“It’s because I can’t remember. After Eddie and me left with Beth and headed for his parent’s place, I sort of blanked out. I can’t remember a thing.”
“Oh, boy.”
“Yeah. Oh boy.” She was gulping in air. Beth was looking up at her, screwing her face up, getting ready to scream. I tensed. Francy popped the nipple back into Beth’s mouth and sat down again.
“How's that going to sound, eh? We leave and I can’t remember anything until you said at Carla’s that John was dead.”
“Nothing?”
“Nope. Carla said I pulled the phone cord out of the wall. Don’t remember. Carla said I ate a hearty meal and slept in the guest room. Don’t remember that either. Total blank, Polly. Until I get that back, I’m not talking to any cop.”
“Okay. I get it,” I said, getting really scared for her. I’ve heard that trauma can do that—wipe out whole blocks of time. What if Francy did go back and shoot John? What if her memory just wiped it all out?
“Do you think you went back?” I said, quietly.
Francy’s face crumpled. “I don’t know. Maybe. I feel like I could have. I’d decided to leave him. I was real mad. I was also ripped out of my mind, long before Eddie showed up. I could have done it.”
“Could you have driven John to the dump, though? Could you have hurt Spit Morton?”
“Spit? God. Did someone shoot him, too?”
“No, but they whacked him over the head, Francy. You may have had something against John, but you like Spit, don’t you?”
“Sure I do. And hey, Polly, I can’t drive.” With this realization, she seemed to relax a little, but she looked awful. Her eye was still swollen, and her face had gone white again.
“I couldn’t have done it,” she said. “But if I didn’t, then who the hell did?”
Nine
Judas sang a good song
right up until they paid the price,
then he felt awful.
—Shepherd’s Pie
One thing I knew for certain, Francy and the baby couldn’t stay with me for very long. To begin with, there wasn’t the sleeping space. My bedroom was an add-on at the back of the cabin, barely enough room for my futon and a rack for my clothes. The bed was small and would have accommodated a friend only if our acquaintance were truly biblical. I didn’t think Francy would be interested in spooning with me, and I wasn’t about to suggest it. If Francy wanted to spend the night, I’d be sleeping on the workroom floor, which was part of the kitchen, which was part of the living room. In a place as small as mine, “open concept” just means there isn’t any room for walls.
Also, there wasn’t any plumbing. I had a pump outside, and when I wanted a bath, I heated water on the wood stove and bathed beside the fire in the zinc tub I got from Spit. There was no toilet, just an outhouse. On cold winter nights, I used a Victorian chamber pot. (I got it from Rico. When I told him what I wanted it for, he giggled, produced a lid for the pot and only charged me ten bucks.)
Francy had a baby, who would presumably need to be changed and washed occasionally, and after her recent ordeal, Francy would probably need a nice hot bath, but she wouldn’t get one at my place.
Then there was Becker. He would be looking for both of us and we couldn’t keep running forever. I was most likely in deep doo-doo as it was, scuttling away from the Travers place and then kidnapping the prime suspect. Did that make me an accessory after the fact? I wasn’t looking forward to finding out.
Becker had probably already interviewed Carla Schreier and Eddie, and Eddie’s statement would have made him even more eager to find Francy. He would discover that I had left with her, and he would drive back to George’s place, expecting us to be there. George would make excuses for me, but it was only a matter of time before Becker figured out that I didn’t live in the farm house. All he needed to do was ask one of the locals.
“Oh, you mean Polly? She lives in that old shack up on Hoito’s farm. Been there some years now. What’s she done? Always thought she was a weirdo.” Becker would come screaming up the track to the cabin and that would be that.
I decided to save him the effort and give Francy a bit more time to get it together. I bullied her into lying down for a nap with Beth on the futon, and she was out like a light in less than five minutes. Then I made some ham and cheese sandwiches and left them on a plate on the kitchen table with a note, which told her that I was going down to see George and not to worry. I locked the door when I left, which is not my habit, but then people don’t get shot around here very often, and leaving Francy and the baby alone gave me an uneasy feeling.
The October air was unseasonably cold, and I pulled my jacket around me, shivering. It was beginning to get dark already—those autumn nights closing in to warn the hapless Canadian that the snow would be flying soon. I had ten cords of wood split and stacked in my mind. All I had to do to make it a reality was to haul it out of the bush.
Leaves crunched under my feet and as I reached the end of the track which opened out onto George’s hay field, I could see that we were in for a spectacular sunset. Fingers of pink and orange light were reaching tentatively out of a low cloud bank, touching the treetops like neon icing. I thought of John Travers. Had he ever enjoyed a sunset? Of course he had. He lived here, didn’t he? Or had he been too unhappy a man to have ever looked up into the sky and felt glad to see what was there? He wouldn’t be experiencing any more sunsets, now. Walking down the hill, bathed in those impossible colours, I threw out a kind of mental “sorry” to John, wherever he had gone. Not that I had liked him much, but knowing he couldn’t see what I was seeing made me sad.
Becker’s cruiser was parked next to George’s truck, and I slowed to a saunter, putting off the inevitable. There were more lights on in the house than was usual. I guessed that the officer had decided to do a thorough search, maybe to see if the madwomen were in the attic, where they belonged.
I was about fifty metres from the house, fastening the gate which kept the goats out of the hay field, when Poe descended like a black bag of potatoes, landing so close to me that I gasped and jumped back.
“Dammit, bird. You scared me,” I said. Poe cocked his head to one side and I swear he was grinning. He had something hanging from his beak which caught the light.
“What have you got there?” I said. He just looked at me. I stepped closer, softly so as not to startle him. He rarely came close to me and I felt honoured, albeit slightly nervous. Budgies and robins I can handle, but ravens are big suckers and their beaks are wickedly sharp. The thing in his beak was a pendant of some sort on a gold-coloured chain, and as it turned, it flashed pink and orange.
I knew better than to try and take it. Ravens are terrible thieves when it comes to shiny things; they snatch them and hoard them like dragons do. George raids Poe’s stash every so often when he runs out of spare change, or if he can’t find the key to something. Poe is very possessive, though, and will defend his property if it’s threatened. George won’t touch the stash unless Poe’s outside, and even so, the bird notices right away and retaliates, usually by pooping on George’s pipe stand.
“That’s a pretty thingy you’ve got there,” I said. “Snatch it off a dead body, did you?” Then I realized the gallows humour of what I’d said and let out a bark of laughter. The noise spooked Poe, who dropped the chain and took flight, passing so close over my head that I felt my hair move. He landed on the roof of George’s house and started croaking at me, swearing in fluent Raven.
The thing was, he could very well have taken it off a dead body. After all, someone had left one lying around very recently, and Poe was a frequent visitor to the dump, often accompanying