Victim Impact

by Mel Bradshaw

  “Mind if I have a look?” he asked, nodding towards Shawn’s machine.

  “Hell no.” They walked over together, and Shawn wheeled his bike away from the store wall out under the lights of the pump island.

  The customer—Shawn was starting to think of him now as the biker—squatted and ran his index finger over a couple of places where serial numbers had been filed away. He looked up at Shawn.

  “Yep,” said Shawn, “it’s just as it was when it left the shop. Pawnbroker’s actually.”

  The biker dragged his finger over the fender and looked at what had been deposited there. “Dusty shop,” he said.

  “I should polish it,” Shawn admitted, “but it’s nothing special, not like yours.”

  “It’s a Harley,” said the biker. “Something can always be made of that. Know where Robin Hood Crescent is?”

  “Sure. Turn right out of the lot here. Two streets down, hang a right.”

  The biker finished his joint, flattened it with his boot, and dropped it in the trash before returning to his own machine. “If you ever want anything stronger,” he said, “I’ll be back this way.”

  “Sure thing,” Shawn lamely replied. He would have agreed to anything at this point, anything the man suggested.

  “And just so you know—customized panheads like this one? They’re bobbers, not choppers.”

  Shawn stood staring out at the street for a long moment after the “Potato-potato” rumble from the bobber’s over-and-under shotgun exhaust pipes had faded out down the block, then, surprisingly soon, the same rumble faded in again, and the biker swept by, heading back the way he’d come. Whatever his business was on Robin Hood Crescent, it hadn’t taken long.

  Chapter 8

  In the end, it was Karin’s friend Nancy who insisted there be some sort of memorial service, even if secular, and the date settled on was September 12. Ted told his parents but discouraged them from attending. Reluctant travellers though they were, they’d been fond of Karin and put up a fight—his mother particularly. Ted reconciled her with a promise to visit Montreal a month later, over the Thanksgiving long weekend. By then, he thought, he’d be better able to handle the emotions.

  Meanwhile, Ted left Nancy to manage just about everything to do with this non-funeral, starting with the music. There were many performers besides herself who wanted to give their sister a send-off in the language she’d loved best.

  One of the offerings would be an excerpt from Beethoven’s A Minor String Quartet, opus 132, the otherworldly third movement, said to be in the Lydian mode. Of the Lydian mode, Ted knew only that in Beethoven’s hands, it had the power to reach in through his ears down to his toes and pull him inside out. Quirk had believed there was a necessary element of aggression in artists, a ruthless determination to affect people and to do it more strongly than anyone else. Aggression for good, to be sure, but something much more muscular than might be suggested by the composer’s title, “Holy Song of Thanks from a Convalescent.” And muscularly was the way Quirk had practised in her home studio, over and over, no compromises—whatever the piece. Often the fight had left her trembling and dissatisfied. Occasionally, she could be heard to exclaim through clenched teeth, “Nailed it!”

  Ted found he didn’t want to share this, or any of his memories of Karin. After struggling with two abortive drafts of his own, he asked if Nancy would also give the eulogy. She was a big, sturdy woman, a violist accustomed to bearing heavy burdens. Her chestnut hair was shoulder-length, curly and dramatic. She had stage presence in spades.

  Among the things Ted would later remember hearing her say—

  “Earlier this month, my dearest friend was murdered. Since I heard the news, I’ve thought a lot about Karin Gustafson’s death and wondered who was cruel enough to intentionally cause it. I think at this point it is a blessing that we don’t know. For if we did, if we could put a face to that killer, I’m afraid I’d have some pretty cruel intentions myself.

  “I can’t say anything that will help you reconcile with Karin’s death. For that you’ll have to consult with your pastor, if you have one. Or with an expert in anger management like Karin’s father, Markus. Or with an expert on crime and its causes like Karin’s husband, Ted. All I can tell you is why I am grateful for Karin’s life.

  “In rehearsal, our colleague Karin Gustafson was more adaptable than a well-oiled contortionist. Last minute changes of tempi, or even of repertoire? No problem. Key shifts? She’d do them fast, accurately, and without a murmur of protest. But if a publishing house changed the size of their paperbacks partway through a series or if the Second Cup discontinued her favourite coffee bean—batten down the hatches.

  “In a world of self-absorbed geniuses, Karin Gustafson was the exception. She was interested in other people, genuinely, and not as a matter of public relations. I think she believed great music could be made on no other basis. Her deskmate in the opera orchestra tells me that when Karin played she most often sang along in Italian or German under her breath, involving herself in the human drama unfolding on the unseen stage above her. For her friends, this interest meant she remembered your birthday. And your kids’ birthdays. And what your kids wanted for their birthday. I once phoned her, in confusion and embarrassment, to ask whether my daughter’s favourite flavour of ice cream was maple walnut or pecan crunch. And she knew.

  “And yet, in spite of all Karin’s good qualities, I hated her. Couldn’t stand having her around, especially in summer. She just looked too darn good in a bathing suit.”

  No one expected Ted to hold himself together during this speech, and he didn’t. The funeral parlour had provided him with his own box of tissues. He must have used a third of it as he sat listening in the chapel pew. However positive Nancy tried to be, just beyond the margin of every sentence hovered the outrage of goodness destroyed. The vision of Karin alone with her killer, life pounded from her blow by blow. The unimaginable sound of her skull being broken beyond repair. It was easier afterwards in one of the funeral parlour’s reception rooms, handing out coffee and listening to people’s cliché condolences and vague generalities about his wife. Markus seemed to be bearing up well, serious but with a sweet sparkle in his eyes. Father and husband were both doing their best to follow Nancy’s cue and keep the occasion celebratory.

  Not that Ted had forgotten the investigation. He’d asked Nelson if the police wanted to have anyone at the funeral. Rodriguez had come in the not implausible guise of a neighbour. She wore a white lacy blouse, dark pantsuit and patent leather shoes. Ted wondered if her pistol was concealed under the jacket. When the other attendees drifted off, she took him to her car to brief him on the latest developments.

  “Your basement window first,” she said. “It was pretty thoroughly bashed in, leaving few sharp edges, but our Forensic Identification Services have found a couple of threads of very dark grey sweatshirt-type fabric snagged on one of the few remaining peaks of glass. Know anyone with a garment like that?”

  Ted was at a loss. “I’ll let you know if anything comes to me,” he said.

  “Just a shade lighter than black. Now for the other grey, the Grey Mare Tavern. Ownership has changed in the past month, and none of the staff are the same. None of the present crew admit to having seen any bikers, including our boy Scar, and the new management have no intention of letting the premises be used as a bikers’ bar. In fact, they’re changing the name to Little Burgundy and bringing in jazz musicians on the weekends. Nelson’s had a good laugh over that. He’s sure the motorcycle clubs will avoid the place like the plague because—and I quote—‘those outlaw riders love every last thing to be black except skin’.”

  “What about here in the neighbourhood?” Ted asked.

  “None of the residents on your block recognized Scar, and we struck out at the Bouquet Bistro too. But he may have been spotted at your local gas bar—what’s it called?—the Handy Buy.”

  “Tell me more.”

  “Since it’s a round-the-clock
operation, we asked at different times of the day. And night. The elder son, Dwayne Whittaker, is usually on from one to seven a.m. He told Nelson he thought he’d seen the subject of our sketch a week before your wife’s death, but not in biker gear. He was wearing a short-sleeved dress shirt and driving a small car of some sort. Scar, or his double, bought some cigarettes and asked when ‘the other guy’ would be on duty. Dwayne thought he must mean his brother Shawn. Dwayne told him that was hard to predict and asked what it was about. The customer replied that it was nothing special, that he’d had a further thought about a topic they’d been discussing, and was wondering when he might have the opportunity to pursue the conversation.”

  Ted remembered Dwayne as a quiet young man in his mid-twenties, courteous but not one for small talk. Ted rarely saw him, since Dwayne had gone on night shifts. If Ted bought gas or anything from the store, it was usually Meryl or her younger son Shawn who took his money. Shawn always gave the impression that he didn’t really work at the Handy Buy: he was just filling in as a family favour while waiting for his true calling to call.

  “Did Dwayne ask the subject of this conversation?” Ted wanted to know.

  “Uh-uh. It didn’t seem important to him and he says that, when he can, he stays out of other people’s business. I did go round later that morning and talk to Meryl Whittaker, the boys’ mother. The sketch meant nothing to her. She’d heard from Dwayne about our inquiries, and she wanted to know if Shawn was in trouble. Not with me, I said. I just wanted a word with him. Would he be at the store that afternoon? She told me Shawn was taking a few days off. He’d packed some things in his saddle bags and ridden off on his motorcycle. He didn’t say exactly when he’d be back, but she didn’t think it would be more than a week at most. He’s registered for a night course starting September 11.”

  “Yesterday,” said Ted. “Did he attend the first class?”

  “He did not.”

  “So now you’re looking for Shawn Whittaker.”

  “You got it. At least, now we have photographs and a real name to work with. But he is our only lead. Nothing has turned up on any of the Dark Arrows. And, as suspected, Scar has no criminal record under the name Hollister.”

  Ted had—in a vague, uneasy way—expected the funeral to be a milestone. Wasn’t it supposed to be the saying goodbye that made it possible to move on? He shuddered at the thought. Herein likely lay much of the reason he had resisted and delayed the ceremony, and in the end kept his family away. He had no inclination to say goodbye.

  Afterwards, however, as early as the morning of the following day, he found that the funeral had changed nothing. Karin had not been “sent off”. She was as present to him as at any time since her death—turns of phrase she used, the taste of her earlobe, the sweetly kinky feel of the string-player’s calluses when she brushed his cheek with the fingertips of her left hand. As for moving on, the only progress he felt possible or desirable was in the area of bringing her murderer to justice. Otherwise, the most he could aspire to was to move back. Back into the routines that had been suspended during the earliest days of his bereavement.

  Accordingly, Ted found himself in his office once again looking over the materials for the textbook he was writing. He had left aside for the moment as too demanding the task of reassembling from his scattered notes the parts that had been stolen and was rereading sections he had thought complete.

  “After studying 588 criminal homicides,” he had written, “Marvin Wolfgang found that twenty-five per cent of the victims precipitated their own murder.”

  Ted felt his blood pressure rise, his hands form into fists. He couldn’t immediately say why he was so angry. What he had written was true. And as far as he knew, Wolfgang had reported his findings honestly. What Ted hated at that moment was people’s fondness for statistics like this. They love to blame the victim. It must make them feel safe.

  “Quirk did not kill herself,” he muttered.

  Bill Nikolic’s white head appeared around the frame of the office door.

  “Is this a good moment for a word?”

  “Of course, Bill. Come on in. Thanks for your help yesterday.”

  The chairman of the Department of Criminology had been at the funeral and had surprisingly taken it on himself to pass plates of cookies during the reception afterwards. Maybe not so surprisingly at that. Long before being voted chair, he’d been responsible for bringing Ted and Karin together.

  “Does your son Dan still play piano, by the way?” Ted asked.

  “Only at parties. He works in a bank.” The older man settled into a chair and crossed his legs. “I’m surprised to see you here so soon, Ted.”

  “I need something to keep me from brooding, and there’s the new year starting.”

  “Is it three grad students you’re supervising at present?”

  “Just two, but I could take on a third. My course load isn’t particularly heavy this semester.”

  “Nor mine. Ted, I’d like you to let me take on your seminar on organized crime. I’ve got a teaching assistant who’ll give the lectures for the fall portion of your introductory course.”

  “Come again?”

  “It’s early days yet. The Dean and I think you’d benefit from some time off.”

  Ted hadn’t seen this coming, and yet recent experience—as Bill had likely been able to hear for himself—showed him he couldn’t totally depend on his moods. By insisting that he shoulder his full teaching load, he wouldn’t necessarily be benefiting his students.

  “I’d like to keep my two doctoral candidates. Steve Nishimura is just about ready to submit his thesis on computer crime: it’d be a shame to bail out on him now. And Colin Young’s fresh off the plane from B.C. No heavy lifting there yet.”

  “Okay, let’s try with the two for a while. Just let us know if you want to go on a round-the-world cruise.”

  “That’s not likely as long as the police are investigating. So don’t hesitate to get in touch if you need any help with that seminar.”

  “Will do. One other thing: I’d like you to consider getting some counselling.”

  “Good grief!”

  “Yes, Ted, up to a point.”

  “Sorry, Bill. I was just being sarcastic—no pun intended.”

  “The pun is apposite. But you’ve got more than grief to deal with. There’s sudden loss of a wife through malevolence. That’s traumatic stress and mighty hard to handle on your own. I’m not talking about anything that’ll ‘get you over’ what happened to Karin in one year or fifty. Just some tools for your emotional workbench.”

  “You’re a sweet man, Bill,” said Ted.

  “I’m a buttinski. Are you sleeping well?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “See your family doctor about that. And if he can’t recommend someone for the other, I can.”

  That evening, behind a club in Niagara Falls, Ontario, a twenty-two-year-old man, who looked much younger, tried to exchange three ecstasy tablets for sex with a twenty-six-year-old woman, who looked very much younger, and not at all like the police officer she was. She was wearing a pink Hello Kitty tank top and turquoise braces on her teeth. When she brought him in, personnel at the Morrison Street station joked about babies arresting babies. The kid refused to identify himself until it was explained to him that this was one piece of information not covered by an arrested person’s right to remain silent. By then, it was little more than a formality anyway, because they had already searched him and were copying information from his driver’s licence. The name Shawn Whittaker prompted the most alert of the sergeants to go back and look at a photo that had recently come attached to a bulletin from Peel Regional. Soon after, the sergeant put in a call to James Nelson.

  “I had to drive down after midnight,” Nelson explained when he phoned Ted the next morning. “Niagara has charges of soliciting and trafficking to hold him on overnight, and I just wanted to talk, so I couldn’t expect them to send him up. What a night! If Shawn’s tigh
t with the Dark Arrows, they’ve really drilled into him the wisdom of zipping his lip. So far he hasn’t said where he got the Adam. He hasn’t told me anything about his friend Scar. And he hasn’t admitted to ever being in your house. What he couldn’t stop himself from doing is smoking the cigarettes the police so very thoughtfully supplied and leaving the butts in a police ashtray, so we have a DNA sample that we’re going to compare to what’s on that chewing gum you found on your stairs.”

  Shawn? Ted wanted the killer identified, of course, but he didn’t want it to be Shawn. Someone they had conducted countless small transactions with since their arrival in the neighbourhood. Their neighbourhood seemed indeed to be defined as the households that depended upon this store. Gas, newspapers, that odd litre of orange juice or milk when they ran short, half a dozen eggs. Ice cream on a stick, when late on a sultry August night Karin and Ted had gone for a walk with the Handy Buy as their unplanned but fortuitous destination. Every time, for seven years now, they had been grateful that Meryl, Dwayne or Shawn was there to keep the lights on, take their money, wish them a pleasant evening.

  Handy Buy was a convenience store, and Shawn was convenient. He didn’t have to be a hero, but—someone that might bash your wife’s skull in?

  There was more. There were Cliff and Meryl Whittaker, working like fiends to get their boys on their feet. Ted thought of Meryl in particular, keeping the Handy Buy open 24/7. He imagined her getting a call in the middle of the night telling her that her younger son would be going before a Justice of the Peace in the morning nearly a hundred kilometres away and warning her that if she wanted him to come home with her, she might have to stand surety for him.

  Ted hoped the DNA would not be a match.

  Bill Nikolic didn’t wait for Ted to ask for the names of therapists. Almost immediately after their conversation, there appeared in his e-mail a short list. The name at its head was Martha Kesler.