Death Spiral (8 page)

Adrienne and her friend were nowhere in sight.

* * *

Prosecutor: The experimental subjects used in the freezing
experiments were political prisoners. Is this correct?

Witness: There were a number of political prisoners and also a number of foreigners, but there were also prisoners of war and inmates who had been condemned to death.

Prosecutor: So these people were not volunteers?

Witness: No.

Prosecutor: Suppose you describe to the tribunal exactly how these freezing experiments were carried out.

Witness: The experimental basin was built of wood. It was two metres long and two metres wide. It was filled with water and ice was added until the water measured three degrees centigrade. The experimental subjects were either dressed in flyer aviation suits or placed in the ice and water naked.

Wilf hadn’t intended to read when he’d driven back to his father’s house. He’d pulled the beer glasses out of his coat pocket, put them carefully down on the library table and poured himself a tall shot of rye. That’s when his eyes had fallen on the sheaf of transcripts that had dropped from his lap the previous night.

His father had placed a hand-printed card under the metal clasp that was holding them together. No one in the world was more organized than his father. He’d made the notation
DOCTOR EXPERIMENTS
and under this heading he’d compiled a list. Beside
C)
he’d printed
FREEZING WATER–INDUCED NARCOSIS
.

Wilf had stared at those words for a long moment.

Witness: The temperature was measured rectally and through the stomach by a Galvanometer apparatus. It took some time until so-called freezing narcosis set in. The lowering of the temperature to zero degrees centigrade was terrible for the experimental subject. At zero degrees the experimental subject lost consciousness. These persons were frozen down to minus four degrees body temperature.

Prosecutor: What was the purpose of such experiments?

Witness: The purpose was to develop techniques to revive air crew who had been shot down and recovered in the North Sea and in other cold waters.

Prosecutor: Out of a total of three hundred prisoners used, approximately how many died?

Witness: Approximately eighty to ninety subjects died.

Wilf couldn’t get it straight.

He could see Old Man Cruikshank frozen blue in his tub. He could see him awash in his dream, a tangle of wires attached.

Wilf stared across the room at the two empty glasses. He’d stolen them.

He stared down at the transcript again. And he thought of the man standing in the snow who wasn’t there.

There was only one explanation for all of this. For everything.

I’m going insane, Wilf thought to himself.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Duncan felt half-frozen. He was standing in the grove of trees behind Carole’s property for the second night in a row. Her father’s property actually.

He knew Carole’s father, at least to see him. He worked at the mill that made kitchen cupboards and counters up near the railway tracks. He’d delivered lumber there when his mother was alive. Whenever he saw Mr. Birley, he always seemed to have a scowl on his face like he somehow knew the bad thing Duncan did behind his house.

Duncan stamped his feet around in the snow to try to keep them warm. Carole’s window remained dark. She was later than usual. She was on time the night before, that’s what had brought him back so soon. Her long naked back, her tumbling hair, a quick glimpse of her beautiful breasts.

He leaned against a tree. He felt a little drunk after a long evening of sitting in the men’s room at the Empire Hotel. The fellows at the table he’d sat down at had been friendly enough. They all knew him. Everyone knew him. They even bought him a few beers but just after nine o’clock they had to leave.

Duncan sat alone at the table drinking glass after glass of draft beer like someone else might eat their way through a bowl of peanuts. He didn’t want to bother with the two remaining men who were sitting at their own separate tables. He knew them both. He knew that they lived in separate rooms upstairs and preferred to be left alone, which was all right with him. They weren’t much to talk to, anyway.

He made himself sit there and watch the clock until the hands reached ten thirty and then he pushed out the side door. At first it felt warm outside. He walked down the dark street to where it came to an abrupt stop above the river, hauled himself over a pile of snow and half-slid down to the river’s edge. You couldn’t see the river of course, just more snow but you could hear it gurgling underneath somewhere, the water running swift and dark.

The first time Duncan had dared to do this he’d worried about the trail he was leaving behind but no one seemed to notice. That was a few years ago. Now he just bulled himself along, urgent to get there in time, not thinking about anything else but Carole, his heart full of pounding blood and a compelling excitement.

Carole was really late tonight, though.

Duncan felt cold all the way through. His great arms were beginning to quiver with cold. So was his chest. His teeth would be rattling soon.

Maybe she wasn’t feeling well, maybe that was it. Maybe she’d gone to bed early. She’d done that before. Or stayed overnight somewhere. At a girlfriend’s, maybe.

And poor Dandy would be standing in the feed mill’s open stables shivering with cold and wondering what the hell had happened. He had his blanket on, of course, he had oats in his bucket but still he’d be half-frozen by now.

The light in Carole’s bedroom turned on and the electricity went straight into Duncan’s heart. He shuddered from head to foot.

And now he could see her.

And then she went away again.

* * *

Wilf heard the grandfather clock striking somewhere, striking insistently, one drawn-out gong. He swam up into consciousness and realized that it wasn’t the clock, the phones were ringing. He was still sitting in a chair in the study, the transcript on his lap. Moonlight was coming through the window. The snowstorm he’d driven through earlier had disappeared.

Wilf hauled himself up from the chair and went out to the kitchen. Everything seemed to be floating in front of him.

“I hope I didn’t wake you,” Carole said at the other end of the line.

“No.”

“Did you just get in?”

“What time is it?”

“Ten after twelve.”

Wilf’s eyes went up to the clock drifting above the refrigerator. “What took you so long?”

“I’ve called you twice before.”

“When?”

“At nine. And at ten. I was just going to go to bed and then I thought I’d give it one more try.”

“I must have fallen asleep.”

“Some sleep. I had to explain to Nancy why I was calling you all night long.”

“Why did you have to explain?”

“All I said was that it was urgent business that had to do with the office.”

“Is she listening now?’

“No, of course not. She wouldn’t.”

Wilf wasn’t so sure.

He remembered the transcript, he remembered drinking. And drinking some more. He felt sick.

“You didn’t give me a chance to tell you something,” Carole was saying. “Frank Cruikshank came in just after you left. He wanted to see the will. I told him he’d have to wait for your father. He was very unpleasant. And he looked upset. But then, his father had just died.”

“I don’t care about him anymore.”

“You don’t?”

“I’m interested in Adrienne O’Dell’s boyfriend.”

There was a pause at the other end of the line. “What did Doctor Robinson say? Did you go see him?”

“Yes.”

“Are you lying?”

“No.”

“What did he say?”

“He said that Cruikshank had a lot of water coming out of his lungs, like he’d been fighting for his breath.”

“Oh.”

“He still believes he died of a heart attack, though.”

“Oh.”

Wilf rested his forehead against the kitchen wall and tried to remember. Was that exactly what Doc Robinson had said. He wasn’t sure. “What did you find out about her boyfriend?” Panic was moving around in his chest again.

“His name is Tom. I don’t know his last name. He’s from Brantford. He’s a sailor. He was Adrienne’s boyfriend before he went overseas. He got back a few months ago.”

“Who told you this?”

“A girlfriend who called a girlfriend who knows Adrienne a lot better than I do.”

“Where are they living?”

“They’re not married.”

“Some people live together when they’re not married.”

“Not here.”

“Okay. So where’s Adrienne staying? Is she still at home?”

“You know that butcher shop on the corner in the Junction?”

“I think so.”

“There’s an apartment at the back. Adrienne’s been living there.”

“That’s not too far away from Mr. Cruikshank’s house. Is it?”

“No.”

“Just down the tracks.”

“You know what I think? I think you should wait for your father, he’ll know what to do.” Carole’s voice was sounding a little tremulous.

“Thank you for all your help, Carole.”

“It’s so awful.”

Wilf could almost feel her light breath coming down the line, the warmth of it.

“You’re welcome,” she said.

* * *

By the time Wilf pushed Mary’s key into the lock he was shivering in the cold.

Tony Gillo had been right. Partway in and a quarter turn to the right. The rest of the way and a full turn to the left.

The door pushed open and Wilf stepped into the landing. The air inside the house felt even colder than it had the day before. He climbed up the steps into the kitchen. Moonlight poured in through the window, spidery x-ray shadows moved on all the walls.

This is what Adrienne would have seen, Wilf thought to himself, night after night. Bringing in the heady smell of the night air. The little saint of the garden. Little saint of groceries. And Cruikshank would make sure she locked the door behind her. And he’d touch her face. And she’d wait, just as she had that day in the dress shop. Inviting his touch. His trembling fingers. His faltering body.

And her body, passive, quiet, white as snow.

Wilf made his way down the hall. Moonlight filled the round window at the turn of the stairs. He began to climb, wondering if he’d have the courage to look outside. He scraped the frost away. Light lay like a blue haze across the backyard. He could see the railway tracks glinting faintly in the ravine. The fruit trees were holding their dark arms up to the moon. And that was all.

Wilf felt his way along the darker upstairs hall and found the bathroom switch. The light flared on. Everything looked harsh and bleached. Someone had let the water out but there were still splinters of ice lacing the bottom of the tub. And a smear of excrement.

Wilf crossed over to the sink and looked at himself in the mirror. “Having fun?” And once again, inexplicably, he felt on the edge of tears.

He opened the medicine cabinet and looked inside. A frayed toothbrush. Hair tonic. Combs. Aftershave. Stomach tablets. Bandages. Two small pill bottles, one empty, the other half full.

He closed the cabinet, walked back to the master bedroom and turned on the light. Everything looked the same as it had the day before. Tidy. Shipshape. The made-up bed. Who would make a bed with the blanket as tight as that? It had a familiar look, a military look. He could hear Adrienne’s voice. She was calling down the hall. “Make the bed, Tom.” She was down on her hands and knees soaking up the spilled water. She wouldn’t want the bed left messy, not still rumpled and stained from where she and the old man had snuggled together against the wind outside, against the sandy sound of the pelting snow.

Had she drawn him a warm bath afterwards? What an angel of mercy she must have been. And the old man had settled down in the hot water. And she’d taken a cloth and washed his back and he’d closed his eyes and he hadn’t heard a thing. Nothing until he’d felt another pair of hands on his shoulders, colder, more muscular.

Wilf moved around the bed. He could see what he’d come for on the top of the dresser, a pill bottle, larger than the other two. Doc had scribbled a note across the label recording the name of the pills and the date. The date of the storm six days before.

Wilf sat down on the edge of the bed and listened to the commotion coming from the bathroom. It would have taken both of them to manage it. Adrienne grasping for his legs. Lifting. The boyfriend swarming over his head, pressing down. And now Adrienne was screaming at the old man, her face ecstatic, screaming something dark and terrible. Her body on fire. Wild. Beside herself.

Wilf could hear her.

* * *

Andy stared at the two beer glasses and the amber-coloured pill bottle Wilf had just fished out of a scarf. It was two in the morning and as usual at that time of night he was sitting alone in the police station.

“What the hell is this?”

“Proof that Samuel Cruikshank was murdered.”

Andy got up and distanced himself a little from the evidence that was now sitting on his desk. “I told you to let everything alone, didn’t I? I told you to wait until the will was read.”

“I couldn’t wait.”

“What the hell’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing. It didn’t have anything to do with Frank Cruikshank anyway. It was Adrienne O’Dell.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes.” Wilf eased himself down onto the nearest chair and tried to look relaxed, in control of himself. “I found out a few things today. There’s this locksmith in Galt. Adrienne came into his shop a few days ago to make a copy of the old man’s key.”

“And that proves what?”

“That she already had a key to copy. Do you know how she came to be the sole heir to Cruikshank’s estate? Because, in the middle of the night, while the neighbours were asleep, whenever the old man wanted her she’d let herself into his house.”

“Wilf, for chrissake, he was old enough to be her grandfather.”

“He was a tough old bastard, that’s what he was. Rich, too. That’s what Adrienne knew. He was rich. And who knows? Maybe he wrote out that will just to make sure she’d keep showing up, and maybe he thought someday he’d get around to destroying it. Big mistake. Do you know why she needed that extra key? She couldn’t drown the old buzzard herself. She needed her boyfriend’s help.”

“Oh yeah?” Andy looked less than convinced. “What’s all that stuff on my desk?”

“The pill bottle was sent over to Cruikshank by Doc Robinson late in the afternoon on the day he died. The glasses came out of the Arlington tonight. The one with the lipstick will have Adrienne’s fingerprints all over it.”

“And?”

“Since Adrienne was Cruikshank’s little friend maybe she helped him take his pills, too.”

“You’re dreaming.”

“Are you sure? If she gave the old man everything else, including warm baths, why not his pills? A late-night pill.”

“Right,” Andy said. He squared his stocky body toward Wilf and spread his stance a little as if he were about to write out a ticket. “I can guess how you got those beer glasses but I’m a bit stumped on how you managed to get that pill bottle?”

“After you gave me Mary’s number, I went over to see her and talked her into giving me her key to the house.”

“Fucking Christ! So what are you, a plainclothes detective now? Did someone deputize you? I thought you gave me a promise.”

“You know what Doc told me? When Cruikshank thawed out water was running out of his mouth.”

“I don’t care! Entering private property without permission, removing private property! Jesus Christ!” Andy began to pat his pockets down looking for his cigarettes. After a while he spotted them lying on a windowsill. He walked over to them and took his time lighting one up. He looked back toward the glasses, the pill bottle. “What are you after, as if I didn’t know?”