It wasn’t all bad, though. Garret had a girlfriend, Shannon, who worked a cash register at Zellers. He’d met her about a year before he was busted, and she wrote him a fat letter each and every week in the year, and for a long time had made the long, hard drive out to the prison once a month, rain or shine. Garret talked about her endlessly. Over and over again, in incredible detail, he told Ross how he and Shannon had met, where they’d gone on dates, what they’d done together. He’d describe a lunch they’d eaten at a certain restaurant, describe the restaurant right down to the style of the menu. He’d remember exactly what they ordered and how it tasted, what they said to each other, word for word.
Once, a highlight, Garret had let Ross take a split-second peek at a Polaroid Shannon had mailed him for Christmas. The girl had a terrific smile, lots of wavy, auburn-tinted-with-streaks-of-amber hair, the kind of improbably voluptuous, creamy-white body that Ross remembered from top-shelf magazines at the local drugstore. Garret said she’d mailed a dozen snapshots, but all but one had been confiscated, had vanished into the system. That night and for many nights that followed, Ross lay in his bunk and wondered what the other pictures had looked like, his fevered imagination taking him for a ride and then roughly bucking him off…
In the morning, Ross ate breakfast with the mob, then cleaned out his cell, packed his thesaurus and the rest of his meagre belongings in a cardboard box, changed into his new clothes and strapped on the Timex.
He signed some papers and was paid the few dollars he’d earned building fake antique pine furniture in the prison woodworking shop.
Outside, Ross waited for his mother in the shelter of a bus stop. The rain pounded down. He’d told her nine o’clock sharp. It was already quarter past. Where was she?
The road stretched away through low, tangled brush, scattered trees that chopped up the clay-coloured sky as it fell into the horizon. Ross divided his time into one-minute segments. For one minute, he stared down at his Timex, watching the second hand sweep around the dial. For the next minute he ticked off the seconds in his mind as he watched the road. At first he underestimated the time required for a minute to pass. But by the time a quarter of an hour had crawled past, he was accurate to within a few seconds, and judging how long it would take for exactly a minute to pass had become a game.
Finally he looked up and saw a tiny speck of light in the distance. His mother had never owned a car. Couldn’t afford it. Until he’d taken his fall, she hadn’t even had a driver’s licence. Twice a month for the past five years, she’d borrowed the neighbour’s car or used a hotel discount coupon to rent something tiny and underpowered from Hertz.
Today, she was driving a yellow Neon that looked like a stubby bolt of lightning. The car’s brakes squealed. Ross opened the door and swung the seat forward, shoved the cardboard box into the back.
“Want me to drive, Mom?”
His mother gave him a look. She wore an over-large winter coat in frayed black wool, a dark blue cardigan, a paisley-pattern silk Hermes scarf, a black cloth mitten and a brown leather glove, knee-high patent-leather boots. She had the look of a woman whose lifestyle was a little haphazard, at best. But her mind was still sharp. Free was as cheap as you could get. The clothes, and probably her underwear as well, had been salvaged from the hotel’s lost and found.
Ross climbed into the car and slammed the door shut. He slammed his mouth shut too, and kept it shut during the drive to the ferry terminal, the wait in the parking lot and the two-hour cruise across the Strait of Georgia to scenic Tsawwassen. The thought of spending the night in the bed he’d last slept in as a teenager made him feel depressed and sickly. When he said he was going to step out on deck for a breath of fresh air, his mother buttoned up her ridiculous coat and stuck with him, glued to his side like a ridiculously distorted shadow.
It seemed to him that everybody on board took one look at him and immediately knew him for who he was.
When he complained that all the noise and lights and strange people bothered him and that he’d like to go below decks to the car and maybe catch up on his sleep, she vetoed the idea.
What did she think he was going to do — see if he could find one of those pretty women sitting alone in her car, try to sweet-talk her into doing something to him? He might fantasize about stuff like that, but he’d never actually do it.
He was pretty sure he’d never do it.
His mother dropped him off at the house. She gave him a fresh-cut key to the front door, and then drove off to return the Neon to Hertz.
Ross entered the house and made straight for his bedroom. The small, excessively tidy room reminded him of his cell. He went into the kitchen. His mother still kept fifty bucks in the teapot, for emergencies. Well, if this wasn’t a first-class emergency, he didn’t know what was. He stuffed the bills in his suit pocket, went into the kitchen and got a garbage bag from under the sink. He felt eyes on him, and spun on his heel. A heavyweight ghost-coloured cat stared calmly up at him from behind a big glass bowl full of cat food.
He crouched down and rubbed his thumb and finger together. “Puss, puss, puss.”
The cat used a massive paw to flick several pieces of cat food out of the bowl and onto the waxed linoleum floor. It lowered itself over its meal. A faraway look seeped into its eyes as its jaws crunched balefully. It batted more food out of the bowl and efficiently consumed it.
“Here puss, puss, puss…”
The cat gave Ross the once-over, and then strolled casually towards him, claws ticking on the lino. It bounded up on his thigh and then to his shoulder, where it stretched out across the back of his neck like a mini-puma. Its thick white tail lashed his cheek. A tongue like a rasp scoured his ear. He reached up, gently stroked the animal. It nuzzled him lovingly, and rumbled like summer thunder. Ross turned the cats anodized-aluminium tag so he could read its name.
Kiddo.
He carried the bag into his bedroom and filled it with clothes, slung the bag over his shoulder. For a moment he thought about leaving a goodbye note. But when he glanced around he could see neither paper nor pen.
Down in the basement, the furnace clicked sharply. He heard the fan start up, as he walked into the living room on his way to the door.
It was still raining. The lawn twitched and shuddered. Fat drops fell from the electrical wires that drooped down the road. Across the street, an old man walked slowly past, hunched and miserable beneath a black umbrella.
Kiddo had followed him from room to room, as if on a leash. It butted its head against his leg, peered adoringly up at him.
Ross decided maybe he’d stay home for a day or two after all.
He went into the bathroom, turned on the shower and adjusted the flow of water. It took him a while to figure out that he had to turn the taps the wrong way. He stepped into the tub and pulled the curtain. It bothered him that he was in such a confined space, and that there was no one else around, no need to keep his back to the wall.
His mother had bought his favourite brand of soap and shampoo, a razor and shaving cream, roll-on deodorant, a toothbrush and even his own tube of mint-flavoured Crest toothpaste. He should have been grateful, but all he felt was that she was trying to isolate him. As if he had a contagious disease, and she’d catch it, if she wasn’t careful.
He lathered his body with the brand-new bar of soap, washed his hair, managed not to cut himself shaving with his new razor. When he was as clean as he was ever going to get, he turned off the water and stepped out of the tub and towelled himself dry, dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans. The jeans were a little loose around the waist. Medium-security as a weight-loss program. Now there was an idea whose time would never come. He wriggled into a pair of black cotton socks, white Nikes with a blue swoosh.
*
They had a late lunch of fried chicken and mashed potatoes, green peas. It had been five long years since Ross had sat down to a hearty meal of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and peas, but even so, it wasn’t exactly a treat.
A lifetime of the same meal could do that to a man. While they ate, his mother brought him up to date on the neighbourhood — who’d passed away, and who hadn’t. She told him about the sweet young couple with the twin boys, who’d bought the house down at the end of the block. How they had discovered the first time it rained that the basement flooded and they needed a new roof. Stuff like that. He asked her where Kiddo had come from. The cat was a stray who’d wandered into the hotel one rainy night.
When she’d cleaned her plate, and wiped her mouth with a paper napkin, Ross’s mother lifted her head and said, “What are you going to do with your life, Ross? Did you think about that, while you were away?”
“Yeah, sure. The first thing I got to do is pay a visit to my parole officer. A guy named George Hoffman. A real hard-ass.” He noted the look on her face. Dismayed. He said, “Sorry, Mom. Wash my mouth. Anyway, Hoffman lined up a job for me, at a restaurant downtown.”
Looking interested, maybe even a little relieved, she said, “Doing what?”
“Working in the kitchen.” It was as close to the truth as he needed to be. He pushed away from the table, got a glass from the cupboard and a container of milk from the fridge. He emptied the last of the milk into the glass. Before he’d been sent away, she’d always bought milk in four-litre containers, big plastic jugs. How long had it taken her to get used to living alone, start buying smaller amounts of food and drink? Not long, probably. He drained his glass and put it in the sink.
After lunch, Ross carried Kiddo into his room and lay down on the bed. The cat soon purred himself to sleep. Ross stared up at the ceiling, the stained and rumpled plaster that was like a map of a country he’d visited a million times, and departed from with not a single memory.
He shut his eyes and thought about his life. His girlfriend had dumped him forever, the instant she learned that he’d busted up a broker. A couple of his buddies had written him from time to time, until they stopped.
Since then, nobody had loved him but his mother.
He conjured up an image of Cindy. His ex appeared on cue, but when he moved in on her the picture got kind of fuzzy. Who was she, anyway? Five years was a long time. He couldn’t begin to imagine what she might look like. By now she might be married, a mother. He picked Kiddo up and deposited him on the bed. The cat grumbled, but stayed put.
Ross went into the bathroom. He turned on the overhead light, shut and locked the door, and peered into the mirror over the sink. The pale green eyes staring back at him were the same eyes that had stared back at him in prison, but now he saw himself in a new light. He looked tough, and he looked bitter. He looked like he’d spent most of his life getting his ass kicked, and expected nothing but more of the same. He looked beaten. He looked whipped.
He looked like nobody he’d want to know.
He went back into the kitchen. His mother stood at the sink, listening to the radio as she washed the dishes. Ross picked up a dishtowel and a plate. She glanced up at him, more quizzical than pleased.
To his surprise, Ross remembered where everything went, the stainless-steel cutlery and the dinner and side plates, the water glasses. He was pleased to discover that nothing had changed. When he’d put the last of the dishes away, he hung the towel on the rack to dry, and then he took his mother in his arms and held her tight and whispered in her ear that he was sorry for everything bad he’d done, and that he was going to try his hardest to be a good boy from now on.
His mother cried tears of joy. Pretty soon Ross was crying too, matching her tear for tear. Finally his mother dried her tears with the dishtowel and laughed about nothing at all in a gargling kind of way. She hugged him again.
Ross told her he loved her, and hugged her back.
Then he went into the bathroom, shut the door and locked it, and studied himself in the mirror again.
Did he look a little friendlier? Not so as you’d notice. He was going to have to keep working at it, chipping away, or look like an ex-con forever.
When his mother had finished cleaning up the kitchen, she puttered aimlessly around the house for a little while and then told him she was tired, that it was time for her afternoon nap. She left her bedroom door open. He could hear her praying, the creak of the bed as she lay down upon the covers, bone by bone. He turned on the television and watched part of a quiz show. Kiddo leapt silently into his lap. He crooked a finger and scratched the bridge of the cat’s stubby nose. Kiddo made a sound like a broken cement mixer; his ribcage swelled as he took a deep breath, and slowly let it out. The cat was a little overweight. Making up for lost meals, maybe. Ross shut his eyes. He was bone-weary but had no hope of dozing off. The unfamiliar sounds and smells of the house nagged at him, making sleep all but impossible.
As his mom cooked lunch, the chicken hissing and crackling in the pan, Ross had thought about the three different guys he’d met, none of whom had known each other until they landed in prison, who were guilty of assault with a frying pan. Three of them! And this was a prison for men! Would anyone who owned a frying pan soon be required to take a course in the safe handling of frying pans? Would the government eventually demand that all owners of frying pans register their frying pans, arrest and toss the book at anyone who’d neglected to store his frying pan in a safe place?
He dislodged Kiddo again, shrugged into his jacket and eased open the door and stepped onto the porch, shut the door behind him. Outside was big. Outside was huge. The size of it rocked him. He walked two blocks to the corner store and bought a pack of cigarettes, though he was astounded by the price. He asked for matches and they sold him a pack for a nickel.
He couldn’t believe it. A nickel! For something they used to give away for free.
Chapter 4
Willows’ desk butted up against Parker’s. If they were of a mind, and there was no one around to witness their shenanigans, they could shift forward in their swivel chairs and extend their legs and play an uncomfortable game of footsie.
But, at the moment, neither of them was in the mood.
Parker finished scribbling a note. She stabbed without malice at her blotter with the tip of her pen.
“Jack?”
Willows looked up. He leaned back in his chair.
Parker said, “We can’t hold them forever. Even a legal-aid lawyer knows that much.”
Hilda Stratten, Alvin Da Silva, William ‘Bill’ Marks and their fourth suspect, Jennifer Wilde, were up on the Public Safety Building’s top floor, ensconced in individual holding cells. They were being legally held as material witnesses, but Parker was right — time was running out fast.
She and Willows had split the quartet up and grilled them individually, following several lines of questioning. How could five people play a single game of cribbage? It transpired that the victim had been an onlooker rather than a participant. Willows had never encountered a case where none of the witnesses recalled the crime but all of them were full of remorse. Alvin Da Silva had told Parker that Richie was the nicest guy he’d ever known. Hilda had said he was a real sweetheart, generous to a fault. Bill Marks had told Willows that Richard had actually given him the shirt off his back, his last birthday. All four had claimed, individually and each in his own way, that he would jump at the chance to plead guilty, if the cops felt that was the right thing for them to do.
Grilled to a turn for hours on end, the four suspects had continued to weep and wail over the loss of their friend. Willows was convinced that their grief was the genuine article. Parker concurred. She said, “Maybe he did kill himself.”
“Stabbed himself in the throat.”
“Yeah, sure. Why not?” Willows’ face was unreadable. She said, “The splash pattern on the victim’s arm is consistent with a self-inflicted wound.”
Willows remained unconvinced.
Parker said, “A bunch of down-at-the-heels, unemployable alcoholics. But I hope it was suicide. Living together in that falling-down house, getting along, day by day. They’re always asking after each other. They
really care about each other, Jack. And they all say the same thing: ‘I hope I didn’t do it, but if I did, go ahead and gas me’.” Parker tossed her pencil the way David Letterman did, making it spin. She snatched it out of the air. “Why don’t we take another look at the crime scene.”
*
By the time they arrived, they were into the small hours of the morning. Frank Sinatra time. The rain had stopped. The house looked to Willows like something in need of a match. They had learned from Alvin Da Silva that the house’s owner was a dentist named Chris Bowers, who lived in Shaughnessy, one of the most expensive parts of the city. Bowers’ home number was unlisted. For the next few hours, his office would be closed.
The house comprised a mini-slum in what was essentially a pretty decent middle-class neighbourhood. The east side was changing rapidly. Ten years ago it had been home to the blue-collar bunch. Now, a reasonably attractive east-side home was worth about twice as much as a similar west-side property had cost five years ago. Willows wondered when the upward spiral would end. Except for his pension, almost every penny of his net worth was wrapped up in his house — the home he had inherited from his mother. His wife, Sheila, was entitled to half of everything he owned. When she discovered he was divorcing her, she’d go after every penny she was entitled to, and more.
Willows toyed with the idea of making an offer on the murder house. One of the many negative consequences of violent death was a short-term drop in property values. Maybe he should jump in now. Wake up the dentist. Lowball him with a nothing-down offer and see what happened…
Parker had broken the police seal and was standing in the open doorway, waiting. He followed her inside.
Memory Lane Page 3