Charlie's Key (18 page)

“He only swore sometimes.”

“Well,” says Nick, “guess he were a reformed character out there in Alberta. Good for him, I says. New province, new life. Good for him.”

He pulls out another smoke and lights it.

“And ya know something, Charlie? He’d want you to do the right thing by me too.”

Nick’s waiting for me to say something, but I don’t.

“He really would. That’s why he were comin’ out here—to get me my stuff what’s locked up with that key. So, you give me a hand here—you help me out—and you’re doing right by yer old man. Fulfilling his dyin’ wish, ya might say.”

He takes a long drag.

“So, b’y—whaddaya say? You wants to do the right thing?”

I do—I do want to do the right thing. But right now, I don’t know what the right thing is. In fact, the only thing I’m sure of is that Nick really might hurt Clare if I don’t help him. He already killed two guys, so what’s a kid to him? And he’s right—nobody’d think anything about it if some sad girl ended up drowning herself with her stomach full of those pills. I think of that, of somebody finding Clare in the water, floating in her blue jeans and her brown jacket. Think of her getting hauled outta the water and some paramedic wearing blue rubber gloves pulling her hair back to look close at her face. And her getting put in an ambulance that comes without any sirens going. No sirens for people to listen for, to look up from their tables and wonder what’s happening. Then at the hospital her parents come in and see her, and they don’t even get to brush her hair outta her face one last time because somebody wearing blue rubber gloves already did that.

I see all that—like a dream that happens in a second, looking at Nick, him looking at me. “Okay,” I say. “I’ll help you.”

“Right on, b’y,” says Nick, and he gives my cast a couple of taps with the claw.

“Good man. Now listen.”

He leans in as close as he can get. “This key, it opens a safety deposit box what belonged to yer old man.”

“In Fort McMurray?”

“No, here, in St. John’s. He had it years ago, before he ever thought of going west. He’s paid the rent on it for all them years, and kept the key close, for when the time came.”

“The time for what?”

“For when I got out, see? There’s something in that box what belongs to me.”

“And my dad was gonna give it to you?”

Nick nods, with a smile. “Now yer getting it, b’y. That’s right. Something that he was gonna give to me. Except now, he ain’t here to give it, is he?”

I shake my head.

“And that’s a problem,” Nick says. “Because only the person what rents the box is allowed to open it.”

“But what about when they die?”

“Exactly,” says Nick, snapping the fingers on his good hand. “When someone dies and don’t leave a will or nothing, only immediate family gets to open the box. Which is you.”

“’Kay,” I say. “So I can go to the bank and open this box…”

“It’s not simple,” says Nick. “You’re not a grown-up yet— how old are ya? Ten?”

“I am not ten,” I say. “I am thirteen. Almost fourteen.”

“Course you are,” says Nick. “Thirteen. Getting old, but even so, not so old as to open up a safety deposit box without the approval of yer guardian—he or she what’s looking after you. Legal, like.”

“Dez,” I say.

“Right again,” says Nick.

“But Dez isn’t going to let me go to a bank and take something out to give to you.”

“No, he’s not. But he will let ya put something in.”

I laugh.

“Me? Put something in? What have I got to put in?”

“Ashes,” says Nick.

“My dad?”

Nick nods. “His ashes. From the urn. I seen it at the funeral home.”

“But I don’t have that—that urn.”

“No, but you can get it. They’re not going toss it out, even if it is a Sykes. It’s up on a shelf somewhere, waiting for you to collect it. When you’re ready. So you tell Dez you’re ready. Now. And he’ll get it for ya.”

“But ready to put it in a safety deposit box?”

“Sure,” says Nick. “Proper thing for something as valuable as ashes. Not all of them mind—just a bit of them, in an envelope or something. Just tell Dezzy ya had a bad dream about them ashes gettin’ blowed away in a storm or washed away in a flood, and ya wants to set a few of them aside in a safe place. And ya knows about his safety deposit box yer old man had back when he were young.”

“But the key—he’s going to think that’s weird.”

“He’s not going to think anything about. He’s not some cop, always thinkin’ the worst a people. He’s a social worker, always thinkin’ everybody’s good, deep down. So ya got a key to a safety deposit box what belonged to yer old man. What odds? He’ll just go down to the bank, check to see it’s true, then sign ya in.”

“And what? Watch me open the thing up?”

“No. He’ll just sign ya in as yer guardian. Then you goes into a little room, all by yerself, an’ they gives ya the box.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” says Nick. “So, inside there’ll be a letter— an envelope—sent to an old aunt, Esther Sykes. It’ll be stamped from Trepassey, with a date on it: September
17
,
1989
. That’s what I wants.”

“You mailed it. After the murder.”

Nick’s face scrinches up tight.

“How’d you know about that?”

“Dez,” I lie. “Dez told me about it—what happened back then.”

“Did he?” says Nick. “Well, don’t believe everything Dezzy tells ya.”

I nod.

“But yer right,” he says. “I sent it off to the old aunt, for yer dad to have. An’ it’s got something in it what belongs to me.”

“But if you sent it to my dad, isn’t it his?”

Nick puts his burnt hand on my cast, a claw on each side of my leg.

“Yer helpin’ me on this, Charlie, am I right?”

His claw slips onto the cast, the fingers pinching together.

“So take my word on it. It belongs to me. Not to yer old man, not to you, not to Dezzy. To me. Understand?”

I nod. Nick’s fingers are starting to dig into the cast, making my leg shake, even if I don’t feel anything through the plaster.

“So,” he says, squeezing harder, “you see that letter, you takes it out, you put some of them ashes in the safety deposit box, an’ you shoves that letter down inside that cast, where nobody can see. And then ya leaves with Dez and go get a milkshake or an ice cream or whatever the frig he wants to do to make ya feel better after this sorry occasion. Right? Then I’ll come and find ya, and you give me the letter. Understand?”

I swallow and nod.

“I wants to hear ya say it, Charlie. Do you understand what I’m telling ya?”

“I understand.”

“Good,” says Nick, letting go of my cast.

Later, back in the bedroom at Dezzy’s, I see there’s two dents in the cast, deep and black where Nick had hold of me. I scrub till the plaster starts to crumble, but the stains, they don’t come out.

NINETEEN

Next day everything happens like Nick said it would. I tell Dez I want to put some of my dad’s ashes in a safety deposit box my dad had, and he says sure. He says he can call the bank and arrange that. Then that night he brings home the urn. It’s a wood box, sanded smooth and colored a dark reddy-brown. It’s the size of a Kleenex box, but heavier when Dez passes it to me.

“You want some time alone?” he says. “In your room?”

I have to think about what to say to that, because we’re downstairs in the living room with the
Simpsons
on the
TV
. I guess Dez is thinking that maybe this little moment when he passes my dad’s ashes over to me, maybe having Homer and Bart fighting in the background isn’t quite right—that maybe I feel like crying or something. But you know what? I don’t feel like crying, because it doesn’t feel like I just been handed my dad. It just feels like I’ve been handed a nice box. I know my dad’s ashes are in it, but that’s not my dad. Next morning we go to the bank. Just like Nick said, Dez signs a piece of paper, a teller takes the key and I follow her to a little room behind a big steel door—a vault. Teller’s not that pretty, but she’s got a nice skirt on and a nice shape, which I can’t help noticing, even though I’m carrying my dad’s ashes and I’m supposed to be getting a letter to give to my murderer uncle. Even with all that going on I’m wondering what kind of underwear the woman walking in front of me is wearing. Anyways, Teller isn’t real pretty, but she does have a nice shape when she’s walking in front of you.

“Can I have the key, please, Charlie?” she says. Then she goes to a wall full of little compartments and unlocks one and pulls out a long, thin metal box.

“Follow me,” she says, and we walk down to another little room with a table and two chairs. She sits the box down and pulls out a chair for me, while I set the urn beside the box.

“That must hurt,” she says, looking at my cast, before she spins the box round to face me.

“Just flip up this clip,” she says, “and pull the top back, okay?”

“’Kay.”

“And ring that bell when you’re done.”

She points to an old-timey silver bell on the table.

Then I’m alone.

I pull hard on the lever and the whole top swings open, with the letter sitting on top, like somebody put it there yesterday.
Ester Sykes
is written on it in pencil, with an address underneath:
Harmony Court, St. John’s
. And that’s it. No return address, no postal code, nothing. Just those six words in pencil, written slow and hard, I’d say, seeing how thick the black marks are. There’s some other stuff in the box: two sets of car keys and a see-through plastic bag of some powdery stuff, yellowy white, which I don’t want to know what it is. There’s not much in the letter by the feel of it—just a piece of paper I can’t read, even when I hold it up to the light.

Should I open it? It’s been opened before—I guess by my dad—because it’s torn on the back. But somebody taped it all up—my dad, likely too. So I could open it again and see what’s inside and nobody’d ever know I did it. I could just hand it over to Nick and tell him it was like that when I got it. How’d he know any different? Except he might. And let’s say there is some crazy secret thing in there and he figures I read it. Then he might slit my throat or make me swallow a bunch of pills or haul me up a cliff and toss me over. And what could I do about it? Run away with my leg in a cast? Whack him over the head with a crutch? Better safe than sorry, I figure. And stupid. Better safe, stupid and alive than smart, sorry and dead.

I take the letter out and slip it down into my cast. I’m just about to stand up when I remember I’m supposed to put some ashes in there—in the metal box, in an envelope Dezzy gave me. But all of a sudden I don’t feel like it. I’ll put Dezzy’s envelope in, but no ashes. A long metal box locked up inside another metal box doesn’t seem like a place for much of anything, even ashes. I stick Dezzy’s empty envelope in the safety deposit box and leave the urn closed. No one’s going to look inside either one of those boxes, except me.

I close the box and leave it right beside me on the table so Teller will have to lean in close to me to pick it up. I feel kind of creepy doing it, but I do it anyway. Then I ring that bell and think about those dogs Pavlov had while I wait for Teller to walk in and lean close.

TWENTY

“That was tough,” Dez says when we leave the bank. “With the ashes.”

“Guess so.”

“Good idea, though, putting some in a safe place. The rest you can scatter in a nice spot when you’re older. Plenty of time to figure that out. For now”—he puts his hand on my back— “let’s get a bit of a treat. How about a chocolate croissant?”

“Never had one.”

“Auntie Crae makes the best—store’s right across the street.”

“Could I maybe just sit outside for a bit? It’s nice in the sun.”

Dez gives a look up the street and spots Tubby, sitting in his not-so-secret cop car. He trots up and comes back a minute later.

“All right,” he says. “You sit while I grab us something to eat.”

I nod and sit on a metal bench in front of the bank. It’s painted black and it’s hot, but it feels nice after being in the little room with no windows. Today seems like the first sunny day since me and my dad left Alberta, and when I close my eyes and let the world go all red under my lids, I can feel the heat slipping in through my jacket and my track pants, which is what I have to wear with this big cast on. It feels good and sleepy, which is a funny way to feel when you’re sitting on a bench on a downtown street and you can hear people talking and walking close by. It’s a floaty feeling, and I like it. I can pretend I’m back in Fort Mac, sitting outside school on an afternoon in June when school is almost out for summer, waiting for my dad to drive me home…

Someone sits down beside me. It’s Clare.

“Hi ya,” she says. “Can I sit for a sec?”

“Sure,” I say, looking round.

“It’s okay. It’s just me—no Frankie. No Nick. That an urn?”

I nod.

“With your dad’s ashes?”

I nod again.

“Figured.”

She looks sad.

“You okay?” I say.

“Not really. I got busted last night.”

“Busted?” I say. I look up the street at Tubby’s car.