The Death of Donna Whalen

by Michael Winter

  Another time they were in the living room watching TV and Sheldon tipped the coffee table over and he broke a glass elephant. Sharon didnt see this, her mother told her. It was like a round ball with an elephant inside of it like those things that you shake the snow in them the sparkles come up. Sharon heard the bang. She went out to see what happened and her mom already cleaned it up and Sharon saw sparkles all over the floor. The coffee table was stood up like normally. Sheldon was gone out then.

  Sheldon called her mom the H-word. Whore. The B-word is a female dog. The S-word is spelled s-u-l-t. Her mom used to call Sheldon back bad words. Not the same ones. One night he came home from drinking and they were fighting and then after Sharon’s mom went to bed, he was smashing beer bottles. Sharon heard it and when she got up in the morning, she asked what happened. Sheldon was mad, her mom said, and he was breaking the beer bottles. There was pieces of glass on the floor and it smelled. He broke a rocking chair and a phone and the remote control. He smashed the phone on the floor. Sharon heard it and then she saw the phone in the garbage.

  He put his fist through the wall. Sharon saw the hole after. He put his fist through the kettle, too. That’s what her mom told her. The kettle had a big dent in it. It looked like a handprint. When the phone got broken, her mom got a new phone. He broke that too. The next time that Sheldon ever did anything to her really bad, Sharon asked her mom if she’d phone the police and she said maybe, and then the next time he hit her she wouldnt, and Sharon asked her again and she said maybe the next time. She kept on saying that. She said just before she died, that they were going to move out.

  Sheldon hit Cory, but he didnt threaten him. Cory never struck his mother, but he used to say to her, I dont love you any more.

  They were fighting about her going away. Sheldon was telling her mom, what are you going to do with the kids. And she asked him if they could stay with him.

  SHELDON TROKE

  When he loses his temper, he gets really loud. When theyre out,there’s people that can hear him out by the door.

  Sheldon dont think you need a considerable amount of force to break a wall. Youre talking gyproc. He controls his temper. Sometimes when he was drinking he lost his temper. When he wasnt drinking, he’d go for a walk.

  When that elephant broke Sharon wasnt in the living room. It was a talk show that was on and they were porn stars and they got into a conversation about that and Donna was asking would he watch porn flicks and he said he’s after watching them and this led to an argument. He had his feet up on the coffee table and gave it a push and he stood the coffee table up and put on his boots and left. He broke an ornament on top, a crystal elephant. He paid for it.

  Yes Sharon heard arguments, half the time the whole street did.

  They were arguing over the beer, saying that he couldnt get enough. He ended up throwing the beer that was in the box on the floor. He cut his foot. He cleaned it up. Sharon’s a smart youngster. Sheldon dont know about lying, but all youngsters are prone to being misled.

  He knows the remote control was broke. The back used to fall off. He put an elastic band on it to keep it together.

  EDIE GUZZWELL

  Edie drove her sister Agnes into the cemetery to talk to Sheldon. Edie and Agnes were supposed to go to Toronto for a wedding, but Edie didnt want to go. She asked Donna would she go in her place. So Agnes was speaking to Sheldon about that. Edie talked to Aubrey and asked him where different people were buried.

  Sheldon didnt object to Donna going to Toronto. He was supposed to babysit the children. They would be gone seven days. Agnes said Sheldon was good to the children.

  Edie knew that Donna was on prescription drugs. The big thing that Donna was taking was diet pills. She didnt want to be fat.

  They were supposed to leave on Tuesday and Donna was killed Saturday. Edie went in and picked up the tickets. She also returned the tickets.

  Donna was married at seventeen and divorced at twenty-one. Sharon is a child of that marriage. When they split up, Donna and Sharon went to live with another man and she had Cory. They were together for about three years.

  SHARON WHALEN

  Her mom went out nights four or five times a week. Sometimes when she came back Sharon was asleep. Tom Vivian looked after her, or Sheldon, though not very much. Her mom went out on her own. When Sheldon was staying at the house, he spent a lot of time with Sharon and Cory. When Cory was bad, he’d get sent to his room or he wouldnt be allowed to have any cookies or he’d get smacked. He was sent to his room for exactly ten minutes. It was explained to Cory what he’d done wrong and why he had to go to his room.

  Cory was smacked by Sheldon. Not very often by mom. Cory was bad, like he used to be always bad, but Sheldon didnt hit him all the time when he was bad. When he did smack him, he smacked him on the hands and on his behind. He smacked him hard. It sounded and looked hard. Cory would cry.

  Sheldon played a lot with Cory. Not every day but a lot. Sheldon never struck Sharon. She sometimes talked to him about math and spelling. She went to Sheldon with some of her problems. She had a friend, Ashley, who was saying things about her. Sheldon said if someone is really your friend and mad at you, they’ll be friends again with you later.

  Sharon phoned Sheldon and asked him if he could go to a science fair. He came up to school and saw her science project. Her mom wasnt home then when she called.

  When it was her birthday, Sheldon took her out shopping. Her mom had already bought her gifts and she opened them in the morning. They went to the mall to get earrings. Sharon got a bit afraid, she didnt want to get her ears pierced. Sheldon said, You can do it later, because I’ve got a receipt where it’s paid for and you can do it when you feel like having it done. Then they went for something to eat and they talked about ordinary things.

  On Mother’s Day, Sheldon took her out and gave her money to buy something for her mom. Same thing at Easter. There was perfume he picked up and Sharon helped him wrap it. One Christmas Cory wanted to get a Chicago Bulls hat like Sheldon’s, but they couldnt find one his size. He got a hat. It was Sheldon’s hat.

  BERTHA TROKE

  Bertha went to a nightclub with Donna and Cathy Furneaux. It’s called Sparky’s. Bertha had a drink, and the first song they played Donna jumped up from the table and ran to the bar and she had the phone, it seemed like it was on her shoulder. When she came down she said, I had to let my old moose hear that song. That was Sheldon, and the whole song played out, and she loved that song, and she said Sheldon loved it. Sheldon was babysitting.

  When they left Sparky’s Bertha wanted to go to Erin’s Pub, but they didnt because it was Irish music. So they called a cab. Bertha said Donna you got to call Sheldon and let him know we’re going downtown, and she said Sheldon will be asleep when she gets home, he dont ask what time she’s going to be home. He’ll watch a movie and go to sleep. So they went to this club called the Rob Ryan and when Bertha got home it was going for quarter to three.

  When Donna went out there was no time limit on Donna. Donna went home when Donna felt like it but when Sheldon went out and Sheldon said he was going for twenty minutes if Sheldon was five minutes late Donna was upset. Sheldon had to be there right on time. He never went anywhere except for to drop up to his grandmother’s or into Cathy Furneaux’s. When he was working he never left Donna’s. But she’ve often phoned the house and said is Sheldon there and Bertha would say he just left. Well she had to be able to tell her if he left at twelve or five after, she couldnt say he left ten minutes ago.

  There was one conversation that he got very mad at her. He was really drunk that night. He said something like I’m going to kill her, she never answers the phone. It’s something Bertha says to her children—she’s saying it to them all her life but she never killed any of them.

  NORMAN SEVIOUR

  Donna was referred because of anxiety and depression. She had recently broken up with her boyfriend. He had attacked her and he was a drinker on mandatory supervision from Spri
nghill because of a stabbing incident. She was fearful of him. Dr Seviour wrote down attacked as that is a more sophisticated term than beat her up, which is what he wrote in his notes.

  He gave her a prescription for valium and a prescription for Atasol 30 which she was taking for headaches. These types of drugs are not regularly given for depression, but for anxiety.

  She wanted to move out of her apartment because there had been a death there. She lives in Margaret Anthony’s old apartment on Empire Avenue. Margaret was a patient of Dr Seviour’s. Donna wanted a letter to give to Housing about the man who had had an epileptic seizure and drowned in the bathtub. This was an incident Dr Seviour knew very well. Margaret Anthony had gotten a letter from him to move out of that apartment for the same reason. Donna was also concerned about the heat and the dust in the apartment, because she was asthmatic.

  There were prescriptions that indicate a pattern of abuse of stimulants and analgesics. He did not ask Donna if she was obtaining medication from anyone else. He did ask if she abused medications. These are addictive pills. They can certainly produce a chemical dependency. Atasol 30s are also sold on the street. It is possible a person would go to any lengths.

  When he gave her the prescription, he didnt get a call from a drug store. Social Services recipients who have drug cards are not limited to a particular drug store unless a physician raises a flag and says they should be. There’s a fair list of doctors seen by Donna Whalen in the last three years of her life, with a hundred and ninety services for that time period.

  It’s very unusual, even for a person who is quite addicted to diazepam, to take more than 80 to 100 milligrams a day. There is a tendency to increase the dose because of tolerance, but there was no way that Donna could have taken that much in those three days and still have been able to come to his office. He would have noticed the effects.

  RUTH VIVIAN

  Ruth was in bed with a bad back and Donna brought in a little bit of fruitcake and she sat on the bed talking to Ruth and showed her bruises from here down. Ruth said who done that to you? Sheldon. Ruth said Donna, honey, you havent got to live like that. You can call the police and have him bonded away. And she said if she ever called the police on him he would kill her or have someone else kill her.

  Sharon cut her foot one day. Ruth doesnt know if she turned on the hose or the neighbours turned on the hose. It was a nice day. The kids were out playing and Sharon cut her foot. Ruth ran down and brought Sharon over to her mother and Sheldon made a yell. He was looking for a bandaid. It wasnt a big cut. It was just an ordinary scratch. When he made the yell, Ruth just got up and left. Donna was sot on the chair and she never said one thing or the other.

  GARY BEMISTER

  Constable Bemister served a subpoena on Jacob Parrott. It was given to him personally. Mr Parrott made a statement. He said, Tell that fucking prosecutor that I will not be there, and I guess that means there’ll be a warrant for my arrest.

  Constable Bemister read the subpoena to him, explained that a warrant would be issued for his arrest if he failed to appear. Mr Parrott then tore up the subpoena.

  KEITH EDICOTT

  Keith is twenty-two and lives with his mother. They have a common wall that separates their living room and kitchen from Donna Whalen’s apartment. Their two back doors are a foot apart.

  Keith got home Friday night around eight-thirty. He went to sleep for a couple of hours and his two cousins came down and they were in his room all night listening to music and talking. They left about one oclock. Sometime around two-thirty in the morning a knock came on the back door. It was a soft knock. Keith was in the living room sitting on the couch with his mother watching a movie. The TV wasnt very loud. His mother was kind of nervous to answer the door that late so she asked him to move up on the other end of the couch where he could see her in the kitchen. She answered the door and engaged in a short conversation with someone.

  Keith got a glimpse of the guy. He had blond hair. He didnt hear what was said but when his mother closed the door he asked who it was and she said it was some guy looking for Donna.

  After this he heard furniture move. He’s not sure which apartment it came from. It could have come from the apartment downstairs or Donna Whalen’s. Like a chair being scraped across the floor. He didnt hear a knock on Donna’s door.

  The movie was over three-thirty and he went to bed ten minutes after. He’s a pretty sound sleeper. It was quiet, a few cars going up and down the road. Keith noticed a car earlier on. He looked out the window because he heard it pull up. It was parked at the next apartment down towards the bottom of Suvla Street and it had two headlights on and you could hear the engine running. The window was closed. The car was pointing west, pulled in to the curb.

  JEFFREY POPE

  The restaurant lobby closes at midnight and the drive-thru area at one. That night they hadn’t served a customer for probably twenty minutes or so, it was really slow. Jeffrey Pope was wearing a headset where you can take a drive-thru order and just at the close a car came so he jumped in to take the order. When she got to the window you cash off the order when you take the money and it was exactly one oclock.

  You just made it here, Jeffrey said.

  Well I love my chicken salad, she said.

  And that was the extent of the conversation. It was quick and brief. A brunette, maybe a little bit of a curl in her hair. When he saw the photograph he did realize that was her because of the product that he sold her. They hadn’t sold one all night and being the last customer it stood out. No one else was in the car. She was an average customer coming through during your Friday-night business. There was no smell of alcohol. He was face to face with her, maybe two feet away. When they pull up to the drive-thru window, there’s a yellow barrier that keeps their car from actually coming into the window so they come along as close to that as they can and when they hand in their money he leans out the window to get the money, he leans out instead of just reaching his hand out, so he came close to her and he has experienced the smell of alcohol from certain cars and has called the police but with her there was no evidence.

  At one oclock in the morning you have to realize that she is on the back of the building. So when he leaned out the window it is not lit that well, if there was another person there, you’d see them from probably here down. There was nobody else in the car.

  The presentation of a salad is that earlier that day somebody would have prepped up the salads. You have your black salad base and you build your salad from that and your plastic clear see-through Wendy’s lid with snap-on top and it’s stored in a cooler until ordered along with the dressing so, as it is ordered, it is bagged and presented. The dressing is in a separate pouch.

  WILLIS GLOVER

  Captain Glover is on the Flanders, and one of his crew is Jacob Parrott. A normal shift is Wednesday to Wednesday. Theyre a week on and a week off. Jacob came to work around nine a.m. He was a bit late. He would get off the same time the following Wednesday.

  The last run they left the Cove at six oclock. So shortly after that theyre tied up on Bell Island and that’s the end of their shift. They stay there until quarter after seven the next morning.

  On Friday night he was talking to Jacob in his room. He was fiddling with a TV. Because of the way he was treating the TV Willis told him he wasnt going to get it to work. After that Willis got washed up and went to his room, did some reading. He was reading until one oclock. That’s when he turned off the light. Jacob was still aboard because the door was open and there’s no way Jacob Parrott could get upstairs without passing his door. He was in his room because when Willis called him up the next morning he was there. The reason he called him is because he’s a hard person to get up. Willis knocked on the door, Jacob didnt answer, so he opened the door and looked in and sung out to him and then he woke. He was covered up in the sleeping bag in the bunk but Willis noticed the clothes that was on the chair and in front him was what he was wearing shortly after when he saw him later on
that day.

  Anyone that dont belong to Bell Island stays on the boat. Both boats dock on Bell Island for the night because that’s where an ambulance would originate from.

  There’s no generators, theyre hooked up with shore power. You can hear people snoring two rooms back so it’s very quiet. If Jacob used a boat that was there he’d have to have a gas tank to fit that boat. They dont leave their gas tanks in the boats, the fishermen dont. It was a pretty good night. The crossing, you could probably do it in ten or fifteen minutes if you had the right boat.

  Jacob made a couple of calls that day. Willis is not sure how many but he went ashore a few times to make calls. He was wearing jeans and he had steel-nose sneakers.

  He was still on the boat because even to walk along by the washroom you got to tread on a cover that’s on a tank top, and that thing is warped and it rattles. You’d have to go a long ways to get a telephone at that hour because there used to be a policy that you closed up everything there at night. One time they had watchmen on there and they used to have it open. Probably up to the Legion or somewhere up in Portugal Cove which is a long ways up the road.

  JACOB PARROTT

  Jacob would like to apologize. The dates and times were a little bit misunderstood.

  His position is a purser deck hand. Right now he’s on the Flanders. He works eighty-four hours per week, not including overtime. He has a private room aboard the boat.

  They’ll unload traffic and customers and put the shore power out, take water if needed, tie the boat up in lines, put the ramp up, a gangway on the ramp and then check around. Ask the mate is it free to go, he says yes. If not well there’s extra work to do.

  That last run on Friday Jacob took off his work clothes, grabbed a shower, caught a movie in his room then read a book. He slept down in his cabin. He did not leave the boat. On Saturday morning they got up about quarter past six to undo the lines, took everything all apart to have the boat ready to sail and bring the people aboard and do their regular runs. The first boat was seven oclock. The second boat is seven-fifteen.