The Death of Donna Whalen

by Michael Winter

  When Donna called in her orders she asked for Item No. 4 on the menu. That is sweet-and-sour chicken balls, chicken fried noodles, chicken chow mein, chicken fried rice. She asked Tang to place more green onion. It cost five dollars and ninety cents.

  When Donna spoke she spoke in a regular tone and also she tends to say words in a long way. To slow down and drag it out.

  On Thursday night a man came into the restaurant. It was about twelve-thirty. He asked Tang do you know who I am. He said, Donna Whalen is my girlfriend. He asked for a pack of cigarettes and also a No. 4 from the menu the way Donna likes it, with extra green onions. He appeared to be a little bit drunk. From Tang’s experience people who are drunk do not have enough money so she asked him to pay her first. He took his money and other things from his pocket and he counted the money and there was not enough to pay. There was a metal cigarette case, a wallet, some keys. He took a photo card out of his wallet and showed it to Tang. It was of himself. The photo was in the corner, the date. The card was laminated.

  He said, Could you let me use a phone.

  She handed the telephone set to him and he dialed the number himself. He got through. Donna, he said.

  It appeared that the other side hanged up the telephone. So Tang told him maybe she should telephone it for him. He gave her back the telephone set. Tang’s husband came out from the kitchen so she asked him to telephone. The customer told her the telephone number and Tang passed it on to her husband in Chinese. Her husband put it through. He listened to the telephone set for a little while.

  Oh, he said, the person on the other side makes a lot of noise.

  He gave Tang back the telephone set. And she heard a voice from the telephone to the effect that if you call again I will call the police. The person on the other side was very angry, so Tang hanged up the telephone.

  The customer said, I will call my sister.

  She gave him the telephone and he dialed the telephone himself and then he said oh nobody answer. And he make a gesture with his finger by pointing it to his head. Tang thinks he was trying to think who to telephone. Then he said, I will look for my friend and then he dialed the telephone again. He got through and he asked who are you. It would appear that the other side told him the name, and the customer called the other side by name, Cathy.

  The customer said, Yes I also know that I got to sleep too.

  Tang walked into the kitchen. He was still speaking. After about two minutes she came out from the kitchen. She heard the customer talk into the telephone. Do you want to talk to her, he said. And then he handed Tang the telephone. She simply hung up the telephone. Then a little gesture like this. Tilt the head. Indicating that he couldnt find the other person. He picked up all the things on the counter. He walked out of the restaurant but he’d left a bunch of keys so after he had passed the first door Tang knocked on the counter and showed him the keys. He came back to take the keys. Then he walked out of the first door and turned back to speak and then pointed his finger at that direction and said, I’m going to look for my girlfriend. Tang went back into the kitchen. She didnt pay attention to where he went. That’s what happened.

  Tang met Sheldon Troke before this night, more than three times. Normally Donna would telephone in the order and then he came to pick up the order. Other men would come over to pick up orders for Donna. About three different men. One of them came more than once. There was one who was about thirty to forty years of age. He came shortly before this matter arose. One man he had a pot belly. He was well dressed. When Sheldon came to pick up the food he usually was very quiet and he told Tang, Oh I come to pick up the food, and then he read the newspapers.

  GARY BEMISTER

  Pat Vivian’s bedroom was under Donna’s and he often used to hear them having sex. It didnt bother him at all about hearing them. He moved from this room, and moved his son Tom in there who would have been able to hear the same thing.

  That Thursday night, when Donna thought someone was watching her through the window, she called Pat’s house. Pat himself had heard a noise in the back hall. He went to the door and put his ear to the door and listened. Then he saw Sheldon Troke leaving the takeout across the street. Sheldon knocked on Donna’s front door. Pat heard the conversation between Donna and Sheldon. Donna said, Dont be so loud, you’ll wake up the children. Donna came downstairs and opened up the door and both of them walked up the stairs. They had words for a while and then things settled down.

  Pat Vivian had a conversation with Donna Friday afternoon. This is when Donna told him that a person was looking through a window near the back stairs peering into her kitchen window. Ten minutes later Sheldon Troke showed up and stayed the night.

  If there was an argument between Donna and Sheldon on Friday night going into Saturday morning, Pat would have heard it because Sheldon has a deep voice.

  JOEY YETMAN

  He doesnt know why he’s here because he dont know nothing. That’s why. He wrote down the wrong date though. And when they walked in the first thing they looked at was the calendar. He’s employed snow clearing. They landscapes in the summertime so he only started snow clearing two weeks ago. But he’s with them now a year.

  Before that he had lots of work. Longshore Maritime Data, Le Bar. Le Bar is on George Street. Joey was bartender, sometimes doorman. He worked at Le Bar on Friday and Saturday, other days if they had a bash or something. Like a school bash, he might have worked then.

  He knows Sheldon Troke. He’s friends with him. He sometimes saw him at Le Bar. Joey had a problem last year. He was hooked on valium but he got off that with the psychiatrist and that.

  Gary Bemister says Joey was in the car making a statement? He certainly dont remember none of them ever coming to his door and he’ll even bring his family down here—in front of the house writing a statement in a police cruiser, never happened.

  GARY BEMISTER

  Paul Troke had been attempting to find out who had been with Sheldon on Thursday night and he advised the police that it was Joey Yetman. Gary Bemister interviewed Joey Yetman in a patrol unit outside of his home. Joey Yetman was seated in the rear of the patrol unit, Gary was in the front. They had a conversation and Gary was writing down what he was saying. At one point Gary made a correction which Joey pointed out. At the end of the interview Gary read the statement back to him and Joey indicated that what was on the statement was truthful, however he refused to sign it. He was friends with the Trokes, he knew them, and he didnt want to get involved with the case. This is the statement of Joey Yetman:

  I work at Le Bar on George Street as a doorman and busboy. Thursday night before last I was working eight p.m. to one a.m. I dont know what time Sheldon Troke came into the club but I remember him being there. At midnight I went out by the shooter bar to tell Sheldon to leave because I was getting off. He was asleep and I woke him up. He looked up at me and took out a bottle of pills from his coat pocket. His jacket had red in it and it was black as well. He opened the pill bottle and dumped it on the table. He took about fifteen pills. Some of the pills went on the floor and I picked them up and threw them in the garbage. I was talking to him until about one a.m. and then I left. When I told Sheldon to leave he got upset.

  BERTHA TROKE

  The last conversation she had with Donna it was Friday afternoon. Sheldon wouldnt be coming home to supper, she said, because he was going in to her house to babysit. She was going to her mother’s to go washing. Bertha was just after taking a bit of salmon out of the deepfreeze and Donna said would that be a problem and Bertha said no it’s just that she wouldnt have supper too early. And then she said she got Clayton on the other line could you get back and Donna said yeah and she never heard tell of her after.

  PAU L TROKE

  Paul doesnt remember Cathy waking him up, but it wouldnt be the first time he passed out in bed with a pair of jogging pants and a T-shirt on. Cathy was half out of it herself. If she said she was fine, how she couldnt remember who put the jeans in the washer the next mo
rning. She asked Paul did she wash them. She laid down, she had a bag of chips, she was eating the chips and she was going to sleep because the TV was off and Paul went upstairs.

  The very first time when he went to Donna’s house, him and Sheldon went there, Sheldon was showing Paul the basement saying we could put some weights here and work out. They used the back door but on all other occasions Paul used the front door.

  When Paul did break and enters he wore gloves so he would not leave fingerprints. He knows how important it is not to leave fingerprints or footprints when you are at crimes. Wipe things down, Paul never done it before. Broke into places or whatever and start wiping fingerprints off things no.

  He had fifteen to twenty drinks at the 301 Club that Friday. A fair amount, enough to be half-drunk. Some hash. He could have taken painkillers because he used to take them on a regular basis. When youre half-drunk and you do cocaine it levels you out, you dont really be drunk any more because the cocaine takes effect, that’s the whole point of taking the cocaine because youre drunk and starting to spin and you want to level out.

  CLAYTON TROKE

  Sheldon knew Donna was taking pills. He told Clayton that Donna was mad about him drinking and he hawked a couple of bottles off the ceiling. He was sorry for doing it, he didnt mean it, but he was drinking at the time. Donna was in to the house and she said Sheldon was home, he had to patch the wall. They were arguing on the phone and Donna wouldnt talk to him. She used to hang up on him, and she hung up on him three or four times. When he got off the phone, he said, Geez, she gets on my nerves. He said, I’d like to kill her. Well that’s in their everyday vocabulary around the house once you rear some children. Clayton says that to his children twenty times a day, but not something that he means.

  Bertha and Clayton never discussed their statements because he thought they were going to have to take a lie detector test. It’s identical because it’s true. Bertha came up halfways over the stairs and she said Clayton, the police are down there and they want to talk to you again. They were after taking a statement from him before, so he said Bertha, tell them to fly to fuck. What I got to say, I’ll say it on the stand.

  Clayton didnt care really what Gary Bemister wrote down. He had his chance to get on the stand and tell the truth. That’s the only thing and he’s not sure if he told him that Sheldon got home at ten after ten. Gary Bemister said I only want a short statement, it’s not going to take too long—it seemed to Clayton that he shortened the statement up. He just wanted to get out of the house. He didnt ask if it was accurate.

  When Bertha gave her statement Clayton was in the house, but not in the same room. He was out talking to Ches Hedderson and Hedderson was making sure that Clayton never heard anything. They were out in the dining room. So, how could he hear.

  If Gary Bemister wanted to shorten up this statement, Clayton didnt care. He had to get on the stand to tell the truth and this is what he’s doing. There’s a few people after getting on the stand and telling the truth and there’s a few people not after telling the truth. The police are lying for one thing. And a lot of the witnesses are lying. Forget about telling the police. It’s not worthwhile telling the police anything because they won’t believe you and they won’t be honest about it later. That’s the one thing that you got right. The police they are liars, they won’t believe the Trokes, they didnt believe the people that got on the stand, neither did you.

  Clayton drove Paul down one night to pick up a couple of movies. They came home and watched the movies and the next thing it came over the scanner: Paul Troke is down putting up George Street. He’s smashing bottles off of Trapper John’s, and Paul looked at his father and his mother. None of the family ever got away with anything. They always disciplined them and Paul said now, Dad, look, if I wasnt here, when I’d come home you’d go off your head. And Clayton said yes, Paul, I would. So another night it come over the scanner—watch Raymond Troke, he’s up to no good, he’s fighting down on George Street. Raymond was sat down in the living room. Another time Paul was babysitting just down the street a three-minute walk, he was babysitting for Mrs Tucker and it come over again, Paul Troke was fighting. Bertha put on her coat and she said that goddamn nuisance, he told me he was babysitting. She went down to Patsy Tucker’s and who should come to the door but Paul. And then there was another time Sheldon was the only one on the street, the rest of them were away and a taxi driver called in and said the Trokes they won’t pay the taxi, and Bertha said aint this ridiculous and Clayton said what can we do about it. They got a vendetta against us. They could hear it on the scanner, all the police cars, they all tried to get in at one time, they were saying, I’ll head along there. The next thing another car says I’ll be there in a second and a third car, I’ll go along too. Because it’s Trokes. And when they got to where they were going, the taxi driver—there was about ten cars—it was no Troke at all it was Joey Yetman. And the next thing they said, oh that’s all fixed up now, but they never came back and said it wasnt the Trokes. Everybody that had scanners thinks it was Trokes.

  It was ten after ten because Paul and Sheldon and Raymond and Iris was after being blamed so many times for doing things that they wasnt doing that Clayton got into the habit of looking at the clock when anything went on down the street.

  KIM PARROTT

  At first Donna told Kim that she had back pains, but Kim couldnt understand why she needed her to get the pills when she could get them. Kim agreed to do it and it was going on like that for a few months and then she figured Donna was getting hooked to them and Kim was going to stop getting her the pills.

  Kim was at her house once and the mop and bucket was out but the gloves were laid over the side of the bucket.

  She got caught twice shoplifting. The first time was seven years ago. The second time was with Donna. It was at Woolco into the Avalon Mall. The snow was down. Donna was taking a tummy tucker and Kim pleaded guilty to it. She didnt have no role in it. She tried to avoid her. She was six months pregnant, and she didnt want to keep going back and forth to court.

  Donna shoplifted quite a bit. Kim can’t say every store she went into or every day but she did shoplift a lot. She took orders from people like Madeline Ryall the palm reader and then go out and shoplift what they ordered. If she was into a store shoplifting she’d go one way and Kim the other way. It’s not something Kim wanted to have a part of.

  Donna used to go shoplifting with Tom Vivian. She got stuff for everybody. People didnt know where it came from and some people did. They would be done in the day. The items that were stolen were never expensive items. Sneakers, clothes for the kids, Christmas gifts.

  Madeline Ryall told Donna’s fortune. Someone was going to die and there was going to be lots of blood and police and Sheldon is going to be involved. He was going to be framed or set up, Kim’s not sure what it was.

  Kim thinks Donna recognized buddy’s voice on the phone so she dont know if she was really afraid of it. It upset her but she recognized the voice. Nervous. She got on the floor crawling around.

  Donna got the tape machine two weeks before at Kmart. She shoplifted it. Kim told the police at first she didnt let her listen to it. That was a lie. Kim tried to tell them things but she didnt want to say it all, she was afraid, so she tried to tell them in a different way.

  Donna never told her about Raymond Troke trying to rape her. Raymond was at her house once or twice and that was with Sheldon. Kim didnt know he was there by himself.

  SHELDON TROKE

  Your boyfriends’ graves are shallow and youre not worth doing forty years over. Sheldon read that in Kim Parrott’s statement. Kim heard that on a tape, so Sheldon wonders how Clifford Whalen come to hear that too. Clifford says he wasnt talking to nobody. No one told him no stories but then he goes home one weekend and got a new incident that slipped his mind. Then a month later Kim Parrott comes in talking about the same incident and then Clifford says that he wasnt talking to nobody. No, I knows he wasnt.

  SHARO
N WHALEN

  Tom Vivian would come by to get pills, Sharon’s not sure about anybody else. He’d spend probably a half-hour there. Mom and Tom would go shopping every day that her mom didnt have a headache. With fights, sometimes Sheldon would start it and sometimes her mom would. It was about even as to who starts it. Donna put the TV on low if there was something coming on the answering machine. When Sharon woke up that night, she didnt hear any noise at the TV.

  Sheldon explained to her why he didnt like Kim Parrott and her boyfriend, Rod. Because Rod used to rob stores. Also, Sheldon loaned them things and money and they wouldnt pay him back.

  RUTH VIVIAN

  One night Ruth was having an argument with her husband, Pat, and Donna was after having an argument with Sheldon and they were out there talking, so you know like women talk. That bitch is always in my back and Donna says, I can’t even walk the length of myself but he got to know where I’m at and who I’m with and what time I’m coming home. This was just women talk, you know, like sat down on the doorstep. Ruth never paid no attention to it. She was up there one morning, Donna was getting ready to go see Sheldon—he was down in the pen. She said to Ruth, I’d give anything if he would fly to Jesus and leave me alone. Ruth says that about her husband when theyre mad, wish he would fly to Jesus. She didnt think nothing serious about it. Donna had a visit to see him that day. That was said up in her kitchen. She was sat to her kitchen table. She was pretty upset. Because she asked Ruth did she know a couple of doctors she could call and get some valium and sleeping pills and Ruth said no, she wasnt getting involved in that. She has enough problems with her own husband, she can’t handle somebody else’s taking the valium. Donna was talking about going away, but she gave Ruth the opinion that once she goes away, she wasnt coming back.