhemina Groenveldt’s face. What if there hadn’t been a space heater? If there hadn’t, that meant that someone… I shook my head. Denial. It couldn’t be, but what if it was? What if someone had tried to kill her?

  The letter. Could it have been because of the threat to keep me out of the Olympics? But no one knew about the letter. My pace slowed. I hadn’t told anyone except the director, but I’d given my keys to Bobbie. What if she’d snooped through my desk and found it? A surge of intense anger propelled me past other runners. As we traversed the edge of a steep ravine, I caught up with Bobbie.

  “Why did you read my letter?”

  “What letter?”

  “You know damn well what letter.” I grabbed her arm and yanked her from the flow of runners. “Tell me.”

  “Okay, okay, don’t have a fit. I was looking for an envelope. And the letter was sitting right there, so I read it.”

  Sitting right there, my eye. “Who else did you tell?”

  Her gaze slid away from mine. “No one.”

  My fingers indented the flesh of her upper arm. “Who did you tell?”

  Still not looking at me, she said, “I was really worried because of Daddy and what he’d say if we didn’t go, or went without you—because you’re the stroke, and it’s too late for someone else to take your place, and I knew we needed you to win a medal.” She inhaled and rushed on. “I was afraid you’d go all moral and resign. And even if you wanted to pay, I didn’t think you had the money.” She smiled. “Daddy always knows what to do, so I told him.”

  I blocked her attempt to move away. “Who else did you tell?”

  “Carol.”

  “And why did you think you had to tell Carol?”

  She looked at me as if I’d asked a ridiculous question. “Carol needed to know as soon as possible. If we had to persuade you, she’d want time to prepare her arguments.”

  I released her arm.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “You’ll have to wait and see, won’t you?” I launched myself up the path.

  After the run and before I showered, I called the hospital, asked for Wilhemina Groenveldt’s room and was told she was in intensive care, and no information was being released. At least she was still alive.

  In the shower, as the warm water sluiced over me, I knew I didn’t want to join my team for lunch. But I had to eat. When you work as hard as we do, you load up on the calories. In the cafeteria, I picked up three wrapped sandwiches, two bottles of orange juice and a chocolate doughnut and took the bag back to the residence, where I dumped it on the desk and switched on the radio.

  “The police, who are investigating an incident at the Bide-a-While cabins on Highway 5, are requesting that anyone in the vicinity between midnight and five this morning contact them immediately.”

  An incident. What did that mean? Someone else had been involved, and that would make it… attempted murder! But had the attempt been connected to the letter? If it was, who could have done it? Not Marshall. He would have consulted a battery of high-priced lawyers and found the information the Children’s Aid had given me. Not Carol. She wanted the eights to win, but it wouldn’t change her life if they didn’t. Not Bobbie. Her father dominated her life—she’d do anything to please him—but I doubted if “anything” included murder. There had to be some other reason: if Wilhemina had threatened me, she’d probably done much worse things to other people.

  During our second rowing session I dipped, pulled, lifted, turned the oars and dipped again as I reviewed the facts.

  Out of the boat I detoured to the public phone in the hall of the gym and made two calls—the first to Constable Stern, the second to the hospital.

  Inside the gym, we headed for various pieces of exercise equipment. I picked an elliptical trainer which faced Carol’s office. I was tired and wanted to click on “a walk in the park”, but if Carol happened by while the electronic printer flashed that info, I’d be in trouble. Reluctantly, I entered “a mountain hike”, set the level of difficulty at “max” and the time at sixty minutes. The machine and I began working our way up an imaginary mountain.

  Fifteen minutes later, a plump, middle-aged man in a tan suit marched through the gym to the office.

  Less than five minutes later Marshall Johnson followed the same course.

  The machine said I still had thirty-seven minutes to go when Carol emerged, looked at her sweating crew and motioned for me and Bobbie to join her. The mountain would have to wait.

  The man in the tan suit, who introduced himself as Detective Roston, sat behind Carol’s desk and faced me as I entered. Carol perched to his right and Bobbie sat in front of him. Marshall stood beside Bobbie’s chair. I took the empty seat beside Carol.

  “Miss Marks, I’ve told these people that early this morning at the Bide-A-While cabins someone tried to asphyxiate Wilhemina Groenveldt.” Detective Roston paused and allowed his gaze to sweep the room. “Someone wanted her dead. We believe it was because of a letter she wrote to you which these three knew about.”

  “I certainly can’t believe anyone would think I was involved in this sordid affair,” Marshall said as he straightened, puffed out his chest and appeared to expand. “As I’ve already said, I knew nothing about this woman, and I see no reason why I should be here.” Fully inflated, he continued, “I’m sure Spike Vinca…” He paused to make sure the detective got his message: that he knew the police chief, James Vinca, well enough to use his nickname. “I’m sure Spike would like to hear about police harassment.”

  “I’m sure he wouldn’t, sir,” Roston said. “If you object, we’ll get a warrant and have you come downtown.”

  “Well, for the moment that won’t be necessary.” Marshall gave a tight-lipped smile. “I certainly don’t want to
impede police work.”

  “The three of you also should know that Anna Marks investigated the threat and knew it was without foundation. Because she received a new legal identity the moment her adoption became final, her actual birth place had no bearing on her status as a Canadian.”

  Bobbie’s eyes widened. Her father frowned and jingled coins in his pocket. Carol, who must have been holding her breath, released it in a long sigh.

  Roston’s lips turned down, and he appeared to have smelled something nasty. “Now, isn’t that a surprise for the three of you?”

  No one spoke.

  “And I have another little surprise. Last night a teething baby woke the young woman staying in Cabin Four. When she looked out the window, she saw a car with the engine running parked near Cabin Ten. And,” he avoided looking at me, “an early morning visitor to Wilhemina Groenveldt’s cabin had the presence of mind to drag her outside and apply artificial respiration. This same woman informed us that when she arrived at the scene she witnessed a car speeding away.”

  Carol slid down on her chair. Marshall’s frown deepened to a scowl. Bobbie’s eyebrows lifted, and her eyes shifted repeatedly from me to Carol to the detective and back again.

  “What do you drive and were you at the motel last night?” Roston asked Carol.

  She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she crossed her arms on her chest and slumped down. “A silver Windstar van and no, I wasn’t there.”

  Roston’s gaze circled the room. I had a feeling he was enjoying this interrogation. He focused on me. “What make of car do you drive, and were you at the cabins last night?”

  “An old blue Honda Civic. I was there at five a.m.”

  Bobbie burst into tears.

  “Get a grip,” Marshall ordered.

  Bobbie fished in her pocket for a tissue and blew her nose.

  “And you sir, what do you drive and were you at the Bide-a-While cabins last night?”

  “I drive several vehicles: a black Mercedes SUV, a Lincoln and a Porsche. At the moment I’m driving the Lincoln. The Porsche is in for servicing. Furthermore, I don’t even know where the Bide-a-While cabins are. And, not that it’s any of your business, but I spent the evening at a fundraiser for the Alliance Party. Of course, I wasn’t there.” He levelled his gaze at the detective. “Perhaps it’s time for me to call my lawyers.”