by Vicki Delany
“When I decided to become a police officer I knew I’d have to deal with the hard side of life. Beaten children, raped women, accident victims, blood and gore. But that’s not the hardest part, is it? It’s the goddamn tragedy of people’s lives.”
They were once again sitting in traffic, waiting to cross the bridge. A few boats were on the river, moving fast, bright blue and white sails catching the wind.
Winters said nothing. He had nothing to say.
“Do you believe him?” Smith asked. Her hands were tight on the steering wheel, and they both knew she was fighting hard not to cry.
“Hunt? Yes, I believe him. I’ve yet to meet anyone who’s that good an actor. Brian Nowak was going to leave his family. Abscond with another man. Who would care enough about that to kill him? Hunt’s father, by the sound of it, but he’s dead. The only other person I can think of is Mrs. Nowak. Humiliating enough for your husband to announce he’s leaving you, but for a man?”
“Kyle Nowak.” Smith said.
“You think so? He was sixteen at the time.”
She shifted in her seat. She was nervous expressing her opinion. He knew that. Better a new officer be hesitant than butting in at every opportunity. “I was in an incident the other night. Outside the Potato Famine. A couple of out-of-town bikers got into a fight with two tourists.”
“I read the shift report.”
“The tourists were two guys. Just normal guys. What was funny was that it wasn’t as you’d expect, bikers verses preppy tourists. Instead they came down on opposite sides. One of the bikers took offence at one of the tourists and everyone leapt in to join the fray.” She hesitated. “Have you ever realized, John, that we’d have less work if women populated the bars?”
“Never considered that myself. I have, however sometimes suspected that where men will exchange punches before rhetorically kissing and making up, or at least going for a beer, women will take a fight to the grave.”
“Touché,” she said. “Anyway none of these men were prepared to sit back and take the insults.”
“What does this have to do with Kyle Nowak?”
“He was there. Not one of the instigators, or the participants, but on the sidelines, shouting encouragement to the bikers. Stuff like let the fags have it. In stronger language. I’ve seen him around town on occasion. When Nicky and I were kids he was just an older brother. Not worth noticing.”
Smith glanced out the car window. The vehicles ahead of them were disappearing off the far end of the bridge. The sign holder had an exasperated expression on her face as she beckoned them to proceed. No one behind had dared to honk at a police car. Smith put her foot on the gas and they rumbled across the bridge.
“I hadn’t paid enough attention at the time of the bust-up to properly register that it was Kyle Nowak there, stirring the pot. You know what it’s like when you’re in a fight, it’s all a frightening blur.” She stopped and bit her tongue. Perhaps better not to mention she was frightened and not noticing everything around her.
“I remember the first time I got a punch in the face,” Winters said. “I stood there for a couple of seconds, wondering why anyone would want to hit me. You’re saying you think Kyle Nowak is a homophobe?”
She let out a long breath. “I guess that’s what I’m saying. He’s a bizarre character. Like Dracula, moving through the shadows at night, but he’s never been in any trouble I’ve heard of and so we, the police, don’t worry about him.”
She pulled into the station parking lot. Winters did not unfasten his seat belt. “Mrs. Nowak,” he said, choosing his words with care, “might also be considered strange. She showed surprisingly little curiosity when we told her that her husband’s body had been located. I put it down to emotional numbness. After fifteen years of grief she couldn’t find it in herself to care any more.”
He spoke slowly and carefully. “Perhaps she wasn’t curious because she didn’t need to ask what happened to him. Let’s pay a call on the Nowaks. I have a few questions for Mrs. Nowak and her son.”
Chapter Forty
“Drop me around back,” Winters said. “I’ll knock on Kyle’s door and bring him upstairs. You go to the main house and tell Mrs. Nowak I’ll be along shortly to speak with her.”
“Are you going to take them down to the station?”
“Not at this point. All I have is speculation based on peoples’ behavior. I’ll continue to treat them as family of the victim until I know more.”
Smith turned into the alley and Winters jumped out at the back of the Nowak house. She circled around to the street. To her considerable surprise, Nicky answered the door.
“Not you again.”
“I thought you’d left,” Smith said.
“Don’t I want to. My dear brother took my car last night and managed to plant it into a ditch. It had to be towed to a garage. You can be sure he’ll be paying through the nose for the damage. It’s supposed to be ready tomorrow. What the hell do you want anyway?”
Smith wanted to tell Nicky she was sorry. Sorry for having lost her father, sorry for all the pain she’d been through over the last fifteen years, sorry for forgetting about their friendship, sorry for not being there when Nicky’s life went off the rails. Instead she said, “Sergeant Winters would like to speak to your mother. Is she at home?”
“Like she’d be anywhere else.”
“I thought all this intrusion into our lives would finally be over.” Kyle’s complaining voice rounded the corner of the house. “This is an enormous strain on my mother.”
“The gang’s all here,” Nicky said. She went into the living room. “Mom, we’ve got company.”
Mrs. Nowak came out of the kitchen. Her face made Smith think of a bird. Blinking eyes, long sharp nose, no flesh beneath the folds of white skin. Her eyes flittered between the police officers, her son, her daughter. She twisted a tea towel in her fingers. Her nails were bitten, the cuticles torn, the skin on her hands as loose as on her face. She wore a housedress that might have once been colorful, but it had been washed to a faded gray dotted with anemic flowers.
“What’s this about?” she asked.
Nicky tossed herself into a chair with a theatrical sigh. She was barefoot, dressed in jeans and a plain T-shirt. She made a display of studying her pedicure, but her eyes followed Winters. Her brother sat down, but remained perched on the edge of the seat, wary, watching.
The living room and dining room formed an L shape. Heavy red drapes, fading at the edges, were pulled across the back windows. Winters crossed the room in a few quick strides and yanked them open.
Mrs. Nowak blinked as sun poured in. A cloud of dust motes rose in the air, swirling and dancing in the light.
The windows were not windows but French doors, opening onto the deck. The glass was streaked and dirty. Outside, the wooden planks were cracked and broken, covered in dead and decaying leaves and bird droppings. Paint peeled off aluminum chairs in long strips and the table was thick with grime. Crumbled, shattered terra cotta pots were scattered around the floor, and the kettle barbeque was a rusty hulk.
“You don’t sit outside much,” Winters said. The contrast between the abandoned deck and the immaculately clean house and garden was startling.
No one replied.
“Looks to me as if this deck hasn’t been used in, oh, fifteen years. That surprises me. It has a great view and must get a nice breeze on a hot day.”
He turned and faced the family. “Nicky, did you use the deck when you were a child?”
She blinked in confusion. “Sure. Dad liked to barbeque and in the summer we ate out there almost every night.”
“You don’t barbeque, Mrs. Nowak?”
She threw a pleading glance at her son.
“No, she does not barbeque,” Kyle said. “Not that that’s any of your busines
s.”
“Just asking. Tell me about your marriage, Mrs. Nowak.”
Another glance at Kyle.
“It was a good marriage,” he said.
“It was a joke,” Nicky said. She picked at the nail on her big toe. “They were roommates, not a married couple.”
“Is that so?” Winters said.
“Lots of married couples live like that,” Kyle said.
“You’re very quiet, Mrs. Nowak,” Winters said. “May I call you Marjorie? Did you and your husband not share a bedroom, Marjorie?”
She shook her head.
“Dad snored,” Kyle said. “He disturbed her sleep.”
Smith shifted her gunbelt and wondered why Winters was letting Kyle answer every question Winters aimed at his mother. She shot a quick glance at Nicky. The girl had stopped pretending to examine her feet and stared at her mother, mouth open in a round O, eyes wet with sudden tears. She shook her head slowly at Kyle’s statement.
“No, Dad did not snore. He had the room next to mine. Kyle was across the hall and Mom’s room next to that. They never visited each other’s rooms at night. Why was that, Mom?”
“We had two children,” Mrs. Nowak said. “That was all the family we wanted.”
“As my brother said, some marriages are like that,” Nicky told Winters. “They provide women like me with a nice income.”
Her words were directed at the Sergeant, but Nicky turned her eyes toward Smith. It was a confession, of some sort. Perhaps even an apology. Mrs. Nowak appeared not to notice, nor to understand.
Kyle sneered. “You’ve uncovered my family’s dirty laundry, pal. I hope you’re satisfied. Don’t let the door hit you or your Fascist buddy on the way out.”
“Marjorie,” Winters said. “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”
She hung her head. In shame? “I tried to make him happy. To be a good Catholic wife. The Church teaches that intimate relations are God’s gift to a married couple. But Brian… Brian wasn’t like other men. Brian told me he loved me, but… he preferred to sleep in his own room.”
“Did you ever fear he might find someone with whom he would enjoy relations more?” Winters’ voice was soft and very kind.
Kyle jumped to his feet. “I demand you stop this. You have absolutely no reason to be asking my mother these questions. She’s the victim here. She’s the widow. That fucking fag never…” He slammed his mouth shut.
Mrs. Nowak began to cry.
“So you knew,” Winters said. “And you, Marjorie, did you also know your husband was gay?”
She shook her head.
“What the hell?” Nicky said. “Dad, gay? That’s ridiculous. He was married. He had two kids.”
“Surely, Ms. Nowak, you of all people are aware there are those who never are able to come to grips with their sexuality.”
She didn’t answer him, but tossed her mother a pleading glance. “Mom?”
“He was going to leave us,” Mrs. Nowak’s voice was very small. “For… for a man.”
“Shut up,” Kyle shouted. “They’re fishing. They don’t know anything.”
“But you do.” Nicky jumped out of her chair, and ran at her brother. She flew into him, raking her long nails across his face. He stumbled backward and tripped over the curled edge of a rug. He crashed to the floor. Nicky fell on him, screaming. “You know. You knew. You’ve always known.” She pounded his face with her fists.
Smith grabbed Nicky around the waist. Her childhood friend felt like a doll in her arms. “Leave it, Nicky, leave it,” she said, staggering back, pulling the screaming woman with her. She felt Nicky’s weight shift as Winters took one arm.
“It’s okay,” he said in a strong, composed voice. “Calm down.”
Nicky pulled back her head and spat into her brother’s face. Kyle scrambled to his feet. Two deep slashes across his cheek spurted blood. “You dirty whore,” he shouted. “Keep your goddamned filthy hands off me. Your precious, saintly dad was a fag. Think he loved you so much? He loved his boyfriend more.” He dropped into a chair.
Nicky shook the police officers off. Her chest rose and fell rapidly. She looked at her mother. “What happened to my father?” she asked. “Tell me.”
“It was an accident,” Mrs. Nowak replied.
Smith shot Winters a question. He motioned for her to stay silent.
“When Kyle and I got home from church, two suitcases were at the front door. Brian was on the deck, having a smoke. I asked him what was happening. Was he going on a business trip?
“He looked so sad, Mr. Winters, so sad. He told me he was leaving us. Going to Vancouver to live with his lover. I can’t tell you how shocked I was. I never knew. I never had any idea. I told him I didn’t believe he would leave his family for another woman.”
Kyle laughed.
“Not a woman, he told me. Not a woman. Then I knew he was joking, so I went inside to start lunch.”
“You didn’t go inside with your mother, did you Kyle?” Winters asked.
“He was running away, running away with a fucking pervert. I hit him. He said he wasn’t going to fight me. I said wasn’t that exactly like a cowardly fag. So I hit him again. And again.”
Nicky was crying hard, big deep sobs and great gulps of air. She made no move to blow her nose or wipe her eyes. She sat. And wept.
Mrs. Nowak stood up and walked toward the French doors. She stood there, staring out onto the abandoned deck.
“Third punch knocked him up against the railing. It broke. He stood on the edge for just a moment, looking at me. I didn’t move fast enough, and next thing I knew he was on the ground. Lying very still.”
“When I got home from the game, the curtains were drawn and you,” Nicky said to her mother’s back, “told me Kyle had been fooling around and had broken the railing so it wasn’t safe to go out on the deck. The next morning the railing was fixed, but do you know, Sergeant Winters, I never questioned why we never went out there again.”
“It was an accident,” Mrs. Nowak said. “Kyle was defending our family. He didn’t mean to kill Brian.”
“Why didn’t you go to the police?” Winters asked. “Tell them what happened.”
“I wanted to, but Kyle said if we did that it would all come out. Everyone would know.”
Winters looked at Kyle Nowak. The boy, now a man, stared back at him. And John Winters knew it had not been any accident.
“I came out to see what all the yelling was about,” Marjorie Nowak continued. “The railing was broken and Brian was below. Lying there, on the concrete. I ran to him but he wasn’t breathing. His neck was twisted. He shouldn’t have been able to look at me, but he was. His eyes were empty, so blank. Kyle said no one had to know. I wanted to tell the police, Mr. Winters, really I did. I wanted to have a proper funeral for Brian. Even if my husband was a sinner, surely God would forgive him.”
“You bastard,” Nicky said to her brother. “You stuck my dad in a hole in the ground and you walked away. I’ve been looking for my father my whole life and you, you knew exactly where he was.”
“Think your life would be any better once everyone in town knew you were the daughter of a pervert? That you were conceived in a duty fuck?”
“I think,” Nicky said very slowly, “it couldn’t have been a heck of a lot worse.” She got to her feet, “I’m leaving now. I’ll check into a hotel until my car’s ready.” She began to leave the room, back straight, head high. Then she turned and looked at her mother. Mrs. Nowak stared out the window. Smith could almost feel the rage emanating from Nicky’s small body. “Kyle is a jerk, a macho posturing jerk. You however, are something so much worse.”
Mrs. Nowak turned slowly and faced her daughter. “I tried to protect you, Nicky.”
Nicky stared at her mother for a
long time and then, with a shake of her head and a deep sigh, she left the room.
John Winters gestured to Smith to move in, and he said, “Kyle Nowak, I am arresting you for the murder of Brian Nowak.”
Chapter Forty-one
It was late by the time they finished processing Kyle Nowak. A legal aid lawyer had been contacted, and Kyle would have a chance to talk to him over videoconferencing tomorrow, prior to the lawyer arriving in the next few days from the Coast.
Winters had asked one last question, before leaving Marjorie Nowak alone with her demons. “Ten thousand dollars. What happened to the ten thousand dollars Greg Hunt gave you?”
“Ten thousand? No one gave me any money. It disappeared when Brian did.”
“No. Hunt gave you the money Brian had put away to help you out until he could start sending financial support.”
She shook her head.
“He gave it to me,” Kyle said. His hands were cuffed and Smith had hold of his arm and was leading him out the door. Winters signaled to her to let Kyle speak. “The boyfriend came around a couple of months later and gave me the blood money, said it was for Mom. I was to be the man of the house now, so I figured I’d look after it. If she told the welfare people she had it, they would have deducted it. It didn’t last long. I needed to buy art supplies, a computer. When I bought that old car you never even asked how I could afford it. Totaled the damn car a year later, so that was a waste.” He shook his head, and Winters had indicated for Smith to take him away.
“Think we’ll get him?” she said as they climbed the stairs leading up from the cells.
“For murder? Probably not. He’ll stick to his story about it being an accident. Probably believes it himself by now. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mrs. Nowak muddies the waters by claiming she was the one who was there when Brian fell. We can try, and we will, to charge Kyle with lying to the police, for failing to report a death, for hiding evidence of a death, for offering indignity to a body. I’ll hit him with everything I can. But murder? No.
“I can comfort myself to some small degree knowing that committing the act of patricide, and then carrying the body into the park and buying it, concealing the fact in the face of intense police inquires, pretty much destroyed his life.”
