The Girl in the Wall (14 page)

“What?” said Jane. “What the hell kind of a job is that?”

“There seemed to have been a call for it back then, for a while, anyway. I don't know if it still happens. Maybe people just do it themselves now, since everyone except me carries a camera as a matter of course.”

“I don't,” said Jane.

“There's not a camera attached to that thing in your pocket?”

“I don't have anything in my pocket.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I don't. Well, I have a lozenge.”

Clouds had moved in. Frank hoped for rain. Maybe it would drive some of the leaf-blowing fiends indoors.

“Are you thinking of her in relation to the photograph?” Jane asked.

“I don't know,” said Frank. “It reminded me of her.”

“I've heard of it,” Jane said. “Dressing people up after they're dead and taking pictures. I was under the impression it was a southern thing. You know, maybe a New Orleansy sort of thing.”

“Well, in the late sixties, for this particular girl, it was a Winnipeg thing. Maybe not the dressing-up part, but taking pictures at the request of families.”

“What became of her?”

“I don't know. I do know that she went on living with her parents after George died. That was her brother's name: George. She was young, just twenty or so; she wouldn't have had much choice. But as I remember it she was very dependent on him, so it must have been really hard for her. I don't know if she kept up with the picture taking after that or not. As I recall, the parents were fairly useless in one way or another.”

“Useless how?”

“Well, the dad was pretty removed, I think, and old for a dad, and the mum was one of those types that didn't leave the house. No one ever saw her.”

“Probably a drunk.”

“Possibly, but I think there was more to it than that.”

“Poor kid.”

“Yes. I know there were grandparents on the mother's side who were around when the kids were very young. They lived a couple of streets over from George and Morven, on Ferndale near the river.”

“Morven?”

“Yeah, I know. It was a terrible name to be saddled with.”

“That poor, poor kid.”

“Yes. Anyway the grandparents moved away early on, retired out west or down south or somewhere.”

“What the hell kind of name is Morven?” asked Jane.

“It's a Scottish name,” said Frank. “I've got one in my past somewhere. A great-great-great Aunt Morven. Maybe not even that many greats.”

He thought about the photograph. It didn't fit the scenario he had been forming in his mind — that it had something to do with the odd girl from his youth, Morven Rankin. The picture wasn't the type of thing she did, as far as he knew, but he'd be the first to admit he didn't know much — only what he had gathered in bits and pieces from George and one or two others in the neighbourhood.

It couldn't be a coincidence that the picture was behind the same wall in the same house where he found the skeleton. There had to be a connection between the two.

“How the heck many people go around taking pictures of the dead, especially the dressed-up dead propped in sitting or standing positions?” Frank asked.

“Not very many, I'd venture,” said Jane. “Let's sit again.”

They'd come to another bench, this one recently installed in memory of a man and his dog who used to walk there. Frank recognized their names.

He wished that Jane didn't know about the photograph, but it was too late to do anything about it. Plus, he wanted to discuss it with her, the date on it, how he was having trouble reconciling the posing with George's sister. The way he remembered it, she went to hospitals at the request of families to capture one last likeness for them. It wasn't Frank's notion of a good idea, but he could almost understand it.

This posing thing wasn't her style. Somehow, he was sure of it. Someone else must have taken the photograph. Perhaps there was more than one person taking pictures of people after death, with two entirely different approaches.

Frank glanced at Jane. He figured she was thinking about turning him in for what she considered theft from a crime scene. That would be what she was pondering right now in her silence and her need to sit. Maybe he could return the picture to the site after all the commotion died down, hide it somewhere the police could conceivably have neglected to look and then rediscover it. But how could he be sure of a place where they hadn't looked? Maybe he could dig a hole in the yard or find a narrow opening in one of the grand old trees that could have protected it through the decades. He knew immediately that neither of those plans would work for practical reasons. And most policemen weren't idiots. But there was always his idea of having found the picture on another day last week. He could still be held accountable but not as seriously so.

“I'm becoming less and less surprised that no one found her,” Jane said, “with the house being vacant for years and a fair distance away from its neighbours.”

Frank was so pleasantly surprised at her chosen topic that he was at a loss for words for a moment or two. She hadn't been lost in thoughts of reporting him. Or maybe she had been and was now covering it up. His own mistrustful thoughts twisted his guts into tight knots. If this was the way it was going to go, if this was the way he was going to be, he wanted no part of his own future.

“Frank?”

He looked at her sideways to see what her face looked like. It was open and fresh and questioning. There was nothing sinister about it.

“You'd be amazed,” Frank said, taking as deep a breath as he could manage, “how much of a stink a small being can produce.”

He hated to remember the times he had experienced it first-hand.

“But still,” said Jane, “it wouldn't be as bad as if it had been a tall, hulking, morbidly obese man.”

“No,” Frank said. “Not that bad.”

“Let's walk,” said Jane.

The river was busy. The hollering rowing boss went by again.

“Why do rowers have to yell?” said Frank. “It should be a peaceful activity.”

He wished that the head rower would have a massive heart attack and die in mid-shout.

“What do you think of that custom, Frank? Taking pictures of the dead, I mean.”

“Well, I can't imagine personally wanting such a thing, a photograph of someone who I loved that died. I'd end up looking at it so much I'd go crazy with it or not enough so that when I did see it, it would scare the bejesus out of me. It's sure not for me, but I can see a different type of person thinking it's a good idea. Maybe a mother from Victorian England who lost her only child at a young age and had no other pictures of her. I mean, in the olden days there weren't a lot of photographs, were there? If it wound up being the only chance a family had to have a picture of their baby, I can almost see it. It definitely seems eerier to me, though, when the person is posed alongside live people.”

“Yeah. I don't like it,” Jane said. “May I see it again?”

“You can see it if you stop thinking of it as stolen and promise me that you're not going to report it or me to the police.”

“I can't help the way I think, but I won't report you or it.”

“This is no idle promise,” said Frank.

“I know.”

Jane put her hand on her heart and said, “Hope to die.”

“Okay, good,” Frank said.

He stopped abruptly and turned toward the river, where one rowboat and a smaller motorboat were skimming down the river. The man in the motorboat was guiding the rowers and all of them were bellowing: one, two, three, four!

“Shut the hell up!” Frank shouted as loudly as he could, which wasn't very loud. He didn't do a lot of shouting. He cleared his throat afterwards and continued walking.

Jane stared at him.

“What's gotten into you, Frank?”

“I don't know. Nothing much, just a little irritability.”

They headed up to Lyndale Drive.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Frank said.

“Let's go to your house now and look at the picture,” said Jane.

“If either kid is around we can't do it now. I don't want them dwelling on it and possibly thinking I'm a thief.”

“Okay.”

“Sadie saw the photograph at lunchtime but maybe she'll just forget about it if it's not mentioned again.”

“I doubt it.”

“Yeah, I do too. She got that the little girl was dead. She'll tell Garth for sure and he'll tell everyone he sees. Garth's a blabbermouth. I'm going to have to speak to them seriously about this. Jesus. If I were still on the force, none of this would be an issue.”

Jane stopped walking.

“Do you wish you were still a cop, Frank?”

“No. I don't know. Maybe. Please don't stop in your tracks like I just said something important. It can't happen, and regret is the cancer of life, as some clever dead person once said.”

“Why can't it happen?”

“Well, for one thing, I'm a criminal now.”

“Don't be silly. You could make that disappear with no trouble at all. Burn it, for Christ's sake.”

“I don't think I can. Not yet, anyway. God, I wish my kids didn't know about it. I may have to lie to them.”

They started walking again.

“I don't feel in my heart that I stole it. If anything, it feels like the opposite of that.”

“What's the opposite of stealing?” asked Jane.

“I don't know,” Frank said, “but it's a positive thing.”

It felt like it had something to do with protecting someone or something, maybe the little person in the wall, but it was so vague it was almost not there. There was nothing so concrete that he had words to describe it. And he didn't always trust his feelings either; there was that.

He was often way off, even in his staff sergeant days when he had been reasonably sharp with his theories. And now he was a plodder, unable to manoeuvre around corners to find the shady paths that led to the heart of the matter.

Jane picked up two thick blue elastics that a letter carrier had dropped on the sidewalk and put them in the pocket of her capris. She saved them.

“How did he die,” she asked, “the boy who became a man?”

“George. Cancer, I think. Some really bad type of cancer, bone maybe. Don't quote me on any of this. I got it all fourth- or fifth-hand.”

“Sad.”

“Yes. Cancer in a young person wasn't all that common in those days. Not every second person had it, like now.”

They walked up Highfield and down Claremont Avenue to Frank's house. Three separate people greeted them on the way. All three had an Are you two a couple now? look on their faces. At least Frank thought so. He didn't know what Jane thought and he wasn't going to ask. Sometimes he wished he lived in New York City or London, England, maybe, where he could be anonymous for a portion of his life.

“No we're not. We're just business partners,” he said out loud as they passed Claudia Bendall in her front yard.

“Pardon?” Claudia Bendall and Jane said in unison.

“Nothing,” said Frank. “Just talking to myself.”

Claudia went on squirting dandelions with poison and Jane looked confused.

They turned into Frank's place. The air was full with the scent of gasoline, poison, and new-mown grass.

No one was home. There was a note from Sadie saying she was over at her friend Kendell's and would be back at nine. Kendell lived just three streets over on Birchdale Avenue, so Frank was good with that. He could even pop over in a little while and accompany his daughter home, or maybe not. He didn't want to act too protective and cause her to roll her eyes.

Garth was nowhere to be seen. No note. No message. He was eighteen and heading to the University of North Dakota on a baseball scholarship in the fall so Frank was trying hard not to monitor his every move. He was preparing himself to let another one go.

Up in his bedroom he retrieved the photograph from its hiding place under the mattress.

“Would you like a drink?” he said to Jane when he came back down.

“Yes, I would.”

“Red, white, or beer?”

“Red, please.”

“Good choice.”

Frank poured two generous glasses of red from the box of Shiraz on the counter. They went outside to the porch and settled themselves in to stare at the unusual photograph. Frank placed it carefully on the table in front of them. It was fragile, so old and fragile.

“I guess, technically, it belongs to Norm Featherstone,” he said.

“Oh my God,” said Jane quietly.

“What?”

“The eyes,” she said. “What's the deal with the eyes? I know they look dead but there's more to it than that.”

Frank took a long drink of his wine.

“I'm not sure,” he said, “but my best guess is that they were fastened shut somehow and new ones were drawn on with something. Paint, maybe, or some sort of makeup?”

“This is too bizarre for words.”

“Yes.”

“How would they have fastened them shut?” Jane asked.

“I don't know. Krazy Glue? Needle and thread?”

“Ouch,” said Jane.

A couple walked by with two dogs on leashes. They nodded hello. Frank turned the photograph over and set a stone on top of it. They sat back and sipped their wine till the couple was well past.

“It's got to be connected to Morven,” Jane said. “Taking photographs of dead people was her business.”

“But yet, I can't see it,” said Frank. “It wasn't her thing, as far as I know, to pose people in this way. She could have branched out, I guess, to do scenes like this; it's possible George didn't know. Or maybe it was after he died. She could have turned even stranger after he was no longer around to keep an eye on her. But then, the date…”

“What date?”

Frank moved the stone aside.

“Sadie was able to read the writing on the back,” he said. “It says: Living with our Dead 1970.”

“1970.”

“Yes.”

“The Coulthards lived in the house in 1970.”

“Yes.”

“Why did you wait till now to tell me this?”

“Because you were too excited, and I'm not sure what it means.”

“It means the Coulthards are involved in this.”

“Not necessarily. You see, I don't want there to be any jumping to conclusions. Someone else could have put both the picture and the girl there. It could have been shortly after the Coulthards moved or even while they were still there without their knowledge.”

“How could someone have done it without their knowledge?”

“I don't know. Maybe they were away on holidays. Jane, please don't run with this. I won't be able to take it if you run with this.”

Jane leaned back in her chair and gazed skyward.

Shadow leapt up onto the flat wooden railing and stared at them, first at Jane, then at Frank.

“Hi, Shadow,” said Frank.

Jane continued to look up at the sky.

“I don't run with things,” she said.

Frank scratched the cat under his chin.

“She called herself Mrs. Mortimer,” he said.

“Who did?” said Jane.

“Morven Rankin.”

“Was she married to a man named Mr. Mortimer?”

“No. That's just what she called herself. It started early on, in her teen years. I don't know if she ever married; somehow I doubt it.”

“Why, I wonder?” said Jane. “The name change, I mean.”

“I don't know. Maybe it had to do with her hating her real name or maybe she wanted to reinvent herself. Maybe she loved someone named Mortimer; maybe it was the only thing she could think of to do to make her life more bearable.”

“Odd.”

“Yes. Unusual, anyway.”

Frank gently flipped the photograph over.

“Are we sure everyone but the girl is alive?” Jane asked.

“Yes, look. This guy is blurred, and this young one is positively terrified, and look at this one's eyes: they're definitely not painted on.”

“I see.”

“It's twisted,” said Frank. “This scared one couldn't have been more than eleven. Can you imagine how freaked out he must have been? His hand isn't resting on the girl's shoulder. It's there to help prop her up.”

“Dear God,” said Jane.

Rage simmered in Frank's gut as he stared at the young boy who had been forced to take part. He was younger than Sadie.

“I hope it wasn't Mrs. Mortimer who took the picture,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because it's a desecration. Because it's a wrong thing to have done to this little girl and to this frightened little boy who was probably her brother. I don't want Mrs. Mortimer to have been involved with this. George was a good person and he was very protective of her. She wasn't quite right in the head, like her mother. I never ever saw the mother.”

“Wasn't the mother just a boozehound?” asked Jane.

“No, that was an assumption of yours. There was more to it than that.”

“We should find out what became of her,” said Jane. “Mrs. Mortimer, I mean.”

“They lived on Monck back then,” Frank said. “I think I'd know if any of them were still there, but maybe not. You lose touch, don't you? For instance, I didn't know that Mrs. Beresford was still around.”

“Did you visit George in the hospital?”

“No! As I said, I didn't know him well. He was four years older than me and that's a lot when you're young. I guess I could have visited him, but shoot, there was no real connection between us.”

“Relax, Frank. It's okay that you didn't go and visit him.”

“Jesus! I know it's okay. And why are you telling me to relax? What kind of thing is that to be telling me? Honest to God, Jane!”

Shadow leapt off the railing and disappeared into the cotoneasters.

“Why are you talking so loud?”

“I don't know,” said Frank, trying not to sound so cross.

He stood up and went inside for the wine. When he came back he refilled both their glasses.

“Mrs. Mortimer would have been left with a mother who was nuts,” Jane said, “and a father who…what was the story with the father again?”

Frank sighed.

“I'm going to go and see Mrs. Beresford again. Her dog seems nice. I thought when dogs were nice it meant their masters were too.”

“Maybe she's good to the dog but not to people,” Jane said. “That's totally understandable. She wasn't that bad, was she? Just kind of nosy?”

“I don't like her.”

“Oh, Frank.”

Jane touched his forearm ever so briefly.

Frank pretended not to notice.

“If you go, I'm going with you,” she said.

They drank their wine as evening deepened and grew quiet.

“I know nothing of any substance about the father,” Frank said. “He just wasn't a dad that was around much, at the community club or anywhere. He didn't do kid-related stuff. I'm pretty sure George and his sister had different mothers. The first one died or ran off.”

Frank held on to the photograph with both hands.

“Mrs. Mortimer did not take this picture,” he went on. “It wasn't her style.”

“How do you know what her style was?” asked Jane.

“Well, from what I remember it was all above board in hospitals and homes, fulfilling a need that some folks seemed to have. This picture has a carnival feel to it. A ‘step right up folks, get your death pictures taken here,' feel to it. A ‘bring your live children and we'll scare them witless' feel to it. Very below board. I'm sure it wasn't her.”

Frank walked Jane home and then went over to Kendell's house to fetch Sadie. The heck with appearing overprotective. It was after nine and that's when she said she'd be home.

“Dad, have you been drinking?” she asked.

“Yes, I have,” he said. “Jane was over and we had a glass or two of wine from the box.”

“One or two?”

“Two.”

“I don't like the box,” said Sadie.

Frank had decided to experiment with keeping a box of red wine on the kitchen counter. Most of the people he knew who dropped in were partial to red wine or beer and at first it had made sense to him. But he wasn't much of a drinker as a rule and this box, the first, had been there for some time. Not many people had stopped by. He had been relieved to find that it still tasted okay when he squirted out a glass for Jane.

“I'm thinking of doing away with it as an idea, Sadie. It hasn't worked out that well.”

“It reminds me of Mum,” Sadie said. “It worries me.”

“Oh, honey,” Frank said. “Consider it gone.”

Denise, Frank's wife, had been a serious drinker. She'd died four years earlier in a single-vehicle accident on Bishop Grandin Boulevard. She had been six days out of rehab and her blood was so loaded with alcohol there was speculation as to how she could have managed to drag herself into a car and fire up the ignition. Frank tried to keep the details from his kids, but it was huge news in the neighbourhood and even further afield, so his success was limited. “Wife of
WPD
Inspector Frank Foote Killed in Grisly Single-Vehicle Crash” was the headline on the front page of one of the city papers.

It was then that Frank retired from the police force. He needed to be home. And he didn't think he could willingly be a witness to any more wreckage.

The sensational story buzzed through the Norwood Flats loudly and for so long that Frank thought he would have to uproot his family and start again elsewhere. The kids had lived their three short lives in fear of something like this happening and their worst imaginings became reality. But they wouldn't move. They put their collective feet down and Frank was relieved. He couldn't picture living anywhere else, not really, even though the four of them now had to live with the noisy absence of Denise, who also had grown up in the neighbourhood.

Sadie allowed Frank to put his arm around her now for a short distance, but then shrugged him off by pretending she saw a nickel on the sidewalk.

When they got home, he removed the wine from the counter and took it out to the garage. He couldn't throw it away; that went against his nature. And Sadie was going to have to get used to his having the odd glass. But it was stupid of him to have had it out on the counter, especially as he seldom used it. He may as well have Scotch-taped a picture of Denise's mangled body to it for Sadie to study every morning when she got up to face the day.