by Rudy Wiebe
“Get your ass outa there!” He drags her over himself into the passenger seat, shoves her against the door. She sinks, weeping. He’s in the driver’s seat.
Gravel. A line of weeds along a ditch and big rolls of baled hay, a barbed-wire fence, fields. Yvonne is crying and crying, curled tight.
Lyle drives her van as he pleases, drinking beer and talking, but she does not listen: she is trying to make a plan. What she must do now is get him to kill her; then he can go to the cops and be a hero because he’s solved the murder and that’ll save Dwa, and then the cops will get him for shooting her and stick him behind bars for ten years and that will protect all the little children in Wetaskiwin for ever, that’s a good plan. A really good plan.
She says into whatever he is saying, “If I gave you a gun, would you shoot me?”
He stops, he must be staring at her. He’s trying to get hold of her hand and she jerks away.
“I couldn’t,” he says with the stupid hang-dog look of a man trying to be convincing. “I’m your friend.”
“You make it look like suicide, you’ve solved their case, and you’re famous.”
She is crying, a hand gropes inside her shirt and she shoves, she hears a voice, it may be her own, it may be the cropped grass in the fields they pass whispering, “… so tiny, she’s showing her raspberry birthmark, Shirley Anne told me … o my Baby, my sweet little Baby.”
The van does not move; a wall looms over her, the edge of long roof, and a man’s face is against her face, she can feel it.
“I’ll get you,” his voice says—did he say that?
He’s driving again; drinking beer. It is night, the sun will never rise. Talking whenever she actually hears him, he has another reason for going nowhere in particular. She has to pee. He says, “Go ahead,” he’s so confident, and she gets out. The wash of black night air, stars all over like fireworks when they explode—behind the van or he’ll see her in the big sideview mirrors. She peers back around the corner as she pushes her jeans down and yes, he’s out of the van; he’s stretching around, trying to see her, but she has to squat, it comes in a rush and he looms over her, knocks her back and she’s fighting even as she falls, her jeans are soaked, her bare buttocks ground into the gravel. He’ll never get me not this stinking vulture NO!
He’s sprawled out full length, holding her flat. She cannot heave him off, but her jeans are still up on her thighs, he’ll never spread her legs wide enough like that. She can time it; if he lets go of her wrists she’ll wrestle him and he’ll have to grab her wrists again to flatten her. Her back is shredded on the gravel, but all he can do is weigh her down, panting; he can’t get his own pants off either. She’s okay, she can lie here for ever with her van flashers blinking red, her head bent back into the gravel ditch, and everything’s safe.
But she feels herself sink: she is too wrung out, too much beer, too much everything. She’s going to lose it.
“You’re gonna pass out,” he hisses in her ear. “I’ll get it, one way or the other.”
The worst is, she knows that, either way, he’ll do it: while she’s awake, or just wait till she’s passed out.
He chuckles deep and soft, the old male flip from real brutal to pretend gentle. “C’mon, you know you want it. And I’ll take care of you; listen, we go to your house and pick up your kids and we’re outa here. Let some shit take the rap, who cares, we disappear. I know how to do it, we’ll be safe, c’mon baby.”
She feels herself sliding into a black hole. Not even the gravel digging into her back will help her.
He heaves her step by step along the ditch to the open van door. He throws her across the two front seats. She sags between them, and he hauls back on her legs till her buttocks are on the passenger chair. He shoves his pants down and climbs up on top of her.
In the Kingston Prison for Women, Yvonne sits coiled tight in the upholstered chair across from me. She huddles down even smaller, her long, black hair hides her face. But she will speak this, every word of it.
She says, “Within myself, I cursed all creation of the stars above, and anyone sitting there watching this happen.”
This pig has abducted her in her own van, forced her away from her house, and driven her around for hours, telling her how for years he’s watched her around town, offering stupid advice, come with me, you and your kids, I’ll hide you, I’ll take care of you, I’ll drop the body in the river, shit, I can sink a body in a slough, just come with me. While she cried, sank into comatose despair, screamed, drank in hopelessness, but he kept on driving, talking, drinking, until he finally raped her. And now he’s content. He’s so sure of his control he lets her drive again: go ahead, let’s see what’s going on at your place; hey, maybe the party’s still going on.
She’s driving, and with the van she can kill him. And herself too, of course, and then everyone in her house will be safe. If Chuck’s dead, then she’s guilty and dead, and the children and Dwa will be safe. She speeds up; there’s a low bridge abutment ahead; she aims and speeds up. He’s screaming, grabbing at her, and she can’t see so well; she doesn’t hit it square in the spraying gravel, and the tough van glances off. Okay, there’s always a roll in the ditch, and she goes over and down into the weeds; the van’s rocking, slewing wildly but it’s not fast enough to roll, he’s fighting her for the wheel and the brake, and he gets it stopped. Cursing. But he’s so confident he doesn’t drag her out of the seat, he doesn’t bother to drive again.
In the grey morning light she slams on the brakes in front of the cop shop on Main Street. “Go ahead,” she mutters through her crying, “go, tell them, get out!”
“No, no,” he says, chuckling. “We’re going home, to your house.”
When she gets inside the small porch of her house, the door is unlocked! She runs through the house to the children’s bedroom—but they’re all there. Curled under their twisted blankets. She feels them, each one, and they stir under her touch. All breathing, perfectly.
Ernie snores on the couch in the living room—where’s Dwa? Sprawled under a sheet on their bed in the bedroom. Sleeping.
Lyle Schmidt [from a statement made to the RCMP, Wetaskiwin, Friday, 15 September 1989 at 7 a.m. Witnessed by Constable T.G. Witzke]:
Last night I was driving around Wetaskiwin until 11:30 with [a friend] until he dropped me off at the cab company. I rode around with the drivers until approximately 12:30. Then I rode around with [a woman] and my daughter, and they dropped me off at the Wayside […]. at around 1:45 Yvonne came in. I have known her as Yvonne for about five years. Rick asked me what was I doing, I said girl hunting, he said what are you going to find in a place like this. I pointed out Yvonne and said there is a girl I know and went and talked to her. She was leaving with two cases of beer and I walked with her. I asked her where the party was at. I suggested I buy some beer, she said, I have two cases we can drive around. She wanted to go to her place but I said no, let’s go park someplace and have a beer. We drove past John Deere where I started to drive. She said if I gave you a gun would you kill me. I said no you are a friend. I then asked her if she would kill me, she said, no because you are a friend. She said, have you killed a person, I have, we drove around and talked. She said she killed someone because that person had tried to molest her youngest daughter [aged two]. She said she had caught the guy with the girl’s legs spread and he was playing with her. She said she had cut him, she didn’t know he was dead until she tried to lift up his head. She said she also beat him up and she shoved the knife up his ass and asked him, this is what it feels like when you shove your prick up her bald headed cunt. She also said Shirley Anne Cooke [Salmon] was there, they took the guy downstairs and tied him to a post with phone cord. She asked me how to get rid of the body. I made some suggestions and we returned to her house. I noticed what might have been a blood spot on her jeans just above the left knee. We went into the house and there was Ernie Fraser (Jensen [police correction]) sleeping on the couch. She woke him but he had had
it. I then grabbed him and woke him up. He said that they took the body out to the dump but everything is covered. The guy was still alive and choking on his own blood when they buried him […]. He also said he burnt the car […]. The husband came out, he said forget it, it is done with, we got rid of him, and went back to bed.
I should add, when we first went in she took me downstairs and showed me the blood on the wall […]. A knife was stuck in the post and she grabbed the knife and took it upstairs and washed it in the sink. I took it out and put it in my pocket. I asked her for the sheath, she told me where it was and I got it. I put the knife in the sheath and into my boot. Then I woke Ernie up. After talking I called the [cab] dispatcher, who called the police, and I left […].
Q: Was there blood on the knife?
A: I did not see any blood on the knife before or after she washed it […].
[From a “Taped Interview of Lyle Schmidt (DOB: 51 Feb. 03)” made by the RCMP at 1647 on Saturday, 16 September 1989. The interviewer is not named.]
[…]. she gave me a beer and I started drinking beer. I said, “How’d you kill him?” and she said, “I cut him,” not getting into any details. It was like that for about two hours […]. So I’m really being the actor, or whatever you guys call it, and really getting into it. Literally, like ‘I’m mad at you, there’s no body, there’s no car, what kind of shit are you trying to pull?’ […] I’d say within 15–20 minutes, like, she relaxed to a point where she suddenly has my trust. Like we’re going to, she’s going to show me everything, and she’s going to let me help. By the time we got intimate, I did not force myself on her […].
Q: So you had sex with her.
A: Uh huh.
Q: In the van?
A: Yes I did. Then right after that the girl really opened up. She said everything’s a mess. I need help […]. it almost got to the point where she at that time the feeling was of total trust and she was going to show me everything and I was really going to try and help her […].
Q: Alright, you’re back at the house, you go in the house … go over it again quickly.
A: […] She also mentioned that when all she wanted to do was tie him up and just let him sit there for about three days […].
Q: You had it in your mind from the beginning that if there was substance to this … you would find out what you could?
A: If there was any substance to it right from the total beginning, like … to play along with the game and fill you guys in on it later. Like if I would have had to dispose of a body there’s various ways I could have done it, with them along. But it was just a matter of letting you guys know the exact spot […]. Like this was all going through my little mind, like I’m working on this the whole time.
Q: Okay, and I assume you did this entirely on your own […].
A: I do the strangest things at the strangest times and it’s kind of like I said before, OK Lyle, let’s see what kind of shit you can get into tonight […].
Q: You did not have a reward … in mind?
A: No […].I want to do this, it sounds like fun, let’s see how far it goes […]. Like if it would have been just something passing me by, I would have just forgot it. But everything in my mind, like I’m planning ahead, like I’m asking the questions, I’m playing the role, telling her things about my life, like I know what I’m doing […].
Q: Just one other thing […]. How did you … end up having sex with Yvonne there? […]. You suggested it?
A: We both suggested it, like that part we had been tossing it back and forth all night […]. A couple of times I asked her if she wanted to and one time she said no. Now later she said yes …
Q: Was she a willing participant?
A: She took off her own clothes […].
Yvonne knows they’re coming, it’s only a question of how soon. In her staggering exhaustion of drunkenness and confused hopelessness, she sits at her kitchen table alone. The dull light from the stove angles shadows; they seem almost tranquil, lie so steady and usual across the table-top. Dwa is sleeping, or passed out, Ernie is sprawled on the couch. Shirley Anne is long, long gone.
Someone has stepped into her porch. Footsteps. A pounding, sharp and hard.
“Who is it?”
“It’s the police, RCMP.”
She lets the silence stretch out, just a few seconds more. The banging comes harder: “Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Open the door!”
The door is locked. In the living room, Ernie jerks erect on the couch as if the cop’s voice had raised him from the dead.
“What do you want?” Yvonne raises her voice as loud as she can.
“We’ve had a complaint here.”
“What complaint?”
“That someone’s been hurt. Now open up.”
“There’s no one here hurt.” “Who’s in the house?
Yvonne looks up; Ernie has appeared at the table, but at that question he turns and darts for the living room, shoves the sliding patio doors open silently and drops out, gone. Like Shirley Anne, he can run too; it’s not his house.
There are two cops outside; she can hear them talking to each other. It’ll be just a matter of minutes now.
“Open the door!”
“If you have a warrant,” Yvonne answers, “I will.”
“Yes! Now open up!”
“Then slide it under the door, so I can read it!”
Another silence. Suddenly powerful kicks hammer at the door, and Yvonne jumps up and slides table knives in the door jamb so they can’t pop the lock—they sure as hell have no warrant—and then the first cop’s voice shouts to someone and a voice answers, seemingly from the living room.
“Ray, the patio door’s open!”
Yvonne shouts, “Where’s your warrant?” as she runs into the living room. The patio doors are three feet above the ground—the patio isn’t built yet – and the cop already has his hat and arms, shoulders in; he’s hoisting up his leg as Yvonne gets there, yelling, “You can’t come in without a warrant!”
And she’s jolted into a shivering rage. She grabs at his hand on the sliding door, gets her hip and leg against him while she pries at his fingers, they loosen, she gives a final shove and he falls back on his ass. He’s up in a second; he grabs her ankle as she tries to shove the door shut, and she kicks him back again as she falls. Then the other cop is there, yelling, “Don’t let the bitch close the fucken door!”
He trips over the first one, getting up, but manages to jam his hand up inside the door. Yvonne pulls the door back a bit and slams it on his fingers till he jerks them out, bellowing. Then she shoves in place the board that locks the door.
She looks out; one of the cops is sitting on the grass with his hat lying behind him; the other is jumping around, holding his hand and swearing. She closes the vertical blinds; suddenly she can barely stand. Wetaskiwin Mounties always think they can do anything they please.
She grabs the phone on the kitchen counter and dials the RCMP number. When she hears the official voice she simply shouts, “You bust into my house at six in the morning with my kids sleeping, who’d you think you are! You think I’m the bad guy here, don’t you?”
“Madam … madam, who is this calling?”
“Yvonne Johnson, and your guys know it, you sent them here, and they’re prowling around outside my house right now!”
“Please stay on the line, I’ll transfer you, please stay on the line.”
And Dwa is standing beside her. He’s in his boxer shorts, his smooth muscles pouring sweat from his hangover and everything else that’s hit him. They’re in their house together with their three children. They can’t run anywhere.
He looks so sad, so strong, so pale. He says, “Vonnie, don’t make it any worse.”
A man’s voice, it can only be a cop, says, “Hello, Ms. Johnson? Hello?”
Yvonne hangs up the phone. Dwa heads back to bed; Yvonne tries to cover the kitchen window with a blanket. The sounds of the police rustling around the house stop. After a tim
e there is a quiet tapping at the patio door. It’s Ernie. Yvonne opens the door, and he hauls himself up into the house again.
Seven thirty-five in the morning on Friday, 15 September 1989, in Wetaskiwin, Alberta, population 10,103. In the bedroom off the kitchen in the small house partially renovated with new cedar siding at 4123–53A Street, Yvonne Johnson and Dwayne Wenger sleep restlessly, tangled in light bedclothes and occasionally each other’s sweaty arms.
Across the dead-end street from the house, between Parkdale School and a white bench on the 54th Street side of Parkdale Park, a Hornet hatchback has at some point during the night been parked on the grass, half-hidden by bushes. But an hour ago a tow-truck from Mel’s Towing arrived, hooked onto it, and hauled it away backwards. Now a police cruiser is parked nearby on 53A Street, in a spot from which the porch door of the house can best be observed without obstruction.
Three kilometres away Harvey Schneider, who operates the packer at the City Sanitary Landfill—everyone except city council calls it “the dump”—is driving his shiny ’87 Dodge pick-up down the slope into the landfill excavation. He glances aside at the new mounds of garbage he has come to pack, and immediately sees what looks like a pale manikin sprawled out, legs and arms wide, lying face up. He stops, backs up, and drives to within five feet of it. But he does not get out; he simply stares through the window and sees a large White man, that’s obvious enough—the only clothing he has on is a dirty T-shirt caught up high and tight on his protruding stomach.
11
You Have Nothing to Hope, and Nothing to Fear
In Wetaskiwin the only thing in the cell with me is a Reader’s Digest I was given. I recall reading the whole thing, but only two things stay in my mind. One was reading the story of a little girl collecting envelopes to take to the priest’s collection plate, a woman asked her what she was doing and the little girl replied, “I am taking God his mail.” The other thing I remember is Dwa yelling to me, from his cell, that he loved me.
