Barrington Street Blues (19 page)

“You had a break-in?”

“Oh yeah, big time.”

“When was this?”

“Night before last.”

“Were you home at the time?”

“If I'da been home, don't you think that fucker woulda had a fight on his hands before he lifted my brand-new
TV
and remote?” She was wheezing just telling the story; I couldn't quite imagine her fighting off a burglar.

“Have the police been there?”

“It was prob'ly them.”

“Probably them what?”

“That done it.”

“Why would you say that?”

“They always had it in for me and my family, that's why.”

“Still, I doubt they would burglarize your place. Do I take it you didn't report it?”

“They're useless.”

“Listen. Hang on there and I'll come over.”

“Suit yourself.”

The Leaman/Carter family home in Lower Sackville was a rundown bungalow with avocado-green siding, which was coming away at the corners and around the door.

Vonda Carter was in a purple track suit this time. She invited me inside. The living room had a soiled rust-brown carpet and a suite of furniture covered in orange, gold, and green floral fabric. A print of a garish yellow and pink sunset was the only decoration; it appeared that a plaque had been wrenched off the bottom of the frame, giving rise to the inference that the print had been swiped from a motel room. Things had not yet been put to rights after the burglary. A number of bowling trophies and other objects were strewn across the floor; a set of metal shelves stood empty. Vonda sat in front of a black plastic table on which there was an overflowing ashtray with a cigarette burning in it, and the scrapings from a collection of scratch-and-win lottery tickets.

“Look at this dump. What kind of animal would do that?”

“Don't you think you'd better call the police?”

“Fuck it.”

“When did you get home and discover this?”

“Around ten in the morning.”

“You'd been out all night?”

“Yeah, I was out all night.”

“Do you think it might have been somebody you know?”

“Nobody even knows I'm back in town yet!”

“Well, the person you spent the night with knows.”

“Like, I wouldn't notice if he got up and left for two hours, then came back with the stuff he stole outta my place? Gimme a break.”

“I meant if he knows you're back in town, he may have told somebody else. Word may have got around.” No reply. “Was there any trouble here when you were away?”

“Never.”

“Was someone living here in your absence?”

“Most of the time.”

“Who?”

“My cousin.”

“Where's the cousin now?” She shrugged. “Did the cousin report anything suspicious?”

“More like the neighbours ratted on him, than him reporting on anything else.”

“What did the neighbours say?”

“Called the cops on him for a couple of parties. They came, but they didn't find nuthin'.”

“As far as you could tell, when you got back from Kingston, was everything still here?”

“Like what?”

“I mean, did you notice anything missing when you got home from prison?”

“There was nothing missing.”

“When had your cousin moved out?”

Another shrug. “Months before that.”

“So, what was taken in the break-in?”

“My
TV
, remote and
VCR
, a set of knives, and other stuff,” she said, then added: “and a picture!”

“What kind of picture?”

“By that guy. You know, he's Canadian.”

“His name?”

“I don't remember his name, but he did that picture with the binoculars.”

“You don't mean Alex Colville?”

“Alex! Yeah!”

I didn't bother to respond to that and neither, I guessed, would the claims department of her insurance company.

“What do you think they were after?” I asked her.

“Beats me. The fucking pricks.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Well, I've got that back.”

“Hmm?”

“I've got that back that hurts. When it gets better or if I take a couple of Tylenol Threes, then I'll put this mess back together.”

What could I say? “Do you want me to help you?”

She looked ready to jump at the idea, then had a change of heart. All of a sudden she didn't like the idea of me going through her things.

“Nah. Thanks anyways.”

“While I'm here, though, could you put your hands on anything you have relating to Corey?”

“No, I can't.”

“Why not?”

“Because whoever was in here took all my personal papers.”

“What kind of papers?”

“I had a box where I kept all my bills, prescriptions, letters, old probation orders, the usual shit.”

“Did these papers include things relating to Corey?”

“I guess. I never looked at them for a long time.”

“What might have been in them?”

“Old pictures he drew, maybe a couple of report cards, stuff about his treatments, I don't know.”

“Do you have any other children?”

“Yeah, Shonda Lee. But I never seen her for years. I think she's out in Vancouver.”

“Did the burglar take stuff about her too?”

“All my papers,” she repeated.

“How about family photos? Do you have any of those?”

“I suppose so.”

“Could you check?”

She heaved herself up from the chesterfield and made her way into a back room. I got up and looked around. I saw an old Bacardi box in the corner with a couple of papers in the bottom. But they were just credit card receipts. A cable television bill and an old Lotto 649 ticket were caught in one of the carton's flaps. This may have been the vault. I heard her chugging in behind me.

“Is this where you kept all your papers?”

“Yeah.”

The burglar didn't want to lug the box out; he must have had a sack with him.

“Here's some pictures.”

She handed me two photographs. One was a school picture of Corey in grade two; he looked like any other dark-haired kid with a tooth missing. The other must have been Corey, though it was impossible to tell. All I could see was a small person in an enormous helmet, sitting on an all-terrain vehicle.

“Where was this taken?”

Vonda shrugged. “Beats me.”

On my way downtown I considered the break-in. Judging by
what was left in place at Vonda's, I suspected she had not had a collection of valuable silver or electronic items. She had just been released from Kingston Penitentiary. I didn't think it likely that expensive goods survived the four years of her absence, only to disappear as soon as she returned home. I tended to believe the television and
VCR
really existed; they would have been the first items she acquired after being sprung from P4W. She may also have picked up a supply of drugs or cash on her arrival. Wouldn't she have taken them — drugs at least — with her when she headed out for an all-nighter with the boyfriend? If it was a straight burglary, carried out by somebody looking for items to sell, why would the guy take her personal papers? It seemed far more likely that the papers, whatever they were, constituted the real reason for the break and enter. But what had been in that box? Were the papers related to Vonda, or to her son? Was it coincidence that the break-in occurred shortly after she got back in town? Unlikely. Had she brought papers home with her? If so, did they have something to do with our case? Did she really not know what the burglar was after? I hadn't had any luck in my interview with her. I decided to call Leaman's girlfriend in for another talk.

I wondered what kind of friction might develop between the girlfriend and the mother. Maybe it already had. Amber Dawn Rhyno was unavailable when I called; I left a message on her machine.

†

Tom, Normie and I spent a fun, relaxing Sunday, which I appreciated all the more because I knew I could not take Monday off even though it was a holiday. Too many cases coming up that week. I would have to join the other nerds working Monday.

When the morning came, I was not in the mood for Corey Leaman's common-law widow. I had just received some bad news in a phone call from Ed Johnson.

“Remember that old hooker who used to get all liquored up and hit on you at the Flying Shag? The one whose false teeth fell out when she choked on a piece of pepperoni, and she just put them in her pocket and —”

“I know, Ed. She's been a client of mine for years. Ronette Gammon. What about her?”

“Let's just say lemon gin sales are down, the penicillin market has taken a permanent dive, and there's a new set of dentures in the organ donation registry.”

“For Christ's sake, Ed. What happened?”

“She's dead. Beaten to death by some low-life boyfriend.”

“Oh, God! The poor little thing. She never had a hope. Some of these people, you read their files going back through their lives and you try to figure out the point where some kind of intervention or assistance might have made a difference. With some of them, you realize, there was nothing that could be done. The course was set at conception. This father, that mother, you could predict everything that would happen in the kid's future. None of it good. I think she was one of those.”

“A doomed zygote.”

I agreed. When I got off the phone, I thought about Ronette Gammon, her miserable life, her predictable death, and the unfairness of life in general. I looked up when Amber Dawn Rhyno and young Zachary were ushered in. The kid was yelling “Ninja! Ninja!” over and over and over again. Every once in a while he leapt off his chair, and every time — every single time — the chair tipped over with a crash, causing him to shout an obscenity while he struggled to set it upright again. This did not prompt him to vary his routine. Amber Dawn sat there picking at a scab on her thumb and ignoring her son. I took a deep breath and got on with it.

“Amber,” I began, “did you notice anything unusual about Corey's demeanour just before his death?”

“His what?”

“His death.”

“Yeah, but what did you say before his death?”

What? Oh. “His demeanour. The way he was acting, the way he was talking. His mood. Anything different around the time of his death?”

“Well, he was pissed off.”

“About what?”

“I mean upset. You know, about being sent home from the treatment
centre.” She was sticking to her lines, but I needed more than that.

“You said he was pissed off. Tell me about it. I'm not the judge. I need all the information I can get in order to do my job here.”

“Somethin' happened. It got him all worked up.”

This was the first time I had heard about something happening. “Worked up how?”

“He was bouncin' off the walls, he had somethin' on his mind.”

“Did he give you any idea what it was?”

“He wouldn't tell me but he said he had to take care of it.”

It sounded as if another nail was about to be driven into the coffin of
Leaman and Scott v. The Wallace Rennie Baird Addiction Treatment Centre
.

“When did this happen?”

“Like, a couple of days before he got — before he committed suicide.” She sat forward and spoke with urgency. “I figured it had something to do with the treatment centre. Like, maybe he found some papers or talked to a doctor or something and found out they made a mistake. Proof they shouldn't have let him out. And they were trying to cover it up.”

“What makes you think that?”

She shrugged. She had reached the limits of her imagination.

“You mentioned papers, Amber. Did you see any papers?”

“Not really.”

“Well, yes or no?”

“I said no.”

“You qualified it. You said ‘not really.' So, did you see any papers?”

“No.”

“Did he mention papers of some kind?”

“I thought he was just tryin' to make me jealous, you know?”

“No, I don't know. Tell me.”

“Zach! Get over in that fuckin' corner and be quiet or I'll cut it off!”

“Cut what off?” I asked, startled. The boy set up a wail that went on and on, up and down, like a siren.

“He knows what I mean. Don't you, Zach? I told him if he's bad I'll cut off the cable
TV
and he'll have to watch the
CBC
or the French. See how long he lasts with that!”

“Amber. What did you mean about jealousy?”

“Corey said he heard from an old girlfriend. But I didn't believe him.”

“Why not?” Another shrug. “Who was the old girlfriend?”

“I dunno. I think he was lying. Not lying, but you know. It didn't mean nuthin', I know that, ‘cause me and him were going to get married.”

“All right. What exactly did he say?”

“He come home that night and —”

“Home from where?”

“He went out to his old house. His mother's house.”

“Was that somewhere he went regularly, out to the house?”

“No. Like, there was other people living in it.”

“Who?”

“I dunno. Some uncle or something.”

“But Corey went out there on this occasion.”

“They were movin' out. His uncle and them. So Corey said he was goin' out there to see if there was anything he could, like, use.”

“What, for instance?”

“Furniture and stuff.”

More likely looking for things to sell before his mother returned from Kingston. “All right. He went out to the house in Sackville. Then what?”

“Then he come home and I was like: ‘Did you get any stuff?' And he was like: ‘I found somethin' else.'” She brought the scabbed thumb to her mouth and began to gnaw. I couldn't watch.