The Glass Harmonica

by Russell Wangersky

  That wasn’t right, because Ronnie was supposed to be the most important part, she thought—wasn’t he?

  “The Queen versus Ronald Michael Collins, in the murder of Dennis Conners, murder in the second degree.”

  The judge was asking for something, and from below him a court clerk passed up a slim file with bright numbers on a tab, a whole line of them in a row, like Ronnie was just one case out of thousands.

  “Can we deal with this now, then?” the judge said, pushing his reading glasses down his nose and staring over the top of them at the lawyers. “Or should we be looking at setting dates?”

  Ronnie’s lawyer up on his feet, clad in a black gown like a polyester crow, his hands tucked behind his back, elbows out like wings. “I think we can go ahead now, your Honour.”

  Next to him, the lawyer for the prosecution simply nodded, his legs crossed, not even bothering to find his feet.

  “All right, then. Ronald Collins—how do you plead?”

  “Guilty,” Ronnie said.

  Helen felt her breath catch, her ribs lock, all air stopping its movement. Wait, she thought. Thought it so clearly that it was as if the word should be right up there over her head in big square silver capital letters. Then, Waitwaitwaitwait and Stop. But she didn’t say a word out loud, and nothing stopped.

  188A

  McKay Street

  RON COLLINS

  OCTOBER 3, 2006

  RONNIE said the word “Guilty” and it felt far easier than he had thought it would. At the same time, he couldn’t help but feel that the whole courtroom had changed, like the air pressure had changed, the way a room sometimes feels when the topic of conversation takes a sudden and unexpected turn. But for Ron himself, it felt like one more step along a straight line that stretched back to the very first things he could even remember.

  And Ron was strangely concerned that Liz wasn’t in the courtroom. He hadn’t missed that, hadn’t got that wrong, even though he had been steeling himself for weeks for the idea that she wouldn’t be there. He had hoped to see her in the courtroom, wanted her to know that he was saving her from what his lawyer would have done to her, to know that he believed even if she didn’t.

  His eyes had swept the courtroom as they had taken the cuffs off, and he was certain she wasn’t there. He’d expected her and he hadn’t expected her, and it hit him hard. He wanted to look her in the eyes, just to see if there was still a way that messages could pass between them without words.

  He saw his mother, though, front and centre—all alone in one of the front benches, looking like she had simply settled into place, dropped out of the heavens in absolutely perfect form.

  “You will be remanded in custody until a sentencing hearing on the fifteenth of December,” the judge said, but Ronnie wasn’t really listening to the judge anymore, and the fact was, he didn’t really care. The guards would be sure to have him there on time, stuffed in the van in his court suit with the leg irons on, and he wouldn’t so much as have to look at a clock or a calendar unless he decided that was something he wanted to do. That’s the way Bart would think about it, Ron thought, and the idea of it made him smile.

  Out in the hall, the guards put both the cuffs and the leg shackles on. “You’re officially dangerous now,” one guard said.

  Across the hall, Ron saw Len Menchinton sitting outside another courtroom. He was wearing a suit and looked uncomfortable too. “Witness or defendant?” Ron called over to him, smiling.

  “Witness. It gets to Supreme Court when the thefts get real big,” Len said.

  “Could be worse,” Ron said, holding up his wrists like he wanted to shake Len’s hand, the chains noisy. “How’s Ingrid?”

  “Not bad, Ron. Not bad.” Then Len watched as Ron was led away, thinking there was something about Ron Collins all of a sudden that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. And Len was used to being able to put his finger on things.

  Back in his cell, Ronnie saw Bart Dolimont stretched out flat on the lower bunk, his leg in the cast with his foot up on the pillow, reading a book.

  “What’cha get?” Dolimont asked.

  “Don’t know. Sentencing’s postponed for two months. Don’t care.”

  “That’s the spirit. At least you know who you are. In here, you’re just another lifer.” Bart Dolimont smiled. “They’ll send you to Dorchester after the sentencing, but that’s okay. That’s the rules. If any sentence is for anything more than two years, it’s federal time, and that means the pen in Dorchester, New Brunswick. And whatever you get, you know it’s gotta be federal time.”

  Bart swung his legs down off the bed slowly, the one in the cast first, letting it settle to the floor before bringing his other foot down. “Some ways, maybe it’s nicer here, closer to home. But the rules there are pretty much the same anywhere. And you know what they say—a change is as good as a rest.” Dolimont stopped for a moment, thoughtful. “Besides,” he continued, “maybe I could get sent up there too. I got me an ace in the hole, Ronnie, an ace in the hole. A little federal time, it might hit the spot for a guy like me, getting older.” He looked at the back of his hand as if he were trying to read the rings on a piece of wood. “They catch you stealing stuff, they always expect you to run, and I can’t even be bothered to run anymore, Ronnie boy. If I stay here, I’ll end up being the only thief trying to get out of the mall behind a walker.”

  Dolimont started to stand, and Ron reached over and grabbed his hand, pulling the man up.

  “You know the routine,” Dolimont said. “It’s lunchtime. And Thursday’s chips and gravy day anyway.”

  Outside, there was shouting somewhere on the range, but it didn’t have anything to do with him. And then it hit Ronnie right square between the eyes, as forcefully as if Bart had reached over and belted him one: None of it had anything to do with him anymore. For once, he’d have no history at all, except for whatever his sentence turned out to be—no past, no relatives, no neighbours shaking their heads. Ronnie realized it the way someone realizes that they’re falling into a hole, understanding the fall before they hit bottom but long after there’s anything they can do about it.

  Then, for the first time since he’d dropped the shovel handle next to Dennis Conners’s body, Ron Collins started to laugh—really laugh, his stomach lurching until the muscles hurt with the effort—and he laughed until tears ran down his face, until Bart Dolimont struggled over to him and started to pound him on the back, convinced that Ronnie either had started choking or else had lost his mind entirely.

  32

  McKay Street

  GLENN COUGHLIN

  AUGUST 14, 1980

  KEITH’S not here, Glenn. He’s got an extra shift tonight. I thought that if anyone knew that, you would have,” Evelyn said.

  Glenn Coughlin had come boiling straight in through the door like he owned the place, like always. Glenn Coughlin, smelling like grease and welding rods. Smelling like Keith’s smell. But different, too. Glenn Coughlin closing the door behind him, checking the lock. Thumb and forefinger turning the never-closed lock with a quiet snick. Glenn in his forties then, big and square and strong.

  The windows were all open, the curtains touched now and then with the slight breeze darting in, but mostly they were hanging straight down.

  The air still. Ten-thirty and airlessly hot, St. John’s houses not designed for heat, flat black tar roofs, the people under them never really getting around to expecting the heat until it was piled all over them like extra blankets they couldn’t shed.

  Evelyn was standing in the doorway to the living room, the television lighting the room behind her with moving blues and greens. Hands up in front of her breasts, sheltering already. Wearing a skirt that hung just below her knees. Wishing now that she was wearing something else.

  “I know, Ev,” Glenn said. “Keith’s on the double, working on some Russian boat with hull damage. They hit something in the night in open ocean, no one on watch to see anything. They sank it, probably, and they don
’t even know what it was.”

  He stopped talking. Smiled. Not a nice smile, Evelyn thought.

  “I know all that,” he said. He looked at his fingernails for a moment, as if hunting down some particularly stubborn dirt under the hard rims. “I also know whatever they hit was painted red. And I know Keith’s down welding in the bow tubes, that he’s got another three hours of work down there if there’s a minute of it, packed in tight enough that he can barely lift his arms up, the fans sucking the torch smoke out. But I wasn’t looking for him, was I?”

  Glenn’s hand smelled of cigarette smoke when it was up next to the side of her face, and Evelyn turned her chin away in shock at the close familiarity of his touch. He had crossed the distance between them in a single motion, one long step. His other hand was set now in the curve in the small of her back.

  “How’d you get stuck with Keith, anyway?” Glenn said, close enough to the side of her face that she could feel the heat of his exhaled breath. “He’s just a little man, Ev, thinks he’s somethin’ special, bigger than he really is.”

  “You shouldn’t be here, Glenn,” Evelyn said.

  She said the words even though she recognized that they sounded flat the moment they came out of her mouth, flat and resigned, as if they were really only the things she felt she was supposed to say and didn’t have the strength or conviction to carry off properly.

  The things you’re supposed to say to keep up appearances. The things you say for form. She knew she was supposed to throw them out there, and she knew already that Glenn was going to ignore them.

  She also knew that everything was going to unfold the way she realized it would the moment she saw him coming through the door. That he was bigger and stronger than her, and that everything she did now was a matter of hedging bets, of making the best out of the worst.

  Falling, and it was already too late to do anything about it.

  She ran through all the options in seconds—all the big things she could do, the fighting back, the screaming (and with the windows open, they’d hear her all over the neighbourhood, sure they would). Evelyn thought about it all, and then thought better of all of it, too.

  Everything would get so complicated—that was her first thought. She would think about that later, wonder why the first thing she thought about was that resisting would create all kinds of complications she wasn’t ready to deal with. That it could be fast and uncomfortable and awful, but that then it would be done.

  She thought about it being done, and she thought about it more as he muscled her back against the wall like he was moving a mannequin into position in a store window. And she let her arms hang down at her sides as if she couldn’t move them at all.

  Glenn was pushing up her skirt, eager and fast, his other hand undoing his pants, pushing her back hard against the wall, driving a bit of her breath out through her lips like a sigh. And the only thing she could find to think about was how to make the whole thing smaller and farther away from her, crumpling it up small like a sheet of old tinfoil.

  Glenn was breathing hard, his mouth next to her ear, his hips thrusting against her. His breath sounding angry—his hands rough and scraping, reaching under her clothes, tearing fabric away from her when it didn’t slide fast enough.

  “You like it, don’t you? You want it. You know it. You all high and mighty. Looking down your nose at everyone. Looking down your nose at me,” he said, his hands clenching behind her, pulling her hard against him.

  Evelyn tried to remember if she’d ever said anything of the kind, tried to make sense of whatever it was he was talking about, all the time feeling somehow that she was really in another room, watching everything from a distance, from out in the trees.

  Except for the pain of his rough hands on her skin. The feeling of him. The way it felt like her own skin was pulling away from his, revolted.

  It was, at least, quick. She felt the wet on the insides of her thighs, and he was leaning into her, still and breathing heavily. Thinking that it was almost over, and that then there would be the soft of him, he would shrink inside her and his need would too, and then there might even be apologies, even if he didn’t get around to actually saying them.

  Her clothes were rumpled up against her skin and damp, and she realized that she was breathing heavily too, physically aroused and hating herself for her body’s response, a sharp pinprick of disgust poking at her from inside.

  The weight of him leaning against her. Making her stomach roil like she was going to throw up.

  Outside, the world was continuing, oblivious.

  “You’d better get going,” she said, feeling as if she were dismissing a guest who’d foolishly stayed too long, freeing herself from the drape of his arms. At the same time, feeling all at once different. “You wouldn’t want to be here when Keith gets home.” Saying it made her a little bolder and she kept going. “You wouldn’t want me to have to explain just what it is you’re doing here.”

  But she realized that she’d let her voice drop a note with the last word, giving the sentence a declining pitch in its last few words, realized the failing strength of her voice, from the definite to the tentative. And she knew as well that he had heard the change.

  “What do ya mean?” Glenn said. “That he’s going to find out? That what? That you’re going ta tell Keith ’bout this?” Glenn laughed then, the laugh turning into a smoky, rich cough.

  Glenn pulled away from her, and she felt her body almost sag reflexively towards him as he moved away.

  “You go right ahead,” Glenn said. Pants back up to his hips, zipper being zipped, door unlocked again, snicker-snack, the door yawning open. Glenn away from her and moving into the rectangle of the door frame and somehow changing, going back to being all too familiar, everyday Glenn, time itself turning suddenly into single frames, every movement fragmenting as she watched.

  “You go ahead. Go ahead and tell him. Hey, maybe he knows already. Maybe he can guess. And maybe he owes me anyway, so even if you do tell him, he’ll just keep quiet. Up to you.”

  Evelyn, unable to shed the thought that something critical had changed, that she was different. Her balance completely gone, her hands turned backwards and pressed hard against the wall behind her, desperate for the familiar support.

  When Glenn left, when the door was closed and the room was once again just the room, she let her breath come out in a long gasping rush that turned into a shuddering sob, staggered into the bathroom, where she found she was bleeding. There were long, deep scratches, scarlet, on the backs of her thighs, scratches that she’d have to find some way to hide from Keith.

  And by the next morning she began to wonder if there was something else she’d have to keep hidden from him, at least until she was far enough along to go down to the doctor and get a test done. A test for something she wondered if she knew already.

  Her Majesty’s

  Penitentiary

  BART DOLIMONT

  OCTOBER 4, 2006

  THE COPS come in when Dolimont asks for them, both leaving their guns at the guardhouse desk at the front of the prison. The two of them come up together, Ballard and another one, and Ballard’s known Bart Dolimont for almost as long as anyone on the force. Ronnie’s pleaded guilty, and Bart can’t help how much he likes the kid, so it’s time, he thinks, to play the last card.

  “So what have you got for us that’s so damned important this time, Bart?”

  Inspector Ballard looks at home sitting at the small table, his legs thrown out wide, one hand up on the flat wood top, fingers tapping. Notebook thrown open, pen lying beside it, cap still on and waiting. Ballard’s partner edges in tight to the table, eager, Bart Dolimont staring silent at him until he leans back too.

  “This better not be a waste of our time, or we might come up with a real good reason to tell the guys to put you into segregation,” Ballard says.

  “Something to get off my chest,” Dolimont says, and starts talking.

  Then he tells them where to fi
nd the purse. Sketches in how it happened: “I panicked. Wasn’t supposed to be like that. I thought she was going to scream.” He’s careful—not too much detail, not enough to trip himself up. Keep it simple. Shrug when the questions are too detailed. Nothing for them to hang him up with.

  “So where’s the body?” Ballard asks. His expression says he’s unconvinced. “There’s a lot of ocean,” Bart says. Leaves it at that. “Told you I did it. Enough for you, isn’t it?”

  Afterwards, “I don’t get you as a murderer,” Ballard says. “Lots of little stuff, sure. Any kind of robbery, absolutely. But murder? I just don’t see it. And you would have been—what? Nineteen?”

  Dolimont shrugs. “I was more of a hothead then. You know what kids are like. Go and check it out if you don’t believe me. Purse is in a footlocker in the crawl space under my mom’s old place, just like I told you. You know I’ve been in here for months, no chance to set anything up. I’m getting older, gentlemen. Just want to clear my conscience.”

  Ballard unconvinced, staring steadily across the table.

  “You don’t want to solve this one, don’t want it off the books, then fine by me,” Bart says. “But you know you do, and this is your only chance. You got the purse, got a confession, and you know I’m going to plead guilty, first chance I get. Slam dunk for you.”

  Ballard doesn’t move, hasn’t taken the cap off his pen.

  “You might want to write it up so I can sign it, or take me someplace where you can record it all,” Bart says, chiding. “What’s a guy got to do to get you guys to take a confession?”

  Later, Ronnie looks at him in amazement when Dolimont tells him that they’ll end up serving time in the same prison, probably, because it’s murder, at maximum security in Dorchester. Then Ron says just three words:“But you’re innocent.”

  “Innocent? Don’t know about that. We’re just talking guilty and not guilty here,” Bart says. “I think I’m guilty enough.”