A Hole In One

by Judy Penz Sheluk

  Arabella was surprised that she’d almost forgotten the reason for coming went beyond buying antiques for the shop.

  Levon.

  She couldn’t wait to find out what Walker knew about FYSST. But first, they owed it to their host to put things back in order.

  “You nap,” Arabella said. “We’ll take care of the cleanup. We’ll be sure to say goodbye before we leave.”

  It was a good hour before they finally got around to sitting on the back porch, Walker with a can of ginger ale and Emily and Arabella with tall glasses of lemonade. They had done the dishes, put everything away, and loaded the car with their purchases. When they were finally settled, Walker moving his chair toward them, he rolled up his sleeve, exposing the wagon wheel tattoo.

  “I started FYSST—Face Yesterday, Save Someone Tomorrow—two years ago. My first recruit was my best friend, Norrie.”

  Arabella glanced at Emily, who gave an affirming nod that Norrie could have been the guy who’d ordered the BLT with mustard at the Sunrise Café.

  “Does Norrie have a passion for BLTs with double bacon and mustard?” Arabella asked. Walker looked surprised. “Yes, but how did you know that?”

  “A guy who ordered a sandwich like that at a couple of spots in Lount’s Landing had the same tattoo as you. It seemed like a logical conclusion.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  Arabella laughed. “You impress easily. Can you tell us Norrie’s last name?”

  Walker thought about it for a moment and then shook his head. “I’m sorry, no. Confidentiality of the members in FYSST is paramount. I shouldn’t even have shared that much.”

  Arabella was disappointed, but she wasn’t about to risk alienating Walker by pushing it. Besides, knowing who Norrie was probably didn’t matter. “Can you tell us why you started FYSST? Why Norrie might have joined?”

  “That I can do. I wanted to find a way to go back and make amends with folks I’d hurt along the way. Norrie felt the same way, and not because we’d had a drinking or drug problem. Although we’d certainly done our fair share of both along with some gambling, the bigger issue was that we’d been class-A assholes in the way we treated some people in our past. We were young and entitled—you know the type.”

  “I’ve met a few assholes in my time,” Arabella said with a smile. “Been one, too, on more than one occasion. But this sounds like AA’s twelve-step program, not that I’m familiar with it from personal experience. Is that what you patterned it after?”

  Walker nodded. “I’ve never been to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting either—I’m not much of a drinker, beyond the occasional beer now and again. But like you, I know about the twelve steps, and did a bit of online research. Step eight is to make a list of all persons you have harmed. Step nine asks that you make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. That was when I thought, ‘Why does someone have to have a problem with alcohol to take those steps?’ And that was the genesis of FYSST.”

  Except the part about when to do so would injure them or others, Arabella thought. Obviously, something had gone wrong, at least in the case of Marc Larroquette. But she was jumping ahead.

  As for Emily, her inner journalist appeared to have taken over. “So initially it was just you and Norrie?” Emily asked. “Or was the plan to recruit more members?”

  “We wanted to recruit members from the beginning, but not as a money maker. We set it up as a nonprofit organization.”

  “Is that the same as not-for-profit? I can’t remember,” Emily said, but Arabella wasn’t fooled. She knew Emily was remembering their “case” from last year and trying to figure out if FYSST was a scam.

  “Non-profits are able to do virtually anything a not-for-profit can or can’t do, meaning they can’t operate with a profit-making motive,” Walker said. “The difference is that they can’t issue a charitable receipt and they do not need to be registered with the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency. Non-profits range from very high profile groups, like political parties, to small groups of a few people linked by a common interest or cause, like trade groups, professional groups, social clubs, and sporting organizations.”

  Emily nodded and leaned back in her chair, apparently satisfied with the answer. Walker grinned, as if understanding he’d passed some sort of test. When he started talking again, however, he was completely serious.

  “Norrie set up a members-only website. I designed our logo, making it simple enough to use as a tattoo. We both made up our lists of the people we wanted to make amends to, and in so doing, we hoped to bring others into the fold. That was the second part of the equation, to save someone tomorrow.”

  Walker paused to take a sip of his ginger ale. “It was harder than either one of us expected. It was difficult to find some people. Contrary to popular opinion, not everyone has an online presence. Some that we did find weren’t overly interested in reconnecting.”

  Emily leaned forward. “Because they were still angry with you?”

  Walker laughed. “If only. There were some folks who didn’t even remember us. Let that be your takeaway. The transgressions that haunt us are often unmemorable to others.”

  Arabella’s mind immediately went back a few years to a woman named Annie. Originally from Portugal, she worked in the finance department at McLelland Insurance. Pleasant and hardworking, Annie tended to keep to herself, and though she was well liked in the office, she never socialized with anyone during or after hours. It seemed so completely out of character when Annie made a lemon- glazed rum cake for Arabella’s birthday. Arabella had been so surprised that she had taken the cake home to Levon, never thinking to share any with her co-workers. It wasn’t until Annie left the brokerage and Lount’s Landing, that the penny had dropped. Annie had brought the cake in as a way of getting to know her fellow co-workers, and Arabella had been clueless. As far as wrongdoings went, it was pretty minor, but to this day she wanted to apologize to Annie for being so obtuse. She’d tried to find her on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Pinterest without success. Arabella wondered if Annie even remembered her, let alone the cake.

  Arabella shook off the memory and forced herself back to Walker and the present. Emily was asking him who he’d made amends to.

  “That’s confidential, Emily, at least for those still with us,” Walker said. “However, since he is no longer among the living, I suppose it’s alright to tell you that one of those people was Marc Larroquette. At the time I hurt him, Marc was living in Scarborough with his wife, Rita, and his adolescent son, Levon.”

  Arabella sat up straighter. Levon had always just called her “his mom,” never by her first name.

  Rita Larroquette. It made her seem more real, knowing her first name.

  Walker was still talking. “The next time I saw Marc, he’d divorced Rita, remarried Alice Brampton, and was living a quiet existence in Goulais River with Alice and her daughter, Chloe.”

  “If he moved and changed his name, how did you find him?” Emily asked.

  Walker smiled. “I’d like to tell you it was my impressive sleuthing skills, but the truth is, it was a coincidence. I had camped at Pancake Bay Provincial Park so I could hike the nature trail up to where the Edmund Fitzgerald sank back in 1975. I’ve been fascinated by that shipwreck since the first time I heard Gordon Lightfoot’s song, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The path leads to a long, winding bunch of stairs to get to a lookout platform.”

  “Can you see the shipwreck?” Emily asked.

  Arabella shot Emily a “what are you doing” look that both Walker and Emily ignored.

  “You can’t see any evidence of the wreck,” Walker said, “but there is a commemorative plaque. You can also see the wide expanse of Whitefish Bay, and it’s not hard to imagine what it would have been like that icy day in November out on Lake Superior. Anyhow, there I was at the top of the point when who walks into the lookout but Marc Larroquette with the woman I now know to be Alice. Time had been kin
d to Marc. He was still lean, and outside of some gray hair, he looked pretty much the same.”

  Walker chuckled, patted his belly, and ran a hand through his slicked back black hair. “I can’t say the same held true for me. I’d always liked Elvis’s music well enough, but it wasn’t until I joined an Elvis tribute band as a piano player that I started dressing the part. That was about eight years ago. We play the occasional wedding for friends and family, but it’s more about having fun than making a living.”

  Arabella tried not to fidget. Walker would tell his story in his own way, and interrupting him was not going to speed him up.

  He finally got back on point. “So, I was thinking, maybe I don’t want Marc to be reminded of our history. I tried to leave without drawing attention to myself. I still wanted to make amends, but I wanted it to be in a safer place. One not quite so high up and isolated.”

  Walker paused and took a sip of his ginger ale, his hand trembling ever so slightly. “You see, it’s my fault that Marc Larroquette left Levon and Rita.”

  32

  Emily guessed at the truth. “You had an affair with Rita Larroquette.” Her tone was matter-of- fact, but Arabella detected an undercurrent of anger it in. It was understandable, given her history with men who had cheated. Arabella could commiserate.

  “If only it were that simple,” Walker said. His hand had stopped trembling and he seemed to have regained his composure.

  Emily was now every bit an investigative reporter. “What could have been so bad that whatever you did made Marc Larroquette leave his wife and son, change his last name, and move eight hours north to a remote town like Goulais River?”

  “I mentioned before that I’d done some gambling. It was actually more than ‘some.’ There was a time when gambling was how I made my living. Norrie, too, which is how we became best friends in the first place. When the horses were running at Woodbine, Greenwood, Mohawk, or Fort Erie, we’d both be there, program in hand, trying to beat the odds. Did the horse have a history of breaking? If it was raining, was the horse a mudder? If my calculations didn’t pan out, I’d start betting on the jockeys, instead of on the horses they were riding. Some nights I made out like a bandit.”

  “Some nights,” Emily said. “I’m guessing that there were a lot more nights that you didn’t make out nearly so well.”

  Walker nodded. “That’s the nature of the gambling bug. If you win, you keep on betting like you’re never going to lose. And if you’re losing, you keep on betting because your luck has to turn around sometime. One of my favorite tracks was the Greenwood Racetrack in Toronto.”

  Emily frowned. “I grew up in Toronto. I don’t recall a Greenwood Racetrack.”

  “You’re probably too young to remember it. It was located on prime land, at the foot of Lake Ontario and Woodbine Ave. The land was sold and the clubhouse was demolished in 1994 to make room for housing and commercial properties. But back in the day, Greenwood was like a second home to me.”

  Arabella wanted to strangle Emily. They would never get to the story if she kept interrupting with inane questions about racetracks. Then again, Emily was a seasoned journalist. Maybe this was how you got the full story.

  Walker continued. “I first met Marc at Greenwood. You got to know the regulars pretty quickly, and Marc was more regular than most. Unlike some guys, who would stand up and shout for their horse, Marc would sit there, composed, program in one hand, ticket in the other. If his horse won, he’d calmly get up and go to collect his winnings. If his horse lost, he’d rip up his ticket in four pieces and toss it on the concrete floor with the rest of the losers. The only sign he’d lost big or small was the color of his face. A big loss and his face would go chalk white.”

  Walker stopped long enough to take another sip of his drink. “It was a night when he lost every single race. That happens, sometimes, same as the nights you can’t seem to do anything wrong. That night, I had the magic touch and could do no wrong, but I could tell by Marc’s pallor that he was betting bigger—and losing bigger—with every race. The night wasn’t over yet, the final trifecta still had to run.”

  “What’s a trifecta?” Emily asked.

  “It’s a race where you bet on the horses that will come in first, second, and third in a single race. The idea is to box them, in other words, bet every permutation of that combination, so your three horses can come in first, second, or third in any order and you’ll still win.”

  “Is that expensive?” Emily asked.

  Arabella was torn between throttling her and wanting to know the answer herself.

  “It’s certainly more expensive than placing a single bet,” Walker said. “Essentially, you’re tripling your wager to cover all the odds. So boxing a two-dollar bet on three horses would run you twelve dollars. But if you can’t afford to box a daily double or an exactor, you’re better off not to bet the race. Trust me, it hurts like hell when the horse you picked for first comes in second and the horse you picked to come in second comes in first…and you haven’t covered that possibility.”

  Arabella suppressed a grin. Spoken like a true gambler. She’d likely place a two-dollar bet and take her chances.

  “Let me guess what happened,” Emily said. “Marc hit you up for a loan. You’d gotten to know each other a little bit over the weeks, and he wanted to box that trifecta.”

  Walker nodded. “He knew I’d been winning and winning big. He, on the other hand, had reached the point of desperation. He asked me for five hundred dollars.”

  “Five hundred dollars,” Arabella said. “That’s a lot of money to ask for, especially from a virtual stranger. Did you give it to him?”

  “Norrie thought I was crazy, but yes, I did.”

  “Wow, you’re trusting,” Emily said.

  “I’m a gambler, remember. Besides, Marc considered me a friend.”

  “Did he win?” Arabella asked.

  Walker laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “Of course not. You don’t turn your luck around by throwing good money after bad. A friend would have refused to give him the money. A friend would have told him to cut his losses and go home, to come back another day when the racing gods were on his side. Then again, I wasn’t his friend. Marc Larroquette was about to find that out the hard way.”

  33

  Walker sighed. “To this day, I don’t know if Marc put the entire five hundred dollars on that trifecta, but I do know that his horses didn’t come in. He’d picked three long shots, and to be fair, the long shots were coming in that day. If he had won, he’d have made a bundle.

  Unfortunately, the favorites came in—one-two-three—just the way the odds-makers had predicted. There wasn’t even a photo finish, and the long shots were left swallowing their dust.”

  “Weren’t you worried about getting your money back?” Arabella asked.

  Walker shook his head. “He offered me his wedding ring as collateral but I turned him down. This was a guy who loved the horses as much, maybe even more, than I did. There was no way Marc would avoid the track in the future, and he knew he’d run into me eventually.”

  “Let me guess,” Emily said. “You weren’t being nice. You knew you had him if you didn’t take him up on his offer.”

  Walker flushed but held Emily’s gaze. “Yes. I’m not proud of who I was then.”

  “You said you were the one responsible for Marc leaving Levon and Rita,” Arabella said. “What happened next?”

  “It was every bit as tawdry as you might imagine. After that day, Marc’s luck had run out. He kept coming to the track, and kept losing. I could tell by the sick look on his face that he was betting more and losing bigger, though to his credit, he did pay me back the week after he borrowed the five hundred dollars. I never asked him where he got the money, but I noticed that he stopped wearing a watch and his wedding ring. I suspect he went to a pawnbroker.”

  Arabella sat back in her chair, thinking. Did Levon know any of this? She didn’t think so—in fact, she was pretty su
re he didn’t. But when it came down to it, was Levon any different than his father? True, he didn’t gamble on cards or horses, but being an antiques picker was a bit like being a gambler. You never knew what was going to be a hit and what was going to sit in inventory until you all but gave it away. If that wasn’t gambling, what was? And how many times during their marriage had Levon spent money they didn’t really have on a perfect “find?” Then again, hadn’t she done the same thing with the Pottageville purchases?

  “A pawnbroker,” Emily was saying. “I can’t imagine a family living in a blue collar section of Scarborough would have a lot of pawn-worthy goods to support a gambling habit.”

  “You’d be right,” Walker said. “It wasn’t a month later when Marc asked me if I knew of any poker games. The horses were done for the season, and he needed a way to recoup his losses. He’d told Rita that he’d been robbed at the racetrack parking lot and that they’d stolen his ring and watch and wallet. He wanted to buy it back and tell her the police had found it and called him.”

  “Did you know of a poker game?” Emily asked.

  Walker nodded. “I did. I also knew from personal experience that these weren’t guys you wanted to owe money to.”

  “And yet you sent him anyway,” Arabella said.

  “Yes. It was my way of paying off a sizable debt of my own. I’d gotten in way over my head with a game in Agincourt. If I could send in another rube, they would forgive the exorbitant interest accumulating daily and let me off with paying back the debt plus ten points.” Walker shrugged. “I did warn you I wasn’t the nicest guy back then.”

  “You did,” Arabella said, “and we aren’t judging you.” Well, maybe we are, Arabella thought, but he doesn’t have to know it. “So what happened next?”