Mazie Baby (18 page)

“Does Quebec have bathrooms?”

The highway veered left and then
right, went over another bridge then turned a sharp left.

“Tem-is-cam-ing-uh.” Ariel shook
her head. “Never heard of it.”

“Me either. But there’s a Shell
station.” Mazie checked the gas gauge. “May as well top up the tank. This old
thing is a guzzler.”

A bell jangled when she pushed the
door open. The place reeked of dirt, motor oil, and burned coffee.

The woman behind the counter looked
up and broke out into a huge smile. “
Bonjour madam et mademoiselle
.”

Mazie nodded. “
Bonjour
.” Her
hard “j” gave her away as full-on Anglo.

“
Comment allez-vous aujourd'hui?
Avez-vous besoin de gaz? Café?
”

All she got was ‘coffee.’ Mazie
shook her head. “Sorry, do you speak English?”

“
Oui, madame
.”

“Is there a bathroom? And I need to
top up the tank and grab a coffee.”

The woman smiled. “How much dollars
you want for gas?”

“Ten ought to do.”

“The bathrooms, they are down the
hall.” She pointed behind Mazie.

“
Merci
.” She tugged on Ariel’s
sleeve. “You go first. I’ll fill up and meet you back here. Pour me a coffee?”

Ariel was already on her way to the
bathroom. She waved over her shoulder.

“Your daughter, she is teenage,
no?”

“Not yet.”

“Ah.” The woman nodded. “She act
like it.”

Mazie paid for the gas, coffee, and
a map of the area. She gave Ariel the keys to the car. “Don’t start it, just
turn the key part way for the radio.”

Ariel rolled her eyes. “I know
how.”

Mazie sat on the toilet, sighed
when the pressure in her full bladder started to ease. She dug the phone out of
her purse and stared at the voice mail alert.

Damn that Rachel. Maybe she was
apologizing for ratting her out to the cops. Or maybe it was just Polly dying
to tell Ariel about the latest cute boy in school. It didn’t matter now.

She popped the SIM card out of her
phone and crushed it under the wooden heel of her sandal. She gathered up the
remains and dropped them into the toilet. She’d seen enough cop shows to know
that they could track her by that damn phone. She watched the bits of it swirl,
swimming in a yellow eddy until gravity sucked it down the pipe and out into
the Quebec sewer system.

She stared at her reflection while
she scrubbed her hands. She should feel free. Should be happy to be rid of him.
Instead she’d tightened her own shackles and thrown away the key.

~~~~~~~~

After a modest dinner of tuna
sandwiches and grandma’s homemade cookies, they’d continued north until
darkness swallowed the world around them. Ariel slipped into a fitful sleep, a
pillow wedged between her head and the window pane.

She hadn’t asked again about the
drama whirling around her. Didn’t mention her father or going home. Only asked if
she could call Polly, spoke of the fun she had in the Simpson’s home, how nice
Rachel was, how she treated her with kindness. “Did you know she plays DDR with
us, Mom? You should play next time.”

“DDR?”

“Dance Dance Revolution.”

Mazie laughed. “Well I do love to
dance.” Or she used to.

Lights of a roadside motel glowed
ahead at the end of a long bend in the highway. She’d begun to think they’d be
sleeping in the car.

Gravel crunched under the tires.
Mazie parked in front of the office, a neon vacancy sign flickered above the
door. She shook her daughter. “Wake up.”

Ariel rubbed her eyes and looked
around. “Where are we?”

“We’re at a motel. Grab your bag.”

They entered the office, empty
except for a dim lamp, a smouldering cigarette, and a tiny television sitting on
the desk, the volume low. A chrome bell sat on the counter. Ariel tapped it
with her palm. A sharp clang rang through the silence.

“One sec!” The voice came from a
back room.

A man, as wide as he was short,
came through the entry. He eyed them over the top of wire-rimmed glasses that
looked like they may fall from the tip of his bulbous nose. The entire room reeked
of whiskey.

Mazie’s stomach lurched.

He waddled behind the counter, a
beaming smile pinched the corners of his eyes. “What can I do for you ladies?”

“Do you have any vacancies?”

His laughter belched from deep inside
his oversized belly. “Honey, all I got is vacancies.” He dragged an open ledger
closer and picked up a pencil. He licked the tip of the lead and perched it
over the paper. “Name?”

Mazie froze. She couldn’t give him
her real name. The cops would find her in no time. “Let’s play a game,” she
whispered in Ariel’s ear. She turned to the man. “Charlotte. My name is
Charlotte Smyth.”

Ariel giggled. The man raised his
eyebrow at her then printed the name in messy block letters.

Mazie grinned and watched him write.
She pointed to the last name. “No, Smyth, with a y.”

“Sorry.” He turned the i into a y
and eyeballed Ariel. “And what’s your name, sweetheart?”

“Do you need her name for the
register?”

“No, no. But a pretty little thing
must have a pretty little name, right?”

Mazie’s eyelids fluttered and she pressed
her fingers against a growing pain in her gut.

“Clementine,” Ariel said, her face
alight with the fun of the game.

“See? A pretty name. My
grandmomma’s name was Clementine. Not many folks these days use those nice,
old-fashioned names.” He ducked his head down and rummaged beneath the counter
top, his face scrunched in concentration. He smiled, his eyes lit. He handed a
piece of paper to Ariel. “Here, a coupon for half off breakfast. Which way are
you heading?”

“North,” Mazie said.

“Perfect. Little place about twenty
K up the road. Great coffee, and they’ll fill your to-go cup for free too.”

The tension in Mazie’s shoulder’s
eased. “Thanks. That’s very kind.”

He handed her a key. “You’re in
cabin three. Follow the gravel road behind the office, take a left, then a right
after cabin one. There should be a light on over the door so you don’t trip in
the dark. Check out is noon, but if you’re a little after that, I don’t mind.”

“We should be on the road pretty
early.”

~~~~~~~~

Mazie picked up the receiver of the
phone and stared at the dial pad. “Shit.” She turned to Ariel. “What’s Polly’s
number?”

Ariel reeled off the ten digits.
“Why don’t you use your cell phone?”

“It’s broken.”

“Can I talk to Polly?”

“We’ll see. It’s pretty late, even
in Calgary. Crawl into bed and turn on the television. But keep it down.”

Mazie poked the numbers on the pad
and waited for one, two, three rings.

“Hello?” A tentative greeting in a
near-whisper of a voice.

“Rachel?”

“Mazie? Is it you? Where are you?
Are you safe?”

“Yes, we’re fine.”

“Did you get my message?”

“No. I broke my cell phone. What’s
going on?”

“The cops are all over your place.
Crime scene tape, body bag in the middle of the night. Sunday. Or I guess
that’s Monday morning. Hell, two days ago.”

Mazie dropped onto a bench beside
the table that held the phone and laid her head on her arms.

“Mazie?”

“I’m here.”

“They wanted me to tell them where
you are. Some stupid neighbour told them our daughters are best friends.”

“What did you tell them?”

“That you took Ariel to
Disneyland.”

Mazie pressed the fingertips of her
free hand against her closed lids. The nosy neighbour, bane of her daily
existence, cause of so many issues with Cullen, was protecting her?

“Look, Mazie. I know what he’s done
to you. I say power to you. One day I’d like to hear what you did.” There was
rustling and muffled voices as if she had covered the receiver with her hand.
“Honey, the cops are heading our way. George went out to meet them to slow them
down. I’m going to hang up. Call me in a couple of hours, you hear?”

Mazie glanced at the bed. Drool
dripped from Ariel’s mouth, little snorts of sleep blowing through stray hairs
that fell in front of her face.

“Yes. I’ll call. And thank you. I…
I don’t know what to say.”

“Just be safe. Tell Ariel we love
her.”

“I will.” She hung up the phone and
stared at it, tears stinging her eyes. She focused on the prints her fingers
left behind on the grimy receiver. Her heart leapt. She wiped the receiver with
the sleeve of her sweater, then wiped the number pad.

She shook her head and snorted.

What, was she going to wipe down
the entire hotel room too? The restaurant? She’d never been arrested, they
didn’t have her prints on file.

She closed her eyes and took some
deep breaths. Reality took seconds to dawn on her. Her house. The blood. Her
fingerprints in his blood. Everywhere. In the bedroom. On the scissors and the
knife. On the pictures she left behind. On the notebook.

Not that it mattered. They knew who
killed him. She’d told them in the letter. But they might be able to find her
that way. Right? Is that how it worked?

She ran a bath and soaked in the
steaming water for almost an hour, scouring the fold-out maps. Timmins. They’d
head to Timmins.

She crawled into bed next to Ariel
and pulled the blankets up high around her neck. She glanced at the clock and
picked up the phone.

“Hello?” George’s voice.

Mazie froze.

“Is there anyone there?”

She held her breath, her finger
hovered over the disconnect button. “Mazie?” Rachel’s voice, a sound that used
to grate on Mazie’s last nerve, had lost its irritating edge.

“Rachel, I’m sorry, I didn’t know
what to say to him.”

“It’s fine. Sweetheart, George
knows all about it.”

Mazie sank into the pillows. “What,
exactly, does he know?”

“Honey, nobody wears turtlenecks
and long sleeves in August. Not unless they’re hiding something. We hear how he
talks to you. And those walls are thinner than you think.” Rachel sighed.
“Sweetheart, the whole neighbourhood knows.”

Mazie squeezed her eyes shut. Cullen’s
screaming face came into clear view, his wrists and ankles bound, the headboard
slamming against the wall.

Creak, gasp, thud.

She opened her eyes and focused on
a stain on the bedspread. “So the whole neighbourhood knows the hell I live
with,” she said, deadpan. Anger pinched at her chest. “But nobody did or said
anything?”

“I been trying to catch him. Been watching
him, you know? But lady, you are so damn guarded. You won’t let anybody in. And
that bastard keeps his snotty nose pretty clean in public.”

Mazie covered her face with one
hand, tears sprung to her eyes. “I had no idea. Honestly, Rachel, I just
thought you were a nosy neighbour.”

“Well, shit. I am. But only because
I knew what was up. I can’t tell you how many times George wanted to go over
there and beat him to a pulp. But that wouldn’t help you.”

“No, it would have made it worse.”

“And we didn’t have good reason to
call the police. But I am glad Ariel did.”

Mazie sat up straight. “She told
you?”

“Well the whole neighbourhood saw
him get hauled away, saw the ambulance. Ariel just confided in Polly that it
was her that called.”

Mazie sighed. “I took him back.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t know what else to do.”

“I know.”

“Oh, Rachel. What have I done?” Her
voice cracked and faded into a breathy whine.

Ariel shifted in her sleep.

Mazie stroked her head, slipped
from beneath the covers, and sat in a chair by the window.

“You did what you had to do, right?
I mean, I’m assuming you killed the bastard, being as how there’s a body bag
and all.” Rachel breathed into the phone for a few seconds. “But it was self-defence,
right? He would have killed you first, right?”

“He would have. One day. He kept
talking about Ariel. How he wanted to take her to the cabin alone. How she’s
pretty like I used to be.”

Rachel gasped. “No. Oh, Mazie, I
had no idea.”

“I didn’t plan it, Rachel. I was
just going to hurt him. Leave him tied to the bed until somebody found him. I
was just going to take Ariel and run away.” She peeked at her daughter’s silent
form before cupping her hand over her mouth next to the receiver. “It just went
terribly wrong. I knew if he ever found us I’d be dead. I just… lost it.” Her
heart beat a heavy rhythm. “Oh God, Rachel. I’m a murderer.”