The Boy (9 page)

She watches them leave, Jake pushing Jon in his stroller, Dan on his bike. Lauren is asleep in her arms and when tears drip onto the pink blanket, Louise is astonished to realize that they are her own. Hormones, she thinks. Because really, what on earth does she have to cry about?

So she was busy with those babies who kept coming one right after the other, I imagine. Didn't have much time to worry about her stepson. Daisy I'm talking about here.

Once he left when he was fourteen, he really never came back again.

Out of sight, out of mind? Doesn't work that way, I'll have you know. Sometimes it's even scarier if you can only imagine what they're doing.

Roads Back

Robert Cook's record of incarcerations was, in Jack Pecover's words, “a dreary recital.” After the first sentence of eighteen months in the Lethbridge jail, he rejoined the family briefly, but then was sent by Social Services to live with foster parents. The first family moved to British Columbia, and Robert was moved to another home, another farm family. When Jack Pecover talked to that second foster mother, Mrs. Henry Stucke, she told him in her heavy German accent, that Bobby Cook was a good boy. Another boy had spoiled things for him—another boy from jail placed on a farm near theirs. The two boys stole money and stole a car and left for the States. She and her husband would have happily taken Bobby back when he was apprehended, she said, but he was sent to jail.

“I can't say one wrong word about him. If I told him to do something, he'd do it. We could hardly stand it that he should be hung. My son died four years ago; he was caught in a
cultivator and bled to death before they could get him to the hospital. It wasn't as hard as when Bobby died.” (
The Work of Justice
pg. 167)

Bobby Cook's first foster family, the Larsons, who had moved to B.C., felt equally sure that he could not have committed the crime for which he died. Their daughter, Lila, became Robert Raymond Cook's advocate when he was sentenced to death.

In December, 1953, when he was sixteen years old, Robert Cook was charged with car theft in Winnipeg and sentenced to one year in the provincial jail, but after an additional three charges of breaking and entering were added, he graduated and went directly to the federal penitentiary at Stony Mountain for two years. He was barely out again, and charged with breaking and entering and theft in Hanna,
Alberta, sentenced to two years in the Saskatchewan Penitentiary at Prince Albert. From there he was in and out of Prince Albert, caught in a revolving door of repetitive crime. Nineteen offenses in all in those years from 1951 to 1957. Although Cook told the RCMP later that for every offense for which he was sentenced, he had committed at least four more.

Meanwhile, back at home?

More babies. Christopher was born while Bobby was in foster care. Then two little girls born in 1954 and 1956, Kathy and Linda.

I don't imagine they looked forward to his visits home. I know I wouldn't.

No. You wouldn't. But there are conflicting stories about how Daisy and Ray felt about Bobby. Or mostly about how Daisy felt. Ray seemed to maintain a strong loyalty to his delinquent son.

In jail, exactly as he did outside, Robert Cook seemed to impress some, to leave others with Clark Hoskins' assessment that he was an affable liar. But a liar nonetheless. From the Manitoba Penitentiary classification officer's report of May 9, 1955:

This young man… has failed to improve sufficiently to warrant a parole. His general conduct and attitude towards his work is not too good. He is still quite the smart Alex type with big ideas of getting even sooner or later. (
The Work of Justice
pg. 35)

A report by another prison official recorded the same day:

This man is a quiet inoffensive worker, tries hard, does the best according to his ability. His instructor advises that he is a good worker. The young man appears to be a good risk re a ticket of leave. (
The Work of Justice
pg. 35)

The classification officer's report trumped the other, and parole was refused.

Then a classification report from June 27, 1957:

Cook has been in attendance [in vocational education] 43 days so far this term. His work, especially in math, is good. He isn't particularly interested in English subjects, but is nevertheless doing fair work in this subject. He is cooperative, reacts to kindness, and has never given any trouble in class. He has the ability and is capable of learning any shop math he will require. (
The Work of Justice
pgs. 35-36)

Jack Pecover recorded other reports which together form an impression of a young man who was occasionally fractious, generally cooperative, but by no one's estimation a hopeful prospect for rehabilitation. There is no doubt, though, throughout the reading of
The Work of Justice
, that as he uncovered this portrait of Robert Raymond Cook, Pecover's sympathy grew.

Meanwhile, it's hard to imagine that Ray and Daisy, back home, looked forward to Bobby's next release. After the murders, the information about a plan Ray had to buy a service station was conflicting. The Hoskinses said Ray and Daisy had their house listed for sale and talked about relocating, but there was no indication that they were going anywhere immediately. Someone in Ray Cook's family claimed that they were intending to slip away without telling Robert they were leaving, but were taken by surprise when he was released early.

But the surprise was not sudden. They knew about the amnesty well enough in advance that Daisy sent a new red tie and a pair of yellow socks for the journey home. The day he arrived back in Stettler, Leona and Jim Hoskins stopped in for a visit and later said the mood in the house was upbeat, everyone looking forward to Bobby's arrival, wondering what could be taking him so long. Yet surely they were wondering how long this bit of freedom would last, and what disgrace he would leave them to deal with when he was gone again. According to Lila Larson, Bobby's foster sister for a short period, “he loved his dad, but didn't like his stepmother.” According to Mrs. Henry Stucke, at his second foster home, he “said that Daisy was all for her children and he was nothing in her eyes.”

The transcript of a psychiatric evaluation dated March 15, 1960, says that Robert Cook stated: “My father he was remarried in 1949, I think it was 1949 to Daisy Gasper. She was my school teacher. Oh she was good. She was just the same as Mother. I called her Mum. Couldn't have treated me better.”

Right. He was on trial for murder. He'd admit to bitter resentment of the woman and children who usurped his place with his father? The victims?

From what I've found about him so far, I doubt he was smart enough to have thought that strategy through. Maybe he did have positive feelings for Daisy.

But what about Daisy, what did she feel for him?

A member of Ray's family, Mrs. Mae Reamsbottom (who told the RCMP officer who interviewed her that she had never liked Ray's son) said she was sure Daisy was afraid of Bobby, even though she had never exactly said so. She maintained that Ray and Daisy were making plans to leave Alberta in order to get away from Bobby. That Daisy was trying to get Ray to understand that Bobby could not come near the house nor the children because he had ruined their reputation wherever they went. That Daisy feared that Bobby was going to wind up killing someone.

Mrs. Joe Reilly, sister of Marion Anderson with whom I spoke, told Jack Pecover that in spite of the fact that Bobby had stolen $100 from Daisy's trunk when she and Ray were first married, she said, “We get along fine. He babysits for me and Ray. He's real good to the kids.”

After Bobby hit the big time and was sent to the federal penitentiary in Manitoba, Ray and Daisy lost track of him, and he was seven months into his sentence by the time his dad tracked him and wrote one of the few letters that he sent to his son. According to Pecover that letter did not survive, but Bobby's reply said:

“You also asked me to come home which makes me feel wonderful and love you all the more after all the trouble I've given you.”

And indeed he did go home, after a brief foray into the world of professional boxing. Bobby Cook had his first
boxing experience in Hanna when a man who owned a local gym spotted a boy he felt was bound for trouble. When Bobby wandered into Gordon Russell's gym one day, Russell decided to take him in hand:

“I encouraged him because I thought he could use it. He seemed to me to be emotionally troubled; emotionally there was something wrong with Bobby. He was beating up on kids 13 and 14; when he got them down he would take the boots to them. He was a mean, small kid. Perhaps he did it because of his size, I don't know, but he was tough. Yet none of the guys he beat up seemed to bear him any grudges. They all liked him.” (
The Work of Justice
pg. 40)

Ray Cook, however, was not pleased with this new activity and when Bobby came home from the gym one night with a black eye, he visited Russell and told him that Bobby was not to be allowed back at the gym.

“That was the end of it. I think if he'd been allowed to stay he wouldn't be [dead] today. Even then I could see he was a natural…He would have made a good pro.” (
The Work of Justice
pg. 40)

That was not the end of it. When Cook ended up at Stony Mountain Penitentiary, he again wandered into a gym and the trainer there recognized a natural ability as well.

“Right from the beginning…I could see the heart and other things this boy had. He could take punishment but he could hand it out. Later, when we had him on the cards if he had a guy in trouble he'd turn to the referee. Like if he had a guy with a lot of staying power, rather than pound and pound at the guy he would turn to the referee. He was no sadist. He had a sort of code of the west, a sort of do unto others… He had tons of potential… He had a punch… He was the champion of his division in the pen and he could fight in heavier classes.” (
The Work of Justice
pg. 41)

It seems there was a window of opportunity for Bobby Cook, at the tender age of sixteen, to have made a career for himself as a professional boxer. While he was in Stony Mountain, Alex Turk, a boxing and wrestling promoter in Winnipeg who was also a Member of the Legislative Assembly in the Manitoba government, used that position to gain access to Stony Mountain where he funded a major part of the athletic program, and provided a place for cons to go when they were released from prison. He spotted Cook on one of his visits and invited him to contact him when he got out.

Jack Pecover devotes ten pages of his book to Robert Cook's boxing ability and “career.” Cook did contact Turk, who did send him out on the boxing circuit but Turk told Pecover he couldn't remember what happened to Cook.

“He drifted away, just sort of disappeared.”

And the point of all this is…? I'm a teacher. I know all about identifying a child's gifts. Self-esteem. Please don't have either me or Jake talk about growing grass instead of weeds.

Hardly. I don't think we need any clichés or folksy wisdom. But how about “the writing was on the wall”?

You mean Bobby Cook got back in trouble? What a surprise.

He may have disappeared in the boxing world, but he ended up back in Hanna. He broke into a garage and scooped up a measly $1.50 for his effort, and then into the government liquor store where he found $17 in the cash drawer and helped himself to a drink, replaced the bottle and left his fingerprints behind. When he got to Stettler, his dad had a 1940 Chev and a job waiting, but the RCMP were not far behind him.

And Daisy? She got to say, “I told you so”?

Daisy was the one who kept in touch with Bobby during his time in the Saskatchewan Penitentiary at Prince Albert. Or tried. From a letter she sent July 15, 1957:

Could you kindly let me know about Robert Cook? We haven't heard from him for some time and we are anxious to know how he is. He never said if there was anything we could send him. We would be grateful for any information. Thank you for your trouble.

Respectfully, Mrs. Ray Cook (
The Work of Justice
pg. 171)

And the reply from the warden, T.W. Hall:

Replying to your letter of January 15, 1957, I had your boy in front of me today in the matter of his non-writing to you. He admits that he has not been writing home, but from what I can gather this lack of writing is not due to any thoughts on the part of Robert that he does not wish to have anything more to do with his family, but simply that he feels ashamed for bringing his family into disgrace.

I impressed upon Robert the fact that no matter what he has done or where he was, his mother would always have the same thoughts for him, and asked him to consider that his mother would worry over him and for him to write as soon as possible.

As far as your son's health is concerned, he looks very well and is working every day. His conduct is such that he is entitled to full privileges.

Yours faithfully, T.W. Hall (
The Work of Justice
pg. 171)

Letters that sound like they could have been written about a boy away at school.