by Garry Ryan
“It’s got nothing to do with you but something to do with Lane. He was the next officer on the scene. Saw me lying there and he walked up the sidewalk with his hands locked behind his neck. I remember Lane’s eyes. He was taking it all in. The guy with the hunting rifle opened the front door and yelled through the screen. Lane said, and I’ll never forget this, ‘How do you get those roses to grow? I never had much luck with roses.’ ”
“You’re kidding, right?” Stockwell sat up.
“Then he says, ‘I’m going to put some pressure on the wound to try and stop the bleeding.’ He moved up to me and put one hand on my femoral artery and the other over the hole in my leg. He kept on talking to this guy about gardening. You know, asking questions about soil, fertilizer and watering. I started yelling at Lane to get his hands off me. Told him he was a pervert and the whole force knew it. He just ignored me and kept the pressure on the wound. Asked the guy who shot me if he had a towel. The guy handed one out the door. Lane wrapped it around my leg and then went back to applying pressure. The shooter started to talk about how he never meant to hurt me, just wanted to warn me off. All this time I’m still screaming at Lane to get his hands off me, so Lane asks the shooter to help put pressure on the wound. And I’ll be damned if the guy doesn’t lean the rifle up against the wall and come out to hold his hand on my calf. Lane pulls off his tie with his free hand and gets the shooter to help him wrap it around the towel. I wake up the next day and a doctor tells me I almost bled to death. He told me whoever gave me first aid probably saved my life.”
“So you’re saying Lane’s a little light in the loafers but he’s a good cop,” Stockwell said.
“No.” Harper backed away. “I’m saying I was an asshole then and you’re an asshole now.”
“Arthur? You awake?” Lane said. He looked through his reflection in the coffee shop window. A bicycle courier tore down the center of the street. A middle-aged man in a grey business suit carried a laptop and dialed a cell phone. A man in a green ski jacket and jeans followed in sock feet. He carried his boots over his shoulder. A shoebox sized Leatherette case was in his right hand. Lane thought about the street people. They were mostly men in their 30’s and 40’s. He remembered his mother bringing him downtown on the bus when he was a kid. He couldn’t remember it being like this.
“It’s five to nine. I’m never awake before a cup of coffee,”
Arthur said.
“The Chief talked to me this morning,” Lane said.
“The Chief? You said, the Chief?”
“Yes, and I have a new partner,” Lane said.
“A what?”
“A partner. The Chief said it was time for me to stop working alone. She said I had a better record of arrests than anyone else in the department and didn’t want to lose all that expertise. She asked how I did it.”
“And you told her?” Arthur said.
“She asked. Nobody else ever did.” Lane began to realize how much of a risk he’d taken.
“I can’t believe it.”
“I always said, if anyone ever asks, I’ll tell. She asked, I told.”
“What did she say?” Arthur said.
“Fascinating.”
“Don’t play games. What did she say?”
“Fascinating. That’s all she said. Fascinating.” Lane recalled the smile on her face.
“You’re kidding me,” Arthur said.
“Not at all. She’s got a sense of humour. That brings us to the best part.”
“It gets better?”
Lane wished he could see Arthur’s face. “Guess who’s coming to dinner?”
“Get to the point if you want me to make supper again!”
Lane said, “Apparently, he specifically asked to be teamed up with me.” There was 30 seconds of stunned silence after Lane told Arthur the name of his new partner.
Ernie rolled over. Sleep had opened the door to another nightmare. The knife’s blade appeared under his eyes. His nose filled with the stink of onions on Uncle Bob’s breath.
“Get the phone!” Nanny said.
The phone rang again. Ernie rolled and planted his feet on the carpet. He stood. The phone rang.
“Ernie!”
“Why can’t you get it yourself?” He took four stumbling steps before mind and body began to work together.
“Get the damned phone!”
Ernie picked up the phone and leaned right to look into his grandmother’s room. She sat at the chair in front of the window overlooking the street. Cigarette smoke coiled its lazy tongue along the ceiling. A pair of field glasses were propped up, balanced near her left hand.
“HELLO?” The voice on the phone was a nail through the ear drum.
Ernie held the phone at arm’s length.
“HELLO?!”
Ernie felt knots developing in his neck muscles. No, it’s not a nightmare, I’m awake, he thought.
“LISA! IT’S ME, LISA! WHO’S THERE?”
“Who is it?” Nanny said.
“WHO’S THERE?” Lisa said.
Ernie turned the receiver upside down and spoke into the mouthpiece, “Me.”
“WHERE’S MY FATHER?”
“Oh, her,” Nanny said.
Ernie put his hand over the phone, leaned and said, “How’d you know?”
“Even a deaf person complains when she’s around. A screamer from the get go.” Nanny stubbed a filter tip into a mountain of butts.
“ANSWER ME!”
Ernie brought the upside down phone closer, “Don’t know where he is.”
“LIAR! WHERE THE HELL IS HE?”
Ernie closed his eyes and visualized his 20 year old cousin, Lisa. She had ordered him around like a slave for as long as he could remember.
He pressed the receiver against his thigh and said to Nanny, “You wanna talk to her?”
“What for? She doesn’t listen to anyone but herself.”
Nanny sipped coffee.
Ernie held the receiver half a meter from his face.
“WHERE . . . THE . . . HELL . . . IS . . . MY . . . FATHER!?”
“If you hang up, she’ll only call back,” Nanny said.
“ANSWER THE FUCKING QUESTION.”
Ernie put the phone to his lips. “You tell me.”
“ERNIE! YOU LET ME TALK TO MY GRANDMOTHER RIGHT NOW!”
Ernie stood in the doorway. Nanny turned to face him and shook her head.
“She won’t come to the phone.” He realized his mistake too late.
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, WON’T?”
Ernie sagged cross-legged to the carpet. First the nightmare about Uncle Bob and now the living nightmare of Bob’s daughter. “I’ll talk if you stop yelling.”
“I’M NOT YELLING!”
“Nobody knows where he is.”
“SOMEBODY HAS TO KNOW.”
“The police are looking for him. I don’t know where he is. They found his car at the airport. That’s all I know.”
“BULL SHIT!”
“The bastard put a knife to my face, I ended up in the hospital and I don’t care where he is!”
“LIAR!”
Ernie slapped the receiver onto its cradle while realizing Lisa was right about one thing. He wanted to know where Bob was and if he was coming back with another knife.
The phone rang ten times.
“Ignore it. Go and take a shower,” Nanny said.
Ernie locked the bathroom door. He showered till the water turned cold. He shut it off and listened. Nothing. Relief and a thick towel warmed him as he wiped himself dry. He slipped into black t-shirt and jeans.
“She stopped callin’,” Nanny said.
Ernie waited.
The phone rang.
He hesitated.
It rang again.
He picked it up and held it away from his ear.
“Hello?”
“Dad?”
“Hi. Ern, I’m on my way home. Write down my flight number. Air Canada 597 out of Toronto. I get in at 1815.
They changed the time.”
“Got it.” Ernie wrote it all down on a scrap of paper.
“How’s Nonno?”
“Okay. Took me golfing.” Ernie thought about what his grandfather had said about running out of time.
“Still taking the doll everywhere he goes?” Miguel asked.
“Yep, but he did get her a dress.”
“Good. You okay?”
“Yep.” Ernie lied. Dad didn’t deal with other people’s problems, he thought. Maybe that’s why he took a job half way around the world.
“Good, see you tomorrow.” Miguel hung up.
“Who was that?” Nanny said.
“My Dad.” Ernie prepared himself for the inevitable sarcastic comment.
“Good, you need your father around.”
Ernie cocked his head to the right and looked carefully at his grandmother.
Nanny didn’t turn. Ernie saw his reflection next to hers in the window.
She said, “What you staring at?”
“You okay?”
“Don’t you worry, Ernie, everything is gonna be fine.” Nanny waved her hand once as if to dismiss him.
Lane decided to arrive through the back entrance of Queen’s Park Cemetery. Evergreens lined up like dark green angels on either side of the narrow, paved roadway. Their scent seeped inside the car.
Ahead, Randy walked alongside the road in his red hard hat, khaki shirt and pants. A gas powered weed eater was balanced in his right hand.
Lane coasted up beside, “Got a minute?”
Randy’s smile faded as he turned. His lips formed a straight line and his eyes adopted a blank expression. Lane wondered if he’d see the person behind the mask. Randy stopped to face the policeman. Lane took extra care as he stopped and shut off the engine. He heard bird song.
Randy held the weed trimmer balanced like a spear, “You hear it too.”
Lane stood straight, closed his eyes and leaned till his back formed a gentle curve. “Yes.”
“People make too much noise to listen to the music birds make.”
“I’ve got a couple of questions.” Lane felt caught off guard by the apparent sensitivity of a man who seemed so guarded.
“Yep.” Randy shifted the weed trimmer around to the front of his body.
“A witness says Ernesto drove a Lincoln here the morning Swatsky disappeared.”
Randy shrugged.
“Can you confirm that Ernesto drove a Lincoln to this cemetery the morning Robert Swatsky disappeared?”
Randy’s eyes studied Lane.
Lane said, “Can you . . . ” Then he remembered their last meeting when Randy had answered a similar question with, ‘He owns a red van.’ Randy is not a liar, Lane thought. His silence is as good as an admission. “You don’t lie, do you?”
Randy continued to watch the detective. At first he gave no indication of having heard a word, then he said, “Look, this thing is heavy.” Randy hefted the trimmer to accentuate his point. “Let’s go sit in the shade.”
They walked to the north side of the mausoleum. Randy set the trimmer down in the shade, next to the wall. He removed his hard hat. Randy sat down, crossed his legs and leaned against the cool of the concrete.
Lane sat against the wall, about a meter from Randy.
“When you’ve been put on the stand, told to tell the truth and been accused over and over again of lying, lies don’t come easily. Hanging onto the truth was all that I had left at one time. Then I came to realize it’s all we ever have.” Randy stared north to the trees and the clear sky above. A passenger jet climbed to gain altitude before crossing the Rocky Mountains.
“Amazing,” Lane said.
“What?”
“That’s the longest answer you’ve given me so far.”
“Maybe that’s because I figure you recognize the significance of truth,” Randy said.
“How come you never played hockey again?”
“That’s a long story.”
Lane decided to let the conversation take them where it would. Randy wasn’t about to be forced or intimidated and this way they might end up where they needed to go. “I’ve got time.”
Randy nodded and smiled. “When I first went to the police about the assaults, I was 19 and drunk. That was the end of my hockey career.”
“But you were a top draft pick.”
“Number one when I was 18. Drank the signing bonus and rolled a brand new Corvette into a ditch. Walked away
with a few bruises.”
“I’m not sure I get what you mean about it being the end of your career,” Lane said.
“By the time I went to the police, the coach had won two Stanley Cups with a Canadian team. People were talking about Canadians taking back their game. You remember?”
Lane nodded.
“Lots of people think I put an end to that because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.”
Lane waited.
“Pro sports doesn’t like rookies who open up a closet full of dirty laundry. Ex-teammates, roommates and coaches lined up to try and convince me to keep quiet for the good of the game. The owner and a couple of broadcasters backed the coach. Lots was written and said about me and how I was a drunk looking to make a name for myself because I didn’t have the heart to play with the pros. There were also some vague references about me trying to hide my sexual preferences.” Randy looked at Lane to see if he had any questions. “Then the video turned up. The tape caught him threatening to end my career if I didn’t do what he wanted and he made it very clear what he wanted. I won in court but it made a lot of people look bad.”
“So you ended up here?”
“Bounced around a bit first. Drank for another year. Came here about five years ago,” Randy said.
“Where does Ernesto fit in?” Lane said.
“He used to bring little Ernie to my hockey games. He was my number one fan. Even went to some of the trial. Ernesto got me the job here.” Randy shifted his body to look directly at Lane, “My face was in every newspaper, on every television. I became totally isolated. I couldn’t even go to the grocery store because people would look at the cover of some newspaper or magazine, see my face and turn their backs. You wouldn’t believe some of the reactions.”
Oh, yes I would, thought Lane. He tried not to feel compassion for Randy but it was impossible.
“Anyway, I ended up here. Ernesto put me back together. He used to say, ‘That is the life.’ And he’d tell me how he’d watched his wife die of cancer. How he could do nothing to save her. How he felt so helpless. How he felt he’d let her down in some way. He learned that life just does that sometimes and there’s really no reason for it. Ernesto used to remind me, ‘You told the truth. Sometimes the truth gets you in the most trouble but you have to hang onto it or it slips away and you’ve got nothing.’ I don’t know what I would have done without him. Some of the guys around here would have nothing to do with me at first, but Ernesto had a way of bringing everyone around. Except of course for Tony. There is some old country feud between them. I assume that’s why you’re here.”
Lane was caught off guard again. He’d made it a rule never to underestimate the people he interviewed and he’d underestimated this one.
“You don’t like to lie either. I’ll take your silence as a yes. Don’t feel bad. Most people believe in the dumb jock stereotype whether they realize it or not.”
Lane shook his head, realizing Randy had outfoxed him.
“I was 15 when it all started. At 20 I was still 15 up here.” Randy tapped the side of his head with a finger. “When the abuse started to happen, I turned inward. Blamed myself.
Thought there was something wrong with me. Got really self-destructive. Having that happen and then being in the spotlight for over a year, man that does some weird things to
the psyche. Emotional and psychological pain is the worst.
Take my word for it, I know.”
Lane nodded unconsciously and caught him
self too late. Randy had taken complete charge of the conversation. It’s as if he sees right through me and I’m supposed to see through him, Lane thought.
“Swatsky’s story has all the ingredients the public seems to love. There’s corruption in politics with violence and attempted rape thrown in. This story will be everywhere if Swatsky ever turns up. Right now, the attack on Ernie isn’t a big story. But if Swatsky turns up, all sorts of conflicting news angles will be out there. And who’ll be right in the middle of it?”
“Ernie.” Lane felt the weight of choice on his shoulders.
The choice, he’d been told was up to the courts and not up to him.
“You’re a smart man. And Ernesto says you’re a good man.
So, that’s why I’ve explained all of this to you. For a long time I didn’t trust anyone. Somehow, I think I can trust you.”
“It’s up to me to find out what happened,” Lane said.
“This time it’s a little more complicated than that. By the time the media is through with a story like this, almost no one will know the truth and the victim will be a basket case. One newspaper reporter explained it all to me. He said, ‘Look, your story has a life of its own. You’re a number one draft pick. Your coach won the Stanley Cup twice and what he did or didn’t do to you is unimportant. It’s the way people can’t get enough of the story that’s important.’ And then he said, ‘Don’t take all the attention personally, kid.’ How could any thinking human being say something that god damned stupid?” Randy stood and put on his hard hat.
And you haven’t really told me anything while telling me everything, Lane thought. “Have you got a home number I can reach you at?”
“241-1786. Need to write it down?”
“I’ll remember.” Lane smiled, stood and slipped an arm into his jacket.
“I’ve got a question,” Randy said.
“Okay.”
“How come, after you saved that cop’s life, you never got any recognition?”
“How did you know about that?” Lane concentrated on adjusting the lapels of his jacket to hide his surprise.
“It’s amazing what you can find out if you have a library card.”
“It’s a long story.” Lane looked straight back at Randy.
