Living with the hawk (18 page)

I sat up so fast my feet slammed onto the floor.

The trainer was bent over him once more, shielding him from view. Seemed to be whispering in his ear. Then he was moving one hand, the other hand, both his legs, and I was breathing again. Two players got his arms over their shoulders, lifted him. His legs splayed and dragging, they skated him toward the bench, the crowd applauding, and it was the Leaf winger they were clapping for, blond hair falling on his shoulders, not my brother after all.

I grabbed the remote and turned off the game. Sat hunched forward on the couch, staring at the empty screen, trying not to think, but my brother was in jail, and I had helped put him there.

No, that wasn't right. He was the one who knew Anna would go out with him, who'd driven to the old McAuley place, taken her there — I knew it as sure as if I'd been there myself to see him — and then everything had gone wrong and she was dead. They'd killed her, God, she was gone forever. He must have been crazy, yeah, drunk and crazy, but that was no excuse. He made his own choices.

Sure, I chickened out at the last second, couldn't say his name, but he was just as guilty as the other guys. The buggers.

Was there any chance that I was wrong? No, the police were holding him — just like the rest of them — the police wouldn't have it wrong.

I was so damned tired — too tired to think straight. I needed to get some sleep, but I wasn't sure I had the strength to make it up the stairs to bed. I dug my fists into my eyes, tried to rub the sleep away, but my knuckles were wet when I looked down at them.

Some time later, I realized I was lying on the couch again. The light on the end table by the easy chair was still on, the one we always used while watching T.V., but the room seemed darker. Someone had turned the hall light off, yes, and pulled the afghan over me. I checked my watch. Twelve-thirty. I swung my legs onto the floor, the muscles stiff and aching, but I knew I could make it up to bed.

When I reached the top of the stairs, I saw that the light was off in the den, but passing the door, I felt my heart surge, my breath halt an instant, then come back in a rush. On the other side of the dark room, just visible in the pale light from the window, my father sat at his desk, his head bent, his shoulders slouched forward. He had to be lost in thought, his mind far away and troubled, or he would have heard me on the stairs, maybe even heard me gasp. When I noticed his hands clasped together before him, I knew that he was praying. For what seemed like many minutes, I remained at the door, standing awkwardly, half-turned toward the den, watching him, but he never shifted his position, and at last, when I felt one calf begin to cramp, I tiptoed off to bed.

N
INE

T
hough the blind was drawn, sunshine bled all around it and filled the room with dusky light. The house beyond my room was absolutely quiet, no sound of traffic from the street outside. My parents must have slept in. But no, of course, they wouldn't do that. Not on a Sunday morning. They'd left me in bed, decided, maybe, that I needed sleep as much as church, and gone quietly off together. Yeah, and I wondered what they'd say afterwards, when someone down for coffee asked them where the boys were this morning. “Blair's sacked out at home, and Blake's sawing logs down in the city jail.” Not bloody likely.

Yes, but what could they say?

What must it be like for them, I wondered, with one son implicated in a killing and another who'd turned him in? Everybody in the congregation would have read the articles about the killing, seen the television news, the stubble field with its crust of snow, wind stirring, fresh snow beginning to drift over the fluorescent paint. They'd all know who Anna Big Sky was, but no other names had been released, of course, because at seventeen my brother and his friends were underage. Still, Palliser was a small city. Someone would know, and there'd be talk. The guys on the team would tell their friends. Eventually the names would get around. Eventually — hell, a lot of kids at school knew already. Some of their parents would too, and they'd be phoning each other.

I hoped none of them had phoned my father yet.

How was he going to stand up in the chancel and get through a sermon in front of them? How could my mother sit in the choir and raise her voice in praise as if this were just another Sunday? Would her voice crack on “The Lord's Prayer,” or would it rise above all the others as they sang, “And forgive us our trespasses”? And what about my father, leading everyone in prayer, his deep intonations audible even as the voices of the congregation mixed with his? “To you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hidden.” For years on Sunday mornings I'd repeated the words along with everybody else, getting through them by rote, barely listening, but today they meant something new.

And what would it be like for my parents afterwards, leaving the empty church and coming home to the rectory when one of their sons was missing?

It was almost eleven-thirty. With any kind of crowd going up to take communion, the service would last at least another twenty minutes, and then people would wander downstairs for coffee, taking their time, some of them standing at the front to chat, others clustered in groups around the small tables, sipping their coffees, munching on cookies, Mrs. Sandeman getting up half a dozen times, strolling casually to the front as if no one would notice her grabbing another cookie. I had lots of time.

Out of bed, into my jeans and t-shirt, downstairs to the kitchen.

I pulled the Edwards can from the freezer where my mother stored it to keep the coffee fresh. Measured out enough for four cups, filled the perc with water to the proper level, plugged it in and got it going. Then back to the freezer for the bagels, three of them. Tried to slice one in half, but it was like sawing wood with a breadknife. I put them in the microwave to thaw. Fifty seconds on high, and they were so hot I had to juggle them getting them back to the cutting board, but I could cut them now, slicing them like bread. It felt good to be doing something. Then a coating of tomato sauce, slices of cheese spread on the sauce, some pieces of Ready Crisp Bacon on top of the cheese. Laid the six halves on a pan. Cranked up the oven, left its door cocked open and ready, set the dishes on the table. As soon as I heard footsteps on the porch, I'd slide the pan into the oven.

“That was good,” my father said when we had finished eating, but his voice was lifeless. During the meal, they'd mainly talked about Mrs. Elmitt, how worked up she was at church, telling everyone about her husband's heart attack, getting more worked up with every telling. My father didn't usually visit at the hospital on Sunday afternoons, but he thought today he'd better go.

“Nice to come home,” said my mother when she had swallowed her last bite of bagel, “and have the meal ready for the table.” She swept her serviette across her lower lip, wiped away a daub of sauce.

“It's a bloody shame,” my father added, “that Blake couldn't be here to share it with us.”

“Yes,” said my mother, a catch in her voice, “yes, it is.” Now her serviette was rubbing at her eyes.

There was no sound in the room except for the scritch, scritch of paper grazing skin.

“We can't go on like this, you know,” my father said. He glared across the table at me. “Your brother's sitting in that bloody jail, all kinds of accusations levelled at him. He's worried out of his head, and we're bellied up to the table, going on about how good your pizza-bagels are.” His eyes were red, but they looked as if they had sunk an inch into his head. “You need to get down there and see him. He wants to talk to you.”

I went into the police station with Wanda McKinnel. I was nervous about seeing my brother, didn't know what I'd say.

Mr. Hammond and my father were certain we had the right lawyer to handle my brother's case. Ms. McKinnel was what my father called her. I don't know if that meant she wasn't married or she didn't want people to know her marital status. She was a reader, Mr. Hammond said, in a book club with his wife. Generous too. Every summer she sponsored a writer at the local authors' festival.

I wondered if Ms. McKinnel would take me down to the cells, wondered if they'd be bare cement and bars, shadows and darkness, a single light bulb hanging in a hall between the cells, but as soon as she finished talking to the officer in charge she led me into a medium-sized room and motioned to a chair. She said she'd met with Blake before, “a cursory meeting” was how she put it. There were other chairs and a table in the middle of the room, three filing cabinets against one wall. I looked around for one-way glass like on TV, but all I saw was a pane of frosted glass on the door. The outer wall had three large windows, but they weren't even barred. A narrow band of wallpaper ran around the room just below the windows, hunting scenes with Irish setters on it. Irish setters, for Pete's sake. There was a large SGI calendar above the filing cabinets and on the other wall, above a metal radiator, a pale rectangle where a picture must have hung at some time in the past. Had a prisoner grabbed it off the wall and used it as a weapon, smashed someone over the head with it, maybe even cut his wrists with broken glass? No, I was being silly; this was just an ordinary meeting room, probably the very place where the mayor sat down for long and boring discussions with members of the police commission. Still, except for that calendar, there were no pictures anywhere. It had to make me wonder.

When my brother came into the room, the first things I saw were the handcuffs, his wrists bound in front of him. An officer pushed the door closed behind him. Blake was wearing a sweat shirt and blue jeans, exactly what he'd wear at home, but his jeans were hanging low at the waist. He was walking awkwardly, shambling along, and for an instant I thought he must be wearing leg-irons, but when I looked at his feet, I saw his shoes flopping on his feet, their laces removed. Then I noticed that his belt was gone. I still didn't catch on for a while, but when I did, I got a queasy feeling.

Blake circled the table and sat down in a chair across from us, immediately shoved his hands beneath the table, pushing the cuffs out of sight. Never once looked at me.

“Something awful's going on,” he said to Ms. McKinnel. “The other guys — I can hear them in their cells — they're all saying I'm a rat. They won't even talk to me.” His eyes flicked in my direction, but returned at once to her. “They're trying to put all the blame on me.” His words were low and rushed. “Not for turning them in. For killing Anna.” He paused, took a deep breath. “What's going to happen to me?”

“If you're not involved,” said Ms. McKinnel, “I'd say there's a good chance everything's going to work out just fine. It may take a while, that's all.” She sounded confident, I thought, and also somewhat pompous. “I had a talk with the police chief after your father came to see me. I'm afraid you're right about one thing. The other boys are trying to lay the blame on you, but you mustn't worry. The police have seized the Foster car.” She paused, staring at him, as if searching for some kind of reaction. “The chief said he's got some doubts about their story. Nothing he's heard so far has him convinced.”

Blake leaned forward, his lower lip trembling as he spoke. “What are they saying?”

“The Foster boy claims he had a date with Anna Big — ”

“That could be true. I saw the two of them together — driving in his father's car.” Blake was nodding his head. “Toyota,” he added, “a silver Camry.”

“You may be right,” said Ms. McKinnel. She studied him a moment, gazing steadily into his eyes, looking, I suppose, for some sign of guilt. “Young Foster claims you drove up behind them.”

“No way!”

Ms. McKinnel held up her hand to silence him, continued speaking. “They were necking, and suddenly their car was blocked in — you flung the door open, dragged him out, started beating her.”

Blake was shaking his head all the while she spoke, nervously, I thought, hopelessly, but then his expression changed, becoming merely thoughtful. “The bastards,” he said, “that must be how it was.”

Ms. McKinnel looked as puzzled as I felt. “You mean they're telling the truth.”

“Of course not.” He seemed disgusted. “You think I could beat up Vaughn Foster? He's all muscles.”

“He said he was too drunk to stop you. You hauled him out of the car, hit him in the stomach and he started to vomit — that's all he remembers. He says he must've passed out.”

“The lying bastard!” He glanced down at the table. “Sorry, but this is really getting to me.”

“None of it's true?”

“I wasn't there.” He sat back in his chair, and turned to me, gazed right at me for the first time since he'd come into the room. “You know I could never handle Foster.”

I shrugged.

“Jesus Christ, you want me in jail?” He turned at once to Ms. McKinnel. “Pardon my tongue,” he said, “but my brother — ” he glared at me “ — I don't know what's with you anymore.”