In Valhalla's Shadows

by W. D. Valgardson

  “Chinese?”

  “It was love,” she said, talking into the blanket. “He drove a Mercedes. It was going to be forever. We were going to live someplace fun.”

  He finished her back, put the cap back on the tube and tied her straps in a bow. She rolled over and looked at him.

  “You still trying to figure out what happened to Angel?” Her face was full of sadness. She sat up and pulled her knees toward her. She rested her cheek on her knees. “Derk said maybe you would.”

  “He was upset about his sister.”

  “I told him not to deal, but he quit school after grade eleven. There aren’t a lot of jobs. You can’t live on welfare. He buys the groceries. He pays the rent. We’ve got a decent place. He says people like you look down on us.”

  “Everybody has to make a living,” Tom said. “He seems smart. He should go back to school. Get a job as a salesman for a pharmaceutical company.”

  “Yeah,” she agreed. “I’ve told him that. Ben has told him that. Angel was going to finish school, have her own band. Her music teacher said she was talented. She could go to college and become a music teacher.”

  “Ben says all she wanted was a good guitar. Too bad you were never able to get her one.”

  Wanda lifted her face off her knees and looked at Tom. “What do you mean she didn’t get one? She got one. The best.”

  “Ben said she just had his old guitar and it’s not up to much. It’s tough when a kid dies and never gets her dream.”

  “She got a new guitar. She had her dream.” Wanda bit her lip and used the back of her wrist to wipe her eyes.

  “Where did she get it?” Her music teacher? Did he give it to her?” Tom asked and wondered if the music teacher had offered lessons in more than music.

  Wanda lay face down again. ““She,” Wanda said. “Miss Primrose. She didn’t have no guitars to give away. Somebody thought Angel had a lot of talent. They gave her one.”

  In the sunlight, her back gleamed with the sunscreen Tom had rubbed on her. Her shoulder blades looked thin, sharp, like they could break through the skin. “Nobody thinks that somebody like me can love their kids. I love my kids. You leave Derk alone. You’re not a cop anymore. You mind you own business. He pays the rent.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “He’s not using. He says if he uses, he’ll end up with no profits. He says he’s getting even. He has a few drinks when he gets depressed, that’s all. He thinks too much. I tell him, ‘Quit thinking so much.’ He says it’s war. Rich against poor.”

  Wanda sat up again, and Tom wondered if she’d get up and run into the house. Instead, she sat with her arms around her legs, her face on her knees, the folly of her dragon glowing like a neon sign in the harsh sunlight. Tom was sitting on the grass facing her. There were dark circles around her eyes and the black roots of her hair were starting to show.

  “Derk says you think you’re better than us. Big-shot cop with a pension and connections.”

  “No,” Tom reassured her. “I don’t think I’m better.” He thought about his kids then as the heat weighed down on them. Myrna, in her black boots, her tattoos, her nose ring, eyebrow ring, her studded belt, leading her blonde girlfriend around on a leash. And Joel, out there with his crazy sense of humour and the possibility he had AIDS. “Not even a little bit. We all have our own problems.”

  He went back home and started building a set of stairs for the porch.

  Ben came by later in the evening. “Wanda’s sort of upset. She said you were looking for me. What did you want?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure. Angel, I guess. There’s something just not right about it.” He put down his chop saw. “Wanda said Angel got her guitar she wanted.”

  “I don’t think so,” Ben said. “When I picked her up, she was carrying my old case.”

  “Can I see your guitar?”

  They got into Ben’s truck and drove to his place. Wanda had moved onto the porch swing and was reading a romance novel.

  “What’s he doing here?” she asked.

  “He wants to see my old guitar. That’s all. I told him it was a good guitar at one time. Not electric, though. No electricity in the fish camps in those days.”

  “I don’t think you should be showing it to him. What business is it of his?”

  Ben waved her concerns away, and Tom followed him inside. They went into the living room and Tom sat down. Ben brought out a beat-up black guitar case. Wanda came in and sat uneasily on a wooden chair. Ben undid the clasp and opened the top. And there was a brand-new guitar. The three of them stared at it.

  “Where did she get this?” Ben demanded.

  “Karla,” Wanda said. “Well, Karla didn’t give it to her. One of the promoters was in Winnipeg and Karla told him about Angel and how talented she was. Karla talked him into giving her an audition. He said that if she really was as talented as Karla said, he’d give her a guitar, but then she’d be under contract to him. It was okay. He was one of the regulars who come here in the summer.”

  Tom heard a car pull up and the motor shut off. Derk came into the room. “What’s up?” he asked. In spite of the heat, he was back to wearing black. He looked at all of them and the guitar. “That’s Angel’s guitar.”

  “Where did this tryout take place?” Ben asked.

  “I don’t remember the name,” Wanda said.

  “The Sapphire,” Derk snapped. “Big shots go there. When I make deliveries, I’ve got to give them to the concierge. We’ve got an understanding. He handles special deliveries and the girls. You’ve got to be dressed like you belong just to get past the doorman.”

  “It was okay,” Wanda said. “She was with Karla.”

  “Yeah,” Derk said. “Karla was in town for a week. Ordering stuff for the store, doing promos. She even had a couple of gigs. She dropped by to visit and took Angel to a show. She was really good to her. Took her to music stores. Took her to lunch.”

  This was, Tom thought, the girl whose name Karla said she could not remember, the girl she really didn’t know, the girl that Barbara said Karla didn’t care for because she wasn’t interested in C&W.

  There was a stiff, brittle silence. “It was okay,” Wanda said. “Karla dropped by, that’s all. She visited one day when she had time. She came back the next day and said she’d take Angel out for lunch, and they did window shopping.” Wanda had clenched her right hand and began rubbing it with her left hand. “She said she might be able to set up an audition. The promo guy was in town on business, and she was talking to him about investing in their place here. Maybe build a real fishing lodge, new cabins.”

  “What was he called?” Tom asked.

  “I don’t know,” Wanda said. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “Merlin,” Derk said. “Merlin the Magician. He makes magic happen. He’s got connections”

  Tom asked Derk, “How long was Angel gone?”

  “I dunno. I had deliveries to do. Out of town. You remember, you’re not a cop anymore.”

  Wanda had started fidgeting. She began shifting nervously on her chair. “I had met a guy. He took me out. I was away overnight. It was okay. Karla said Angel could stay with her.”

  “Did she?”

  “Yeah. Two nights. Karla said the guy thought Angel was really talented, and he gave Karla a guitar for her. Karla paid for a taxi to bring Angel home. She was tied up seeing her suppliers.”

  Ben had sat down on the overstuffed chair. He was watching his grandson and daughter and not saying anything. Finally, he broke the silence. “That guitar cost a lot of money. That’s no cheapo repo, no ninety-dollar special.”

  Wanda was getting frustrated. “What’s the matter with you guys? Angel did her thing. Karla was with her. The guy and his business partners thought she was great. He said that when he came to Valhalla on his yacht this summer, he�
�d sign her up. He’d heard her sing last summer too.”

  “How was she?” Tom asked. “She must have been feeling really good after getting that guitar.”

  Derk said, “She had a sick stomach. She got the flu. She didn’t go to school on Monday.”

  “It was nothing,” Wanda said.

  “She liked this school?” Tom asked. “Good music program?”

  “Yeah,” Wanda said. “They were practising for a big concert at the end of the year. She had a solo. We were going.”

  “She left before or after the concert?”

  “Before, I guess. She musta found out...” They waited as Wanda struggled with what she had to say. “About being knocked up. She didn’t tell me.”

  “Who was her boyfriend?”

  Derk jumped in. “No boyfriend. Not like that. A couple of guys in their music group used to walk home with her. They practised together after school.”

  “Did she tell you everything?” Tom asked.

  “No,” he replied. “She didn’t tell me about being pregnant.”

  “You don’t know what kids are up to,” Wanda said. “It’s all a big secret. Like, we didn’t talk much.”

  “Nice guitar,” Tom said and picked it up. “What are you going to do with it?”

  “I think Karla wants it back,” Wanda said. “I was at the store buying cream for coffee and she said it wasn’t a straight gift. It was more like on loan to help Angel.”

  “Possession is nine tenths of the law. You keep it,” Tom said, putting the guitar back into the case. “You got a cellphone?” he asked Derk.

  “Doesn’t work. Lousy reception. Maybe if you drive south or paddle around out on the lake.”

  Tom said, “I’ll call from Freyja’s. Are you friends with anyone at the Sapphire? Would you be able to find out what room this Merlin and his friends were staying in?”

  At Freyja’s he called a friend who’d retired and was working for a private detective agency and asked him to run a credit check on the Whites. Derk called him with the names of Merlin and two other men. They’d stayed in a penthouse suite.

  The next day he went to the dock while Karla was having her daily swim. When she went to climb up the loading chute, he put his hand down for her to grab. She shoved it away and took hold of the black metal spike that protruded. She pulled herself up. “Bugger off,” she said. “Leave me alone.”

  “You’re over ninety days behind on your bills. You’re done. You can’t get any more credit.”

  She picked up her towel and began to dry herself off. “I got an investor. He’s interested in putting up a proper lodge. The kind of place hotshots will want to come.”

  “Merlin?” Tom said. He saw the surprise on her face. “I don’t think he’s coming back.”

  She gave a half laugh, as if to brush off his suggestion. “We’ve got a deal.” She pulled off her bathing cap and shook out her hair. “We’re going to build—log cabins, ten bedrooms, a proper dining room, a bar, a lounge with a stage and good sound equipment. We’ll tear down the piece of crap we’re in. It’ll be all Western style.”

  “There’s no deal,” he said. “You want to talk privately?”

  She wrapped herself in her beach towel and followed him down the dock. “Your place?” she asked.

  Instead of going inside, he stopped at his picnic table and sat down. She sat down opposite him. Without her makeup, she looked her age, older than her age. The lines in her face showed and her skin was pale.

  “You can’t pay your bills and Merlin is going to magically fly away. He won’t even come to say goodbye.”

  “Why are you doing this? What business is it of yours?”

  “People have been blaming me for what you did. That made it my business. I don’t want to wear that.”

  “What did I do?”

  “You took a fifteen-year-old to the Sapphire Hotel. There were three men in the suite. I’ve got their names. Two of them had sex with her. She got pregnant. You’re an accessory to rape, to corrupting a minor. I’ve got corroboration from her brother and mother.”

  “You can’t blame me. Merlin saw her perform here. He was hot for her. He likes girls that look like her. Cute but sort of boyish. I wouldn’t have hired her last summer, but he kept pressuring me. ‘Give her a job.’ So I hired her to scoop ice cream. He kept asking me if I could bring her to serve food.”

  “Or have a fashion show. I’ve got a witness for that, too. Underage girls serving liquor, doing drugs, being paid for sex. You can call it gifts, but it is still payment. You think that Tracy isn’t going to blab when she’s questioned?”

  “Angel never did a show. Look, I don’t know what happened. All I did was arrange an audition. One of them was interested in me. We went into a bedroom. We were there for quite a while. It wasn’t wham bam thank you ma’am. When I came out, Angel was lying in the other bedroom. She had her clothes on, but they weren’t on right. I got her to sit up and straightened things out. I helped her downstairs and got her into a taxi. I figured she’d had too much to drink. We went to my place. She threw up during the night. She didn’t feel too good the next day, so I went and got the guitar for her. She said she couldn’t remember what happened, and I told her she played real good, and there was the guitar to prove it.”

  “What did they give her?”

  “I don’t know. I was in the other room. I was busy.”

  “You left her alone with two men.”’

  “I didn’t know there’d be two of them. I just figured it would be Merlin, and he’d make her an offer. Most of the girls would have jumped at a chance. That’s an expensive guitar.”

  “They didn’t use any protection?”

  “I told you, I wasn’t in the room. Maybe a condom broke. They do break.”

  “You should have given her the morning after pill.”

  “I should have done lots of things. I didn’t do them. I feel bad about this. I try to create opportunities.”

  “What kind of pictures get taken at these parties?”

  “Picture pictures. They’re just pictures. Publicity photos for their portfolios.”

  He remembered the box from Frenchie’s truck. Fancy lingerie. Supposed to be for women-only parties.

  Karla went to get up, but he caught her wrist and held her there.

  “It’s a show. That’s all. No touching. Just looking. The girls pose.”

  “The old guys must get pretty excited. You don’t arrange any side deals in the cabins.”

  “I can’t keep track of everybody. I’m busy hosting. I try to keep my eye on them. But you know what they can be like. Sometimes they get away on me. They’re not all virgins, you know.”

  “And Angel? Was she a virgin? Was she worth more because she was?”

  Karla’s face twisted. Her mouth became a dark slash. “Merlin liked the way Angel looked. She turned him on. He kept asking me if I could arrange for her to come to one of the parties. I didn’t think it was a good idea. I didn’t know her well. He kept insisting.”

  “Was she an incentive for him and his friends to invest?”

  “She wanted a good guitar. That’s all she talked about. How was she going to get one? She had a good voice. I told her it was easy.”

  He waited. Karla’s face was crumpling. “Nobody was getting hurt. I keep the girls’ money for them. I’m not a crook. I’ve got it in the books. Every cent. How much each of them has earned.”

  “The night she died. You and Merlin drowned her to shut her up.”

  “We didn’t. The little fool. She was hysterical. I took her to Merlin’s boat. He said that he’d pay for an abortion, send her away to music camp, and she could go a few days early and have the procedure. She was scared shitless her grandfather would find out.”

  “You murdered her.”

  “We didn’t. I told yo
u, she was hysterical. It was raining. The deck was slippery. She was flailing at Merlin, and then she went running across the deck to get back into the punt. She was crying, and she slipped and she went over the side. We got into the punt, and she was floating face down. We couldn’t get her into the boat. Merlin went back and got a bottle of whisky. We towed her to shore, dragged her up, Merlin poured whisky on her to make it look like she was drunk. I wanted to get help, but he wouldn’t let me. He insisted we put her face down in the water.”

  “There was a bruise on her forehead.”

  “We heard a thump when she went over the side. She must have hit her head on the punt.”

  She twisted on the bench, as if sitting there was very painful.

  “Look. I’m sorry, but there was nothing I could do. It was an accident. She fell off the boat. What good is making a fuss? You don’t understand. You haven’t lived here. What do you think is better? To take a chance, to get paid to get laid, or to get drunk and fucked by a local yokel for the price of a hamburger and a bottle of beer. Like Rose. You think she’s going to have a good life?” Her voice rose. “Do you think it’s better to get laid in the bed of some jerk’s truck, and the next thing she’s got a big belly, and she’s living in a trailer with a kid, and she’s seventeen, and then she’s got another one because the guy is too stupid or lazy to use a condom? Why are you so goddamn pure, so righteous? Any risk is worth taking to get out of here and have a decent life.”

  “Why haven’t you left?” he snapped back. “What are you doing here if you think this is a shithole?”

  She looked like she would kill him if she had a gun handy. “Fuck you,” she said, but there was a sob behind it, deep in her chest, like she was going to vomit pain. “I tried.” It was short, sharp, hard as flint. She put her hands over her face and said nothing for a while. When she spoke, her voice was quieter, and she clenched her jaw. “Do you know what it takes to get up onstage night after night and wiggle your ass and tits and sing and listen to what the guys in the front tables are saying about you? Tonight this bar, tomorrow that bar. ‘Come on, baby, sit in my lap and wiggle, so I can come in my pants.’ Big laugh. And the bar owners wanting a feel or a blow job for a chance to sing in their crappy roadhouse. On the road, on the road, until you don’t know what town you’re in. Singing your heart out, hoping an agent is going to see you and say, ‘You should be in Nashville’ and mean it and help you get there.”