A Colder Kind of Death (19 page)

“Wait,” he said. “Are you looking for Miss Atcheson? If she isn’t home, she’s at the school. She leads a pretty simple life.”

“Thanks,” I said, and I turned and walked the half-block that took me to Chaplin School and into the not-so-simple life of Carolyn Atcheson.

She must have seen me coming, because she had the door open before I knocked. She looked like teachers I could remember from my childhood: big, over six feet, and ample, not fat, but what another generation would have called a fine figure of a woman. Her hair was salt-and-pepper grey and cropped short. She did not look pleased to see me, but she was of the old school. No matter how she felt, she would not be rude.

“Come down to my office, Mrs. Kilbourn. You’ll be more comfortable there.”

“You know who I am.”

“I watch television,” she said.

As I followed her down the empty hall, the years melted away. The principal was taking me to her office. She was not happy, and I had to think quickly.

Carolyn Atcheson’s office did nothing to put me at ease. It was a no-nonsense place. Barren of photographs, plants, or personal mementoes, her oak desk gleamed. On the wall behind her was a brass plaque.
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
, it said sternly.

Carolyn motioned me to the chair on the student’s side of the desk; then she sat down. She didn’t waste time. “I’m surprised to see you, Mrs. Kilbourn. From what I’ve read and heard, I thought the police had cleared you.”

“They have,” I said. “But I still have questions.”

“About Maureen Gault,” she said.

“About Maureen Gault, and about someone else, too,” I said. I pulled the copy of
Prairiegirl
from my bag, found the page I was looking for, and slid the book across the desk to her.

“I need to know about this girl,” I said. “What can you tell me about her?”

It had been a shot in the dark, but it found its mark. Carolyn Atcheson’s face went white, and she grabbed the edge of her desk as if she needed something to hold on to. Outside in the hall, the bells announcing a class change rang and the sound echoed hollowly through the empty school. Carolyn Atcheson didn’t move.

“I need to know about her,” I repeated.

“She was a student here,” Carolyn Atcheson said.

“And a friend of Maureen Gault’s,” I said. I reached across and turned to the photo on the last page of
Prairiegirl
. “Look,” I said.

She turned away. “I’ve seen the picture,” she said.

“Have you seen this one?” I asked, and I slid the Santa Claus picture across to her.

Carolyn’s face seemed to grow even paler. Her dark eyes
burned across the space between us. “What are you after?” she asked.

I looked at the plaque on the wall behind her. “Knowledge,” I said. “I’m after knowledge. Tell me everything you know about the girl in those pictures and Maureen Gault.”

She stared at me.

“Maybe your files would help,” I said.

“I don’t need files,” she said thickly.

“Miss Atcheson, this is very important. A woman’s life is at stake.” As soon as I said the words, I knew they were true. The life that was at stake was my own.

What I said seemed to jolt her. She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. Then she leaned towards me. “I assume Hilda McCourt told you something of my history with Maureen Gault.”

“Yes,” I said, “she did.”

“In all the years I’ve taught, Maureen was the only truly evil student who ever crossed my path.” For a moment Carolyn Atcheson seemed stunned by the enormity of what she had said, then she straightened her shoulders and continued. “My mother used to tell us that nothing is wasted. Maureen inspired me to do a great deal of reading in psychology. If I ever meet another student like her, I’ll know what to do. But I didn’t know what I was dealing with in that girl, and that’s why I failed everyone so badly. Maureen Gault should have been stopped years ago.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “she should have been.”

Carolyn half turned her chair so she was facing the window. As she leaned forward to watch the snow, her voice became almost dreamy. “From what I’ve learned, Maureen could be classified as a primary psychopath. She truly believed she was superior to everyone around her. The guiding principle of her life was to force others to recognize and acknowledge her superiority.”

“Hilda told me that Maureen was very popular when she started high school.”

Carolyn Atcheson seemed to find it easier to talk without facing me. “Her leadership skills were remarkable for a girl her age. I’ve read since that this is not atypical of her illness. At any rate, as long as everyone accepted her as leader and did her bidding, Maureen functioned. It was when the other girls got sick of being manipulated and dominated that the trouble started.”

“That’s when the attacks on the other students began,” I said.

Carolyn’s voice was sad. “Yes, and that’s when she began her relationship with poor Kevin.”

“He was the only one who stuck by her,” I said.

“No, not the only one,” Carolyn said. “That girl in the picture was Maureen’s best friend. She never gave up on Maureen either.”

“Who was she?” I asked.

“Her name …” Carolyn stopped speaking for a moment. Then, shoulders sunk in defeat, she murmured, “Her name was Jenny Rybchuk.”

My heart was already pounding, but I had to know more. “What was Jenny Rybchuk like?”

Carolyn turned from the window, and I saw that there were tears in her eyes. “Innocent. Sweet. No matter what Maureen did, Jenny always forgave her, tried to understand. They’d known each other since they were babies. The families lived next door to one another. Henry was so erratic …”

“Henry,” I repeated, remembering the man who had sought Ian out at the Legislature the night before he died.

“Henry Rybchuk,” Carolyn said. “Jenny’s father. When Jenny was growing up, her friends were afraid to go into the Rybchuk house because Henry was so unpredictable. When he was sober, he was decent enough, but when he
was drinking, he could be violent.” She hesitated. “There were rumours that his feelings for Jenny went beyond what a father should feel for his daughter. It must have been a terrifying life for a child, and lonely. Of course, Maureen went there. That one was never afraid of anything. She spent so much time with the Rybchuks that I think Jenny came to look upon her as a kind of sister.”

“How did Maureen look upon Jenny?”

Carolyn laughed bitterly. “I’m sure she thanked her lucky stars that fate had sent her a friend as compliant and as needy as Jenny. I suppose when they were children, Maureen didn’t mistreat Jenny any more than any strong-willed child mistreats a more passive friend. In my experience, children are as fond of power as anyone – and as easily corrupted by it. But eventually I think Maureen’s role in their relationship became more sinister than deciding which game the two of them would play …” Carolyn fell silent.

“Maureen used Jenny,” I said.

“Oh, yes,” Carolyn agreed. “Maureen used Jenny. That girl knew how to use goodness.”

“How did she react to Jenny’s pregnancy?”

For a beat, Carolyn was silent. Finally, she said, “Jenny didn’t tell her until after the baby was born.”

“If she didn’t tell her best friend, whom did she tell?” I asked.

Carolyn looked away. “I don’t know.”

I didn’t believe her. “Did Jenny tell the baby’s father she was pregnant?”

Carolyn’s voice was edgy. “I told you I don’t know whom else she told.”

“But she told you,” I said gently. “Carolyn, Jenny told you she was pregnant, didn’t she?”

“I was the one she came to,” Carolyn said, her voice breaking. “It was such an act of trust …”

“She must have felt very close to you.”

“She didn’t have anyone else. Her mother was dead. Henry was impossible.”

“Why didn’t she go to Maureen?”

Carolyn shook her head. “I honestly don’t know. All I do know is that she came to me. It was the day before Good Friday. The students had been dismissed for the Easter holidays. I was just getting ready to leave myself when Jenny knocked at my door.”

Unexpectedly, Carolyn smiled. “Isn’t it funny, the things you remember? Jenny came in and sat down in the chair you’re sitting in now. I can still see her. She usually had her hair brushed back in a French braid, but that day it was loose. She was wearing a turquoise windbreaker and, on her lapel, she had a little Easter pin. It was a rabbit carrying a basket of eggs.”

“And she told you she was pregnant?”

“Yes, she came straight to the point. She told me she was pregnant and that she wanted an abortion. I didn’t believe her.”

“You didn’t believe she was pregnant?”

Carolyn shook her head impatiently. “Oh, I believed that all right. Student pregnancies are all too common in this school. What I didn’t believe was that she wanted an abortion. I wouldn’t have been the one Jenny’d come to if that was truly what she wanted.”

“You’re opposed to abortion?”

Carolyn looked at me levelly. “I’m a Roman Catholic, Mrs. Kilbourn. So was Jenny. I think her mind told her that one course of action was logical, but her heart told her differently. We talked for a long time that afternoon, but nothing I said convinced her. She was poised between two very painful alternatives, and she was eighteen years old. She needed guidance, and I wasn’t adequately prepared to give her that guidance.”

“So you took her to Beating Heart,” I said.

Carolyn looked surprised.

“And the woman you saw there was Tess Malone.”

Carolyn’s eyes widened. “Yes, that was her name.”

“What happened next?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said dully. “Jenny had the baby. She gave it away. She went back to school.”

“Where is she now?”

“I don’t know.”

“As close as she became to you, she never got in touch?”

“No,” Carolyn said, “she didn’t.”

“One last thing,” I said. “Who was the baby’s father?”

For a moment she was silent. Then she murmured. “That doesn’t matter any more. Mrs. Kilbourn, don’t persist in this. Any answer you find is just going to cause pain. You’ve been cleared of any suspicion of wrongdoing. Leave Jenny Rybchuk’s child in peace. Please.”

When I told Carolyn Atcheson I was leaving, she fluttered her hand in a vague signal of dismissal, but she didn’t bother getting up. At the office doorway, I turned to say goodbye. Through the window behind her, I could see the snow falling, rhythmic, inexorable. Carolyn Atcheson didn’t notice it. Sitting at her desk, back ramrod straight, hands clasped in front of her, Carolyn was the prototype for the class’s most obedient student.

When I got back to my car I checked the clock on the dashboard. Three o’clock. Two hours till dark. I had time to pay one more visit. There were too many gaps in Carolyn’s story. Erratic as Henry Rybchuk might be, I needed to talk to him.

When I got to the Petro-Can station, the mechanic who’d directed me to Carolyn’s house was out front checking the oil in a Camaro. I pulled up next to him and rolled down my window. I noticed the name embroidered on his shirt pocket
was Maurice. “I need your guiding skills again, Maurice,” I said. “How can I find Henry Rybchuk?”

He smiled, revealing some missing teeth. “Maurice is long gone. My name is Bob, but there was a lot of wear left in Maurice’s old shirts. Besides, I kind of like ‘Maurice.’ It’s distinctive. Now, about Henry Rybchuk. You’ll need more skills than mine to find him,” he said. “Old Henry’s been dead for over five years.”

The driver of the Camaro went inside, and Bob and I talked a little longer. He said Henry had committed suicide. Shot himself to death in the basement of his house. He remembered Jenny, but he hadn’t seen her in years either. “I’ll tell you one thing,” he said. “She didn’t come back for the old man’s funeral. After the announcement of the old man’s death appeared in the obituaries in the Swift Current paper, Wrightman’s Funeral Home – that’s in Swift Current, too – got an envelope of cash and some instructions about the burial. It was anonymous. Most of us figured the envelope came from Jenny. Nobody tried very hard to chase her down. We figured if Jenny had managed to get away from that old bastard, she was better off.”

I mentioned Maureen Gault’s name, and Bob dismissed her with a one-word epithet. When the driver of the Camaro came back out and started honking his horn, I got the addresses of the Gault and Rybchuk houses, thanked Bob for his help, and doubled back through town.

Factory Road was the last street on the west side of Chaplin. It looked out on a desolate landscape of salt stockpiles and tanks for the water run-off from the sodium sulphate factory. Numbers 17 and 19 were at the end of the street, set apart from the other houses. They were small bungalows with the boxy, stripped-down look of wartime housing, but the house in which Maureen Gault had grown up had fallen on hard times. Motorcycles, in various stages of disintegration,
filled the carport; the front window was covered by a tattered American flag; and a doll lay abandoned on the front steps.

I pulled up in front of the Rybchuk house. Like Carolyn Atcheson’s, this house was hard-scrubbed and cared for. A young woman was out shovelling the snow, and she came over as soon as she saw me. She was wearing a leather jacket with the logo of the sodium sulphate mine on the breast pocket, and her nose was running from the cold. When I rolled down the car window, she wiped her nose on the back of her mitten and grinned.

“Gross, huh?”

“We all do it,” I said.

“Right,” she said. “Now what can I do for you? I’ll bet you’re looking for a way out of Chaplin.”

“No,” I said, “I’m looking for the Rybchuk house.”

The young woman’s face grew solemn with the importance of being forced to break bad news. “They don’t live here anymore. Old Mr. Rybchuk died. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you.”

“That’s all right,” I said.

She leaned closer to me. “You know, you’re the first person who’s come and asked for them since we bought the house, and that’ll be six years in May.”

“I think old Mr. Rybchuk was pretty reclusive,” I said.

She rolled her eyes. “I’ll say. Imagine nobody coming to ask about you in all that time. Listen, do you happen to know his daughter? Nobody cleaned out the house before we bought it, so there was a lot of junk. We sold most of the stuff in a garage sale, and burned the rest in the burn barrel out back, but I couldn’t burn her pictures. Maybe it was an identification thing. She’s like my age, and I kept thinking I wouldn’t want anybody to burn my pictures and stuff.” She looked at me winsomely. “Since you’re here and all, could I possibly impose on you to get them to her?”