The Rain Barrel Baby (11 page)

Gus sauntered down the street to see if his handiwork of the night before had met with success. It had. The bird seed was gone and the birds’ feet had left a dainty pattern in the hard new cement.

Gus smiled and shouted, “Good afternoon!” to a man in a suit standing further on up the driveway.

He recalled the footprints of seagulls in the sand at Gimli. There and gone, there and gone. Well, it would be some time before these particular footprints disappeared and Gus chuckled as he strolled back down the street toward home.

He had worried at first that the birds would have problems with cement attaching itself to their feet. But they were almost weightless and even if a tiny bit did stick it would soon wear itself off. And he figured the amount of cement attached to a few seeds swallowed by one bird at one feed wouldn’t account for any digestive trouble. He sowed in a different spot each time so it was unlikely the same bird would ever feed twice. And he was sure they were no strangers to what was really just a bit of sand and gravel and water mixed up together, maybe a bit of clay and limestone thrown in. Hell, they probably ate that stuff all the time, just not in these precise proportions.

Yesterday morning Gus had overheard the caretaker at the community club talking about replacing the sidewalk between the two hockey rinks. Apparently it was going to happen some time this summer. He’d have to keep his eyes open for that.

Frank sat at his desk and tried to concentrate on the reports in front of him. He was supposed to be filling out evaluations of two new patrol sergeants working under him but he didn’t know them well enough yet.

His mind kept wandering back to Ivy Grace. He knew he had to act; it would be irresponsible not to.

His hunch, that Ivy had put the baby in the barrel in Greta’s yard, was based on his intimate knowledge of the details of her rape thirty years ago. And on his knowledge that Greta was the stepsister of two of the boys who instigated and participated in that rape.

Frank’s insides heaved when he pictured the wild-eyed brothers that he saw too much of for a while back then. Poor Greta’d had to share a house with them.

The rape was never reported, never punished, never avenged. If Frank was to pursue his hunch he would have to admit out loud to someone, to Fred, to Superintendent Flagston, probably eventually to the newspaper and therefore his family, what he hadn’t been capable of stopping all those years ago. It was the greatest shame of his life.

He didn’t want to share his past with Fred. Fred looked up to him and Frank didn’t want to watch that respect drain out of his sergeant’s face before his very eyes.

Also Fred could be very gung-ho and Frank didn’t want this getting away on him.

He had stopped stewing over whether it was Ivy’s own baby or someone else’s, whether she had killed it herself or found it dead.

It was Ivy’s baby, her very own. Frank knew it. He had talked himself into it.

He knew he had to discuss it with someone and the only person he could think of that made any sense at all was his boss, Ed Flagston.

He had to get some feedback. Maybe this was some wild tangent he was on and he just needed Ed to get him back on track. Maybe he was crazy. He sure hoped so.

Ed was his guy. He wouldn’t blab, judge, or jump to unlikely conclusions. Sometimes Frank wished he could be Ed Flagston, with his cool head and compartmentalized way of looking at things. But he wouldn’t want to smoke a pack of Export A’s a day or have a gut that hung as far over his belt as Ed’s did. Ed called it “Dunlop’s Disease”: My stomach dun lops right over my belt! he was fond of saying.

Frank set aside his reports and walked down the hall to his boss’s office. Ed wasn’t there. He was at his daughter’s graduation exercises, and according to his secretary, Brian, there was a huge celebration afterwards so he wouldn’t likely be back.

“Is it important, sir?” Brian asked. “I could probably track him down.”

“No, Brian. Don’t worry about it. I’ll catch him tomorrow sometime.”

“Would you like to make an appointment?” Brian asked. “That might be best. Tomorrow afternoon, say? Three-thirty?”

“Thanks, Brian. That’d be fine.”

Back in his office, Frank left a message on Wim Winston’s voice mail.

“He’s like, ‘Have you seen Emma today?’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, we walked to school together,’ and he goes, ‘Do you know where she is now?’ and I’m like, ‘No,’ and…”

“Delia, wait!” Emma said. “Okay, stop walking. I’ll be you and you be him. Now tell me exactly what he said. Okay, I’m you: ‘Hi Donald! What’s shakin’?’”

“I wouldn’t say, ‘What’s shakin’?’”

“Okay. I’m you. ‘Hi, Don. How’s it goin’?’”

“I wouldn’t call him Don. No one calls him Don.”

“Oh God, Dele. Okay. ‘Hi, Donald. How’s it goin’?’”

“Okay. ‘Hi, Delia. Not bad. Have you seen Emma today?’”

“‘Yeah. We walked to school together.’”

“‘Do you, like, know where she is now?’”

“He wouldn’ta said ‘like.’”

“Okay. ‘Do ya know where she is now?’”

“Okay. ‘No.’”

“‘Well, if you see her, could you tell her I’m lookin’ for her?’ And then he smiled and that was it.”

“Oh God. This is so great.” Emma sat down in the middle of the sidewalk and looked up at her friend.

“What did he look like when he smiled?”

“Well, just kind of normal but with a smile on his face.”

“Did he look beautiful?”

“He looked cute, I guess. I wouldn’t say beautiful. Stand up, you idiot. People are staring at you.”

Emma lay down.

“I love him so much I think I’m gonna throw up.”

“Snap out of it,” Delia said.

“I can’t.”

“Here he comes!”

Emma scrambled to her feet.

“Just kidding!” Delia took off, running.

Emma chased her down the street, shrieking, “I’m gonna kill you!”

Delia shrieked back, “It was for your own good!”

1966

On a June afternoon in 1966 no one bothers Ivy Srutwa. She gazes out the open classroom window at the street beyond. The perfume of purple lilacs floats in on the summer breeze. She hears a train blowing its whistle from across the Red River. It threatens to drown out the voice of her history teacher, Mr. Friesen, droning on about the Battle of Hastings, fought in 1066.

She stands up, inside the lilac scent, and moves toward the door. One or two people watch the motion from a lazy place behind their eyes. Most don’t notice.

She walks down the lanes in the shimmering heat of early afternoon till she comes to the stifling bungalow she shares with her mother and her older brother Wilf.

She walks by Olive, who sits at the kitchen table smoking and playing solitaire. The stink of old gin rises from her mother. Gin and something else.

Ivy walks down the cellar stairs.

It was here that her father took his own life. He threw a rope over a beam and stood on a chair. He fastened that rope around his own neck and kicked the chair out from under him. All of this before Ivy was born. It was what Duane Simkin had been talking about when he taunted her about her dad being in hell. It was what Frank Foote had been referring to when he told Duane to shut up about her dad. Other people had known about it when Ivy hadn’t.

Olive told her about it, finally, one day when Ivy kept asking her about his spells.

“Did he know I existed?” Ivy asked. “Did he know that you were pregnant with me?”

“Sure he knew. Whaddya think?” Olive said. “Anyway, what difference does all that make at this point? Have you run out of garbage to write about in your brother’s old scribblers?”

Ivy gathered up the notebooks she had hidden under her mattress. She couldn’t bear knowing that her mother had been a witness to her secret self. At the river she lit a fire. She ripped her words to shreds and fed them to the flames.

In the cellar now Ivy finds a small cloth suitcase that someone once said belonged to her father. She heads back upstairs.

Her mother speaks but Ivy doesn’t listen.

She places some clothes and a few items from the bathroom inside the musty bag.

Olive shouts now, but Ivy still doesn’t listen.

She pauses at the front door but doesn’t turn around. She walks out, cloth bag in hand, and lets the screen door slam behind her.

As she walks up St. Mary’s Road toward downtown she thinks of all the fine things she’s never done and maybe never will do, but can, if she puts herself in the right places and changes a little.

She’s almost finished grade ten.

The Battle of Hastings was fought in 1066.

The Present

“Donald Griffiths is coming over to help me work on my volcano.”

“Who’s Donald Griffiths?” Frank asked.

“He’s a guy in my class and he knows about volcanoes and things.” Emma added more Harvest Crunch to her bowl to even out with the milk that was left over.

Emma’s having a boy over, Frank thought. Life as we know it is finished.

“When’s he coming? Will I get to meet him, I hope?”

“He’s coming after supper tonight. I figured we could work up in my room. That’s where all my stuff is.”

That’s also where your bed is, and your pajamas and your underwear drawer, thought Frank.

“I think maybe for tonight you should set things up here in the kitchen,” he said. “I don’t know if Donald…Donald who?”

“Griffiths.”

“I don’t know if Donald Griffiths is ready for your bedroom, Em.”

“I cleaned it up specially.”

“Still, I think Donald’s parents and I would be more comfortable if you worked in the kitchen tonight.”

Frank got up to pour himself more coffee. There was no cream.

“He only has a mum,” Emma said. “What about Garth and Sadie and everyone? They’ll be all over us and embarrassing me and everything.”

“I’ll make you a deal.” Frank poured milk into his coffee and took a sip. “Yuck! I’ve got to pick up some groceries. I hate milk in coffee.”

“You shouldn’t be drinking cream,” Emma said. “It’s bad for you.”

“Yeah, but I like it. It agrees with me.” Frank added cream to the grocery list on the fridge, removed the yellow paper from under its cow magnet and stuck it in his shirt pocket.

“Anyway,” he said, “the deal is, I’ll try my best to keep Garth and Sadie out of your hair if you’ll work on your volcano in the kitchen tonight.”

“Aw, Dad.”

“I think that’s reasonable, Em.”

“Yeah, all right then.”

“Great! I look forward to meeting this Donald.”

“Yeah, great.”

“Would you like to come up to the hospital with me later to see your mum?” Frank asked.

“Mmm, no, I don’t think so,” Emma said.

“Are you sure? I think she’d really like to see you.”

“I hate her,” Emma said quietly.

“Oh, Emma. No you don’t.”

“Yeah. I do, Dad. I really do.”

She rinsed her bowl and placed it neatly with the other dishes beside the sink. When Denise was away the rules were loosened up some and the dishes were just washed once at the end of the eating day. It suited everyone till evening rolled around.

“Believe it or not,” Frank said, “your mother is trying her hardest right now.”

“I don’t believe it,” Emma replied.

Frank slouched over the kitchen table long after she had left for school. She was punishing Denise. For not loving her correctly, Frank supposed, in a way that would have been acceptable to Emma. And of course, for being a drunkard. The two went hand in hand. He hadn’t known how to handle her statement of hatred. He wondered what Gus would have thought of that particular bit of parenting.

The phone message in Wim Winston’s hand was shaking. Frank Foote wanted him to call and Wim’s secretary had written “
ASAP
” beside the number.

“Jesus.”

He knew he had to return the call. Denise was a patient in his hospital and Frank was her husband. Maybe Frank just wanted to ask him to look in on her, see how she was getting along. See if, in Wim’s professional opinion, she was going to turn things around this time. Quit drinking once and for all. Sure thing, Frank.

Wim punched in the numbers. Maybe Denise hadn’t told on him. Maybe Frank wasn’t calling in order to set up a date to kill him for coming on to his wife.

Frank answered on the first ring.

“Wim. Thanks for returning my call. Could we get together do you suppose? This isn’t something I want to talk about over the phone.”

She told him, Wim thought. But he sounds more tense than mad. Maybe he wants to plead with me to leave her alone. That would be even worse. You can never tell with a cop. I shouldn’t have bothered with her.

Frank sat in Ed Flagston’s outer office listening to Brian recite his recipe for flank steak to someone over the phone. Frank’s stomach growled. The only thing he’d eaten all day was a piece of Greta Bower’s rhubarb pie at a coffee shop down the street from the police station.

Flagston opened his door and motioned for him to come in.

“How’s it going, Frank? Have a seat.”

The room was thick with cigarette smoke and Frank longed to open a window.

“Pretty good. Thanks, Ed.”

“What can I do for you? How are your guys getting along with the rain barrel case?”

Ed leaned over his fish tank. He sprinkled in a little food and Frank watched ash fall from his cigarette into the water. He wondered how the fish liked their home.

“Actually, that’s what I’d like to talk to you about. As I’m sure you’re aware, we’ve pretty much hit a brick wall. But something has come up in my private life that I have an uncomfortable feeling about. And I think it may be connected to little Jane Doe.”

Ed sat down behind his desk and gave Frank his full attention.

“Ed, I’ve come to ask your advice. I feel buried in this thing and I can’t see straight. What I’m about to tell you is something I’m not proud of. God, this is hard!”

“Frank. Look at me.”

Frank met Ed’s eyes and saw nothing but kindness and patience.

“This is between the two of us,” Ed said.

“Thank you. I know I can’t expect any kind of special treatment.”

“You’re a good man, Frank,” Ed said, “and a good cop. Now tell me.”

Frank began in 1965 with the gang rape of Ivy Srutwa. He explained how peripheral he’d been. He didn’t take part. It was important that Ed know he didn’t take part. And he had set poor young Ivy free, but not nearly soon enough. That was his crime.

He named the Simkin brothers. They were the ones that connected Ivy to the rain barrel. He told his boss that the Simkin boys used to live in Greta Bower’s house. That they were her stepbrothers. That’s where they lived at the time of Ivy’s rape. And she would have known that.

“I hadn’t seen her since high school,” Frank went on. “She quit and disappeared. Till a few days ago when she walked into my office and asked me to help her track people down for our high school reunion.”

“Nelson Mac?” Ed said.

“Yeah.”

“I got my invitation already.”

“Don’t tell me you went there too.”

“Sure did. Probably about ten years before you did. ’53 to ’57 it was.

“Jesus.”

“Yeah. Small world.”

Frank sat for a moment digesting this new information: Ed Flagston as a teenager roaming the same halls as Frank had, sneaking out for smokes, chasing girls in flared poodle skirts.

“You didn’t stay like I did,” Frank said.

“No. We like Crescentwood. I couldn’t get out of Norwood fast enough, to tell you the truth. It’s too much like a small town, everyone in your pocket. It suits some. Not me.”

“I’ve mostly liked it pretty well,” Frank said. “Till now.”

“Go on with your story, Frank.” Ed coughed, a terrible sound.

“Can we open a window, Ed, get some fresh air in here?”

“Sorry, Frank. I’m allergic to something out there at this time of year. It just about kills me.”

Frank wanted to shake his boss, take his package of Export A’s and stomp them into the ground.

He continued. “Well anyway, the Simkins were on the list of names Ivy wants me to help her track down. That’s too weird. At first, I thought it was just the timing of Ivy’s visit, when the rain barrel baby was still at the front of my mind, that made me unable to think of one incident separate from the other. But now I have this idea that it was a revenge ploy on her part, to get back at the boys who hurt her all those years ago. That little Jane Doe was her baby. It’s just, she doesn’t seem insane to me. Odd, but not crazy…I don’t think.” Frank leaned back in his chair. “I just don’t know, Ed.”

“That’s quite a story, Frank. And quite a theory.”

“Yeah.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Well, I was thinking I could get some
DNA
, maybe some saliva from a drinking glass or something. I could take her for a drink. Then we could send it in for a comparison to little Jane.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

“It’ll take forever.” Frank was groveling. He knew Ed had a brother-in-law who worked in the
RCMP
lab on Academy Road, where the analysis would be done.

“A few weeks,” Ed said.

“What if she’s dangerous?”

“It sounds like she is.”

“Yeah.”

Ed lit another cigarette and inhaled deeply. “It’s just…well, this is all based on something that happened thirty years ago and your feeling that Ivy Grace is odd. I’m convinced, but it’s way too slim for us to convince anyone else that we should arrest her. We’ll have to do this on the sly.”

Frank breathed a sigh of relief. “I prefer it this way. For purely selfish reasons. I’m not looking forward to that gang rape business coming out.”

“Maybe it won’t have to.” Ed coughed again, this time so violently that Frank worried he would lose this man before he had a chance to trap Ivy.

“My brother-in-law works in the lab.” Ed smiled from behind his handkerchief. “As I’m sure you know, Frank. Linda’s younger brother. Why don’t I do the paperwork? I’ll put his name on it and I’ll speak to him. That should help to move it along. And I’ll tell him to keep it under his hat.”

“I’m very grateful, Ed.”

Frank pushed back his chair. “If Ivy is the mother, it means that she’s
HIV
-positive.”

“Yes,” said Ed. “Maybe you should get in touch with these Simkin characters and have a talk with them.”

“I can’t,” Frank said. “Duane’s in prison in Quebec and Dwight’s dead.”

“Oh. Well, that takes care of that.”

Frank couldn’t decide whether or not to mention Wim Winston and his part in the long-ago assault on Ivy Srutwa. He decided not to for the moment, but knew he had done the right thing by getting in touch with Wim.

He stood up. “Thanks for this, Ed. I’ll set up another meeting with her and figure out the best way to go about getting that saliva sample.”

Ed walked him to the door. “Are you going to the reunion?” he asked.

“I doubt it,” Frank said and slipped out. He could think of few things he’d rather do less. One of them, though, was seeing Ivy Srutwa again.

“Life isn’t very pleasant lately,” he said out loud.

“Pardon, sir?” It was Brian, looking up from the latest issue of
Canadian Living
.

“Nothing, Brian. Sorry. Just talking to myself.”

Frank stopped at the Marion Street Safeway for groceries on his way home. He decided to make spaghetti for supper. That would please everyone.

He could hardly wait to see his kids.

After supper, Frank took advantage of the cool evening to get a little more work done on the garage. He had finished the scraping and was now filling holes with spackling paste — a much more pleasant job.

When he was done, he snapped the lid onto his patching mixture and rinsed his putty knife under the garden hose. Some of the holes in the old boards of his garage were so big they were going to need a second application of the spackle.

Frank sighed and headed into the house to see what his kids were up to, to make sure none of them went to bed with dirty necks.