Handcuffs in the Heather

by Dale Mayer

  Which meant, Nan would know them. Or of them. That didn’t mean she knew anyone in the family anymore though. The family had a hardware store that had passed down to every generation. Doreen laughed at that. In the older days everybody used to look down on those working in a trade. Yet they were the ones with steady businesses and steady money. And, of course, that was why a lot of the wealthier people looked down on them. But Kelowna was built on pioneers and farmers and orchardists—working people. It was just that kind of area here.

  Doreen continued to do as much research as she could, but there wasn’t any mention of a Manny Pollock either. Of the current Pollocks, at least fifteen were listed in the phone book. She could hardly just sit here and dig down, wondering who and what. But then, there was the historical society of the pioneer families. Fifty years ago probably didn’t quite count because Kelowna had been settled by the Europeans starting in the mid-1800s. Of course the aboriginal tribes roamed over this area some six thousand years ago.

  She went looking for a Pollocks family tree. She should really sign up for a genealogy site. She didn’t know if she could access other people’s family trees or if she would just pay a fee to get hers. That was of no interest. But to have access to other people’s trees, well …

  She did find a Pollock family tree online, and it gave her three generations. There was a Clemente and a Dorsey in the late 1800s, and they had three sons and two daughters, of which both daughters were deceased at a very young age. Doreen took a screenshot and printed it so she could look at it a little more closely.

  Three men had taken the male line down, and lots of additional kids were born per the sons, but it looked like one family had been wiped out as everyone but the wife had died all in the same year. Doreen frowned at that one and wondered if it was like a car accident or something.

  That left two sons and two families, of which there was a mix of males and females, but none of them had the name of Meredith. And it could have been in the next generation down, but it still didn’t help her much. Then her phone rang again. Hating the interruption, she smiled when she saw who was calling. “Hey, Nan. What’s up?”

  “Jenny Pollock is here at Rosemoor.”

  Doreen straightened. “Who is Jenny Pollock?” As she looked at the tree in front of her, sure enough, Jenny was one of the son’s daughters.

  “Manny’s mother,” Nan announced. “I spoke to her this morning.”

  Immediately Doreen wrote that down. “Interesting. And is Manny also Meredith?”

  “She was born Meredith and chose Manny later.”

  “Oh,” Doreen said. “Why?”

  “You would probably call her transgender or whatever the newfangled term is. She switched from a Meredith to a Manny.”

  Doreen sat back and wondered how that would have impacted her profession. Or was it because of her choices that she ended up on the streets? That placed her in an even more vulnerable sector of society. “Did Jenny say anything about her daughter—or son—now?”

  “Jenny says she hasn’t had any contact with her in over ten years. The first she knew she was missing was when the police came knocking,” Nan said with a little bit of excitement in her voice. “Jenny would love to have answers before she dies.”

  “Will that be anytime soon?” Doreen’s mind went to the woman she had recently gotten a confession from, who passed away on that same day.

  “Well, she’s got stomach cancer,” Nan said, “so it’s not like she’ll live much longer.”

  “Ouch. I don’t have any answers for her, so don’t go telling her that I’m looking into this,” Doreen warned.

  “Too late,” Nan said cheerfully. “If you’re asking me about Manny, believe me, you’re looking into it.”

  Doreen groaned. “I need to know more about his life, like where Manny lived, what his lifestyle was, things like that.”

  “I don’t know if she’s willing to talk about that,” she said. “Jenny is very religious.”

  Doreen sat back and thought about what a very religious woman would think of her daughter choosing to live as a man. Talk about family strife. “And she never accepted Meredith’s choice, did she?”

  “No, Meredith was supposed to get married, have children, and be a normal housewife,” Nan said. “Like all daughters back then.”

  “Did she ever marry?”

  “Yes, and she did have a son,” Nan said. “His parents divorced soon afterward.”

  “Did Meredith raise her son?”

  “For the first bit. Then he chose to go to his father’s family back East.”

  “And he’s not around here anymore?”

  “No, I doubt he has anything to do with Jenny or Manny,” Nan said. “According to Jenny, her grandson didn’t have a lot to do with Meredith when she became Manny.”

  “I’m sorry for Manny,” Doreen said softly. “I can’t imagine anything worse than to lose all your family while trying to find yourself.”

  “You also have to remember the timing,” Nan said. “There was a lot more judgment and a lot less acceptance back when Manny decided to make these changes.”

  “Making him that much braver for doing so.”

  “Maybe,” Nan said, “but nobody has heard anything about her—him—in a long time. I’ll never remember to say he in regard to Manny.”

  “I think Manny would understand. You call him whatever you are comfortable with. So Jenny didn’t contact the police about him being a missing person?”

  “No, the police called her because several of Manny’s friends had noted that she had gone missing.”

  “That’s very sad,” Doreen said. “Surely there was some communication between Jenny and Meredith, Manny?” Doreen stumbled over the son-daughter aspect and decided Manny was hardly a child anymore. If she chose this life, well he was an adult.

  “No, the police said the friends hadn’t heard anything from Manny and were asking questions. Jenny told the cops everything she could, but there wasn’t much to say, and she hadn’t had anything to do with Manny since Meredith became Manny.”

  “So, she can’t help me with any details about the time he went missing, can she?”

  “I doubt it,” Nan said. “And, as much as she wants answers, I think she’s afraid she won’t like them.”

  “Right,” Doreen said, wincing. “She already didn’t like a lot about her child’s life, so she may not like very much about Manny’s death.”

  “Manny had a difficult lifestyle, one that, of course, Jenny didn’t approve of. Manny did drugs. She was an alcoholic. And her friends were all in the same profession she was in,” Nan said. “So, it’s understandable that prostitutes end up doing drugs and drinking.”

  “It is, indeed. So Jenny probably doesn’t want to talk to me?”

  “Not really,” Nan said. “I can pump her for more information though, if you like.”

  “How about you don’t pump her?” Doreen said drily. “Maybe just ask her a few questions about who Manny hung around with, what she knew about any of Manny’s friends, where he used to live, things like that.”

  “I’m on it,” Nan said cheerfully, and she hung up.

  Chapter 13

  Sunday Afternoon …

  With Manny confirmed as Meredith, Doreen researched Jenny Pollock’s life. There was a son as well as Meredith, and that was the entire family tree. She could see why the mother had always wanted the young daughter to bless her with grandchildren. That might have caused all kinds of trouble. But Meredith had married, and she had had a son, who was now back East, according to Nan.

  Doreen wrote down the notes and then realized it would be pretty tough to find any answer because ten years had passed. And also the fact that somebody didn’t just disappear. That was when she stopped. She got up and poured herself a glass of lemonade, then sat back down and opened the scans she’d made.

  The IDs were all under Meredith’s name. And was that because they were government-issued IDs, and she hadn’t had an official
sex change? How did that work? Doreen knew she wouldn’t text those questions to Mack. So she opened up an email and typed out as much of an explanation as she could. And then she hit Send. When her phone rang again, she wasn’t sure if it was Nan or Mack.

  She answered it to hear Nan’s voice at the other end. “Jenny wants answers but doesn’t want to know details.”

  “And how do you get one without the other?” Doreen asked.

  “She doesn’t want anything that’ll be upsetting. She doesn’t have any idea who Manny’s friends were, and she doesn’t have any idea who her coworkers were, but she does want to know if Manny is alive or dead.”

  “She hasn’t had anything to do with him since he took this path. Why would she care now?” Doreen asked curiously.

  “Because Jenny is the keeper of the family Bible with the family tree,” Nan said pointedly. “And I think she wants to make sure she has the correct entries in the Bible.”

  Doreen sat back with a thunk. “Nan, that’s so cold.”

  “It is,” Nan said. “But Jenny is not exactly a warm and welcoming woman. So, you can see how maybe Meredith, feeling like she had no support and no love anyway, might have decided to make the choices she needed to make for her own happiness.”

  “We can’t judge her for that,” Doreen said. “We all need to do what’s right for ourselves.”

  “Exactly,” Nan said cheerfully. “Which is why you let Mack teach you how to cook.”

  And, on that note, she hung up, but her laughter still rang through Doreen’s phone long after she was gone.

  Doreen placed her phone down and shrugged. Was that why she was letting Mack teach her how to cook? She really enjoyed spending time with him. He was also a great source of information, and he’d been a huge help in all areas of her life. Just his assistance in dealing with the antiques was massive alone. Was it wrong of her to build a friendship with him? She hadn’t had friends—real friends—ever that she could remember. She’d always been guided to having the right friends. The ones who could take her places. Whereas right now, she liked somebody who treated her normally and was comfortable being themselves around her.

  Talk about synchronicity—an email came in.

  She read it out loud. “The file mentions that he led an interesting life and was sexually attracted to both sexes. No medical records indicate a sex change had been started or completed, but, since we have no body, and we just have a missing person report, it’s hard to say.”

  So, once again, not helpful. She slapped down the lid to her laptop, stood, and said, “One thing I do know is, I’ve spent all day without food since breakfast, and now I’m starving.” And, in truth, she’d spent all day pushing the idea of spaghetti out of her mind so she didn’t have a second plate too early. But she was giving up on that idea now. She planned on having a second plate as soon as she could warm it up. Only before she could get to it, the doorbell rang. She groaned. “Okay, this is just way too much company,” she announced. But still, she rushed to the front door and opened it. Her neighbor Richard, complete with his grumpy face, stared at her with a glare worse than ever.

  She raised an eyebrow. “Did you find more stuff?”

  He shook his head and said, “No, but did you see those people?”

  She looked over her yard, where he pointed, and all kinds of people stood there, taking pictures.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t understand.” She looked around and saw no media vehicles. Nothing to show they were journalists. Then she saw the huge bus parked in the cul-de-sac. “Who are they?”

  “That’s a Japanese tour bus,” he said. “Now you’ve hit the big time. We’re on their damn tour route.”

  Then, as soon as he said that, he huffed and crossed the front lawn to his place, where he slammed the door hard.

  And the cameras flashed, catching it all.

  Chapter 14

  Sunday Afternoon …

  Doreen stared in horror at the group of camera-toting tourists, standing in front of her property, and the huge tour bus parked as close to the front of her house as it could get. Then she stepped back and slammed the door shut, her heart pounding. She really needed to take a picture of them though. She snatched her phone, opened the door, stepped out, and took a picture of all of them. Then she retreated to her living room and sent Mack the photo.

  When there was no answer right away, she frowned at her phone and sent him another text with a question mark. And again, no answer. Fuming now, she crept into the living room and looked out the window, but the bus was gone.

  “Thank God for that,” she whispered.

  And just then, her phone rang. It was Mack.

  “About time you answered me,” she snapped.

  At least he would have answered it if he could have, but he was spluttering with laughter too much.

  How did that even work? She glared at her phone. “It’s not funny!”

  “Actually,” he said, trying to speak through his laughter, “it kind of is.”

  “That was a tour bus,” she said in an ominous voice. “A tour bus full of camera-toting tourists, running around and taking pictures of my place!”

  “Interesting,” he said, but she could tell he was still trying to hold back his mirth.

  “It’s not funny,” she snapped again. “My neighbor came over to tell me, and that’s the first I knew.”

  “So, this could have been going on for a while?” he asked curiously.

  “How am I supposed to know? If it wasn’t bad enough that I had the local media around all the time, now I made it to the tour bus route.”

  “And I’m sure the tourists are all delighted with that,” Mack said, once again desperately trying to get the words out around the laughter.

  “It’s not funny,” Doreen growled before hanging up. Then she stormed back into the kitchen, ignoring her heated-up spaghetti, and headed right through to the garden. For the angry temper that she was in currently, she needed something much more physical to do than eating. She grabbed her gloves and shovel and attacked the last bed in the garden on that side. At this rate, she should have it done in no time. She couldn’t get the picture of all those people taking photos of her house out of her mind. Why on earth would her house end up on a bus tour? Had the news finally filtered across the ocean that there had been a murder—or three—here?

  She hoped not. Besides, it wasn’t like this house was any different than any other house where a murder happened every day of the week. It bothered her to think that her notoriety had gotten so big.

  It was also quite possible. She let her hands and body burn through her temper until she finally stopped, gasping and wiping the sweat off her forehead. She stepped back, groaning, and then realized she had finished that whole side. With enough energy still residing within her, she grabbed the edger and cut a nice crisp line all the way along the sides. Then, using the digging fork, she worked along where the back fence had once been, loosening up the dirt and pulling away the weeds.

  She noted grass alongside the house, though most of it was just weeds. She frowned and wondered if she could get some thick and heavy rubber mats or something to go all along that side. It might turn into a much nicer walkway. And it wasn’t for any particular purpose other than the fact that the space existed. As she stopped and turned to look back at where the deck would be, she nodded to herself.

  “That grass can come to the edge here, and the stairs can come right down to the new patio,” she told herself. Then she looked back alongside the house and continued talking. “Several inches of gravel and some landscape cloth or really good tarps would fix this side up too.”

  But, of course, it would be even harder to get back here. She’d have to do it one wheelbarrow at a time. She groaned at the idea. But it was an option, and she knew that, if she put in a big deck here, she would need to do something about the grass anyway. Plus, even if she cut it out by its roots and removed it, that would have to get hauled away. Plus she’d have to put some
thing down to stop the grass from regrowing again. She didn’t want grass coming up through the decking boards. That would look awful.

  So, no matter which way she looked at it, she would have to bring in gravel. And that meant the expense of landscape cloth too. Besides the pinch financially, she realized just how much physical work would be involved.

  She sighed and stepped back from her heavy rampage-fueled work, then poured herself the last of the lemonade from the fridge. She was now tired and stressed. How did that even happen? Physical work was supposed to get rid of stress. But instead, she sat here, looking at a beautiful garden, the tension coiling through her.

  With the lemonade in her hand, she walked along the garden she had managed to clean up and down to the creek bed to check on the heather. And then, tossing aside her flip-flops, she stepped into the creek, noting it was higher again. But no water gushed out of the sump-pump hoses.

  Cooling her feet off helped cool the rest of her off. She bent down, washed her hands, and then splashed some water on her face. Almost immediately she felt relief from the heat and the sweat. It was too bad the river wasn’t clean enough and big enough to swim in because she really wanted to do that right now.

  She turned to look back at her garden and the amount of work she’d accomplished. It was looking really good. Her lemonade now gone, she picked up her glass and filled it with river water. Then she gave the heather some. With the heat these days, it would need quite a bit in order to survive the transplant.

  As she stood here, looking at the backyard, she wondered just how much was doable. It would be a big summer project at this rate. She could move only so many wheelbarrows of gravel at a given time.

  She walked back to study the nasty section between the house and the fence. There had been gravel in there at one time, but now the weeds peeked through. She could put some stuff on the gravel to stop the weeds from growing. Things like vinegar would help, but it would take gallons. But then again, if she did that before she put down the landscape cloth, then topped it off with the gravel, that would all help.