The Corpse Will Keep

by Pat Capponi

  “Thanks for this.” I take the coffee, surprised how normal my voice sounds.

  “Gas station coffee, can’t beat it.” He stands there, smiling down at me while I take a sip, then he goes around to the driver’s side and gets in, putting his cup securely in the pop-out holder. I hang on to mine, thinking if nothing else, it would make a nice weapon if flung at his face.

  “Listen, when I went to pay, I realized I’d left my wallet back at the house. I was lucky I had enough cash on me. Would you mind if we swung by for a minute? I hate to be without it, you know how it is.”

  So this is the ploy.

  “Actually, Jesse, I’d rather go right to the first place on your list, if you don’t mind.”

  He looks across at me. “Of course. I know how worried you are.”

  The coffee’s good enough that I forget its weapon value, draining the cup. The heater is blasting, it’s very warm in here. And Jesse’s talking but I can’t really hear him, he seems to be fading out. So do I. I can hardly keep my eyes open. I really don’t feel all that well, I’m a bit light-headed, even dizzy. With some effort, I turn my head and look at him.

  “What do they put in their coffee?” Only it doesn’t come out like that, there are no words at all, my lips are rubbery, and my tongue gets in the way. He smiles at me, narrowing his eyes, calculating.

  Oh. “What did you put in my coffee?”

  “You’re tired, April, close your eyes, go to sleep. I’ll take care of you.”

  I can’t move my arms, I can’t stay awake. My last thought is: Has he killed me?

  The next thing I’m aware of is pulling up to the gate of a huge house with a high stone wall. The gate opens, we drive through, and it closes behind us, locking us away from the outside world. We continue down a long driveway and pull into an enormous garage. Two men drag me from the car and into a hallway. Other people are there and I try to say, help, I’m being kidnapped, but I’ve forgotten how to talk.

  Some time later, I wake to find myself in a pitch-dark room, frightened and disoriented. Before total panic can set in, I take some deep, slow breaths and let the fractured memories come back while I assess my situation. I’m in a wide bed, and there’s someone else in it, someone lightly snoring. At first, I’m afraid it’s Jesse, and I try to push myself as far from him as possible without falling off the mattress. It’s still difficult to move my limbs. As my vision regains focus as the effects of the drugs wear off, I’m able to see it’s a woman beside me, an elderly woman. In spite of everything, or maybe because of all that’s happened, I have to bite my lips to stop from laughing hysterically: Mrs. Preston, I presume.

  The SOB must have drugged me. I’m still too woozy to risk standing up; I’ll have to wait until morning to try the windows, to look for a way to escape.

  Mrs. Preston is sitting up against her pillows. She’s been watching me, I’m sure, but quickly faces straight ahead when I open my eyes. As if anyone could be that nonchalant, waking up to a stranger sharing your bed. For a moment I just stare at her by the strong light of her bedside lamp, taking in the high-collared cotton nightgown with its faded floral pattern, buttoned up right to the chin. Her white curly hair is hardly mussed at all, her strong face a portrait of disapproval. I’m not sure I’m up to tackling her right off the bat like this. I’m feeling something like hungover and my mouth is parched. I struggle to sit up, relieved to see that I’m fully dressed, except for my shoes. My shoes and my jacket.

  “Good morning.” I can try to be equally matter-of-fact. She just purses her lips, not acknowledging me at all. “Your son sent me to find you.”

  A faint flush rises from her neck to her cheeks. Of course, she has no reason to believe me; it might seem like a trick, something her captors thought up in their malevolent little brains. Just as I’m searching for something reassuring to tell her, she turns on me, almost spitting with anger.

  “You’re just her replacement. I’m supposed to want to protect you, because you say you know my son. Well, it won’t work; I don’t care what he does, that bastard.” Her hands are clenched in tight little fists, she’s flailing away at me with them, and for a moment I’m so confused and alarmed at her transformation I let her do it. Is she talking about Bernie? Or Jesse?

  “Stop that! Mrs. Preston, stop, please. I don’t know what you’re talking about, but Bernie did send me. And Jon, Jon Walters, he’s been going crazy waiting to hear from you.”

  It’s Jon’s name that seems to calm her. She stops hitting me, and just stares, open-mouthed. “Mrs. Preston, who are you talking about? Is it Jesse?” Mrs. Preston just shakes her head at me, turns to get a Kleenex from her night table, dabs at her tears with a tissue.

  “Of course I’m talking about Jesse. Who else?”

  “And what did you mean about a replacement?”

  Before Mrs. Preston can answer, the door crashes open, and I abruptly levitate about a foot off the bed. It’s one of the young thugs from the program. He enters, oddly barefoot and juggling a large tray with a carafe of coffee and some fruit and muffins. He dumps it unceremoniously on the large dresser and leaves without a word. I’m up like a shot—coffee does that to me. It’s hot and steamy. I pour a cup, take a few tentative sips to see if I can taste anything strange, and try again.

  “My name’s Dana Leoni. I knew Harp, that’s what we used to call your son, back in university. He saw me on the news recently, after my friends and I helped some people who had been kidnapped in Parkdale. He felt that I might be able to help with your situation.”

  “Well, as usual, he made a bad choice, didn’t he?” She’s clearly recovered from her emotional outburst and reverted to her dragon self. “He ignored my wishes. Now there are two of us confined here.”

  At first I want to snap back at her, defend poor Bernie, but then I realize that she is accepting me in her fashion, believing me. “Mrs. Preston, I can’t imagine what you’ve been through this last while, but I need you to tell me what’s going on, what hold this man has over you. Who is this other person you were talking about?” She stares straight ahead, lips pursed. I persist.

  “Tell me, why didn’t you call the police when you were first attacked? Why didn’t you trust your son to help? He’s so petrified of your reaction that he came to me instead of going to the police. He’s frightened of you! ‘She’ll be furious with me for not leaving her alone,’ that’s what he said. Why is that, Mrs. Preston? What are you hiding?” Mrs. Preston won’t say a word. She’s shaking her head, slowly, as if it’s all too much. And maybe it is.

  I drain my cup of coffee, and in the silence that follows I decide I need to strike a more conciliatory note. “Can I pour you some?”

  “No. I keep telling them I want tea, but they persist in bringing that awful brew.”

  I pour another cup, glad to have it all for myself, and mull over what to say next. Mrs. Preston frees herself from the covers and rises carefully. As I watch wordlessly, she slips her long, narrow feet into a pair of slippers and heads to one of the dressers, opening a drawer and pulling out underwear. Closing that, she opens one lower down for pantyhose, then heads off to the bathroom, which, even with all my finely honed detective skills, I hadn’t noticed. My bladder suddenly seems awfully full, but I ignore it and keep drinking, as the toilet flushes and the shower is turned on. I try not to pay attention to all that running water, but it’s not helping.

  I shake the carafe. Nothing sloshes about. I’ve drained it. Two and a half cups will have to do, I tell myself, and decide to make the bed to keep my mind off the ever more urgent need to pee. That done, I sit on the edge of the bed, staring at the bathroom door. It finally opens, just as I’m about to burst, and I rush past her, muttering an “excuse me,” and do the necessary. Now I can face almost anything, I tell myself. Including one stubborn old lady and the fact that I’m locked in her bedroom.

  “Here,” she says, handing me a pile of towels, a dressing gown, and—God bless her—a pair of her panties. “Everything e
lse you need is already in there.”

  “Thank you, but when I’m done, we’ll have to talk.”

  She waves me back into the bathroom, and I’m happy enough to comply for the moment.

  I turn off my brain in the shower, including the part that tells me I’m way too vulnerable being naked in here. Just feeling the hot water beat down on me, massaging my shoulders and working out the knots of tension, is reviving. The bathroom is huge. I’m not used to all this room, this luxury, and everything glitters, the taps, the mirrors, even the floor. And the towels are thick and warm and brightly coloured, the soaps perfumed, and the toilet paper has got to be at least four-ply. Still, I’d trade it all for my closet of a shower, the cracked tile floor, the rust-eaten drain, the slivers of soap and the threadbare, once-white poor excuse for a towel hanging off the door. I wonder what they’re doing now, Miss Semple and Gerry and Diamond. I wonder if Ed…I shake off that thought, and step out of the shower.

  When I’m dry and back in my clothes, I find Mrs. Preston back in position, dressed in a heavy tweed skirt, topped with a cream-coloured blouse and a knitted sweater, sitting up against her pillows on the made bed, finishing a muffin. She has a glass of water and a few vials of pills on the night table next to her. I think it’s the pills that remind me, in spite of her iron will, that she is elderly, and probably terrified by all that’s happened. I’m pretty petrified myself, and likely I don’t know half of what’s going on.

  The bedroom itself is large, though the heavy dark furniture fills every inch. There’s a wardrobe, a walk-in closet, three dressers, one with a large mirror and its own chair, and an antique writing desk. The bed itself has got to be at least a hundred years old, frame and mattress. There is one window, with plywood hammered over the drapes to block it off. I turn the chair to face her; she stares at her lap.

  “Mrs. Preston, you must talk to me. What power does he hold over you?”

  “What does it matter? We’re both trapped here.”

  “It matters to me, and it should to you. Besides, there are some very worried people who’ll be searching for me, and one of them’s a homicide cop.” Unless he’s given up on me. “I think our chances of getting out of here are very good. And they’ll be better if I have a fuller understanding of what the hell is going on.”

  She sighs, and her fingers fidget with one another. She doesn’t look at me, keeps her eyes down. I do feel bad for her, but I really have to know.

  “There was a woman. Lorraine. He hurt her the last time I balked at signing a cheque. I’m assuming you know about the money he’s taking from me. I should have known better, but I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I think I was overwrought, beyond caring. I tore up the cheque, threw it in his face. He just smiled at me, sent one of his goons to drag her in. As soon as I saw her, I swore I would do anything, sign anything he put in front of me, but he just laughed. He laughed, and he hit her so hard she flew across the room, her head slammed against the wall.” She shudders at the memory, still vivid in her mind. “I haven’t seen her since. I’m so worried about her.”

  “That’s terrible, I’m so sorry you had to go through that. But why Lorraine? What is she to you? How did he know to use her to get what he wanted from you?”

  Mrs. Preston is silent. She shakes her head quickly, no.

  “Mrs. Preston, I don’t know what you’re hiding or why. Surely it can’t be as bad as you think. Whatever it is, it’s certainly not worth our lives, is it?”

  I take a deep breath and try again.

  “There’s nothing you could say that would change how Bernie feels about you. All he wants, all he’s wanted his whole life, is to know that you love him.”

  “How dare you!”

  “Mrs. Preston—”

  “You presume to say I don’t love my son? We’ve given everything to Bernie.”

  “I’m not judging, I’m explaining. A long time ago, Bernie confessed to me that he always felt he had to fight for your approval. I had my own problems with my parents that I confided to him, and we had a kind of bond, you know? We both carried a lot of guilt and regret back then, and seeing Bernie now, I think he’s still suffering. I think he still needs you.”

  She’s silent now. I don’t know if she’s thinking about what I’ve told her, or just determined not to give an inch.

  “What I’m trying to say is, I have no wish or reason to sit in judgment of you. I just need you to help us both, Mrs. Preston, if we’re ever going to get out of here. For Bernie.”

  “Very well, though I’m not convinced this will be of any use to you.” Breakthrough. “However, there is one condition. Whatever I tell you, Bernie is not to know any of it, ever. Is that understood?”

  “Understood.” But not necessarily agreed to. After all, Bernie is my client.

  Mrs. Preston’s cheeks are flushed as she begins to speak. “I couldn’t have children. My husband said it didn’t matter, we had each other. But it did matter, of course. To me, to his parents, even to him. I felt like a failure as a wife, as a woman. Lorraine was just a girl then, living with her family next door to us. They were self-righteous people, heavily involved in their church. Under ordinary circumstances, we wouldn’t have had anything to do with them at all, but my husband acted as their investment counsellor, so we had to have them over on a few occasions for dinner parties and such. They were boorish and disapproving, wouldn’t even drink a glass of wine, and glared at the guests who did.

  “Lorraine rebelled, of course, how could she not? It must have been suffocating for her in that house. Drugs, drink, boys, missing school. Her father confided in my husband, they were at their wits’ end with her, he said. And desperately afraid of rumours and gossip getting back to members of their congregation. I suspect he beat her, when he wasn’t having her demons exorcised. They were that type of Christian, narrow-minded, joyless. I could barely stand the sight of them.

  “That poor girl. They’d drag her along to dinner parties, she wouldn’t say a word, just stare at her plate, her hair covering her face. I tried to be kind, in my own way, asked her questions about her studies. I didn’t think I was getting through at all. Then, one night, it was late, after midnight, the bell at the gate kept ringing. My husband and I both got up and went outside to the gate. And there she was, what a pathetic sight, bruises on her face, her hair wild, her clothes torn. It broke my heart. I brought her in, what choice did I have? She was hysterical. They’d beat her, and thrown her out, with only the clothes on her back. She’d gotten herself pregnant and, for her parents, that was the last straw.

  “We became closer that night, and over the following weeks. I don’t know exactly when I had the idea, but once it came to me, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Here I was, barren, in my mid-forties, and here was this teenager, desperate, afraid, and with child.”

  Silence. I think I know what’s coming, but she needs to say it out loud, it’s been buried too deep for too long. I watch as she twists a corner of her sweater, wringing it between shaky fingers. It’s strange, but I’m seeing shades of my own mother, though they can’t be more different. I wonder, if anyone asks her where I am, if she wrings her hands, if she chokes up, or if she just bites her bottom lip—I remember how she used to do that when she was upset or worried—and shakes her head, refusing to tell.

  “I made her a proposition. We’d travel, she and I, through Europe, until the time neared, then we’d return to Canada. My husband and I had a place in Vancouver we kept for summer vacations; we’d stay there. She agreed, as I suppose she felt there were no other options. For all her rebellion against her parents, she couldn’t go so far as to have an abortion. I set up a trust fund for her, enough for her to live comfortably while she went to school. And she gave me her child, a boy. My husband knew all kinds of useful people; it was a small matter, he said, to have the birth certificate adjusted.

  “I was worried, of course. That she’d change her mind, or even try to ask us for more money later, but she never did. The
last time I saw her, she was happy enough with her freedom.

  “I wasn’t prepared for the guilt. It was so odd. He was a beautiful baby, he was mine, and yet, when I looked into his eyes, I saw echoes of his real mother. I’d gotten what I wanted so badly, and yet, and yet…It got worse as he grew.” Poor Bernie, no wonder he’d never felt loved, never really believed he’d measured up to their expectations. There was never anything he could have done to overcome that wall of guilt and shame. His birth mother had sold him; the only mother he knew had bought him.

  “His features so mirrored hers. I wanted to hold him, like other mothers, but the guilt intervened every time. I had no right to him, that’s the hard truth of it.”

  From the corridor outside the door comes a low drone. I turn to the door in alarm and she interrupts herself long enough to say, “They’re only vacuuming.”

  “They’re what?”

  “Vacuuming.” She welcomes the distraction, the change of subject. Her voice is no longer tremulous, her hands are still. “They aren’t total barbarians. They’ve kept the house quite clean. They even take off their shoes at the door. When he made me fire the housekeeper, I told him I didn’t intend to live in a pigsty. He said neither did he.”

  It occurs to me to ask her a question I should have asked before. “How many of them are in the house? How many have you seen?”

  “They come and go. I think he has most of them stay somewhere else, I’ve no idea where. They come in an expensive van with tinted windows so that no-one can see them. He had me show some of them how to use the washer and dryer, sort their clothes properly. God knows where they were brought up, nowhere decent, that’s a given.

  “And Jesse? Is this where he stays?”

  “How would I know? He only lets me out of my bedroom when he needs something. As you can see, I don’t have the run of the place.” She’s snapping at me, but then adds in a more conciliatory voice, “I think he’s made himself very comfortable here.”